FlashNews

Worst Library Books Blog

2009-11-13T11:30:00.003-05:00

The Awful Library Books blog is not about ripping authors' writing; it is about the books that should have been retired long ago, because they're out of date. They tend to be non-fiction books that are a bit long in the tooth. Recent examples on the blog include a career guide to getting a phonograph record company job--you know--pressing the hot wax. There are probably three, maybe four jobs on the planet doing that. The blog gives brief descriptions of the books and some nice retro book cover and sample page images. Another example is a twirling book. I think girls still twirl batons, but the illustrations are pleasingly retro. Of course, there are the computer books showing explicit photos of--you might want sit down--a floppy diskette.

A writer at Detroit Free Press, Korie Wilkins, points out that there's a serious side to this blog, that's received a lot of world-wide attention and submissions. According to the bloggists:

"Libraries are losing funds and staff. This is also a way for us to advocate for libraries and librarians."

In other words, library patrons become disenchanted when they have to slog through twenty now-pointless books before finding a useful one (if any).

Significant Objects Project: Stories for Found Objects

2009-11-11T16:26:00.004-05:00

Flash Fiction Online's columnist, Bruce Holland Rogers, is participating as a writer in the Significant Objects Project. The premise of the project is:

A talented, creative writer invents a story about an object. Invested with new significance by this fiction, the object should — according to our hypothesis — acquire not merely subjective but objective value. How to test our theory? Via eBay!

Curators for the project purchase thrift store objects, for a few dollars. Writers in the project write a fictional story about their selected object. The object is then placed for auction on eBay, with the story serving as the object's description on the auction page. The winner receives the object, a printed copy of the story, and the author's thanks.

Bruce's auction object is an umbrella trinket. The object and story can now be viewed in an eBay auction. As with all objects that generate stories for the project, the auctioned object goes to the highest bidder and the proceeds go to the author of the story. Here are links to the object (Umbrella Trinket) and its auction.

Yet Another 2012 Apocalypse Retrieve

2009-11-11T14:49:00.004-05:00

Flash Fiction Online reported on an earlier 2012 apocalypse reprieve. That reprieve merely gave us another eight years to live. Now, NASA is on crusade to debunk 2012 apocalypse myths. That Google link is more newsy-looking. This one (Ask an Astrobiologist) and this one are more NASA-like. And this Daily Mail (UK) one has better images.

Dude, that's like a total reprieve. Ew!

However, will 2012 be a disaster for the movie producers?

SF Without Human Main Characters?

2009-11-11T14:06:00.004-05:00

There are recent examples of stories and movies with non-human main characters, such as WALL-E and Monster. The author of Monster, A. Lee Martinez, pleads for more stories that are from a non-human perspective. This was covered by IO9 in shorter form, but with a nice Martinez book cover.

Martinez gets why visual media has pretty faces, but doesn't see why this is carried over into print media. (Maybe it is because many movies are based on books?). Says Martinez:

I’ve enjoyed sub-standard entertainment far more than I should because of a pretty face.

And:

A big reason I don’t read much fantasy / sci fi is because I want the weirdness, the monsters, the inhuman, and for the most part, that stuff is shuffled to the side. Almost all fantasy / sci fi is from the human perspective because almost all of it is aimed at a human audience.

I suppose Terminator is the philosophical dividing line, because the robot and humans had about equal interest in the story.

Bonus: the top 85 robot movies. WARNING: some movies may contain humans. Ew.

New SF Magazine: Lightspeed

2009-11-10T13:01:00.005-05:00

According to Locus Online and others, John Joseph Adams will leave Fantasy Magazine to edit Lightspeed, a sister publication that will publish science fiction. At the time of posting this article, the Lightspeed web site just has some slick graphics. Writers' guidelines will appear in early December. The first publication date is set for June 2010.

Here is what John Joseph Adams' personal website had to say about the content of Lightspeed Magazine:

Lightspeed will focus exclusively on science fiction. It will feature all types of sf, from near-future, sociological soft sf, to far-future, star-spanning hard sf, and anything and everything in between....New content will be posted twice a week, including one piece of fiction, and one piece of non-fiction. The fiction selections each month will consist of two original stories and two reprints, except for the debut issue, which will feature four original pieces of fiction. All of the non-fiction will be original.

Does Male and Female Poetry Exist?

2009-11-09T15:40:00.003-05:00

Here is a short Guardian (UK) article that explores whether there is such thing as a female poem. The subject was explored when a poetry festival and society combined and held a symposium on 'the female poem,' which had unexpectedly heavy attendance.

Here is what seems to be behind the question: "man is defined as a human being and a woman as female," so women worry more about gender and whether gender affects their writing, and men are nervous about reading the poetry of women.

Our Post-Biological Future, Maybe

2009-11-09T14:16:00.005-05:00

Futurists, including science fiction and fantasy readers and writers may find this article by William Grassie of the Metanexus Institute useful. The article is a report about the Singularity Summit 2009, and its 26 technophile speakers, including Ray Kurzweil.

According to Ray Kurzweil, a tipping point will occur in three or four decades that will send evolution into hyper mode, resulting in a post-biological civilization with its "blending of super-machines, enhanced brains, and immortal bodies," the Singularity.

Or not.

Kurzweil relies on curing death through "exponential developments in genomics, nanotechnology, and robotics," and the Law of Accelerating Returns which he reckons is woven into the fabric of the universe. Other technophiles are suspicious of exponential growth, citing natural limitatons, such as unsolvable math problems (which I take to mean computationally infinite problems), and an unwarranted expectation that Moore's Law (doubling of computation power every ten years) will continue and apply to technologies other than computing, such as nanotechnology. The most damning-sounding counter to Kurzweil's vision is software development, which technologists say, in so many words, sucks, perhaps even going in the wrong direction. As a software developer, I find that attitude totally, um, believable.

Here is the article on our theorized post-biological future: "Millennialism at the Singularity: Reflections on Metaphors, Meanings, and the Limits of Exponential Logic," with ample references and links.

Harlan Ellison Publishing Again

2009-11-08T15:14:00.003-05:00

With at least ten Hugos, four Nebulas, five Bram Stokers and an Edgar on his resume, Harlan Ellison will soon publish his first short story in ten years. He was born in 1934. According to SF Scope, Harlen Ellison will publish a story with Realms of Fantasy in February 2010. Wikipedia claims he's published such a large volume of works that it seems impossible (and so won't be repeated here), among them, "short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, and a wide range of criticism covering not only literature, but film, television, and print media." He's a short fiction kind of guy, with only one novel (but inlcluding critical works reaching novel length).

Here is a collection of short biographies of Harlan Ellison, some real and others surreal, and one from an Internet news group (alt.fan.harlan-ellison) by Isaac Asimov. The "real" Brief Bio more than corroborates the publishing count evaded above:

He has written or edited 75 books; more than 1700 stories, essays, articles, and newspaper columns; two dozen teleplays, for which he received the Writers Guild of America most outstanding teleplay award for solo work an unprecedented four times; and a dozen movies.

Side note: the February 2009 issue of Realms of Fantasy will also include a story by fast-rising Aliette de Bodard. Here is an interview of Aliette de Bodard by Internet Review of Science Fiction.

Top-10 Book List Controversy for Publishers Weekly

2009-11-07T10:11:00.004-05:00

On Nov. 4, this blog posted an article comprising a list of lists of best books of 2009, among them, Publishers Weekly's top 1o list. Soon after PW's posting of their list, a controversy ensued: a women's literary group pointed out that all the books were written by men. The list was based on literary merit rather than book sales. The New York Times carried a story about this top-10 literary book list controversy, which included more than 170 comments by readers at the time of posting of this FFO blog article. To PW's credit, they provided a link to the NYT article.

The comments were interesting and seemed to have been made preponderantly by women. The philosophical question that immediately arose was: should lists like these always include women? Or should the judges wear Justice-like blinders?

How to Make a Book

2009-11-06T10:21:00.003-05:00

You've always wanted to make and bind a book because it looked like fun? Or you've given up on publishing that 20-year-old trunk novel of yours? Or you want please your relatives with a gift of your mother's or grandmother's mind-numbingly awful poetry, or you own brilliant, misunderstood and under-appreciated poetry? Here is a blog post on how to make a book by semi-anonymous "EB" at The Olive Reader blog of Harper Perennial. I'd put that article more in the inspirational than how-to category, but it has pictures of her/his project and a link to a how-to book. I've seen several similar books in bookstore craft sections. (Careful, or you could find yourself in legal turmoil if you pick up a book on the wrong kind of bookmaking.)

Here is a terse but perhaps adequate explanation on the web on how to make a book. Here is a more elaborate presentation on the process of bookmaking. This article was the basis of an article in Make magazine, an eclectic and excellent source for (often geeky) make-it-yourself projects, and so is likely of high-quality.

Impac Dublin Literary Prize

2009-11-05T10:50:00.004-05:00

By way of SF Awards Watch, this Guardian (UK) article on the Impac Dublin literary prize, which polls libraries to determine its long list of books for this prestigious and well-funded prize (€100,000, £90,000, $130,000 USD). The purpose of the prize is to make known to the Irish significant books they might otherwise overlook. The polling method results in an eclectic book list, which includes literary and speculative fiction authors. Many Flash Fiction Online readers will recognize Ursula K. LeGuin (Lavinia) and Neal Stephenson (Anathem), who are on the list, as well as Nobel laureates José Saramago and Toni Morrison.

According to the Guardian article author, Alison Flood, Aravind Adiga's Booker prize-winning novel The White Tiger is the early front runner. See the rest of the article for the Impac Dublin literary prize long list of the 150 nominated books and additional insight.

Lists of Best Books 2009

2009-11-04T13:38:00.005-05:00

It's getting close to the end of the year, so various best-0f-2009 book lists are appearing. Of course, 2009 will be revisited soon after it closes.

Publishers Weekly fashioned their list of 100 best books of 2009 by picking books in various categories, such as PW's top 10, fiction, poetry, mystery, science fiction/fantasy/horror, mass market, comics, and non-fiction. This list has the welcomed feature of a short synopsis for each book. PW has a separate list of children's best books for 2009. This and the following lists are editorial picks, rather than best-seller list.

Here are some other lists:

SFRevu Review of Flash Fiction Online

2009-11-03T13:59:00.004-05:00

SFRevu has a review of the October 2009 Flash Fiction Online edition. The FFO October edition will be here until the November issue is published; then it will be here.

Here is what review Sam Tamaino had to say about "Death Babies," one of the flash fiction stories in that addition:

"Death Babies" by S. Craig Renfroe, Jr is a chilling tale about a town besieged by what they call death babies. Death babies appear after someone has been dead and buried. They look much like regular babies except they have leathery skin. If you show one any affection, it will latch on to you and never let go, as one woman finds out. A well-done little nasty for Halloween!

Sam also reviewed these publications:

Abyss & Apex Issue 32: 4th Quarter 2009
Interzone - Issue #224
Jim Baen's Universe October 2009
Kaleidotrope – Issue 7 - October 2009
New Genre - Summer 2009 - Volume i Number VI
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction December 2009

Asimov's I, Robot Sequels?

2009-11-02T10:43:00.005-05:00

Here is a Keeping the Door article in two parts:

News: long after the death of Isaac Asimov, his estate has authorized I, Robot sequels, to be written by Mickey Zucker Reicher. The first will follow Dr. Susan Calvin, robopsychologist, in Robots and Chaos. The Guardian (UK) provides a bit more about the new series of I, Robot stories.

Commentary: the author of the Keeping the Door article, Australian technology journalist/editor Renai LeMay, provides an impassioned trilogy of rebuke of this move by Asimov's estate: he wonders if the relatively unknown author, Reicher, has the gravitas to stand in Asimov's substantial shoes; he believes the series of I, Robot books already stands on its own and needs no completion; and, he believes the estate is clueless about the genre, but not money-grubbing. (And then he got really mad.)

iPhone: Book Apps Surpass Game Apps

2009-11-02T10:14:00.003-05:00

For the last year or so, game application releases were the top category of iPhone apps, according to Venture Beat. Now, iPhone book app releases are exceeding game apps. Keep in mind that this refers to the release of applications for sale rather than sales of applications, where, in this case, the release of a book in iPhone format is an application. This opens more questions than it answers. What sort of books are being released? Out-of-print? New releases? Best sellers or mid-list? It is a relatively simple matter to release a book for an iPhone compared to developing and releasing a new or existing game for the iPhone platform. There is a huge pent-up supply of books (which is a separate matter from pent-up desire for purchase), so one would expect this trend to continue for some time.

Related: Barnes & Noble releases the Nook eBook reader, their response to the Amazon Kindle. Their play is a second color screen for control and more eBook format support.

Six-Word Horror Stories--Staff-Written

2009-10-30T19:57:00.004-04:00

For Halloween, some of the staff and associates of Flash Fiction Online wrote six-word horror stories, Pico-Flash stories. It is not as difficult as it seems. After you've assigned a word to character development, setting, plot points, plot resolution and style, you have a word left over to enrich the story, perhaps to comment on the horror genre, or deepen the character, or set up a sequel. One should be careful not to bloat the story with the last word, though.

In the way of an introduction, here is a six-word story allegedly written by Ernest Hemingway (who is neither on staff nor an associate of FFO). Wikipedia referred to this as a vignette, rather than a flash fiction story. It is rich in implication to make up for its paucity of words:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Here are the Flash Fiction Online staff/associate-written six-word horror stories:

Oliver House

Carved jack-o-lantern teeth are soft -- usually.
Captured trickster, well-roasted, now a treat.
Found: a fragment of flight 2245.

Oliver has published a six-word story in one of the Smith books and which was reprinted in Reader's Digest.

R.W. Ware

Man walks into bar, says, 'Ow.'
No rest stops for eighty miles.

Wade Rigney

Tiny casket. Baby fangs. Feeding time.
Incurable sadness. Blood-slicked bathroom tiles.
You'll never beat me again, Daddy.
Carribean seductress's embrace. No one returns.
Gunfire. Sanguinary peace unites the fallen.
Darkness. Moving Shadows. Flashing blade. Blood.

Deb Hoag

Silken descent into lust and death.

big teeth
small fist
no contest

Sue Freivald

Executive horror: Made the late train...What meeting?

Anne Pinckard

Uncostumed today, blending in at last.

Gary Cuba

Teen squeals. Zombie's disappointed: No brains!
Hanging thought: I didn't do it!
One bullet left. My luck: misfire!
Forgive, Dearest. This'll hurt me too.
Unwise costume idea: Duct tape mummy.
Timmy squirms; doctor extracts; Mommy's charged.
Quicksand! Help! Don't stand there laughing!
Cop question: Who's in the deepfreezer?

steffenwolf

Clown well done. Who's laughing now?
"New Moon's in theatres. Wanna go?"

WouldBe

Beady eyes, fangs, the taxman cometh.
Vampire in my bedroom. No protection.
For sale: daughter, shorn and shoed.

Scary/Funny History of Horror

2009-10-30T09:35:00.003-04:00

IO9 has a brief overview of horror that tickles the funny bone, whatever the intent might have been. The article writer warns that the article wasn't intended as a comprehensive retrospective; rather, it addresses the categories: 1920s stage plays, comedy teams and camp of the 30s and 40s (Abbott and Costello, for example), 60s anarchy, self-aware campiness, Ghostbusters/Gremlins and more, Troma comedies of the 80s (Surf Nazis Must Die), werewolf/vampire humor, body horror/comedy, the rise of Sam Raimi, Christopher Moore, creature features, Buffy etc., Chucky/Leprechaun films, horror spoofs, and zombie romance/comedies.

IO9 posted some nice graphics with this short look at horror-comedy film history.

Analog Blogger

2009-10-29T11:22:00.004-04:00

This story via SlashDot: you have to admire this guy. In Monrovia, Liberia, a place with poor access to news via the state-run media, a man uses a low-tech solution to broadcast news: a dry erase board. He watches the news and summarizes it on a publicly accessible "white board." He apparently has many appreciative readers of this analog blog. Here is the SlashDot article, which leads to one with a video.

NASA's Ares I-X Launch Success

2009-10-28T12:53:00.003-04:00

From NASA's blog: NASA's Ares I-X test rocket lifted off at 11:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a two-minute powered flight. The flight test lasted about six minutes from its launch from the newly modified Launch Pad 39B until splashdown of the rocket's booster stage nearly 150 miles downrange.

Now, Flash Fiction Online readers and writers are naturally skeptical, especially after a reader's anonymous tip led to the moon landing controversy, which NASA had to defend. However, Yours Truly personally viewed the launch from about 30 miles south of the Cape. I can attest that the Ares I-X flight had substantial vertical and eastward vectors. As a Fair Witness, I can say it left from somewhere (Titusville, Florida area), but I cannot confirm that it arrived anywhere, as that leg of the flight was beyond unenhanced human vision from my viewing location.

However, I haven't taken our meds in a while and we are very, very confused. Ohh, shiny!

8-Year Reprieve On End of World

2009-10-27T10:39:00.005-04:00

Whew! The doom prophets apparently misinterpreted the Mayan calendar, and the apocalypse has been rescheduled for 2020, according to a SlashDot article. That article describes the mistake briefly, but gives a link to a detailed Dutch article on the Mayan apocalypse, in NWT magazine, which is translated by Google. So even if you're not interested in the explanation, it is interesting to see the state of automatic language translation. The translated article is readable, but still a bit wonky.

Here's the teaser quote from the Dutch article as translated by Google:

In the 2012 film that will premiere this month, killed the cities and continents in droves, as the world decays. Yet just a pity that research has shown that the "end times" of December 21, 2012 probably more than two centuries two.

There is no word yet whether the movie distribution company for 2012 is going to recall all their prints of the film to correct the errors.

Review of Flash Fiction Online, Aug. & Sept. 2009

2009-10-26T11:22:00.003-04:00

Our friends at SFRevu had taken a month off for their review of short fiction. I missed that Sam Tomaino had juxtaposed two reviews of FFO. Sorry! He has a review of the Aug. 2009 Flash Fiction Online and a review of the Sept. 2009 Flash Fiction Online .

Those Flash Fiction Online issues are found here: Aug. 2009 and Sept. 2009.

Sam has also other reviews of short fiction:

Analog Science Fiction and Fact for December and November 2009
Asimov's Science Fiction for October/November 2009
Black Static Twelve for August/September 2009
Jim Baen's Universe for August 2009
Murky Depths #9 for 24 September 2009
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for October/November 2009

You'll also find book reviews of UK and US fiction at their SFRevu home page.

The Day the Internet Died

2009-10-25T14:56:00.003-04:00

Yesterday we had a story about YA apocalyptic fiction. Today's post is about another sort of apocalypse, the day the Internet died. How would people react if the whole network of networks collapsed and couldn't be rebuilt for a lifetime? No doubt, many would feel a deep loss or disabling disorientation. Many avid readers and writers would feel like they couldn't function. Many personal relationships that existed only through Internet connections would collapse with the Internet, with the people involved having no way to find out who was behind that screen name or goofy email address.

Cracked.com asked for Photoshopped pictures that would illustrate how we would react if the Internet died. I found this by way of SlashDot.

YA: Vampires Out, Post-Apocalypse In

2009-10-24T10:29:00.005-04:00

According to a short Publishers Weekly article, publishers of young adult fiction are sick to death of vampires. What's next for the little darlings? Yes, Virginia, there is post-apocalyptic fiction for you, and, according to one author, you may then tie a chainsaw to the bumper of your car if you wish, sweetie. Whoo hoo!

This article, first appearing in PW's Children's Bookshelf blog, gives some brief thoughts from authors Michael Grant, Scott Westerfeld, Carrie Ryan, and James Dashner who had gathered with fans at a bookstore. One issue is the "parent problem," mainly, how to get rid of them in the stories. Says the article writer, Sara Antill, “the bleaker the vision, the better:”

In fact, that mantra is an integral part of Carrie Ryan’s writing process. “I go with the philosophy of ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ ” she said, “and then I write that.”

The article doesn't mention the present publishing frenzy related to the Mayan predications for the year 2012, but that likely is fueling this interest. Here is PW's article on YA post-apocalyptic fiction.

What about a novel featuring post-apocalyptic vampires...no...zombies? Never mind.

Astronauts: Houston, Commercial Spaceflight Is No Problem

2009-10-23T10:40:00.003-04:00

A baker's dozen of astronauts have penned....no, these guys and gals are the ultimate earlier adopters. (Refueling.)

A baker's dozen of astronauts have texted an endorsement of commercial participation in spaceflight. This statement was aimed directly at NASA. These astronauts feel that NASA's strength is in exploration. Now that near-space access is slightly less than rocket science, the astronauts feel that the commercial sector is more suited to making it commonplace.

The paper cited Sally Ride's statement as capturing their thoughts concisely:

"We would like to be able to get NASA out of the business of getting people to low Earth orbit."

The astronauts participating in the statement were: Buzz Aldrin, Ken Bowersox, Jake Garn, Robert Gibson, Hank Hartsfield, John Herrington, Byron Lichtenberg, John Lounge, Rick Searfoss, Norman Thagard, Kathryn Thornton, Jim Voss and Charles Walker.

Here is The Wall Street Journal's article on the astronaut's endorsement of commercial spaceflight.

Amusing Graphical Look At Twist Endings

2009-10-22T11:00:00.004-04:00

Here is an amusing graphical representation of twist endings, plays in this case. Across the top of the graphic are various story ending types, such as deus ex machina, or story elements, such as a MacGuffin. Across the left side are various genres. The title is "Harvet Ismuth's 42 Essential 3rd Act Twists." This was produced by Internet cartoonist Dresden Codak, a pseudonym for Aaron Diaz (which could be confused with the Latin singer/actor of the same name). Codak also has a one off Caveman Science Fiction cartoon.

Bonus: rhetorical piece about the future of traditional book publishing, on the Galleycat blog of Media Bistro.