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/columns/graphica318.htm Sat, 17 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT So it's Kick-Ass day here in the comics media. Mark London Williams had originally come to talk just about eroticism in comics, occasioned by the two books: Gilbert Hernandez' High Soft Lisp, and the Eddie Campbell/Daren White collaboration The Playwright. Instead, he's been to see Kick-Ass and noticed how both fit together. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/mk318.htm Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT When the name Peter S. Beagle is mentioned, the first thing that comes to mind are unicorns. In Mirror Kingdoms: The Best of Peter S. Beagle, there are plenty of unicorns to satisfy his fans, but there are more stories without the iconic beast, and the volume thereby demonstrates the breadth of Beagle's writing and interests. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/bm318.htm Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT Babymouse is an engaging kid with big dreams that tend to carry her away at the most inopportune times. Then there's her school, with all its low-level "Lord of the Flies" annoyances, from pop quizzes to bad cafeteria food. She also has to contend with an off-screen narrator who never slacks off when it comes to pointing out her mistakes -- usually in the most sarcastic tone possible. Now Babymouse is off on an epic journey of fantastical proportions. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/pa318.htm Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT If you've been living under a rock for the last ten years or so, you might not have heard of the web comic Penny Arcade. Featuring two cameo characters called Tycho and Gabe, it covers not only the ins and outs of the latest news and releases from the video game industry, but geekdom in general. People such as John Scalzi and Wil Wheaton are staunch fans of the comic and well acquainted with the authors in real life; the foreword of this book is written lovingly by Scalzi himself. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/as318.htm Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT The Accidental Sorcerer, follows the adventures of Gerald Dunwoody, Third-Class Wizard, who has learned to accept his inferior magical abilities despite his ambition for bigger things. Gerald is a civil servant, a magical safety compliance inspector whose job is unfulfilling in general -- and positively dangerous on bad days. When Stuttley's Superior Staff Factory explodes due to unsafe conditions, Gerald's attempts to curb the damage are seen as the cause of the explosion. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/mt318.htm Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT In part one of Mortalis we learn the Touel'alfar, the elves in the land of Corona, have taken the son of Elbryan and Pony and have begun his training as a ranger to replace Nightbird (Elbryan). The Touel'alfarar have also begun the training of another ranger, Brynn Dharielle, a To-Gai girl whose family was killed during the war. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/wb318.htm Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT Warbreaker is divided into three parts, which is only unfortunate in that, when you get to the end of one part, you won't want to stop listening. Part two deepens the characters. Some change and grow. Some show us aspects of themselves we didn't see before. Some discover the truth of themselves and their pasts. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/hh318.htm Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT This book takes place approximately 20 years after House Atreides and about 30 years prior to the original Dune series. Shaddam Corrino IV is the emperor and wants a son, yet his Bene Gesserit wife produces only daughters, leaving him without an heir to the throne. The emperor is aware of the Bene Gesserit's ability to determine the sex of their children and grows annoyed at Anirul for not giving him a son. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/ws318.htm Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT The first of three stories in this collection, "When Shadows Fall," tells the story of Earth after most of its population has left to colonize the universe, leaving the planet depleted of its natural resources. The few inhabitants have very little food, fuel, air or water. The Earth president and council decide to make a last ditch effort and pool all remaining resources to send out among the stars a plea for help. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/cd318.htm Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT So, when you're four volumes into the Quantum Gravity series, a fantasy adventure that manages to pull off a tongue-in-cheek collage of comic book action heroines, the Six-Million-Dollar Woman, James Bond, sword and sorcery, self-help bromides, archetypical folk tales and just about every epic high fantasy trope, what do you do to top yourself and keep the mix interesting? http://www.sfsite.com/04b/ma318.htm Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT If I want to send a message, Sam Goldwyn is reported to have said, I'll use Western Union. He was wrong, of course; most fictions convey a message of some sort, they cannot do otherwise since they emerge from the creator's awareness of and ideas about the world around her. But in the main, and in most successful cases, the story comes first and the message emerges naturally from it. Cory Doctorow reverses this. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/fr318.htm Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT This book is a direct continuation of the themes begun in the author's debut novel, Daemon, and reading that title first is essential. Once again, the cast are all players in the world-changing plans set in motion by deceased on-line game guru, Matthew Sobol. The character continues to appear periodically as an avatar, reacting to events in the manner of what gamers know as an NPC; non-player character. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/bd318.htm Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT Dreams disturb us, scare us, haunt us. Dreams provide us with unearthly experiences, make us reach the unreachable. Calderon de la Barca wrote that La vida es sueno (Life is but a dream). So, what better subject for a theme anthology? And if you invite to contribute five masters of fantastic fiction the expected result should be a great book. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/ub318.htm Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT This is a collection of four novellas, one from both the beginning of his career and another from 2009 plus two from the early 80s which was a particularly productive period for Broderick. The title story is arguably a Young Adult story and is also a zombie story along with being pure Science Fiction: not at all the tiresome cliche zombie stuff we see altogether too much of these days. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/iz318.htm Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT One of the most popular magazines for mainstream fantasy and science fiction, it also has a great deal of extra filler information in the form of film reviews, book reviews, comical anecdotes and a two page history of movies. Early on, the reader will be faced with Dave Langford's Ansible Link mentioning various snippets on the world of writing, publishing and the lives of writers in general. His brand of light humour is just enough to ease the reader into the magazine at the start. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/rick318.htm Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT Every year Rick predicts the best movies, based on the writers, not the director or the stars. A month from now, he'll do that for 2010. He listed thirty genre films in 2009, not counting talking gerbil movies. One 2008 movie, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, wasn't released until 2009. One 2009 movie, The Illuminati: Out of Chaos Comes Order, won't be released until 2010. He saw 16 of the films listed, plus Imaginarium. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/tu318.htm Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT The adventure begins with the group aboard a ship being paid to protect a high ranking church official. Almost immediately, the ship comes under attack by pirates and then soon thereafter by certain other denizens of the deep. The group then finds themselves on a nearby island fighting with said denizens and some other particularly nasty enemies in an attempt to recover the title book that was stolen during the first engagement. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/sc317.htm Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT There's a whole universe out there, and figuring out who your friends are isn't easy. That's the lesson to be learned by the inhabitants of Virga, a large artificial environment. But learning that lesson will have to wait for a little while, there are troubles closer to home that need to be taken care of first. Leal Maspeth's life is about to change because of those problems. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/gd317.htm Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT As long-time readers of Raymond E. Feist's works will know, his original Riftwar Trilogy contained a middle book. Silverthorn, which was considerably smaller than either the first or last books in the sequence, acted as a bridging device. It wasn't quite an epic in its own right, and had the feeling it could easily have been tacked on to the end of the first book or the beginning of the third. If only space had permitted. At the Gates of Darkness does a similar job. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/ju317.htm Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT Jupiter remains a consistent little magazine. A good source of generally old-fashioned science fiction, and a good place to see writers at the beginning of their careers. The stories aren't always as well-written as one might prefer -- but that's what you expect with such new writers. These aren't potential award nominees just yet, but they are doing entertaining work. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/steven316.htm Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT Science fiction fans have always had a respect and understanding for the history of the genre. Unfortunately, science fiction has achieved such an age that each year sees our ranks diminished. Deaths in 2009 included Philip Jose Farmer, J.G. Ballard, Tom Deitz, David Eddings, Robert A. Collins, Charles N. Brown, Phyllis Gotlieb, Donald M. Grant, Mark Owings, Louise Cooper and Robert Holdstock. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/best10.htm Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT Here we are at the SF Site's 13th annual Editors' Choice Best Books of the Year -- our official Best Reading recommendations from everything we read in 2009. As our stable of editors, reviewers, columnists, interviewers, and other contributors continues to grow, our choice of reading material likewise continues to expand. This year it seemed more than ever that there was very little overlap in our reading selections, so the results of our Best of the Year list are even closer than ever. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/ym317.htm Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT The book tells the story of a young man who has no ability with magic who returns home after completing his studies and learns that the political unrest of the capital has spread and everywhere people are unhappy with the way things are being done. His best friend has become politically active and starts butting heads with the local authority. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/da317.htm Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT R.A. Salvatore creates a world of fantasy in which the magicks rest in gemstones and the elves train one ranger in each generation to protect the forests and people of the outlying areas of the kingdom of Honce-the-Bear, Conflict is sure to arise in a country where many mythical and magical creatures live including elves, centaurs, dwarves, giants, and goblins. But the enemy of man turns out to be none of these creatures. Instead, mans worst enemy is himself, manifesting itself in the form of religion and politics. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/vi317.htm Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT This prolific author of fantasy, SF and horror fiction, although a veteran in the field, shows no sign of relenting his writing output, so much so that his latest collection includes not only a bunch of previously published stories, but also a few brand new tales. The first section of the volume collects stories reporting the adventures of the psychic detective Abraham ben Zaccheus, a San Francisco-based kind of Sherlock Holmes, whose Dr Watson is a certain John O'Leary. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/graphica317.htm Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT Lewis Shiner showed Rick Klaw how to write a comic book script, and he decided the best way to practice was to translate a story he knew and loved for comics. One of his first comic scripts was an adaptation of Ray Bradbury's "Homecoming." Don't go looking for it. His adaptation only ever existed in script form and was never actually produced as a comic story. It was an interesting exercise (and one Rick recommends to any fledgling comic book writer). He learned a lot about the difference between prose and comic stories. How the pacing and story structures are different, the rhythm of good dialogue, determining which dialogue to keep and what to lose. http://www.sfsite.com/books/new317.htm Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT Some really interesting new and forthcoming books have landed in our mailbox recently, including the latest from J.V. Jones, Guy Gavriel Kay, Gemma Files, Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky, Robin Hobb, Peter V. Brett, Tim Lebbon, Elizabeth Moon, Alastair Reynolds, Darren Shan, Steph Swainston, Joe Hill, and many others. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/rick317.htm Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT The creators of V and FlashForward hoped the shows would come back strong after their long hiatus, and ABC gave them a lot of ad play, especially during Lost. Smallville and Fringe have been renewed and will return in the Fall. Rick gives us highlights of what SF is on TV in April. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/hg317.htm Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT In 1888, the Science Schools Journal, the magazine of the Normal School of Science, published an incomplete serial by the journal's founder and former editor, H.G. Wells. The serial was called 'The Chronic Argonauts' and over the next several years Wells would return to the idea obsessively. The editor of The National Observer founded a new magazine, The New Review, and commissioned Wells to turn his science articles into a serial story, and the serial in turn became Wells's first novel, The Time Machine. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/gf317.htm Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT There was an unusual genesis to this book so it is worth spending a bit of time unpacking it. Philip Martin is director of Great Lakes Literary, a consultancy of which Crickhollow Books is the publishing arm. Given this, it is perhaps not surprising that this book started life as The Writer's Guide To Fantasy Literature. This edition has supposedly been revised so that it is "now oriented to a general audience of writers and readers." http://www.sfsite.com/04a/hd317.htm Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:00:00 GMT Actor turned writer Wil Wheaton has carved a niche for himself with his latest book which contains a series of short stories concerning his life growing up through the eighties and beyond. This is his third book, following Dancing Barefoot and Just a Geek. The pieces tell of various parts of his life, his unusual hobbies that he labels as geeky, allowing the reader to take a peek at parts of his past as well as the present day. 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.