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Quality online SF 21

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Quality, Science fiction

Title	Author	Source	Mentioned by
"Det bedste fra 2011" ("The best from 2011")	KJ Parker, Catherynne M. Valente, Gord Sellar, Yoon Ha Lee, Ken Scholes, Catherynne M. Valente, Robert Reed, Yoon Ha Lee, Kat Howard, Laura E. Price	Everybody	Lars Ahn Pedersen
NOMINEES: 2012 BSFA Awards	Nina Allan, Al Robertson, Paul Cornell, Kameron Hurley, China Mieville	TTA Press	SF Signal

Quality online SF 20

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Quality, Science fiction

Title	Author	Source	Mentioned by
Georgia on my Mind	Charles Sheffield	Phoenix Pick	SF Signal
"The Hammer of God"	Sir Arthur C. Clarke	Lightspeed Magazine	SF Signal *

*: Sir Arthur C. Clarke has been nominated for many awards.

Quality online SF 12

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Quality, Science fiction

Title	Author	Source	Mentioned by
"Velvet Fields"	Anne McCaffrey	Lightspeed Magazine	SF Signal
"Shannon�s Law"	Cory Doctorow	tor.com	SF Signal
"Amaryllis"	Carrie Vaughn	Lightspeed Magazine	SF Signal / Hugo nominee
"For Want of a Nail"	Mary Robinette Kowal	Author site	SF Signal / Hugo nominee
"The Things"	Peter Watts	Clarkesworld	SF Signal / Hugo nominee
"Eight Miles"	Sean McMullen	Author site	SF Signal / Hugo nominee
"The Emperor of Mars"	Allen M. Steele	Asimov's	SF Signal / Hugo nominee

Anne McCaffrey is good, period. So is Cory Doctorow.

Quality online SF 3

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Quality, Science fiction

Title	Author	Source	Mentioned by
King Dog -- A Movie for the Mind�s Eye	Ursula K. Le Guin	Book View Cafe	Free SF Reader *
Piper in the Woods	Philip K. Dick	Gutenberg	Free SF Reader **
"The Millennium Party"	Walter Jon Williams	The Infinite Matrix	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
"The Little Goddess"	Ian McDonald	Asimov's	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
"A Jar of Goodwill"	Tobias Buckell	Clarkesworld	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
"How to Talk to Girls at Parties"	Neil Gaiman	Author webpage	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
Fire Watch	Connie Willis	Infinity Plus	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
"Dark Integers"	Greg Egan	Asimov's	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
"Crystal Nights"	Greg Egan	TTA Press	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
"Singleton"	Greg Egan	Author webpage	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
"Oracle"	Greg Egan	Author webpage	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
"Border Guards"	Greg Egan	Author webpage	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
"Riding the Crocodile"	Greg Egan	Author webpage	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
"Glory"	Greg Egan	EOS Books	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
"Oceanic"	Greg Egan	Author webpage	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
"The Dead Lady Of Clown Town"	Cordwainer Smith	WebScription Ebooks	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
"Enchantress of Venus"	Leigh Brackett	Internet Archive	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
"Roadsong"	Terry Dowling	Author webpage	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
"Larrikin Wind"	Terry Dowling	Author webpage	Free SF Reader, SF Signal
"Ship's Eye"	Terry Dowling	Author webpage	Free SF Reader, SF Signal

* Ursula K. Le Guin is another author, who's received numerous awards, and who's a personal favorite of mine. If she's done it, it's worth recommending.

** Philip K. Dick is not a favorite, but he's universally recognized as important, and he has the awards to prove it.

Quality online SF 1

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Quality, Science fiction

Title	Author	Source	Mentioned by
"The Jammie Dodgers and the Adventure of the Leicester Square Screening"	Cory Doctorow	Shareable	Various *
"Jury Service"	Cory Doctorow & Charles Stross	Feedbooks	SF Signal *
Black Amazon of Mars (Duplicate)	Leigh Brackett	Gutenberg, archive.org	Free SF Reader

*: Mr. Doctorow comes with my personal recommendation, as well as being nominated for many awards and winning a number of them.

Note: There are many services out there willing to tell you about online SF, but few willing to recommend what is best. (Free SF Reader comes to mind.) In this post, and others I hope to make, similar to it, I try to distill those recommendations, for your pleasure, dear reader. If you are aware of services out there, I should study to make this post even better, please let me know.

Enterprise, Season 3

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Science fiction, Star Trek

Number / Name	Why I liked it
053 / 3:1 The Xindi	A new mission. New personnel. Soldiers... 2 teams trying to work together. Fun with gravity. Nightmare. Massage / an excuse to get 2 crew members together. Slavery. A very good beginning.
054 / 3:2 Anomaly	Pirates stealing irreplaceable goods. Circumstances turning good people into bad. Torture?
055 / 3:3 Extinction	An alternative method to reproduce. Total transformation. But the leader is still the leader. Instinct, racial memory. Extermination.
056 / 3:4 Rajiin	Gossip - we don't care. Runaway slave. Seduction? Rape? Espionage? An uneasy alliance.
057 / 3:5 Impulse	Losing emotional control. Paranoia.
058 / 3:6 Exile	Paranoia? Hallucination? Ah - telepathy. And exile. All your secrets revealed - unsettling. Imprisonment?
059 / 3:7 The shipment	He supplies materials for weapons, no questions asked. He is also a nice old man. Is he responsible? Sabotage.
060 / 3:8 Twilight	What's going on? Amnesia? Alternate reality? Framed? What if you lost the ability to form new memories? How would you, and people around you react? What if the last mission you remember, is long over? A non-human in uniform. Grief. Volunteering to share in the tragedy. A possible future. Love. Fun with time and reality. Fascinating.
061 / 3:9 North Star	Racism. Slavery. But change is possible. If our crew were cowboys. Freedom can't be for all.
062 / 3:10 Similitude	Death of a crew member. Is it okay to breed one person, solely to be an organ donor? And to let the harvesting of that organ kill the donor? Genetic memory. A glimpse of the past. Romance. A kiss. Identity. A difficult mission turning a leader more cynical. Accepting destiny. Very good.
063 / 3:11 Carpenter Street	Time travel. To our time. Pollution. A peak at one of the toys in action.
064 / 3:12 Chosen realm	Religion. Pilgrimage. Means and ends. Kamikaze. Cooperation with an enemy. Tricks. Peace through superior firepower - hm... Armageddon.
065 / 3:13 Proving ground	A human with blue horns. Heh. An ally? New friends? Peace through superior firepower - hm...
066 / 3:14 Stratagem	A possible future? Amnesia? Enemies become friends? The mission long over? How to gain trust, super quick. Through manipulation. Simulation.
067 / 3:15 Harbinger	Romance. Jealousy? A kiss. And more. Competition. Until the powers that be stops it. Heh. Help - or rather making things worse? Able to walk through walls - neat.
068 / 3:16 Doctor's orders	Turning responsibility over to someone unskilled. Solitude. Hallucinations? Paranoia? Loss of control.
069 / 3:17 Hatchery	A sudden attack of motherhood. Should the babies always be protected? When is it time for mutiny? And who do you include?
070 / 3:18 Azati Prime	Diaspora. A deciding moment coming up. A farewell. The enemy is just like us. The emotionless sheds a tear. The good leader. The danger of believing unproven information. Torture.
071 / 3:19 Damage	Negotiations will work, where force won't. Onslaught of emotions. Addiction. Withdrawal. Means and ends.
072 / 3:20 The forgotten	Dang emotions! What do you say in an hour of grief? An uneasy alliance. It's hard to build trust. It involves hard choices.
073 / 3:21 E^2	Fun with time. A generational ship. Our crew, and their possible children. And other details of the possible future. A family conflict.
074 / 3:22 The council	How do you choose who to trust? Diplomacy. Hope. A beginning. A risk. A traitor, or a peace maker? An organization dying to make room for war. You never get used to losing a soldier under your command.
075 / 3:23 Countdown
076 / 3:24 Zero hour	Means and ends... Double climax. Cool - suddenly the enemy is right in front of you. The network explodes, gloriously. Time for romance! A significant death. Time travel.

Quality online SF 19

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Quality, Science fiction

This is a general hint. If you like SF to be good, and don't mind it being old, it might be a good idea to follow The Victorian Hugos: 1885 and onwards.

Reflections

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Danish, Me, Review, Science fiction

Review of �Refleksioner� (�Reflections�), by Stig W. J�rgensen, read in Det virtuelle cocktailparty (The Virtual Cocktail Party).

Outline: Longer and shorter articles about time grammar, SF swearwords, and other stuff. Some of these are from the blog Ekkorummet (Echo space).

Is it good? As I've noted earlier, I find Stig intelligent, a good writer, etc. (Or, I think I've said it earlier. Or, maybe that was on another time line?) So it's just yummy to get some more. At the same time, it's nice to know that, if there's not enough Proximas in the world, you can just read Ekkorummet, too. And then I have to admit, that even though I'm subscribed to Ekkorummet, there's a lot here I hadn't read before. Even though I'm very much for stuff being available electronically, and read short stories and novels electronically, there's something about long blog posts that takes it out of me. Blog posts are supposed to be short; that's my state of mind, when I read blogs. So hurray for a second chance to read it here!

Note: I've also read the 2 remaining parts of the book, even though I haven't talked about them ("Portr�tter"/�Portraits� and "Punktnedslag"/�Hitting points�). I'm just not saying anything about them, because I'm not a big lover of Erwin Neutzsky-Wullf, Brian W. Aldiss, Samuel R. Delany, John Crowley, Arthur C. Clarke, interviews, and reviews. But, I'm very flattered to see my own name on p 293. Blush ...

Alternatives

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Danish, Me, Review, Science fiction

Review of �Alternativer� (�Alternatives�), by Stig W. J�rgensen, read in Det virtuelle cocktailparty (The Virtual Cocktail Party).

Outline: A beginner's article about what alternate history / alternate worlds are, and 3 reviews of 1 anthology and 4 novels within this genre.

Is it good? Well, I like when stuff is grouped nicely. And the intro, drawing threads back to history, physics, psychology, and philosophy/linguistics is pure gold for me; and on top of that, I know these fields quite well, already. Things just fall into place, and I can read (or reread) the following reviews from a new angle. Ah, so that's why it's one thing, when a world not at all like ours still has a Kennedy, and another when a world is like ours most of the way. At the same time, the grouping fits some ideas I already have about grouping SF, in general. The right thing at the right time.

Universes

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Danish, Me, Review, Science fiction

Review of �Universer� (�Universes�), by Stig W. J�rgensen, read in Det virtuelle cocktailparty (The Virtual Cocktail Party).

Outline: Universer af papir -- en introduktion til science fiction (Universes of Paper -- An Introduction to Science Fiction) was published as a book originally, and now it rises again as the beginning of an essay collection. The genre is split into 5 groups (the political future novel; space; time; the changed man and man's creations; and end of the road), which again are split, and finally represented by books, which are summarized and linked with other books out there. The purpose is to let newbies see what SF can do at it's best (in Danish), thereby getting a better view, in general.

Is it good? I'm new enough for this to feel just right. I've read some of the book, the rest is put on my shopping list for later. Stig seems like a seasoned reader, able to pass on his knowledge and overview. -- The content is presented clearly, with page numbers and new-pages in the right places. -- And yes, of course, there are small laughs and missteps: the trees shouldn't grow into the sky. I haven't seen, elsewhere, that people from Mars are humans, and I'm surprised Verne isn't mentioned; not even with a note explaining his absence. (Wells is here.) There are a few spelling errors here and there, mixing singular and plural, and common gender and the neuter. But it's not much, just enough to bother my inner editor. And it's a question of taste, whether you need that many exclamation points. There's linguistic energy for talking about humans and dolphins, �wanting to get their hands (etc.) on� something. He. -- So, let me say it again: this is just right.

Doing Many Odd Things

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Danish, Me, Review, Science fiction

Review of Mange s�re ting for (Doing Many Odd Things), by Svend �ge Madsen.

Outline: An atheist writer gets an assignment from God: write a defense of God. And right after �rhus Festuge (�rhus Festival) there's a body, dangling from the top of a church spire.

Is it SF? Well. There are some predecessors, clearly SF (Mnemosynes b�rn, Lad tiden g�), and looking-at-the-past machines and, indeed, playing havoc with time plays a certain part. But, I still have some doubts, though I can't quite say why.

Themes: The deceased, dangling from the church spire, was called Adam. With Holger and Hanumag, he was very much into a project where you could look at the Earth 2,000 years ago. Even more to the point: what did Jesus do exactly? But now Adam is dead, and Holger and Hanumag have disappeared. Their 3 students, Dja'far, Klaus and Devala respectively come to �rhus, to figure out what happened. -- Felia is trying to solve the murder, that's already been committed, and a few more that happen later. -- A different project altogether is to find the truth about Jesus through DNA analysis. -- Here and there and everywhere there's foreboding, fun with time, destiny etc. -- The writing is full of half sentences, words tripping over each other etc.

Is it good? I have a clear sense that there's more to this book than I could wrestle from it. And I constantly tripped over words. But, I am left with a somewhat clear image of the plot (why and how did Adam die, etc.), and that's cool.

Note: The name of the book is from the Bible, Ecclesiastes 7:29, King James version: �Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.� By some freak of interpretation, in (old) Danish �sought out many inventions� becomes �doing many odd things�.

Both-And Monday

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Danish, Me, Review, Science fiction

Review of Baade-Og Mandag (Both-And Monday) (gratis), by Jesper Knallhatt - Lene Andersen.

Outline: Celebrity Cornelius and journalist Tenna have a long talk. Or rather, Jesper Knallhatt has written a long talk between two fictitious persons. Or rather, editor Pamfilia Severinsen finally publishes the manuscript of Knallhatt in 2035. -- Knallhatt is sort of a mystery, it might be a pseudonym. Or rather, Lene Andersen holds the copyright for a novel, with the names Jesper Knallhatt and Pamfilia Severinsen on the cover.

Is it SF? Even though it pretends to be science, interviews and other stuff (non-fact in other words), then yes, it's a novel, and it's SF. Both �writers� refer to stuff we know hasn't happened (yet). So we're in something like an alternate history / the future.

Themes: As the book says: 'Using the headlines What are we Doing? How is Everything Connected? Who are We? the book describes the latest technological development, as well as theories of the �mechanisms�, according to which the world develops: chaos theory, complexity theory, and the theory of scalable networks. The book also has 15 hypotheses for societal and global development, and finally, the book ends with a tour de force through the idea history of the last 2,500 years.'

Is it good? No. It's kind of fun reading 2035-Danish, that's much closer to English than 2010-Danish. Then it got a little tiring reading Tenna and Cornelius fight (�I want to interview you�, �well, you can't�). And when it finally got rolling, it was just a long speech from Cornelius (even though Pamfilia meddles with small footnotes that are kind of funny). A lot of tell, not a lot of show. So I only reached page 35 of 409. Which is sad, because I know this series is about stuff, I find exciting! It's just very un-excitingly presented.

Behind the Sky

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Danish, Me, Review, Science fiction

Review of �Bag himlen� (�Behind the Sky�), by Richard Ipsen, read in Dr�mmetid (Dreamtime).

Outline: He's always on the move, but finds peace under the starry night sky.

Is it SF? Astronomy, discovering life in space etc. Oh yeah!

Themes: Communication galore. The narrator communicates with Karoline a lot, even though she's deaf. And they both communicate with beings on another planet. But others don't communicate that well.

Is it good? A good short story from a good collection, yes, baby!

Russian Roulette

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Danish, Me, Review, Science fiction

Review of "Russisk roulette" (�Russian Roulette�), by Maria Kj�r Madsen, read in Ingenmandsland (No man's country).

Outline: Kimberley takes another walk in her virtual rain forest, while she's waiting to trade it for something more exciting.

Is it SF? One aspect of virtuality we haven't seen before, and another kind of society: yes.

Themes: Should you do what you love, or what you're good at? And, if the answer implies boredom, isn't it okay to look for the ultimate excitement/thrill? The two themes are connected. Students can both get bored studying and look for excitement elsewhere, in some virtual reality / internet / something environment. -- The characters have English names: Kimberley, Jim, Melanie, Casper.

Is it good? I want people to be able to live the best possible lives that they can, seen from within; so I'm shocked when somebody says otherwise. I would feel bad if I could only study what others said was best for me. So the short story shocks me in the best possible way. At the same time, I have small annoyances: why is only one half of the theme (the ultimate excitement) still with us on the last page? And why do the characters have English names, when there's no other reference to where the short story is taking place, and the characters could be from all over the world and speak random languages? But mostly: satisfying, and a good short story from an author, I will pay more attention to in the future.

Quality online SF 18

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0200

Tags: Quality, Science fiction

Title	Author	Source	Mentioned by
"The Island of the Immortals"	Ursula K. Le Guin	Lightspeed Magazine	SF Signal
"Clockwork Fagin"	Cory Doctorow	Pixel of Ink	SF Signal