Weekend Update!

Hugo nominations are now being accepted.  If you read something last year that you think deserves recognition, and if you're a member of the 2012, 2013, or 2014 World Science Fiction Convention, you can nominate things for the 2013 ballot.  LoneStarCon 3 is the venue of the World Science Fiction Convention, where the winners will be announced this coming August-September and you can find the rest of the details here.  I think Osama by Lavie Tidhar has my nomination this year.  What do you think?

Warner Bros. announced they're making a new Terminator movie.  What is this, number five or something?  I thought the franchise was adequately concluded with Terminator 2, and went along for Terminator 3 because nothing was better in theaters.  But I never saw Salvation and I have a hard time working up any sort of excitement for numero cinco.

DC has announced its expansion of digital lending to libraries.  That's quite the move and I'm sure one that parents and librarians are going to love (please note the sarcasm in my tone).  While you could make the argument that any reading is good, I beg to differ and suspect that reading at low levels or engaging in prurient fiction will not inspire children toward higher levels of maturity or intelligence.  I'll get off my soapbox now.  Because I love the idea of me.  I'm excited for the opportunity to get my comic fix without having to shell out five bucks an issue.  So go DC.

While I've been saying for a while that on-demand printing is the wave of the future, and with physical book sales dropping nationwide an average of 9%, Penguin finally got wise and has put much of its backlist up for on-demand printing using the Espresso Book Machine.  With the upcoming merger with Random House already in the works, this looks like a seismic shift in the way physical books are distributed and consumed.

And in an effort to improve recognition of great books, the National Book Award will include a longlist in 2013.  Like the Man Booker Award, the National Book Award will choose ten titles (but with a twist, it's ten per category of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and young people's literature) for the longlist and then shorten that to the appropriately titled shortlist, which will be announced five weeks later.

NASA got Leonard Nimoy to do the voice-over for a video detailing their Dawn mission, which intends to visit and study two asteroids, named Ceres and Vesta.  Leonord Nimoy, much like Morgan Freeman, could narrate the dictionary.  Check out the video below.

Weekend Update!

My Christmas break wasn't entirely unproductive.  I've got two new short stories and the first chapter and outline of a new fantasy novel.  I spent a lot of time with family and friends, and I read a tremendous amount of economic history.  I also read at least one novel, and I'm still trying desperately to finish Game of Thrones before I start watching the HBO television show.  I've gotten really interested in the economy of magical worlds, so I've been spending some time looking at how the economy actually works in the real world.

In the meantime, I haven't seen anything new in the theaters.  I'm really looking forward to seeing Les Miserables, Django Unchained, Jack Reacher and Zero Dark Thirty (which I've been informed hasn't been released nationwide, yet).  The Hobbit, while enjoyable, was underwhelming.  On a somewhat related note, George Lucas is engaged to DreamWorks Animation Chairperson Mellody Hobson.

Speaking of Zero Dark Thirty, it's been getting a lot of attention from lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who are questioning the narrative it advances, and wondering whether CIA operatives purposefully misled the filmmakers about the importance of torture in finding Osama bin Laden.  The debate centers around the films portrayal of "advanced interrogation techniques" producing timely intelligence in the manhunt of the terrorist leader.  Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee want to know if it's true.  And if it's not, they want to know why the CIA gave the filmmakers false information. 

January looks like a pretty good month for genre releases.  First of all, the behemoth against which all fantasy epics are compared comes to a conclusion this month.  A Memory of Light concludes the Wheel of Time.  Since the tragic loss of Robert Jordan, the series has been helmed ably by Brandon Sanderson.  The final book is set to be released Tuesday, January 8th.  Jay Lake's third installment of the Green Trilogy, Kalimpura is set for a January 29th release.  Peter Hamilton's new book, The Great North Road was released this last Tuesday, January 1st.  I'm kind of interested in The Explorer by James Smythe.  Here's the publisher's synopsis:

When journalist Cormac Easton is selected to document the first manned mission into deep space, he dreams of securing his place in history as one of humanity’s great explorers. But in space, nothing goes according to plan. The crew wake from hypersleep to discover their captain dead in his allegedly fail-proof safety pod. They mourn, and Cormac sends a beautifully written eulogy back to Earth. The word from ground control is unequivocal: no matter what happens, the mission must continue. But as the body count begins to rise, Cormac finds himself alone and spiraling towards his own inevitable death, unless he can do something to stop it.

 Tor.com is offering, for free, an ebook collection of the best short stories offered from their site in 2012.  You can read them all on the site, or you can download the collection.  Either way, it seems like a pretty good deal.

 

Weekend Update!

Welcome to the end of the world!  Now.  Everyone back to their lives.

I've recently been hearing a lot about the unexpected success of Kickstarter projects.  It's a remarkable phenomenon, and strikes me as more of a paradigm shift within the publishing industry than e-books; it represents capitalism in its truest, simplest form.  As such, it allows creators the opportunity to assess the market before they've committed capital to create it.  It's a game-changer.


Tobias Buckell created a Kickstarter recently to publish the fourth book in a five-book series.  Even though Buckell found fame with Crystal Rain, the first in a proposed five-part series, I first heard of his eco-science fiction book Arctic Rising, which I reviewed early in my blog history.  The first three books of his Xenowealth Universe were published by Tor, but when sales weren't as strong as either party hoped, Buckell opted to head in a different direction.

But he always wanted to finish the series, and this is his chance.  The project is completed, and you can purchase the book at either his website or amazon.  But he took the time to do a post-project debrief, and like his collection of short stories Nascence, he contemplates what succeeded, what failed, and what he might do differently in the future.  

Macmillan Publishing is continuing its suit against the DOJ for price-fixing.  John Sergeant explains in a letter to authors, agents and illustrators why Macmillan is sticking it out when the giants have already settled.  The crux of the issue is that Macmillan believes it creates an unfair marketplace and that settling ultimately harms authors and customers.  I'm not sure I entirely agree, but I'm proud of him for sticking to his guns.  It all boils down to the basic fact that he doesn't think its right to settle when they haven't done anything wrong, and you have to applaud him for that.

It's been 22 years, and The Wheel of Time is set to wrap up in January 2013.  I'm excited and can't wait to see how everything ends.  Brandon Sanderson, Harriet McDougal and Tom Doherty reminisce:

A new photo of the interior of the TARDIS was recently released.  In addition to a new companion, new outfit for the Doctor and a brand new direction, the TARDIS has been fully re-designed.  It looks a little depressed, but that might just reflect the Doctor's feelings about losing the Ponds.  Also, it has the weird steampunk vibe that's been popular recently.  Let me know what you think.

The best and the worst at io9.com

A lot of really good sci-fi and fantasy movies came out this year.  A lot of really bad sci-fi and fantasy movies came out this year.  io9.com broke it all down and announced the top ten best and worst of 2012.  Not surprising, Prometheus made #9 on the the "worst" list.  Surprisingly, Cloud Atlas made both the best and worst list.  While the best movies seemed to follow an indie trend (markedly interrupted by The Avengers), the sequels and continuations of franchises comprised the worst sci-fi and fantasy movies of 2012.

In movie news, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey continues to pull in huge numbers, after an opening weekend of $84 million in the United States and has since grossed $222 million worldwide.  Despite generally milquetoast reviews, it continues to elicit a positive response from movie-goers.  Zero Dark Thirty and Jack Reacher are both opening this week and Lincoln, Skyfall, and Life of Pi are still pulling in respectable box-office revenues.

I'll leave you with two trailers this week.  The first is for John Dies at the End, a gory, vicious movie based on the novel by the same name; the second is Storage 24, what seems like a paint-by-numbers get-out-alive monster horror.  But some of the premise and setting looked interesting; let me know what you think.

Weekend Update!

Welcome to Friday.  It's a big weekend, with The Hobbit opening in the United States to some serious acclaim and a lot of fan excitement.  Although I plan to see it, I won't wait in line at midnight Thursday (about the time this post publishes, in point of fact).  I waited in line for Fellowship, Two Towers and Return of the King.  I've done my fair share of stomping in the cold with people dressed up like Gandolf, Legolas, and Aragorn. 

While each of those experiences was fun, and I love the movies, I can't seem to find the energy to repeat it for The Hobbit.  I suspect a lot of it has to do with the fact that I haven't read the book.  A lot of people tell me The Hobbit is better story; stuff happens, and there's a dragon.  Yeah, but G.R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones was supposed to have dragons, too, and so far it's a whole heaping load of boring.  So dragons aren't big sellers for me.  I also suspect that the dragon won't make much of an appearance until the third film. 

Yeah, you read that right.  The Hobbit is being released as a trilogy, which means another nine-hour epic watching people walk from one end of the world to the other.  So while I might see this film this weekend, it'll be a matinee showing.

I am, however, more than a little excited for a couple of movies making an appearance in the next few weeks.  Jack Reacher stars Tom Cruise as some sort of hard-as-iron ex-military police officer hunting down bad guys in New York.  Not an altogether original concept, but the trailer makes it look good.  Also, Les Miserables is coming out Christmas Day, along with Django Unchained (the D is silent).   Les Mis is my favorite novel and I haven't seen the musical, but this looks good.  Also, Tarantino is a pretty big draw, so Django is a no-brainer.

Keep an eye out for Zero Dark Thirty, which is being released December 21st. 

In the world of books, despite declining numbers, sales bounced back in October, accounting for about ten percent of the 5% increase across all retail markets.  It was recently pointed out that fourteen of the fifty top-grossing films are part of book series (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Twilight and Hunger Games), generating hundreds of millions, to billions of dollars in U.S. box office revenue.  This seems obvious in retrospect, but each of these series generated much of their revenue in large part based on the pre-existing fanbase that the books had garnered.  Expect to see more page-to-screen hits in the future.

The New York Times is getting into the ebook business; DC has successfully rebooted its superhero universe; The Barnes &Noble boycott of physical DC books from its stores has ended; Publisher's Weekly released their top 10 books of 2012; and Tor recently released their Reviewers' Choice of 2012.

I recently heard about Naughty Dog's new release "The Last of Us."  I'm a big fan of their previous games, including the Uncharted series so I was really excited to hear about this.  It looks like a new post-apocalyptic zombie game, which I'm not a huge fan of, but I'm willing to give them a shot. 

I'll leave you then with a trailer for another movie in which Tom Cruise plays a character named Jack.

Weekend Roundup!

First of all, there's a new Star Trek: Into Darkness poster up.  You know the drill: Let's get excited!  There's not a lot to go on; I've heard speculation that it's the Borg (please, God, no!), and if you zoom in on the poster you can see the devastated city is clearly London.  How that ties in is anyone's guess, but after they destroyed San Francisco in the last one anything goes. 

It also seems pretty clear that the central figure isn't Kirk.  Chris Pine is many things, but brunette he certainly is not.  So that leads me to suspect Cummerbatch; if that's the case, and we know he's set to play the villain, that makes me pretty sure the devastation has been wrought by Gary Mitchell, the rumored bad guy in this go-round.  From the Original Series, we know that Gary Mitchell gained near-Q powers and would certainly make sense to see someone unsettled by the sudden acquisition of power go berserk on a major Earth city.  So that's my speculation, what do you think?

This is pretty cool: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is set to be made into a BBC mini-series.  The book, written by Susanna Clarke, still ranks in my Top 10 Fantasy Books List.  It's up there with Name of the Wind, and The Farseer Trilogy (I know, trilogies shouldn't count as one entry, but in the genre of fantasy if I didn't include series as single entries there'd only be two [maybe three] on there.)  That being said, I'm really excited about the mini-series.  Tor.com has an interesting article on who should play each character; even though he's been just about everywhere, Benedict Cummerbatch would make a great Jonathan Strange, and Ian Holm would excel as Mr. Norrell. 

The interwebs have been abuzz recently with an ongoing controversy surrounding sexism in the comic industry and nerdom in general.  The basic argument is that women are under-represented and that rampant sexism denies their agency and objectifies them.  Over at The Hawkeye Initiative, artists have recast Hawkeye in many of the provocative poses of female superheroes.  io9 has a great article detailing some of the better entries.

Meanwhile, in movie news, Terminator is being remade, that creepy kid from Chronicle is playing Harry Osborn in the new Spiderman movie, and NASA is building a warp drive (okay, not really movie news, but hella awesome anyway.)

In book news, Dean Koontz signed onto a six-book deal with Random House, the self-publishing phenomenon Wool by Hugh Howey was picked up by 20th Century Fox, and Kenneth Calhoun's novel Black Moon was scooped from William Morris Endeavor by Crown's Hogarth imprint. 

And here's the trailer for the forthcoming Les Miserables, this Christmas, which I'm really excited for:

Friday Update!

By Steven McLain

First, I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving.  Most of my week has revolved around Thanksgiving in one way or another; I was either driving home for Thanksgiving, eating Thanksgiving, or recovering from Thanksgiving.  Good times all around.

Speaking of good times, I saw Wreck It Ralph this last Wednesday.  Expect a review on Monday but suffice it to say that it was very enjoyable, very tightly plotted and the pop-culture references were far less important than I expected.  On something of a related note, I saw in the previews that Disney is re-releasing Monsters, Inc. in 3D.  I'm kind of excited to see this movie in theaters again; I remember the first time being particularly fun.  That all being said, go see Wreck It Ralph.  It was delightful.

Even though I finished Christopher Buehlman's Between Two Fires over a week ago, I still have yet to start The Twelve by Justin Cronin.  I've been deeply involved in Lovecraft, particularly in Lovecraft tribute stories, which you can read about in a previous entry.  But while I'm loving rediscovering Lovecraft, I haven't been able to invest adequate time in newer, possibly just as worthy books.

In publishing new, the Amazon Kindle turned 5 this last week; to help mark this special occasion, Amazon released a list of the Top 5 Bestselling Kindle books ever, as well as the bestselling Kindle books by year.  It's really no surprise that Fifty Shades of Grey, and The Hunger Games trilogies dominate the bestsellers list.  Somewhat more surprising is that Fifty Shades did all that in a single year, placing itself firmly in the Top 5 in 2012.  Prior years included, The Help, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Lost Symbol, and The Complete User’s Guide To the Amazing Amazon Kindle in 2008.  I think the take-away from this is that eBooks are here to stay, and will only become more viable as a publishing platform, replacing standard physical sales.

Interestingly, the number one spot on Publishers Weekly Top 10 list this week is held by Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel, by Jeff Kinney.  It's not surprising to see YA and Middle Readers books taking a place on the bestseller list, especially as Christmas draws nigh; I'd expect to see more in the coming weeks.

And apparently, Tolkien fans don't gamble.  At least, not according to the $80 million suit brought against Warner Bros, New Line and Middle-Earth Enterprises.  The family is alleging that the original 1969 rights included only physical properties, and not gambling or digital rights.  The sticking point seems to be the creation of Middle Earth themed online slots.  You can read the whole thing here. 

In somewhat related movie news, I'm planning on reading The Hobbit for the first time ever in anticipation of the forthcoming movie.  Some of you are astonished to hear this startling revelation--I mean, a Lord of the Rings fan who hasn't read The Hobbit?  But I'll soon rectify that and have gobs of fun belaboring the most bestest parts from the book that Peter Jackson omitted from the movie.

Now that Twilight no longer tortures our movie screens, Twihards are in search of the Next Interesting Thing and the best bet seems to be Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.  Adapted as a movie from Cassandra Clare urban fantasy series Mortal Instruments.  Take a look at the trailer below and let me know what you think.

 

Weekend Update . . . Or, Lincoln's Revenge!

It's Friday again, and once more I'll recap the week and let you in on what's happening this weekend. 

First, Lincoln is being released today.  Based on the Pulitzer prize-winning Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lincoln is the story of the eponymous president struggling with the carnage of the Civil War while pushing for emancipation.  Originally slated to star Liam Neeson, who dropped out because he felt he was too old for the role, the movie stars Daniel Day-Lewis as President Lincoln, and Sally Fields as Mary Todd Lincoln.  It looks interesting from a historical bent and I was pleased that Daniel Day-Lewis was able to capture the tone and timbre of the thirteenth president.  I'll be seeing this and it seems like a pretty good bet.

Other than that, there's Wreck It Ralph, from Disney, which has been getting a lot of word-of-mouth publicity.  Everything I've heard so far is good--good voice acting, good story, good CGI.  The only complaint so far is that its many pop culture references are directed toward an audience older than the usual cartoon demographic.  Bring your kids, or go see it on your own, seems to be the general consensus.  Either way you'll probably like it.

Also, if you haven't seen it yet, go see Skyfall.  I've already reviewed it here, but suffice to say, it was very good and definitely worth your time.

I just finished Between Two Fires, by Christopher Buehlman and I'll have the review up probably around Tuesday.  Quick snapshot: It's good.  Not as accessible as Those Across the River, and with a heavy dose of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, but otherwise a fun read.  That means that I've started The Twelve by Justin Cronin. 

Also, I've just started reading a new collection of Lovecraft inspired short stories/novellas.  Space Eldritch is a collection of science fiction stories with a Lovecraftian bent; I heard about it from Howard Tayler (Hugo award-nominated for his web comic Schlock Mercenary, and co-hosting of the writing advice podcast, Writing Excuses) whose long short story "Flight of the Runewright" holds pride-of-place as the capstone story. 

In publishing/book news, Sir Terry Pratchett has decided to turn over control of his Discworld franchise to his daughter, author and game writer, Rhianna Pratchett.  Diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2007, Terry Pratchett has nevertheless remained active, and Rhianna is already working on the Discworld television show The Watch.  Head on over to tor.com for the rest of the details.

TV news: Elizabeth Henstridge and Ian De Caesstecker have joined the cast of Joss Whedon's S.H.I.E.L.D TV show.  You can get the full story at The Hollywood Reporter.

Hey, check this out.  James Franco as the Wizard of Oz?  You better believe it.  Directed by Sam Raimi and set to be released in 2013.

And here's the new Hobbit TV Spot:

That's my weekend, what about yours?  Let me know in the comments.