Novosti iz sveta Fantastike

[PTY]

E, ako je tako, onda se u Mizurah ne čita ni za kim zvona zvone, ni kvaka 22, ni limeni bubanj, ni go & mrtav, ni ratnu molitvu, ni sve tiho na zapadnom frontu, pa čak ni dobrog vojnika švejka... šta li to onda čitaju u bajbl-beltu, da mi je znati?   

Mada ja ipak mislim da ih kod klanice 5 najviše zbunjuje fantastika.

[PTY]

a evo i The Clockwork Rocket  




In Yalda's universe, light has no universal speed and its creation generates energy.On Yalda's world, plants make food by emitting their own light into the dark night sky.As a child Yalda witnesses one of a series of strange meteors, the Hurtlers, that are entering the planetary system at an immense, unprecedented speed. It becomes apparent that her world is in imminent danger -- and that the task of dealing with the Hurtlers will require knowledge and technology far beyond anything her civilisation has yet achieved.Only one solution seems tenable: if a spacecraft can be sent on a journey at sufficiently high speed, its trip will last many generations for those on board, but it will return after just a few years have passed at home. The travellers will have a chance to discover the science their planet urgently needs, and bring it back in time to avert disaster

[Gaff]

Eto, audio knjiga već izašla.



Audioslice: Cowboys & Aliens by Joan D. Vinge:

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/07/audioslice-cowboys-and-aliens-by-joan-d-vinge

[PTY]

Clarkesworld #59

[Gaff]

Eto. Izašlo iz štampe pre nedelju dana.


Robert E. Howard - Conan the Barbarian: The stories that inspired the movie

Conan the Barbarian is a collection of six fantasy short stories written by Robert E. Howard featuring his seminal sword and sorcery hero of the same name, first published in paperback by Del Rey/Ballantine Books in July 2011 as a tie-in with the movie of the same title. The stories originally appeared in the 1930s in the fantasy magazine Weird Tales. An earlier collection with the same title but different contents was issued in hardcover by Gnome Press in 1954.

Contents:

    "The Phoenix on the Sword"
    "The People of the Black Circle"
    "The Tower of the Elephant"
    "Queen of the Black Coast"
    "Red Nails"
    "Rogues in the House"

[PTY]

SF Site News objavljuje i par smrtovnica:

Author Leslie Esdaile (b.1959), who wrote as L. A. Banks died on August 2. In June 2011, Esdaile had announced she had been diagnosed with late stage adrenal cancer. Using a variety of pseudonyms, Esdaile published romance, non-fiction, crime, and horror novels.


Actor Richard Pearson (b.1918) died on August 2, a day after his 93rd birthday. Pearson appeared as Mole in the BBC series based on The Wind in the Willows and also provided the voice of Gordy in Men in Black II and appeared in Scrooge and episodes of Tales of the Unexpected and Out of the Unknown. He played Professor Watkins in the first series of Stranger from Space. He also had a bit part in Royal Flash.

[Gaff]

Felicia Day radi na novom web-serijalu: 'Dragon Age: Redemption'

http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2011-02-15-felicia15_ST_N.htm

Dragon Age: Redemption teaser - New Felicia Day Webseries

[mac]

Podržavam ideju, ali sumnjam u Felicijinu sposobnost da me ubedi da je ne gledam kao Codex nego kao novi karakter. Biće overeno u svakom slučaju.

[Gaff]

... ali sumnjam u Felicijinu sposobnost da me ubedi da je ne gledam kao Codex nego kao novi karakter.

Da, slažem se. Pogotovo što je i u Eureci pljunuta Cyd Sherman (aka Codex).

[PTY]

Najpre jedna kontroverza malko sanirana:



INDIANAPOLIS — Up to 150 students at a Missouri high school that ordered "Slaughterhouse-Five" pulled from its shelves can get a free copy of the novel, courtesy of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, library officials said on Thursday.

[PTY]

... a već se našla i druga. Terri Windling:


Ellen Datlow just alerted me to an interesting article published in The Guardian on June 29. It seems that a story from our Snow White, Blood Red anthology (a collection of re-told fairy tales for adult readers) has been denounced in the state-owned al-Akhbar newspaper in Egypt. Gracious! That's a first for us.

The offending story is Tanith Lee's "Snow-drop," an Angela-Carter-esque retelling of Snow White.

"It was on the reading list of a fantasy fiction course offered to final-year students during the first term of this academic year, 2010-2011," says The Guardian. "The short story, according to the al-Akhbar journalist, teaches nothing but depravity and moral degradation. It encourages perversion and is therefore 'a crime in the full sense of the word'. Brandishing his moral sword, he threatened to file a complaint of moral corruption to the public prosecutor and to sue all those involved in allowing this short story to corrupt innocent minds."

The power of fairy tales indeed.

[Gaff]

Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill - The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume III: Century #2 1969

Chapter Two takes place in the psychedelic daze of Swinging London during 1969, a place where Tadukic Acid Diethylamide 26 is the drug of choice, and where different underworlds are starting to overlap dangerously to an accompaniment of sit-ins and sitars. The vicious gangster bosses of London's East End find themselves brought into contact with a counter-culture underground of mystical and medicated flower-children, or amoral pop-stars on the edge of psychological disintegration and a developing taste for Satanism. Alerted to a threat concerning the same magic order that she and her colleagues were investigating during 1910, a thoroughly modern Mina Murray and her dwindling league of comrades attempt to navigate the perilous rapids of London's hippy and criminal subculture, as well as the twilight world of its occultists. Starting to buckle from the pressures of the twentieth century and the weight of their own endless lives, Mina and her companions must nevertheless prevent the making of a Moonchild that might well turn out to be the antichrist!

[Gaff]

Miyuki Miyabe - ICO: Castle in the Mist


http://www.haikasoru.com/ico-castle-in-the-mist/

[Gaff]

Paula Guran (Ed.) - The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2011 Edition

This incomparable annual compilation of the best short fiction and novellas features an unmatched variety of the quietly weird, the merely eerie, high fantasy, modern Lovecraftian horror, nightmarish near-future scenarios, the darkly humorous, the supernatural, and the monstrously mundane from the brightest new talent, legendary authors like Joe R. Lansdale, Tanith Lee, and Gene Wolfe, and bestsellers such as Holly Black, Neil Gaiman, and Sarah Langan. Includes a 36,000 word novella by George R.R. Martin set in his A Song of Fire and Ice universe.

[Gaff]

Dobro... 'ajde da se vratimo malo fantastici. Sterlingu krajem godine izlazi zbirka priča: Gothic High-Tech.

http://www.subterraneanpress.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SP&Product_Code=sterling02

Keen On... Bruce Sterling: Gothic High Tech and Favela Chic

[Gaff]

Izašlo juče u HC-u.


Robert Jordan/Chuck Dixon/Chase Conley: The Eye of the World - The Graphic Novel, Volume 1 (The Wheel of Time)




(ma znam, al' ne znam gde ovo da stavim, pa reko' i ovo mesto je dobro k'o i svako drugo.)

[Nightflier]

Credits to Irena Adler

http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/evil/magic-and-the-supernatural/call-for-papers/

[tomat]

Dobro... 'ajde da se vratimo malo fantastici. Sterlingu krajem godine izlazi zbirka priča: Gothic High-Tech.

je l' čitao ko skorije Sterlingove knjige (The Caryatids, The Zenith Angle, ...)? valja li čemu?

[PTY]

Greetings everybody! Here's a quick update on things at the Haffner Press Secret Moon Base:

   
• Facebook Updates - We continue to add content (text and graphics) to the Facebook page for Shannach-The Last: Farewell To Mars by Leigh Brackett. More images will be posted this weekend.
  
• Shannach-The Last: Farewell To Mars - Speaking of which, Shannach-The Last: Farewell To Mars has been at the printer for 3 weeks and, with the bindery's workload for the holiday season, we are currently scheduled to take delivery of inventory on the week of October 24th. This book has had the best pre-sell of any Haffner Press title, so if you're thinking about getting a copy, don't wait too much longer.
  
• Fredric Brown To Take Flight! - Fans of Fredric Brown should "keep watching the skies" in the coming weeks!! Translation: Haffner Press has an agreement for volumes that are designed to collect the mystery fiction of Fredric Brown. This series will be a wonderful and affordable opportunity to own the entire mystery output of this fondly-remembered author. With the already announced titles: The Complete John Thunstone by Manly Wade Wellman, The Complete I.V. Frost by Donald Wandrei, and The Michael Gray Mysteries by Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore, our new line of mystery titles is shaping up to be something very special.
  
• Asimov's Says Haffner Press Rules!! - At least Paul di Filippo says so as he reviews no fewer than four recent releases from Haffner Press in the September issue of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine. The online text is here.
  
• Edmond Hamilton Gets Some Ink - Richard A. Lupoff gives a charming review to the two most recent Edmond Hamilton volumes: The Collected Captain Future, Volume Two and The Universe Wreckers, The Collected Edmond Hamilton, Volume Three in the September (#608) issue of Locus magazine. The Locus subscription page is here.
  
• Oops! - Out-Of-Print Notice - Effective immediately, Martian Quest: The Early Brackett is out of print. We still have copies of the slipcased/limited edition signed by Grandmaster Michael Moorcock at the original price of $125. If you're aware of what happens to out-of-print HP titles, and don't have a copy of Martian Quest, you might consider latching on to one of these (before they're oop as well).
  
• Party With Us On Www.Librarything.Com - We're slowly adding content to our account at www.librarything.com and we plan on offering Advance Reading Copies (ARCs) of select titles in the coming months through Library Thing's Early Reviewers program. If you're a member of Library Thing, you've got a head-start; otherwise we recommend you visit http://www.librarything.com/er/signup so you don't miss out on chances for early peeks at forthcoming books.
  

That's all for now, fellow astrogators. Our next update will feature details about the two forthcoming Henry Kuttner titles (Thunder In The Void & Hollywood On The Moon / Man About Time: The Pete Manx Adventures), news about Edmond Hamilton / Leigh Brackett Day 2011, the contents list of the Fredric Brown titles (maybe), and much, much more.
Keep Watching the Skies!





(Gaffe, ovo ko stvoreno za tebe...    )

[Gaff]

Tyra Banks (da, ta Tyra Banks) - Modelland






No one gets in without being asked. And with her untamable hair, large forehead, and gawky body, Tookie De La Crème isn't expecting an invitation. Modelland - the exclusive, mysterious place on top of the mountain - never dares to make an appearance in her dreams. But someone has plans for Tookie. Before she can blink her mismatched eyes, Tookie finds herself in the very place every girl in the world obsesses about. And three unlikely girls have joined her. Only seven extraordinary young women become Intoxibellas each year. Famous. Worshipped. Magical. What happens to those who don't make it? Well, no one really speaks of that. Some things are better left unsaid. Thrown into a world where she doesn't seem to belong, Tookie glimpses a future that could be hers - if she survives the beastly Catwalk Corridor and terrifying Thigh-High Boot Camp. Or could it? Dark rumors like silken threads swirl around the question of why Tookie and her new friends were selected . . . and the shadows around Modelland hide sinister secrets.

Are you ready? Modelland is waiting for you. . . .




http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9535351-modelland

[Melkor]

  Amazon Launches SF/Fantasy Imprint: 47North

— posted Tuesday 11 October 2011 @ 10:05 am PDT

Amazon.com's publishing division has announced a new SF/fantasy/horror imprint, 47North.

The imprint has announced their first 15 titles, to be released in late 2011 and early 2012. Upcoming books include Against the Light by Dave Duncan (January 2012); The Mongoliad: Book One by Neal Stephenson & Greg Bear (April 2012); and Further: Beyond the Threshold by Chris Roberson (May 2012).

Titles will be available in Kindle, print, and audio formats at Amazon.com, "as well as at national and independent booksellers." They plan to publish original work, reprints, and out-of-print titles.

47North is the seventh imprint from Amazon Publishing, and joins other genre lines including Montlake Romance and mystery/thriller imprint Thomas & Mercer. For more details, see www.amazon.com/47North.

[Melkor]

http://www.sfgateway.com/

Enter the Gateway!The SF Gateway is your portal to the classics of SF and Fantasy, where we hope you'll renew acquaintances with old favourites and discover new guides to strange and wonderful worlds .

[Melkor]

http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/

Welcome to the beta text of the third edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Some sample entries are below. Alternatively, you can browse the Encyclopedia through the search box above or the categories in the grey bar above.

SFE Beta Text launches  02/10/2011 18:57:51
  On October 3rd, the beta text of the third edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction went live. To answer some Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: What exactly is a beta text?
In this context, it means a text of the SFE that isn't yet complete. We think we're about 3/4 of the way through compiling the Encyclopedia. Our current 3.2m wordcount will probably expand to 4.2m by the time we're done at the end of 2012. So there will be some entries missing in the beta text, and some cross-reference links that aren't yet working. Of course, we hope that 3.2m words will be enough to occupy everyone for a while...
Q: How are you going to update the text?
Updates will probably happen monthly, and be flagged through our blog , our Twitter feed , and Facebook page .
Q: My favorite author/film/TV programme doesn't have an entry. Is this because the SFE is still a beta text?
In all probability, yes. We know there are a lot of missing entries at the moment. These gaps will be filled over the course of the next year or so.
Q: You say you're going to "be done" with the SFE at the end of 2012. Does that mean you'll stop updating it?
No. We intend to continue updating the SFE for as long as we're partnered with our friends at Gollancz. End-2012 simply marks the point at which we'll be able to claim the Encyclopedia is as comprehensive as we want it to be.

PS. Ovo zasluzuje i poseban topik gore u "teoriji".

[zakk]

  Amazon Launches SF/Fantasy Imprint: 47North

— posted Tuesday 11 October 2011 @ 10:05 am PDT

Amazon.com's publishing division has announced a new SF/fantasy/horror imprint, 47North.

The imprint has announced their first 15 titles, to be released in late 2011 and early 2012. Upcoming books include Against the Light by Dave Duncan (January 2012); The Mongoliad: Book One by Neal Stephenson & Greg Bear (April 2012); and Further: Beyond the Threshold by Chris Roberson (May 2012).

Titles will be available in Kindle, print, and audio formats at Amazon.com, "as well as at national and independent booksellers." They plan to publish original work, reprints, and out-of-print titles.

47North is the seventh imprint from Amazon Publishing, and joins other genre lines including Montlake Romance and mystery/thriller imprint Thomas & Mercer. For more details, see www.amazon.com/47North.

Ova Mongolijada teoretski obećava!

[Melkor]

Prophets of Science Fiction - Ridley Scott - Science Channel - HD

[Gaff]

Harlan Ellison tvrdi da su mu In Time-ovci maznuli ideju iz "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/sep/16/harlan-ellison-justin-timberlake-movie



Justin Timberlake's 'In Time' Sued By Author Harlan Ellison

[Meho Krljic]

Elison je pedigrirani kopirajt skvoter. 

[Usul]

Koliku glavudžu ima ova omladinka...

[PTY]

The Intersection of Science Fiction and Horror
(John DeNardo na Kirkusu)

The Book That Will Make You Rethink Vampires
Frankenstein's monster isn't the only classic creature that gets the science fiction treatment. While several novels attempt to lay scientific groundwork for the legendary notion of vampires—Peter Watts' Hugo-nominated novel[/color]Blindsight is one example—one book stands out in my mind as a must-read "scientific" vampire novel: I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. Although this too is often considered a horror novel, it squarely deals with the societal impact of a pandemic whose symptoms resemble vampirism. Robert Neville, the apparent sole survivor of the pandemic, a man who attempts to find a cure for the condition, learns this firsthand. It's a terrific novel that woks both a science fiction andhorror.
The Cthulhu Mythos
H.P. Lovecraft, a notable name in horror fiction, wrote a short story in 1928 called "The Call of Cthulhu" which involves an unspeakable, supernatural horror: the great Cthulhu, a malevolent entity who poses a threat to mankind. Cthulhu is just one of The Great Old Ones, a group of powerful and ancient extraterrestrial beings currently imprisoned on Earth and on other planets though not powerless) and who are worshipped by evil cults awaiting their inevitable return.
While Lovecraft's story is considered a classic, even more impressive is what followed it. Lovecraft worked Cthulhu into subsequent stories and it eventually spawned what came to be known a The Cthulhu Mythos, a still-thriving shared universe in which many writers would extend Lovecraft's original premise. Cthulhu stories are still being published today. For example, Charles Stross has some great fun by combining Cthulhu with in his "Bob Howard" series of novels (The Atrocity Archives, The Jennifer Morgue and The Fuller Memorandum).  Cthulhu is alive in short fiction as well; two recent Cthulhu anthologies are New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird edited by Paula Guran and The Book of Cthulhuedited by Ross E. Lockhart.
Who Goes There? Many Others!
This is but a small sample of science fiction horror stories...and I'm only scratching the surface. For more, seek out Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, Jeffrey Thomas' Punktown novels or David Moody's Hater series. If you're into short fiction (and who isn't?) you would do well to find copies of A.E. van Vogt's "Black Destroyer" (the basis for the film Alien) and "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell (the basis for the film The Thing). There are plenty of sf horror stories to get your scare on—not to mention the whole genre of zombie fiction—so dig in!

[Melkor]

Steven Erikson completes THE FORGE OF DARKNESS
from The Wertzone by Adam Whitehead
Steven Erikson has reported that he has completed The Forge of Darkness, the first novel of the Kharkanas Trilogy.


Erikson's new book is set several hundred thousand years before the events of the main Malazan sequence and expands on the Tiste Andii and events in the city of Kharkanas (which appears, in a deserted state, in the main series novels). Anomander Rake is expected to feature heavily.

Erikson reports that the novel has come in at 292,000 words, noting that (ironically) this is 'short' by his standards. It falls between the length of Deadhouse Gates (272,000 words or over 900 pages in paperback) and House of Chains (306,000, or over 1,000 pages). No publication date has been set for the novel, but it is likely to appear before the end of 2012.

Meanwhile, Erikson's collaborator Ian Cameron Esslemont's latest Malazan novel, Orb, Sceptre, Throne, is due for publication in January 2012.

[Nightflier]

Jao, ja sam digao ruke na osmoj knjizi. Prosto ne mogu da poverujem kako je naglo usrao onako dobar serijal. To je za plakanje....

[Melkor]

   

   
• Top Stories

Full size                             rant       By Charlie Jane Anders                              Nov  3, 2011  1:21 PM            3,219       22                         

   
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Newsletter

         Why Science Fiction Writers are Like Porn Stars  I didn't want to write about Glen Duncan's nerd-baiting book review in last Sunday's New York Times. The one that starts, "A literary novelist writing a genre novel is like an intellectual dating a porn star." And just goes downhill from there.
The whole thing grossed me out, and felt like such a cheap shot that the only proper response was a sort of inchoate rage — the very response, I felt sure, that Duncan was counting on to prove his point. So I figured I'd interview Duncan about it, find out what the hell he was thinking, but he never got back to me. Here are the questions I wanted to ask him.
Images via Richard Kadrey/Kaos Beauty Klinik
Q: Have you ever dated a porn star? How did it go?
Q: Are you aware that "porn star" is a job, not a class of person?
Q: You say in your review that literary authors are "hard-wired or self-schooled to avoid the clichéd, the formulaic, the rote." Are you aware that most literary fiction is full of cliches? Elsewhere, you've written of your admiration for John Updike's Rabbit tetralogy — are you aware how many cliches those books have spawned?
Q: There's an undercurrent, in your Times review, of frustration with the readers of your werewolf book, The Last Werewolf. Have you actually had exasperating interactions with genre fans who felt that your work included too much reality? What form did these interactions take?
Q: Have you read Dhalgren? The Female Man? House of Leaves? The Wasp Factory? The Dispossessed? Air? In what way do you feel these books failed to show readers "the strangeness of the familiar and the familiarity of the strange"? (Something that you seem to feel genre readers will be unable to cope with.)
Full sizeQ: The heart of your discontent with genre fiction seems to be that it doesn't allow writers to tackle all of reality — just the parts of it that are fantastical. That there's a certain psychological complexity, or texture, that gets lost in the fixation on monsters or whiz-bang gadgets. (William Gibson voiced a similar complaint about the state of the genre when he wrote Neuromancer the other day.) But wouldn't you agree that there's more than one way to write about "reality"? Q: You also quote from Susan Sontag saying "Whatever is happening, something else is always going on." Which actually contradicts the thrust of your review — since you seem to think that in genre fiction, whatever is happening is all that's happening. Don't you think you missed the point of the Sontag quote?
So now I've posted my questions, and maybe Duncan will take the time to respond to them. Meanwhile, there doesn't seem to be much point in writing an outraged screed about Duncan's "genre slumming" piece — it really feels like we're mostly past that by now, when places like the Atlantic are celebrating the trend that Duncan decries. You're always going to have your Margaret Atwoods and Glen Duncans, because humans love hierarchy and status.
So instead of condemning Duncan, I'll close it out with a list of reasons why genre writers are like porn stars:
Genre writers and porn stars come from all sorts of backgrounds and social classes. Some have PhDs, others never finished high school.
Full sizeThere's underground porn and indy porn and vegan porn as well as huge mainstream porn — likewise, genre writers have a lot of underground imprints focusing on weird fiction that would make your hair curl, as well as big mainstream publishers. Porn stars and genre writers work fucking hard, and sometimes get screwed over.
Porn stars and genre writers are both trying, in very different ways, to satisfy a basic human need for a transcendent experience, something that takes you out of yourself. People — who feel imprisoned in these bodies, these lives, these surroundings — crave escapism and fantasy, but also a feeling of connection to a world where implausible things happen. (For most people, having sex with an actual porn star probably counts as "implausible.")
There is a lot of terrible porn and a lot of really godawful science fiction. (Just like there's a lot of bad literary fiction. As we've noted before, "literary" is not a synonym for "good.")
Porn stars and science fiction writers don't give a fuck what you think of them.


Edit: *bes formatiranje

[Melkor]

Michael A. Stackpole (i K.W. Jeter u komentarima) o The New Midlist Writers.

[Melkor]

Publishers Weekly The Best Books of 2011

[Melkor]

Harlan Ellison tvrdi da su mu In Time-ovci maznuli ideju iz "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman.

Harlan Ellison has settled out of court with the creators of new movie In Time. The filmmakers have agreed to list Ellison's name in the film's credits. Ellison brought suit against director Andrew Niccol (along with several others involved with the project) for copyright infringement, claiming that In Time was based on his  "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said The Ticktockman."

[PTY]

Prime Books Sells Magazines Lightspeed and Fantasy to Editor John Joseph AdamsPaula Guran | Nov 07, 2011 in News Prime Books is pleased to announce the sale and transfer of ownership of their acclaimed online magazines Lightspeed and Fantasy to John Joseph Adams. Adams, the current editor of both magazines, will officially assume the role of publisher starting with the January 2012 issues. "With the continuing expansion and success of Prime Books, my attention and time is increasingly consumed by book publishing," publisher Sean Wallace said. "With John already doing a terrific job as editor, it simply made sense for him to take over as publisher as well.  We're really thrilled that this has worked out for both John and Prime." New publisher John Joseph Adams says he is delighted at the prospect of taking over the magazines and looks forward to the challenges ahead. "It's an exciting time to be involved in publishing," he said. "Models are changing and so is the readership, and online magazines have a better shot at sustainability than ever have before. I believe the possibilities for growth are tremendous, and I look forward to staying in the vanguard of this new frontier." Fantasy Magazine was established in 2005, and has been edited by Sean Wallace, Paul Tremblay, and Cat Rambo, with Adams taking over as sole editor earlier this year. Lightspeed—published by Wallace and edited by Adams—debuted in June 2010 and was a 2011 Hugo Award nominee. Numerous stories originally published in Lightspeed and Fantasy have been reprinted in best-of-the-year anthologies, and Lightspeed and Fantasy stories have been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award, and others. Lightspeed's first year of fiction has just been published by Prime Books in the print anthology Lightspeed: Year One.

http://www.prime-books.com/2011/11/07/prime-books-sells-magazines-lightspeed-and-fantasy-to-editor-john-joseph-adams/

[Gaff]

Dokumentarni film o životu Ursule K. Le Guin.

Se snima.

[Melkor]

A Brent Weeks ima ovo da se slihta citaocima kaze o Martinu

Brent Weeks Opinion Column: "George RR Martin is not your bitch"

GRRM is not your bitch. The rest of us...
by Brent Weeks

Neil Gaiman famously told a reader tired of waiting for the next installment of A Song of Ice and Fire that "George R. R. Martin is not your bitch." Though Mr. Gaiman said many fine and humane things in his post, he also erected a straw man argument that such readers think authors shouldn't do anything except write the next book. "No such contract existed. You were paying your ten dollars for the book you were reading." Neil Gaiman being Neil Gaiman, the internet greeted this with a chorus of amens. Someone even wrote a song, which is great, except they're all wrong. Part of what entices us to buy a book is the promise conveyed in the title. "Gragnar's Epic Magical Dragon Quest Trilogy: Book 1" promises there will be two more books. Whether through the title, or interviews, or through a note to readers at the end of a book that says the next book will be out in a year, when an author makes that kind of commitment, maybe technically there's no contract, but there is an obligation.

And do you know who's hurt when that obligation is broken? Not the multimillionaire authors, but the mid-listers who are in the middle of a series, barely making it, who hear readers say, "I don't start a series anymore until all the books are finished. I've been burned too many times." This is not an attack on GRRM. He's easily my favorite author; he's certainly done the field far more good than harm, and I'm sure that he's been working hard. I write big, complicated epic fantasy;  I understand how difficult it is. I've worked with a director to make a 90-second book trailer; I can hazard a guess at what a ridiculous amount of work an entire HBO series must take. And writers make mistakes about how fast they're going to finish books All The Time. GRRM's situation is merely illustrative.

Authors today have to be writers, social media geeks, marketers, public speakers, bloggers, and book reviewers. Tolkien knew Elvish, but not html. Few authors are equally good at all the parts of their job. GRRM promised something he didn't deliver. If he were better at PR, he might have defused a great deal of the anger, but he can get away with it because he's a towering talent with millions of fans. Another outlier told Oprah's readers that they weren't smart enough for his books. Another shuns the internet. The talented, the rich, and the famous are always able to get away with things. So, Mr Gaiman, that "GRRM is not your bitch" is trivially true, but I'm not sure it's something we should cheer. We can fail to fulfill our obligations for many good reasons. However, when we do, it behooves us to apologize, not to pretend that readers are the ones acting entitled.

Regardless of their success, writers have obligations to readers because readers pay us to do what we love. Readers don't understand how hard writing can be, but many of us don't understand how hard it is to work at McDonald's, or a post office, or a sales desk. I'm in the middle of writing my second trilogy now, and I've been working six days a week for the last two years. The more successful I've gotten, the harder I've had to work. Some days I look at my full inbox, dozens of comments on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, and more awaiting moderation on my webpage, and I despair. But you know what? Every job requires you to do things you'd rather not. That's why you get paid for it. At the end of the day, we have the best job in the world. How about some gratitude?

[Melkor]

A evo i malo uvida u okrutni svet izdavastva. Ovaj pisac mi nista ne znaci, mozda Nightflieru i Perinu, ali to nije ni bitno. (sa patove fantazi hotliste)

by noreply@blogger.com (Patrick)

Just learned about this. . .

Harry Connolly recently announced that Del Rey wouldn't offer him a contract to write additional Twenty Palaces installments. You can the read this post on his website. That's too bad, for I believe the series had a lot of potential.

Harry Connolly is the author of Child of Fire, Game of Cages, and Circle of Enemies. I enjoyed the first two volumes, but felt that they lacked some depth. Interestingly enough, some of the shortcomings I elaborated on in my reviews were more widespread among readers than I thought. . .

Sadly, this proves once again just how harsh the publishing business can be. Harry Connolly sold his first three books in a pre-empt to Del Rey. He was pimped as the new Jim Butcher. His debut benefited from a vast marketing campaign, with ARCs and Advance Reader Editions going around to most reviewers out there. The book received blurbs from Jim Butcher, Charlaine Harris, Charles Stross, and even more genre writers. Child of Fire was named one of the "Best 100 Books of 2009″ by Publishers Weekly. His books earned starred reviews from PW. Connolly got terrific reviews from Locus and other print and online venues. It looked as though the man had it made, right? Wrong. . .

Here's an excerpt from his post:

The thing is, I think these books are successful artistically. They're pretty much what I was hoping to create, and I think I did a good job.

But commercially it's failed and there's no one else to blame for that but me. It's my job as an author to overcome hurdles, not blame them for tripping me. Cover art? Format? Weather? It doesn't matter. It's my job to write a book so awesome that it breaks through every barrier. And while there are readers who've really loved the series (best people on the planet, no joke) the numbers are irrefutable: there aren't enough of them.

[...]

"Thank you," is what I want to say. Thank you to everyone who's read the books, recommended them to their friends, blogged or tweeted about them, or sent me kind notes. I hear all the time about authors having weird or contentious interactions with their readers, but that's never happened to me. The fans of this series have been great.

There are no guarantees in writing. You work like crazy on a story that means a lot to you, and when you send it out into the world where it's met with scorn, or indifference, or casual contempt. There are no guarantees that X will be a great story or that Y number of readers will fall all over it and spread the word. I know as well as anyone that no one owes me anything.

Here's to hoping that Connolly's future projects will enjoy a bit more commercial sucess so that readers are not left hanging like this.

Harry Connolly's post offers some insight as to how the business works. And as such, I think that it's well worth reading. . .

[Truba]

Dokumentarni film o životu Ursule K. Le Guin.

Se snima.

super 

[Perin]

Iskren da budem, ja pored Bučera nisam ništa od urbanih fantastičara čitao. Mada je ovaj tekst dosta poučan.

[Nightflier]

Imam ga, ali nisam čitao. Krenuo sam prvu, ali sve vreme sam imao utisak da se roman oslanja na neku raniju priču, koju ja nisam pročitao. Možda je moj utisak bio pogrešan, ali je ipak bio dovoljno jak da me natera da ostavim knjigu. Sem toga, nisam stekao nikakav utisak o piscu. Premalo sam pročitao.

[PTY]

Malko promo-materijala povodom

   
• Pat Cadigan - Interview
• Adam-Troy Castro - Interview
• Barbara Hambly - Guest Post
• Ernest Hogan - Interview & Guest Post
• Nancy Kress - Interview & Guest Post
• Bruce McAllister - Interview
• Paul McAuley - Interview
• Mike Resnick: Interview
• Jack Skillingstead - Interview & Guest Post
• Mark W. Tiedemann - Interview & Guest Post

[PTY]

ROBERT SILVERBERG JOINS AMAZING STORIES EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
Mr. Silverberg, whose fiction first appeared in Amazing Stories in 1956, will serve in an advisory capacity and will author an updated version of his Introduction to Amazing Stories for the first issue of the magazine's latest incarnation, slated to appear sometime in 2012.

[PTY]

Stephen Hunt na blogu daje piratski škicaj u Prometheus...

[Melkor]

 Nick Cage's Stolen Copy Of 'Action Comics' #1 Now In Auction  Posted about 11 hours ago by Scott West0     To date, the most expensive comic ever auctioned was a copy of 'Action Comics' #1. The 1938 first appearance of Superman was CGC graded at 8.5 and sold for $1.5 million.
The reason for the unbelievable price is that there are believed to be only six copies of this issue in existence with a CGC grade of 4.0 or higher. The highest graded copy ever (CGC 9.0) was owned by actor Nicolas Cage. This copy was stolen from Cage back in 2000. However, in April 2011, the Los Angeles Police Department found a copy of 'Action Comics' #1 in a storage locker in the San Fernando Valley. After it was confirmed that the found copy was indeed Cage's copy and some insurance issues worked out, since Cage had already been reimbursed for the theft, the comic was returned to Cage.
However, after his eccentric buying habits drove him to bankruptcy, Cage is auctioning off the rare comic. The reserve has been met with a current bid of a little over $1.3 million and, with a few days remaining on the auction, it is on track to break that past record sale of $1.5 million. There are some analysts predicting that this near pristine edition of 'Action Comics' #1 will break the $2 million mark before all is said and done.
If you're a comic fan with a couple million dollars on hand, you can bid on it at Comic Connection auctions. If you don't want it, do you have $2 million that I can borrow?

[PTY]

Graham Joyce o kontroverznom Overhaul of BFA:


Rather more controversial is the idea of offering two awards, one for Fantasy and one for Horror, in the Best Novel category.  The survey yielded closer results on this matter and so needs to be put to the vote.  Having won this award myself with novels that might have gone in either category I can see technical discussions ahead.  However when I took on the job of Acting Chair I promised to look for ways of re-enfranchising some friends we might have lost through the dominance of the Horror genre over the last years.  I do think that if we want authors and publishers to put their weight behind the Society we can't afford to be exclusive.  This is part of a wider policy and if we can tempt back some of the valued members we have lost by offering another prize then I think we should do so.  If the balance is restored in the coming years we can always return to a single prize if that's what the membership wants.  Meanwhile I very much hope that members will support the proposal in Resolution 2.

[Melkor]

Krenuo sam da citam taj novi pravilnik, ali previse je tehnicki za mene. Ne znam koliki je znacaj imala ta nagrada, nikad je nisam dozivljavao ni kao 2. ligu, tako da ce morati da se namuce i da proteraju mnogo vode ispod mosta ne bi li imali bilo kakvu relevantnost.

[PTY]

Same here. Mada me skroz živo zanima kako će se praviti žanrovska razgraničenja ako ovo prođe; šta će se to stavljati pod kategoriju Fantasy a šta pod Horor, i kojim će se to smernicama povoditi, i ko i kako će ih ustanoviti. A skroz mi ljupko što sam Graham priznaje da je u pitanju čisto manevar za pribavljanje balansa sa "odlutalim" članovima, a neću ni da pretpostavljam ko im je to odlutao, i kuda, i zašto, šim on misli da može da ih vrati ekstra nagradom za horor roman. 

[Melkor]

Announcing... Zoo City – the movie!

Dalek je put od ovoga do filma, ali cool