Fierce and compelling: Ender’s Shadow: Battle School

As a companion to my earlier piece, my review of Mike Carey and Sebastian Fiumara's Ender's Shadow: Battle Schoolis now up at Tor.com.

I liked this one too!

Building a Comprehensive SF&F Collection

I'm giving a talk next month to an association of Texas librarians on how to build a good, comprehensive SF&F collection. I've given this talk before, restricting myself just to the science fiction genre, and am pretty confident with my list of works (both classic and contemporary) and what I have to say about it. Updating that speech with a few gems from the last year won't be hard. But this year, I'm giving two talks, one on science fiction and one just on fantasy.

So...

I'd really appreciate some suggestions on what fantasy books every library should have. Science fiction suggestions are also welcome, but it's the fantasy list where I'm looking for the most input. Obviously, Lord of the Rings, Wizard of Earthsea, etc..., but we need to get passed these to gems like Mythago Wood, etc... that the audience may or may not have heard of. Obviously, we can't fit everything in, and obviously they'll be subjective differences between one persons list and another, but what I want to produce is a good overview of fantasy fiction with enough of the signposts to pass muster and enough variety for a variety of tastes. I'm hoping for about 150 titles, and I do want a good representation of contemporary authors. I've got a lot of thoughts on this already, but would really appreciate input to help cover any blindspots I may have, as well as to stimulate a good discussion for all our benefits.

Thanks!

Exciting and unsettling: Ender’s Game: Battle School

My review of Ender's Game: Battle School,the comic adaptation from the creative team of writer Christopher Yost (Killer of Demons, X-Force, Red Robin) and artist Pasqual Ferry (Ultimate Fantastic Four, Ultimate Iron Man), is up at Tor.com.

In short, I dug it.

Two Interviews with James Enge

Yesterday, two separate interviews went up with Blood of Ambroseauthor James Enge. First, he guested on the newly-returned Adventures in SciFi Publishing podcast. Enge and host Shaun Farrell discuss "Leiber vs. Tolkien fantasy, massive fantasy epics, and his beef with H.G. Wells."

Then, Stargate writer/producer Joseph Mallozzi posted the result of his book clubs's Q&A with Enge.

Both interviews are well-worth checking out (even if I am biased).

Stalked by a Bibliophile

The wonderful Charles Tan has posted an interview with Yours Truly on Bibliophile Stalker. I think it came off rather well, if I do say so myself. Here's a taste:

What are the qualities that you look for in a story?

This is broad. But I could narrow it down to two things.

One, there is a certain spark that either is or isn’t there. If it’s there, it’s there from the first sentence and it runs to the end. If it isn’t there at the start, it won’t show up late in the game. People think that editors see tons of atrocious fiction in their submission pile, but the truth is, we see tons of perfectly competent fiction. We’re not looking for diamonds in the rough. We’re looking for diamonds amid the quartz and crystal. There is so much competition out there, both to get published, and then when you do, to get noticed alongside everything else on the shelf. Why take something that fires on only one or two cylinders when next to it is something that fires on all cylinders?

Second, I think I in particular am looking for a narrow band of overlap between commercial and literary fiction, or between stories with enough of a plot and action component to appeal to a broad audience, but a certain elevated writing style that transcends the average.

Charles N. Brown, 1937 - 2009

Very sad news.

MONDAY, JULY 13, 2009

Charles N. Brown, 1937-2009 - posted at 7/13/2009 09:46:00 AM PT
Locus publisher, editor, and co-founder Charles N. Brown, 72, died peacefully in his sleep July 12, 2009 on his way home from Readercon.

Charles Nikki Brown was born June 24, 1937 in Brooklyn NY, where he grew up. He attended the City College of New York, taking time off from 1956-59 to serve in the US Navy, and finished his degree (BS in physics and engineering) at night on the GI Bill while working as a junior engineer in the '60s. He married twice, to Marsha Elkin (1962-69), who helped him start Locus, and to Dena Benatan (1970-77), who co-edited Locus for many years while he worked full time. He moved to San Francisco in 1972, working as a nuclear engineer until becoming a full-time SF editor in 1975. The Locus offices have been in Brown's home in the Oakland hills since 1973.

Brown co-founded Locus with Ed Meskys and Dave Vanderwerf as a one-sheet news fanzine in 1968, originally created to help the Boston Science Fiction Group win its Worldcon bid. Brown enjoyed editing Locus so much that he continued the magazine far beyond its original planned one-year run. Locus was nominated for its first Hugo Award in 1970, and Brown was a best fan writer nominee the same year. Locus won the first of its 29 Hugos in 1971.

During Brown's long and illustrious career he was the first book reviewer for Asimov's; wrote the Best of the Year summary for Terry Carr's annual anthologies (1975-87); wrote numerous magazines and newspapers; edited several SF anthologies; appeared on countless convention panels; was a frequent Guest of Honor, speaker, and judge at writers' seminars; and has been a jury member for various major SF awards.

As per his wishes, Locus will continue to publish, with executive editor Liza Groen Trombi taking over as editor-in-chief with the August 2009 issue.

A complete obituary with tributes and a photo retrospective will appear in the August issue.

FREE by Chris Anderson

FREE (full book) by Chris Anderson

Yours In Agony: Ranting About SciFi Migrations

The other day, I got excited by BioWare's forthcoming game Star Wars: The Old Republic, both in terms of what it represented as "what a Star Wars film/television series could be" and, in a larger sense, as evidence for science fiction narratives migrating out of literature and into gaming. I heard enough good things in response to that post to pick up a Game Pro magazine in a coffeeshop yesterday and read up on that title and BioWare's successful Mass Effect games. Mass Effect has already been mentioned to me a time or two, specifically as being "real science fiction," but you know how it takes something a time or two to get on your radar...Well, now BioWare is looming large on said radar. (You can follow them on Twitter here, btw.) Around the same time, I saw a Tor press release on the Adventures in Sci Fi Publishing blog, about their own forthcoming deal to produce EVE Online novels. So all these thoughts about convergence were bumping around in my brain.

Somewhere in there, Rick Kleffel called inviting me to guest on his wonderful Agony Column podcast, and all these jumbled thoughts came spilling out. I'm not sure what we actually said, but we talk about Tor's announcement, Mass Effect (which I mistakenly call "Massive Attack." Apologies, guys), the potential impact of James Cameron's Avatar, John Scalzi's new role on Stargate: Universe and the way SF is migrating out of category into YA, mainstream literature, videogaming, film, television, etc... We didn't actually mention a single Pyr book, so, you know, go buy some anyway please. But meanwhile, the podcast will be available on iTunes shortly, and here is a direct link.

I haven't gamed since I became a parent (I was 1/3 of the way into Ultimate Spider-Man when that happened), but I'm itching to see what I've been missing. And I'll certainly look to see if BioWare are attending the San Diego Comic Con.

THE INVISIBLE HAND OF THE GODS OF WRITING

Mark Chadbourn, author of the Age of Misrule trilogy that begins with World's End,is guest-blogging at Amazon's Omnivoracious, courtesy of the amazing Jeff Vandermeer. His first post, THE INVISIBLE HAND OF THE GODS OF WRITING, is up now. It begins:

"When the author and poet Robert Graves embarked on a study of ancient myth, he found an unsettling world opening up to him. The work in question, The White Goddess, proposed the existence of a long-forgotten cult dedicated to a moon goddess who was the root of most pre-Christian religions--Greek, Phoenician, Celtic, Roman, Scandinavian Hindu, even African...."

You'll have to go here for the rest. Meanwhile, I have several similar stories from when I wrote a script with a partner in my Hollywood days. The script was about a Vatican conspiracy of collosal proportions (this several years before Dan Brown), and I know firsthand that Joe Straczynski experienced a lot of odd coincidences when he wrote Babylon 5, which was also based on Celtic myth. Hmmm....

Blood of Ambrose @ Joe Mallozzi's Book Club Discussion

This week kicks of a discussion of James Enge's Blood of Ambroseat Joseph Mallozzi's Weblog.Joe kicks it off with his thoughts on the book.

"Enge’s prose is tight and efficient, devoid of the rambling, oft-unendurable meandering descriptive passages that typify the high-fantasy genre. The setting is rich in detail, a masterful creation of world building, while the magic system that runs through the narrative proves ferociously imaginative yet impressive in its consistency. The characters are interesting – particularly Ambrosia and Morlock – yet miss the depth that would have made them truly memorable....Still, a unique and entertaining read with plenty to recommend it in terms of the myriad of inspired elements on hand to facilitate and complicate: flesh golems, mechanical spiders, the living dead, inelegant leaping horses, sorcerers, and mazelike castle passageways to make Mervyn Peake envious. An impressive fantasy debut."

Joe ends the post by soliciting questions for the forthcoming Q&A with James.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Why couldn't this have been the movie? Any of the movies? This is awesome! Star Wars is such an unusual property, where everything spun out around it is better than it's core film franchise...

Video Game - E3 2009 - Video Game Trailers

Also, insert standard Lou-thoughts about SF spreading to other mediums, the potential of SF in the 21st century to come from anywhere, the best stuff being done outside tradition Hollywood film channels, etc... yada yada yada...