tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45397172768857797072009-10-05T20:21:31.715-07:00John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.comBlogger65125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-68788996459607416602008-07-15T03:22:00.000-07:002008-07-15T03:22:00.325-07:00

Hey, everybody. Thanks to the folks at FantasyBookSpot, I now have new hosting and have set up shop at http://www.scifibookspot.com/markley/. Please update bookmarks or links accordingly. I hope I'll see you there!

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-51257633084465171662008-07-12T01:54:00.000-07:002008-07-12T02:06:42.651-07:00

My unfortunate habit of taking a week to finish chewing over something I’ve read before commenting on it strikes again. (I’m one of those people who always think of devastatingly witty comebacks two days after the conversation is over.) Last week over at SF Signal, they asked the following question for their Mind Meld:Gender imbalance in genre fiction publishing is an ongoing point of

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-69381612382084372132008-07-07T12:52:00.000-07:002008-07-07T13:00:28.752-07:00

A few weeks ago, John Scalzi had an article at SciFi Scanner, arguing that movies widely considered classics of science fiction cinema are not at the level of the classics in other genres. This got me thinking more generally: why are so many science fiction movies bad? I don’t think it’s just a matter of most movies in general being poor- there’s plenty of horrible dramas, comedies, action

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-33648194072435008522008-07-07T12:50:00.001-07:002008-07-07T12:59:30.884-07:00

My new column at Crucial Taunt, about Dan Simmons, is now up.

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-44574858715994777152008-07-04T12:49:00.000-07:002008-07-04T13:07:10.871-07:00

I love the 4th of July. Growing up, several of my summers revolved principally around the massive horde of illegal fireworks and flammable materials my friend who lived next door possessed, so this is usually a great day for me. Unfortunately, the universe delivered an emotional straight knee directly to my groin earlier this week, so I’m less celebratory than usual. Neither getting a copy of

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-33213401480500606942008-07-02T18:42:00.000-07:002008-07-04T13:07:10.871-07:00

My new Crucial Taunt column is up, reviewing Tobias Buckell's Crystal Rain. I'm currently reading his second book, Ragamuffin, which is fantastic so far.

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-71845747997146886512008-07-01T12:17:00.000-07:002008-07-01T12:20:51.736-07:00

My apologies for the silence. Real life intruded rather nastily over the last few days. Interesting post at Boing Boing- the new Neal Stephenson book Anathem has its own original soundtrack CD. I’ve long thought that it would be cool if books had soundtracks, either an original score or just a compilation of appropriate music. I know the cost would be prohibitive, unless perhaps you limited

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-59646022815893896842008-06-23T10:41:00.000-07:002008-07-04T13:07:10.872-07:00

I am almost never willing to pay the cost of a new hardcover book. I made one of my rare exceptions recently, however, because Alastair Reynolds’ The Prefect is out in the United States. In the other Revelation Space books we hear a lot about the golden age of Yellowstone and the Glitter Band, but all we ever saw was the decaying wreckage of that society. Writing my post about utopias in

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-10739271956710244432008-06-21T15:12:00.000-07:002008-06-21T15:15:47.840-07:00

My new article on Neal Asher is up at Crucial Taunt. Have a look.

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-47818130744024248502008-06-15T01:21:00.000-07:002008-06-15T01:22:25.319-07:00

I should have mentioned this when I posted about my Glen Cook article, but it slipped my mind at the time. If you’re on Facebook, I run the Glen Cook fan group there. Come on over and join us.

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-26083822055401553472008-06-09T20:42:00.000-07:002008-06-09T20:56:03.670-07:00

John Scalzi recently had a post on an interesting subject: What sets off your urge to nitpick ?Here’s mine, and it’s a weird one. One of my “gateway drugs” into science fiction was Star Trek: The Next Generation. Unfortunately, I now find Star Trek somewhat bothersome due to the fact that, as it is usually portrayed and described in the show, the transporter doesn’t actually move your body from

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-89820363273826429382008-06-04T13:14:00.000-07:002008-06-04T13:16:50.720-07:00

My new Forgotten lore column is up over at crucialtaunt.com. This week it's about Glen Cook and the omnibus collection Chronicles of the Black Company. I hope you like it.

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-21619872433378518732008-06-04T12:59:00.000-07:002008-06-04T13:06:57.638-07:00

So, now I know how I and everyone I love are going to die: at the cold steel hands of rebelling cyborg monkeys. Futurismic reports that scientists have inserted electrodes into the motor cortex of a Macaque monkey with its limbs restrained, which then successfully used thought alone to retrieve a marshmallow with a mechanical arm. I’m estimating an over/under of eight years before the bulk of

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-62576523714938653882008-05-30T14:09:00.000-07:002008-05-30T14:28:22.972-07:00

Over at Fantasybookspot.com, I have a review of Jack McDevitt's Deepsix. Meanwhile, at Crucial Taunt, you can see my my review of John C. Wright's "War of the Dreaming" duology. My first two Crucial Taunt columns, a review of Michael Flynn's The Wreck of the River of Stars and a look at the "Revelation Space" universe of Alastair Reynolds, are now archived there as well if you want to see them.

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-59428872173817474542008-05-28T15:13:00.000-07:002008-05-28T15:35:06.660-07:00

There’s a good post by Mike Brotherton at Science Fiction and Fantasy Novelists arguing against the idea of a dichotomy between fantasy and science fiction, in which fantasy supposedly is (or should) be about things that are not amenable to rational analysis. I’ve never agreed with the idea, which I hear from time to time, that fantasy and magic become less fantastical or magical if they follow

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-6705883218839355132008-05-23T12:59:00.000-07:002008-05-23T13:02:38.301-07:00

My second column at Crucial Taunt is now up. I review one of my favorite books, Michael Flynn's The Wreck of the River of Stars. Have a look.

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-62657188244846302192008-05-17T12:38:00.000-07:002008-05-17T13:05:50.182-07:00

I've been busy elsewhere this week. I am now a weekly columnist on science fiction and fantasy for the entertainment website Crucialtaunt.com. You can see my first column for them here. It's got an introduction to Alistair Reynolds and my thoughts on his work. If you've got comments on it, please let me know.At SF Signal, I had the opportunity to participate in their most recent Mind Meld

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-92059400540485164942008-05-12T17:05:00.000-07:002008-07-07T13:05:19.556-07:00

I’d like to start by apologizing for the title of this post. I just had to somehow cram the Nozick reference in, no matter the cost. A while back, Alex Zalben, writing at SciFi Scanner, posted the following: Find me a sci-fi movie where there is a Utopia, and I will point out the worm in the apple. Every single time we are presented with a Utopian society on film, there is also a corrupt

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-85306481000138160102008-05-12T15:03:00.000-07:002008-05-12T15:06:54.319-07:00

I was at a nearby Barnes and Noble a few days ago, and I noticed that they didn’t appear to be running the sort of extensive Mother’s Day promotions they had last year. Last year, to take advantage of fast-approaching Mother's Day they had a large display of books prominently labeled "Books for Mom." Not surprising. What was surprising was that, prominently displayed under the softly colored

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-33387489435247748332008-05-06T21:53:00.000-07:002008-05-06T22:00:31.613-07:00

Warning: this post has what you might call a thematic spoiler for Jack Vance’s The Book of Dreams, though nothing that would be likely to diminish your enjoyment of that book.A few days ago, SF Signal had a discussion on the best and worst endings of books. This got me thinking about the subject, because endings are often the aspect of fiction that I find the most interesting. They’re the

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-21824410011003734252008-05-02T22:30:00.000-07:002008-07-07T13:05:19.557-07:00

Baen Books has done some fine work bringing older science fiction back into print, often for the first time in decades. This, however, is by the far coolest thing they’ve done- no, the coolest thing any human being who isn’t Poul Anderson has ever done. Baen Books will be releasing a collection of Poul Anderson’s Technic History stories this September. It’s apparently called The Van Rijn

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-41893380732408665402008-04-28T21:07:00.000-07:002008-07-07T13:05:19.557-07:00

Biology in Science Fiction has a post on the depiction of cloning in movies. Sadly, they left out The Sixth Day (spoilers upcoming), arguably the best Arnold Schwarzenegger movie about evil clones Robert Duvall has ever had a supporting role in. Okay, the science is absolutely ridiculous, with full-grown human clones whipped up in minutes and a doohickey that record the complete contents of

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-73778695747160631112008-04-26T23:54:00.000-07:002008-04-26T23:55:54.822-07:00

First caught wind of this at Roderick Long’s blog. There’s been some discussion here and there about a recent study announced by the Max Planck Society on human consciousness. To quote from the press release I’ve linked: In the study, participants could freely decide if they wanted to press a button with their left or right hand. They were free to make this decision whenever they wanted, but

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-19356298557999017552008-04-24T23:51:00.000-07:002008-04-25T00:01:31.679-07:00

John C. Wright offers an invaluable lexicon of science fictional terms for the uninitiated. My personal favorite:Rishathra is sexual congress, without the benefit of marriage, between two mutually sterile intelligent hominids, usually for the purpose of solemnizing a treaty or somesuch. So if your girlfriend has left you for a Neanderthal or a Slan, this is the word for it.Ah,The Ringworld

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539717276885779707.post-35732800971621881032008-04-21T19:13:00.000-07:002008-04-21T19:32:09.681-07:00

The blog is reborn! Or, more accurately, the name of the blog is reborn. The name only just occurred to me recently, and I was never intensely attached to the old one. It’s not as if I’m losing a huge amount of accumulated name recognition here. When I’m seventy, I don’t want to look back wistfully and wonder what might have been, if only my blog had a cooler name.

John Markleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16473300745301705046johndmarkley@hotmail.com0