Reviews

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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Sagramanda on Cool SciFi

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.

Sagramanda on Cool SciFi Read More »

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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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?

Fast Forward Review, Lou Anders Interview Read More »

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.”

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

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!

Give Me Liberty and Then Some! Read More »

Kudos for WorldBuilding

Two more reviews, both of which praise their respective relevant works for world-building.

First, Neth Space remarks on David Louis Edelman’s Infoquake:

“New ideas in the world of science fiction are hard to come by, and to be honest, I’m sure just how new Infoquake really is, but it feels new. David Edelman’s debut is about cutthroat economics, technologic innovation, and government control that are played out in corporate boardrooms, work stations, and product release presentations. Most importantly, Infoquake remains engaging throughout.”

Then Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, along with some good things to say about Pyr, praise a book “that could elevate fantasy to new heights” when they say of Sean Williams’ The Crooked Letter:

“…a superior tale, one that should satisfy even jaded readers. Surreal, imaginative, captivating, unique — there’s a lot to love about this one. Add this novel to your ‘books to read’ list.”

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Wall to Wall Pirates

David Louis Edelman is interviewed by John Joseph Adams over on SciFi Wire, where he talks about the science of bio/logics that make up a large part of his extrapolative future in Infoquake:

“”There are programs to help you stay awake, and … the beginning chapters revolve around a program called ‘NightFocus 48,’ which enables you, during the nighttime, to see better… “There’s [also] a program … called ‘PokerFace 83. 4b.’ If you want to project zero emotion, to prevent somebody from getting a read on what you’re thinking, you fire up this program real quick, and your face just goes to this poker face, essentially. There are lots of programs like that, and I tried to give the impression these people are operating these programs all day long. It’s almost like when you’re sitting at a computer, there’s the antivirus program going on in the background, there’s a defragmenting program going on, Windows Update is updating, or a Linux package is updating. So these people are running thousands of programs all day long, [with] 90 percent of them just going on in the background; they’re probably not even aware of them.”

Meanwhile, good words from the December 15th Library Journal regarding Mike Resnick’s Starship: Pirate:

“After his crew rescued him from trumped-up court martial charges, Capt. Wilson Cole, formerly a member of the galactic Republic and now an outlaw, decides to turn to piracy to survive. His version of what pirates do, however, differs from the standard pillage-and-plunder mode; other pirates are his chosen quarry. This sequel to Starship: Mutiny, set in Resnick’s Birthright Universe (A Hunger in the Soul; “The Widowmaker” series) shows the author’s genuine flair for spinning a good yarn. Snappy dialog, intriguing human and alien characters, and a keen sense of dramatic focus make this a strong addition to most sf collections, with particular appeal to the sf action-adventure readership.”

Wall to Wall Pirates Read More »

Three More Pyr Reviews

A review by David Hebblethwaite over on SFSite.com for George Zebrowski’s Macrolife: A Mobile Utopia. David writes:

Macrolife is a novel with ideas at the fore. … There’s a welcome complexity to the issues examined. For instance, technology is not characterized as something wholly good or bad; but, more accurately, as a potential source of both problems and solutions, depending on how it is used… Zebrowski does not shy away from looking at the downside to macrolife; and there is much debate on the rights and wrongs of interfering with planetary civilizations, with no easy answers… The Library Journal quote on the cover says that Macrolife is ‘one of the 100 best science fiction novels of all-time.’ Whilst I’m not knowledgeable enough to be the judge of that, I am sure that the book is no less relevant now than it was in 1979. Whether macrolife as depicted here will be part of humanity’s future, it is good that we should think about it — and it is good that we have such an eloquent and spirited expression of the idea as Zebrowski’s novel.”

And a review on Lesley on the Eternal Night for Alan Dean Foster’s Sagramanda compares the fictional city of the title with the reviewer’s actual experience of India:

“Having been fortunate enough to visit a number of cities across India I did wonder how the city and population of Sagramanda would compare to the real people and places I have experienced. I was pleasantly surprised. As I read I could almost smell the air of Delhi or Kohlapur and feel the heat of the sun. What did impress me was the way the author introduced subtle touches of technology into the India of tomorrow; just enough to let you know you are in the near future without destroying the overall sensation of being in the Indian subcontinent.”

Finally, Cheryl Morgan can’t resist reading Justina Robson’s Keeping it Real in time for the lamentably-final issue of the great site Emerald City:

“Black leather, motorbikes, elf rock stars who actually know what an electric guitar is for, a small nuclear reactor, and some big guns. And, because this is Justina Robson we are talking about, a heroine with a great deal of self-doubt who is just as likely to let go with the tears as with an Uzi… Yes, Keeping It Real is a thrill-a-minute adventure yarn full of sex and elves and motorbikes. But it is also a book in which dragons are well versed in quantum mechanics.”

Three More Pyr Reviews Read More »

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