"The
report read Routine retirement of a replicant. That didn't
make me feel any better about shooting a woman in the back." |
Issue 188
- July 2009 |
FEATURES July 2009
A
Mid Day Session: Ken Macleod interviewed
AUTHOR INTERVIEWS. Ewan Angus interviews Scots science
fiction author Ken Macleod about his latest novel, The Night Sessions,
why he might set another book in the same world, why he is moving away
from space opera and hard science fiction, and chats to him about his
next novel - The Restoration Game.
Tim
Powers interviewed: With Great Powers comes great Plot lines…
AUTHOR INTERVIEWS. Twenty six years ago, the prestigious
Philip K Dick Award was given to a novel which had one of the worlds most
convoluted plots. Starting out in modern day 1983, the uncomfortable and
intelligent Hero Brendan Doyle is given the chance to give a lecture on
a poet, in 1810. Mixing adventure, beggar guilds, evil clowns, motor accidents
and pure madness, The Anubis Gates was an instant classic. I caught up
with author Tim Powers to talk about the novel and to have a general chat
about time travel.
Tom
Hunter's Arthur C Clarke Awards wrap-up article
FEATURE ARTICLES. It's now just over month since
we announced the winner of this year's Arthur C. Clarke Award and I'm
now starting to take stock of the year just gone and begin the prep for
2010. And, yes, we really do start thinking about this sort of stuff now.
I'm probably slightly behind schedule in fact.
Speech
for the Arthur C Clarke Awards ceremony April 2009 by Paul Billinger,
chair of the judges
FEATURE ARTICLES. As with last year we had a large
number of submissions and for the first time we published the full list
of submitted books via the Torque Control website. You can see a wide
variety in the list which range from books that you would expect to be
called 'science fiction' - the ones with spaceships and planets on the
cover - to those that challenge people's notion of what is eligible for
a science fiction award. I'd like to thank the publishers for their willingness
to submit the books and for submitting them in a timely fashion, which
does make it just that bit easier for the judges to give the books the
consideration they deserve.
Drag
Me To Hell (Mark's take)
MOVIE REVIEWS. A bank loan officer refuses a loan
extension to a woman of Gypsy origin. In return, the officer is cursed.
The effects of the curse are horrifying and frequently revolting. Were
this a new story written by Sam Raimi and his elder brother Ivan it would
have been a better piece of horror. The effects and the action are all
Raimi, but the story is cobbled together from familiar pieces. Largely
this is a high-octane version of M. R. James's Casting the Runes with
equal parts of shock and humour.
John
Barrowman talks about Torchwood Children Of Earth
MEDIA INTERVIEWS. Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper
and Ianto Jones return to the good old BEEB for Torchwood Children Of
Earth, a new five part sci-fi TV series for BBC One. The cast, John Barrowman,
Eve Myles, Gareth David-Lloyd and Kai Owen talk to SFcrowsnest about the
return of Torchwood.
Dead
Snow (Mark's take)
MOVIE REVIEWS. A week long Easter vacation visit
to a remote cabin in the mountains turns into a horror for eight young
medical students, finds our Mark. Following the inspiration of Sam Raimi
films Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola does his own horror film of something
nasty out in the woods. This is very much by-the-numbers horror film making.
It is not at all bad, but it has little that is fresh and new.
Life
on hold
FEATURE ARTICLES. On being the SFcrowsnest judge
for The Arthur C. Clarke Award, by Pauline Morgan. Our Pauline gives a
judge's personal insight into the hard work that it takes to pull off
something of the scale of the Clarke Awards. An eye-opener for all the
science fiction readers who simply roll out of bed one morning to read
someone's 3rd hand cut-and-paste-copied blog about the winning author
of such an award, chug a cappuccino, then immediately start bee-i-ching
about who should or shouldn't have won.
Arise,
Sir Christopher Lee: Mark looks at horror's first knight
FEATURE ARTICLES. Many of you may have seen the
film The Curse Of Frankenstein. The monster's creator has given up on
the experiment actually working. Then the man he has built gets up on
his own and in a jerky move, rips the bandages off his face to reveal
a visage with lumpy scars and stitches. Apparently Victor Frankenstein
had been more concerned with making a face that would function than making
one that would look good. It is a classic moment of shock.
Read about the first Neanderthal
on the moon at
www.notheretoenjoyyourself.com
REVIEWS July 2009
Reviews of fantasy, science fiction and horror books, comics, magazines, DVDs and any other sci-fi genre gear we've laid our grubby hands on this month.All The Windwracked Stars by Elizabeth Bear
Another Time, Another Place - Quantum Leap by Richie F. Levine & Judith A. Moose
Blood Lust 4: Aftermath by Rhys A. Wilcox
Caprica by Bear McCreary and The Hollywood Symphony Orchestra
Cinema Anime edited by Steven T. Brown
Diamond Star (The Skolian Empire series book 14) by Catherine Asaro
Dr Who: The Companion Chronicles: Magician's Oath by Scott Handcock
Dr Who: The Companion Chronicles: Transit of Venus by Jacqueline Rayner
Flames Of Herakleitos by Bob Lock
How Not To Write A Novel by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark
How To Write Fiction (And Think About It) by Robert Graham
Ice Song by Kirsten Imanikasai
Ink (The Book Of All Hours) by Hal Duncan
On Spec: The Canadian Magazine Of The Fantastic vol 21 no. 1 # 76 Spring 2009
Robin Hood: Friendly Fire by Trevor Baxendale
Robin Hood: Tiger's Tail by Jonathan Clements
Shadows In The Starlight (A Changeling Detective novel) by Elaine Cunningham
Speaker For the Dead audio book by Orson Scott Card
Star Wars: Dark Lord - The Rise Of Darth Vader by James Luceno
Strange & Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko (Hardcover) by Steve Ditko and Blake Bell
Swarmthief's Dance (The Swarmthief Trilogy book 1) by Deborah J. Miller
The book conversions July 2009
The Dark Volume: Glass Books Volume Two by Gordon Dahlquist
The Hienama: A Story Of The Sulh by Storm Constantine
The Lightstone (The Lightstone book 1) by David Zindell
The Margarets by Sheri S. Tepper
The Perils of Quad by Carl Joglar
The Ruby Dice (The Skolian Empire series book 13) by Catherine Asaro
The Sons Of Heaven (A Company Novel) by Kage Baker
The Wingless Boy (The Clouded World books 1 and 2) by Jay Amory
Victory Of Eagles (Temeraire book 5) by Naomi Novik
With The Light: Vol 2: Raising An Autistic Child by Keiko Tobe
Wordsmithery: The Writer's Craft And Practice edited by Jayne Steel
Got a scifi book, video or game review for us? Send your submissions to reviews@sfcrowsnest.com
Online Game of the Month - Zombie Zoo
Thousands of zombies are in your town, dude. Nobody else made it. You must leave the city, find the source of undead in your burbs and slay the heck out of it.
Play online at SFcrowsnest Sci-Fi Play and see if you can beat Stephen or Geoff's high score (well, Uncle Geoff is easy, he's still on a slow dial-up account in deepest darkest Somerset).
A few of the scifi and fantasy blogs being hosted on SFcrowsnest.com
-
SCIFI Now
-
Day Dream
-
Mulluane
- Turner
-
Bob Lock
-
FantasySci
-
Scrybe Press
Set up your own fantasy/SF blog here.
Random recent Hivemind member of the month
Favourite SFF books: Planet of Adventure- Jack vance, Timescape- Gregory Benford, Meeting With Medusa- Arthur C Clarke, Ringworld- Larry Niven.
About him: No alien abductions- far too English to be fooled by THAT kind of thing.
Stephen
Hunt's third fantasy novel set in the Jackelian world...
The Rise of The Iron Moon
From the author of The Court of the Air and The Kingdom Beyond the Waves comes a thrilling new adventure set in the same Victorian-style world.
Born into captivity as a product of the Royal Breeding House, friendless orphan Purity Drake suddenly finds herself on the run with a foreign vagrant from the North after accidentally killing one of her guards. Her strange rescuer claims he is on the run himself from terrible forces who mean to enslave the Kingdom of Jackals as they conquered his own nation.
Purity doubts his story, until reports begin to filter through from Jackals' neighbours of the terrible Army of Shadows, marching across the continent and sweeping all before them. But there's more to Purity than meets the eye.
As Jackals girds itself for war against an army of near-unkillable beasts serving an ancient evil with a terrible secret, it soon becomes clear that their only hope is a strange little royalist girl and the last, desperate plan of an escaped slave.
Available now on Amazon - click here.
Postcards
from a lonely planet
It’s hard to believe that its forty years ago this month that Neil Armstrong
made the first steps onto the Moon. Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin made the second
steps. Michael Collins in orbit, a bystander and only watched. Pretty
much what we all did for the first most significant trip off-planet. Nothing
like its Science Fiction equivalents but a step into a future we SF fans
recognised so well even if it was nothing like early imaginings. No lunar
life. No atmosphere. Just rock. Arthur C. Clarke’s prediction that there
were seas of dust in ‘A Fall Of Moondust’ was also proved unfounded. Although
I doubt if Science Fiction raised any expectation by that time as more
was discovered about our solitary satellite.
Do you like curling up and reading a book?
Do you have a preference for fantasy, SF or horror? Do you find it the greatest pastime you have next to being on your computer?Are you very vocal about what you like and don’t like in what you read? Would you like to share your thoughts with others about books? Would you like an endless supply of books to do this with? Do you live in the UK?
If you’ve been nodding your head up to this point then link in below and see if you have what it takes to be a reviewer at SFCrowsnest. If you have that special knack to read and write or want to develop said skill then the only way you’re going to find out is to take the plunge yourself rather than wait for others to do it first. It’s got to be better than waiting for the sun to come out. Check out our recruitment procedures through the following link and let me decide if you have what it takes ... gfwillmetts@hotmail.com
| Stephen
Hunt's |
|
It is an obsession that is to cost her dearly. She returns home to the Kingdom of Jackals from her latest archaeological misadventure to discover that the university council has finally stripped her of her position in retaliation for her heretical research. Without official funding, Amelia has no choice but to accept the offer of patronage from the man she blames for her father's bankruptcy and suicide, the fiercely intelligent and incredibly wealthy Abraham Quest. He has an ancient crystal-book that suggests the Camlantean ruins are buried under one of the sea-like lakes that dot the murderous jungles of Liongeli. Amelia undertakes an expedition deep into the dark heart of the jungle, blackmailing her old friend Commodore Black into ferrying her along the huge river of the Shedarkshe on his ancient u-boat. With an untrustworthy crew of freed convicts, Quest's force of female mercenaries on board and a lunatic steamman safari hunter acting as their guide, Amelia's luck can hardly get any worse. But she's as yet unaware that her quest for the perfect society is about to bring her own world to the brink of destruction! Hardback http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingdom-Beyond-Waves-Stephen-Hunt/dp/0007232209 Paperback http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingdom-Beyond-Waves-Stephen-Hunt/dp/0007232217 |
DAILY NEWS UPDATES July 2009
Daybreakers
Trailer for an interesting concept for a horror movie - in Daybreakers,
most of humanity have become immortal vampires, and it's the few human
outcasts that are hunted down and farmed for blood. Trouble is, there's
too many vamps and not enough human sheep to feed them. What's to do?
Forget
life on Mars: how about life on Saturn's moon Enceladus?
For the first time, scientists working on NASA's Cassini mission have
detected sodium salts in ice grains of Saturn's outermost ring. Detecting
salty ice indicates that Saturn's moon Enceladus, which primarily replenishes
the ring with material from discharging jets, could harbor a reservoir
of liquid water -- perhaps an ocean -- beneath its surface.
The
Last Airbender bends some airtime
M. Night Shyamalan's live action fantasy-scifi movie The Last Airbender
gets its first trailer. This is the one that was based on the cartoon
Avatar, which was unusually imaginative for a toon.
Fantasy
gets Polish
It's not only Polish builders that are doing well in the UK - now, so
are Polish writers! The first annual David Gemmell Legend Award for best
fantasy novel has been won by Andrzej Sapkowski for his novel Blood of
Elves (published in the UK by Gollancz). The Award was accepted on Sapkowski’s
behalf by his UK editor, Jo Fletcher. Well done, Andrzej.
G.I.
Joe: Rise of Cobra
An online trailer for the film G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. Much maligned
in advance by the netarati, this film might just be a suprise hit with
the kids. Well, it has some cool-looking power armour suits anyway.
Cold
Souls
Online trailer for a movie where the actor Paul Giamatti, plays an actor
called Paul Giamatti, who pays a high-tech outfit to remove his soul and
put it in cryogenic suspension - but then it gets stolen by soul traffickers
and bought by Russian criminals. It might be genius, it might be arse
of the highest order.
2012:
Goodbye USA
The USA gets well and truly wiped out in this new disaster movie from
the chap that gave us Independence Day. Watch the trailer here. Looks
to be based on the Mayan predictions for a cyclic catastrophe every few
millenia - possibly a reversal of the magnetic field combined with passing
through a regular comet storm?
Zombieland
trailer
Trailer for the film Zombieland. Woody from Cheers gets his rocks off
killing zombies in the usual zombie-over-run USA scenario. A bit of senseless
violence. Excellent.
The
Dragon Keeper
Fantasy author Robin Hobb will be signing her latest novel The Dragon
Keeper at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London,
WC2H 8JR, on Saturday 11th July 2009 from 1 - 2pm.
Virtuality
Trailer for Ron - Battlestar Galactica reboot - Moore's new TV pilot Virtuality
- a vision of mankind's first ten year mission to another star (supposedly
to save the Earth somehow). It turns out NASA selects the cast of Beverley
Hills 90210 to save us, kits them out with some rather backward-looking
VR games, then sends the self-involved little shits off to whine every
light year of the way.
The
legacy of Asteroids
I remember as a kid the allure and the mystique of walking into a games
arcade. The smell of stale tobacco, the clinking of ten pence pieces,
the air of victory, and the desperate groans that signalled the harsh
reality of two words; ‘Game Over’.
Parallel
dimensions
You are invited to Parallel Dimensions, a fantasy and science fiction
event in Wirral, Cheshire (UK). Adele Cosgrove-Bray, Rob Haines, Adrienne
Odasso, David Tallerman, CL Holland, Hazel Dixon and David Clements share
the common bond of having had scifi work featured in anthologies by Hadley
Rille Books.
Back
to the Futurama
20th Century Fox Television has signed up Simpsons guru Matt Groening
for the return of his animated comedy science fiction series Futurama.
The SFF toon is coming back for 26 new half-hour episodes - six years
after the last series was canned.
James
Lovegrove and Mark Chadbourn hit London
Fantasy and horror authors Lovegrove and Mark Chadbourn will be signing
their novels The Age of Ra and Lord of Silence at the Forbidden Planet
Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 8JR, on Thursday 9th July
2009 6 - 7pm.
Rockfish
Fantasy author Brian
Ruckley points us in the direction of Rockfish, a very nice cartoon
short about a planet miner and his alien pet-like assistant.
iPhone
goes Steampulping
Steampulp Publishing has released an electronic pulp fiction magazine
created exclusively for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Emulating the style
of the pulp adventure magazines of the 1920s and '30s, Steampunk Tales
1 contains original fiction with their first issue containing ten short
stories - aka between 4,300 and 11,000 words.
One
Giant Leap
To coincide with the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing on 20th
July 1969, BFI Southbank in London is collaborating with the UK's Science
Museum in hosting a season of documentaries, feature films, television
and artworks focusing on the dream and reality of space travel, the Cold
War space race, and the American space programme of the 1960s and 1970s.
Razorjack
The Forbidden Planet have just posted up a new interview by Matt Badham
(a regular Judge Dredd Megazine contributor), talking to 2000AD stalwart
John Higgins, taking in Dredd and his other 2000AD artwork as well as
his own new creator-owned series Razorjack, which has just been collected
and printed by Com.X.
Peter
Jackson goes to the fans for District 9
Movie god District Peter Jackson is going to bat for his new science fiction
movie District 9, as he tells the Nest he'll be going to this year's Comic-Con.
His District 9 panel will be held in the San Diego Convention Center's
Hall H on Friday July 24th 2009. Jackson will be on the panel with the
film's director, Neill Blomkamp, and leading mans, Sharlto Copley. District
9 will heading to UK and US cinemas on August 14th 2009.
Babel
Clash - not Babelfish
We've just spotted the existence of a new sci-fi blog over at Borders,
tipped off by the always-useful Swivet blog from US science fiction agent
to the stars Colleen
Lindsay. Borders new baby is called Babel Clash. There are only a
couple of posters at the moment, but that'll probably grow over time,
as Babel Clash have got some fairly organised plans for guest contributors.
David
Eddings passes away
Fantasy author David Eddings has sadly passed away, aged 77, last night.
Best-selling and popular are often epithets that are applied to authors
on writers' press releases, but in David's case, it was well deserved.
His commercial success, says fantasy author Stephen Hunt, paved the way
for a whole generation of doorstopper sized fantasy series.
Teaser
trailer for the Prisoner re-boot
The first trailer for the reboot movie of The Prisoner TV series. Looks
like a lot more sand than I recall from life in the village!
Stephen
Hunt's Secrets of the Fire Sea
Well, what do you know, fantasy scifi author Stephen Hunt has just told
us that the new title for his fourth fantasy novel in the Jackelian series
from HarperCollins now has an official title, and its name is... Secrets
of the Fire Sea.
Surrogates
movie review
Bruce Willis plays a cop in a future where most humans choose to experience
life in full-touch simulation through androids that look exactly like
them - the ultimate couch potato land. First trailer for an interesting-looking
high concept scifi thriller.
Cover
roughs from Secrets of the Fire Sea
The cover illustration rough for Stephen Hunt's fourth fantasy novel set
in his Jackelian world, tentatively entitled The Secrets of the Fire
Sea (that title might change, btw), has now been released.
Thirteen
Years Later
Simon Taylor of Transworld Publishers in London has concluded a World
Rights deal with John Jarrold, for a third historical vampire novel by
UK author Jasper Kent. This follows on the publication of Kent’s debut,
Twelve, set in Russia during the Napoleonic Wars, earlier this year.
Moon
Trailer for a new film about Astronaut Sam Bell a lonely lunar miner working
alongside his computer, GERTY, catapulting fuel back to a far future Earth
that badly needs it. Then he starts going mad. Oh dear.
Got news for us?
Send your press releases to pressreleases@sfcrowsnest.com
Science fiction and fantasy events upcoming shortly:
Ancient
City Con III
18/07/2009 - 19/07/2009
United States - Jacksonville
Science Fiction Con.
Mythcon
40
17/07/2009 - 20/07/2009
United States - Los Angeles
Fantasy con.
The
Kingdom Beyond the Waves
21/07/2009 - 21/07/2009
United States - USA release
Book Release.
Find the full list of cons and events over here.
|
Stephen
Hunt's |
|
US
HARDBACK OUT NOW Get your hardback copy from: Amazon USA |
UK
PAPERBACK OUT NOW Get
your paperback copy from: |
|
|
|
| "An
inventive, ambitious work, full of wonders and marvels." "Hunt
can take his place alongside such eminent Magratheans as JRR Tolkien,
Mervyn Peake and China Mieville. Creating a fully-realised other-world
which feels new and different, yet cohesive and believable is half
the battle in a fantasy novel, and it is a battle Hunt wins with
honours... Hunt's world is so rich and colourful it keeps you engrossed
... It's a confident audacious novel." "The
characters are convincing and colourful, but the real achievement
is the setting, a hellish take on Victorian London where grim, steam-driven
machines work beside citizens with magical powers. The Court of
the Air is aimed at young adults, but the depth and complexity of
Hunt's vision makes it compulsive reading for all ages." "Creatures
of magic movie in an industrialised landscape; mechanical men with
souls appear in Punch-style political cartoons. He creates a fantasy
world that's low on cliché, splicing trad fantasy with steampunk
and a touch of Philip Pullman...with pace, detail, and the pleasure
of its sheer scale." ‘Wonderfully
assured … Hunt knows what his audience like and gives it to
them with a sardonic wit and carefully developed tension’ 'Fast-paced
and accelerating all the way, the story rewards reading with close
attention, to the intricacies of the plot, to the creativity in
world-building and language which makes this world both readily
comprehensible and yet enthrallingly strange.' |
|
One of the nice things about being online is that SFcrowsnest can publish slightly off-the-wall material that would never find a home in a highly targeted advertising-ruled print magazine world. An article we always trot out as an example of this, is Uncle Geoff's piece about what the heck fuel & engine combination the Thunderbirds craft might have used in the classic 1960s TV series of the same name.
Let's face it, you're not going to read the likes of that in SFX, Starlog, Starburst, Interzone or the rest of the printed world! If there's an article inside you - could be continuity errors in Andromeda, your latest work of short fiction, or just why you think Iain Banks' novels are the greatest SF since a little man called Verne put pen to paper - do drop Geoff a line below.
Contact Uncle Geoff in the rainy English countryside at contributions@sfcrowsnest.com
We still fund this puppy's bandwidth and other miscellaneous expenses out of our own pocket, so the spirit of volunteerism is about the only thing that keeps our happy ship in hyperspace. Any time, articles, stories or reviews you can submit are always appreciated.
Current requirements:
July 2009
- short fiction
- articles
-
comment pieces
- convention reports
- book reviewers (see below)
- Television reviews ... Stargate, Andromeda, Trek etc
- Movie reviews
- Games reviews ... RPGs, scenarios, wargames etc
- SFF models and figures
... reviews, painting tips, scratchbuilds, conversions
BTW, if you're interested in becoming a book or DVD reviewer, we'd really, really (no, really) appreciate it if you were UK-based. Posting out the hundred of goodies we get every week is an expensive business, and extra airmail costs could lead to Geoff, Jessica, Mark and Steve eating dog food in a crazed economy-drive of death. Of course, if you're based in the US, Canada or Australia and you fancy reviewing your own drip-feed of goodies resulting from your science fiction and fantasy addiction, then that okay by us ... but we can't supply you ourselves! Sorry.
Know of any science fiction and fantasy pals who don't yet receive this fine monthly magazine? Forward it to them and let them quiver in awe of your highly evolved and very discriminating SFF-loving taste. Then twist the arms of the little blighters in a cruel-to-be-kind attempt to get them to subscribe free too!
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