Results tagged “science fiction”

There is a perception that writers, particularly writers of specular and fantastic fiction don’t have a good relationship with reality. Maybe there are writers like that, but speaking for myself, and most of the writers I know, I love reality. Reality is cool. I mean, apart from the fact that I have to live here so it’s just as well, but I find the world and the universe wonderful. I’m just, perhaps, most in love with the odd little nooks and byways that many people find strange, or hard to believe.

Like, say, the possibility of life on Jupiter’s moon Europa.

I’m not kidding about this. In fact, I’d lay a bet on it. Europa is an incredibly strong candidate for not just life, but Life As We Know it. First of all, beneath its ice layer is a liquid ocean, and not just any liquid. It’s salt water. Every place, and I mean EVERY place on earth where there is salt water, there is life. Even places where there is no light, even places where it is deathly cold. Even the Dead Sea is not completely dead.

One of the problems people have had, despite the presence of so much liquid salt water has been the ice layer. It’s been thought to be so massively thick there couldn’t be anything under there. But that ice may be the key to life rather than the barrier to it. I spoke with Richard Greenberg, author of EUROPA: THE OCEAN MOON. He’s done analysis of the ice formations on Europa, and found they compare to the ice formations in the Arctic, where the ice is thin, and breaks up and reforms. Like from tides, and waves. Which mean there could be currents, motion, layers of water interacting, in short, circulation, which provides a better possibility for complex life than stagnation.

Then he went on to explain that ice sheet would create a shield from the fast-moving particles Jupiter emits. Not a friendly neighbor, Jupiter. Gives off some very nasty radiation, which has also been considered a point against the possibility of life on its moons.

Eeeeexxcceeeept, this just came in; those nasty fast moving particles from Jupiter hitting the Europan ice sheet may bust apart the H2O into H and…O Oxygen. Some of which would get into that salt water, which circulates around the world.

Some experts now believe the Europan ocean may be heavily oxygenated.

This is COOL. In fact, this is totally and completely BEYOND COOL. Almost all my life, the experts have been moving the possibility of life out farther and farther, not just into other star systems but maybe all the way into other galaxies. Now, we’ve got a real, fact-based possibility of not just life, but NEIGHBORS. Not fossilized Martian neighbors either; but living, breathing beings right here (relatively speaking), right now.

How can anybody NOT want to write about this?

ANDROMEDA STORIES （アンドロメダ・ストーリーズ） • Ryu Mitsuse (story), Keiko Takemiya (art) • Vertical (2007-2008) • Asahi Sonorama (Manga Shônen, 1980-1981) • Science Fiction Adventure • 3 volumes • 13+ (mild language, violence, nudity, brief mild sexual situations)

More fantasy than sci-fi, this is a space opera in the Star Wars and Flash Gordon mode, a collaboration between manga artist Keiko Takemiya and science fiction writer Ryu Mitsuse. On the distant planet Astrias, the Cosmoralian Empire has just crowned a new king and queen. But a new star in the sky brings a herald of dark days to come, as sinister machines land and invade Astrias, controlling human minds and gradually terraforming the once-green planet into a mechanical wasteland inhabited only by artificial life forms. Now, the fate of the world lies in the hands of two psychic children, who must fight the machines as well as the native giant spiders, dragons, dinosaurs, etc. The sometimes depressing ecological theme and the sci-fi visuals are perhaps influenced by Leiji Matsumoto’s Galaxy Express 999, another story about evil machine-men, but Andromeda Stories has less of Matsumoto’s philosophical whimsy and personal touch; instead, it’s a big-budget exercise in explosions, duels, chases and melodrama. The story is well-told and Takemiya’s shôjo-influenced art is stylish; the weird landscapes look like 1970s fantasy illustration or rock album covers, the characters are pretty, and the imagery of the mechanical invasion is chilling. Like To Terra, Andromeda Stories is technically a shônen manga because it was published in a boys’ magazine, making Takemiya one of the first successful crossover women artists.

***1/2 (three and a half stars)

As our second Day of Manga begins, we already have our first winner: Nancy M. from Alabama! Nancy will be receiving 5 shojo/josei manga.

As the first winner, Nancy also becomes eligible to receive even more manga by submitting her photo. It’s a little more complicated than just emailing us a photo, but not much:

(1) Take a digital photo of yourself with your manga, once you receive it
(2) Post the photo online in a publicly visible place (facebook, livejournal, flickr, deviantart, your blog or personal webpage, etc.). Link the photo back to suvudu.com and mention the manga contest (in the caption, blog entry, or whatever).
(3) Email me (all contest winners will receive my email address) to let me know that the photo is online. I’ll link back to it, cross-post the photo on the 365 Days of Manga blog, and send you 5 more manga.

Contrary to rumor, you can’t get more free manga just by sending us a photo of your manga collection (like this impressive photo by Ryan Boles), but we’re happy to receive photos showing how much you like manga, and we might post them on the site if we like them. If you didn’t win the contest the first time, persist! Ganbatte yo! The contest entry pool refreshes each day, so you have a greater chance to win if you submit your name on the site every day. Non-winning entries from a few days ago don’t count anymore, so please go back and resubmit ‘em periodically. However, if you post multiple times on the same day, it won’t help. The best way is once a day or once every couple of days.

Thanks for all your entries, and I look forward to sharing tons more manga with you! In the meantime, rereading “Andromeda Stories” has got me in the mood for ’70s shojo science fiction, and now I’m looking through my bookshelves for my copy of Viz’s out-of-print Moto Hagio classic “They Were Eleven”…

You just never know when inspiration will strike. If you’re looking at the title of this entry, you’d be forgiven for thinking to yourself, “Hmmm….Kyle must have just finished an interesting apocalyptic story.” But no, I was vacation planning for a Fall getaway to Montana.

More on that later.

As you’ll read in example #5, my mind turned to ways that you could, in fiction, credibly end civilization as we know it. “Credibly” is a sticky word, so I kept this list to events that I felt could happen without major deus ex machina acting to bring them about (I’m think here of S.M. Stirling’s interesting set up for his Emberverse series wherein technology just winks out).

But hey, I’m not perfect, so if I’ve forgotten someway that you could do this, toss it down in the comments. So, here are five “it could happen” ways to end the world, or at least civilization as we know it:

1. Asteroid(s)

Or are they meteors? I get confused by the terminology. Oh well, it won’t really matter much once this one is put into play. Did you know that the earth (well, all the planets really) are hit relatively frequently. It’s true. A lot of the stuff doesn’t actually end up “hitting” anything and evaporating into thin air, but we’re clearly sitting on a big enough rock as to be in the way of other objects.

As you may have read, NASA attempts to track potential “world-enders,” but has recently run into budgetary problems in doing so. Anyway, I’m not sure what we’d do if we knew we were about to be ended, but I suspect it would be a little different than what’s depicted in Deep Impact.

Asteroids are great world and/or civilizations-enders for stories where you’d rather your characters had, to borrow from Motown, “no where to run to, baby, no where to hide.” Unless you’re dealing with futuristic societies who have advanced forms of space travel. Then they could run. Though probably not everyone could run away. And how would they decide who goes and who doesn’t? But I digress.

Leaving in their wake a world that’s probably vastly different than the one your characters knew before the event (small population, new and exciting geography, and the potential for a different climate due to debris in the stratosphere), the asteroid route is perhaps your quickest way to “world-build” without having to start completely from scratch.

Labor Day Weekend essentials:

Barbecues…check.
Laying out at the beach… check.
Star Trek… check.

Okay, I know Star Trek isn’t everyone’s idea of something to do this holiday weekend, but I just had to add it to my list—the newest movie in the franchise is making its way back into IMAX theatres with a limited release beginning this Friday!

And Labor Day is meant to celebrate the achievements of workers and unions, right? So why not take it a step further and spend some time with the hard-working crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise?

“A science fiction book your grandmother will love - if she’s a lustful, violent lady.” -Stephen Colbert

Comparisons to Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett were enough to pique my interest in Michael Rubens’ The Sheriff of Yrnameer, but that quote from Mr. Colbert sealed the deal. So I picked up a copy of the book and began my journey through the cosmos with Cole, Nora, Bacchi, Kenneth, and a host of other characters who should probably not be given space ships.

I loved it, despite the fact that I am not a “lustful, violent lady.”

So before we go any further, let’s get this out of the way. You probably want to know if the comparisons to Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhikers’ Guide series are fair. Yes, they are. But the book is not a retread of Adams’ humor. There are plenty of slapstick, absurd comedy moments, but The Sheriff of Yrnameer has a softer, easy-going comedic sensibility to it. That’s probably due to the fact that Cole isn’t quite the fish-out-of-water that Arthur Dent is in the Hitchhikers’ universe, so you don’t get that head smacking What in the wide world…? moment delivered to you quite as often. You’ll still get it, sure, but not often vicariously through the main character.

So let’s talk a little about why this book is overflowing with so much kick-ass and laughs: Cole (and Kenneth).

Cole is the hero I’ve been waiting for. He is equal parts Arthur Dent and Han Solo. He’s never out of his element, but he’s frequently caught off-guard and/or ill-prepared. He’s a space cowboy who carries a big gun (a high-numbered firestick) and isn’t afraid to lead the retreat with it. If you, like me, have been waiting for the hero who is frequently beat-up and doesn’t win the girl, but keeps trying anyway, then you’ve found your man in Cole. Of course, Cole ends up growing over the course of the book…a little. He’s a strong main character and someone we come to really root for. Cole drives this book by the force of his personality, which means that he needs an incredibly strong foe.

Enter Kenneth. The book’s jacket copy calls Kenneth “the galaxy’s most hideous and feared bounty hunter [who] wants to lay eggs in [Cole’s] brain.” Well, that’s true, he’s nigh indestructible, but what it doesn’t mention is Kenneth’s fanboy love of public radio and television programming, his refined sensibilities, and his velvety baritone voice. He’s the villain you don’t want to see hurt, in essence, and he torments (and tracks down) Cole to no end.

Jump with me for the rest of my ill-advised attempt at Yrnameer summation as well as an interview with Michael Rubens as conducted by Sara Eagle

First, the plug:

I can’t believe it’s only 5 days until Bitter Angels comes out. I now have my author copies, and the book is GORGEOUS. Of course, I expect your book is like your own baby in this respect. It would be VERY difficult to acknowledge it as ugly.

Second, the admission:

I haven’t been doing a lot online lately, but I’m trying to fix that. My Facebook page and the fan page for Bitter Angels are up and running, although very much under construction. If you’re on Facebook and so inclined, my pages could use some friends, otherwise I think they’ll start mewling around the back door asking to be let in. The blog is in abeyance until I figure out how much I can keep up with. For the moment, I’m going to concentrate on becoming a regular here, so watch this spot.

But that’s not what I was going to write about. I was going to write about The Writing Life. I’ve had a bit of a kink thrown in my routine this week because my DS (that’s the Darling Son) is at art camp, which is Downtown. So, rather than deal with parking and driving back and forth and so on, we’ve been taking the bus in. I drop him off and go work at any of a Whole Bunch of WiFi and caffine hot spots around town until it’s time to pick him up. I mean, that’s one of the major upsides of being a writer, right? You can work anywhere. Plus you get little bonuses like spotting a Fairy Door you’d never seen, and seeing Rob Reiner having his breakfast at the Fleetwood Diner (and there is no way to make that not rhyme. I really tried).

The downside is finding out you’ve probably been deluding yourself about your ability to work anywhere. Especially when you decide anywhere include the coffee shop at Borders. Especially when the new Philippa Gregory novel is out and sitting there all warm and lovey and full of court intrigue and just _waiting_ for you.

Sigh.

C.L. Anderson has been known to tell people she lives in a stately Victorian home on a windswept island in Lake Superior with her three sisters and their pet wolf Manfred. She has also been known to tell people she is a science fiction writer living near Ann Arbor, Michigan with her husband, son and cat. What is known is that BITTER ANGELS is her first novel and she’s very much looking forward to many more.

After over three years of hard work Star Wars: The Essential Atlas is a reality. The book is available from book sellers today and is nothing short of a triumph for authors Dan Wallace and Jason Fry. Featuring over fifty full color maps by artists Modi and Chris Reiff along with gorgeous planet illustrations by Ian Fullwood and inspired paintings by Chris Trevas, this 256 page oversized book will delight and enthrall readers, no matter their familiarity with Star Wars.

To celebrate the release, Dan and Jason have provided Suvudu with an insider’s look into how they approached the creation of the maps and writing the book. Jump for a fascinating look into the creation of the Hutt Space map along with exclusive looks at early sketches, the finished map, and a few other fun surprises.

CALLING ALL SCI-FI COMEDY LOVERS!

Meet Cole: hapless space rogue, part-time smuggler, on a path to being full-time dead. His sidekick just stole his girlfriend. The galaxy’s most hideous and feared bounty hunter wants to lay eggs in his brain. And the luxury space yacht Cole just hijacked turns out of be filled with interstellar do-gooders, one especially loathsome stowaway, and a cargo of freeze-dried orphans.

Enter Michael Rubens’ hilarious world of YRNAMEER (short for Your - Name - Here). In the spirit of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, The Sheriff of Yrnameer is sci-fi comedy at its best—mordant, raucously funny, and a thrilling page-turner. Even Stephen Colbert is already a fan: “Finally, a science-fiction book your grandmother will love­, if she’s a lustful, violent lady.”

And here’s the best part:
Email the word YRNAMEER, along with your mailing address to pantheon@randomhouse.com and you will automatically enter yourself into a drawing to win a free copy of the book! There will be 3 lucky winners selected at random. Please note: U.S. mailing addresses only.

Be sure to stop by the SHERIFF OF YRNAMEER launch party at BookCourt, TUESDAY, AUGUST 11 at 7pm (at 163 Court Street in Brooklyn). For more info, click here .

Visit Michael Rubens’ website here.

And buy a copy of the book here.

Praise for THE SHERIFF OF YRNAMEER:
“A rocket-fast, knee-slapping narrative… . Lighthearted [and] adventure-filled… . Cole’s ludicrous exploits keep the laughs coming.” —Publishers Weekly

“Rubens hits the jackpot with a zanily humorous parody of sf adventure, with tributes to space-opera and Western classics along the way… . Recalling the volatile and irreverent humor of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, this madcap journey through space will appeal to Pratchett’s readers and fans of such sf film parodies as Galaxy Quest and Space Balls.” —Library Journal

“Broadly amusing.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A tremendously fun and surprisingly touching read.” -Alison Laubach, BookPeople

“Really, really funny.” -BJ Bloebaum, Powells

“An enjoyable sci-fi/comedy/pastiche/parody/adventure…a fun, fast-paced flight through regions of space where men have gone before, most notably Douglas Adams; however, unlike others who owe Adams their lifeblood, Rubens is genuinely funny—I especially enjoyed the universe’s stupidest computer (he likes pebbles!). There are even moments of actual character development amongst the wackiness, and—points again—Rubens gives his female characters more to do than Adams ever did. This book won’t change your life, but it might brighten it for a few hours.” -Allison Kaufman, Diesel, a bookstore

“There is a great big bucket somewhere (probably in Houston) from which all great sci-fi/comedy novelists drink. And though Sheriff will no doubt be compared (favorably) with both Hitchhiker’s and Discworld, Rubens really has his own thing going here. There’s the standard stuff, the stuff you’d expect in a top-tier genre novel—the richly textured universe; the hapless, oft-misbehaving protagonists; the perpetually amusing adversaries—but Rubens’s sense of humor (which tends toward the absurd) seems more biting and incisive than that of others currently milling about near the bucket. In fact, as you flip the final page you might find you’ve learned more about our own world than Yrnameer. Plus, there are zombies in it—so it’s automatically awesome.” -Seth Grahame-Smith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

On top of it being the 40th convention (though not the 40th convention under this name, as CCI explains here), there are other events and anniversaries being celebrated at Comic-Con this year. What to know what’s going on? Here’s a short list for you:

Special Day Themes

Friday, July 24 - Star Wars Day

You may not have realized it (though you probably did), but we’re fans of George Lucas’s space epic. So you must know that Star Wars day is pretty near and dear to our cybernetic internal fluid pressure regulators hearts. But this isn’t just about us and our feelings. The fans have supported the Star Wars franchise through thick and thin. Well, Friday is your day Star Wars Nation! Come early and bring your costumes. The Force will be strong at Comic-Con this year.

Star Wars Day features 8 Star Wars themed features. They are:

• 10:00-11:00 Star Wars Day: Hasbro Room 7AB
• 11:00-12:00 Star Wars Day: The Clone Wars: Building the Universe Room 7AB
• 12:00-1:00 Star Wars Day: The Clone Wars: Behind the Mic! Voice actors from the series speak. Room 7AB
• 1:00-2:00 Star Wars Day: Behind the Scenes: The Making of Star Wars: The Old Republic Room 7AB
• 2:00-3:00 Star Wars Day: Fate of the Jedi Room 7AB
• 3:00-4:00 Star Wars Day: Collectibles Update Room 7AB
• 5:15-6:15 Lucasfilm: Star Wars Spectacular - Get all the latest news from the Star Wars universe—including some of Lucasfilm’s most tightly guarded secrets—in an all-new show format! Hosted by G4’s Olivia Munn and Kevin Pereira. Hall H
• 8:30-10:00 Star Wars Fan Movie Awards Ballroom 20

Saturday, July 25 - Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Day (Unofficial)

This isn’t an official day—The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund sponsors events throughout Comic-Con—but Saturday has CBLDF events, making it the most CBLDF day on the Comic-Con roster. Those events are:

• 12:00-1:00 CBLDF Master Sessions: The Heroic Figure with Dave Gibbons
• 1:00-2:00 CBLDF Master Sessions: The Art of the Panel with Jeff Smith
• 7:15-9:15 CBLDF Benefit Auction

To learn more about the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and why you should care (and you should), click here: Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Sunday, July 26 - Kids’ Day

I don’t know when the tradition began, but it’s as ingrained now as apples in apple pie. The final day of Comic-Con is always kid-centric. While any day at Comic-Con could be considered a family-friendly day, the folks in planning make sure there’s plenty for everyone in the family to see and do on this one in particular. From panels discussing kids and YA graphic novels and recommendations to kids graphic art workshops, Sunday is the official day to bring the youngin’s along.

It didn’t make Shawn’s Remaining Top 5 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Summer Movies list and landing in September, it’s pushing the envelope in regards to “summer” slotting, but 9 has what I would consider a recipe for success written in to it’s digital make-up:

(Tim Burton + Digital Animation + Post Apocalypse Quest) x (Science Fiction + Horror) = 9

And, if the above is true, then we must also conclude that

9 = Freakin’ Awesome

But the film isn’t the only thing that’s kinda cool, Focus Features, who is distributing this film, is making the build up worth paying attention to as well. Okay, first about the film, and then the build-up…

Watching the clips and trailers, another formula came to mind:

Toy Story + Terminator + Resident Evil + Silent Hill

Wall-E, this ain’t. The movie concerns itself with nine canvas doll creatures that have been imbued with a “lifespark” by a scientist in the closing days of the human race. Humanity is no more by the open of the film, having been wiped out by sentient machines who manufactured themselves into a powerful race (does that sound familiar from somewhere?). Here’s the thing, these machines appear to be programed to hunt living organisms, so when the canvas people start walking about, they become hunted targets.

The project has been a little cryptic up to now, but it appears that there are nine canvas doll people, the 9th of which is supposed to save them from robotic destruction. The film, as the trailer after the jump will show you, is decidedly Tim Burton-esque in visual design. The machines are cobbled together horrors and the canvas people resemble gingerbread men who brandish scissors as weapons. And it looks dark. Mmmmmm….dark Tim Burton film. I’m salivating already.

“Where do you get your ideas?” is one of the most common questions asked of writers.

Ideas are everywhere. My ideas come from current and historical events, myths, science and nature, pop culture and the mundane. Writers are patient observers. We sit like dogs beneath a picnic table, waiting for crumbs of inspiration to fall. When we snag something particularly tasty or useful (a phrase, a gesture, an expression) we run with it.

I consider myself a quilter, more so than a creator. I’m not starting from scratch, weaving masterpieces from the air. I collect, trim to fit, design and craft something new from scraps and leftovers. The most enduring themes, locales, images and characters spring from the most unlikely sources.

“Ice Song” has been lauded for its originality, but I simply used existing elements to develop a new world. For example, the “Sigue” was inspired by the faux-punk band Sigue Sigue Sputnik. Ostara, a small fishing village on my fictional Sigue, is named for a Wiccan holiday. A pagan variation of Easter, Ostara celebrates rebirth and reawakening.

Sidra was the name of Terri Hatcher’s character in a Seinfeld episode (“They’re real and they’re spectacular!”).

Sorykah became a Trader, not because she can trade genders, but because it sounds like ‘traitor’ and I imagine that people close to her feel betrayed by her mutability.

Matuk the Collector’s white marble manor was cobbled together from my favorite fairy tales—Bluebeard, with his dead wives and love of blood sport, Rapunzel’s impenetrable tower and every crumbling castle ever inhabited by a foul-tempered ogre.

Dunya the dog-faced girl must have come from a William Wegman image, because I can see her so clearly.

Sorykah’s insult to Chen, “You are as shallow as topsoil!” is merely the product of a silly high school joke. Top soil, tee hee.

Fantasy gives me the freedom to corrupt facts. Reality no longer depends on the actual, only what is plausible. My creations can be as strange or lovely as I like, as long as they are stitched together with tender care. Then they will endure the ages, their beauty unfading, until they too are cut apart and recycled.

Short Films, they’re pretty sweet right? I’ve always been a fan of short stories, so perhaps my love of short films is a natural extension of my admiration for concise storytelling*. After finding the Science Fiction + Fantasy Short Film Festival, it got me thinking about some of my favorite shorts. I have far too many to list here and, like my reading habits, they flow across nearly ever genre you can imagine. But, I thought it might be fun to give you a glimpse at a few of them.

One of the best things about all the video sites out there is the ability for independent filmmakers to present their work in a venue where hundreds and possibly thousands of eyes can find it. The films you’ll find below are produced by independent filmmakers (which means that I resisted my urge to throw a few Pixar shorts at you).

If you’re hungry for more later, then I strongly suggest you head over to Indy Mogul. You can view their webshow, which provides previews of various short films grouped around a particular theme, and then head over to their blog page where you can view each featured short film in its entirety. If you enjoy short films, then prepare to lose a lot of time and productivity to that site.

Want to see a few of my favorite short films floating around the internet?

Some shorts I love

The Aviatrix

A story about a woman coping with a cancer diagnosis and escaping into a world of comic book super heroes of her own creation. Anne draws The Aviatrix and we’re treated to scenes of the character in action as she imagines them. The Aviatrix hero scenes are stylized-reminiscences of 50’s and 60’s hero movies and provide a brilliant counter-weight to the drama of Anne’s very real sickness and struggle. This is also an incredibly well shot short.

But wait, there’s more, including a few comedies and a zombie-infested love story. Follow me after the jump and bring your popcorn.

Er…short films, that is. Okay, here’s a video to give you a better idea of what I’m yammering about, followed by some details.

Sweet, eh? So here’s a little more detail. For the fifth year running, Experience Music Project | Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (that’s the full name of the entity, and it sounds like the kind of place to which I must visit lest I be accused of being Bizzaro Kyle) is partnering with the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) to present the Science Fiction + Fantasy Short Film Festival.

This is one of those instances where Seattle trumps New York, I’m afraid. Sure, we have lots of other film festivals in this tiny hamlet by the seaside, but, like a cranky kid lusting after the top shelf in a toy story, I WANT THIS ONE!

Of course, the festival doesn’t open until January 30, 2010, so I have time (and so do you) to buy my tickets and devise a way for my hindquarters to be squarely planted in Seattle seats come festival time. But that’s for us attendees. You filmmakers out there are probably wondering about submitting entries to the festival, right? Well, below is what I found.

From Science Fiction Museum:

From June 1 through September 15, 2009, the Science Fiction + Fantasy Short Film Festival (SFFSFF) will accept short film submissions, up to 15 minutes in length, that have been produced after 2005 for entry into the competition. Multiple submissions will be accepted according to the rules and regulations. Submissions will be judged based on originality, quality, artistic merit, innovation, voice, style and narrative.

SFFSFF is accepting animated or live-action submissions in science fiction (examples: futuristic stories, space adventure, technological speculation, social experiments, utopia and dystopia) and fantasy (examples: sword and sorcery, folklore, urban fantasy, magic, mythic adventure). The festival welcomes submissions that step outside the boundaries of reality and inspire a sense of wonder. The festival will not accept horror submissions. Submissions are accepted through Without a Box.

There are more detail on the event over at the Science Fiction Museum & Hall of Fame’s website: Film Festival Details. Be sure to check out that site. And not just for this festival, but for all the other cool things going on there as well.

I’m a strong proponent of “science fiction is real literature,” going so far as to write my widely-read senior thesis in college about the use of science fiction and fantasy in secondary school classrooms (my choices being Harry Potter and Ender’s Game, arguing that they more than allowed for teachers to fulfill state standards regarding literature while providing students with material that’s both enjoyable and accessible). Surprisingly, my words seem to have gone unheeded.

Go figure.

Luckily, one of the big guns—Ursula K. Le Guin—has made a similar call-to-arms…and now she’s mad!

Posting in response to an interview with J.G. Ballard’s former editor, Le Guin takes up the fight that many in this genre have had to argue at one point or another: that science fiction and fantasy isn’t crap, and that great books that have science fiction elements can be called sci-fi without detriment to the author or literature as an institution.

But I’ll let the brilliant author put it into much better words than I ever could:

Calling Utopia a utopia

If you aren’t familiar with J.G. Ballard’s work, I can personally recommend High Rise, which is such a brilliant piece of dystopian sci-fi (yes, sci-fi!)—dark and resonating, especially for anyone who lives in an urban setting (or, perhaps today, a sub-division).

Probably his most famous novel is Empire of the Sun, although he also wrote Crash, which was made into the movie…Crash—but not the one that won all the Oscars (movies about deviant car-accident sex tend not to win the big awards for some reason).

Thanks to both SF Signal and Ellen Datlow, where I found out about this and read it, respectively. And no, even if that’s the picture she has up, I don’t think Ellen is a cat.

Writers are only supposed to let readers see the good stuff. You don’t show people the stories you’ve already rejected: the bad zombie tale that never found an ending, or a middle; the moment-of-genius-idea that looked so dreadful in the morning; the unedited, awful prose that makes you squirm; those pieces of work that cause you to sputter and say, “What was I thinking when I wrote that?”

No. That would be a bad idea. I don’t think my publishers would like it. They’d worry that people who saw the worst of my writing would be put off. And that I wouldn’t sell any more books.

Then again, I’d love to look inside the reject folders of other writers. So, in the hope of persuading any of the other writers who blog here to bare all (don’t leave me out on a limb, guys), I’m going to swallow my pride and post my most embarrassing attempts at fiction.

These are all scraps of stories and ideas I junked years ago. I’d forgotten about most of them until I dug them out for this blog. The majority never got beyond the first paragraph. I binned them all because they were missing something (a plot, characters, common sense), because they’re clumsily written, pointless, or because they’re just generally awful. They will not be available in any good bookshop.

1) UNTITLED SHEEP STORY. Ashamed as I am to admit it, I wrote the following two lines with the full intention of turning them into a story. I have absolutely no recollection of what it was going to be about, but it worries me.

Something weird was happening to McTavish’s sheep. Something unnatural.

2) UNTITLED CANNIBALS IN SPACE STORY. Next is an SF tale I started three times, then abandoned. Set on a spaceship, it was going to be about a couple who wake from hibernation early, and must survive the long trip by defrosting the rest of the crew, one by one, and eating them. It never got beyond the second paragraph, because it is silly.

Colony ship Edicol Stephens shot through the freezing dark like something spat from Earth, rolling and shedding pinches of starlight from her hull. Inside, in a cramped dark conduit on deck 64, a torch-beam shone between the close-pressed faces of John and Elizabeth Nightingale. They were looking at a waxy green circuit sheet the way two murderers would look at evidence about to be presented against them.

“Suvudu - Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, and Games”

That’s what it says at the top of this site; it’s in the title. Notice that, front and center is Science Fiction. So where is it? Or, more importantly, what is it?

I’m asking as a Science Fiction fan, but even that needs a clarification (as would nearly any sweeping genre statement of fanhood). I love idea fiction, so I gravitate heavily to a subset of the genre called Speculative Science Fiction. That is to say, I like to consider worlds close to ours, but that have veered off in some important technological way. Or where advancements in technology have altered our sense of self, community, or even the nature of our existence. I enjoy it when fiction asks questions. So that’s me. Of course, I read (and enjoy) books from all over the genre galaxy, so I’m not coming at this as some kind of a snob, please understand. In fact, the whole reason for writing the little article I’m about to write is to ask you for your opinion: Just what the hell is science fiction and where does it start and end?

Let’s pause right here for a second, okay? I don’t have answers, only questions and try as I might to form this into a post with a definitive ending, I can’t do it. Or, I can’t do it honestly. So if open ended posts that are long on questions and short on answers bother you, then you’d be best served to stop reading now. Check out the free library or some of the other great posts here. Just letting you know…

Over the past weekend, I spent one rainy Sunday completely blissed out listening to the audio recording of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. It was a great way to spend a day, but one line in the author’s post script set me thinking. It was when Orson related this (or something very close) when talking about artwork and the differences between fantasy books and science fiction books: “Fantasy has trees, Science Fiction has rivets.”

Yes. But, not quite.

My twelfth published novel hits the shelves on April 28th.

I gotta say, so far, this never gets old. :)

THE PRETENDER’S CROWN is sequel to last year’s THE QUEEN’S BASTARD, out from Del Rey. They’re stories of sex, politics, murder and betrayal, and in some ways they’re the most fun I’ve ever had writing. Most of my other stuff is urban fantasy, so getting to roll around in the lush, alternate-Elizabethan world of the Inheritors’ Cycle was and is a sheer joy. Complex world-building, political intrigue, unlikeable heroines…what’s not to love?

Okay, maybe that last. Belinda Primrose, heroine of these books, is to me perhaps the most interesting character I’ve written. She’s a seductress, a spy, an assassin, and a manipulator: not precisely lovable qualities. To me, though—and hopefully to others—she is at least compelling. And one of the terrific things about writing THE PRETENDER’S CROWN was finding out just how far this unlikeable character could bend before she broke.

Pretty far, it turns out. Maybe farther than even I thought, which is quite something, given that she lives in my head.

But you’re going to have to read it to find out how.

Happy Release Day. :)

PS: Oh, jeez, I just remembered. While you’re at it, pick up Lane Robins’ KINGS & ASSASSINS, which is also out from Del Rey on April 28th. Between that and PRETENDER’S CROWN, you should be reveling in political backstabbing for a week!

The final awards ballot has been announced for the 2008 Shirley Jackson Awards, celebrating achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. Be sure to visit http://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org for more details.

Congratulations to all the nominees!

NOVEL

• Alive in Necropolis, Doug Dorst (Riverhead Hardcover)


• The Man on the Ceiling, Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem (Wizards of the Coast Discoveries)


• Pandemonium, Daryl Gregory (Del Rey)


• The Resurrectionist, Jack O’Connell (Algonquin Books)


• The Shadow Year, Jeffrey Ford (William Morrow)


• Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan (Knopf Books for Young Readers)

More nominees after the jump….

It is perhaps Philip K Dick’s most popular works and this summer Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep will be given the full graphic treatment by BOOM! Studios. If that title isn’t familiar to you, then perhaps you’ve seen or heard of the movie it inspired: Blade Runner.

But this isn’t some half summarized adaptation of PKD’s Androids. BOOM! promises that the actual text of the novel will appear beside the panels. Meaning that PKD’s title will remain a product and vision of his mind. Previews World has this title listing as being available in June of this year.

From BOOM! Studios:

THE BOOK THAT INSPIRED THE FILM BLADE RUNNER COMES TO BOOM with backmatter by Warren Ellis! Worldwide best-selling sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick’s award-winning DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? has been called “a masterpiece ahead of its time, even today” and served as the basis for the film BLADE RUNNER. BOOM! Studios is honored to present the complete novel transplanted into the comic book medium, mixing all new panel-to-panel continuity with the actual text from the novel in an innovative, ground-breaking 24-issue maxi-series experiment! [Read the full announcement here]

Not familiar with the story? Here’s your summary in a nutshell: It’s 2021 and a massive World War has decimated the population of Earth, all but wiping it out and driving many of those who survived to life on colonized Mars. But not everyone left and those who stayed suddenly found themselves living on a desolate planet. To compensate for low population numbers across all species and in an attempt to rebuild life-as-they-knew-it as quickly as possible, realistic androids are created. They are indistinguishable from real people or animals and, for fear that they could wreck havoc on the population, are eventually banned from Earth.

But not every android identifies themselves. Some hide amongst the population. For those rogue ‘droids, there are officially sanctioned bounty hunters, like Rick Deckard. Rick’s job is to hunt down and deactivate the androids hiding among the people. It’s a tough job because unlike their human counterparts, androids don’t break quite so easy.

So this student named Tomas Nilsson had a school assignment to re-interpret the classic tale “Little Red Riding Hood”—and this is what he came up with:

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Now, I can understand if you think: Hey, Suvudu — this isn’t science fiction.

Wrong.

I take a broad view of science fiction and fantasy, because I tend to find people are a lot less inclined to look down upon it if they realize how much great literature (you know: stuff they teach in schools) is technically sci-fi: speculative, fantastical, and often both.

So I’m the kind of person who sees Ayn Rand and George Orwell as writing sci-fi, just Homer and Shakespeare were writing fantasies. How else would you describe 1984? Dystopian?

But doesn’t that sound sci-fi’ish anyway?

What about A Midsummer Night’s Dream? It’s purely fantasy—and has no pretensions to the contrary. And yet, I know people who might hem-and-haw at this: Oh, well, it’s imaginative, surely, but it’s a fairy tale, a dream-world, a …

…fantasy?