The Gloaming: This office looks way too familiar. By Andrew Huang, who created one of my favorites, Doll Face. (2:56 minutes)
Ida’s Luck: Gotta love the creepy black-eyed girl. “Everywhere Ida goes, misfortune is soon to follow” (20 minutes)
A stranger leaves a package on your doorstep, a box wrapped in plain brown paper. You aren’t expecting a delivery, but Christmas is coming. Your sister’s getting married in a few weeks, so it could be a present for members of the wedding party. You open it. You find another box inside, a curious black device of wood and aluminum, with a clear glass dome enclosing a small red button on top. The dome is locked. If you had the key, would you push the button?
Time for chapter IV.6 of The Two Towers, “The Forbidden Pool,” in our Lord of the Rings re-read. As always, spoilers for all of LotR and comments after the jump.
Do you know where your towel is? Right now? This instant?
Do you want to?
Thanks to the wonderful Colleen Lindsay, we have a prize pack to give away, consisting of a set of the new US editions of Douglas Adams’ original five-book Hitchhiker trilogy; a signed copy of Eoin Colfer’s new Hitchhiker book, And Another Thing; a copy of Colfer’s Artemis Fowl; and your very own DON’T PANIC tea-towel. (The words on the towel are much larger and friendlier that that; see below.)
The Rules: All you have to do to win this embarrassment of riches is comment (once—duplicates won’t count) on this post before noon EST, Tuesday, November 10th. A winner be be selected at random. Please check your email on Tuesday! You have 24 hours to respond before I select a new winner. And if you’re not the winner this time, well...
With Tor.com’s steampunk month now behind us, I would like to ponder what may come next. Certainly, steampunk as a genre and as a subculture is here to stay, there’s no doubting that; in all ways, steampunk is still heating up and will probably continue to grow for years. However, trends naturally evolve and new ones come into being, and I have pondered what the next aesthetic of interest will be. There is no doubt in my mind that the whole neo-vintage trend is still going strong, so the next big genre will be another subset of retro-futurism.
There’s a feminine kind of sentimentality which is most often seen in stories about True Love. And there’s a masculine kind of sentimentality which is most often seen in stories about Just War. There’s a moment near the beginning of Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (1961) where a man charging into battle says “All right you guys, do you want to live forever?” And there you have it, the violins, the heart stirring, the tears in the eyes—my eyes anyway. That kind of thing has a direct and visceral appeal, and nobody does it better than Piper.
This is one of those books that I read when I was twelve (under the British title Gunpowder God) and loved uncritically. It’s hard to overstate just how much fun it is—this is a vastly enjoyable book. It’s military SF with added history of technology, and I think it might have been the first thing on those lines I read, and it set the pattern.
We continue our Letters from Abroad interview with Professor Kelly Joyce—an old friend and one of the most interesting people I’ve ever known—currently a program director at the National Science Foundation, normally a sociology prof specializing in scientific, medical, and technological issues at The College of William & Mary. She explores in the real world what science fiction explores through fiction: follows the introduction of technology and how it is adapted into society. Perhaps books in her field explore ideas that can be applied to science fiction, and vice versa. Okay, let’s get right into the interview. [Note: Some of the interview refers to her recent book on MRI technology, Magnetic Appeal: MRI and the Myth of Transparency.] Part 1 of the interview, on MRI. Dr. House, and diagnostic dogs, is here.
Q. You study technology and the aging. Can you tell us about that?
A. Recently, I took up the issue of technogenarians. That is, I looked at how old people actively use and shape technologies that may or may not have been designed with older bodies and abilities in mind. Meika Loe and I are the co-editors of Technogenarians: Studying Health and Illness through an Aging, Science, and Technology Lens, which will be published in 2010 by Wiley-Blackwell Publishers.
In this project we also challenge the stereotype that old people are technologically illiterate and show how they creatively adjust or invent technologies to fit varied needs. The book will take a look at the rise of gerontechnologies.
Companies and academic centers are busy creating new technologies to augment changes in bodies that might occur as we age. In business worlds, people are well aware of the aging populations in Canada and the U.S, and want to capitalize on these markets.
Illustration by Idiots’Books
He wasn’t ready to leave the hospital. For starters, he couldn’t walk yet, and there were still times when he could barely remember where he was, and there was the problem of the catheter. But the insurance company and the hospital had concurred that he’d had all the treatment he needed—even if his doctor hadn’t been able to look him in the eye when this was explained—and it was time for him to go home. Go away. Go anywhere.
He’d put it all in his LJ, the conversation as best as he could remember it, the way it made him feel. The conversation he’d had with Perry and the idea he’d had for pawning Disney-in-a-Box. He didn’t even know if his apartment was still there—he hadn’t been back in weeks and the rent was overdue.
And the comments came flooding in. First a couple dozen from his friends, then hundreds, then thousands. Raging fights—some people accused him of being a fakester sock-puppet aimed at gathering sympathy or donations (!)—side-conversations, philosophical arguments.
In my debut novel, Revolution is not a Dinner Party, there is a scene where Ling, the main character, watches her father burn the family’s books and photos. This actually occurred in my childhood. My father, a prestigious surgeon trained by American missionaries, destroyed all his beloved books to protect our family from the zealous Red Guard. Yet he continued my education in secret, which included English lessons, a dangerous violation. He instilled in me a love for books and a yearning for freedom. During the Cultural Revolution, the only books we were allowed to read were Mao’s teaching and government-approved propaganda that praised the Communist philosophy. Everything else was banned and burned.
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My father, Dr. Chang Sin-Liu |
Revolution Is Not |
Since I’ve talked a bit about how psychology and appreciation of stories might interact, I thought it’d be interesting to consider something many people mention first when talking about a story: characters. Sometimes a great protagonist or villain can raise up an otherwise mediocre story. Sometimes a plot that sounded fascinating gets bogged down by cardboard characters. And, of course, readers don’t all agree: a character one finds impressive another may find repulsive, and vice versa.
Why is that, and what factors might make a character more or less appealing? Psychologists have suggested that for readers to care about characters, they need to react to them as if they were friends or enemies. So let's start by examining what makes us like other people in our lives.
Caroline Stevermer is one of the writers who unaccountably doesn’t get much attention. I don’t understand why this is—maybe because she hasn’t written a series, or maybe because some of her work is YA, though YA is popular lately. She co-wrote the Sorcery and Cecelia books with Patricia Wrede, and she’s also written a number of adult books on her own. She’s one of the astonishing crop of writers from Minneapolis—I think it must have the highest density of fantasy and SF writers per capita of any city in the world.
I was born on the coldest day of the year. When the midwife handed me to my father he said “Hail the newcomer! Hardy the traveller who ventures forth on such a day.”
After four sons, my family was pleased to have a daughter at last. My father persuaded my mother than I should be named Hail, to commemorate the welcome I’d been given. My name is a greeting, dignified and sober, not a form of bad weather.
Some books take a little while to get going, but this one grabs from the first instant.
What’s a big new book without an audio version?
Hard to read in the car, that’s what.
Thank goodness for Kate Reading and Michael Kramer, the dynamic duo behind all of the Wheel of Time audiobooks; Michael also did Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Trilogy (sadly without Kate). Here’s an interview with them about the series, including their favorite characters and biggest challenges (often one and the same). It’s so funny to hear the voices I know from the audiobooks, especially Michael’s epic rumble, speaking casually! [Edited to add: Interview by Laura Wilson.] Enjoy:
The audiobook is available in CD format and also download-ably from iTunes and Audible.
Megan Messinger is a production assistant at Tor.com, and she can’t hear you—she has her headphones on and is listenin’ to Elliott rock, rock, rock, rock, rock me to sleep.
Welcome to another installment of Bradbury Thursdays! Today the SF master reflects on the collaborations in which he’s engaged to transfer his fiction to stage, screen and panel. The author strives to strike a balance between his vision of the work and that of the director or visual artist who brings it to a new medium. Some of these collaborations work better for Bradbury than others. In this segment he notes his frustration with some of François Truffaut’s choices with his film adaptation of Fahrenheit 451.
Today marks the fifth in our series of seven interviews with Ray Bradbury on the visual nature of his fiction. Just tuning in? Check out last week’s segment, in which the author discusses his writing process.
The release of these videos closely follows our serialization of Tim Hamilton’s graphic novel adaptation of Fahrenheit 451. Don’t miss this remarkable new vision from Hill & Wang, which, besides stunning artwork, includes a new foreword by Bradbury and even an iPhone app.
Oooh, Ozma is having a birthday party! Can Dorothy and her friends make it in time for the party? Can they? CAN THEY?
It must be confessed from the outset that The Road to Oz does not have much of a plot. (You just read pretty much the entire thing.) But, even plotless, The Road to Oz is one of the most critical books in the development of Oz, since here at last we see the nearly ultimate, persistent version of Oz: Oz as communist utopia.
With fairies!
In which Charlie the First and Binx confront interstellar colonialism.
We are pleased to announce the winners of the Steampunk Month Photo Contest! The entries (all of which can be viewed at the Tor.com Steampunk Photo Contest Flickr group) were so neat that it was nearly impossible to choose just eight.
But choose we eventually did. Your sneak preview is below...
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...but you'll have to click through to the entry itself for the full story.
Stumptown #1
Written by Greg Rucka
Illustrated by Matthew Southworth
Colored by Lee Loughridge
Published by Oni Press
I went to the comic shop planning to buy a new overpriced convoluted mainstream comic mini series. What I came out with was a creator-owned book by a writer whose work I buy far too little of. It was the same price with 10 extra pages. There was only one in the shop. It could have been somebody’s copy. If you’re reading this and it was yours I apologize. But know that it went to a good home. Lately I’ve been seriously rethinking my comic collecting, and I’ve had to drop a few titles. But every once in awhile you have to take a chance on something that looks good. Stumptown may look similar to Criminal but the similarities end there.
Alright folks. The time has come. I’m tired of being beaten down. I’ve been picked apart, dismantled, and routinely defeated too may times. It is time for me to rise. To lift my face despite the bruises and accept the challenge before me. It is time to redeem my honor. My ji.
I will defeat Brandon Sanderson at a game of Magic: The Gathering.... And you’re going to help me.
In return, we’re going to twitter the game live and report back to Tor.com once it’s all done. To pull this off, I’m going to need a lot of help.
Battlestar Galactica: The Plan was released on DVD and on iTunes last week, and in keeping with Tor.com tradition, we’ve put together a round table from a couple of BSG Round Table regulars, and a newcomer. Is it a glorified clip show? An excuse to show some boobies in the tubs o’ goo? Does it even add anything to the show, or does it put a sour bookmark on the series? Read on to find out....
Back when paperbacks were first invented, Penguin used to sell their books with orange covers that told you nothing but the name of the book and the name of the author. A little later, when they got more sophisticated, they started to use different colours for different genres, black for classics, turquoise for non-fiction, orange for literature, purple for travel and green for crime. They never had one colour for SF and fantasy, but Gollancz did: yellow—the sight of a yellow spine still makes me happy. The original Penguins didn’t have back cover blurbs or anything, just the author’s name and the book’s title. I suppose they thought that would be enough for anyone to know whether they wanted it—if you think of old leather bound books, that’s what they were like, after all. You’d probably heard of them, and if not, and if you wanted to know what they were about, you read them.
Steven Brust’s Agyar is the only one book that I feel ought to have an edition like that, entirely unmarked except perhaps for genre in the most general terms. When my husband saw that I was reading Agyar, he pursed his lips and said “That’s going to be hard to talk about.” The problem is that while it’s a story that’s worth re-reading knowing everything, you still don’t want to spoil the joy of reading it for the first time without knowing anything about it. The thing is that it’s a completely different book when you first read it and when you re-read it knowing. It’s a good book either way, but it’s something where you want to have both experiences. And usually with some big spoiler thing, everyone delights in spoiling it and telling you about Rosebud and Bruce Willis and all of that. You wouldn’t believe how many books have spoilers in their back-cover material. But with Agyar I’ve noticed for years that people very carefully talk around it and use spoiler space because it’s not like that. The thing that Brust does here that’s most interesting is the way he takes the expectation inherent in the way people tell stories and does something with that. It’s like Attic red-figure vases—the action is in what you’d expect to be blank space, and the pattern reverses.
It has a contemporary setting. It’s kind of urban fantasy. It’s the only book on this subject I like. If you like good writing you might like it too.
