Paragaea

Give Me Liberty and Then Some!

Rob H. Bedford has posted his review of Martin Sketchley’s The Liberty Gun over on SFFWorld. Rob likes the book, and I’m gratified to see so much praise heaped on the characters, both human and alien, in what is a fast-paced action novel. Furthermore, Rob writes:

“Flavoring the whole of the novel are many themes – gender roles, sexuality roles, and adjustment to the alien. These themes balance very well with the high-octane action scenes. Throughout the novel, Sketchley continues to inject the adrenaline into the series, between breakneck chase scene and the tooth-and-nail fights. The novel draws to a relatively predictable close, though the specifics aren’t quite as predictable, if that makes sense. It was easy enough to follow Sketchley’s path, but the last few turns were a bit surprising. The Liberty Gun brought the novel to a satisfying conclusion, Sketchley left himself enough wiggle room should he wish to return to these characters.”

Elsewhere, over on his Rob’s Blog o’Stuff, he posts his thoughts on the favorite reads of the year, including a few Pyr titles. Of David Louis Edelman’s Infoquake, he says:

“What [Scott] Lynch did for my fantasy reading taste-buds, Edleman did for my Science Fiction reading taste-buds. A believable protagonist in an all-too plausible extrapolated future with a Big Idea and backed by a future history was a lot of fun to read. Check out my review from earlier in the year.”

Sean Williams’s The Crooked Letter: “This was another beautiful Pyr book; Williams blended elements from all the speculative fiction branches to create a stew of the fantastic and horrific. The second book, The Blood Debt, published in October and while different in some respects, it was a fantastic continuation of the over-reaching saga.

Chris Roberson’s Paragaea: A Planetary Romance: “Part SF, part fantasy, part physics, and part pirate novel, Roberson pulled off a nice trick in this one. I’d love to read more about these people and the strange and familiar world.”Blogger: Pyr-o-mania – Edit Post “Give Me (More) Liberty!”

Mike Resnick’s New Dreams for Old: “I’ve heard and read of Resnick’s reputation, with all the awards he’s both won and for which he’d been nominated. This book showed me why.”

Meanwhile, over at his House of Awkwardness, novelist and tv scribe Paul Cornell picks Infoquake as his favorite SF novel of the year. “A future of business and competition that we can all identify with, which neatly avoids apocalyptic cliché, and thus the adoration of the British SF critics. I’ve blogged about it before, otherwise I’d say more. And hey, catchphrases you can use online: towards perfection!”

Along with, it should be noted in fairness, a less than favorable review of Paragaea, the website Ideomancer posts the first review of my own upcoming anthology, Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge:

“This anthology is proof hard science fiction is still a vibrant, worthwhile endeavor for any writer; here’s hoping this anthology series has a long, healthy life.”

Amen!

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Waterstone’s Top Ten SF Titles of 2006

Michael, the Science Fiction and Imports Buyer for the UK’s Waterstone’s books, has just posted his Top Ten SF Titles of 2006. I’m very gratified to see two Pyr titles making the list, Chris Roberson’s Paragaea and Joel Shepherd’s Crossover. Michael writes:

“Shepherd’s book is a high action, gritty techno thriller that reads like a cross between Ghost in the Shell and Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon, introducing the artificial human Cassandra Kresnov in her fight for the right to survive. Chris Roberson’s Paragaea is a wonderful homage to the planetary romances of authors like Edgar Rice Burroughs and features a Russian cosmonaut who crashes on an alternate world and ends up adventuring with a Napoleonic era British naval officer and a humanoid Jaguar man. Retro in every sense of the word, this is a wonderful story, beautifully realised and hugely entertaining.”

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A Princess of Moscow

When I was what is now called a pre-teen, my father took me in a bookstores (A B. Dalton’s I believe) and handed me the Del Rey mass market edition of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars with the Michael Whelan cover and said, “Here, read this.”

Now, I didn’t like to do anything I was told, and since my father was a lawyer, and appreciated a good argument if properly presented, I said, “But it has a naked woman on the cover.”

“I know it has a naked woman on the cover,” said my father, “but it’s still a good book. And you’re going to read it.”

Which pretty much started this whole science fiction thing for me. Not only did I read it, but 62 other ERB books over the next year, including the whole Martian series, the whole Venus series, the Earth’s Core books, and so on. Eventually, when the supply of Burroughs was exhausted, I graduated to such luminaries as Fritz Lieber, Michael Moorcock, Isaac Asimov… By which time it was far too late for me.

So, basically, I’m pretty happy with John Joseph Adams’ latest “Strong Medicine” review in Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, where in he discusses Chris Roberson’s Paragaea: A Planetary Romance:

“It’s neo-pulp; that is, it’s written in the tradition of the pulp masters of the past—Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. Rider Haggard, et al.—but is written in a modern style more accessible to contemporary readers. Roberson knows his pulp well and has fun exploring and reinventing the tropes of that era, and he does so in a fresh, original, and—most importantly—fun way. And like Burroughs’s Barsoom stories, Roberson’s Paragaea is otherworldly swashbuckling action-adventure at its finest…. You like sense of wonder? This book’s got sense of wonder. By the bucketful. There might not be any Great Toonoolian Marshes on Paragaea, but there might as well be; Paragaea is this generation’s A Princess of Mars. Read it with your mind’s eye wide open, so you can take it all in. “

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