Steampunk is getting its own professional webseries. Riese begins November 2 and it is the story of a woman and her dog Fenrir as they wander across the land of Elysia, helping those in need and piecing together her lost history even as she is pursed by the mysterious Sect.
The cast is full of experienced science fiction actors that are readily recognizable to many fans of the genre, including Christine Chatelain (SyFy’s Sanctuary, Supernatural, The Collector, The L-Word), Ben Cotton (Harper’s Island, Stargate: Atlantis, Stan Helsing), Sharon Taylor (Stargate: Atlantis, Smallville), Patrick Gilmore (Stargate: Universe, Battlestar Galactica, Intelligence), and Ryan Robbins (Sanctuary, Battlestar Galactica, The Guard).
Riese is filmed using the cutting-edge technology of the RED One camera system and looks more like a made-for-TV movie than a webseries if the trailer is any indication. More about the webseries can be found at http://riesetheseries.com.
So far, all we have is the trailer to go by, but if it is any indication, this may be the most talked about webseries of 2009.
John writes for several SF/F/H publications and is an avid fan of steampunk. More of his writing can be found at Grasping for the Wind.
Though Anne Rice is perhaps the best known writer of vampires, around about the same time that Interview with the Vampire was published another notable author had written a piece of vampire fiction. It didn’t get as much press at the time, but his name is now synonymous with epic fantasy: George R. R. Martin. Often called “the American Tolkien” for his epic A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, Martin wrote several novels in a wide variety of genres before settling in to write his masterpiece.
One of those novels was Fevre Dream, a novel of vampires on the Mississippi River. In Fevre Dream a down-on-his-luck steamboat operator and captain is given an offer by a strange man named Joshua York. York keeps strange hours, has ghostly pale skin, and drinks a rather strange-tasting liquor. But Captain Abner Marsh is in no position to argue when York offers to pay for the building of a steamboat the likes of which the Mississippi has never seen. Even when York requires strange terms and conditions. Abner’s decision to live with those conditions in order to rebuild his fortunes will change his life forever.
Fans of the original Star Trek will know that Nicholas Meyer is the mind behind two of the most popular movies in the franchise, Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. For those who don’t, well, it says so right on the cover of Meyer’s new book The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood.
Broken into three parts (Pre-Trek, Trek, and Post-Trek) the memoir follows Meyer’s path as the son of a New York psychoanalyst up until the present day. The bulk of his story is taken up with his work on Star Trek, but there are ancillary stories about how Meyer got into the movie business, some anecdotes about some of the actors and production people who made the movies great (or nearly ruined them), and theorizing on the nature of art and the movie business. His paragraph on the creation of science fiction is especially poignant:
If fiction is the lie that tells the greater truth, it is as well to remember that fiction is a lie, what some folks call a whopper or stretcher or bullshit. How do we make a lie convincing? By loading it with circumstantial elements that are true…Without this kind of help - speaking for myself – much of science fiction will fail to convince. We try to blur the point at which the truth blends into the lie. If done correctly, the audience fails to notice the moment when they slip the bonds of reality and embark on the fantastic voyage. If done well, they are so involved that they miss the moment when they willingly agree to suspend disbelief.
It seems like the first lines of books always get the most press. From Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, "“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains,” to The Lord of the Rings: "When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton," there is a special significance to the first lines of novels.
But what about the last lines? How come they don't get much press?
[Read a few last lines after the break and contribute your own...]
I enjoy music. I like listening to it in the car, I like listening to it while writing or working. I’m sure that music affects you in some way and at some time. Music has an undeniable power over humans.
Lately, I’ve gotten to thinking about the music of speculative fiction, or rather, popular music with science fiction/fantasy elements. Not the music that could be defined as classical or soundtrack (everyone who hears “Darth Vader’s Theme” equates it with science fiction, as in many ways it defines SF soundtracks), but the music of the mainstream that may not be speculative in intent, but in some way includes elements (theme, subject, terms) we generally define as science fiction or fantasy.
[Read on for a special musical challenge to all SF/F fans...]
Kevin J. Anderson is the author of a multitude of spin-off novels for shared world universes, the co-author with Brian Herbert of the sequels to Frank Herbert’s original Dune novels, the author of the Nebula-award nominated Assemblers of Infinity, and more recently of a new epic fantasy series from Orbit entitled Terra Incognita.
John Ottinger III: What led you to begin writing traditional fantasy after so many years of writing SF?
Kevin J. Anderson: I have always been a fan of both genres, interchangeably in fact. I have a degree in physics and astronomy, with a minor in Russian History. I love big epic stories with lots of characters and lots of drama; whether it’s a fantasy setting or a science fiction setting is, to me, secondary to the big saga itself. Dune is an SF novel, but it feels structurally like a big epic fantasy, with Dukes and Barons and Counts and an Emperor, with politics and intrigue set on various planets rather than in separate fiefs or kingdoms. My Saga of Seven Suns is science fiction, but it is modeled on ambitious fantasy series. Terra Incognita looks more traditionally like a fantasy, with Kings and castles, sailing ships and sea monsters (it’s even got maps at the beginning!), but I don’t approach the story any differently. It’s about the plot and the characters, not the stage dressing.
In debut author Robert V. S. Redick’s shipboard epic fantasy, readers will find the watery world of C.S. Forester, the action-adventure of Alexander Dumas, and the political complexity of George R. R. Martin. The Red Wolf Conspiracy follows a ship named the Chathrand and the many souls aboard her. The Chathrand is the Titanic of the seas of Alifros, a huge sailing ship that dwarfs all others. Aboard it there are a panoply of characters, from the lowly tarboy with the gift of tongues, Pazel Pathkendle; to the captain with an unsavory past, Nicholas Rose; the dance instructor who fights like a warrior, Hercol; the young girl who is to be married to a prince, Thasha Isiq; the strange, small stowaways known as the ixchel; the deadly assassin Sandor Ott; and the intelligent rats. All of these are caught up in a political whirlwind, caught between two empires vying for world domination. But there is a third unstable element, a supposed dead mad king who will upset everyone’s well-laid plans.
Peter S. Beagle, acclaimed author of The Last Unicorn and Tamsin, is making a plea for his fans to help him out of some financial difficulty by signing up for his new year-long project, 52/50, in which “I’m writing 52 original poems or song lyrics, one per week, for a whole year.”
Peter S. Beagle says:
If you’ve ever read and enjoyed one of my books or stories, or seen and enjoyed one of the films that I scripted, I’d like to ask a favor of you. It’s simple, really—if at all possible, within the next month please do one of the following things.
1) Go to www.conlanpress.com and buy a subscription to my year-long 52/50 Project.
2) Go to www.conlanpress.com and buy any single book or DVD of my work, either for you or as a gift for a friend.
3) If you can’t make a purchase yourself, try and get someone else interested enough to take the leap.
As for why I’m asking, that’s even simpler: you will change my life.
Full details at The Raven, Peter S. Beagle’s newsletter.
[Thank you to Vonda N. McIntyre at Book View Cafe for pointing this out.]
In Terribly Twisted Tales, editors Jean Rabe and Martin H. Greenberg put their skills to work collecting widely varied permutations of famous fairy tales by The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, Ang Lee, and ancient Aesop.
The anthology opens with a piece by Dennis L. McKiernan, a writer who has oft turned his pen to altering fairy tales, as his Faery series of five novels makes clear. “Waifs” is a retelling of “Hansel and Gretel” from the perspective of the witch who owns the gingerbread house. This alone would be twisted enough, but the children are also twisted in their own way. This was a great opener of a story, and probably the most twisted of the lot.
Annie Jones follows up McKiernan with a new look at “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” with “My Great-Great-Great Grandma Golda Lockes.” Setting the story in a real time and place, as written by a diarist, Jones posits a much more criminal origin for the story of the sleepy golden-haired girl. This tale makes the protagonist less than the hero we are familiar with, and envisions a much more real, practical, and earthy story. Not to worry though, there are still talking, porridge-eating bears.
Art meets 1980s pop culture in the urban art perpetrated by the French artist known only as Invader. This artist, whose work I first encountered on a recent visit to Paris—the place he first began—goes around the urban jungle of the world’s megacities and places large images of the creatures from the 1980 Atari videogame Space Invaders. Though not the first version of that game, it was certainly the most famous, and taught many a young person the early hand/eye coordination we all find we need in this day of Guitar Hero and Halo.
The space invaders imagery is usually placed in a famous locale, though often subtly. For instance, I found one on the back side of what remains of the artist lofts (called Le Bateau-Lavoir) that used to stand on the hill of Montmartre. Another one was in the square of Notre Dame (though it is possible that was a copycat, many of whom are now springing up. To the trained eye, there is a way to tell the difference, or so my artist friends tell me, but I couldn’t see it). I found another in a large square in the Marias district, smack dab above the lintel of a corner shop (which is the picture used in this post, in fact). You had to be looking up to see it, and willing to look away from the general business of the square, but once you looked, even casually, it drew your eye with its bright colors and large tiles.
In a small, secretive little plaza in the Montmartre district of Paris can be found a life-sized statue that is known to many native French, but is little known elsewhere. It is an unusual statue, nothing like the men on horseback or head-and-shoulders busts that usually grace the squares of ancient cities like Paris, nor is it some newfangled abstract artwork so common in American plazas. Rather, this statue is of a man who appears to be coming out of the supporting wall of the garden that lies above it. He is Dutilleul, a mousy, non-descript sort of man, a person most people observe and easily dismiss as unimportant. He is balding and ugly, the type of man who keeps mostly to himself in the workplace.
And yet, this man is not ordinary. He is passing through a wall. No one of my acquaintances can do that, and as we all know, this is the stuff only of science fiction.
Tobias Buckell—author of Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin, and Sly Mongoose—has decided, like other SF/F/H authors before him (Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin, Cory Doctorow, Orson Scott Card) to author a book on writing.
Using his last fifteen years of blog posts, journal entries, and emails as a starting point, he has already collected 96,000 words, though his intent is to bring that down to a more manageable 50-60,000 words. Rather than go the traditional route of trying to write a volume for print, Buckell plans to release the book online in installments, with possible print publication coming later.
Since I had almost 100K of material, I thought it would be fun to use the internet (what initially created all this material), as a way to do something different.
So first off, I’ll be writing this somewhat live. The blog entries are all already there, so it’s not that unusual idea. The chapters will go up as they’re done on a wiki (that only I can edit). I will also be adding in pages that might not ever make it to the book (the original blog posts the chapters were compressed from, and so on). I might also post unfinished chapters comprised of cut/pasted blog posts as I go along. It’s an experiment. A draft.
The introduction and first chapter of “A Draft in Progress” are already live.
Sacramento Book Review (“SBR”), a print publication of book reviews, has included a very special speculative fiction insert in their March issue.
In this issue, volunteer reviewers from around the country have covered new books by: David Weber, Ian McDonald, Steven Erikson, Allen Steele, T.A. Pratt, Amber Benson (of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer fame), Bruce Sterling, Jonathan Maberry, Kim Harrison, and many more!
Sacramento Book Review provides 32 pages of short, 200 word or less book reviews by readers, for readers. It is fast becoming the Publisher’s Weekly for book fans not in the publishing industry professionally. Though this month has a particular focus on science fiction and fantasy, the publication does cover a wide variety of genres, including mystery, children’s and young adult, cooking, self-help, travel, art, humor and 22 other categories.
Blood, Blade and Thruster is looking for submissions! For those unfamiliar, BBT “is a print magazine that blends speculative fiction & satire. Think Realms of Fantasy meets The Onion. Think Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine meets Mad Magazine.” It was a little start-up magazine three years ago (first issue was in the fall of 2006) and made it about 2 print issues, with a third released as a free PDF, before it folded in mid-2007. But now BBT is under new management and is looking for stories, essays, and poetry.
For an idea of what they are looking for, check out the free pdf of issue #3.
Though a slim 150 pages long, Genesis by New Zealand author Bernard Beckett packs a walloping philosophical punch. In this novel, the author asks readers to rethink their notions of consciousness and the human mind.
The story begins with an examination. Young Anaximander is to be examined by the Academy, the ruling council of the only islands on Earth where technology has survived after an apocalypse. In her examination, Anax must defend her thesis like any master’s degree student. Anax has chosen the life of Adam Forde, the man who overthrew the previous government, as her topic. What unfolds during the oral exam is a story that is strange and thought-provoking with an astonishing ending.
Beckett constructs Genesis very differently from standard storytelling. For one, the conversations between Anax and her examiners take place entirely in script-like dialogue.
EXAMINER: Is there anything you would like to ask, before we begin?
ANAXIMANDER: I would like to ask you what the answers are.
EXAMINER: I’m sorry. I don’t quite understand…
ANAXIMANDER: I was joking.
EXAMINER: Oh. I see. (p.4)
Last month we celebrated Black History Month by reading some SF. Since March is Women’s History Month, it is appropriate that we do the same. What follows is a list of works you could read this month and as well as some links to other places to look for reading material.
James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Bradley Sheldon): Tiptree’s work often explored gender and sexuality. The James Tiptree, Jr. Award, an annual literary prize for science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender, is named for her.
C. J. Cherryh: Cherryh’s work often looks at the outsider finding his or her place in society. In particular many of the works explore gender roles and expectations. Her writing is considered some of the best in SF for any writer, to which her Hugo wins can attest.
Ursula K. Le Guin: Le Guin is an acknowledged master of the field, with several Hugo and Nebula awards to her credit. Her philosophical science fiction and fantasy novels push the boundaries of what literature can do. (See Jo Walton’s recent Tor.com review of Le Guin’s Lavinia.)
February is Black History Month, and in celebration of that I thought it might be useful to provide readers a list of worthwhile books of speculative fiction, many by black authors, that address the themes of race, postcolonialism, and identity.
So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehandir – This collection of stories (including a Tobias Buckell narrative) explore post-colonialism from many different perspectives and from authors around the world.
The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler – Butler is an amazing author. No matter her subject her books are always good, and this novel is widely considered to be her best work. This story of a dystopian future and a heroine with hyper-empathy is a personal best for the Hugo and Nebula award-winning Butler.
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany – A philosophical novel about a young amnesiac that has the graphic depictions of sex Delany is known for but also a sincere attempt at understanding the human condition.
Or, Book Marketing: A Reader’s Perspective
As our technology grows and mutates into millions of different forms, readers are getting bombarded by the many new and different marketing efforts of publishers. Some are better than others, some are more fun than others, and some seem to be a total waste of money. What I will attempt to do is give you my perspective on the various book marketing methods I have encountered. I encourage you to mention any I have missed, and to give your own perspective on the ones I didn’t. I am not a marketer or knowledgeable about marketing myself (except by proxy because I am a book reviewer and blogger). And there was that one brief stint at a tech firm that lasted just months. So what I say here will betray my ignorance of marketing, but I think the exercise of seeing the effect of marketing on a reader is a useful exercise nonetheless. Its effect on you is likely different, and I invite your commentary on the subject.
[Click here for discussion of covers, blurbs, videos, interviews and reviews]
SF Crowsnest.com, one of the oldest scifi websites (as in 1991) has added an entirely new section called Sci-fi Play. In it, you the gamer have the opportunity to play all kinds of time-waster games online during your lunch hour, or in bed, or when your significant other asks you to take out the trash.
Proprietor Stephen Hunt (a Tor author), claims that “You can now beat your Monday morning global depression economic woe-filled lunchtime blues by introducing orcs to your bloody axe or blasting enemy starships to pieces. Your bank of choice will probably still end up being nationalised, but at least you'll have a high score to show for it.”
So you are planning a trip to The Risen Empire? Good, you will be sure to have a good time. But every good traveler needs to be prepared, so here are a few facts that will make your trip smooth and pleasant.
Population: Uncounted Billions (some dead, some not so dead)
Distance from NY, NY: 5000 years into the future, and millions of light years.
You won’t find this one on Google Maps!
Number of Worlds: 80
Government: Empire
It’s called an empire, so who do you think runs it? Though in this case, the emperor has some senators who help, when they aren’t playing political games, that is.
[What to do and see, who’s who, and what this undead thing is all about below the fold]
Gadgets and/or Words That Are Fun to Say by Caragh O’Brien
Something that really bugs me about the recent Star Trek movie by Mitch Wagner
Moffat’s Women #3 - Sally by Teresa Jusino
