Podcast

Podcast: Yours Truly at SciFi Dimensions

John C. Snider interviews me for the SciFiDimensions Podcast. You can hear in streaming from his website, or you can search iTunes for “SciFiDimensions.” I’ve not listened to it yet, so no idea how I come off, but it felt like a very thorough interview at the time. We talk about Fast Forward 2,Pyr, the art of John Picacio, and many more topics besides. He’s a good interviewer, (and hit me with a curve ball out of the gate. Not that I’m saying that’s a criteria for a good interview!) He also interviews Tim Lasuita, licensing director for Jack Lake Productions, a Canadian company involved in reprinting Classics Illustrated. Cool!

John also reviews Fast Forward 2 on his blog.

There’s no theme to the Fast Forward series, other than excellence in storytelling. The stories in FF2 cover the spectrum of sub-genres, from near-future parables to far-future space opera, from post-cyberpunk to hard SF; from cautionary tales a la The Twilight Zone to uplifting vignettes that affirm the best in human nature. With such a wide selection of styles and themes, it should come as no surprise that not every entry will appeal to every reader. At the very least, FF2 is like a Whitman Sampler; a little something for everyone, and if you find a story you like, it’ll be from a writer with plenty of other work you can chase down later.

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A Host of Pyr Reviews & a Podcast!

Okay, playing mad catch-up:

A podcast with Joe Abercrombie on the Dragon Page. Their description: “This week, Mike, Summer and Mike talk with Joe Abercrombie about Last Argument of Kings,the third book in The First Law Trilogy. We talk about the characters and the more contemporary feel of their speech, the more intimate nature of relationships and intrigues, and about how the buzz about these stories surround the writing style of the battle scenes.”

Meanwhile, Patrick Rothfus, he of The Name of the Wind,raves about Joe Abercrombie (and Brandon Sanderson) on his blog: “The books are good, really good. They pulled me in. Well-developed world. Unique, compelling characters. I like them so much that when I got to the end of the second book and found out the third book wasn’t going to be out in the US for another three months. I experienced a fit of rage, then a fit of depression, then I ate some lunch and had a bit of a lay down… I will also say this. This isn’t some cookie-cutter fantasy. It’s refreshingly realistic, but also very gritty and dark. It might even be fair to call it grim. You have been warned.” Of course, I should point out, the books are all three available in the US now…

Discover Magazine on Fast Forward 2: “It’s a great collection, with a good mix of stories ranging from hard science fiction to near magic realism. Stand outs for me included ‘True Names,’ a novella by Doctorow and Benjamin Rosenbaum set in a post-post-post-human universe, and ‘An Eligible Boy,’ written by Ian McDonald, that takes place in the mid-21st century India that McDonald has used as the backdrop for his 2004 book River of Gods.” Our friend and frequent commentator Rene also has a nice review on her blog, Little Bits of Everything: “This is a fantastic anthology that I look forward to rereading. I sincerely hope that Fast Forward becomes an annual anthology; the first two volumes are incredibly strong.”

Over at Adventures in Reading, Joe Sherry reviews Mike Resnick’s Starship: Mercenary. I was struck by a particular comparison he made – “This may be an odd comparison given the length and success of Mike Resnick’s career, but Starship: Mercenary is a fun military science fiction novel that fans of John Scalzi’s work will want to jump right into. There is a certain comparison and similarity in style.” This struck me because I read the manuscript for Mercenary within a month of The Last Colony and thought the same thing.

Also a positive review of Stalking the Vampire at Monsters & Critics: “…features offbeat humor, amusing dialog and a zany cast of characters that is sure to entertain the most jaded sci-fi fan and spark plenty of interest in an emerging series.”

And here Intercontinental Ballistic Discourse discusses a host of Mike Resnick works, including the extant Starship series: “I’ve got to say: wow! The characters are engaging, the story is fast and entertaining, and the plots are believable. My favorite form of science fiction is loosly described as military science fiction, or sci-fi that takes place around a starcraft or some form of governmental space navy and this series started off that way and branched out to something even more.”

Whew!

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Sean Williams’ Advice to New Writers

I always knew Sean Williams could write. I didn’t know he could speak. Sean recently gave an address to the winners of the Writers of the Future contest, and Shaun Farrell, of Adventures in SciFi Publishing, was there to record his speech and interview Sean afterwards.

Sean’s talk is full of tremendous advice for those just starting out, and his interview covers a range of topics, including his new Star Wars novel, The Force Unleashed. The podcast is available via iTunes but can be accessed directly from the link above. Thanks to WotF for letting it be recorded and Shaun Farrell for doing so!

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Podcast: Yours Truly in Agony (Again)

The incredibly-well read and well-spoken Rick Kleffel and I discuss space opera today on the Agony Column podcast. Rick was enthused by reading Brian Greene’s Icarus at the Edge of Timeand Peter F. Hamilton’s Pandora’s Star,neither of which I’ve read, but both of which sound right up my alley. So we talked about these works, about John Meaney’s Nulapeiron Sequence, about Kay Kenyon’s The Entire and the Rose series, about the general qualities of space opera, and about the differences between Star Wars and Star Trek, and whether Trek is space opera or military SF. Here’s the direct link to the mp3, and you can also subscribe via iTunes.

Which you should. Rick is an amazing interviewer, asking really insightful questions, and his podcast covers a wide range of book-related topics. He covers enough works of a science fiction nature that I can justify my time as keeping me informed about the rest of the field, and enough works outside it that I don’t get myopic. For example: My favorite in recent weeks, his interview with Charles Bamforth, 30 year head of research for Bass and the author of Grape vs. Grain: A Historical, Technological, and Social Comparison of Wine and Beer.And here’s the direct link for that.

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Podcast: Lou on Writing Excuses

At the recent World Science Fiction Convention, I was honored to be a guest on Writing Excuses, the podcast of writing advice hosted by Brandon Sanderson, Howard Taylor, and Dan Wells. The episode is available on iTunes and elsewhere, and here is the direct link. Their description:

So what exactly does an editor, do, anyway? We’ve already talked about the process of submitting to an editor; today we talk about the millions of vital things that happen after an editor says “I want to buy your book.” Not only that, but we get to hear it all straight from the mouth of Lou Anders, the Hugo-nominated editor from Pyr Books, who this year alone helped create a Hugo-nominated book and two Campbell-nominated authors. In other words: when this man talks about editing, you listen.

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Matthew Sturges on Major Spoilers

In early 2009, we’ll be bringing out Matthew SturgesMidwinter, about which much more when we get closer. But the Eisner-award nominated Sturges is already well-known to comic book fans, as he’s the author of such DC/Vertigo titles as Blue Beetle, Jack of Fables (with Bill Willingham), House of Mystery, and others. Today, the podcast Major Spoilers conducts and interview with him. Here’s the direct link.

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Podcast: What Makes A Cover Work

Tor podcasts just uploaded a panel discussion from last years Boskone (I think) on “What Makes a Cover Work” (Parts One and Two) with Yours Truly, Tor art director Irene Gallo, artists John Picacio & Tom Kidd, and Tachyon publisher Jacob Weisman. This was actually a pivotal moment in my own thinking about cover art, and Jacob’s comments about “judging a portfolio by its worst work, not its best” has stayed with me ever since.

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