Archive for May 2008
links and things
Matthew Cheney said about K.J. Bishop’s ‘The Etched City’ “If your copy of the book is sitting in a big pile of books you’re hoping to get to sometime before the heat death of the universe, let me suggest that you move it up to the top. It should be the next thing you read. You’ll be thankful.” Although this is an old review, it’s a good reminder that I need to purchase this book, and soon.
Ross E. Lockhart reviews “Black Petals,” the new ELRIC tale in the latest issue of “Weird Tales”
Mark Teppo runs through the latest movie trailers
Selma Blair says that she’s probably not going to be the person to play Death in the movie based on Neil Gaiman’s “Death: The High Cost of Living.”
The Louisville Courier-Journal has a short but sweet review of Jeffrey Ford’s “The Shadow Year.”
J.M. McDermott met a lot of great people at BEA!
Genre novels influenced by Joy Division?
It’s Hollywood versus the Mutants!
BOLD TYPE reviews Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Book of Imaginary Beings.”
SF Crowsnest interviews Marie Brennan
Anybody up for classifying science fiction?
links and things
Bookhound and journalist extraordinaire Damien G. Walter recommends a number of likely literary spots for a summer vacation: Ambergris, Westeros, the Dying Earth, Viriconium?
How are you doing on that list of 1,000 books to read before you die? Time’s ticking….
Public Radio journo Kurt Anderson interviews brilliant writer/unbelievable bastard Harlan Ellison about the new documentary “Dreams with Sharp Teeth.”
The Fantasy Book Critic is giving away two signed ARCs of Ekaterina Sedia’s “The Alchemy of Stone.” I can’t wait to get my hands on this. I’ve heard great things.
Catch Tobias Buckell and other special guests at the Toledo’s “The Stately Raven” bookstore this weekend!
Analee Newitz at io9 offers “10 Books that Prove Science Fiction Just Got Harder.”
Jeff VanderMeer at the Amazon.com blog “Omnivoracious” interviews M. John Harrison.
Paul Jessup is excited about “Alone in the Dark.”
The Mystery Book Spot has some good F/SF reading suggestions: forgotten books!
Amy Wilentz rips Salman Rushdie’s “The Enchantress of Florence” a new one.
Chuck Palahniuk speaks at “Borders”
Check it out here.
Speaking of Borders, let’s hope that they get their financial situation together soon. If they get bought out by B&N it may spell the end of being able to find edgy fiction at chain bookstores. Their fantasy and SF buyer seems to be much more open to stocking the weird stuff. Not so much with their competitors.
Sharon Stone: Fatal Stupidity
Sharon Stone has divulged her awesome geopolitical theory that the earthquake that visited death and misery upon millions of Chinese citizens is due to “karma.”
Gods, demons, angels, ghosts, karma, whatever. We’ve got to get past this stuff. It’s just the same as the dumbass evangelicals who tried to claim that New Orleans was struck by Hurricane Katrina because of the city’s tolerance for gay men and women.
links and things
Mark Teppo: absinthe, Jager, pop rocks and Jack. Why?
You might want to go ahead and order The Big Book of Necon. ” Featuring Contributions by Stephen King, Peter Straub, Neil Gaiman, Jack Ketchum, Rick Hautala, Thomas Tessier, Chet Williamson, Douglas Clegg, Brian Keene, Ramsey Campbell, Douglas Winter, Thomas Monteleone, Gahan Wilson, Jonathan Carroll, John Coyne, Alan Ryan, Lucius Shepard, Graham Joyce, Tim Lebbon, and over 30 other artists and authors who have made Necon the most popular convention of the horror genre over the last three decades!”
Charles Tan interviews Lucius Shepard!
Are you aware that you’re missing “365 Days of Blasphemous Horror” at Weird Tales magazine’s site? Lovecraft-inspired paintings by Steven Archer!
Rumor has it that Neil Gaiman has been approached to script an episode of “Doctor Who” in 2010.
Jeffrey Ford’s “The Shadow Year” gets some love from the Duluth, MN library. Wish my library was cool enough to carry Ford’s work!
Corey Redekop’s “Shelf Monkey” has been awarded Gold as Best Popular Fiction Novel at this year’s Independent Publishers Book Awards! Congratulations, Corey!
Update: Boing Boing brings back commenting for “Little Brother” posts
The admins and moderators at Boing Boing have reinstated commenting for posts regarding Cory Doctorow’s new novel, “Little Brother.” If you recall, commenting was disabled for a short while following a wave of angry comments regarding a May 26 post.
I commend Boing Boing for again allowing their readers the option to post comments expressing approval and dissent. I know that it’s hard to do sometimes, especially when it seems like people are attacking you from all quarters.
Oh, and on an aside, I keep hearing that “Little Brother” is a great read. I hope to check it out very soon.
“The Fall” directed by Tarsem
I really want to see this movie, but given the anemic response to independent films in my community it seems that the local picture houses have unfortunately decided to play it safe by sticking with big Hollywood features.
Guess this will be another rental for me.
Tarsem’s “The Cell” was a gorgeous movie, but the storyline was fairly unintelligible. I can’t say it was a complete success. I do hope that the director manages to fully integrate the Magical Realism of his visual technique with a more coherent storyline. It is possible: Guillermo del Toro is a master of this kind of thing, as is Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
Dunkin Donuts pulls Rachel Ray ad over “Arab” scarf
Dunkin Donuts has pulled a commercial featuring chef and daytime TV staple Rachel Ray over fears that consumers might mistake the scarf she is wearing for a Keffiyeh, according to Fishbowl NY
.
They’re concerned that some people might think that this scarf symbolizes that Dunkin Donuts and Rachel Ray secretly support terrorism.
That’s ridiculous, people. Everyone knows that Osama bin Laden is a Krispy Kreme man.
links and things
As growth slows down at the Sci Fi Channel the network looks to expand their offerings to include light dramas and comedies.
Comics publisher IDW is planning to publish six stand-alone graphic adaptations of stories from Cory Doctorow in the new “Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now,” featuring art from Dustin Evans, Paul McCaffrey, Esteve Polls, Daniel Warner and more.
Trashotron blurbs Ekaterina Sedia’s new “The Alchemy of Stone,” a novel of “automated anarchy and clockwork lust.” Looks good!
1morechapter.com offers a list of 1,001 works that illustrate the development of the novel throughout time.
Did you catch this interview with Felix Gilman at Omnivoracious?
Barbara Roden’s collection “Northwest Passages” has been sold to Prime Books. Look for it in 2009!
The NY Press offers “An Elitist’s Reading List.” Some surprises: Clive Barker, William Gibson?
Jeff VanderMeer asks: what novels do you consider unfilmable?
Boing Boing tries a little censorship after LITTLE BROTHER complaints
After a May 19 torrent of angry comments from readers tired of BOING BOING blogger Cory Doctorow posts promoting his newest book LITTLE BROTHER, the admins of the popular site responded by disabling reader comments from future posts of this nature.
Today, assistant moderator Takuan responded to one reader’s confusion with this comment:
Hi cory sorry for offtopic posting … yesterday someone recommended that I email you but for some reason it bounced – I am reading little brother finally and I wanted to leave you a comment but why cant I post anymore in those stories?
Dear Torrance
Comments were turned off due to irresponsible postings in an annoying volume. I am not sure why your email to Cory bounced, why not try Teresa Nielsen Hayden directly?
Pointing out the irony of implementing this policy at a blog that champions free speech, individual liberties and fighting censorship at every turn would be an obvious and redundant exercise, I guess.
For extra irony, (part of your recommended daily allowance), be sure to not miss the final comment in the May 19th thread where assistant moderator Avram states that he/she has deleted all complaints about the LITTLE BROTHER posts from two recent threads:
Hello, this is one of Teresa’s assistant moderators speaking. I’ve turned off comments on these two threads (“Little Brother tonight in Seattle’s Third Place Books” and “Little Brother at NYC’s Books of Wonder, May 25, 5-7PM”) for a bit. Teresa tells me she’s shutting down some other Little Brother threads as well.
You may notice that a bunch of comments have disappeared. They haven’t actually been deleted, they’ve been unpublished. The comments are still there in BoingBoing’s database, they just aren’t showing up. This gives Teresa a chance to go through and re-publish them if she decides I’ve been too zealous.
I’ve deleted complaints about the Little Brother entries, even polite ones, and the joking ironic ones, because they just encourage more rude complaints.
It’s possible that I’ve missed a few, since I just learned how to use the administration interface yesterday. And it’s a little clunky.
One of Cory’s comments was also unpublished, at his own request.
It’s Teresa’s decision when to reactivate comments for these threads.
I like Cory, and I’m a regular BOING BOING reader, but this sort of cognitive dissonance is really hard to take. Why rally against censorship and then practice it in your own sandbox?
As a book publicist myself, I can truly sympathize with Cory’s plight. He’s got to get the word out there about LITTLE BROTHER, and he happens to be sitting on one of the biggest soapboxes in the internet world. It’s awfully tempting to use -and maybe abuse – that sort of power, I’m sure. Maybe there could be some sort of compromise: perhaps posting once a week, or simply integrating some sort of sidebar or widget with this sort of information. In any case, turning off comments for these posts is probably not the right move.
