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/05b/pp272.htm Fri, 16 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT Paolo Bacigalupi is a new writer who has made a profound impression on the SF field with just a few stories. He is generally a hard SF writer, and his central theme, by far, is the environment. While the bulk of his stories are certainly set in depressing, environmentally ruined futures, they are also packed with plausible and fascinating SFnal furniture -- he's truly a science fiction writer, one who scratches the same itch John Campbell wanted his writers to scratch. http://www.sfsite.com/books/new272.htm Fri, 16 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT Spring and summer releases have been flooding into our office over the past few weeks, including the latest from Greg Bear, Naomi Novik, Jim Butcher, Karl Schroeder, as well as from SF Site veterans Paul Kincaid, and Cindy Lynn Speer, plus some hefty collections from the likes of Robert Bloch, H.P. Lovecraft, Michael Swanwick, plus anthologies, magazines, and much, much more. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/audio272.htm Fri, 16 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT The Audies honors the best audiobooks of the year. Listed here are science fiction, fantasy and horror titles which have been nominated as finalists in various categories. As well, you can find a list of audiobooks for May. http://www.sfsite.com/05b/ybh272.htm Fri, 16 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT Who said the short fiction market was in trouble? This volume contains 41 stories and poems, and lists a further 834 titles in the Honourable Mentions. That's not far short of 900 works culled from the fantasy output of just one year, and presumably that's still some way short of the total published. A short fiction marketplace that can sustain such an output in what was not a particularly special year can't be doing too badly. http://www.sfsite.com/05b/gf272.htm Fri, 16 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT In professional sports there are major leagues and minor leagues. The majors are where the best professionals play their games. The minors are the home of players, some on their way up, some on their way down, and others who know they'll never play at a higher level, but happy to be able to play at all. The world of publishing has a similar structure. http://www.sfsite.com/05b/au272.htm Fri, 16 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT This long-running Australian magazine soldiers on with a thick double issue, this time edited by Stephen Higgins and Stuart Mayne. It features an editorial by Mayne, a science article by Patricia O'Neill speculating on why SETI hasn't discovered any alien races, interviews with Elizabeth Moon, Alan Lee, and the entire Aurealis Team, a number of book reviews (including Bill Congreve's final column), and a generous fifteen stories. http://www.sfsite.com/05b/ub272.htm Fri, 16 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT This is a compilation reprinted from the pages of Farmerphile, a quarterly magazine dedicated to the author's works. So anyone expecting brand new stories may be disappointed. Happily, this is the only disappointment here. The book is well presented, including a scattering of black and white illustrations throughout, from various artists, many of which perfectly compliment their stories. The collection itself comprises intentionally obscure examples of Farmer's work, including rare short stories, a novel beginning, non-fiction, and a complete eco-novel. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/graphica272.htm Fri, 16 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT Comics were never just exclusively for the tights crowd, even if, for a few decades there, a glance at any American newsstand would give you that impression. More and more, the film biz seems to be noticing, as other types of stories get picked for translation to the big (or at least medium) screen. Thus, stories like Perdition and A History of Violence, and now, from the company that produced the latter, another mob-themed pick-up, a four-issue story, indie-published story, replete with its own "history of violence," called Pencilneck.. Mark London Williams has a chat with the writer of the series, Victor Carungi. http://www.sfsite.com/05b/im272.htm Fri, 16 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT Iron Man is a fun superhero film, certainly a lot more fun than the comic book upon which it is based, whose highpoints are when the lead character became a drunk and when he turned fascist. The film is based, loosely, on the origin story in Tales of Suspense #39, with the action moved from Vietnam to Afghanistan and the story where the red and gold suit fights the old Iron Man suit, from Tales of Suspense #65. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/rick272.htm Fri, 16 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT Jerome Bixby wrote for Twilight Zone, an early version of Fantastic Voyage and the original Star Trek. When Rick learned about Jerome Bixby's Man from Earth, the faithful filming of his last script, he had some thoughts on it. http://www.sfsite.com/05b/fl272.htm Fri, 16 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT The speculative elements of science fiction tend to age badly, and each passing minute of the real world causes futures that once attracted us with their visionary wonder to now offer only the amusement of yesterday's tomorrows. Near-future SF that attempts plausible extrapolations is particularly vulnerable to senescence, and it is rare to encounter such a book that is more than ten years old and still possesses the power to dazzle, because so often the writer has emphasized the speculation more than other, more durable, qualities. http://www.sfsite.com/05b/sa272.htm Fri, 16 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT The first book in the series, serialized in the Italian newspaper La Nuova Arena in 1883-4, first published in book form in 1900, and here translated for the first time into English, is so chock full of action that the best cultural equivalent in North America might have been the better dime-novel adventures of the late 19th-early 20th century. Or, perhaps think Douglas Fairbanks Sr.'s swashbuckling movies, or, if in a different genre, the Indiana Jones films. http://www.sfsite.com/05b/hp272.htm Fri, 16 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT When writer and anthologist Stephen Jones was compiling Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft for British publisher Gollancz, he was given access to the archives of their communications with Arkham House and Lovecraft's estate. Since Gollancz was the first to publish that author in the United Kingdom this gave Jones a unique window onto a tiny but formative part of horror publishing history. http://www.sfsite.com/05b/su272.htm Fri, 16 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT Supernatural is a happy coincidence of good story telling, powerful performances and exceptional crew combining together to deliver scary episodes that are fun and intriguing all at the same time. Its success has finally been recognised and the merchandising wagon has started rolling with the coverage of its first two seasons. http://www.sfsite.com/05a/ps271.htm Thu, 1 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT Genevieve Kelley, an apprentice magician who retreated into a coma of sorts after she was raped, has been kept in the Blackwing Institute, a sanatorium for mentally disturbed magicians. Genevieve is a "reweaver" -- she can rearrange reality to match her dreams. But she has escaped, and she is more or less randomly reweaving reality in Felport, transporting people to a world of her dreams every so often. Marla needs to track her down and eliminate her threat to her city, hopefully without killing her. http://www.sfsite.com/05a/rs271.htm Thu, 1 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT 'This is early 90's and Scud is being thrown around all over the place because of the Gulf War. And I was like "You know that kind of sounds like a detergent." It was like something you would buy to clean your tub. I thought, you know, what would be real neat is to have an assassin that had this pop art detergent box-like look to it. I though what if there was a robot bought out of a vending machine, like a disposable razor or lighter.' http://www.sfsite.com/columns/graphica271.htm Thu, 1 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT During the annual Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) business meeting, some discussions took place as to what kinds of works qualify professional science fiction/fantasy writers for membership. Rick Klaw has some thoughts on what was said, what they should do to update their definitions and what is happening in the rest of the world when it comes to graphic novels. http://www.sfsite.com/05a/gw271.htm Thu, 1 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT Jig, the runty, nearsighted goblin hero of the previous adventures (Goblin Quest and Goblin Hero) is taken to war, even though no one, including Jig himself, thinks of him as much of a warrior... except that he's called Jig Dragonslayer because in a previous conflict between Jig and a dragon, it was the goblin who survived. And he did seem to outlive a host of other fierce enemies, from princes to pixies. http://www.sfsite.com/05a/ju271.htm Thu, 1 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT Rich's favorite story of the five plus a poem here is the longest, a novelette called "O-Topper: The Musical", by Monte Davis. Much of what he likes is the weird presentation of what is a fairly familiar basic story: time travel tourism, in this case rich men battling Huns. But the organizer of the tours insists on art -- he's a cross-dressing clown and he dresses up his clients similarly. The tour itself has a shocking side -- the tourists' mantra is "You can't kill what's already dead," but of course they are killing these people. http://www.sfsite.com/05a/mc271.htm Thu, 1 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT Originally published as a chapbook in 2000, it won the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Award and the World Fantasy Award. The present volume is an expanded version, incorrectly defined "a novel." Truth be told, this book defies any label in terms of both literary form and genre definition. A cross between fiction and autobiography, more mainstream than horror, this collaborative work represents a fascinating puzzle, a unique example in the recent dark literature. http://www.sfsite.com/05a/wn271.htm Thu, 1 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT Titus Quinn is back in the world of the Entire, the neighboring universe which exists contemporaneous with our own. This time, he has an unwelcome companion, Helice Maki, the ambitious scientist/corporate executive who has gained great influence and power. Quinn's mission is two-fold, prevent the Tariq, the strange, powerful beings who rule the Entire from destroying our universe in order to provide energy for their own, and to find his daughter Sydney, who is living with aliens known as the Inyx. Helice, nominally along to help him, has plans of her own. http://www.sfsite.com/05a/tu271.htm Thu, 1 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT In a age when people are never satiated with the day to day details of celebrity couples' lives, it shouldn't be surprising that a fairy tale can't simply end with "and they lived happily ever after," but draws the inevitable question -- was it really as happy as all that, or did Prince Charming have a mid-life crisis and run off with Rapunzel's teenage daughter? And what about the evil step-mother/queen/dwarf/black prince that survived -- surely they didn't retire to a convent/monastery. http://www.sfsite.com/05a/gd271.htm Thu, 1 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT Horror fiction is still a relative rarity in the British mass market, so it's great to hear that Virgin Books are starting a monthly series of horror titles. It's also good to hear that the first few will be reissues of small press publications. Of course, we still want the books to be good -- but, with the first two at least, there's nothing to worry about in that regard. http://www.sfsite.com/05a/ef271.htm Thu, 1 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT Two stories are interwoven in this novel. In one, Tom Schwoerin, a "cliologist" from the near future, searches through history for traces of the lost German city of the title. The other takes place in Eifelheim itself, then known as Oberhochwald, where we follow Pastor Dietrich as he struggles to understand the town's strange alien visitors. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/rick271.htm Thu, 1 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT Rick has some thoughts on Battlestar Galactica so far and how the length of a TV series has changed over the years. He also gives us a list of SF on TV in May. http://www.sfsite.com/05a/cg271.htm Thu, 1 May 2008 11:00:00 GMT The book is is a collection of twenty essays dealing with science fiction as a genre, ostensibly for the purpose of helping the reader write stories and get them published. Although the book does offer some useful advice, it also includes several oddities which detract from the book's overall usefulness. 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.