Sun Jul 15, 2007 — by Andrew Wheeler

Links & News & Interviews & Cats

Various topics, linked medium-well

Time magazine, which manages to get so much wrong so much of the time, oddly is very accurate and interesting on the subject of LOLcats. [via The Beat]

Not science fiction, but only because it didn’t happen: the British military is denying sending giant, man-eating badgers to terrify the citizen of the Iraqi city of Basra.

The New York Times’s PaperCuts blog looks at the cover of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

David Louis Edelman, at DeepGenre, ponders The End of Science Fiction.

Paranormal romance writer Sherrilyn Kenyon is now listed in Cambridge Who’s Who, and sent out a press release to tout that.

The Readercon brain trust compiled the semi-official canon of Slipstream writing. Great! Now we can go back to arguing about what “slipstream” actually means…

If you happen to be in Luxembourg (and I can’t tell you how often I’ve found myself in Luxembourg without thinking about it), you might want to pop your head into the Tomorrow Now exhibition at the Mudam Luxembuorg, which “explores the relationship between design and science fiction.”

I’d expected something really weird from the Montgomery Advertiser’s reference to “Faulkner’s Narnia” -- just think about that for a moment, if you will – but it turns out that Faulkner University is putting on a stage adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as Narnia. Still, the idea of a Prince Caspian/As I Lay Dying mash-up is still out there for the taking…

SF Signal has a Big-@$$ Collection of Robert A. Heinlein Links and wants to share them with the world.

I’ve just realized that the coolest thing I saw this weekend at Readercon – Mary Robinette Kowal’s heavily sticker-modified laptop, which resembles a 19th century typewriter – is documented online.

Locus Online had two of their regular lists of newly-published materials over the weekend: one of other magazines and one of new books.

ZDnet looks at (literally; it’s a slide show of cover art with accompanying text) several famous SF novels that inspired current high technology.

The New York Times recently ran an obituary for Fred Saberhagen. (That’s an Associated Press piece that appeared in several other papers; the Albuquerque Tribune also has a personal remembrance of Saberhagen by Ollie Reed, Jr.)

Sean Stubblefield, writing in the Student Operated Press, obviously has too much time on his hands, because he’s obsessing about all of the “forgotten” SF stories that he’ll never find. (Even though there’s more SF published every single year than any one person can read that year to begin with.)

Biology in Science Fiction looks at the July 5th issue of Nature, which has a SFnal focus on the biological sciences.

Paul Kincaid, writing in Bookslut, runs through this year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award controversy – that two books with SFnal elements published in the mainstream weren’t on the shortlist – and thinks about what it means for SF. (Personally, what I think it says is that the Clarke Award has run so far afield that regular SF readers don’t care about it any more – it doesn’t represent what they think of as “science fiction.”)

William Gibson, who invented the entire concept of cyberspace, will be promoting his new book, Spook Country, on Second Life. Perhaps irony is not quite as dead as had previously been thought.

The Dayton Daily News reports on the 36th annual PulpCon, which has been held in Dayton more often than in any other city.

Subterranean magazine has posted the last pieces of their excerpt from Elizabeth Bear’s unpublished novel “One-Eyed Jack and the Suicide King, and Anne KG Murphy’s reviews of all of the Hugo-nominated novels.

Interviews!

Comic Book Resources talks to Ed Brubaker about a crossover called “Endangered Species.” (And there are so many crossovers running now, that I didn’tt even hear of that one until yesterday.)

Fantasy Book Critic talks to Nicholas Christopher, author of The Bestiary.

SciFi Wire chatted with David Marusek about his new book Getting to Know You, which contains all of his short fiction through 2006.

The Phoenix New Times profiles betselling young adult fantasy writer Stephenie Meyer, author of Twilight. [via Locus Online]

Movies and Radio Plays!

We take our news where we can find it, but I have to admit the China View newspaper of Xinhua is not the first place we expect to find Hollywood news. However, they’re the ones who told us that Warner Brothers has optioned Angie Sage’s “Septimus Heap” young adult fantasy series for what they hope will be a sequence of massively successful, big-budget movies…so we’re going to believe them.

SFX reports that my favorite Douglas Adams novel, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, is being adapted into a 6-part radio serial by the BBC.

Magazine news!

SF Scope lists the contents of Fantasy Magazine’s sixth issue.

Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest also has a new issue, with stories by David Niall Wilson and Alethea Kontis and interviews with Wilson and Shimmer editor Beth Wodzinski.

SF Scope also lists the contents of the October/November double issue of Asimov’s, which includes stories by Greg Egan, Robert Reed, Allen Steele, Liz Williams, and Isaac Asimov (a reprint of “Nightfall”).

Interzone lists a number of upcoming stories and illustrations, without saying what issues they will be in.

Author Readings!

James Maxey reads from his novel Bitterwood, live at Readercon!

Artworks copyright by their appropriate legitimate copyright holders. All Rights Reserved.

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