A Couple of Interviews with my Favourite Authors

Some interviews with Charlie Stross, Halting State and William Gibson, Spook Country.

Interview with John Scalzi

Great podcast interview with John Scalzi on I Should be Writing. Thanks for the link Alexandre.

4 of 5 Hugo Award Nominees Available for Download

4 of 5 Hugo Award Nominees Available for Download if you are a member of the 2008 Hugo award voters. Braysl, Halting State, The Last Colony and Rollback are available while The Yiddish Policemen's Union is the lone hold out.

Paying the $50 for supporting membership is well worth the money as you will be getting 4 high quality books for that price.

DRM Free Audio Books Coming

I might just buy an audio book now that publishers are phasing out DRM.

Read American Gods On-line

Harper Collins has posted an all access version of Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods. You can read the full book here.

Guillermo del Toro to Direct The Hobbit

Rumors has been swirling for weeks but it looks like it is now official with Guillermo del Toro set to direct a two picture treatment of The Hobbit.

Generation Y biggest user of U.S. libraries, Huh?!?

A recent survey completed by the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found that Generation Y, that slacker internet using generation, are the biggest users of American libraries.

The catch is they come for the computers and not the books.

The Hobbit Director Rumours

After yesterday's news that Peter Jackson has signed on to produce The Hobbit rumours of possible directors abound including Sam Raimi, Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron.

Peter Jackson to Executive Produce The Hobbit

Peter Jackson and New Line have resolved their feud which allows Jackson to step in and executive produce a two picture treatment of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.

All of the geeks who are fans of Tolkien, myself included, can now breath a sigh of relief. Most of us can't imagine anyone but Jackson overseeing this project. Imagine if New Line got Brett Ratner to produce?

Terry Pratchett has early on-set Alzheimer's

While Making Money is on it's way to me from the library I have heard the sad news that Terry Pratchett has early on-set Alzheimer's.

Brandon Sanderson To Finish Wheel of Time

A flurry of postings today and confirmed by the author's own website, Brandon Sanderson has been tapped to finish up the Wheel of Time series by Tor. This is the series started by the late Robert Jordan.

All I can say is, Thank you Tor for not picking Kevin J Anderson.

An Out of Work Cylon

...in Toronto apparently.

Cory Doctorow's Talk at Roboexotica

Cory Doctorow gives a really great talk at Roboexotica that delves into why science fiction isn't about predicting the future but rather examining the present.

Halting State

Halting State is the latest brilliantly conceived novel by uber writer Charles Stross.

The book description from the dust jacket reads as follows:

In the year 2018, Sergeant Sue Smith of the Edinburgh constabulary is called in on a special case. A daring bank robbery has taken place at Hayek Associates, a dot-com startup company that's just been floated on the London stock exchange. The suspects are a band of marauding orcs, with a dragon in tow for fire support, and the bank is located within the virtual reality land of Avalon Four. For Smith, the investigation seems pointless. But she soon realizes that the virtual world may have a devastating effect in the real one-and that someone is about to launch an attack upon both.

The kernel of the story is the virtual bank robbery which may seem far fetched to some is a very real problem. We now live in a society where virtual items have a very real value. Just check out the plethora of sites where you can buy items from World of Warcraft. Also recent news reports describe a vulnerability in Second Life where malicious hackers can steal your Linden bucks (Second Life curency). It's only a matter of time before someone goes for the big score.

The narrative continues on being told from three vantage points, Sergeant Sue Smith the initial responder to the crime scene, Elaine Barnaby a forensic accountant and Jack Reed a video game programmer who has been brought in to be a guide for Elaine in the world of Avalon Four.

Through these characters the story opens up to take on such heady topics as global economics, privacy, and terrorism in an entertaining and thought provoking manner. I can't recommend this book enough!

Additional Links:

• Charlie Stross's Halting State: Heist novel about an MMORPG
• Opening chapters of Charlie Stross's "Halting State"
• Video: Charlie Stross reads HALTING STATE at Google

Vernor Vinge makes Rainbows End available for free download

Cory Doctorow reports on Boing Boing that Vernor Vinge has made his latest novel Rainbows End available for download.

Read it and loved it.

Guy Gavriel Kay's World Fantasy Awards Toastmaster Talk

Canadian fantasy writer Guy Gavriel Kay recently gave a presentation at the World Fantasy Awards. The full text of the presentation can be found from a link off of SF Scope.

Check out my review of Kay's latest novel Ysabel.

I Am Legend

So I finished reading I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. It is a rather quick read as the entire story checks in at 170 pages. In it we follow the protagonist, Robert Neville, through his daily life where he putters around the house, works in the garden and disposes of vampires. As you see Neville lives in a post-apocalyptic future in which a plague, to which Neville is immune to, has descended upon humanity turning everyone seemingly into mindless vampires.

Much of the novel deals with Neville's research into the cause of vampirism. The author gives you a scientific, not supernatural, explanation for the vampire infection. Some of these are biological and some of them are psychological. None of them make the bleak future in which Neville inhabits any less horrific.

All the while Neville is doing his research and doing his level best to stay alive the vampires are forming a society of their own.

Without giving too much away the novel really holds a mirror to the struggle between humans and vampires. Is Neville more or less of a monster than the vampires?

On December 14th the third movie based on I Am Legend will be released starring Will Smith.

Crooked Little Vein

To the best of my knowledge, Crooked Little Vein is the first novel by prolific comic book writer Warren Ellis. Let me see if I can sum up the plot.

A heroin addicted US chief of staff hires a Manhattan private investigator, Mike McGill, to find an alternate US constitution. The book was written by the founding fathers of America and details their true plans for the country. Richard Nixon lost the book in the 50's and since them American society has been getting progressively worse. The trail leads Mike on a cross country chase for the book where he encounters every sort of depravity you shouldn't be able to imagine.

I was constantly laughing out loud during while reading this book. The deviants and underground cults that Mike finds himself getting involved with are disturbingly funny. The message that is coming across is that the underground is now mainstream. Anything you can think of can now be found on-line. It's like the ultimate long tail example.

If you are unable to keep an open mind this book is probably not for you but if you can get passed the descriptions of sexual situations you will really enjoy this noirish detective novel.

The Book of Fate

The Book of Fate is the latest novel by Brad Meltzer. The first time I was introduced to Meltzer was when my Dad boomed into town and wanted to pick up the new book by that author who's name started with an 'M'. After one trip to the local books store's mystery section and we found The Tenth Justice.

However, it wasn't until years later that I actually read anything by Meltzer when he started his Archer's Quest run on Green Arrow. Which was followed up by his incredible limited series Identity Crisis, a murder mystery set in the super hero community. With that in mind I borrowed Dad's copy of The Book of Fate to read.

From Booklist, Wes Holloway, a hotshot presidential aide, is wounded in an assassination attempt that kills the president's close friend. Eight years later, the dead man reappears, very much alive and apparently stalking the former president. Wes thinks he can figure out what's going on, but to do so he must decipher a two-century-old code and penetrate the secrets of Masonic history.

At least that's what you are led to believe from the dust jacket. But for those of us who are hoping for some DaVinci Code esque mystery will be disappointed. The Masonic history connection is used very sparsely and is not central to the plot.

The story moves along at a plodding pace for about 400 pages until the last third where things rush to a final conclusion. I can't say that this is one of the best books I've ever read but it is entertaining and the way in which it is structured allows you pick it up and put it down easily.

Supreme: The Story of the Year

Even if you've never read a book by Alan Moore you've probably seen a movie based on this graphic novels like From Hell staring Johnny Depp, V for Vendetta with Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman and the forgettable League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. That's not to say that the incredibly dense with literary references League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novel wasn't amazing. Regardless, I digress.

In Supreme: The Story of the Year Moore takes over the writing duties of Supreme. A character who was created by Rob Liefeld as a blatant rip off of Superman. However, with the introduction of Moore to this title he was able to throw away all of the past continuity of the series and reboot the title to pay homage to the Silver Age Superman.

In this revision of the comic the character Supreme is aware that he is being revised, in an early story he even visits a reality where all of the former versions of Supreme live. He also comments on how his memory is full of holes which is due to the fact that his back story is not written yet. Moore uses this quest where Supreme is determined to fill in his memory as an opportunity to add to the Supreme mythos while advancing the plot of the series. This concept of a meta narrative is continued throughout the entire book.

If you enjoy a book in which the characters are constantly breaking the fourth wall or if you are just a fan of the silver age of comics, Supreme: The Story of the Year is the book for you.