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/03b/hi292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Remember those at-the-time underappreciated halcyon days between the fading of childhood and the onset of adulthood, when the only consequence of not rising before noon was to have missed a lecture on the poetry of Sir Phillip Sydney? We could stay up all night rapping with friends or roommates, altering our minds with wine or tequila or wacky-backy, and riffing on cool thought-nuggets like, "Whoa, dude, if God's dead, who's gonna dispose of the body?" http://www.sfsite.com/03b/sg292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT An insane necromancer has been released from the Blackwing Institute, Felport's asylum for sorcerers -- it seems he has been (mostly) cured of believing he's dead. As he was an ally of Marla's predecessor, she's not too excited about this, especially as he seems bent on returning to his old habits of raising the dead -- in this book in fact reanimating a corpse that may be that of John Wilkes Booth. At the same time Marla is distracted by being forced to help plan the Founders' Ball, a five-yearly event for the ghosts of the original Felport leaders. http://www.sfsite.com/03b/la292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Arthur C. Clarke, one of the most important figures in mid-century science fiction, was not exactly an exponent of experimental prose. His view, reflected in a string of classic novels from the 50s to the 70s, seems to have been one where prose should be, as near as possible, an invisible window through which one watches the action. Frederik Pohl, on the other hand, has always been a little more ready to take risks with the form and structure of his writing. http://www.sfsite.com/03b/yb292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Most of you should already know, by now, that the twenty-first volume of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror represents the swan song of this fortunate, long lasting series that the publisher has decided to discontinue. No doubt a great loss for fantasy and horror lovers who will miss a yearly volume providing an exhaustive overview of what happened in the two genres during the previous year, in terms of fiction, poetry, movies, comics, etc. http://www.sfsite.com/03b/gw292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT After dying from a brutal beating and then "miraculously" returning to life, Harper Blaine starts seeing things. The likeable Seattle P.I. discovers that she is a Greywalker, a person who can see and crossover into the next realm, known as the "Grey." The Grey is a layer of reality that coincides with ours and is inhabited by the dead, undead and some pretty scary creepy crawlies. http://www.sfsite.com/03b/in292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT After his sudden death, science fiction writer Allen Carpentier finds himself along the shores of Hell with a strange guide who wishes only to be known as Benito. Not surprisingly, it is a Hell visited once before by Dante Alighieri. This work takes some artistic license with Dante's original Inferno. http://www.sfsite.com/03b/hd292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT What makes the original Dune series a science fiction classic is the way that Frank Herbert creates not only a story, but a framework to explore the power of religion, culture and conflict in civilization. Every book in the series works around the political intrigue and cultural influences within the Dune universe, yet still has something to say about today's society, no matter when that "today" happens to be. http://www.sfsite.com/03b/tf292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT The Sith Rule of two is widely known. Darth Bane set it down millennia ago, a master and an apprentice, one to embody the power, the other to crave it. But the greatest treachery and deceit are also part of the Dark Side's path. Even the Greatest Sith Lord in history, Darth Vader, follows this code as he plots to seize Emperor Palpatine's throne by training his own, secret apprentice. http://www.sfsite.com/03b/is292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT The book tells the story of two rogues who are framed for a crime they didn't commit and blackmailed into hunting down the real perpetrators. In doing so, they discover a plot to take over the world which they temporarily set back. They encounter and thwart and old nemesis. In a surprising twist, the men they are working for were using them as pawns and actually wished to take over the world themselves. http://www.sfsite.com/03b/lt292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Lord Tophet, the second and final Shadowbridge novel follows Leodora, diguised as the secretive, talented shadow-puppeteer Jax along with her manager Soter and her gifted, other-worldly musician Diverus. But enemies draw ever closer as the wandering troupe finds itself on Colemaigne, where the cruel Lord Tophet blighted the Span. Only Soter knows the true story of all that happened but, even as he struggles to protect his ward, he cannot bring himself to tell the truth about what happened all those years ago. http://www.sfsite.com/03b/ek292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Juno Mozambe is a bad man on a bad planet. Formerly the leg-breaker and chief enforcer for Paul Chang, the ruthless chief of the Koba Office of Police, he was forced into retirement after things went sour in a big way a short time ago. Now he acts as a private investigator, taking nasty cases involving even nastier people, all of his money going towards hospital bills to help heal his grievously-hurt wife. http://www.sfsite.com/03b/ww292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT The setting is March 14, 2003, where US armed forces are poised to invade Iraq. In an instant, there is a major and catastrophic change. A mysterious wave of energy appears with no warning, standing miles high and encompassing much of Canada, Mexico, half of Cuba and almost the entire United States. All life caught within the standing wave vanishes, leaving vast areas unattended, and instantly impenetrable except by unmanned drones. The only Americans left alive are those overseas when the wave struck, the military outposts in Pearl Harbour and Guantanamo Bay, plus the city of Seattle which stands just outside of the wave. http://www.sfsite.com/03b/se292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Set some 35 years after the close of New Amsterdam, about 1938, Sebastien and his companions, chief among them Abby Irene and her not quite friend Phoebe Smith, have taken up residence in London. But it is a changed London, occupied by Germans -- or, really, Prussians. For in this changed history, there is no Hitler, but there is a Hitler analogue -- and sort of a Bismarck successor -- and England is under his sway. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/graphica292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT In this column, Mark London Williams is annotating a brief "guide" to graphic novels that he wrote for the parents at his youngest son's school. It was the time of their annual spring fundraiser, which came with a handbook to the evening's festivities. This year, they wanted some handy "how to," and "where to" type guides within the booklet, so it would have some "evergreen" value -- as they say in both the journalism and ad businesses. http://www.sfsite.com/books/new292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT New and forthcoming books this month at SF Site feature the latest from Kage Baker, Gordon Dahlquist, Jacqueline Carey, L.E. Modesitt Jr., James P. Blaylock, Alan Dean Foster, Raymond E. Feist, and much more. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/best09b.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT For more than a decade now, SF Site has been annually soliciting you, our readers, to vote for your favourite books of the past year. Over the past couple of months, we've been receiving your input on the best of 2008 with interest, and now we're ready to present the results. What follows is the best books of 2008 as chosen by the SF Site readers. It's an interesting list this year and one that Neil feels good about, since there's so much overlap with the Editors' Choice Top 10. http://www.sfsite.com/03b/wa292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Often when a film adapts a book, it tells the story of the book, instead of translating the book into a series of dramatic scenes that draw you into the story. Watchmen draws you in. The writer and director know what we want from a super-hero movie. We want to see the hero beat the shit out of a bunch of bad guys. http://www.sfsite.com/03b/gr292.htm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT In the Seven Kingdoms, the Graced are viewed with fear and suspicion. Marked out from their fellow citizens by their mismatched eyes they are gifted, or Graced, with supernatural skills. Some can read minds or predict the future, others are fighters that no Ungraced warrior could touch. Katsa is Graced with killing. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/best09b.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT For more than a decade now, SF Site has been annually soliciting you, our readers, to vote for your favourite books of the past year. Over the past couple of months, we've been receiving your input on the best of 2008 with interest, and now we're ready to present the results. What follows is the best books of 2008 as chosen by the SF Site readers. It's an interesting list this year and one that Neil feels good about, since there's so much overlap with the Editors' Choice Top 10. http://www.sfsite.com/03a/ja291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT The Walking Man, the unstoppable instrument of God's wrath, has come to the Nightside, for the sole purpose of killing the Authorities and razing the Nightside to the ground. Guess who gets tapped to try to resolve this situation? John Taylor, that's who. He's a private detective who's handled the weirdest, nastiest, most suicidal, most insane cases the Nightside has to offer, and they think he's just right for the job. http://www.sfsite.com/03a/tm291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Time travel has fascinated humans for eons. To skip across years, see historical events that have passed and try to change your world for the better... or worse. But imagine a world where time machines are as common as a toaster oven. How would it affect choices, consequences and human nature? http://www.sfsite.com/03a/em291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Mars is being colonized and terra-formed under the auspices of the British Aerean Company, an off-shoot of the British company that had successfully built a colony on the moon. Colonizing Mars hasn't gone quite as well, there turns out to be a lot less immediate profit involved. As the story begins, many of the Martian colonists have found their jobs with British Aerean terminated, and they are being left to fend for themselves. Prominent among them is Mary Griffith, proprietor and brew-master of the only bar on the planet. http://www.sfsite.com/03a/rh291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane and other memorable characters, has such a reputation as a master of heroic fantasy that it's easy to forget that his huge production includes a number of strong, colourful horror pieces. Never a refined stylist, he displayed an energetic and vivid type of storytelling also in his horror fiction which tends to feature brave, strong-willed men fearlessly facing alien forces and evil creatures. http://www.sfsite.com/03a/dr291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT The first story, Jason Stoddard's "The Elephant Ironclads" features an alternate version of Navajo civilisation, where scientists are searching for uranium, and two native boys are fascinated by armoured elephants of legend. Elizabeth Bear, who is undoubtedly a top quality writer, delivers "Sonny Liston Takes the Fall," which offers an new slant on the famous clashes between Liston and the then Cassius Clay. http://www.sfsite.com/03a/cp291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Billed as "Tales of Beauty and Strangeness," this anthology is the editor's latest effort to inject a little more weirdness and artistic fantasy into the market, working from his own particular tastes of what he personally enjoys reading. His introduction to the anthology yields little concrete wisdom into the method and madness he used to construct this particular collection of stories, for all its poetic imagery and vivid, dreamlike narrative, but consulting the Clockwork Phoenix web site turns up more solid requirements. http://www.sfsite.com/03a/an291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT "Do your neighbors burn one another alive? ... Do your shamans walk around on stilts? ... When a child gets sick, do you pray? Sacrifice to a painted stick? Or blame it on an old lady?" Thus begins this monumental new novel of ideas and adventure. Fraa Orolo is posing these questions to an artisan from the Saecular world who -- against orthodoxy -- has been summoned inside the walls of a monastic-style community (the "concent") to perform a hasty, unscheduled repair. Immersed in this encounter between denizens of separate societies, the listener begins to know a world that is, by turns, strangely familiar and suddenly unexpected. http://www.sfsite.com/03a/ex291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Based on a novelization of DC Comics' series, this audio adaptation begins when a surprisingly large number of people begin popping up with super-powers. These "meta-humans" come under close scrutiny by the Justice League because the newcomers can use their powers for either good or bad. While some mutants want to help the world's renowned superheroes, others seek to use their powers for ill will, creating new problems for the heroes to overcome. http://www.sfsite.com/lists/ps-author01.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT In the spring of 2004, PS Publishing launched a new magazine called Postscripts. Originally, the magazine was to feature 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 was produced in two formats: numbered, limited edition in hard cover signed by all contributors and a perfect bound paper cover version. With the publication of #18 (Spring 2009), Postscripts magazine has morphed into a quarterly anthology with the paper version transforming into a hard cover title. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/best09.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Welcome to the SF Site's 12th annual Editors' Choice Top 10 Best Books of the Year -- our official Best Reading recommendations from 2008! As the votes came in for our official best read of the year, it seemed that our reviewers and other contributors were not reading very much of the same thing -- our tastes and preferences vary widely. In consequence, the results were very close. Nevertheless, I think you'll find that what we've come up with is a set of recommendations that will be sure to please. http://www.sfsite.com/03a/pjf291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT The following interview took place at Minicon 10, Minneapolis, MN, April 19, 1975 -- in the hotel bar. Its first and only publication appeared in Tangent #2, May, 1975. Interviewers were Dave Truesdale, Jerry Rauth, and Paul McGuire. Some few months before this interview, Phil Farmer had written Venus on the Half-Shell as by one of Kurt Vonnegut's characters, Kilgore Trout. It was all the rage in the fan and semi-pro magazine press back then as fans and authors alike spilled a lot of ink trying to guess who Kilgore Trout really was. http://www.sfsite.com/03a/cy291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Told in three sections with a different clone sister as viewpoint character in each, the book opens in the 2060s, thirty years after idealistic revolutionary Yelisaveta Mihajlovic has cloned seven daughters and one son -- the caryatids of the title -- to save the world from ecological collapse. Dispersed by political turmoil which results in the death of three, the surviving siblings are scattered throughout the globe, while their mother escapes to Earth orbit. http://www.sfsite.com/03a/in291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Why do we read hard science fiction? It could be that in a hard SF story the characters are bound by the laws of the universe, the threat they face is shaped by the immutable rule of nature. In other words, science is king, physics or chemistry or, just occasionally, biology provides the threat faced and the solution, if any. It is science fiction at its most intellectually austere, leaving little room for romance or colourful adventure. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/graphica291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Alan Moore injected relevancy into mainstream comics in the 80s. Previously, comic books lagged some five to six years behind current trends. Moore's skills moved mainstream superhero comics ahead of popular culture and established new trends, the punk to the old guard's rock 'n' roll. His success paved the way for artists such as Moore protege Neil Gaiman and Mike Mignola, as well as the re-tooling of superheroes that lead to this century's spate of successful films such as the Spider-Man franchise, the X-Men series, Iron Man, and even The Incredibles. Rick Klaw has some thoughts on how Alan Moore's vision translates onto movie screens. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/booknews291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Carol E Barrowman talks about writing a new Captain Jack story with her brother John for Torchwood magazine, plus a free Torchwood story to read online; Ricardo Pinto reaches a significant milestone with The Stone Dance of the Chameleon; and we look into the future to see what's up and coming as Robert Holdstock returns to Mythago Wood and Serbian writer Zoran Zivkovic goes loopy for PS Publishing. http://www.sfsite.com/03a/co291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT See it, and by all means see it in 3D. But it could have been so much better if it had just stuck to the book. A book is not a sacred text. The changes Peter Jackson made in The Lord of the Rings were, for the most part, improvements. But the changes Henry Selick made in Coraline weaken the story and are hard to account for. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/rick291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Rick offers his thoughts on the conclusion of Battlestar Galactica this month. He looks at viewership and renewal of SF series and whether there will be a Babylon 5 movie. He also gives us a list of what SF is on TV in March. http://www.sfsite.com/03a/bs291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT As seen through the eyes of Gull, a seer or Pythia of the Lady of Death, the story of Prince Aeneas of Troy unfolds in accessible prose that is a model of clarity and swift pacing. Whereas the Aeneid takes the perspective of a single individual, Black Ships zooms out to encompass the wider Mediterranean world at the end of the Bronze Age when some cataclysm shook the Ancient Classical world to its roots, inaugurating a mini-Dark Age of piracy, dislocation, and the eclipse of trade and learning. This is not the age of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus... http://www.sfsite.com/03a/cw291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT In 16th century Bohemia, Mikal Kronos made a magnificent clock for the young Prince Rodolfo; in return, the prince had the craftsman's eyes gouged out. Mikal's twelve-year-old daughter Petra resolves to travel to Prague to recover her father's eyes. She gets a job in the royal palace and, with the aid of her pet mechanical spider Astrophil and a Roma boy named Neel, sets about trying to find the eyes. http://www.sfsite.com/03a/mb291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT Keira Kelly, a descendant of a paranormal family, doesn't know much more than that as she hasn't come into her full powers yet, but the process has started. She could be a mind reader, healer or shape shifter, but until the change has run its course, she may have bits and pieces of each talent. The beginning of "the change" could explain some of her extraordinarily vivid nightmares including two dead animals on a nearby resort and the murder of her not-so-intelligent human cousin, Marty. http://www.sfsite.com/03a/wt291.htm Sun, 1 Mar 2009 11:00:00 GMT It starts in Vaagenfjord Maw, the final battle in an epic war between good and evil. Scathur, servant of the Rawgr and General of his armies, fulfils one last request for his dark master, a request that taints the victory of the Pel-Adan forces for centuries to come. Five hundred years later, there are still those who fear that the Rawgr will return and they have the ear of powerful men. 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.