http://www.sfsite.com/ The new issue of the SF Site is now online. Copyright 1996-2007 SF Site en-us http://www.sfsite.com/images/sfspot1.gif http://www.sfsite.com/ http://www.sfsite.com/01b/gu1240.htm Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT A few months ago, James Gunn was named as the latest Grandmaster of Science Fiction. Since the majority of science fiction fans have probably never heard of him, they may wonder why, in light of the fact that Gunn has never won a major award for his fiction, although he has come close. As all literary award systems are flawed, it should come as no surprise that the most important novels are not always selected. Hindsight is 20/20.His novel, The Listeners not only influenced SETI, but many genre novelists as well. Gunn's main concern is how it might really happen. He opens the reader to the process of an idea. How might it unfold in real life? This attitude was appreciated in its time, garnering runner-up positions for the Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial awards -- which you might suppose would be the kiss of death: a miss that might as well have been a mile. Instead, writers and scientists spread the word of its achievement. http://www.sfsite.com/01b/jg240.htm Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Each novel feature a connection between a character from our own time and a mysterious figure from the far future. In both stories, the mystery of just what that connection is is hidden within the intimate details of the characters lives, revealed only at last in casually oblique hints and twists of phrase. But even with their similarities in set-up and style, both are more than distinct enough to lay to rest any criticism of a writer repeating himself. The effect is instead akin to that of a master composer using a memorable melody to craft two separate symphonies, each worthy of standing on its own. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/david240.htm Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT By now, anyone with even a vague interest in science fiction on television know of Battlestar Galactica's buzz as one of the best programs on the air, a distinction particularly remarkable given the high quality serialized dramas currently airing. The show's reputation is well deserved, though David had a hard time signing on to the first season. http://www.sfsite.com/books/new240.htm Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Our newest arrivals at the SF Site office include the latest titles from Joe Abercrombie, Christopher Golden, Rudy Rucker, plus forthcoming works from Stephen Baxter, John Crowley, David Gemmell, and many more. http://www.sfsite.com/01b/so240.htm Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Before reading this anthology, Stuart thought that space opera came to be called space opera because "opera" was the equivalent of the Hollywood blockbuster from before they had Hollywood -- big, brash, wide screen entertainment full of fickle gods, exotic foreigners, passionate lovers and mighty warriors, all mashed up into stories of inspired, over-the-top mayhem and exhibitionism, and topped with bellowing divas howling like Hurricane Katrina in a ball gown. http://www.sfsite.com/01b/hm240.htm Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Once a top agent of Wolven, the organization dedicated to internally policing the hidden society of shapeshifters known as the Sazi, Raphael Rameriz has lived in quiet obscurity ever since a deadly political scandal forced him into retirement. He thought he was out for good. He was wrong. http://www.sfsite.com/01b/an240.htm Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Steve enjoyed this book, the sequel to Jerome and the Seraph, better than its predecessor. He enjoyed Angelos less than its predecessor. That he enjoyed it both more and less than the original novel is perfectly in keeping with the quantum backdrop of the book, contrasted nicely by a day to day life at a friary, the other side of this book's quantum equation. http://www.sfsite.com/01b/de240.htm Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Feminism as a philosophy has travelled quite a rocky road over the time frame covered by this anthology -- it is in fact debatable if it was anything like the same animal in the era from which the first story in the book dates, and the era of the final story (which, having been published in 2002, is barely within the scope of this volume). http://www.sfsite.com/columns/neil238.htm Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT You've waited patiently for a whole year, but at last your favourite season has rolled around again. Yes, that's right, it's time to finish reading those new books that have been stacking up on your bookshelves, your floor or bedside table, because very soon you'll need to determine which ones you feel are the best of the best. Or at least, you will if you want to have a say in the annual SF Site Readers' Choice Awards! This year will bring the SF Site's 9th annual Readers' Choice Best of the Year Awards. But only with your help. As many of our long-time readers already know, every year about this time we solicit our readers for their input on what were the best books they read in the past year. We'll tally the results and post them in February or early March so that you can see how well your favourites fare -- and, with any luck, find some great recommendations too. The deadline for voting is February 9, 2007. If you've forgotten what you chose in previous years, you can find them all linked at Best Read of the Year including Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman which was the top choice last year. http://www.sfsite.com/01b/hf240.htm Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT The guild of Assassins has accepted a job to kill the Hogfather and sends Mr. Teatime, who spends his spare time plotting the murders of mythical figures, off to do the job. Death devotes his time to filling into for the missing Hogfather while his granddaughter, Susan takes time off from her duties as a nanny to find the missing Hogfather, the Disc's version of Santa Claus. http://www.sfsite.com/01b/ch240.htm Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Set in a place called New York Between, one of many potential New Yorks sharing the same space as New York, it's a vibrant, colourful mishmash of folkloric and literary creatures and characters living in Central Park, on Broadway, in the Metropolitan Museum, in Chinatown or Wall Street. Each of these places has a Genius, a spirit that embodies it. Into all this comes Neef, a mortal changeling girl being raised in Central Park and longing to take part in adventures. Before long, her curiosity has her breaking rules and getting into trouble and the only way to get out of it is to complete a quest. http://www.sfsite.com/01b/cm240.htm Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Along with Pirates of the Caribbean, this one of the two most entertaining films of 2006. From the previews one might think it would be a bummer, but it has all the virtues of pulp fiction that Hollywood so often forgets. We care about the people, because they have both character and individuality. The plot makes sense, and throws seemingly insuperable obstacles in the hero's path. And there is a consistent theme that holds the story together. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/rick240.htm Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Rick offers his thoughts on the "Hydro" episode of Smallville and the "Fallout" episode of Heroes. http://www.sfsite.com/01b/gb240.htm Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT It is about genre -- multiple genres actually, encompassing science fiction (primarily of the H.G. Wells variety), mystery, Victorian romance with a dash of Gothic horror, all with a bit of tongue planted firmly in cheek -- a timeworn phrase perhaps, but one that is nonetheless particularly apt. And it is a story we're all familiar with, which, despite knowing that our heroes will outwit their nemesis and the various traps planted to ensnare them, is quite enjoyable. As long as we don't ask ourselves why. http://www.sfsite.com/01b/tu240.htm Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Lleyton Quinn is a forecaster of consumer demand by trade whose help is sought covertly by Detective Sergeant Melissa Keller in investigating a series of cases in which people (more than one of whom is known to Quinn) have run away for no obvious reason. It transpires that the runaways have been "turned" -- they have somehow come to stop caring about anything at all -- as Lleyton discovers first-hand when it happens to Keller. http://www.sfsite.com/01a/vt239.htm Mon, 1 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Among his devotees, the perennial question arises: of all the Master's works, what to choose when one wishes to introduce him to a new reader? The variety of answers delineates the subsects within the broad, and occasionally genteelly contentious, universe of Vance aficionados. Those who like best his decidedly non-Tolkienesque fantasies will recommend the Lyonesse trilogy. Fans of space opera will plump for the muscular saga of revenge and retribution spread over the five volumes of The Demon Princes. Lovers of planetary romances will offer Big Planet or the four sequential novels that combine in Tschai: Planet of Adventure. Those with a taste for far-future picaresque will hold high their tattered copies of The Dying Earth. http://www.sfsite.com/01a/mg239.htm Mon, 1 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT During the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 everything on Earth was transplanted onto a gigantic flat disc in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud one million years in the future. But the old Cold War rivalries have continued unabated. Maddy Holbright and husband Joe are part of the ongoing US colonisation efforts, sailing for six months across this vast new world to start a new life in New Iowa, and Gregor Samsa is some kind of secret agent. He is working in a shell-shocked USA, still coming to terms with its superpower status being rendered functionally irrelevant in this strange new world. There he meets a certain Dr. Carl Sagan. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/neil238.htm Mon, 1 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT You've waited patiently for a whole year, but at last your favourite season has rolled around again. Yes, that's right, it's time to finish reading those new books that have been stacking up on your bookshelves, your floor or bedside table, because very soon you'll need to determine which ones you feel are the best of the best. Or at least, you will if you want to have a say in the annual SF Site Readers' Choice Awards! This year will bring the SF Site's 9th annual Readers' Choice Best of the Year Awards. But only with your help. As many of our long-time readers already know, every year about this time we solicit our readers for their input on what were the best books they read in the past year. We'll tally the results and post them in February or early March so that you can see how well your favourites fare -- and, with any luck, find some great recommendations too. The deadline for voting is February 9, 2007. If you've forgotten what you chose in previous years, you can find them all linked at Best Read of the Year including Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman which was the top choice last year. http://www.sfsite.com/01a/br239.htm Mon, 1 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Natalie is a Violet. In this parallel universe, souls communicate to the living world through mediums. Crimes can be solved by talking directly to the victims. Being a Violet means she not only has violet eyes, but that genetically she is one of the rare mediums for speaking to the dead. She has had to be trained to fend off souls from entering her, without her wishing them to. Also, if she wants to speak to a particular soul, she needs a touchstone, something -- usually meaningful to the soul -- that it came in contact with while alive. http://www.sfsite.com/01a/tl239.htm Mon, 1 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT All of the 420 pages of Escape from Earth, even the stand-out stories by Joe Haldeman and Orson Scott Card, are put to shame by the 135 pages of Naomi Mitchison's Travel Light. First published in 1952, it is a model of how a story should be written for teenagers. No, let's make this right, the book may have been written for teenagers, but it can be read with real pleasure by anyone. Which is probably the secret of its success: there is no implication of talking down to the audience, of an adult saying I know how you feel. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/jeff239.htm Mon, 1 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT In this month's column from Smaragdine, Jeff attends the giant Logorrheic Coelacanth migration and celebration, provides an interview with Salon Fantastique's editor, Ellen Datlow. and, in his spare time, gives us a fiction review of Grey, a first novel by Jon Armstrong. http://www.sfsite.com/01a/hj239.htm Mon, 1 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Earth is ruled by the super-corporations of the Collective, successor to the sovereign nations of the old world order, which collapsed more than a century earlier in a storm of terrorism and environmental crisis. The Collective also dominates the infosphere, known as the Axis, where semi-sentient security crawlers guard corporate cyber-citadels against the hackers called hammerjacks, who steal corporate secrets and sell them to the highest bidder. Outside the zones controlled by the Collective, the world is a dangerous, anarchic free-for-all of mobsters, drug dealers, flesh peddlers, and street cults, where anything, from sex slaves to illegal tech, can be had for a price. http://www.sfsite.com/01a/er239.htm Mon, 1 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Eragon is a dragon movie that does not have an original bone in its body. The writers were saved the trouble of actually doing any writing, since the entire plot is borrowed from one source or another, and pasted into the template of the farm boy who saves the princess and fights the evil king, a plot that was old when the brothers Grimm were young. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/rick239.htm Mon, 1 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Rick gives us some tips on what is coming in 2007 including a third season of Doctor Who along with its spin-offs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. He thinks that The Dresden Files may be amongst the best of the new TV season. He also gives us a list of what to watch on TV in January. http://www.sfsite.com/01a/sm239.htm Mon, 1 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Kyra is sent by the Heiress Veridi to the Broken Glass City where she must find a man named Eson and take from him a certain deed. Eson has inherited his family's hot springs in the northern mountains, and is in control of the electricity generated by them -- but more than that, the springs also grant him the power to bind others to himself through deeds like the one Kyra has been instructed to retrieve. http://www.sfsite.com/01a/df239.htm Mon, 1 Jan 2007 11:00:00 GMT Dinosaurs have fascinated the public imagination since they were first identified in the nineteenth century. In this thematic survey, the writer traces that fascination from its earliest days to the present. In effect, he has written eight essays, each of which can stand alone, but when taken together form a chronological overview of his topic, starting with a focus on Jules Verne's A Journey to the Center of the Earth and continuing on to Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. http://www.sfsite.com/rssfeeds01.htm Sat, 1 Jan 2005 11:00:00 GMT After constructing our first RSS feed, it soon became apparent that the size of files could grow quickly. We decided to separate them into smaller ones, breaking them up by month. On this page you will find RSS feed files for all of our content beginning with January 2005.