Why I’m going to the Discworld convention

Source: guardian.co.uk

It’s August in an even-numbered year. That means only one thing: time to head up the road to Birmingham airport. Not to fly, though. To attend the Discworld convention at one of the airport hotels.

You may be wondering why a serious and respectable mathematician is planning to spend four days in the company of 800 committed sci-fi fans, who, when not clad in anoraks, are dressed as wizards, witches, trolls and vampires, attending debates such as “Elves: nasty or nice?” and “The great hedgehog race”. The answer is that I enjoy spending time in the company of the highly intelligent devotees of Sir Terry Pratchett’s brand of humorous fantasy. Which isn’t exactly science fiction (or SF or s-f; only mundanes call it “sci-fi” and if you need to know what a mundane is, then you are one already). The fancy dress is a bit of fun, not a lifestyle; if anyone’s wearing an anorak it’s likely to be me; and I follow the party line on elves. Two years ago the hedgehog race was absolutely gripping, and I’m hoping it will be even better this year …

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Mockingjay proves the Hunger Games is must-read literature

Source: io9.com

Mockingjay, the end of Suzanne Collins’ science-fictional Hunger Games trilogy, attracted the kind of fervor usually reserved for YA fantasy like Twilight or Harry Potter. And the good news is, it more than lives up to the hype.

I’m going to keep this review almost spoiler-free — there will be minor league spoilers, but nothing too heavy duty, and no major plot twists. Please try to do the same in the comments — if you need to post a spoilery comment, the Mockingjay spoiler thread is here.

So to start off with, I’ll just give the verdict first: Mockingjay starts off badly, with a rocky first few chapters full of clunky exposition. And then it quickly gathers steam and becomes a thing of incredible beauty and power, until it reaches an ending that you’ll be thinking about for days, or maybe years, afterwards. And for those of you who’ve been waiting until the third volume came out to decide whether to read the Hunger Games books, it’s now officially a good idea to do so. This trilogy is going to be up there with Ender’s Game and a select handful of other books as a powerful examination of coming of age and wartime.

READ MORE HERE

What do you think of today’s book news?

Join us in the forum to discuss!

Why Scientists Should Read Science Fiction

by Hannah Waters at geekosystem

I write this post going into science fiction as a fan, but also unaware of how most scientists think about it.  I can imagine two central viewpoints: (1) scientists who enjoy it (like myself), simultaneously as entertainment and a bit of critical thinking and (2) scientists who dislike it due to its tendency to portray “evil scientists” and/or science and technology gone awry, destroying the world.

Many of the stories do deal with technology taking over civilization – but embedded within this framework is a great deal of excitement, along with some deserved anxiety. The best way for me to explain these conflicting emotions is with an example of something that happened to me in the past few weeks.  We are slowly inching closer to developing lab-produced organs, which would be incredibly beneficial for a lot of obvious reasons.  Just this month there have been developments toward mass-produced red blood cells, as well as bioartificial lungs.  Eerily, I read about these discoveries as I was tearing my way through Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake…

[S]cience fiction is one of the ways that non-scientists absorb science.  Oryx and Crake is a national bestseller, suggesting that millions of people have read Atwood’s tale of bioengineering gone wrong.  While we should assume that the public knows that this is fiction and doesn’t take it entirely seriously, these stories do raise questions about the potential misuses of science that might not be as prevalent otherwise.

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Words to live by: advice from 34 science fiction/fantasy authors

By Charlie Jane Anders at io9

Great science fiction and fantasy novels don’t just expose us to other worlds and alternate timelines — they expand our minds and give us compass to steer by. Here are our favorite bits of advice and maxims from SF books.

You could do a lot worse than living your life according to principles espoused in science fiction books — in fact, here’s somebody who claims that it’s impossible to live a moral life unless you read science fiction. We won’t go quite that far, but here are some words to live by from science fiction. Please do post your own favorite maxims and aphorisms from SF in the comments — I have a feeling it’ll be a really amazing comment thread!

“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” — Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless.

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Mockingjay Book Tour Dates

via My Hunger Games

From August 23 Suzanne Collins, the author of The Hunger Games series kicks off a 12 city book tour to promote the Mockingjay.  She will be visiting bookstores in New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, California, Seattle, and Vancouver.

From our last contact with Scholastic, the tour schedule is still being finalised, but here’s what know:

In August – Suzanne Collins will be in NYC, New Jersey, Conneticut, Boston

August 23, 8:00pm – 1:30am– Books of Wonder, New York City, NY – this is the official launch party for Mockingjay with a midnight release party.

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New Mass Effect novel penned by sci-fi writer William C. Dietz

by Joystiq at Game Daily

In a recent interview with our PC-centric sister site Big Download, science fiction novelist and experienced game-to-book adapter William C. Dietz revealed he was recently “hired to write a Mass Effect tie-in.” When pressed for details about the project, Dietz, who has also written books for the Resistance, Hitman, Halo and StarCraft franchises, could only reveal that it was due to his publisher in early 2011.

Read More here

I’ve seen a lot of documentaries saying that science fiction stories (tv, movie or books) are the reason scientists became physicists/astronomers, etc, in the first place. I think Science is influence by science fiction nearly as much as the reverse. Why else would scientists be trying to transport matter, if not influenced by Star Trek? I’m really looking forward to Mockingjay. I’ll have to re-read the first two (darn). I absolutely love Douglas Adams, he is one of the funniest writers ever. He’s brilliant.

Do you think Sci fi influences science? Are you looking forward to Mockingjay?

Top 5 Audio-Books – EmJ

#1 Twilight – Ilyana Kadushin

#2 Harry Potter – Stephen Fry

#3 House of Night – Jenna Lamia

#4 True Blood – Johanna Parker

#5 Lord of the Rings – Sir Ian Holm

Top 10 science fiction authors – EmJ

#1 Douglas Adams

#2 Terry Pratchett

#3 Gene Roddenberry

#4 Neil Gaiman

#5 George R. R. Martin

#6 Michael Crichton

#7 George Orwell

#8 C. S. Lewis

#9 M. A. Foster

#10 Andreas Eschbach

This book could teach Hollywood to do superheroes right

(via io9.com) 

You might think superheroes are played out as heroic archetypes or sources of fresh stories. But you’d be wrong, and a new anthology, Masked, proves it. Anybody who writes superhero comics or movies, or just loves superheroes, should read it.

Spoiler warning!

Masked, edited by Lou Anders, is a really strong collection of stories that play with the idea of superheroes in clever, often fascinating ways. There’s a fair bit of metafictional commentary on the tropes of superhero stories, like costumes and secret identities and sidekicks — but it doesn’t ever become too self-referential or navel-gazey about it. The stories get dark, especially the first few outings in the book, but they’re dark in a thought-provoking way, not just angsty or “grim and gritty,” as dark superhero stories are prone to be.

I’m not always a fan of themed anthologies, because stories sometimes feel shoehorned in to fit the theme. The danger is that you’ll get a bunch of well-known authors who didn’t really have a Haunted Tree story they were dying to tell. But there’s a Haunted Tree anthology that wants them to contribute, so they’ll give it their best shot. And the result, often as not, is hit or miss.

The good thing about Masked, then, is that Anders gets stories from people who have a lot of experience with superheroes, or who obviously had a superhero story they wanted to write. The contributors include Secret Six writer Gail Simone, Incredible Hulk mastermind Peter David, X-Men: Dark Mirror author Marjorie Liu and comics veterans Bill Willingham and Mike Carey – as well as Paul Cornell, a regular Doctor Who writer and the new writer of Action Comics, which, by the way, just featured a rather striking David Tennant cameo:

Read more HERE

Is your novel set on an alternate Earth? You could win the Terry Pratchett Prize!

Do you have an unpublished novel set on Earth, but not this Earth? If you do, and it’s really awesome, you could win the Terry Pratchett Prize: Random House will pay you £20,000 to publish your novel next year.

You must live in the UK, Ireland, or the Commonwealth to enter, and Pratchett has written up a great description of what the book should focus on:

Anywhere but here, anywhen but now. Which means we are after stories set on Earth, although it may be an Earth that might have been, or might yet be, one that has gone down a different leg of the famous trousers of time (see the illustration in almost every book about quantum theory).

We will be looking for books set at any time, perhaps today, perhaps in the Rome of today but in a world where 2000 years ago the crowd shouted for Jesus Christ to be spared, or where in 1962, John F Kennedy’s game of chicken with the Russians went horribly wrong.

Find out all the gory details on entering the contest via Terry Pratchett

Read more HERE

Medallion to Publish YA Titles by YA Writers

(via publisher’s weekly)

Medallion Press is venturing into unfamiliar territory, in announcing the launch of its new Ya-Ya line of fiction and nonfiction for young adult readers ages 13-18. Not only is the Ya-Ya line intended for teen readers, but the titles in the imprint will actually be written by teen authors.

“Helen Rosburg [Medallion's publisher] wanted to provide young adults with a voice, with the ability to tell stories to others in their age range,” explained Paul Ohlson, Medallion director of sales and marketing. “Instead of adults writing for young adults, young adults are writing for young adults.”

Medallion is currently seeking submissions for its new Ya-Ya line; submission guidelines are posted on the company’s Web site. The press has not yet announced how many Ya-Ya titles will be published each season, or when the first book in the new line will be released.

Read more HERE

Fiction review: ‘Memory Wall’ by Anthony Doerr

Most writers should want to be Anthony Doerr when they grow up — short story alchemist, novelist, travelogueur; anthologized, winner of literary awards, despite which his writing really is crazy good. “Memory Wall” is Doerr’s latest collection of stories, including “Village 113,” which earned his third O. Henry prize.

While Doerr’s novel “About Grace” explored humanity’s impotence against fate, “Memory Wall” investigates, through characters plagued by conflicting emotions, humanity’s impermanence — be it our bodies, minds, relationships, hopes, our memories.

Unwilling to evacuate her doomed and deserted village, labeled “113″ by dam project engineers, the seed keeper muses: “Every memory everyone has ever had will eventually be underwater.”

Doerr’s characters are fond of pronouncements, particularly regarding the question, “What’s the one permanent thing in the world?” “Nothingness is the permanent thing.” “Darkness … is the permanent thing. And silence.” Even: “a river never stops.”

These dictums aren’t original or insightful, which is to say, there’s no serviceable answer, which is to say, is there nothing we can hold on to, though we’re destined to lose everything?

Read more HERE

What did you think about today’s book news? What do you think about this new book ‘Masked’, can it really teach Hollywood? How cool is this new award/prize that Terry Pratchett is giving away? How does this ‘Memory Wall’ novel sound to you, will you read it?

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Through the Lands of Fantasy: A Conversation with Lev Grossman, Author of The Magicians

By Christy Corp-Minaniji at Seattle Pi

When not in the hallowed space at the front of the store, The Magicians leads a dual life from one bookstore to the next – sometimes residing with fantasy, sometimes with literature. The split life of this novel relates directly to its creator’s crusade against the cultural ostracism of genre fiction from the realm of literature. Though the literary critic for a bastion of mainstream intellectual thought, Lev Grossman rails against the view of popular fiction as lowbrow or unworthy to be classed with literary fiction. “It shows how bizarrely inverted our literary culture has become that this is controversial…There’s been such a stigma with popular fiction that it wasn’t appropriate at Time, before I came to work there, to review the type of book that readers of Time actually read.” Though Grossman’s careful, modulated voice never raises, indignation laces his words. “Fiction that emphasized plot fell into disrepute… we’re finally seeing a reversal of that trend.” Grossman cites authors such as Clarke and Neil Gaiman as leading this reversal. “They write novels that confound attempts to classify them. Seeing them do that made me feel that I could and should write The Magicians.”

Read More here

Justin Cronin dissects vampire lore

By Lauren R. Harrison at The Chicago Tribune

There were vampires. Scientists. A virus. A father-daughter relationship. And endless narrative possibilities.

“I kind of want to write outside of a category because I can. … I’ve always tried to do more than one thing at the same time,” he said, adding that was true of his book “Mary and O’Neil” (2001) for which he won a PEN/Hemingway Award and Stephen Crane Prize, and of “The Summer Guest” (2004).

Taking from genres like gothic horror, Western and apocalyptic fiction, “The Passage” asks “what if all the vampire lore … actually had a scientific and historical reality in some way and what would it be like?”

Clever details about mirrors and crosses emerge as part of that answer by no mistake. “I’m not a writer who sits down and says, ‘Let’s see what the angels say today.’ I’m very much a planner,” Cronin says.

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Transworld Publishers Announce Exciting New Collaboration Between Sir Terry Pratchett And Stephen Baxter

via Book Trade Info

Sir Terry Pratchett first developed his vision of a chain of parallel worlds, The Long Earth, in an unfinished novel and two short stories in 1986, after writing Equal Rites, the third novel in what would turn into the hugely successful  Discworld series.  Now, at last, this long-gestating concept  is to see the light of day in two as-yet-untitled books written in collaboration with Stephen Baxter, author of Flood, Ark and the Time’s Tapestry  and Destiny’s Children series.

‘Our Earth is but one of a chain of parallel worlds, each differing from its neighbours by a little (or a lot) in an infinite landscape of infinite possibilities. And you can just step from one world to the next…’

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Blast from the Past: A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ

by Terry DeHart at Orbit Books

Summer is a great time for science fiction fans to indulge their inner Eeyores. After reading Mira Grant’s latest, what could be better than stretching out under all that depressing sunshine with a classic book of the post-apocalyptic genre?

A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ covers a large swath of time as the human race attempts to put itself back together after a no-hold-barred nuclear war. It begins many hundreds of years after the game of fun with fusion was played, but the setting is still deliciously scorched and barren and humankind is poor and superstitious and still a wee bit mistrustful of science.

The protagonists of each of the three sections of the book are associated with the Abbey of Leibowitz, which has been charged with the preservation and interpretation of knowledge from ancient pre-war times—the wondrous times in which we now live. Much of the book explores the primary objective of people living in times “simplified” by lack of technology—to get the lights back on.

Read More here

Canticle for Leibowitz has been on my (long) list of stuff I want to read, but after this article reminded me what it was about, I may move it to the top of the pile. The new Terry Pratchett book sounds good too, I’ve read Good Omens (a collaboration with Neil Gaiman) and I just started the Discworld series, so I know I like his style. I’m still going to wait until The Passage comes out on paperback, but I am looking forward to reading it.

What do you think of fantasy and science fiction becoming more mainstream? What are your favorite vampire myths?

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Today is “Wear the Lilac Day” (it’s also “Towel Day”, but one thing at a time), a day in honor of Author Terry Pratchett, who was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s in 2008. Fans of Pratchett (and of Discworld especially) wear Lilacs to raise awareness for the disease. So today’s featured book review is of course one by Terry Pratchett.

Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Summary:

According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world’s only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner. So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing. Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon—both of whom have lived amongst Earth’s mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle—are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to misplaced the Antichrist… (from the 2006 American paperback edition)

Review:

Both authors are hilarious in their own right, and together they have written a book that has a quotable sentence on every page. Bouncing around from Crowley (the fast living demon) and Aziraphale (the book store owning angel), to the anti-christ and his disciples, to Anathema Device, the professional descendent of Agnes Nutter, the book tells the story of the coming apocalypse and the attempts to speed it up or prevent it. And hilarity ensues: “The kraken stirs. And ten billion sushi dinners cry out for vengeance”. You’ll enjoy trying to figure out what Agnes Nutter’s prophecies mean (and laugh out loud when you find out).

If you’re a fan of either of these authors (or have been thinking about trying them out) this is a great place to start. Full of British humor reminiscent of Douglas Adams, this has become one of my favorite books. Even if the apocalypse isn’t normally your thing, this is a good read. I highly recommend this book.

You can talk about the book here

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