wisb-Guardian-Express

The latest episode of The Skiffy and Fanty Show is yet another reason why we're totally awesome.  No, we don't have an ego.  Promise.

#85 should be fairly obvious based on the title.  Myke Cole comes on the show to talk about Shadow Ops:  Control Point, his latest novel, and topics such as:  the military, the fantasy genre, sexy romances, random pop-culture references, and much more!

Here it is.  Listen or nothing bad will happen to you.

I'm not even going to preface this with anything on than this sentence, which is a sort of preface.  Just watch:

Possibly the clever take-down of FOX News ever.  Even Jon Stewart could not have reached the wonder that is this moment, and that's saying a lot...because Stewart is a real person.

You remember that walking/jogging pledge I made with Jason Sanford and other authors?  It's on again.  If you want to walk with me, all you have to do is enter your miles do the form located here.

As for last year's results:  I got a little lazy in recording my miles, but I'm pretty sure I met my 200-mile goal, or thereabouts.  The last month or two of the semester were so busy that I didn't get as much walking done as I wanted to.  But that's okay.  2012 is a new year, right?

That brings my to this year's pledge!

I will not only walk 300 miles this year (an easy enough goal, I think), but I am also going to lose 25 lbs. at the minimum.  I will weigh myself tomorrow so you all know where I'm starting from.

The more of you who join and urge me on, the better.  You should set your goals too.  Blog about it and put a link in the comments.  I'll add it to this post!

immediately after, and the intermediate moments between "the world as it was" and "the better world to come."  And it's that focus which makes After the Apocalypse one of the most beautiful literary feats of 2011.

After the Apocalypse is a thorough, if not unsettling, journey into the human psyche after catastrophe, at once thrilling, compelling, and disturbing.  This collection alone proves that McHugh is a force to be reckoned with in the world of genre, for her simple-but-beautiful prose, evocative imagery, and raw human explorations make After the Apocalypse one of the best works of SF of this decade.  You can expect to see this book appear in my WISB Awards in February.


If you'd like to learn more about Maureen McHugh, check out her website.  You can find more information about After the Apocalypse at Small Beer Press.

You'll probably have noticed that a lot of crazy nonsense took place here and then migrated over here when Jen and I put our feet in piranha-infested waters.  This isn't the first time Jen and I have played emotional bees and frolicked in the convoluted mess of gender politics.  But that's not really the point of this post.  Rather, I'd like to use the aforementioned links as illustrative examples of my central point:

Deleting a comment or banning a commenter on a private website is not censorship.

Since Liz Bourke's original post, a number of people have almost joyously proclaimed they have been censored when they were banned from Tor.com (or would be banned from The Skiffy and Fanty Show -- one individual on Baen assumed we would delete anything he wrote simply because he would disagree with us; the comment is still there).

Neither of these things, however, constitute censorship, in part because private spaces have specialized rules which determine what can and cannot be said.  If someone waltzes into your house and starts babbling at you about why Obama is a bad choice for President or Gingrich will repeal child labor laws, you have every right to remove that person from your home and prevent them from entering again.  This act is defended by the U.S. Constitution, by our laws, and by our social codes.  Few would call that censorship.  A house is a private space, inside which you make the rules for interaction (provided they follow the rules from the outside -- no murdering in your house).

The same concept applies to websites that are privately owned or run.*  Much like the privacy guaranteed in your home, you equally are guaranteed privacy on your website.  That means that you are able to determine who can and cannot see your posts, who can and cannot comment, and so on.  In fact, Google does much of this on its own by snagging spam comments from the aether and casting them to the dark abyss (the same with Wordpress, etc.).  None of these acts are censorship, since nothing has been done to prevent you from being able to speak on the Internet.  Provided you still have a place to speak, your rights have not been violated.  You are entitled to your opinion and your voice, but not to a listening audience.

Censorship on the web, thus, is rather tricky.  At what point does the removal of content become censorship?  I'm not sure there are any easy answers to this question.  Because the Internet is vast, if not nearly infinite, there are few boundaries to free speech in the U.S.  The tables turn when you go to a place like China, where hackers serve as police officers against online dissent, where content from main sources are removed from Google's search database, and so on.  Is that censorship?

I would argue that the distinction between personal space and censorship seems to follow this logic:  so long as the avenues of discussion remain open, your rights have not been infringed; so long as websites themselves are subject to removal without reasonable cause,** you're looking at censorship.

This seems like a relatively simple concept to understand, but plenty of people cry "censorship" anyway.  Perhaps they do so as an emotional reaction, or because they really believe that the 1st Amendment means you can say whatever you want wherever you want.  The truth is that private spaces come with limitations and rules, many of them unspoken.  Many websites don't have comment policies, running instead on the tolerance levels of the owners.  Those tolerance levels will vary considerably.

In other words, think of your website as a digital house.  If you have no problem letting anyone come in and say whatever they want, then good for you.  But if you want to limit discussions or focus them, doing so in your own space means you're simply taking control of your house.  And if we're being honest, most of us have house rules that we expect others to follow (and house rules we set for ourselves when we visit other people's homes).  The difference between a house and the Internet, however, is that the Internet guarantees anonymity and/or distance.  Bravery is necessarily an attending element.


*I don't know whether censorship applies to government websites, though there aren't many government websites with comment threads, as far as I can remember.

**For example, I wouldn't consider the removal of a website that shares pirated files (not links, but files) as censorship, since free speech does not extend to violating the law.

I don't think we've had a potentially controversial episode on The Skiffy and Fanty Show in a while.  But I think we've just solved that with #84.  Here's the description:

Our first hard-hitting episode of the year is finally here. This week, we talk about the recent controversy at Tor.com over Liz Bourke's post about women in military SF, sexism, Joe Haldeman, David Weber, how science fiction might look at the "gender" question in the military, and much more. We're a little less PC, a whole lot more opinionated, and altogether our cheery selves.

Feel free to give it a listen and leave a comment with your thoughts.  Really.  Even if it's hate mail...

I have no idea how I didn't know about the following video before now.  Apparently a bunch of Star Wars nuts decided it would be hilarious to re-film Star Wars: A New Hope from start to finish.  But they didn't stop there.  No.  Instead of the same group of people playing all the roles like those kids who did that shot-by-shot copy of Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark, these folks got dozens and dozens of people to film 15-second sections.  And the segments aren't all live action either.  There are cats (obviously), vacuum cleaners, legos, action figures, cartoons, and all kinds of other weird things, living or otherwise.

Google, Wikipedia, and all manner of folks have taken up the protest gauntlet against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), a bill that, if passed, would hand over an extraordinary amount of power to the Federal government, restrict freedom of expression (the 1st Amendment), and make life for website creators and owners difficult at best.  As the co-owner of a website for young writers, these things concern me greatly, as SOPA would make me responsible for what a member posts.  That's not to say that Young Writers Online is a haven for plagiarized material, but it is an open website and things sneak through.  The idea that the entire site should be taken down because I didn't find out soon enough is absurd.  But SOPA makes that possible.

You'll notice that the darned numbers changed again.  This is the last time.  Seriously.  From this point on, the bloody numbers will only get bigger.  No more decimals.  No more starting over.  Just...growth.

If you haven't heard or seen it yet, the proverbial shit hit the SF/F-community-fan today on this Strange Horizons review of Michael J. Sullivan's Theft of Swords.*  Not just any shit, mind you, but a rather familiar kind of excrement that makes the SF/F world an amusing and altogether strange place.  The short version:

Liz Bourke wrote a scathing review of Sullivan's novel (technically two novels packed into one), in which she derided the book for weak prose, inaccurate use of Early Modern English, plot and character inequities, and the frequency of weak female characters.  In response, a number of people left comments assaulting Bourke in one of two ways:  1) rejecting Bourke's criticism as patently bunk, and 2) launching accusations at Bourke herself.  (There were other reactions too, but you should read the comments to get the full picture.)

The result?  A long dialogue about the value of negative reviews, what constitutes "being mean," and similar themes we've seen before.

The review/comments also inspired this post by Adrian Faulkner about why bullying reviews are bad news indeed, from which the following gem-of-a-quote comes from:

I don’t know what happened to make some of these reviewers so bitter. Jealousy of the author’s success, a misguided thought that this will make a name for themselves? I wouldn’t accept racism, homophobia or anti-Semitism in a review, so why should I accept bullying? Surely, in the 21st century, we’re better than that? It genuinely shocks me that the genre community believes that type of behaviour is acceptable in this day and age. 

Seriously, people, it’s not hard to write an honest review!

Hard, indeed.  So hard, in fact, that it must be difficult to find said honesty in a negative review.  Clearly a spirited reviewer like Bourke must be lying for cheap shocks, lambasting Sullivan because he just so happens to be the random victim of the week.  And by lying, Bourke clearly has put herself in league with racists, homophobes, and anti-Semites.  Why not neo-Nazis, the Westboro Baptist Church, Rick Santorum, and the British National Party too?**

Or perhaps not.  What all of this seems to point to is a public devaluation of actual honest criticism.  We have grown used to -- in this community, at least -- a misdirected honesty.  Too little attention has been given to the full picture, one which has, on the one side, the good and the beautiful, and, on the other side, the bad and the ugly.  You can imagine which side isn't getting its fair shake.

But negative reviews are not only fascinating, but crucial.  As a writer who occasionally workshops his fiction, I know how important it is to be told honestly when something doesn't work.  That usually means having to accept harsh criticism not unlike what Bourke wrote in her review.  Someone who only tells me good things, or refuses to tear my work to pieces where it needs such treatment, is useless.  Likewise, a reviewer who cannot write negative reviews is less a reviewer than a slave to publicity.  We have to be able to tell people when we don't like something, just as we have to be able to tell people when we do.  And we should have free reign -- minus those spaces where libel might be committed -- to explore the "why."  Negative reviews are a way to remind the public, authors, and publishers about the standards expected of publication.***  The fewer negative reviews available where they belong, the more likely it is that bad books will continue to be published.****

None of that makes a reviewer a "bully." To make that assessment is to expose a woeful ignorance of how bullies operate.*****  Bullies don't stop at criticizing the "behavior" that you make public for consumption.  Rather, bullies seek to inflict personal damage, physical and emotional, assaulting you where you should feel safe.  They're opportunistic predators.
Is Liz Bourke a bully?  Not by a long shot.  Passionate and brutally honest?  You bet.  But very little of her review could be misconstrued as a personal attack against Mr. Sullivan, and those elements which some have taken to be "bully behavior" might be better called "hyperbolic criticism."  Her review does what some of the best reviews do:  provide solid evidence, passion, and personality.  To question her argument because you disagree with her tone, her method, or her chosen "target" says more about your personal investment in fandom than the quality of Bourke as a critic.  Nor does launching personal attacks against someone you accuse of the same activity useful to your cause.  Rank hypocrisy is a one-way-street, as it were.

Whatever we think of reviews, good and bad, they must be honest and they must provide sound reasoning, even if we still disagree with them in the end.  They should not, however, be held to Adrian Faulkner's standard:

The best reviews create debate about the thing they are reviewing, the worst create debate about the review.

Holding the value of a review to the whims of human reaction is not unlike deciding drunk driving by whether someone crashes their car.  Then again, there are probably better analogies for this...

What do you all think about negative reviews?

-------------------------------------------------------------

*For the record, I have had two reviews published in Strange Horizons:  Tron: Legacy (Adam Roberts disagreed with me here) and Bricks by Leon Jenner (no thoughts whatsoever).
**Look these folks up if you have no idea who I'm talking about.
***When I say negative reviews, I don't mean one-line rants, as is common on the Internet.
****I have not read Sullivan's work, though we are interviewing him for The Skiffy and Fanty Show next month, which will require me to read his work.  Bourke's review will have little influence on my take, as my reading standards are understandably different.  Personally, I can let go and enjoy a fluffy book.  Don't take my word for it, though.  Read my reviews in the last year or so.  Don't go farther than that, though.  The deeper into the archive you go, the worse my reviews become.  I've come a long way...
*****I have personal experience with bullies.  I spent most of my youth struggling to grow taller than 4'11, which made me a perfect target for the bully crowd.  Lots of punching and psychological abuse.  Maybe I'll tell you all about it some time.

Everything you see below are books (and a movie) I got over Christmas, whether as presents or through spending my Christmas money.  Needless to say, I bought a lot of stuff.

Before you check out the books, though, I've got a few questions:

1. What did you get for Christmas (or your particular winter holiday)?
2. Which of the following books sound interesting to you?

Mendoza in Hollywood by Kage Baker (Eos)

This is the third novel in what has become one of the most popular series in contemporary SF, now back in print from Tor. In the 24th century, the Company preserves works of art and extinct forms of life, for profit, of course. It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to serve the Company, Dr. Zeus. One of these is Mendoza the botanist. The death of her lover has been followed by centuries of heartbreak. She spends a period of time in early twentieth century Hollywood in the days of D.W. Griffith, and then Mendoza is in the midst of the Civil War, and runs into a man that looks disturbingly similar to her lost love. She is about to find love again, and be in more trouble than she could ever have imagined.

From Charlie Kaufman, comes a visual and philosophic adventure, Synechdoche, New York. As he did with his groundbreaking scripts for Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kaufman twists and subverts form and language as he delves into the mind of a man who, obsessed with his own mortality, sets out to construct a massive artistic enterprise that could give some meaning to his life. Theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is mounting a new play. His life catering to suburban blue-hairs at the local regional theater in Schenectady, New York is looking bleak. His wife Adele (Catherine Keener) has left him to pursue her painting in Berlin, taking their young daughter Olive with her. His therapist, Madeleine Gravis (Hope Davis), is better at plugging her best-seller than she is at counseling him. A new relationship with the alluringly candid Hazel (Samantha Morton) has prematurely run aground. And a mysterious condition is systematically shutting down each of his autonomic functions, one by one. Worried about the transience of his life, he leaves his home behind. He gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in New York City, hoping to create a work of brutal honesty. He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a growing mockup of the city outside. The years rapidly fold into each other, and Caden buries himself deeper into his masterpiece, but the textured tangle of real and theatrical relationships blurs the line between the world of the play and that of Caden's own deteriorating reality. 

Slow River by Nicola Griffith (Del Rey)

She awoke in an alley to the splash of rain. She was naked, a foot-long gash in her back was still bleeding, and her identity implant was gone. Lore Van Oesterling had been the daughter of one of the world's most powerful families...and now she was nobody, and she had to hide. 

Then out of the rain walked Spanner, predator and thief, who took her in, cared for her wound, and taught her how to reinvent herself again and again. No one could find Lore now: not the police, not her family, and not the kidnappers who had left her in that alley to die. She had escaped...but the cost of her newfound freedom was crime and deception, and she paid it over and over again, until she had become someone she loathed. 

Lore had a choice: She could stay in the shadows, stay with Spanner...and risk losing herself forever. Or she could leave Spanner and find herself again by becoming someone else: stealing the identity implant of a dead woman, taking over her life, and creating a new future. 

But to start again, Lore required Spanner's talents--Spanner, who needed her and hated her, and who always had a price. And even as Lore agreed to play Spanner's game one final time, she found that there was still the price of being a Van Oesterling to be paid. Only by confronting her family, her past, and her own demons could Lore meld together who she had once been, who she had become, and the person she intended to be... 

A Practical Guide to Racism by C. H. Dalton (Gotham Books)

A look at the races of the world by a lovable bigot, capturing the proud history and bright future of racism in one handy, authoritative, and deeply offensive volume! 

Meet “C. H. Dalton,” a professor of racialist studies and an expert on inferior people of all ethnicities, genders, religions, and sexual preferences. Presenting evidence that everyone should be hated, A Practical Guide to Racism contains sparkling bits of wisdom on such subjects as: 

The good life enjoyed by blacks, who shuffle through life unhindered by the white man’s burdens, to become accomplished athletes, rhyme smiths, and dominoes champions 

The sad story of the industrious, intelligent Jews, whose entire reputation is sullied by their taste for the blood of Christian babies

A close look at the bizarre, sweet-smelling race known as “women,” who are not very good at anything—especially ruling the free world 

A crucial manual to Arabs, a people so sensitive they are liable to blow up at any time. Literally. 

Including a comprehensive glossary of timeless epithets, with hundreds of pejorative words for everyone from Phoenicians to Jews, A Practical Guide to Racism is an essential field guide for our multicultural world. 

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead Books)

After more than 189 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list for The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today. 

Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love. 

Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival. 

A stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love .

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith (Anchor Books)

In the life of Precious Ramotswe–a woman duly proud of her fine traditional build–there is rarely a dull moment, and in the latest installment in the universally beloved No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series there is much happening on Zebra Drive and Tlokweng Road. Mma Ramotswe is experiencing staffing difficulties. First Mr. J.L.B. Mate-koni asks to be put in charge of a case involving an errant husband. But can a man investigate such matters as successfully as the number one lady detective can? Then she has a minor falling-out with her assistant, Mma Makutsi, who decides to leave the agency, taking the 97 percent she received on her typing final from the Botswana Secretarial College with her.

Along the way, Mma Ramotswe is asked to investigate a couple of tricky cases. Will she be able to explain an unexpected series of deaths at the hospital in Mochudi? And what about the missing office supplies at a local printing company? These are the types of questions that she is uniquely well suited to answer.

In the end, whatever happens, Mma Ramotswe knows she can count on Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who stands for all that is solid and true in a shifting world. And there is always her love for Botswana, a country of which she is justifiably proud.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (Perennial Classics)

One of the most important works of twentieth-century American literature, Zora Neale Hurston's beloved 1937 classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an enduring Southern love story sparkling with wit, beauty, and heartfelt wisdom. Told in the captivating voice of a woman who refuses to live in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, it is the story of fair-skinned, fiercely independent Janie Crawford, and her evolving selfhood through three marriages and a life marked by poverty, trials, and purpose. A true literary wonder, Hurston's masterwork remains as relevant and affecting today as when it was first published -- perhaps the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature.

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (Vintage)

Now a major motion picture from Columbia Pictures starring Matt Damon, produced by Mike Nichols, and directed by Billy Bob Thornton.

The national bestseller and the first volume in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, All the Pretty Horses is the tale of John Grady Cole, who at sixteen finds himself at the end of a long line of Texas ranchers, cut off from the only life he has ever imagined for himself. With two companions, he sets off for Mexico on a sometimes idyllic, sometimes comic journey to a place where dreams are paid for in blood. Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction.

The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks (Night Shade Books)

It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year. The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on the outskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection to the rest of civilization. In the meantime, they are dismissed as decadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding data without order, hunting their own young and fighting pointless formal wars. Seconded to a military-religious order he's barely heard of - part of the baroque hierarchy of the Mercatoria, the latest galactic hegemony - Fassin Taak has to travel again amongst the Dwellers. He is in search of a secret hidden for half a billion years. But with each day that passes a war draws closer - a war that threatens to overwhelm everything and everyone he's ever known.

Man Faces Extra-Terrestrial Life in Contact edited by Noel Keyes (Paperback Library)

We may not longer be alone in the universe -- perhaps we never have been... 

The ultimate possibility -- that life exists beyond Earth -- is no longer a fantasy but the subject of scientific experimentation.  Humans and extra-terrestrials beings may be making contact today -- certainly tomorrow. 

The first, explosive, grappling instant encounter between Man and Alien is the subject of this extraodrinary journey of man's imagination into the unknown, by the masters of Science Fiction:  Ray Bradbury, Harry Walton, Robert Sheckley, Murray Leinster, Ian Williamson, Howard Koch, Fredric Brown, Fritz Leiber, Peter Philips, Howard Fast, Clifford D. Simak, and Isaac Asimov.

The Jewels of Aptor by Samuel R. Delany (Ace)

One of the most universally acclaimed first novels in science fiction--by the man who become one of the most stellar writers in the genre's history. On the orders of Argo, the White Goddess, an itinerant poet and his three companions journey to the island of Aptor. Their mission: to seize a jewel from the dark god Hama and bring it back home. With this precious stone Argo may defeat the malign forces gathered against her and the land of Leptor. But, as the group presses deep into the enigmatic heart of Aptor, easy distinctions between good and evil blur, and somehow the task seems less straightforward. For Argo already owns two of the jewels, and possession of the third would give her unqualified power.

And, as the four friends already know, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski (Pantheon)

Sam: They were with us before Romeo & Juliet. And long after too. Because they’re forever around. Or so both claim, carolling gleefully: We’re allways sixteen. Sam & Hailey, powered by an ever-rotating fleet of cars, from Model T to Lincoln Continental, career from the Civil War to the Cold War, barrelling down through the Appalachians, up the Mississippi River, across the Badlands, finally cutting a nation in half as they try to outrace History itself. By turns beguiling and gripping, finally worldwrecking, Only Revolutions is unlike anything ever published before, a remarkable feat of heart and intellect, moving us with the journey of two kids, perpetually of summer, perpetually sixteen, who give up everything except each other.

Hailey: They were with us before Tristan & Isolde. And long after too. Because they’re forever around. Or so both claim, gleefully carolling: We’re allways sixteen. Hailey & Sam, powered by an ever-rotating fleet of cars, from Shelby Mustang to Sumover Linx, careen from the Civil Rights Movement to the Iraq War, tearing down to New Orleans, up the Mississippi River, across Montana, finally cutting a nation in half as they try to outrace History itself. By turns enticing and exhilarating, finally breathtaking, Only Revolutions is unlike anything ever conceived before, a remarkable feat of heart and intellect, moving us with the journey of two kids, perpetually of summer, perpetually sixteen, who give up everything except each other.

Alone Against Tomorrow by Harlan Ellison (MacMillan)

Third printing (1976) paperback. This is a 1971 collection of stories from this winner of more awards for imaginative literature than any other living author - including multiple Hugos, Nebulas and Edgars. CONTENTS: Introduction: The Song of the Soul (1970); I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (1967); The Discarded (1959); Deeper Than the Darkness (1957); Blind Lightning (1956); All the Sounds of Fear (1962); The Silver Corridor (1956); "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman (1965); Bright Eyes (1965); Are You Listening? (1958); Try a Dull Knife (1968); In Lonely Lands (1959); Eyes of Dust (1959); Nothing for My Noon Meal (1958); O Ye of Little Faith (1968); The Time of the Eye (1959); Life Hutch (1956); The Very Last Day of a Good Woman (1958); Night Vigil (1957); Lonelyache (1964); Pennies, Off a Dead Man's Eyes (1969).

Viewpoints Critical by L. E. Modesitt, Jr. (Tor)

This is the first story collection ever from bestselling fantasy and science fiction writer L. E. Modesitt, Jr. Modesitt began publishing short fiction in the SF magazines in the 1970s, and this collection includes a selection of stories from the whole of his career. Some of the early stories are kernels for his early SF novels, others display the wide range of his talents and interests, from satire to military adventure.

This book also contains three new stories that have never been published before: “Black Ordermage,” set in Modesitt’s bestselling Recluce series; “Beyond the Obvious Wind,” set in his Corean Chronicles universe; and “Always Outside the Lines,” which is related to the Ghost of Columbia books. Viewpoints Critical is an excellent introduction to the work of one of the major SF and fantasy writers publishing today.

Book of Secrets by Chris Roberson (Angry Robot Books)

IT'LL TAKE MORE THAN ANGELS AND DEMONS TO STOP HIM.

Reporter Spencer Finch is a journalist embroiled in the hunt for a missing book, encountering along the way cat burglars and mobsters, hackers and mysterious monks. At the same time, he's trying to make sense of the legacy left him by his late grandfather, a chest of what appear to be pulp magazines from the golden age of fantasy fiction. Following his nose, Finch gradually uncovers a mystery involving a lost Greek play, secret societies, generations of masked vigilantes - and an entire hidden history of mankind. It's like The Da Vinci Code retold by the Coen brothers in this blockbuster blur.

The World House by Guy Adams (Angry Robot Books)

Combining the puzzle box of Hellraiser with the explorartion of Tad Williams' Otherland series, this is the perfect blend of fantasy and adventure, an exceptional modern fantasy debut.

THERE IS A BOX. INSIDE THAT BOX IS A DOOR. AND BEYOND THAT DOOR IS A WHOLE WORLD.

In some rooms, forests grow. In others, animals and objects come to life. Elsewhere, secrets and treasures wait for the brave and foolhardy.

And at the very top of the house, a prisoner sits behind a locked door waiting for a key to turn. The day that happens, the world will end...

Reality 36 by Guy Haley (Angry Robot Books)

SOMETHING IS AMISS IN THE RENEGADE DIGITAL REALM OF REALITY 36. Richards - a Level 5 AI with a PI fetish - and his partner, a decommissioned German military cyborg, are on the trail of a murderer, but the killer has hidden inside an artificial reality. Richards and Klein must stop him before he becomes a god - for the good of all the realms.

The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar (Angry Robot Books)

LATE EXTRA! BOMB OUTRAGE IN LONDON!

A masked terrorist has brought London to its knees -- there are bombs inside books, and nobody knows which ones. On the day of the launch of the first expedition to Mars, by giant cannon, he outdoes himself with an audacious attack.

For young poet Orphan, trapped in the screaming audience, it seems his destiny is entwined with that of the shadowy terrorist, but how? His quest to uncover the truth takes him from the hidden catacombs of London on the brink of revolution, through pirate-infested seas, to the mysterious island that may hold the secret to the origin not only of the shadowy Bookman, but of Orphan himself...

Like a steam-powered take on V for Vendetta, rich with satire and slashed through with automatons, giant lizards, pirates, airships and wild adventure. The Bookman is the first of a series.

City of Dreams and Nightmare by Ian Whates (Angry Robot Books)

THEY CALL IT "THE CITY OF A HUNDRED ROWS".

City of Dreams & Nightmare is the first in a series of novels set in one of the most extraordinary fantasy settings since Gormenghast - the ancient vertical city of Thaiburley. From its towering palatial heights to the dregs who dwell in The City Below, this is a vast, multi-tiered metropolis, and demons are said to dwell in the Upper Heights...

Having witnessed a murder in a part of the city he should never have been in, street thief Tom has to run for his life. Down through the vast city he is pursued by sky-borne assassins, sinister Kite Guards, and agents of a darker force intent on destabilising the whole city. Accused of the crime, he must use all of his knowledge of this ancient city to flee a certain death; his only ally is Kat, a renegade like him, but she has secrets of her own...

Embedded by Dan Abnett (Angry Robot Books)

HE'D DO ANYTHING TO GET A STORY. When journalist Lex Falk gets himself chipped into the brain of a combat soldier, he thinks he has the ultimate scoop - a report from the forbidden front line of a distant planetary war, live to the living rooms of Earth. When the soldier is killed, however, Lex has to take over the body and somehow get himself back to safety once more... broadcasting all the way.

Heart-stopping combat science fiction from the million-selling Warhammer 40,000 author.

Nemesis Worm by Guy Haley (Angry Robot Books)

A standalone novella featuring the 22nd century's greatest detectives, The Nemesis Worm sees Richards & Klein involved in another high stakes investigation. Corpses are showing up all over Old London, and the finger of suspicion points right at Richards himself. Forced to clear his name, Richards and Otto uncover a fanatical group whose actions threaten the relationship between human and AI with destruction.

Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks (Orbit)

For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art-and he is the city's most accomplished artist.

For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he's grown up in the slums, and learned to judge people quickly - and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint.

But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins' world of dangerous politics and strange magics - and cultivate a flair for death.

Child of Fire by Harry Connolly (Random House)

Ray Lilly is living on borrowed time. He's the driver for Annalise Powliss, a high-ranking member of the Twenty Palace Society, a group of sorcerers devoted to hunting down and executing rogue magicians. But because Ray betrayed her once, Annalise is looking for an excuse to kill him-or let someone else do the job.

Unfortunately for both of them, Annalise's next mission goes wrong, leaving her critically injured. With the little magic he controls, Ray must complete her assignment alone. Not only does he have to stop a sorcerer who's sacrificing dozens of innocent lives in exchange for supernatural power, he must find-and destroy-the source of that inhuman magic.

Child of Fire was named to Publishers Weekly's list of Best 100 Books of 2009.

Shaman's Crossing by Robin Hobb (HarperCollins)

Nevare Burvelle was destined from birth to be a soldier. The second son of a newly anointed nobleman, he must endure the rigors of military training at the elite King's Cavella Academy—and survive the hatred, cruelty, and derision of his aristocratic classmates—before joining the King of Gernia's brutal campaign of territorial expansion. The life chosen for him will be fraught with hardship, for he must ultimately face a forest-dwelling folk who will not submit easily to a king's tyranny. And they possess an ancient magic their would-be conquerors have long discounted—a powerful sorcery that threatens to claim Nevare Burvelle's soul and devastate his world once the Dark Evening brings the carnival to Old Thares.

Rides a Dread Legion by Raymond E. Feist (HarperCollins)

The remnants of the Clan of the Seven Stars are returning to their long abandoned homeworld . . . but not as friends. The elves, led by the conjurer Laromendis, flee the relentless demon hordes sweeping through their galaxy—and the conquest of war-weary Midkemia is the Clan's sole hope for survival . . . if the Dread Legion does not pursue them through the rift.

The magician Pug knows what horrors will surely follow the elven invasion, for slaughter alone will sate Demon King Maarg's minions. For the death tide to be turned, Midkemia's constant defender must somehow unite bitter foes and vengeful former lovers—because failure to do so will mean annihilation.

Den of Thieves by David Chandler (HarperCollins)

Born and raised in the squalid depths of the Free City of Ness, Malden became a thief by necessity. Now he must pay a fortune to join the criminal operation of Cutbill, lord of the underworld—and one does not refuse the master . . . and live.

The coronet of the Burgrave would fulfill Malden’s obligations, though it is guarded by hungry demons that would tear the soul from any interloper. But the desperate endeavor leads to a more terrible destiny, as Malden, an outlaw knight, and an ensorcelled lady must face the most terrifying evil in the land.

Heir of Night by Helen Lowe (HarperCollins)

If Night falls, all fall . . .

In the far north of the world of Haarth lies the bitter mountain range known as the Wall of Night. Garrisoned by the Nine Houses of the Derai, the Wall is the final bastion between the peoples of Haarth and the Swarm of Dark—which the Derai have been fighting across worlds and time.

Malian, Heir to the House of Night, knows the history of her people: the unending war with the Darkswarm; the legendary heroes, blazing with long-lost power; the internal strife that has fractured the Derai's former strength. But now the Darkswarm is rising again, and Malian's destiny as Heir of Night is bound inextricably to both ancient legend and any future the Derai—or Haarth—may have.

Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey (HarperCollins)

Life sucks, then you die. Period.

Unless you're James Stark, a hitman in Hell for eleven years before escaping back up to Hell-on-earth L.A.—looking for revenge, absolution . . . love, maybe.

But Hell's not through with Stark.Heaven's not either.

Earth Strike by Ian Douglas (HarperCollins)

The first book in the epic saga of humankind's war of transcendence

There is a milestone in the evolution of every sentient race, a Tech Singularity Event, when the species achieves transcendence through its technological advances. Now the creatures known as humans are near this momentous turning point.

But an armed threat is approaching from deepest space, determined to prevent humankind from crossing over that boundary—by total annihilation if necessary.

To the Sh'daar, the driving technologies of transcendent change are anathema and must be obliterated from the universe—along with those who would employ them. As their great warships destroy everything in their path en route to the Sol system, the human Confederation government falls into dangerous disarray. There is but one hope, and it rests with a rogue Navy Admiral, commander of the kilometer-long star carrier America, as he leads his courageous fighters deep into enemy space towards humankind's greatest conflict—and quite possibly its last.

And there you go!  Phew...

(We're playing catch-up right now, which should explain why there have been two episodes this week.  There was no episode last week.  Regular schedule shall resume next week!)

The newest episode over at The Skiffy and Fanty Show is a little obvious from the tile:  a long and intoxicated review of one of the worst films ever made -- Twilight.

If you're up for hearing Jen and I babble about the good and the bad of the "vampire epic," then you should stream or download the episode here.

I recently came across this announcement of the University of Miami's 500th Anniversary commemoration for Ponce de Leon's voyages to Florida.  Since I am currently teaching a course entitled "Writing About Postcolonialism and Genre Fiction" (which I'll have to discuss in detail later), the event caught my attention.  Why?  Because the language used to describe the event seems, in my view, offensive towards those who were inevitable victims of Spanish, British, French, and American colonialism (in de Leon's case, we're obviously talking about the first).

Those victims -- we call them Native Americans, which is a pathetic term to describe the enormous variety of tribes/groups that used to live freely in the U.S. hundreds of years ago -- were stripped of their lands, destroyed by colonial hands or disease, and otherwise decimated by the colonial system.  So to talk about Ponce de Leon, an understandably famous explorer, within the language of celebration ("A public conference commemorating the five hundredth anniversary of the landing of Juan Ponce de León on Florida shores" -- commemoration associated, more often
than not, with ceremony, memorial, and remembrance) is to privilege the imperial center (Anne McClintock's term from "The Angel of Progress") over the voices of the natives who survived him.

While it's true that many of the talks have to do with the interactions of Ponce de Leon, the Spanish Empire, and the Native Americans (though too many use the derogatory term "Indians"), such talks are still held under the rubric of the celebration which speaks not of Natives in its title and description, but of those things which are the domain of the colonizer.

When will we get a major "commemoration" which privileges indigenous voices in relation to the famous explorers who led to their near-extinction?  Perhaps we should have "Florida at the Crossroads: Five Hundred Years of Native Encounters, Conflicts, and Exchanges" instead of "Florida at the Crossroads: Five Hundred Years of Encounters, Conflicts, and Exchanges" followed by a reminder that this is all about Ponce de Leon's 500th anniversary...

Then again, I'm one of those crazy liberal people.

The first episode of the third season takes us back to a normal numbering system and a long and arduous discussion of our most anticipated 2012 SF/F/H movies, TV shows, and books.

You can check out the episode here, and you're more than welcome to leave a comment below or at The Skiffy and Fanty Show webpage with your 2012 selections too!

Author Bryan Thomas Schmidt has taken a stab at author/editor James L. Sutter's Suvudu post on why moral ambiguity in fantasy is a good thing.  In said stabbing, Schmidt makes some well-worn arguments about why moral ambiguous fantasy presents problems for society, but the bulk of his argument -- in my mind -- rests on a bed of false assumptions.

For example, Schmidt argues that our world is one beset with nihilism and moral ambiguities fermented by the entertainment industry.  He suggests that

We are bombarded with images of violence, sex, language, etc. which of things, people, places being torn apart. We are shown these as motivated by impurities and negative motives more often than pure motives. And we are told that’s because human beings will always go that way by nature. While I do believe in the depravity of man, I also believe man has the capacity to grow and reach beyond natural tendencies and become so much better than that. And that’s what I want from my heroes. While I don’t want unflawed, perfect heroes—who can relate to those either—at the same time, I do want to know who should win; who is on the right side. 

Underlying this argument are two problems:  1) the assumption that the media overwhelming fails to provide us with morally ambiguous or questionable heroes who we can root for, and 2) the
absolutist logic the continues to dominate colonial and imperial ideology to this day -- namely, the idea that we can easily determine who is right in a given situation based solely on their apparently moral behavior.

The first assumption is false the second you look at what gets put on our screens and on our shelves.  Most of what we view/read for pleasure contains flawed, realistic characters who are still our heroes.  Is it not possible, for example, that a semi-violent police detective can still be someone we root for even if we disagree with the occasional abuse he launches at his wife?  True, we would mostly all agree he must get help, and perhaps end up in jail, but we can also agree that his pursuit of the bad guy (who may have very difference motivations of his own) is right.  Or perhaps a better example is a police detective who drinks too much, sometimes putting himself and others at risk with his drunken behavior.  Flawed?  Yes.  Needs help?  Yes.  But can we still root for him?  Sure.  Just as we often root for the detectives on Law & Order:  Special Victims Unit, some of which have roughed up suspects and so on in the pursuit of justice which is never pure and almost always slightly disappointing.  It doesn't matter that Stabler is kind of a douchebag; we still want him to get the criminals.

Most of the right/wrong elements in the above positions are only absolute if one holds to a puritanical view of the human species, one which cannot take into account the variations of human believe, the variations of human psychology, and the variations of human biology.  Schmidt brings up genocide and rape as specific examples of pure morality.  While genocide and rape are certainly detrimental to society, their activity is shaped by ideologies that are absolutist in themselves.  Those who freely commit genocide believe fervently that they are doing a service to society.  We can only say they are wrong because we come from a different moral framework, one which has done little to stifle murder and rape within itself.

But none of this means that those positions are right, nor does it mean that adding moral ambiguity to fantasy means that anti-murder and anti-rape are questionable positions.  In fact, it's quite the opposite.  What moral ambiguity tells us is this:  things are far more complicated than it is easy to admit.  Murderers may need to be punished, but every murder is not committed for the same reason.  The same is true of genocide and rape.  We punish these people not because they break moral codes (recall, for example, that it wasn't all that long ago that there were no legal rules to prosecute rapes as rapes), but because they do things detrimental to society or other people.  But their motivations cannot be discounted.  To do that is to shut ourselves away from the variations of selfhood that make up the human species.  We're a complicated bunch.

The second piece to the above puzzle is a slightly more problematic assumption.  What we've learned in the last 50 years is that #2 is always already false so long as there are at least two sides to an issue.  That doesn't mean we have to agree with the other side, whatever that may be, but it does mean that there are always two sides to a given coin.  We might, for example, argue that Al Qaeda is purely evil based solely on what they say and what they do, but to do so would mean ignoring historical precedence, religious tutelage, and a host of other factors which paint a different picture.  In the end, most of us would agree that Al Qaeda deserves to be stopped, but we might also agree that some of the people who are a part of that organization may not be there for reasons we would consider morally questionable if the roles were reversed.

It is, however, false to argue that America is purely right and Al Qaeda is purely wrong in a moral sense.  To do so would require one of two things:  1) a head-in-the-sand view of reality, or 2) an open acknowledgement that every action made by the "right" party must be questioned unless or until a pure moral position can be found.  Neither of these are particularly good options.

Yet if we take Schmidt's moral positioning seriously, it's perhaps his first volley of questions that exposes the fundamentally flawed assumption trapped beneath his entire post:

[How] can it be wrong to write stories which show a clearer sense of morality? What kind of future are we positing for our children? What kind of heroes are we offering them as role models? Don’t we have a responsibility to do better?

One might ask these questions in response:  How it is morally right to tell lies by presenting false images of how things really are?  What kind of future does a purist view of the world, humanity, and human motivations present to our children, who will one day have to navigate that world without the cultural and mental tools to deal with reality?  What kind of heroes are we offering them as role models if we give them heroes who are overwhelmingly perfect,* without the moral questions provided by ambiguity?  Don't we have a responsibility to present morality as it actually is, not as those of us who pretend purist models of morality exist would like it to be?

The problem here stems from delusional utopianism.  That is that to believe that morality can be pure and absolute comes from a desperate desire within oneself to see unreality become true.  Just as utopias -- in the popular, rather than traditional sense -- cannot form so long as the variations of the human mind prevent it, so too does the security of the belief that moral frameworks are absolute and without nuance.  But, in fact, the world we live in is not a sea of nihilism and moral non-existence.  Rather, we live in a world where it is increasingly more difficult to ignore the motivations of others, to pretend that we necessarily -- by default -- have the right answer, and to assume that our beliefs cannot be challenged.  But that world doesn't throw out moral thinking or moral positions.

To challenge is to make stronger.  If we take into account human variation, we can come to understand ourselves and what lies within us all, and we can take that and make a better humanity (now there's a utopian thought).  We live in a world at war with its ideological variants:  on one the side, the traditional purist model struggles for supremacy; on the other, cultural relativism and the values associated with moral ambiguity try to give us a nuanced picture of the world.  Only when we can see past old ways of thinking will we be able to move forward.  Nostalgia will never get us anywhere, though it sometimes does us a little good.  Read your nostalgic fantasy epics, but know too that it represents a world verging on the utopic, not the world as it actually must be.

I'll end this post with a final quote from Schmidt on George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones series (specifically, Westeros as a world):**

His world is not a fun one to inhabit and not a place I’d ever want to visit. Most of his characters are not people I admire and wish I knew. Some have admirable qualities. Some do admirable things. But overall, I am left wondering why they get up every day. What motivates those people to keep going?

The real question here is this:  for anyone who holds the view that GoT and similar series paint a disturbed picture of humanity, how do you get up every day in a world that, sadly, doesn't look all that different?  People stab each other in the back every day on this tiny planet.  And not just evil people in the purist sense of the word.  Supposedly "good" people hurt other people all the time, sometimes by proxy.  Nations burn with death, even though our world is slightly less violent than in the past -- starvation and disease are the new genocide.  The global market helps some, and hurts many others.  The truth is, we don't live in a world where absolute good and absolute evil exist, and if people in a fictional universe where that fact is also true can get up day in and day out, it begs the question:  how do we?

Well, perhaps that little insight can tell us something about why so many love Martin's work.  Because it tells us something very important about who we are as human beings.  Resilient little hairless monkeys...

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*When I say "overwhelmingly perfect" I really mean that I take arguments about "flawed, but fundamentally good characters" as lip service to a non-existent ideal.  When people talk about character flaws, they don't mean defects, but minor infractions on one's moral purity.  Effectively, "flaws" is a nice way of saying "he smokes, but it's not really a problem."

**I could pick a lot of quotes from Schmidt's article, but I think the selections above will suffice to make my point.

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