Features Podcasts Family Video Comics Music Tech Science Books Film & TV Games

Iain Banks doesn't write sf for the money

SF/thriller writer Iain Banks has weighed in to quash a rumor that he only wrote his amazing SF novels to pay the bills because the (also amazing) high-brow literary thrillers didn't bring in enough:

I wish I did have the time to reply to everybody individually but I don’t. I think I’ll only comment on any of the posts if there’s something factually wrong mentioned in them, and so far the only point I can remember is one where an ex-neighbour of ours recalled (in an otherwise entirely kind and welcome comment) me telling him, years ago, that my SF novels effectively subsidised the mainstream works. I think he’s just misremembered, as this has never been the case. Until the last few years or so, when the SF novels started to achieve something approaching parity in sales, the mainstream always out-sold the SF – on average, if my memory isn’t letting me down, by a ratio of about three or four to one. I think a lot of people have assumed that the SF was the trashy but high-selling stuff I had to churn out in order to keep a roof over my head while I wrote the important, serious, non-genre literary novels. Never been the case, and I can’t imagine that I’d have lied about this sort of thing, least of all as some sort of joke. The SF novels have always mattered deeply to me – the Culture series in particular – and while it might not be what people want to hear (academics especially), the mainstream subsidised the SF, not the other way round. And… rant over.

Banks is dying of cancer, and it's an awful shame.

20 May Update from Iain (via IO9)

The Twelve-Fingered Boy - mesmerizing YA horror novel


The Twelve-Fingered Boy is John Hornor Jacobs's debut young adult novel and it's amazing. It's a horror novel about Shreve, a kid from a tough background who is stuck in juvie and makes the most of it by running a black-market candy dealership; and his new roommate Jack, a quiet kid with twelve fingers and twelve toes. Jack is not the kind of kid who thrives in juvie, and Shreve takes him under his wing, trying to teach him how to get along on the inside -- but he's not very successful. Jack's extra fingers mark him out among the kids, and the worst of them smell blood when they see him and begin to circle.

But that's the least of Jack's problems. Far more worrisome is Mr Quincrux, a strange man from an unnamed government agency who seems to have the power to make the omnisuspicious guards and wardens go into a trancelike state. He's very, very interested in Jack, and particularly in how Jack landed in juvie -- an unexplained attack on his foster siblings that we quickly learn had something to do with telekinesis. Shreve quickly discovers that Mr Quincrux is an emissary for something much darker than any mere government agency, and as things escalate and Jack's powers come to the fore, it quickly becomes necessary for the pair to break out and hit the road.

Great horror novels demand likable characters -- people whose danger we can't help buy empathize with -- and Twelve-Fingered Boy has a pair of two of the most likable characters I can remember meeting. Shreve is fast-talking, tough-as-nails, thoughtful and honorable; Jack is quiet, gentle, scarred but indomitable. Their adventures hopping trains and sneaking across the country to unravel the mysteries of the plot are part Huck Finn, part X-Men. The scary stuff in this book -- and there's some really scary stuff here -- goes beyond the usual scares of kids' horror, and is truly the stuff of nightmares. This is a book that mesmerizes like a venomous snake, and while it comes to something of a conclusion at the end of 264 too-short pages, I was delighted to learn that it is only book one of a trilogy. I'll be on the watch for the next two volumes.

The Twelve-Fingered Boy

Spacegoing Earth: a painting by Angus McKie


When I first saw this Angus McKie illustration, I had a moment when I thought it depicted the Earth being encased in a huge, space-going shell and I flashed back to Damon Knight's spectacular novel Why Do Birds?, a straight-faced yet comic novel about a man who puts the whole human race in a box. Then I realized that the picture depicted a hollow, space-going sphere being fitted with an armored cover and my mind spun into a deep future from which it hasn't entirely returned. Beautiful work. Here's the official McKie site, but it appears to be down.

Angus McKie

Kickstarting a short film based on Daniel "Robopocalypse" Wilson's story "The Nostalgist"

Daniel Wilson, whose novels Amped and Robopocalypse" were just terrific, is raising money on Kickstarter to complete a short film based on his short story The Nostalgist. The film has already been shot and the money is being raised for effects production. The cast are tremendous, the production team accomplished, and the story is beautiful, so this is a really good kind of project to find on Kickstarter.

In details your support will enable us to complete:

* CG character design, modelling, animation, texturing, lighting and final rendering
* Digital Set Extensions (matte paintings, digital environments, effects)
* Compositing: rotoscoping, green screen keying, plate clean up, CG implementation into live action footage
* Conforming and Grading

Furthermore, your contributions will help us cover the costs of:

* Post production Sound and Film Soundtrack
* Film Identity Design (Titles, Poster, General communication material)
* Deliverables (DVD/Blu-Ray masters, digital master, materials, legal documentation)
* Marketing and Publicity
* Festival submissions and Distribution costs

The Nostalgist - A sci-fi short film

Rapture of the Nerds is a Campbell Award finalist

Well, this is fabulous news: Rapture of the Nerds, the novel Charlie Stross and I published last year, is a finalist for the 2013 Campbell Award for best novel. It's in some truly outstanding company, too -- check out that shortlist! Cory

Chest-burster pendant


Etsy maker CthulhuWakeUp made this stonking chestburster necklace pendant, and granted an interview to the Girl Gone Geek blog about his art:

Practicing digital sculpture in my own time, I came up with the Cthulhu pendant and I really wanted to do something with it. I put it up in kickstarter and raised money to make 150 of them. I was thrilled not only that I was able to share my personal work but to make some money along the way too. After that I decided to work towards making a side business of it. Unfortunately, I can’t work as fast as I would like to towards that goal but I’m getting there!

Etsy Crush of the Week & Giveaway: Cthulhu Wake Up (via Neatorama)

Locus Awards 2013 ballot announced: a guide to the best sf/f in 2013

The 2013 Locus Awards final ballot has been announced, and as ever, it is a fabulous guide signposting some of the very best work published science fiction and fantasy in the past year -- a perfect place to start your explorations of the year's books.

I am very honored to have been included on the ballot; my novel Pirate Cinema made the Best Young Adult novel list, which is a particularly strong category this year:

See the full ballot after the jump.

2013 Locus Awards Finalists

Read the rest

Tim Wu and Cory talk networks, policy and the future

Slate's "Stranger Than Fiction" podcast has just aired its second episode: a discussion between Tim Wu (a cyberlawyer, Internet scholar and good egg) and me (MP3)! Future installments will include talks with Kim Stanley Robinson and Margaret Atwood (as well as others) -- the inaugural episode featured Tim in discussion with Neal Stephenson. Cory

When hairdryers looked like mind-control devices


Every now and again, Dark Roasted Blend busts out a super-set of vintage photos of some gadget, technology, or system from yesteryear that is so surpassingly fantastic that it stops you cold.

Today is a day where such a set has been posted. The photos of Vintage Salon Hair Dryers that Avi Abrams rounded up here are nothing short of spectacular. Every single one of these demands to be dug out of the scrapheap of history, refurbished, and used as a prop in a low-budget science fiction movie. Especially the kraken-hair ones.

Sleek Vintage Salon Hair Dryers

Austin "You" Grossman and Robin "Mr Penumbra" Sloan reading, San Francisco, May 11

The next SF-in-SF free science fiction event looks like a seriously fabulous evening: both Austin Grossman (author of YOU) and Robin Sloan (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore) will give a free reading and then take part in a discussion with host Terry Bisson. It's on Sat May 11, and free (though donations to Variety Children's Charity are solicited). Cory

Future Tense: Neal Stephenson and Tim Wu talk future, sf and tech


Slate, the New America Foundation and Arizona State University have kicked off a new podcast called "Future Tense," hosted by Internet scholar Tim Wu. The inaugural episode is an interview with Neal Stephenson wherein Neal and Tim talk about where the future has gone -- why we no longer seem to dream of jetpacks and instead focus on fiddly mobile phones. Stephenson gets some very good points in on the lack of predictivity in science fiction, and what sf really contributes to the future.

There are six installments in all -- coming episodes include conversations with Margaret Atwood and me!

Stranger Than Fiction, Neal Stephenson Edition

MP3 link

(Thanks, Tim!)

(Image: Neal Stephenson Answers Questions, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from jmpk's photostream)

Necessary Evil - a triumphant end to the Milkweed Triptych where Nazi X-Men fight English warlocks


With Necessary Evil, published today, Ian Tregillis triumphantly concludes his astonishing, brilliant, pulse-pounding debut trilogy, The Milkweed Triptych. Milkweed began in 2010 with Bitter Seeds, an alternate history WWII novel about a Nazi doctor who creates a race of twisted X-Men through a program of brutal experimentation; and of the British counter-strategy: calling up the British warlocks and paying the blood-price to the lurking elder gods who would change the very laws of physics in exchange for the blood of innocents. These elder gods, the Eidolons, hate humanity and wish to annihilate us, but we are so puny that they can only perceive us when we bleed for them. With each conjuration of the Eidolons on Britain's behalf, the warlocks bring closer the day when the Eidolons will break through and wipe humanity's stain off the universe.

Book two, The Coldest War, came out last summer -- a too-long hiatus! -- and jumped forward to the 1960s, where the struggle continued in a Europe divided among the Soviets -- who seized the Nazi technology at the end of the war and used it to breed their own supermen -- and the British, whose warlock reserves have become an everyday instrument of foreign policy. Coldest War was half James Bond, half Cthulhu, and was every bit as painstakingly researched, beautifully described, blisterlingly plotted and utterly engrossing as the first.

Now, with book three, Necessary Evil, Tregillis draws the series to a close with a time travel story that goes back to the beginning of the tale, a desperate mission to stop the use of magick and the use of the Nazi "Will to Power" from ever gaining hold, to keep the elder gods at bay. And in Evil, Tregillis is even more on form. This is a book that veers precipitously from unexpected and chilling ruminations on the inherent evil of precognition; to the questions of loyalty and betrayal so thorny that they need a time-travel loop to really be explored; to spy-thriller action sequences that will keep you up under the covers with a flashlight, turning pages and unable to sleep.

This is a remarkable set of books, and with all three in hand, would make a fabulous spring read.

Necessary Evil

Read the rest

HOWTO make a HAL9000

With just a few steps, you can turn one of Adafruit's Massive Red Arcade Button kits into a working (ish) HAL9000 computer:

Devoted film fans will spend countless hours and hundreds of dollars (occasionally even thousands) to create flawless replica props for their personal collections. The iconic eye of HAL 9000 from 2001: a Space Odyssey is one such object of desire…popular enough that detailed (and pricey) licensed reproductions exist. This is cool stuff! But if we relax our criteria just a bit, you or I can turn out a pretty decent, recognizable facsimile in a weekend for just a small fraction of the cost. The 80/20 rule in action!

We’re not selling a prop or even a kit here…that would raise a big licensing stink, so please don’t ask. What follows are some ideas on creating one yourself. Much like our not-a-Back-to-the-Future-clock project, the concept came about when customers noted that a component already in our shop resembled an unrelated film item — in this case, our Massive Red Arcade Button and HAL’s distinctive lens.

Affordable HAL 9000 Replica (Thanks, Phil!)

Bruce Sterling on startups' role in helping the global rich get richer

Bruce Sterling's speech from NEXT Berlin is a blast of cold air on the themes of startup life, disruption, and global collapse. Bruce excoriates the startup world for its complicity with the conspiracy of the global investor class to vastly increase the wealth of a tiny minority, and describes the role that "design fiction" has in changing this.

Bruce Sterling on Fantasy prototypes and real disruption | NEXT Berlin (via Die Puny Humans)

Pravic: new SF zine

NewImage Pravic is a new science fiction zine edited by David "Total Dick-Head" Gill and Nathaniel K. Miller. The copy machine just spit out the second issue, featuring fiction by Rudy Rucker, Robert Onopa, Cal Godot, and Gill. Also, a special bonus rumination: "Are The Melvins sci-fi?" Single print copies are $3 to your door or $1 for a PDF digital download to your desktop. Pravic: A New Grammar for Science Fiction

 Older Entries