Dark Matter TV Trailer

I am really excited for Dark Matter, the new TV series from  writer/producers Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie, the executive producers and writers for the Stargate franchise, based on their comic book from Dark Horse Comics.

Joe is a tremendous writer, a friend, and someone who is very well-read in literary science fiction. I published a novella by him once (in the anthology Masked.) I read the comic when it came out and loved it. I cannot wait to see how Dark Matter translates to television.

Meanwhile, IGN is running an exclusive trailer and it looks great!

Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes

Yesterday I got my contributor copy of George Mann's forthcoming anthology, Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes. Billed as "a brand-new collection of Sherlock Holmes stories from a variety of exciting voices in modern horror and steampunk, edited by respected anthologist George Mann," this is a follow up to last year's Encounters of Sherlock Holmes.

I'm surprised (very pleasantly so) to see that I made the cover, along with such luminaries as Justin Richards, Andy Lane, Guy Adams, and Scott Handcock. My own story is a bit out there in terms of a Holmes story, though hopefully not too out there. I'm very proud of it - it's a story that's been in my head a long time and I'm grateful George let me take a chance on it - but should caution that it's neither typical Holmes nor typical Lou!

The book debuts February 11, 2014. Meanwhile, Holmes aficionados are encouraged to check out George Mann's recently released novel, Sherlock Holmes: The Will of the Dead.

Oblivion Trailer 3

Trying hard not to get my hopes up too high on this one, but damn...

Wowza

The World According to Lou

Sandra Wickham interviewed me yesterday for the Inkpunks blog. She titled the interview "The World According to Lou," which really tickles me. I don't think she knows that it was The World According to Garp by John Irving that first made me want to choose this writing/publishing life. Anyway, I'm grateful for the interview, but please ignore her when she suggests that nonsense about my giving away my beer. Check out the whole interview, but here's a sample:

What must-have qualities would you say an author needs to become published and keep being published in the industry?
 
Talent plus perseverance. I recently asked a group of authors how many times they rewrote their novels before they saw publication. Seven was the average response. And I heard N.K. Jemisin say recently that she had worked on The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms for around ten years before it saw publication. Do you remember that old board game where you pulled levers out until all the marbles but one dropped away? I have probably just dated myself horribly, but that’s how I see a career in the entertainment arts. Banging your head against the wall until the wall collapses, because you sure as hell aren’t going to. Artist John Picacio describes this as, “There’s Plan A. And if that doesn’t work, there’s Plan A. And if that doesn’t work, there’s Plan A.” (Note: He’s not talking about being unrealistically inflexible. He’s talking about never giving up the goal of being a working professional.)

China

Via SF Signal: China Miéville, at a a September 2009 talk at The University of Kansas:




[via AboutSF, the educational outreach arm of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction]

SPAN - a Science Fiction Film

SPAN is a science fiction film seeking funding via Kickstarter. Interesting...

Prophets of Science Fiction

The Adjustment Bureau

I saw The Adjustment Bureau last week and loved it. Based on yet another Philip K. Dick story, and one of the better adaptations of his work. Funny, engaging, well-acted, well-crafted. Not as mind-blindingly complex as Inception, not as expensive as Avatar, just a smooth execution of a good concept. The kind of film that makes me excited about writing and reading and watching and thinking. Highly recommended.

There are a lot of SF films coming out this year, but I could easily see this ending up on the Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form shortlist for the Hugos.

io9's Environment Writing Contest for Science Journalists and SF Writers

From their release:

In November and December, io9.com is sponsoring an environmental writing contest for science journalists and science fiction writers. We are awarding $2000 each for the two best stories (one nonfiction, one science fiction) that deal with environmental disaster - its causes, consequences, and how to deal with both. We invite entries from people all over the world, whether they're seasoned investigative journalists or citizen scientists who have never been published
before.

For full contest rules, please go here.

Here's more information:

We can't prevent environmental disasters without preparing for them. That's why io9 is going to pay $2000 each to two people who write the best stories about environmental disaster. It's io9's Environmental Writing Contest - for science fiction and non-fiction.

io9 is looking for stories that deal with environmental disaster, whether caused by random asteroid impacts or oil drilling accidents. We believe that the first step to solving planet-scale problems is to
assess, honestly and critically, what it would mean to experience such a disaster. We need mental models that can help policy-makers, researchers, and individuals prepare for the kinds of cataclysmic
events that have occurred regularly throughout Earth's history.

We're holding this contest to reward people for coming up with ideas that could help avert the next Deepwater spill and Pacific garbage gyre - or help people prepare better for the next Indian Ocean tsunami and Haiti earthquake. Storytelling is a powerful tool. We want you to use it well.

Our team of judges includes Elizabeth Kolbert (The New Yorker's environment reporter), National Book Award nominee Paolo Bacigalupi (author of Ship Breaker and The Windup Girl), and Jonathan Strahan (editor of the acclaimed Eclipse anthologies).

Contest Guidelines:
Stories should be between 3,000-5,000 words. It must be an original story that has not been published elsewhere.

The contest has two categories: Science Fiction and Non-Fiction. We will pick a winner from each.

Guidelines for Science Fiction Entries:
Your story should deal meaningfully and plausibly with some aspect of environmental disaster. There are no limits on the kind of disaster you explore. It could be an exploding star, a plague, tachyon pollution, nanotech diseases, climate change, or something else. What's important is that your story deal with causes and consequences. How did the disaster happen, who will benefit from it, how will people
(or other creatures) respond to it? We don't want morality tales or after school specials here - just good stories that deal realistically with the subject matter.

Guidelines for Non-Fiction Entries:
Your story can be a piece of investigative journalism, a well-researched history, biographical/autobiographical narrative, or science/technology writing for a lay audience. You can write a profile of people or groups dealing with environmental disaster, analyze the science behind environmental problems, or cover the story of a disaster that has already happened. We prefer stories that involve reporting and research. Though the story must be original, you may base it on research you have already done for another project or piece of reporting.

Winning stories will be published on io9, and we will give $2000 each to the winners in each category.

Deadline for all stories is midnight PST, December 11.

Why Science Fiction is Important!

Via io9 and the wonderful Charlie Jane. Walter Russell Mead writing in The American Interest:

"Taken as a whole, the field of science fiction today is where most of the most interesting thought about human society can be found. At a time when many academics have become almost willfully obscure, political science is increasingly dominated by arcane and uninspiring theories and in which a fog of political correctness makes some forms of (badly needed) debate and exploration off limits, science fiction has stepped forward to fill the gap. In the work of writers like David Brin and Neal Stephenson there is more interesting reflection on America's place in the world than you will find, I fear, in a whole year's worth of reading in foreign policy magazines. Robert Heinlein's work brilliantly lays out the ideology of populist libertarianism and predicted the revolt against the welfare state that has defined American politics since the 1980s. Read C. J. Cherryh's foreigner novels for insight into international relations and her Cyteen novels to sharpen your wits about both international politics and the impact of technological change on human society.
The biggest single task facing the United States today is the unleashing of our social imagination. We are locked into twentieth century institutions and twentieth century habits of mind. Science fiction is the literary genre (OK, true, sometimes a subliterary genre) where the social imagination is being cultivated and developed. Young people should read this genre to help open their minds to the extraordinary possibilities that lie before us; we geezers should read it for the same reason. The job of our times is to build a radically new world; speculative fiction helps point the way."

Stranger than Fiction: Technology And Science Fiction

I'm interviewed today at System-Level Design Community, by the very nice John Blyler, who I got to spend some time with recently in Portland, Oregan at the recent OryCon. We talk about science fiction's role in inspiring science, the effect science developments has on the genre, gaming, the Matrix trilogies, and genetic engineering. It was a long conversation, so he is condensing and paraphrasing some of what I said, but doing a good job of capturing a highly-caffeinated Lou and making sense of it.

Still, I'm pretty sure I never said this bit, (but I wish I had):

Anders: Maybe, but maybe not. Remember the quote by John Schaar: "The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created—created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination."

I think he's misremembering when I quoted something I got from Robert Anton Wilson: "The future begins first in imagination, then in will, then in reality." But I like this quote above, and now I've seen myself "say" it, I'll start using it more, retroactively authenticating this usage here. (Nice one that, huh?)

We also talk some about David Louis Edelman's Jump 225 trilogy, (affording me the opportunity to try out the new integration of Amazon Associates and Blogger). Meanwhile, John was a great guy and I wish we'd had time to talk longer than we did.

Dark Matter and Black Hole Powered Starships

Once upon a time, it was the science fiction authors who believed in the possibility of interstellar voyages and the scientists who were skeptical. These days, so many SF authors have given up on traveling between the stars as a naive and impossible fantasy. So I'm glad to see this piece in the New Scientist, "Dark Power: Grand designs for interstellar travel," in which mathematicians Louis Crane and Shawn Westmoreland at Kansas State University in Manhattan  propose ways to shorten the trip to Proxima Centauri from 74,000 years to "just a few" years.

I was particuarly interested in this bit of Ian M Bank-ish speculation:

"Crane then wondered what would happen if intelligent civilisations could make black holes. This would mean that life in these universes played a key role in the proliferation of baby universes.... He believes we are seeing Darwinian selection operating on the largest possible scale: only universes that contain life can make black holes and then go on to give birth to other universes, while the lifeless universes are an evolutionary dead end."

Why Science Fiction Authors Can't Win

Read this article, by John Howell, entitled "Why Science Fiction Authors Can't Win."

Then come back and read this quote, by James Enge:

I believe that the greatest danger to genre fiction nowadays is not the denial of respect from some notional group of literary tastemakers but the very real likelihood that sf/f may become respectable. Those who thirst for the foamy gray poison of respectability should consider the fate of jazz, once a popular medium, now respectable, ossified and ignored.

Update 10/12/09: Since I dragged him into this by snagging his older quote, good sport James Enge decided to give his 2 cents on the Black Gate blog in a post called, "SF/F: Field or Dangerfield," however a more lively discussion is going on at his own personal blog post, where he mentions the article. Both are worth checking out. A discussion on Pat's Fantasy Hotlist is also generating a lot of comments.

Lev Grossman on How We Won the Culture War

NETLS & Me

Last friday, the 14th, it was my great privilege to be a guest speaker at the NETLS Collection Development Symposium, held in the Allen Public Library in Allen, Texas (outside Dallas). The conference was organized by Steve Seale, Continuing Education Consultant for NETLS (pictured left below), which stands for North Eastern Texas Library Systems. I spoke to the Central Texas Library Systems two years ago, giving a speech on collection building focused exclusively on science fiction. They recommended me to Steve (thanks!) and this time, I gave that same speech (updated) along with a new speech on fantasy collections. I gave each twice, so four hours of talking, which I'm told equates to 32 hours of "normal life" in terms of the adrenaline bursts, energy consumption, etc... Whatever the equation, it was exhausting but very fulfilling.

I did the two fantasy presentations in the morning, and the two science fiction presentations in the afternoon, with an hour break for lunch. All were well attended. The immediately-following-lunch session was the thinnest, an hour not being enough time to eat and come back, but the other three sessions were standing room only. They had to bring extra chairs in twice, and yet still people were standing, sitting on tables, etc... More importantly, the audience - comprised of librarians from all over the NETLS region, were very engaged and enthusiastic. (Plus they laughed at my jokes. For which I am grateful.)

My favorite comments were:

1. I plan to throw out everything, get rid of all the moldy old books, and rebuild our collection from scratch based on your recommendations.
2. I never understood fantasy before but you put it all in a context that makes sense to me.
3. I was never much of a fantasy reader before, but now I plan to start.

Another highlight getting to speech to the Allen Public Library Young Writers Group the day before. Actually members of several writing groups, as they have one group for ages 13 to 18 and another of upper teens to early twenties. There were four kids from the group (two boys, two girls) spread across probably 5 or 6 years in age. All were very knowledgeable fantasy readers, and enthusiastic, lifelong writers. Talking with them was really fun and informative, and I hope I gave as good as I got.

I was also very impressed with the library itself, which looks shiny and new and somewhat SF-y, with all it's curving balconies and glassed-in, circular "quiet rooms." A really nice facility. I was impressed to see they shelved SF&F in with "adult fiction" and that they already had a very nice selection of Pyr titles, including books by Abercrombie, Chadbourn, MacKay, McDonald, Meaney, Resnick, and others. And, as an avid lover of Mexican food, eating TexMex two meals and the anti-TexMex Urban Taco for a third, the food was really wonderful too.

I learned Texas is divided into 10 different library systems readings, too, so... 2 down, 8 to go!

Building a Comprehensive SF&F Collection

I'm giving a talk next month to an association of Texas librarians on how to build a good, comprehensive SF&F collection. I've given this talk before, restricting myself just to the science fiction genre, and am pretty confident with my list of works (both classic and contemporary) and what I have to say about it. Updating that speech with a few gems from the last year won't be hard. But this year, I'm giving two talks, one on science fiction and one just on fantasy.

So...

I'd really appreciate some suggestions on what fantasy books every library should have. Science fiction suggestions are also welcome, but it's the fantasy list where I'm looking for the most input. Obviously, Lord of the Rings, Wizard of Earthsea, etc..., but we need to get passed these to gems like Mythago Wood, etc... that the audience may or may not have heard of. Obviously, we can't fit everything in, and obviously they'll be subjective differences between one persons list and another, but what I want to produce is a good overview of fantasy fiction with enough of the signposts to pass muster and enough variety for a variety of tastes. I'm hoping for about 150 titles, and I do want a good representation of contemporary authors. I've got a lot of thoughts on this already, but would really appreciate input to help cover any blindspots I may have, as well as to stimulate a good discussion for all our benefits.

Thanks!

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Why couldn't this have been the movie? Any of the movies? This is awesome! Star Wars is such an unusual property, where everything spun out around it is better than it's core film franchise...

Video Game - E3 2009 - Video Game Trailers

Also, insert standard Lou-thoughts about SF spreading to other mediums, the potential of SF in the 21st century to come from anywhere, the best stuff being done outside tradition Hollywood film channels, etc... yada yada yada...

Unknowing Fans

Author Chris Beckett has just won the 2009 Edge Hill Short Story Prize for his collection The Turing Test. The prize, sponsored by the University of the same name, is the UK's only award for short fiction. Beckett beat out several collections of mainstream literature from big houses. I love this quote from the article in Booksellers.com:

"I suspect Chris Beckett winning the Edge Hill Prize will be seen as a surprise in the world of books. In fact, though, it was also a bit of surprise to the judges, none of whom knew they were science fiction fans beforehand."

Shooting for the Moon: Duncan Jones' New Film

Over on Tor.com, Why I Am Over the Moon about Duncan Jones, or rather, seven reasons why I think the film will rock.

"I’ll never get over the scene in Danny Boyle’s absurd and disappointing Sunshine where Cillian Murphy reaches out and touches the sun, because, hey, it looks cool. So, the point is, I was looking for reasons to feel confident. And, wonderfully, just about every interview I’ve read with Duncan has got my confidence growing in leaps and bounds that his heart—and head—are in the right place."