Science-Fictional-Type Links & Things
Fantasy Book Critic reviews Warren Ellis’s first novel, Crooked Little Vein.
BestSF has reviewed a few magazines this week:
- A recent issue of Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest
- F&SF’s May 2007 issue
- Interzone’s issue 210
Don D’Amassa’s Critical Mass has new reviews on the Science Fiction page, including Blake Nelson’s young adult novel They Came From Below, Robert Charles Wilson’s Axis, and Charles Stross’s Halting State.
D’Amassa’s Fantasy page also has new reviews: Steph Swainston’s The Modern World, Charles Stross’s The Merchants’ War, and others.
And D’Amassa’s Horror page has new reviews as well: Scott Thomas’s Over the Darkening Fields, the new Tales from the Crypt #1, and more.
Nader Elhefnawy, at Tangent, goes off on a dumb Christopher Hitchens quote from Atlantic Monthly to the effect that SF has a “dearth of sex.”
Elhefnawy also had an essay at Tangent about Michael Moorcock and censorship.
The Space Review has published a transcript of the talk, and the following question and answer session, given by NASA Administrator Mike Griffin at the recent Heinlein Centennial.
The Contra Costa Times has an article on the huge science fiction collection at the University of California-Riverside.
Ben Bova’s regular column in the Naples News is devoted to talking about his own Campbell Award-winning novel Titan, Campbell himself, and science fiction in general.
The Salt Lake Tribune looks at the interesting phenomenon of Christian fantasy novels.
Neth Space is annoyed that so many titles begin with the word “the.”
SF Scope reports on editor and author Gardner Dozois’s recent quintuple bypass heart surgery. Details are few, but it sounds like he’s recovering pretty well – I certainly hope so, and send him all best wishes. (In happier Dozois news, he recently turned in a new original anthology, tentatively entitled Galactic Empires, to Rome Quezada of the SF Book Club, and I’m sure that book will be another winner.)
Cory Doctorow has another one of his periodic essays at Locus Online this week, all about different kinds of visions of the future.
The soul-searching about reviewing on blogs continues unabated into a second week, as Larry of the OF Blog of the Fallen explains why he reviews.
Similarly, Patrick, of Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, has a long post about reviewing, book giveaways, and blogging.
The UK SF Book News Network now has the full table of contents for the New Penguin Science Fiction Omnibus, edited by Brian Aldiss.
Locus Online lists the newly published books they’ve seen in early July.
John Scalzi has a long post about various fannish types who think he’s not fan enough to win the Best Fan Writer Hugo. (Hm. That sentence needed two or three more variations on the word “fan” to really make it sing. Must do better next time.)
The End of Science Fiction Debate continues to shamble forward, refusing to die no matter how many bullets are pumped into its zombie torso. Today, it’s the SF Diplomat that wants to eat our brains.
Jim McDonald apparently doesn’t think people are terrified enough, because he’s posted another one of his “interesting ways you can die” posts to Making Light – this time, it’s ostensibly about what you need to know about trauma.
Green Man Review had one of its regular bi-weekly updates, including reviews for:
- Joe Hill’s Heart-Shaped Box
- John Scalzi’s The Sagan Diary
- B.P.R.D.: Hollow Earth and Other Stories, the first collection of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy spin-off series
- The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide
- Robin McKinley’s Dragonhaven
- Philip K. Dick’s Voices from the Street
- the Darrell Schweitzer-edited Neil Gaiman Reader
- E.E. Knight’s Valentine Resolve
- Rebecca Ore’s Time’s Child
- and a couple of others
Tangent Online also has a bunch of new reviews this week:
- Julie Phillips’s biography, James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice Sheldon
- The Distance Traveled 2: A Little Slice of Heaven by Brett Alexander Savory and Gord Zajac
- Interzone’s special Michael Moorcock issue
- Interzone’s regular issue #211
- The Sheila Williams-edited Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 30th Anniversary Anthology
- Forrest Aguirre’s Swans Over the Moon
- The June updates from Strange Horizons
- And On Spec’s spring 2007 issue (#68).
The Providence Journal reviews Madeleine L’Engle’s classic young adult fantasy novel A Wrinkle in Time.
The Globe and Mail reviews a number of children’s books, including the YA novel Dragonsdale by Salamanda Drake.
Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review promotes Glen Cook’s “Black Company” series.
SciFi Weekly reviews Richard K. Morgan’s new novel Thirteen.
SFF World reviews Marianne de Pierres’s new novel Dark Space.
SF Signal rounds up and reprints Entertainment Weekly’s short reviews of SF/Fantasy books from the July 20th issue.
SF Site had its usual big middle-of-the-month update, including:
- a review of Jim C. Hines’s Goblin Hero
- a review of the May issue of F&SF
- a review of The SFWA European Hall of Fame, edited by James and Kathryn Morrow
- a review of Jeff Somers’s The Electric Church
- a review of Laurie J. Marks’s Water Logic
- a review of Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction edited by Jeff Prucher
- the new installment of Neil Walsh’s “Overlooked or Over-Hyped?” column, this time focusing on Richard Adams’s Watership Down and Terry Bisson’s Pirates of the Universe.
- and more.
Publishers Weekly’s children’s reviews for this week include The Nixie’s Song by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, and Shaun Tan’s The Arrival.
And Publishers Weekly’s Fiction reviews this week include Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child’s Wheel of Darkness, Charlaine Harris’s An Ice Cold Grave, Fleet of Worlds by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner, and more.