Various and Sundry 4/10/07
Posted on April 10, 2007 Posted by John Scalzi 8 Comments
Some stuff for you today:
* For those of you who love your audiobooks, buckle in: Subterranean Press has released a free audiobook version of Kage Baker’s short novel Rude Mechanicals, read by Mary Robinette Kowal, for your personal auditory pleasure. I’m happy to say the success of the audio version of “The Sagan Diary” has some hand in SubPress trying an audio version of this book as well (and in recommending MRK as the reader, because she did such an awesome job with “Sagan”), so I hope you’ll check this out too. And remember, if you like it, you can get the hard copy as well, as part of a limited signed hardcover edition.
* Speaking of Subterranean Press, the online magazine is now featuring new stuff by Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake and Caitlin R. Kiernan. Because you don’t have enough to read, you know.
* I am reminded that only a few days are left for you to totally game add your vote to this year’s Locus Awards, in which the magazine asks readers and folks online to vote for the best novels, short and related works, and editors and publications. You can select from the books/works/people Locus recommends, or you can write in your own (say, “The Android’s Dream” or “The Ghost Brigades,” just as examples). The voting closes on April 15, so if you wish to flood the survey with votes for my work cast your votes for the best work in science fiction in 2006, now’s the time.
(Seriously: Go vote. One of the nice things about the Locus Awards is that they actually have the widest voter base of all the major SF awards, and anyone who is interested can cast their vote. Give it a shot, even if you don’t end up voting for some of my work. Which is fine; rumor has it it’s a good year for SF/F.)
* As long as we’re talking about voting, I’ll also remind those SFWA members among you to get in your ballots for this year’s SFWA elections. The various boards, etc covering the elections have settled down since the early days when I threw my hat in the ring, but it’s still an important election, and who becomes president will make a difference for where SFWA is headed in the future. There, I’m done with my campaigning for the day.
* On the topic of SFWA, there’s now a SFWA LiveJournal community, which I believe is open to non SFWAns as well. I’m a member, although I haven’t posted yet — although Michael Capobianco, the other fellow running for SFWA president, has — several times! Egad! I’m losing the blogger vote! Anyway, interesting posts and discussions there. Check it out.
* Matthew Appleton, who edits the Some Fantastic zine, writes nice things about The Last Colony on his personal site (“Simply put, it’s an amazing end to the Old Man’s War trilogy”), additionally explaining why he’s reviewing the book on his personal site — apparently since he’s reviewed everything else I’ve written in other publications he needs to be “fair” to other writers and review some of their work instead. Hey! Appleton! “Fair” doesn’t pay the damn mortgage! Now get those reviews into a publication Tor can blurb on a back cover! And bring me a cool beverage! I mean, as long as I’m making pushing demands and all.
* Dave Munger, scientist science writer and college friend, has a snarky but instructive post on how not to write a science book. I would certainly agree that when it comes to science books, it helps to have actual science in it.
* Former (and currently consulting) Tor editor Anna Genoese has put up her shingle online for editing services. Unlike so many people online who do this, Anna Genoese is a real, live and excellent editor, so she’s liable to be actually useful to you. So if you’re looking for someone to go through your manuscript with a fine-tooth comb, there’s a resource for you.
* Finally, a reminder to you folks in the Dayton/Cincinnati area that I’m teaching fiction writing this Friday at Sinclair College as part of their Annual Writers’ Workshop. There will be two 90-minutes sessions, and I expect I’ll talk a bit about how to write fiction and also my experiences selling and marketing fiction, and of course answering questions. It should be fun, and I believe you can register right at the door.
That should be enough linking to hold you for now.
Elizabeth Bear and Jay Lake are taking Science Fiction in fascinating new directions, which I suspect only make sense to those of us deeply educated in the genre. That their work also appeals to people who don’t get all the stylistic references shows how multi-faceted these clever people are.
I am not as familar with Caitlin R. Kiernan, but will go look, at your recommendation.
Losing the blogger vote? Hey, that’s like doing badly in the Dress Rehearsal. This usually precedes a good Opening Night.
Break a leg!
Small correction: I’m not exactly a scientist. Science writer, yes, scientist, no. I do have a degree in science education, but that’s not the same thing.
I think the best thing about the Locus awards is that when I go to the link, I realize that I’ve only read 2 of the books nominated on the Sci-Fi section. So this gives me a list of authors and books to go check out. Incidentally, after seeing the number of books on the list I hadn’t read – I didn’t vote. Because I don’t think I can vote fairly without having read more of them.
I used to read a ton of SF, but basically stopped reading SF when Sterling-wannabe cyberpunks took it over in the nineties. Sterling himself was good, but most of the imitators were pure crap and they pretty much pushed out everything else, the way Laurell K Hamilton werewolf/vampire/witch imitators are pushing out everything else out of the ‘modern fantasy’ genre right now. So I’ve only recently gotten back into reading it.
On that list, All I’d read was the Stross books, And the Vinge book is in my pile. Are there any of the books on that list that people would recommend?
Holy hell that was a long ballot/survey. I wrote in two Scalzi books and left the rest of the nominations blank. I thought I knew some Sf/f books…but I guess not nearly enough!
For what it’s worth, I tried to write an SF/F novel in 2 days for PNH to buy so I could join SFWA and vote for you. It. Um. Didn’t work very well, although not for lack of trying. (I only got about 25,000 words into it, sigh.) Anyway, good luck to you, sir!
Another thing about the LOCUS Awards voting — if you have a subscription to LOCUS, voting gets you an extra issue tacked on free. We’d forgotten that when we were trying to figure out why we hadn’t gotten the renewal notice the same time as the year before… (grin)
LOCUS is one of the few magazines I’ve ever gotten where the day it comes, it gets devoured from cover to cover.
Dr. Phil
Wouldn’t happen to have a recommendation for a hotel near the workshop, would you? I’ll be driving up and staying a couple nights.
Sorry, no. It’s far south of where I usually am. I don’t know the area too well.