Locus Online

Death: Thomas M. Disch

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 04:00:00 +0000

SF author, critic, and poet Thomas M. Disch, born 1940, died July 4, 2008, of suicide in his New York City apartment. Ellen Datlow reports that Disch had been depressed for several years, especially by the death of long-time partner Charles Naylor, and worries of eviction from his rent-controlled apartment. Biographical details shortly.

Locus Magazine: Cory Doctorow Commentary:

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Nature's Daredevils: Writing for Young Audiences

YA SF is gigantic and invisible. The numbers speak for themselves: a YA bestseller is likely to be moving ten times as many copies as an adult SF title occupying the comparable slot on the grownup list. Like many commercially successful things, YA is largely ignored by the power brokers of the field, rarely showing up on the Hugo ballot (and when was the last time you went to a Golden Duck Award ceremony?). Yet so many of us came into the field through YA, and it's YA SF that will bring the next generation into the fold.

Monitor: This Week's Bestsellers

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Stephenie Meyers' Breaking Dawn ranks #1 on Amazon, a month before publication; Eoin Colfer also ranks with advance sales; Ray Bradbury and George Orwell supply summer reading.

Link: Monitor: This Week's Bestsellers

Locus Magazine: July Issue

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:00:00 +0000

The July issue of Locus is a special Young Adult issue, with essays by Neil Gaiman, Graham Joyce, and others; plus, complete results of this year's Locus Poll, interviews with Garth Nix and Christopher Barzak, a new commentary by Cory Doctorow, an obituary and appreciations of Algis Budrys, and reviews of new books by Margo Lanagan, Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, Alastair Reynolds, Stephen Baxter, and others.

• Table of Contents
Interviews, Essays, Data File, Reviews...
• Locus Bestsellers
Butcher, Rothfuss, Asprin, Traviss, Staten
• New & Notable Books
Abercrombie, Brennan, Dick, Kress, Roberts, Tan...

Link: Locus Magazine: July Issue

Feature Review:

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Gary Westfahl reviews Wall·E

Monitor: New Books: fourth week June

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

New SF/F/H books seen the fourth week of June include Thomas M. Disch's The Word of God, Jay Lake's Escapement, Damien Broderick's nonfiction anthology Year Million, and other titles by David Bilsborough, Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett, Julie Kenner, E.E. Knight, Susan Beth Pfeffer, Patricia Rosemoor & Marc Paoletti, Lilith Saintcrow, Michael Scott, Sherwood Smith, and Jennifer Stevenson.

Link: Monitor: New Books: fourth week June

Monitor: Other Magazines, second half June

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

UK quarterly Jupiter celebrates its 5th anniversary; The New York Review of Science Fiction explores Anthony Boucher, pre-Glasnost Russia, and Milton Lesser; the August Asimov's features new stories by Ted Kosmatka, Neal Barrett, Jr., Robert Reed, Carol Emshwiller, and others.

Link: Monitor: Other Magazines, second half June

Locus Magazine: Jeffrey Ford: Shadow Years

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Excerpts from Locus Magazine's June Issue interview.

The older I get, the more fantastic the world seems. I thought by this time everything would be realism and drab logic and I would have figured out all the mysteries, but the older I get, the stranger it seems. The fantastic part of a story is like a manifestation of those instances, feelings, phenomena that there isn't a ready vocabulary to describe.

Link: Locus Magazine: Jeffrey Ford: Shadow Years

Locus Magazine: Daniel Abraham: The Long Price

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Excerpts from Locus Magazine's June Issue interview.

Everybody's writing science fiction now -- you can write SF that's set in the present. A bunch of the folks in the mainstream are realizing there's some really fun stuff here, and cannibalizing us. That's fine. Fantasy is probably not going to do that, because there's a different dynamic. Fantasy is profoundly nostalgic in a way that science fiction isn't...

Link: Locus Magazine: Daniel Abraham: The Long Price

Locus Magazine: Comments from this year's Locus Poll & Survey

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Voters in this year's Locus Poll and Survey offered criticism and suggestions, had words of praise for Locus, commented on the state of the SF/F/H fields, and gave insight into their own preferences and reading habits.

Winners of the poll were announced last weekend; complete poll results are published in the upcoming July issue.

The page of voter comments is open to (moderated) comments.

Link: Locus Magazine: Comments from this year's Locus Poll & Survey

Locus Magazine: Sample Reviews

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Greg Bear reviews Damien Broderik

Locus Magazine features three dozen book reviews in its June 2008 issue. Here's guest reviewer Greg Bear on Damien Broderick's speculative nonfiction anthology Year Million.

Extreme sport of the intellectual variety — that's one way to characterize writing about the far future. In this innovative collection of new essays, Damien Broderick has marshaled some of the brightest minds in science fiction and futurist thinking, instructing them to climb very high mountains and tell us what might lie on the other side.

Nick Gevers reviews Daniel Abraham

And here's Nick Gevers on Daniel Abraham's novel An Autumn War.

With its third installment Daniel Abraham's Long Price Quartet moves from relatively quiet patterns of intrigue to large-scale violence, and the power of the series, considerable before, becomes quite formidable. Abraham, one of the most gifted newer fantasists, keeps his material under tight control, and by this cool restraint if anything magnifies the tension of his narrative.

Monitor: This Week's Bestsellers

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Steven Erikson's Toll the Hounds ranks #7 at Amazon UK today, while Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Mercy and paperback reprints by William Gibson and Simon R. Green also debut this week.

Link: Monitor: This Week's Bestsellers

Monitor: New Books: third week June

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

New SF/F/H books seen the third week of June include Lewis Shiner's novel Black & White, Paul Kincaid's essay collection What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction, David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer's Year's Best Fantasy 8, Lou Anders' anthology Sideways in Crime, and other titles by Peter David, Kevin Dockery & Douglas Niles, John Helfers & Martin H. Greenberg, Richard Matheson, and Drew Morse.

Link: Monitor: New Books: third week June

Awards News: Locus Awards Winners

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Michael Chabon, Terry Pratchett, China Miéville, Joe Hill, Cory Doctorow, Neil Gaiman, Michael Swanwick, Barry N. Malzberg, Shaun Tan, and others win Locus Awards.

Link: Awards News: Locus Awards Winners

Monitor: New in Paperback: June

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Notable titles in new paperback editions seen this month include William Gibson's Spook Country, Robert Charles Wilson's Axis, Ken MacLeod's The Execution Channel, Elizabeth Bear's New Amsterdam, Paul Di Filippo's Harp, Pipe and Symphony, and others by Kevin J. Anderson, Tobias S. Buckell, Mike Carey, Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois, Sara Douglass, Austin Grossman, Tanya Huff, Elizabeth Kostova, Martin Millar, Mel Odom, Mary Jo Putney, Alastair Reynolds, Brandon Sanderson, and Mark L. Van Name.

Link: Monitor: New in Paperback: June

Monitor: This Week's Bestsellers

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Stephenie Meyer titles dominate lists, while Laurell K. Hamilton and Dean Koontz still rank -- as do Cory Doctorow and Brian Selznick.

Link: Monitor: This Week's Bestsellers

Feature:

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Yesterday's Tomorrows: Algis Budrys

Graham Sleight's "Yesterday's Tomorrows" column from Locus Magazine's June 2008 issue examined three classic novels by Algis Budrys -- who died last week at the age of 77.

The author I want to discuss this time seems to have none of his work available in North America, the UK, or Australia, although a couple of his books were reissued in 2000 and 2001. That said, given the online book-finding resources available these days, it shouldn't be too difficult to track them down. I want to make the case that it's worth doing so.

Monitor: New Books: second week June

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

New SF/F/H books seen the second week of June include Farah Mendlesohn's nonfiction Rhetorics of Fantasy, David J. Schwartz' debut novel Superpowers, young-adult novels by Frances Hardinge, Diana Wynne Jones, Scott Mebus, and Simon Morden, and other titles by L. Timmel Duchamp & Maureen McHugh, Theodora Goss, Stephen Hunt, Vicki Pettersson, Lawrence Watt-Evans, and Wrath James White & Maurice Broaddus.

Link: Monitor: New Books: second week June

Monitor: Other Magazines, second week June

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

F&SF introduces new book reviewer Chris Moriarty; the SFWA Bulletin highlights Nebula Award nominees; Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine interviews Terry Dowling and Iain M. Banks; these and new issues of Flytrap, On Spec, and Realms of Fantasy publish new fiction and poetry by Geoffrey Maloney, M. Rickert, Catherynne M. Valente, Charles Coleman Finlay, Claude Lalumière, Carrie Vaughn, and others.

Link: Monitor: Other Magazines, second week June

Algis Budrys update

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

» The Independent has published an obituary by John Clute.

Feature:

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Yesterday's Tomorrows: Eight Contemporary Classics

Graham Sleight's "Yesterday's Tomorrows" column from Locus Magazine looks at contemporary classics by Greg Bear, Stephen Baxter, Christopher Priest, Greg Egan, Richard Morgan, Dan Simmons, Alastair Reynolds, and Paul J. McAuley.

The occasion for all this is the reissue, by Gollancz in the UK, of eight of their backlist titles as "Future Classics." The oldest dates from 1985, the newest from 2002. Five are by British authors, two by Americans, one by an Australian. None are women.

Algis Budrys updates

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Budrys wrote a monthly column, "On Writing", for Locus Magazine for several years beginning in 1977. Locus Magazine will publish a comprehensive obituary, and tributes, in its July issue.
» Chicago Tribune obituary
» SFWA News obituary, with memorial details
» SF Signal has links to remembrances by Elizabeth Bear, Gordon Van Gelder, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and others.

Awards News: Campbell and Sturgeon Finalists

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Finalists for this year's John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best SF novel of the year, and this year's Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short SF of the year, have been released.
» Campbell finalists are novels by Brian Aldiss, Michael Chabon, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Nalo Hopkinson, Jay Lake, Ken MacLeod, Ian McDonald, Rebecca Ore, Matt Ruff, Robert J. Sawyer, Jose Carlos Somoza, Sheri S. Tepper, Jeffrey Thomas, and Robert Charles Wilson.
» Sturgeon finalists are stories by Laird Barron, Elizabeth Bear, Ted Chiang, Jeffrey Ford, Karen Joy Fowler, Kij Johnson, Gwyneth Jones, John Kessel, Ian R. MacLeod, David Moles, Johanna Sinisalo, and Gene Wolfe.
» Winners of both awards will be announced at the Campbell Conference Awards Ceremony, July 10-13, in Lawrence, Kansas.
» Locus Index to SF Awards: Past Campbell and Sturgeon Winners by Year
(Award trophies photo by Keith Stokes)

Monitor: This Week's Bestsellers

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Laurell K. Hamilton's Blood Noir debuts strongly on print lists, with her book, Dean Koontz' Odd Hours, and Stephenie Meyer's The Host occupying the top three slots on lists from New York Times, Washington Post, and Publishers Weekly. Also notable: Salman Rushdie, Vicki Pettersson, Cory Doctorow.

Link: Monitor: This Week's Bestsellers