Sequential Wednesdays #1 – Rockwell’s Masked Heroes
Let’s get one thing straight: I go weak at the knees because of some colored pigment on a stretched cloth surface – often and regularly. Somewhere I know my parents got it right […]
From the In Box
Haffner Press (they of the excellent tomes and complete collections) sent along their monthly update, in which we are informed – Just over a month in release, THE COMPLETE JOHN THUNSTONE by Manly Wade Wellman […]
Cory Doctorow Reading & Signing at Gibson’s Bookstore, Concord NH
Amazing Stories in the person of publisher Steve Davidson will be attending this Sunday’s appearance of Cory Doctorow at Concord New Hampshire’s independent bookstore – Gibsons. Permission was obtained to videotape the event. An edited […]
From the IN Box
Jim Freund’s Facebook page offered the following: The New York Review of Science Fiction presents: Ken Liu Robin Wasserman Guest Hosts: Douglas Cohen & John Joseph Adams Wednesday, March 6th — Doors open 6:30 PM […]
Genres Get Unstuck, or My New Favorite Literary Magazine
Prior to the 1991 introduction of SoundScan, record stores self-reported what was moving off their shelves. That system, open to bias and shaky math, created rigid separation in sales charts that ensured you didn’t find […]
Epic Fantasy Analysis Feb 17, 2013
This is the third in the series and is from data as of 2/17/2013. I’m revising the format that I provide this data, now I’m using table which should make things a bit more clear. […]
Review: The Wizard of OZ: A Steampunk Adventure by S.D. Stuart
We interrupt your regularly scheduled coverage on SF detectives to bring you this… As a kid, I used to love watching the 1939 film Wizard of Oz. My parents had recorded it on VHS so […]
Walking unto Death
I’ve never read The Walking Dead but I love the TV show and watch it religiously every Monday morning. Series one enthralled me because of the likeable characters who unfailingly seemed to die just as […]
Amazing News Tuesday, February 19, 2013*
*If you’re curious as to why each post from Amazing News carries the date (after all it is easy enough to see when a post is published without it being in the title), it is […]
Jazz and Drama: A Kids on the Slope Review
Even casual fans of anime have heard of Cowboy Bebop, the jazziest, classiest, most sophisticated space opera anime to ever be created (whoops, my bias is showing). Bebop’s director, Shinichiro Watanabe, and musical composter, Yoko […]
Zoe Duff – Independent Publisher
What do you do when you’re writing in multiple genres and don’t quite fit into contemporary classifications? If you’re Zoe Duff, you start up an independent publishing house and learn the process of printing and […]
Return of the Robo-Insects
Researchers at the University of Tokyo have recently equipped moths with robotic skeletons. Why on earth would anyone do this? Not to create a tiny army of super-moths, but rather to glean clues into how […]
Three Military Fantasy Shorts
For this week, I’m going to do things differently. Rather than review a single work, I’ll look at three stories set in the same universe. One of the reasons I decided to focus my blogging […]
Writing With Children
There were army men in the bathtub when I stepped into it this morning. Why do we never read about things like this in the far-future worlds of space opera, or the misty-eyed sagas of […]
Amazing News Monday, February 18, 2013
Amazing Stories’ Top half-dozen posts from the previous week: Why Science Fiction Poetry is Embarrassingly Bad Don’t Quit Your Day Job – Traditional Publishing by the Numbers Theodore Sturgeon, The Next Question, Well-Meaning Scientists and […]
Publishing Primer
Contrary to what they tell you when you take “Author 101” in college, writing a book isn’t necessarily the most difficult part of producing a book. Publishing is a creative industry. What does that mean? […]
Lost In Space! Reviews of Unknown or Underappreciated Books: The Gandalara Cycle by Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Heydron
Hello and welcome to what will be an occasional feature on my blog! So – what, exactly, do I mean by ‘unknown or underappreciated’? To put it simply – not everyone is a Kevin J. […]
No. 7 Andre Norton, Telepaths, Telempathic Animals, and The Entrepreneurial Spacer.
2013Feb17 – Time spent in front of a computer will suck you into a rift in the space-time continuum. You doubt this? Leave a clock near your computer and voila … tempus fugit. (If you […]
What Science Fiction Lacks
Good criticism and brave critics. That’s what the science fiction field lacks. For decades now, most book reviews with in the field rarely give honest assessments of a given works strengths and weaknesses. Read any […]
Pulling Back the Publishing Veil: Editors and Their Roles
One of the big advantages of signing with a traditional publisher, is access to industry leading editors. If you’re new to publishing, you may have no idea about the various types of editors and what each one […]
The Artful Collector: Collecting Strategies Part 1 “The Completist”
I came to my role as dealer in SF art in a very old-fashioned way….as a fan. And I’ve still got ‘fandom’ in my blood. I mention this only because dealers in many collecting arenas […]
A Broader View of Science-Fiction Poetry
Paul Cook’s essay on the badness of SF poetry makes a few good points—while being woefully clueless in other respects. As someone with a passing fondness for speculative literature, and as one who has previously […]
SF Weapons 101: An Introduction
Science Fiction from its earliest incarnations has always featured some sort of futuristic weaponry. From H.G. Wells’ martian heat-ray to the most modern charged particle beam of Alastair Reynolds, SF weapons astound, confound and amaze […]
The Fed Puts Stamps of Approval on Science Fiction Authorship
Sometime after John W. Campbell died in 1971, a few science fiction fans launched a campaign requesting that the U.S. Postal Service issue a postage stamp commemorating the legendary editor of Astounding Science Fiction and […]
In the Beginning…
Memorable first lines can not only make-or-break a story, these quick literary introductions can become just as iconic as the entire body of work.
Why Piracy is Never Okay
Since the bloggers on this site are mostly authors who no doubt believe in the concept of copyright (because presumably they’d like to get paid for their work), I thought I’d go through the arguments […]
All Your Rebel Base Are Belong to Us: In Defense of J. J. Abrams
(Or, Why Your Beloved Franchise Is About to Become More Powerful than You Could Possibly Imagine.) Since the news that J. J. Abrams will be directing the seventh installment of Star Wars hit a couple […]
Conan the Cimmerian: Sword & Sorcery Superstar
When many people hear the words “Sword & Sorcery”, they immediately think of Conan. He might be Robert E. Howard’s original, or the L. Sprague de Camp/Lin Carter pastiche Conan, the Marvel Comics Conan of […]
The Art of the Shaver Mystery
The Shaver Mystery is part of the history of Amazing Stories Magazine, but it is certainly not considered one of the magazine’s shining moments. Barry Malzberg touched on it briefly in his first blog post […]
Halo Jones Interview with Ian Gibson
Before From Hell, before Watchmen, before The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, there was The Ballad of Halo Jones. Co-created by writer Alan Moore and artist Ian Gibson, Halo Jones was a space opera about a young woman who is swept up in […]
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