F&SF has officially entered the blogosphere! Go check out the new blog, as well as our new forum. I’ll be moving my F&SF author interviews over there, and indeed have already done so: my interview with Albert E. Cowdrey is up now.
So, go have a look. And tell your friends!
Wastelands gets a brief mention by Robert Folsom in the Kansas City Star. The review focuses on George R. R. Martin’s new collaborative Wild Cards book, Inside Straight, but then slips in mention of Wastelands at the end.
Grasping for the Wind gives Wastelands a glowing review: "Wastelands is an exceptional anthology. In scope and vision it can only be compared to Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions. […] I highly recommend this anthology for anyone who enjoys reading anything. […] Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse is the best anthology of any kind I have read to date." Wow!
In case you missed it, the first issue of the new horror magazine Noctem Aeternus is now available. It’s 100% free–all you have to do is sign up for a free email subscription to receive the magazine in PDF format. I haven’t read much of it so far, but I did read Charles Coleman Finlay’s story, "The Rapeworm," and was blown away by it. He’s written lots of great stuff in the past, and this one ranks right up there with his finest work to date. Go check out the magazine, if only to read Charlie’s story!
The April 2008 issue of Realms of Fantasy magazine, which is shipping to subscribers now, features reviews of both Wastelands and Eclipse One. About Wastelands, reviewer Jeff VanderMeer says that rather than being a depressing book, as he initially thought it would be, he "found Wastelands hopeful rather than despairing." He also found it "relevant to the uncertain times in which we live," and added that the stories "display a full understanding of the worries and real problems that might eventually threaten civilization as we know it."
Go on over to Tor.com and sign up for their newsletter–as a reward for doing so, you’ll get some free ebooks. The first is Brandon "Finishing the Wheel of Time" Sanderson’s The Mistborn. And next up is supposed to be John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War.
I got the first book via email the other day. It looks like it’s just the typesetting file converted to a PDF, so it’s not an ideal ebook–I wouldn’t want to try to read this on a hand-held device, but I guess I can’t really complain since it’s free. I do wonder, though, how much effort it would have taken to convert the text to a hand-held-friendly format.
I was just googling the word "teetotaler" because I was curious about its origin, and since I am one, I figured I should know where the term came from. Wikipedia says:
One anecdote attributes the origin of the word to a meeting of the Preston Temperance Society in 1832 or 1833. This society was founded by Joseph Livesey, who was to become a leader of the temperance movement and the author of The Pledge: "We agree to abstain from all liquors of an intoxicating quality whether ale, porter, wine or ardent spirits, except as medicine." The story attributes the word to Dicky Turner, a member of the society, who had a stammer, and in a speech said that nothing would do but "tee-tee-total abstinence".
A more likely explanation is that teetotal is simply a repetition of the ‘T’ in total (T-total). It is said that as early as 1827 in some Temperance Societies signing a ‘T’ after one’s name signified one’s pledge for total abstinence.
So I thought, hrm, okay, then scrolled down to see what else was in the entry. Included was a link to a list of famous teetotalers, so I clicked over to see who they listed. Before doing so, I was thinking, "Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if John or John Quincy Adams was a teetotaler?" Well, turns out there was a famous–or perhaps I should say infamous (and I don’t mean that in the Three Amigos sense)–John Adams who was a teetotaler: John Bodkin Adams, who was apparently a British suspected serial killer. Creepy. Team JA loses a point there.
Update: I emailed word of this discovery to my Facebook Doppelganger, and he pointed out that Bodkin died on the 4th of July–the same day that President John Adams died. Hrm. Guess I should dread each passing Independence Day, since that’s apparently when John Adamses die.
Booklist, one of the publishing industry’s top trade journals, has reviewed Wastelands. Here’s a snippet: "With this well-chosen set of post-apocalyptic stories, editor Adams provides a bit of everything that is best about the trope, from bleak, empty worlds to beacons of hope in an otherwise awful situation. […] A well-chosen selection of well-crafted stories, offering something to please nearly every post-apocalyptic palate."
In addition to the overall praise given to the book, the reviewer singles out the stories by Jerry Oltion, Stephen King, John Langan, Octavia Bulter, and Elizabeth Bear. You can read the whole review on Booklist Online (free registration required).
My pal Jeremiah Tolbert has a story up at Escape Pod this week:
EP145: Instead of a Loving Heart
Published by SFEley on 14 Feb 2008 at 6:32 am. 1 Comment.
Filed under Podcasts, Rated PG.By Jeremiah Tolbert.
Read by Jared Axelrod (of The Voice of Free Planet X).
First appeared in All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories (ed. David Moles & Jay Lake).We are somewhere among the tallest mountains of the world. When we arrived, I was locked away in a cargo hold, so I don’t know exactly where. Our home is a small, drafty castle and a separate laboratory. Dr. Octavio had the locals construct the lab before he tested the new death ray on their village. There’s very little left there. In my little bit of spare time, I try to bury the bodies and collect anything useful to the doctor’s experiment.
My primary duties consist of keeping the castle’s furnace running and clearing the never-ending snow from the path between the two buildings. Sometimes, it falls too fast for my slow treads and shovel attachment to keep up with and I find myself half-buried in the snow. It is horrible on my gears when this happens, but I use heavyweight oil now and it helps.
It is one of the few benefits of my metal frame that I appreciate. Life in this contraption is like being wrapped in swaddling clothes. I wonder if I would feel anything if my casing caught on fire? I need to ask the doctor when he isn’t in one of his moods.
Go check it out!