http://www.sfsite.com/ The new issue of the SF Site is now online. Copyright 1996-2010 SF Site en-us http://www.sfsite.com/images/sfspot1.gif http://www.sfsite.com/ http://www.sfsite.com/09b/de304.htm Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT Jack Vance is a writer whose influence on the field has been quite noticeable. The Dying Earth itself is an obvious inspiration for such a major work as Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. One might add less significant but still worthwhile work also set in what is either explicitly the Dying Earth or what seems closely derived from same. Countless other writers have used similar milieus, some quite openly. Indeed, many of the contributors to this book are Vance's heirs to some degree or another. http://www.sfsite.com/09b/na304.htm Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT At some point in the not too distant past, when we probably weren't really paying attention, the Science Fiction Writers of America, which presents the Nebula Awards, became the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. All the way through this forty-third annual anthology of Nebula Award winners and nominees there is an uneasy awareness of this shift in focus. Perhaps Brian Stableford and John Clute were right, you only have to look in the bookshops to see fantasy is in the ascendant so maybe science fiction has indeed run its course. http://www.sfsite.com/09b/co304.htm Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT C.J. Cherryh is the best writer of first-contact stories in the business. Nobody offers more insight in the psychological subtleties of human-vs-'Other' communication, and the problems and issues that can result when one group thinks -- mistakenly -- that it understands the other. Previous works like the Faded Sun series and the Chanur series amply demonstrate her skill, but the Foreigner series, of which this book is part, is her masterwork. http://www.sfsite.com/09b/us304.htm Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT Jayne gets a life-changing surprise when she flies to Denver to settle her murdered Uncle Eric's estate. The good news is she has inherited a lot of money and property all over the world, but the bad news is she finds herself embroiled in a battle with the Invisible College. What you might ask is the Invisible College besides the group that killed Jayne's uncle? http://www.sfsite.com/09b/ge304.htm Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT Set in a near future where the inhabitants of an island have walled themselves off from a world dying of disease and devastation, this book is nominally the story of a young student facing an examination that will determine her qualifications for the next step up in her career. But with characters with names like Anaximander and Pericles, and a society that refers to itself as the Republic, it's evident that there's more going on here. http://www.sfsite.com/09b/sv304.htm Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT It's a supernatural love story. Young Grace, whose parents tend to forget that she exists half the time, was once (when she was very young) dragged off by a pack of wolves into the woods behind her home -- and was rescued by one of the pack, a wolf whose golden eyes she has never forgotten and with whom she keeps up a strange and distant relationship during the winters of her lives when the pack is roaming the woods. She has plenty to handle in the rest of her life. http://www.sfsite.com/09b/te304.htm Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT The interesting and exhaustive overview of Canadian dark fiction by Robert Knowlton placed at the end of the book makes the inattentive reader realize how many horror writers commonly assumed to be American are actually Canadian. And the whole of this latest instalment in the series, entirely devoted to horror fiction, confirms that Canada is a prolific country for that genre fiction. http://www.sfsite.com/09b/dw304.htm Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT Be aware, this title isn't work safe or kid safe. It contains foul language and racial epithets. The story is overdone. Everything is overstated and larger than life, and that's exactly what a comic book novel should be. There is no subtlety here, no layers of meaning. You have the good guys, who are in all ways good, duking it out with the bad guys, who embody everything we could consider bad. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/graphica304.htm Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT In an earlier column, Mark London Williams had talked about a couple of "Madeleine Cookie" experiences he'd had with recent arrivals over the transom, the first of those being the 4th Batman collection in DC's Showcase series of archival B&W compendiums. And how that collection brought him back not only to "then," but several subsequent phases/stages of growing, changing, aging in general, and as a comics reader -- and occasional writer -- in particular. He also wrote of a second "cookie," but had run out of space for it, and he figured he'd get to it in a subsequent column. http://www.sfsite.com/books/new304.htm Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT This time, our recent arrivals feature the latest from Robin Hobb, Greg Egan, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, David Anthony Durham, Robert Holdstock, a graphic novel adaptation of Ray Bradbury, a manga version of X-Men, a colleciton of essays on Robert Bloch, and much more. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/rick304.htm Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT Caprica, a prequel to Battlestar Galactica set more than fifty years before the age of the Battlestars, is currently only out on DVD. It will come to television in 2010, as the pilot of a new series. The DVD of Dollhouse contains two episodes that were never shown on television, both on disk three, "Echo" and "Epitaph One." Both include a few scenes that were aired in other episodes. http://www.sfsite.com/09b/mb304.htm Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT We are introduced to the Final Empire, a dark, seemingly post-apocalyptic world that features raining ash and a mysterious mist that comes at night. The final empire is governed by the oppressive and god-like Lord Ruler and has been around for a thousand years. Society is divided into the nobility and the skaa or slaves. Vin is a seventeen-year-old half-skaa girl who is a member of a small-time gang of street thieves. She is their lucky charm. Vin has no idea that the ability to create that luck is something much more. http://www.sfsite.com/09b/bg304.htm Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT It seemed like a crazy idea at first. Taking an old one-season science fiction show from the 70s and re-imagining it for a modern day audience, while working in themes of current day politics and military struggle. Stepping outside the approved world of SF and focusing on characters and emotional responses rather than space ships and aliens was the next step. And, as a surprise to everyone, the hit series Battlestar Galactica was (re)born. http://www.sfsite.com/09b/mn304.htm Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT Neil, a young man on the cusp of adulthood thinks he knows what his life has in store but his journey is disrupted by as he discovers that he is the Apostate, a prophesied mage of none magic who will change the world. To assist him in his new journey he has his band including the reformed assassin, the charismatic leader and the gruff yet surprisingly intelligent fighter. http://www.sfsite.com/09a/hu303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT Stranded on an isolated island, Emma digs up something wonderful -- an old hotel. And with the hotel comes a ghostly Bell Captain named Winston who tells Emma the hotel's story -- a century or so in the past, a rich inventor named Wenlocke built the hotel. Along with it, he created an invention: the Temporal Delay Field, which would allow hotel guests to stay as long as they like, while no time passes in the outside world. http://www.sfsite.com/09a/cy303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT There are hard science fiction writers, and then there is Greg Egan. No one stays truer to the precepts of hard SF to the point where several of his novels, and even a few short stories, come replete with footnotes and explanations pointing the reader towards a fuller detailing of the ideas presented in the story. In much the way that a work like John Coltrane's Giant Steps showed the limits of where jazz could go, Greg Egan's stories show just how far the concept of hard science fiction can be pushed and still retain its appeal as fiction. http://www.sfsite.com/09a/dk303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT The story picks up where it left off in Ship of Destiny, but shifts the action completely over to the Rain Wilds. Tintaglia has successfully led the tangle of serpents up the Rain Wild River to hatch into dragons, but the tangle is in bad shape when they begin to cocoon. The dragons that emerge are nothing like the majestic creatures that once roamed the skies. These dragons are incapable of flight, feeding and other essential daily activities. The task of feeding and housing the dragons then falls on the people of the rain wilds in the town of Cassarick. http://www.sfsite.com/09a/ft303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT The year is 1942. The Japanese have just bombed Pearl Harbor. The American forces are in disarray. But what if Japanese Admirals Nagumo and Yamamoto had continued their attack? What if they had won the battle that day? What would the repercussions be then? http://www.sfsite.com/columns/audio303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT Recent audiobook releases received by SF Site include works by Christopher Moore, Rachel Caine, E.E. Knight and Lev Grossman. At times it's more convenient (and enjoyable) to hear the latest in science fiction and fantasy. http://www.sfsite.com/09a/sh303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT Cordelia Naismith, like all inhabitants of Beta Colony, has heard of the reputation of the Barrayaran military: efficient, soulless, and ruthlessly brutal. So when the base camp of her Astronomical Survey team is destroyed, and she is taken prisoner by Barrayaran Captain Aral Vorkosigan, the Butcher of Komarr, she has more than a little reason to worry. http://www.sfsite.com/09a/bl303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT If you're looking for a vampire romance like Twilight, this is not the story for you. No, this is a dark, wet, sticky, ugly, gritty visit to the anti-Twilight. Beginning many years earlier, at the staking of the vampire, Baron Rudolfo Zginski, this is a tale of Old World vampiric culture clashing with the "tuned in, turned on, dropped out" culture of the 70s. Picture Roller Boogie meets Bram Stoker. http://www.sfsite.com/09a/dm303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT After destroying the Demon Dactyl, there is hope that the end of the Dactyl means the end of evil in the land. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Instead, the armies of the Dactyl are now scattered throughout the land of Corona with no leader and are wreaking havoc on the countryside. Heroes from the earlier conflict meet Juraviel, the elf, who tells them how the Dactyl may have ruined the lands of the elves forever. Determined not to let the same fate befall humanity, the group decides they must now rid the land of the Demon Spirit that still inhabits Corona. http://www.sfsite.com/09a/hc303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT There's a growing trend of authors scripting comic books based on popular characters from their prose series. As a long-time comic reader, Charles often wonders if the readers of these tie-in comics are ever intrigued enough with the medium to go on and try other titles. He hopes so. And this particular title is good enough that it should certainly pique their curiosity. http://www.sfsite.com/09a/mt303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT Originally conceived as an audio anthology, the book is a shared world anthology set in a future in which cities have begun to be transformed from their traditional form. John Scalzi and the four other authors, Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake, and Karl Schroeder, have worked together the create new types of cities which co-exist in their world of the future. http://www.sfsite.com/09a/dd303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT Mason excels at improvisation, both in his jazz guitar playing and in his magic. He could probably play better music and be a better magical practitioner if he wanted, but he's content with his life as it is. Well, content enough until magical attacks start coming from nowhere to affect the status quo. He manages to deflect them by improvising magic from the feel, emotion, scent and physicality of his environment. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/graphica303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT The last time Rick Klaw wrote an original story for comics, it never even made it to press. In 1997, he crafted the five-page "Pox," a Twilight Zone-like eco-thriller for an anthology that was never completed. Since then, he has adapted several Joe R. Lansdale stories -- most notably for Avatar's By Bizarre Hands series -- and penned lots of comic book criticism, but no original comic creations. But he spent the past week crafting his first original comic book story in over a decade. Seems odd that it has been so long since, for the first half of his writing career, all he wanted to do was write comics. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/booknews303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT This month's column features Mike Carey on the latest supernatural exploits of exorcist Felix Castor in The Naming of the Beasts; Mick Sims and Len Maynard leave their safe house to reveal the truth about Department 18; and Mark Newton reveals his light touch during an interview about Nights of Villjamur. http://www.sfsite.com/09a/ds303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT The book is a cross between a typical buddy story and a serial killer profile story. One of the world's seven Dragons has been killed. As these dragons are god-like beings of near infinite power, this changes everything. The story follows the path of three people as they rush to discover not only who killed the dragon, but how. http://www.sfsite.com/09a/ju303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT Jupiter's issue XXV is subtitled Erinome. (As ever, these names of obscure Jovian moons make Rich feel terribly mythologically ignorant!) The feel of the magazine remains constant (Fantasy is welcome, but SF, even slightly old style SF, dominates), but Rich thought this was even better than the last issue, which he thought pretty good. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/rick303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT Rick takes a look at the movie, District 9, and the TV series, Defying Gravity. He also gives us a list of what SF is on TV in September. http://www.sfsite.com/09a/ig303.htm Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT Remember the first time you read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Remember those delightful tangents that Mr. Adams went on to give you amusing little details about the world? Remember all the fun non-sequiterish conversations that the various characters would occasionally have? Now, imagine a book where the majority of the text is made up of those tangents and conversations instead of the plot. 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.