Blog, Jvstin Style

The future of fiction. Novel versus Graphic Novel

http://www.lemodesittjr.com/blogs/blog/2008/11/future-of-fiction-its-meaning.html

On his blog, L.E. Modesitt discusses the future of fiction, and the decline of the standard novel in favor of graphic novels and Manga...

"The concern that I have about this shift is that reading, fiction in particular, requires the reader to construct a mental image of the setting and the events, rather than merely to observe and participate, as is the case for visually-based entertainment."

Compare and contrast this to Jane Lindskold, who talks about graphic novels and manga in more positive terms in "The Shortcomings of Words"

Considering that Lindskold is younger than Modesitt, is this a generational thing? Which one of them is right?

Amazon.com's best F/SF of the year

November begins the season where various outlets give their "best of" of various sliced up portions of media. Best games. Best books. Best books in various categories.

Amazon.com has their list of Best F/SF novels of the year. Half of these I have never heard of (and via Locus and other outlets, I consider myself well informed on the F/SF novel front). The list does include Banks, and Stephenson, and Novik and Jeffrey Ford, though.

However, #6 on their list is "Last Dragon" by J.M. McDermott. Readers of this space will recall that I did read an ARC of that novel this year, and thought it absolutely ailed as a literary work. It's style was a failure, rather than a triumph, and did not but obfuscate a story in a way that only people like Gene Wolfe manage to do with success.

6th best F/SF novel of the year? No, sorry, Amazon.com, I don't think so!

Book Review 2008 #47: Sharing Knife: Horizon

(disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for writing a review of its ARC)

Sharing Knife: Horizon is the fourth, and possibly final volume in the adventures of Dag and Fawn.

The Sharing Knife series comes to a stopping point, if not a conclusion, in this fourth volume in the story of Dag, a Lakewalker whose powers are maturing as he is growing older, and his young Farmer bride Fawn. The first two novels introduced us to the two of them, their romance, and the very different lives that comprise the two halves of their world. The third novel brought us on a grand river adventure south in the company of a motley set of companions ranging from Fawn's brother to a pair of runaway Lakewalker patrollers.

This fourth and final volume has the group start in the south, not long and not far where we left them by the sea, and takes us back to the north. Bujold shows a strong hand for story as Fawn and Dag meet the very different Lakewalkers in the south in New Moon, and then the characters that accompany them on the long road back north and east.

Such a long overland adventure is bound to be full of adventure, and, reaching back to the second novel, Bujold places yet another menace, a unique and dangerous malice and its horrifying minions in the way of the party. The action and adventure are a little more front and center in this novel as opposed to the third. The romance angle of the first two novels is less in evidence here. There is some, but less humor than the previous novels.

Bujold's strength,though, always has been strong characters, from the "top of the ticket" in Dag and Fawn, down to the minor characters, and even minor characters whom we meet only once. It's the characterizations and the interactions between the characters that Bujold homes in on. I remember listening to an interview of Bujold for the old SF Encyclopedia, where she talks about her desire to explore the psychology of characters (internal and external). Since then, I've looked for that in her novels and seen what she means by that. Sharing Knife: Horizon is an exemplar of her writing philosophy at work.

The end of the book neatly wraps up the story of Dag and Fawn in the Sharing Knife world, and it seems to me that Bujold is looking to the future where she is going to write novels with different characters, or a different world entirely. Sharing Knife: Horizon is an excellent capstone to the series. Once again, while it would be plausible for a new reader to pick up this volume and be quickly immersed in the world, I think the volume works best having read the previous books in the series.

Book Review 2008 #46: Sharing Knife: Passage

(disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for writing a review of an ARC of its sequel, SK: Horizon).

Sharing Knife: Passage is the third book in the Sharing Knife series by Lois M Bujold.

The Sharing Knife novels are set in a post-apocalypse low-tech fantasy world that strongly resembles the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys of what was called in the 19th century "The Northwest Territory". A high civilization of magic fell, leaving farmers, trying to get along in small communities, Lakewalkers, Ranger-like users of minor magics, and malices, leftovers of that high civilization which threaten farmer and Lakewalkers (who hunt them) alike. And despite their common foe, Lakewalkers and farmers trust each other not at all...

The first two novels introduced us to Dag, a one-armed world-weary Lakewalker who falls for farmer girl Fawn Bluefield. In the first, the two meet and are introduced to Fawn's family, and the relationship slowly grows between them. The second novel reverses this and has Dag bring his now farmer bride to Lakewalker country, to meet Dag's Lakewalkers and also deal with an even more powerful malice than in the first novel, the way that they met.

In this third novel, Fawn and Dag go south. Accompanied by Fawn's younger brother Whit, the three collect companions on what becomes a flat boat adventure down a river suspiciously similar to the Ohio. We meet new characters like Berry, who owns the boat and is seeking her lost fiance and father who took a boat down river and never returned. We meet a pair of runaway Lakewalkers who wind up under Dag's tutelage. And add to that a farmer that Dag's experiments with being a healer who gets beguiled by mistake, and you wind up with a crowded but interesting set of characters for the journey.

As in the previous novels and in this series, we get subtle hints of worldbuilding, interesting character dynamics and psychology (a Bujold specialty!) and (a little less often) action and adventure. I won't give away just what Dag, Fawn and company find on the river, I leave that pleasure for the reader to discover. It's a journey of discovery, in several senses. This book is a little more down than the previous two novels, but only by a moderate degree.

I wouldn't start the series here by any means. However, this is a worthy successor to the first two SK novels and if you have read those two, you will be satisfied with this third volume set in that world.

Book Review 2008 #45: Atlas of Lost Cities

Next up on the book review front, The Atlas of Lost Cities by Brenda Rosen

Brenda Rosen's Atlas of Lost Cities is not so much an atlas (although there are definitely maps and diagrams) as much as its a guidebook to lost cities. Cities are born, grow and die, and some are lost, to one degree or another.

The Atlas of Lost Cities takes on a number of these lost cities. The entries are arranged thematically in a slightly idiosyncratic fashion. Rather than by geography or age, the cities are arranged by theme. Thus, for example, we have "Cities of the Sea", cities which were lost to the sea (or lost one way or another their sea connection) which includes Akrotiti, Dunwich and Mahabalipuram. "Cities hidden by mists and mountains" gives us entries on Petra, Machu Picchu and Pompeii.

I was a bit annoyed by this layout, which makes it less than useful in trying to find an individual city. There is no index of just the cities, either. So, finding Technochtitlan, for example is a bit of a challenge. Is it under Cities of Hills and Mountains? Cities of Kings? No, its under Cities of the Hills and Plains.

With these criticisms aside, the individual entries, ranging from one to two pages, are brief, but adorned with beautiful photography and diagrams of many of the cities. Each of the themes has a frontispiece section about the theme, sometimes briefly mentioning cities not given full entries, or about mythical cities on the theme.

Even if the individual entries are a bit short IMO, and the layout could have been better, the collection together is an interesting and well thought out group of cities. It's an enjoyable book to flip through, and randomly learn a bit about places familiar and unfamiliar, like Pelaque, or Nineveh, or Vineta.

My gaming friends might like this book for ideas for lost civilizations and other exotic locales for pulp games and the like.

Books Read this Year Oct 18,2008--This has been the year of ARCs

This has been the year of advance reader's copies for me.

Between Amazon Vine, LibraryThing, other sources, and even a couple of books from a friend (Tony Pi) who asked me nicely to read a book with a story of his in it and a book of a friend of his, I have been reading ARCs this year.

Out of the 44 books I've read so far this year, nine have been ARCs (in bold)!

44 Adventures in Unhistory, Avram Davidson
43 Necropath, Eric Brown
42 After the Downfall, Harry Turtledove
41 Tooth and Claw, Jo Walton
40 The Golden Key, Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson and Kate Elliott
39 From Colony to Superpower, George Herring
38 Kushiel's Justice, Jacqueline Carey
37 Nation, Terry Pratchett
36 Implied Spaces,Walter Jon Williams
35 Legacies, L.E. Modesitt
34 Whiskey and Water, Elizabeth Bear
33 Axis, Robert Charles Wilson
32 Selling Out, Justina Robson
31 The Shadows of God, Gregory Keyes
30 The Code Book, Simon Singh
29 The Last Dragon, J M Mcdermott
28 The Gist Hunter and Other Stories, Matthew Hughes
27 Majestrum, Matthew Hughes
26 Dzur, Steven Brust
25 Galactic Empires, Gardner Dozois (editor)
24 The Rosetta Key, William Dietrich
23 The Twisted Citadel, Sara Douglass
22 Little Brother, Cory Doctorow
21 The Martian General's Daughter, Theodore Judson
20 The Gate of Gods, Martha Wells
19 A World too Near, Kay Kenyon
18 In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, S.M. Stirling
17 Reaper's Gale, Steven Erikson
16 The Merchants War,Charles Stross
15 Silverlock, John Myers Myers
14 The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
13 The Dragon's Nine Sons, Chris Roberson
12 A Shadow in Summer, Daniel Abraham
11 The Eternity Artifact, L.E. Modesitt
10 Wolf Who Rules, Wen Spencer
09 Hiding in the Mirror, Lawrence Krauss
08 The Stars my Destination, Alfred Bester
07 Opening Atlantis, Harry Turtledove
06 Death by Black Hole, Neil DeGrasse Tyson
05 Now in Theaters Everywhere, Kenneth Turan
04 Never Coming to a Theater Near You, Kenneth Turan
03 Plague Year, Jeff Carlson
02 Writers of the Future Volume XXIII, Algis Budrys (editor)
01 The Trojan War a new history, Barry Strauss

Oh, and did I mention that EOS books has just given me two L.M. Bujold Sharing novels to read and review? Those are next on my to-read pile.

Book Review 2008 #44: Adventures in Unhistory

Adventures in Unhistory is a collection of columns in Issac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine by the late Avram Davidson in the 1980's. In these columns, Davidson takes on a mythological/fantastic subject that has fascinated people for centuries, and unwinds its history and origins in popular culture, and tries to find the grain of truth in the mountain of myth and legend.

Its a wonderful set of essays. The style of Davidson is conversational, jovial, joking, digressive but in the end illuminating and entertaining. As I read his analysis of mermaids, werewolves, dragons, Aleister Crowley and others, I could imagine myself in a deli in Manhattan, listening to Davidson over a bagel and coffee explain in a style that has to be read to be fully enjoyed. Here he is in an essay about Sindbad (Sinbad) with one of his side digressions...

In a way, there really was a Sindbad, sort of;his name was Mohammed Ibn Battuta;and he was a Berber, a native of Northwest Africa;if anything, as far as time and territory are involved, he out Sindbaded Sindbad. I believe that he spent something like 34 years in travelling, from Morocco to China, and back again. The only troube is that he didn't draw the long bow near as much. Perhaps he had been influenced by Sindbad, perhaps he was a reincarnation. Even if you have never heard of him you have heard of anyway one of his stories, under the name of the Indian Rope Trick: evidently Ibn Battuta was the first to mention it in writing.

I'm tempted to bring in Ibn Battuta right along here because of his Sindbadian parallels or whatever; or also because his life experiences are so exceedingly interesting. But I think I'll withstand the temptation and perhaps employ him or them some other time...perhaps in and adventure entitled The Man Who Was Sindbad the Sailor. Perhaps...and perhaps not.

Anyway, the book is a real treasure, and I enjoyed it immensely. I can think of a few of my friends who will love this, if they haven't already beaten me to reading Davidson's work.

My only regret is that it was too short. I don't know how many of these columns he actually wrote; if another volume of his columns were collected and published, I'd get it in a heartbeat.

Book Review 2008 #43: Necropath

My forty third book of the year is *another* ARC (a point I am going to address in a separate post. Anyway, this book is Necropath, a sf novel, the first in a series (of course!), by Eric Brown.

The setting (mostly) is Bengal Station, a starport in the Indian Ocean between Burma and India. The time frame is sometime in the future. Faster than Light travel is a fact of life, as are aliens, and human colonies on other worlds. Bengal Station is a contact point for voidships, the ships that travel between these other planets. It's a large, labyrinthine construct that reminds one a little bit of a planetbound Babylon 5. The rich, the poor, the desperate, the greedy all come to live and work here.

Jeff Vaughn is a telepath. Augmentations have given him the ability, and the curse, to hear other people's thoughts. One can make a living scanning for a living, and Vaughn makes a living doing so. He is not so comfortable, though, that he isn't intimately familiar with the darker sides of Bengal Station. And when a crippled beggar girl turns up dead, Vaughn's life will not be the same, and his journey to unravel the mystery of her death puts him face to face with a sinister, stars-spanning cult...

It's a great premise and setting, anyway. Telepaths, aliens, interstellar travel, Thai and Indian culture front and forward, a plot that plausibly could last several novels. The ingredients are all here for something really to enjoy. And yet, for me, it just didn't work. I wanted to like this novel, and I couldn't.

First, I didn't like the main character that much. He's not a d*ck but I found it difficult to sympathize with him, even given his haunted,dark past. Worse, the characterizations of other characters, major and minor, didn't work for me either. I couldn't fathom the relationship between Osborne and Sukara. It felt false to me and seemed to be only a way to get the both of them to Bengal Station.

And the novel completely broke for me when, giving evidence of the problem to the police, Vaughn is at first completely blown off by Commander Sinton as being unreliable and untrustworthy (and naturally not believed)...and then nearly in the same breath, the same officer tries to offer Vaughn a job! It made absolutely no sense and I nearly threw the book against the wall. I can understand for plot reasons (cliches) why the officer would not believe Vaughn, but the sudden whiplash of trying to hook Vaughn into a job in the same debriefing made absolutely no sense.

I think that its more me than the novel and while others might enjoy the book more, I did not. I have no plans on continuing to read the author or of Vaughn's adventures.

Book Review 2008 #42: After the Downfall

It's been a little while, too long I think, since I've read one of Dr. Harry Turtledove's novels. With After the Downfall, I remedied that deficiency.

After the Downfall, by Harry Turtledove feels somewhat familiar to an experienced reader of Turtledove's work. We have a fantasy world with unusual magic. We have a sympathetic Wehrmacht officer in the mold of Heinrich Jäger from the Worldwar series. We have some speculations on the nature of Gods (Goddesses actually) in a world where belief in them gives them power. We get medieval battle tactics. We get sex.

In this case, however, Turtledove decides to mix them together, add some interesting characters and see what comes out of such alchemy.

Hasso Pemsel is not having a good day. You wouldn't either if you were a German army officer in 1945, with the Russians knocking on the door of the Museum in Berlin you have been, improbably, been asked to guard.

Joking around with his soldiers, he sits on an Omphalos stone...and finds himself in a different world entirely. With his gun, he saves a blond bombshell from a group of pursuers armed with primitive weapons. His reward from the woman for saving her from her pursuers is somewhat unexpected, but it puts him foursquare on the side of her people, the Lenelli, in their own pursuit of lebensraum in a new land. Hasso learns the language, learns how special Velona really is (a sometime avatar of the Goddess of the Lenelli) and joins their struggle against their even more primitive neighbors in a world of medieval weapons and magic. Fortunately, while Hasso's ammo is limited, his knowledge and ability to help his new found friends is not.

Homage to L Sprague De Camp (a la Martin Padway or Harold Shea)? I think so. Wish fulfillment for Hasso? No. Unfortunately, for Hasso, he gets a dose of reality when he gets fully engaged in a war between the Lenelli and the Grenye...

As I said above, the novel does have elements seen in Turtledove's earlier work. It would be a mistake to say this was a paint by numbers affair, since he does explore sociological questions in a new way, and some of the mid-rank characters are interesting and well developed (in addition to Hasso, who has the most character growth of course). Turtledove lets us learn more about Hasso's new world in bits and pieces and we get a real sense of what's going on, and the readers sympathies can gradually and naturally change along with the protagonist's. Its not really a spoiler to suggest that the Lenelli-Grenye struggle is very much analogous to the German-Russian portion of the conflict of World War II. The historical allegory is strong, but not overpowering.

I wouldn't start here as a first Turtledove novel.It's not Turtledove's best novel, but fans of Turtledove (like me) who have read a decent spread of his work will certainly enjoy it.

Book Review 2008 #41: Tooth and Claw

The 41st book of the year that I read was Tooth and Claw, by Jo Walton.

While this space would normally be my review, I am withholding a review at this time. As it so happens, I have been contracted to provide a review of this novel for the steampunk Second Life publication The Primgraph (sister publication to Prim Perfect). So, to avoid a conflict of interest, I am not going to write a review. Suffice it to say that I highly enjoyed this novel of dragons in a Victorian mode. Walton is an extremely good writer.

Book Review 2008 #40: The Golden Key

I got a bit behind on my reviews thanks to vacations and what not. So let's get back on track.

The Golden Key is a fantasy novel set in a Iberian flavored fantasy world, written by Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson and Kate Elliott.

The Golden Key's universe and magic revolves around the use of art as a tool for communication, political power, and it turns out, arcane power as well. The novel is episodic, starting with the rise to power and the discovery of real power by a brilliant artist, Sario Grijalva of Tira Verte. The Grijalvas, after a tragedy years ago, have fallen from grace, power and are pitied, if not feared, by the population at large. Despite their talents with art, being a Grijalva is not an easy or particularly desirable life.

Sario, however, has ambition. This ambition leads him to the lair of a Tza'ab (stand in for Berbers or North Africans) living in the heart of the city. His secret power, combined with Sario's knowledge, leads Sario to discoveries to allow him to live in a serial fashion in other people's bodies...and to also imprison Saavendra, the cousin that he loves, in a portrait...

The novel then leapfrogs over the next centuries, as Sario's machinations in his various lives lead to a rise to power for the Grijalvas, even as political and other developments slowly change Tira Virte in ways that even Sario cannot predict and control.

Thus, in a 900 page novel, we really get a complete fantasy series, with a variety of characters strung out along the history of Tira Virte, with Sario and the portrait of Saavendra as the hooks that keep the story together. Add in the intriguing magic system (which any player in Amber would think of ideas for Trumps thereby), great characterization, and vivid writing, and mix well.

This could have been envisioned as an interminable fantasy series, but as one volume, the writing is crisp and rarely if ever flags. The three writers collaborate and write together seamlesly. The novel was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, and after reading it, I have to wonder, just what novel managed to beat it for that prize.

I recommend it to epic fantasy fans unreservedly.

Book Review 2008 #39: From Colony to Superpower

Over the last couple of decades, Oxford University Press has been putting together a history of the United States from a variety of authors, slicing up the history of the Republic in numerous, detailed volumes.

An exception to that pattern, George Herrings FROM COLONY TO SUPERPOWER takes on the entire history of the United States. However, it takes on just one piece of that history, albeit a large one: foreign policy. Herring's volume looks at the U.S.'s relations with other powers from the Revolution straight through to the George W. Bush administration.

His thesis is that America has great ideals in the abstract which it has not always successfully brought in practice to its application of its foreign policy.

Herring brings a comprehensive, considered and balanced approach to the material. While he does have opinions, and certain subjects are clearly more favored than others, Herring takes pains to minimize his point of view.

When Herring does present a strong point of view, however, he infallibly provides in a footnote a source or volume that provides a different point of view. For example, Herring takes issue with the machinations that brought Panama independence from Colombia and gave the US the freedom to create the Panama Canal. And yet, even as he does this, he provides a competing source that exonerates Roosevelt.

Even those Presidents whom Herring seems to disagree politically with are critically evaluated for their contributions, positive and negative, to the narrative of US Foreign Policy. And those Presidents and figures that Herring admires are called out when they failed to live up to their ideals.

This careful balancing of viewpoints and pains to remain non partisan means that, given the breadth of the subject, the book is long. And if the reader is inclined to read more on one particular piece of American Foreign Policy history, there is a bibliographic essay (as opposed to a straight,dry, bibliography) where Herring discusses numerous other volumes for further reading.

The book took me several weeks to savor and digest, however these weeks were worth it. I learned an enormous amount about US Foreign Policy, as if I had taken a college course on the subject. If you have the time and inclination to learn about US Foreign Policy, Herring has created the definitive volume on the subject.

Book Review 2008 #38: Kushiel's Justice

Kushiel's Justice is the second in the Imriel Trilogy of Jacqueline Carey, and thus the fifth book overall set in her sumptuous alternate history set around Terre D'Ange, the land of angels.

Not for those new to this series or the author, Kushiel's Justice continues to highlight Carey's strongest suit, world-building, as we continue to follow the story of Imriel. The son of the disgraced Melisande Shahrazai matures in this novel, and his refusal to follow the precept of Blessed Elua (with respect to his secret lover) has far reaching, and tragic consequences.

Carey's worldbuilding and Imriel's adventures bring him a marriage, a trip to Alba (England), and the loss of his wife takes him to a completely new land in the series: Vralia (in our world, Russia). The details of her alternate world continue to be teased out, and kept me as a reader continuing to read.Carey has quickly catapulted herself to the level of the best writers of alternate history in this regard.

I am not convinced that Imriel is quite as good a protagonist as Phedre was; I have a sneaking suspicion that in the reversal of the usual problem, Carey writes female characters in far better detail and motivation than her male characters. Indeed, I found the daughters of the Queen, Alais and Sidonie, somewhat more convincing than Imriel himself as a character. Still, Imriel does grow throughout the book and I look forward to seeing if this character growth is sustained in the third and final novel of the series.

Anyone who has followed Carey's novels to this point will not be disappointed in Kushiel's Justice.

Hugo Winners

With an instant on world, the results of the Hugo Awards are already known.

Full results after the cut, but let me say here, congratulations to my friend and fellow gamer Elizabeth Bear, who won for best short story, "Tideline".

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Writer

Joe Abercrombie (2nd year of eligibility)
Jon Armstrong (1st year of eligibility)
David Anthony Durham (1st year of eligibility)
David Louis Edelman (2nd year of eligibility)
Mary Robinette Kowal (2nd year of eligibility)
Scott Lynch (2nd year of eligibility)

WINNER: Mary Robinette Kowal

Best Fanzine

Argentus, edited by Steven H Silver
Challenger, edited by Guy Lillian III
Drink Tank, edited by Chris Garcia
File 770, edited by Mike Glyer
PLOKTA, edited by Alison Scott, Steve Davies, and Mike Scott

WINNER: File 770

Best Fan Writer

Chris Garcia
David Langford
Cheryl Morgan
John Scalzi
Steven H Silver

WINNER: John Scalzi

Best Fan Artist

Brad Foster
Teddy Harvia
Sue Mason
Steve Stiles
Taral Wayne

WINNER: Brad Foster

Best Professional Artist

Bob Eggleton
Phil Foglio
John Harris
Stephan Martiniere
John Picacio
Shaun Tan

WINNER: Stephan Martiniere

Best Semiprozine

Ansible, edited by David Langford
Helix, edited by William Sanders and Lawrence Watt-Evans
Interzone, edited by Andy Cox
Locus, edited by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong, and Liza Groen Trombi
The New York Review of Science Fiction, edited by Kathryn Cramer, Kristine Dikeman, David Hartwell, and Kevin J. Maroney

WINNER: Locus

Best Related Book

The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Glyer; appendix by David Bratman (Kent State University Press)
Breakfast in the Ruins: Science Fiction in the Last Millennium by Barry Malzberg (Baen)
Emshwiller: Infinity x Two by Luis Ortiz, introduction by Carol Emshwiller, forward by Alex Eisenstein (Nonstop)
Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction by Jeff Prucher (Oxford University Press)
The Arrival by Shaun Tan (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic)

WINNER: Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

Battlestar Galactica "Razor" Written by Michael Taylor Directed by Félix Enríquez Alcalá and Wayne Rose (Sci Fi Channel) (televised version, not DVD)
Doctor Who "Blink" Written by Steven Moffat Directed by Hettie Macdonald (BBC)
Doctor Who "Human Nature" / "The Family of Blood" Written by Paul Cornell Directed by Charles Palmer (BBC)
Star Trek New Voyages "World Enough and Time" Written by Michael Reaves and Marc Scott Zicree Directed by Marc Scott Zicree (Cawley Entertainment Co. and The Magic Time Co.)
Torchwood "Captain Jack Harkness" Written by Catherine Tregenna Directed by Ashley Way (BBC Wales)

WINNER: Doctor Who "Blink"

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

Enchanted Written by Bill Kelly Directed by Kevin Lima (Walt Disney Pictures)
The Golden Compass Written by Chris Weitz Based on the novel by Philip Pullman, Directed by Chris Weitz (New Line Cinema)
Heroes, Season 1 Created by Tim Kring (NBC Universal Television and Tailwind Productions) Written by Tim Kring, Jeph Loeb, Bryan Fuller, Michael Green, Natalie Chaidez, Jesse Alexander, Adam Armus, Aron Eli Coleite, Joe Pokaski, Christopher Zatta, Chuck Kim. Directed by David Semel, Allan Arkush, Greg Beeman, Ernest R. Dickerson, Paul Shapiro, Donna Deitch, Paul A. Edwards, John Badham, Terrence O'Hara, Jeannot Szwarc, Roxann Dawson, Kevin Bray, Adam Kane
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Written by Michael Goldenberg, Based on the novel by J.K. Rowling, Directed by David Yates (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Stardust Written by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn, Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman Illustrated by Charles Vess Directed by Matthew Vaughn (Paramount Pictures)

WINNER: Stardust

Best Professional Editor, Short Form

Ellen Datlow (The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (St. Martin's), Coyote Road (Viking), Inferno (Tor))
Stanley Schmidt (Analog)
Jonathan Strahan (The New Space Opera (HarperCollins/Eos), The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 1 (Night Shade), Eclipse One (Night Shade))
Gordon Van Gelder (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction)
Sheila Williams (Asimov's Science Fiction)

WINNER: Gordon Van Gelder

Best Professional Editor, Long Form

Lou Anders (Pyr)
Ginjer Buchanan (Ace/Roc)
David G. Hartwell (Tor/Forge)
Beth Meacham (Tor)
Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor)

WINNER: David G. Hartwell

Best Short Story

"Last Contact" by Stephen Baxter (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, ed. George Mann, Solaris Books)
"Tideline" by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov's June 2007)
"Who's Afraid of Wolf 359?" by Ken MacLeod (The New Space Opera, ed. Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan, HarperCollins/Eos)
"Distant Replay" by Mike Resnick (Asimov's April/May 2007)
"A Small Room in Koboldtown" by Michael Swanwick (Asimov's April/May 2007; The Dog Said Bow-Wow, Tachyon Publications)

WINNER: "Tideline" by Elizabeth Bear

Best Novelette

"The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics" by Daniel Abraham (Logorrhea, ed. John Klima, BantamSpectra)
"The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang (Subterranean Press; FandSF Sept. 2007)
"Dark Integers" by Greg Egan (Asimov's Oct./Nov. 2007)
"Glory" by Greg Egan (The New Space Opera, ed. Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan, HarperCollins/Eos)
"Finisterra" by David Moles (FandSF Dec. 2007)

WINNER: "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang

Best Novella

"The Fountain of Age" by Nancy Kress (Asimov's July 2007)
"Recovering Apollo 8" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Asimov's Feb. 2007)
"Stars Seen Through Stone" by Lucius Shepard (FandSF July 2007)
"All Seated on the Ground" by Connie Willis (Asimov's Dec. 2007; Subterranean Press)
"Memorare" by Gene Wolfe (FandSF April 2007)

WINNER: "All Seated on the Ground" by Connie Willis

Best Novel

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins; Fourth Estate)
Brasyl by Ian McDonald (Gollancz; Pyr)
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer (Tor; Analog Oct. 2006-Jan./Feb. 2007)
The Last Colony by John Scalzi (Tor)
Halting State by Charles Stross (Ace)

WINNER: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Book Review 2008 #37: Nation

NB: I received an ARC of this book via the Amazon Vine Program. This book is slated for release in September.

Terry Pratchett is best known for his Discworld novels, ranging from the Colour of Magic to Making Money. Within that canon, Pratchett has written a few novels explicitly labeled for young adults (starting with the Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents).

In Nation, though, Pratchett turns away from Discworld and starts a sui generis YA novel set on a world very much like, but subtly different, than our own 19th century Earth. Nation tells the story of two survivors of what can be deduced to be a tidal wave in the South Pacific (here, Pelagic) Ocean: Mau, a young native of these islands whose traditional growth and path to manhood is interrupted when his people are nearly wiped out, and Ermentrude, the daughter (and granddaughter) of British nobility who happened to be on a ship in these waters when disaster struck. We also get hints that there is a different disaster going on in the wider world, too.

Nation is the story of the rebuilding of Mau's Nation, as survivors meet and strive to survive on what remains of Mau's island.

With this simple (but not simplistic) plot and structure, Pratchett brings us a story of survival that YA readers will love, but also throws in a lot for adult readers as well. Touches of his humour, familiar to anyone who has read Discworld, abound. There is even traces of philosophy and weightier matters, but they are only frosting on the solid and densely delicious cake of the novel. Action, adventure, survival, humor, reflection. The novel has everything that a High School English Teacher might hope for in a book to teach students, and has the writing, wit, and entertainment value that will allow those students to actually enjoy reading it.

And to be clear, although its a YA novel, adult fans of Pratchett, like myself, will also highly enjoy this novel. Its not Discworld and doesn't pretend to be, but it has the same high quality of writing, well drawn characters, world building and entertainment value.

Highly Recommended.

Book Review 2008 #36: Implied Spaces

It's not often that you read a novel which creates a subgenre, sui generis. Implied Spaces, by Walter Jon Williams, manages that feat with the inauguration of the "Sword and Singularity" subgenre of SF.

For those who don't know what a Singularity is, in brief, its the idea that when trans-human intelligences (be it computer, cyborg or what have you) come into existence, life and history as we know it will be utterly transformed, and life after it will be as alien to us as our modern technological existence is alien to our ancestors in the Paleolithic era.

In Implied Spaces, Walter Jon Williams creates a "sword and singularity" novel. What this means is, pace S.M. Stirling, is that fantasy ideas, tropes and even settings are convincingly melded with the high technology of a post-Singularity environment. We start off the novel in a fantasy world environment that, if it were just a random tidbit found on the internet, would at first look like a well written but ordinary fantasy novel. Aristide has a talking cat, sure, but in a world of trolls and monsters, that's not unusual.

When his sword comes out, and starts acting like Morgaine Chaya's Changeling, complete with a wormhole, the reader starts getting an inkling that there is much more to the universe than meets the eye. We soon get ever grander vistas and situations as, with Aristide as our guide, we meet A.I.'s, post-human characters, wormhole technology, mass drivers using wormholes as weapons, and technology capable of affecting the most fundamental elements of reality.

As Keanu Reeves famously once said: "Whoa!"

The book is philosophical, comic, action packed, thoughtful and stunningly well written. I've been a fan of Williams work for a long while, and he hits all cylinders here. This novel is precisely for people who can read good fat fantasy, and yet strongly appreciate the High-tech SF of, say, Charlie Stross.

Highly Recommended.

Book Review 2008 #35: Legacies

Legacies is the first book in L.E. Modesitt's Corean Chronicles series.

Stop me if you have heard this story before.

Moderately capable young man from humble beginnings in an agrarian society slowly grows into strange and unusual abilities. Circumstances force him away from his pastoral home, forcing him to grow up. His benevolent land is under threat from lands both greedy and outright evil, and our hero is instrumental in dealing with these large threats to his small society.

Yeah, it sounds like, for those who have read it, a lot like Modesitt's Recluce novels. The magic system here is different, and this is a post-apocalypse world, where there are few people who can wield "Talent" for good or evil, and the technology is higher, but its very similar to Recluce. The writing is better than the early novels in that series, but the basic ur-text of the story is the same.

That said, we get some strange creatures, decently interesting politics, and hints of what this world lost when its fell. The battle scenes are all right, there is a fair amount in this novel devoted to battle tactics, since the hero is first conscripted, and then turned into a janissary.

Relationships...well, Modesitt still doesn't write romance. I guess he is better living a happy marriage and relationship than actually writing one. So Alucius, our hero, has a girl promising to wait for him, but the relationship's development really doesn't happen with any complexity.

Still, if you have read him before, and are tempted to read him again, you know what you are reading for, virtue wise. Complex worlds, competent heroes who might have doubt--but don't spend half the book doing nothing or moping about it. They get on, they progress, they are catalysts and protagonists.

I am of the opinion that his SF is much better than his fantasy, even if, especially given our economic times, he writes much more fantasy. So while I am not especially interested in continuing to read this series, it didn't offend me and I don't regret the time I took to do so. I mostly read it on my trip to and from The Black Road, and to kill time in an airport and an airplane, it served its purpose very well. I don't especially recommend it.

Still, if you wanted to try his fantasy for the first time, this is probably a good example of a book to do it, so you can get a feel for his writing style, his proclivities and peculiarities (Modesitt loves to write about food, for example...).

Books Read so Far this year (as of July 3 2008)

Since we're halfway through the year...

33 Whiskey and Water, Elizabeth Bear
32 Axis, Robert Charles Wilson
31 Selling Out, Justina Robson
30 The Shadows of God, Gregory Keyes
29 The Code Book, Simon Singh
28 The Last Dragon, J M Mcdermott
27 The Gist Hunter and Other Stories, Matthew Hughes
26 Majestrum, Matthew Hughes
25 Dzur, Steven Brust
24 Galactic Empires, Gardner Dozois (editor)
23 The Twisted Citadel, Sara Douglass
22 Little Brother, Cory Doctorow
21 The Martian General's Daughter, Theodore Judson
20 The Gate of Gods, Martha Wells
19 A World too Near, Kay Kenyon
18 In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, S.M. Stirling
17 Reaper's Gale, Steven Erikson
16 The Merchants War,Charles Stross
15 Silverlock, John Myers Myers
14 The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
13 The Dragon's Nine Sons, Chris Roberson
12 A Shadow in Summer, Daniel Abraham
11 The Eternity Artifact, L.E. Modesitt
10 Wolf Who Rules, Wen Spencer
09 Hiding in the Mirror, Lawrence Krauss
08 The Stars my Destination, Alfred Bester
07 Opening Atlantis, Harry Turtledove
06 Death by Black Hole, Neil DeGrasse Tyson
05 Now in Theaters Everywhere, Kenneth Turan
04 Never Coming to a Theater Near You, Kenneth Turan
03 Plague Year, Jeff Carlson
02 Writers of the Future Volume XXIII, Algis Budrys (editor)
01 The Trojan War a new history, Barry Strauss

Book Review 2008 #34: Whiskey and Water

Whiskey and Water is the second book in Elizabeth Bear's Promethean Age novels about a resurgence of Faerie and their conflicts with Mages in modern day NYC.

I loved Blood and Iron, the first book in this series, which was set around a fateful Halloween Night when the power of Faerie was unleashed in a visible and risble way, as conflicts between Faerie and the Promethean Mages, as well as riven divisions within Faerie led to the inescapable revelation to the modern world that Faerie was real, after all.

Of course this conflict has been at great cost for all of its participants, even the winners, and it is seven years later that we take up their stories again. Matthew Szczegielniak still teaches classes and has turned his back on his power. Jane Andraste, Maga, is about the only other Mage in NY of note that's left. Her half-fae daughter Elaine sits on the painful throne of the Seelie. Whiskey, the water elemental who holds Elaine's soul is still abroad...

And a series of murders by a Fae introduce us to new characters. Don, the cop who finds a connection with these sorcerous characters. Jewels and Geoff, young kids who quickly get in over their head.

Oh, and Kitten, aka Kit, aka Christopher Marlowe, ready to be released from Hell and walk abroad in Faerie and the world. Oh, and of course, the Devil. More than one, in fact.

And so with the players named, the tale is told and told well. The consequences of conflicts from the first book play out, and in addition to Faerie and the mundane world, Bear introduces us to a third realm in this book--Hell.

The book shouldn't be read by anyone who hasn't read B&I (and why haven't you read that,hmmm?). If anything, the writing of W&W is better, a more mature Bear's pen's words here flow like wine. Marlowe is one of Bear's favorite historical characters, and to see him brought to life in the modern world is a delight, but not the only one to be found in these pages.

After all, having been born and raised there, I was tickled pink that part of the climax, a wizard's duel, takes place on Staten Island.

I enjoyed Whiskey and Water highly. The 3rd novel in the Promethean Age, Ink and Steel, takes place 400 years earlier, during the rule of Elizabeth I. Will I read it? I already bought it, you betcha.

Book Review 2008 #33: Axis

Axis is the second novel in a trilogy, the sequel to the Hugo award-winning novel Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson.

I loved the first novel in this series (although I thought at the time that it was a standalone), which sets one of Wilson's classic Big Ideas in motion and takes us through it with interesting characters. What if unknown aliens put a time bubble around the Earth, so as to slow its aging relative to the rest of the universe?

At the end of that novel, the shield changes subtly, and a gateway to another world appears, a chance for a new world, a new life, and a new opportunity.

Axis takes us to that world, and continues to develop the universe of the Hypotheticals, once again through the eyes of his characters.

Honestly, though, this suffers from middle book syndrome. It's clear that Wilson hasn't written many series (any, I think) and the book's pacing suffers for not being a self-contained work. It relies heavily on the first book (reading this one without the second is futile) and the characters and events don't sing like the first novel. This one is much more reliant on the interesting ideas (a la Mysterium) than the actual writing and characters themselves. The characters (even one from Spin) aren't as well developed as the ones in Spin. In this respect, the book is a disappointing step backward for Wilson.

Its predecessor won the Hugo award for best novel, I do not expect this one to be nominated, except perhaps in a weak field. It's not a terrible book, merely an average one.

Book Review 2008 #32: Selling Out

Selling Out is the second book in Justina Robson's Quantum Gravity series.

Although the book does do some backfill to allow readers to start here, this is really intended for readers who enjoyed the first volume in Quantum Gravity, Keeping it Real. The world after the Quantum Bomb, with Earth (Otopia) rubbing up uneasily against realms of Faerie, Hell, Elementals and Death. Lila Black, cyborg, lover of a half elf, half demon rock star, now with a necromancer's soul inside of her, is back on the case.

This time, she gets to go to hell. Here, she finds Demonia not to be exactly what she expects, even with the assassination attempts, marriage proposals, political dealings, and very strange customs.

In the meantime, her boyfriend, Zal, has adventures of his own, including an inadvertent trip to the deadly Elemental realms.

More crisp writing. Snazzy world building. Excellent characters who grow and change. And the continuing hintings of an building, big mystery that affects all of the realms in her fractural, fascinating landscape. What's not to like?

But do try Keeping it Real first, and see if Robson's brand of near future science fiction/fantasy alchemy is for you.

As for me, I look forward to more work from her.

Book Review 2008 #31: The Shadows of God

After a long delay, I decided to finish (J) Gregory Keyes' Age of Unreason Quartet, with The Shadows of God.

Starting with Newton's Cannon, The Age of Unreason Quartet has a brilliant idea at the center of its alternate history-fantasy. In our world, after discovering the laws of Gravity, Newton was sucked into a vortex of superstition, alchemy and biblical analysis. This, as well as other duties, carried him away from science in his later years of life.

What if those studies weren't a waste? What if there WERE alchemical discoveries to be made, and alchemy turned into a science? With Newton as its central figure, we get a 18th century industrial revolution of aetherscribers, kraftpistoles, airships and other wonders powered by alchemy. However, we also get the malakim, angels and creations of a gnostic like God, who don't appreciate humanity meddling with such powers.

Such is the universe of Newton's Cannon. With our main character, Benjamin Franklin, previous novels have carried us from America, to Europe, to a cometary impact against Europe, and back to America, with forces controlled by dark malachim intent on wiping out humanity. Plenty of other historical characters quarrel, struggle against each other and finally unite in the face of the common foe.

There's plenty of alchemical science, feats of derring do, noble sacrifices and an ending which changes the actual nature of the universe. Keyes answers some mysteries and reveals answers to questions which have been lurking since the first volume of the quartet. Although its been a while since I read the third book, I picked up on the characters, their foibles, personalities and voices immediately. And, perhaps best of all, Keyes has an economy of writing. Although this is the last book in the quartet, it clocks in at a slim 320 pages. Some things might be a little too rushed by the breakneck, pulp like pace, but on the other hand, Keyes knows to get us to "the good stuff".

I would hardly recommend readers new to this universe start here; it would be like looking at only the spire of a cathedral without having seen the rest of the edifice first. Those who have read previous volumes will not be disappointed by the denouement.

Now that I have finished this series, I am very tempted to see what Keyes has been doing with this "Briar King" series I hear about...

Book Review 2008 #30: The Code Book

A bit of non fiction as a palate cleanser, a book I'd been meaning to read for some time: The Code Book, by Simon Singh.

I like codes, secret writing, and cryptography. I don't have the mathematical chops to make a profession of it, but I remember the "lesson" in frequency analysis that makes up a lot of the plot of Poe's "The Gold Bug". Plus I fondly read one of the prolific Clifford Pickover's books on codes some years back and enjoyed it.

While there is analysis of types of codes and cryptography in Simon Singh's book, his strength and the main thrust of the book is the tension between code-makers and code-breakers, and the history of how those codes were used. From Mary Queen of Scots fateful use of a breakable code which lead to her death, through the German Enigma machine, to the battles over PGP today, Singh touches on the evolution of the science of secrecy through the stories of the people on both sides of the divide. The writing is clear and fluid, and the examples show that Singh understands his own subject very well.

If you have an interest in the history of cryptography or allied subjects, the Code Book is a very good primer on the subject.

Book Review 2008 #29: The Last Dragon

The Last Dragon is a first novel from J.M. Mcdermott

Put together into a coherent narrative, the Last Dragon is a relatively straightforward tale. It follows the story of Zhan, first trained as a warrior, and then as a shaman's apprentice, in Alameda, a land to the far north of her world. This ia a medieval tech, low-magic sort of gritty fantasy world.

A horrible crime perpetuated in her village by her grandfather sends her, and her father, Seth, south to seek retribution. They reach a city, Proliux, formerly ruled by paladins such as Adel, and now under control of mercenaries armed with firearms, who killed the titular Last Dragon. The crime's perpetrator is found, killed, turned into a golem, and then Zhan and her allies head north to prevent the mercenaries from finding easy prey in her homeland. And in the process becomes a ruler herself, and it is as a dying Empress that she tells the tale.

It is the manner that McDermott has Zhan tell her tale that is unusual. In a jumble of diary entries, or perhaps letters, Zhan's tale is told in a narrative that jumps around the timeline of her tale. Episodes from Zhan's journey south are mixed together with her journey north, with her adventures in Proliux, and back in the north again. These episodes range from a paragraph in length to several pages.

The only problem for me is, it didn't work for me. This sort of narrative trick is a difficult one to do well. I found myself floundering early and often in the book. I might have stopped reading it if I had not received it as an ARC. And even in finishing it, I don't think that the tale itself is worth the effort it takes to put it fully together from the fractured mirror that we are presented here. It just is too much work for too little payoff in the end.

McDermott, IMO, should not have tried such a high wire act in a first novel. In a more straightforward story and narrative, his novel would have had smaller ambitions, true, but I think it would have fully achieved them, in my mind.

Book Review 2008 #28: The Gist Hunter and Other Stories

I enjoyed Majestrum so much, I decided to also read The Gist Hunter..., a collection of stories by Matthew Hughes. A few of them act as prequel adventures to Henghis Hapthorn, a few are stories of the Noonaut Guth Bandar, and a couple of non Archonate stories in the bargain...

The Gist Hunter has six stories of Henghis, which cover his early career, and up to the point just before the start of Majestrum. We find out how he becomes a Discriminator ("Thwarting Jabbi Gloond"), see him at the full height of his powers ("Relics of the Thim"), see him when his mind has been ensorcelled ("Mastermindless") and more. The title story explains just how his AI gets converted into a fruit eating familiar.

The Guth Bandar stories introduce a character new to me (I've not yet read *his* novel, The Commons). Guth's stories take place in what I think of in SB terms as the Dreamlands, the collective unconsciousness of mankind made manifest. So he finds himself in archetypal situations and locations ranging from the story of the Three Little Pigs to Judgement Day.

I think these stories are a bit rougher than the Henghis ones (the first one, for example, suggests that at the end Guth loses his job; subsequent stories have him returning to the position without an explanation). There are a few mysteries about the Commons not clarified well, and I think Guth needs a little more seasoning as a character. Still, the Commons are an intriguing separate universe which I probably will want to read about more in the titular novel.

The non Archonate stories Hughes has in this novel are all right, and I mainly think of them as a bonus to the Hapthorn and Bandar stories. I particularly liked "Go Tell the Phoenicians."

I think, overall, though, that the volume is definitely a must for fans of Hughes. I don't think its the right volume for people new to this author who treads in Vance's footsteps, but its certainly a good "second book".

Book Review 2008 #27: Majestrum

My latest book is another volume in Matthew Hughes' expanding oeuvre about his Dying-Earth like world of the Archonate, Majestrum.

As I have mentioned in previous entries on my blog, Matthew Hughes is a writer whose main body of work revolves around a far future earth which might be usefully thought of as taking place an eon or two before Vance's Dying Earth. Science is still the dominant force in the universe, but there are suggestions that Magic is waiting in the wings, and the sun, while bright, has changed to a deeper orange color.

Into this realm, in this book, strides Discriminator Henghis Hapthorn. Possessing a strangely transformed AI, now in the form of a wizard's familiar, and in addition, a split personality in the back of his mind, Henghis is the foremost freelance investigator in the world, if not the entire "Spray" of inhabited worlds.

In the course of Majestrum, Henghis is contracted for a number of cases, which, while at first seem to have nothing to do with each other, in the end start to draw together into a single whole tapestry that the Archonate's answer to Sherlock Holmes slowly brings to light...

Henghis is a very droll character in an very interesting world. Hughes' voice and writing have improved and developed. He reads less like a pastiche of Vance and more of a voice in his own right. While fans of Vance (like me) will find much to love here, Hughes' writing is much less aping him and rather more nuanced homage and commentary. I enjoyed the character and his adventures with a most satisfactory and catholic thoroughness. And more importantly, the little details of his worlds. For example, the way the aristocracy limits their interactions with their perceived inferiors and how to get around that:

"Say that I will be presently," I said. I went to a wall cabinet and brought forth a cincture of woven metallic fibers; I bound it around my skull so that a lozenge fixed to its mid point was centered on my forehead. The small plaque was inlaid with the insignia of a honorary rank that had been bestowed on me by the Archon Dezendah Vesh some years before, in gratitude for discreet services.

Afre's pale and narrow lips parted, permitting a few words to escape in the drawl that was fashionable among the upper reaches of Olkney society. "Hapthorn? That you?"

Once again, I look forward to reading even more of the Archonate (and in fact my next book completed will also be by Hughes, a book of stories mainly set there). Fans of Vance, especially, shouldn't miss Hughes' work.

Book Review 2008 #26: Dzur

It's been a while since I've read a Vlad novel in the Dragaera universe of Steven Brust, and after the headiness of Space, I wanted something different, but somewhat familiar as a palate cleanser. Dzur fit the bill.

As a book, its not very strong. Some might even consider it weak, although I am a fan of Brust's writing and am somewhat biased on his behalf. It works better in the context of the series, especially as an aftermath to the events in the previous novel, Issola.

Brust likes to play with structure in some of his novels, and this novel is no exception. The story unspools out in a linear fashion except for the beginning of each chapter, which gives a scene from a long meal between Vlad and, no surprise, a Dzur named Telnan. The plot of the rest involves Vlad's estranged wife, Cawti, and machinations in the capital not only amongst the male Jhereg crime bosses...but the mysterious female half as well. And of course, the Jhereg and many others still want Vlad dead for actions in his previous novels. There is not a lot of action. In fact, Vlad walks around the city. A lot. Multiple times. There wasn't a big sense of urgency to the book at all. The writing of what we are given is good, but we're not given as much as I would have liked.

Readers new to Vlad will be very confused here, and should not start here at all. People who have made their way this far will want to read it, but its really not the full course meal that Vlad eats in the course of the book; its more of an appetizer. I do hope that Brust gets cracking on more novels.

Book Review 2008 #25: Galactic Empires

Galactic Empires is an SFBC original anthology of science fiction stories about, well, Galactic Empires. Space Opera? Yes, and No. The anthology was edited by Gardner Dozois.

It's an interesting line up, and since there are only six stories (of around novella length), I will touch on each of them separately. As a whole, the stories range in quality from good to superb.

"The Demon Trap". Peter F Hamilton:

A story set in his Commonwealth universe (Pandora's Star, Judas Unchained, Dreaming Void), this story brings back Paula Myo, the investigator originally from the Hive, investigating (doggedly as always) a terrorist attack. The story clearly takes place after the first two novels, since technology has advanced somewhat (even given the conservative culture of this universe). The story works on all levels--revealing more about Myo, revealing more about how the polity of the Commonwealth has evolved, and its a darned good story. And I loved the ending when the culprit gets truly just desserts. The collection started off on a high note.

"Owner Space": Neal Asher

Unlike Hamilton, I've not read any Asher yet, although now I just might. Owner Space tells the story of a few refugees from a very nasty autocracy, with a revenge-bent alien lurking on the side as well. The pursued refugees enter the domain of a very mysterious entity, and the conflicts play out under the aegis and the watchful eye of the "Owner". Some genuinely creepy stuff was tempered a bit by an entity whose powers weren't explained all that well. I thought it was good, but not *very* good.

"The Man with the Golden Balloon" Robert Reed

I've read a previous story set on the Ship, a Starcross (gah, does that date me) vehicle which is traveling across the galaxy. This is another story on that giant vessel, as a married couple explore a long abandoned and unknown area of the Ship, and meet an entity who talks in metaphors and story of a secret Empire, and what happened the last time he interfered in the evolution of a world. It reminded me a lot of Crowley's Great Work of Time in that the story itself is layered and talks about secrets and mysterious agendas, and dances around giving the reader a "big" reveal. And in the ending, Reed has the sting that makes you re-evaluate everything that you've read. I didn't like my previous foray into the Ship universe, this story stands alone very well.

"The Six Directions of Space" by Alistair Reynolds:

This story posits a number of alternate histories and universes, starting with the viewpoint one of a Mongol-dominated Earth expanding into space. An agent for these Mongols is sent to investigate strange happenings on routes between star systems, only to discover the existence of these alternate dimensions. While the sensawunder is here and I eat up this sort of story, this story feels a bit unpolished and unfinished in terms of the characters and the plot. And the denouement and resolution is weak. I'm not sure what went wrong her, this is one of the few times I've been underwhelmed with Reynolds' work. It's not horrible, but its merely "good".

The Seer and the Silverman" is another Xeelee story from Baxter. I have a soft spot for this universe and went through this as if I were fueled on caffeine and speed. I loved learning more about the Ghosts, and there is of course the usual obligatory sidelong references to previous stories set in the Xeelee universe. The story itself is set on "Reef" of habitats on the border between Human and Ghost space, an uneasy cohabitation whose politics and sociology drive the story's plot nicely.

"The Tear" is from Ian McDonald, and is set in a bizarre universe where the inhabitants of a waterworld develop multiple personalities in order to deal with various aspects of reality. We follow Ptey, who develops additional personalities throughout the story, and as contact with the alien Anpreen progresses, he even goes above the normal eight personalities that his people usually develop. McDonald explores the sociology of a person with these multiple mental constructs very well. Not content with just this though, he throws in refugees from a War, Ptey getting exiled, and a big canvas in the final installment as he returns to his world after a long sojourn into space. Sensawunder, big time!

If you are a member of SFBC and like space-oriented SF, I think, like me, you will be quite satisfied with Galactic Empires.

Book Review 2008 #24: The Rosetta Key

My third ARC in a row is a palate cleanser of sorts, since I don't normally read Historical Fiction, is the Rosetta Key, the second story of Colonial-era adventurer Ethan Gage, by William Dietrich.

A sequel to Napoleon's Pyramids, The Rosetta Key continues Ethan Gage's tangles with mystical power-seeking competitors, action, adventure, and even romance in the Near East at the end of the 18th century. Ethan Gage is a disciple of Benjamin Franklin, a student of the new power of electricity, continually runs into the ambitious Napoleon Bonaparte, and in general runs around like an 18th century version of Benjamin Franklin Gates from National Treasure as he looks for ancient knowledge and tangles with those seeking the same.

Gage gets caught in sieges, wanders around and underneath Jerusalem, and makes a (earlier than historically established) visit to the wondrous City of Petra and even is present for the discovery of the Rosetta Stone (hence the novel's title). And that's before he returns to France for a pyrotechnic finale.

Sure, the novel has anachronisms a plenty (a given how much Gage loves his use of electricity), but the writing is sharp and solid, the action well described, and the storyline is both clear enough and with enough twists and turns to keep turning page after page. Dietrich has done his homework on what 18th century Palestine and Egypt are like and it shows, rather than being told, on the page.

Overall, I enjoyed it.

Book Review 2008 #23: The Twisted Citadel

The second of three consecutive Advance Reader's Copies I am reading, The Twisted Citadel is second in Sara Douglass' Darkglass Mountain trilogy.

The Twisted Citadel is second in Sara Douglass' "Darkglass Mountain" trilogy, a trilogy of books that act as a capstone series. Characters and locations from several of Ms. Douglass' works and series are brought into this tale, second in the story of the rise of a power called Infinity, and the diverse forces arrayed against it.

As I have read neither The Serpent Bride, nor any of the previous books that tie into this volume, I have stepped into this milieu, this series, and this world in medias res. Although I found some technical aspects of the novel somewhat unbelievable (the size of armies in a medieval environment being just one--hundreds of thousands of men make an unwieldy army even in modern times), I felt that the characterization and plot flowed well. Too often, middle volumes in a trilogy tread water, with no change in the basic frame of the conflicts introduced in the first book. Not so here. Even without reading the Serpent Bride, it was clear to me that by the end of the book, the "game board" of the conflict changes, and changes radically. I appreciate a volume and a plot where things that matter occur to the characters.

Less successful is the melodramatic elements present in the series. It might be the fault of not reading the Serpent Bride, or previous books set in this world, but I did not feel that some of the characters actions and motivations to be realistic. While in some cases they were definitely not rational, they suffered the additional fault of not coming off well to me.

In short, though, I would not recommend readers follow in my footsteps and attempt to start Douglass' writing with this book. It's clear she has excellent writing skills, but I suspect that beginning with one of her previous books or series would be a more satisfactory reading experience. However, for those who have followed her work to this point, I think that they will be more than happy with this latest volume from the Australian author.

Book Review 2008 #22: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Scott Westerfeld gives Doctorow's latest novel a blurb of "A rousing tales of techno-geek rebellion."

I was kindly given an Advance Reader's Copy by the unparalleled force known as Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and now in return, its time for me to talk about the novel.

Doctorow is more known these days for his often controversial and definitely iconcolastic positions on matters technological. Editor at Boing Boing, crusader against the excesses of Digital Rights Management...Doctorow definitely doesn't keep his head down.

I haven't actually read any novel-length fiction of his until now, and I am glad that I did, even if I am not the intended demographic of the novel.

Little Brother is set around 2010, in a US which has had a Republican return to the White House in the 2008 elections. The story centers around Marcus Yallow, whose original screenname of w1inst0n and the title of the book gave me immediate "spidey senses" of where this novel was going. We get a primer on Marcus' carefree life, and a lot of infodumping on technology--enough that the novel felt a bit like a throwback to SF novels of yore which would do the "as you know, bob" approach to science fiction.

Marcus' SF becomes the target of a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11, and as he and his friends are cutting school as part of an alternate reality game, they are caught in the DHS dragnet. His anarchic and rebellious attitude do him no good, and he spends a short period in a "Gitmo by the Bay".

Once released (and tellingly, one of his friends is *not*), Marcus becomes even more radicalized by the experience, enough that he is willing to challenge the DHS when San Francisco is put into a lockdown that would be the wet masturbatory dream of authoritarians everywhere.

And therein lies the tale.

Little Brother is written in first person, and so we get everything filtered through Marcus' perceptions, prejudices, attitudes and experience. While I suspect that Marcus' opinions may be very close to Doctorow's (although that's not guaranteed; I wouldn't make the assumption that authorial voice always equals protagonist voice), my meta-knowledge of Doctorow suggests that Marcus' radicalization and voice came very naturally to the author.

Too, aside from the infodumps which slow down the book here and there, the novel sounds like a YA novel. The teenage protagonists sounded, to my ear, like teenagers. They are real characters in a near future world that readers in the same age group can identify with.

I think Doctorow softpedals the confrontations between the teenagers and the security forces a little bit, having them result in mostly non violent confrontations. I suppose Doctorow did load the dice a little bit--a couple of shooting deaths at the hands of the DHS would have destroyed Marcus' movement, and would have turned the book into a parallel, rather than a counterpoint, to 1984. This book doesn't end completely happily...but Marcus makes a difference.

It's a very good book, whatever you think of its politics and opinions, and it fits well as a gateway book. This is the sort of YA science fiction that could, and should, and must bring new readers into the graying genre of SF. And for the rest of us, too, its an indictment of the dangers of security theater, and security which does not make us any safer.

I enjoyed it and commend it to the rest of you.

2008 Nebula Awards

The 2008 Nebula Award winners have been announced!

NOVEL
The Yiddish Policemen's Union , Michael Chabon (HarperCollins)

NOVELLA
"Fountain of Age", Nancy Kress

NOVELETTE
"The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate", Ted Chiang

SHORT STORY asimovs
"Always", Karen Joy Fowler

SCRIPT
Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro

ANDRE NORTON AWARD
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling (Scholastic)

Michael Moorcock was presented the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award, and Melisa Michaels and Graham P. Collins were presented with SFWA Service Awards.

These are first Nebula Award wins for Michael Chabon and Guillermo del Toro. Nancy Kress has won three times previously, most recently for "The Flowers of Aulit Prison" in 1988; Ted Chiang has also won three times previously, most recently for "Hell is the Absence of God" in 2003 -- in fact, Chiang has now won the Nebula all four times that he has been nominated; and Karen Joy Fowler won the award once before, in 2004 for short story "What I Didn't See".

J.K. Rowling has never been nominated for an SFWA Award previously; this is her first win, for this third year of SFWA's Andre Norton Award, created to honor young adult SF/F novels and named in honor of the late SFWA Grand Master.

Book Review 2008 #21: The Martian General's Daughter

The Martian General's Daughter is another book from the up and coming publisher Pyr, written by Theodore Judson.

Set more than two centuries from now, The Martian General's daughter titular character is Justa, the daughter of Peter Justice Black. Black is a General, the best General, of the Pan-Polarian Empire, a successor state to the United States, and a military bidder for world power. The book chronicles the life of Black, and his daughter as seen through his daughter's eyes. In the process, we also get to see the decline and fall of an Empire, in a narrative that switches back and forth from the end of the story in 2293 to an advancing narrative that begins at 2278 with the last days of a philosopher-king Emperor, Mathias, and continuing to chronicle Black's story under the reign of a spoiled, lesser son.

The twelve year reign of the son is a slowly unfolding disaster, as his inattention to anything except his own petty interests and desires ruins the Empire his father built...

Stop a moment if you have heard that story before.

In point of fact, although set in this fictional future, the story of Black and Justa take place in an Empire which is very much like the Roman Empire at the end of Marcus Aurelius' reign (the philosopher king) and the subsequent mess of a reign of his son, Commodus. In point of fact, as if to reinforce the point, there is a character in the narrative, Cleander, whose name, position and role in the narrative is the same as it is in the history that Judson borrows from.

Where Judson finds originality in borrowed history, however, are the characters of the general, and his daughter. With everything we see and hear filtered through her thoughts and impressions, Justa becomes a fully fleshed and detailed character, even if overtly she only is shining a light on her father, and the Empire as a whole. This is the strength of the novel, and where it succeeds the most. Black is an original creation, not a clone of Maximus from Gladiator. or Livius from The Fall of the Roman Empire.

The novel has a few shortcomings, however. These mainly are the speculative fiction elements of the future that we are presented. We are given enough information to get a rough sense that the Empire begins sometime in the last 21st century. The sociological changes, though, don't really seem to hold up. I couldn't buy that, in the time frame of the Empire, that Christianity would be persecuted, driven underground and discouraged, and then, in an subsequent religious revival, would NOT be the primary religion to surface. While the panoply of religious cults are interesting (and at least one important to the plot), I still think that the religious makeup of the Empire didn't quite make sense.

Finally, there is the title. While "The Martian General's Daughter" is a lovely and evocative title, Judson doesn't do anything with it. Why, in a world of failing technology, Black and Justa are sent there is never actually made clear. And his time there doesn't seem to add much if anything to his "legend". Black does many great things, but calling him the Martian General is a misnomer at best. It has been suggested to me though that the title uses Mars as a appellation of Mars, the God of War. Given that Black is described as, and we see evidence of, him as the best general of his age, this is quite plausible. So my criticism of this is not as strong as you might think.

Still, even with these shortcomings, the writing is crisp, the characters are well drawn and depicted, and while Judson does borrow heavily from history, he borrows *interesting* history. There are reasons why I find the Roman Empire fascinating, and Judson, through the lens of Black and Justa captures that fascination and retells it anew.

Book Review 2008 #20: The Gate of Gods

Except for her Stargate media tie in novels, with the Gate of Gods, the third and last book in Martha Wells' Fall of Ile-Rien series, I have now read every book she has published.

I really do like Wells work, having been introduced to it by hunting books which had been nominated for awards (and reading The Death of the Necromancer, and proceeding from there). The Gate of Gods, last in her Fall of Ile-Rien series, brings the strengths and positives of her writing to the fore.

The plot follows closely on the heels of the previous two novels. Briefly, Ile-Rien is a kingdom which many of her books have been set, at this time a Victorian-era technology kingdom with some scientific sorcery. Ile-Rien has been beset by invaders from another universe, the Gardier, who use spheres in which sorcerers are trapped and used to power spells, spells well designed to defeat the Rienish. Tremaine, our heroine, helped start reversing the long string of defeats by finding a way to other worlds, first a "staging world" the Gardier were using, and then the Gardier world itself.

This third novel brings the war to a conclusion, as Tremaine, the other Rienish, and their allies from two worlds explore a network of circle gates which hold the secret not only of how her uncle, Arisilde, got trapped into a sphere himself, but the secret of where and what the Gardier truly are.

The denouement of these revelations (without spoiling it) ties right back into the first novel and a plotline which, at the time and since, seemed to really just be a device for the Rienish to gain the trust of the Syprians. I honestly didn't see it coming, but now, thinking back over the three novels, it makes a hell of a lot of sense.

And, I don't know if she intended it that way, but the extensive use of circle gates in this book hearkens back for me to the fay circles back in her first novel set in Ile-Rien, The Element of Fire.

The Fall of Ile-Rien novels didn't sell as well as other novels she has done and for the life of me I cannot understand why. It might be that Wells writes better in a single novel format; I did notice over the course of the three novels that her "heart character" is NOT Tremaine, the ostensible heroine. In point of fact, by the end of this book, its clear to me that the brothers Ilias and Giliead, and their complex relationship, clearly are the core of the novels. I think Tremaine does suffer a little bit by comparison, and I might have liked just a tad little more wrapping up of her character as compared to the beginning of the first novel (although the growth IS there and it is noticed).

Still, I am nitpicking overmuch again. There are good reasons why Martha Wells' work has been inspirational for my roleplaying games. Wheel of the Infinite inspired a con scenario; the idea of a spiral desert city from City on Fire inspired a FTF game I ran, and I've pimped her Ile-Rien novels as good inspiration for other players. I was completely satisfied with the end of the trilogy.

Wells does fine characterization combined with a excellent feel for what makes for good adventure. Go start with the first novel in this trilogy, the Wizard Hunters. Or, if you want an earlier time period, the Element of Fire is once again available for sale. (Her single best novel, The Death of the Necromancer, is out of print, but perhaps you can find it in a UBS or somewhere else.)

Trust me, you will be glad that you did.

Book Review 2008 #19: A World Too Near

The second in Kay Kenyon's ambitious "The Entire and the Rose" quartet, a World Too Near brings us back to the story of Titus Quinn and the strange artificial universe of the Entire.

The first novel introduced the Entire, an artificial universe created by a powerful alien race known a the Tarig. With several races under their sway in this strangely beautiful realm, Titus Quinn, who accidentally arrived there only to return without his wife and daughter, went back on behalf of a megacorporation to see if the Entire might be exploited. The first novel follows his adventures as well as the fate of his estranged, blinded daughter, Sydney. The novel ended with his return to our universe, dubbed the Rose, with the knowledge that the Entire sought the destruction of our universe for fuel.

The second volume picks up at that point, with Quinn going back into the Entire to try and stop this horrific plan. Unexpectedly and much to his chagrin, the scheming corporation ladder-climber Helice Maki also comes along. She has ambitions and plans of her own for the Entire. And we finally get a good view of Titus's wife, Johanna Quinn. She has long been a prisoner of the Tarig, in the very fortress that is the key to destroying Earth and the Rose...

So there is plenty to like here. I don't think its quite as fresh as the first novel, because many of the wonders from the first novel are more commonplace here. I can accept that, its hard to come up with continually new things without fear of overstuffing the bag.

Where Kenyon falls down, though is in a few areas of the novel. Kenyon is guilty of the "show and not tell" syndrome when we learn that Sydney and the Inyx learn a dread secret--but instead of being witness to the discovery, we only have her tell of the discovery, after the fact. I felt cheated by that. Another cheat is in the weapon Earth gives Quinn to deal with the threat of the Rose. The exact strength of this weapon is debated and argued by several characters--and its never quite clear who is right and wrong. Given what happens to the weapon in the denouement of the novel, I would have liked a definitive answer on who was "right".

Too, some of the characterization and motivations of characters seemed a bit off. Not quite to the point where I think the character was "broken", but I question some of their actions given their personalities established earlier in the book.

Overall, while the writing was mostly strong and the story decent, I think the book was a bit of a sophomore slump. Its not so much that I won't seek out the third volume in the series. It's a good book. But it definitely was a drop from the first novel in my opinion.

(And I wouldn't start the series here, you would only be lost and confused. The novel mandates reading Bright of the Sky first).

Book Review 2008 #18: In the Courts of the Crimson Kings

After being disappointed with the previous reading book, I ate up my next book, In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, the second half of Stirling's Lords of Creation duology.

To recap for those who haven't read The Sky People (and why haven't you?), the Lords of Creation series are set in an alternate world much like our own...at least Earth is. In the LOC universe, it seems that Venus and Mars have been terraformed by unknown aliens 200 million years ago, and for lack of a better world, have been managed since. Humans, or protohumans have been deposited on these worlds along with flora and fauna and allowed to develop. So, on Earth, both the East and the West went for Space exploration and travel in a big way. Who cares about fighting over Vietnam when there are two whole planets out there to explore...

The Sky People was set on Venus, with dinosaurs, bronze age hominids, and "cavemen". In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, we get a Mars straight out of Burroughs, with caste-mad Martians with organic technology and a civilization that was flourishing long before the Trojan War on Earth...

The opening chapter has a bunch science fiction writers watching the landing of a probe on Mars. Stirling makes this chapter a game by giving incomplete names or descriptions or allusions to novels they have wrote (or won't write), to let the reader for fun tease out the people gathered. It was an amusing way to get into the book, separate from the main story.

That story revolves around Jeremy, an archaeologist who is going to excavate a city in the encroaching desert, and Teyud, a mercenary guard who, in the best tradition of John C. Wright, is actually, secretly, a "Space Princess". And when rivals to her dying father decide to eliminate her from the game board, it soon becomes clear that the best way for Teyud and Jeremy to survive these attacks is to boldly return to the Court of the Crimson King...

I loved this book. Like the previous book, Stirling comes up with a rational reason and logic for why and how a Burroughs-like solar system (Venus and Mars with life) could come about. Every chapter has an imaginary excerpt from Encyclopedia Brittanica on this new Mars (just like he did in the previous volume with Venus). This Mars is clearly an homage to Barsoom, with a strange Martian chess game, castes, weird technology, unusual political and social forms, and a grand vision.

And the ending of the book, without giving it away too much, is much like Stirling's novel Conquistador in that it has a fulmination of even more possibilities unfold...

I loved my trip to Stirling's Mars. So will you. Go read the Sky People first, and then go read this. You won't regret it.

Book Review 2008 #17: Reaper's Gale

Much of my March reading time was taken up with this doorstopper entry in Erikson's Malazan Empire series.

Seventh in the series, Reaper's Gale weaves together the plotlines from the previous two novels and weaves them together. The action is firmly set (with some otherworld exceptions) in the Lether Empire. Rhulad, the Emperor who dies only to come back from the dead again and again, is still seeking people to fight. And with both Icarium and Karsa Oolong at hand, he might get his biggest challenges yet.

Tehol has another plan for financial skullduggery, aided by Bugg (who we learned is much more than just a manservant). The Lether really are running the empire behind the back of the ostensible rulers, the Tiste Edur. The refugees from the previous book are still running ahead of pursuit. A new threat rises in the east, one who has a pair of elder race K'Chain'Che'Malle on his team.

Oh, and the Malazans arrive on the shores, with a misconception of the political structure of the Lether Empire. They are expecting to have the Lether welcome them as liberators...

So its a classic Erikson book with tons of characters, plots, locations and entanglements. And yet for all of this, I think this is Erikson's weakest book since his first, and possibly weaker than this. I got the impression as I reading it that Erikson did not like writing this book very much. I hope its not an indication of future volumes or quality. Fates of several characters are handled in a very abrupt fashion. Conflicts and long built up confrontations and resolutions come off, frankly, as flat and insipid.

Oh, its not all bad. There were scenes and (new) characters and locations that I liked. But it seemed like it was a lot more work to get through this book than previous ones, and the end left me dissatisfied rather than eager for the next book in the series.

This was definitely a step backward in the Malazan saga.

Why Fantasy over SF?

A few of a crowd of F/SF novelists have been pondering the question. Why is Fantasy now outstripping SF and handily?

Tate Holloway (who did not find much success writing SF as Lyda Morehouse) has thoughts.

Eleanor Arnason has several posts on the subject, too:

http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/2008/04/cross-post-1.html

http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/2008/04/cross-post-2.html

http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/2008/04/post-3.html

http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/2008/04/more-on-fantasy-and-science-fiction.html

Is it that Fantasy is more accessible? Is modern SF too dystopian and dark?

Plot Your Own Horror: Craven House Horrors

Back in the 80's, there was a line of choose your own adventure books called "Plot your own horror series". I had a couple of these and remember them vividly.

I found a couple used, recently and decided to map out the choices. This is especially easy since, unlike the normal Choose your own adventure books, these had no tangling branches.

So I set to mapping out Craven House Horrors:

Its really only visible in the largest size (click on it for a link)

There are 29 endings in the book.

10 lead to unambiguous escape.
1 leads to an escape of sorts
The remaining 18 are deadly...ranging from being bitten by a poisonous snake, to being locked in a freezer, to being turned into a statue.

Thoughts on the 2007 Hugo Nominees

Andrew is right, its an interesting list this year.

Best Novel

* The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)
* Brasyl by Ian McDonald (Gollancz; Pyr)
* Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer (Tor; Analog Oct. 2006-Jan/Feb. 2007)
* The Last Colony by John Scalzi (Tor)
* Halting State by Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit)

Four out of five isn't bad. I don't understand how Sawyer made this list. Its not even on the Locus list of recommended reading. And I haven't been thrilled with what Sawyer I have read. This is Stross' fifth straight novel nomination--a record.

Best Novella

* "Fountains of Age" by Nancy Kress (Asimov's July 2007)
* "Recovering Apollo 8" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Asimov's Feb. 2007)
* "Stars Seen Through Stone" by Lucius Shepard (F&SF July 2007)
* "All Seated on the Ground" by Connie Willis (Asimov's Dec. 2007; Subterranean Press)
* "Memorare" by Gene Wolfe (F&SF April 2007)

A solid set of authors and stories.

Best Novelette

* "The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairytale of Economics" by Daniel Abraham (Logorrhea ed. by John Klima, Bantam)
* "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang (F&SF Sept. 2007)
* "Dark Integers" by Greg Egan (Asimov's Oct./Nov. 2007)
* "Glory" by Greg Egan (The New Space Opera, ed. by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan, HarperCollins/Eos)
* "Finisterra" by David Moles (F&SF Dec. 2007)

Two Egans! (I read the Egan in TNSO). And Chiang, *again*. (It will be no surprise if he wins). I liked Abraham's A Shadow in Summer novel, although I've not read this story.

Best Short Story

* "Last Contact" by Stephen Baxter (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, ed. by George Mann, Solaris Books)
* "Tideline" by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov's June 2007)
* "Who's Afraid of Wolf 359?" by Ken MacLeod (The New Space Opera, ed. by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan, HarperCollins/Eos)
* "Distant Replay" by Mike Resnick (Asimov's April/May 2007)
* "A Small Room in Koboldtown" by Michael Swanwick (Asimov's April/May 2007; The Dog Said Bow-Wow, Tachyon Publication

Solid authors. I liked the Macleod story (which I read in the NSO book). I'm rooting for my friend Bear, though!

Best Related Book

* The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Glyer; appendix by David Bratman (Kent State University Press)
* Breakfast in the Ruins: Science Fiction in the Last Millennium by Barry Malzberg (Baen)
* Emshwiller: Infinity x Two by Luis Ortiz, intro. by Carol Emshwiller, fwd. by Alex Eisenstien (Nonstop)
* Brave New Words: the Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction by Jeff Prucher (Oxford University Press)
* The Arrival by Shaun Tan (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic)

Pulling for Brave New Words.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

* Enchanted Written by Bill Kelly, Directed by Kevin Lima (Walt Disney Pictures)
* The Golden Compass Written by Chris Weitz, Based on the novel by Philip Pullman, Directed by Chris Weitz (New Line Cinema)
* Heroes, Season 1, Created by Tim Kring (NBC Universal Television and Tailwind Productions Written by Tim Kring, Jeph Loeb, Bryan Fuller, Michael Green, Natalie Chaidez, Jesse Alexander, Adam Armus, Aron Eli Coleite, Joe Pokaski, Christopher Zatta, Chuck Kim, Directed by David Semel, Allan Arkush, Greg Beeman, Ernest R. Dickerson, Paul Shapiro, Donna Deitch, Paul A. Edwards, John Badham, Terrence O'Hara, Jeannot Szwarc, Roxann Dawson, Kevin Bray, Adam Kane
* Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Written by Michael Goldenberg, Based on the novel by J.K. Rowling, Directed by David Yates (Warner Bros. Pictures)
* Stardust Written by Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn, Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman, Directed by Matthew Vaughn (Paramount Pictures)

I suspect Stardust will win here...or maybe Heroes.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

* Battlestar Galactica "Razor" written by Michael Taylor, directed by Félix Enríquez Alcalá and Wayne Rose (Sci Fi Channel) (televised version, not DVD)
* Dr. Who "Blink" written by Stephen Moffat, directed by Hettie Macdonald (BBC)
* Dr. Who "Human Nature" / "Family of Blood" written by Paul Cornell, directed by Charles Palmer (BBC)
* Star Trek New Voyages "World Enough and Time" written by Michael Reaves & Marc Scott Zicree, directed by Marc Scott Zicree (Cawley Entertainment Co. and The Magic Time Co.)
* Torchwood "Captain Jack Harkness" written by Catherine Tregenna, directed by Ashley Way (BBC Wales)

The usual suspects here, except for the controversial "Star Trek New Voyages" entry.

Best Professional Editor, Short Form

* Ellen Datlow (The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (St. Martin's), Coyote Road (Viking), Inferno (Tor))
* Stanley Schmidt (Analog)
* Jonathan Strahan (The New Space Opera (Eos/HarperCollins), The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 1 (Night Shade), Eclipse One (Night Shade))
* Gordon Van Gelder (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction)
* Sheila Williams (Asimov's Science Fiction)

I'd like Strahan to win. I liked TNSO a lot.

Best Professional Editor, Long Form

* Lou Anders (Pyr)
* Ginjer Buchanan (Ace/Roc)
* David G. Hartwell (Senior Editor, Tor/Forge)
* Beth Meacham (Tor)
* Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor)

It's hard to go wrong with this list. Out of the books I read last year, several were Pyr's...so on that basis, I'd give Lou my vote.

* Bob Eggleton (Covers: To Outlive Eternity and Other Stories (Baen), Ivory (Pyr), & The Taint and Other Stories (Subterranean))
* Phil Foglio (Covers: Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures, Vol. 2 (Meisha Merlin), What's New (Dragon Magazine Aug. 2007), Girl Genius Vol. 6-Agatha Heterodyne & the Golden Trilobite (Airship Entertainment))
* John Harris (Covers: Spindrift (Ace), Horizons (Tor), The Last Colony (Tor))
* Stephan Martiniere (Covers: Brasyl (Pyr), Mainspring (Tor), Dragons of Babel (Tor))
* John Picacio (Covers: Fast Forward 2 (Pyr), Time's Child (HarperCollins/Eos), A Thousand Deaths (Golden Gryphon))
* Shaun Tan

Martiniere, hands down.

Best Semiprozine

* Ansible edited by David Langford
* Helix edited by William Sanders and Lawrence Watt-Evans
* Interzone edited by Andy Cox
* Locus edited by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong, & Liza Groen Trombi
* The New York Review of Science Fiction, edited by Kathryn Cramer, Kristine Dikeman, David Hartwell & Kevin J. Maroney

Locus will win...again.

Best Fanzine

* Argentus edited by Steven H Silver
* Challenger edited by Guy Lillian III
* Drink Tank edited by Chris Garcia
* File 770 edited by Mike Glyer
* PLOKTA edited by Alison Scott, Steve Davies, & Mike Scott

I have to root for Steve.

Best Fan Writer

* Chris Garcia
* David Langford
* Cheryl Morgan
* John Scalzi
* Steven H Silver

While it would be weird for John to win novel AND fan writer, this category seems to be the annual "David Langford award". Someone else win for a change, please!

Best Fan Artist

* Brad Foster
* Teddy Harvia
* Sue Mason
* Steve Stiles
* Taral Wayne

No dog in the fight.

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Writer (Not a Hugo, But an Incredible Facsimile of One)

* Joe Abercrombie (2nd year of eligibility)
* Jon Armstrong (1st year of eligibility)
* David Anthony Durham (1st year of eligibility)
* David Louis Edelman (2nd year of eligibility)
* Mary Robinette Kowal (2nd year of eligibility)
* Scott Lynch (2nd year of eligibility)

I suspect Lynch will win this in a walk.

RIP, Arthur C Clarke

Sci-fi guru Arthur Clarke dies at 90 - Space- msnbc.com

Arthur C Clarke, author of 2001, 2010 and many other books, has died in his home in Sri Lanka.

As much as I like 2001 as a cinematic achievement, my favorite novel of his probably is Rendezvous with Rama. One of the original and best, Big Damn Object novels.

Book Review 2008 #16: The Merchants War

Next up is the fourth book in Charles Stross series about a clan of world-walking drug dealers, the Merchants War shares the strengths and the weaknesses of the previous volumes and ramps up the action and plot nicely.

Book Three, Clan Corporate ended with a marriage announcement and gathering that went horribly wrong as, simultaneously, agents from a US Government agency managed to make their way across to the world of the Gruinmarkt into the middle of a gathering set to marry the heroine, Miriam, to a brain-damaged son of the King, and said gathering went up in flames.

Book Four shows the smoke clearing from that event as Egon, elder son of the King, takes control of the situation and decides Something Must Be Done. At the same time, Miriam, barely escaped into the third world of New London, has new problems with the police forces in that world. And of course Mike, part of that op across to that world, has problems of his own.

What's more, not content with merely working out the consequences of these plots, Stross throws a new puzzle in the mix, and starts to answer a long standing question of the series: just what is the mechanism that allows the Family to really worldwalk in the first place.

Splendid, vivid writing, great plot and action and character bits make this another winner for Mr. Stross. I particularly liked Mike's view of Olga, a character we've seen before through Miriam, and now get new sides and facets as we see her through the eyes of Mike, and get a sense that she's even more competent that we really knew. The world and set up are just as intriguing as before, if not more so, with the revelations made in the book.

The major flaw in the book, and once again its not Stross' fault, really, is the marketing. The book, like a couple of the previous books, has an "ending problem". These books have been sliced and diced and released in a suboptimal way, in my opinion. The book simply ends without a real attempt at a crescendo.

Still, fans of the previous three novels will love this one, and if you haven't started reading this series--go get the Family Trade and get yourself started. World walking scions, battles in a medieval world with guns and an ultralight(!), intrigue, mystery, fine writing and character development. Its a tasty chili of goodness.

Book Reviews 2008 #14-15 The Eyre Affair and Silverlock

Since I read these books with allied conceits back to back, I am going to review them together.

The Eyre Affair is the first Thursday Next novel by Jasper Fforde.

Silverlock is by John Myers Myers

Steven Silver describes The Eyre Affair as "James Bond-style melodrama set in an alternative world which was designed by the lovers of English literature. This book, which appears to be the first in a series, pits Special Operations agent Thursday Next against her former instructor, the third most wanted man in the world, Acheron Hades, a literary Moriarty whose goal seems to be the destruction of literature as it is known and loved."

That's a good way of describing the strange world of Thursday Next. The world is an alternate history, and in a sense is an alternate world as well. The Crimean War has been going on and off since the 1850's, air travel is limited to dirigible,and the rest of the political history is implausible at best.

However, the history changes are besides the point in this novel. Literature is all the rage, to the point of clubs, heated discussions, paraphernalia and even government operatives devoted to it. And a Moriarty like figure strides across this world: Acheron Hades. His strange and potent powers are not explained (a weakness, I think) but he brings them to bear for nefarious plots, the only person remotely able to counter him being Thursday.

His main plot forms the crux and title of the novel. Stealing a machine allowing entrance to and from fictional works (although travel independent of this machine also seems possible), Hades greatest gambit is to hold Jane Eyre, the fictional character for ransom.

The novel is a romp that worked for me best when I wasn't thinking about lacunae and implausibilities in the world as it was displayed. I got into it more when I privately conflated Next's England as a land of literature of its own, with Story as an important law of nature as the more ordinary ones.

Like the Weather Warden series, too, this novel is also a case where I am convinced that a friend of mine "could have written" it, in this case my friend Mel. It has her sense of humor, literary knowledge and the occasional penchant for throwing a bomb or two.

I enjoyed the book and I expect English Majors (pace Garrison Keillor) will like the novel even more.

My elder brother introduced me to a banged up paperback copy of this novel years ago, and although I didn't recognize a tenth of the literary references, I fell for the book hard. A new hardcover edition by NESFA press proved irresistable, especially since this edition includes a guide to the Commonwealth--a concordance.

Shandon Silverlock, on a ship out of Baltimore, falls overboard, and washes up in the Commonwealth, a realm of literary characters, locations and situations. He runs into a bard with many names and identities, gets transformed (briefly) by Circe, participates in a viking invasion, and meets Robin Hood. He encounters Puck, sups with the Mad Hatter, visits Heorot Hall after Beowulf's victory, and after all that, only then really starts his adventures...

The book is a seminal one in F/SF circles, since it helped inspire filking. The book, like the Hobbit, has songs in it. And these songs are literary and allusional, too...when Golias tells the story of the battle of the Alamo, for instance, to the thanes in Heorot, Sam Houston becomes 'Houston the Raven' and Jim Bowie becomes 'Bowie Gizzardbane'. There are even plenty of throwaway references and tags to literary characters, places and things from Gilgamesh to Huck Finn's raft.

Anyone who loves literature and fiction owes it to themselves to read Silverlock.

Book Review 2008 #13: The Dragon's Nine Sons

I love alternate history.

One of my favorite sub-genres within the lands of Fantasy and Science Fiction, I've alternate history from Lest Darkness Fall and Guns of the South, and through newer authors like Charles Stross, Naomi Novik and S.M. Stirling.

Another favored sub-genre of mine is space opera and adventure. From Planet of Adventure and Vance's novels in the Gaean Reach, through Vorkosigan's adventures, Alistair Reynolds, and others.

Chris Roberson (whose Paragaea was one of my favorite reads last year) has married these two genres in a novel set in his Celestial Empire alternate history, The Dragons Nine Sons. (TDNS). I also, thanks to his kind graces, had an opportunity to first read a prequel story, "The Line of Dichotomy"

It's the dirty dozen in space...in an alternate history space war between the Chinese and the Aztecs.

That's the flippant way to describe the novel.

Set in an Alternate History where the 21st century is a conflict between a world-spanning Chinese Empire and their only significant rival, the Mexica (Aztecs), TDNS is a story of several disgraced Chinese soldiers and officers, brought together for a one-way suicide mission on a stolen Mexica ship. The conflict between these two powers has heated up around Mars, and the Chinese have discovered that the Mexica have a secret asteroid base. Take out that base, and the Mexica's space efforts would be severely crippled. However, such a mission is not likely to result in any survivors.

Thus, we meet Captain Zhuan Jie and Bannerman Yao, the two disgraced head officers picked for the mission. While the former's reason for being included is made clearly early, we only later learn the full depth of Yao's story (and this is gone in more detail in the story I read along with it). We also meet the rest of the crew, and at various points during the trip, get the classic device of them telling their tale of how they came to be on the mission.

After training and preparation and the long trip to the asteroid, the real mission begins. A twist, shamefully spoiled on the back blurb, changes the mission parameters dramatically, and the crew has an additional objective to simply destroying the asteroid base...

The weakest part of the novel, in my opinion, is the execution of the mission itself. I felt that the Mexica were a bit too faceless, as personalities and antagonists. Oh, we get very lovely detail on the surface about their strange technology and culture and how it compares to the Chinese. Particularly gruesome was the use of blood sacrifice as a sensor to activating controls on the ship (and presumably elsewhere). And the city within the asteroid base is well detailed.

However, the Mexica don't work as individual opponents. While the Line of Dichotomy does portray one of the Jaguar knights as an individual, in TDNS, they are relatively faceless enemies, adversaries to be killed and nothing more. I was a bit disappointed in this. My favorite WWII action movie, Where Eagles Dare, takes great pains to make the Nazis in the Castle individuals as well as adversaries. I didn't get that same sense in this book, and I think it could have made the latter portion of book as strong as the first parts.

I also got the feeling that the mission as described was too much for the Dragon's Nine Sons, especially given the secondary mission that the crew undertakes and just how fraught with peril the asteroid is. Roberson pulls his punches a little, I think, in making an impossible mission within the realm of possibility.

The stronger, earlier portions of the novel give us a sense of the strange alternate nature of this world. I ate up the rich details of life in a Chinese dominated Mars and space navy. Details large and small fill and develop very nicely. And Roberson feels no need to actually discuss the point of divergence, a weakness many novels in the genre have. The world is simply presented as it is for us to enjoy. And I did.

In addition, Roberson does a great job showing the natures of our protagonists, both in their personalities and in their backstories. The gambler/thief, the prankster, the murderers (although we come to understand why they killed), the pacifist...yes, they are clearly archetypes that you have seen before, but they are well drawn, with a good amount of tension between such very different characters. And these character traits pay off throughout the novel. Roberson understands Chekhov's Law very well.

Overall, I am quite happy with the read and enjoyed it. There are a number of other stories set in the Celestial Empire (one or two of which I have read already). Given my taste f