The SF Site: Letters to the SF Site

Letters to the SF Site

We love letters. They make us think. They make us laugh. They make us sit up and take notice, and get a payment in before service is disconnected.

Mostly, though, we enjoy hearing what you have to say about the SF Site. No publishing enterprise can survive long without paying close attention to its audience, and we're no different. If you've got a comment or thoughtful suggestion, or if you just want to complain about that durned dead link, we want to hear about it.

The Cavern of Black Ice Winners

Art: Greg Call
Our congratulations to Patricia Evans of Fredericton, New Brunswick and Anne M. Marble of Hanover, PA.

They join our winners from last issue -- John LeDrew, of St. John's, Newfoundland and Morten Hansen of Norway -- in being the first to provide the correct answers in our Cavern of Black Ice contest, tucked away at the bottom of the excerpt published in our last two issues.

For the record, the correct answers were:

What the name of J.V. Jones' first book? (The Baker's Boy)
What was the name of the two Medieval guards who talk about nothing except beer and sex? (Bodger and Grift)
What art form was the magic in The Barbed Coil based upon? (illuminated manuscripts)
What does J.V. stand for? (Julie Victoria)

The SF Site would like to thank J.V. Jones and Warner Books, for generously supplying both the books and the questions. We enjoyed hosting the contest, and we're sure you'll enjoy Cavern of Black Ice as much as we did.

On the Trail of Terry Goodkind

Art: Keith Parkinson
From: Anne M. Marble

In your most recent Letters column, someone [J. Clifford] was asking about Terry Goodkind Web sites. I haven't found any official sites. (As Terry Goodkind doesn't have e-mail, that might be difficult.) But I found some unofficial sites. As the letter writer didn't leave an e-mail address, I thought I'd go ahead and send this to you instead.

Fans might want to start out at the Sword of Truth Web ring: www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?ring=swordoftruth&list

Here are some other Terry Goodkind fan sites that might not be in the list:
www.geocities.com/Area51/1025
members.tripod.com/~Dark_Prophet_9
www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/5410

The Anotherland Fantasy Site has links to Terry Goodkind sites. And to other fantasy authors. Link to Anotherland at: colargol.tihlde.hist.no/~dagr/fantasy/fantasy.html.

From: jpeace@arctic.net

www.prophets-inc.com

By now you may be aware this is the Terry Goodkind site. It was a link from Tor.

[The Yahoo SF, Fantasy and Horror Authors page] is an excellent source for author links if their publisher doesn't promote one.

Iris

Thanks! We've added these links (and some other suggestions) to our Author's Pages, at www.sfsite.com/scribe/scribe07.htm.

A Visit With the Time Gypsy

From: Ellen Klages

I'm Ellen Klages. My novelette, "Time Gypsy," has been nominated for the Nebula and the Hugo this year. The story came out in a hard-cover anthology that's only available in the US. To make it accessible to anyone who'd like to read it, I've put it on-line.

Is it possible to have a link from your site (ideally, linked to the Hugo nominations/award) to the story? The URL is:

www.exo.net/~ellenk/timegypsy.html

It most certainly is. We'd be pleased and honoured to link to "Time Gypsy." We've currently made the link available on both our Fiction page and our 1999 Hugo Award Nominations page.

Good luck at the Nebula and Hugo Awards!

Mystery Solved

From: Rich Horton

David Quinlan asked about Ralph Williams' real name. According to the Contento index (www.best.com/~contento), Ralph Williams is a pseudonym of Ralph W. Slone.

A Century of Great SF
ed. Damon Knight (1963)
Also, the story David mentions, "Business as Usual, During Alterations", is not from F&SF but from Astounding. It has been anthologized several times, including appearances in Prologue to Analog, ed. by John W. Campbell, and Tomorrow, Inc. edited by Greenberg and Olander, as well as the Knight anthology One Hundred Years of Science Fiction. (David seems to have mixed up the anthologies in which the two stories he mentioned appeared.)

Contento, at least, gives no indication that "Frederick Bland" is a pseudonym. And I certainly can't help.

From: Steven H Silver

For the fellow who asked about Ralph William's "Business as Usual, During Alterations." The author's real name was Ralph. W. Sloane. It was originally published in Astounding, 7/58.

Frederick Bland's "The Fifteenth Wind of March" was originally published in F&SF, 6/62, but I haven't been able to find an indication of his real name, if not actually Bland.

The Missing Forest

Art: Ulla Montan
From: scsmith@sff.net

Argh! George Dodds' review of The Forest of Hours [in our last issue] makes me want to run out and buy the book - but as far as I can tell, it isn't available in the US. Any ideas as to when it might be available here?

Stephanie,
Sorry, we're afraid not. However, you can buy it online. Here is a URL for a list provided by Ekman's publisher: www.randomhouse.co.uk/bookshops/index.html

The Best SF and Fantasy Books of 1997

From: Maxim Chernykh

Finding this list [The Best SF and Fantasy Books of 1997, in our mid-January 1998 issue] I wondered about others URLs (on SF Site or anywere) containing similar information about worthy sf&f books, printed in 1997, 98, 99. Can you help? Thank you.

Certainly. For our most recent list, you can look at The Best SF and Fantasy Books of 1998, or The 1998 SF Site: Reader's Choice Awards, which were chosen by our readers. We also maintain a page of book award links at www.sfsite.com/depts/awd01.htm. Enjoy!

The Internet Speculative Fiction Database

From: Moira Allen

I'm writing to inquire whether you still feature the "Internet Speculative Fiction Database" on your site. I'm compiling a list of links for my forthcoming book, Writing.com: Creative Internet Strategies to Advance Your Writing Career (Allworth Press, August 1999), and was hoping to include this resource. (SF Site will be included in any event.) Does it still exist?

It sure does. We're proud to host the ISFDB, maintained by Al von Ruff and his team. It's one of the most useful resource sites on the 'net for SF and Fantasy readers. You can find it at http://www.isfdb.org.

The Conqueror Comes

From: Wiley S.
To: Margo MacDonald

Art: Trsitan Elwell
I saw your review of Suzy McKee Charnas' book The Kingdom of Kevin Malone [also in our mid-January 1998 issue].

I have been doing Internet publicity for Ms. Charnas, and wanted to mention that she has 2 books coming out in May 1999. Tor Book's Orb imprint will release The Slave and the Free, a trade paperback two-book-in-one reprint of Charnas' classics, Walk to the End of the World (1974) and Motherlines (1978).

Tor will also publish the fourth book in that series, The Conqueror's Child. This will be a hardcover.

Thanks for the info! We've featured The Conqueror's Child in our Forthcoming Books column for several weeks, and we've been looking forward to it.

Aw, Shucks

From: Hal Haag

Hello there,

I am the webflunky for the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, Inc. (www.bsfs.org) and we have been building a page of links to Fantasy and SF authors at www.bsfs.org/bsfsauth.htm, and I am now going to retire that page and put in a link to yours!!!

Great job!!! If I find we have any you do not have, I will certainly let you know.

Next Issue

Predicting exactly what will be in the next issue of the SF Site is something of an inexact science. But we currently have reviews of many exciting recent releases in house, including:

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Gypsy Rizka by Lloyd Alexander
Wrapt in Crystal by Sharon Shinn
A Dangerous Magic edited by Denise Little
The Knight, the Harp, and the Maiden by Anne Kelleher Bush
Spinners by Donna Jo Napoli
Choice of Evil by Andrew Vachss
Ancients of Days by Paul J. McAuley
The Fear of God by B. A. Chepaitis
Dark Genesis: The Birth of the Psi Corps by J. Gregory Keyes
The Fear of God by B. A. Chepaitis
The Goblin Market from Eggplant Productions
The Gnomewrench in the Dwarfworks by Nick O'Donohoe

and many others. Plus our usual columns and detailed New Arrivals features, and the final installment in Rich Horton's survey of The Original Anthology Series in SF. Be sure to join us on May 15th. We'll be here.