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/04b/pp294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Palimpsest is a "sexually transmitted city." Those who have been there carry portions of it on their skin, the city's brands, a spidery tattoo which, on closer inspection, reveals itself to be a section of the city map, its streets and squares and intersections and train stations. The brand is passed on through the act of sexual congress, and at first you are limited in which parts of the city you can visit determined by which actual part of the map your lover has tattooed on their skin. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/ip294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT When a convicted murderer survives the hangman's noose, it is inconvenient, but when the same murderer claims to be the Immortal Prince Cayal -- one of the god-like Tide Lords -- it has wider repercussions. Not that anyone believes he is who he says he is. The Tide-Lords are legends, stories for children and the credulous. But something does not have to be the truth to be politically inconvenient. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/po294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT The 200th birthday of Edgar Allan Poe is the occasion for the renowned editor Ellen Datlow, to assemble another anthology of nineteen original stories somehow inspired to Poe's life or work. Under such a broad label, the tales display an enormous variety of styles and genres, where anyone can find something to like or to dislike. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/kl294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT The infamous Princess Kristine Longknife of Wardhaven is, surprisingly enough, bored. Sure, she has her very own warship, disguised as a merchant vessel, laden with scientists and researchers intent on exploring beyond the rim of human space, but she's a creature of action, and the action just isn't happening. To most people, this would be relief. To her, it's the sheer knowledge that something will happen, and she's tired of waiting. And so Kris Longknife goes hunting for pirates and trouble anyway. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/mt294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Blurbed as "an update of the world's oldest novel -- Petronius's Satyricon," John had some trouble seeing the similarity between the two stories. This may be due to his lack of a a classical education though. Or the reason may be because this book is about a tenth the size and the author pared down the original to the bare essentials: erections and giant bugs. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/rs294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Set in the 25th and 26th centuries, it follows the adventures of three disparate, more-or-less human characters in different circumstances and different parts of the galaxy as their goals and objectives gradually converge. Dan Sylveste, an archaeologist with a few techno-physiological modifications who stays in fairly regular contact with his dead father; Ilia Volyova, one of a triumvirate of cybernetically enhanced humans piloting a light-hugger interstellar vessel; and Ana Khouri, an ex-soldier whom we first encounter working as an assassin for a firm that serves the recreational needs of the very rich. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/pf294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Tavi has been accepted as the Princep (heir to the crown of First Lord). However, a recent civil war in Alera has left many citizens disgruntled and wanting something more than what the First Lord seems able to offer. Alera has many enemies surrounding them, including the Marat to the south, the Ice Men to the north and, across the sea to the west, the Canim. Fortunately, diplomacy and kindness have created an ally with the Marat, and the Canim have agreed to cease hostilities for now. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/di294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Remember the old science fiction and fantasy magazines? You know, the ones that featured short stories written by great sci-fi authors. Listening to this audiobook was like going back to those old pulps and reliving the golden age of sci-fi. This collection contains three short stories written by L. Ron Hubbard that are as diverse in subject matter as they are enjoyable to hear. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/dd294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Calliope Reaper-Jones' goals are simple: get promoted out of her boring job so she can lead the glamorous New York life she has always dreamed about, have a decent blind date, and find the good sales every now and again. Unfortunately, she's dragged kicking and screaming back into the family business when she gets the urgent and disturbing news they're all missing, presumed kidnapped. Worse yet, she is the only one even remotely qualified to take over daily operations, something which doesn't fit in with her 5-five year plan. For if she accepts this heady responsibility, she'll be stepping into the role of Death. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/jd294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT It is, first and foremost, an entertaining Science Fiction novel of the old sort -- nearly a Space Opera, with mysterious aliens (including legendary "prehumans"), desperate planets, people searching for a way back to Old Earth, an enigmatic object, travel through warp space that makes sense and the nature of which matters, and plenty of color. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/om294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Editor Christopher Paul Carey has collected here three of Philip Jose Farmer's lesser known novels. The first, Fire and the Night, is a non-science fiction novel that looks at racism and religion in the United States. The second, Jesus on Mars, is probably the best known of the three, and the final one, Night of Light looks at religion and sociopathic behavior on an alien world. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/la294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Book two of the Monster Blood Tattoo series, it details Rossamund's training and his first posting. On the way, he befriends the first female lamplighter and a shell-shocked former lamplighter named Numps. We are also reintroduced to characters from the first book including Europe, the monster hunter and Sebastipol the Leer and falseman. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/hc294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT In The Soul Thief, the author introduced Corban Loosestrife, an Irishman whose witchy twin sister, Mav, was raped and carried off by Viking raiders, prompting him to go looking for her. The series has grown into a multi-generational saga and now, in the fifth and latest volume, The High City, we're following Raef, Mav's fey and fated son. He has worked his way downriver from Kiev and across the Black Sea just in time to be shipwrecked off Byzantium. Raef is a perpetual outsider, marked not only by being conceived in rape but by the not-always-helpful magic powers he has inherited from his mother. http://www.sfsite.com/04b/bb294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Readers often approach second books in series with a bit of trepidation: they're excited to find out what happens next but wary that the second book might not live up to the excellence of the first. Well, have no fear. The author has created an even more riveting novel in her follow-up to Matters of the Blood. Keira Kelly can never go long without finding herself in the midst of a mystery. She and her shapeshifter brother, Tucker, find themselves helping Ignacio, who came over the border to search for his missing brother, Alex. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/graphica294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT It's hard out here for a comic book pubublisher. Especially if you're not Marvel, DC, or Dark Horse -- someone with an established pipeline to film production, for all that good syntax that comes with titles appearing both on theater marquees and comics shelves. Of course, whether the "single issue comics shop" model can continue to thrive in the era of the graphic novel is an open question. Again, name brand comics will sell single issues for awhile, but for indies, the future may be in bookstores. Mark London Williams gives us an inside view of how an adaptation he was working on for a proposed Danger Boy comic, a kind of sequel to the print series, is developed. http://www.sfsite.com/books/new294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT This time we're looking at the newest books from Laurie R. King, Kelley Armstrong, Mike Carey, Catherine Jinks, Alan Campbell, Ricardo Pinto, plus classic collections of Ray Bradbury, Michael Moorcock, and plenty more. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/rick294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Like many, Rick is having some concerns over the use of "imaginary stories" where the past gets changed. Many series, like Witchblade and Dallas, have used the plot device. So don't get Rock started on Heroes, where it seems everything that happens is either a dream, a hoax, or an imaginary story -- or all three at once. Some say that Heroes, like Smallville, has blown up the refrigerator. Rick still has hope. Is there a script doctor in the house? http://www.sfsite.com/04b/fd294.htm Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT The story concerns two 11 year-old children, on intertwined quests to find magical orbs that can help thwart a rising evil. Victoria Deveny is from 1890's Britain, where she discovers a magical ring and steps through an equally magical door, into small town America of 1966. There, she meets Elliot Good, who also has a magic ring. Following an almost fatal encounter with a renegade Shadow Knight, the pair escape though yet another magical portal, into Faerieland. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/tw293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Leitchfield is a hard, unforgiving place and those who live there are hard and unforgiving too: the Manders and the Coys. Both families are descended from sour-natured patriarch Heastor Wharton, whose brutality and venom have poisoned generations from womb to grave. Years ago John Coy escaped, heading east to New York and a community that valued his intellect instead of deriding it. When he was eighteen John's nephew, Meshack Coy, fled west to find family that wasn't dedicated to eating their own. Neither man ever planned to return to Leitchfield. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/ac293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Noah Barakh is "the man who built heaven," the architect of the Accord -- a vast virtual realm, as good as the real thing, based on and sustained by a consensus (or accord) of realities. People can now have copies of themselves archived, to be uploaded to the Accord when they die. And if someone dies in the Accord, they'll be reborn there, again and again. It's as good an "afterlife" as humans could build. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/zs293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT The first section details the nature of the undead. In this world, it's caused by a viral infection. The book talks about the effects of the virus and what this means for the zombies it creates. From there, it transitions into how to kill zombies and what are the best tools to use. Next up are the various survival scenarios such as how to defend your home or where to go if your home is indefensible. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/booknews1293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT So you think writing a TV Companion is about watching the episodes, chatting to your favourite TV stars and having fun do you? Well, yeah, okay, it is, but... If you think that's all there is to it, think again. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/booknews2293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT One of the most intriguing and obsessed characters in the Supernatural TV series (and played to perfection by actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan), John Winchester's back history is being revealed in a new book. Author Alex Irvine talks about delving into the character's dark and difficult past in John Winchester's Journal. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/booknews3293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT The Supernatural fan community is passionate and discerning and it's no surprise that the show has inspired a whole range of people, including professional writers and professors, to share their thoughts on the Supernatural universe. Some of these thoughts have now been crafted into essays and published in In The Hunt. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/ww293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Wonder Woman decides to visit her island home after hearing that a man has disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle, which is in the vicinity of Themiscyra. A man's appearance on Themiscyra could escalate into a dangerous situation for both himself and the Amazons on the island. After arriving home, Diana is taken to the Oracle, who warns Diana of the Island of Opposites and that Themiscyra will be attacked. Knowing that this prediction may be linked to the missing man, Wonder Woman begins looking for him. What she finds is the man's new bride searching where her husband was last seen scuba diving. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/bh293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Military SF has never been as popular in the UK as it is in the US. Perhaps it is the fact that the British aren't very good with guns, as evidenced by scores of implausible Mockney gangster films. Perhaps it is a question of politics since British science fiction is often seen as monolithically liberal. That isn't the whole story though. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/ls293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT After decades of buildup and innumerable skirmishes, the Borg have declared all-out war upon the Federation and her allies. As thousands of Borg cubes launch a relentless, genocidal assault upon civilized space, leaving nothing but destruction in their wake, only a few Federation starships are left free to seek out a solution. But what, if anything, can stop the Borg once and for all? http://www.sfsite.com/04a/ne293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT When we first meet Northwest Smith, he is leaning in a doorway in a dusty frontier town. He is tall and lean and sunburned and dressed in old leather. A pistol is strapped low on his hip. He is, in other words, a cowboy. The fact that the brawling frontier town is on Mars and the pistol in his holster fires a heat ray does not alter the fact that he is a classic drifter, a man without ties who will ride into any lawless town looking for adventure and ride out again afterwards without a backward glance. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/lb293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT This is not a fluffy bunny fairy story. It's a tale of real people with real problems which are just a little bit bigger than ours, and ours don't seem to need that much more of a push to get themselves elevated to that orange alert status at all. And the voice in which the story is told is the voice of a cranky, precocious, hormonal, swaggering, vulnerable, struggling-to-understand adolescent is spot on. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/mm293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Ten weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Max Corbett, a history professor who left the city never to return, is drawn back nonetheless, for the funeral of the girl he once loved. It doesn't take him long at all to realize that he hadn't truly known her. A chance encounter with a mysterious old man following the sparsely-attended funeral is Max's first step along what will prove to be the strangest, deadliest journey of his life. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/mr293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Several hundred years in the future, there has been an historical disconnect between our time and theirs. An assumption of power by artificial intelligences and subsequent revolt led to a major catastrophe, the recovery from which has resulted in a new set of political and social institutions. Gone are the nation-states and the structures that supported them, in their place are contracts for services with local governments, and a governing body known as the Defense and Wellness Council. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/graphica293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT For a comic book-centric town, Austin, Texas has historically lacked significant events for fans of comics. The city's long running and influential speculative fiction literary convention Armadillocon only recently opened its doors to comic book creators, but remains primarily a prose affair. Throughout the 80s and 90s, several small one-day comic book conventions popped up and failed -- the most famous an affair in an abandoned McDonalds in the basement of a University of Texas dorm. All that has changed with the arrival of STAPLE! Rick Klaw tells us what he found there. http://www.sfsite.com/books/new293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT This time featuring the latest from Charles de Lint, Juliet E. McKenna, Peter F. Hamilton, S.C. Butler, Eric Brown, Steven Erikson, plus the Nebula Awards Showcase, Stories in Honour of Jack Vance, and plenty more. http://www.sfsite.com/columns/rick293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Rick offers his thoughts on what he enjoys in the way of SF on TV. Given a choice, he prefers quality over quantity. He also gives us a list of what SF is on TV in April. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/kn293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Knowing is a dumb movie. The special effects are good, but you can catch most of those in the preview. Rick flunked out of M.I.T., and he can testify that the character Nicolas Cage plays couldn't pass for an M.I.T. professor at a senior prom, much less in a classroom. http://www.sfsite.com/04a/bs293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Rick has learned a number of thingswatching the conclusion of Battlestar Galactica. Here are five: Life in a state of nature is beautiful, bountiful, peaceful, and clean; God's is in his heaven, and if you have faith in him, he will send angels to save you. Except when he doesn't... http://www.sfsite.com/04a/th293.htm Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT Some books telegraph their secrets from the first pages, while others husband them like water rationed for a long desert journey. This book manages to do both. It opens with the operatic spectacle of an entire city chasing after a giant white bird, a god of flight, that is like a Broadway musical number choreographed in breathless prose. Artists, prisoners, politicians, and one scientist dreaming of a flying warship, are all depicted in pursuit of this dream of freedom. 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.