Blog – Page 43 – John Joseph Adams

Locus Recommended Reading list

Locus just announced their 2008 Recommended Reading list, and I’m pleased to note that Wastelands is on it. Congrats to all the other titles and authors that made the list.

Federations

From Star Trek to Star Wars, from Dune to Foundation, science fiction has a rich history of exploring the idea of vast interstellar societies, and the challenges facing those living in or trying to manage such societies. The stories in Federations continue that tradition.

What are the social/religious/environmental/technological implications of living in such a vast society? What happens when expansionist tendencies on a galactic scale come into conflict with the indigenous peoples of other planets, of other races? And what of the issue of communicating across such distances, or the problems caused by relativistic travel? These are just some of the questions and issues that the stories in Federations take on.

Herein you will find a mix of all-new, original fiction, alongside selected reprints from authors whose work exemplifies what interstellar SF is capable of.

Table of Contents

Mazer in Prison | Orson Scott Card (reprint)
Carthago Delenda Est | Genevieve Valentine
Life-Suspension | L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
Terra-Exulta | S. L. Gilbow
Aftermaths | Lois McMaster Bujold (reprint)
Someone is Stealing the Great Throne Rooms of the Galaxy | Harry Turtledove (reprint)
Prisons | Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason (reprint)
Different Day | K. Tempest Bradford
Twilight of the Gods | John C. Wright
Warship | George R. R. Martin and George Guthridge (reprint)
Swanwatch | Yoon Ha Lee
Spirey and the Queen | Alastair Reynolds (reprint)
Pardon Our Conquest | Alan Dean Foster
Symbiont | Robert Silverberg (reprint)
The Ship Who Returned | Anne McCaffrey (reprint)
My She | Mary Rosenblum
The Shoulders of Giants | Robert J. Sawyer (reprint)
The Culture Archivist | Jeremiah Tolbert
The Other Side of Jordan | Allen Steele
Like They Always Been Free | Georgina Li
Eskhara | Trent Hergenrader
The One with the Interstellar Group Consciousnesses | James Alan Gardner
Golubash, or Wine-War-Blood-Elegy | Catherynne M. Valente

Federations is scheduled for publication in May 2009. You can pre-order it now from Amazon.com.

BookSpot Central on Seeds of Change

BookSpotCentral has an extensive review of Seeds of Change, which the reviewer rather liked: “Without exception these stories will provide the reader with a lot of food for thought. So much in fact, that it took me a full week to work though these nine stories, needing a break after most of them to think about what I had just read. … This anthology contains quality stories. It is not one of those effortless reads, this book demands your full attention. Paying attention is absolutely worth the effort though. I think I enjoyed Seeds of Change even more than reading the outstanding Wastelands anthology.”

Hugo Award Nominating Deadlines

When I made my Hugo Awards post, I neglected to mention that in order to nominate for this year’s award, you have to have either been an attending or supporting member of last year’s Worldcon (Denvention), or you have to register as an attending or supporting member of this year’s Worldcon (Anticipation) by January 31.

So, if you want to nominate, and you didn’t have a membership last year, go here to register. Since the deadline is approaching, you should probably do that now.

If you just want to vote, choose an adult supporting membership ($55 Canadian, about $44 US dollars). Otherwise, buy an attending membership. If you’re not sure if you want to attend, you can buy a supporting membership now, so that you can nominate, and then upgrade your membership later to a full attending membership if you decide to go to the convention.

Once you’re registered, you have until February 28–or rather, your ballot must be received by February 28.

SFBC Edition of The Living Dead

For those of you who’d like to own a nice hardcover edition of The Living Dead, now’s your chance. The Science Fiction Book Club edition of the book is now available. I haven’t seen a copy of it yet myself, but now that I know it’s ready I hope to be holding a copy soon. Anyone seen it yet?

ConTweeting

I value efficiency and convenience very highly, so I’m often thinking of ways to improve upon both.

I was just reading an article in the SFWA Bulletin called “Learn How to Twitter” as I was curious what it would actually say. Something it talked about gave me an idea about convention networking–wouldn’t it be great if we could use Twitter to help organize stuff at conventions? Not for everyone, of course, but for we TwitterFolk. So what you do is, if you’re posting something about a convention while at the convention, you can use the hash mark + con name to make your Tweets findable in Twitter by anyone searching for it. So, for instance:

johnjosephadams: #wiscon anyone know of any parties tonight besides the one in room 256?

And then people can chime in. It would be like bringing the groupmind power of Twitter into the convention. Which would be awesome.

Also, it would be great if the concoms got in on the action and posted notes to #[convention name] if there are changes in the schedule or whatever. Surely at least one person on any concom uses Twitter, no?

And while I’m wishing for technological convention assistance, I think we’re at the point where we should expect and demand good, user-friendly electronic convention program books. I mean, if I create a bunch of program listings in Outlook, including all the information, such as room number, time, panelists, and program description, I can easily setup a whole convention program book, which can then be exported into any number of formats. The thing is–I’m never going to carry around my program book at all times, but I will always carry my iPhone, and I should be able to put the schedule on there with very little effort. This would also be great because I could download it from the website before leaving for the convention and that way I can actually browse through the schedule while traveling there; once I actually get to the convention it can be really hard, with all the people you want to talk to, to actually find time to sit and read through the program book.

Hugo Awards Eligibility

Since the Hugo Award nominations are now open, and since all the cool kids are doing it, I thought I should make note of my eligibility and the eligibility of works I’ve published in 2008.

Novelette

“Judgment Passed” by Jerry Oltion (Wastelands, Jan. 2008)
“How the Day Runs Down” by John Langan (The Living Dead, Sep. 2008)
“Endosymbiont” by Blake Charlton (Seeds of Change, Aug. 2008)

Short Story

“N-Words” by Ted Kosmatka (Seeds of Change, Aug. 2008)
“The Future by Degrees” by Jay Lake (Seeds of Change, Aug. 2008)
“Drinking Problem” by K. D. Wentworth (Seeds of Change, Aug. 2008)
“A Dance Called Armageddon” by Ken MacLeod (Seeds of Change, Aug. 2008)
“Arties Aren’t Stupid” by Jeremiah Tolbert (Seeds of Change, Aug. 2008)
“Faceless in Gethsemane” by Mark Budz (Seeds of Change, Aug. 2008)
“Spider the Artist” by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu (Seeds of Change, Aug. 2008)
“Resistance” by Tobias S. Buckell (Seeds of Change, Aug. 2008)

Best Editor (Short Form)

John Joseph Adams (Seeds of Change, Wastelands, The Living Dead)*

Best Artist

David Palumbo (The Living Dead)
Daniel Kvasznicza (Wastelands)
John W. Campbell Award

Ted Kosmatka
Blake Charlton

* Hugo Awards rules for this category state: “The editor of at least four (4) anthologies, collections or magazine issues primarily devoted to science fiction and/or fantasy, at least one of which was published in 2008.” Shimmer: The Pirate Issue is my fourth qualifying editorial experience, but it came out in 2007, so I’m not listing it there beside my name, which space is reserved to point out 2008 work.

Hugo Awards Eligibility

Since the Hugo Award nominations are now open, and since all the cool kids are doing it, I thought I should make note of my eligibility and the eligibility of works I’ve published in 2008.

Novelette

Short Story

Best Editor (Short Form)

John Joseph Adams (Seeds of Change, Wastelands, The Living Dead)*

Best Artist

David Palumbo (The Living Dead)
Daniel Kvasznicza (Wastelands)

John W. Campbell Award

Ted Kosmatka
Blake Charlton

Federations Submissions Update

I just wanted to point out to Federations submitters that you should consider the deadline for submission to be 11:59 PM (EST) on Jan. 1. I realized that I never specified, and so some of you might have wondered about the exact deadline. I’m not going to be a Nazi about it, though, so if you end up with a late submission, don’t query, just send it in as per the guidelines; of course, you should make every effort to not be late.

Son of Zombie Robot

Pursuant to my earlier blog post about whether or not Robocop would be considered a zombie robot, screenwriter and friend-of-the-blog Sam Hamm got me an answer directly from the source: Robocop co-screenwriter Ed Neumeier. Sam says: “[Ed] said that Peter Weller was legally dead before he was transformed into Robocop, so he should count, by your definition, as a zombie robot.” Ah-ha! Victory is mine!

I should point out, however, that Mr. Neumeier thinks the term “zombie cyborg” would be more accurate, which, in all fairness, is totally true. Still, zombie cyborg doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, and since the Terminator is called a cyborg when in fact it is just a robot, I feel perfectly justified in continuing to think of and refer to Robocop as a zombie robot.

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