Offline life is busy enough, with few enough prospects for things letting up any time soon, that I am finally forced to admit it’s time for an open thread. So let’s go a little further afield this time, and talk about favorite (or otherwise interesting) responses to The Lord of the Rings in fiction.
Of course in a broad sense the very existence of fantasy as a publishing genre is a consequence of the success of The Lord of the Rings. And I’ve heard more than one writer say that all English-language fantasy has to, in some fashion, come to grips with Tolkien’s influence on the field. But I think it would be more interesting to talk specifically, about books or authors (though those of you who do write fantasy, I would be curious to hear your thoughts.)
In the two weeks since I announced my intent to challenge Brandon Sanderson to a game of Magic: The Gathering, I’ve been made all-too-aware of three undeniable facts:
Brandon is more popular than me
Brandon is a better Magic player than me
And most of you want me to get trampled into the ground
There is no doubt, as I wrote in Part 1 of this series, that Brandon is a superior player of this game, and my lifetime 1-4-1 record against him is testament to that. (My one victory came because he started with a handicap). I imagine this match to be akin to a One Power duel between a post-stilling Siuan Sanche (me) going up against Egwene (him). I probably don’t stand a chance, and most of you guys seem to think that. One endearing Tor.com reader even said I would get “smoked like a Christmas ham.”
Well this ain’t Chistmas yet, buddy. And I’ve... ahem... got some cards up my sleeve. What happens if you give Siuan an angreal, and Egwene some forkroot? The rules of our game have proven to be in my favor, and so there is hope yet. So let’s dive in, and discuss what my plan of attack is.
Oh, BTW, Brandon, if you’re reading this, um... don’t.
There’s a moment early in New Moon where Edward walks up to Bella in painfully-extended slow motion for their morning “No, I love you more”s. Proto-werewolf Jacob Black materializes to wish Bella a happy birthday. As Bella and Jacob talk, Edward stands a few feet away, glowering; when Bella hugs Jacob goodbye, Jacob makes a face at Edward over Bella’s utterly oblivious head, as music pounds behind them all.
This pretty much sets the tone for New Moon, a sequel to last year’s angsty steamroller, Twilight. Twilight was unevenly acted, awkwardly constructed, and so blue-tinted it might have been filmed through a bottle of Windex.
New Moon is worse.
[Bella, this is the last time you will ever see me. (Promises, promises.)]
Time travel as a scientific concept has been with us at least since the 19th century publication of H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine. But is it a real possibility? And how plausible are fictional portrayals of it? Kurt Andersen, host of the radio show Studio 360, interviewed science writer Dave Goldberg and science fiction writer Connie Willis about time travel in fiction, in film, and in real life, in a live-to-tape show at WNYC’s Greene Performance Space on Tuesday night.
[Travel to the future in which you read the rest of this post.]
Earlier this year, Tor.com debuted as an imprint independent from Tor Books by publishing Year’s Best Fantasy 9, David G. Hartwell’s and Kathryn Cramer’s definitive anthology of fantastical stories.
While YBF9 is still available as a print-on demand edition, and you can buy your very own print copy at the Tor.com Print Book Store, starting today, and once a week for the following eight weeks, we’ll be posting segments of the anthology on Tor.com as a PDF, for your reading pleasure.
Each of these segments will feature three or four stories from the anthology, and will be available to all registered users of Tor.com. It’s a great way to sample some of the content in the book before deciding to part with your hard-earned cash, or of simply getting a shorter dose of wonder and the fantastical.
Our first segment features the following stories:
“Dalthree” by Jeffrey Ford
“The Salting and Canning of Benevolence D.” by Al Michaud
“Reader’s Guide” by Lisa Goldstein
Registered users, download it here!
Pablo Defendini likes salty and canned things. He doesn’t expect to live past 50.
Traveling to strange new worlds or dimensions play a big part in that genre we call science fiction. In fact it’s one of my favorite themes. I’ve been traveling quite a bit lately, talking to schools and libraries across the country about the Fahrenheit 451 adaptation, and how graphic novels are created in general.
Traveling all these places, I assumed there would be many interesting events or adventures to write about. This turned out not to be the case. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed all the wonderful people I’ve met and had a great time talking about my work, but everything is taken care of for me on these trips. That is, I’m flown around the country, put up in nice hotels and taken out to eat. All very embarrassing at times actually. It’s an uneasy feeling to have people cater to your needs so much.
Vampires, werewolves, and parasols. Oh my.
I’m not one to use the word “delightful.” It doesn’t cross my lips in conversation or in writing. I’m a cynical geek, and while most geeks experience love, hate, obsession, desire, and myriad other emotions, delight is just too... pure of a feeling for the die-hard cynics among us. Our smiles must have a twist of the ironic, our pleasure has to come with a wink. Delight is not something we come by often.
However, I can say without reservation that Gail Carriger’s Soulless is an absolute delight to read.
Illustration by Idiots’Books
The smell at the Wal-Mart was overpowering. It was one part sharp mold, one part industrial disinfectant, a citrus smell that made your eyes water and your sinuses burn.
“I’ve rented some big blowers,” Perry said. “They’ll help air the place out. If that doesn’t work, I might have to resurface the floor, which would be rough—it could take a week to get that done properly.”
“A week?” Death said. Jesus. No way. Not another week. He didn’t know it for sure, but he had a feeling that a lot of these people would stop showing up eventually if there was no ride for them to geek out over. He sure would.
[“You smell that? We can’t close the doors and the windows and leave it like this.”]
Emmet’s reading Acacia by this year’s John W. Campbell Award winner David Anthony Durham. It is labeled book one of “War with the Mein.” This led me to pondering that common pitfall of making up fantasy names: hitting on something that already means something else, and is thus inadvertently funny. “Mein” to me means “noodles” as in “chow mein” and “lo mein.” I don’t know if it’s authentic Chinese or Western restaurant Chinese. Because I’m aware it means noodles, I find it hard to take it entirely seriously as the name of an evil enemy. Next, bring on “the war with the linguini!” and “the war with the tortellini!” Fantasy names create atmosphere, and this is not the atmosphere you want unless you’re Robert Asprin.
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From classrooms to the cruise ships, traveling is always a fascinating adventure |
As a child, the only trip my parents took me on was to Southern China, to visit my dying grandmother. My parents spent months applying for various travel documents, retrieving permits from the local police and standing in long lines for days to buy the train tickets. When we had to spend a night in a hotel, the clerk not only demanded that my parents show all kind of official permits, she also insisted on seeing their marriage certificate. Failure to produce a certificate would have resulted in stiff punishment and public humiliation. For years in China, it was illegal for unmarried couples to stay in the same hotel room. Even today, it is not uncommon for police to routinely search rooms in the middle of the night, demanding identification and marriage papers.
In my last post I offered my recommendations of young adult fantasy novels; now I’d like to share some YA science fiction recs. I think you’ll find there’s something that’ll appeal to just about everyone!
If you like psychological SF, like Passage and Flowers for Algernon, try:
House of Stairs and Singularity by William Sleator - The first perfectly demonstrates the power of behavioral conditioning, while the second bends space and time and the relationship between two brothers.
A Crack in the Line by Michael Lawrence - Alaric and Naia live in the same house, with (mostly) the same family, but they’ve never met—until a crack between their parallel worlds brings them together.
Candor by Pam Bachorz - A “perfect” community where everyone is kept in line with subliminal messages, except for the founder’s son, who finds himself having to decide just how much he’ll sacrifice for the new girl in town.
High on a hill was a lonely goat who ate some berries and went kind of crack-headed all over Ethiopia, and people have loved coffee ever since. I love coffee. I love the steam and aroma of a cup so massive you stir it with a supermodel, and after you drink it, you can set fires with your thoughts. Plus it allows you to stay up and read. Hooray, a lot, for coffee.
I’m fond of tea, as well, but it will never equal coffee in my palpitating heart. Tea is like…Belgium. I’ve nothing against Belgium but I don’t fall out of bed every morning looking like a squinty troll, crying out in pain for some fucking Belgium.
Today we offer the final installment in our series of interviews with Ray Bradbury. These videos follow closely on the heels of our serialization of Tim Hamilton’s graphic novel adaptation of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury has discussed Hamilton’s vision of his famous novel, and reflected on his writing process, his life philosophy, and other collaborations he’s joined to bring his fiction to new media. Last week he shared how he overcame one of the greatest challenges of his career–a fear of flying which prevented him from traveling and lecturing as he wished.
In this week’s segment, the author is enthusiastic about the forthcoming film adaptation of Fahrenheit 451, to be written and directed by Oscar-nominee Frank Darabont. Bradbury advocates for a renewed focus on childhood literacy in the United States, lest his novel’s dystopian vision come to pass.
After five Oz books, L. Frank Baum longed to write something else—almost anything else. He had already written a few other fantasy books (Queen Zixi of Ix, John Dough and the Cherub, and The Magical Monarch of Mo) and he had a new heroine in mind, a young girl named Trot. His last Oz book had been filled with cameo appearances from these other books in the hopes of attracting new young readers for them. When that failed, exhaustion—and perhaps a sneaking suspicion that his Oz books were cannibalizing sales of his non-Oz books—led him to make a sweeping end to Oz in The Emerald City of Oz— with an invasion.
In which Charlie the First and Binx witness a declaration of war.
Backwards up the mossy glen
Turned and trooped the goblin men,
With their shrill repeated cry,
‘Come buy, come buy.’
~ Goblin Market, by Christina Rossetti
Podcast: Incomplete (up to Episode 14)
Format: Audio and Ebook
RSS Feed: http://jenniferhudock.com/goblin-market/
Genre: Fantasy
Christina Rosetti wrote her poem “Goblin Market,” regarding one sister who falls under the control of goblins after greedily devouring food from their market, and the other sister who has to rescue her, back in 1862. It addressed feminine sexuality and her revolutionary views of Victorian marriage; the hint of sexuality is clear in the description of the temptation of the goblins’ fruit. It was the first four verses of this decadent descriptive poem that inspired Jennifer Hudock’s podcast novel, Goblin Market.
Man, does my heart beat for sci-fi. It’s a pity the genre rarely gets its deserved due in the mainstream. I can cite a dozen SF novels released this year that beat the pants off The Lost Symbol and other New York Times bestsellers in both content and craft…and yet, so many sci-fi and fantasy writers, myself included, scrap like pit bulls for coverage beyond the loyal—if comparatively much smaller—SFF-friendly blogosphere.
We’re a different breed. Our stories sport big ideas, social commentary and brains. We’re ferociously loyal to our favorite SFF novelists (here’s my holla to Sawyer, Scalzi and Vinge—represent!), and we’re often very loyal to the SFF genres, and their subgenres. In fact, most of my sci-fi and fantasy lovin’ friends read nothing but SFF.
I treasure that passion and loyalty, and you should too: ours is an awesome community. Yet I wonder if we—as readers and writers—can learn something from these bestsellers and the genres in which they roll. And I think the best way to learn something is to experience it.
By popular demand, or, more accurately, by one request, here is a follow-up to our “H.M.S. Stubbington” post. This time we will show some of the early sketches for our official logo, Stubby, the Tor.com rocket.
Before we get to Stubbs, I feel like we should go further back in time. Tor.com was the brainchild of our publisher, Fritz Foy, but despite what the initial proposal said, we pretty much knew the site couldn’t be called “Fritz’s Fantasy.” Naming the site turned out to be the single most agonizing issue over that year.
We were the TheRange.com for a nanosecond.
Torus.com for a few heartbeats. (Get it!? Tor Us!) We were Torus.com long enough for me to threaten to make the logo an inner-tube sticking on top of a mountain, ring-toss style, which means we were Torus about forty-five seconds too long.
I started editing anthologies in Australia in 1996. Looking back, it’s completely unsurprising that the first anthologies I edited were ‘year’s bests’. I first really became aware of science fiction as a ‘field’—a group of texts in dialogue with one another over a period of time—when I encountered Locus magazine and Gardner Dozois’s first Year’s Best Science Fiction in 1984.
Locus introduced me to the broader field and trained me about what’s important in science fiction, and Gardner’s book was like having the entirety of the field parachuted into my hometown once each year. When I had the chance to edit an anthology—when it’d been made clear that I would be allowed to—it had to be a year’s best. Since then I’ve edited or co-edited fourteen year’s bests and am currently finishing a fifteenth so it seems like a good time to talk about how I choose the stories I opt to reprint.
The way that I choose stories for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year changed in 2009, and only time will tell if it’s a change for good or ill. Over the past two years I’ve spent a lot of time editing the Eclipse series of anthologies, which I hope to blog about later, and I have learned a lot from doing so. In fact, when I sat down to write this post I surprised myself when I realised just how much the Eclipse experience has changed what I do.
Hey all you Neal Stephenson fans, we’ve got a treat for you! Our friends at Macmillan Audio have just released two classic Stephenson novels, Cryptonomicon and Zodiac, which were previously unavailable as unabridged audio. They were produced years ago, but were heavily abridged. These new editions feature the complete work. You can buy these audiobooks at Audible.com (Cryptonomicon, Zodiac) and on iTunes (Cryptonomicon, Zodiac). In the meantime, you can check out samples of both audiobooks using the player widget beyond the cut:
