Lou vs. the Media Tie-In

I just got my contributor's copies today to BenBella's Star Wars on Trial, the latest in their "Smart Pop" series, and it's given me an excuse to address something that's been worrying at me for a bit.

I'm quite fond of BenBella's Smart Pop books, and quite honored to have been asked to contribute to four of them, their The Man From Krypton, Star Wars on Trial, the forthcoming So Say We All (about Battlestar Galactica), and an upcoming Spider-Man title. I enjoy writing these essays, and I hope to write many more. I also think that Star Wars on Trial is a very good book, possibly one of the most fun books they've put together so far.

So why the worry? The nature of the book is that writers are split into "witnesses" for the defense or the prosecution, themselves represented by Matthew Stover and David Brin. The book is divided into eight sections, looking at the politics of Star Wars, its portrayal of women, its lack of real science, its impact on the field, etc... The back and forth effectively encapsulates the heated emotion all Star Wars debates stir up and has all the juicy fun of a good flame war.

Now, I've got a lot to say about Star Wars, pro and con, a lot of which can be summed up with a not-uncommon deep affection for the original trilogy and an utter disgust with the new one (though I'm less thrilled with Return and quite enjoyed Revenge). And I've got a lot of real problems with some of Lucas' choices in the latter films - something I share with, oh, most of the English speakng world. But the topic I drew was the media tie-in and whether it was good or bad for the genre.

Probably because my head was up my butt and I wasn't paying attention, I didn't quite grok the us vs. them nature of the book and what I set out to write was a much more balanced look at the issue, an attempt to ask the question "are media tie-ins harmful?," rather than answer it outright. To that end, I included quotes from a number of different writers in the field. Realizing into the process that I was supposed to be more emphaticly one-sided in my opinion, my essay was steered towards a more forceful attack on the media tie-in (and even paired back eventually from what you see in print). Now, when I say "steered" I am not saying editorial involvement from above altered my words. I altered them to give BenBella more of what they were looking for and what I had agreed to do. But the result is that I feel I have taken (or will seem to have taken) a strong Lou vs. Media stance that is not entirely how I feel.

Lest you think I'm backtracking, I am not wild about media tie-ins. I don't believe they draw readers into the rest of the field, nor appreciably affect the number of readers a writer gets for his non-media tie-in work. My own sense from working in media as a journalist is that readers of media tie-in works are there for the media, not the writer. There are superstars of the tie-in (R.A. Salvatore for Forgotten Realms of course), but these are different readerships and I don't think if all the Star Wars books disappeared tomorrow that those readers would rush out and pour their dollars into purchases of Accelerando or Starship:Mutiny. And maybe this doesn't matter.

I've bought the occassional Doctor Who book in the past, don't fault my friend Sean Williams for his successful Star Wars trilogy, and am happy for Chris Roberson's upcoming X-Men novel (the cover of which, by John Picacio, will undoubtably blow us all away). I don't fault anyone for writing or reading a media tie-in. Sure, I wish we lived in a world where the cinema of science fiction more closely resembled its literature and where popularity followed quality more closely than it does. Yes, I am aware that there are books of quality written as media tie-ins, and, ironically, I suspect that a lot of Star Wars novels are better than Star Wars itself.

And I think that railing against Star Wars is raging into a wind.

But a few months ago, I gave a young man who only reads Forgotten Realms novels a copy of Sean Williams' fantasy, The Crooked Letter. The next time I saw him, he said he finished the book in a rush, that he couldn't put it down, and that it was "the smartest fantasy he ever read." He said that he "didn't know that fantasy could be this good," and that he was telling all his friends about it and was anxious for the next book in the series.

As I try to say in my essay, I don't object that the media tie-in exists, but that it is so often conflated in the minds of the general public with the rest of the science fiction and fantasy genre. I do not fault you if you read them or write them, and perhaps you write them well, but for my part, it is the rest of the genre that I will strive to proselytize and uphold. Star Wars, after all, doesn't need my help, but there is a lot of smart pop out there which does.

Mundane Me

The keynote address I gave at the Campbell conference has apparently been dehydrated and reduced to an easily-compressed powder, uploaded on Mundane-SF. If you add water to these notes, perhaps my full speech will re-emerge. Hi Trent!

Future So Bright We're Quaking

I'm back from the 2006 Campbell Conference and Awards Banquet, about which more shortly, but first, some really good news on the Pyr horizon.

Barnes & Nobles' Paul Goat Allen just sent an email informing us of his upcoming review of Infoquake and interview with author David Louis Edelman. The review & interview will appear in August in the B&N sff newsletter as well as on B&N's Science Fiction/Fantasy homepage, and I will certainly point out a link to it then. But for now, I'm thrilled to report that Paul says:

"Brilliantly blending the cutthroat intrigues of the high-tech business world with revolutionary world building, Edelman could quite possibly be the illegitimate lovechild of Donald Trump and Vernor Vinge. Infoquake is one of the most impressive science fiction debuts to come along in years - highly recommended."

Obviously, we are thrilled with the comparison to Vinge which joins prior comparisons to Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow. Not bad company to keep! Meanwhile, an interview with Edelman is already up at the blog Meme Therapy, where Edelman explains:

"When I started writing Infoquake, I gave myself a challenge. If you had virtually unlimited computing power and a virtually unlimited supply of energy, what could you do? Keep in mind that neither of these things is an impossibility. Moore's Law continues to predict exponential growth in computing power, and there are all kinds of breakthroughs in solar energy just around the corner."

Finally, Paula Guran blogs about her humorous encounter with Edelman and Yours Truly at the recent Book Expo America, then goes on to kindly praise Infoquake on her blog Dark Echo:

"It is sf, yes, but sf about cut-throat business practices and competitive programming (a way-cool concept of sorta programming in thin air), with an endearingly sociopathic protagonist, and lotsa, lotsa nifty techno-supposings, and an interesting concept of guild/spiritual family/religion/union groups in a technocracy. Highly imaginative use of the current Zeitgeist."

I'm in Therapy!

Hey, lookee!
My round-robin answer to the question "What new formats, subgenres or media would you like to see more science fiction in?" has just showed up at my favorite new blog, Meme Therapy. Also included in this Brain Parade, Chris Roberson, Tim Zinsky and "JP."

I Don't Think We're in Kansas Anymore

I'm traveling shortly to the University of Kansas, where I am very honored to be one of the special guests of the 2006 Campbell Conference and Awards Banquet, held this year from July 6th to 9th. I'll be sitting in on the last days of their writer's workshop, and will be one of two speakers giving the keynote address (the other being George Zebrowski) on the state of the science fiction novel, and taking part at the bookstore signing at Oread Bookstore as well. Looking forward to seeing everyone there.

The Schedule of Events:

Thursday, July 6, 7:30 pm, Alderson Auditorium
• Lou Anders and George Zebrowski present on the state of the science-fiction novel.

Friday, July 7, 10:00 am, First Floor Lobby of Ellsworth Hall
• Interviews with our special guests.

Friday, July 7, 6:00 pm, Kansas Room, KU Memorial Union
• Awards banquet for John W. Campbell Award for best science fiction novel of the year and the Theodore Sturgeon Award for best short science fiction of the year.
• Informal off-campus reception to follow.

Saturday, July 8, 9:00 am, Malott Room, KU Memorial Union
• Round-table Campbell Conference discussion.

Saturday Lunch, KU Memorial Union
• Registered Conference attendees receive an informal, complimentary lunch.

Saturday, July 8, 12:45 pm, Oread Bookstore, KU Memorial Union
• Mass signing by special guests.

Saturday, July 8, 2:00 pm, 100 Smith Hall
• Interviews and talks with our special guests.
• John Ordover presents about the current state of the science-fiction novel.
• Informal off-campus reception in the evening.

Sunday, July 9, 9:00 am, First Floor Lobby of Ellsworth Hall
• Meet the award winners and other attending guests!

SciFi Magazine's Got You Covered

The latest issue of SciFi Magazine has a fantastic review of Cover Story: The Art of John Picacio.

"John Picacio, whose gorgeous book covers utilize materials from standard acrylic paint to found objects employed as elements in complex mosaics, eschews the obvious. The results are sometimes haunting, sometimes witty, sometimes ornate and sometimes startlingly simple, but almost always achingly beautiful. Among the best in this oversized collection, best appreciated by readers willing to page through it slowly....The book closes with a lengthy interview, in which, among other things, Picacio describes his opposition to lazy illustrations that merely duplicate events or places from a given story. He says such covers steal from readers' right to envision such moments in their own imagination. And he may be right. But from the evidence on display, Picacio has plenty of imagination to spare. He doesn't need to steal a thing."

R.I.P.

Jim Baen, editor, publisher, and founder of Baen Books, died yesterday at the age of 62. He suffered a stroke on June 12, and never recovered from his coma. Very sad.

Not to everyone's taste but wildly popular with those they target, I don't own any Baen Books that aren't by Heinlein, but I've been very impressed through the years with many of Baen's innovative strategies, particularly with their enlightened view of electronic texts.

What's more, Toni Weisskopf and David Drake have suggested that people who wish to make a memorial donation "purchase copies of The World Turned Upside Down and donate them to libraries or teenagers of their acquaintance." What a wonderful way to be remembered.

By the Way - Scalzi interviews Edelman

John Scalzi, about whom one cannot say enough nice things, interviews David Louis Edelman on his AOL blog By the Way today. David's debut novel, Infoquake, should be appearing in stores any day now and is already shipping from Amazon. Meanwhile, for excerpts, podcasts, and exclusive background material, check out the Infoquake website.

Keeping it Real, Gradisil, & Buying American

The latest issue of Cheryl Morgan's wonderful Emerald City is online, and this one includes two very enthusiastic reviews I'd like to call attention to. One is by Karina Meerman and is of Justina Robson's latest, Keeping it Real. The other is by Joe Gordon and is of Adam Roberts' latest, Gradisil.

Both reviews are of the UK editions of these novels, both of which were published by Gollancz and edited by Simon Spanton, the man who first brought you Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon and whose editorial judgement I am coming to greatly admire. In fact, I've yet to read a novel Simon selected that I don't think is positively brilliant. Both these books, certainly, are garnering wonderful reviews in places like Locus, SFX, Starburst, SFFWorld...

Now Keeping it Real and Gradisil will be coming out from Pyr in our Spring/Summer 2007 season. We expect to use a variant of Larry Rostant's fantastic cover for our edition of Keeping it Real, whereas the marvelous Stephan Martiniere has already turned in his artwork for Gradisil, to my and Adam's considerable delight, and I am anxious for the day when I can debut it here.

And speaking of that day...

If you live in the United Kingdom or one of the territories served by Gollancz, then I urge to rush out and buy these books right now. Justina's novel is the most over-the-top fun I've had with a book in long time, crazy Matrix action, cyborg-on-elf sex, blood sugar sex magick and rock'n'roll. I've not gasped for air in sheer delight at anything like this since Michael Swanwick's Darger and Surplus tales, and I've not seen anyone before exhibit the brazen chutzpah in takes to write total Power Rangers-style action sequences with such a straight face. And being Justina Robson, there's also a lot of brilliant speculation amid the fun and genuine troubled-girl angst. Think Robocop asking "Do I look fat in these jeans?" Whereas Adam, who has absolutely astounded me since I first read On, who is one of the smartest individuals it has ever been my priviledge to know, and who writes big concept SF of the Arthur C Clarke variety only filtered through a level of literate prose & multi-layered narrative that would do Theodore Sturgeon or Samuel Delany proud, has written a birth-of-a-nation epic that may be his finest achievement to date. Gradisil succeeds on both the macro and micro level, presenting a very convincing portrait of the decades just passed our current wave of non-NASA space exploration, where every dot com billionaire has his own rocket program, to the end of the 21st century when near-earth-orbit becomes a practical destination for people to go en masse, coupled with a very personal tale of revenge threaded through one family tree. Political satire and Greek tragedy. What's not to love? So yes, if you live in the UK or thereabouts, go pick up the Gollancz versions now with my blessing.

But if you live here in North American, can I ask you a favor, on behalf of myself, Pyr, and both of these authors? Please wait for our edition. I didn't used to think that it mattered. Sometimes I liked the UK cover better than the US, or I wanted a hardcover when the US publisher only brought the book out in trade paperback or mass market. Or I didn't want to wait. So yes, if you went through my own library, you'd see a few UK editions acquired in years past. But now I know better. There are a long list of deserving British and Australian authors that you don't see over here. There are others that you don't see here any more. Science fiction is not such a big market that the few hundred editions that slip through the specialty shops, or get shipped from Amazon.co.uk don't make a difference. Oh, if you collect the UK versions of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, you probably aren't really going to make a dent in his sales, but for a lot of these writers, particularly of hard, literate SF, it does matter. This is Adam's first book in the US - something that many people, not just Yours Truly - think is long overdue, and how our edition of Gradisil does will very substantially effect whether his next work of sheer genius comes out in the US or not, either from Pyr or someone else. We're very fortunate to have Ian McDonald's magnificent River of Gods, which, unless you've been living under a rock, you know is being touted everywhere as being a monumental, landmark work, one of those once-in-a-decade achievements, a "must read," but Ian is an example of a writer who was out of the US market for several years before finding his way back in. He's very glad to be back, and we are priviledged to have facilitated his return. So my long-winded point is, if you admire these writers, and you want to see more of their work over here, please show your support for the US editions. Every person makes a difference. And hey, I'm not just talking about our authors and pimping our own books. This applies across the board. Go buy Bantam's edition of Jon Courtenay Grimwood's masterpiece; go pick up the Night Shade edition of the latest Iain M. Banks; get the Del Rey edition of that Hal Duncan book you've heard so much about. If you're a collector, and you've got to have that UK first edition - if the work means that much to you - consider buying both. Hey, I've got all three of China Miéville's Bas Lag novels in their original UK hardcovers, absolutely, but I've got the Del Rey trade paperbacks too.

I appreciate your indulgence with this post. I've seen enough people posting on blogs lately, asking "Why can't I buy the UK version? Why should I wait?" You can make up your own mind, but I think a lot of people don't actually know the impact of buying outside their territory, and I wanted to set the record straight. And for those of you who've been supporting us when we bring you overseas talent, my deep and sincere thanks. There's a lot more where that came from.

That Skiffy Smell

I have to say this: I really, really liked Scott Edelman's recent SciFi Weekly editorial, "Erasing the Smell of Sci-Fi." Scott tracks all the recent tv personalities, producers and actors, who have been bending over backwards in interviews to SciFi.com to distance their obviously science fiction-themed shows from science fiction, on the basis that it's not SF because it's good. Or about characters. Or what have you.

He quotes Carlton Cuse, show runner and executive prodcer of Lost, who understands that genre does not inherently dictate quality or lack thereof, but is a form, into which quality writing can fit, as well as it can fit anywhere:

"No matter what genre you write in, ultimately the stories are reducible to stories about the human condition. And I think people forgot that you could do that in the science-fiction genre. Stephen King is a great example of someone who writes books, for instance, that are very high-concept, and maybe they're horror or fantasy, but when you get right down to it, it's really about the people that populate those books. That's what's engaging about him as a writer. ... You could do that in a hospital show. You could do it in a law show. You could do it in a cop show. But hey, you could also do that in a science-fiction show. And they seem to think that you couldn’t until this show came along."

Format-prejudice is ugly. There are moments of real beauty and insight on Sesame Street. And I have seen some terrible Shakespeare in my time. The muse can strike anywhere, and most of any genre (including the "genre" of mainstream literature) is bad, with only a tip at the top of the iceberg that is truly something to behold.

I don't like the move right now to make "science fiction" a dirty word, to repackage science fiction books to look bland and nongenre, and I don't think people should be embarrassed about liking SF. Oddly, it seems similar to the way people (especially in the media) are embarrassed by the tag "liberal" these days. I want to scream that it was liberals that freed the slaves, emancipated women, enacted child labor laws, ended segregation.... Just as it was the vision of science fiction writers that built the world we live in today, because you have to imagine something before you can begin figuring out how to put it together. We are embarrassed by its most forward-looking thinkers, when we should be celebrating them.

Update: Can I just add how much I am starting to like the blog Meme Therapy? It's mix of science and science fiction is spot-on important. Here, a quote from geologist Robert Peckyno, supports what I'm trying to say above:

" I think that science fiction is critical to progress in science. Visionaries who radically change the world are often thought of as crackpots and fiction has been the inspiration for many great ideas. Tsoilkovsky, Goddard, Oberth, Von Braun and Korolev are collectively the foundation of rocketry today - every one mentioned being inspired by the Jules Verne story 'From the Earth to the Moon.' Arthur C. Clarke suggested orbiting relay satellites allowing world wide communication in 1945 - decades later it arrived. Go to any NASA facility and you will find desks with model 'Enterprises' and 'Starfuries.' Science fiction helps to provide the dreams and puzzles that todays engineers and scientists try to bring to life."

Second Update: The wonderful Louise Marley has posted some thoughts on her journal that dovetail nicely with what Scott Edelman is saying. Louise points out that perception does matter because:

"...our genre only gets seven per cent of the market. That's why fine books like The Time Traveler's Wife and Wicked aren't marketed as science fiction at all, but as mainstream. It's a matter of perception by the reader. But how do we address this, and why is it this way? All of us who publish in our little ghetto of genre have had the experience of someone who doesn't normally read sf/f picking up one of our own works because of friendship, and being surprised at how much they like it. You know, that familiar sentence that begins, 'Well, I don't normally read science fiction . . . ' My thesis is that, actually, they do, but they don't know it. "

Of Possible Interest: Sci-fi book signing planned at Oread Books

From J-W Staff Reports:

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Kansas University’s Oread Books plans a book signing featuring 10 noted authors of science fiction and fantasy on July 8.

The authors attending the book signing will include Lou Anders, Robin Wayne Bailey, Bradley Denton, James Gunn, Kij Johnson, Frederik Pohl, Pamela Sargent and George Zebrowski. They will be joined by two additional authors, the to-be-announced recipients of the 2006 John W. Campbell and Theodore Sturgeon Awards.

The book signing takes place in conjunction with the annual Campbell Conference and its John W. Campbell and Theodore Sturgeon Awards. The Campbell Conference is the concluding event of the yearly Writer’s Workshop and the beginning of the Intensive English Institute on the Teaching of Science Fiction, through the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at KU.

The event begins at 12:45 p.m. in the Oread Books lounge in the Kansas Union. It is free and open to the public.

Look What Just Appeared in the Inbox

Now this looks interesting....

SIX SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY WRITERS
FORM DEEPGENRE BLOG

June 13, 2006 — Six award-winning fantasy and science fiction authors have started the group blog DeepGenre. Located at www.deepgenre.com, the blog will explore multiple aspects of the reading and writing of genre fantasy and science fiction.

"Science fiction and fantasy, like the broad umbrella that is mysteries, performs in more areas than 'escape' and 'entertainment,' though we’re big on entertainment, too," writes Kate Elliott on the blog. "SFF engages with ideas. We’re looking to discuss this on all levels, from the practical concerns of authors writing fiction, to the interplay of life with art and art with life, to the ways in which the NFL can be used as a model for early medieval band warfare."

Current Contributors

The current contributors to DeepGenre include:
· Constance Ash has written and edited SFF, including the Nebula-nominated Flower Kiss and the Philip K. Dick award-nominated anthology Not of Woman Born. She uses her skills as a professional researcher for herself and others by digging into history, past and present.
· Carol Berg is the author of Geffen Award winner Transformation, and the other Books of the Rai-kirah – Revelation and Restoration – as well as The Bridge of D’Arnath Quartet and the 2004 Colorado Book Award winner Song of the Beast. Carol is a former software engineer who took up writing epic fantasy when her three sons started to need less of her time.
· David Louis Edelman is the author of the SF business novel Infoquake. Over the past ten years, he has programmed websites for the U.S. Army and the FBI, taught software to the U.S. Congress and the World Bank, written articles for the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun, and directed the marketing departments of biometric and e-commerce companies.
· Kate Elliott is the author of Spirit Gate, coming in October 2006. She has also written Crown of Stars, a seven volume fantasy novel starting with King’s Dragon, and The Novels of the Jaran, and has co-authored The Golden Key with Melanie Rawn and Jennifer Roberson.
· Katharine Kerr is well known on both sides of the low, meandering stone wall that separates High Fantasy from Science Fiction. Her epic Deverry series has won her millions of fans around the world. Her SF novels include Snare, Polar City Blues, and Resurrection. Her latest Deverry novel, The Gold Falcon, is now available in the UK and will be published in the USA in July.
· Lois Tilton's fiction has been nominated for the Nebula, Sturgeon and Sidewise Awards. She is known for a number of vampire novels, including DarkSpawn, and for dozens of short stories that cross the boundaries of science fiction, fantasy, horror and historical fiction.

For More Information
For more information about DeepGenre, contact blog administrator David Louis Edelman via e-mail at dedelman (at) gmail.com. The DeepGenre blog can be found at www.deepgenre.com.

Crossover about to Cross Over

I just blogged about this over at the Pyr site, but I'm tickled pink enough to mention it here too. Publishers Weekly has just reviewed Joel Shepherd's Crossover, and I'm very happy with what they have to say. Joel's book has enough kick ass action sequences, sex, and neat SFnal concepts to be a nice commercial hit, but it's layered, nuanced, and savvy enough to put it above the usual girl-robot run-of-the-mill norm. Joel's got a knack for describing the complexities and realities of politics, whether its on an interplanetary scale, between departments or coworkers in a government office, or between people in romantic entanglements. He's great with characters, stacks the book full of strong women. And he's also the first writer I've seen to really internalize and reprocess the kind of constant back and forth telepathic communication that wireless technology will soon make possible and which you see in Mangas like Ghost in the Shell. He's got the chip-in-the-head future down, in a smart, fast-paced, sexy, meaty, multicultural, military SF/police procedural and I can't wait to unleash it on the U.S. this August. Meanwhile, here is what PW has to say:

Set in the far future, Australian author Shepherd's energetic debut introduces Cassandra Kresnov, an experimental killer android-with-a-heart who has defected from her League Dark Star special ops assignment. Graced with a yen for human art almost as insatiable as her libido, Kresnov first tries to melt anonymously into Tanusha, the sybaritic capital of Callay, a planet of the League's galactic archenemy, the Federation. But Cassandra can't leave her martial past behind when she's caught up in a heroic struggle to protect the Callayan president from assassination by Federal forces. Shepherd's intriguing heroine and strong female characters bode well for this projected series. Lacing Cassandra's search for identity and acceptance with plenty of hand-to-hand combat and racy sexual exploits, Shepherd also convincingly presents vividly realized ethical dilemmas: what happens to soldiers when the war is over? can a culture that opposes the artificial manufacture of life accept its creations? Shephard grapples with some genuinely thought-provoking questions on the nature of humanity."

The New Who Review - "The Impossible Planet"

For years, I have maintained that the only difference between the 4th Doctor episode, "The Ark in Space" - in which a lone insectile alien is feasting upon and laying eggs in a colony of humans held in suspended animation on a vast space station - and James Cameron's Aliens is special effects and a few one liners, that the former would be as terrifying as the latter if it had the same budget and didn't have monsters unfortunately made of green bubble wrap. I've always wanted to see a quirky British man thrust into helping a crew of space roughnecks fighting a H.R. Gieger monster. Doctor Who has always been properly sci-horor, but it's amazing the effect you get when you take the old Cthulhu evil entity that the silly humans can't help but let loose from his aeons long imprisonment and you combine that with the set designs and acting from something out of Aliens or (the lamentable but appropriately gritty) Event Horizon or films of that ilk. You know, a crew of marines or criminals or prospectors who all wear grey tshirts and camo pants and work in some drag, largely metal environment with a lot of corridors with the pipes showing. Add in one wandering Time Lord and you get something that is paradoxically very much in the tradition of all the old and overdone Bug Eyed Monster plots - so overused in the old Who (and subsequent books, and audio plays, and spin offs) - and yet which feels almost nothing like anything that has come before tonally. My what a difference a budget makes! This is classic Who rendered as only your imagination could have done so before, when it took active participation to fill in the holes in the wobbly sets and to make Sutek or Azal genuinely scary.

Never mind how could Satan have been imprisoned for an eternity AND woven into the fabric of earth (long range telepathy?), or how something that's only 500 (light?) years away from earth can be outside the TARDIS' knowledge (but maybe that's just cause it's past the event horizon of the black hole, not that it's distant), I'm totally into seeing the Doctor injected into a Ridley Scott sci-horror cinema. I'm so behind this! More please, more!

And I love how all the old cliches - he shows up, they automatically trust him - are totally sold by the strength of the writing and Tennant's acting. And he may look like Peter Davison with the young mug and the tennis shoes, but he's really somewhere between Tom Baker (for alien wackiness) and Sylvester McCoy (lonely god). Tennant could easily become my fav if he sticks around long enough, (but I am easy and I love them all).

Oh and Tardises are grown? Written language is translated as well as spoken words? Once again they've gone and confirmed some fan-speculation/books continuity. Never in a million years would I expect the new television show to be so respectful of continuity or to be able to work so much of it in without overburdening the new viewers. I'm really impressed.

So many things are finally being done right - Batman, Who, Lord of the Rings, Battlestar Galactica. Almost makes one wonder if Hollywood (and the BBC) isn't evil anymore. Of course, there's always X-Men III to restore my lack of faith.

Californiai Dreamin'

A nice review of FutureShocks showed up today:

"Lou Anders oversaw the fine anthology Live without a Net: his latest compilation, FutureShocks, gathers new science fiction and horror stories which have roots in biological, technological and sociological change and feature works by seasoned authors, from Paul Di Fillipo and Mike Resnick to Harry Turtledove and Louise Marley. Any who enjoy speculating about the future's dangers will relish a collection which gathers engrossing stories of future dangers." - California Bookwatch, June 2006

Red Rain! Red Rain!

Wouldn't it be cool if this were true?

Godfrey Louis, who twenty-five years ago co-authored the original paper on panspermia - the idea that bacteria from outer space originally seeded life on earth - is investigating the mysterious "blood rains" that have been falling over Kerala, India for some years now.

Louis has discovered that the strange cell-like structures that are giving the rain its name are thick-walled, red-tinted, live in extreme temperatures, and seem to reproduce despite lacking any DNA. His theory - they're from outer space.

This certainly makes more sense to me that rival theory that a meteor pulverized a cloud of high flying bats. But what interests me is my own reaction to this: the mixture of hope and serious doubt that this time will be the one. I believe in life on other worlds, but don't think it's ever been here. I believe life existed on Mars, but am not sure we've proved that yet. Panspermia makes a lot of sense, so why couldn't this be evidence of it? As we continue to explore our own solar system and the universe at large, at some point it's inevitable that we will encounter something other, even if its just bacteria on a jovian moon, so when are things going to tip from we're all alone to no we're not?

Fast Forward TOC

All the stories for my upcoming anthology, Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge are now in. Fast Forward is an unthemed, all original, all science fiction anthology, due from Pyr February 07. I'll be assembling the book for the rest of the month, including penning what I hope will be a substantive introduction, but today I've been obsessing over the Table of Contents. I love putting TOC's together and take them as seriously as I used to take making mix tapes back before you could just drop and drag and burn. Back in the day when it could take you a whole afternoon to make a mix, there was a real art to it. You couldn't just put any old song next. You had to find the right one to follow the previous tune, and you could spot an amateur immediately if they put two songs by the same artist back to back on a tape. So, what's offered below isn't final in terms of its order (though I have a sense that it's close), but here are the authors and their stories. I'm guessing there's one or two surprises, and there are also certainly stories - like Ian McDonald's "Sanjeev and Robotwallah" - that will make fans of the respective existing worlds they are set in very happy:

Robert Charles Wilson - YFL-500
Justina Robson - The Girl Hero's Mirror Says He's Not the One
Paolo Bacigalupi - Small Offerings
Robyn Hitchcock - They Came From the Future
Kage Baker - Plotters and Shooters
Tony Ballantyne - Aristotle OS
Elizabeth Bear - The Something-Dreaming Game
Stephen Baxter - No More Stories
A.M. Dellamonica - Time of the Snake
Larry Niven & Brenda Cooper - The Terror Bard
Louise Marley - p dolce
Ken MacLeod - Jesus Christ, Reanimator
Mike Resnick & Nancy Kress - Solomon's Choice
Ian McDonald - Sanjeev and Robotwallah
Pamela Sargent - A Smaller Government
Mary A. Turzillo - Pride
Robyn Hitchcock - I Caught Intelligence
George Zebrowski - Settlements
Gene Wolfe - The Hour of the Sheep
John Meaney - Sideways from Now
Paul Di Filippo - Wikiworld

A Recently Unearthed Treasure

Mission to Zar

Short Story

Level 6

by

Louis Anders

Briarwood Christian School

(age 10 or thereabouts, we assume)

The time was about the middle of the twenty-fourth century. The place, a small space craft ordered to explore the square planet of Zar. The reason for this unusual mission was that the planet's surface was caving in. This was disrupting the gravity on the Earth and Mars.

The captain, talking to himself said, "Sniff, I may never see my wife and dog, Ruff, again." The captain pulled out a picture.

Overhearing, the second in command said, "Gee, your dog sure is ugly!"

"That's not my dog; that's my wife!"

"Sorry, Captain."

"That's okay. My wife thought it was Ruff, too," sighed the captain.

The ship enters the atmosphere and is instantly pulled down by Zar's gravity.

They landed on a large mountain. "Captain," said one of the men, "the gravity meter ray shows that another cave-in would occur about now--!"

The cave in hits and the mountain is reduced to a small hill. They traced the point of damage to a small underground tunnel.

After following the tunnel for hours they came to a large cavern miles below Zar's surface. It was inhabited by thousands of huffles! They were digging tunnels in the dirt to live in. This was causing the cave-ins.

Taking out eight inflatable space-rockets they tied one to each end of the planet.

Now they huffles could tunnel as much as they liked and Zar wouldn't cave in.

The End

The First Law lives in Japan

So, first they produce the most impressive robot so far in terms of its locomation, which can take stairs, jog, pick objects up off the floor, dance, turn sideways, and they name it Asimo in honor of the late Isaac Asimov. Now, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, & Industry is working on codifying the first real-world versions of Isaac's three laws of robotics. I swear, it's getting to where I have no patience for people who don't understand why science fiction matters. Last week's Rise of the Cybermen two-parter may have been the weakest Doctor Who yet from season two, but watching all those people walking around on screen with bluetooth phones in their ear (or the parallel world equivalent) just brought home the degree to which we are all living in the future. No, we don't all have air cars yet (though Boeing finally invested in that guy's idea and there is a prototype), but in so many ways, people who don't get, understand or appreciate science fiction because it "isn't real" are just fish missing the water around them. I mean, what the hell is this blog anyway, if not my very own Captain's Log. Just as every cell phone owes its existance to Kirk's communicator. And more and more every day, the features on the latest sports cars come to resemble a hybrid of Bond's Austin Martin and the Batmobile. We live now in yesterday's dreams. Our future and our children's future is being plotted out now. It's no coincidence that SF is on the rise in India and China even as it's disdained here. Attitudes about science and science fiction go hand in hand. And you can't build a world you haven't imagined first.

Cover Story @ B&N

Paul Goat Allen's review of Cover Story: The Art of John Picacio is now online at Barnes & Noble's website. Says Paul:

"Boris Vallejo. Michael Whelan. Frank Frazetta. Todd Lockwood. Picacio deserves to be included in this elite list of extraordinary speculative fiction artists. But Cover Story confirms that he may be the best there ever was. A must-have for art connoisseurs as well as fans of science fiction/fantasy, this book proves that John Picacio is, simply put, the Picasso of speculative fiction."

Be sure to check out Picacio's website too.

Pyr Love in the Blogs

Jonathan Strahan has some nice things to say about Ian McDonald's River of Gods:

"This surprising and wonderful novel managed to re-establish (or even establish in some places) McDonald’s reputation as one of the best writers working in the field today."

Meanwhile, Louise Marley's very kind comments about the Pyr line overall lead her to reflect on the place of independent publishing in general.

Pyr-o-mania

Because it will let us update book-related news much faster and more efficiently than the old system (I email the wonderful and overworked Mark Hall at Prometheus, who codes it into the HTML), presenting - drum roll please -

Pyr-o-mania: the Pyr blog!

2 Very Nice Reviews...

...which I can't resist sharing:

"Genre fans who enjoy spirituality-powered novels that delve into religious and mythic belief systems (Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, Hal Duncan's Vellum, et al.) should prepare to be blown away: Sean Williams's The Crooked Letter -- winner of Australia's Aurealis and Ditmar Awards for Best Fantasy Novel -- is finally available in the States! .... The first installment of a projected four-volume saga entitled Books of the Cataclysm, The Crooked Letter is equal parts arcane fantasy, postapocalyptic thriller, and Lovecraftian horror. Ever wonder what happens to people after they die? Williams's exploration into the various realms of the afterlife is as engaging as it is disturbing -- a page-turner of the highest order." - Paul Goat Allen, Barnes and Noble Review

“Then every so often there comes along a novel, William Gibson’s Neuromancer, say, or China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station, or Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon, that seems to do it all. Extrapolation, a sense of wonder that grabs you by the throat and won’t let go, lush carpets of setting, a profusion of ideas, complex representations of characters, soundings of society at every level, all the resources of language. River of Gods is such a novel…River of Gods clamors and roars and rings and resounds…” - James Sallis, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 2006

Bilsang: We have a Winner!

As you may recall, last February Mike Resnick and I announced a contest "of sorts" to create the rules to the game Bilsang, apparently a popular pastime in Mike's galaxy of the 4870s A.D.

Bilsang - which is described as being a simple game that anyone can learn in a few minutes and which requires only a flat surface and twenty identical pieces, and is harder than it looks - is introduced in Mike's upcoming novel Starship: Pirate.

Now, I'm happy to announce that Resnick-fan and Dragon Magazine contributor Alex Wilson has won the contest, as judged last week by Mike and myself. Alex's Bilsang rules will appear in the appedices of Starship: Pirate when the book appears this coming December.

Thanks to everyone who sent in entrees, and a big congratulations Alex.

Fast Forward, Rewind, Fast Forward

My friend Eric Spitznagel is quite a character. I first met him in the early 90s in Oxford, when the two of us were studying theatre in a summer program run by the British American Drama Academy. He was determined to be the next Woody Allen or Hunter S. Thompson - he later managed to somehow combine the two influence. Eric favored wearing t-shirts with slogans like "Men Suck" on them, and his idea of a good time when riding the subway was to pick some unsuspecting stranger, sit next to them, and act crazy, wiggling his bushy eyebrows like a deranged muppet and muttering "Ga goongee goongee goo"at the unfortunate and increasingly uncomfortable commuter.

A year later, we were rooming together in Chicago, writing and directing small black box late night comedies in a run down little theatre in a less-than-salubrious neighborhood - the playhouse was across the street from a crack house. Most of our output was pretty amateurish (Eric has a play titled "I love you so much I want to tie you up with chains and beat you with warm squash" or words to that effect), but it was a wonderful/terrible time of cutting teeth and making huge mistakes, fraught with clashing egos and strong emotion. We both left theatre and pursued parallel careers in journalism (each doing a little time in Hollywood as well). We've stayed in touch on and off ever since, managed to live in the same town at the same time once or twice, and have even worked together on occasion. Eric provided me with a fantastic interview with Neal Pollack during my brief tenure as a magazine editor, and he returned the favor by commissioning my own interview with China Miéville for the Believer magazine, where he currently serves as an associate editor. (His Interview with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, conducted with the "assistance" of Hawaiian psychic and trance medium Arthur Pacheco, is not to be missed, while his out-of-print The Junk Food Companion: the Complete Guide to Eating Badly, which among other things charts Cookie Monster's lifelong love/hate relationship with chocolate chips as detailed through his songwriting, is a rolling-on-the-floor funny book if one can find it.) Although we work in different genres - science fiction and Hunter Thompson-style gonzo journalism respectively, I've always had a feeling we were connected in some nebulous ethereal sense, that our disparate paths would go on to intersect and intertwine on and off at various odd junctions across the decades.

As an email announcement from Eric revealed yesterday, it turns out that connection is still going strong. Early next year, I have an anthology of original, unthemed science fiction stories called Fast Forward, the title being a nod to the accelerated pace of technological advancement in the 21st century. Well, synchronistically, Eric has a Fast Forward too. But, far from being a science fiction collection dedicating to our rapidly encroaching future, his is something else entirely. Fast Forward: Confessions of a Porn Screenwriter, details Eric's all-too-brief career as a screenwriter in Burbank, California's porn film industry. I've read multiple chapters from this work while it was being produced, and can honestly say I've never laughed as hard at anything in my life. Now, let me be clear, I'm not exactly recommending this book, which is guaranteed to have something to offend just about anyone. This book is absolutely and on no uncertain terms not for everyone - not for the priggish, and certainly not for the PC - but if you think Boogie Nights is great cinema then this is the book for you. As Eric says, "It's about my attempts to write The Great American Porno. During my year spent as a porn scribe, I somehow convinced myself that I could write a script so funny and campy that no amount of bad acting or poor production values could ruin it. Of course, I failed miserably, and this memoir provides all the messy details of my rise and fall as porn's hot young writer of the moment. (The title, Fast Forward, refers to an industry term commonly used for a porn screenplay. Scripts are called "fast forwards" because audiences are expected to reach for their remotes whenever the actors stop having sex and start talking.) In a way, this book is less about porn than one's writer's search for relevance in an industry designed to be irrelevant. It's about how when life hands you lemons, it's not always possible to make lemonade, especially when the 'lemons' in this particular metaphor are enormous cocks."

But why Eric's word for it? As adult film star Asia Carrera (Nympho Newlywed, Thunder Pussy) says: "Despite his protests, Spitznagel may very well be porn's answer to Kurosawa. And not unlike Rashomon, you probably shouldn't believe a word he says. Fast Forward isn't the most flattering portrait of the adult film industry, but it's hands-down the funniest."

Meanwhile, you can catch Eric on his very-limited booktour on the following schedule. If you stop by, tell Eric I sent you:

Saturday, May 6
LOS ANGELES, CA
Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont Ave.
7:30 p.m.

Tuesday, May 9
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
City Lights
261 Columbus Ave.
7:00 p.m.

Thursday, May 11
PORTLAND, OR
Powell's Books on Hawthorne
3723 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.
7:30 p.m.

Saturday, May 13
SEATTLE, WA
Elliott Bay Book Company
101 S. Main St.
7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, May 24
ANN ARBOR, MI
Shaman Drum Bookshop
311-315 S. State St.
7:00 p.m.

Friday, May 26
CHICAGO, IL
Barbara's Bookstore
1218 S. Halsted St.
7:30 p.m.

More Kindling for the Pyr

My apologies for letting the blog lie fallow for a couple weeks. There has been a host of Pyr related news accumulating while I've been away too. Worth noting:

First, our Fall/Winter 2006/7 catalog is now available, and you can download a pdf of it here. I'm very proud of this season, which includes works by Justina Robson, John Meaney, Sean Williams, Alan Dean Foster, Martin Sketchley, Mike Resnick, Jack Dann, and a brand new anthology from Yours Truly. (Check out the cool Picacio cover at the right. Note that the final contributors list for Fast Forward is not set in stone, though most of those listed on the cover at the right have already turned in their stories and the roster in the catalog shouldn't differ by more than a name or two. I'll post an update when I have the final TOC in a few weeks.)

And for those who don't want to download a pdf, here is a handy Amazon list of our fourth season. (Amazon is an amazing resource, but let me pause and plug the need to support the independents. Borderlands Books, for instance, is an amazing San Francisco-based store that carries our titles and can ship anywhere. Their Jude Feldman knows how to pack books for shipping with real care and is one of the few people in the world I trust to put jacket protectors on my collectible hardcovers! Hey Jude!)

Meanwhile, slipping in between seasons, John Meaney's Paradox - called "a landmark work" by SciFi.com's SciFi Weekly, compared to Dune by Entertainment Weekly, and chosen in B&N's Editors Picks as the # 2 SF&F Book of 2005 - is now available in trade paperback.

Tobias S. Buckell wrote to let me know that he thought Joel Shepherd's upcoming Crossover, for which he kindly provided a blurb, was "a [expletive deleted] blast" - wish I could put that on the cover!- and Publishers Weekly has just issued a glowing review of David Louis Edelman's upcoming novel Infoquake:

"Slick high-finance melodrama and dizzying technical speculation lift Edelman's SF debut, the first of a trilogy. Centuries in the future, humans rely less on machines than on upgrading their own nervous systems with nanotech bio/logic programs. Natch, a gifted young code programmer-entrepreneur obsessed with clawing his way to the top, jumps at the chance to merchandise a major new technology, MultiReal, even though he doesn't know what it is. Natch soon becomes a target for not just his business rivals but also totalitarian governmental agencies and more mysterious groups. Natch's being a borderline sociopath makes him extremely creative in business tactics and personal manipulation (and thus fascinating to read about). The world in which he operates is also fascinating, with awesome personal powers being sold on a frantic open market. Edelman, who has a background in Web programming and marketing, gives his bizarre notions a convincing gloss of detail. Bursting with invention and panache, this novel will hook readers for the story's next installment."

Picacio Has Got You Covered

Yesterday, I came home from my daily Starbucks run to discover a package on my doorstep which contained - to my tremendous delight - my copy of Cover Story: The Art of John Picacio. I cannot begin to tell you how gorgeous this tome is - you'll just have to experience that for yourself. But what I can tell you is how much heft and content it has over the average single-author art book. It's 200 pages long, and each illustration is graced with John's thoughts on their creation - not technical choices, but a detailed look at the inspirations behind the brushstrokes. This is an insightful glimpse into the mind of one of the premiere artists of his generation. We all judge books by their covers - which is why I'm grateful to have worked with John as much as I have. But with this book, trust me when I say you have got to crack the spine to believe what is inside. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! And already my top choice for the Best Related Book Hugo for 2007.

Geeking Out

The latest issue of Publishers Weekly has a piece from Ron Hogan called "Too Geeky for Its Own Good?," concerned with a number of SF professionals' reactions to that now-infamous Dave Itzkoff review "It's All Geek to Me."

For those who came in late, in his debut SF review column for the New York Times, Itzkoff says that David Marusek's Counting Heads was "one of my favorite books of last year in any category." Yet he bemoans the fact that he can't recommend the book to his fellow commuters on the train because it is "too geeky," complex and technical for someone reading The Kite Runner or A Million Little Pieces to comprehend.

In response to this, Hogan's article, in the April 3rd issue of PW, quotes Diana Gill, Jaime Levine, yours truly, David Hartwell, David Moench, and Itzkoff himself, who again assures us that he loves SF while paradoxically stating that the opinions of those who produce it matter little to him. (This is in odd contrast to the self-styled "outright advocacy" of his Times piece.)

Meanwhile, Hogan has found himself with more material than column inches, and so he has posted more thoughts online. "Outakes from This Week's PW Cover Story" is more than it sounds and constitutes a second article in its own right. In addition to yours truly, Hogan quotes Tor's David Hartwell, BL Publishing's Vincent Rospond, and Tachyon's Jill Roberts on the matters of smaller press publishing.

(A related PW article, "Fantasy Goes Literary" by Gwenda Bond, is also worth noting.)

The Revenge of Winston Smith

It is a shame that Alan Moore has chosen this moment to distance himself so far from Hollywood and to so publicly disavow this film, because V for Vendetta is the most faithful, respectful, and successful adaptation his work has had to date. Andy and Larry, I finally forgive you for the Matrix Revolutions. And while my absolution matters little, I suspect that millions of other filmgoers will too. Yes, the Wachowski brothers have returned to smart and daring movie making. Surprisingly light on action. Heavy on complex dialogue and plot. A truly uncompromising film. Everyone should see it.

Got Monkey?

Coming out this summer from MonkeyBrain. Another fabulous John Picacio. Is this a hot cover or what?

Programmable Soda Bottle

One of my favorite Jeff Noon short stories is "Solace," about children addicted to a programmable soda that allows you to chose your flavor or combination of flavors by dialing the cap. Well, once again the future has caught up with the fiction. A company called Ipfini now offers a programmable soda bottle with the ability to program your soda with up to 32 different flavor combinations. The bottle is filled with corbonated high-fructose water and the bottle itself has buttons on the side for flavor, color, and aroma.

More Tremors Before the Quake

In advance of his book's publication, David Louis Edelman continues to post exclusive material to his Infoquake website, detailing the world-building of his complex future society. His latest offerings are:

• New Background Article: On Dartguns and Disruptors
  A discussion about dartguns and multi disruptors and other weaponry mentioned in the novel, as well as a discussion of the effects of the New Warfare Act of 221. Exclusive to the Infoquake website.
• New Exclusive Background Article: On the Transportation System
  Description of the various modes of transportation used for travel and trade in the novel, including the tube, hoverbirds, OrbiCo, and the underground transfer system. Exclusive to the Infoquake website.

World Catches Up with Di Filippo

Paul Di Filippo is a mother-prognosticating genius.
Read "Shuteye for the Time Broker" in FutureShocks,
then check out the beta for Eventful. Tell me "create a demand" isn't time-broking?
Way to go, Paul!

Hitchcock on Hitchcock

Robyn Hitchcock, upon receiving his copies of our interview in the Believer:

Re the 'God' question: my answer may have been too whimsical for the gravity of the implications of your question. I detest Creationism, Intelligent Design, and the agenda of people who wield these ideas, along with their policy of subverting science, dismantling abortion rights and promoting legalized homicide in the form of 'capital punishment'. Please don't let my speculations about infinity align me in any way with Fundamentalist Christians and their witless creed. I apologise if I gave that impression - and hope I didn't.

Please pass this on to anyone who wonders about this.

Aussies, Brits & Yanks: Norman Spinrad on Pyr & Publishing

The April/May double-issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine has a very long and articulate article on five Pyr titles in Norman Spinrad’s On Books column, available online as well, and titled “Aussies, Brits, & Yanks.” Spinrad reviews John Meaney's Paradox and Context, Martin Sketchley's The Affinity Trap, Michael Blumlein's The Healer, and Sean Williams The Resurrected Man, all in glowing terms. To my limited knowledge, this is the first time that an On Books column has been entirely devoted to the works of one publisher. (I say limited knowledge; I am sure that there must be other examples, perhaps a perfusion of them, it's just the first occasion I have heard of.)

Equally interesting, this is not merely a collection of disparate reviews. Spinrad uses the reviews jointly as a platform for an analysis of the state of the industry and Pyr's place therein. He writes that we are publishing “science fiction written specifically for experienced and intelligent readers of science fiction… literary idealism, but also cunningly commercial cherry-picking.” He further ties Pyr into what he sees as a renaissance of “sophisticated mainstream science fiction.”

As it happened, I read this piece around the same time as Dave Itzkoff's controversial New York Times debut, "It's All Geek to Me," and the two are now juxtaposed in my mind.

Happy Birthday Pyr

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 8, 2006

CONTACT: Jill Maxick, 800-853-7545
jmaxick@prometheusbooks.com

One Year Into the Future
Young SF&F Imprint Celebrates Its First Anniversary

Amherst, NY--One year ago today, Prometheus Books launched a science fiction and fantasy imprint, Pyr, with the publication of John Meaney’s Paradox: Book One of the Nulapeiron Sequence.

Entertainment Weekly compared it to Dune.

With that auspicious opener, Prometheus Books—the leading independent publisher in popular science, philosophy, and critical thinking, and a specialist in intelligent nonfiction since 1969—launched an imprint dedicated to speculative fiction, marking a fresh direction for the press. With more than 1,500 books in print, Prometheus Books produces about 100 new titles a year. Until Pyr, less than two percent had been fiction.

But there exists a natural connection between science nonfiction and science fiction and fantasy, and a long and distinguished history of both fields trading inspiration back and forth. By way of a recent example, two months after Prometheus Books launched Pyr, it also published the nonfiction Nanofuture by J. Storrs Hall—a scientist whose concept of utility fog has been employed by many a science fiction writer.

On Pyr’s first anniversary, we reflect on some of the imprint’s milestones and achievements:

• Genre legends Robert Silverberg, Michael Moorcock, Mike Resnick, Gardner Dozois, George Zebrowski joined hot up-and-comers like Chris Roberson and Justina Robson in the Pyr author stable.
• John Meaney’s Paradox was compared to Frank Herbert’s Dune by review media, and remains one of Pyr’s best-selling, best-reviewed titles.
• Science Fiction Weekly said Pyr was “destined to become a leading imprint in the field.”
• Publishers Weekly published Pyr editorial director Lou Anders’s article on the state and future of the genre as part of an SF feature in the April 4, 2005 issue.
• Author Chris Roberson was nominated for John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award.
• Book Expo America 2005 featured a well-attended Pyr launch party and hugely successful Chris Roberson Here, There & Everywhere book signing.
• Charles Coleman Finlay’s The Prodigal Troll made the Locus 2005 Recommended Reading List for “Best First Novel.”
• The Locus 2005 Recommended Reading List for “Best Anthology” included Galileo's Children, edited by Gardner Dozois.
• Two artists working with Pyr, John Picacio and Caniglia, were both nominated for Best Artist in the World Fantasy Awards 2005; John Picacio won the World Fantasy Award and was also nominated for the Best Professional Artist Hugo®.
• Justina Robson's Silver Screen has been nominated for a Philip K. Dick Award.
• Silver Screen received a starred review in Kirkus Reviews and was also chosen for their Best SF&F Books of 2005 list.
• Barnes & Noble's SF&F “Editor's Choice: Top Ten Novels of 2005” ranked Paradox #2.
• Genetopia by Keith Brooke received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly, was called a “minor masterpiece” by Locus, and became the third Pyr title in a year to be reviewed by the huge, mainstream, consumer magazine Entertainment Weekly.
• River of Gods by Ian McDonald received a starred review in Library Journal.
• In a rare if not totally unprecedented event, the entire ‘On Books’ section of the April/May 2006 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction was dedicated to books published by a single press, Pyr, with five Pyr books reviewed including a positive assessment of the imprint itself.

Pyr editorial director Lou Anders reflects, “From its inception, science fiction has always been the genre concerned with change. As the 21st century promises even greater change than the 20th, fueled by the ever-accelerating pace of technological development, science fiction in general—and Pyr in specific—is poised to imagine the brave new world, in all its wonders and perils, and in so doing, to help usher tomorrow into today.”

Prometheus Books took its name from the courageous Greek titan who gave fire to humans, lighting the way to reason and independence. Pyr, the Greek word for fire, continues this connection to intelligent imagination. In its exciting first year, Pyr has set the bar high for creativity, intelligence, and quality. Prometheus Books is proud of this addition to our legacy.

The Man With the Lightbulb Head

I spent five years earning a living as a journalist in Los Angeles from 1995 to 1999, living in West Hollywood and hanging out on the sets of Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine. And although I haven't been a full-time journalist since '99, I still enjoy doing the occasional interview with interesting people I would enjoy talking to anyway. But of the five hundred plus interviews I've conducted since 1995, I don't think any have been as exciting to me personally (with the possible exception of last year's China Miéville piece) than this new interview with musician Robyn Hitchcock that is out in the March issue of the Believer. Robyn himself says it's the most in-depth interview he's given in some years. We range from George Bush, to Bob Dylan, to Doctor Who, to science fiction and even the eventual fate of the human race.

One tidbit which was cut from the final version, and with which I will whet your appetites now, concerns religion: In a world like this, we cannot afford to go around having separate gods, worshipping Allah, Mohammed, Jehovah, whatever it is, and tearing the wings off people who think differently. If there is a god it should be standard issue and pan-global, and of course it is, it’s called money. The dollar always has the final word, and a cynic I find it deeply satisfying that behind all the piety and bullshit that people toss out there’s usually some financial motive. But I wonder whether it matters if you believe in god or god believes in you. But I think my god has a small “g.”

Multiple Worlds & Frightening Futures

Sean Williams is interviewed by John Joseph Adams on SciFiWire, about his upcoming Pyr release, The Crooked Letter: Books of the Cataclysm: One. Central to the novel is Williams' unique take on the afterlife, which applies ecological laws and Darwinian "survival of the fittest" concepts to other planes of existence. Recently, New Scientist ran an article that suggested the various parallel worlds of the many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics are not as independent as supposed, and that the larger universes may pose a danger to smaller ones occurring below a varying size threshold. I'm fascinated, not the least of why because Sean proposed something very much like this in Crooked Letter, where I encountered it over a year before this article.

Meanwhile, Cheryl Morgan has some very nice, and some very insightful, things to say about FutureShocks in the latest edition of Emerald City. Cheryl writes, "Anders, of course, produced the highly regarded Live Without a Net, and it is likely that anything new he produces will also contain some very good stories." She finds the contributions by Louise Marley and Robert Charles Wilson particularly noteworthy.

On Writers

Professional writers are those people whom, when at some point in the early development of their craft, they were inevitably told, "You will never make it as a writer," didn't listen.

So, I'm telling you now.

Listen closely.

You will never make it as a writer.

Another Pre-Quake Tremor

I've already blogged about David Louis Edelman's extensive website, Infoquake.net, launched in support of his upcoming Pyr title of the same name, the science-fiction business novel that takes speculative fiction into the corporate boardroom of tomorrow. The site contains a detailed future history, an extensive glossary, sample chapters, numerous articles on the society and technology of the world Dave has created.

Now, he had added the following to the already content-rich website:

The new downloads page contains downloadable files of Infoquake chapters 1-3. Files are available in Microsoft Word (DOC), Adobe Acrobat (PDF) and Plain Text (TXT).

New background article On Government, exclusive to the Infoquake website. Descriptions of the L-PRACGs, the Congress of L-PRACGs, the Prime Committee and the Defense and Wellness Council, as well as a listing of important High Executives of the Council.

Infoquake is scheduled for release in July of 2006 . Pre-orders are available now on Amazon.com and Booksense and a handful of other places as well.

The Batman of Birmingham

I met the real Batman once.

I'm not talking about any of the actors who have played him on the big screen. And I'm not talking about Adam West, although I was first in line more than once as a child when he made his annual appearance at the World of Wheels.

I'm talking about the real Batman. I'm talking about the Batman of Birmingham.

A bunch of us kids were horsing around in someone's front yard and he drove up in his Batmobile. Batman was an African-American. He didn't wear black or blue tights but instead a sort of jump-suit that was white with brown trim. He had a brown motorcycle helmet that said "Batman" on it. He did have the right shape cape, although it was brown. He was very friendly, not particularly educated, and kept insisting "I'm the real Batman" to us a little more than was necessary, though, admittedly, he looked a good deal more like Evil Knievel than the Darknight Detective. And even as a kid, I wondered why he had latched onto the name "Batman" and not picked something more original or at least more appropriate. I think it had to do with his car, and with the fact that Batman was the only superhero so strongly identified with his wheels.

The Birmingham Batman drove a suped-up corvette, white with brown trim just like his costume, and covered in reflective decals. It had funky flashy lights, fins, and a half dozen different types of radio aerials. There was no such thing as GPS back then, but the car had CBs and police-ban radios, and some sort of bulky telephone. I remember a rocket launcher too, but that's probably just the embellishment of my childhood imagination.

And this Batman really was a genuine, honest-to-god superhero. He didn't have Bruce Wayne's billions--I recall he worked in a garage or something and spent all he had on his car--but every free moment he had, he spent on the road assisting motorists in distress. If you needed a ride, if you had a flat tire, if you'd been in an accident, he would come to your aid. He was all about helping people, every free minute of every day. And that's what made him a true hero.

I don't know his name. I remember reading it when he died, but that was a long time ago, and I was too little then to remember it now. The details were in the local paper, and I've been unable to find anything else about him since, on the Internet or elsewhere. But he died of carbon monoxide poisoning. He was working under his Batmobile, of course, when his garage door slid closed. He asphyxiated without ever knowing what was wrong. I don't know his age, but he would have been in his twenties or thirties. Those whom the gods love die young. He's the only real life superhero I ever met, and I still think of him from time to time.

Batman: 1970s Hairy-Chested Love God

My favorite comic book writer is taking over the reigns of my favorite comic book character.

And I couldn't be more worried.

Grant Morrison is indisputably the most creative person working in comics today. While he doesn't always succeed with what he does (IMHO), he dares more than anyone else, and the level of his invention is just astounding.

He's also responsible for two of my three favorite runs in the history of comics: his Doom Patrol and his The Invisibles. (The third, in case you are wondering, is Alan Moore's Swamp Thing). Morrison has an enviable ability to see right to the heart of a character and pick up on some essential truth that has always been lying there unexploited, obvious in retrospect.

Case in point is what he did for Cliff Steele in Doom Patrol. A former athlete, injured in a car crash, who is resurrected as a human brain in a robot body, "Robotman" was a relatively uninteresting second-string character until Morrison came along. His Doom Patrol run opened with Cliff on his ranch, riding a Clydesdale (the only horse strong enough to carry him), driving it faster and faster. But having a steel epidermis, Cliff can't feel the wind. He's pushing the horse harder and harder, all in an effort to feel a sensation he's forever denied. Morrison nails the essential pathos from the get go. Later, when Cliff's artificial body is deactivated and his organic brain torn out and stomped flat, he's surprised not to be dead. Then he's told that he comes equipped with a hard disk in his chest, and that they booted him up from a backup. While everyone else glosses right over this - isn't he happy to be alive? What did he need a vulnerable brain for anyway? - Cliff says, "But that was the only human part of me left."

Morrison's Invisibles, for its part, is a really clever melding of Philip K. Dick's Valis with Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! Trilogy and is probably the most ambitious comics series I've ever encountered. Sure his New X-Men didn't live up to expectation, and while I'm not following his current Superman effort, but I've no doubt it will emerge as one of the definitive works in the Big Blue's cannon.

So why am I worried about him taking on the Dark Knight Detective?

Because I love Morrison for precisely the opposite of what speaks to me in Batman. Morrison grooves on obscure continuity, on looking at the utter absurdity of comic book history, and bringing in precisely those elements we'd like to sweep under the rug when talking about the maturity of the genre. He's a genius at finding the weird nth degree implication of a character's powers, or bringing back that intergalactic romance from a character's wackier Silver Age past. And Batman is a character that has always danced a line between its more realistic and more absurd interpretations. The Dark Knights first year, back in 1939, was utterly grim, but it didn't take more than a few more for Batman and Robin to rapidly descend, in the post-WWII world that had had enough grimness in real life, into zany adventures every bit as silly as the Adam West television show. Soon after this, Batman and Robin were swapping places with their far-future counterparts (something Morrison has already revived) or taking off to be the "Super of Planet X," (also known as planet Zur-En-Arrh.) It was from this past that Denny O'Neil rescued the character, reinterpreting him along his grim detective roots, and banishing most of the rogues gallery for a decade while Batman dealt with mobsters, corrupt politicians, and international terrorists. But the rogues gallery crept back in in the 70s and 80s. While the Joker and Two-Face are fundamental villains that shouldn't be omitted when done well, we got everything from the King of the Cats to both versions of the Mad Hatter, and Batman became a schizophrenic comic book, insisting on its maturity while parading out villains from its early continuity like the Calendar Man. Personally, I miss the brief run Detective had as a sort of House of Mystery style title, in which the Batman would arrive (often on foot) at a mysterious house or would encounter a phantom woman in the woods, and have a very Weird Tales adventure. But I digress...

The point is, with Morrison at the helm - and he's already describing his Batman as a "hairy-chested, love-god" (his take on the Neal Adam's era) - can a return of Bat-Mite be far behind?

Then there is Arkham Asylum, which is a brilliant examination of Two-Face's character, and a more than passable Joker episode. Morrison understands, as Batman never has before, that the Joker is trying hard to communicate something to him, and that by listening, he can defuse the Clown Prince of Crime entirely. There he goes again - right to the heart of a character. Brilliant. But the stand-alone graphic novel disappoints horribly as a Batman story, because of Morrison's fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Batman's masochism, which would never EVER be so blatantly direct in its self infliction. Nor does it take anything but a few choice words from the Mad Hatter before Batman is plunging shattered glass through his palm. Christ-symbolism aside (and Batman is the wrong hero to deify folks; he's the Count of Monte Christo, self-damned for assuming God's rightful claim to vengeance), this comes out of nowhere character-wise. It says to me that Morrison just doesn't get Batman the way that Frank Miller used to or Paul Dini (late of the brilliant Animated Series and related) does. But then, few people at DC do get the character these days. Which is what prompted me to stop reading the monthlies over ten years ago when they phoned in Jason Todd's death and then had Bane break Batman's back. I gave up after that, only picking up the occasional graphic novel to keep tabs on what was going on (best of which is Jeff Loeb and Tim Sale's contributions). But now.. well, now I'm going to start picking up my first monthly in over a decade to see what Mr. Morrison has going.

He's already stated that the first issue has Batman facing off against 15 Man-Bat ninjas (a perfect example of Morrison ferreting out that bit of continuity - after all, in 30 years nobody else has thought to have Dr. Kirk Langstrom's extract administered deliberately to someone else, and why not several someones?). And the issue will feature Talia and be called "Batman & Sons," a suggestion that it will go back into Mike W. Barr's exceptional Son of the Demon, picking up a plot thread nobody else has touched (and one near and dear to my heart).

So, I'll be watching you Grant, to make sure you don't destroy the character forever, not that you care! I'm sure you are going to be infuriatingly brilliant. I'll probably pick it up in trade hardcover when it comes out that way too, damn it! You've pulled me back to monthlies where nobody else could.

But hey, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Paul Dini's going to be taking over Detective, and he wants to make the title about actually solving mysteries. Like I need anything else to read!

Mike Resnick's Bilsang: A contest of sorts....

Mike Resnick and I are running a contest of sorts.

Mike has just delivered the manuscript for his upcoming novel, Starship: Pirate, book two of his five book military space opera that began with Starship: Mutiny. The series chronicles the adventures of the starship Theodore Roosevelt, a military vessel operating in the years 1966-1970 G.E. (Galactic Era).

SF Reviews describe the first book as "the kind of easygoing and unabashedly old-school space opera romp for which we've come to know and love him ... whip-smart, fast-paced pure entertainment ... simply pure escapism, impossible to resist by anyone who still remembers that good old fashioned sense of wonder."

Now, if you'll excuse a tiny spoiler, in Starship: Pirate, one of the characters introduces the crew of the Teddy R. to a wildly popular, presumably alien game called "bilsang," said to be as "a game that makes chess and toprench look like kid's games." Mike describes some of the aspects of the game, but leaves the actual rules up to the reader's imagination.

Now, because I thought it was a pretty nifty idea last time, we are running some fairly extensive appendices in the back of each of the Starship books. And when I came to the passage about bilsang, I thought, what a good appendix a set of bilsang rules would make.

So, that brings us to the contest.

We're looking for some brilliant, talented gamers with time on their hands to have a go at creating the rules of bilsang. Entries can be posted here, if you prefer to keep your ideas to yourself, emailed to me through the form on the contact page of my website: www.louanders.com. Mike and I will review all entries, and, provided we find one we like, we'll run it as one of the appendices of Starship: Pirate. Winners will get a credit in the book as being a co-created of bilsang alongside Mike Resnick, as well as a couple of signed copies of the first edition. (Mike also offers 50% of anything that comes should someone actually make a bilsang game one day, but as you'll see below, there's not really that much required to be made.) Entries should come in before April 15th, but be advised that if we find something that we're sure is just plain perfect before then, we'll take it and declare the contest closed. (Starship: Pirate itself will be published by Pyr in December, 2006, so you won't have to wait too long to see yourself immortalized in print.)

Now, here's what we do know about bilsang:

1. Bilsang is " harder than it looks."
2. It's "simplicity" is what makes it so hard.
3. Bilsang does not require a board, cards, or a computer.
4. Anyone can play it, but not anyone can win.
5. Games last "Anywhere from five minutes to three months." Given that Mike and I want to be able to play test this, we suggest the "three months" description be ignored.
6. Learning the game takes "five minutes for the rules, a lifetime for the subtleties."
7. All that is required is "a flat surface, and twenty pieces. Coins will do. Or medals. Or anything that you can fit twenty of on a tabletop."

Now, since bilsang can be played with any kind of token—coins, medals, pebbles—we can infer that the tokens are not color specific, do not have markings on one side, etc... and since remembering the position of your own pieces among twenty identical tokens is probably too much for the average gamer, this seems to suggest that bilsang is not a game like chess or checkers where each side plays only their own army. My guess is that bilsang must function similarly to go or pente, games that also take five minutes to learn, but a lifetime for the subtleties to unfold. However, how bilsang is really played is up to you.

So, the game is afoot! Who knows, maybe years from now, they'll still be playing your game alongside Jetan and Fizzbin.

I wonder if this ever happens next door...

"Hey, have you seen Rome on HBO?"

"No, no. I haven't really seen that."

"Oh man, you should. It's great."

"I don't know. It takes place in the past, right?"

"Well... yeah. It's about Julius Caesar."

"Yeah, see, I'm just not into into historical fiction."

"It was nominated for a Golden Globe!"

"What? For like Best Costumes or something?"

"No, no. Best Drama."

"Really?"

"Yeah, this is an HBO series. It's like Sopranos or Six Feet Under. You like those, don't you?"

"Yeah, I guess. It's just all that history. I mean, dates and places. It just seems so cold and technical. I just have trouble relating. And everybody talks weird. Thee's and thou's. What is that? It's just not real."

"No, you don't get it. I'm mean, sure this takes place in the past, and they have Romans and Greeks and Egyptians, but that's not what it's about. They are just using those as metaphors for the purposes of drama so they can talk about character. I mean, it's all about people, you know, like relationships, and conflict, religion and politics and in-fighting. It's just like Sopranos, just with Romans. It's not really historical fiction at all."

"So, do you like watch the History Channel all the time?"

Even More Pyr in the News

Keith Brooke is interviewed on SciFi Wire about the extremely positive advanced word on his novel, Genetopia, and George Zebrowski and Yours Truly are jointly interviewed over at Barnes & Nobles' Explorations newsletter. Paul Goat Allen of Explorations has this to say about George's Macrolife:

"One of science fiction's most visionary -- and underacknowledged -- masterworks, George Zebrowski's Macrolife, has been fatefully reissued by Pyr. This 1979 classic about mobile, self-reproducing space habitats elevating humanity to a new evolutionary level is just as wildly thought-provoking today as it was almost three decades ago...Science fiction fans who are tired of what Zebrowski calls "print television" -- novels with little or no intellectual substance, written like they were made-for-TV movies -- should definitely check out this sweeping and profound look at the long-term future of humankind -- a work described by Arthur C. Clarke as "one of the few books I intend to read again." Looking for brain food? Here's a gourmet feast from one of the genre's most sagacious writers."

More Pyr in the News

A very nice review in the January 30th issue of Publishers Weekly for Ian McDonald's River of Gods (forthcoming this March):

“This ambitious portrait of a future India from British author McDonald (Desolation Road) offers multitudes: gods, castes, protagonists, cultures…readers will become increasingly hooked as the pieces of McDonald's richly detailed world fall into place. Already nominated for both Hugo and Arthur C. Clarke awards, this is sure to one of the more talked-about SF novels of the year.”

And Cheryl Morgan has this to say about Keith Brooke's Genetopia (due out February) over at Emerald City:

"a very fine book... Genetopia is not a comfortable read. It is full of vicious and unpleasant people who have become that way because they have found that it works... Brooke cleverly uses imagery from the real world’s slave trade, from the persecution of Jews, from misogyny and so on to reveal the true message of the book... I suspect that Genetopia is rather too disturbing to garner any major awards, but I warmly recommend it to next year’s Tiptree Committee. It is, after all, a plea in favor of diversity."