Kay Kenyon's brilliant sci-fantasy epic quartet, The Entire and the Rose, is now available in its entirety in hardcover, trade paperback, and Kindle-format ebook. And to celebrate, the first book in the series, Bright of the Sky, is now FREE on Kindle.

"[Bright of the Sky] knocked my socks off with its brilliant evocation of a quest through a parallel universe that has a strange river running through it. Unique in conception, like Larry Niven's Ringworld, this is the beginning to what should be an amazing SF-Fantasy series.”   - Locus Online, Best of 2007

“Bright Of The Sky effortlessly blends science fiction concepts and world-building with fantasy story telling to create a unique and intriguing whole....Kay Kenyon has created a standout novel....I'm looking forward to the rest of series. 4 out of 5 stars.”  -SFSignal.com

There does not appear to be a time limit on this but I suggest you get it now just in case.  Thanks Pyr.

Christopher Nolan is becoming best-known these days for his Batman movies, but before he was a purveyor of superhero pulp he was reinventing the noir genre for the late twentieth century with mind-bending films like Following and Memento, the latter of which brought Nolan to the attention of American audiences. His films that are not merely adaptations or remakes of the works of others are ridiculously complex and yet still in the end comprehensible and satisfying. (And yes, Memento was an adaptation of his brother's short story "Memento Mori," but the two seem to have been artistic collaborators very early on.) Whenever Nolan adapts a foreign work to film, whether that be the remake of the Nordic movie Insomnia or the filming of Christopher Priest's novel The Prestige, the results are always good, but not as great as his fans know they could be. After making Warner Brothers a giant pile of money with the smarter-than-average The Dark Knight, he has been given a budget large enough to free his delicately intricate imagination to what one can only assume are the distant limits of his capabilities. And yet, at the end of it, one is left believing that he could do even more.

Inception is the story of Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), a man who makes a career out of invading the dreams of others, usually for the purposes of extracting valuable information from the invaded. As in all good noir films, Cobb is an imperfect anti-hero, surrounded by secrets he doesn't want to admit, and haunted by a mysterious femme fatale. And just like Humphrey Bogart in so many of his films, Cobb takes a questionable job from a questionable man; but unlike Bogart's usual roles, Cobb is actually doing some very bad things for his own selfish reasons. A bad decision he made some years back with his wife led to some very unfortunate consequences, and he escapes frequently into his own dream world to sort out the pain.

The conceit of entering another person's dreams has drawn comparison's to films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Matrix. Unlike the latter, Inception does not dumb down the concept at the beginning and then needlessly complicate it as the story goes on. Instead, all of the complicated explanations are laid out in advance, with multiple examples of how the dream-invasion technology works, so that when the time comes for the extended invasion to which all of this is leading, the audience is never truly lost or confused. Dreams are layered within dreams, and those within more dreams. Those lines of Shakespeare come to mind when watching Cobb and his team casually build and destroy entire worlds at will, "This vision... shall dissolve, / And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, / Leave not a rack behind."

Cobb's dream team--the cast of which includes such interesting choices as Joseph Gordon-Levitt ((500) Days of Summer) and Ellen Page (Juno)--is hired not to extract information from the heir to an energy empire (Cillian Murphy), but to plant an idea within his mind: not extraction but inception. As Cobb and his colleagues point out, inception is extremely difficult if not impossible because people can tell if an idea is being forced upon them from the outside. If a grown man feels that he is being coerced into an idea, he will fight against it. But Cobb takes the job not only because he wants what is being offered as a reward, but because he knows from experience that inception is possible; he also knows from experience that it is very dangerous for everyone involved.

If there are any weaknesses in Inception they revolve mostly around the fact that our dreams are never as orderly or logical as those laid out here. To be sure, the film's dreams are being designed by architects and are intentionally given narratives and a certain level of order, but Inception lacks any real presentation of the bizarre randomness that we actually experience when we fall asleep. Eternal Sunshine understood this strangeness much better, although that was a less ambitious film than Nolan's. There is also the ethical question of whether or not we should be rooting for Cobb when he is engaging in such dubious activity. Even so, he is not presented as a moral hero like Bruce Wayne who is only trying to do the right thing; Cobb is dangerously selfish in his desires, even to the point of putting his team at risk in order to keep his own secrets safe.

Inception has an overabundance of originality and intelligence, something entirely lacking in most films today. Nolan as auteur puts out some of the best films of our time, and even when he is working with other people's stories he manages to keep it smart and enthralling (unlike some other auteurs we all know). His next slated project is the third (and promised last) movie of his Batman series, after which he will reportedly move on to produce a relaunch of the Superman franchise. My hope, though, is that he can continue as an auteur to direct the kind of films that push the envelope of filmmaking's capabilities.

The Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas has announced the winners of the 2010 Campbell Award:

• 1st Place: The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
• 2nd Place: Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson
• 3rd Place: The City & the City by China Mieville

The Windup Girl won the Nebula back in May as well as the 2010 Locus Award for First Novel and is still in the hunt for the Hugo. Congratulations to Paol Bacigalupi, Robert Charles Wilson and China Mieville and all the 2010 Campbell Award Finalists.

So what do you think?  Surprised that the juggernaut that is The City & The City got beat to the finish?

As you might have guessed from looking at WWEnd I really love this idea.  The Masterworks collections contain some of the best works in the genre and have some great cover art to boot.  I’ve only read a few from the list but it’s my goal to eventually read them all - though I’ll be taking my time.  These guys will be reading them all within a year.  Sheesh!

Of course, if you’re interested in reading them too, WWEnd’s BookTrackr can help you keep tabs on your progress.  We’ve got the complete lists for the SF Masterworks and the Fantasy Masterworks and you can use BookTrackr to tag the ones you’ve read as you go along.  The color coding will show you how many you’ve read and which ones you still need to read.  Give it a shot.

Anyway, without further ado, here is my SF list so far.  I’ve bolded and linked the ones I’ve read.

1. The Forever War – Joe Haldeman
2. I Am Legend – Richard Matheson
3. Cities in Flight – James Blish
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
5. The Stars My Destination – Alfred Bester
6. Babel-17 – Samuel R. Delany
7. Lord of Light – Roger Zelazny
8. The Fifth Head of Cerberus – Gene Wolfe
9. Gateway – Frederik Pohl
10. The Rediscovery of Man – Cordwainer Smith
11. Last and First Men – Olaf Stapledon
12. Earth Abides – George R. Stewart
13. Martian Time-Slip – Philip K. Dick
14. The Demolished Man – Alfred Bester
15. Stand on Zanzibar – John Brunner
16. The Dispossessed – Ursula K. Le Guin
17. The Drowned World – J. G. Ballard
18. The Sirens of Titan – Kurt Vonnegut
19. Emphyrio – Jack Vance
20. A Scanner Darkly – Philip K. Dick
21. Star Maker – Olaf Stapledon
22. Behold the Man – Michael Moorcock
23. The Book of Skulls – Robert Silverberg
24. The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells
25. Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
26. Ubik – Philip K. Dick
27. Timescape – Gregory Benford
28. More Than Human – Theodore Sturgeon
29. Man Plus – Frederik Pohl
30. A Case of Conscience – James Blish
31. The Centauri Device – M. John Harrison
32. Dr. Bloodmoney – Philip K. Dick
33. Non-Stop – Brian Aldiss
34. The Fountains of Paradise – Arthur C. Clarke
35. Pavane – Keith Roberts
36. Now Wait for Last Year – Philip K. Dick
37. Nova – Samuel R. Delany
38. The First Men in the Moon – H. G. Wells
39. The City and the Stars – Arthur C. Clarke
40. Blood Music – Greg Bear
41. Jem – Frederik Pohl
42. Bring the Jubilee – Ward Moore
43. VALIS – Philip K. Dick
44. The Lathe of Heaven – Ursula K. Le Guin
45. The Complete Roderick – John Sladek
46. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said – Philip K. Dick
47. The Invisible Man – H. G. Wells
48. Grass – Sheri S. Tepper
49. A Fall of Moondust – Arthur C. Clarke
50. Eon – Greg Bear
51. The Shrinking Man – Richard Matheson
52. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch – Philip K. Dick
53. The Dancers at the End of Time – Michael Moorcock
54. The Space Merchants – Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth
55. Time Out of Joint – Philip K. Dick
56. Downward to the Earth – Robert Silverberg
57. The Simulacra – Philip K. Dick
58. The Penultimate Truth – Philip K. Dick
59. Dying Inside – Robert Silverberg
60. Ringworld – Larry Niven
61. The Child Garden – Geoff Ryman
62. Mission of Gravity – Hal Clement
63. A Maze of Death – Philip K. Dick
64. Tau Zero – Poul Anderson
65. Rendezvous with Rama – Arthur C. Clarke
66. Life During Wartime – Lucius Shepard
67. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang – Kate Wilhelm
68. Roadside Picnic – Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
69. Dark Benediction – Walter M. Miller, Jr.
70. Mockingbird – Walter Tevis
71. Dune – Frank Herbert
72. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein
73. The Man in the High Castle – Philip K. Dick
74. Inverted World – Christopher Priest
75. Cat’s Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
76. The Island of Dr. Moreau - H.G. Wells
77. Childhood’s End - Arthur C. Clarke
78. The Time Machine - H.G. Wells
79. Dhalgren (July 2010) - Samuel R. Delany
80. Helliconia (August 2010) - Brian Aldiss
81. Food of the Gods (Sept. 2010) - H.G. Wells
82. The Body Snatchers (Oct. 2010) - Jack Finney
83. The Female Man (Nov. 2010) - Joanna Russ
84. Arslan (Dec. 2010) - M.J. Engh

As you can see, I’ve got my work cut out for me to finish this list.  I own my shame.   So how many have you read?  Are you trying to read them all?

Call me Yankee Doodle Dandy, but I’m in a patriotic mood, with it being the Fourth of July weekend and all.

When you couple that with the recent news headline domination by Russian spy rings, it’s an ideal time to go old school and tap into some good old fashioned Cold War sci-fi from the 1950s.

So, I secured a copy of one of the hallmarks of 1950s commienoia, William Cameron Menzies’ 1953 opus Invaders from Mars.

Let me run things down for you. This film has everything that Uncle Sam would approve of in a parable about the Red scourge: Interstellar marauders that hide underground and employ mind control on hapless U.S. citizens. A cheeky young protagonist whose pluck, determination and belief in the American Way ultimately convinces the U.S. military that there just might be interstellar marauders hiding underground and attacking hapless U.S. citizens. A cornucopia of U.S. tank footage that would make General Patton wet his pants. And a giant alien baby head in a goldfish bowl with an unfortunate resemblance to Howard Dean.

All of this drama delivered in that stiff patois characteristic of overwrought 1950s science fiction.

Damn, I love America.

Boy hero David MacLean wakes up in the middle of the night during a thunder storm to witness an honest-to-gosh UFO land outside his family’s home. Dad, responding to the boy’s troubled cries, eventually goes to check things out. And then Dad checks out, as he falls into the hands of the aliens who plant a mind probe in his brain.

Dad returns home with a red sore at the base of his neck and in an angry stupor, looking like he spent a few too many nights at the Overlook Hotel. From there, things turn south as various townspeople fall prey to the aliens, including David’s mom, the police chief and an Army general. Even a little girl, Kathy Wilson, is not spared the ignominy of having her brain carjacked by the cosmic commies.

Fortunately, David is able to secure the aid of an astronomer and a beautiful health care professional. With their help, he’s able to defy logic and actually convince the military that them thar hills is loaded with alien bastards.

The military investigates and comes to the conclusion that they need to roll in a ton of tanks and start blowing things up. I tell you, there’s not much that makes me more proud as an American than hearing some gravelly voiced commander shout with full-hearted gusto, “Blast ‘em!”

Damn, I love America.

We learn through the course of action that the aliens came to Earth to destroy the nascent U.S. atomic space program by which we could send nuclear weapons to the stars. To scuttle our capabilities, the aliens sent their mind-controlled human puppets to attempt blowing up a top secret rocket; they burned down the home and attempted an assassination of one of our top scientists; and they killed several Hollywood B movie actors.

And you wonder why Ronald Reagan had it in for the commies.

The film concludes with the military rescuing the boy and the beautiful health care professional from the villainous clutches of the aliens, then blowing up the subterranean ship. We are treated to a hallucinatory montage of the film’s highlights as the boy, running from the blast area, reminisces about all the strange goings-on.

As the ship detonates, David wakes up in his bed. Was it all a dream? He goes to his parents’ room and they tell him to go back to sleep. Returning to his room, he looks out the window. And lo and behold, he sees a UFO land outside his family’s home. Eerie! But you got to love twist sci-fi endings, right?

I know you probably expect me to body slam the film for its cheesy effects (there were plenty) or its wooden characterizations (plenty of those, too). But I enjoyed it. It put me in touch with my inner John Wayne and riled me up. And I don’t mean The Searchers John Wayne, but rather Stagecoach John Wayne.

I do, however, need to ding the film on one major faux pas.

One of the scenes follows David’s mind-controlled old man as he aims to carry out a nefarious act of dastardliness. We cut to a scientist in a lab, messing around with test tubes. One of the lab flunkies comes in and passes on his condolences to the scientist for the loss of his daughter – at this point we learn the scientist is Dr. Bill Wilson, the main man behind the atomic rocket program as well as the father of the little girl who died after the aliens blew her mind-control device.

The flunkie remarks that he’s surprised to see Dr. Wilson working at the lab, given that his little girl just died, to which the good doctor remarks something along the lines of, “Yes it’s too bad, but the show must go on.”

So I’m thinking, obviously the doc is another alien-controlled sap. He must be, to be so callous and robotic. It made sense, since all the other people that the cosmic commies got their hands on turned into emotionless monsters.

But no, David’s mind-controlled dad shows up and tries to assassinate the doctor. So it became clear they weren’t working the same side.

Dr. Bill Wilson wasn’t an alien puppet. He was just some jerk with no freakin’ priorities.

I was like, really? You’ve got to be kidding. What lout heads to the office after the death of his only child? C’mon. If this guy is supposed to be some paradigm of scientific prowess, if he’s on our side, then what are we fighting for? Clearly we’re no better than the aliens or their puppets.

If that’s the best the doctor could muster emotionally, no wonder the 1960s were so generationally turbulent and rebellious. If I was a kid of that era, I’d be PO’d, too.

This obvious lack of character development aside, I think I really enjoyed the film. And like I said, any time you get the U.S. military blasting communists in the guise of space aliens, count me in.

Blast ‘em!

Damn, I love America. Happy birthday!

The Darfsteller

Also known as Walter Miller's other Hugo-winning story, "The Darfsteller" presents an episode late in the life of aging theatrical actor Ryan Thornier. Years ago human actors have been bullied off the stage by mechanic automotons called dolls which have been imprinted with the personality patterns of popular actors who have signed their careers away to the Smithfield corporation. Those actors popular enough got a Smithfield contract, and the rest got a stolen dream, but none of them got to stay on stage. Thornier has never given up on artistic integrity, even though he had to make a living as a janitor in one of the robotic theatres, but while he "had stood firm on principle... the years had melted the cold glacier of reality from under the principle." This story is an account of his last attempt to save himself.

Dark Benediction

Much like "Dumb Waiter," this story takes place in a future that is, if not exactly post-apocalyptic, at least a pessimistic take on the human race. Meteors have fallen to earth which contained a parasitical infection that has already spread to one-third of the human race, causing the structures of civilization to collapse. The infected are known as "dermies" because the infection is spread by physical touch of hand-on-skin, and because the infected possess an almost irresistable urge to touch the uninfected. The dermies' skin turns grey, and they are said to experience hallucinations that some think are tied to a restructured nervous system. It's unclear to many if the dermie infection is even harmful, but mass panic has caused all social systems to collapse and has driven the world into a state of perpetual fear. The "benediction" of the title is a play on the religious practice of the laying on of hands to give a blessing, and indicates the belief of the dermies that they are giving a gift to those they infect. (Incidentally, the sperm-like creatures on the book cover above is a representation of the alien parasite from this story.)

The Lineman

Set on the moon in the late twenty-first century, "The Lineman" is a brief look at the harsh life endured by lunar workers in the early stages of extraterrestrial colonization. The twist that gets the story moving—the arrival of a space-bound brothel—reminded me of the old C.S. Lewis story "Ministering Angels," but without the wry sense of humor Lewis brought to the subject. This is one of Miller's weaker stories from this collection, and it never really comes together coherently to make a point.

Vengeance for Nikolai

This story, on the other hand, is a short but frightfully vivid nightmare of a near-future war between an America that has been overtaken by a nationalist party and the Soviets (this was written in 1956, mind you). A woman, Marya Dmitriyevna, has recently lost her infant son Nikolai in an attack, and is given the chance to revenge herself upon the Americans by a Russian colonel. The American military has a general, Rufus MacAmsward, who may be half-mad, but whose strategies have thus far managed to overcome any obstacle. He also has a thing for women. I won't ruin the ending, but it is dark and funny and disturbing all at once.

In Closing

All things considered, this is a pretty solid collection of science fiction stories. It shows off Miller's talent as well as his versatility. I suspect he could have written a dozen novels, and each one would have been both brilliant and entirely different than any of the others. It's a pity his output mostly stopped with A Canticle for Leibowitz, especially after seeing the potential only hinted at in this collection.

Next up for review, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman?

The winners for the 2010 Locus Awards have been announced at the Science Fiction Awards Weekend in Seattle, WA.  They winners are:

• Science Fiction Novel: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest (Tor)
• Fantasy Novel: The City & The City by China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
• First Novel: The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)
• Young Adult Novel: Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (Simon Pulse; Simon & Schuster UK)
• Novella: The Women of Nell Gwynne’s by Kage Baker (Subterranean)
• Novelette: “By Moonlight” by Peter S. Beagle (We Never Talk About My Brother)
• Short Story: “An Invocation of Incuriosity” by Neil Gaiman (Songs of the Dying Earth)
• Magazine: F&SF
• Publisher: Tor
• Anthology: The New Space Opera 2 by Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan, eds. (Eos; HarperCollins Australia)
• Collection: The Best of Gene Wolfe by Gene Wolfe (Tor); as The Very Best of Gene Wolfe (PS)
• Editor: Ellen Datlow
• Artist: Michael Whelan
• Non-Fiction/Art Book: Cheek by Jowl by Ursula K. Le Guin (Aqueduct)

Thanks to Locus Online for the live coverage of the event.  You can go to their website to see the official announcement.  Congrats to all the winners and nominees.  You can see the list of finalists for the SF and Fantasy novels here.

So, Boneshaker and The City & The City.  No surprises there as they have both been very well received and won multiple awards - especially City with six nominations and now three wins.  Impressive.  Both books are still in the running for the 2010 Hugo as well with City also still in the hunt for the 2010 Campbell.

The Dervish House by Ian McDonald

It begins with an explosion. Another day, another bus bomb. Everyone it seems is after a piece of Turkey. But the shockwaves from this random act of 21st century pandemic terrorism will ripple further and resonate louder than just Enginsoy Square.

Welcome to the world of The Dervish House; the great, ancient, paradoxical city of Istanbul, divided like a human brain, in the great, ancient, equally paradoxical nation of Turkey. The year is 2027 and Turkey is about to celebrate the fifth anniversary of its accession to the European Union; a Europe that now runs from the Arran Islands to Ararat. Population pushing one hundred million, Istanbul swollen to fifteen million; Turkey is the largest, most populous and most diverse nation in the EU, but also one of the poorest and most socially divided. It’s a boom economy, the sweatshop of Europe, the bazaar of central Asia, the key to the immense gas wealth of Russia and Central Asia.

Gas is power. But it’s power at a price, and that price is emissions permits. This is the age of carbon consciousness: every individual in the EU has a card stipulating individual carbon allowance that must be produced at every CO2 generating transaction. For those who can master the game, who can make the trades between gas price and carbon trading permits, who can play the power factions against each other, there are fortunes to be made. The old Byzantine politics are back. They never went away.

The ancient power struggled between Sunni and Shia threatens like a storm: Ankara has watched the Middle East emerge from twenty-five years of sectarian conflict. So far it has stayed aloof. A populist Prime Minister has called a referendum on EU membership. Tensions run high. The army watches, hand on holster. And a Galatasary Champions’ League football game against Arsenal stokes passions even higher.

The Dervish House is seven days, six characters, three interconnected story strands, one central common core--the eponymous dervish house, a character in itself--that pins all these players together in a weave of intrigue, conflict, drama and a ticking clock of a thriller.

Shadow’s Son by Jon Sprunk

In the holy city of Othir, treachery and corruption lurk at the end of every street, just the place for a freelance assassin with no loyalties and few scruples.

Caim makes his living on the edge of a blade, but when a routine job goes south, he is thrust into the middle of an insidious plot. Pitted against crooked lawmen, rival killers, and sorcery from the Other Side, his only allies are Josephine, the socialite daughter of his last victim, and Kit, a guardian spirit no one else can see. But in this fight for his life, Caim only trusts his knives and his instincts, but they won’t be enough when his quest for justice leads him from Othir’s hazardous back alleys to its shining corridors of power. To unmask a conspiracy at the heart of the empire, he must claim his birthright as the Shadow’s Son . . .

Geosynchron - The Jump 225 Trilogy: Book 3 by David Louis Edelman

The Defense and Wellness Council is enmeshed in full-scale civil war between Len Borda and the mysterious Magan Kai Lee. Quell has escaped from prison and is stirring up rebellion in the Islands with the aid of a brash young leader named Josiah. Jara and the apprentices of the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp still find themselves fighting off legal attacks from their competitors and from Margaret Surina’s unscrupulous heirs - even though MultiReal has completely vanished.

The quest for the truth will lead to the edges of civilisation, from the tumultuous society of the Pacific Islands to the lawless orbital colony of 49th Heaven; and through the deeps of time, from the hidden agenda of the Surina family to the real truth behind the Autonomous Revolt that devastated humanity hundreds of years ago.

Meanwhile, Natch has awakened in a windowless prison with nothing but a haze of memory to clue him in as to how he got there. He’s still receiving strange hallucinatory messages from Margaret Surina and the nature of reality is buckling all around him. When the smoke clears, Natch must make the ultimate decision - whether to save a world that has scorned and discarded him, or to save the only person he has ever loved: himself.

World’s End - The Age of Misrule: Book 1 by Mark Chadbourne

When Jack Churchill and Ruth Gallagher encounter a terrifying, misshapen giant beneath a London bridge they are plunged into a mystery which portends the end of the world as we know it. All over the country, the ancient gods of Celtic myth are returning to the land from which they were banished millennia ago. Following in their footsteps are creatures of folklore: fabulous bests, wonders and dark terrors As technology starts to fail, Jack and Ruth are forced to embark on a desperate quest for four magical items – the last chance for humanity in the face of powers barely comprehended.

Darkest Hour - The Age of Misrule: Book 2 by Mark Chadbourne

The eternal conflict between the Light and Dark once again blackens the skies and blights the land. On one side stand the Tuatha de Danaan, golden-skinned and beautiful, filled with all the might of angels. On the other are the Fomorii, monstrous devils hell-bent on destroying all human existence. And in the middle are the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, determined to use the strange power that binds them to the land in a last, desperate attempt to save the human race. Church, Ruth, Ryan, Laura and Shavi have joined forces with Tom, a hero from the mists of time, to wage a guerrilla war against the iron rule of the gods. But they didn’t count on things going from bad to worse...

Always Forever - The Age of Misrule: Book 3 by Mark Chadbourne

The Eternal Conflict between the Light and Dark once again blackens the skies and blights the land. On one side stand the Tuatha de Danaan, golden-skinned and beautiful, filled with all the might of angels. On the other are the Fomorii, monstrous devils hell-bent on destroying all human existence. And in the middle are the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, determined to use the strange power that binds them to the land in a last, desperate attempt to save the human race. Church, Ruth, Ryan, Laura and Shavi have joined forces with Tom, a hero from the mists of time, to wage a guerrilla war against the iron rule of the gods.

Gardens of the Sun - The Quiet War: Book 2 by Paul J. McAuley

The Quiet War is over. The city states of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn have fallen to the Three Powers Alliance of Greater Brazil, the European Union and the Pacific Community. A century of enlightenment, rational utopianism and exploration of new ways of being human has fallen dark. Outers are herded into prison camps and forced to collaborate in the systematic plundering of their great archives of scientific and technical knowledge, while Earth’s forces loot their cities, settlements and ships, and plan a final solution to the ’Outer problem’.

But Earth’s victory is fragile, and riven by vicious internal politics. While seeking out and trying to anatomise the strange gardens abandoned in place by Avernus, the Outers’ greatest genius, the gene wizard Sri Hong-Owen is embroiled in the plots and counterplots of the family that employs her. The diplomat Loc Ifrahim soon discovers that profiting from victory isn’t as easy as he thought.

And in Greater Brazil, the Outers’ democratic traditions have infected a population eager to escape the tyranny of the great families who rule them. After a conflict fought to contain the expansionist, posthuman ambitions of the Outers, the future is as uncertain as ever. Only one thing is clear. No one can escape the consequences of war - especially the victors.

The Office of Shadow - Midwinter: Book 2 by Matthew Sturges

Midwinter has gone, but that cold season has been replaced by a cold war in the world of Faerie, and this new kind of war requires a new kind of warrior.

Seelie forces drove back Empress Mab at the Battle of Sylvan, but hostilities could resume at any moment. Mab has developed a devastating new weapon capable of destroying an entire city, and the Seelie have no defense against it. If war comes, they will almost certainly be defeated.

In response, the Seelie reconstitutes a secret division of the Foreign Ministry, unofficially dubbed the "Office of Shadow," imbuing it with powers and discretion once considered unthinkable. They are a group of covert operatives given the tasks that can’t be done in the light of day: secretly stealing the plans for Mab’s new weapon, creating unrest in the Unseelie Empire, and doing whatever is necessary to prevent an unwinnable war.

The new leader of the "Shadows" is Silverdun. He’s the nobleman who fought alongside Mauritane at Sylvan and who helped complete a critical mission for the Seelie Queen Titania. His operatives include a beautiful but naïve sorceress who possesses awesome powers that she must restrain in order to survive and a soldier turned scholar whose research into new ways of magic could save the world, or end it.

They’ll do whatever is required to prevent a total war: make a dangerous foray into a hostile land to retrieve the plans for Mab’s weapon; blackmail a king into revolting against the Unseelie Empire; journey into the space between space to uncover a closely guarded secret with the power to destroy worlds.

We’ve got our team reading some of these books now and we’ll start posting the reviews as they come in.  A few of these are sequels to other books we don’t have so it may be some time before we get around to reading those.  Our thanks to Pyr for their generosity and the many wonderful books they publish.

The finalists for the 2010 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science fiction novel of the year have been announced by the J. Wayne and Elsie M. Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas.  They are:

• The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood (Talese)
• The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)
• Transition, Iain M. Banks (Orbit)
• Makers, Cory Doctorow (Tor)
• Steal Across the Sky, Nancy Kress (Tor)
• Gardens of the Sun, Paul McAuley (Pyr)
• The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey)
• Yellow Blue Tibia, Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
• Galileo’s Dream, Kim Stanley Robinson (Ballantine Spectra)
• WWW: Wake, Robert J. Sawyer (Ace; Gollancz)
• The Caryatids, Bruce Sterling (Del Rey)
• Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)

My God, it’s full of stars!  The awards will be presented at a banquet on July 18 as part of the Center’s annual Campbell Conference.

While I’m still at a loss as to why this seems to be so pervasive, it did engender a little soul searching. And the conclusion that I came to is that, in matters of art and expression, it’s a two-way street. Give and take. Turnabout’s fair play, etc.

This got me to thinking, “What opportunities are there for science fiction films to encroach upon the musical landscape?”

You know, there have been a lot of bad science fiction films. A lot. A painful amount of lot. Like, “Man, that’s a lot of bad” lot. But what if some of those films had instead been sent out to us in the form of rock albums?

You know, there may be something to that.

So I present to you, unscientifically arrived at and totally subjective, my list of the

Top Ten Science Fiction Movies That Would Have Been Better as Concept Albums (and the Artists Who Should Have Recorded Them):

Happy reading.

In May, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was about unchanged at 6.8 million. These individuals made up 46.0 percent of unemployed persons, about the same as in April.

Among the marginally attached, there were 1.1 million discouraged workers in May, up by 291,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.

However, media and industry pundits are starting to point to signs that the job market is beginning to turn.

Really? Hmm.  Your friends at Worlds Without End figured we’d put this budding optimism to the test. It wouldn’t be socially responsible of us if we just took this information on face value. After all, if science fiction films of the last thirty years have taught us anything, it’s that you can’t trust the government or big business.

(Interesting to note is the evolution of villainy in science fiction films from rogue government agencies in the 1970s to corporate entities in the 1980s and beyond. Some try to blame Reagan for the Gordon Gekkozation of sci fi’s malevolent wonders. For my money, the blame goes to the hippies. After all, wasn’t it in the 1980s when they finally discovered gainful employment? And showers? The shift of collective hippie anger from government to business is hardly surprising, when seen in this light.)

To that end, we devised a special socio-economic project for our WWEnd intern, Barry. Young, foolhardy and naively trusting of his WWEnd supervisors, Barry is up for just about any assignment, which makes him the perfect intern. 

(“Intern,” as anyone who has ever interned will tell you, is a code word for “slave labor.”)

Barry’s assignment? To secure a position – any position – at a real company, using a resume peppered with fictitious evil corporations from science fiction films of the last 30 years.

We wish to learn if: 1) companies really are starting to ramp up their new hire positions, as pundits claim; and 2) just how savvy their hiring executives are.

We’re sending Barry out with a variety of resumes and a borrowed suit. He’ll pound the pavement over the course of the summer and report back to WWEnd. We’ll tabulate his progress and then share the results with you in a future installment.

Happy hunting.

Best Novel

• Best Served Cold, Joe Abercrombie (Gollancz)
• Futile Flame, Sam Stone (House of Murky Depths)
• One, Conrad Williams (Virgin)
• The Naming of the Beasts, Mike Carey (Orbit)
• Under the Dome, Stephen King (Hodder & Stoughton)

Best Novella

• Old Man Scratch, Rio Youers (PS)
• Roadkill, Rob Shearman, from Roadkill/Siren Beat (Twelfth Planet) and Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical (Big Finish)
• The Language of Dying, Sarah Pinborough (PS)
• The Witnesses Are Gone, Joel Lane (PS)
• Vardoger, Stephen Volk (Gray Friar)

Best Short Story

• Careful What You Wish For, Justin Carroll, in Dragontales: Short Stories of Flame, Tooth and Scale, ed. Holly Stacey (Wyvern)
• George Clooney’S MoustachE, Rob Shearman, in The BFS Yearbook 2009, ed. Guy Adams (BFS)
• My Brother’S Keeper, Nina Allan, Black Static #12
• The Confessor’S Tale, Sarah Pinborough, in Hellbound Hearts, ed. Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane (Pocket)
• What Happens When You Wake Up In The Night, Michael Marshall Smith (Nightjar)

Best Anthology

• Cern Zoo: Nemonymous 9, ed. D.F. Lewis (Megazanthus)
• Dragontales: Short Stories Of Flame, Tooth And Scale, ed. Holly Stacey (Wyvern)
• Hellbound Hearts, ed. Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane (Pocket)
• Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance, ed. George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (HarperVoyager)
• The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 20, ed. Stephen Jones (Constable and Robinson)

Best Collection

• Cyberabad Days, Ian McDonald (Gollancz)
• Just Behind You, Ramsey Campbell (PS)
• Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, Robert Shearman (Big Finish)
• Once & Future Cities, Allen Ashley (Eibonvale)
• The Terrible Changes, Joel Lane (Ex Occidente)

PS Publishing Award for Best Small Press

• Newcon Press (Ian Whates)
• Screaming Dreams (Steve Upham)
• Subterranean Press (William Schafer)
• Telos Publishing (David Howe)
• TTA Press (Andy Cox)

Best Comic/Graphic Novel

• Fables, Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham (Vertigo)
• Freakangels, Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield (Avatar & warrenellis.com)
• Locke and Key, Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)
• The Girly Comic, ed. Selina Lock (Factor Fiction)
• Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert (DC)

Best Artist

• Charles Vess, for work including Neil Gaiman’s Blueberry Girl
• Les Edwards, for work including the cover of Cemetery Dance #62
• Shaun Tan
• Steve Upham, for work including the Estronomicon Sketchbook Special
• Vincent Chong, for work including covers for The Witnesses are Gone (PS) and Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 20 (Constable and Robinson)

Best Non-Fiction

• Ansible Link, David Langford (http://news.ansible.co.uk)
• Case Notes, Peter Tennant, Black Static
• It Lives Again! HORROR MOVIES IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM, Axelle Carolyn (Telos)
• John Scalzi, WHATEVER (http://scalzi.com/whatever)
• Knowing Darkness: Artists Inspired By Stephen King, George Beahm and various artists (Centipede Press)

Best Magazine

• Black Static, ed. Andy Cox (TTA)
• Cemetery Dance, ed. Richard Chizmar (Cemetery Dance)
• Interzone, ed. Andy Cox (TTA)
• Midnight Street, ed. Trevor Denyer (Immediate Direction)
• Murky Depths, ed. Terry Martin (The House of Murky Depths)
• Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, ed. Stephen Theaker and John Greenwood (Silver Age)

Best Television

• Battlestar Galactica (Sci Fi/Sky 1)
• Being Human (BBC3)
• Doctor Who (BBC1)
• Lost (ABC/Sky 1)
• Torchwood: Children of Earth (BBC1)

Best Film

• Avatar, dir. James Cameron (Twentieth Century Fox)
• Coraline, dir. Henry Selick (Focus)
• District 9, dir. Neill Blomkamp (Tristar)
• Let the Right One In, dir. Tomas Alfredson (EFTI)
• Watchmen, dir. Zack Snyder (Warner)

See the official BFS press release for more information.  The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony at FantasyCon 2010 in September.

So what other novels were in the running?  Check out the BFS Long List released at the tail end of March.

Happily, I returned to my senses and am able to eat solid food again.

You know, this recent experience led me to give serious reflection to the kinds of stunts your friends at Worlds Without End are willing to pull to increase our site traffic.

I mean, what kind of sick people make a poor sap sit through Battlefield Earth just for a few more site clicks? I could have been seriously injured by this whole thing.

Well, this led me to have a little sit down with the main dudes behind Worlds Without End and discuss means for enhancing our global reach without compromising my personal well being. Our focus? To give the people what they want.

I hate to admit this, but during the conference, one of the WWEnd corporate execs actually said these words out loud:

“Hottest Women in Science Fiction.”

Really?

Unfortunately, yes.

(It should be noted that the guy in question was the chief financial officer. What does he know?)

Okay, if that’s how it is, we can play that game. But you know, Thies’ Pieces prides itself on looking at things just a little differently.

So, after careful consideration, we are pleased to share Worlds Without End’s picks for the Ten Hottest Women in Science Fiction … Over 60.

But we didn’t stop there.

It was also suggested that this column could benefit from a celebrity commentator from time to time. Okay, we can do that, too.

To help us ascertain just who are the real silver foxes in the sci fi universe, I reached way back in my rolodex for the one man uniquely qualified to appraise our finalists.

He is a man who needs no introduction. A noted philosopher, horticulturist, friend of the Dalai Lama and confirmed bachelor, he is the kind of well-heeled renaissance man that the ladies really “gopher.”

It is my honor to share today’s column with the one and only Carl Spackler.

I presented Carl with the Top Ten list and asked him to apply his “je ne sais quoi.” To follow are our top ten picks and Carl’s “Spackler Analysis.”

Ten Hottest Women in Science Fiction… Over 60

Blood Bank

Commander Eli Roki shoots down an emergency supply ship from Earth in what is apparently cold blood, but why? He has suspicions about the cargo the ship was holding, but has no proof of any wrongdoing. He is stripped of his rank and sets out to prove himself right… or die trying. In “Blood Bank” Miller creates a galaxy of planets which individually hold various evolutionary lines of the human race, each having adapted in some way to its environment. While Miller overestimates the speed at which the Darwinian theory of natural selection allows for such change, it does make for some fascinating speculation. There is also in this story a brief touch upon Miller’s favorite theme of abandoning or limiting the use of technology.

Big Joe and the Nth Generation

It is Mars in the far future, and the artificial atmosphere humans generated eons ago is slowly leaking out into space. Add to this problem the fact that Martian inhabitants have regressed into a primitive society which only has legends about the trees and the air being planted from the heavens by the Ancient Fathers, and you’re in a lot of trouble. Asir is an idea thief who has spent his life collecting—society calls it stealing—fragments of ancient wisdom which have been passed down through oral tradition, and having put these fragments together he realizes that the world will end soon if he doesn’t do something about it.

The Big Hunger

This is Miller’s poetic ode to space travel. Told from the perspective of some enigmatic and abstract observer, mankind reaches out to the stars over and over again. He leaves Earth and finds a habitable planet; he settles down, gets comfortable, builds a new civilization; he gets tired of the comfort, yearns for the stars, and leaves, beginning the cycle anew. Over and over he spreads himself across the galaxy, looking for something, maybe some kind of paradise from which he was banished. Many planets eventually lay claim to the name of Earth, to being the place of origin, but will the restless race find happiness even if it can find its roots?

Conditionally Human

Inspector Norris is in charge of a pound, and his new wife is very unhappy to find out about this. In the near future, population growth has led to draconian limits on procreation, and subsequently to the creation of mutated animals that have just enough intelligence to fill the emotional void of the child that is not there. Dogs can talk gibberish and chimps have been altered to look almost human, and have their physical development arrested at the level of a toddler. Mommy’s little baby. Norris catches strays and unwanted “children,” and quietly disposes of them as needed. It is a cold, frightening look at the things we are willing to do to keep ourselves comfortable at any cost.

Next time we close out this collection with “The Darfsteller,” “Dark Benediction,” “The Lineman” and “Vengeance for Nikolai”

Mr. Hamilton has penned many acclaimed short stories and novels, including the Commonwealth Saga and the Void Trilogy, along with Fallen Dragon, which was nominated for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award, as well as The Nano Flower (book 3 of the Greg Mandel Trilogy), which was nominated for the British Science Fiction Association Award.

We spoke to Mr. Hamilton recently and he was kind enough to answer our 10 questions. Here's what he had to say:

1. Thank you for the interview, Mr. Hamilton.  May we start off please with a view to your upcoming projects? What will we see from you in 2010 and 2011?

In 2010 you'll see The Evolutionary Void, the final part of the Void trilogy. Then in 2011 the collection, Manhattan in Reverse will be published. It contains all the short stories I've written in the last eight or so years, and as my short story output is so small I'll be writing a couple of additional shorts for the collection.

2. Where does the title "Manhattan in Reverse" come from?

It's the title of one of the stories which I'm writing for the collection. It actually refers to how Manhattan was sold to Dutch settlers in 1626. The story features my genetically engineered detective, Paula Myo, and is set just after the end of Judas Unchained.

3. In your previous works, i.e. the Commonwealth Saga and the Void Trilogy, you've given us some enticing and thought- provoking technological advances, such as wormhole- based-technology, cyborg-like modifications, and enhanced genetic design. Do you see any of the technologies in your books being developed in the present day?

Some of the data systems and software is certainly pretty close, but the kind of hardware you've just mentioned is still a long way off by my understanding. I tend to do some long range extrapolation for books set that far in the future.

4. Some of the most interesting concepts in the Commonwealth Saga is that of rejuvenation and "re-life". Do you think humanity could handle or deal with these concepts in reality?

Ultimately yes, we could grow into an extended life from a psychological perspective, but it would require not just a change of attitude but a pretty large shift in society and our economic structure to accommodate such a thing.

5. Would you prefer to live in one of the worlds (in the time frame of your novels) that you've created? Or is there a period in the past that you would prefer to live?

No to the past, not enough medicine and dental care back then for my liking. I'd say the period immediately after Judas Unchained would be an interesting time to live in, with opportunities opening up in every direction.

6. One of the technological advances that authors and readers alike are faced with is the migration, or the partial migration, to e-content. How is this effecting what you release? What do you think the reading/ publishing landscape will look like in 10 years time?

It doesn't affect novels so much at the moment, though I suspect we might see a higher illustration/animation content creeping in over the next few years. I'm primarily noticing its use as a marketing and promotional tool; several short stories from the collection will be released by Del Rey for free to promote future works.

7. Along with great concepts, your books have also given us some great characters. Which of them is your favorite? (Perhaps Ozzie/ Oswald Fernandez Isaacs?) Which of your characters would you most want as a friend?

I really enjoy writing Gore, but I suspect he wouldn't want me as a friend.

8. How do you develop your characters? Do they "grow" on their own, or do you base them on people you know or read about?

Some are based on people I know, but I'm quick to point out that the original is just a seed and I develop the characters as the book progresses and they encounter events that force them to change and grow.

9. Are there any non- Science Fiction/ Fantasy authors that have influenced your work?

Not a lot. But I have to admit that my current reading time is minimal. I\'m only managing two or three books a year now.

10. Part of what we do at WorldsWithoutEnd.com is track the awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy. If you could have your own award, the prestigious "Hamilton Award", what would your criteria be?

A science fiction novel that was highly entertaining, but managed to slip in a few things to think about under the radar.

Many thanks to Peter Hamilton for taking time to answer our 10 questions and special thanks to Gary Garrison for helping with the interview.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following was sent to us through an anonymous email account. We have attempted to contact Paul to ensure his well being, but so far we have failed to reach him. If you know of his whereabouts, please contact the proper authorities before he harms himself.

As you may or may not remember, I committed to watching Battlefield Earth from start to finish in an attempt to raise funds for the Worlds Without End tribute fund for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

To follow is my account of the viewing.  So here we go…

First impression: It is the Year 3000. Movies no longer include credits. They don’t want you to know who made this picture.

Two minutes in: A bunch of cave people in a post-apocalyptic setting. I think they’re outtakes from either Clan of the Cave Bear or The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas. Not sure which.

We’re to understand humanity is an endangered species in the future. The real endangered species are the agents who got their stars to agree to make this picture.

Three minutes in: First instance of melodrama, as our hero Goodboy learns of his father’s death. The old man had it easy. I’ve got two hours to go.

15 minutes in: Humans, captured by the alien bad guys, are forced to wear nose plugs. I assume it’s due to the noxious odors of the script being consulted offstage. Do they have something to plug my eyes?

I’m suddenly reminded of Vinnie Barbarino, circa 1975: “Up your nose with a rubber hose.”

Two minutes later, Barbarino himself appears for the first time in all his glorious Travoltage™. Codpiece. Kiss boots. Klingon makeup. Villainous stare. Hyena laugh. Greatness.

19 minutes in: Slow motion angry prison shower. Where’s Leon Isaac “Too Sweet” Kennedy?

28 minutes in: Human prisoners in a zoo are fed some kind of food paste via firehoses. Several of the adult males actually fight to see who gets to eat first. Please. Let me starve to death.

33 minutes in: Alien bad guys get mani-pedis. A long fingered alien babe rubs the old fat alien guy’s head. Talk about women’s suffrage.

43 minutes in: Goodboy and buddies, having been allowed to escape, make their way to the wilderness of Denver. Among the highlights of their trip: they catch and eat an uncooked rat. Zagat Denver lodges massive internet protest.

48 minutes in: Alien hologram apologizes to Goodboy. But where is the apology to me?

51 minutes in: Goodboy draws pictures on the prison floor, trying to explain the movie plot to the rest of the cast. Lots of blank stares.

At what point did this stop being a movie and start being a Phish concert?

54 minutes in: Vinnie Barbarino force feeds a dead rat to Goodboy. Watching this I can\'t help but empathize. I too am being force fed a dead rat

63 minutes in: A cave guy gets his head blown off. Lucky. I wish someone would blow my head off.

72 minutes in: My teeth. I can\'t feel my teeth.

79 minutes in: Cave men discover cache of unused USAF fighters and a nuclear device at abandoned Ft. Hood complex.

My seven year old daughter joins the viewing. She says, “They all look like a bunch of hobos.” I wonder, “Why are the hobos playing with a nuclear device?”

I shoo her away. “Save yourself!”

83 minutes in: Outer body experience: Feeling strange. I realize I’m not alone.

An apparition of The Skipper from Gilligan’s Island appears to me, telling me I need to purge my system. Keeps calling me “Little Buddy.” Makes me nervous.

95 minutes in: Epic battle between aliens and cavemen. The Caveman Air Force arrives in USAF Harriers. Aerial dogfight ensues.

Let’s see. Illiterate and lacking even a rudimentary education, nonetheless the cave dwelling hair metal aficionados master advanced aviation.

Sure, I\'ll buy that.

107 minutes in: I don’t want to give away the ending, but several of the key caveman heroes go kamikaze and commit suicide to save their friends – or their careers. Lone caveman, armed with a nuclear device, blows up planet Psychlo.

119 minutes in: I’m going to watch it again.

Tim Aldiss, son of famed SF Grandmaster Brian Aldiss, wrote to WWEnd today asking if we would help spread the word about a project he and his siblings are working on to celebrate Brian Aldiss' 85th birthday.  Here's what Tim had to say about the project and how you can get involved.

Despite having recently missed out on the Lost Man Booker Prize award,  Brian Aldiss has something else to celebrate this year - he turns 85.

I am his second son Tim and I have been invited to contribute to the great Worlds Without End blog to say a little about my father and to tell you of a project that my siblings and I have set up in honour of his birthday this August.

Despite his mature years dad still has all his faculties. He lives independently in Old Headington, Oxford, and still puts pen to paper and outputs his unique brand of creative writing. In fact it has been hard to persuade him to take his foot of the gas and relax more in his mature years. Nevertheless our family and that wide circle of friends and acquaintances that he still keeps contact with are party to a very special view on the world, and a unique vision that is still crystal clear.

Growing up with such an amazing visionary was a great excitement. My formulative years coincided with Dad's 8 year creation of the Helliconia trilogy. There were relief maps, and models, globes, and planet registration forms, and the whole family came along for the odd imaginary ride on a fagor! But it was our many trips to Science Fiction conventions that particularly captured my imagination as a boy growing up.

I now reside in Brighton, on the south coast of the UK, and it was the 37th World Science Fiction Convention that brought me to Brighton for the first time. I remember my stay in the then Metropole Hotel on the seafront well. I met so many of the greats - Arthur C Clarke, JG Ballard et al. I've still got Christopher Reeve's signature! I saw Hawkind play live! (actually that was the 45th Worldcon some years later at the Brighton Centre). They were heady days staying in the guest of honour suite, and being too young to fully appreciate the amazing fancy dress parades that happened back then!

There are so many amazing memories to share and re-live, and this presented a dilemma when the family recently got together at Easter and discussed Dad's pending 85th birthday celebrations. What we decided is that we wanted to try and do something that hadn't been done before. Brian\'s late wife, my mother Margaret, organised a publication for him on his seventy fifth entitled A is For Brian, and there is no way we were going to be able to compete with her amazing venture. So we decided to try and reach out to new readers of his work - those who have recently discovered him - and ask them how they find his visionary writing, and whether they would like to contribute comments.

We have set up a Facebook page to facilitate this. All comments left will be collated and projected at a gallery where we are showing a collection of Brian's artworks in Oxford for the week of his birthday in August. Take a look, and if you have anything you'd like to share (whether you are a new reader, or an old one) please do feel free to contribute and spread the word.

Happy Birthday Grand Master :)

Tim Aldiss

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=120586967951630&ref=ts

Thanks, Tim, for letting us in on the party and thank you Brian for so many great stories.

So, if you've ever read Brian Aldiss take a minute to check out the site Tim has set up and share your experience with the Aldiss family.  Help us spread the word by passing this along to your friends.

Empire

The 30 Greatest Mustaches in Science Fiction:

• Don Ameche as Art Selwyn / Cocoon (1985)
• Richard Benjamin as Peter Martin / Westworld (1973)
• Michael Biehn as Lt. Hiram Coffey / The Abyss (1989)
• Rubén Blades as Danny Archuleta / Predator 2 (1990)
• Ernest Borgnine as Harry Booth / The Black Hole (1979)
• Mel Brooks as President Skroob / Spaceballs (1987)
• Dabney Coleman as McKittrick / Wargames (1983)
• Sean Connery as Zed / Zardoz (1974)
• Keith David as Childs / The Thing (1982)
• Robert De Niro as Archibald ’Harry’ Tuttle / Brazil (1985)
• Ron Glass as Shepherd Book / Serenity (2005)
• John Goodman as Pops Racer / Speed Racer (2008)
• Garrick Hagon as Biggs Darklighter /  Star Wars: A New Hope (1977)
• Charles Laughton as Dr. Moreau / Island of Lost Souls (1932)
• Al Matthews as Sgt. Apone / Aliens (1986)
• Edward James Olmos as Gaff / Blade Runner (1982)
• Joe Pantoliano as Cypher / The Matrix (1999)
• Vincent Price as Dr. Robert Morgan / The Last Man on Earth (1964)
• Tom Selleck as Sgt. Jack R. Ramsay / Runaway (1984)
• Peter Sellers as Group Captain Lionel Mandrake / Dr. Strangelove (1964)
• Tom Skerritt as David Drumlin / Contact (1997)
• Will Smith as Agent J / Men in Black (1997)
• Dean Stockwell as Doctor Wellington Yueh / Dune (1984)
• Donald Sutherland as Matthew Bennell / Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
• Danny Trejo as Machete / Planet Terror (2007)
• Les Tremayne as Maj. Gen. Mann / The War of the Worlds (1953)
• Jesse Ventura as Blain / Predator (1987)
• Gene Wilder as Victor Von Frankenstein / Young Frankenstein (1974)
• Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian / Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
• Paul Winfield as Lieutenant Ed Traxler / The Terminator (1984)

Happy birthday, Empire.
 

OK, now that just looks cool.  I love a great cover series and these are very nice indeed even if they are a bit repetitive.  Harry Dresden looks a bit more of a bad-ass on these covers than he did in the TV series but I do kind of miss the hockey stick.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out the we've got the entire Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher up now so all you guys that keep telling me I've got to read these books can go and tag 'em.  Storm Front is next on my list.

Also, for you Butcher fans, we've just added a ton of video clips to his author page.  If you've never heard him speak you should check these out.  He's a very entertaining speaker and he answers a lot of questions about Dresden and his other works.

I, Dreamer

It’s a setup disturbing enough to be from the mind of Harlan Ellison: infants are stolen from mothers and their brains are used to operate sophisticated war machines for the conquest of Earth. Bouncing between free indirect style and first person point-of-view, Miller tries to show the inner consciousness of a being who thinks it is an artificial intelligence but is really human. It is a life of anxiety, desire and frustration, as the being known as Clicker is tortured by his “TwoLegs” handler at the merest sign of insubordination. The story is at the same time horrific and touching, as the maybe-reunion at the end is consummated in an act of irreversible destruction.

Dumb Waiter

This is a longer story that feels in some ways like a rough draft for A Canticle for Leibowitz, in theme if not in plot. There has been a war that was fought mostly by means of an artificial intelligence built to run a city and all its mechanized systems. The local city was made uninhabitable not only by the radioactive dusting attack but by “Central,” the city’s learning system that still keeps police, traffic and energy bills running in perpetuity long after the war is over. Jaywalkers or anyone breaking long-forgotten laws are arrested by self-propelled robotic policemen and tossed in jails with crumbling infrastructures, and handed foodless trays every day until they starve to death. Even rusting bomber planes are sent out every day on missions to drop bombs they no longer possess. The rural population that survived is intent on destroying the machines once and for all, ridding themselves of all technology, but a strange man named Mitch who is inexplicably heading into the city has other plans. While this story isn’t as deep as Canticle, it’s fascinating to see what amounts to an early draft of Miller’s ideas for the novel.

Next time: “Blood Bank”

Steampunk, over-simplified, is science fiction Victoriana, or in this case, science fiction set in the Old West. It combines Science Fiction devices and themes with an affection for nineteenth century settings and adds an elusive third element of the macabre, or decadence, or daring do. "Boneshaker" succeeds, as a story, for two reasons. It doesn't over-sell the setting, and it tells a rip-roaring adventure story. I was surprised to find I liked it as much as I did. And like it I did, by crackey.

The setting is an alternate reality Seattle in the 1870's. The city has been devastated, and transformed, by an industrial accident of epic proportions. The city itself is walled off, and a toxic gas with strange properties ebbs out of the ground on the site of the accident itself. Outside the city, the United States still struggles with the Civil War, and the settlement of the West proceeds haltingly. Around the city, residents have come to terms with the wall, and the gaseous zombie state within it. All save one... one young buckaroo isn't happy home on the range, and goes over the wall (actually, under it) in search of adventure.

His ma reacts like any ma would... lock and load, hit the road, she heads into the walled-off city to find her boy. The story carouses through underground engine rooms and pirate airships and line-'em-up-at-the-bar saloons, picking up speed until, before you know it, you, dear reader, are drooling on the pages like one of the many, many zombies that chase our heroes around the city.

Suffice it to say, if you've never felt the peculiar, absinthe rush-like urge to grab a Steampunk tale, this is a good one to start with. And if you've already got top hats and monocles and claws and fishnet and, um, other things hanging in your closet already, put this one on your list. It's a rootin', tootin', zombie-shootin' good time.

Boneshaker is published by Tor Books, out now in Trade Paperback.

Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., has announced the Nebula Awards® winners for 2009.  For Best Novel the winner is:

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)

Gongrats to Paolo Bacigalupi and the other nominees.

The Love We Share Without Knowing by Christopher Barzak (Bantam)
Flesh and Fire by Laura Anne Gilman (Pocket Books)
The City & The City by China Mieville (Del Rey)
Boneshaker by Cherie Priest (Tor)
Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (Underland Press)

The SFWA site has the complete list of winners for all categories.

ONLY TWO WEEKS LEFT! – BATTLEFIELD EARTH CHARITY CHALLENGE!

Worlds Without End created a tribute fund through St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – Help us reach our charity goal. Make a donation, be my charity sponsor, and I promise I will sit through an entire viewing of Battlefield Earth, no matter how painful it gets.

First of all let me say that it's a good thing for Neuromancer that those films [The Matrix and Johnny Mnemonic] exist. It's a good thing that Avatar exists. For a couple reasons — first and foremost, in 1984, I don't even know how people understood Neuromancer when they read it. It was just so far ahead of the curve, that even as a book, I imagine that it was very difficult for people to wrap their heads around it.

Thanks to The Matrix, which obviously was heavily influenced by Neuromancer, a lot of these ideas are now a part of the popular consciousness. So when you make the Neuromancer movie, in whenever it's going to be — 2012, 2011 — you don't have to explain a lot. It's already understood, and then you can get to the really good stuff. Which in my mind is about approaching the post-human world. To me that's what the movie is about.

Read the whole interview.

Anybody Else Like Me?

This story has the feel and narrative structure, oddly enough, of an H. P. Lovecraft short horror story. Thankfully, Miller does not copy the New Englander’s penchant for purpling his prose, and sticks with his workmanlike vocabulary. The protagonist of this short and chilling tale is Lisa Waverly, a wife and mother who is “well-read, well-rounded, well-informed.... Then why this quiet misery?” (30). Miller makes you briefly think that he is going to give you an early-feminist story of self-created female angst and misery like Virginia Woolf’s or Sylvia Plath’s, only to pull out the rug and expose the terrifying reality that is causing Lisa’s mental anguish. She is a mutant and a telepath and feels emptiness in the absence of others like her. Unfortunately, when she finally does meet another of her kind, he turns out to be a frightening scientist who decides they need to be together at any cost. From the early unraveling of Lisa’s mind, to the growing terror of the danger imposing upon her, to the final confrontation between the two mutants, Miller has a firm grasp on the reader’s adrenaline level through the whole ride.

Crucifixus Etiam

Unlike the previous three stories, this one begins far away from the mundane world we know, in the far future of 2134 A.D. and the distant locale of Mars. The protagonist is Manue Nanti, a Peruvian worker who has been sent to Mars as a manual laborer for a mysterious project. Martian residents have the help of implanted oxygen tubes to help them survive in the thin and alien atmosphere. The life-giving oxygen is pumped directly into their blood such that they do not even need to breath, which leads to such a severe weakening of the lungs that those who return to Earth in that condition cannot live without lifelong medical assistance. Manue does not want to become a “troffie,” one of those whose lungs are so atrophied they can barely even speak, but the pain of forcing himself to breath the wispy air slowly takes its toll, as does his ignorance of the work he is doing. Why do the engineers and corporate heads hide their goals from the common workers? “There could be no excuse for secrecy, they felt, in time of peace. There was a certain arbitrariness about it, a hint that the Commission thought of its employees as children, or enemies, or servants” (60). He likewise feels distanced from the practice of his native religion when he attends Mass, which seems out of place “under the dark sky of Mars.... Faith needed familiar surroundings, the props of culture” (56-7). The resolution of both of these realities of alienation comes about by way of a movement hinted at in the story’s title, taken from the Nicene Creed. It is a sad ending, but one appropriate to the themes of the story.

Next week: “I, Dreamer” and “Dumb Waiter.”

The Last Starfighter is ostensibly a mid-1980’s escapist entertainment about a trailer park kid who’s conscripted into some kind of galactic corps, thanks to his prowess at video games. But underneath, the film is something more nefarious – namely, yet another misguided government attempt to ramp up recruitment in lieu of mandating a draft, by making military service seem fun and adventurous.

Directed by Nick Castle, who co-wrote Escape From New York with John Carpenter, The Last Starfighter burst onto the scene in 1984 and if memory serves was largely embraced and cherished by the filmgoing populace.

Having seen the film last night, I’m left with one burning question. Why?

I went in with high hopes. Castle, after all, was the man responsible for much of the New York humor of Escape From New York, including the character of Cabbie. For my money, anyone who can shoehorn Ernest Borgnine into a John Carpenter film deserves an Oscar nod.

Our hero, Lance Guest, the trailer park kid with the hot hand, spends much of the film in a state of reluctance. I don’t really blame him. I spent much of this film in a state of reluctance, too.

Lance doesn’t embrace being the last starfighter because it’s dangerous, and he only agrees to take the helm after much cajoling from the supporting cast. Robert Preston never worked so hard. (It was a long time after The Music Man, but Bob still had the sparkle.) 

(SIDE NOTE: I spent a good deal of time worrying that I wouldn’t make it all the way through The Last Starfighter, which doesn’t bode well for my scheduled viewing of Battlefield Earth. I need your moral support. Please. The things I do for you people.)

Lance’s reluctance can be ultimately traced back to what I call “The Stubing Effect.” ™

The Stubing Effect refers to the fact that the Rylans (the good aliens Lance is conscripted to fight for) all look like Captain Stubing from The Love Boat.

Even the females.

When even the women in your film look like Captain Stubing from The Love Boat, you know you’re in trouble. Big trouble.

It’s the over indulgent use of Gavin MacLeod clones that I think is the downfall of this film. That, and the fact that the film is heavily laden with CGI. Now consider we’re talking 1984 CGI here. My Atari 2600 was pumping out better pixels than The Last Starfighter.

I could almost forgive the cheesy CGI. But the overuse of Stubing is too much.

Now, I love Gavin MacLeod as much as the next person. I’m a big fan of The Gav. Big fan. But somehow His Stubingness just doesn’t translate well into science fiction.

So I ask the United States Air Force (who undoubtedly was behind the making of this film), “As a recruitment film, do you really think female Stubings are the way to psychologically press gang young men into military service?”

Female aliens with male pattern baldness just don’t really impress me as a way to entice America’s youth to be all they can be.

Admittedly, I don’t remember much more from the film than that, reeling as I was from Stubingness. There was something called a Zando-Zan that looked like a crawfish taking potshots at Lance and his robot twin in a trailer park. And they finished the film with the dreaded Death Blossom starship attack. Beyond that, it’s a blur.

For my money, the better military recruitment film from 1984 was Red Dawn, featuring well-choreographed Patrick Swayze musical numbers. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner!”  Now isn’t that exactly the go-get ’em attitude you want from your armed forces?

DON’T FORGET – BATTLEFIELD EARTH CHARITY CHALLENGE!

Worlds Without End created a tribute fund through St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – Help us reach our charity goal. Make a donation, be my charity sponsor, and I promise I will sit through an entire viewing of Battlefield Earth, no matter how painful it gets.

In our quest to bring you the best books in Science Fiction and Fantasy we're expanding our database beyond the confines of the 10 awards we cover. But where else do you go to find great books besides the awards? Well, it turns out that SF/F geeks like to make lists of the great books they read and there are many great lists already out there.

We've got seven lists so far including two new ones we just added that you should check out:

• The WWEnd Top Nominated Books of All-Time
• David Pringle's Best 100 Science Fiction Novels

We'll continue to bring you new lists from time to time so you'll never run out of books to read. If you're already a member you can follow along with BookTrackr™ and see how you match up.  If you're not, you can join now by signing up in our forum.  You know you want to.

I had the happy occasion to watch a sad movie recently.

The sad movie was Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men, and to my mind it demonstrates the best that science fiction can be.

It’s a deeply felt movie, intense and raw, the way that Saving Private Ryan is deeply felt, intense and raw. I say it’s a sad movie, because of the world it portrays (and how close that world looks like ours), but ultimately the film’s message is one of hope.

If you’re not aware of Children of Men, the narrative is simple yet beautiful. It is the year 2027, and humanity has lost the ability to procreate. Mankind is slowly dying out. Into this cauldron of despondency, a miracle occurs – a pregnant woman (presumably the only such in the world) is discovered, and Theo Faron (played by Clive Owen) must shuttle her to safe refuge, with the hope being that scientists can learn from her how to jumpstart the human race.

There are many things to admire about this film. The realism and believability of the situation. The reliance on the genuine humanity of the characters to tell the story, rather than special effects and wild concepts. The subdued messaging backgrounded throughout the film which doesn’t draw attention to itself but adds necessary grit and political color.

I’m more than halfway through P. D. James’ book of the same name right now (the source material for the film), and it is remarkably different. The book is pastoral, academic, an epistle of despair in a decidedly English tone; the film on the other hand is ripe with street-level danger, violence, anger.

I could go on and on about the many things I love about Children of Men, enough to write a paper, but for the purpose of today I’m just going to touch ever so briefly on the character of Theo Faron.

Jonathan McDonald recently posted a link on Worlds Without End to an article by Robert R. Chase regarding the relationship between science and religion in science fiction. I found the synchronicity of this posting to be fortuitous, as Children of Men is at its heart a very religious movie. And Theo Faron, despite his jaded, secular posturing, is a decidedly religious figure.

In fact, I would go so far as to say he’s a saint. Let me explain.

In considering Theo’s transformation from cynical loner to true and loyal guide, you can’t but help see him as a post-modern St. Joseph. Protector of the mother and her child, he leads her to safety despite many obstacles, giving of himself totally to his mission. Theo’s story is a beautiful psalm of self-donation.

To my mind, it is unmistakable that Cuarón and his fellow screenwriters drew inspiration for Theo Faron from the life of St. Joseph.

This led me to consider just how freely science fiction films can dip into the lives of saints for inspiration. What follows is a brief exploration of ten saints and the film characters who echo them.

10 Lives of Saints Appropriated for Science Fiction

I can’t do Children of Men justice with a paltry blog, but I can say that as long as our filmmakers continue to bring us deeply felt stories such as this, I have no doubt that science fiction film has a bright future.

DON’T FORGET – BATTLEFIELD EARTH CHARITY CHALLENGE!

Worlds Without End created a tribute fund through St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – Help us reach our charity goal. Make a donation, be my charity sponsor, and I promise I will sit through an entire viewing of Battlefield Earth, no matter how painful it gets.

The City & The City by China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)

China is now the first author to ever win the Clarke three times and is understandably over the moon with the news pronouncing himself "absolutely gobsmacked" and "incredibly honoured" to win.

Congrats to China Miéville for another win.

The City & The City is really racking up the accolades having just won the 2009 British Science Fiction Association award it's also still in the running for the 2009 Nebula and the 2010 Hugo and Locus Fantasy awards.

Incredibly, four of China's books appear on the WWEnd Top Nominated Books of All-Time list.

Flesh and Fire

The world of the Vin Lands are enticingly served up to us. Practitioners of the wine-based magic and the land's temporal powers co-exist somewhat comfortably, and peace is more the rule than the exception. Life is good, especially if you're a vineart or one of the princelings. There is a slave caste, a social device made all the more interesting because new vinearts are chosen from their ranks and not through the middle or upper classes. Life revolves around the grape and the vineyards are at the heart of the Vin Lands. Gilman's simple, direct style draws you into the story, and makes you feel like putting your boots up on the table and pouring a nice glass of bourdeaux.

The book pours out the tale of a young vineart-to-be, Jerzy. This young lad takes the familiar path of a youngster learning about the world, learning about himself, and learning magic. Boy meets grape, boy learns how to zip off a handy fire spell, with a hint of oak and a light nutty aftertaste. In the Merlin/Obi Wan role is a gruff but not unkind chap named Malech. He's a comfortably accomplished vineart with his own vineyards and country house, and a large staff of servants who putter around baking bread and teasing Jerzy and occasionally beating the slaves. Toujours a magical Provence. Should we care about the slavery aspect of this book, at this point? Barkeep! Another glass of that house white and be quick about it!

But hold the bottle! Danger, menace and schemes threaten the Vin Lands, disrupting the harvests, the political balance of power between the vinearts and the princelings, and more importantly, Jerzy's education. Monsters ravage the vines, slosh up on the coastlines to consume villages, and pull down wine keg stuffed galleons into the briny depths. Because the peace of the land has depended on a very diffuse power structure, the reaction to all this mayhem is, well, a tipsy blend of consternation and denial. It is up to gruff Malech and his young protege Jerzy to get to the bottom of all these wine-threatening goings-on. Will they find out who is thrashing the peaceful vineyard towns and villages? Will Jerzy grow into an accomplished vineart before or after he decides he likes girls? Barkeep! A glass of that house red damn your eyes!

"Flesh and Fire" uses some standard plot devices that we've all seen before, but it is a genuinely engaging magical wine-tasting session of a tale. The real lure of the book is the magic/wine relationship, so lovingly and almost worshipfully given to us that we can taste it. The book is suffused with this heady version of magic, it is as ambient as the gritty technology of William Gibson. So when all is said and done, this is a thoroughly enjoyable read, and I can heartily recommend it - paired with a vintage Merlot.
 

This collection, entitled Dark Benediction (originally The Best of Walter Miller Jr), has been recently republished by the Orion Publishing Group as a part of the SF Masterworks series. The very trippy cover art can be seen to the left. I purchased it a few weeks ago, and have been slowly making my way through the stories, and I decided that reviewing them one by one would make a great blog series. The first few stories in the collection are quite short, and as such I will combine these together into groups of two. The first two stories in the collection are “You Triflin’ Skunk!” and “The Will.”

Both of these stories share a common sort of setup and development, in both senses of the word “common.” They are set in poor, rural places, and feature largely uneducated people as protagonists. Miller instills in the reader a sense of the mundanity of these people and their surroundings, of their ignorance and simpleness. These people are not great, learned, or even adventurous, but they are all about to experience a collision with the uncanny.

You Triflin’ Skunk!

“You Triflin’ Skunk!” is exceptional firstly for its unusual title, which would seem to suit a Flannery O’Connor story better than one of alien visitation. Indeed, the rural isolation of the religious protagonist Lucey seems like the perfect setup for one of O’Connor’s morality tales, and it helps that Miller takes his time developing the ordinariness of the situation, only revealing the back story of Lucey and her epileptic boy Doodie one piece at a time. Doodie, you see, hears voices during his fits, and he claims he actually hears the voice of his father, who can speak to him telepathically through the tumor-like growth in his forehead. The boy claims to be one of many half-breeds, the son of a priapic alien and a human mother, whose purpose is to prepare the earth for invasion. Lucey mocks this revelation, but that doesn’t stop her from carrying a shotgun with her outside on the night her son warns of his father’s coming.

The Will

This is the sad story of a boy, Kenny, who is diagnosed with an unspecified terminal disease. He loves watching the televised exploits of Captain Chronos, “Custodian of Time, Defender of the Temporal Passes, Champion of the Temporal Guard,” so when he finds out about his disease he hatches a plan to save himself. I won’t ruin it for you, but it isn’t that hard to figure out. As with the first story, “The Will” builds up the mundane world of Kenny and his parents before Miller sets to ripping the rug out from beneath your feet. One of the things Miller does so well is to make you care about these characters before he starts to bother you with fantastic elements of science fiction. His characters are never mere plot devices, but real people who matter very much. These aren’t exactly morality plays—and Leibowitz definitely had a moral character—but the stories are at least about people rather than ideas.

Tune in next week when I review “Anybody Else Like Me?” and “Crucifixus Etiam.”

From St. Jude’s website:

St. Jude Hospital has become a world renowned research facility in the area of pediatric cancers such as leukemia. Children from all across the U.S. as well as 60 foreign countries have been admitted to St. Jude without regard for the family's ability to pay.

St. Jude relies on the generosity of people like you to continue vital research and patient care programs, which are saving many young lives. Because of this support, St. Jude has seen the survival rate for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), the most common form of leukemia, increase from 4% in 1962 to 94% today.

Help us out and let’s raise a nice sum for St. Jude and the families they assist.

No, [I'm] not so much an avid science-fiction reader anymore. I probably spend more time writing than reading science fiction. I find that science-fiction literature is so reactive to all the literature that’s gone before that it’s sort of like a fractal. It’s gone to a level of detail that the average person could not possibly follow unless you’re a fan. It iterates upon many prior generations of iterations. The literature now is so opaque to the average person that you couldn’t take a science-fiction short story that’s published now and turn it into a movie. There’d be way too much ground work you’d have to lay. It’s OK to have detail and density, but if you rely on being a lifelong science-fiction fan to understand what the story is about, then it’s not going to translate to a broader audience. Actually, literary science fiction is a very, very narrow band of the publishing business. I love science fiction in more of a pop-culture sense.

Full interview: "James Cameron: The 'Avatar' sequel will dive into the oceans of Pandora"

Science Fiction Novel:

• The Empress of Mars, Kage Baker (Subterranean; Tor)
• Steal Across the Sky, Nancy Kress (Tor)
• Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor)
• Galileo's Dream, Kim Stanley Robinson (HarperVoyager; Ballantine Spectra)
• Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)

Fantasy Novel:

• The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
• Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett (Harper; Doubleday UK)
• Drood, Dan Simmons (Little, Brown)
• Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)
• Finch, Jeff VanderMeer (Underland)

Congrats to all the nominees!  See the full news release from Locus for the details on the other categories.

So what do you think of this lineup?  Which ones have you read or want to read? The City & the City and Boneshaker are showing up on a lot of short lists this season.

You may remember that a few weeks back I examined the influence of Kim Milford and Laserblast, science fiction’s version of Reefer Madness.

This week, we’re going to consider a different kind of reefer madness: namely, the use of pop musicians as actors in science fiction films.

Milford’s star-crossed career (one-time lead singer of the Jeff Beck Group, as well as front man for Moon, a 1970s rock outfit) got me to wondering: What other ill-advised cross-pollinations have taken place between popular music and science fiction film? 

I’m not sure what’s the deal, but for some reason it seems that directors like to cast rock ‘n’ rollers in science fiction films. And I don’t just mean cameos, which in themselves are frankly pretty annoying.

(Aren’t cameos just a distraction that says, “Hey, don’t forget you’re only watching a movie and here’s a famous person we roped in to pull you out of the story!” As if someone – i.e. the director – was trying to leverage his way into a Hollywood party via stunt casting. Either that or it’s a goofy studio trick to get butts in seats.)

We decided to poll our readers to see what you think. So here we are, with a quest to discover the 10 most unnecessary rock ‘n’ roll crossovers into science fiction.

Here’s the skinny. Listed below are the names of popular musicians and the films they’ve appeared in. Rather than give you our top 10, we figured we’d give you a list and you can decide for yourself which are the 10 that were the most unnecessary.

We limited our list to actual roles. Meaning no cameos, which generally range from the silly (Huey Lewis in Back to the Future) to the pointless (Ministry in A.I.). We also didn’t include any actors who later tried and failed to become popular musicians (so no, Spock Sings and Keanu’s Dogstar didn’t qualify their thespians for the list).

Also, if we missed any candidates, feel free to add ‘em to your list.

So here are the good, the bad, and the ridiculous. Happy voting.

From the list below, choose your top ten most unnecessary rock ‘n’ roll crossovers into science fiction:

1. Adam Ant / Cyber Bandits (1995)
2. Annette Funicello / Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965)
3. Annette Funicello / The Monkey’s Uncle (1965)
4. Billy Idol / Heavy Metal 2000 (2000)
5. Common / Terminator Salvation (2009)
6. David Bowie / The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
7. David Johansen / Freejack (1992)
8. Debbie Harry / Videodrome (1983)
9. Dweezil Zappa / The Running Man (1987)
10. Flea / Back to the Future II (1989)
11. Flea / Back to the Future III (1990)
12. Frankie Avalon / Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965)
13. Frankie Avalon / Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)
14. Gene Simmons / Runaway (1984)
15. Grace Jones / Cyber Bandits (1995)
16. Harry Connick Jr. / Independence Day (1996)
17. Harry Connick Jr. / The Iron Giant (1999)
18. Henry Rollins / Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
19. Huey Lewis / Sphere (1998)
20. Ian Dury / Judge Dredd (1995)
21. Ice Cube / Ghosts of Mars (2001)
22. Ice-T / Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
23. Ice-T / Tank Girl (1995)
24. Iggy Pop / Hardware (1990)
25. Iggy Pop / Tank Girl (1995)
26. Isaac Hayes / Dream Warrior (2003)
27. Isaac Hayes / Escape From New York (1981)
28. Isaac Hayes / Oblivion (1994)
29. Isaac Hayes / Oblivion 2: Backlash (1996)
30. Jamie Foxx / Stealth (2005)
31. Janet Jackson / The Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps (2000)
32. Jennifer Lopez / The Cell (2000)
33. Jerry Garcia / Heartbeeps (1981)
34. Kris Kristofferson / Millenium (1989)
35. Kris Kristofferson / Planet of the Apes (2001)
36. LL Cool J / Deep Blue Sea (1999)
37. LL Cool J / Rollerball (2002)
38. Ludacris / Gamer (2009)
39. Mark Wahlberg / The Happening (2008)
40. Mark Wahlberg / Planet of the Apes (2001)
41. Martin Kemp / Cyber Bandits (1995)
42. Michael Des Barre / Nightflyers (1987)
43. Mick Fleetwood / The Running Man (1987)
44. Mick Jagger / Freejack (1992)
45. Mos Def / The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
46. Pat Boone / Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)
47. Queen Latifah / Sphere (1998)
48. Ruben Blades / Predator 2 (1990)
49. RZA / Repo Men (2010)
50. Sting / The Bride (1985)
51. Sting / Dune (1984)
52. Tiffany / Jetsons: The Movie (1990)
53. Tina Turner / Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
54. Toni Basil / Village of the Giants (1965)
55. Tricky / The Fifth Element (1997)
56. Tyrese Gibson / Death Race (2008)
57. Tyrese Gibson / Transformers (2007)
58. Tyrese Gibson / Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
59. Vanity / Neon City (1991)
60. Will I Am / X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
61. Will Smith / I Am Legend (2007)
62. Will Smith / I, Robot (2004)
63. Will Smith / Independence Day (1996)
64. Will Smith / Men in Black (1997)
65. Will Smith / Men in Black II (2002)
66. Will Smith / Wild Wild West (1999)
67. Willie Nelson / Starlight (1996)
68. Xzibit / The X Files: I Want to Believe (2008)

An excerpt:

Last year, the blog SF Signal asked writers to weigh in on the question of whether science fiction is antithetical to religion. Fifteen writers took up the challenge. Their outlooks ranged from the sharp-edged atheism of James Morrow to the enthusiastic Christianity of the convert John C. Wright. Readers—and, no doubt, the editors—expected loud anathemas, biting sarcasm, and lordly sneers. Instead, to their surprise and disappointment, a polite consensus emerged: No, the two are not antithetical.

The reasons were varied. Some referenced the many religious science-fiction books and authors as proof that science fiction and religion cannot be antithetical. The atheists, for the most part, recognized that religious belief is a general human characteristic that is not likely to go away, Arthur C. Clarke to the contrary, and that writers thus must be willing to take it seriously to describe characters realistically.

Read "Science Friction" at First Things

We’ve just added the complete The Year’s Best Science Fiction series to our database!  In case you’re not familiar, this is considered by many to be THE anthology series for serious readers of science fiction short stories.  The annual collection is edited by Gardner Dozois, multi Hugo Award winning editor and author, and each volume includes dozens of stories from a veritable who’s who of Science Fiction’s best and brightest.

The list of authors to appear in TYBSF includes Stephen Baxter, James P. Blaylock, Gwyneth Jones, Jonathan Lethem, Robert Reed, Walter Jon Williams, Gene Wolfe, Nancy Kress, Dan Simmons, Paul J. McAuley, Alastair Reynolds, Greg Egan, Ken MacLeod, Bruce McAllister and Charles Stross just to name a few.  Dozois includes veterans and rising stars in each yearly edition as well as an insightful summation of the year’s events and a lengthy list of honorable mentions.

Anthologies are a bit of a departure for WWEnd.  Our main focus is on award nominated novels but there is always room for a few anthologies.  So what do you think?  Do you want to see more?  Have you read any of these?  Any collectors out there got ’em all?

Now I don’t intend to get overly political here. But let’s face it.

Government-run healthcare is one of the “big ideas” frequently explored in science fiction.

With sci fi films often functioning as social commentators, the idea of Big Health has been played out many times before. One of the more fascinating of these Cassandras was George Lucas’s THX 1138. It has all the elements.

Big Government. White pajamas. Severe haircuts. Compulsory drug addiction. Poor décor choices.

Though we’re never certain where THX 1138 takes place, we can deduce that it’s either a dystopia or EDS.

THX 1138 features Bob Duvall in a bravura performance as THX, a Boo Radley getting his “Billy Corgan” on. Coincidentally named after the license plate number on my dad’s puke green Chevy Nova, Bob holds down a gig at Chernobyl, building the android Erik Estradabots™ that provide security for the dystopia (or EDS).

Given the dangerous and mind-numbing rigors of his employ, Bob needs to be dosed on heavy narcotics to be able to function at his job (it must be EDS). To make matters worse, sex is against the law, everyone’s hopped up on libido limpers and, completing the narrative crucible, Bob shares an apartment with a comely young woman named LUH (played by Maggie McOmie).

It doesn’t take long before LUH and Bob decide that things might heat up if they go cold turkey. (Note to self: when you find you’re constantly apologizing to your medicine cabinet, it’s time to call Betty Ford.) Taking Nancy Reagan’s advice to just say no, our young couple discovers that life really is more fun without clothes. For awhile, things are peaches and cream.

But without his prescriptions, Bob finds it that much harder to work at Chernobyl. Compounding matters, enter creepy stalker Donald Pleasence (this was 10 years before Pleasence entered politics, got elected President and subsequently crashed into the New York Maximum Security Penitentiary).

Donald, as LUH’s boss, sabotages Bob and LUH’s sexcapades by assigning LUH to the nightshift. The creep factor is that Donald did it because he wants to take LUH’s place as Bob’s roommate. Yikes! What’s up with that, George Lucas? Keep this guy out of men’s rooms in Idaho, for pete’s sake!

It doesn’t take long for Bob and LUH to get busted for evading their healthcare obligations. Bob is briefly thrown in prison with LUH and they commence to, er, you know, but they are cracked down in mid-canoodle by the Estradabots. Bob is re-located to an area with other male prisoners, including the Donald. (Yikes! Can I get away from this guy?)

Sparing you the details, Bob makes an escape with the Donald and another guy. Chased by the Estradabots through the streets of EDS, they are split up. The Donald attacks a priest and then later is apprehended talking with kids. Goodbye, Uncle Ernie!

Bob and the other guy, doing their best Defiant Ones impression, sneak into EDS’ IT server room, where Bob discovers that LUH has been permanently outsourced. Busting loose, our boys carjack a couple of Mach 5s and make a break for it, Estradabots in hot pursuit.

Though the other guy crashes his car, Bob reaches the EDS city limits and clambers up a ladder to freedom. EDS determines it’s spent too much already for Bob’s apprehension, and the Estradabots are ordered off the case. Bob emerges at the top of the ladder, resume in hand, sober, lonely and gainfully unemployed.

For their part, the Estradabots would re-emerge as Max Von Sydow’s hockey squad in Strange Brew, thanks to their dexterous stickwork.

With all the recent hullabaloo surrounding healthcare, it seemed timely to remind our loyal readers of this film.
 
From Brave New World to Logan’s Run, and on and on, the idea that your medical requirements are best serviced by the government is an idea that has gained a lot of imaginative speculation over time.

Politically speaking, I suppose the antithesis of big government health care would be mega-corporate private healthcare. But with films like Repo Men and Resident Evil, science fiction shows us that you essentially get the same result: a paucity of genuine human compassion that would make even Blue Cross/Blue Shield cringe.

The moral of today’s column?

If someone wants to size you for government-issued pajamas, run!

Watching THX 1138, I found it particularly chilling when one of the Estradabots said to our man Bob, “Everything will be all right. You are in my hands. I am here to protect you. You have nowhere to go. You have nowhere to go”.

I’m not entirely sure, but I think Nancy Pelosi said the same thing on the House floor.
 

Free Science Fiction Books unlocks a massive collection of public domain sci-fi, from the pulp sci-fi of Edgar Rice Burroughs, to the politically charged space stories of H.G. Wells and deep sea adventures of Jules Verne. Other authors include: Stanley Weinbaum, Jack London, E.M. Forster, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. And all, might we belabor the point, absolutely free.

Click here to open the app in iTunes.

(Thanks to io9 for the tip.)

The City & The City by China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)

Thanks to Cheryl Morgan at conventionreporter.com for the live coverage of the event and for breaking the news.

Congrats to China Miéville on the win. In the other awards news today The City & the City was nominated for the 2010 Hugo to go with China's other nominations: the 2009 Nebula and the 2010 Arthur C. Clarke.  We've not heard the last on this book for sure.

So who's read The City & the City and what did you think?  How does this one compare to China's other books?

The nominees for the 2010 Hugo Award have been announced at Aussiecon 4, the 68th World Science Fiction Convention.  They Best Novel category nominees are:

• Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor)
• The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
• Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)
• Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)
• WWW: Wake, Robert J. Sawyer (Ace; Penguin; Gollancz; Analog)
• The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)

See the complete list of nominees in all categories on the official Hugo Award website.

What do you think of this lineup?  Anybody got a favorite on this list?

From the official press release:

It was announced on Friday, April 2, at Norwescon 33, in SeaTac, Washington, that the winner for the distinguished original science fiction paperback published for the first time during 2009 in the U.S.A. is:

Bitter Angels by C. L. Anderson (Ballantine Books Spectra)

Special citation was given to:

Cyberabad Days by Ian McDonald (Pyr)

Congratulations to all the nominees.

Just a week and a half since the announcement of the Long List, the Serendip Foundation has announced the short list of nominees for the 2010 Arthur C. Clarke Award.  They are:

• Spirit, Gwyneth Jones (Gollancz)
• The City & the City, China Miéville (Macmillan)
• Yellow Blue Tibia, Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
• Galileo's Dream, Kim Stanley Robinson (HarperCollins)
• Far North, Marcel Theroux (Faber & Faber)
• Retribution Falls, Chris Wooding (Gollancz)

The winner will be announced on Wednesday, April 28th at an award ceremony held on the opening night of the SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival.

So what do you think of the list?  I'm not surprised about The City & the City being in there - Miéville makes most of the lists it seems.  I need to get around to reading him some day.  There are some tasty covers in that list too.  I wonder how much the cover graphics affect the awards?

I’ve linked the books we’ve got in our database already (too few!) and I’ll be adding in the rest (too many!) over the course of the week, same as last time.  There are a ton of new authors in this list that are new to WWEnd as well so it may be next week before I’m finished.  Wish me luck.

So, what looks good to you?  Have you read any of these that you would recommend?

• A Madness of Angels, Kate Griffin (Orbit)
• And God Created Zombies, Andrew Hook (Newcon)
• Audrey’s Door, Sarah Langan (Harpercollins)
• Avilion, Robert Holdstock (Gollancz)
• Bad Things, Michael Marshall (Harpercollins)
• Best Served Cold, Joe Abercrombie (Gollancz)
• Bone Crossed, Patricia Briggs (Orbit)
• Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor)
• Bryant and May On the Loose, Christopher Fowler (Doubleday)
• Chronic City, Jonathan Lethem (Faber & Faber)
• Consorts of Heaven, J.N. Fenn (Gollancz)
• Crack’d Pot Trail, Steven Erikson (Ps)
• Creatures of the Pool, Ramsey Campbell (Ps)
• Deathwish, Rob Thurman (Roc)
• Death’s Daughter, Amber Benson (Ace)
• Destroyer of Worlds, Mark Chadbourn (Gollancz)
• Dragon In Chains, Daniel Fox (Del Rey)
• Drood, Dan Simmons (Quercus)
• Elfland, Freda Warrington (Tor)
• Finch, Jeff Vandermeer (Underland)
• Fire, Kristin Cashore (Gollancz)
• Flesh and Fire, Laura Anne Gilman (Pocket)
• Forever Richard, Sue Dent (Writer’s Cafe)
• Frostbitten, Kelley Armstrong (Orbit)
• Futile Flame, Sam Stone (House of Murky Depths)
• Galileo’s Dream, Kim Stanley Robinson (Harpervoyager)
• Ghost Monster, Simon Clark (Leisure/Robert Hale)
• Gullstruck Island (Us Title: The Lost Conspiracy), Frances Hardinge (Macmillan Children’s)
• Half World, Hiromi Goto (Puffin)
• Hand of Isis, Jo Graham (Orbit)
• Heart’s Blood, Juliet Marillier (Tor)
• Hellboy: The Ice Wolves, Mark Chadbourn (Dark Horse)
• Ilfayne’s Bane, Julia Knight (Samhain Publishing)
• In Ashes Lie, Marie Brennan (Orbit)
• Irons in the Fire, Juliet Mckenna (Solaris)
• Jasmyn, Alex Bell (Gollancz)
• Living with Ghosts, Kari Sperring (Daw)
• Lord of Silence, Mark Chadbourn (Solaris)
• Makers, Cory Doctorow (Harpervoyager)
• Marcher, Chris Beckett (Dorchester)
• Mister Gum, Rhys Hughes (Dog Horn)
• One, Conrad Williams (Virgin)
• Orcs: Army of Shadows, Stan Nicholls (Gollancz)
• Palimpsest, Catherynne Valente (Spectra)
• Red-Headed Stepchild, Jaye Wells (Orbit)
• Retribution Falls: Tales of the Ketty Jay, Chris Wooding (Gollancz)
• Paradox, Alex Archer (Gold Eagle)
• Seeker’s Curse, Alex Archer (Gold Eagle)
• Shiver, Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic)
• Sixty-One Nails, Mike Shevdon (Angry Robot)
• Skin Trade, Laurell K. Hamilton (Headline)
• Slights, Kaaron Warren (Angry Robot)
• Snakeskin Road, James Braziel (Bantam)
• Sphinx’s Princess, Esther Friesner (Random House)
• Storm Glass, Maria V. Snyder (Mira)
• The Accord, Keith Brooke (Solaris)
• Broken Arrow, Paul Kane (Abaddon)
• Operation Motherland, Scott Andrews (Abaddon)
• The Ask and The Answer, Patrick Ness (Walker)
• The Awakening, Kelley Armstrong (Harpercollins)
• The City & the City, China Miéville (Macmillan)
• The Cold Kiss of Death, Suzanne Mcleod (Gollancz)
• The Demon’s Lexicon, Sarah Rees Brennan (Simon & Schuster Children’s)
• The Devil’s Alphabet, Daryl Gregory (Del Rey)
• The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Carrie Ryan (Gollancz)
• The Girl With Glass Feet, Ali Shaw (Atlantic)
• The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters (Virago)
• The Map of Moments, Tim Lebbon & Christopher Golden (Bantam)
• The Mermaid’s Madness, Jim C. Hines (Daw)
• The Mystery of Grace, Charles De Lint (Tor)
• The Naming of the Beasts, Mike Carey (Orbit)
• The Pain Merchants, Janice Hardy (Harpercollins)
• The Painting and the City, Robert Freeman Wexler (Ps)
• The Prodigal Mage, Karen Miller (Orbit)
• The Red Tree, Caitlin R. Kiernan (Roc)
• The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart, Jesse Bullington (Orbit)
• The Shadow Pavilion, Liz Williams (Night Shade)
• The Silver Skull, Mark Chadbourn (Pyr)
• The Spy Who Haunted Me, Simon R. Green (Gollancz)
• The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)
• Thicker than Water, Mike Carey (Orbit)
• Tide of Souls, Simon Bestwick (Abaddon)
• Topavzian, P.L. Lambrou (Raider)
• Total Oblivion, More Or Less, Alan Deniro (Spectra)
• Transition, Iain Banks (Little Brown)
• The Ghost King, R.A. Salvatore (Wizards of the Coast)
• Triumff - Her Majesty’s Hero, Dan Abnett (Angry Robot)
• Turn Coat, Jim Butcher (Orbit)
• Ultrameta, Douglas Thompson (Eibonvale)
• Under the Dome, Stephen King (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Vanilla Ride, Joe R. Lansdale (Knopf)
• White is for Witching, Helen Oyeyemi (Picador)
• Witches Incorporated, K.E. Mills (Orbit)
• Yellow Blue Tibia, Adam Roberts (Gollancz)

 Update - April 12: Done!

The very first sentence of the book describes a "merry little surge of electricity piped... from the mood organ." The mood organ is a tool for controlling emotions, and is a much-desired commodity in a world that is barely surviving after a nuclear catastrophe. If you don't want to wake up in the morning, the organ can make you glad to be awake. If you are depressed, the organ can fill you with bliss. It has the effects of mood-altering drugs without (apparently) any unwanted physical side effects. The other machine which plays a large role in the novel is the empathy box, which is used primarily by followers of a religion called Mercerism as a way of sharing emotions and images with other people who are using the box at the same time. Both machines, notably, are tools for escaping interaction with reality.

And reality in the future of Androids is indeed bleak. The nuclear wars have irradiated much of the world, leading to genetic disintegration, mass animal extinctions, and popular immigration movements off-planet to Mars. Animal husbandry is considered a civic duty for those who can afford it, and a moral duty for followers of Mercerism. Those who cannot afford a real animal buy cheaper robotic "electric" models. The skies are always discolored, entire swaths of continents are wastelands, and ambient radiation transforms intelligent people into "chickenheads" by rotting their brains. The androids of the novel are not the wonder-experiencing replicants of the film; they are harsh and uncaring, empathizing not even with the death of one of their own. It is no wonder that the inhabitants of Earth escape reality through mood alterations and hallucinogens. Likewise, even the inhabitants of the supposedly nicer Mars seek an escape through the fantastic, adventurous science fiction novels of the past—one thinks of the novels of E. E. "Doc" Smith—because the reality of their situation is hardly like it appeared on the travel ads.

Deckard's final triumph is a mixed one. Strange things happen with Mercerism and a vision Deckard has of its supposed founder. Likewise, his path intersects with an animal in such a way that leads to a brave act of acceptance of reality. Reality in this novel, as in all of Dick's novels, is hard, but still worth pursuing for its own sake. The truth is its own reward, despite its difficulties.

Namely, what’s with the albino guy?

If you haven’t seen the trailer, there is a fleeting glimpse of an albino doing an air guitar thing with a cane. A brief look at the blogosphere shows that this is a question that has lit a fire under Geek Nation.

Most bloggers I’ve seen are speculating that it’s either David Bowie or Jim Carrey (or both). However, the intrepid investigative journalists here at Worlds Without End have discovered that the albino is actually one of the Winter Brothers (we’re not sure which one, but my money’s on Edgar).

In honor of the serious hairdo sported by the presumed cyber-baddie, the WWE staff reached out to the American Society of Beauticians to help us create a list of the Top 10 Best Villainous Hairdos in Science Fiction. What follows is the result of months of furious polling by beauticians, barbers and hair aficionados from around the country.

Top 10 Best Villainous Hairdos in Science Fiction

10. Elijah Price (played by Samuel L. Jackson) / Unbreakable (2000) - The man who originally spelled out for audiences that a big head is a hallmark for the bad guy. “Jules” popped the ‘fro ala Sly & The Family Stone style, knowing that it would eventually all get shaved off before he tackled the mother-f’ing snakes on the mother-f’ing plane.

Did You Know?: His contract stipulates he must be given the coolest character name in any movie in which he is to appear.

9. Dr. Hans Reinhardt (played by Maximilian Schell) / The Black Hole (1979) - Abandoned space craft. Black hole. Wild-eyed Bee Gee. Hello, can anyone say mad scientist? And what was up with Tony Perkins’ creepy mancrush? Gang, anyone named Dr. Hans on an abandoned space craft is NOT to be trusted.

Did You Know?: He lost the part of Dr. Hans Zarkov in Flash Gordon to Topol, who was willing to do nudity.

8. Benson (played by Harvey Keitel) / Saturn 3 (1980) - At first glance, the hair doesn’t seem like much, but flip up the bad midlife crisis ponytail, and you have a rocking Black and Decker brainjack that would prefigure the Wachowskis by two decades. Trend setter!

Did You Know?: Benson found new life in a spinoff series, starring Robert Guillaume, spending seven seasons in ABC’s prime time line-up.

7. The Predator (played by Kevin Peter Hall) / Predator (1987) - Famed fifth member of the Jamaican bobsled team who failed to gain entry into Canada for the 1988 Winter Olympics on a technicality, costing his country the gold. He subsequently went on a murderous rampage in South America, helping Jesse Ventura find time to bleed.

Did You Know?: He dated Lauryn Hill while she was still with the Fugees.

6. Chet Donnelly (played by Bill Paxton) / Weird Science (1985) - In what still stands as one of the wonders of pre-CGI Hollywood, wunderkind director John Hughes managed to realistically coif Rodney Dangerfield’s prostate. And Chet had the nerve to ask Vasquez if she’d ever been mistaken for a man?

Did You Know?: He successfully ran Al Franken’s senatorial campaign in Minnesota.

5. Grand Moff Tarkin (played by Peter Cushing) / Star Wars (1977) - Who else but a Hammer vet could take grandma’s hairdo and infuse it with such menace? Was it just me, or did Princess Leia actually flee into the arms of Darth Vader to get away from Granny Cushing? Really? Darth Vader? Like he’s going to protect you? Well, he was your father.

Did You Know?: He lent his hair to Jeff Conway for the 1978 film production of Grease.

4. Wez (played by Vernon Wells) / The Road Warrior (1981) - Back when Mel Gibson traffic problems were a good thing, Wez epitomized the cliché that real men don’t ask for directions. This snarling ball of contempt for roadside assistance would later go quasi-gay as a henchman in Schwarzenegger’s Commando. Do you really want this guy going commando?

Did You Know?: He would later play tight end in the too-short lived XFL.

3. The Twins (played by Neil & Adrian Rayment) / The Matrix Reloaded (2003) - Eschewing their status as 70’s rock legends, Edgar and Johnny Winter tapped their inner Bo Dereks and dialed up some serious ghost ninja juju. Wardrobe by Mark Shale.

Did You Know?: They piloted The Suite Life of Marilyn Manson for the Disney Channel.

2. Davy Jones (played by Bill Nighy) / Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man\\'s Chest (2006) - As Red Lobster’s spokesperson, he consummated the long-frustrated marriage of sex appeal and crab bisque. Plus, he gets bonus points due to the fact that his hairdo is prehensile.

Did You Know?: He co-starred in a revival of Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

And number one?

1. Romero (played by Frank Doubleday) / Escape From New York (1981) - Robert Pattinson, take note: this is unwashed hair that’s actually cool. With his prance, hyena laugh and octogenarian lingerie, Romero was “Cyndi Lauper” before being “Cyndi Lauper” was cool. “If you touch me, he dies. If you’re not in the air in 30 seconds, he dies.” He’s so unusual!

Did You Know?: He was the face of Jhirmack 1983.

BONUS PICK! Dr. Emilio Lizardo / Lord John Whorfin (played by John Lithgow) / The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) - Split personality meets split ends. Didn’t make the list proper because we couldn’t decide which one of him deserved the credit. The best villain in a Peter Weller film not to later star in That 70’s Show.

Did You Know?: He writes children’s books.

If you don’t agree with the results of this poll, please consult your beautician.

The 41 books considered are listed below and I've linked the ones we've already got in the WWEnd database.  That's only 11 books so I've got a lot of work to do to catch up.  I'll add new links to this list as I get the books loaded up this weekend.

This is the second year they've released the long list and I really like that they're doing this.  The long list gives you some insight into what books were considered before they narrowed down to the finalists.  There are a lot of worthy books in these lists so it's great that they're brining some attention to the honorable mentions that will have just missed the cut.  There are several authors here that I've never heard of that are now on my radar for further investigation - so it's working already.

It's also a great opportunity to speculate on which books will make the short list.  So which books have you read and which do you think will end up on the short list?  Which would you like to see make the short list?

• Heart of Veridon by Tim Akers (Solaris)
• Shadow of the Scorpion by Neal Asher (Tor)
• Orbus by Neal Asher (Tor)
• The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (Bloomsbury)
• Twisted Metal by Tony Ballantyne (Tor)
• Transition by Iain Banks (Little, Brown)
• Ark by Stephen Baxter (Gollancz)
• Moxyland by Lauren Beukes (Angry Robot)
• The Accord by Keith Brooke (Solaris)
• Xenopath by Eric Brown (Solaris)
• Seeds of Earth by Mike Cobley (Orbit)
• And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer (Penguin)
• Makers by Cory Doctorow (Voyager)
• The Babylonian Trilogy by Sebastien Doubinsky (PS Publishing)
• The Wild Things by Dave Eggers (Hamish Hamilton)
• Consorts of Heaven by Jaine Fenn (Gollancz)
• The Stranger by Max Frei (Gollancz)
• Concrete Operational by Richard Galbraith (Rawstone Media)
• Nova War by Gary Gibson (Tor)
• Winter Song by Colin Harvey (Angry Robot)
• The Rapture by Liz Jensen (Bloomsbury)
• Spirit by Gwyneth Jones (Gollancz)
• Journey into Space by Toby Litt (Penguin)
• The Age of Ra by James Lovegrove (Solaris)
• Halfhead by Stuart B MacBride (HarperVoyager)
• Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley (Gollancz)
• The City & The City by China Mieville (Macmillan)
• Red Claw by Philip Palmer (Orbit)
• Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
• Galileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson (HarperVoyager)
• Chasing the Dragon by Justina Robson (Gollancz)
• The City of Lists by Brigid Rose (Crocus)
• Flashforward by Robert J Sawyer (Gollancz)
• WWW: Wake by Robert J Sawyer (Gollancz)
• Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi (Tor)
• The Island at the End of the World by Sam Taylor (Faber & Faber)
• Far North by Marcel Theroux (Faber & Faber)
• Before the Gods by KS Turner (Ruby Blaze)
• The Painting and the City by Robert Freeman Wexler (PS Publishing)
• This is Not a Game by Walter Jon Williams (Orbit)
• Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding (Gollancz)

Update:  They're all in now.  Happy Reading.

Let’s start off by coming clean on something that Hollywood already knows and we ourselves are loath to admit.

We, the audience, are a bunch of tramps. (And that’s putting it mildly.)

While our trampiness can be attributed to our willingness to financially support all manner of speculative dreck, for the purpose of today’s rant, I will focus my remarks on the oft-bemoaned phenomena of remakes and sequels that Hollywood seems hellbent on pushing down our all-too-willing throats.

Like the flood of remakes and sequels themselves, blogs complaining about Hollywood’s penchant for wholesale recycling of films are all-invasive. I recognize that I’m simply adding to the noise with one more blog, but if Hollywood continues to foist recycled films upon us, then we have the right to foist right back. So thank you very much.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand the business proposition here. Hollywood dumps in obscene amounts of money to make a film – any film – so you have to show a decent return on investment. It makes sense to go with a property that already has demonstrated it has legs in the marketplace, with built-in brand recognition and a ready-made fanbase. It makes good business sense.

But doesn’t that kind of suck?

Hollywood has been at its best (see 1970s) when it at least had the pretense that it was putting its artists and their ideas above the desire for shareholder appeasement. There are still instances even in today’s film market where it feels that a certain film was made despite gross commercial considerations, but that’s happening with greater and greater infrequency.

Is it just me, or does it seem that every science fiction film made in the 1970’s and 1980’s is destined for the remake treatment? Just ask John Carpenter. I suspect there are probably a few TV commercials he made in-between films in the late 70’s that are probably being remade as I type this. Home movies. Maybe even a Polaroid or two. He’s the hardest working, not working director in Hollywood today. Seriously. Can They Live … Again be too far behind?

Let’s qualify "remake" and "sequel" – most of the time, they mean one and the same thing. A true sequel is the continuation of an ongoing story. For instance, Two Towers is a sequel to The Fellowship of the Ring. A sequel is something that is a necessary part in order to complete the story.

By comparison, Aliens (grand as it was) is really just a remake of Alien. I’m nuts, I know, but think about it. Alien was a self-contained story. You didn’t really need to know more than what it provided to you. And it’s the Alien franchise that I want to pick on today.

You should know that Alien counts as my favorite film of all time. Period. For a number of reasons that I’ll save for some other time when I don’t have anything else to blog about.

As far as I can tell, I’m the only person who wishes they stopped after the first movie.

That’s right – I’m saying it. I wish Aliens had never been made.

Yes, Jim Cameron is great. Aliens was great. Hudson was great. Guns. One liners. Newt. "Why don’t you put her in charge?" Burke wearing a suit with the collar up – great. Half of Lance Henrikson sloshing around in a pool of milk – well, yeah, pretty great, too. "Get away from her you bitch." Alien Queen – dorky, but what the heck, two hours in, I’ll buy it.

But when I read posts where people say it was actually better than the first film, I’m like, what the heck are you talking about? It was fun, but really the Alien universe was not improved with the advent of Aliens, Alien3 or Alien Resurrection. C’mon.

Alien. It was a punk rock shockwave across the sci fi spectrum at a time when Lucas was reintroducing Flash Gordon and Spielberg had us reaching for our xylophones to call the mothership. Alien was a seismic tremor that shook loose the Planet of the Apes-Logan’s Run-Omega Man doldrums of the 70’s and heralded something far more dangerous. Instead of Bruce Dern singing along to Joan Baez while growing intergalactic carrots on his way to Saturn, we got Parker going mano-a-mano with a headless robot aggressively trying to get Sigourney to renew her magazine subscription. Alien showed us that space is truly, deeply, really, in a word, alien. The creature had no eyes! Its tongue had teeth! And it had no respect for personal boundaries! Plus, H.R. Giger has this art school Peter Lorre vibe about him. Doesn’t all that just creep you out? Alien fulfilled its mission to tell you that the universe is a wild, weird place.

But, we’re tramps. We can’t let it alone. We want more. And we’ll pony up for it.

They had to make a sequel. They knew we would come. And we did.

Aliens was a huge hit. Bigger than the first one. So they kept going, milking the franchise and running it into the ground. Christopher Nolan was right – for the most part, the third film in any series sucks. In this case, so did the fourth film. Alien was weird in a genuine and pure way. So they kept going for it, but they manufactured the weirdness in subsequent films.

Alien felt like a punk rock anthem born in a garage. The others were studio films.

So now, we come to the Alien Prequel, coming to a theatre near you in 2011. Even without knowing anything of the story, it’s got a lot going for it. Ridley Scott, for one. Do you need more than that? Probably not, but it also has going for it that it escapes from all the narrative handcuffs placed on the franchise, thanks to films two, three and four. It’s a fresh start. A reboot, a … oh well, let’s just say it, a remake. Yeah, it is. So what?

The "so what" is that you have to ask yourself if there are any sacred cows left out in the sci fi pasture. Part of the beauty of Alien is that so much was left unexplained. Like Jaws (of which Alien has so oft been compared), you had to fill in the blanks for much of the movie. But what’s more, Alien was just weird from the get-go and didn’t really clear things up. Which is greatness. There was the derelict ship with Dumbo’s weird uncle fossilized in the pilot seat. Where did he come from? We might never know. And that is great. Where did the aliens come from? Who knows? Somewhere alien and weird. Great. Don’t shade it all in for me. Let me always wonder about that.   

But Hollywood can’t let it go. And we can’t let it go. I tell you, when I heard that Ridley Scott was doing the prequel, I was gleeful. Gleeful, like a mad little kid. Still am. But now on reflection, I’m sad, too. Sad because I’d always hoped that some of the beauty would go unexplained and we’d always hang on to some of the mystery. Undoubtedly, the prequel will give us insight on where the aliens come from, why they are how they are, maybe even tell us more about Dumbo’s weird uncle. All that. And I can understand why Ridley Scott would want to restore the legacy of what was perhaps his greatest film by rescuing a franchise that has fallen into science fiction’s version of pro wrestling, a la the Alien versus Predator nonsense.

I wish I could tell you that I will stand strong. I won’t pay to go see the Alien Prequel. I will safeguard the mystery of the unexplained, of the pristine beauty of the long unknowable. But I know better. Once it’s out there, I will want to see it, too. Saying "don’t look at that thing" only makes you want to look at it the more. I just hope it’s good. Damn you, Hollywood. You know me too well.

As promised, and a little ahead of schedule, the Fantasy Masterworks series is up.  This is of course a companion series to the SF Masterworks that went in earlier this week.  (Scroll down the page for more on that.)  There are some great books in this series, 50 in all, and again some great cover art to go with them.

Quite a few of these books are omnibus editions like The Conan Chronicles, Volume 1 and Volume 2 which include all of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories in chronological order.  You'll find Gene Wolfe's classic Book of the New Sun series in a 2 volume set and omnibus editions of 2 classic Michael Moorcock series: The Chronicles of Corum and The History of the Runestaff.

Some of these books really are old-school fantasy classics.  Two books by Lord Dunsany, Time and the Gods and The King of Elfland's Daughter, A Voyage to Arcturas by David Lindsay and The Worm Ouroboros by E.R Eddison come to us pre 1930.  Never really thought I'd be adding Rudyard Kipling to WWEnd but now he's here with The Mark of the Beast, a collection of his strange and ghostly tales.  We're gettin' all respectable 'round here.

You know, I thought I had read a lot of fantasy in my time but I can only check off 2 books out of 50.  A rather poor showing.  I guess I was reading the wrong fantasy books.  How do you fare with the Fantasy Masterworks list?  Check it out and let us know what you think.
 

The SF Masterworks is a series of science fiction books published by Orion through its imprints Millennium and Gollancz.  The idea was to bring the best out of print titles back into circulation so they could be enjoyed by new generations of readers.  The series features some excellent books and some really great covers - two factors that make them extremely collectible.

Many of the books in the series were already in our database, as winners and nominees for the awards we cover, and the remainder has now been added to bring us to a total of 73.  I've also gone in and replaced all the existing book covers with the Masterwork covers to complete the set.  We've built a SF Masterworks page to display them all together so you can easily see how many you've read.  Sounds like a good reading challenge to me.  I've only read 11 from the list so far but I found that I already had 7 more on my reading list.

The folks at Orion really like Philip K. Dick.  There are 14 PKD books in the series - far more than any other author - but you'll find many other greats in the list like Alfred Bester, Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Silverberg to name a few.  I'm also excited to be adding many new authors including H.G. Wells to our database.  The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds, The First Men in the Moon and The Invisible Man all pre-date the awards by many years but remain among the most familiar classics of the genre.

Take a look at the list and let us know what you think.  How does this list compare to the awards?  How many have you read?  I'll be adding more lists going forward to complement and fill in some of the gaps from our awards coverage.  For next week I'm already working on the companion Fantasy Masterworks list - to cover both sides of the SF/F aisle.  What other lists should we consider?
 

The Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) announced the 2009 Nebula Awards nominees.  They are:

• The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade
• The Love We Share Without Knowing by Christopher Barzak (Bantam)
• Flesh and Fire by Laura Anne Gilman (Pocket Books)
• The City & The City by China Mieville (Del Rey)
• Boneshaker by Cherie Priest (Tor)
• Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (Underland Press)

The SFWA site has the complete list of nominees for all categories.

Our main objective here at Worlds Without End is to bring you the best science fiction and fantasy books the genre has to offer. We've started by providing coverage of the top 10 "best novel" awards in the field. These books are the core of our growing database of over 1,700 books.

But we want to do more than just list the award winning books. We want to introduce you to some of the best authors around and get you to read them. Some are old favorites - giants in the field. Some you've heard of - the rising stars - but maybe never tried. Many you've probably never even heard of - new authors or those that have escaped your notice thus far. That's where we want to help. WWEnd currently has 498 authors for you to explore and by the time award season is over we'll have a couple dozen more.

We're working on updating our author information all the time: writing up bios, finidng author pics and web links etc. like the 40 new videos we just added to the author pages. We've got almost 300 vids on our Author Videos page for you to watch. We're also trying to get some more interviews lined up like the one we did with Rober J. Sawyer. There's a lot of great information on those pages that you can use to find your next read so take a look around. You may just find a new favorite author along the way.

Just for fun: How many of the authors pictured above can you name and how many have you read?

In case you're not familiar with the list, it's Locus' annual run down of the books that they think merit your attention from the previous year - and this year's list is a doozy!  You'll be seeing many of these books on the short lists for the big awards this year, in fact several are already on the BSFA Short List, so add 'em to your reading list now before awards season starts in earnest.

And speaking of awards, now is the time for you to vote in the Locus Poll.  Anyone can vote but subscriber votes count double so if you've been thinking about subscribing, now is a great time to do it.  So now, without further ado, the list: 

Novels - Science Fiction

• The Empress of Mars, Kage Baker (Subterranean Press; Tor)
• Transition, Iain M. Banks (Little Brown UK; Orbit)
• Ark, Stephen Baxter (Gollancz)
• The Devil's Alphabet, Daryl Gregory (Ballantine Del Rey)
• Buyout, Alexander C. Irvine (Ballantine Del Rey)
• Under the Dome, Stephen King (Hodder & Stoughton; Scribner)
• Steal Across the Sky, Nancy Kress (Tor)
• Chronic City, Jonathan Lethem (Doubleday)
• Gardens of the Sun, Paul McAuley (Gollancz; Pyr 2010)
• The Walls of the Universe, Paul Melko (Tor)
• Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor)
• Yellow Blue Tibia, Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
• Galileo's Dream, Kim Stanley Robinson (HarperVoyager; Ballantine Spectra 2010)
• The Sunless Countries, Karl Schroeder (Tor)
• This Is Not a Game, Walter Jon Williams (Orbit UK, Orbit US)
• Julian Comstock, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)

Novels - Fantasy

• The Price of Spring, Daniel Abraham (Tor)
• Last Days, Brian Evenson (Underland Press)
• Dragon in Chains, Daniel Fox (Ballantine Del Rey)
• Gears of the City, Felix Gilman (Bantam Spectra)
• Cloud & Ashes: Three Winter's Tales, Greer Gilman (Small Beer Press)
• Avilion, Robert Holdstock (Gollancz)
• The High City, Cecelia Holland (Forge)
• The Red Tree, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)
• Green, Jay Lake (Tor)
• Madness of Flowers, Jay Lake (Night Shade Books)
• Audrey's Door, Sarah Langan (Harper)
• The City & The City, China Miéville (Macmillan UK; Ballantine Del Rey)
• Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett (Doubleday UK; Harper)
• Spell Games, T.A. Pratt (Bantam Spectra)
• Canticle, Ken Scholes (Tor)
• Drood, Dan Simmons (Little, Brown)
• The Revolution Business, Charles Stross (Tor)
• Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)
• Finch, Jeff VanderMeer (Underland Press)
• Lifelode, Jo Walton (NESFA Press)
• The Painting and the City, Robert Freeman Wexler (PS Publishing)
• In Great Waters, Kit Whitfield (Jonathan Cape; Del Rey)

Young Adult Books

• The Hotel Under the Sand, Kage Baker (Tachyon Publications)
• Going Bovine, Libba Bray (Delacorte)
• Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press)
• Sacred Scars, Kathleen Duey (Atheneum)
• The Lost Conspiracy (HarperCollins)
• Liar, Justine Larbalestier (Bloomsbury)
• The Ask and the Answer, Patrick Ness (Walker UK; Candlewick Press)
• Heroes of the Valley, Jonathan Stroud (Hyperion; Doubleday UK)
• Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld (Simon Pulse)

First Novels

• The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade Books)
• The Manual of Detection, Jedediah Berry (Penguin)
• Soulless, Gail Carriger (Orbit)
• The Adamantine Palace, Stephen Deas (Gollancz; Roc 2010)
• Total Oblivion, More or Less, Alan DeNiro (Ballantine Spectra)
• Blood of Ambrose, James Enge (Pyr)
• Ash, Malinda Lo (Little, Brown)
• Rosemary and Rue, Seanan McGuire (DAW)
• Lamentation, Ken Scholes (Tor)
• Harbinger, Jack Skillingstead (Fairwood Press)
• Spellbent, Lucy A. Snyder (Ballantine Del Rey)
• Living with Ghosts, Kari Sperring (DAW)
• Lightbreaker, Mark Teppo (Night Shade Books)
• Norse Code, Greg van Eekhout (Ballantine Spectra)

Kvothe is the storyteller, and he is telling the story of himself. From his young childhood as the son of traveling performers, to his Dickensian days in a monstrous city, to his unlikely admission into The University as a mid-teenager, he is certainly not the kind of man who doubts his own strength. If he were not so well-accomplished, he would be justly called a braggart. Indeed, one of the most fantastic parts of this fantasy novel is how easily he learns and grows. An arcanist falls in with the troupe, and the young narrator quickly learns all of the man’s basic lessons and even some that he had never considered as possibilities. Kvothe is a prodigy similar to Ender in Ender’s Game or Will in Good Will Hunting, and his quick rise is one of the few disappointments of the story. As a teacher himself, one would expect Rothfuss to be more sympathetic to the hard grunt work required to learn anything worthwhile, but Kvothe just makes it look a little too easy.

While some parts of the story are of higher quality than others, none of it is bad, and none of it is even particularly boring. The quick movement of the first half of the book grinds down when Kvothe joins The University, but that is only because Rothfuss is carefully building up a world of characters and relationships, not to mention the various sciences being taught and learnt. We learn almost nothing of this world’s vast history or its varied geography, but by the end of the first novel it feels like we know the world intimately. That is not a mean feat.

Rumor has it that 2010 will finally see the publication of book two, The Wise Man’s Fear, and hopefully that is the case. Reading this novel will leave you wanting more, and it will be all you can do to keep from writing nagging comments on Rothfuss’ blog.

Let me start by saying that I really love this book and wish I had read it years ago.  Going in I was concerned I would be let down after all this time and all the hype.  Dune is on top of just about every "best of" list I\'ve ever seen and people would boggle when I told them I hadn't read it yet.   I was expecting something amazing and in the back of my head I thought it would end up being a let down.

As it turned out my concerns were unfounded.  I love all the detail in this story: the Fremen culture, the political intrigue in the Empire, the Arrakis ecology, the Bene Gesserit manipulations and on and on. Dune is an excellent example of world building.  I find it nigh impossible to separate the book from the movie so it was great to see some characters I knew from the movie fleshed out.  The film version relegated some great characters to the side line.  My familiarity with the movie had me seeing Kyle, Jurgen, Patrick, Sting and all in my head as I was reading which turned out to enhance my enjoyment a great deal.

I understand why so many fans of the book don't like the movie but there are some scenes in the movie that turned out to be better than what was in the book.  The Water of Life scene in particular. In the book Paul goes off by himself to drink the water and falls into a coma for weeks.  Not very cinematic, or indeed dramatic, at all and frankly a bit of a let down. Give me the awesome "Shai-Hulud Salute" over "Muad 'Dib unconscious in the cupboard" any day.  The movie did sacrifice a lot as is the case with most movie adaptations but the feel was right.  The richness of a layered story like Dune gets lost in translation.  I've grown to accept the trade off as the price you pay to see this kind of stuff on the silver screen but I have been wondering what David Lynch could have done with Dune had it gotten the LOTR treatment.  Three films back to back to back to tell the story in full?  That would have been amazing.

The book fully deserves the accolades that have been heaped on it.  Indeed, I'll be able to add my voice to the chorus now but best of all, I can take my turn to stare with incredulity and gasp "You've never read Dune?!" when some poor soul admits the flaw.  I just have to find someone who hasn\'t read it.  The Sleeper has awakened.

This week I've added 20 more books to the WWEnd DB to finish out 13 series.  My thanks to member mkearl who told me about The Temeraire Series by Naomi Novik.  There are now 5 books available (of a projected 9) beginning with 2007 Hugo nominated His Majesty's Dragon.  Napolean era with dragons!  Thanks also to whargoul for pointing out the missing books from the Takeshi Kovacs Series.  Broken Angels and Woken Furies have been added to 2003 PKD winner Altered Carbon.  Don't know how I missed the Kovacs series... Altered Carbon is one of my favorites!

• The Temeraire Series by Naomi Novik
• Takeshi Kovacs Series by Richard K. Morgan
• Psycho Series by Rober Bloch
• Rama Series by Arthur C. Clarke & Gentry Lee
• Abarat by Clive Barker
• Andrea Cort by Adam-Troy Castro
• The Russian Stories by C.J. Cherryh
• The Great Alta Saga by Jane Yolen
• The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson
• Apotheosis by S. Andrew Swann
• The Moties by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournell
• Dream Park by Larry Niven & Steven Barnes
• The State by Larry Niven

Happy reading and keep 'em coming.

The nominees for the 2009 British Science Fiction Association Award have been announced.  They are:

• Ark by Stephen Baxter (Gollancz)
• The City & The City by China Mieville (Macmillan)
• Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin (Gollancz)
• Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts (Gollancz)

The winner will be announced at Eastercon, Odyssey 2010 in London.  You can get the entire list of nominees in all categories at the official BSFA web site.  Congrats and good luck to the all four authors, and congrats to Gollancz for grabbing 3 of the 4 spots!

So, has anybody read the nominess?  Which author/book do you think will win in April?  Which do you want to win?

This week I've added 17 new books, mostly one's and two's, to finish out 8 series.  The largest addition is Ursula K. LeGuin's Hainish Cycle.  I've added the 4 volumes that fall between The Dispossessed (1974 Nebula, 1975 Hugo & Locus SF winner and 1975 Campbell nominee) and  The Left Hand of Darkness (1969 Nebula and 1970 Hugo winner).

• Hainish Cycle by Ursula K. LeGuin
• The Answered Prayers Sextet by Jonathan Carroll
• The Von Bek Trilogy by Michael Moorcock
• Chet Kinsman by Ben Bova
• The Finnbranch Trilogy by Paul Hazel
• Marîd Audran Series by George Alec Effinger
• The Godhead Trilogy by James Morrow
• The Legends of Camber of Culdi by Katherine Kurtz

There are some great books in this new list so check 'em out.

On a side note, I'm running out of series to update.  This is mostly a good thing.  It means I'm almost done and I can move on to some other books.  The bad news is that there are many series that I'm unaware of and I need your help.  If you find any books that you know to be part of a series and we don't have the series info listed please let me know.  There is an email link in the series dropdown on the novel page that you can use to set us straight.

Happy reading.

Karen Hellekson, one of the 2009 PKD jurors, has reported on her blog that the nominees for the 2009 Philip K. Dick Award have been announced.  They are:

• Bitter Angels by C. L. Anderson (Ballantine Books/Spectra)
• The Prisoner by Carlos J. Cortes (Ballantine Books/Spectra)
• The Repossession Mambo by Eric Garcia (Harper)
• The Devil\'s Alphabet by Daryl Gregory (Del Rey)
• Cyberabad Days by Ian Mcdonald (Pyr)
• Centuries Ago and Very Fast  by Rebecca Ore (Aqueduct Press)
• Prophets by S. Andrew Swann (DAW Books)

First prize and any special citations will be announced on Friday, April 2, 2010 at Norwescon 33 at the Doubletree Seattle Airport Hotel, SeaTac, Washington.

Anderson, Cortes, Garcia and Swann are new authors to WWEnd.  Anybody familiar with these authors or read any of the nominated books?

We've got 28 new books for you this week to complete 10 more series. We added 8 new books to The Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson (love the cover art for this series) and 5 volumes to Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga bringing the total to 13 books.  We've also got the 4-part Rifters Trilogy from author Peter Watts.  Book 3, Behemoth, is in 2 parts so you get a bonus book if you read it.  The rest are one's and two's to finish out.

• The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson
• The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold
• The Era of Rapprochement by C. J. Cherryh
• The Rifters Trilogy by Peter Watts
• The Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham (schweet covers on these too!)
• The Jump 225 Trilogy by David Louis Edelman
• The Viriconium Sequence by M. John Harrison
• Old Man's War by John Scalzi
• The Gene Wars by C. J. Cherryh
• Songs of Earth and Power by Greg Bear

Happy reading.

Well, the holidays are over and it's back to work.  This week I've added 38 new books to complete 11 different series by 10 authors.  We've got a wide variety of new books for you to check out including a whole coven of vampire books:

• The Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
• The Vampire World Trilogy - Brian Lumley
• A Princess of Roumania - Paul Park
• The Starbridge Chronicles - Paul Park
• The Majipoor Cycle - Robert Silverberg
• The Merchant Princes - Charles Stross
• Return to Nevèrÿon - Samuel R. Delany
• The Nova Trilogy - William S. Burroughs
• The Nulapeiron Sequence - John Meaney
• The Saga of Pliocene Exile - Julian May
• The Trigon Disunity - Michael P. Kube-McDowell

Robert Holdstock passed away last month unexpectedly at the age of 61.  From all accounts he was a genuine and lovely man in life and an excellent writer with a loyal following.  There are some nice articles about his life and writings including this one from David Barnett in The Guardian.

Holdstock is perhaps best known for his multiple award-winning Mythago Cycle.  The first book, Mythago Wood, won the British Science Fiction Association award in 1984 and the World Fantasy Award in 1985.  He followed that up with Lavondyss which also won the BSFA award in 1988.  Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn, book 6 of the series, was nominated for the British Fantasy Society's August Derleth Award in 1999.  We\'ve just completed the cycle with the addition of The Bone Forest, The Hollowing, Merlin's Wood and the last volume, Avilion, which came out just this year.

Last week we completed a bunch of trilogies including Gwyneth Jones’s Aleutian Trilogy.  This week Gwyneth makes another appearance with her Bold As Love Cycle.  The first 3 books in the series all had nominations starting with Bold as Love which won the 2002 Arthur C. Clarke Award and also garnered nominations from the BSFA in 2001 and the BFS in 2002.  Castles Made of Sand (2002 BSFA nominee) and Midnight Lamp (2003 BSFA and 2004 Clarke nominee), books 2 and 3 respectively, have been joined by 2005's Band of Gypsies and Rainbow Bridge from 2006.

These two series would make excellent gifts for any SF/F fan you've got on your last minute list... including yourself.  Happy reading.

I've been thinking about doing a reading challenge here on WWEnd for some time but just never got around to it.  I was just planning to start one for the New Year when I found Mind Voyages.  Mind Voyages is a yearlong reading challenge and blog set up by Robin of My Two Blessings that focuses on the Hugo and Nebula award winners and noms.  A perfect fit for me and WWEnd members as well, methinks.

The challenge is divided up into several "voyages" of differing lengths and themes.  You choose the books you want to read within the loosely defined parameters of each voyage rather than having to read from a pre-determined list.  You can set yourself a modest goal like the Moon Voyage, which is to read 6 Hugo winners, or you can go for a bigger challenge like Jupiter which is all the 1990's winners.  Of course you can go for as many voyages as you like throughout the year if you want a bigger challenge.

The savvy reader will find lots of ways to get max value out of the books they choose.  Look for the books that overlap voyages like dual Hugo and Nebula winners (two birds, one stone) or pick 2 Philip K. Dick books for your Moon Voyage and knock out the Venus Voyage at the same time.  Someone will eventually figure out the least number of books you would have to read to complete all voyages.  I'm going for the Moon and will try for Mars as well.  Along the way I'll knock out Venus, Mercury and the Slingshot Back to Earth by reading 12 books.  Here's my list as it stands:

• Dune by Frank Herbert (1965 Nebula and 1966 Hugo winner)
• The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1975 Nebula and 1976 Hugo winner)
• Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (1992 Nebula and 1993 Hugo winner)
• Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman (1999 Hugo and Nebula winner)
• Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold (2004 Hugo and Nebula winner)
• The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (1963 Hugo winner)
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1968 Nebula nominee)
• Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (1962 Hugo winner)
• Have Space Suit - Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein (1959 Hugo nominee)
• Perdido Street Station by China Mieville (2002 Hugo and Nebula nominee)
• Kiln People by David Brin (2003 Hugo nominee)
• River of Gods by Ian McDonald (2005 Hugo nominee)

There are shorter ways to get there I think but many of those books I've already read so I had to dance around a bit to get to this list.  The best thing about this challenge is that almost all these books were on my list anyway and I'm still trying to read all the Hugo and Nebula winners so this will bring me closer to that goal as well.

So who's in and what does your list look like?

Not only that---the oil companies that bought the publishing houses in the 70's are now thinking they can just shove real science fiction aside and we'll just wilt and fade away. Wrong. We're the very people with the very readership who are most dangerous to their way of doing business.

CW: Are there any non- Science Fiction/Fantasy authors that have influenced your work?

CJC: Publius Vergilius Maro, Conan Doyle, if you can count him, and Jeffrey Farnol.

CW: What great new authors have you discovered recently?

CJC: None recently, but I've been re-reading. Project Gutenberg is a great resource.

CW: Do you have any advice for the new writers coming up through the ranks?

CJC: Get published in paper first, get a readership and THEN go e-book.

CW: Charles Dickens famously arranged objects into exact positions whenever he wrote. Stephen King took a vitamin with tea or water whenever he sat down to write. What would you say is your most interesting writing quirk?

CJC: I write to disaster documentaries on Science and Discovery.

CW: Can you please tell the readers of WWEnd about your latest projects, what is forthcoming, etc.?

CJC: Closed Circle is a joint e-publishing venture with Jane S. Fancher and Lynn Abbey: we are recovering our backlist and bringing it out ourselves, and we may be doing new work specifically for our own publishing venture---as well as continuing traditional paper publishing via our usual publishers.

CW: Lastly, part of what we do at Worlds Without End is track the Science Fiction and Fantasy awards. If you could have your own award, the much-coveted "C.J. Cherryh Award", what would your criteria be?

CJC: Interesting question: I would say innovation, scientific information, accuracy, and literary quality.

Those are the very things that are evidenced in her own work.

We'd like to thank Ms. Cherry again for her time.  She's obviously very busy these days with her new publishing venture.  We look forward to checking out her Closed Circle work and her other new titles soon.
 

In past weeks we've been seeing a lot of big series coming into WWEnd with The Grand Tour, Discworld and  The Dragon Knight counted among them.  This week the magic number is three.  Three for trilogy.  We've added 22 new books to the WWEnd database completing nine trilogies.

Let's start with The Well-Built City Trilogy by Jeffrey Ford.  The Physiognomy won the 1998 World Fantasy Award and to that we've added Memoranda and The Beyond in the reprint editions from Golden Gryphon Press.  The cover art for this edition is a superb triptych from artist John Picacio.  Very nice indeed.

Spider Robinson and wife Jeanne Robinson bring us The Stardance Trilogy with 1980 Locus SF Nominated Stardance and its 2 sequels Starseed and Starmind.

Gwyneth Jones' Aleutian Trilogy is complete with the addition of Phoenix Café to 1992 Clarke Nominated White Queen and 1994 BSFA and 1995 Clarke nominated North Wind.

Jeff Carlson's Plague Year Trilogy is now complete.  We already had the middle volume, 2008 PKD Nom Plague War, to which we added Plague Year and Plague Zone.  I'm feeling a bit woozy all of a sudden.

The Broken God, 1994 Clarke Nominee, is the first book of David Zindell's A Requiem for Homo Sapiens.  We've added The Wild and War in Heaven, books 2 and 3 respectively.

The Marathon Trilogy by D. Alexander Smith is all in with Marathon and Homecoming added either side of 1988 PKD Nom Rendezvous.  Never judge a book by its cover they say.  Well these covers are pretty bad ass so be sure to check them out anyway.  I love big spaceships.

We've finished out The Jewelfire Trilogy by Freda Warrington with The Sapphire Throne and The Obsidian Tower.  They join 2000 BFS Nominated The Amber Citadel.

The Grigori Trilogy by Storm Constantine is made up of Stalking Tender Prey,     1997 BFS Nominated Scenting Hallowed Blood and Stealing Sacred Fire.  Fallen angels live among us... interesting.

Last, but not least, we have The Minotaur Trilogy by Thomas Burnett Swann.  This trilogy is different from most in that for reasons unknown Mr. Swann wrote the stories backwards.  He started with book three 1967 Hugo Nominee Day of the Minotaur, then followed it with book two The Forest of Forever in 1971 and ended with book one Cry Silver Bells in 1977.  How's that for confusing?

The Grand Tour series by author Ben Bova deals with the exploration and colonization of the solar system.  Each book tends to focus on a different planet with some common themes and characters appearing across the series.  Exploration, colonization, amazing discoveries, corporate espionage, murder, space battles... this series has got something for everyone.

Strangely, Dr. Bova has not had much luck in the awards department despite a large and faithful following.  The only Grand Tour book to garner a nomination was 2006's Titan which won the 2007 Campbell Award.  There are 18 total books in the series including the short story collection Tales of the Grand Tour and the 4 volumes that make up the Asteroid Wars:  The Precipice, The Rock Rats, The Silent War and The Aftermath.  We've got them listed in the author's preferred chronological order though many of the stories overlap in time.

One of the nice things about this series is that despite the character and time overlaps most of the books can be read independantly or out of order.  The exceptions would be the Asteroid Wars and the Mars trilogy: Mars, Return to Mars, and Mars Life which should be read in sequence as each novel builds on what went before.  I cherry picked my way through most of the planets reading Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and Venus and enjoyed them all.  I really like the nice cover art as well.  They've got a classic SF look.

No, they don't actually smell like Neil Gaiman, but one of them smells like Mad Sweeney from American Gods.  Apparently, he smells like whiskey and oak.  If you'd rather sniff Mr. Ibis, well, you're in luck, they've distilled his essence as well.  Want to inhale characters from other books?  You can choose from many varieties inspired by the worlds of Stardust, Anansi Boys, and The Graveyard Book.

We're not sure that this is what Shakespeare meant when he said "verse distills your truth", but at least they're doing their best to truly distil verse.

Profits go to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

First up is Sheri S. Tepper's Arbai Trilogy:.  I've added Raising the Stones, the middle volume between 1990 Hugo and Locus nominee Grass and 1993 Campbell nom Sideshow.

For Michael Moorcock I added 2 books to complete The Dancers at the End of Time trilogy.  An Alien Heat and The End Of All Songs bookend  1976 BFS Winner, The Hollow Lands.  I looked high and low for synopsis and excerpts for these with no joy.  The older books are such a pain to find info for.

Tanith Lee's Tales from the Flat Earth series is now completed with the addition of three books: Delusion's Master, Delirium's Mistress and Night's Sorceries.  Book 1 Night's Master was nominated for the 1979 WFA and book 2, Death's Master, was the 1980 BFS Winner.

Last, but not least, is His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman.  I added in the first 2 books of the trilogy: The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife.  The Amber Spyglass was a double nominee in 1997 for the WFA and Locus Fantasy awards.

Until next time... Stay curious my friends. ™

Well, it's been a long time coming but it's finally here.  WWEnd has a functioning blog at last!  We've been posting here and there for some time using an embedded  RSS feed from LiveJournal as a stop-gap measure while we worked on other areas of the site.  Who knew it would take almost 2 years to get back around to it?  We own our shame.

The LJ embed did not allow commenting so we have 50+ posts below with zero comments to kick off our new blog.  That's virgin snow my friends.  Plenty of opportunity to make your mark.  Watch this space for more news and information as we ramp up to speed.  We'll be covering the awards, SFF news and events, author interviews, book reviews and even an ocassional science piece in addtion to regular updates about happenings here on WWEnd.  Until next time....

It was a cold, rainy Manhattan evening... the shadows oozing from the alleys seemed particularly menacing. Was that a puddle of street water at the curb, or a puddle of blood? As I paced nervously through the uninviting streets, past shuttered shops and grim Brownstones, I couldn't help but wonder who would be out on a night like this? I soon got my answer... the followers of H.P. Lovecraft! I and his other adherents were happy to brave the dreary streets to attend the latest New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series event: the launch of the new Ellen Datlow compendium, "Lovecraft Unbound."

The reading and "soft launch" of the book took place in the SoHo Gallery of Digital Art, a bright and thoroughly hospitable space for an event like this. "Lovecraft Unbound" is the latest anthology from Ms. Datlow, a matriarch of the Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy genres. The book is a collection of Lovecraft-inspired short stories as envisaged by some of the most formidable writers still alive and twitching. Producer and Executive Curator Jim Freund ran the evening, and he did a great job introducing the guests and hosting the reading in general.

Ms. Datlow (multiple winner of the Hugo Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the World Fantasy Award, the International Guild Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Locus Award, among others) began the evening explaining that she wanted to present a vision of Lovecraft "...without the tentacles, but hopefully with the flavor, the paranoia, of Lovecraft. Okay, well, some tentacles." The anthology readers on hand were, in alphabetical order, Elizabeth Bear, Richard Bowes, and Michael Cisco.

Mr. Bowes (winner of the World Fantasy Award, the Lamda Literary Award and 2006 Nebula nominee for From the Files of the Time Rangers among others) read first, from his story "The Office of Doom," a wry, thoroughly enjoyable tale. Michael Cisco (winner of the International Horror Guild Award) read his story next, "Machines of Concrete Light and Dark." It was very different in flavor but no less entertaining... a dark, bloody story that left the crowd shivering. Was it mere coincidence that none of our pictures of Mr. Cisco came out? We leave you to decide....

Ms. Bear (winner of the Hugo Award, the Locus Award for Best First Novel, the John W. Campbell Award and 2006 PKD/2007 Locus nominee for Carnival) read a portion of her story, co-written with Sarah Monette, "Mongoose." It was a rich combination of science fiction artifice and Lovecraftian dread, and definitely left the audience wanting more. (We were able to catch up to Ms. Bear after the reading, and ask her, on behalf of WWEnd readers, what she was working on next. "I've just handed in the draft of the second Jacob's Ladder novel, and I'm working on a couple fantasy novels after that.")

The SoHo neighborhood was a fine choice for the book launch: it still evoked, especially at night, the gritty gloom of the previous century's tightly packed tenements. H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) lived not too far away for a time, across the river in Brooklyn. That borough inspired one of his stories, "The Horror of Red Hook", written in 1925.

"Lovecraft Unbound" successfully evokes that brand of grisly horror and macabre fantasy that Lovecraft spawned a century ago. The stories are as rewarding and collectively gratifying as you would hope and expect from an Ellen Datlow anthology, and we're happy to recommend it to WWEnd readers. And for those in the greater New York area, we also recommend the NYRSF Reading Series! They do after all have access to some of the best talent in the business, and their readings are a monthly event worth checking out.

Are the audiences for Science Fiction and Fantasy waning? Not if the attendance at this year’s Big Apple Comic Convention in New York City is any indication. Fans packed New York’s Pier 54 to see, talk about and/ or buy everything from the latest in comic trends to sci fi movies and TV shows. The convention space given over to Wii games was large, and always crowded. Science Fiction and Fantasy afficionados crowded into Q&A panels, and signing booths. Guests this year included William Shatner, Kate Mulgrew, Brent Spiner, and Nichelle Nicolls. The convention was packed into a 175,000 square foot space in Pier 94 on New York’s Hudson River. Over 500 exhibitors represented the comic, science fiction, fantasy, and gaming vendors. Here are a few trends we can report on, from our interviews and product reviews:

1. Sex! More is better! The libidos of science fiction and fantasy fans are apparently asking for, and getting, more naughty bits. Guest William Shatner was eager to note his new comic book, based on his Tekwar series, was sexier than ever. And news of up-coming TV series and movie trajectories, from the Q&A sessions, confirmed that viewers will be served up more sex appeal in the near future. Which is an appropriate sequeway to our next trend:

2. Vampires! Who is not taking advantage of the current Fad of Fangs? There was a Princess Leia with vampiric incisors, and a Wonder Woman Wampyr, and who could sort out the bloodless undead from the average comic book fan, feverishly sorting through the vendor boxes for a needed back issue? The convention crowds flowed beneath posters and banners of vampiric tales, new and old. Vampire chic has never been more popular or more prevalent, as evidenced by the success of screen juggernauts “Twilight” and “True Blood”. Are pouting, angst-ridden nubile teens more alluring, or more annoying, when they have fangs? The media and print industries know the answer. Where is Buffy when we need her most...

This year’s Big Apple Comic Convention was an entertaining mix of the usual thrills and some new surprises. The buzz, and the total immersion in the genres, again was worth the price of admission.

The Dragon Knight is a fantasy series of 9 books starting with The Dragon and the George (1977 BFS winner and WFA nominee) and finishing with The Dragon and the Fair Maid of Kent in 2000.  This is classic "man from our world is transported to a fantasy land where he becomes a hero" fantasy that somehow escaped my notice all these years.  This is just the sort of thing I would have flown through back in the day.

Dickson's Childe Cycle, also referred to as the Dorsai series, is his most famous foray into science fiction.  The first book in the series is 1960 Hugo nominee, Dorsai!  Dickson followed up with 9 other novels (I'm counting The Final Encyclopedia as 2 novels) plus several novellas and short stories.  Dickson passed away in 2001 before he could complete the rest of the series he envisioned and the final Childe volume, Antagonist, was eventually completed by his long-time assistant David W. Wixon in 2007.

Happy reading.

Discuss in the Forum

You may have noticed that most of the covers for these are reprints from HarperTorch.  I loves me a cover art series and these are fun and definitely colorful. This is a series that's been printed in many editions and translations over the years so I was happy to find the anniversary set from HT.  If you're a fan of cover art AND Discworld, you're in luck.  The Discworld Cover Wiki has an amazing collection of covers for all the books.  Go ahead and check it out.  It's mind-boggling.  Just make sure to come back, OK?

Discuss in the forums

David Eddings' King of the Murgos was a Locus Fantasy nominee in 1989 so I added the other 4 books of The Malloreon to complete the series.

But what's the Malloreon without The Belgariad? Uh... just 5 books instead of 10? Yep. Had to add the whole saga.

To keep the fantasy series theme going I added in the rest of the books for Memory, Sorrow and Thorn by Tad Williams. Book 3 was nominated for the Locus Fantasy Award in 1994. If you read it, you know that the last book of the trilogy was over 1,000 pages - too many pages for a single paperback, so the publishers divided it into 2 volumes. So the Trilogy is actually 4 books in paperback form but not in hardcover. To get around this problem, I tagged both volumes of To Green Angel Tower as book 3 and added Part 1 - Seige and Part 2 - Storm as sub-titles. It's still a trilogy but you get credit for 4 books if you read them. Bonus! The new Orbit covers are tasty too.

And now for something completely different... A guy so nice you say the "E" twice - E.E. "Doc" Smith. This is old school SF we're talking about. Skylark DuQuesne was nominated for the Hugo in 1966. (Check out the Hugo lineup for 1966!) After reading the synopsis I decided I'd have to read this one. Turns out it's the 4th book of the Skylark Series written 16 years after book 3. The series was a pulp serial originally and published in a book starting in 1946! Check out the covers on this series. These are the stuff of dreams. Classic SF goodness.

These and other new additions to the WWEnd database can be found in the forum. I'll post up all the newest books each Monday.

Memoirs of a Master Forger, William Heaney, (Gollancz)

This isn't so much a fact as, well, pure speculation, but the latest Johnny Depp vehicle may share more than just the title of Tim Powers' 1988 WFA and Locus Fantasy nominated novel.  According to Zap2it, the Powers character, Jack Shandy, may morph into Jack Sparrow, with the rest of the novel's elements staying relatively true to the original novel.  Some level of confirmation seems to come from LatinoReview.com, which quotes Powers' agent as saying "it is not a coincidence".

I'm not sure what to think of a fourth Pirates movie, given the underwhelming nature of part three.  On the other hand, maybe Tim Powers could save the franchise.  What do you think?

The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (Bloomsbury, HarperCollins)

Little Brother, Cory Doctorow (Tor)
Song of Time, Ian R. MacLeod (PS Publishing)

Read the official press release here.

Anathem, Neal Stephenson (Atlantic UK, Morrow) - Best SF Novel
Lavinia, Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt) - Best Fantasy Novel

The complete list of winners for all categories can be found on the Locus web site.

Robert J. Sawyer Interview

Get the complete list of nominees for all categories here.

Song of Time by Ian R. MacLeod.

Matter by Iain M. Banks (Orbit)
City at the End of Time by Greg Bear (Gollancz, Del Rey)
Marsbound by Joe Haldeman (Ace)
Anathem by Neal Stephenson (Atlantic UK, Morrow)
Saturn's Children by Charles Stross (Orbit, Ace)

Check 'em out on the Locus page.

The Shadow Years by Jeffrey Ford (Morrow)
Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt)
The Bell at Sealey Head by Patricia A. McKillip (Ace)
The Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick (Tor)
An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe (Tor)

Check 'em out on the Locus page.

Powers by Ursula K. Le Guin

Our sincere congratulations to Ursula K. Le Guin.

The Night Sessions by Ken MacLeod

Congrats to Ken MacLeod for the win.

Emissaries from the Dead, Adam-Troy Castro (Eos Books)
Terminal Mind, David Walton (Meadowhawk Press)

Congratulations to Adam-Troy Castro and David Walton.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson (Morrow; Atlantic UK)
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury UK)
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen; HarperVoyager UK)
Saturn's Children by Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi (Tor)

Check 'em out on the Hugo page.

Song of Time, Ian R. MacLeod (PS Publishing)
The Quiet War, Paul McAuley (Gollancz)
House of Suns, Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz)
Anathem, Neal Stephenson (Atlantic)
The Margarets Sheri S. Tepper (Gollancz)
Martin Martin's on the Other Side, Mark Wernham (Jonathan Cape)

Check 'em out on the Clarke page.

Little Brother - Doctorow, Cory (Tor, Apr08)
Powers - Le Guin, Ursula K. (Harcourt, Sep07)
Cauldron - McDevitt, Jack (Ace, Nov07)
Brasyl - McDonald, Ian (Pyr, May07)
Making Money - Pratchett, Terry (Harper, Sep07)
Superpowers - Schwartz, David J. (Three Rivers Press, Jun08)

Check 'em out on the Nebula page.

Nalo Hopkinson

"I'm working on finishing those three novels; two adult fantasies and one young adult one. First out of the pipe should be Blackheart Man, which is sort of an alternate history fantasy set in the 18th Century in a region something like the Caribbean."

Hopkinson already has four books in our database that have collectively nabbed seven nominations for awards as big as the Hugo and the Nebula, and as brainy as the Philip K. Dick and John W. Campbell awards. All of this puts her easily in the top quintile of Worlds Without End tracked authors. With three more books coming out, might she skyrocket into the top 10%?

In fact, the post that caught my eye announced the death of John Updike.  This, of course, is big news in the world of any fan of literature (speculative or not), but it was an anecdote at the end of the post that really got my blood boiling.  You see, one might get away with talking about John Updike on a site like tor.com, if you referenced some of his more surreal work, like The Centaur, which they did, of course.  That, however, buys you no credibility among some literati.  What do I mean?  Here's the money quote:

"A Harvard professor had said something dismissive about science fiction, and a colleague reminded her that she had taught The Left Hand of Darkness. 'That’s true,' she explained patiently, 'but that’s not science fiction. It’s literature.'”

Oooo...that makes me sooo aaangwy.

Flood by Stephen Baxter
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
The Night Sessions by Ken MacLeod
Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Check 'em out on the BSFA page.

The new book, called Regenesis, can be found in our Amazon store. If you read it, please email us your opinion. We expect to see it in our database when it gets nominated for something (as will surely be the case) next year, and we'd love to have your reviews to publish when it happens.

I haven't been this excited since Stephen R Donaldson finally ended his decades long Thomas Covenant hiatus with Runes of the Earth.

Abraham, Daniel: A Betrayal in Winter (Tor, July 2007)
Barzak, Chris: One for Sorrow (Bantam, September 2007)
Bull, Emma: Territory (Tor, July 2007)
Doctorow, Cory: Little Brother (Tor, April 08)
Goonan, Kathleen Ann: In War Times (Tor, May 07)
Le Guin, Ursula K.: Powers (Harcourt Children\'s Books, September 2007)
McDevitt, Jack: Cauldron (Ace, November 2007)
McDonald, Ian: Brasyl (Pyr, May 2007)
Pratchett, Terry: Making Money (Harper/Collins, Septempber 2007)
Rothfuss, Patrick: The Name of the Wind (DAW, April 2007)

The big news, however, is the new Best Graphic Story category. Geezers like me might call it the "comic book" category, but I know you afficianados would correct me. Since the Hugo is not technically a science fiction award (fantasy novels also qualify), I wonder how loose the eligibility requirements would be for this one. Is it enough that a work is drawn, or must it be otherworldly? Could Batman receive an award? What about a classy title that isn't techy or fantastic at all, like Ghost World? Me, I'm rooting for the great one: Asterix!

George RR Martin, a three-time Locus Fantasy Award winner, and an 18 time nominee for virtually every award in our database, will be the guest of honor. You can catch him on Friday at 3:00 when he'll be part of a panel on science fiction literature with Connie Willis and Mem Morman, and then at the opening ceremonies at 7PM with Ted Monogue. Both Mr. Martin and Ms. Willis will be around pretty much all day on Saturday and Sunday.

Wil McCarthy, a Phillip K Dick and double Nebula nominee, will also be present on Sunday, with appearances at 10 and 2.

Check out the full schedule for these authors and many other guests. We'd suggest a Sunday ticket, if you want to meet all three award winners/nominees (it's only $10 on that day), but you can hang out all weekend for $45. By the way, if you snag a pic of Wil McCarhy, we'd like a copy.

The nominees for the 2009 Philip K. Dick Award have been announced:

We've just updated the novel page to display member avatars in the novel rating. Click "+ Member Rating" to see all the members who read and/or rated the novel. You can click on the avatars to go to that member's profile to see what other books they liked etc.

Ender's Game has gotten a lot of reads as you might expect. Check it out.

Orson is a tease.

Well, it seems he has finally taken pity on us.  Finally, Mr. Card aims to satisfy with a direct sequel to Ender's Game, depicting Ender as a teenager, unable to return to Earth.  This novel promises to fill in the gaps between Enders Game and Speaker for the Dead, and presumably results in Ender deciding to board the interstellar ship that push him forward in time.  Look for this book to get a nomination or two.  You can find a press release here.

British Fantasy

That isn't why her fans are up in arms, however.  This is:  The book pretty much explains why she will never write another Anne Rice vampire thriller again.

Yes, that's right, Anne is out  of the Goth business (has been for a while, too).  The Detroit Metro Times reviews her latest, entitled Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession.  The autobiographical treatise details her (re)conversion to Catholicism and her abandonment of all things goth.

Personally, I think Catholicism is plenty goth, and vampyric tales are usually best told with heavy doses of the highly ritualized religion, which happens to be my own.  Nevertheless, I'm sure plenty of WWEnd readers have opinions on this.  Religion and goth horror... do they mix?

- I read the first 3 books of this series and found them to be quite good.  I got distracted with other stuff and never got back to finish out the series so if they do make it I can finally see how it all turns out.

- The plan is to make each book in the series into an entire season!  That is brilliant!  I hate when a book, or indeed a series of books, gets condensed into a movie or miniseries.  You lose so much detail!  The council of Rivendell scene in The Lord of the Rings movies is a prime example.  They can tell the whole story and they won't have to make the kind of cuts that inevitably kill character development and back story.

- After watching half an episode of Legend of the Seeker I'm primed for somebody to make a good fantasy series and HBO has made some excellent shows.  Rome anyone?

- Since it is HBO you can bet they will pull no punches.  There is some serious violence and gratuitous sex in Martin's world and we'll get to see it all as only HBO can deliver.  Uh.... Rome anyone?

What do you guys think?  Can HBO pull this off?

Reply to this post in the forum.

To this end, Ryman (as he elaborates in last week's interview with NebulaAwards.com) wants to ban the following tropes from modern science fiction:

• No FTL, no wormholes, warps etc as magic wands around that
• No Very Fast travel without time dilation
• No time travel
• No parallel universes based on quantum uncertainty
• No telepathy
• No aliens

We at Worlds Without End [okay, some of us...okay, maybe it's just me] couldn't agree more.  That is why we will be adding Mundane SF to our list of sub-genre tags.  Please look up any award winning book that you think qualifies as Mundane and tag it (I just added Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge).  

How does a gothic novelist pull down nominations for science fiction awards? Ms. Williams combines goth and science in unusual ways, setting her characters on the surface of Mars in Banner of Souls, the fictional worlds with names like Nehm in Darkland or "the planet of Latent Emanation (where does she pick these names?) in The Poison Master.

Now, Liz is mixing the old with the new again by making digital books available online. Her publisher, Baen Books has just launched webscription.net, a new ebook commerce site that is compatible with the Kindle and iPhone platforms, where they are highlighting three Liz Williams books, Snake Agent, The Demon and the City, and Precious Dragon.

The most recent example of sci-fi becoming sci-fa(ct) is already out. In Vernor Vinge's latest, Rainbows End, children are depicted playing their videogames not in their living rooms in front of the television, but outside.  I work for a co-op dedicated to getting people (especially children) outside, so you can imagine how delighted I was at the prospect of technology that actually takes you outdoors.  The technology in this book, however, might leave a parent wistful for the antiquated yet charming x-box days. 

The tech works like this: Everyone (well, not everyone, but everyone who is anyone) in Vinge's world views their surroundings with enhanced vision.  A virtual layer is superimposed on the world with a contact lens display screen.  Forget CRTs being replaced by LCD.  There is no need for a computer screen because displays now live under your eyelid.  Sound far fetched?  It's being done.

The contact lens, however, is just another interface.  As amazing as this technology seems to us, it will be taken for granted in short order.  The real technology power will be in the hands of programmers.  Vinge predicts whole virtual worlds that will be experienced not in dimly lit apartments (a la Nueromancer), but in the light of day.  The students of fictional Fairmont High (at least the ones who actually show up to class rather than attend virtually, which they can do) run outside to recess and play games outside and layer virtual worlds over real objects to create adventure.  Would you like to do that now?

You can.  The guys at Groundspeak have been developing an interactive gaming system called WhereIGo with a functionality that harkens back to Zork.  Garmin's latest handheld GPS, the Colorado, is the first GPS device capable of running this program, although can also use a GPS enabled palm unit.  So, think back to when you played Zork in 1980.  For those of you who weren't around (or perhaps were around but weren't quite the geek I was) in 1980, Zork was text based game.  You start out in a room with several doors.  You navigate the game by inputting simple commands like "exit left doorway" or "open treasure chest".  Even later games like Doom or Quake were merely graphically enhanced versions of Zork.  WhereIGo makes the great outdoors your virtual world by using a GPS interface like the Colorado.  Instead of inputting those kludgy sentences (like Zork) or using a joystick (like today's games), you input your virtual actions by actually moving around in the world.  I am currently working on adapting these games for REI.  Soon, you will be able to play these games at local stores (you already can at the Seattle and Portland locations).  Here's what a WhereIGo enable Colorado looks like: 

So, here's an example.  A programmer goes to a local park and starts to input data.  The big oak tree in the middle of the park can be anything in the game.  When you go to that tree, something will happen in the game.  Perhaps there is a street sign that can provide a clue that you might need in the game.  The only way to continue playing would be to go get that clue.  Since the Colorado is a GPS, the game knows where in the game you are.  

Games like WhereIGo are in their primitive stage, at the moment, but give the programmers some time, and they will create a rich world that can easily be ported through something like those contact lens displays.  

That virtual world is coming fast.