Swiftlinks
- Haven’t had a chance to read all the nominees for the BSFA Best Short Fiction Award? Intimidated by the nearness of Eastercon and sure you’ll never manage it in time? Fear not! As noted by just about every other blog out there, Starship Sofa has produced podcasts of all five nominated stories. Here are the direct links:
- “Terminal” by Chaz Brenchley
- “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” by Ted Chiang
- “Lighting Out” by Ken MacLeod
- “The Sledge-Maker’s Daughter” by Alastair Reynolds
- “The Gift of Joy” by Ian Whates
- And here’s the other link that I’m sure everyone has already seen: Match it for Pratchett.
- In other BSFA news, the shiny new Matrix Online is now live.
- And a new issue of the internet review of science fiction.
- Victoria Hoyle has reviewed the shortlist for the William L. Crawford Award for First Fantasy Book at Strange Horizons. here’s part one; and here’s part two.
- John Clute reviews Pump Six by Paolo Bacigalupi. And here’s a long interview with Bacigalupi.
- Paul Kincaid’s latest SF Sceptic column: “A history of today“
- Abigail Nussbaum assesses Pushing Daisies, Chuck, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles
- Nic Clarke on Tanith Lee’s Drinking Sapphire Wine
- A couple of people have been allowed to read the manuscript of Richard Morgan’s forthcoming fantasy novel, The Steel Remains. They seem impressed. Joe Abercrombie says:
There’s not much Tolkien in the mix at all, not much epic massiveness, no good and evil whatsoever, just loads of evil, and boy is there no romanticism. But there’s not much Martin either, which surprised me, because that’s more what I was expecting - Morgan’s isn’t a low magic world really, in fact there’s quite a range of the wierd and wonderful in there.
Darren Turpin, meanwhile, calls it brutalist fantasy.
- SFX has posted the text of all their “book club” writeups, including such delights as Christopher Priest on I Am Legend, Geoff Ryman on Dangerous Visions, and Stephen Baxter on Ringworld. The full list of links is at SF Signal.
- Apparently Ian McEwan’s next book will be about climate change.
- Michael Chabon’s essay on superhero costumes.
- Can you name them all?
- And finally, Paul Raven has put together an Eastercon glossary for any newbies out there …
