S.E.G.O. — Science Fiction You Should Be Reading

by Devilstower at Daily Kos

There’s an old saying about the golden age of science fiction — it’s twelve. That is, twelve is the age where readers seem most willing to take the Door into Summer, to try and visualize a tesseract, to boldly split infinitives like no one has split them before. Not too long after that, even those who continue to read fiction not handed to them by a teacher find that they’re no longer able or willing to follow along on a trip at a galactic scale.

Even on the bookshelves some of the works regarded as science fiction’s best had a hard time finding a general audience, not only because of a bad media image, but because they seemed to be written to an audience more interested in the nuts and bolts than the people on the other end of the wrench. I suspect that many of the people who were hard SF fans in the 1970s turned to Clancyesque military fare in the 1980s, a place where they could satisfy their thirst to know the serial number on the bottom of the gadgets that were at the center of the plots.

Read More here

THE WAR OF THE DWARVES

Anna Gregson at Orbit

Translated from the original German by the very talented Sally-Ann Spencer, this is the eagerly anticipated sequel to The Dwarves (UK/ US/ ANZ), described by SFRevu as: ‘The kind of solid fantasy that the market thrives upon’, and by The Bookbag as ‘A fabulous addition to the fantasy genre’.

The War of the Dwarves, from international bestseller Markus Heitz, will be released this month.

Read More, plus an extract here

Neil Gaiman: Ghost Writer

Serena Altschul at CBS News

“What do you think your attraction to the dark side of things is?” Altschul asked.

“I think the thing that crystallized it for me, the moment that I actually understood it for myself, was a quote from Ogden Nash, the great American poet and humorist, where he said, ‘Where there’s a monster, there’s a miracle.’

“And I realized that that, for me, is the joy of the monstrous. It’s the joy of ghosts, fiction, joy of vampires. It’s the miraculous.”

The monstrous and the miraculous have been kind to Neil Gaiman. He’s sold millions of novels, comics and kids’ books, from “Sandman” to Batman to Coraline. None other than horror master Stephen King has called him a “treasure trove of story.”

Read More here

Schools’ Nonfiction Problem (True Story)

By Tom Kuntz at the New York Times

The “Harry Potter” phenomenon brought parental sighs of relief over a revival of reading among the young (perhaps overly optimistic sighs). And the revival has morphed lately into the wild popularity of the “Twilight” series of hormonally charged teenage vampire novels.

But on his Washington Post blog Class Struggle, Jay Mathews, a veteran education writer, highlights longstanding concerns among some educators that youthful reading is weighted too much toward fiction — a view seconded on other blogs.

Mr. Mathews explains why nonfiction books get short shrift in schools and draws on the educational theorist E.D. Hirsch Jr. to argue why they shouldn’t:

Educators say nonfiction is more difficult than fiction for students to comprehend. It requires more factual knowledge, beyond fiction’s simple truths of love, hate, passion and remorse. So we have a pathetic cycle. Students don’t know enough about the real world because they don’t read nonfiction, and they can’t read nonfiction because they don’t know enough about the real world.

Read More here

Read the First Chapter of Seth Grahame-Smith’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

via io9

Seth Grahame-Smith, whose debut novel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies became an overnight sensation and New York Times-bestseller in 2009, stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true-life story of our greatest president for the first time—all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.

Read the first chapter here

“Blameless”, or “How To Design A Cover in 1:55 seconds”

Lauren Panepinto at Orbit

As you guys know, your friendly neighborhood Creative Director has been slaving away at the Fall 2010/Winter 2011 Orbit covers (yes, we work that far in advance) and now that the covers are (mostly) done I’ve started to launch them on the blog for your viewing pleasure, and general online critique. Well, I have a special treat above for devoted Orbit fans, cover design aficionados, and especially admirers of Ms. Alexia Tarabotti, heroine of Soulless. Timed to celebrate this month’s release of Changeless, Alexia Tarabotti’s second adventure, I have a special Making of the Cover Video for the next book, due out in September 2010, Blameless.

Over 6 hours of my onscreen compositing, retouching, color correction, type obsessing, all condensed down to a slim sexy one minute 55 seconds of cover design. Trust me, no one wants to watch it in real-time…

Read More here

I love seeing behind the scenes stuff for making books. It’s a pretty cool video. And I like the series too. And I wish we had read more non-fiction in school, I read a lot of it now. I think they’re much more interesting than the texts books, and if you pick the right one they can give you the basic info that you’d get from textbooks, but in a much more interesting manner. And I hate when people say that they need to make it easier for kids in high school. My high school curriculum didn’t prepare me for college in the slightest (except my senior English class). Teenagers are smart-stop dumbing stuff down for them.I know part of the problem is some people don’t like to read, and novels are more likely to get them hooked, but once you get to high school there should be a mix.

What did you think of the Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter excerpt? Do you read Neil Gaiman’s books? What about Soulless?

DANIEL RADCLIFFE SAD TO LEAVE HARRY POTTER BEHIND

Source: popeater.com

Daniel Radcliffe has spent the past decade in the limelight playing the title role in the ‘Harry Potter’ film series, but the actor will soon be closing the curtain on the part that made him famous. In an interview with MTV, Radcliffe described his feelings about leaving the bespectacled boy wizard behind.

Radcliffe, who has been busy filming the two-part ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,’ the final installments in the series, says of leaving the role, “I did have a moment the other day in the makeup room, that I have been in for 10 years now… I did walk in and go, ‘Wow, this is [hitting me]. One day — in about four or five months from now — I’m gonna walk in here for the last time.’”

READ MORE HERE

WICKED ROLES ARE BONHAM CARTER’S ‘CUP OF TEA’

Source: msnbc.msn.com

LOS ANGELES – Once a corset queen in prim, proper costume dramas, Helena Bonham Carter has spent her time lately playing all manner of foul women.

Fanatic Bellatrix Lestrange, a disciple of evil Lord Voldemort in the “Harry Potter” movies. Vile Mrs. Lovett, who grinds murder victims up as meat for pies in “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” A crazy old witch with an eyepatch and hair as brittle as straw in “Big Fish.”

Now Bonham Carter’s playing the bratty Red Queen in “Alice in Wonderland,” digital wizardry giving her a monstrously bulbous head atop a tiny body as she repeatedly shouts with glee, “Off with their heads!”

“I am playing lots of villains. It’s horrible. Serial killer, sadist. But I think it’s the age, you know. That’s what you get over 40, maybe,” Bonham Carter, 43, said in an interview. Shifting into a shrill hag’s voice, she adds: “Ooh, she’s aging. She must be evil. She looks like a witch.”

In the final two “Harry Potter” movies, coming this November and in July 2011, Bonham Carter takes Bellatrix’s nastiness to new heights, including torturing Harry’s pal Hermione (Emma Watson).

READ MORE HERE

It does feel like a bit of an end of an era with Harry Potter coming to an end. How are you all feeling? Who are you going to miss the most?

Join us in the forum to discuss!

OBS Speaks Out contributor Blondie has written a piece on how the stories of Percy Jackson have revived stories of myth and legend.

Percy Jackson:  Everything old is new again.

When I was in middle school, I loved reading Greek myths.  The gods who acted more like teenagers, the heroes besting the most unbelievable monsters…talk about an escape from reality!  Movies like Clash of the Titans (the original) and Jason and the Argonauts attempted to bring the stories to life, combining various myths and legends to make a marketable adventure story.

Now, decades a few years later, Rick Riordan has taken up the Greek myth banner.  By mixing the tales of ancient conquest and tragedy with a modern Harry Potter-like coming of age story, he’s brought the old stories to life again.

Potter?  No, that’s Percy!

Let me start by saying I loved the Lightning Thief (both the book and the movie).  More importantly, my son loved it, and as an avid reader, finding new and interesting books for him has been a challenge.  But the parallels between TLT and the boy with the lightning scar are hard to ignore.

So let’s compare and contrast the books, and make my middle school English teacher proud.

MILD SPOILER WARNING – READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Harry Potter Percy Jackson discovers he has inherited powers from his mom and dad, a parent he doesn’t remember when he turns eleven hits middle school.  He ends up at a special school camp, and shows up the class bully, Draco Clarisse during flying lessons a game of capture the flag.  His two best friends, the happy-go-lucky Ron Grover, and super-smart Hermione Annabeth help Harry Percy adjust to his new reality, and agree to accompany him on a dangerous quest to find the Sorcerer’s Stone Zeus’ Master Bolt.

Sound familiar?

Other aspects of Percy’s world recall Potter’s: The warnings about the power of names, the hints at a prophecy regarding Percy’s destiny, and Percy’s smelly, human stepdad who treats him like yesterday’s garbage…makes me wonder if half the kids in middle school today are either wizards or demigods.

There’s even a dark force controlling others through dreams…He Who Must Not Be Named has risen from the dead (again) to take on Percy this time.

It’s my opinion that it was the parallels between Riordan’s and Rawling’s work that led to the changes in the movie version of TLT(even reducing Fluffy Cerberus to three one-headed dogs) – but that’s a different story.

Are the similarities a bad thing?  Absolutely not!  The hero’s story has been repeated for millennia; all you have to do is dig into the stories Percy’s world is based on to find the same plot over and over again.  In fact, by basing his story on Greek myths, Riordan has opened a whole branch of literature to a new generation of readers.  And with that…

It’s all Greek to Me!

One big assumption that Riordan makes in The Lightning Thief is that you, the reader, have some knowledge of the Greek myths, and that you’ll recognize his references (and he hits a TON of different mythical stories in this book).  Though I read many versions of the stories when I was young, even I was scratching my head trying to remember if it was Theseus or Perseus or Heracles (Hercules) who killed Medusa the first time…

Note:  All the monsters Percy faces appeared in the myths and most were killed.  Riordan addresses that fact briefly, commenting that evil never really dies, and the monsters essentially reincarnate.  He’s giving himself free license to re-write the myths in a modern setting, but I’m good with that.

So, maybe you’ve read the book, and would like to know more about the original stories, or maybe you’re a mom who’s just trying to communicate with their kids; in either case, a primer on the Greek gods might be a little helpful.  Here’s my attempt to oblige – along with references below to authors who’ve done a much better job.

Good Gods, how many are there?

A ton, and they slept around a lot, having all kinds of kids.  Here’s the ones that matter in The Lightning Thief:

Zeus: God of sky, air and weather, the head honcho.  He was made the top dog after he saved his brothers and sisters from their father, Kronos.  BTW, Kronos wasn’t a god, he’s a Titan.

Poseidon: God of the sea, creator of the horse, and Zeus’s brother.  Percy’s dad.

Hades: God of the Underworld (both heaven and hell), basically the god of death.  He and his brothers drew lots to decide who’d rule where, and Hades got the short straw.  He owns the third Deathly Hallow Helm of Darkness which makes him invisible.  He is not one of the twelve (Pantheon) Olympians, living in the Underworld.  Married to Persephone, but only part of the year.

Athena: Goddess of wisdom, war, and weaving, among other things.  Daughter of Zeus, she sprang from his head fully grown and clad in armor.  Annabeth’s mother.  She and Poseidon had a tiff over who’d be the patron god of Athens (guess who won).

Ares: God of war, son of Zeus and Hera.  An unpopular god, Ares did catch the eye of Aphrodite (remember I said the gods slept around?). Her husband, Hephaestus caught them in flagrante in an attempt to embarrass the two of them in front of the other gods.

Hermes: Messenger of the gods, God of thieves, son of Zeus. Luke’s father.  Invented the lyre and gave it to Apollo. Owner of the winged sandals.

And, just because Riordan mentioned there were twelve houses at Camp Half-blood, here’s the other seven members of the Pantheon.

Hera: Goddess of marriage, Zeus’ wife and sister (yeah, ew).
Apollo: God of the sun, music, medicine, among other things.  Son of Zeus, twin of Artemis.
Artemis: Goddess of the moon, the hunt, chastity and childbirth (I don’t know, she just is).  Daughter of Zeus, twin of Apollo.
Aphrodite: Goddess of love and beauty.  Possibly born of the remains of a Titan, she appeared in the foam of the sea.  Married to Hephaestus.
Hestia: Goddess of the hearth, sister of Zeus.
Demeter:  Goddess of earth and agriculture.  Sister of Zeus, mother of Persephone (with Zeus – more ew), mother-in-law of Hades.
Hephaestus: God of craftsman.  Married to Aphrodite.

And, if twelve weren’t enough, there’s Dionysus, god of wine, vegetation, and pleasure.  Not one of the original 12, this son of Zeus was eventually admitted to Olympus.

Confused?  Yeah, but that’s what happens with a thousand years of rewriting and revision of legends.  The gods are immortal, so they can only irritate or imprison each other, not kill each other, leading to most of the other myths.

As far as the creatures Percy faces in TLT – they come from a variety of stories.  The minotaur was killed by Theseus; Medusa by Percy’s namesake, Perseus.  The chimera was killed by Bellerophon while riding Pegasus, Odysseus encountered the lotus-eaters. The stretcher, Procrustes, also met his end from Theseus, who dispatched him the same way Percy did.

Even Chiron has a history, having taught other heroes Jason and Achilles. According to myth, he was killed by Heracles (it’s more complicated than that, so check out the references).

The original stories have been rewritten in many forms; you can find most of them on Wikipedia, even.  Here’s a few books I’ve found at my library or were recommended to me – check them out for the ‘real’ story:

D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths by Ingri D’Aulaires
Mythology by Edith Hamilton
The Greek Gods by Evslin, Evslin, & Hoopes
Greek and Roman Mythology A to Z by Kathleen N. Daly
Adventures of the Greek Heroes by Mollie McLean and Anne Wiseman

Look for Dewey Decimal 292 at your library, that’s where you’ll find these books and many more.

And of course there’s the classics: The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer

I challenge you to compare the original Perseus’ quest with that of Percy Jackson – you’d be surprised at the parallels there, too.  And with The Clash of the Titans coming out soon, you’ll be all set for another round of Greek heroes!

Magic of childhood returns to captivate

By James D. Watts Jr. at Tulsa World
A good story about young heroes and heroines dealing with fantastic creatures is a timeless thing.

To prove it, Random House has re-launched the Looking Glass Library, beginning with four classic stories of fantasy and adventure for young readers.

The original Looking Glass Library first appeared in the 1960s and included novels such as H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds.”

The four books which make up the initial release of the new Looking Glass Library are “Twilight Land” by Howard Pyle, “The Princess and the Goblin” by George MacDonald and two volumes by E. Nesbit: “The Book of Dragons” and “Five Children and It.”

Read More here

Where do vampires come from?

By Ford Cochran for Nat Geo News Watch
Long-time National Geographic staff historian Mark Jenkins’ new book, Vampire Forensics, is the basis for a new National Geographic Explorer television special premiering in the U.S. Tuesday night at 10 p.m. ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel. It’s not quite an interview with the vampire, but Jenkins shares some of what he learned on the trail of Dracula and his kin.

Where did the belief in vampires originate?

Fear of the walking dead is old. Sucking blood isn’t always part of it–sometimes they eat you, sometimes they just beat you up. There’s some sort of deep layer of belief that crops up here and there, possibly something shared once in the Indo-European past that survived when the tribes became separate nations.

Read More here

Beyond “Harry Potter”: 5 interesting tales of plagiarism

By Marjorie Kehe
Last week, “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling was named as a defendant in a lawsuit in a London court. It’s not the first time that Rowling has faced such charges. This time, the estate of author Adrian Jacobs claims that key concepts appearing in her book “Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire” were lifted from Jacobs’s 1987 book “The Adventures of Willy the Wizard.” Rowling calls the charges absurd; the Jacobs estate, instead, says the suit is “a billion-dollar case.”

Rowling is hardly the first well-known writer to face plagiarism charges. The results of such charges tend to vary widely. Some end up dismissed as without merit, others ruin careers, and yet others seem simply to disappear.

Charges that Dan Brown largely copied “The Da Vinci Code” from an earlier novel. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, two of the three authors of the 1987 “The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail,” charged that Brown stole some basic elements of the plot of their book for his 2003 blockbuster “The Da Vinci Code”. Baigent and Leigh lost their 2006 caseagainst Random House – Brown’s publisher – in a London court and then were defeated again on appeal. The two were also forced to pay the bulk of Random House’s legal costs. The trial did, however, put “The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail” on bestseller lists.

Read More here

New Novel: “X-Men Meets Blade Runner”

By Charlie Jane Anders at io9
We see tons of novels about dystopian futures, but any novel that features enslaved mutants in a dystopian future automatically gets onto our to-read list. According to Publisher’s Marketplace, the duology Pandora’s Box and Icarus’ Wings by K.M. Ruiz just got a book deal with Thomas Dunne Books.

The duology is “pitched as “Blade Runner meets X-Men,” about a “Psion” with the ability to channel electricity, and her fight to survive a post-apocalyptic world government.

Read More here

The artwork on the new Random House books looks really cool. And I’m excited about the Vampire Forensics, it looks so interesting. And those K.M. Ruiz books look good.

What do you think of our book news today?

Today we’re continuing with our special couple’s edition with some of the most romantic, sweet and loved by the readers characters from Twilight and Harry Potter. These are couples that belong together in any universe and because of their personalities are just meant for one another. Enjoy!

(Spoilers ahead, be careful)

Brought to you by OBS staff member Katlyn.

Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley

How did they get together?
Ginny had a crush on Harry since they first met. But since Harry was best friends with Ron, he never saw Ginny as girlfriend material. As they grew up they both realized their deep attraction to each other was more than friendship.

What attracts them to each other?
Since they have been friends for so long their love manifested from it. When Harry realized his attraction to Ginny, the rest just falls into place.

Why do the make such a timeless couple?
Being “the Chosen One”  brought much danger to anyone he loved and since Ginny loved him for being Harry and not anything else it made them a strong and timeless couple.

What are some of the problems they faced because of  being a couple?
Harry and Ginny have two major problems because they are a couple. One is because Ginny is the sister of  Harry’s best friend which is usually a no-go. And also, since Harry was fighting against the Death Eaters and Voldemort, he did not want to risk Ginny getting hurt because they were together.

Alice Cullen & Jasper Hale

How did they get together?
Alice saw Jasper and the Cullen family in one of her visions. She met Jasper in a dinner in Philadelphia, and they both fell in love during their adventures to find the Cullens by 1950.

What attracts them to each other?
I think the inevitability of their meeting created a foundation for their relationship. Also, the fact that they were both nomads and then they found each other solidified their love.

Why do they make such a timeless couple?
The fact that Alice saw Jasper in her vision of the future makes their love inevitable. They are timeless because in a time where they were both alone they found each other and haven’t looked back since.

What are some of the problems they faced because of being a couple?
There aren’t any problems that they face as couple, but since they are participants in one of the largest vampire Covens they are usually in danger of those who want to challenge them.

View the rest of these couples HERE and join us in the discussion!

What do you think of these couples?
Which is your favorite?
Would you change them or are they meant to be?

The Twilight Saga News Wrap-up:

Dozens of ‘Twilight: Eclipse’ Set Pictures

SNEAK PEEK OF “ECLIPSE” AVAILABLE ON UK VERSION OF “NEW MOON” DVD

‘New Moon’ Board Game First Look
‘New Moon’ Toys: Get Your First Look At Edward Sparkling And Jacob All Shirtless

“THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE” TRAILER TO HIT THEATERS ON MARCH 12

KRISTEN STEWART ADDRESSES “BREAKING DAWN” 3-D RUMORS AND SAYS THAT THE BOOK WARRANTS TWO FILMS

Movie News Wrap-up:

10 Things Parents Should Know About The Lightning Thief

Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein Heads to the Big Screen

CLASH OF THE TITANS ON SET

How Old-Fashioned Makeup Effects Created The Wolfman

Author & Book News Wrap-up:

‘Harry Potter’ author hit with plagiarism lawsuit

TV Show News Wrap-up:

‘True Blood’: An interview with a vampire

50 BEST LOST THEORIES

OBS Fun News Wrap-up:

WHICH CULLEN FAMILY MEMBER ARE YOU? QUIZ

OBS PRESENTS BOOK COVER CLUSTERS: FLOWERS

BOOK REVIEWS: CASSANDRA CLARE – CITY OF ASHES

MOVIE REVIEWS: DEAD SNOW

MOVIE REVIEWS: BATMAN BEGINS

OBS TOP 5/10: GREEK MYTH EDITION

OBS EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: JEN NADOL

FAN ART MADNESS – PERCY JACKSON EDITION

OBS RECAPS & REVIEWS: MERLIN S1 – EPISODE 10

MOVIE REVIEWS: THE DESCENT

BOOK REVIEWS: NEIL GAIMAN – NEVERWHERE

OBS PRESENTS: MOVIE POSTERS FOR ‘PERCY JACKSON’S THE LIGHTNING THIEF’

OBS DIRECTOR PROFILES: M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN

MYTHICAL CREATURES THROUGHOUT HISTORY: AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT ‘GREEK GODS & GODDESSES’

We are currently doing two book clubs:

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

and

Intertwined

Have a great new week!