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News, Reviews, Resources, and Perspectives of Science Fiction & Fantasy |
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Thursday 11 December 2008NEWS : Bestsellers : Locus Magazine Bestsellers, December
Bestsellers, compiled by Locus Magazine from specialty bookstores, are led by Neal Stephenson's Anathem, S.M. Stirling's The Sunrise Lands, Steven Erikson's Toll the Hounds, Michael Reaves's Star Wars: Street of Shadows: Coruscant Nights II, and R.A. Salvatore's The Orc King: Transitions, Book One.
Sunday 30 November 2008NEWS : Locus Magazine : December Issue
The December issue of Locus Magazine, mailed November 25th to subscribers, features interviews with Vernor Vinge and Caitlín R. Kiernan, listings of forthcoming books through September 2009, report and photos from World Fantasy Con, short fiction reviews by Gardner Dozois and Rich Horton, and reviews of new books by Christopher Barzak, Orson Scott Card, Elizabeth Bear, Ken MacLeod, and many others.
Wednesday 12 November 2008NEWS : Bestsellers: Locus Magazine Bestsellers, November
Bestsellers, compiled by Locus Magazine from specialty bookstores, are led by David Weber's By Schism Rent Asunder, Patricia Briggs' Cry Wolf, Steven Erikson's Toll the Hounds, Chrisopher L. Bennett's Star Trek: The Next Generation: Greather than the Sum, and R.A. Salvatore's Forgotten Realms: The Orc King.
Saturday 1 November 2008NEWS : Locus Magazine: November Issue
The November issue of Locus Magazine, mailed October 30th to subscribers, features interviews with Greg Bear, Paul Melko, and Gardner Dozois, a new column by Cory Doctorow, short fiction reviews by Gardner Dozois and Rich Horton, and reviews of new books by Peter Straub, James P. Blaylock, Jack McDevitt, Gene Wolfe, K.J. Parker, Shaun Tan, and many others.
Friday 10 October 2008REVIEWS : Books: Locus Magazine's New & Notable Books, October
October New and Notable books, selected by Locus Magazine editors, include Stephen Baxter's Flood, Daina Chaviano's The Island of Eternal Love, Daryl Gregory's Pandemonium, Joe Haldeman's Marsbound, John Scalzi's Zoe's Tale, Karl Schroeder's Pirate Sun, Jack Williamson's Gateway to Paradise, and others.
Thursday 9 October 2008NEWS : Bestsellers: Locus Magazine Bestsellers, October
Bestsellers, compiled by Locus Magazine from specialty bookstores, are led by Naomi Novik's Victory of Eagles, Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson's Sandworms of Dune, William Gibson's Spook Country, Michael Reaves' Jedi Twilight: Coruscant Nights I, and R.A. Salvatore's The Orc King.
Wednesday 1 October 2008NEWS : Locus Magazine: October Issue
The October issue of Locus Magazine, mailed September 30th to subscribers, features interviews with Ursula K. Le Guin and Tobias S. Buckell, complete Worldcon coverage, an essay by Frederik Pohl about Sir Arthur C. Clarke, a new short fiction review column by Gardner Dozois, reviews of new books by Paul McAuley, Nick Harkaway, Jo Walton, Judith Moffett, and others, plus Graham Sleight's "Yesterday's Tomorrow's" column on classics by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Friday 12 September 2008REVIEWS : Books: Locus Magazine's New & Notable Books, September
September New and Notable books, selected by Locus Magazine editors, include Greg Bear's City at the End of Time, David Louis Edelman's MultiReal, Greg Egan's Incandescence, Rich Horton's Fantasy: The Best of the Year: 2008 Edition, Charles Stross' Saturn's Children, and others.
Wednesday 10 September 2008NEWS : Bestsellers: Locus Magazine Bestsellers, September
Bestsellers, compiled by Locus Magazine from specialty bookstores, are led by Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Mercy, Simon R. Green's The Man with the Golden Torc, William Gibson's Spook Country, Michael Reaves' Jedi Twilight: Coruscant Nights I, and Lisa Smedman's Forgotten Realms: Ascendancy of the Last.
Sunday 31 August 2008NEWS : Locus Magazine: September Issue
The September issue of Locus Magazine, mailed August 28th to subscribers, features interviews with Neal Stephenson and Gregory Frost, reports from this year's Hugo Awards Ceremony, listings of forthcoming books through June 2009, a column by Cory Doctorow, and reviews of new books by Neal Stephenson, Richard Parks, Michael Flynn, and others.
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Saturday 2 August 2008NEWS : Locus Magazine: August Issue
The August issue of Locus Magazine, mailed July 31st to subscribers, features interviews with Michael Chabon and Greer Gilman, results of this year's Locus Survey, an obituary and appreciations of Thomas M. Disch, and reviews of new books by Daniel Abraham, Charles Stross, Lucius Shepard, and others, plus Graham Sleight's "Yesterday's Tomorrows" about James Blish.
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NEWS : Bestsellers: Locus Magazine Bestsellers, August
Bestsellers, compiled by Locus Magazine from specialty bookstores, are led by Charlaine Harris' From Dead to Worse, Glen Cook's Cruel Zinc Melodies, C.E. Murphy's The Queen's Bastard, Troy Denning's Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Invincible, and James P. Davis' Forgotten Realms: The Shield of Weeping Ghosts.
REVIEWS : Books: Locus Magazine's New & Notable Books, August
August New and Notable books, selected by Locus Magazine editors, include Daniel Abraham's An Autumn War, Thomas M. Disch's The Word of God, Gardner Dozois's The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-fifth Annual Collection, Greg Egan's Incandescence, Alastair Reynolds' House of Suns, and others.
Thursday 31 July 2008• Locus Magazine: Garth Nix: Balancing ActExcerpts from Locus Magazine's July Issue interview. 
People get too hung up on categories. Publishers, authors, and (to some extent) booksellers see Young Adult as a dynamic category: they want things to be in YA, whether they should go there or not...
• Locus Magazine: Christopher Barzak: Imaginary AutobiographyExcerpts from Locus Magazine's July Issue interview. 
A lot of writers write about families and communities that are falling apart. (Joyce Carol Oates writes a lot about characters like that.) When people ask me if One For Sorrow is autobiographical, which they often do, my answer is that I think any book is at least a little autobiographical...
Thursday 24 July 2008• Locus Magazine: Sample Reviews
Gary K. Wolfe reviews Margo Lanagan
Lanagan's Tender Morsels is perhaps best approached without any YA preconceptions, for reasons that become apparent before we're halfway through the prologue, which begins literally with a roll in the hay...
Amelia Beamer reviews Kelly Link
Link freely uses the cast and furniture of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, but for the most part, the narrative worlds in Link's stories do not follow the rules of any of these genres. Her characters aren't afraid of (or astonished by) zombies and ghosts and wizards. Strangely enough, the emotional payoff from all of this wackiness is something akin to what science fiction readers call sense of wonder.
Wednesday 2 July 2008• Locus Magazine: Cory Doctorow Commentary: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.
Tuesday 1 July 2008• Locus Magazine: July Issue
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.
Saturday 28 June 2008• Locus Magazine: Jeffrey Ford: Shadow YearsExcerpts 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.
• Locus Magazine: Daniel Abraham: The Long PriceExcerpts 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...
Tuesday 24 June 2008• Locus Magazine: Sample Reviews
Greg Bear reviews Damien Broderik
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
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.
Monday 16 June 2008• Feature: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.
Thursday 12 June 2008• Feature: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.
Tuesday 3 June 2008• Locus Magazine/Future History: Forthcoming BooksSelected US and UK titles scheduled for June 2008 through March 2009, from Locus Magazine's June issue, are listed here by month. Saturday 31 May 2008• Locus Magazine: June Issue
The June issue of Locus has interviews with Jeffrey Ford and Daniel Abraham, listings of forthcoming books through March 2009, a report on Nebula Awards Weekend 2008 and reviews of new books by Greg Bear, Marie Brennan, Daniel Abraham, Damien Broderick, Steven Brust, and others, plus Graham Sleight's "Yesterday's Tomorrows" column about Algis Budrys.
Friday 30 May 2008• Locus Magazine: Sample Reviews
Gary K. Wolfe reviews Walter Jon Williams
Williams is asking what good the singularity is purely as a literary device — what possibilities does it open up for the SF novelist, and how do these possibilities relate to earlier traditions? Williams's answer is interesting and often delightful, if not always fully worked out, and his angle of approach harks back to classic ludenic SF writers like Zelazny and Farmer...
Russell Letson reviews Elizabeth Bear
Dust is the opening volume of a new three-book sequence by Elizabeth Bear, a genre- and gender-bending mixture of fantasy motifs overlaid on a very-high-tech lost-starship scenario that had me thinking of Karl Schroeder and Roger Zelazny right away.
Wednesday 28 May 2008• Locus Magazine: Theodora Goss: Shifting GroundExcerpts from Locus Magazine's May Issue interview. 
As a fantasy writer, I see literature as a line between the two poles of realism and fantasy -- not as literary genres but as ways of perceiving the world. Since I was a child, I've always felt the fantastic impulse more strongly, but I think realistic representation is important, because that's how you make fantasy convincing.
• Locus Magazine: Catherynne M. Valente: Playing in the GardenExcerpts from Locus Magazine's May Issue interview. 
Fantasy is my heart and my love. It's a huge playground, the biggest genre there is, and it contains possibly all of the genres. And I just want to play in that garden for the rest of my life.
Tuesday 6 May 2008• Locus Magazine: Cory Doctorow Commentary:
The net is an unending NOW of moments and distractions and wonderments and puzzlements and rages. Asking someone riding its currents to undertake some kind of complex dance before she can hand you her money is a losing proposition.
Wednesday 30 April 2008• Locus Magazine: May Issue
The May issue of Locus has interviews with Theodora Goss and Catherynne M. Valente, remembrances of the late Arthur C. Clarke, news of the Stoker and Nebula awards, reports from World Horror Con and ICFA, and reviews of new books by Walter Jon Williams, Jay Lake, Elizabeth Bear, Lou Anders, Jonathan Barnes, and others.
Monday 28 April 2008• Locus Magazine: Terry Pratchett: Acts of GodExcerpts from Locus Magazine's April Issue interview. 
I think SF will end up getting subsumed into mainstream fiction. Mainstream steals more and more from it, without a shadow of a doubt, while at the same time screaming at the top of its voice that it's not science fiction. It's astonishing what convoluted logic they will apply.
• Locus Magazine: Sarah Monette: Tangents and CurlicuesExcerpts from Locus Magazine's April Issue interview. 
I find reality very boring. I have never had an idea for a story that did not somehow involve the supernatural, the science-fictional, or the fantastic in some way. But psychological realism is what I'm here for. If a story is going to provide anything more valuable than a couple hours' entertainment, it has to be psychologically true.
Thursday 24 April 2008• Locus Magazine: Sample Reviews
Russell Letson reviews Greg Egan
A very welcome double shot of Greg Egan — Dark Integers and Other Stories, a collection of five novelettes covering 13 years, and Incandescence, a new novel — demonstrates his range and his consistent focus on philosophical questions enabled by mathematical conjectures and the thought-experimental possibilities of various post-human conditions...
Faren Miller reviews Felix Gilman
The various plot threads lead to a powerful series of denouements that could serve as both endings and beginnings, extending beyond the city and deep into its heart. Whether or not Gilman returns to some of his surviving characters in future work, I don't think we're in danger of any cookie-cutter sequels from this talented new fantasist.
Sunday 30 March 2008• Locus Magazine: April Issue
The April issue of Locus has interviews with Terry Pratchett and Sarah Monette, essays celebrating Discworld's 25th and Locus's 40th anniversaries, an obituary of Sir Arthur C. Clarke, and reviews of books by Ursula K. Le Guin, Felix Gilman, Jonathan Strahan, Alastair Reynolds, and others, plus Graham Sleight's "Yesterday's Tomorrows" column on H.G. Wells.
Friday 28 March 2008• Locus Magazine: Sample Reviews
Faren Miller reviews James Morrow
...Enlightenment notions can have very little relevance in a particularly mad sector of a mad, mad world. Of course Morrow himself knows this all too well, and keeps escalating the weirdness and the mind games that surround his hapless hero until the plot achieves a degree of insane improbability that's the hallmark of Swiftian satire. Call it fantasy, SF, or some mixture of the two, it's perfectly suited to expose humankind's pretense of rationality for the delusion it really is.
Graham Sleight reviews Iain M. Banks
Matter, Banks's first SF novel since The Algebraist, and first Culture novel since Look to Windward, is told by the merry chatterer for most of its length. Indeed, much of its story doesn't feel like SF at all. It has more to do with the dynastic intrigues you might find in the fantasy novels of, say, George R.R. Martin.
Wednesday 26 March 2008• Locus Magazine: Charles Stross: Spung!Excerpts from Locus Magazine's March Issue interview. 
I set out to write a modern late-period Heinlein novel. You've got to play by the Heinlein rules. To be canonical, it has to have a red-headed heroine with a nipple that goes 'spung.' This was a first and obvious anchor point. I thought to myself, 'Oh my god, how am I going to have a heroine with a nipple that goes spung?' • Locus Magazine: Peter Watts: Lesser EvilsExcerpts from Locus Magazine's March Issue interview. 
The evolutionary significance of consciousness is not a theme that lends itself well to a dramatic tale. I went into Blindsight fearing I'd bitten off more than I could chew: 'There's a kick-ass story in here -- I'm just not up to telling it.' I was hoping to get by on the strength of the ideas. Still. Shit needs to blow up real good at some point, or you're not telling a story; you're writing an essay.
Tuesday 4 March 2008• Locus Magazine: Cory Doctorow Commentary:Put Not Your Faith In Ebook Readers
I'm skeptical about selling ebooks as a business model, but if I had to bet on a future for e-books, I would take long odds against a hardware reader catching on in any meaningful way. • Locus Magazine/Future History: Forthcoming BooksSelected US and UK titles scheduled for March through December 2008, from Locus Magazine's March issue, are listed here by month. Friday 29 February 2008• Locus Magazine: March Issue
The March issue of Locus has interviews with Charles Stross and Peter Watts, lists of forthcoming books through the end of 2008, a new essay by Cory Doctorow, the latest publishing and awards news, and reviews of books by Cory Doctorow, Ursula K. Le Guin, Iain M. Banks, Jeffrey Ford, and others.
Thursday 28 February 2008• Locus Magazine: Lucius Shepard: LandscapesExcerpts from Locus Magazine's February Issue interview. 
Stories spring to me from landscapes, from settings. When I go to a place like Honduras or Nicaragua, and a story occurs to me, I'm not going to take it out of its context, because it's a story particular to that place and time.
• Locus Magazine: Maureen F. McHugh: Filling the VoidExcerpts from Locus Magazine's February Issue interview. 
A lot of my fiction today is less genre than Michael Chabon's, but I sold my first pieces in the late '80s and there was no McSweeney's, so I'm now genre. Derrida's essay on genre begins, 'There is unease at the heart of genre.' It's an argument I've been at so many times, I just don't want to have it anymore.
Tuesday 26 February 2008• Locus Magazine: Sample Reviews
Gary K. Wolfe reviews Kathleen Duey
Skin Hunger is one of the more accomplished and original fantasy novels of the year, and the trilogy it inaugurates might well constitute a major work (the narrative here is too truncated to claim that quite yet). ... [I]f the remainder of the Resurrection of Magic plays out at this level of intensity, it will easily take its place among those YA trilogies that ought to earn the attention of fantasy readers of any age.
Russell Letson reviews Chris Roberson
Here, as in The Voyage of Night Shining White, character, character relationships, and cultural background are at least as compelling as the melodramatic action in the foreground. In fact, those are the qualities that would have me return to this charming and oddly-retro-feeling alternate future.
Thursday 7 February 2008• 2008 Locus Poll & Survey
The 2008 Locus Poll & Survey ballot is now online. The deadline for voting is April 15th.
Wednesday 6 February 2008• Feature:Yesterday's Tomorrows: Ray Bradbury Graham Sleight's "Yesterday's Tomorrows" column from Locus Magazine looks at classic works by Ray Bradbury. 
I don't think a critic should go on too much about their own personal experiences, because the point of criticism is after all to get past the personal and find responses to a work that are of more general use. But I can't do that so easily with Bradbury...
Saturday 2 February 2008• Locus Magazine: February Issue
The February issue is Locus' annual Year In Review issue, with the 2007 Recommended Reading List, essays on the year's best books, and summaries of the year in publishing. Plus: interviews with Lucius Shepard and Maureen F. McHugh, a celebration of Philip José Farmer's 90th birthday, the latest publishing and awards news, and reviews of books by James Morrow, Sarah Monette, Jeffrey Ford, Chris Roberson, and others, as well as Graham Sleight's "Yesterday's Tomorrows" column, on Philip José Farmer.
Wednesday 30 January 2008• Locus Magazine: Sample Reviews
Gary K. Wolfe reviews Paolo Bacigalupi
If Bacigalupi challenges SF's traditional valorization of reason, he's very much an SF writer in the particulars. One can hear echoes of everyone from Harlan Ellison to David Bunch, Geoff Ryman, and even H.G. Wells here — there are shadows of Morlocks and Eloi all over — but Bacigalupi is mostly the spiritual heir of C.M. Kornbluth, one of the few classic-age SF writers with a similarly grim and mordant view of human nature.
Faren Miller reviews Ekaterina Sedia
With a mix of blunt, colloquial language, wry humor, a generous dollop of psychological traumas, and some fine descriptive passages (whether setting a scene, showing moments of self-understanding, or producing both in one decisive moment), Sedia moves effortlessly from a '90s Moscow where the world seems to have gone "upside-down overnight," to its magical counterpart where weirdness is the norm...
Saturday 26 January 2008• Locus Magazine: Brian Aldiss: Above GroundExcerpts from Locus Magazine's January Issue interview. 
If you want to make money, you don't attempt anything new. You start a series that can go on and on, whereupon the publishers don't have any crisis of decision to resolve. I don't want to work like that. It always seemed to me that one of the principles of writing is you should enjoy the actual writing, the feel of something evolving under your fingers, under your keys.
• Locus Magazine: M. Rickert: The Right ShapeExcerpts from Locus Magazine's January Issue interview. 
It's a tremendous gift to be a writer, because everywhere I go there are teachers. The library is full of them. In the library or the bookstore, I make sure to walk the shelves, not just to go to a particular shelf every time. I like to explore, and to take home books by people I've never heard of. In the field, I still feel a bit like an outsider.
Sunday 6 January 2008• Locus Magazine: Cory Doctorow Commentary: Artist Rights
There's one artist's right that's more important than all the rest combined: the right to free expression. No one gives out awards for writers who bring copyright suits — but we do give out awards to the brave writers who publish in the teeth of censorship and state oppression.
Tuesday 1 January 2008• Locus Magazine: January Issue
Locus Magazine for January has interviews with Brian Aldiss and M. Rickert, a celebration of Arthur C. Clarke's 90th Birthday, a new column by Cory Doctorow, and reviews of new books by Paolo Bacigalupi, Alan Lightman, Michael Swanwick, Peter F. Hamilton, and many others.
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April 2008
The April issue of Locus Magazine -- mailing March 27th to subscribers -- features interviews with Terry Pratchett and Sarah Monette, essays on Locus's 40th anniversary by Robert Silverberg, Joe Haldeman, and others, an obituary of Sir Arthur C. Clarke, and reviews of new books by Ursula K. Le Guin, Greg Egan, Alastair Reynolds, Leigh Brackett, and others, plus Graham Sleight's "Yesterday's Tomorrows" look at H.G. Wells. Table of Contents Locus Bestsellers New & Notable Books
March 2008
The March issue of Locus Magazine -- mailed February 28th to subscribers -- has interviews with Charles Stross and Peter Watts, listings of forthcoming books through December 2008, news about this year's SF Hall of Fame inductees, a new commentary by Cory Doctorow, reports on SF in Germany and India, and reviews of new books by Cory Doctorow, Ursula K. Le Guin, James Morrow, John Varley, Iain M. Banks, and others. Table of Contents Locus Bestsellers New & Notable Books
February 2008
The February issue of Locus Magazine -- mailing January 31st to subscribers -- has interviews with Lucius Shepard and Maureen F. McHugh, a celebration of Philip José Farmer's 90th birthday, reviews of new books by James Morrow, Sarah Monette, Chris Roberson, Jeffrey Ford, and others, plus the annual Year in Review, with summaries of books and magazines, essays, and the 2007 Recommended Reading List. Table of Contents Locus Bestsellers New & Notable Books
January 2008
The January issue of Locus Magazine -- mailing December 27th to subscribers -- has interviews with Brian Aldiss and M. Rickert, a celebration of Arthur C. Clarke's 90th birthday, a column by Cory Doctorow, and reviews of new books by Paolo Bacigalupi, Alan Lightman, Michael Swanwick, Peter F. Hamilton, and many others Table of Contents Locus Bestsellers New & Notable Books 
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