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

 

Nego, Sfsignal je nominovan za 2011 SFX Blog Awards, pa ako vas volja da glasate za "blog koji vas sprečava da budete produktivan član društva"...   

Nego, kad smo već kod Sfsignala, 'ne radi' mi onaj njihov link za intervju sa Nnedi  Okorafor. Ako neko od vas može to da otvori i postuje ovde, bila bih veri veri grejtful, što bi rekao Mića.

INTERVIEW: Nnedi Okorafor
Jul 7th, 2010 by John Ottinger III.


(c) Nnedi Okorafor
Nnedi Okorafor was born in the United States to two Igbo (Nigerian) immigrant parents. She holds a PhD in English and is a professor at Chicago State University. She resides in the suburbs of Chicago with her daughter Anyaugo.
Though American-born, Nnedi's muse is Nigeria. Her parents began taking her and her siblings to visit relatives there when she was very young. Because Nigeria is her muse, this is where many of her stories take place, either literally or figuratively.

Because she grew up wanting to be an entomologist and even after becoming a writer maintained that love of insects and nature, her work is always filled with startlingly vivid flora and fauna.

And because Octavia Butler, Stephen King, Philip Pullman, Tove Jansson, Hayao Miyazaki, and Ngugi wa Thiong'o are her greatest influences, her work tends to be...on the creative side.

John Ottinger: In Who Fears Death, you describe, in detail, a female circumcision requested and desired by the protagonist. Was this a particularly difficult scene to write, and why did you feel it essential to include in the novel?

Nnedi Okorafor: I felt it was essential to include in the novel because it was part of the story.  . My stories grow organically, so it wasn't something I knew was going to be there until I wrote it. Still, female genital mutilation has infuriated me since I learned about it back in undergrad and the topic has shown up in another novel I wrote (this one unpublished and set in 1920s Nigeria). I do feel that this topic is something that needs to be discussed and protested until it stops. I'm happy that I've added my voice to the collective.

The scene was horribly difficult to write, mainly because it was Onyesonwu's story and therefore her actions were her own, not mine. I was just the writer, so I had to watch, with horror, this girl make some very brave, bold, naïve, guilt-riddled choices. Also, that scene was tough to write because of the details. I felt that if I was going to go there, then I had to go there and when I got there, I did not like it there at all.

JO: Who Fears Death is a tragic story of a powerful tragic heroine. It is important to write tragedies? Why?

NO: Is it tragic? Really? I admit, I love a good tragedy. Hamlet remains my favorite Shakespeare play. I'm fond of "end of the world" stories and stories where everyone dies by the end. Maybe that's part of why I love Stephen King so much, ha ha ha. But Who Fears Death, to me, when I finished it...REALLY finished it, was uplifting. By the end, it all made sense, it all came together and there was truth and justice. Though it was not at all what I expected.

That said, I do find tragic stories to be important. Life doesn't always end happily. And the ending is not often the purpose of the story. Sometimes it's how you got there. Also, the purpose of stories shouldn't only be to opiate. There is darkness in the world, as there is light. Sometimes the light wins. And sometimes the darkness does, too.

JO: In Paul Di Filippo's review of Who Fears Death he states that "as a science fiction novel, the book is exiguous and unfulfilled" meaning that though the setting is a future Africa, all of the focus of the novel is on the magical and mystical side. Could you explain why you do little with the science fictional elements in the story?

NO: As a what? As a science fiction novel? Oh, there are rules for that? I didn't know. Heh, if you haven't noticed by now, I'm not so good at following rules. When I was in high school, I remember getting into a huge fight with my trigonometry teacher. She took points off my test because though I'd arrived at the right answer, I didn't follow her rules. I'd used my own rules because, well, I felt my way was better. Hmm, yes, I'm reminded of that here.

Who Fears Death wrote itself. It wasn't following any template. Plus I don't think Onyesonwu was all that concerned with the fact that her capture station was nuclear powered or that there was Sector-C level android-created nanotechnology coded into the adamantium-enhanced scalpels used to slice off a girl's clitoris. The first part of that sentence is true, the second part is not.

While writing, I knew the details about the technology of this novel's world. I knew clearly what happened to the earth, etc. However, I did not feel it necessary to explain everything in the novel. Is Who Fears Death science fiction? Why does it matter?

JO: In writing this often somber story, how did you keep yourself grounded, keep yourself from despair as you encountered the injustices you so eloquently elucidate over and over again?

NO: Onyesonwu's temper often kept me laughing. There were some things she did that just cracked me up. She's such a spit fire. And I admit, I can relate. Also, the people she meets, the relationships she develops, though there is much despair she has to deal with, there is a lot of love, too.

When I had to write an especially dark scenes, however, and I was overcome with everything she was feeling, I would go to the gym and work out really hard or I'd hang out with my daughter. That girl is pure sunshiny energy. Then there were the times where I had to simply wade through the despair. I had nightmares and there were times where I was deeply sad. But this novel is deeply connected to our world. Many of these things are happening right now and being emotionally connected seemed the least I could do.

JO: In your Big Idea post at John Scalzi's Whatever, you mention that your intent in writing this book was to present a good story. What makes for a good story?

NO: There is no definition; you just know it when you see it. For me, a good story will make my hour on the Stairmaster 100 percent painless. I won't even notice that I've just killed thousands of calories because I wasn't there, because the story took my mind elsewhere. THAT'S a good story.

JO: What first drew you to science fiction and fantasy and why do you choose to write in this genre?

NO: I didn't grow up specifically reading science fiction or fantasy. I read whatever drew my eye in the library. I had a habit of not looking at category labels when I was there. So I read science fiction, fantasy, horror, nonfiction, literary fiction, whatever. I do the same thing when I'm reading. I have a bad habit of skipping over chapter titles (which can be a problem. Worst example for me was when I was reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver).

Nevertheless, I naturally view the world as a magical place. When I started writing fiction, though I was writing "realism", there was always magic. As the years passed, my stories grew more and more magical and people started calling it fantasy. So that's what it became.

As for the science fiction aspect, that started with my NEED to see Africa presented in the future. I was sick of seeing it presented as a place of the past that enslaved Africans left behind or a primitive exotic dark place that the main character visited. The Africa that I knew (which was Nigeria) was very much in the present and on the edges of the future. So I started writing about my vision of Africa's future. I love technology, so then I started playing with that, too. Also in the last two years or so, I've gotten a lot of encouragement from John Joseph Adams and Jonathan Strahan. I think my taste for science fiction will only grow stronger.

JO: In your essay for the Nebula Awards blog "Is Africa Ready for Science Fiction?", as you explain the problem with why science fiction has such a small toehold on that continent, you say that "one will have to deliberately combine the concept of 'art as a tool for social commentary and change' and entertainment." Could you explain how an author can do this without swinging too far one way or the other?

NO: If you have to swing one way, let it be toward entertainment. Social commentary for the sake of social commentary in fiction is boring, ha ha ha. But seriously, African literature has always served a purpose first and foremost. The following quote from professor George Joseph in Understanding Contemporary Africa comes to mind: "Rather than write or sing for beauty in itself, African writers, taking their cue from oral literature, use beauty to help communicate important truths and information to society" (304). This has been the tradition. But science fiction will be something completely new. You have to mix in some sugar and maybe something more addictive like literary caffeine. African science fiction cannot follow the old tradition, no one would read it.

JO: If a reader would like to read more science fiction or fantasy by, for, about, or thematically related to Africa, who should they be reading?

NO: For fantasy, there are a few I'd recommend. Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o is one of my all time favorite novels. So is Famished Road by Ben Okri. Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi was pretty good. And Nick Wood has a young adult novel called The Stone Chameleon. Science fiction is far scarcer. I highly recommend Lauren Buekes' Moxyland. She has a new one out that I need to get my hands on called Zoo City. There are others I listed in my essay, "Can you define African Science Fiction?".

A few non-speculative African novels I'd recommend to speculative fiction readers would be Things Fall Apart, The Joys of Motherhood, Half of a Yellow Sun, The Palm Wine Drinkard, Infidel, Waiting for an Angel, Petals of Blood, and Woman at Point Zero.

JO: Where can readers find you online?

NO: I've grabbed many of the "Nnedi" user names. They can find me on facebook, twitter, my blog, and my website, Nnedi.com.

Probala dovoljno dugo da sacekas?

Author Spotlight: Nnedi Okorafor

by John Joseph Adams

In this Author Spotlight, we asked author Nnedi Okorafor to tell us a bit about the background of her story for Lightspeed, "Spider the Artist."



Nnedi OkoraforOkorafor tells us that the story is about a Nigerian woman changed by her own creativity and how human beings often suffer the consequences of their choices. "One day a lonely but artistically gifted woman named Eme unexpectedly finds a way to communicate with lethal machines built to guard the oil pipelines," Okorafor says. "Her life is nourished and changed by her encounters with this one unique machine."

The summer Okorafor wrote this story was a summer of spiders. "They seemed to be lurking all over my house," she says. "I'm terrified of spiders. Irrationally terrified. Alan Dean Foster and I are always talking back and forth via email and one day he said, something like, 'You should write a story about them.' So I got to thinking. Then I saw the film Transformers. There was a moment where one of the Transformers got its head knocked off and the main character kicked it some feet away. The head sprouted legs and scrambled away like a spider. That image was the genesis of the Zombies in 'Spider the Artist.'"

The story is personal to Okorafor because as a Nigerian and a human being, she finds what is happening in the Niger Delta and in Nigeria as a whole when it comes to oil is disgusting. "The Biafran Civil War of the late 60s and early 70s which resulted in the death of a million Igbos—a Nigerian ethnic group. I am Igbo—was one of the world's first wars over oil," she says. "My parents immigrated because of this war. They had not intended to stay in the US when they initially came here for medical and post-grad school."

Nigeria is one of the top oil producing countries in the world. "Yet this fact has been more like a curse than a blessing," Okorafor says. "The Niger Delta has one of the highest concentrations of biodiversity on earth, yet it is an environmental, political and social mess. Oil spills, gas flares, pipeline explosions, poor land management, human rights abuses, the oil companies and the Nigerian government could care less about the land or people. Mind you, Nigeria is the United States' fifth largest oil supplier. So I'm interested in this issue for many reasons."

Okorafor says that the idea that the Nigerian government and foreign industries would create murderous robots to protect their money-making endeavors at the expense of civilians is very believable. "And the idea that such a plan would backfire in some unsuspected way, well, that's quite believable, too," she says.

Much of what Okorafor writes tends to have an environmental theme and tends to be politically charged in some way. "The current situation in Nigeria is highly volatile," she says. "There are militants in the delta region who are kidnapping and sometimes killing oil workers, they are blowing up pipelines and assassinating officials. When things heat up over there, gas prices go up here in the US. This kind of situation cannot last long. Change is inevitable."

Nastavci Tregilisove trilogije Milkweed biće pomereni za 2012. Na svom sajtu piše o problemima u izdavaštvu. Zanimljivo je kako se jedan perspektivan pisac sa mnogo debelih veza, koji piše za uticajnu kuču, suočava sa istim problemima kao pisci u Srbiji.

http://www.iantregillis.com/index.cfm?blog=212

Quote from: Melkor on 16-03-2011, 21:08:58

Probala dovoljno dugo da sacekas?

Jesam, ali džaba. (radim na tome, znam da imam nekakav problem; u 30% ovih sličkica što kačite po forumu ja vidim samo nekakvu žabicu u kockici leda...    )

Elem, Niall se bacio na sortiranje budućih klasika, i, kao što se dadne očekivati, prvi naslov ne da mi je nepročitan, nego...   The Carhullan Army (aka Daughters of the North) by Sarah Hall (2007).

Ne znam da li lista podrazumeva ikakvo vrednovanje, ali kako je na listi i Elizabet Mun sa Brzinom mraka i Ursulina Lavinia, rekla bih da bi ovo ipak moglo da bude nekakvo make-or-breake odmeravanje.  

And here's a round table discussion at Stone Telling on speculative poetry, crossing boundaries, and mythpunk again, featuring Sonya Taaffe, Catherynne Valente, Nin Harris and others:
Stone Telling Roundtable: Crossing Boundaries and Blurring Edges

Nancy Kress najzad overila "Sumrak"...  

QuoteSeveral years after everyone else, and in the name of research into current YA novels, I finally read Stephenie Meyers's mega-bestseller of vampire love, TWILIGHT. I finished it with very mixed reactions.

First, if I had been given this book at age 13, I would have loved it. At 13 I read absolutely everything that came my way, and with an absolute lack of taste or discrimination. I would have fallen for the book's central theme: A gorgeous guy falls totally and almost instantly in love with a normal girl, loves her romantically and unconditionally, saves her life over and over, and would risk anything for her. As she does for him. No one else in the world can disrupt their love; no one else even matters much. My overly romantic 13-year-old soul would have thrilled.

But I'm not 13. And so I was put off by that very excess of romanticism; real love does not occur instantaneously; other people and pursuits do matter; no love is unconditional, and shouldn't be. Edward now seems to me not romantic but creepy: breaking into Bella's house to watch her sleep, obsessing over her every move, all but stalking her. She seems to me immature in her disdain for everyone but Edward: the "friends" she makes at school, the father who gives her a home and tries to please her, the entire Olympic Peninsula. The vampirism, in fact, seemed to me more believable than the relationship.

Nor did I like the writing much. Characters seldom just say something: they "growl" it or "decide" it or "agree" with it (even when the dialogue already carries agreement). Everyone glares a lot; that seems to be the author's favorite verb. Meyers isn't bad at description of weather and landscape, but the only words she can find for Edward, used over and over, are "perfect," "magnificent," "gorgeous." He even has a "crooked smile."

Yet millions love this book. They can't all be 13. Go figure.

Unfacts Concerning the Google (Un)SettlementPosted on March 28th, 2011 by Ursula K. Le Guin

In discussions concerning the Google Book Settlement — and now Judge Chin's ruling against it — I keep running into the same misunderstandings over and over.
Some of these are simply mistaken ideas of what copyright is and does. Most of them naturally arise from the very complicated nature of the issues. All have been perpetuated by inaccurate, confusing, tendentious language.

I'll cite these "unfacts" as I come upon them and have time to discuss them. I welcome corrections of factual mistakes and will revise to include them. My opinions are just that, my opinions.

1. Unfact: Everybody who opposed the Google Book Settlement hates Google and everything it stands for and wants to destroy the Evil Corporation root and branch and go back to carving runes on rocks.

Fact: Most of us who opposed the Settlement use Google all the time. Whatever misgivings we may have about corporate control of information, Google's performance in offering access to information without strings attached has so far been admirable and immensely impressive. And most of us strongly favor the idea of a free digital library.
The problem is that Google saw fit to defy copyright law by digitalizing works without permission from the copyright holders.

Discussion: I don't understand why Google did what they did. If they'd just done it right – followed their own motto "Don't be evil!"
I know... the Library of Alexandria consisted mostly of stolen books taken by force from the libraries of subject cities. But in this case there was no need for theft. Many authors would gladly give permission for their out-of-print books to be included in a great free digital library (especially if it paid usage royalties, as European public libraries do). The harm came when Google began digitalizing works without permission, and thus attacking both copyright and moral right.


2. Unfact: Copyright is a selfish grab by rich, famous authors so they get to make all the profit out of their books.

Fact: Copyright is a limited and carefully designed law to protect authors from poverty. It allows authors control over the rights in their books, so that they, like any worker, can make what profit they can from their work.
It's called "copy" right because it involves, literally, the right to make copies of the work.
An author contracting with a publisher sells the publisher a limited piece of her copyright: that is, the right to make copies (i.e., publish the work in a certain form for a certain period of time) in exchange for a share (usually 15% or less) of the publisher's profits.

Discussion: Copyright has existed only since the 18th century. Till then, writers mostly lived by finding and sucking up to a rich patron. Since then, writers have been able to make an independent living... well, dependent on the whims of publishers — but after all, publishers and writers have pretty much the same stakes in the very chancy game of making books.

Only ignorance or irresponsibility dismiss copyright as "irrelevant to the Digital Age." It's needed more than ever, to protect authors from trying to live by selling themselves to corporations or selling their text space to advertisers. Copyright law has to be extended and rewritten to work with the new technologies of publishing. The notion that it's unnecessary makes it all the harder to get that necessary work done.

A lot of people quote Stu Brand: "Information wants to be free." I wonder why they hardly ever quote the other half of Stu's sentence: "It also wants to be paid for."

Information can be free to the user, the reader, and pay a living wage to the originator, the author: Think of the free Public Library. This balance can extend to the Internet, if we can rewrite copyright law to cover the new technologies.
Sneers and sloganeering ain't going to butter the beans. It will take hard and careful work. Can you imagine trying to explain to the current Speaker of the House how it might be done and why it's important to do it?


3. Unfact: Out-of-print and out-of-copyright are the same thing.  "Orphaned" books are out of print and out of copyright.

Fact: A book that is "out of print" is one which no publisher currently claims to have in print and available.
A book that is "out of copyright" is one whose copyright has expired. It is said to be "in common domain." No one can own the rights — anyone can copy it, reprint it, etc. at will.
Out of print and out of copyright are entirely different things. Most books go out of print within a year or two, but their copyright goes on for decades.
An "orphaned" book means a copyrighted book whose copyright owner — author, or estate, or trust, or representative — can't be located.
An orphaned book is usually out of print, but it is NOT out of copyright. It's "orphaned" because the copyright owner can't be located to send royalties to, or ask for permission to excerpt, copy, reprint, digitalize, etc.

Discussion: "Orphaned" books were always a problem in publishing, but didn't become a huge problem until the recent grotesque extension of the period of copyright (called the Mickey Mouse Act because a lobby led by Disney Corp. strongarmed it through Congress.)

Copyright used to be 28 years, plus a 28-year extension at request. It is now the lifetime of the author plus 70 years (that could be 120 years!) — an indefensible crippling of the intention of the Copyright Act, which was to give living authors the rights and profits they'd earned, and then let the book go into "public domain" — become free to everybody.

Under Mickey Mouse, a huge number of books are going to end up orphaned — trapped in useless copyright.

It is (God help us!) up to Congress, with the guidance of the Justice Department, to figure out how "orphaned" books should be handled. The best first step would be to knock down the Mickey Mouse Act and return to a rational duration of copyright. If this is unthinkable, perhaps the Copyright Office should be enabled to declare a copyright void if the copyright owner cannot be found — after a bona-fide search plus a period of say two years.

It's a real problem. But it has nothing to do with Google's illegally digitalizing books without getting permission from the copyright owners.
The use of "orphaned" as if it meant "uncopyrighted" is an obstinate, unfortunate confusion of terms, clouding the whole debate: and many of those who have used it that way surely know better.

And the sneakiest gambit is that of talking as if only orphaned books are being illegally digitalized. All the time the Settlement has been in the courts, Google has been blithely going ahead digitalizing any book it wanted without obtaining permission, let alone contractual terms. (I can attest to this, since they have thus pirated several of my books, with no attempt whatever to contact the publishers, my agent, or myself — none of whom are exactly hard to locate.)

Such methodical theft looks like more than corporate indifference to the law. It looks like a deliberate effort to destroy copyright. In other words, the corporation would like to do away with the concept of workers getting a fair share of the profit from their work.

That would "be good" for the corporation. Not good for the worker, the writer — or for readers, or for anybody else.

– UKL

Da li je neko već čitao ovo?
http://www.politika.rs/rubrike/Kultura/Prica-o-postnuklearnom-svetu.sr.html

Прича о постнуклеарном свету


Московски метро, национално светско чудо, инспирација градских легенди, и у великој мери неистражена територија која садржи тајна подземна здања и бункере противракетне одбране, инспирисао је једног од најчитанијих писаца у свету, младог Руса Дмитрија Глуховског (1979) да напише роман у два дела ,,Метро 2033" и ,,Метро 3034".

Обе књиге говоре о постнуклеарној ери и малобројним преживелим људима који обитавају под земљом, управо у тунелима московског метроа, ратујући једни против других, као и против бића која су мутирала услед радијације. Глуховски је јуче посетио Графички атеље ,,Дерету", свог београдског издавача, и показао да је не само зрео писац већ и сјајан саговорник.

Наиме, четири године живео је и школовао се у Израелу, био ратни извештач из ове земље, као и из Абхазије, радио на Радио Русији, ТВ Дојче веле и на Еуроњузу, као специјални извештач из Кремља. Говори пет језика.

Оно што је оригинално у вези са књижевним пројектом ,,Метроа" јесте интерактивни приступ Глуховског писању ових књига. Како је објаснио, први роман није могао одмах да објави и због тога га је поставио на Интернет, и то бесплатно. Како су се поглавља књиге низала онлај, читаоци су почели да сугеришу одређена литерарна решења, мењајући фабулу. Замерили су аутору што је ,,убио" главног јунака Артема, хероја који се пробија кроз читав метро како би спасао своју станицу, тако да га је ипак ,,оставио у животу".

– Књига као Интернет и мултимедијални пројекат ,,Метро" постали су инспиративни и за друге писце, тако да је само у Русији, Белорусији и Украјини објављено четрнаест књига, наставака приче о постнуклеарном свету. ,,Метро" се шири и на друге земље, па ће Италијан Тулио Еволеде објавити роман о Венецији и Риму после Трећег светског рата. У својим срединама исто ће учинити и неки кубански, индијски, британски и немачки писци, критикујући пре свега нашу савременост, рекао је Глуховски.

Покушавајући да жанровски одреди роман ,,Метро 2033" Глуховски се опредељује за одредницу еклектичког, због тога што прича садржи елементе антиутопије, урбаних митова и фантастике, социјалну критику.

– Почео сам да пишем књигу када сам имао седамнаест година, а завршио је са двадесет четири. У основи, у њу сам уткао све што ми се дешавало, сва осећања и мисли, и приметна је еволуција језика и симболике, од првих до последњих поглавља. Наставак ,,Метро 2034" написао сам после пет година. То је био ризичан подухват, јер публика је већ имала очекивања после првог дела. Реч је о причи у стилу француско-америчког ноара – објашњава Глуховски у разговору за наш лист.

Као оличење наде у свеопштем уништењу, у причи ,,Метроа 2034" истиче шеснаестогодишњу девојку Сашу, која је читав живот провела у станици, затворена, због оца, политичког егзиланта.

– Моја је идеја симболично значење московског метроа, и то не као пакла, већ као чистилишта. Човек уништава свет који није створио и који му не припада. Они који су преживели Трећи светски рат и нуклеарну катастрофу прогнани су у подземну железницу, као у чистилиште. Затим су суочени са тестом у којем треба да покажу да су и духовно напредовали. У таквом окружењу Саша је оличење друге шансе и наде у будућност. Међутим, главно је питање може ли она својом наивношћу променити Хантера, човека који има монструма и убицу у себи – каже Глуховски.

– Ако је прва књига била блиска научној фантастици, друга има религиозну перспективу исте приче. Прва говори о мутантима који прете људској раси, друга та иста бића описује као анђеле које је Бог послао како би искушао човека. Ако човек пронађе начин да са њима склопи мир, онда заслужује спасење, додаје затим наш саговорник.

Не изражавајући поверење у људску природу, Дмитриј Глуховски сматра да су људи способни за делимичне промене само после великих траума:

– Био је потребан Први светски рат како би била основана Лига народа, али праве лекције из овога рата нису биле научене. Немачка је била понижена до нивоа националне трауме, која је затим створила нове монструме рата. Једна од најкултивисанијих нација направила је најужасније злочине. Људи нису научили лекцију ни из Другог светског рата. Гомила се нуклеарно наоружање које би сигурно могло да уништи читав свет. Само је страх од таквог уништења обезбедио период дуге и релативне стабилности. Американци се боре против нација које немају нуклеарно наоружање, у Ираку је страдало толико цивила. Исто гледамо сада и у Либији, иако је Гадафи покварењак. Не мислим да је човек способан да учи на сопственим грешкама.

Глуховски наставља да пише у свом субверзивном стилу, а предмет његове осуде тренутно је родна Русија.

– Путин тврди да се бори против олигарха за праведнију социјалну државу, а уместо тога окружио се својим школским друговима, џудо партнерима и послушницима – истиче Глуховски.

Пре пола године Глуховски је објавио књигу ,,Приче о домовини" у којој, како каже, критикује и руску корупцију, цензуру на телевизији, намештене изборе, монопол моћи, марионетске политичке партије у марионетском парламенту.

Марина Вулићевић


објављено: 29.03.2011.

Imaš na http://www.znaksagite.com/diskusije/index.php?topic=8851

Pavle je pisao prikaz, valjda za popboks.

Read all about it u Emitoru.

A imaš i poziv za pisanje u tom svetu na http://www.znaksagite.com/diskusije/index.php?topic=10064

Quote from: varvarin on 29-03-2011, 11:55:50
Da li je neko već čitao ovo?

Ja bih rado čitala kad bi mi neko dao (ili pozajmio) knjigu, cijena je sitnica, oko 1500 dinara...

Fans of epic fantasy are used to long series - The Wheel of Time & The Sword of Truth come to mind. But I don't know that even the most hard core fantasy fan would read 51 books in a series without some complaint.

I bring this up because Final Crisis is the series that set the stage for several stories that came after, including Battle for the Cowl and Blackest Knight and, eventually, The Return of Bruce Wayne.

Final Crisis was horrible. Absolutely freaking horrible. It's one of those rare times when I wanted to track down those responsible and extract from their lives the time stolen from my own while reading it. That's how bad it was. Superman battles Space Vampires - how's that for bad?

It culminated with Batman shooting Darkseid, who uses his Omega Beams in retaliation. Think of Omega Beams like Balefire (keeping the whole Fantasy/Wheel of Time thing going here) - Since he is a god, Darkseid can use his Omega Beams to essentially erase you from existence. There is no coming back from that.

Unless, of course, you're a major character in a comic book universe and worth, all on your own, billions of $$$'s in future book sales. Then you 'return'...

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne (Hardcover, 232 grueling pages, Publisher: DC Comics)

Ovo je jedno od glupljih poredjenja koje sam ikad video. Da, isto je knjiga od 1000+ strana i DCijev superherojski strip. Mada, njima mozda i jeste.

Quote from: Melkor on 31-03-2011, 21:52:06
Mada, njima mozda i jeste.

ha. da nije to jelou brik road ka...? 

Kako god da okreneš, čovek je u pravu:

Quote from: LiBeat on 31-03-2011, 18:56:25

Final Crisis was horrible. Absolutely freaking horrible. It's one of those rare times when I wanted to track down those responsible and extract from their lives the time stolen from my own while reading it. That's how bad it was. Superman battles Space Vampires - how's that for bad?

It culminated with Batman shooting Darkseid, who uses his Omega Beams in retaliation. Think of Omega Beams like Balefire (keeping the whole Fantasy/Wheel of Time thing going here) - Since he is a god, Darkseid can use his Omega Beams to essentially erase you from existence. There is no coming back from that.

U meni je Final Crisis proizveo gotovo fizičku revulziju spram Morisona a činjenica da sam pročitao samo core serijal i tri najvažnija tie-ina je još gora - da sam pročitao svih 50+ svesaka svih tie-inova, ubio bih se.

I slažem se da to nije isto kao čitanje dugačkih fantasy serijala, mnogo je gore.

Elem, trenutno se na sve strane ljudi bave naj-romanima žanrovskih autorica i ovo je samo deo liste naslova u užem izboru: 


Spin State, Chris Moriarty
Maul, Tricia Sullivan
The Year of Our War, Steph Swainston
City of Pearl, Karen Traviss
Dark Space, Marianne de Pierres
Moxyland, Lauren Beukes
Winterstrike, Liz Williams
Bold as Love, Gwyneth Jones    
The Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon
Natural History, Justina Robson
The Time-Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffennegger
Maul, Tricia Sullivan
City of Pearl, Karen Traviss
Life, Gwyneth Jones
Farthing, Jo Walton
The Carhullan Army/Daughters of the North, Sarah Hall
Lavinia, Ursula Le Guin
Spirit, Gwyneth Jones

Ma svaki bloger ima neku svoju listu, a svi se vode samo i isključivo svojim ukusom, mesto ikakvim merilima koje propisuje teorija književnosti. Na primer, nigde nisam video Kej Kenjon, koja je najbolja stvar koja se poodavno desila SFu. Nigde nema ni pomena Krisa Vudinga, koji je u dva navrata pokazao izvanredno spisateljsko umeće, dostojno ma kog dobitnika Bukerove ili Vitbredove nagrade. Nema ni Metjua Stovera - koji doduše nije wordsmith kakav je Vuding ili Martin, ali jeste napisao tri veličanstvena romana koji su ujedno sinteza dva glavna žanra fantastike i potpuno izrugivanje i sa jednim i sa drugim i sa gikovskom tradicijom in general.

Sve je to smuti pa prospi, in general.

Pa dobro, ali ja, ako nista drugo, verujem ovoj grupi "blogera".

Quote from: Melkor on 02-04-2011, 19:04:52
Pa dobro, ali ja, ako nista drugo, verujem ovoj grupi "blogera".

Pazi, ne znam ko je sastavljao spisak koji je Lidija stavila, ali ako je to tipičan primer onoga što nude, ja im ne verujem - makar samo stoga što tu nema Kej Kenjon, Elizabet Ber, Sare Mone i Lejn Robins - četiri verovatno najjača ženska pera fantastike iz prethodne decenije.

Dobro, ja, sticajem okolnosti znam. Ne zelim da se sporim sa tobom, stavise i ne mogu, posto, sem Berove na kasicicu, nisam citao nista sto si naveo ali

Quote from: Nightflier on 02-04-2011, 17:01:45
Ma svaki bloger ima neku svoju listu, a svi se vode samo i isključivo svojim ukusom, mesto ikakvim merilima koje propisuje teorija književnosti.

se, ovako napamet, moze i tebi prebaciti, pogotovo sto sam upoznat sa procesom nastajanje one liste dok ovo tvoje deluje, da naglasim, deluje sasvim pausalno u tom kontekstu.

Quote from: Melkor on 02-04-2011, 21:44:45
Dobro, ja, sticajem okolnosti znam. Ne zelim da se sporim sa tobom, stavise i ne mogu, posto, sem Berove na kasicicu, nisam citao nista sto si naveo ali

Quote from: Nightflier on 02-04-2011, 17:01:45
Ma svaki bloger ima neku svoju listu, a svi se vode samo i isključivo svojim ukusom, mesto ikakvim merilima koje propisuje teorija književnosti.

, se, ovako napamet, moze i tebi prebaciti, pogotovo sto sam upoznat sa procesom nastajanje one liste dok ovo tvoje deluje, da naglasim, deluje sasvim pausalno u tom kontekstu.

Naravno da može. Moje mišljenje nema ama baš nikakvu težinu, sem one koju čitaoci mog bloga ili mojih prevoda ili čega već odluče da mu daju i svaka moja preporuka je besramno subjektivna. Upravo to i hoću da kažem. Nema nade da iko pokrije čitav žanr - i to je moja najveća zamerka. Ja nikada nisam sastavljao spiskove najboljeg ovoga ili onoga te i te godine, već samo najboljeg ovoga i onoga što sam čitao te i te godine.

Elem, kao što rekoh, ovo je samo deo liste, a Melkor zna da je prvih dvanaest naslova uzeto sa Torque Control  , dok sam ostale uzela sa jedne još šire liste koja je uključila i neka dela iz prošlog milenijuma. TC je izabrao 12 naslova, zato što je plan da se obradi po jedna knjiga mesečno – za svaki naslov sledi čitanje, analiza, rivju & sav taj džez. A pošto se biraju "novi klasici" iz prethodne decenije, nema potrebe za žurbom, radi se temeljito, biraju se naslovi za temeljito seciranje, a to će se sigurno preliti i u iduću godinu, pošto je očigledno da su ovde izostali naslovi koji se sigurno neće mimoići. Na primer, Beuksova je na listi sa Moxyland, tako da je logično pretpostaviti da njen Zoo City obavezno sledi, samo nije ušao u ovogodišnji plan. Tako bar ja to vidim a i fer je, jer zbrzavanje bi proizvelo kilav rezultat. Ovo je zapravo ona vrsta pristupa za koju bih volela da serijali imaju, Najtflajere; te face na TC su... pa, face.  

Dalje, lično mislim da će Brzina mraka definitivno biti žanrovski klasik, zbog te genijalne upotrebe žanrovskog alata u svrhu traženja odgovora na pitanje šta to čoveka čini čovekom. EM je vernik, a vernici imaju sklonost da kontempliraju razlike između duhovne i fizičke smrti, plus i ceo tovar egzistencijalnih pitanja koja je ona očigledno sebi postavljala i van ove proze. Moglo je to komotno da bude i mejnstrim seciranje takvih pitanja, ali, sf joj daje upravo ono što mejnstrim ne može – opciju da Lu bira da li da ostane takav kakav je rođen ili da postane neko/nešto drugo, plus opciju da uopšte bira. U mejnstrimu bi se to svelo na izbor koji neko drugi čini za njega, dok ovako, Lu ipak bira sam za sebe. A Munova je očigledno emotivno vezana za taj izbor, otud onaj epilog koji nudi više kao majka i vernik, nego kao autor provokativnog književnog dela; Munova ne samo da zadržava i jednog i drugog, nego i daje na znanje da je onaj prvi, autistični Lu, srećan, pa tako izmiruje dilemu koja je njoj, kao verniku, nesumnjivo veoma bitna: da li je u tom procesu ubijena jedna božja kreacija i na njeno mesto postavljena blasfemična ljudska. Takve dileme o pravu na život iz verskog ugla pretresao je detaljno Miler u Kantikulumu, mada to niko ne pominje sa Brzinom mraka, pominju samo Cveće za Aldžernona, iako po meni Čarli Gordon uopšte nema dimenziju koju Munova daje. Enivejz, stvarno verujem da će se Brzina mraka secirati onako kako se secira Leva ruka tame i vremenom ce postati klasik u tom rangu.          

2011 Science Fiction Hall of Fame Inductees

The 2011 inductees to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame are Harlan Ellison, Vincent Di Fate, Moebius, and Gardner Dozios.

The induction ceremony will be held Saturday June 25, 2011 at the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum in Seattle WA as part of the Science Fiction Awards Weekend, June 24-26, 2011, in conjunction with the Locus Awards and NW Media Arts writing workshops with Terry Bisson and Connie Willis. The museum will also feature exhibits on Battlestar Galactica and Avatar. Further information and tickets to the Science Fiction Awards Weekend are available on the Locus.

Hal Duncan:

"Imaginary Exoticism: Wells, for example. His mechanism: the dissociation of ideas, and their subsequent reassociation with a peculiar state of mind. Examine the question of 'the Future.'"
– Victor Segalen, Essai sur l'exotisme

There's a particularly bold form of the fake that's of import here, what I call the quirk — the core component of strange fiction, born in breaches of narrative modality. The import of a narrative, the judgement of meaning we make on it, isn't flat pseudo-fact, as if we were transcribing a deposition with no concern over the content. Rather there's a constant tension between the narrative and our stance to it: did this happen? could this happen? should this happen? would we have this have happen? To grasp the different modalities that might play in a narrative, we only need to look to the modal auxiliary verbs that set the mood of a sentence: will; is; did; can; could; shall; should; might; may; must. There are four broad types of judgement there.

http://booksandpals.blogspot.com/2011/03/greek-seaman-jacqueline-howett.html

Prepucavanje pisca i čoveka koji je napisao rivju za knjigu. Čitati komentare

Hehe, ja sam to stavio na Moze li biti gluplja  "Who are you really?" mi je najbolji deo 

Salon Futura skiknuo na broju 8... 

Editorial: April 2011

Well, this is an editorial I hoped I wouldn't have to write for a while.

As you probably all know, this is not the best of times to be starting a new business. With all of the economic uncertainty, people are buying less, and that includes books. Fortunately Wizard's Tower was planned to require little in the way of operating expenses. We will be able to keep publishing books (indeed we have two more coming out this month), and running the bookstore. However, Salon Futura is not so cheap to run, primarily because we pay our contributors. I had been subsidizing the magazine because I knew it would take time to build a reputation, but the economic crisis has just hit my other business rather badly and I can no longer afford to do so.

There is enough money in the bank for one more issue, but unless there is some sort of miracle in the coming month then issue #9 will be our last. I'm not going to run a "Save Salon Futura" campaign, because what the magazine needs is regular income, not one small injection of cash. But I will keep looking for sources of funding.

I'll do a proper thanks editorial next month, as there are a lot of people to thank, but in particular I'm very grateful that we did have a small number of regular and supportive readers.

Cheryl

An Overview of International Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2010

compiled by Jeff VanderMeer

compiled by Jeff VanderMeer

Although my year's best selections included some international fiction, I thought it would be of use to compile a few "core samples" of work, mostly in other languages, that my contacts found of particular interest in 2010. This year I decided to exclude Australia and New Zealand because writers from those countries have received extensive coverage in SF/Fantasy media. It's worth noting, too, that the term "International Fiction" or "World SF" requires further specificity of detail, in the sense that some countries have a stronger tradition of supporting non-realistic fiction than others. In addition, some countries have a stronger tradition of supporting their own authors than others. (For example, the Russian books noted represent just a fraction of Russian authors published there.)
I would also note that this is of necessity a haphazard sample — several of my queries went unanswered and some people did not have time to compile lists. Still, an incomplete overview is better than no overview at all. I would welcome any additional recommendations in the comments, and next year we will spread our net much, much wider.
Finally, my heartfelt thanks to the respondents, and to S. Boyd Taylor, who was invaluable in compiling and editing this list.
–Jeff VanderMeer

Brazil, recommended by translator/writer Fábio Fernandes

Paraíso Líquido (Liquid Paradise), by Luiz Bras, pub. Editora Terracota
– Published as a free edition under the auspices of the government of the State of São Paulo, Paraíso Liquido is the latest collection of short stories by Luiz Bras. The curious fact about this book is that Luiz Bras doesn't exist. It's the pseudonym of Nelson de Oliveira, a well-known, award-winning Brazilian writer in his forties who suddenly decided, like the Japanese writers of the Edo period, to change his name when he decided to change his narrative style and genre approach. Two and a half years in the making, Paraíso Líquido presents thirteen stories, ranging from a very unusual first contact (Primeiro Contato) to a fantastic tale during the Crusades (Cruzada), and what is maybe the best story in the collection, Aço Contra Osso (Bone Against Steel). It's also one of the shortest stories in the book, and one of the most intricate. Thirty-one clones play a deadly game inside a mathematical cathedral (a "gigantic system of equations", as the protagonist says in the beginning of the story) reminiscent of Greg Egan or Hannu Rajaniemi. The cathedral is in fact a Guantánamo of the mind, a simulation created for torturing mentally and physically not only those guilty of terrorism but those even slightly suspected of it. Paraíso Liquido has been considered by fans and critics one of the best Brazilian SF collections of the year.

Guerra Justa, by Carlos Orsi, pub. Editora Draco
– A post-cyberpunk conspiracy set in a post-apocalyptic Earth, Guerra Justa studies the consequences of religious manipulation and the nature of reality. Two siblings, Sister Rebeca and scientist Rafaela, are caught in opposite sides of the conspiracy, and must overcome their personal issues to solve together the mysteries behind the Pontifical Cult who rules the world through benevolence but at the same time wages war and ignorance. Orsi, a science journalist and sturdy atheist, is definitely against all religions, but in Guerra Justa he makes a valorous effort to bring the reader a good, entertaining story without proselytism.

Cyber Brasiliana, by Richard Diegues, pub. Tarja Editorial
– In the future, the decadent corporations of the Northern Hemisphere fight for control of the spoils of the old countries, while in the Southern Hemisphere a new utopia is founded. This utopia is composed of three great powers: the Union of the República Brasiliana, the Africanisia, and the Euronova. They have created the Hiperworld: a supernetwork giving people a complex form of augmented reality that affects their entire lives. But is it good? Is this technology alienating humankind from the spiritual realm and turning men into machines?

Bulgaria, recommended by astronomer/writer Valentin D. Ivanov


Fantastika 2009, ed. Atanas P. Slavov and Kalin Nenov, pub. Foundation Human Library
– This is the third volume of an annual anthology launched in 2008. The title is an intentional mix of Cyrillic and Latin letters, forming the Bulgarian generic term for speculative fiction. This volume contains an extended profile of the Bulgarian SF writer Angelina Ilieva and stories by the Bulgarian SF writers Georgi Hristov, Gergana Veleva, Maria Belcheva, and Anton Fotev. Translated stories by John Varley, the Strugatsky brothers, and Dmitry Bilenkin are also included. The book contains a lot of non-fiction — speculative essays about the future, reviews of genre books, and summary of the genre events in Bulgaria for the previous year, as well as lavish illustrations by the Bulgarian SFF painters Stefan Lefterov and Atanas P. Slavov, among others. Over the years, the anthology has become for Bulgarian speculative fiction what the Year's Best anthologies edited by Garner Dozois are for the English language genre scene.


The Unknown Strugacky Brothers, ed. Yuri Ilkov, Aleksander Karapanchev and Vladimir Borisov, pub. ERNOR
– This anthology celebrates the 35th anniversary of the speculative fiction fan club Arcady and Boris Strugatsky, named after the venerable brothers who — together with Stanislaw Lem — still dominate the landscape of the modern Slavic SF. The book is a collection of some fifty short contributions, organized into three sections. The first is a history of the club, the second talks about the connection between the Strugatsky brothers and the cultural life in Bulgaria, and the third is a collection of mini-memoirs and essay about the brothers and their work by people from all over the world.


The Kindness Factor, by Kancho Kozhuharov, pub. Lingea Ltd
– This novel is a Science Fiction time-travel tale where the future needs help from the past. It is also a political thriller and a love story. Last but not least, it's a book about a writer — which allows every aspiring writer to identify with the characters.


The Warm Key of Life, by Aleksander Karapanchev, pub. e-Books
– Few people read science fiction. Few people read poetry. The cross section of these two small groups — on a small national book market — is even smaller. Collections of fantastic poetry are rare, and this book appeared only because of the minimal production costs of modern day electronic publishing. It offers tender and lyrical poetry, reminiscent of the early Bradbury stories.

Czech Republic, recommended by editor Martin Šust


Spěšný vlak Ch.24.12 (Express Train Ch.24.12), by Jan Poláček
– A very impressive novel, maybe the best of the decade. A dark view of society after Germany wins World War Two, but not the stereotypical tale from that type of alternative world.


Vládcové vesmíru (The Masters of the Universe), ed. Ivan Adamovič
– A great anthology with long forgotten stories from the dawn of Czech science fiction literature.


Labyrint (Labyrinth), by Pavel Renčín
– An interesting project, first published online as a serial novel. Later, it became a magazine serial novel and later still was traditionally-published. The story is about the dungeons under Prague city.


Holomráz (Black Frost), by Štěpán Kopřiva
– A very entertaining collection that features a wizard who pretends to be powerful, but in fact is a charlatan. A masterpiece of sarcastic parody.

Denmark, recommended by bloggers/reviewers/librarians Zenia Johnsen and Janus Andersen

Mount København (Mount Copenhagen), by Kaspar Colling Nielsen, pub. Gyldendal
– Kaspar Colling Nielsen's debut shows that even people in little countries can think big. The creation of an artificial mountain south of Denmark's capital city is the starting point for the book — and from that, Colling Nielsen weaves 17 stories that range from science fiction to magical realism and contain both their own stories and a tale of Denmark transformed. The author won the prize for Best Debut in 2010, and Mount Copenhagen has been optioned for a TV series.

Marskens konge, by Alex Uth, pub. People's Press, jr
– Marskens konge is Uth's second book and a sequel — but it is one of the very few fantasy sequels that manages to become a book all of its own. The girl, Fanke, returns from the realm of the Quiet People, the fishlike creatures that are a dark fact of life in the marsh. But everyone seems to agree that Fanke should have stayed to become a bride to the King of the marsh. Society comes together against her while dark forces rise from the waters. A tight, original, and atmospheric mix of horror and fantasy.

De underjordiske, by Thomas Strømsholt, pub. H. Harksen Productions
– After having appeared in several anthologies, fanzines and other places, Thomas Strømsholt finally got a book all to himself — and it is very difficult to compare it to anything else published in Danish in the last century. Thomas Strømsholt writes horror — but in a way that you suspect that he has just returned from dinner with Arthur Machen and M. R. James. De underjordiske contains 19 short stories and is bound to transport you somewhere else entirely.

Drømmetid, by Richard Ipsen, pub. Science Fiction Cirklen
– Longtime fan writer Ipsen has proved his worth as a writer of science fiction years ago with both nerve and style. He may not be the most prolific writer, but stylistically he is often miles ahead of the competition. Drømmetid is mostly science fiction but weaves in into fantasy at times (and sometimes out of it). The string that ties Drømmetid together is Ipsen's beautiful language and imagery.

Diget, by Teddy Vork, pub. Tellerup
– Vork's second book and a shorter piece of historical horror. Diget takes place in the western part of Denmark in the Middle Ages, where every seven years a boy would be buried in the dykes to strengthen them against the sea. Knud is one of those boys and — as he is locked in the darkness — the story shifts between his encounters there and his flashbacks to what happened before. The power of Diget comes from its use of old Danish myths and legends and its refusal to tell us what is waiting there in the dark, just outside Knud's touch.

Finland, recommended by editor/writer Jukka Halme

En tunne sinua vierelläni (I Don't Feel You Beside Me), by Tiina Raevaara
– This Runeberg prize winning short story collection plays with various genre conventions. Stylistically strong stories mix surrealism, the fantastical, expressionism, and science fiction into a mycelium-like subconsciousness that verbalizes the silenced.

Unenpäästäjä Florian (Dream Releaser Florian), by Jani Saxell
– Part mystery, part love story, but all magical realism. While Europe is losing its dreams, Florian (a Romanian Roma living in Finland) has the ability to see into other peoples' dreams — and lead them into those dreams. This near-future thriller also highlights the current plight of European internal refugees and beggars.

Kirkkaan selkeää (Bright and Clear), by Maarit Verronen
– Gripping near-future dystopia on environmental disaster and social inequalities, from the POV of a societal drop-out. Sharp, almost clinical writing from Finland's keenest critic of modern society. Plenty of questions, yet very few answers.

France, recommended by writers Gio Clairval and Edward Gauvin

Rue Farfadet (Sprite Street), by Raphaël Albert, pub. Editions Mnémos
– Panam (slang for "Paris"), 1880: Humans have known and controlled the Old People for a long time. Sylvo, an Elvish private detective in bowler hat, takes pictures of adulterous spouses and deals with cuckolded husbands and jealous wives. Our hero prefers cafés, maisons closes, and cancan dancers to his lackluster job — until, one day, a duke of Panam hires him to disentangle a diabolical plot. Surprising for a first novel, the tone proves both mischievous and profound, swerving between centaur taxis, steam-bikes, and magic.

Plaguers, by Jeanne A. Debats, pub. L'Atalante
– On near-future Earth, all resources are depleted, and all flora and fauna are destroyed. A few adolescents develop "plagues" — abilities to create water, fire, and extinct species — until the plaguers mature and merge to become gigantic creatures with multiple limbs and manifold powers. Mutant adolescents are parked in reservations from which they can escape only when the "externals" request their abilities. But the plaguers are needed when an untested energy source threatens to destroy the planet. This YA novel captures the reader thanks to the well-penned personalities of the protagonists, teenagers who discover love and sexuality in a tragic and disturbing setting.

Druide (Druid), by Olivier Peru, pub. Éclipse
– 1123: Druids rule the Forest, a domain that conceals dark secrets. Obrigan, investigating a strange massacre, faces a power of the blackest kind, poised to cause a fratricidal war. The protagonist eventually discovers that his life is built on lies. This debut novel is a dark tale rich in suspense and action, where ethically ambiguous characters cross the blurred boundaries between good and evil.

Forêts noires, by Romain Verger, pub. Quidam Editeur
Rosée de feu, by Xavier Mauméjean, pub. Du Belial
– Both from small presses (the latter a spec-specific press), both involving Japan.

Germany, recommended by writer Jakob Schmidt

Schaumschwester, by Thor Kunkel, pub. Matthes & Seitz Berlin
– Kunkel's novel is based on the notion that in the near future, humanity is threatened by extinction because people have begun to prefer advanced sex puppets to human partners. To be honest, I dislike the philosophy put forth in this book so much that I did not finish reading it. But I can appreciate that it is among the most relevant German SF novels of 2010. Therefore, with kind permission, I'm borrowing Frank Böhmert's words of praise: "Kunkel is taking us on a tour-de-force through the cultural history of the puppet, always keeping a close eye on his protagonists. His love of the crime pulps and William S. Burroughs is obvious. (...) Finally, a German SF novel that reminds the reader of the great iconoclastic tradition of British SF from the 60s and 70s."

Wenn das der Führer wüsste, by Otto Basil, pub. Pabel-Moewig Verlag Kg
– This alternate history novel about a victorious Nazi Germany was first published in 1966, but has been out of print most years since. In 2010, Austrian publisher Milena finally reissued the book, which represents a fundamentally different take on the well-worn topic. Wenn das der Führer wüsste shows the absurdity of Nazi ideology by further exaggerating all its contradictory elements and letting them clash: it is a surrealistic road trip, with a despicable and pathetic Nazi protagonist wandering through a German Reich that is rapidly falling to pieces after Hitler's death, until finally Germany engages the Japanese in a third world war. An English translation of Basil's novel has been published in 1968 under the title The Twilight Men.

Hinterland, Karla Schmidt (ed.), pub. Wurdack
– This anthology collects 20 SF/slipstream short stories by a broad range of authors, among them well-known mainstream writers like Dietmar Dath, newcomers like Dirk Röse and Jasper Nicolaisen, and writers who are well-known in their community like Heidrun Jänchen, Karsten Kruschel, and Nadine Boos. The common element is that each of the 20 stories is inspired by a song by David Bowie. What makes this anthology special is not only the high overall quality of the stories, but also that it ventures further out into slipstream territory than anything published by a German SF small press in the last few years. Standout stories are Markolf Hoffmann's disturbing Triptychon about a future society where murder is not a crime if the deed is considered to be of artistic value, Pepe Metropolis' Lovecraftian steampunk-story Hinterland, and Erlösungsdeadline by editor Karla Schmidt, a restrained but powerful piece of social fiction.

Ende der Nacht, by Ralph Doege, pub. Deltus Media
– Doege's short fiction has been published in various SF magazines and anthologies over the past few years. Ende der Nacht (End of Night) is his first collection. Most of Doege's stories feature fantasy and/or SF elements, but the focus is always on psychological dilemmas. This in itself is pretty unusual for German science fiction and fantasy, and Doege takes it a step further by repeatedly confronting his characters with virtually unsolvable philosophical problems. Standout stories are Karmamaschine, about a machine that determines if someone is bound to become a criminal one day, Wunden, a frightening and sexual werewolf fantasy, and Im Sog, which contains no fantasy elements, but presents a haunting metaphor for the erosion of childhood memories. While Doege's stories have a tendency to be flawed in one way or the other and are sometimes stylistically overwrought, he is a truly unique and highly recommended voice in German speculative fiction.

Israel, recommended by publisher/editor Rani Graff and writer Lavie Tidhar

Nuntia (Frost), by Shimon Adaf, pub. Zmora Bitan Publishing
– Set 500 years in the future, the Tel Aviv depicted in this novel is a very different place from the vibrant seaside city we know today. In fact, it might be a different city altogether. Strange genetic alterations are discovered in the bodies of some yeshiva students, and a Torah scholar, who might be a scientific genius, is called to solve the mystery. This fantastic futuristic thriller walks on the border of Science Fiction and Fantasy. It is a demanding, not easy, read — but a very rewarding one.

Sequoia Children, by Gon Ben-Ari, pub. Zmora Bitan Publishing
– Nikolina is a sequoia child, which means that when she was born she received, like all other sequoia children, a revolutionary injection that will prolong her life to a thousand years. She is 16 years old and her grandfather, the last holocaust survivor, is about to pass away — but before he does, he leaves her a coded letter that she must solve. But to Nikolina the whole world is one giant code that awaits a solution. Sequoia Children examines myths at large and tells a new one while doing so. This one of the most fascinating novels published in Israel in 2010.

The Day the Music Died, by Ofir Touche Gafla, pub. Keter Publishing
– This modern tale is set in the imaginary town of Innoville, which was an ordinary town until June 26th, 1984. That day a mysterious boy came to town and wrote in a group of files the exact date of each resident's death. Once a resident of Innoville turned 18, he or she was allowed to open the file. From that day on, Innoville became known to everyone as the town where people know when they will die. A few years after the mysterious visit, on her 18th birthday, Dora Matter opens her file — and her life, plans, and everything else becomes overshadowed by the grim news. But, unlike other people, she refuses to let her knowledge change her life, and she seems to be the only one in town who acts that way. In her unique voice, Dora tells a moving and intimate story of growing up and self discovery. Unlike its dire topic, The Day the Music Died is a funny, entertaining story that celebrates life rather than death.

Japan, recommended by translator/publisher/editor Yoshio Kobayashi

First of all, thank you for your concern over our recent tragedy, but most of us in Japanese speculative fiction community are alive and well. Although our publishing industry is based on paper books and is suffering very badly in many aspects — from editing to distributing to the bookstore shelves — our major concerns are the economy itself. Many readers likely won't be able afford to buy books for quite a while. Yet for some people, book reading is still cheap and convenient pleasure under the controlled blackout situation, so we have to keep on.

Last year, 2010, was regarded as a bad year for our SF community as well. We lost major figures in translation. Takumi SHIBANO, the founding father of SF community in Japan passed away in January. Hisashi ASAKURA (nee Zenji OTANI), one of our best translators followed in February. Both of them helped shape our idea of SF and had great influence over our writers, including Haruki MURAKAMI. Death took a heavy toll again following 2009 when Kaoru KURIMOTO and Project ITOH died in the middle of their growing popularity.

Yet, I read a decent share of good novels and my favorite three of 2010 were:

Pistils, by Kazushige ABE
– The Tohoku area, ravaged by the recent earthquakes and tsunami, is the home of an excellent novelist. You might call Tohoku the Japanese south because, although it stands in the northern part of Honshu island, it was defeated in our civil war in the early 19th century. Since then has become a neglected and underdeveloped agricultural outland, rich with legends and myths. Kazushige ABE hails from this part of Japan and is regarded as one of the most ambitious novelists of mainstream literature today — especially after winning Akutagawa prize, equivalent of National Book Award for first fiction. The novel describes the rise and fall of Findhorn — a hippie-like commune in rural Tohoku village where a family with Psi power has been secretly residing for a millennium. It's kind of a Magic realism novel with a small scale hippie dream (our heroine literally uses flower power by tapping into their aroma) and is reminiscent of The Children of Atom by William H Shiras.

Koroyoshi! (Commence!), by Aki MISAKI
– Mainstream writers in Japan have begun to employ fantastic elements more and more in their stories, and the most eminent young writer is Aki MISAKI. In his recent Koroyoshi!, he dovetails into another big trend: sports fiction. In an alternate Japan, people of the defeated　Western Regions camouflage their martial arts and simultaneously keep them alive by creating the sport of brooming. In this sport, a player swings a broom-like stick to sweep confetti into the air and gather it swiftly and beautifully into a pile, while dancing. This book reminds me of another hippie-flavored SF novel from the 80s, The Gameplayers of Zan by M. A. Foster. Sports fiction tends to be a coming of age story, but this one is also an alternate history novel without describing the world. It's a refreshing way to write an alternate history novel. I've been one of Aki MISAKI's most devoted readers, but think this is his best so far.

The Ocean Chronicles (Karyu no Miya), by Sayuri UEDA
– I'm happy to introduce you a genuine genre novel by a very young author, Sayuri UEDA. Due to the plume tectonics collapse (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plume_tectonics), most of the land masses of the world have sunk beneath the ocean. There is a big conflict between the ocean people — who genetically modify themselves to live in the ocean — and the land people — who control the power and resources in the former highlands. The major theme is ecology, but it is also about one renegade diplomat's struggle to save mankind from the next tectonic collapse. The novel reminds me of Frank Herbert and Roger Zelazny, rather than Hilbert Schenk. It's also a bit like Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick, because the author uses telepresence AI technology.

Yoreiden (Tale of Yan Ling), by Kenzo KITAKATA
– A fifteen volume alternate history saga, a sequel to the author's Suikoden (Water Margin), was completed in 2010. This is the tale of rebels who build an independent state in 12th century China, using international trade as their primary weapon.

Fukkatsu no Chi (The Land of Restoration), by Issui Ogawa (2004)
– Though it is not a 2010 novel, I recommend this book for those who might be interested in how Japanese speculative fiction treats a massive earthquake and the restoration afterward. The author describes a scene like today's Japan, where ordinary people perform heroic deeds to revitalize a ravaged planet.

Philippines, recommended by writer/blogger Charles Tan

Neil Gaiman Presents The Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards: Prose Anthology, pub. Sketchbooks Inc.
– This anthology compiles all the winning prose entries of the previous three competitions in the Neil Gaiman-sponsored Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards. There are over 20 stories, including both veteran and new voices, from the likes of Michael A.R. Co, Ian Casocot, Yvette Natalie Tan, Joseph Frederic Nacino, and Dean Francis Alfar. Covers fantasy, science fiction, and horror.

Poland, recommended by translator/writer Jan Żerański


Chocholy (The Chochols), by Wit Szostak, pub. Lampa & Iskra Boża
– A tenement in the city of Cracow. A family, the Chochols, restore an old building and soon create The House — a kind of a living organism, full of hidden tombs, secret passages, and unknown corridors. Here, every recess has its own history, and soon we discover that the outside world is also changing. Wit Szostak's latest novel is a family saga written in magical realism tradition, but it is also a portrait of Polish society after the 1989 transformation. Szostak, the winner of the 2008 Janusz A. Zajdel Award for a short story about Cracow, The City of Tombs, has written his best novel to date.


Wieczny Grunwald (The Eternal Tannenberg), by Szczepan Twardoch, pub. National Culture Centre
– Six hundred years ago, on the field of Grunwald/Tannenberg, Polish and German knights fought in one of the largest battles in Medieval Europe. Paszko, a Polish king's bastard, dies on the battlefield, but death is only the beginning of his odyssey through space and time. As Paszko tries to understand why he cannot die, it seems that the key lies in complicated Polish-German relations. The Eternal Tannenberg, ordered by National Culture Centre as part of the publishing series Shifts of Time (focusing on alternate histories of Poland), may be seen either as a science fiction novel or a metaphysical treatise about two struggling nations. In my opinion it is one of the most significant genre novels of the last decade.


Eremanta, by Joanna Skalska, pub. Powergraph
– Our friends at Powergraph work hard on debuts. In 2009 Robert M. Wegner, whom I wrote about last year, won the Polish Hugo — the Janusz A. Zajdel Award — and I am pretty sure that Skalska is also an author to keep an eye on. Her debut novel, Eremanta, tells the story of Magda — who finds a mysterious book about people living in a hidden Spanish village called Eremanta. The Eremantians do not speak to each other, and, as in Marquezian Macondo, the air around them is filled with magic. When Magda translates the book from Spanish, fiction and reality merge. Of course, Skalska is not Marquez, but her language is very good and her imagination vivid. I am looking forward to read her second book.

Russia, recommended by translator Nikolai Karayev


Dom, v kotorom... (The House Where...), by Mariam Petrosyan, pub. LiveBook
– This thick, almost 1000-page, debut novel narrates the lives of the disabled children in The House, located on the outskirts of the unnamed city. But the children are entities that only look like disabled children — in actuality they are psychics or superhumans or gods. This is the story of a strange, highly mythologized, seemingly immortal society of boys and girls that has no beginning and no end. The House turns out to be continuum in itself, its story is singular. There is no confluence, only flow and rhythm.


Ostromov, ili Uchenik charodeya (Ostromov or The Magician's Apprentice), by Dmitry Bykov pub. PROZAiK
– Based on the real criminal case of the Leningrad Freemasons and set against a backdrop the Soviet mid-1920s, this novel revolves around Ostromov, a swindler who pretends to be an omniscient and omnipotent wizard, and one of his pupils, young naïve Daniil, who is trying to learn the art of levitation. Ostromov is actually an informant for the secret police, who eventually arrest all the members of his lodge. Daniil is the only one left outside the prison walls. That's when the metamorphosis of man into overman begins.


Migrant (The Migrant), by Marina Dyachenko and Sergey Dyachenko, pub. EKSMO
– Our protagonist, nicknamed Crocodile, is captured by the Bureau of Universal Migration Services and carried (allegedly by the consent of his future self) through space and time on the planet Raa. In order to earn citizenship, Crocodile passes an examination called Probe, becoming transformed in the process, and is pulled into a game where the prize is the stability of reality itself. An elaborate adventure SF story, by turns political, ethical, and metaphysical.


Simbionty (The Symbionts), by Oleg Divov, pub. EKSMO
– The ambitious head of the Nanotechnology Institute wants to become President by (literally) making all Russian citizens happy. The key is the teenager, whose body (unbeknownst to him) contains the unique microbots invented by his grandfather, the previous director of the Institute. This Bildungsroman-cum-technothriller earnestly resuscitates "close-range SF", the forgotten genre that flourished in the Soviet literature and dealt with the slightly more sophisticated technology of the near-future.


S.S.S.M. (The Happiest Country in the World), by Maria Chepurina, pub. Krylov
– Partly an ironic fairytale, partly an alternative history, this book is about the USSR of the 1930s that never was: the Utopian country where the happy proletarians fly in the sky, Teslenergo factories transmit electricity across vast distances, food and clothes are free, and so forth. The worker Kraslen becomes a spy in bourgeois Angelica (i.e. UK), contributes to the world revolution, and reanimates the dead Leader. Interestingly, the eponymous country has two symbols, Red Star and Black Square.


Padeniye Sofii (The Fall of Sophia), by Yelena Hayetskaya, pub. Shiko
– Set in the would-be Russian Empire with the values and attitudes of the 19th century and the realities of some distant future, this novel combines a plot in the vein of The Midsomer Murders (or perhaps Twin Peaks) with the Golden Age of Russian literature from Gogol to Chekhov. A young man unexpectedly inherits the estate of his late uncle and soon finds himself entangled with odd neighbors, alien brigands, and enigmatic murders. Past mysteries and present crimes abound.

South Africa, recommended by writers Nick Wood and Sarah Lotz


Zoo City, by Lauren Beukes, pub. Angry Robot
– Zoo City is a densely energetic and engaging story, complex in its structure and narrative, melding and breaking genres with great skill. It is both riveted together and pulled along by a strong but flawed young amaZulu woman called Zinzi December, who has a 'gift' for 'finding things' — and many things she does indeed find, both internal and external to herself. Due to her prior criminal history, she is supernaturally connected to an animal (an 'aposymbiote') — which varies across individuals — and for Zinzi, her animal is a beautifully characterized sloth. Unlike Philip Pullman's daemons from His Dark Materials however, these animals appear to reflect less inherent personality characteristics than act as companions and stigmatizing social markers. The ambivalence in such markers is that they provide comfort, as well as peril and power, reflecting an enforced attachment to the animal world in the otherwise stark urban ghetto environment of Jo'burg. The novel compellingly knits together Zinzi's central detective noir 'missing persons' quest against a background of scientific and traditional African 'supernatural' discourses — historically divided discourses now integrated within a strange — but resonant — South Africa indeed. Although classified as 'urban fantasy' this book sprawls across genre and literary boundaries in a way that will appeal to readers from any literary or genre background. Zoo City is deservedly already starting to pick up nominations for major SF/F prizes, such as the Arthur C. Clarke and BSFA Awards. Beukes has indeed burst prominently onto the international SF/F scene and looks likely to set as many powerful trends as she breaks. She is a creative force of nature – and a truly South African one at that!

Sidekick, by Adeline Radloff, pub.Tafelberg Publishers Ltd
– Sidekick, a YA debut by Adeline Radloff is a witty, twisted, slightly subversive teen novel centering around an unfortunately named teen — Katie Holmes — who is the sidekick to Finn, a flawed 'superhero' who can stop time. Katie shares Finn's talent to inhabit 'untime' — a frozen landscape where only they can move and everyone else remains absolutely still. Katie has to battle with Finn's drug abuse and self-destructive tendencies, her own high school hell, and get to the bottom of the disappearance of several Cape Town school children. It's packed with laugh-out-loud one-liners, and is an original, quirky, and at times shocking novel that has undeservedly slipped under the radar. I recommend it unreservedly.

Deadlands, by Lily Herne, pub. Penguin Books
– Deadlands is a recently published YA South African zombie novel, set in a post-soccer World Cup ravaged Cape Town. In this inventive and gripping book, the World Cup went off a little less smoothly than the real event, being set ten years after a zombie invasion and war that spiked the mid World Cup celebrations. The outcome of this apocalypse is that people are living in segregated enclaves run with dictatorial certitude and power by a priestly caste who call themselves 'Resurrectionists'. The lead protagonist is Lele de la Fontein, trapped between her step-mother's Resurrectionist beliefs, school and a small, underground anarchic anti-Zombie league. Lele learns to take control of her own fate through her alliance with an outlawed splinter group — 'the Mall Rats' — and the novel moves swiftly towards a clever and powerful resolution. It is an assured and engaging story, its subtext perhaps challenging conformity and the deadening power of political oppression, but never losing its inherent sparkle and energetic drive that should make it a hit with teenagers from South Africa and beyond.

Sweden, recommended by bookseller Karin Waller

Lilla stjärna (Little Star), by John Ajvide Lindqvist, pub. Ordfront
– The latest novel by Sweden's foremost horror writer (known internationally for Let the Right One In) is a story about two girls, Theres and Teresa. Theres is thought a miracle by the man who finds her as a newborn baby, left in the woods: she has the purest singing voice he has ever heard. He and his wife raise her in secret, until that arrangement comes to a nightmarish end. Teresa grows up as a "normal" girl, not one of the popular crowd, but with a secret life online and in the library's poetry shelf. Theres becomes famous through a reality/talent TV show and Teresa sets out to find her — and when these two girls meet it's the beginning of a series of events leading to a horror perhaps even more disturbing than any of Ajvide's previous books.

Udda verklighet (Odd Reality), by Nene Ormes, pub. Styxx Fantasy
– Sweden's first real urban fantasy novel is set in Malmö, 3rd largest city and hometown of debut author Ormes. The protagonist is a young woman named Udda whose very vivid dreams turn out to be glimpses of reality — but a strange reality, populated by people other than human. When her best friend Daniel follows the clues of one of these dreams he goes missing, and Udda's quest to find and save him shows her more of the strange and dangerous things existing in the middle of her everyday city: shapeshifters, oracles, vampires who feed off memories, "pilots" who guide not through water but through layers of time, and much more. Well-written, entertaining and a fresh and welcome take on the genre.

Vem är Arvid Pekon? (Who Is Arvid Pekon?), by Karin Tidbeck, pub. Man Av Skugga
– This first book by Clarion Writers Workshop alumnus Tidbeck is a weird short story collection. In the title story, a telephone operator makes some very strange connections and ends up being switched out of existence. In Beatrice, a woman falls in love with a steam engine and bears its child, who is raised by a man in love with an airship. In Mister Cederberg, a rotund gentleman tired of being compared to a bumble-bee decides that well, if bumble-bees can fly when they shouldn't be able to, he should be able to as well. There are lyrically absurd stories, creepy ones, and ones that shift perspectives and realism to make the reader blink and reappraise reality.

Vännerna (The Friends), by Lars Jakobson, pub. Albert Bonniers
– A science fiction novel set in a uchronic contemporary Sweden with an alternate history. From the 1940s onward, the development of modern Sweden has been defined by the industrial magnate Janis Rokka, who in this reality is the architect of "Folkhemmet", a society which in the real world was formed by the Social Democratic Party. Rokka's corporation is high tech, dealing with artificial intelligences and hologram servants/accessories known as "Friends", but it also has a military branch and has practically as much power as the government. The resulting contemporary society is similar in many ways to the one we have, but perhaps more paranoid, more suspicious, and less safe despite all the rhetoric about security.

85 Authors Protest At The BBC's Treatment Of Genre Fiction

85 authors have signed a joint letter if protest sent to BBC Director General Mark Thompson,  complaining about the Beeb's shabby treatment of genre fiction during last month's World Book Night coverage

The signatories to this letter range from Gold Dagger-nominated crime authors such as SJ Bolton, writers of children's fiction such as Debi Gliori, as well as many fantasy, science fiction and horror authors – from Iain Banks to Michael Moorcock.

The BBC programming which has raised their complaint was the state-sponsored television channel's coverage of fiction during World Book Night, with programmes including The Books We Really Read: A Culture Show Special and New Novelists: 12 Of  The Best which went out on BBC2 on the 5 March 2011.

Fantasy author Stephen Hunt, who organised the protest, commented, "The sneering tone that was levelled towards commercial fiction during The Books We Really Read was deeply counterproductive to the night's aims of actually encouraging people to read novels. The weight that was given to the single sub-genre of literary fiction in the remaining programmes was unbalanced and unrepresentative of all but a small fraction of the country's reading tastes. And closest to my own heart, the failure to feature a single work from the three genres of horror, fantasy, and science fiction was a disgrace. The official World Book Night list included Philip Pullman's fantasy novel, Northern Lights. It is a shame the BBC could not."

Hunt went on to say, "There have been weeks when one in three books sold in the UK were Harry Potter novels, or more recently, Twilight novels. The sweeping under the carpet of the very genres of the imagination which engage and fire readers' minds shows a lot more about the BBC production team's taste in fiction than it does about what the general public is actually reading. If the BBC really wishes to support reading in this country, then they should produce a literary version of The Film Programme, or commission a modern updating of the Bookworm show that had Griff Rhys Jones as its lead presenter in the '90s. A series with a mainstream slot. Then perhaps the BBC can do what it said on the tin the first time around: cover the books we really read."

The list of writers supporting the petition...
Kevin J Anderson
Neal Asher
Iain M Banks
Greg Bear
Jacey Bedford
Gregory Benford
Michael Bishop
S J Bolton
David Brin
Michael S. Brotherton
John Brown
Ramsey Campbell
Gail Carriger
Mark Charan Newton
Michael Cobley
Diane Duane
Kevin Duffy
Steven Lundin (writing as Steve Erikson)
Geraldine Evans
Russell B. Farr
Matt Forbeck
Gregory Frost
Gary Gibson
Linda Gillard
Felix Gilman
Debi Gliori
Alison Goodman
Joe Haldeman
Elizabeth Hand
Steve Haynes
John Helfers
John Hemry
Jack Hessey
Liz Holliday
Matthew Hughes
Stephen Hunt
Jasper Kent
Kay Kenyon
M. D. Lachlan
Jay Lake
David Langford
Bob Lock
James Lovegrove
Jonathan Maberry
David Mack
Juliet Marillier
Ian McDonald
Juliet E McKenna
Karen Miller
L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
Elizabeth Moon
Michael Moorcock
Theresa M. Moore
Yvonne Navarro
Stan Nicholls
Larry Niven
Jonathan Oliver
Phil Palmer
Steve Parker
Tamora Pierce
Jonathan Pinnock
Phyllis Irene Radford (writing as P.R. Frost/C.F. Bentley)
Robert V.S. Redick
Kit Reed
Mike Resnick
Adam Roberts
Steven Savile
Robert J. Sawyer
Ann Scarborough
Michael Shea
Lucius Shepard
Michael Marshall Smith
S.M. Stirling
Charlie Stross
Stephen Sullivan
Michael Swanwick
Harry Turtledove
Robert E. Vardeman
Tim Waggoner
Ian Watson
Simon West-Bulford
Sean Williams
Walter Jon Williams
Geoff Willmetts
Jane Yolen

And SFX supports the campaign 100%. We still remember the sneering attitude of the presenters and the talking head guests towards The Lord Of The Rings during the BBC's coverage of The Big Read a few years back, even though it won a public vote to find Britain's Favourite Book. Oh, and five other books in the Top 10 were SF or fantasy too. So, what books are we really reading?

Baš je jak spisak. Uf.

Evo nešto da se stimpank (eventualno & nekome) oduži za fanovsku vernost  :

Dobra vest je da i od zlog uvek ima gore; zamislite samo kako bi vam bilo da ste kojim slučajem Kinezi... 

Hong Kong, China (CNN) – China has been cracking down on dissent of late, as the recent detainment of artist Ai Weiwei suggests.

But the latest guidance on television programming from the State Administration of Radio Film and Television in China borders on the surreal – or, rather, an attack against the surreal.

New guidelines issued on March 31 discourage plot lines that contain elements of "fantasy, time-travel, random compilations of mythical stories, bizarre plots, absurd techniques, even propagating feudal superstitions, fatalism and reincarnation, ambiguous moral lessons, and a lack of positive thinking."

"The government says ... TV dramas shouldn't have characters that travel back in time and rewrite history. They say this goes against Chinese heritage," reports CNN's Eunice Yoon. "They also say that myth, superstitions and reincarnation are all questionable."

The Chinese censors seem to be especially sensitive these days. But for the television and film industry, such strictures would seem to eliminate any Chinese version of "Star Trek," "The X-Files," "Quantum Leap" or "Dr. Who."  And does that mean rebroadcast of huge Hollywood moneymakers like "Back to the Future" and the "Terminator" series are now forbidden?

Over at the FictionMags Yahoo Group, David Pringle (editor of Interzone between 1982 and 2004 and author of such books as Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels) posted the following message about the return of Michael Moorcock's seminal New Worlds magazine, which originally had a 201 issue run between 1946 and 1971.

The new magazine will be published in print and electronic formats and have a website. Michael Moorcock himself will lend his name to the masthead.

Here's David's message with more details...

Quote
    I've just seen this, from Dave Hodson in London...

    It is, in part, a kind of tribute to the late Gamma (Paul Gamble), who died, aged 61, on what would have been J. G. Ballard's 80th birthday, 15th November 2010.

    Dave H and friends wanted to call themselves the Unlimited Dream Company (the name Gamma used for book-trading), but couldn't get clearance for that; so they're now the "Daves Dream Company."

    -- David P[ringle].

    _Michael Moorcock's New Worlds Magazine_

    The Directors of the Daves Dream Company - Dick Jude, David Hodson, David Tamlyn, Roger Gray and Felix Jude- West - have reached an agreement with Michael Moorcock to revive the seminal science fiction magazine New Worlds. Michael has kindly agreed to lend his name to the masthead of the magazine and to contribute editorial pieces. The magazine will appear in both electronic and traditional print on paper formats and be backed up by an extensive website that will feature exclusive editorial features free to all interested readers.

    It is anticipated that the new incarnation of the magazine will debut in September/October 2011, initially on a quarterly publishing schedule. Subscribers will receive both the electronic and printed versions of the magazine. Subscription rates and details will appear on www.newworlds.co.uk when the website goes live in June/July 2011. The website will be hosted by colleagues from Storm Books, a specialist electronic publications publisher, owned and managed by Phil Ryan, one of the founders of The Big Issue. It is also anticipated that the title will represented to specialist bookshops for retail sale.

    Our agreement with Michael Moorcock includes the proviso that the electronic version of the magazine should strive to incorporate cutting edge technologies to present fiction and editorial pieces to their maximum impact and that authors and artists should benefit from an innovative editorial approach. It is our hope that we can attain these wishes as they would also provide a fitting legacy to Paul Gamble. We may not be able to [fulfill] this promise immediately, we have to find the right people to provide and, hopefully, teach us the skills as we go along, but we're already on the look-out for people and technologies that will make the magazine unique.

    We are now actively seeking contributions of all kinds from writers and artists. Until the website is active we ask that any potential contributors contact David Hodson via email on hodson798@btinternet.com.

Ian McDonald Sells Film Rights to The Dervish House...

Posted in News | April 28th, 2011

Zeno Agency is delighted to announce that film and television rights to Ian McDonald's award winning novel THE DERVISH HOUSE have been optioned by Warp Films. The deal was negotiated by Zeno's John Richard Parker who says, 'As with all Ian's books THE DERVISH HOUSE is very much cinematic as well being  an imaginative tour de force. I have always believed it has the qualities that  make it eminently suitable for film and I am sure that with Warp's enthusiasm for the project and their fantastic track record, all the ingredients are in place to put together something very special indeed.'

Warp Films have had notable successes recently with SUBMARINE and FOUR LIONS and Executive Producer Peter Carlton says 'We're delighted to have the chance to adapt THE DERVISH HOUSE for the screen, set in that most iconic of cities, crossroads of east and west, past and future, Istanbul. It starts with an explosion on a tram and ends in a race to stop a terrorist plot, but in the meantime Ian somehow weaves together speculative share trading, nanotechnology and Islamic microcalligraphy, to name but a few strands in this visual feast that has a narrative sweep and ambition all too rare in contemporary fiction.'

Terry Windling's Studio:

Monday, May 02, 2011
Joanna Russ (1937 - 2011)

Sad news today. Joanna Russ, the award-winning author and literary critic, died at age 74 on Friday, in Tucson, Arizona. She'd been in poor health (with chronic fatigue and other problems) for a long while, and had been in hospice care in Tucson since suffering a stroke in February.

Joanna, for those unfamiliar with her brilliant work, was one of the leading pioneers of feminist sf/fantasy  in the 1970s/1980s, and her books (including the groundbreaking novel The Female Man, 1975, and the insightful nonfiction text How to Suppress Women's Writing, 1984) was deeply important to my generation of feminist writers/editors. In an sf/fantasy field where we now take it for granted that women, too, can be influential writers, editors, critics, and publishers, Joanna's sharp, lucid, provocative writing lives on in every feminist's work. We are all her daughters, granddaughters, and great-granddaughters...with a few sons and grandsons in there too. Rest in peace, great lady.

iz poslednjeg broja Salon Future

Pošto večeras već spemujem po forumu, evo ovo:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/13/iain-banks-science-fiction-genre

Dakle, Iain Banks se ostrvio na mejnstrim pisce koji otkrivaju toplu SF vodu, vrlo argumentovano i sve, ali ne navodeći primere. I naravno da je prvi komentar:

QuoteOh, Iain, Never Let Me Go.

Od čega sam ja počela da skačem od sreće jer sam posle čitanja te knjige usvinjila drugaricu koja mi ju je poklonila misleći da će me obradovati SFom, a SF ona inače prezire, drveći joj (uz mahanje rukama i pljuckanje) o tome po čemu se sve vidi da Išiguro nema pojma o SFu i šta bi sve tu trebalo izmeniti na čisto teorijskom planu a šta je u knjizi dobro do vrhunsko - sve ono što nije SF - i zašto to ništa ne vredi kad je osnovna postavka tako, ali tako prežvakana i neekonomična i curi u alegoriju i OMGWTF bolje da je još pisao o batlerima.

Ššššššš... nikad se ne zna ko je ovde kome fan... 



Enivejz, ja religiozno eskiviram slipstrim pa ne bi ni znala za frku, da nije komentara na svakom blogu... mada, dobro što Ijan nije naveo konkretne naslove, ovako svi navode sve.

Veli Šeril na blogu: My top suspect was Margaret Atwood, not for The Handmaid's Tale, which is a great piece of SF, and a Clarke Winner, but for Oryx & Crake, which to me read like the sort of eco-disaster novel that science fiction produced back in the 1970s. However, on Twitter whoever is behind the Gollancz account (Simon Spanton?) suggested that the primary target might be a book called Time's Arrow. Given that making fun of Martin Amis is pretty much a national pastime here in the UK, I think that is entirely possible.

Citing increasing crossover appeal of some of its adult science fiction titles by young adults, Prometheus Books's Pyr imprint is starting a series of titles aimed specifically at that audience. Lou Anders, editorial director of Pyr, will oversee the YA program which will begin in November with the publication of Lightbringer, an urban fantasy/paranormal romance by K.D. McEntire.

While Lightbringer is a debut novel, two other titles are from primarily adult authors. Hugo and Philip K. Dick-winning Ian McDonald's Plansrunner with be released in December followed in February by Thief's Covenant by Ari Marmell. Planesrunner is the first in the new Everness series.

Anders said he has a total of six titles signed and would eventually like to do 10 YA titles annually. Rather than expand the Pyr list beyond the 30 titles it does now, Anders said he plans to make one-third of the Pyr list YA. The  YA titles will be released in hardcover and e-book formats and have their own section in the Pyr catalogue.   

Quote from: LiBeat on 16-05-2011, 18:50:33
Ššššššš... nikad se ne zna ko je ovde kome fan... 

Mislim da je Išiguro ipak previše Britanac za nindžu... možda samo neka krajnje džemsbondovska varijanta 

A inače, meni se ova knjiga, kao što rekoh, dopala, stvarno je izuzetno napisana, posebno ona evokacija detinjstva i ljubavni trougao i, uopšte, psihologija njih troje, ali mi priča jednostavno ne pije vodu na nivou opšte koncepcije, dakle kako? kada? zašto? Čitava ta ideja o načinu uzgajanja klonova, o njihovoj upotrebi odnosno životnom toku, procedura transplantacija - sve mi deluje krajnje neuverljivo a ja, pritom, nisam nikakav lekar ili biolog. Ili kad se jednoj ličnosti omakne: "Kako da ukinemo klonove kad živimo u društvu gde je rak izlečiva bolest?" Znam da će me sad neko klepiti po ušima, ali otkad se metastaze leče transplantacijom?
Naravno da je jasno kako autor sve moguće "tvrde" detalje izostavlja kao nebitne i da ne bi remetili priču, ali da prostite, nije svejedno šta kada i kome vade, da li bubreg ili rožnjače. Pitanje kompatibilnosti davaoca i primaoca nije ni okrznuto. I na kraju, moram da priznam da mi je najveća mana bila jedna čisto psihološka začkoljica - nikada, ni u jednom trenutku, ne vidimo nijednu osobu koja pomišlja na nekakav beg, ilegalu, ili makar na krajnje ljudsku reakciju u stilu one Mujine iz vica "Neće vala od moje kože doboš!" da se namerno zaraze nekom polnom bolešću, nasrnu na heroin ili nešto slično. Svi se mirno i rezignirano pokoravaju, uz eventualne pokušaje da se nešto uradi preko nadležnih instanci - a to nešto nije čak ni oslobođenje nego puko odlaganje. I tu se meni onaj predivan stil i nostalgična atmosfera osamdesetih sa audokasetama i uzvišena rezignacija poslednje rečenice smuče svi zajedno i ja počnem da mašem rukama i prskam pljuvačkom. (Izvinjavam se.)

O bozi, kud to ide ovaj svet kad se ti zbog vrlina izvinjavaš... 

Nego, priznajem, odlično je sve ovo ispalo, saznala sam za mnogo naslova koje izgleda da ne bi trebalo ni rukavicama pipati. Ali zanima sad mene gde si to ti (i kako) stekla tu toleranciju da možeš jasno da vidiš sve manjkavosti a da svejedno nađeš i ponešto što ti je "dobro do vrhunsko"...? Pa ja to ne mogu, ni pod razno, kod mene ceo paket padne na prvoj manjkavosti, pogotovo ako je manjkavost od ove vrste koju ti opisuješ kod Išigura... pa, pobogu, kako uzeti za ozbiljno išta od autora koji tako malo veze održava sa realnošću? i kako uzeti za ozbiljno bilo kakva psiho-profilisanja kad se jasno vidi da sirotan autor ima problema sa najosnovnijim svakodnevnim konceptima? Takve stvari redovito ne dočitam do kraja, sve ako se ponekad i zeznem da u njih zavirim.                       

Imam i ja takvu toleranciju. 

Recimo, "Vrabac" Meri Dorije Rasel. Na naučnom nivou to je neopisivo trućanje, gore od ovoga što Jevtropijevićka opisuje, ali na emotivnom nivou to je prelepo, jedna od (meni) najlepših knjiga ikad, toliko lepo da sam u stanju da zanemarim sve ono neviđeno lupetanje.

Ma. Jevtropijevićka će sad garant da zamaše rukama, ali, ja mislim da vas je fahovsko obrazovanje napravilo preterano tolerantnima, pa to vam je. 

 

 

"fahovsko"  ? "fanovsko"  !

Pa eto, izgledalo mi skroz da filolozi i dramaturzi imaju više strpljenja nego obični fanovski smrtnici... ali neću više o tome, eto rasplakah Jevtru...