When People Say the British Invasion of Comics, What Do They Really Mean?

When People Say the British Invasion of Comics, What Do They Really Mean?

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I think it’s a truism that either you have no taste as a child (The Golden Age of Science Fiction Is Ages 8-12 Effect) or that you just haven’t read enough to be discerning.

I think I’ve certainly suffered from being 12 as well as not having read enough. There are books and comics I read when younger that don’t do anything for me in my forties.

And there are good books and comics whose tropes have been so over-used that they’ve moved into the cliché.

That all being said, I think some good work was being done in American comics in the 1980s. Chris Claremont, J.M. DeMattis, George Perez, Walt Simonson, John Byrne, Marv Wolfman, Peter David and many others were delivering solid, A-level work. And younger folk like Frank Miller were bringing decidedly different sensibilities and tones to American comics.

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New Treasures: The Moon and the Other by John Kessel

New Treasures: The Moon and the Other by John Kessel

The Moon and the Other-smallA new novel by John Kessel is a major event.

Kessel isn’t particularly prolific, but what he has written has gotten a heck of a lot of attention. His second novel, Good News From Outer Space (1989, Tor), was a Nebula nominee, and his first collection, Meeting in Infinity (1992, Arkham House), was nominated for the World Fantasy Award. He’s won two Nebula Awards for his short fiction, and his stories have been nominated for three Hugos, two World Fantasy Awards, and eight Nebulas. His newest novel, The Moon and the Other, is his first in two decades. It arrives in hardcover on Tuesday from Saga Press.

John Kessel, one of the most visionary writers in the field, has created a rich matriarchal utopia, set in the near future on the moon, a society that is flawed by love and sex, and on the brink of a destructive civil war.

In the middle of the twenty-second century, over three million people live in underground cities below the moon’s surface. One city-state, the Society of Cousins, is a matriarchy, where men are supported in any career choice, but no right to vote — and tensions are beginning to flare as outside political intrigues increase.

After participating in a rebellion that caused his mother’s death, Erno has been exiled from the Society of Cousins. Now, he is living in the Society’s rival colony, Persepolis, when he meets Amestris, the defiant daughter of the richest man on the moon. Mira, a rebellious loner in the Society, creates graffiti videos that challenge the Society’s political domination. She is hopelessly in love with Carey, the exemplar of male privilege. An Olympic champion in low-gravity martial arts and known as the most popular bedmate in the Society, Carey’s more suited to being a boyfriend than a parent, even as he tries to gain custody of his teenage son.

When the Organization of Lunar States sends a team to investigate the condition of men in the Society, Erno sees an opportunity to get rich, Amestris senses an opportunity to escape from her family, Mira has a chance for social change, and Carey can finally become independent of the matriarchy that considers him a perpetual adolescent. But when Society secrets are revealed, the first moon war erupts, and everyone must decide what is truly worth fighting for.

The Moon and the Other will be published by Saga Press on April 4, 2017. It is 597 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover and $7.99 for the digital edition.

Liam Neeson Attached to Play Philip Marlowe … But Not in a Raymond Chandler Adaptation for Some Reason

Liam Neeson Attached to Play Philip Marlowe … But Not in a Raymond Chandler Adaptation for Some Reason

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Irish actor and dadbro buttkicker extraordinaire Liam Neeson (known around these parts as Liam Neesons) has upped his righteous tough guy game to play the most righteous — and possibly greatest — tough guy of all: Philip Marlowe. The hardboiled detective. This news comes from Variety, which reports Neeson is attached to the new Marlowe project to be produced by Gary Levinson for Nickel City Pictures from a script by William Monahan (The Departed).

This is inspired casting. Neeson is a brilliant actor who can portray the world-weary but upstanding Los Angeles detective, although Neeson will need a director to ensure he doesn’t slip into the more action-leaning characters he’s played recently. But any return of Philip Marlowe to the big screen is a monstrous, tarantula-on-a-slice-of-angel-food-cake deal. The last Philip Marlowe big-screen film was in 1978!

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The Late March Fantasy Magazine Rack

The Late March Fantasy Magazine Rack

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Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine January February 2017-rack The-Dark-March-2017-rack The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction April May 2017-rack Sword and Sorcery Magazine February 2017-rack

Lots of great reading for short fiction fans in the back half of March. As usual, Michael Penkas did most of the heavy lifting on our magazine coverage, with in-depth reviews of recent issues of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (two issues), Nightmare, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and Asimov’s Science Fiction (two issues!). Fletcher Vredenburgh checked in with his regular February Short Story Roundup, plus reviews of two vintage SF novels originally serialized in Astounding SF/Analog: H. Beam Piper’s Space Viking and Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement. Matthew Wuertz contributed the latest installment in his long-run project to review every issue of the legendary Galaxy magazine, with a report on the September 1953 issue. And finally, we had a look at what happens when cats read science fiction magazines.

Check out all the details on the magazines above by clicking on the each of the images. Our early March Fantasy Magazine Rack is here.

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Future Treasures: Cosmic Powers: The Saga Anthology of Far-Away Galaxies edited by John Joseph Adams

Future Treasures: Cosmic Powers: The Saga Anthology of Far-Away Galaxies edited by John Joseph Adams

Cosmic Powers-smallJohn Joseph Adams has edited two previous Saga Anthologies: Loosed upon the World: The Saga Anthology of Climate Fiction (2015) and What the #@&% Is That?: The Saga Anthology of the Monstrous and the Macabre (2016). His latest is a collection of epic SF tales “for fans who want a little less science and a lot more action, inspired by movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Wars.” It contains brand-new fiction from the top authors in the genre.

Okay, I try to be objective in these future-book summaries, but I think JJA and Saga Press have just discovered the keys to my heart. There have been some terrific anthologies published in 2017 (and the year is still young) but, dang. Already this one looks like my favorite.

Just check out the list of contributors: Alan Dean Foster, Dan Abnett, Aliette De Bodard, Kameron Hurley, Charlie Jane Anders, Yoon Ha Lee, Linda Nagata, Seanan McGuire, Caroline M. Yoachim, Tobias S. Buckell, and many others. Here’s the complete table of contents.

“A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime,” Charlie Jane Anders
“Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance,” Tobias S. Buckell
“The Deckhand, the Nova Blade, and the Thrice-Sung Texts,” Becky Chambers
“The Sighted Watchmaker,” Vylar Kaftan
“Infinite Love Engine,” Joseph Allen Hill
“Unfamiliar Gods,” Adam-Troy Castro, with Judi B. Castro
“Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World,” Caroline M. Yoachim
“Our Specialty is Xenogeology,” Alan Dean Foster

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io9 on the Must-Read Science Fiction and Fantasy Books for March

io9 on the Must-Read Science Fiction and Fantasy Books for March

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Well, here it is, the last day of March. And those promises I made to myself that I’d sample all the terrific recommendations for the month that’ve already stacked up — like Andrew Liptak’s 23 Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels to Read this March, and John DeNardo’s 11 Can’t-Miss SF and Fantasy Books in March? Yeah. Pretty much a total failure.

What to do? Try with one more list, of course! Hope springs eternal, and March still has a few hour left.

Over at io9, Cheryl Eddy has compiled a list of 19 new March releases, including books by Alex Bledsoe, Seanan McGuire, Ada Palmer, Paul Cornell, Tim Lebbon, Cassandra Rose Clarke, Ian McDonald, and many others. Let’s dig in and see what catches my eye (and also, is short. ‘Cause the clock is ticking.)

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Goth Chick News: Neck Deep in the Haunts – The 2017 HAA Show

Goth Chick News: Neck Deep in the Haunts – The 2017 HAA Show

Transworld Halloween & Attractions Show

Hard to believe Goth Chick News has been covering the Haunted Attraction Association’s Halloween show for sixteen glorious years, but as Black Gate photog Chris Z and I once again headed south from Chicago at 5 a.m. toward St. Louis, it didn’t feel like it had been that long at all.

Okay, that’s BS. At 5 a.m. it felt longer.

But as we motored through darkened cornfields dodging various small animals and quoting the movie Motel Hell (“It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s fritters!”), it dawned on me how many “firsts” this show represents in my Black Gate career; first trade show covered, first interview and first article in the top 50, though back then I think it was top 20.

Needless to say, not only does the HAA loom large professionally, the people we’ve met along the way mean it has a special place in my little black heart.

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Keith West on the Ballantine Best of Series and Why We Need it More Than Ever

Keith West on the Ballantine Best of Series and Why We Need it More Than Ever

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Over at Adventures Fantastic, the distinguished Keith West visits a topic near and dear to our hearts: the Ballantine Best of series, perhaps the most important line of paperback collections the genre has ever seen. The 21 volumes of the Ballantine Best of series introduced thousands of readers to the best short fiction by the greatest SF and fantasy writers of the 20th Century — and more than a few writers who have now been forgotten. Here’s Keith:

I’ve already written about how the Leigh Brackett volume I bought through the [Science Fiction Book Club] was a game changer for me. The authors I first encountered through the SFBC editions were Pohl (the first I bought through the club), Kornbluth, Hamilton, Brown, del Rey, Campbell, plus Brackett, but the one that really blew my mind was Kuttner. His was the second Best of I bought through the club. Something about Kuttner’s wit and cynicism, plus his imagination captured me and has never really let me go…

So why did I say we need the Ballantine series more than ever? Because of the way it captured the literary history of the field. There’s no one today who writes like Cordwainer Smith. Or Stanley G. Weinbaum. Or Eric Frank Russell. These writers were the trail blazers and pioneers of the genre, folks for whom an entertaining story wasn’t just a good thing. It was how they made a living.

James McGlothlin has been reviewing the series for us, one book at a time. Our previous coverage includes the following 16 volumes (listed in order of publication).

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March 2017 Lightspeed Magazine Now Available

March 2017 Lightspeed Magazine Now Available

Lightspeed March 2017-smallI don’t get to read Lightspeed magazine as often as I like, but the March issue looks like a good place to play catch up. Here’s Charles Payseur at Quick Sip Reviews on “The Worldless” by up-and-coming author Indrapramit Das.

This is a lovely and complex story that unfolds in a port, in a place between places, where gravity isn’t quite high enough and Dunyshar, those without a world, live and work and die and dream of something more. The story focuses on two people, NuTay and their offspring Satlyt, as they scrape a life together. And I love the way that the story evokes place and the feeling of being detached from place. Orphaned in some important way. Without a culture because culture is associated with planets and not with ports, the place that ships are only ever moving through. It’s obvious from the story that some not-great-s#!t is happening and I like that this is revealed slowly, revealed with all the terrible weight of it… An amazing read!

Read Charles’ complete review of the March issue here.

This month’s Lightspeed offers original fantasy by Marta Randall and Greg Kurzawa, and fantasy reprints by Eileen Gunn and Caitlín R. Kiernan. It also has original science fiction by Indrapramit Das and Adam-Troy Castro, plus SF reprints by Rachel Swirsky and Julian Mortimer Smith. The non-fiction includes an editorial from John Joseph Adams, author spotlights, TV reviews by Joseph Allen Hill, Book Reviews by Amal El-Mohtar, and a feature interview with Nnedi Okorafor.

The exclusive content in the ebook version this month includes an exclusive reprint of Holly Phillips’ novella “Proving the Rule,” and an excerpt from Taiyo Fujii’s novel Orbital Cloud.

The cover this month is by Reiko Murakami, illustrating Indrapramit Das’s story, “The Worldless.” Here’s the complete contents for the March issue.

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Masterpieces of Islamic Art in Cairo

Masterpieces of Islamic Art in Cairo

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Mamluk era mosque lamp from 15th century Cairo.
The tradition of hand painted mosque lamps continues
to this day, even though they now contain electric lights

Last week I discussed some of Tutankhamun’s treasures in Cairo’s National Museum. That museum is an amazing collection of items from ancient Egypt. The city’s other great museum, the Museum of Islamic Art, focuses on the Muslim period and has one of the greatest collections of its kind in the world.

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