Welcome back to the weird and wonderful world of my brain. I’ve got all sorts of goodies for you today.
Featured Authors:
Gail Carriger gets the Sword and Laser treatment.
Hugh Howey got featured over at SF Signal.
Cassandra Clare wrote a personal post about anti-bullying month and discovering hate blogs about her. And to counteract the hate, here’s a few of her fans talking about why they like her work and here’s our reviews of her work.
On Writing:
Violette Malan, who wrote the Dhulyn and Parno series that I really enjoyed, has an interesting take on how setting acts as a character in books.
Mental Floss highlighted several non-standard punctuation marks that would make writing, either a book or a status update, so much more understandable.
It seems everywhere I’ve turned this last week, someone has been talking about the book Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore. Here’s the author, Robin Sloan, talking about how she got the idea and how writing for the Kindle shaped her experience.
Cool Fantasy and Science Fiction Stuff:
Les Johnson, who besides being a science fiction author is also the Deputy Manager for the Advanced Concepts Office at the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, wrote an amazing article talking about how our understanding of the universe has changed in the last 100 years, and how that change is reflected in science fiction novels. Seriously, this blew my mind.
Io9 compiled a list of the best science fiction and fantasy novels to cheer you up when you’re feeling blue. I thought their criteria were interesting since most of these weren’t what I would consider happy ending books. If you’re interested in happy endings, make sure to check out last week’s guest column by Philipa Bournikova
Io9 also posted an interesting column about the big theological issues that science fiction should be exploring. Charles Tan at SF Signal pointed out this interesting follow up column, which lead me to this post that has links for all sorts of articles exploring issues of theology and science fiction.
Oh, and remember me telling you last week about the guy wanting to skydive from the edge of space? He did it and fell so fast he broke the sound barrier. I seriously almost barfed just watching it.
Excerpts from upcoming novels:
Are you a huge Joe Abercrombie fan? Get a sneak peek of the first chapter of Red Country, his new book, available November 13.
Katya’s World by Jonathan L. Howard is a YA science fiction novel, also available on November 13.
Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes is an epic fantasy for the YA audience due out on December 11. Morgan Rhodes is the pen name of Michelle Rowen.
And our final excerpt is from a novel that came out last month, Dodger by Terry Pratchett. After reading this excerpt, I am definitely going to have to check this one out.
On Screens of All Sizes:
Apparently the age of the geek has arrived on television. Den of Geek brings us this article about twenty five different geek themed television shows that are in different stages of development in the United States alone.
I thought I had gotten all the non-cable geek shows covered but two more came out last week, both on the CW. First, we have The Arrow, based on the comic book series of the same name. I’m not a comic book person in general, but from the people I talked to who watched the premiere, it seems to be a super-hero version of ABC’s Revenge. Not that that is a bad thing. Lots of eye candy, especially in the male hero. Fans of the comic book are geeking out at the little hidden references in the show that harken back to the books.
I did catch the other premiere, Beauty & the Beast. This is supposed to be a reboot of the series that aired back in the 80’s that I vaguely remember, but watching it I felt like Castle did a very special episode where Beckett got swapped with Lana Lang and then stalked by the Incredible Hulk. There were some nice action sequences, but not enough meat to get me to stick around.
I actually laughed out loud at this absolutely perfect parody video for Battlestar Galactica fans: The Sound of Cylons.
Obligatory Hobbit link.
What weird and wonderful stuff have you seen on the web this week?
I enjoyed checking out many of your links. I’m with you on the list of books to cheer you up. None of those would have made my list. My favorite cheer me up book is probably Sorcery and Cecelia.
Thanks for the kind words about my Baen website article (describing how our understanding of the universe has changed in the last 100 years). I continue to be amazed at how fast our understanding of the world and universe around us is changing. Textbooks need to be updated or rewritten almost every year. It is an exciting time to be alive!
LES JOHNSON