ZNAK SAGITE — više od fantastike — edicija, časopis, knjižara...

Ta lista uspesno izaziva  i  i  reakcije po internetu a i blize 

The early success of AMC series Walking Dead confirms it: Though zombies have been hot for a while, they are now officially the new vampires. Why do Americans love zombies, and what does it say about us?


Though some of the greatest zombie stories in recent memory have come out of the UK, namely 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead, the modern zombie seems to have risen in America. Since the early days of pulp fiction, Americans have been scribbling about zombies; and this country also spawned some of the world's most recognizable zombie imagery in movies like Night of the Living Dead, the book World War Z, and now the TV series (based on an American comic book) The Walking Dead.

Nisam čitao poslednje sa spiska, tako da  ne mogu da sudim, ali od ostalog navedenog jedino Mjevil zaslužuje da se nađe na listi najboljeg bilo čega.

Bogami se tu slažem na neviđeno, pošto ja F zaista slabo pratim.
Kapiram da je ovo bio izbor Jackie Cassada, i ajde što mi je razumljivo da će ona 'natezati' F stranu, ali ipak... osim Čajninog Krakena koji definitivno jeste za naj-liste, ja na ove naslove zaista nigde nisam nabasala, pa mi se čini da je Cassada ladnjaka izignorisala ne samo nagrade nego i mnoge rivjue objektivnijih od sebe. 

Uzgred-po-apdejtu budi rečeno, nakon bladi mungejta, nesuđeni GOH samo tvituje...

There's no such thing as an inexhaustible resource... other than human idiocy. We can exhaust forests of trees, oceans of fish...


(Ah, kako ne voleti tu Elizabet...  )

SF, H & F tržište je po pravilu više pažnje poklanjalo ljubiteljima serijala, dok su ljubitelji kraćih formi po pravilu ostajali skrajnuti kao ciljna grupa, ali možda će upravo e-čitači doneti malo više balansa po tom pitanju:


Do You Read Short Fiction?

This topic was born of a twitter conversation between myself & @thenewauthor, Brian Knight. He asked:

   1. Do you believe short stories are respected in the current publishing world? Is there a demand for them?
   2. Do you agree that eReaders and phone apps make short stories more appealing?

He and I had a long talk about this over twitter, and it really got me thinking.

So, with that in mind - I put it to you, the SF Signal readers: Do you read short fiction?

If yes - how and where? By this I mean - do you subscribe to magazines? (Which ones?) Are you buying anthologies? Trolling the web? (What are your favorite sites?)

Do you use an eReader? What kind? What does your short fiction library look like? What do you like about your eReader & what do you wish were different?

Nosy minds want to know...

Svi se slažu kako je Michael Moorcock zaista old-skul džentlmen, pa je tim žešća kontroverza oko pikanterija u njegovoj priči Stories.
Za žene Filipa Dika to se baš i ne bi moglo reći, ali garant će ova bio biti pikantno štivo.

Nano lansiran!

The table of contents for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Five edited by Johnatahn Strahan has been posted.

   1. "Elegy for a Young Elk" by Hannu Rajaniemi
   2. "The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains" by Neil Gaiman
   3. "Seven Sexy Cowboy Robots" by Sandra McDonald
   4. "The Spy Who Never Grew Up" by Sarah Rees Brennan
   5. "The Aarne-Thompson Classification Revue" by Holly Black
   6. "Under the Moons of Venus" by Damien Broderick
   7. "The Fool Jobs" by Joe Abercrombie
   8. "Alone" by Robert Reed
   9. "Names for Water" by Kij Johnson
  10. "Fair Ladies" by Theodora Goss
  11. "Plus or Minus" by James P. Kelly
  12. "The Man With the Knives" by Ellen Kushner
  13. "The Jammie Dodgers and the Adventure of the Leicester Square Screening" by Cory Doctorow
  14. "The Maiden Flight of McAuley's Bellerophon" by Elizabeth Hand
  15. "The Miracle Aquilina" by Margo Lanagan
  16. "The Taste of Night" by Pat Cadigan
  17. "The Exterminator's Want-Ad" by Bruce Sterling
  18. "Map of Seventeen" by Christopher Barzak
  19. "The Naturalist" by Maureen McHugh
  20. "Sins of the Father" by Sara Genge
  21. "The Sultan of the Clouds" by Geoffrey A. Landis
  22. "Iteration" by John Kessel
  23. "The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn" by Diana Peterfreund
  24. "The Night Train" by Lavie Tidhar
  25. "Still Life (A Sexagesimal Fairy Tale)" by Ian Tregillis
  26. "Amor Vincit Omnia" by K.J. Parker
  27. "The Things" by Peter Watts
  28. "The Zeppelin Conductors' Society Annual Gentlemen's Ball" by Genevieve Valentine
  29. "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window" by Rachel Swirsky

The table of contents for The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2011 Edition edited by Rich Horton has been posted:

   1. "The Fermi Paradox is Our Business Model" by Charlie Jane Anders, (Tor.com)
   2. "Stereogram of the Gray Fort, in the Days of Her Glory" by Paul M. Berger (Fantasy Magazine
   3. "Under the Moons of Venus" by Damien Broderick (Subterranean)
   4. "Arvies" by Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed)
   5. "Braiding the Ghosts" by C.S.E. Cooney (Clockwork Phoenix)
   6. "Amor Fugit" by Alexandra Duncan, F&SF )
   7. "The Green Book" by Amal El-Mohtar (Apex Magazine )
   8. "No Time Like the Present" by Carol Emshwiller (Lightspeed)
   9. "The Interior of Mr. Bumblethorn's Coat" by Willow Fagan (Fantasy Magazine)
  10. "The Thing About Cassandra" by Neil Gaiman, Songs of Love and Death )
  11. "The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerophon" by Elizabeth Hand (Stories)
  12. "The Red Bride" by Samantha Henderson, (Strange Horizons )
  13. "Holdfast" by Matthew Johnson (Fantasy Magazine)
  14. "The Other Graces" by Alice Sola Kim (Asimov's)
  15. "Merrythoughts" by Bill Kte'pi (Strange Horizons)
  16. "The Sultan of the Clouds" by Geoffrey A. Landis, Asimov's )
  17. "Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain" by Yoon Ha Lee, Lightspeed)
  18. "Abandonware" by An Omowoyela (Fantasy Magazine)
  19. "Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance" by Paul Park (F & SF)
  20. "Amor Vincet Omnia" by KJ Parker (Subterranean)
  21. "Dead Man's Run" by Robert Reed (F & SF)
  22. "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window" by Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean)
  23. "The Word of Azrael" by Matthew David Surridge (Black Gate)
  24. "A Letter from the Emperor" by Steve Rasnic Tem, Asimov's)
  25. "The Things" by Peter Watts (Clarkesworld)
  26. "Bloodsport" by Gene Wolfe (Swords & Dark Magic)
  27. "The Magician and the Maid and Other Stories" by Christie Yant (The Way of the Wizard)
  28. "Standard Loneliness Package" by Charles Yu (Lightspeed)

Da ne zapostavimo braću Ruse,  . brine se Lavie Tidhar:

    The Russian science fiction and fantasy writer Sergey Lukyanenko (of the "Night Watch" fame) just reported on his blog (Attn, it is in Russian: http://dr-piliulkin.livejournal.com/233826.html) the results from a small experiment on e-book sales.

    Actually, the experiment is not that small – apparently he asked the readers of his blog (http://dr-piliulkin.livejournal.com/) to pay him 1 Russian ruble (about 0.03 US dollars, as of Nov 29, 2010) to support his writing. In return he promised to release a free piece of his writing. Many of his books are already freely available over the net, albeit without his approval. Also, he wants to test if the donations could be sufficient to support a SFF writer.

    He is not pressed for money so he promised to donate the income to some charity, and after the test was over he said he would even match every ruble to double to donation to the charity. The donations are collected via some Russian analog of PayPal (PayPal doesn't work in Russia, or rather you can pay with it, but you can't draw real money).

    The post was read by nearly 52,993 people. It is not clear if multiple visits were accounted for, i.e. via IP checks. Lukyanenko points out that this number is higher than his typical number of readers which is about 25,000.

    Donations from 2640 people were received, for 6404 rubles (about 200 US dollars) in total. Many people donated more than the one ruble he asked for.

    It appears that only about 5% of the readers are willing to pay money to support their favorite writer.

    Lukyanenko draws two conclusions:

    (1) A new writer in Russia typically sells 5000-7000 copies. If only 5% of the readers are willing to support him or her, there is no hope to sustain a writing career via donations.

    (2) An established writer like Lukyanenko himself sells 200,000 copies (the blog readers mention that the typical cover price is 250-300 rubles). He doesn't quote his income but he implies that it exceeds by far what he would have made if he was getting only the full cover price for 5% of the sales.

    Finally,  Lukyanenko said that the low response level didn't surprise him, but that nevertheless he will release to the readers a piece of his work for the money that they have sent him.

    * * *

    It is a curious experiment and it does give some food for the thought. The low returns are not a surprise to me given the state of the Russian economics, and the low fraction of people would Internet access, with respect to the West. However, I suspect that with time the public consciousness of the readers will cause more and more people to reach for legal e-books and to become more ... accustomed to the concept of supporting their favorite artists.

    It is interesting to compare this "study" to the on-going project "With A Little Help" (http://craphound.com/?p=2360) of Cory Doctorow.

Zanimljivo Ali od toliko naroda, da samo pišljivih dve hiljade i kusur daje pare...Baš crnjak.

TOC: 'The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Five' edited by Johnathan Strahan (UPDATE: w/ Free Fiction Links!)

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/12/toc-the-best-science-fiction-and-fantasy-of-the-year-volume-five-edited-by-johnathan-strahan/

e, da, super. stavili su linkove za free fiction i na Hortnov TOC.

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/12/toc-the-years-best-science-fiction-fantasy-2011-edition-edited-by-rich-horton-w-free-fiction-links/

The nominees for the 4th Annual Black Quill Awards have been announced:

DARK GENRE NOVEL OF THE YEAR

(Novel-length work of horror, suspense, or thriller from a mainstream publisher; awarded to the author)


# A Dark Matter by Peter Straub (Doubleday)
# Kraken by China Miéville (Del Rey) [Read the SF Signal review.]
# Sparrow Rock by Nate Kenyon (Leisure / Bad Moon Books)
# The Caretaker of Lorne Field by David Zeltserman (Overlook Hardcover)
# The Passage by Justin Cronin (Ballantine)
# Under the Dome by Stephen King (Scribner)


BEST SMALL PRESS CHILL
(Novel or novella published by small press publisher; awarded to the author)

   * A Book of Tongues by Gemma Files (ChiZine Publications)
   * Dreams in Black and White by John R. Little (Morning Star)
   * Invisible Fences by Norman Prentiss (Cemetery Dance)
   * The Castle of Los Angeles by Lisa Morton (Gray Friar Press)
   * The Wolf at the Door by Jameson Currier (Chelsea Street Editions)

BEST DARK GENRE FICTION COLLECTION
(Single author collection, any publisher; awarded to the author)

   * Blood and Gristle by Michael Louis Calvillo (Bad Moon Books)
   * In the Mean Time by Paul Tremblay (ChiZine Publications)
   * Little Things by John R. Little (Bad Moon Books)
   * Occultation by Laird Barron (Night Shade Books)
   * Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse by Otsuichi (VIZ Media LLC)

BEST DARK GENRE ANTHOLOGY
(Multi-author collection, any publisher; awarded to the editor)

   * Dark Faith Edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon (Apex Publications) [Read the SF Signal review.]
   * Dead Set: A Zombie Anthology Edited by Michelle McCrary and Joe McKinney (23 House)
   * Haunted Legends Edited by Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas (Tor)
   * Horror Library IV Edited by RJ Cavender and Boyd E. Harris (Cutting Block Press)
   * When The Night Comes Down Edited by Bill Breedlove (Dark Arts Books)

BEST DARK GENRE BOOK OF NON-FICTION
(Any dark genre non-fiction subject, any publisher; awarded to the authors or editors

   * Horrors: Great Stories of Fear and Their Creators by Rocky Wood (McFarland)
   * I Am Providence: The Life and Times of HP Lovecraft by S.T. Joshi (Hippocampus Press)
   * Night of the Living Dead: Behind the Scenes of the Most Terrifying Zombie Movie Ever by Joe Kane (Citadel)
   * The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti (Hippocampus Press)
   * Thrillers: 100 Must Reads Edited by David Morrell and Hank Wagner (Oceanview Publishing)

BEST DARK SCRIBBLE
(Single work, non-anthology short fiction appearing in a print or virtual magazine; awarded to the author)

   * "Bully" by Jack Ketchum (Postscripts 22/23)
   * "Goblin Boy" by Rick Hautula (Cemetery Dance #63)
   * "Secretario" by Catherynne M. Valente (Weird Tales, Summer 2010)
   * "The Things" by Peter Watts (Clarkesworld, January 2010)
   * "We" by Bentley Little (Cemetery Dance #64)

BEST DARK GENRE BOOK TRAILER
(Book video promoting any work of fiction or non-fiction; awarded to the video producer or publisher)

Neverland / Produced by Circle of Seven Productions (for the book by Douglas Clegg)


Neverland

Niall Harrison je sastavio preliminarnu listu:

    Top Ten SF Novels 2001-2010 by British Writers

    1. The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall
    2. Maul by Tricia Sullivan
    3. Natural History by Justina Robson
    4. Spirit by Gwyneth Jones
    5. Life by Gwyneth Jones
    6. Bold as Love by Gwyneth Jones
    7. City of Pearl by Karen Traviss
    8. The Year of Our War by Steph Swainston
    9. Living Next-Door to the God of Love by Justina Robson
    10. In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield

    Top Ten SF Novels 2001-2010 by American Writers

    1. Maul by Tricia Sullivan
    2. The Time-Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
    3. Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
    4. Lavinia by Ursula K Le Guin
    5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
    6. Passage by Connie Willis
    7. Spin State by Chris Moriarty
    8. Nekropolis by Maureen McHugh
    9= Carnival by Elizabeth Bear
    9= Hammered by Elizabeth Bear

    Top Ten SF Novels 2001-2010 by Writers from the Rest of the World

    1. Farthing by Jo Walton
    2. Moxyland by Lauren Beukes
    3. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
    4= UFO in Her Eyes by Xiaolo Guo
    4= Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
    6= The Etched City by KJ Bishop
    6= Lifelode by Jo Walton
    8. Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
    9. The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson
    10. The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia

Melkore, a gde su tu muškići?

City of Pearl by Karen Traviss. Ova spisateljica je pisala i neke StarWars knjige, zar ne? Ili mi se čini?

Mislio sam da nema potrebe da naglasavam da se lista odnosi na zene. Kao i da su svi romani iz tekuce decenije. kao i da je Niall skoro-pa-bivsi ili vec bivsi urednik Vector-a. Kao i da je Vector... 

Posto od zaka vajde nema moracemo drugacije da se snalazimo 

Starting January 2011, we will be launching our first digital editions of Locus magazine. Subscriptions will be available in, at minimum, PDF format, and we hope to have e-pub and Kindle versions also. We plan to primarily distribute from our own website, though we will be looking into other distribution options as well. Many of our readers have requested digital editions, and we are excited to be able to offer this alternative.

If you use an e-reader, you already know that e-pub format is problematic for magazines, graphic novels, and any documents that are image heavy or use columns. As a result, we have spent several months working toward creating a readable, searchable, and enjoyable e-pub experience for our readers. We have to reformat the layout of the entire magazine each time to produce the digital version, but it's worth the extra work, and as the technology continues to develop (and magazine and graphic novel digital publishing is seeing some serious development right now) we will also continue to fine-tune our own process. Thank you for your patience with us as we make this leap.

We will post more information to this page as we have it. Subscriptions and single-issue sales of digital Locus should be made available both here and on the regular subscription page. Stay tuned!

Regards,

Liza Groen Trombi

Editor-in-Chief
Locus Publications

Gardner Dozois has posted the table of contents for his upcoming anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Eighth Annual Collection:

   1. "A History of Terraforming" by Robert Reed (Asimov's)
   2. "Dead Man's Run" by Robert Reed (F&SF)
   3. "The Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String" by Lavie Tidhar (Fantasy)
   4. "The Night Train" by Lavie Tidhar (Strange Horizons)
   5. "The Sultan of the Clouds" by Geoffrey A. Landis (Asimov's)
   6. "Mammoths of the Great Plains" by Eleanor Arnason (Aqueduct Press)
   7. "The Things" by Peter Watts (Clarkesworld)
   8. "Jackie's-Boy" by Steven Popkes (Asimov's)
   9. "Seven Cities of Gold" by David Moles (PS Publishing)
  10. "Chicken Little" by Cory Doctorow (Gateways)
  11. "Under the Moons of Venus" by Damien Broderick (Subterranean)
  12. "Re-Crossing the Styx" by Ian R. MacLeod (F&SF)
  13. "Elegy for a Young Elk" by Hannu Rajaniemi (Subterranean)
  14. "Chimbwi" by Jim Hawkins (Interzone)
  15. "Sleeping Dogs" by Joe Haldeman (Gateways)
  16. "Seven Years from Home" by Naomi Novik (Warriors)
  17. "And Ministers of Grace..." by Tad Williams (Warriors)
  18. "Sleepover" by Alastair Reynolds (Apocalyptic Book of SF)
  19. "Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain" by Yoon Ha Lee (Lightspeed)
  20. "In-Fall" by Ted Kosmatka (Lightspeed)
  21. "Amaryllis" by Carrie Vaughn (Lightspeed)
  22. "Flying in the Face of God" by Nina Allan (Interzone)
  23. "The Emperor of Mars" by Allen M. Steele (Asimov's)
  24. "The Peacock Cloak" by Chris Beckett (Asimov's)
  25. "The Starship Mechanic" by Jay Lake and Ken Scholes (Tor.com)
  26. "Again and Again and Again" by Rachel Swirsky (Interzone)
  27. "Return to Titan" by Stephen Baxter (Godlike Machines)
  28. "Libertarian Russia" by Michael Swanwick (Asimov's)
  29. "The Shipmaker" by Aliette de Bodard (Interzone)
  30. "Blind Cat Dance" by Alexander Jablokov (Asimov's)
  31. "The Taste of NIght" by Pat Cadigan (Is Anybody Out There?)
  32. "The Books" by Kage Baker (Apocalyptic Book of SF)
  33. "My Father's Singularity" by Brenda Cooper (Clarkesworld)

Quote from: Perin on 12-12-2010, 00:49:44
City of Pearl by Karen Traviss. Ova spisateljica je pisala i neke StarWars knjige, zar ne? Ili mi se čini?

Najpoznatija je po Gears of War adaptaciji iz tri dela. Imam sva tri, ali nisam čitao.

The Heroes Book Trailer

ql je meni ovaj marketing, ali kvalitet bi mogao da se makne od '96.

The Science Fiction Dictionary of New Criticism

Dystopalyptic n.

Dystopalyptic n. Condition afflicting many authors, leaving them unable to imagine or create an actual working future.

Uses: mainstream writers turning to SF are uniformly dystopalyptic.

[Attribution: BT]

Koontz v.

Koontz v. the act of producing an entire novel in the shortest amount of time, for commercial publication.

Uses: I koontzed a fantasy novel last week, but then the publisher asked for it to be darker, so rather than re-write I koontzed another one during the weekend.

Additional use: If the market is saturated in sci fi novels, you can always Koontz a romance or a Western in the meantime.

[Attribution: NY]

Clute v.

Clute. v. to provide a theoretical framework by making up most of the terminology.

Uses: Adam Roberts sure did Clute the hell out of Wheel of Time, didn't he!

ABOUT US:

Here at the Science Fiction Dictionary of New Criticism we attempt to re-Clute SF. Wish us luck.

 

Da li je neko gustirao elektronski Lokus?

Ne? Niko?

Onda nista.

Nego, gledam nesto nominacije za BSFA, ovo je zanimljiv tekst:

http://bigother.com/2010/07/14/blogging-the-hugos-decline-part-1/

QuoteThe revenant steampunk, perhaps inspired by Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999) (which was, of course, itself inspired by the postmodern habit of mashing-up other fictions) has tended to borrow Victorian and Edwardian fictional characters as much as they have borrowed the technology of the era. So there is a late-postmodernist element to this trend, though most contemporary steampunk I've read tends to go for a middle of the road literary style and eschews conscious literary experimentalism, so I'm not sure how much this is a factor. There is the attraction of steam (think how many people are involved in keeping alive steam railways across the UK), it does after all give machinery the semblance of breathing life. But if that were reason enough for this literary trend, then steampunk would have been a major literary movement for the last couple of hundred years. If, however, we contrast the human scale of steam technology with the posthuman scale of digital technology, a visible, graspable, clearly understandable machinery of pistons and levers with an invisible, super-fast, mystifying machinery of bytes and information, then maybe we are on to something. Steampunk represents a decline from the modern, but a decline to something comforting in scale and appearance; a decline from a fractured, computer-controlled society, but a decline to a more ordered, hierarchical social order. Sometimes we want to step away from tomorrow, and steampunk gives us a way to do so that can convincingly claim that it is not anti-technology, but that is rather stylish and fashionable.

And fashion does, of course, have a lot to do with it. The technology that affects most of us most closely and most consistently is transport, what marks the true beginning of the technological age is the ability to travel further, faster, without reliance on human or animal muscle. The obvious icon of steam technology, therefore, is the steam train, which is a feature of any number of steampunk works, from China Miéville's Iron Council (2004) to Robert Charles Wilson's Julian Comstock. But a steam train is a little bit too obvious, steampunk (like all of the fantastic) wants to suggest difference, so the solution is to go for another technology from a slightly later era, a technology that in fact did not work, but hey, this is fantasy, so we can of course pretend that it does. That technology is the dirigible or airship, which has become the obligatory fashion accessory of any self-respecting contemporary steampunk. Just look at the number of book covers that feature an airship as the convenient way of signaling: this is steampunk.

I am far from being a regular reader of steampunk (I have very little interest in such literary fashions), but this April alone I read three novels that employed dirigibles: Pinion (2010) by Jay Lake, Terminal World (2010) by Alastair Reynolds and Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. You can't get away from the damned things. They are romantic, of course, and steampunk is nothing if not a very romantic mode; they are vulnerable (how could a big bag of gas be anything but a perilous means of transport) which makes them a handy device whenever you want high drama, and steampunk is a highly melodramatic mode; and they are a good way of traveling long distances if you don't want to invent something as sensible as, say, an aeroplane, and since steampunk authors come from a culture where you don't have to think too much about traveling intercontinental distances, this is a simple way of inserting their modern world view into their old fashioned world.

Jos jedan dokaz da IQ mase tezi ka minimumu... Pa onda neko kaze da tirazi imaju veze sa kvalitetom 


Posted by Niall Harrison

12 January 2011

Tor.com are running a poll to determine "the best science fiction and fantasy novels of the first decade of the 21st century!" They're also providing a running update of the results. Here they are as of last night:

   1. Old Man's War by John Scalzi - 180 votes (2005)
   2. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss - 135 votes (2007)
   3. American Gods by Neil Gaiman - 127 votes (2001)
   4. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke - 93 votes (2004)
   5. The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson - 88 votes (2010)
   6. A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin - 87 votes (2000)
   7. Anathem by Neal Stephenson - 76 votes (2008)
   8. Perdido Street Station by China Miéville - 70 votes (2000)
   9. Spin by Robert Charles Wilson - 63 votes (2005)
  10. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch - 56 votes (2006)

Three Hugo-winning novels; three sf novels, seven fantasy (or three sf novels, six fantasy novels, and Perdido Street Station, if you prefer; six Americans, three Brits and one Canadian; nine books by straight white men, one book by a straight white woman; reasonable chronological coverage, although the eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that Tor.com's version of a decade includes eleven years.

Quote from: Melkor on 13-01-2011, 22:35:10
Jos jedan dokaz da IQ mase tezi ka minimumu... Pa onda neko kaze da tirazi imaju veze sa kvalitetom 

Pa dobro, bar su PSS i Spin uglasali među prvih deset. I to je nešto.

Quote from: Melkor on 13-01-2011, 22:35:10
...although the eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that Tor.com's version of a decade includes eleven years.

Ha, i ovo mi je novo:

recnik za razumevanje Robertsovog reviewa Anathem-a

REVIEW GLOSSARY

ANNOYLOGISMS. Words invented or new-coined specifically for the purpose of delaying a ridder's passage through a spoilbinder, thereby making the process much more burdensome than it need be. In some communities this term has lost its negative connotations and is used to refer to any defamiliarising or worldbuilding use of invented terminology.

BIG-MACG. A triple layered MacGuffin product, containing a higher proportion of cholesterol than a regular MacGuffin. The consumption of too many Big-Macgs may lead to fanbesity

BLOCKBLOCKER A word coined in opposition to 'blockbuster'; a tekst that assembles massy boulder-like obstacles in the way of a ridder's passage.

CRITIASS. Named for the Platonic dialogue in which Plato gives his eponymous speaker the opportunity to discourse upon Atlantis. Modern day Critiasses devote themselves to deprecating the inferiority of modern imaginary worlds (particularly those in contemporary Fatasy) when compared to the achievements of the classics.

DULLKEEN. An apparent oxymoron. Originally this term was used to criticize writers who imitated certain features of the ancient author 'Tolkien'—specifically his great length, his fondness for coining new words and his simple quest-narrative structures—without imitating his sublimity, profound moral and imaginative engagement or mastery of tone and mood. In later use, when dullness itself became increasingly prized as an aesthetic virtue (cf yawngasm), Dullkeen was taken not as oxymoronic at all, but as something closer to tautology. Eventually all new imitations of Tolkienian fantasy were dullkeen.

FANBESITY. A variant of Fatasy, which may be descriptive of (a) a Fatasy novel itself, (b) to the individual whose diet consists wholly of such teksts, irrespective of their individual body-type, or (c) the state of the genre as a whole.

FATASY. Originally a contraction of the Amglish phrase 'Fat-ass Fantasy novel', the term in present use carries no negative associations and is merely descriptive of a genre in which the very notion of a 'thin fantasy' has become something of a contradiction in terms.

HARI-PARTER. Committing a form of tekstual suicide by increasingly expanding the parts of an ongoing tale until they reach such size that the guts of the story split open and spill all over the ground (see Rowmbling). Painful and grisly.

MacGUFFIN'S. Extremely successful company that provides standardized plot-devices, especially those whose exact composition is a mystery but which are appealing enough to encourage ridders to consume product.

NARRACTOR. A character who narrates. More specifically, a character whose sole focus of characterization is that s/e narrates the story in which they appear. There is usually nothing more to such a figure than a blandly generic niceness and a lot of day-to-day details that contribute to the worldbling of the story.

NEW-FO A new form of UFO. The particulars of the new-fo vary from place to place, but may include twists such that the pilots of the unidentified spacecraft turn out to be us, or that such craft travel not so much from star to star as from Platonic reality to Platonic reality.

RIDDER. An individual who reads a book in order to rid themselves of an onerous spoilbinding. In most recent usage, a person in thrall to a narrative, and usually somebody doomed to the disappointments of anticlimax.

ROWMBLING. Going interminably on and on after the manner of J K Rowling. Particularly applied to tekst that get longer and longer the more famous an author becomes. See also Hari-parter.

SPOILBINDING. A tekst that binds its ridder to its unfolding narrative by withholding 'spoilers'.

STYLESS. Originally this word, a variant spelling of 'stylus', referred to the instrument of writing. In later usage, and in keeping with a general valorization of the 'neutral' or 'ordinary Joe' stylistic preferences of most readers, this became a term of praise for the writer who downplayed 'literary' or 'purple' prose.

TE DIUM. Quasi-religious song in praise of the dullness of enormously elongated narrative faldapiffle.

TEKST. A text (such as a novel) with a high 'technological' quotient that tests--as it might be, the patience, the endurance or the imagination--of a ridder.

WORLDBLING A variety of worldbuilding in which a great many details of an imaginary world are put on rather showy and vulgar display in order to impress upon the ridder the prodigious imaginative wealth of the author. The imaginative wealth of the author, it can be added, is not usually in doubt, although some critiasses, especially those that value restraint, subtlety and inflection, question the judgment of authors who indulge too blatantly in worldbling.

YAWNGASM. A strange circumstance whereby prolonged boredom leads to a state of near ecstasy. Not as unusual as you might think, actually.

Quote from: Melkor on 14-01-2011, 00:13:38

ROWMBLING. Going interminably on and on after the manner of J K Rowling. Particularly applied to tekst that get longer and longer the more famous an author becomes. See also Hari-parter.

Quote from: Gaff on 13-01-2011, 22:59:55

Pa dobro, bar su PSS i Spin uglasali među prvih deset. I to je nešto.

Spin ispao iz prvih 10 

E, a pazi gde je tek The Windup Girl!

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/01/best-sff-novels-of-the-decade-poll-update-0113

Ali zato je Watts preskocio 20ak mesta.

Dobro, ima li kraja ovome?

Quote from: Melkor on 16-01-2011, 20:24:19
Dobro, ima li kraja ovome?

Kraj će doći kad nešto drugo postane hit.

Nema. Skoro su mi poslali Elizabeth Tudor Vampire Slayer. Ili zombie slayer, a Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter? Pomešalo mi se. Uopšte ih ne čitam, inače. Poklonio sam jednom klincu punu putnu torbu.

Quote from: Nightflier on 16-01-2011, 23:19:28
Pomešalo mi se. Uopšte ih ne čitam, inače. Poklonio sam jednom klincu punu putnu torbu.

Quote from: Nightflier on 16-01-2011, 23:19:28
Nema. Skoro su mi poslali Elizabeth Tudor Vampire Slayer. Ili zombie slayer, a Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter? Pomešalo mi se. Uopšte ih ne čitam, inače. Poklonio sam jednom klincu punu putnu torbu.

A ja mislio da je vrh sprdnje Lesbian Vampire Killers...

Jedino sto preostaje je reality sa vampirima.. - In the house of Dracula

Quote from: Usul on 17-01-2011, 01:25:27

Quote from: Nightflier on 16-01-2011, 23:19:28
Nema. Skoro su mi poslali Elizabeth Tudor Vampire Slayer. Ili zombie slayer, a Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter? Pomešalo mi se. Uopšte ih ne čitam, inače. Poklonio sam jednom klincu punu putnu torbu.

A ja mislio da je vrh sprdnje Lesbian Vampire Killers...

Jedino sto preostaje je reality sa vampirima.. - In the house of Dracula

To bi već i moglo da bude zanimljivo. Ali ako je Drakula pravi, a ne emo u kožnim gaćama.

Quote from: Nightflier on 18-01-2011, 11:41:10

Quote from: Usul on 17-01-2011, 01:25:27

Quote from: Nightflier on 16-01-2011, 23:19:28
Nema. Skoro su mi poslali Elizabeth Tudor Vampire Slayer. Ili zombie slayer, a Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter? Pomešalo mi se. Uopšte ih ne čitam, inače. Poklonio sam jednom klincu punu putnu torbu.

A ja mislio da je vrh sprdnje Lesbian Vampire Killers...

Jedino sto preostaje je reality sa vampirima.. - In the house of Dracula

To bi već i moglo da bude zanimljivo. Ali ako je Drakula pravi, a ne emo u kožnim gaćama.

A Riff on the Harper Contract
Posted on January 18th, 2011 by Ursula K. Le Guin

(New language in the termination provision of the Harper's boilerplate gives them the right to cancel a contract if "Author's conduct evidences a lack of due regard for public conventions and morals, or if Author commits a crime or any other act that will tend to bring Author into serious contempt, and such behavior would materially damage the Work's reputation or sales." The consequences? Harper can terminate your book deal. Not only that, you'll have to repay your advance. Harper may also avail itself of "other legal remedies" against you.

From a blog by Richard Curtis.)





* * *




Dear Mr Rupert Murdoch,

Forgive me, for I have sinned.

Because I did not read my contract with your wonderful publishing house HarperCollins carefully, I did not realise my moral obligations.


There is nothing for it now but to confess everything. Before I wrote my book Emily Brontë and the Vampires of Lustbaden, which you published this fall and which has been on the Times Best Seller List for five straight months, I committed bad behavior and said bad words in public that brought me into serious contempt in my home town of Blitzen, Oregon. In fact the people there found me so seriously contemptible that I am now living in Maine under the name of Trespassers W. This has nothing to do with the fact that some parts of my book come from books by Newt Gingrich and other people, in fact quite a lot of them, but everybody borrows from great novelists, because information wants to be free. It was nothing really materially damaging, only just the money and i.d. I stole from the old man with the walker and some things I said about some schoolgirls with big tits back in stupid Blitzen. I have really suffered for my art. I hope maybe you will forgive me and not terminate me and make me pay back the money because I can't because I already had to give most of it to some stupid lawyer who said I had defaulted on a loan and was behind in my child support which is just a lie. That stupid brat never was mine. I am sure you will understand better than anybody else could that the only actual crime I have committed was writing my book. And I believe you will see that it was expiated by your giving me the contract for it and publishing it and making a lot of money out of it. So it is all right, I hope. I really hope so because I have nearly finished the sequel Alfred Lord Tennyson and the Zombies of Sex-Coburg and my agent says it is going to be a blockbuster as soon as it comes back from the person who is rewriting it. You would not want to miss it I am sure! And here in Maine I am paying strict regard to public conventions and morals just like you do. I would not go to a Democrat Convention if they paid me and crime is the farthest thing from my mind. I would feel so terrible if I damaged the reputation or sales of my Work, or your reputation. You are my Role Model.

Please believe me your loyal and obedient author,

Trespassers W.

Da li je mythpunk prvi the new thing na sceni posle New Weirda? Ili je svima preko glave raznih -punkova?



Valenteova je skovala termin. A rasprava je ovde...

Ok, mythpunk ne zvuci... toliko lose, mada je preferiram slipstream (ne u Skrobonjinom kontekstu). A interstitial jeste nekako rogobatno akademski.

U svakom slucaju lepo je videti da Niall Harrison nema problem sa prelaskom na novi posao.

Imaš i fashionpunk. Tako bar nazivaju Grey i Yarn od Armstronga.

The Purpose of Science Fiction
How it teaches governments—and citizens—how to understand the future of technology.
By Robert J. SawyerPosted Thursday, Jan. 27, 2011, at 10:26 AM ET

This article arises from Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, the New America Foundation, and Slate. A Future Tense conference on whether governments can keep pace will scientific advances will be held at Google DC's headquarters on Feb. 3 and 4 .

Science fiction scene.What does science fiction teach us?Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, is generally considered the first work of science fiction. It explores, in scientific terms, the notion of synthetic life: Dr. Victor Frankenstein studies the chemical breakdown that occurs after death so he can reverse it to animate nonliving matter. Like so many other works of science fiction that followed, Shelley's story is a cautionary tale: It raises profound questions about who should have the right to create living things and what responsibility the creators should have to their creations and to society.

Think about that: Mary Shelley put these questions on the table almost two centuries ago—41 years before Darwin published The Origin of Species and 135 years before Crick and Watson figured out the structure of DNA. Is it any wonder that Alvin Toffler, one of the first futurists, called reading science fiction the only preventive medicine for future shock?

Isaac Asimov, the great American science fiction writer, defined the genre thus: "Science fiction is the branch of literature that deals with the responses of human beings to changes in science and technology." The societal impact of what is being cooked up in labs is always foremost in the science fiction writer's mind. H.G. Wells grappled with creating chimera life forms in The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), Aldous Huxley gave us a heads-up on modified humans in Brave New World (1932), and Michael Crichton's final science-fiction novel, Next (2006), brought the issues of gene splicing and recombinant DNA to a mass audience.
Advertisement

What's valuable about this for societies is that science-fiction writers explore these issues in ways that working scientists simply can't. Some years ago, for a documentary for Discovery Channel Canada, I interviewed neurobiologist Joe Tsien, who had created superintelligent mice in his lab at Princeton—something he freely spoke about when the cameras were off. But as soon as we started rolling, and I asked him about the creation of smarter mice, he made a "cut" gesture. "We can talk about the mice having better memories but not about them being smarter. The public will be all over me if they think we're making animals more intelligent."

But science-fiction writers do get to talk about the real meaning of research. We're not beholden to skittish funding bodies and so are free to speculate about the full range of impacts that new technologies might have—not just the upsides but the downsides, too. And we always look at the human impact rather than couching research in vague, nonthreatening terms.

We also aren't bound by nondisclosure agreements, the way so many commercial and government scientists are. Indeed, a year before the first atomic bomb was built, the FBI demanded that the magazine Astounding Science Fiction, recall its March 1944 issue, which contained a story by Cleve Cartmill detailing how a uranium-fission bomb might be built. Science-fiction writers began the public discourse about the actual effects of nuclear weapons (see for instance Judith Merril's classic 1948 story "That Only a Mother," which deals with gene damage caused by radiation). We also were among the first to weigh in on the dangers of nuclear power (see for example Lester del Rey's 1956 novel Nerves). Science fiction is the WikiLeaks of science, getting word to the public about what cutting-edge research really means.

And we come with the credentials to do this work. Many science-fiction writers, such as Gregory Benford, are working scientists. Many others, such as Joe Haldeman, have advanced degrees in science. Others, like me, have backgrounds in science and technology journalism. Our recent works have tackled such issues as the management of global climate change (Kim Stanley Robinson's Forty Signs of Rain and its sequels), biological terrorism (Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl), and the privacy of online information and China's attempts to control its citizens' access to the World Wide Web (my own WWW:Wake and its sequels).

Print science fiction writers often do consulting for government bodies. A group of science fiction writers called SIGMA frequently advises the Department of Homeland Security about technology issues, and Jack McDevitt and I recently were consulted by NASA about the search for intelligence in the cosmos.

At the core of science fiction is the notion of extrapolation, of asking, "If this goes on, where will it lead?" And, unlike most scientists who think in relatively short time frames—getting to the next funding deadline, or readying a product to bring to market—we think on much longer scales: not just months and years, but decades and centuries.

That said, our job is not to predict the future. Rather, it's to suggest all the possible futures—so that society can make informed decisions about where we want to go. George Orwell's science-fiction classic Nineteen Eighty-Four wasn't a failure because the future it predicted failed to come to pass. Rather, it was a resounding success because it helped us prevent that future. Those wishing to get in on the ground floor of discussing where technology is leading us would do well to heed Alvin Toffler's advice by cracking open a good science-fiction book and joining the conversation.

Edit: http://www.slate.com/id/2282651/

Može link za ovaj tekst?

http://www.slate.com/id/2282651/

Zahvatiš bilo koji deo teksta i pustiš da Google nađe gde ga ima; obično prva ponuda bude originalno postavljena verzija.

tekst je infantilno naivan, sa linkom i bez njega.