http://www.sfsite.com/ The new issue of the SF Site is now online. Copyright 1996-2010 SF Site en-us http://www.sfsite.com/images/sfspot1.gif http://www.sfsite.com/ http://www.sfsite.com/08b/sk254.htm Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT The story is set on a pastoral world near water, where we are introduced to two cultures living in uneasy coexistence: the Farmers and the Lakewalkers, who patrol everywhere looking for malices (bogles to the Farm people) that suck all the life and energy out of people, animals, land. The resultant blight can last a century or more, and affected are not just the living, but the environment such as rocks and soil. The Lakewalkers aren't particularly trusted by the Farm folk, who own and farm land, but are protected by them. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/jeff254.htm Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT Jeff is back after a little ruckus involving a weasel, an iguana, a golf cart along with some Smaragdine soldiers, a debtors' prison and a chicken farm. Things have calmed somewhat so he has had time to interview David Anthony Durham, author of Acacia which has received a lot of well-deserved praise for being "literary quality" heroic fantasy. http://www.sfsite.com/08b/eg254.htm Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT Seven-year-old Cadel Piggott is a genius without direction. Cadel LOVES systems: studying them, analyzing them, and -- best of all -- breaking them. His adoptive parents don't know what to do with him, and neither do his teachers. The local police just have one suggestion: find something to keep the boy occupied or he'll end up in jail. A referral leads Cadel's desperate parents to Dr. Thaddeus Roth, a somewhat unorthodox, reputedly brilliant, psychologist. Cadel has been to so many shrinks, one more doesn't make much difference -- but Roth is different. http://www.sfsite.com/08b/tc254.htm Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT This book concludes (sort of) a trilogy about five teenaged orphans attending a secluded British boarding school who discover that they are not human, but are in fact the offspring of Greek gods. We rejoin our heroes following their break out and their adventures of the Queen Elizabeth II cruise ship en route across the Atlantic to the land of freedom and consumer excess, the good old USA. The compatriots do eventually arrive in the city of sin, Los Angeles, but it is only a short stay over, as they must outwit the forces bent on their destruction. http://www.sfsite.com/08b/mm254.htm Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT The author tells two intertwining stories -- one about the grandfather and the boy, set in a present; and the other, more substantial story, about the tragic events in the grandfather's youth, when a beautiful maiden was seduced by the mysterious dolphin-man. http://www.sfsite.com/08b/m3254.htm Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT When the Van Vogels (Anne Heche and Russell Porter) visit Controlled Genetics, they are met by Tibor Cargrew (Malcolm McDowell). After being one-upped at their exclusive club by a member with a six-legged dachshund, the Van Vogels have decided they need a pegasus. While on a tour of the laboratory, Cargrew convinces them to instead take a miniature elephant who can write. http://www.sfsite.com/08b/m4254.htm Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT The final episode of Masters of Science Fiction, airing on Saturday evenings in August on ABC, is "The Discarded," based on Harlan Ellison's short story "The Abnormals." Perhaps because the adaptation of the story for the screen was performed by Ellison (along with Josh Olson), "The Discarded" is clearly the strongest of the quartet of episodes aired during the show's run. http://www.sfsite.com/08b/bs254.htm Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT When Lieutenant Donal Riordan is assigned to protect opera diva Maria da Livnova, he already knows that the plot to assassinate her is probably part of a conspiracy that involves the highest circles of the city of Tristopolis. What he doesn't know is that he is a pawn in the game. The conspirators seem to be after the corpses of artists because in Tristopolis, death is power. The city runs on necroflux, an energy derived from the ground bones of the dead, in which all the memories of their owners's life are inscribed... http://www.sfsite.com/08b/mk254.htm Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT When you've got a cash cow, milk it. That would seem to be the ethos behind this series. The books are getting significantly shorter with each iteration, and the plot more ephemeral. Mistral's Kiss once again sees Meredith Gentry -- Princess of the Unseelie Court -- attempting to screw her way to the top. For only by becoming pregnant with one of her many Sidhe lovers, can she be named heir to the Unseelie throne, presently occupied by her aunt Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness. This time around, the man who literally makes the earth move is Mistral, a sadistically inclined fey. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/over254.htm Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT Usually Neil chooses two completely unrelated works and discuss them in a frequently vain attempt to find some vague connection between the two. But he doesn't want to become too predictable, so this time he deliberately picked a couple of books that are most definitely related. This time out he takes a look at The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (1942) by Robert A. Heinlein and The Insipid Profession of Jonathan Hornebom (1995) by Jonathan Lethem. http://www.sfsite.com/08b/ma254.htm Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT This is an Arabian Nights style story with the merchant, Fuwaad ibn Abbas, relating four interconnected tales to the Caliph in Baghdad. The framing mechanism is that Fuwaad was approached by an alchemist, Bashaarat, who claimed to have a magic door which would permit Fuwaad to visit Baghdad twenty years in the future. Before Bashaarat would allow Fuwaad to make use of the gate, he told the merchant three stories, which Fuwaad also relates to the Caliph. http://www.sfsite.com/08b/ac254.htm Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT What would you do if you had a time machine? Admittedly, it's somewhat limited: it only goes forward, and every time it's used, it leaps forward at an exponential rate. At first it leaps forward by seconds. Then minutes. Use it too many times, and you'll leap forward by centuries, even millennia. What would you do? http://www.sfsite.com/columns/rick254.htm Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT Rick offers his thoughts on the first episode of the new Flash Gordon series as well as the new direct to DVD of two new Babylon 5 episodes. http://www.sfsite.com/08b/sd254.htm Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT Rick is happy to report that the movie Stardust is much better than expected. The previews made it look sketchy and perfunctory compared with other fantasy movies crowding the screens, but Stardust turned out to be quite delightful. It uses the book, as movies will, and leaves out a lot and puts in a lot, as movies will, but the mix works more often than not. http://www.sfsite.com/08b/s9254.htm Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT This, the last volume of the series, contains two stories. The first offering, "BEM," deals with an not very nice BEM (bug-eyed monster for those of you who didn't attend SF school or were born in the 90s). This particular BEM is a Pandronian, a condescending, arrogant, annoying creature, who will remind you of someone you don't like, or perhaps several people. Thus, it makes the plight of the Enterprise officers who have to deal diplomatically with the creature far more interesting. http://www.sfsite.com/08b/ts254.htm Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT If you hated something like The Silmarillion, this is not the book for you. This is essentially an academic book on the Faerie, however incongruous that might sound, and it discusses enchantment in terms that many might find dry, and boring, and superfluous to requirements -- if your interest in the Faerie is merely entertainment, then steer clear of this book. But if you loved The Silmarillion... http://www.sfsite.com/08a/tt253.htm Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT In the near future, humanity has to deal with the fallout of the gung-ho genetic engineering in the past few decades, which produced several varieties of humankind. One of these, variant Thirteen, is an atavistic offshoot bred for war purposes and prone to violence and paranoia. Carl Marsalis is a variant Thirteen who makes a living by hunting down other Thirteens who have illegally re-migrated to earth from the Martian colonies. When the Thirteen Merrin returns from Mars and starts a bloody and seemingly random killing spree, Carl is recruited by the colonial authorities to hunt him down. Soon, he finds out that what looks like the bloody trail left by a madman is in reality a complex ruse... http://www.sfsite.com/08a/lm253.htm Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT In contradiction to the slightly misleading title, "Mimsy Were The Borogroves," is the only story here that has any connection to The Last Mimzy movie. Happily this is no handicap, as the book collects seventeen mostly unconnected works, all of which are rich in entertainment value. Ray Bradbury, who writes the introduction, describes Henry Kuttner as "a man who shaped science-fiction and fantasy in its most important years." Kuttner, who died in 1958, was a writer's writer, whose prolific imagination anticipated the future that is our present. This http://www.sfsite.com/08a/vo253.htm Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT One can hardly imagine a world which would come closer to Hell than a world in which, as the chilling back-blurb of Voices has it, "...the conquerors [of this city] consider reading and writing to be acts punishable by death." Plunging a young heroine into this terrifying milieu, the author uses the passions and fears and the waking wonder of the girl called Memer to shape a story which wakes the wonder in her readers, too -- and in some ways rouses us all to stand up against horror and oppression by seeking out the power and the responsibility of knowledge and understanding. http://www.sfsite.com/books/new253.htm Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT Highlights among our latest new arrivals include new and forthcoming works from Harry Turtledove, Brain Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson, Alan Dean Foster, Paul McAuley, Patricia Bray, Robert Rankin, as well as a (semi-)posthumous sequel to Van Vogt's classic Slan. http://www.sfsite.com/08a/m1253.htm Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT The first episode of Masters of Science Fiction, a long delayed anthology show which is finally scheduled to have four episodes aired on ABC in August, is an adaptation of John Kessel's "A Clean Escape," originally published in Asimov's in 1985. This adaptation, which stars Judy Davis as Dr. Deanna Evans and Sam Waterston as Robert Havelmann, is essentially a duel of wits between two individuals. http://www.sfsite.com/08a/m2253.htm Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT The second episode of the anthology series Masters of Science Fiction, is an adaptation of Howard Fast's "The General Zapped an Angel," retitled as "The Awakening." Set in a near future, the story opens with a strange encounter between an American soldier and an Iraq insurgent outside of Baghdad. The SF aspect comes into play quickly as the two men discover that they can understand each other, despite not speaking each other's language. http://www.sfsite.com/08a/au253.htm Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT The latest issue of this long-running Australian magazine is edited by Stephen Higgins and Michael Pryor. It features an editorial by Higgins, a science article by Patricia O'Neill about our food habits, and potential alien food habits, and two review columns (SF reviewed by Bill Congreve, Fantasy by Kate Forsyth). And seven stories. http://www.sfsite.com/08a/tp253.htm Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT Here, the author takes us back to the universe he has explored in most of his writing career, starting in Revelation Space and continuing through to Absolution Gap, plus a collection, Galactic North. The Prefect takes place earlier than any of the other novels, and is set in the Glitter Band, a collection of over one hundred thousand habitats orbiting in the same system as the planet Yellowstone. It's a near Golden Age for the Glitter Band, but something is amiss and all life may be in jeopardy. http://www.sfsite.com/08a/ps253.htm Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT Out of nowhere, sixteen-year-old Katherine Talbert is made an offer, by her uncle, the Mad Duke Tremontaine, to cancel all debts and even to help the family out of poverty, if Katherine consents to live with him in the city (and eventually in the underworld area called Riverside, which serves as synecdoche for the city) for six months and train with the sword. Of course she's going to take the offer -- despite the fact that young ladies do not have anything to do with swords. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/rick253.htm Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT Rick has some news about two new series starting in August, Flash Gordon and Masters of Science Fiction. He also gives us a list of what to watch on TV in August. http://www.sfsite.com/lists/ps-volume01.htm Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT In the spring of 2004, PS Publishing launched a new magazine called Postscripts. Originally, the magazine was to be digest-sized featuring about 60,000 words of fiction, a guest editorial, book reviews, and the occasional non-fiction article in each issue. Fiction includes SF, fantasy, horror, and crime/suspense. The book is produced in two formats: numbered, limited edition in hard cover signed by all contributors and a perfect bound paper cover version. http://www.sfsite.com/08a/s7253.htm Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT There are two stories in this volume. The first, "The Counter-Clock Incident," involves the first captain of the USS Enterprise, Robert T. April. Some of you, no doubt, think Captain Christopher Pike was the first captain of the Enterprise, but that's not the case. He was only the captain before Kirk. The story starts off with an alien vessel of unknown origin, that seems to be heading straight into an exploding nebula, apparently unaware that the radiation is too high for even the Enterprise's shields to screen out. http://www.sfsite.com/08a/gp253.htm Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:00:00 GMT The author draws parallels to the Bible from all six of the Star Wars movies and even some of the existing literature. The problem is, this can be done for any religion, or any philosophy. Pulling out things that match a preconception is no trick. In fact, looking to establish any theological or philosophical treatise when entering a body of work is easy, because you'll always find something. http://www.sfsite.com/rssfeeds01.htm Sat, 1 Jan 2005 11:00:00 GMT After constructing our first RSS feed, it soon became apparent that the size of files could grow quickly. We decided to separate them into smaller ones, breaking them up by month. On this page you will find RSS feed files for all of our content beginning with January 2005.