Everyone else is pointing to it, sho why shouldn’t I? William Gibson now has a blog.
His Dark Materials–on the radio!
Starting this Saturday, and running for the next three weeks, the BBC is broadcasting their adaptation for radio of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. The first episode, on Radio 4 from 14:30 until 17:00 covers the first book, Northern Lights, and features the excellent Terence Stamp as Lord Asriel. Definitely one to tape!
(Note for those of you not in the UK, or otherwise unable to receive Radio 4 over the traditional ether: you can get Radio 4 streamed over the Internet. Just go to their home page.)
The Dawn Of Amber
To borrow Alex’s favourite phrase: uh-oh.
“Roger Zelazny’s The Dawn Of Amber – The New Amber Novel by John Gregory Betancourt.” I found this in Transreal bookshop this morning, and I cannot help but be afraid…very afraid.
The reviews I’ve found of it (Paul Di Filippo on SciFi.com, and Alma A. Hromic on SFSite.com) do nothing to alleviate this anxiety.
I myself have extensively abused the Amber universe and mythology in numerous Amber role-playing sessions, but Zelazny’s canon has always been sacred. Yet here is the first volume in a new trilogy that has been sanctioned by Zelazny’s estate. (Note: not necessarily in accordance with Zelazny’s actual wishes.)
One of the cover quotes is from twice-Hugo-winning Richard A. Lupoff, who says:
“[Betancourt] is the ideal choice to assume Roger Zelazny’s mantle…”
Um. Neil Gaiman or Steven Brust would seem a more obvious choice, but there you go….
I bought the book, but I’m still not sure if I actually want to read it. I’ll let you know what I think if I do.
Books update
Well, we didn’t quite hit 500 books in last week’s weeding process, but we were pretty close: 473. The full list of them is here. Have a look, and if you see any you want, drop me a line…
New books in October
Out in October: the new Kinsey Millhone novel, Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton, and Vectors by Michael P. Kube-McDowell.
I first came across Kube-McDowell when I picked up a remaindered copy of his novel Alternities at a bookshop in St. Andrews. It was a parallel worlds adventure, exciting and fast paced. So I started looking out for more of his stuff. I found The Quiet Pools (1990 Hugo nominee), his Trigon Disunity trilogy (Emprise, Enigma and Empery), and finally I grabbed Exile as soon as it was out over here in 1992. I couldn’t tell you now what the story was about, but I distinctly remember finishing it back then and thinking, “Wow, that was beautiful.”
Since then, he has produced collaborations (with Arthur C. Clarke) and shared world novels (in the Star Wars universe, and Isaac Asimov’s Robot City series), but he hasn’t had a book of his own published in ten years. I remember reading a post he made on Compuserve several years ago about how difficult it is for a midlist science fiction author to stay on a publisher’s radar. The shared world books are easy moneyspinners, and putting Arthur C. Clarke’s name on the cover almost guarantees bestseller status. But how many books will the name “Michael P. Kube-McDowell” shift on its own?
I’m glad that he’s found a publisher (Bantam Spectra) now who will take a chance on him, because he’s a damn fine writer.
Link: K-Mac’s web site.
SF update
As if to prove me wrong about the deficiencies of their web site, the ConJosé front page now has a link to the 2002 Hugo winners. And I also found a weblog written by one of the conrunners: Cheryl Morgan. The blog is a subsection of Emerald City, Cheryl’s (primarily reviews-oriented) webzine. Excellent site –definitely one to bookmark.
Also on an SFnal note, Spider Robinson’s story Melancholy Elephants is now available for free on the Baen web site.
The Baen web site just keeps getting better. I know of no other publisher that makes its catalogue so easily available. This site is really a masterpiece of simplicity and functionality. And it’s ideologically sound, too! They run the Baen Free Library, which is a place where you can download free, complete books. There are no strings attached. The idea is that easily available free samples of an author’s work are likely to make you want to read more by that person. So you’ll go out and buy their books. And according to the statistics they’ve gathered, it works.
And if this wasn’t enough, they run also run a service called “Webscriptions”, which is allows you to cheaply read electronic versions of new novels before from Baen’s catalogue before they hit the shop shelves. And the fact that it’s been running since September 1999–and they haven’t withdrawn it–means that it’s working out for them. The key, of course, is keeping it all nice and simple.