It’s launch day for new science fiction magazine Lightspeed
By Annalee Newitz at io9
Indie SF publisher Prime Books is publishing a new online magazine of science fiction and essays called Lightspeed. Edited by John Joseph Adams, formerly of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed aims to “push the envelope.” Now you can read it!
Every week, Lightspeed will publish a free story online, along with essays that explore themes related to the stories.
Writes Adams in the inaugural issue:
Lightspeed is a new online magazine that will focus exclusively on science fiction. Here you can expect to see all types of science fiction, from near-future, sociological soft sf, to far-future, star-spanning hard sf, and anything and everything in between. No subject will be considered off-limits, and we encourage our writers to take chances with their fiction and push the envelope. We will bring you a mix of originals and reprints, and will be featuring a variety of authors-from the bestsellers and award-winners you already know to the best new voices you haven’t heard of yet.
Read More here
Check out the Magazine here
Literary Novelist Turns to Vampires and Finds Pot of Gold
By Julie Bosman at the New York Times
Justin Cronin is the author of an epic, multimillion-dollar, 766-page novel that stars bloodthirsty creatures that run in packs and savagely kill people at night. And he’s planning to turn it into a trilogy.
So he is prepared for the inevitable comparisons — another vampire book? — that could accompany the publication on Tuesday of “The Passage,” the sprawling saga of a girl named Amy who is one of the victims of a covert military experiment that went horribly awry and its bloody aftermath.
“The Passage” is appearing at a time when publishers are still snapping up books in the paranormal genre, a category that has evolved beyond vampires to include zombies, shape-shifters and dark angels who have fallen to earth. (Mr. Cronin’s vampires are called virals.)
Read More here
Read an Excerpt from The Passage here
Audioslice: Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker
Liz Maverick at Tor
Today’s feature is a custom audioslice of Boneshaker from Nebula award finalist Cherie Priest. And it’s not just because I wanted an excuse to contact her for inside scoop on her follow-up, Dreadnought.
“The number one piece of begging-disguised-as-feedback I received after Boneshaker was that people wanted to see more of this world-setting. Seattle as a zombie-plagued wasteland was cool and all, but what about this big fat war going on back east? What about the wild, wild west?”
Well, Dreadnought won’t be out until September, but you can get your steampunk on post-haste via Priest’s June novella, Clementine, from Subterranean Press. (Yes, it’s set in the same world. Bonus!)
Without further ado, here’s narrator Wil Wheaton from a special cut of the digital audio version of Boneshaker…
Hear the sample here
Award-winning 1986 Novel Predicted Oil Spill
via SFWA
The transformation of 1986’s science fiction to 2010’s ugly reality has fiction lovers reaching once again for award-winning author Kathryn Lance’s near-prophetic Pandora’s titles. The new relevance of her book Pandora’s Genes and its sequel Pandora’s Children has prompted e-reads, the leading reprinter of out-of-print genre fiction, to feature the books nearly 25 years after their original publication.
When Lance first envisioned how attempts to clean up a massive oil spill could go wrong, she never dreamed that she would one day see some of her cataclysmic imaginings come to life. Unfortunately, with the Gulf oil spill disaster, she has. Like everyone else, Lance wishes the Gulf oil spill had never happened. “The book was something of a cautionary tale,” she says. “But no one listened.”
Read More here
Read the First Chapter here
Lightspeed sounds amazing; I love that they’re going to have stories and articles about the topics. Saves me time with googling. It seems like Wil Wheaton is in everything now! Boneshaker is on my list of things to read, and I should get to it before the next one comes out. The new vampire book sounds interesting too, I love the idea of scientifically created vampires, rather than having them be paranormal.
Do you think there are enough vampire books around? What do you think of the 80’s prediction of the oil spill? Do you prefer audio books or physical books?
