CIVILIZATION 5: Gods and Kings coming in Spring 2012
All about the announcement of the first expansion pack for Civilization 5, Gods & Kings.
Suvudu » Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games
Interview with ‘Design in Nature’ author Adrian Bejan, Part Two
Technical problems caused a slight delay in getting this to you, but at long last, here’s the last half of my interview with Design in Nature author Adrian Bejan. Catch the first part here.
Is there a practical application here? Could someone with a good understanding of Constructal Law anticipate the growth of social organizations or [...]
Suvudu » Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games
Tags: ‘Design, Adrian, Author, Bejan, Interview, Nature’, part
“Dark Eden” by Chris Beckett (Reviewed by Liviu Suciu)
Official Chris Beckett Website
Order “Dark Eden” HERE
INTRODUCTION: I heard of Chris Beckett‘s work when The Turing Test collection won the prestigious Edge Hill Short Story prize in 2009. I immediately bought a copy of the collection and I read a few of the stories there. I generally enjoyed them and I plan to read all of them as time goes by, but they seem to work only in smaller doses for me maybe because they are quite concentrated.
Order “Dark Eden” HERE
INTRODUCTION: I heard of Chris Beckett‘s work when The Turing Test collection won the prestigious Edge Hill Short Story prize in 2009. I immediately bought a copy of the collection and I read a few of the stories there. I generally enjoyed them and I plan to read all of them as time goes by, but they seem to work only in smaller doses for me maybe because they are quite concentrated.
However his previous two novels, Holy Machine and Marcher never really tempted me, so when Dark Eden was announced with the blurb below I was not sure either. Remembering vaguely that I read a story with the same title in The Turing Test, I checked the collection and sure enough the story Dark Eden is in there and it is precisely the tale of Angela and Tommy told through their two quite distinct voices in alternating parts. As I quite liked it and some reviews showering great praise on the novel appeared too, I decided to buy a copy for myself and try it immediately.
“You live in Eden. You are a member of the Family, one of 532 descendants of Angela and Tommy. You shelter beneath the light and warmth of the Forest’s lantern trees, hunting woollybuck and harvesting tree candy. Beyond the forest lie the treeless mountains of the Snowy Dark and a cold so bitter and a night so profound that no man has ever crossed it. The Oldest among you recount legends of a world where light came from the sky, where men and women made boats that could cross between worlds. One day, the Oldest say, they will come back for you….”
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: In talking about Dark Eden, there are two different aspects that need to be considered, namely literary quality and sfnal scope. In short, Dark Eden is superb as a literary novel but something I’ve seen many times before as sf or (pre) historical fiction and not only that, but its scope is very limited since there is only so much you can do with a primitive society as sense of wonder and big picture – in other words the attributes that define high class sf – go.
After all, you are given a small grouping of people – no advanced tech to sustain too many or too hostile an environment and the tech base of the society is not able to tame said environment – relatively rigid rules which where justified once upon a time when survival was the first imperative, rules that lead to what the current younger generation perceive as stagnation, and the maverick hero/heroine who is set to change all that and in doing so breaks the social compact for better or for worse.
This is the sfnal structure of Dark Eden too and as mentioned I’ve read this so many times that in terms of the big picture there is not much to surprise and there is a clear logic of events that you can already guess from the blurb. The specific world building – planet in intergalactic space, with no sun but life, atmosphere and heat coming from underground volcanic activity – is interesting though and there is a lot of potential for complexity if the author chooses to develop this universe more.
If sfnally the novel is just good due to its limited scope, literary Dark Eden is superb. Its structure alternates narration mostly from John Redlantern and his girlfriend Tina Spiketree - they have 21 and respectively 16 of the 46 total chapters – with a few other characters with their own distinctive voices presenting their take on events at various points.
The rules and habits of the Eden society, their way of life, rituals, food gathering and hunting, mating, division into “normal” humans and the disfigured ones – as expected the descent of all 532 humans which live in Eden at the start of the book from Angela and Tommy has quite a few genetic negatives – are slowly revealed and the author balances action with world building and back story perfectly.
The transitions between chapters are very smooth and all characters that narrate even for only a chapter come alive. Of course as they have the bulk of the story John and Tina are the most nuanced and developed of all and we see their growth from a wondering but confused boy who is well liked by most women in the colony to a mature and determined leader in John’s case:
“And in the back of my mind a little thought came to me that there were other worlds we could reach that weren’t hidden away in Starry Swirl, or through Hole-in-Sky, but here on ground, in Eden. They were the places where the woollybucks went, the places they came from.”
and from a young girl who cherishes her “desirability” by men but does not really question her society and its way of life to one who discovers the courage to confront the “public opinion” and follow John in looking for a better life:
“John was interesting. I mean he looked nice, and I fancied him in that way, but what fascinated me most was the way he behaved. All that hunting trip he was trying to be different, trying not to be the same as all the other newhair guys. He went right up that icy ridge. He annoyed Old Roger and David by questioning the True Story.”
So despite that almost everything that happens is predictable as it follows the logic described above, I was still captivated by the novel and turned the pages to see what happens with John, Tina and their growing band of followers.
While a standalone novel and with a very good ending that leaves open a lot of possibilities, I wish the author will return to Eden and tell us more about the fascinating human society he created there. Dark Eden is a highly recommended novel of 2012 and excellent literary sf that I can easily see shortlisted for both genre and mainstream prizes that appreciate writing style and “realistic” characters rather than sense of wonder and big picture speculations.
Here’s That Osama bin Laden Zombie Film You Didn’t Know You Needed
It’s up to a NATO Special Forces team to stop a newly-risen “Osombie” from sparking off a worldwide zombie insurgency.
Suvudu » Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games
Tags: Didn’t, Film, Here’s, Know, Laden, Needed, Osama, Zombie
Ask Terry Brooks: February Post
Every month for more than ten years, bestselling author Terry Brooks has accepted questions from his fans via his website and answered five of them.
In that spirit, I thought it would be fun to post his questions and answers here, broadening the scope of questions that come into his website. Click through to find his answers from questions sent into the website in January 2012 and how to submit your own questions for Ask Terry Brooks!
Suvudu » Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games
Anthology News: Multiverse by Greg Bear & Gardner Dozois
I love anthologies. They are the best way to discover new writers.
Well, there is a great one coming out later this year centering on science fiction master Poul Anderson! Greg Bear and Gardner Dozois have gathered some of the best storytellers to write tales set in Poul’s worlds. Should make for a great anthology!
Here is more about it!
Suvudu » Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games
Tags: Anthology, Bear, Dozois, Gardner, Greg, Multiverse, NEWS
‘The Last Werewolf’ Wins an Inky Tentacle!
Congratulations are in order for Glen Duncan, whose 2011 horror novel The Last Werewolf won an “Inky Tentacle” award from this year’s Kitschies, an annual award program open to works of speculative fiction published in the UK
The Kitschies, sponsored by The Kraken Rum, “celebrate the year’s most progressive, intelligent and entertaining works – the books [...]
Suvudu » Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games
Thoughts on “Touch of Power” by Maria Snyder and “The Order of the Scales” by Stephen Deas (by Liviu Suciu)
“Laying hands upon the injured and dying, Avry of Kazan absorbs their wounds and diseases into herself. But rather than being honored for her skills, she is hunted. Healers like Avry are accused of spreading the plague that has decimated the Fifteen Realms, leaving the survivors in a state of chaos.
Stressed and tired from hiding, Avry is abducted by a band of rogues who, shockingly, value her gift above the golden bounty offered for her capture. Their leader, an enigmatic captor-protector with powers of his own, is unequivocal in his demands: Avry must heal a plague-stricken prince—leader of a campaign against her people. As they traverse the daunting Nine Mountains, beset by mercenaries and magical dangers, Avry must decide who is worth healing and what is worth dying for. Because the price of peace may well be her life…”.
“Touch of Power” is the first volume in the new Maria Snyder “Healer” series. Like in her previous very entertaining fantasy trilogies – Study and Glass - the novel is structured as the first person narration of a youngish but tested through trials etc, so the book is not YA, heroine with special powers. While Avry is certainly different than Yelena or Opal, the overall feel of the novel is absolutely the same and so are its page turning qualities that made me go through the book very fast as I could not put it down.
The world building is different though and it is quite intriguing – 15 kinds of magic, magical healers/scientists possibly responsible for the devastation that engulfed it, power brokers with various ambitions and lack of scruples, the mysterious Death and Peace Lilies, etc – and much remains to be explored while the book ends at a good point.
If you loved her earlier series, you will love this, if not I do not think this will change your mind either. Fun, compelling and mostly familiar and predictable but with enough “newness” to avoid boring repetition and a highly recommended book of 2011 for me.
I plan to get and read the sequels asap since – as in the other 2 adult series of the author – the voice resonates very well
, while the secondary characters – both the “heroes” and the “villains” are intriguing and I expect a few twists and turns as the story progresses.****************************************************************
“Having survived Jehal’s betrayal, former Queen Zafir is determined to take back control of the kingdom. To that end, she seizes Jehal’s wife and son as hostages. Desperate to save his queen and his heir, Jehal makes a tentative peace with the dragons of the north, and prepares to fly against his enemies.
But as politics throw the realms of men into turmoil, a far greater danger threatens. The dragons are awakening from the spells cast upon them, and returning to their native fury. They are out for revenge. And that revenge will be brutal.”The Order of the Scales is the ending -at least of some of the threads since there will definitely more in the dragons storyline – of the trilogy started in the superb The Adamantine Palace and was followed by the pretty good but more traditional The King of the Crags.
Like its two predecessors, the novel moves fast and while it ends quite conclusively the general storyline mentioned in the blurb above and dealing with the conflicts and the jockeying for power of the Dragon Kings and Queens, the powerful finale of the novel is also a beginning and hints where the storyline will go next. There are quite a few twists and turns and I kept turning the pages and generally let the novel flow so I finished it fast.
What I love about the novel and the series overall is the “take no prisoners” attitude of the author and the fast paced narration; in this book like in The Adamantine Palace, the action is almost breathless and things happen and happen and happen; at 300+ pages I would say the narrative content is equal if not higher than in books twice its size.
Now of course this has some drawbacks too since the characters flash and go and while the main ones have clear personalities, others are just place holders, the world seems only sketched at times, but overall the “magic” of suspension of disbelief and immersion in a strange universe works very well and I am in for the duration.
One of my highly recommended novels of 2011 as I read it on UK publication last year in May, The Order of the Scales appears next week on February 7 here in the US. Of course I plan to get and read The Black Mausoleum on its UK publication this May/June too!
Tags: Deas, Liviu, Maria, Order, Power, Scales, Snyder, Stephen, Suciu, Thoughts, Touch
2011 Locus Recommended Reading List with Comments (by Liviu Suciu)
On February 1st, Locus Online has released their 2011 Recommended Reading List which most likely will form the basis of the main list for the upcoming Locus Award which I consider one of the two major and relevant awards in the sff of today together with the more UK oriented Arthur Clarke one.
You can find the full list and the names of the contributors on Locus Online and I copy/pasted the choices in the three main categories of interest, SF novels, Fantasy novels and First novels. I will present them below with some comments.
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Novels – Science Fiction
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COMMENTS
General: A great list with almost all the major sf novels of 2011 I thought were excellent or very good. In my list of 2011 highly recommended books you will find The Clockwork Rocket (my top sf of 2011 as we can consider 1Q84 to be “mainstream” for genre award purposes), Leviathan Wakes, Embassytown, The Islanders, Vortex, Home Fires all reviewed on FBC HERE.
Disagreements: Here, the two books I thought had some good stuff but were a little far from being on a top list were Firebird and Heart of Iron. I have no interest in most of the rest as I am not a fan of zombies, Stephen King, Charles Stross (outside of his crazy far future sf which was excellent, his near future and alt hist/fantasy are boring), Vernor Vinge, Joe Haldeman etc. The Ian McLeod would be of some interest but I have not seen a copy yet.
Notable Misses: Of the 2011 major sf novels the one missing here is By Light Alone by Adam Roberts. In addition I am strongly recommending the small press Dancing with Eternity by John Patrick Lowrie which quite surprisingly was my #2 sf novel of the year and # six overall.
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Novels – Fantasy
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COMMENTS
General: A good list with some of the fantasy novels I thought were excellent or very good but with a lot of divergence from my tastes too . In my list of 2011 highly recommended books you will find A Dance with Dragons (my top fantasy of 2011), The Hammer, The River of Shadows, The Dragon’s Path, The Book of Transformations, The Cold Commands, Heroes all reviewed on FBC HERE.
Disagreements: Here, the three books I thought had some good stuff but were a little far from being on a top list were The Fallen Blade, The Wise Man’s Fear and The Uncertain Places. Kingdom of Gods and Mr. Fox are books I plan to read at some point, while in the rest I have no interest. I strongly disliked the first Magicians book by Lev Grossman which I thought quite poorly written as literary style goes, regardless of the fantasy-nal content and surprisingly I never got into the “Daniel Fox” series despite that I quite liked his fantasy series written under his real name, while Mystification just did not work out for me as style goes but others loved it…
Notable Misses: Major misses here are the novels by Kate Elliott, Jacqueline Carey, Carol Berg, Paula Brandon (aka Paula Volsky) and of course Adrian Tchaikovsky. In addition, I would strongly recommend Scholar by L.E. Modesitt and The Last Four Things by Paul Hoffman.
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First Novels
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COMMENTS
General: This is the list with the fewest overlap with my preferences as I would recommend only Debris, The Night Circus and for literary style, The Tiger’s Wife despite my objections to some of its content.
Disagreements: The only other books on the list I finished were Mechanique which I found ultimately mediocre despite some great moments and Low Town which I found just bad. I tried a few others like God’s War, Seed and The Desert of Souls but they did not work for me though in all cases it was just a matter of style not matching my taste so I would recommend taking a look at our (FBC) reviews of some of those and Of Blood and Honey which were among Robert or Mihir’s favorites.
Notable Misses: 2011 was not a great year for debuts imho as I found very little to compare with very strong preceding years. There was Dancing with Eternity mentioned above and the one major publisher miss from the list, All Men of Genius by Lev Rosen whose absence here surprises me a little bit as the book should have ticked all the right boxes for the Locus staff…
Tags: 2011, Comments, List, Liviu, Locus, Reading, Recommended, Suciu
Spotlight on February Books
This month we are featuring 30 books. There are more than twice as many new sff and related releases this month in traditional publishing not to speak of the countless indies from Amazon and Smashwords but we are limiting ourselves to books that will be reviewed here or are similar with such. For the full schedule of January 2012 titles known to us, you can consult the Upcoming Releases page.
The release dates are US unless marked otherwise, though for books released in the UK and US in the same month but on different dates we use the earliest date without comment and they are first edition unless noted differently. The dates are on a best known basis so they are not guaranteed; same about the edition information. Since information sometimes is out of date even in the Amazon links we use for listings, books get delayed or sometimes even released earlier, we would truly appreciate if you would send us an email about any listing with incorrect information.
Sometimes a cover image is not available at the time of the post and also sometimes covers change unexpectedly so while we generally use the Amazon one when available and cross check with Google Images, the ultimate bookstore cover may be different.
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“Angelmaker” by Nick Harkaway. UK Release Date: February 2, 2012. Published by William Heinemann. (MISC).
“Enormity” by W. G. Marshall. Release Date: February 2, 2012. Published by Night Shade Books. (MISC).
“Enormity” by W. G. Marshall. Release Date: February 2, 2012. Published by Night Shade Books. (MISC).
“Throne of the Crescent Moon” by Saladin Ahmed. Release Date: February 7, 2012. Published by DAW. (FAN).
“Guardian of Night” by Tony Daniel. Release Date: February 7, 2012. Published by Baen. (SF).
“The Order of the Scales” by Stephen Deas. Release Date: February 7, 2012. Published by Roc. (FAN / US Debut).
“The Mirage” by Matt Ruff. Release Date: February 7, 2012. Published by HarperCollins. (MISC).
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“The Bedlam Detective” by Stephen Gallagher. Release Date: February 7, 2012. Published by Crown. (MISC).
“Garrett Takes the Case” by Glen Cook. Release Date: February 7, 2012. Published by Roc. (UF / Omnibus).
“Wild Thing” by Josh Bazell. Release Date: February, 2012. Published by Little, Brown & Company. (MISC).
“Pure” by Julianna Baggott. Release Date: February 8, 2012. Published by Grand Central. (MISC).
“The Fourth Wall” by Walter Jon Williams. Release Date: February 13, 2012. Published by Orbit. (MISC).
“The Wolf Gift” by Anne Rice. Release Date: February 14, 2012. Published by Knopf. (MISC).
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“The Quiet Twin” by Dan Vyleta Release Date: February 14, 2012. Published by Bloomsbury. (MISC).
“The Detour” by Andromeda Romano-Lax Release Date: February 14, 2012. Published by Soho Press. (Misc).
“Thief’s Covenant: A Widdershins Adventure” by Ari Marmell. Release Date: February 14, 2012. Published by Pyr. (YA).
“From the Deep of the Dark” by Stephen Hunt. UK Release Date: February 16, 2012. Published by Harper Voyager. (FAN).
“Satantango” by Laszlo Krasznahorkai Release Date: February 21, 2012. Published by New Directions. (MISC).
“Echoes of Betrayal” by Elizabeth Moon. Release Date: February 21, 2012. Published by Del Rey. (FAN).
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“The Troupe” by Robert Jackson Bennett. Release Date: February 21, 2012. Published by Orbit. (MISC).
“The Technologists” by Matthew Pearl. February 21, 2012. Published by Random House. (MISC).
“The Legend of Eli Monpress” by Rachel Aaron. Release Date: February 24, 2012. Published by Orbit. (FAN / Omnibus).
“Arctic Rising” by Tobias S. Buckell. Release Date: February 28, 2012. Published by Tor. (SF).
“Arctic Rising” by Tobias S. Buckell. Release Date: February 28, 2012. Published by Tor. (SF).
“Kings of Morning” by Paul Kearney. Release Date: February 28, 2012. Published by Solaris. (FAN).
“The Kingdoms of Dust” by Amanda Downum. Release Date: February 28, 2012. Published by Orbit. (FAN).
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“The Ruined City” by Paula Brandon. Release Date: February 28, 2012. Published by Del Rey. (FAN).
“Exogene” by T.C. McCarthy. Release Date: February 28, 2012. Published by Orbit. (SF).
“Carpathia” by Matt Forbeck. Release Date: February 28, 2012. Published by Angry Robot. (HF).
“By A Thread” by Jennifer Estep. Release Date: February 28, 2012. Published by Pocket. (UF).
“Dead Harvest” by Chris F. Holm. Release Date: February 28, 2012. Published by Angry Robot. (UF).
“Dead Harvest” by Chris F. Holm. Release Date: February 28, 2012. Published by Angry Robot. (UF).
