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Fast Forward Fast Approaching

The website the Eternal Night has just posted an interview with Yours Truly, where we talk about science fiction and its writers, the future, music and the impetus behind the soon-to-be-released anthology, Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge. Along with the interivew, they have also posted the introduction I wrote for the anthology, “Welcome to the Future,” where readers of this blog won’t be surprised to find me proselytising the cause of SF yet again.

Meanwhile, in addition to the aforementioned Publishers Weekly review (“Outstanding!”), several more reviews have come in:

“Lou Anders has a very ambitious goal – to start a new anthology series in the tradition of past landmarks like Damon Knight’s Orbit and Frederik Pohl’s Star SF. I have not read those series, but it’s safe to say that Anders is on the right track with Fast Forward 1…Short stories are always difficult for me to review, and collections even more so. Certain stories always exceed those around them, and others can be total failures. Anders has done well to avoid the failures, though some are as forgettable as the page number. Of course others still keep me awake at night. Fast Forward 1 is better than most – 7.5/10.”
“….a great anthology, filled with numerous and diverse stories and is bound to please any fan of science fiction.”
“All the entries are strong with the best being those concentrating on everyday people dealing with commonplace technology like Paul Di Filippo’s ‘Wikiworld’ and Justina Robson’ ‘The Girl Hero’s Mirror Says He’s Not the One’ (in Mappa Mundi world) and those bringing the past into the future such as Tony Ballantyne’s ‘Aristotle OS’ and Ken McLeod’s ‘Jesus Christ, Reanimator.’ This is a fun collection that forecasts where technology will take humans including those left behind struggling with yesterday’s artifacts.”

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New Dreams and Melty Men

Tom Easton likes New Dreams for Old. As he writes in his column on Analog, the Reference Library, the book is:

“…a collection that amply demonstrates why Mike has been one of my favorite writers since the 1970s. He has a remarkably clean style and a huge gift for sheer story at many levels. He can be light and frothy as in his John Justin Mallory fantasies (two are here) and deeply reflective about the human condition, as in the Kirinyaga stories (one of the best, ‘For I Have Touched the Sky,’ is here). If you aren’t familiar with his work, this collection is an excellent introduction. If you are, his stories tend to be very rereadable. Buy this one, and enjoy.”

Meanwhile, I got my personal copies of Jack Dann’s The Man Who Meltedyesterday, which means they should be hitting stores soon and can already be ordered online. I’m really impressed by how good this title looks in hand. The art is by Nick Stathopoulous – first time I’ve worked with Nick – and the design by our own Jackie Cooke. I’d love to know what people think about the look, as it’s a bit of a departure from other Pyr titles, but I think it’s gorgeous.

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Info Dragons

An audio interview with Infoquakeauthor David Louis Edelman, conducted by Evo Terra, is up on the Dragon Page, Cover to Cover #245. David talks about writing the book, the singularity and the rapture of the nerds, the increasingly technological aspect of modern living, and the complexities of his central protagonist (who is less a money-grubbing bastard, more a stand in for Western civilization, and closer to Bill Gates than Steve Jobs, apparently.) It’s one of David’s best interviews to date, too, IMHO. Check it out.

(Aside: David’s editor is also happy to learn that Book Two is almost done. That’s good news.)

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Kay Kenyon’s New Website: Virtually Yours

Kay Kenyon has a brand new website, Virtually Yours, which lives at www.KayKenyon.com. Very sleek, very cool, and I’m happy to see quite a few pages dedicated to her upcoming quartet, the Entire and the Rose, which begins this April with Bright of the Sky. There, Kay has put up detailed pages on the characters, geography and other features of her invented universe, as well as chapter excerpts from the novel. She’s also started a new blog, Kay’s Journal, one which has already set my ears burning (thanks, Kay). Naturally, I encourage everyone to check it out, the site, the blog and the book, including Kay’s previous novels.

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Sagramanda on Cool SciFi

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Rich Horton posts his review of Alan Dean Foster’s Sagramanda, apparenlty orphaned from Locus magazine, over on CoolSciFi.com. He makes the inevitable comparison with River of Gods, though is fair in pointing out it really is apples to oranges in terms of authorial intent and scope, but seems to like Sagramanda none the less:

“Foster’s novel is not so brilliant as McDonald’s, and really it makes no attempt to be brilliant at that level. Rather, it is an enjoyable and fast-moving thriller – and quite successful as such…. It’s quite an exciting read. The plot moves sharply, and quite believably… The portrait of fairly near-future India is fairly well-done, though here the book truly does suffer by comparison with McDonald’s altogether more complex and deeper portrait. Sagramanda is no masterpiece, but it is fun and not without deeper shadings.”

I would add only that both McDonald and Foster were plugging into the zeitgeist at the same time and have produced two very different works, both valuable and enjoyable in their own rights and for their own reasons. Where McDonald’s work is sort of a futuristic Kim, Foster’s is a technothriller enhanced by the experience of a nonWestern setting. Obviously, I enjoyed both enormously, but then, I would. I think you will too though.

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100% Adventure

SFSignal posts their review of Martin Sketchley’s The Liberty Gun, the third and final installment of his Structure trilogy of military SF. They give the book four and a half out of five stars, praising it for “Relentless, engrossing action sequences; likable characters; page-turning quality; vivid imagery.”

They further say:

“Simply put: this is action-packed sf without the fluff. The story pacing is unapologetically swift and the narrative pushes the reader from one thrilling sequence to the next. There is no slow, novel-long buildup of action. It’s 100% adrenaline… Sketchley does an excellent job exceeding your average adventure quotient while simultaneously creating vivid imagery in his writing. I could easily imagine this on the big screen.”

SFSignal isn’t the first to recognize the cinematic potential of Martin’s series. Speaking of the previous installment, The Destiny Mask, Cheryl Morgan wrote “I can see comic books, film options and computer games in Martin Sketchley’s future. “

To date, Martin’s series has the highest action component of anything we’ve published and is also the most “cinematic,” which has me wondering if one of the bridges between the disparate mediums of literary and filmic SF is action. But the road back is “intelligence” – so is intelligent action the key?

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Infoquake Author on NPR this Sunday

David Louis Edelman, author of Infoquake, which, did I mention, B&N.com just picked as the # 1 SF novel of the year in their Editor’s Choice: Top Ten SF&F Novels of 2006 – is scheduled to be on NPR’s Weekend Edition this Sunday, in a feature report from the Agony Column’s Rick Kleffel which also includes such notables as TC Boyle, Jeff VanderMeer, Charlie Stross, Amir D. Aczel…and John Carpenter’s THEY LIVE.

As Rick says, “Not Your Usual NPR Lineup. Not anyone’s usual lineup for that matter.” Reportedly, the chances are that the piece will air in the second hour of Weekend Edition.

Update: The piece, entitled “Writers Find New Fiction Source in Economic Genre” is now online at NPR.org, where it is available in both RealAudio and Windows Media formats.

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The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

I’m very pleased to announce that B&N.com has just picked three titles for inclusion in their Editor’s Choice Top Ten SF&F Novels of 2006 list, prompting our publicity department to issue the following press release:

For Immediate Release

January 3, 200

“The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread Story of the Year”
Several Year-End “Bests”Cap 2006 for SF&F Imprint
Including Barnes & Noble’s SF&F Book of the Year!

Amherst, NY — Barnes & Noble online today posted their Editor’s Choice lists for the best science fiction and fantasy books of 2006. Three books by Pyr, an imprint of Prometheus Books, are in this Top Ten Novels of 2006 list, including the top spot!

The Barnes & Noble Science Fiction/Fantasy Book of the Year, Editor’s Choice, is Infoquake by David Louis Edelman—a debut that ingeniously mixes business with pleasure, or as B&N puts it, “equal parts corporate thriller, technophilic cautionary tale and breathtakingly visionary science fiction adventure.”

The other two Pyr books included in this best of the year list are The Crooked Letter by Sean Williams at number four (“prepare to be blown away,” they write) and Resolution, the conclusion to John Meaney’s three-book Nulapeiron Sequence, at number six.

The UK bookseller Waterstone’s also included two Pyr titles on their list of Top Ten SF for 2006: Crossover by Joel Shepherd and Paragaea by Chris Roberson.

Publishing blog Bookgasm posted a Best 5 Sci-Fi Books of 2006 list in which three of the best five books were from Pyr. River of Godsby Ian McDonald topped their list at number one, while Infoquake by David Louis Edelman and Crossover (both first novels) tied for fifth.

According to the science fiction and fantasy reviewer for Bookgasm,

“The biggest story of the year…is Pyr’s rise to prominence as a high-quality sci-fi imprint. Pyr has managed to round up a stable of authors and titles that represents the cutting edge of sci-fi and backs it up with promotion and marketing that pretty much outdoes the other imprints out there. Bravo, Pyr. Here’s hoping for an even greater 2007.”

The imprint will certainly do its best to make 2007 even greater than 2006:

In February, Pyr will launch a new hard science fiction anthology series, Fast Forward 1, dedicated to presenting the vanguard of the genre and charting the undiscovered country that is the future. In March, Pyr will publish Keeping It Real, the first of Justina Robson’s Quantum Gravity titles that are being hailed as her “breakout” books—the most entertaining, fun, and commercial of her novels to date. Promotion for Keeping it Real includes a special music track by The No Shows (www.thenoshows.com)—the hottest rock band of 2021.

In May, it’s “Bladerunner in the tropics” with Brasyl by Ian McDonald, the writer the Washington Post said is “becoming one of the best sf novelists of our time.” McDonald moves from India (River of Gods) to past, present, and future Brazil, with all its color, passion, and shifting realities, in a novel that is part SF, part history, part mystery, and entirely enthralling.

Pyr has already begun developing a reputation for publishing “smart” science fiction. But in September 2007, Pyr gets fantastic with its first straight-up commercial epic fantasy novel: The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. This book will lead Pyr’s Fall-Winter 07-08 season and be launched at Book Expo America in June 2007.

In other 2006 year-end awards, the blog Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist called Pyr “a breath of fresh air in both the fantasy and science fiction genres” and gave the imprint the creatively named and gratefully accepted “Best Thing Since Sliced Bread Award.”

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Fast Forward Review, Lou Anders Interview

Ernest Lilley, over on SFRevu, has just posted his interview with Yours Truly, where we talk about Pyr, Fast Forward 1, media SF, Hollywood, and a host of authors (including Ian McDonald, Kay Kenyon, Justina Robson and Joe Abercrombie). I think it came out pretty well, considering I was typing my responses until the wee hours.

So, that goes up on SFRevu this morning, and within minutes, I get word from our wonderful publicity director that Publishers Weekly has given my upcoming anthology, Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge, a Starred Review!!

They praise stories by Robert Charles Wilson, Mary A. Turzillo, Paul Di Filippo, and Ken MacLeod, and say:

“The solid, straightforward storytelling of the 19 stories and two poems that Anders (Futureshocks) gathers for this first in a projected series of all-original SF anthologies speculates on people’s efforts to “make sense of a changing world.” The contributors don’t necessarily assume that humans will find it easy or even possible to cope with all the changes around and within them-but they’ll try, which is just part of SF’s continuing dialogue about the future… All the selections in this outstanding volume prompt thoughtful speculation about what kind of tomorrow we’re heading toward and what we’ll do when we get there.”

What’s more, they’ve selected John Picacio’s wonderful cover illustration for the table of contents page. We’ve stopped the presses, literally, to get the PW quote on the cover, so the timing couldn’t be better.

Meanwhile, Fast Forward 1 debuts in February, with the following TOC:

Introduction:Welcome to the Future…Lou Anders
YFL-500…Robert Charles Wilson
The Girl Hero’s Mirror Says He’s Not the One…Justina Robson
Small Offerings…Paolo Bacigalupi
They Came From the Future…Robyn Hitchcock
Plotters and Shooters…Kage Baker
Aristotle OS…Tony Ballantyne
The Something-Dreaming Game…Elizabeth Bear
No More Stories…Stephen Baxter
Time of the Snake…A.M. Dellamonica
The Terror Bard…Larry Niven & Brenda Cooper
p dolce…Louise Marley
Jesus Christ, Reanimator…Ken MacLeod
Solomon’s Choice…Mike Resnick & Nancy Kress
Sanjeev and Robotwallah…Ian McDonald
A Smaller Government…Pamela Sargent
Pride…Mary A. Turzillo
I Caught Intelligence…Robyn Hitchcock
Settlements…George Zebrowski
The Hour of the Sheep…Gene Wolfe
Sideways from Now…John Meaney
Wikiworld…Paul Di Filippo

Not bad, yes?

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Melty Men – Jack Dann, William Gibson, and the Man Who Melted

The new issue of SFRevu is up, and with it, a really fascinating piece on Jack Dann’s The Man Who Melted. We’re reissuing this classic 1984 novel this month, but Ernest Lilley notes that the original four stories from which the novel sprung place its genesis as just prior to William Gibson’s landmark cyberpunk work Neuromancer(to which it lost the Nebula Award). Liley goes on to compare and contrast the two novels, with the conclusion that they were operating almost in parallel within the zeitgeist of the times. He contrast the novels’ respective protagonists thusly:

“Now, while Case is unable to access the net because his synapses have been hacked as the result of his double crossing his employers. Raymond’s plight is that he can’t remember his wife, the memory of whom was washed from his brain during the Great Scream, and outburst of psychotic humans who channel a shared reality telepathically with those around them. Ray is desperate to find his lost memories, if not his wife, and even willing to plug into a dying screamer to experience the connection with every one in that web of consciousness. Take away the mystical parts and it gets very web-like, including high tech devices to connect your mind to the web.”

Lilley praises Dann for being prescient a few times over, and concludes by saying:

“Both stories are set around singularity events, though couched in different terms. For Gibson it’s the accepted (now, anyway) notion of AIs taking things over, or vying for supremacy, while Dann’s world takes the idea of a spiritual reservoir that we can use technology to access which threatens to pull us all across it’s threshold into a state of common consciousness. When those two views were originally put forth, they may have seemed radically different, but if you consider the vast amount of thought on uploading virtual selves into cyberspace, the differences become less definite. It’s often been stated that Neuromancer laid out the template for the internet and Gibson’s work had tremendous impact on the forming of cyberspace. That’s no doubt true, but no less so than that The Man Who Melted shows us what we’ll find a the end of the information superhighway, and that the real challenge isn’t creating technology, but using it to explore our humanity.”

Meanwhile over on SF Reviews, Thomas M. Wagner takes the occassion of our Jack Dann reissue – “this company is hot and getting hotter” – to recall his memories of the original work and revisit the novel anew:

“I can only say it’s high time this little rarity had a chance to find a new audience. It isn’t for every audience. It challenges you, not by spinning a convoluted plot or trading in philosophical obscurity, but by the way it flenses the emotions from human experience and lays our most private places bare. It’s an absorbing but often painful trek into the “dark spaces” we conceal from ourselves and those we love. It’s unlike anything else in the genre. Adventurous readers hankering for incisive, character-driven literary SF will find much to admire and reflect upon.”

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