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Month: October 2015

Clones, Deep Space Ships, and Surviving the Apocalypse on a Submarine: The Pocket Richard Cowper

Clones, Deep Space Ships, and Surviving the Apocalypse on a Submarine: The Pocket Richard Cowper

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Time Out of Mind-small Profundis-small Out There Where the Big Ships Go-small

Richard Cowper was a British SF and fantasy writer who published over a dozen novels and four short story collections between 1967 and 1986. Sadly, much of his output never made it across the Atlantic. Ballantine reprinted his first two novels in paperback, Breakthrough (1969) and Phoenix (1970), and DAW published perhaps his most famous novel, The Twilight of Briareus, in paperback in 1975. But those two ignored the rest of his work.

Fortunately, in the late 70s and early 80s Pocket Books brought six of his novels to the US, including the complete The White Bird of Kinship trilogy, and they were the sole publishers of his collection, Out There Where the Big Ships Go. It was the Pocket editions that first caught my eye on bookstore shelves in Ottawa — particularly the three gorgeous Don Maitz covers above. (You’ll note the maple leaf emblem on the top left of the Canadian editions.)

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Amazon.com Files Suit Against 1,114 Review Sellers on Fiverr

Amazon.com Files Suit Against 1,114 Review Sellers on Fiverr

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Amazon HQ-smallYesterday Amazon.com filed suit against 1,114 individuals offering Review-For-Hire services through online marketplace Fiverr.

The suits follow a lengthy undercover sting operation in which Amazon purchased review-writing services from multiple sellers. Fivver is a popular online marketplace that lets sellers offer simple services, like video editing or photo conversion, typically for a flat fee of $5. Amazon claims it contacted Fiverr sellers who were advertising professional review-writing services for Amazon products.

Many sellers don’t even bother to write reviews, instructing buyers to write the reviews they want posted. In effect, they are selling the use of their online identities to post a review.

Amazon is not suing Fiverr, and in fact these services are effectively banned by Fiverr’s terms and conditions. But that obviously hasn’t prevented sellers from offering them.

See more details, and read the complete legal complaint, at Geekwire.

Why Novellas? Tor.com‘s Stellar New Fantasy & SF Releases

Why Novellas? Tor.com‘s Stellar New Fantasy & SF Releases

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The-Sorcerer-of-the-Wildeeps-Tor Witches-of-Lychford-Tor Sunset-Mantle-Tor

Here’s the thing about Tor.com Publishing: I’m a total fan. Complete fanboy.  I know, I know, they pay me to tell people how wonderful the books are, but between you & me? I’d do it for free, because I’m a total sucker for the books we’re putting out. (Probably not full-time, though, so if you’re reading this, boss, keep the paychecks coming!)

In all seriousness, it really is a “dream job,” precisely what I’d hoped to be doing when I got into publishing: having opinions about books with wizards & spaceships, & making those opinions matter. I’ve picked up a bit of jack-of-all-trades over the years, & being part of a new experiment flexes those skills in ways I am still gleefully scrambling to figure out. Tor.com Publishing is proof that publishers are doing new things & evolving.

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Springald! The Medieval Eighty-Eight

Springald! The Medieval Eighty-Eight

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Springald1
“Destroyed everything within range”

The springald looks quaint in the 14th century illustration – a flimsy looking box frame served by two oddly bendy crewmen.

Youtube video of reconstruction in action
Youtube video of reconstruction in action

However, at the battle of Mons-en-Pevele in 1304, a pair of French springalds “destroyed  everything within range” — and that range could be 300 m — until the enemy overran them and hacked it up.

According to the Royal Armouries Springalds and Great Crossbows (the main source for this article), a springald bolt could weigh 1.4kg, and impacted with an estimated energy of 1782 Joules, that’s about twenty times that of a regular crossbow, nearly three times that of a Magnum pistol, and a bit more than an impact from an AK47 round (source)!

No wonder, then that the chronicler Froissart describes one such terrible missile passing right through a man and out the other side!

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Future Treasures: Word Puppets by Mary Robinette Kowal

Future Treasures: Word Puppets by Mary Robinette Kowal

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Word Puppets Mary Robinette Kowal-smallIn the last few years Mary Robinette Kowal has built a name for herself as a master of historical fantasy with her Glamourist series, which began with the Nebula nominee Shades of Milk and Honey in 2010. But she’s also known for her acclaimed short fiction, and in fact in 2008 she won the Campbell Award for Best New Writer based solely on the strength of her superb short stories — no easy feat in a field where most of the acclaim (and the awards) go to emerging novelists. She’s been nominated for the Hugo Award three times (for “Evil Robot Monkey,” “For Want of a Nail,” and “The Lady Astronaut of Mars”), and won twice.

In addition to writing, Mary is also an accomplished pupeteer who has performed for Jim Henson Pictures, the Center for Puppetry Arts, and other fine institutions. She brings her two careers together with her second short story collection, Word Puppets, which goes on sale from Prime Books on November 5.

Celebrated as the author of five acclaimed historical fantasy novels in the Glamourist series, Mary Robinette Kowal is also well known as an award-winning author of short science fiction and fantasy. Her stories encompass a wide range of themes, a covey of indelible characters, and settings that span from Earth’s past to its near and far futures as well as even farther futures beyond. Alternative history, fairy tales, adventure, fables, science fiction (both hard and soft), fantasy (both epic and cozy) — nothing is beyond the reach of her unique talent. Word Puppets — the first comprehensive collection of Kowal’s extraordinary fiction — includes her two Hugo-winning stories, a Hugo nominee, an original story set in the world of “The Lady Astronaut of Mars,” and fourteen other show-stopping tales.

Word Puppets features an introduction by Patrick Rothfuss

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Interzone #260 Now on Sale

Interzone #260 Now on Sale

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Interzone 290-smallThe September-October issue of Britain’s longest running science fiction and fantasy magazine is now on sale. The cover, by Martin Hanford, is titled “All Change.” (Click the image at right for a bigger version.)

This issue has fiction from John Shirley, Priya Sharma, Jeff Noon, C.A. Hawksmoor, and Christien Gholson. Here’s Lois Tilton at Locus Online on Jeff Noon’s “No Rez”:

An experimental piece in terms of typography and page layout, with several sections that resemble lines of verse… I don’t see much of this sort of thing these days, but I’m not surprised to find it coming from IZ, a zine that doesn’t stand still. This is a cyber future with the motto: “You are what you see.” Or, As you see the world, so you think about the world. But the only way everyone can see the world is pixelated, through implants, and in higher or lower resolution, with or without more vision-pops and ads, depending on how they can pay. Because Aiden is limited, when not on work-time, to low-rez, sometimes even when he closes his eyes, the dark starts breaking up. He has to wonder what he really looks like in the unmediated world, the zero-rez world, whether a girl might find him attractive. Then one day he happens on a mysterious black box that he isn’t supposed to have.

This sort of virtual world isn’t so new, but I’ve rarely seen it expressed with such insight and verve. There are genuinely poetic moments here, not simply apparent versification. This text would have been just about as effective if laid out on the page in a more conventional manner. – RECOMMENDED

Read Lois’ complete comments on the issue here.

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Goth Chick News: The Overlook Gets a Starring Role

Goth Chick News: The Overlook Gets a Starring Role

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The Stanley Hotel
The Timberline Lodge

If you had asked me, when a prequel to The Shining was first green-lighted in July of last year, I’d have said it didn’t sound like such a hot idea.

Initial plans suggested the storyline would center on events leading up to Jack, Wendy and Danny Torrance’s arrival at the remote and ominous Overlook Hotel; and though fans of the book know there is a substantial amount of pre-Torrance material to work with, it just didn’t seem on the same terrifying level as the ultimate fallout of those events.

That early opinion of mine (may have) changed when Mark Romanek became attached to the project this week — a real-deal director with an edgy artistic vision.

Film will be called… wait for it…

The Overlook Hotel.

The premise is based on a deleted prologue written by Stephen King. “Before the Play” is about:

The origin story of the Overlook Hotel through the eyes of its first owner, Bob T. Watson. A robber baron at the turn of the 20th century, Watson scaled the remote peaks of the Colorado Rockies to build the grandest resort in America, and a place he and his family would also call home.

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New Treasures: Of Sorrow and Such by Angela Slatter

New Treasures: Of Sorrow and Such by Angela Slatter

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Of Sorrow and Such-small Of Sorrow and Such back-small

Angela Slatter has been nominated twice for the World Fantasy Award, both times for her short story collections. Of Sorrow and Such is a Medieval fantasy featuring witches, shapeshifters, and the dark thread of the supernatural in a world of superstition and fear. (Click on the front and back covers above for bigger versions.)

Of Sorrow and Such is the sixth in Tor.com‘s stellar line-up of Fall novellas, which includes exciting new releases from K. J. Parker, Paul Cornell, Nnedi Okorafor, and many others. So far I’ve been tremendously impressed with them — they’re gorgeously packaged and marketed, feature some great names and more than a few exciting debuts, and they’ve been extremely well received. I expect to see several titles at the top of awards lists next year.

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Call For Submissions: Mysterion

Call For Submissions: Mysterion

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A few months ago, I announced that the self-published book review column would be going on hiatus while I worked on a new project. It’s now time to talk about that project here.

Mysterion's cover art by Rob Joseph.
Mysterion’s cover art by Rob Joseph.

My wife and I have decided that we have too much time and money. The obvious way to rectify this situation is to publish a pro-paying speculative fiction anthology. And as you can tell by the beautiful cover art we acquired, we’ve already begun our personal wealth redistribution program of transferring money from us to other artists.

The anthology is called Mysterion: Rediscovering the Mysteries of the Christian Faith, and it is now open for submissions. As the name gives away, we’ll be publishing stories that engage with Christianity. While the phrase “Christian speculative fiction” occasionally appears on our website, our anthology is not what is often meant by “Christian fiction”: stories written by Christians and for Christians with nary a heresy nor a swear word to raise an eyebrow. We’re not looking for preachy stories, nor are we necessarily looking for unambiguously pro-Christian stories. There’s no need for the writer or the story to pass some theological standard for Mysterion. On the contrary, we’re hoping to be challenged.

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Victorian Horror: Rippers Resurrected

Victorian Horror: Rippers Resurrected

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rippers 1rippers 2I’ve been waiting for this Kickstarter for years. You see, more than a decade ago, when Savage Worlds was newly launched, one of their very first expansions was a setting called Rippers, where brave heroes in Victorian times fought those things-man-was-not-meant-to-know. Those especially daring, or foolish, could harvest the organs or powers of the creatures of the night in the fight against them. These were the Rippers.

It’s only been available as a PDF or (very) expensive used book. I picked it up as a PDF and loved it, both for the setting and included adventures, and for the system. And I’ve been waiting for the an update, rumors of which have been swirling for ages.

I’ve become quite the fan of Savage Worlds because it really is, as advertised, Fast, Furious, and Fun. Savage Worlds places a premium on being streamlined and cinematic so that players and GM can worry about the story and not about the rules.

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