Alumni Meet N’ Greet

I got the following email the other day from my alma mater:

Fellow Knights,

Two representatives from the UCF Alumni Association and UCF Foundation will be in New York City on February 12 and would love to meet and mingle with you!  The event will be held at [restaurant] near Rockefeller Center.  Complimentary hors d’oeuvres will be served in a relaxed lounge setting. 
 

Anyone ever been to something like this? Will it be fun? Should I go?

Read More

Books Received

Elak of Atlantis (trade paperback)
Author: Henry Kuttner

Book Description: Explore the origins of Sword & Sorcery with Henry Kuttner’s Elak of Atlantis! Published in Weird Tales to satisfy fans of Conan the Barbarian in the wake of Robert E. Howard’s death, the four long stories depict a brutal world of flashing swords and primal magic, touched by a hint of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos. Never collected in a mass market edition since their publication in the late 1930s, these exciting tales helped to establish a genre and are a critical part of any fantasy library. Included as a bonus are Kuttner’s two Prince Raynor stories from 1939’s Strange Tales. With seminal, thrilling adventure tales from one of the most important writers in science-fiction and fantasy, Elak of Atlantis is not to be missed!

The Secret Of Sinharat (trade paperback)
Author: Leigh Brackett

Book Description: Enter Eric John Stark, adventurer, rebel, wildman. Raised on the sun-soaked, savage world of Mercury, Stark lives among the people of the civilized solar system, but his veneer of calm masks a warrior’s spirit. In the murderous Martian Drylands the greatest criminals in the galaxy hatch a conspiracy of red revolution. Stark’s involvement leads to the forgotten ruins of the Martian Low Canals, an unlikely romance and a secret so potent it could shake the Red Planet to its core.

Madhouse (mass market paperback)
Author: Rob Thurman

Book Description: Half-human Cal Leandros and his brother, Niko, aren’t exactly prospering with their preternatural detective agency. Who could have guessed that business would dry up in New York City, where vampires, Trolls, and other creepy crawlies are all over the place? | But now there’s a new arrival in the Big Apple. A malevolent evil with ancient powers, dead set on making history with an orgy of  blood and murder, is picking off humans like sheep. And for Cal and Niko, this is one paycheck they’re going to have to earn…if they live long enough to collect it.

Bloodheir (ARC)
Author: Brian Ruckley

Book Description
The world has fallen from its former state. The war between the clans of the Black Road and the True Bloods has spread. For Orisian, thane of the ruined Lannis Blood, there is no time to grieve the loss of his family, brutally slain by the invading armies. The Black Road must be stopped. However, as more blood is spilled on the battlefields, so each side in the conflict becomes more riven by internal dissent and disunity. Amidst the mounting chaos, Aeglyss the na’kyrim uses his new-found powers to twist everything and everyone around him to serve his own mad desires.Meanwhile, the long-dormant Anain are stirring – and when the most potent race the world has ever known returns, the bloodletting may never stop.

The Edge of Reason (ARC)
Author: Melinda Snodgrass

Book Description: Since the dawn of consciousness, a secret war has been fought between the forces of magic and religious fanaticism, and the cause of reason, understanding, and technology. On one side are the Old Ones, malign entities that feed on the suffering of mankind. On the other are the Lumina, an ancient order dedicated the liberation of the human spirit. | Officer Richard Oort of the Albuquerque Police Department is caught in the middle of this primal battle when he rescues a mysterious teenage girl from a trio of inhuman hunters. Recruited by the Lumina to serve as their latest paladin, Richard ends up fighting beside a handful of unlikely allies, including an adolescent sorceress, an enigmatic philanthropist, a sexy coroner, and a homeless god with multiple personalities. | The Old Ones and their mortal pawns are determined to destroy Richard–or subvert him to their cause. And they have all powers of magic and organized religion at their disposal. As the gates between the universes shred apart, it may be up to Richard to save humanity from the endless horror of a new Dark Age. | Provocative as The Golden Compass or the Illuminatus! trilogy, The Edge of Reason dramatizes the fundamental conflict behind the hot-button issues of today…and the future of the human race.

The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy (ARC)
Author: Ellen Datlow

This collection of sixteen all-new stories could count as a virtual "best of the year" anthology. Here you will find slyly twisted alternate histories, fractured fairy tales, topical science fiction, and edgy urban fantasy. [TOC]

Read More

F&SF, March 2008

The March 2008 issue of F&SF is now on sale. Also, on the F&SF website is this month’s bonus story, Tropical Nights at the Natatorium by Richard Paul Russo (reprinted from our September 2003 issue).

Here’s the table of contents:

NOVELLAS

  • The Overseer – Albert E. Cowdrey
     

NOVELETS

  • The Boarder – Alexander Jablokov
     

SHORT STORIES

  • Rumple What?  – Nancy Springer
  • Exit Strategy  – K. D. Wentworth
  • The Second Descent – Richard Paul Russo
  • A Ten-Pound Sack of Rice – Richard Mueller
     

DEPARTMENTS

CARTOONS

  • Bill Long
  • Arthur Masear
  • S. Harris
     

COVER

  • Vincent Di Fate for "The Overseer"
     

image

Read More

SF Crowsnest reviews Wastelands

SF Crowsnest just published a nice review of Wastelands by Tomas L. Martin. Here’s a snippet:

In this, his first anthology, he collects together an impressive array of post-apocalyptic short stories. […] There’s some really great stories in here from the likes of Stephen King, Orson Scott Card, Tobias Buckell, Cory Doctorow and George R.R. Martin. Before I move on to my pick of them, I’d like to mention how excellent John Joseph Adam’s editorial comments are both in the introduction and before each story. His comments on the authors and how they came to write the stories add weight and interest to each one and dramatically added to my enjoyment of the anthology. […] Stands out as one of the best short story collections I’ve read in a while.
 

The whole review can be found here.

Read More

Interview with Tim Pratt

SCI FI Weekly just published a Q&A interview I did with Tim Pratt. Here’s a snippet:

What would you do with a zombie army?

Pratt: My house would be kept so clean! Except for the bits of zombie falling off here and there. Seriously, though, what wouldn’t I do? Zombies for all the menial tasks I hate! (Nothing involving food prep, natch, but yardwork? Definitely.) Plus, I would have the single greatest haunted house in the world each Halloween.
 

Read the whole interview!

Read More

F&SF stories on the 2007 Locus Recommended Reading List

Locus has published its 2007 recommended reading list. The following stories from F&SF made the list:

Novellas

  • "The Master Miller’s Tale", Ian R. MacLeod (F&SF 5/07)
  • "Stars Seen Through Stone", Lucius Shepard (F&SF 7/07)
  • "Memorare", Gene Wolfe (F&SF 4/07)
     

Novelettes

  • "Dance of Shadows", Fred Chappell (F&SF 3/07)
  • "The Diamond Shadow", Fred Chappell (F&SF 10-11/07)
  • "The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate", Ted Chiang (F&SF 9/07)
  • "The Bone Man", Frederic S. Durbin (F&SF 12/07)
  • "An Eye for an Eye", Charles Coleman Finlay (F&SF 6/07)
  • "Wizard’s Six", Alex Irvine (F&SF 6/07)
  • "Brain Raid", Alexander Jablokov (F&SF 2/07)
  • "Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack In the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers", John Langan (F&SF 9/07) *
  • "Finisterra", David Moles (F&SF 12/07)
  • "Against the Current", Robert Silverberg (F&SF 10-11/07)
  • "Kiosk", Bruce Sterling (F&SF 1/07)
  • "Kaleidoscope", K. D. Wentworth (F&SF 5/07)
  • "A Wizard of the Old School", Chris Willrich (F&SF 8/07)
     

Short Stories

  • "Unpossible", Daryl Gregory (F&SF 10-11/07)
  • "The Tomb Wife", Gwyneth Jones (F&SF 8/07)
  • "Osama Phone Home", David Marusek (MIT Technology Review 3-4/07, reprinted in F&SF)
  • "Fragrant Goddess", Paul Park (F&SF 10-11/07)
  • "Magic with Thirteen-Year-Old Boys", Robert Reed (F&SF 3/07)
  • "Memoir of a Deer Woman", M. Rickert (F&SF 3/07)
  • "Stray", Benjamin Rosenbaum & David Ackert (F&SF 12/07)
  • "Stone and the Librarian", William Browning Spencer (F&SF 2/07)
  • "The Great White Bed", Don Webb (F&SF 5/07)
     

Congrats to all of the authors!

* Also in Wastelands.

Read More