Mind Voyages

If you landed here due to a comment I made

2011-05-30T21:11:00.000-07:00

If you landed here due to a comment I left on your blog through ROW80 my active website is

www.mytwoblessings.com

Please come visit me over there.

Thanks!

Mr. Linky is ready for you to sign up for 2011 Voyages

2010-12-28T17:54:00.000-08:00

2011 Mind Voyages

Are you ready for a new voyage or want to continue an old voyage?

Mind Voyages has a new home for sign ups on the 2011 Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks blog.

Click here to sign up on Mr. Linky and continue the voyage.

I'll be continuing the journey with some new voyages and all the action will be taking place over on 52 books. If you've been following, update your reader to the new link.

The Rules

The challenge will run from January 1, 2011 through December 31, 2011.
Our book weeks will begin on Sunday.
Participants may join at any time.
All books are acceptable except children books.
All forms of books are acceptable including e-books, audio books, etc.
Books must be finished in 2011.
Re-reads are acceptable as long as they are read after January 1, 2011.
Books may overlap other challenges.
Create an entry post linking to this blog.
Come back and sign up with Mr. Linky in the "I'm participating post" below this post.
You don't have a blog to participate. Post your weekly book in the comments section.
Mr. Linky will be added to the bottom of the weekly post for you to link to reviews of your most current reads.

All the mini challenges are optional. The goal is to read 52 books. How you get there is up to you. For those doing Mind Voyages only, the voyages remains the same. Or you can jump in an play along. Mix it up anyway you like.

Thank you to everyone who participated this year and to everyone who has been following our progress.

Ready to continue the voyage in 2011?

2010-12-14T16:56:00.000-08:00

2011 52 Books in 52 Weeks Reading Challenge

This past year has been awesome and I've had lots of fun. 2011 is almost upon us and time to start thinking about making some changes. As I mentioned, I can't maintain two blog challenges at the same time so going to blend Mind Voyages with Read 52 books in 52 Weeks Reading Challenge.

You'll have the option of continuing the voyages, starting a new voyage or blending with the other challenge. I've come up with a variety of mini challenges as well which will help people reach the 52 books goal. The Mini challenges are also for those folks who don't think they can or have the time to read 52 books. Challenges within the challenges. Set a goal and go for it. You'll be able to link to your reviews on the other blog as well.

The goal is simply to read (at least) one book a week for 52 weeks or 12 books in 12 weeks.

1) Mind Voyages is a science fiction / fantasy challenge to explore the hugo and nebula winners, take side trips through the different decades reading the nominees, check out Philip K. Dick and Robert Heinlein. Also, Since I can't possibly imagine a reading challenge without exploring new releases that come out in 2011, we have the all inclusive Pluto challenge. Links to all the voyages are available on the Mind Voyages blog.

Moon Voyage : Read at least 6 winners on the Hugo Winners List

Sling shot back to Earth : Read at least 3 winners on the Nebula Winner's List

Venus Voyage: Philip K. Dick Quest - Read at least 2 of his books

Mercury Voyage :   Robert Heinlein Quest - Read at least 2 of his books

Mars Voyage :   Read at least 6 winners on the Hugo List and take a side trip through the 21st century and read at least 4 nominees.

Go into Warp Drive and visit the other planets

Jupiter Voyage :   Go side tripping 90's Style

Saturn : Go Side Tripping 80's Style

Uranus : Go Side Tripping 70's Style

Neptune Voyage : Go Side Tripping through the 50's and 60's

The I'm going to Pluto because Pluto is still a planet as far as I'm concerned Voyage:   Mix it up, choose the number of books you want to read from each voyage, include some new books you pick up along the way and enjoy the ride.

2) Read around the World: I probably did read around the world last year but didn't pay much attention. So this year I'm paying attention to setting. Keep track of where the story takes place and see how many places you end up.

3) Ireland Reading Challenge: or just stick with one country such as Ireland and read books set in Ireland, written by Irish Authors or with an Irish theme. Pick 2, 4, 6, or 12 books to read.

4) Jane Austen Mini Challenge: Read Jane Austen's books -Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion. All can be found online here.

5) Well Educated Mind Mini Challenge: The Well Educated Mind written by Susan Wise Bauer is a guide to reading the great works. Read 3 books from each category: Fiction, autobiography, history, drama and poetry.

6) New Author Mini Challenge: Read at least one new to you author per month.

7) Try a new genre challenge: Read at least one book in a genre you've never tried before.

8) E-Book reading challenge: read at least 3, 6, 9, or 12 e-books this year.

9) Chunkster Challenge: Chunksters are considered books that are over 500 pages in length. Read one chunkster a month.

10) Read 12 classics in 12 months

A new year, a fresh slate. Time to discover some new friends and rediscover some old friends. Make the challenge as easy and casual as you want or spice it up and challenge yourself. Explore a bit, but most of all have fun.

The rules:

The challenge will run from January 1, 2011 through December 31, 2011.
Our book weeks will begin on Sunday.
Participants may join at any time.
All forms of books are acceptable including e-books, audio books, etc.
Re-reads are acceptable as long as they are read after January 1, 2011.
Books may overlap other challenges.
Create an entry post linking to this blog.
Come back and sign up with Mr. Linky in the "I'm participating post" in the 52 books blog.
You don't have a blog to participate. Post your weekly book in the comments section.
Mr. Linky will be added to the bottom of the weekly post for you to link to reviews of your most current reads.

Get set to blast off for a new year and update your readers to follow 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Plans for 2011

2010-12-08T18:53:00.000-08:00

If you would like to continue the voyage or plan a new voyage, Mind Voyages is going to be melded in with the Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge which will be continuing in 2011. The voyages will be considered mini challenges within the 52 books challenge and Mr. Linky is posted weekly on the 52 books site for you to link to your reviews. I worked rather hard to create this blog and don't want to see it go to waste. So the blog will remain up so folks can refer to the links for their voyages.

The voyages are:

Moon Voyage : Read at least 6 winners on the Hugo Winners List

Sling shot back to Earth: Read at least 3 winners on the Nebula Winner's List

Venus Voyage: Philip K. Dick Quest - Read at least 2 of his books

Mercury Voyage:   Robert Heinlein Quest - Read at least 2 of his books

Mars Voyage:   Read at least 6 winners on the Hugo List and take a side trip through the 21st century and read at least 4 nominees.

Go into Warp Drive and visit the other planets

Jupiter Voyage:   Go side tripping 90's Style

Saturn: Go Side Tripping 80's Style

Uranus: Go Side Tripping 70's Style

Neptune Voyage: Go Side Tripping through the 50's and 60's

The I'm going to Pluto because Pluto is still a planet as far as I'm concerned Voyage:   Mix it up, choose the number of books you want to read from each voyage, include some new books you pick up along the way and enjoy the ride.

Post your Reviews - July to Dec

2010-12-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

July - December 2010 Reviews

Post will rotate to the first of the month every month

Link to your reviews. Please link to your review url and not your blog url. If you have multiple reviews indicate multi reviews in parentheses after your name. Otherwise type in the name of the book in parentheses after your name.

Journey's End!

2010-09-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

Canyon Bend - Courtesy Moodflow.com

Journey's End

I'm coming in for a landing, having reached the end of my journey. I've run out of gas, food and energy. Was I successful, let's see

The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester (Hugo 1953)
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury (Hugo 1954)
Dune - Frank Herbert (Hugo 1966)
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert Heinlein (Hugo 1967)
Spin - Robert Charles Wilson (Hugo 2006)
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller - 1961 Hugo Started and couldn't finish
To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Phillip Jose Farmer 1972 Hugo Started & couldn't finish
The Mists of Avalon - Marian Zimmer Bradley
The Eye of the World - Robert Jordan
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Robert Heinlein
www.wake - Robert J. Sawyer

I successfully completed the moon voyages by reading 6 Hugo winners and the Mercury Voyages by reading two Robert Heinlein books. It seems I did go to Pluto and back, kind of meandering about through the stars on my way. I discovered a few things along the way - that I can't read all of one genre without getting bored, I need a variety. That books which entertained and engaged me back in my 20's, no longer engage me in my 50's. That I've gotten rather picky about what I do read and if I'm not enjoying it, stop reading, put the book down and go on to something else. That I don't like time limits and too many choices overwhelm me.

So, my journey has come to an end. We started out with 26 voyagers joining me and all have crash landed except for maybe Eric, Heather and Miss Mouse. I'm going to let the blog go static for the rest of the year because honestly, I simply don't have the energy to maintain it. Life is set to get a bit more busy in the coming months with the start of my next class, Short Stories and Nanowrimo in November, plus other writing projects I want to work on. Thank you to all who have been participating, following and lurking.

"Nanoo Nanoo!"- Mork

1967 Hugo Winer: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

2010-09-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Robert A Heinlein

"It is a tale of revolution, of the rebellion of the former Lunar penal colony against the Lunar Authority that controls it from Earth. It is the tale of the disparate people--a computer technician, a vigorous young female agitator, and an elderly academic--who become the rebel movement's leaders. And it is the story of Mike, the supercomputer whose sentience is known only to this inner circle, and who for reasons of his own is committed to the revolutions' ultimate success." (Publisher: Orb Books, 1997 1st edition back cover)

Robert Heinlein won 4 Hugo awards and 3 retro Hugo award for his works including The Moon is a Harsh Mistress in 1967. He was considered one of the most influential science fiction writers and won the first Damon Knight Grand Memorial Master award for lifetime achievement by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Many of the central themes in Heinlein's works included race, individualism, sexual freedom, philosophy and politics. He created many Utopian worlds revolving around political themes from liberal to conservative to fascism to libertarian.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a Utopian tale of a lunar colony in 2075 rebelling against authority and setting up a libertarian style government and is intriguing and thought provoking. The moon has been designated a penal colony and is populated by "loonies," who are either prisoners, political prisoners or descendants of prisoners. Once prisoners have served their sentence they have to continue living on the moon because, after a few months, irreversible biological changes to their body force them to remain. They live in underground colonies and make their livings by exporting ice and wheat to the Earth. The men outnumber the woman two to one which has resulted in woman taking multiple husbands. There are basically no laws and the population is self regulating. Their women are held in high esteem and justice is served by ousting the trouble maker through an air lock. They are loosely regulated by a Warden and all the facilities are controlled by one master computer, the HOLMES IV whose name is Mike.

"Mike was not official name; I had nicknamed him for Mycroft Holmes, in a story written by Dr. Watson before he founded IBM. This story character would just sit and think--and that's what Mike did. Mike was a fair dinkum thinkum, sharpest computer you'll ever meet." (pg 11-12)

The story is narrated in first person point of view by Manuel Garcia "Mannie" O'Kelly-Davis, a computer technician who takes care of the computer and discovers it has been malfunctioning out of boredom and is making mistakes on purpose. Because controlling all the lunar functions only take up about 2% of it's operating capacity, the computer started learning as much as possible in it's free time and became self aware.

"But on Monday, 13 may 2074 I was in computer room of Lunar Authority Complex, visiting with computer boss Mike while other machines whispered among themselves.

Some logics get nervous breakdowns. Overloaded phone system behaves like frightened child. Mike did not have upsets, acquired sense of humor instead. Low one. If he were a man, you wouldn't dare stoop over. His idea of thigh-slapper would be to dump you out of bed--or put itch powder in pressure suit.

Not being equipped for that, Mike indulged in phony answers with skewed logic, or pranks like issuing pay cheque to a janitor in Authority's Luna City office for $10,000,000,000,000,185.15--last five digits being correct amount. Just a great big overgrown lovable kid who ought to be kicked." (pg 13)

The story is broken up into three sections: Book 1 - That Dinkum Thinkum is the prelude to the revolt with Mannie, Wyoming Knott and Professor Bernardo de la Paz deciding, along with "Mike" to form a covert executive cell and begin recruiting members. Book 2- A Rabble in Arms in which every single person wants to have their say in how the government will be run. "Mike" is given the persona "Adam Selene" a mysterious rich backer who is the Chairman of the executive cell who never appears in public for security sake. The professor actually sets up a "congress" simply to keep the people occupied while he and Mannie go down to earth to sell the benefits of a free Luna society. Book 3 - TANSTAAFL (after one of Heinlein's saying "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch") in which Earth attacks and Luna figures out how to counter attack by flinging rocks at Earth.

I was intrigued by Professor Bernardo de la Paz who was an anarchist and when the new congress formed, was surprised they choose him as one of the permanent heads of congress. He did his best to cast doubts and pick apart their ideas. Some of his ideas were interesting, but scary to say the least.

"Comrade members, like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master. You now have freedom--if you can keep it. But do remember that you can lose this freedom more quickly to yourselves than to any other tyrant. Move slowly, be hesitant, puzzle out the consequences of every word. I would not be unhappy if this convention sat for ten years before reporting--but I would be frightened if you took less than one year.

Distrust the obvious, suspect the traditional...for in the past mankind has not done well when saddling itself with governments....

I note one proposal to make this congress a two house body. Excellent--the more impediments to legislation the better. But, instead of following tradition, I suggest one house of legislators, another whose single duty is to repeal laws. let the legislators pass laws only with a two-thirds majority....while the repealers are able to cancel any law through a mere one-third majority. Preposterous? Think about it. If a bill is so poor that it cannot command two thirds of your consents, is it not likely that it would make a poor law? And if a law is disliked by as many as one third is it not likely that you would be better off without it?

But in writing your constitution let me invite attention to the wonderful virtues of the negative! Accentuate the negative! Let your document be studded with things the government is forever forbidden to do. No conscript armies..no interference however slight with freedom of press, or speech, or travel, or assembly, or of religion, or of instruction, or communication, or occupation...no involuntary taxation. Comrades, if you were to spend five years in a study of history while thinking of more and more things that your government should promise never to do and then let your constitution be nothing but those negatives, I would not fear the outcome." (page 301 - 302)

A large part of the story deals with the rights of the individual and does have a big libertarian slant, despite the professors attempts at anarchism and it's interesting to note that other readers believe the book reflects Heinlein's Libertarian beliefs. According to David Boaz who wrote Libertarianism: A Primer

Libertarianism is the view that each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others. Libertarians defend each person's right to life, liberty, and property--rights that people have naturally, before governments are created. In the libertarian view, all human relationships should be voluntary; the only actions that should be forbidden by law are those that involve the initiation of force against those who have not themselves used force--actions like murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, and fraud.

Readers have had a hard time separating the author from the story. In actually, he was very private about his political and religious beliefs. According to the Heinlein society:

"People with particular slants seem to latch onto one work or another that suits their opinions or biases and take it as being representative of all of Heinlein. "Starship Troopers" is regarded by some 'fascist' (particularly after the hideous distortion presented in the movie version), it isn't . "Stranger in a Strange Land" became a banner book for liberals--yet it was written at the same time as "Starship Troopers" so couple the contradictions together on that account. Libertarians adore "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" with the anarchistic type of society that works so well, yet Heinlein came along with "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls" and smashed that same perfect setup to bits, showing the potential unpleasant outcome. For every political or social stance you care to choose to assign to Heinlein you can probably find something in his writing to support that opinion... and something else to contradict it"

To be honest, I'm not a big fan of stories about politics and wasn't too particularly thrilled with the story as the majority of the book is taken up with discussing politics and setting up the new government. It was rather dry at times and the narrator's voice takes some getting used since he spoke with a dialect closely resembling Russian eliminating articles and some pronouns. However, it is well written and does provides many diverse viewpoints for debate about the pursuit of liberty.

SFF Masterworks #49 Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

2010-07-24T12:44:00.000-07:00

Fantasy Masterworks # 49

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Ray Bradbury

Teaser

Excerpt Chapter 10

"Just after midnight.

Shuffling footsteps.

Along the empty street came the lightning-rod salesman, his leather valise swung almost empty in his baseball-mitt hand, his face at ease. He turned a corner and stopped.

Paper-soft white moths tapped at an empty store window, looking in.

And in the window, like a great coffin boat of star-colored glass, beached on two sawhorses lay a chunk of Alaska Snow Company ice chopped to a size great enough to flash in a giant's ring.

And sealed in this ice was the most beautiful woman in the world.

The lightning-rod salesman's smile faded.

In the dreaming coldness of ice like someone fallen and slept in snow avalanches a thousand years, forever young, was this woman.

She was as fair as this morning and fresh as tomorrow's flowers and lovely as any maid when a man shuts his eyes and traps her, in cameo perfection, on the shell of his eyelids.

The lightning-rod salesman remembered to breath.

Once, long ago, traveling among the marbles of Rome and Florence, he had seen women like this, kept in stone instead of ice. Once, wandering in the Louvre, he had found women like this, washing in summer color and kept in paint. Once, as a boy, sneaking the cool grottos behind a motion picture theater screen, on his way to a free seat, he had glanced up and there towering and flooding the haunted dark seen a woman's face as he had never seen it since, of such size and beauty built of milk-bone and moon-flesh as to freeze him there alone behind the stage, shadowed by the motion of her lips, the bird-wing flicker of her eyes, the snow-pale-death shimmering illumination from her cheeks.

So from other years there jumped forth images which flowed and found new substance here within the ice.

What color was her hair? It was blond to whiteness and might take any color, once set free of cold.

How tall was she?

The prism of the ice might well multiply her size or diminish her as you moved this way or that before the empty store, the window, the night-soft rap-tapping ever-fingering gently probing moths.

Not important.

Far above all--the lightning-rod salesman shivered--he knew the most extraordinary thing.

If by some miracle her eyelids should open with that sapphire and she should look at him, he knew what color her eyes would be.

He knew what color her eyes would be.

If one were to enter this lonely night shop--

If one were to put forth one's hand, the warmth of that hand would...what?"

Melt the ice.

The lightning-rod salesman stood there for a long moment, his eyes quickened shut.

He let his breath out.

It was warm as summer on his teeth.

His hand touched the shop door. It swung open. Cold arctic are blew out around him. He stepped in.

The door shut.

The white snowflake moths tapped at the window."

July Status check

2010-06-30T17:34:00.000-07:00

July Status Check

We are half way through the year and time for a flight status check. How are you all doing on your voyages. I've discovered some interesting things - that the same books I loved when I was 25, I don't so much when I'm 50. Have my tastes changed or just more discerning. I'm kind of winging it at this point and my original list has been retired. When I last checked in had finished 5 books:

The Demolished Man (review) by Alfred Bester (1953 Hugo Winner)

Dune by Frank Herbert (review) (1966 Hugo winner)

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson (review) (2006 Hugo Winner)

Under the Dome (review) by Stephen King (side trip)

Eye of the World (review) by Robert Jordan (side trip)

Since then I've completed

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury - 1954 Hugo and soon to be reviewed

www.wake by Robert J. Saywer - 2010 hugo nominee and soon to be reviewed.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller - 1961 Hugo Started and couldn't finish

To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Phillip Jose Farmer 1972 Hugo Started and couldn't finish.

I'm currently reading 1967 Hugo winner "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein. My Moon voyage is basically complete. During July I plan on reading the other 2010 hugo nominees: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest, The City & The City by China Miéville, Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson, Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente and The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. The rest of the time I'll be floating through the atmosphere reading whatever across my radar.

For the remainder of the year, I'm going to post a monthly Mr. Linky to link to our reviews instead of continuing with the one major link. Links to the posts will be put in the sidebar so can be found easily.

How many of you are still with me and what have you been reading?

Beginnings: 1967 winner The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

2010-06-24T09:56:00.000-07:00

That Dinkum Thinkum

"I see in Lunaya Pravda that Luna City Council has passed on first reading a bill to examine, license, inspect--and tax---public food vendors operating inside municipal pressure. I see also is to be mass meeting tonight to organize "Sons of Revolution" talk-talk.

My old man taught me two things: "Mind own business" and "Always cut cards." Politics never tempted me. But on Monday 13 May 2075 I was in computer room of Lunar Authority Complex, visiting with computer boss Mike while other machines whispered among themselves. Mike was not official name; I had nicknamed him for Mycroft Holmes, in a story written by Dr. Watson before he founded IBM. This story character would just sit and think--and that's what Mike did. Mike was a fair dinkum, thinkum, sharpest computer you'll ever meet.

Not fastest. At Bell Labs, Bueno Aires, down Earthside, they've got a thinkum a tenth his size which can answer almost before you ask. But matters whether you get answer in microsecond rather than millisecond as long as correct?

Not that Mike would necessarily give right answer; he wasn't completely honest.

When Mike was installed in Luna, he was pure thinkum, a flexible logic--"High-Optical, Logical Multi Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV, Mod. L."--a HOLMES FOUR. He computed ballistics for pilotless freighters and controlled their catapult. This kept him busy less than one percent of the time and Luna Authority never believed in idle hands. They keep hooking hardware into him--decision action boxes to let him boss other computer, bank on bank of additional memories, more banks of associational neural nets, another tubful of twelve-digit random numbers, a greatly augmented temporary memory. Human brain has around ten-to-the-tenth neurons. By third year Mike had better than one and a half times that number of neuristors.

And woke up."

Excerpt: Chapter one pg 11 - 12

Science Fiction and Fantasy Masterworks

2010-06-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

I've recently become involved in a new reading project which will begin July 1st. Put together by Patrick of Stomping on Yeti, a group of us will be reading the SF and Fantasy Masterworks. The Masterworks are a series of science fiction and fantasy books published by Orion publishing group through its imprints Millennium and Gollancz.   Many of the books included are written by Hugo authors. The books are in series order instead of publication date order.   Each one of us will be reading one book a month and reviewing them on a group blog (to be announced soon) until all the books on both lists have been read. The links lead to SF.com where you will find descriptions and pictures of their cool new covers.

SF Masterworks

1   The Forever War**- Joe Haldeman
2   I Am Legend - Richard Matheson
3   Cities in Flight - James Blish
4   Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick
5   The Stars My Destination** - Alfred Bester
6   Babel-17 - Samuel R. Delany
7   Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny
8   The Fifth Head of Cerberus - Gene Wolfe
9   Gateway - Frederik Pohl
10 The Rediscovery of Man - Cordwainer Smith
11 Last and First Men - Olaf Stapledon
12 Earth Abides - George R. Stewart
13 Martian Time-Slip - Philip K. Dick
14 The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester
15 Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner
16 The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin
17 The Drowned World - J. G. Ballard
18 The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut
19 Emphyrio - Jack Vance
20 A Scanner Darkly- Philip K. Dick
21 Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon
22 Behold the Man - Michael Moorcock
23 The Book of Skulls - Robert Silverberg
24 The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells
25 Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
26 Ubik - Philip K. Dick
27 Timescape - Gregory Benford
28 More Than Human - Theodore Sturgeon
29 Man Plus - Frederik Pohl
30 A Case of Conscience - James Blish
31 The Centauri Device - M. John Harrison
32 Dr. Bloodmoney - Philip K. Dick
33 Non-Stop - Brian Aldiss
34 The Fountains of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke
35 Pavane - Keith Roberts
36 Now Wait for Last Year - Philip K. Dick
37 Nova - Samuel R. Delany
38 The First Men in the Moon - H. G. Wells
39 The City and the Stars - Arthur C. Clarke
40 Blood Music - Greg Bear
41 Jem - Frederik Pohl
42 Bring the Jubilee - Ward Moore
43 VALIS - Philip K. Dick
44 The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula K. Le Guin
45 The Complete Roderick - John Sladek
46 Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick
47 The Invisible Man - H. G. Wells
48 Grass - Sheri S. Tepper
49 A Fall of Moondust - Arthur C. Clarke
50 Eon - Greg Bear
51 The Shrinking Man - Richard Matheson
52 The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Philip K. Dick
53 The Dancers at the End of Time - Michael Moorcock
54 The Space Merchants - Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth
55 Time Out of Joint - Philip K. Dick
56 Downward to the Earth - Robert Silverberg
57 The Simulacra - Philip K. Dick
58 The Penultimate Truth - Philip K. Dick
59 Dying Inside - Robert Silverberg
60 Ringworld** - Larry Niven
61 The Child Garden - Geoff Ryman
62 Mission of Gravity - Hal Clement
63 A Maze of Death - Philip K. Dick
64 Tau Zero - Poul Anderson
65 Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke
66 Life During Wartime - Lucius Shepard
67 Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang - Kate Wilhelm
68 Roadside Picnic - Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
69 Dark Benediction - Walter M. Miller, Jr.
70 Mockingbird - Walter Tevis
71 Dune** - Frank Herbert
72 The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress** - Robert A. Heinlein
73*** The Man in the High Castle** - Philip K. Dick

** Also printed in hardback
***Due to printing error has 72 on it

Fantasy Masterworks

1 The Book of the New Sun, Volume 1: Shadow and Claw - Gene Wolfe
2 Time and the Gods - Lord Dunsany
3 The Worm Ouroboros - E.R. Eddison
4 Tales of the Dying Earth - Jack Vance
5 Little, Big - John Crowley
6 The Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
7 Viriconium - M. John Harrison
8 The Conan Chronicles, Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle - Robert E. Howard
9 The Land of Laughs - Jonathan Carroll
10 The Compleat Enchanter: The Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea - L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt
11 Lud-in-the-Mist - Hope Mirrlees
12 The Book of the New Sun, Volume 2: Sword and Citadel - Gene Wolfe
13 Fevre Dream- George R. R. Martin
14 Beauty - Sheri S. Tepper
15 The King of Elfland's Daughter - Lord Dunsany
16 The Conan Chronicles, Volume 2: The Hour of the Dragon - Robert E. Howard
17 Elric - Michael Moorcock
18 The First Book of Lankhmar - Fritz Leiber
19 Riddle-Master- Patricia A. McKillip
20 Time and Again - Jack Finney
21 Mistress of Mistresses - E.R. Eddison
22 Gloriana or the Unfulfill'd Queen - Michael Moorcock
23 The Well of the Unicorn - Fletcher Pratt
24 The Second Book of Lankhmar - Fritz Leiber
25 Voice of Our Shadow - Jonathan Carroll
26 The Emperor of Dreams - Clark Ashton Smith
27 Lyonesse I: Suldrun's Garden - Jack Vance
28 Peace - Gene Wolfe
29 The Dragon Waiting - John M. Ford
30 Corum: The Prince in the Scarlet Robe - Michael Moorcock
31 Black Gods and Scarlet Dreams - C.L. Moore
32 The Broken Sword - Poul Anderson
33 The House on the Borderland and Other Novels - William Hope Hodgson
34 The Drawing of the Dark - Tim Powers
35 Lyonesse II and III: The Green Pearl and Madouc - Jack Vance
36 The History of Runestaff - Michael Moorcock
37 A Voyage to Arcturus - David Lindsay
38 Darker Than You Think - Jack Williamson
39 The Mabinogion - Evangeline Walton
40 Three Hearts & Three Lions - Poul Anderson
41 Grendel - John Gardner
42 The Iron Dragon's Daughter - Michael Swanwick
43 WAS - Geoff Ryman
44 Song of Kali - Dan Simmons
45 Replay - Ken Grimwood
46 Sea Kings of Mars and Other Worldly Stories - Leigh Brackett
47 The Anubis Gates - Tim Powers
48 The Forgotten Beasts of Eld - Patricia A. McKillip
49 Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
50 The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales - Rudyard Kipling

How many of these books have you already read?

Whatever!!!! Unicorn Pegasus Kitten fan fiction contest

2010-06-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

Unicorn Pegasus Kitten

Featuring

Wil Wheaton and John Scalzi

Artist Jeff Zugale

What's it all about!

The Unicorn Pegasus Kitten Painting was unveiled at the Phoenix Comicon over the weekend and John Scalzi and Wil Wheaton, along with Subterranean Press introduced in a contest to benefit the Lupus Alliance of America.

"Write a 400 to 2,000 word story describing the picture above. Any form of fan fiction is acceptable except slash. The winner of the contest will be paid for their story (10 cents a word), win a prize pack of books from Subterranean Press, and will have their story published in a special electronic chapbook featuring stories about the painting, written by Scalzi, Wheaton, Catherynne Valente and Patrick Rothfuss, to be published later this year, with profits to benefit the Lupus Foundation of America. E-mail the stories with the text in the e-mail to fanfic@scalzi.com by 11:59pm Eastern, June 30, 2010. One entry per person."

Go to Whatever for more information where you'll also find some amazing video of John and Wil performing "Don't Stop Believing."

Beginnings: 1954 Hugo - Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

2010-05-27T11:19:00.000-07:00

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

"It was a pleasure to burn.

It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.

Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame.

He knew that when he returned to the firehouse, he might wink at himself, a minstrel man, burnt corked, in the mirror. Later, going to sleep, he would feel the fiery smile still gripped by his face muscles, in the dark. It never went away, that smile, it never ever went away, as long as he remembered." (Chapter 1 excerpt pg 3- 4)

2010 Science Fiction Hall of Fame Inductees

2010-05-19T18:26:00.000-07:00

2010 Science Fiction Hall of Fame Inductees

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Ceremony will be held during the Science Fiction Awards weekend June 25 - 27th in Seattle, Washington. The 2010 inductees are:

Roger Zelazny

May 13, 1937 to June 14, 1995

Hugo Award Winner in 1966 and 1968. His works include: Lord of Light, This Immortal, The Chronicles of Amber, Jack of Shadows and many more. "Roger Zelazny was one of the foremost writers of science fiction's New Wave movement, authoring short stories and novels packed with both psychological and mythological structures."

Douglas Trumbull

April 8, 1942

American Film Director and Special Effects Supervisor. The 1968 film 2001 Space Odyssey "utilized Trumbull's own process of slit-scan photography to obtain the more abstract sequences. This groundbreaking technique contributed to the film's critical acclaim and established Trumbull as one of the top names in motion picture special effects." He was also responsible for the special effects for science fiction films: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), and Blade Runner (1982)

Richard Matheson

February 20, 1926

American author and screenwriter in fantasy, science fiction and horror. He had several novels adapted for film including I am Legend. The novel was adapted to film as The Last Man on Earth in 1964, as The Omega Man in 1971, and as I Am Legend in 2007. "Matheson's publications and film work often explore themes of human existence facing alternate reality and incorporate the paranormal, terror, survival and ardor."

Octavia E. Butler

June 22, 1947 to February 2006

American science fiction author and won the Hugo Award for her short stories Speech Sound in 1984 and Bloodchild in 1985. She wrote several novels including Kindred, The Patternists Series and Lilith's Brood. She is "notable for being a female African American writer of science fiction—a rarity—but mainly she's notable as one of the most eminent science fiction writers overall."

New cool Sci Fi Movie - Inception

2010-05-08T18:18:00.000-07:00

Opening July 16, 2010

Now this looks interesting, weird, but interesting. Inception staring Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard and Michael Caine. The synopsis according to IMDB

Acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan directs an international cast in an original sci-fi actioner that travels around the globe and into the intimate and infinite world of dreams. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved.

Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossibleinception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming. This summer, your mind is the scene of the crime.

Want to find out more - go to www.inceptionmovie.warnerbros.com

Aussiecon Membership live and online

2010-05-04T20:36:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't you like to have a say so in who wins the Hugo Award for Best Novel or Best Novella or Best Graphic Story, etc. I always envied those folks who got to take part in voting for the awards. Today, thanks to John Scalzi, I discovered I could register online to become a member of Aussiecon. Along with the membership, is the right to vote for the 2010 Hugo Award and John C. Campbell best writer award nominees. Aussiecon has released an electronic 2010 voters packet which contains the full length works of the nominees:

Best Novel:

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest (Tor)
The City & The City by China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)
Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)
Wake by Robert J. Sawyer (Ace; Penguin; Gollancz; Analog)
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)

Best Novella

Act One" by Nancy Kress (Asimov's 3/09)
The God Engines by John Scalzi (Subterranean)
"Palimpsest" by Charles Stross (Wireless; Ace; Orbit)
Shambling Towards Hiroshima by James Morrow (Tachyon)
"Vishnu at the Cat Circus" by Ian McDonald (Cyberabad Days; Pyr; Gollancz)
The Women of Nell Gwynne's by Kage Baker (Subterranean)

Best Novelette:

Eros, Philia, Agape" by Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com 3/09)
"The Island" by Peter Watts (The New Space Opera 2; Eos)
"It Takes Two" by Nicola Griffith (Eclipse Three; Night Shade Books)
"One of Our Bastards is Missing" by Paul Cornell (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Three; Solaris)
"Overtime" by Charles Stross (Tor.com 12/09)
"Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" by Eugie Foster (Interzone 2/09)

Best Short Story

"The Bride of Frankenstein" by Mike Resnick (Asimov’s 12/09)
"Bridesicle" by Will McIntosh (Asimov’s 1/09)
"The Moment" by Lawrence M. Schoen (Footprints; Hadley Rille Books)
"Non-Zero Probabilities" by N.K. Jemisin (Clarkesworld 9/09)
"Spar" by Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld 10/09)

Best Related Work

Canary Fever: Reviews by John Clute (Beccon) (Excerpt)
Hope-In-The-Mist: The Extraordinary Career and Mysterious Life of Hope Mirrlees by Michael Swanwick (Temporary Culture)
The Inter-Galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children's and Teens' Science Fiction by Farah Mendlesohn (McFarland) (Excerpt)
On Joanna Russ edited by Farah Mendlesohn (Wesleyan)
The Secret Feminist Cabal: A Cultural History of SF Feminisms by Helen Merrick (Aqueduct) (Excerpt)
This is Me, Jack Vance! (Or, More Properly, This is "I") by Jack Vance (Subterranean)

Best Graphic Story

Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? Written by Neil Gaiman; Pencilled by Andy Kubert; Inked by Scott Williams (DC Comics)
Captain Britain And MI13. Volume 3: Vampire State Written by Paul Cornell; Pencilled by Leonard Kirk with Mike Collins, Adrian Alphona and Ardian Syaf (Marvel Comics) (Link to issues #10 and #11)
Fables Vol 12: The Dark Ages Written by Bill Willingham; Pencilled by Mark Buckingham; Art by Peter Gross & Andrew Pepoy, Michael Allred, David Hahn; Colour by Lee Loughridge & Laura Allred; Letters by Todd Klein (Vertigo Comics)
Girl Genius, Volume 9: Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm Written by Kaja and Phil Foglio; Art by Phil Foglio; Colours by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment) (Link)
Schlock Mercenary: The Longshoreman of the Apocalypse Written and Illustrated by Howard Tayler

Best Semiprozine

Ansible edited by David Langford (Links)
Clarkesworld edited by Neil Clarke, Sean Wallace, & Cheryl Morgan
Interzone edited by Andy Cox
Locus edited by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong, & Liza Groen Trombi
Weird Tales edited by Ann VanderMeer & Stephen H. Segal

Best Fanzine

Argentus edited by Steven H Silver
Banana Wings edited by Claire Brialey & Mark Plummer
CHALLENGER edited by Guy H. Lillian III (Link)
Drink Tank edited by Christopher J Garcia, with guest editor James Bacon
File 770 edited by Mike Glyer
StarShipSofa edited by Tony C. Smith (Links)

Best Professional Artist - (package includes works from the artists)

Bob Eggleton
Stephan Martiniere
John Picacio
Daniel Dos Santos
Shaun Tan

Best Fan Artist

Brad W. Foster (Link)
Dave Howell
Steve Stiles
Taral Wayne

Best Fan Writer (package includes works by)

Claire Brialey
Christopher J Garcia
James Nicoll
Lloyd Penney
Frederik Pohl (Link)

John C. Campbell Award for Best Writer (includes works by)

Saladin Ahmed
Gail Carriger
Felix Gilman
Seanan McGuire
Lezli Robyn

According to the folks at Aussicon:

The electronic versions of the work you see here are available to you through the efforts of the authors and artists who have been nominated, and we are grateful for their participation and willingness to share with Anticipation members. Please support these creators! Their work is available in bookstores and online. Thanks are also due to these authors' publishers, who have graciously allowed these works to be present in these packages.

Plus they are trusting that all supporting members will keep the information confidential and not share it so that the authors and publishers will continue to support this idea in the future. I promise not to share it - solemn oath, cross my heart and scout's honor. :) The works are available in PDF, Word or Rich Text format so will be easy to read.

You can sign up online for an attending membership which gives you attendance, voting rights and publications for Au $ 310 or supporting membership which gives you voting rights and publications for Au $ 70 ($68 u.s.) I signed up for a supporting membership because I know I won't be able to go to Australia in September. But at least I'll be able to vote for who I think should get the Hugo. How cool is that. I've got my work cut out for me since all ballots are due by July 31, 2010.

2010 Hugo Nominee: Robert J. Sawyer - Happy Birthday!!!

2010-04-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

Happy 50th Birthday to Robert J. Sawyer

Robert J. Sawyer is one of the six nominees for the 2010 Hugo Award in the Best Novel category for "Wake."

Excerpt from Chapter one:

Not darkness, for that implies an understanding of light.
      Not silence, for that suggests a familiarity with sound.
      Not loneliness, for that requires a knowledge of others
But still, faintly, so tenuous, that if it were any less it wouldn't exist at all: awareness
     Nothing more than that.   Just awareness - a vague, ethereal sense of being.

Being...but not becoming. No marking of time, no past or future --- only an endless, featureless now, and, just barely there in that boundless moment, inchoate and raw, the dawning of perception...

Makes me want to go out and buy "Wake" right now. Wake is book one in the WWW trilogy: Wake, Watch, and Wonder. The first two are available now and you can read first chapter excerpts on the www trilogy web site.

Sawyer, born April 29, 2010 in Ottawa Canada, sold his first short science fiction story in 1979 to the Strasenburgh Planetarium which they produced as part of a dramatic starshow trilogy called "Futurescapes" in 1980. While attending Ryerson University and working on his Bachelor of Applied Arts in Radio and Television Arts, he had his first story published in Ryerson's 1980 Literary Annual - White Wall Review.

The story "The Contest" was included in the anthology 100 Great Fantasy Short Stories released in 1984. After graduating from Ryerson, he spent the next six years writing mainly non fiction freelance articles for various American and Canadian magazines. His true love however was writing science fiction and he decided to concentrate on writing novels full time.

His debut novel was Golden Fleece published in 1999

The story is unique in that is it told from the viewpoint of the Starcology Argo's ship's computer, Jason. One of the ship's crew is murdered and the finger points straight at the artificially intelligent computer.

After that he wrote Farseer, book 1 in the Quintaglio Ascension series which revolved around the world of a group of intelligent dinosaurs.

His next book, End of an Era continued with the dinosaur theme but took us back through time travel to the beginning of the world to find out what really happened to the dinosaurs.

Sawyer explored many interesting themes in his books including SETI, artificial intelligence, time travel, dinosaurs, psychology, murder and the nature of consciousness to name a few.

In his Neanderthal Parallax series, he explored the question: what would have happened if there was another world in which the neanderthals have survived and became the dominant species. How would their world differ from ours? He won the 2003 Hugo award for Hominids.

In his next standalone book, he went on to explore in Mindscan what would happen if in order to avoid suffering an inherited debilitation disease that would turn you into a vegetable, if you could have your mind scanned and assume an android body while your body is shipped off to the moon. Would the people you know accept you? If a cure was discovered, could you be scanned back into your body?

Which brings us to his WWW trilogy. WWW.Watch was just released on April 6th and continues Caitlin's story from WWW.Wake.    He is currently working on Wonder and I'm not sure when it will be released.

Sawyer has also written a number of short stories which are available to read online. He has won many awards and accolades for his work over the years.   According to the Ottawa Citizen he is the "Dean of Science Fiction."   If you'd like to know more about Robert J. Sawyer, check out his autobiography on sfwriter.com

I have a mini challenge for you all - read all six hugo nominees this year.   I'm looking forward to reading WWW.Wake as *gasp* I haven't read any of his books yet.

Join me in wishing Robert J. Sawyer a wonderful and joyous Happy 50th Birthday!

Mind Voyage Flight Status!

2010-04-23T11:48:00.000-07:00

Time for a flight status check. How are you progressing with your voyages? I didn't have enough fuel to get beyond earth's atmosphere and have been orbiting earth for a while. I'm coming back in to refuel and make sure I have enough fuel this time to get beyond earth's atmosphere. Plus ground control has been monitoring my activities, telling me I've missed a few in flight procedural and checklist reports and I need to improve my job performance as commander.

So far I have finished:

The Demolished Man (review) by Alfred Bester

Dune by Frank Herbert (review) (1966 Hugo winner)

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson (2006 Hugo Winner) Review will be forthcoming

Under the Dome (review) by Stephen King (side trip)

Eye of the World (review) by Robert Jordan (side trip)

Now that I've refueled, will be taking off and shooting for the moon again. The following books are waiting for me onboard.

Moon Voyage:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury(1954 Hugo)

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (1960 Hugo)

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller (1961 Hugo)

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein (1967 Hugo)

To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Phillip Jose Farmer (1972 Hugo)

The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold (1991 Hugo)

Shoot to Mercury to complete the Robert Heinlein Quest and read:

Friday

Glory Road

On to Uranus and Side Trip through the 70's

A Choice of Gods by Clifford Simak

Unclassified side trips

Bearing an Hourglass by Piers Anthony

Death Dream by Ben Bova

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind

There are so many other books I want to read on my wishlist including the 2010 Hugo nominees along with Philip Dick's The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I have the your eyes are bigger than my stomach syndrome when it comes to books. The plan is to get through the books on my nightstand before buying anything else. Easier said than done, but I will be strong. I hear the whisper Resistance is futile being whispered in my ear.

I promised ground control I would check in on a regular basis so will be reporting in at least once a week. Ground control told me to take advantage of my flight crew, fellow mind voyagers and passengers in order to remain on schedule. I would appreciate any suggestions you have, plus authors or books you like to see spotlighted, or if you would like to take control for a day and be a guest poster, please let me know.

"Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! ~Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!"

How are you progressing with your voyages?

Poetry and Science Fiction

2010-04-09T19:42:00.000-07:00

Poetry and Science Fiction

We are stepping into the twilight zone for a time because after all, this is National Poetry month. Are there any science fiction authors who write poetry. Are any of our hugo winners poets? Surprisingly, yes. I did find several including Ursula Le Guin, Neil Gaiman and Joe Haldeman. Plus I discovered the Science Fiction Poetry Association.

Locks

by Neil Gaiman

We owe it to each other to tell stories,

as people simply, not as father and daughter.

I tell it to you for the hundredth time:

"There was a little girl, called Goldilocks,

for her hair was long and golden,

and she was walking in the Wood and she saw — "

"— cows." You say it with certainty,

remembering the strayed heifers we saw in the woods

behind the house, last month.

"Well, yes, perhaps she saw cows,

but also she saw a house."

"— a great big house," you tell me.

"No, a little house, all painted, neat and tidy."

"A great big house."

You have the conviction of all two-year-olds.

I wish I had such certitude.

"Ah. Yes. A great big house.

And she went in . . ."

I remember, as I tell it, that the locks

Of Southey's heroine had silvered with age.

The Old Woman and the Three Bears . . .

Perhaps they had been golden once, when she was a child.

And now, we are already up to the porridge,

"And it was too— "

"— hot!"

"And it was too— "

— cold!"

And then it was, we chorus, "just right."

The porridge is eaten, the baby's chair is shattered,

Goldilocks goes upstairs, examines beds, and sleeps,

unwisely.

But then the bears return.

Remembering Southey still, I do the voices:

Father Bear's gruff boom scares you, and you delight in it.

When I was a small child and heard the tale,

if I was anyone I was Baby Bear,

my porridge eaten, and my chair destroyed,

my bed inhabited by some strange girl.

You giggle when I do the baby's wail,

"Someone's been eating my prridge, and they've eaten it —"

"All up," you say. A response it is,

Or an amen.

The bears go upstairs hesitantly,

their house now feels desecrated. They realize

what locks are for. They reach the bedroom.

"Someone's been sleeping in my bed."

And here I hesitate, echoes of old jokes,

soft-core cartoons, crude headlines, in my head.

One day your mouth will curl at that line.

A loss of interest, later, innocence.

Innocence; as if it were a commodity.

"And if I could," my father wrote to me,

huge as a bear himself, when I was younger,

"I would dower you with experience, without experience."

and I, in my turn, would pass that on to you.

But we make our own mistakes. We sleep

unwisely.

It is our right. It is our madness and our glory.

The repetition echoes down the years.

When your children grow; when your dark locks begin to silver,

when you are an old woman, alone with your three bears,

what will you see? What stories will you tell?

"And then Goldilicks jumped out of the window and she ran —

Together, now: "All the way home."

And then you say, "Again. Again. Again."

We owe it to each other to tell stories.

These days my sympathy's with Father Bear.

Before I leave my house I lock the door,

and check each bed and chair on my return.

Again.

Again..

And I was fascinated to find that Ursula Le Guin has translated the poems of the Latin American Poet I am studying for my Nobel Literature class - The Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral. Gabriela is the first and only Latin American woman to win a Nobel prize for Literature for her writings.

Canto que Amabas

Yo canto lo que tú amabas, vida mía,

por si te acercas y escuchas, vida mía,

por si te acuerdas del mundo que viviste,

al aterdecer yo canto, sombra mía.

Yo no quiero enmudecer, vida mía.

¿Cómo sin mi grito fiel me hallarías?

¿Cuál señal, cuál me declara, vida mía?

Soy la misma que fue tuya, vida mía.

Ni lenta ni trascordada ni perdida.

Acude al anochecer, vida mía,

ven recordando un canto, vida mía,

si la canción reconoces de aprendida

y si mi nombre recuerdas todavía.

Te espero sin plazo y sin tiempo.

No temas noche, nebline ni aguacero.

Acude con sendero o sin sendero.

Llámame adonde tú eres, alma mía,

y marcha recto hacia mí, compañero.

Translation

What You Loved

Life of my life, what you loved I sing.

If you're near, if you're listening,

think of me now in the evening:

shadow in shadows, hear me sing.

Life of my life, I can't be still.

What is a story we never tell?

How can you find me unless I call?

Life of my life, I haven't changed,

not turned aside and not estranged.

Come to me as the shadows grow long,

come, life of my life, if you know the song

you used to know, if you know my name.

I and the song are still the same.

Beyond time or place I keep the faith.

Follow a path or follow no path,

never fearing the night, the wind,

call to me, come to me, now at the end,

walk with me, life of my life, my friend.

And Joe Haldeman, whose poem won the Rhysling Award for the best science fiction poem of the year. Unfortunately I don't know which year.

Eighteen years old, October eleventh

Drunk for the first time in her life,
she tossed her head in a horsey laugh
and that new opal gift sailed off her sore earlobe,
in a graceful parabola,
pinged twice on the stone porch floor,
and rolled off to hide behind the rose bushes.

It gathered dust and silt for two centuries.
The mansion came down in a war.

For twelve thousand years
the opal hid in dark rubble, unmoving.
An arctic chill worked down through it, and deeper,
and glaciers pushed the rubble thousands of miles,
very fast, as opals measure time.

After millions of years (the Sun just measurably cooler)
a female felt the presence of a stone,
and waved away yards of snow and ice;
waved away dozens of yards
of frozen dirt and crushed rock,
and held, in what resembled a hand,
this bauble of gold and rainbow stone:

felt the sense of loss in that silly girl,
dead as a trilobite;
felt the pain that had gone into penetrating
the soft hyperbolic paraboloid of cartilage
that then displayed the decoration;
felt its sexual purpose:
to attract a dissimilar pattern of genes
to combine and recombine a trillion trillion times,
and become herself.

She briefly cherished the stone,
and returned it to its waiting.

Interested in finding out more about Science Fiction Poetry. Head on over to the Science Fiction Poetry Association and find more.

We know return you to our regular programming -- Imagine twilight zone

2010 Hugo award nominees have been announced!

2010-04-04T17:39:00.000-07:00

The 2010 Hugo nominees were announced at the Eastercon Convention and released on Twitter

Best Novel

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

The City and The City by China Mieville

Julian Comstock: A Story of a 22nd Century American by Robert Charles Wilson

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

Wake by Robert J. Sawyer

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

The rest of the nominees for best novella, novelette, short story, etc. can be found here. Certainly an interesting assortment of books that I haven't read yet and look forward to checking them out. Congratulations to all the nominees.

What do you all think?

Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

2010-03-26T12:37:00.000-07:00

Release Date: April 27, 2010

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is the brainchild of monty python's Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown. Remember the Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

"The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a fantastical morality tale, set in the present day. It tells the story of Dr Parnassus and his extraordinary 'Imaginarium', a traveling show where members of the audience get an irresistible opportunity to choose between light and joy or darkness and gloom. Blessed with the extraordinary gift of guiding the imaginations of others, Dr Parnassus is cursed with a dark secret. Long ago he made a bet with the devil, Mr Nick, in which he won immortality.

Many centuries later, on meeting his one true love, Dr Parnassus made another deal with the devil, trading his immortality for youth, on condition that when his first-born reached its 16th birthday he or she would become the property of Mr Nick. Valentina is now rapidly approaching this 'coming of age' milestone and Dr Parnassus is desperate to protect her from her impending fate.

Mr Nick arrives to collect but, always keen to make a bet, renegotiates the wager. Now the winner of Valentina will be determined by whoever seduces the first five souls. Enlisting a series of wild, comical and compelling characters in his journey, Dr Parnassus promises his daughter's hand in marriage to the man that helps him win. In this captivating, explosive and wonderfully imaginative race against time, Dr Parnassus must fight to save his daughter in a never-ending landscape of surreal obstacles - and undo the mistakes of his past once and for all..."

This was also Heath Ledger's last film. He died a third of the way through the filming of the movie and and the writer's creatively recast Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Collin Ferrell portraying Tony (ledger's character) in different transformations as he traveled through the dream world. The movie also includes Andrew Garfield, Christopher Plummer, Tom Waits, Verne Troyer and Lily Cole.

Forgive me from deviating from the book path, but sometimes a movie comes along that just sounds wild and imaginative and fun, plus has some great talent in it. I'll be ordering it as soon as it is released.

What movies have sparked your interest lately that you just have to have?

Author Spotlight and Happy Birthday to Kim Stanley Robinson

2010-03-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday!

Yes, Today is Hugo award winner Kim Stanley Robinson's Birthday.   He was born March 23, 1952 in Waukegan, Illinois, however he considers himself a California native since he has lived in California since he was two years old.    He discovered science fiction, much like I did in the 70's. During his college years, while working on his bachelor's degree, developed an idea for a series set in Orange county, California taking one character through 3 different futures.


Post Apocalyptic Dystopian    Utopian

After earning his Master's Degree in English at Boston University in 1975, he returned to California to complete his PhD. In 1982 he completed his thesis on the works of Philip K. Dick titled: The Novels of Philip K Dick - Studies in Speculative Fiction.

In 1982, he also married Lisa Howland Nowell, a environmental chemist whose work took them to Switzerland where Kim was able to start writing full time, which results in the futuristic Mars Trilogy in which explore and establish a settlement on Mars.

After writing the Mars trilogy, Robinson decided to explore what would have happened in Europe if the black plague had wiped out 99% of the population and Islamic and Buddhist societies emerged as the world's dominant religious and political forces which resulted in his alternative history novel:

He went on to explore how science and politics interact in Washington DC in the near future with the Science in the Capital trilogy exploring events leading up to and during a worldwide environmental collapse brought about by global warming.

Which brings us to his latest book, Galileo's Dream, a mixture of historical fiction, time travel and alternative history. In Suduvu, Kim talks about Galileo's Dream - 400 years later.

Kim has won numerous awards and been nominated many times for his creative imagination

1984, World Fantasy Award for Best Novella, for "Black Air"
1985, Locus Award for Best First Novel, for The Wild Shore
1987, Nebula Award for Best Novella, for "The Blind Geometer"
1991, John W. Campbell Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, for Pacific Edge
1991, Locus Award for Best Novella, for "A Short, Sharp Shock"
1992, British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel, for Red Mars
1993, Nebula Award for Best Novel, for Red Mars
1994, Hugo Award for Best Novel, for Green Mars
1994, Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, for Green Mars
1997, Hugo Award for Best Novel, for Blue Mars
1997, Ignotus Award for Best Foreign Novel, for Red Mars
1997, Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, for Blue Mars
1998, Ignotus Award for Best Foreign Novel, for Green Mars
1999, Seiun Award for Best Foreign Novel, for Red Mars
2000, Locus Award for Best Collection, for The Martians
2003, Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, for The Years Of Rice And Salt

In 2007, an autobiographical story - Kistenpass - was published in the webzine, Flurb about his time in Switzerland.

What's next from the imaginative mind of Kim Stanley Robinson? In 2009, Orbit Publishing agreed to a three book deal with him and his first book, tentatively titled 2312 will be released in 2012.

"Tim Holman, Orbit VP and Publisher, says: “Kim Stanley Robinson is a writer who can make the future credible, no matter how incredible it might seem. 2312 will be set in our solar system three hundred years from now; a solar system in which mankind has left Earth and found new habitats. This will be a novel for anyone curious to see what our future looks like – a grand science-fictional adventure in every sense – and I’m thrilled that Orbit will be publishing it in both the US and the UK.”

Today, Kim is a stay at home dad, devoting his time to his kids and writing, while his wife continues her work as a full time chemist. Happy Birthday to Kim Stanley Robinson

Under the Dome by Stephen King

2010-03-10T18:32:00.000-08:00

Under The Dome

Stephen King

** Caution: Spoilers ahead **

Author Synopsis: "On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away.

Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens—town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing—even murder—to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out."

Under the Dome by Stephen King is a humongous 1074 page book about a town that is suddenly cut off from the rest of the world by a huge dome. Who generated the dome? Is it man made, did another country managed to come up with a new technology, is it a supernatural phenomenon or put there by beings from another planet? And why Chester Mill's - a small New England town with really no one of major importance who lives there. No celebrities or congressman. Just your typical small town of about 2000 people living their lives. Except......

When this dome slams down around the town, several people die including the chief of police when he gets too close to the dome and the electrical current explodes his pacemaker. The board of selectman (town leaders) take over and the leader, Big Jim Rennie is (surprise) corrupt and very dominating. Plus his son, Junior, is slowly going crazy, murderously crazy. Rennie enlists his son and his friends to police the town. The military chose military vet, Dale Barbie to take over the leadership of the town but they have no way to enforce it since they can't get in. And Junior and his friends have it in for Barbie, no way are they going to listen to him.

It's been less than two days since the dome descended and people are dying. Kids are having mysterious seizures and folks are committing suicide. Add in one crazy, drug addicted named chef who has holed up in the radio station, behind which is housed Big Jim Rennie and friends methamphetamine lab. Big Jim and friend had also been borrowing everyone's propane tanks to run the lab. People are running out of propane and getting suspicious of where it all disappeared too. Big Jim decides it's time to shut the lab down because they can't ship it out and when the dome eventually disappears, the military will be all over the town. However, Chef won't let then anywhere near it.

Meanwhile, the good guys - Barbie, some very observant teenagers, Julie who is the editor of the towns newspaper and a few others discover the source of the dome. It's a weird box up near the edge of town. When someone touches it, they see some weird looking aliens. The town is being observed, like ants in an ant farm by alien children who have no concept of what they are doing. They are determined to destroy the box because the box is not only keeping them hostage inside the dome, but it is affecting everyone's emotions. They don't want Rennie to find out because he is enjoying having control of the town and doesn't want to turn it over to anyone and will stop at nothing to keep control.

However, all Rennie cares about is getting control of the radio station and his meth lab. So, when the military arranges a visiting day and all the town folk head to the edges of the dome to talk to their relatives who were locked out, when they were locked in, he and friends, armed to the teeth head out to confront Chef and turncoat selectman Andy. A fire fight ensues and Chef blows up the propane tanks which blows up the meth lab. Because the explosion doesn't have anywhere to go because it is confined by the dome, all the town people who are outside are incinerated, and most of the town is leveled. Barbie, Julie and company need to find a way, fast to communicate with the aliens, to get them to let them out before they too die from the now toxic air.

Under The Dome is a whale of a story in which a town of 2000 is whittled down to 30 in a four day period. It's a character study of what can happen when people are shut off from everything. The bad guys are really bad, sinister, corrupt and perverse. The good guys do the best with what they have in order to survive. It isn't a story for the faint of heart. It has a bit of everything including murder, necrophilia, drug abuse, and rape. Plus Big Jim Rennie and friends are all right wing fundamental Christians and slimy as all get out. However, It is a story that keeps you reading, because you want to know what is going to happen next. And you keep reading and reading and reading, because the story is compelling.

Whether you consider Stephen King a horror, science fiction or fantasy writer, this story seems to include it all. I can't classify this story just as a horror story because it has all the elements of science fiction, supernatural, thriller, and suspense in it as well. It's fast paced and the action never stops. So if you like those types of stories or anything Stephen King, then I highly recommend it.

Tron Legacy - The Sequel!

2010-03-09T12:55:00.001-08:00

Can't wait - looks very cool!

Book coveting: new and newish Reads on the Horizon

2010-03-09T12:33:00.000-08:00

Even though I'm on a book buying ban right now until I whittle my TBR pile down a bit, I haven't stop adding to my wish list. Some newish and oldish science fiction or fantasy books and authors I haven't read yet and discovered on the horizon that look interesting or intriguing.

Red Inferno: 1945 by Robert Conroy

Alternate history released February 23, 2010

Chill by Elizabeth Bear

Book Two in the Jacob's Ladder Trilogy

Which lead me to Dust which I haven't read yet! How did I miss this one?

Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V.S. Redick

Epic Fantasy

Another one of Seth Grahame-Smith's Dark Fantasy's

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

What books have you been coveting lately?

Finding the Irish in Science Fiction

2010-03-03T11:44:00.000-08:00

Dragon Snake by Meilin Wong

St. Patrick's day is coming up in a couple weeks and I recently joined another challenge, the Ireland Reading Challenge.

I had been thinking of reading Dracula and while I was looking up information on Bram Stoker, I discovered he was Irish. The first novel he wrote is called "Snake's Pass" and is set in Ireland. It about a traveler who arrives in a village that is haunted by the legend based on St. Patrick's battling the king of the snakes. Sounds too good to pass up. I joined in the challenge with a commitment to the Kiss The Blarney Stone level which is 6 books. The challenge includes any books written by Irish authors, set in Ireland, has Irish characters or involves Irish history and can be fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or children's books and runs through the end of November.

Anyway, it's debatable whether Stoker is considered a horror or science fiction writer, but that would take us into the history of science fiction and mythology and that's a post for another time. The challenge started me thinking that it would be interesting to read science fiction novels by authors who are either Irish or science fiction books with books set in Ireland.

I started searching the internet and I discovered some interesting sites such as Albedo's - Ireland's magazine of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. (the electronic issue). That was an amusing diversion.

Hugo Nominee Ian McDonald was born to an Irish mother and Scottish Father and has lived in Belfast since he was five so technically he's Irish. I'm currently coveting one of his stories so will be adding it to my list to read.

He has written a couple of older books with an Irish setting which are available in the U.K. such as "Sacrifice of Fools" and "King of Morning, Queen of Day." Not sure if they are available any more. There is an interesting list here but the majority of books are fantasy rather than science fiction. Irish born, James White and his Sector General books, the Sidhe Series by Kenneth Flint, Morgan Llywelyn's series of books centered in Ireland, Irishman Flann O'brien and his Irish tales.

And if you are interesting in reading anything by an Irish author, there is a huge list of authors, the majority I've never heard of here, from Moytura's Irish Book store. Warning, it will keep you busy a while as you can get lost browsing through their books and find many, many interesting books to add to your wish lists

My challenge to you for the month of March is to read one science fiction or fantasy story by an Irish author or set in Ireland.

Are you in?

Hugo Gernsback

2010-02-19T13:53:00.000-08:00

Who is Hugo Gernsback and why are the Hugo Awards named after him? Good question since I had never heard of Gernsback until I decided to read the Hugo Award winners.

Hugo Gernsbacher, born August 16, 1884 in Luxembourg immigrated to the United States in 1904 to New York. Hugo was fascinated by electricity and invented a dry battery which he patented upon arriving in the United States. He established a radio and electrical supply house called Electro Importing Company and developed a small portable radio transmitter called the Telimco Wireless Telegraph. He went on to patent 80 inventions.

Long story short, Gernsback published a magazine for electrical experimenters called Modern Electronics which was later taken over by Popular Science. To fill up some empty space in the magazine, he decided to write a futuristic story which ran in 12 installments.

That story was later published in 1926 as a novel called "Ralph 124C 41+" which was set in the 27th century and is still available today. He started a number of magazines including the first magazine dedicated exclusively to science fiction called "Amazing Stories." the magazine of scientifiction in 1926.

First Issue April 1926

Hugo coined the term scientifiction which later went on to be known as Science Fiction. Thanks to the beauty of the internet I found an original pdf of an article of Gernback's called Plausibility in Scientifiction on Mumpsimus (thank you, Matthew)

click on link to read "Plausability in Scientifiction"

Gernsback unfortunately went bankrupt and lost control of Amazing Stories. He quickly bounced back and went on to publish three more magazines: Air Wonder Stories, Science Wonder Stories and Science Wonder Quarterly.

Air Wonder and Science Wonder were merged into one magazine Wonder stories in 1930 and sold it in 1936 to Beacon Publications where it continued to be published for 20 more years.

Gernsback is lauded as the father of science fiction. The first annual Science Fiction Achievement awards was awarded back in 1953 with retro awards handed out for the years 1946 in 1996, retro award 1951 given in 2001 and 1954 retro award presented in 2006. The award were unofficially called the "Hugo's" until the name was officially changed and use beginning in 1993. In 1960 he was given a special Hugo Award as "The Father of Magazine Science Fiction." The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame was founded in 1996 and Hugo Gernsback was one of the first inductees along with Jack Campbell (1908-2006), A.E. van Vogt's (1912-2000) and John W. Campbell Jr. (1910-1971)

Hugo Gernsback died in New York on August 19, 1967 at the age 83.

If you want to know more about Hugo Gernsback, his electronic accomplishments, all about his magazines and his life, you find everything you want to know here and here.

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

2010-02-09T10:12:00.000-08:00

The Eye of the World

Robert Jordan

Book 1 in Wheel of Time Series

Back cover: "The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow."

I read "The Eye of the World" as part of the Dare Challenge by Heather J. Honestly, I thought I had read it before but discovered I hadn't. That is what comes from being a voracious reader. After a while all the covers at the store start to look the same or old books get new covers and suddenly you are very confused as to what you read and didn't read. I actually quite enjoyed the story and the Prologue Teaser for Book 2 at the end of the book sounds very enticing so will probably go on to read book 2.

"The Eye of the World" is book one in a epic fantasy series by Robert Jordan. Jordan died while writing the last book in the series and Brandon Sanderson was chosen to complete the series. The last book has been turned into 3 and Book 12 "The Gathering Storm" came out in October. Book 13 "Towers of Midnight" will be released in the fall and the final book #14 "Memory of Light" in fall of 2011. Should I decide to read the rest of the series, it will probably take me that long to finish them.

What's it all about Alfie? (if Michael Caine, Dionne Warwick or Burt Bacharach come to mind, welcome to my world.) Three young men of the town of Edmond's Field in Two Rivers, a backwater town in a far corner of the Kingdom - Rand, Matt and Perrin - are thrust into a quest when they each individually see a mysterious man on horseback watching them. No one else can see him. He is dressed in black and gives off an aura of evil. Soon after, they are surprised by the mysterious appearance of a beautiful, yet powerful woman in their town - Moiraine who is an Aes Sedai and her companion and guard Lan who is a warder.

An Aes Sedai has the One Power which is power drawn from the True Source which is the driving force of the universe, which turns the Wheel of Time. Got that? In other words, a truly powerful witch. And only women can be Aes Sedai because all the males (saidins) were driven crazy and tainted by evil by the Dark One at the Time of Madness which is all explained in the prologue. And the reason why it is important is no man since that time has been able to wield the One Power.... Until now.

Moiraine senses something in the boys but before she is able to determine if it's just one or all three, the village is attacked by the Dark One's minions - Trollocs. The Villagers think it is because of Moiraine and want her to leave, even though she fought and protected most of the village. However, she knows it is because of the boys. The Dark Lord fears one or all three boys may be the end of him, so they must be killed. Each boy has been visited in his dreams by Ba'alzamon who wants them to turn to the dark side. The boys must leave the village and travel with her to Tar Valon where they will be safe with the Aes Sedai and the Warders. Plus, they will be able to figure out why the Dark One wants the boys. Thus the start of a long, harrowing, event filled adventure to Tar Valon.

If you haven't read the book yet and enjoy reading epic fantasies, then you will enjoy this book. And perhaps the first story will be so enticing and the characters so engaging, you'll be prompted to read the 2nd, then the 3rd and so on and so on.

Thank you to Heather for Daring me to read the book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. She just finished reading it again herself and her review can be found here. Heather will also be talking about the book tonight on That's How I Blog on Blog Talk Radio tonight at 7 pm PST/10 pm EST. Come join in on the conversation.

Pages: 814

Publisher: Tor

Genre: Epic Fantasy

Other Thoughts:

Kay's Bookshelf:

"When it comes of the characters, I very much liked the way Jordan chose to treat women. There are no damsel in distress in this book. The women are just as willing to go the needed lengths as men are; they are also, magic-wise, the more powerful, since they are the only ones able to touch the True Source. Quite a cool concept for a novel set in a medieval-like world."

Adam of The Wertzone:

"The story is engrossing and the depth of detail refreshing, if overdone at times. The characters are interesting, the world building excellent and the fresh spins on old ideas are well-done. The book hints at countless more mysteries to come, and makes you want to pick up the second (and much better) book, which is its main goal, after all."

Fantasy on the mind!

2010-02-06T16:45:00.000-08:00

Josephine Wall's Periwinkle

Fantasy books have been on my mind lately. Fantasy books entertain my mind as I travel to far away places, introduce me to mythical creatures, take me on fanciful quests and experience battles with knights, dragons, elves, ogres, warriors, heroes, apprentices and the fight between Good and Evil. Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom Series, Margaret Weis's Dragonlance, Charles DeLint's Newford, Mercedes Lackey Valdemar Books, Christopher Stasheff's Warlock, Piers Anthony's Xanth and Incarnations of Immortality, and of course, Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy and J.R.R. Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are a few that come to mind that I enjoyed reading way back.

The Fantasy Genre has grown over the past twenty - thirty years with many, many sub genres including

Romance Fantasy
Fairy Tales
Alternative History
Arthurian Fantasy
Comic Fantasy
Dark Fantasy
Epic Fantasy
Fairy Tales and Mythology
Heroic Fantasy
High Fantasy
Mystery Fantasy
Magic Realism
Modern Fantasy
Sword and Sorcery

I sort of fell away from the Fantasy and Science Fiction genres for a decade or more and recently rediscovered some old authors whom I actually skipped reading for one reason or another way back when. I just finished reading The Mists of Avalon by Marian Zimmer Bradley and the very first book in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series The Eye of the World. I thoroughly enjoyed both and maybe because of age or maybe wisdom appreciated the stories more than I would have at the age of 20. There are many authors who have stood the test and time and new authors that time is now testing. There's an interesting list from Mania.com who they consider the top 20 Fantasy writers of all time.

1. J.R.R. Tolkein
2. Robert E. Howard
3. Terry Pratchett
4. Piers Anthony
5. Michael Moorcock
6. Fritz Leiber
7. Roger Zelazny
8. Raymond Feist
9. Terry Brooks
10. Neil Gaiman
11. George R.R. Martin
12. Tanith Lee
13. Lord Dunsany
14. Robert Jordan
15. Marian Zimmer Bradley
16. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
17. David Eddings
18. J.K. Rowling
19. R.A. Salvatore
20. Katherine Kurtz

I have read at least one book from everyone on the list or have one of their books on my TBR pile waiting to be read. All except for Lord Dunsany, whom supposedly influenced Tolkien, Eddings, Moorcock and Gaiman. His Fifty One Tales are on Project Gutenberg so I will be checking him out.

Do you agree with the list and if you don't, who do you think should be considered a top fantasy writer?

First Hugo Award winner - The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester

2010-02-05T10:14:00.000-08:00

The Demolished Man

Alfred Bester

Back cover: "In 2301 A.D., guns are only museum pieces and benign telepaths sweep the minds of the populace to detect crimes before they happen. In 2301 A.D., homicide is virtually impossible--but one man is about to change that. In this classic science fiction novel, the first to win the prestigious Hugo award, a psychopathic business magnate devises the ultimate scheme to eliminate the competition and destroy the order of his society. Hurtling from the orgies of a future aristocracy to a deep space game preserve, and across the densely realized subcultures of psychic doctors, grifters, and police, The Demolished Man is a masterpiece of high-tech suspense, set in a world in which everything has changed except for the ancient instinct for murder."

Back in 1953 when I was barely a twinkle in my daddy's eye, Alfred Bester won the very first hugo award for best novel, The Demolished Man. The people in Bester's futuristic world are peepers, they can read each other's minds. There are 3 different classes of Espers - the most common are class 3 types that can hear what others are thinking at the moment, Class 2 peepers can read a bit deeper and hear inner thoughts Class 1 espers can go even deeper picking up on peoples most inner urges before they even think about them. Which is the reason why Class 1 espers are all involved in law enforcement and the government. Bester is able to show some of the conversations the higher evolved peepers have in their minds, thinking at each other and conversing as they think, whether it's chaotically or cohesive. For example when characters gather for a party (pg 30)

Frankly                     Canapes?                       Why
   Ellery                     Thanks       delicious     yes,
      I                           Mary, they're        Tate,
       Don't                                         I'm
         Think                                   treating
           You'll          Canapes?              D'Courtney.
 We            Be                                       I
brought         Working                                Expect
  Galen           For                                     him
    along          Monarch                                   in
       to           Much   Canapes?                           town
help him celebrate     Longer.                                 shortly.
                He's      The 
          just taken his Guild
                         is   exam
                      just       and
                     about         been
                     to              classed

Much like any social gathering when folks start arriving, conversations are random and chaotic. However, these conversations all take place telepathically. Which makes for some rather interesting reading until the characters start to think in cohesive patterns.

So what happens when someone decides to break the law. Usually the level 1 espers are able to catch the person before they do. Then they are subject to "demolition". However, one man finds a way around that. Ben Reich is the owner of Monarch Enterprises, a cartel whose rival is Craye d'Courtney. Reich has been having nightmares about a man without a face and it is driving him crazy. He takes it into his head that he has to kill Craye when he misreads Crayes acceptance of the merger as refusal. He goes to a songwriter who teaches him a song that he won't be able to get out of his head for a month.

"A tune of utter monotony filled the room with agonizing, unforgettable banality. It was the quintessence of every melodic cliche' Reich had ever heard. No matter what melody you tried to remember, it invariably led down the path of familiarity to "Tensor, Said the Tensor." Then Duffy began to sing.

Eight, sir; seven, sir;
Six, sir; five, sir;
Four, sir; three sir;
two sir; one!
Tenser, said the Tensor
Tenser, said the Tensor
Tension, apprehension
and dissension have begun.

"Oh my God!" Reich exclaimed.

"I've got some real gone tricks in that tune," Duffy said, still playing. "Notice the beat after 'one? That's a semi-cadence. Then you get another beat after 'begun.' That turns the end of the song into a semi-cadence, too, so you can't ever end it. The beat keeps you running in circles, like: Tension, apprehension, and dissention have begun. RIFF. Tension, apprehension, and dissention has begun. Riff..."

"You little devil! Reich started to his feet, pounding his palms on his ears. "I'm accursed. How long is this affliction going to last?"

"Not more than a month." (pg 43)

So Reich has this tune running through his head throughout to distract the level 1 peepers while he goes about planning and committing the murder. However, he doesn't count on a witness, nor Lincoln Powell, the Police prefect. Despite the song, Lincoln is able to detect what Reich has done telepathically, but it isn't admissible in court. So he has to use old fashioned police techniques to make his case. Which leads back to the witness who was Craye's daughter who walked in as Reich killed her father. She runs off and disappears. Both Reich and Lincoln search for her. When she is discovered she is found to be psychologically traumatized, cannot speak and doesn't remember anything. Reich has the opportunity to kill her but doesn't. Then Lincoln rescues her and attempts to telepathically reach her, while Reich does everything he can to cover his tracks or so his thinks, while going increasingly crazy.

When Lincoln thinks he has a solid case against Reich, it has to be given to old man Mose who will make the final decision. Who is old man Mose:

"Old Man Mose himself occupied the entire circular wall of the giant office. His multitudinous eyes winked and glared coldly. His multitudinous memories whirred and hummed. His mouth, the cone of a speaker, hung open in a kind of astonishment at human stupidity. His hands, the keys of a multiflex typewriter, poised over a roll of tape, ready to hammer out logic. Mose was the Mosaic Multiplex Prosecution Computer of the District Attorney's Office, whose awful decisions controlled the preparation, presentation, and prosecution of every police case." (pg 169)

Just when Mose after several false starts comes up with a 97% probability that Reich is guilty, Lincoln is told Craye accepted Reich's offer to merge thus wiping out the motive for murder which he thought was entirely for financial reasons.

How is he going to take down Reich now? Will Reich get away with the murder. Will Craye's daughter ever recover her memory? What is demolition? For the answers, you'll have to read the book. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and have to say it has withstood the test of time.

Alfred Bester (1913-1987) also wrote "Tiger, Tiger," which was released in the U.S. as "The Stars My Destination", plus many short stories. He wrote the non fiction book "The Life and Death of a Satellite" in 1966. I'm looking forward to reading both.

Pages: 243
Publisher: Vintage Books (Random house division)
Genre: Science Fiction

Carl of Stainless Steel Droppings:
"The Demolished Man builds in suspense right up to the shocking conclusion. Ever the master, Bester manages to leave hints in the denouement that perhaps more is going on than initially meets they eye. This is a book that deserves discovery by those who have not read this classic author. It is a captivating read that does not disappoint."

g.n.a.t at A Novel Read:
"Bester clinches the book in the final few pages. Again, he doesn't lay out the details, but he hints just enough to really force the reader to read again and go back and reevaluate the whole story. If you're a Science Fiction fan, like classic sci fi, and have never read Alfred Bester, go out and buy his books now! They're worth it"

Hugo 2009 Winner - The Graveyard book by Neil Gaiman

2010-01-25T13:25:00.000-08:00

"The Graveyard Book"

by

Neil Gaiman

Front Flap: "Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor the dead. There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy--an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to a desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the sleer. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack--who has already killed bod's family...."

"The Graveyard Book" is the first book I've read by Neil Gaiman. I enjoyed it, even though it was weird and quirky. The story begins with a man named Jack walking through a home, killing first the parents, then bod's brother. Bod, even though a toddler, somehow manages to climb out of his crib and wander out the open door, while Jack kills his family. The killings are not graphically depicted but implied. The writing is very well done and paints a picture

"The knife had a handle of polished black bone, and a blade finer and sharper than any razor. If it sliced you, you might not even know you had been cut, not immediately.

The knife had done almost everything it was brought to that house to do, and both the blade and the handle were wet.

The street door was still open, just a little, where the knife and man who held it had slipped in, and wisps of nighttime mist slithered and twined into the house through the open door." (pg 5 - 7)

Bod wanders up and into a graveyard where the ghosts and other denizens of the place decide to protect him. Of course, they have to put it to a vote first.

"A graveyard is not normally a democracy, and yet death is the great democracy, and each of the dead had a voice, and an opinion as to whether the living child should be allowed to stay, and they were each determined to be heard that night." pg 29

Bod is raised by the ghosts and Silas, who neither dead or alive, protects him and makes sure his physical needs for food and dress are taken care of. Bod gets an interesting education in history and thought from various ghosts from the different eras as well as lessons in slipping through shadow and fading from awareness, "the ways of the dead".

"Bod tried again. He closed his eyes and imagined himself fading into the stained stonework of the mausoleum wall, becoming a shadow on the night and nothing more. He sneezed.

"Dreadful", said Mr. Pennyworth, with a sigh. "Quite dreadful. I believe I shall have a word with your guardian about this." He shook his head. "So, the humors. List them."

"Um, Sanguine, Choleric, Phlegmatic, And the other one. Um, Melancholic, I think."

"And so it went, until it was time for Grammar and Composition with Miss Letitia Borrows, Spinster of this Parish (Who did No Harm to No Man all the Dais of Her Life. Reader, Can you Say Lykewise?) Bod liked Miss Borrows, and the coziness of her little crypt, and that she could all-too-easily be led off the subject." pg 106

Throughout the story, Jack never ceases to look for Bod and finish the job he started. The villains (the Jacks of all Trades) reasons in the story for killing bod's family and him are a bit vague and I'll leave the mystery of what happened to your imaginations.

I thoroughly enjoyed "The Graveyard Book" and look forward to reading more stories by Neil Gaiman. His books are intriguing, imaginative and entertaining. Even though they are written for the 9 - 12 year old age group, they are enjoyable for adults to read as well. Highly Recommended. His blog journal may be found here in which he has shares many personal things including his engagement to Amanda Palmer and most recently his thoughts about his special cat, Zoe.

Pages: 320 pages
Publisher: Harper Collins
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Other thoughts about the book:

Michelle of 1morechapter:
"The Graveyard Book contains a colorful (though some are long dead) cast of characters, some very creepy scenes, and some genuinely heartwarming ones."

Em of Em's Bookshel f:
"The Graveyard Book is pure delight from start to finish. This is the first book that I've read by Gaiman and, after the first couple of pages, I knew that I was in the hands of a master storyteller."

Rob of Robaroundbooks:
"It entertained me completely and as a reader who normally gets his kicks from the more dense prose of writers such as Steinbeck, Dostoevsky and Hamsun etc. that’s a big achievement. Bearing that in mind I’m confident that The Graveyard Book will entertain just about anyone."

Penny of Penny's Pages
"The book read really well, allowing a live boy to live in a unique setting without sounding exaggerated or too phony. I can just picture Bod sitting on one of the tombstones, taking lessons from one of the spirits that live in the graveyard."

100 Greatest Science Fiction or Fantasy Novels of all Time?

2010-01-21T09:36:00.000-08:00

I came across this list "100 Greatest Science Fiction or Fantasy Novels of all Time" on This Recording. The list includes all the novel covers so if the title doesn't sound familiar, the cover may spark a cell or two of remembrance. I've read about 20 of the books and have several more in my TBR pile waiting to be read. Remarkably, there are a few authors and books I've never heard of such as Thomas Disch's Camp Concentration, Kingsley Amis The Alteration, Yves Maynard's The Book of Knights, Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire or Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and The Margarita.

What do you think? Does A Clockwork Orange or Flowers for Algernon belong on the list?

And this is interesting

Does it remind you of anything? The diagram reminds me of the rooms below the Hatch

1. The Book of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe

2. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

3. The Dying Earth by Jack Vance

4. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin

5. Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

6. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

7. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

8. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

9. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin

10. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

11. Dune by Frank Herbert

12. Planet of Adventure by Jack Vance

13. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

14. All My Sins Remembered by Joe Haldeman

15. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

16. The Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

17. The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay

18. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

19. A Song of Ice And Fire by George R.R. Martin

20. The Fifth Head of Cerebus by Gene Wolfe

21. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

22. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

23. Lost Horizon by James Hilton

24. The Cadwal Chronicles by Jack Vance

25. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

26. 1984 by George Orwell

27. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

28. More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

29. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

30. A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge

31. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

32. Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein

33. The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons

34. Ubik by Philip K. Dick

35. True Names by Vernor Vinge

36. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

37. Lyonesse by Jack Vance

38. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

39. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

40. Animal Farm by George Orwell

41. A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick

42. Farmer in the Sky by Robert Heinlein

43. Flatland by Edwin Abbott

44. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

45. Alastor by Jack Vance

46. The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson

47. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

48. The Demon Princes by Jack Vance

49. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

50. The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe

51. The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin

52. Foundation by Isaac Asimov

53. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

54. The Book of the Short Sun by Gene Wolfe

55. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

56. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

57. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

58. Nightwings by Robert Silverberg

59. Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman

60. The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

61. The Book of Knights by Yves Maynard

62. Wildlife by James Patrick Kelly

63. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

64. At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft

65. A Song for Lya by George R.R. Martin

66. The High Crusade by Poul Anderson

67. The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

68. The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov

69. Flow My Tears The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick

70. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

71. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

72. Maske: Thaery by Jack Vance

73. Old Man's War by John Scalzi

74. Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling

75. Ringworld by Larry Niven

76. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

77. Free Live Free by Gene Wolfe

78. Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

79. Griffin's Egg by Michael Swanwick

80. Watership Down by Richard Adams

81. The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

82. The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey

83. The Alteration by Kingsley Amis

84. Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin

85. Sphere by Michael Crichton

86. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller

87. Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

88. Song of Kali by Dan Simmons

89. Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner

90. Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch

91. Danny, The Champion of the World by Roald Dahl

92. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

93. An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe

94. The Company by K.J. Parker

95. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

96. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

97. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Phillip K. Dick

98. Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress

99. Sorcerer's Son by Phyllis Eisenstein

100. The Word For World Is Forest by Ursula K. LeGuin

Who do you think should be on the list?

1966 Hugo Winner -- Dune by Frank Herbert

2010-01-20T15:53:00.000-08:00

Dune

Frank Herbert

Amazon: Arrakis is the sole source of Melange, the "spice of spices." Melange is necessary for interstellar travel and grants psychic powers and longevity, so whoever controls it wields great influence. The troubles begin when stewardship of Arrakis is transferred by the Emperor from the Harkonnen Noble House to House Atreides. The Harkonnens don't want to give up their privilege, though, and through sabotage and treachery they cast young Duke Paul Atreides out into the planet's harsh environment to die. There he falls in with the Fremen, a tribe of desert dwellers who become the basis of the army with which he will reclaim what's rightfully his. Paul Atreides, though, is far more than just a usurped duke. He might be the end product of a very long-term genetic experiment designed to breed a super human; he might be a messiah. His struggle is at the center of a nexus of powerful people and events, and the repercussions will be felt throughout the Imperium.

I first read Dune back in 1983 and read through the entire series when they first came out. I recently read Dune again for the Take A Dare Challenge. It was like reading it again for the very first time. I remembered little except for the blue eyes of the Fremen and the gigantic worms.

The Duke Leto Atreides is ordered by the Emperor to the spice planet of Arrakis to take over the Spice Production from the Harkonnens. However the Harkonnens do not willfully give up their lucrative position and plot against the Duke and his family. Accompanying the Duke is his concubine Jessica and his son Paul, along with some trusted advisors and soldiers. Jessica is a Bene Gesserit, an ancient order of women with powerful mental and physical abilities. Usually women are the old ones trained in Bene Gesserit, but Jessica has trained Paul in the ways of the order.

The family is betrayed by a trusted adviser and Jessica and Paul are taken out into the desert to be killed. They escape and find sanctuary with the Fremen, natives of the spice planet. The Harkonnens and the Emperor don't think much of the Fremen and underestimate their role on the planet. The desert is inhabited by huge spice worms and any vibration on the sand attracts their attention. The Fremen have learned to use the worms to their advantage. They believe Paul is the one prophesied to be their leader.

That's just the gist of the story of Dune. The story is very convoluted and told from several different points of view. It is full of intrigue, political plotting, mystical elements and has many twists and turns. Trusted advisers from both the Atriedes and Harkonnen factions are duplicitous in their dealings with both families. Even the emperor is not to be trusted.

I enjoyed reading it and now want to watch the movie version again with Kyle McLaughlin, Sting and a whole cast of interesting characters. It's been years since I last seen it.

Dune tied for the Hugo Award best novel with And Call Me Conrad by Roger Zelazny in 1966 and also received a Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1965.

The original Dune Series included:

Dune

Dune Messiah

Children of Dune

God Emperor of Dune

Heretics of Dune

Chapterhouse Dune

The official Dune Novels site has a new chronology including all the Dune books that have been written.

Pages: 544

Publisher: Berkeley Books

My Version released: July 1983

Genre: Science Fiction

Other Thoughts:

Stacked:

"But for me what really made it interesting was the way Dune called out to me from the deep corners of my memory. Somewhere in my consciousness the desert winds of Arrakis were alive and well, waiting patiently for the right time to envelop me. I imagine in ten years’ time they’ll be there again, buried deep within my memory, awaiting the call. What power some books have."

Life and Times of New New Yorker:

"Oh, this is just a great book. It's got tons of politics, intrigue, deception, treachery, battles, warriors, love and hate. It's got it all."

In the Shadow of Mt TBR:

"I found Herbert’s imagination amazing. In Dune, Herbert created a future that was virtually unimaginable at the time. He gave the world its own rules and specific history. And he gave them a religion that has a sense of being the eventual mingling of the major religions."

Edgar Allan Poe - The Masque of the Red Death

2010-01-19T11:25:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Edgar Allan Poe

In celebration of Edgar Allan Poe's birthday, below is his short story The Masque of Red Death which was considered a precursor of post apocalyptic themes found in science fiction today!

The Masque of Red Death

THE "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal -- the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red Death."

It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven -- an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have been expected from the duke's love of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue -- and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange -- the fifth with white -- the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet -- a deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire that protected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not.

He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fete; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm -- much of what has been since seen in "Hernani." There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these -- the dreams -- writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away -- they have endured but an instant -- and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise -- then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood -- and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

"Who dares?" he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him -- "who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him -- that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the battlements!"

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly -- for the prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince's person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple -- through the purple to the green -- through the green to the orange -- through this again to the white -- and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry -- and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave-cerements and corpse-like mask which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

A is for Arthur - Clark That is!

2010-01-16T16:46:00.000-08:00

Arthur C. Clarke

When you think of Arthur C. Clarke, generally the first thing to come to mind is 2001: A Space Odyssey. Not only did he write the book, but also helped create the film and went on to write 2010: Odyssey Two, 2061: Odyssey Three and 3001: The Final Odyssey. I recently found 2061 and it is on my list to read this year.

Surprisingly, Clarke never received any awards for the novel 2001: a Space Odyssey, but the movie went on to receive a Hugo Award in 1969 for Best Dramatic Presentation in a theatrical version. Clarke did receive the Hugo award for Foundations of Paradise in 1980 and Rendevouz with Rama in 1974. He was nominated for a Hugo for 2010: A Space Odyssey in 1982 and A Fall of Moondust in 1963.

Clarke loved science and built his very first telescope when he was 13 years old. In 1945 he wrote a technical paper "Extra Terrestrial Relays" in which he wrote the principles for satellite communications which led to the global satellites systems we use today. In 1949 he became Chairman of the British Interplanetary Society. According to the Clark Foundation:

Clarke's work, which led to the global satellite systems in use today, brought him numerous honors including the 1982 Marconi International Fellowship, a gold medal of the Franklin Institute, the Vikram Sarabhai Professorship of the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, the Lindbergh Award and a Fellowship of King's College, London. Today, the geostationary orbit at 36,000 kilometers above the equator is named The Clarke Orbit by the International Astronomical Union.

Clarke wrote a number of interesting non fiction books about exploring space and the sea.

Interplanetary Flight (1950) about rockets, orbital mechanics and space

Exploration of Space (1951) About the possibilities of space exploration

Exploration of the Moon (1954) and the possibilities of future space travel

Young travelers in Space (1954) History of rocket development and satellite launches

He also spent years exploring the great barrier reef and wrote several books about underwater exploration:

The Coast of Coral (1956) about his adventures and mishaps which exploring the great barrier reef.

Boy beneath the sea (1958)

The Challenge of the Sea (1960) about deep sea exploration and the future

Arthur Clarke made many predictions over the years which can be found here.

He also came up with the "Three Laws" of prediction:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

What do you think of his Three Laws?

Science Fiction and Fantasy Movies coming out in 2010

2010-01-08T10:56:00.000-08:00

Ready! Set! Action!

Some very interesting movies with some of my favorites actors will be coming out this year and I'm looking forward to seeing them.

The Wolfman

February 12th with Anthony Hopkins and Benicio Del Toro

Alice In Wonderland

March 5 with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter

Clash of the Titans

March 26 with Sam Worthington and Liam Neeson

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead

April 16 with Jake Hoffman

Ironman 2

May 7 with Robert Downey Jr.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (part 1)

November 19

Tron Legacy

December 17 with Bruce Boxenleitner and Jeff Bridges

bloggiesta Party - ch ch ch changes

2010-01-07T18:49:00.000-08:00

Bloggiesta

hosted by Natasha of Maw's Books

January 8th, 9th and 10th, 2010

It's time for the 2nd annual Bloggiesta - get out your party hats, whip up some mexican food, mix up a few margarita's and join in the blogging marathon. Bloggiesta is the brain child of Natasha and the purpose - to clean up and improve and make ch ch ch changes to your blog. You know, those little things that have been nagging at the back of your mind. Like changing your header, updating your links, improving your labels, etc.

There are multiple things to do as suggested by Natasha:

Write reviews.
Write backup posts for a rainy day.
Write that great post idea from three months back.
Work on series posts.
Write guest posts.
Put out invitations for guest posts.
Conduct and edit author interviews.
Create template posts for your future reads (ie: title, images, linking, tags, etc,) so you can open up, write review and post without being bogged down with technicalities
Clean up your tags, archives, books reviewed list, etc.
Create a text file (or Google Doc) of cheat sheets (html codes, post url’s, etc)
Improve your blog template, clean up sidebars, add a favicon, install those plugins that you’ve been meaning to do.
Add or edit your about me page, review policy, disclosure policy, privacy policy, create landing pages (for example – an about me for Twitter readers page) or any other pages you might have.
Any bloggy type housekeeping that you’ve been neglecting.
Clean up and update your challenge lists. Link up your posts with hosts.
Make sure all of your social network profiles are up to date. Brand yourself through those profiles with color scheme, images, etc.
Go get a gravatar.
Visit the Blogging Tips group on the Book Blogs Ning and find ways to improve your blog.
Work on any specialized projects that you may have going.
Clean out and organize your feed reader and blog subscriptions.
Create an elevator pitch.
Make business cards.
Find a blogging buddy.
The sky’s the limit!

I now have three blogs so you can imagine what goes into keeping them up to date and writing posts. My Two Blessings had a mini make over recently when I accidentally blew it up. There are some things I still need to work on such as a new header, update the link bar and a few other things. I want to arrange for some Author and blogger guest posts for 52 Books in 52 Weeks, add the disclosure policy and find a way to encourage all my new participants to comment, comment, comment. I've decided on a A B C theme for 52 Books which is working for me creatively, so going to do the same thing with Mind Voyages. The A B C Theme hopefully will help me to be a bit more creative with weekly topics. Such as A is for Apocalyptic and we discuss those books with an apocalyptic theme. Then B is for Bester and I highlight the Hugo winners books. You get the idea. I'm a little bit intimidated by all your wonderful sci fi blogs with all the cool information. I don't just want to do a regurge of everything else out there, so will give some thought to the posts will be doing weekly. I also want to arrange for some guest posts. Any suggestions you guys have will be totally welcome. Even though I've been blogging for three years now, I'm a novice when it comes to having guest posts and doing interviews. So I'll be joining in with the 100 plus other bloggers this weekend and come Monday, we'll all have nice, shiny, clean blogs.

Come join in the fun. There will be mini challenges and all kinds of interesting things going on this weekend. Click on over the Natasha's, sign up and get to work. I think I'll go make some Enchilada's now.

Happy New Year -- 3 2 1 We have lift off!

2010-01-01T15:07:00.000-08:00

We have lift off!

Are you ready to immerse yourself in science fiction. Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings is leading the way with Sci Fi Experience 2010. The reading experience runs from January 1st through February 28th.

“More than any other genre of fiction, science fiction reading is to me an experience– not only does it transport me to another time and place in the future but it also transports me to my past and as such creates an aura of reading that is wonderful to experience but difficult to describe. I can only hope that you fellow readers are nodding your heads in agreement right now, recalling similar experiences that you have with various novels and/or genres of fiction.” Carl

Embrace your inner Spock or Kirk or Picard or Janeway and enjoy discovering new worlds or rediscovering old ones. Along with the Sci Fi Experience, is the 42 Challenge hosted by Becky of Becky's Book Reviews.

Your mission--if you choose to accept it--is to read, watch, listen, and (possibly) review 42 sci-fi related items. What counts? Short stories, novellas, novels, radio show episodes, television show episodes, movies, graphic novels, comic books, audio books, essays about science fiction, biographies about sci-fi authors, etc. Adapted or abridged works are okay as well.

Why 42? If you've ever read Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, then you'll know why.

You're really not going to like it," observed Deep Thought.
"Tell us!"
"All right," said Deep Thought. "The Answer to the Great Question..."
"Yes...!"
"Of Life, the Universe, and Everything..." said Deep Thought.
"Yes...!"
"Is..." said Deep Thought, and paused.
"Yes...!"
"Is..."
"Yes...!!!...?"
"Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

-The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

I am on the way to filling in that list of 42 because of Heather's Take a Dare Challenge which I have until April 4th to complete. She dared me to

1. Watch The Princess Bride
2. Watch Willow
3. Watch The Last Unicorn
4. Watch Labyrinth
5. Watch at least 3 episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess
6. Read Dune by Frank Herbert
7. Read The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
8. Read The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
9. Read Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey
10. Do a video blog about at least one of these items

So far I have read Dragonsong and I just finished rereading Dune on my nook. Yeah me! I first read Dune back in the 80's and all I remembered of the story was the blue eyes and the huge worms. Sometimes getting older and forgetting things has its benefits. I enjoyed reading the story, for what seemed like the first time, and will be reviewing soon. 2 down, 8 to go. Next up - The Mists of Avalon.

Hugo books added to my TBR pile over Christmas: Spin by Robert Charles Wilson, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein.

What stories are you immersing yourself in this week?

Join me in the Red Room to find out what's in store!

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2010 is coming up fast and I have some ideas brewing about in my head for our exploration of the galaxy.   Throughout the voyage I'll be posting Author Spotlights on science fiction and fantasy authors, ones that I love and have been reading for many years and also new to me authors I read and discover during the challenge.   For instance, I just discovered Mark Charon Newton who wrote Nights of Villjamur and was named one of the top five reads for 2009 by Speculative Horizons. I will be arranging some guest author interviews and a few book giveaways.

I would also like all of you who are participating to give some thought to being a guest blogger.   Each of you has something unique to bring to the voyage and it would be interesting to hear about your favorite authors or books, what attracted you to reading Science Fiction and Fantasy or recommendations for books to read.   Also, if you know of an author, writer, publisher, or a visitor from outer space whom you know would love to be a guest blogger or you would like to interview, then by all means ask them, set it up and let me know.   I'm a pretty flexible person and don't have a set schedule for posts, and plan on posting at least once a week, but don't worry about messing up any schedules.   My posts are spontaneous and off the cuff, generally something that came to mind in the middle of the night.

I'll be writing about interesting discoveries and challenges related to science fiction and fantasy that I find around the blogosphere.   Such as Carl of Stainless Steel Droppings who is planning on joining the challenge.   Every year during the months of January and February he hosts the Sci fi Experience which all about the pleasure of totally exploring the worlds of science fiction. It is a casual challenge, thing, experience, undertaking, whatever you want to call it, in which you set your own reading goals and shot for the stars.

There are a couple challenges I found that blend right in with the Mind Voyages challenge of exploring new books, which call me crazy, I will be joining as well. BookChickCity is hosting a year long Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge so I will definitely be reading Mark's book among others.

and Royal Reviews is hosting a Fantasy Reading Challenge for the year which encompasses Science Fiction Fantasy as well. I know I'll end up reading a few sci fi fantasy books

And for those of you hoping to take a side trip reading the 2010 Hugo nominees, Katster is a Hugo voter. She will be letting us know sometime in March who the top five 2010 Hugo nominees are so we can read them as well.

I'm looking forward to an interesting year of reading and happy to say Santa will be delivering a few Science Fiction books under our tree this year. What books do you think you will be getting in your Christmas Stocking?

I'm going all the way to Pluto and may never return.

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I'm going to Pluto because Pluto is still a planet as far as I'm concerned Voyage.

I'll be concentrating primarily on the Hugo Winners from 1946 to 1963 with a few thrown in that strike my fancy plus those I have on my shelves currently.(which are in italics) I'll be making multiple side trips through the galaxy, and dipping into the Heinlein Quest and Philip K. Dick quest. Plus I'll also be exploring new books which are yet to be determined.

Hugo Winners

Farmer in the Sky - Robert Heinlein (1951)
The Demolished man - Alfred Bester (1953)
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury (1954)
They'd Rather Be Right - Mark Clifton (1955)
Double Star - Robert Heinlein (1956)
The Big Time - Fritz Leiber (1958)
A Case of Conscience - James Blish ( 1959)
Starship Troopers - Robert Heinlein (1960)
A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller (1961)
Stranger in a Strange Land (1962)
Dune - Frank Herbert (1966)
To your Scattered Bodies Go - Philip Jose Farmer (1972)
The Vor Game - Lois McMaster Bujold ( 1991)

Side Tripping 70's Style with Clifford Simak

A choice of Gods - Clifford Simak
Project Pope - Clifford Simak

Robert Heinlein Quest

Friday -Robert A Heinlein
Glory Road -Robert A Heinlein

Philip K. Dick Quest

The Man in the High Castle (hugo 1963)
Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

My ship is all fueled up, I have my provisions packed and I'm ready to blast off and explore the galaxy. Looking forward to meeting up with those also exploring the galaxy and hearing about the books you are exploring.

Sign Up for Mind Voyages Participants

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Please sign up here:

Welcome To Mind Voyages Science Fiction Reading Challenge

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Mind Voyages

Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Challenge
January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010

Hosted by Robin of My Two Blessings

Science fiction and fantasy books have always been my one true love ever since I read my first sci fi book back in the 70's. Whether it was Edgar Rice Burroughs, Arthur Clark, Ray Bradbury, Larry Niven, Piers Anthony, Anne McCaffrey or Robert Silverberg who captured me first, I don't remember. When I recently came across the Hugo Award Web site, the list of winners made my mouth water and tickled my imagination. All the books on the list looked so good that I decided to read through the list, starting with the oldest. But all those who were nominated looked too good to pass up, so decide okay, will take some side trips and read some of the nominees. Other ideas started popping up in my brain. That's what the sci-fi and fantasy genre does to you - expands your mind and gives you ideas.

Science Fiction and Fantasy - what do you think of when you hear those words? I think of books with adventure, exploration, mind altering worlds, knights, dragons, cool space ships, alternate realities, magical quests, new technology, evil villains and heroes. Books that entertain and enlighten, books that take you away, books that take you on a voyage - a mind voyage.

So come take a mind voyage with me - explore the hugo and nebula winners, take side trips through the different decades reading the nominees, check out Philip K. Dick and Robert Heinlein. Plus, since I like a wide variety of books and like to explore, can't possibly imagine a reading challenge without exploring new releases that come out in 2010.

Voyages

The challenge will run from January 1, 2010 through December 31, 2010.
Participants may join at any time.
All forms of books are acceptable including e-books, audio books, etc.
Re-reads are acceptable as long as they are read after January 1, 2010.
Books may overlap other challenges.
Create an entry post linking to this blog.
You don't have to decide before hand what you will be reading.
Come back and sign up with Mr. Linky in the "I'm participating post" below this post.
You don't have a blog to participate.
I'll be adding a post with Mr. Linky for participants to post book reviews.

Looking forward to the challenge and having fun. If you have any suggestions, recommendations, or questions, please email me.

Book Review Posts

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This post is where you will link to your book reviews for the Challenge. Please post a link to the specific book review post rather than your general web address.
Please add the title of the book in parentheses after your name, so will know the name of book review linking to.

Hugo Winners

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The Hugo winners

The Hugo Awards are awards for excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy and are awarded each year at the World Science Fiction convention.

"The Hugo Awards are named after Hugo Gernsback, a famous magazine editor who did much to bring science fiction to a wider audience. Gernsback founded Amazing Stories, the first major American SF magazine, in 1926. He is widely credited with sparking a boom in interest in written SF. In addition to having the Hugo Awards named after him he has been recognized as the “Father of Magazine SF” and has a crater on the Moon named after him."

2010 The City and The City - China Meivelle tied with The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi

2009 The Graveyard Book- Neil Gaiman

2008 The Yiddish Policemen’s Union - Michael Chabon

2007 Rainbows End - Vernor Vinge

2006 Spin - Robert Charles Wilson

2005 Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke

2004 Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold

2003 Hominids - Robert J. Sawyer

2002 American Gods - Neil Gaiman

2001 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J. K. Rowling

2000 A Deepness in the Sky - Vernor Vinge

1999 To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis

1998 Forever Peace - Joe Haldeman

1997 Blue Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson

1996 The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson

1995 Mirror Dance - Lois McMaster Bujold

1994 Green Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson

1993 A tie between A Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge and Doomsday Book - Connie Willis

1992 Barrayar - Lois McMaster Bujold

1991 The Vor Game - Lois McMaster Bujold

1990 Hyperion - Dan Simmons

1989 Cyteen - C. J. Cherryh

1988 The Uplift War - David Brin

1987 Speaker for the Dead - Orson Scott Card

1986 Ender’s Game - Orson Scott Card

1985 Neuromancer - William Gibson

1984 Startide Rising - David Brin

1983 Foundation’s Edge - Isaac Asimov

1982 Downbelow Station - C. J. Cherryh

1981 The Snow Queen - Joan D. Vinge

1980 The Fountains of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke

1979 Dreamsnake - Vonda N. McIntyre

1978 Gateway - Frederik Pohl

1977 Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang - Kate Wilhelm

1976 The Forever War - Joe Haldeman

1975 The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin

1974 Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C. Clarke

1973 The Gods Themselves - Isaac Asimov

1972 To Your Scattered Bodies Go - Philip José Farmer

1971 Ringworld - Larry Niven

1970 The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin

1969 Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner

1968 Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny

1967 The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein

1966 Tie between Dune - Frank Herbert and …And Call Me Conrad (alt: This Immortal) - Roger Zelazny

1965 The Wanderer - Fritz Leiber

1964 Here Gather the Stars (alt: Way Station) - Clifford D. Simak

1963 The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick

1962 Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein

1961 A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller, Jr

1960 Starship Troopers (alt: Starship Soldier) - Robert A. Heinlein

1959 A Case of Conscience - James Blish

1958 The Big Time - Fritz Leiber

1957 none

1956 Double Star - Robert A. Heinlein

1955 They’d Rather Be Right - Mark Clifton and Frank Riley

1954 Retro Award from 2004 Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

1953 The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester

1952 none

1951 Retro Award from 2001 Farmer in the Sky - Robert A. Heinlein

1946 Retro Award from 1996 The Mule by Isaac Asimov

Links are for informational purposes only and not associated with Amazon affiliates.

Side Tripping through the 21st Century

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Side tripping through the 21st Century

With the

Hugo Awards Nominees

2009
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross

Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi

2008

The Last Colony by John Scalzi

Halting State by Charles Stross

Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer

Brasyl by Ian McDonald

2007

Glasshouse by Charles Stross

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
Eifelheim by Michael Flynn

Blindsight by Peter Watts

2006

Learning the World by Ken MacLeod

A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

Accelerando by Charles Stross

2005

River of Gods by Ian McDonald

The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks

Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross

Iron Council by China Miéville

2004

Ilium by Dan Simmons

Singularity Sky by Charles Stross

Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson

Humans by Robert J. Sawyer

2003

Kiln People (alt: Kil’n People) by David Brin

Bones of the Earth by Michael Swanwick

The Scar by China Miéville

The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

2002

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold

Passage by Connie Willis

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson

Cosmonaut Keep by Ken MacLeod

2001

A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin

Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer

The Sky Road by Ken MacLeod

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson

2000

A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling

Philip K. Dick

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Philip K. Dick

Novels

1955 - Solar Lottery
1956 - The World Jones Made
1956 - The man who Japed
1957 - Eyes in the Sky
1957 - The Cosmic Puppets
1959 - Time out of Joint
1960 - Dr. Futurity
1960 - Vulcan's Hammer
1962 - The Man in the High Castle
1963 - The Game Players of Titan
1964 - The Penultimate Truth
1964 - The Martian Time Slip
1964 - The Simulcra
1964 - Clans of the Alphane Moon
1965 - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
1965 - Dr. Bloodmoney
1966 - Now Wait for Last Year
1966 - The Crack in Space
1966 - the Unteleported Man
1967 - The Zap Gun
1967 - The Counter Clock World
1967 - The Ganymede Takeover
1968 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Adapted for the motion picture "Blade Runner"
1969 - Galactic Pot-Healer
1969 - Ubik
1970 - A Maze of Death
1970 - Our Friends from Frolix 8
1972 - We Can Build You
1974 - Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
1975 - Confessions of a Crap Artist
1976 - Deus Irae (with Roger Zelazny)
1977 - A Scanner Darkly
1981 - Valis
1981 - The Divine Invasion
1982 - The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
1984 - The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike
1985 - Radio Free Albemuth
1985 - Puttering About in a Small Land (published posthumously)
1985 - In Milton Lumky Territory
1986 - Humpty Dumpty in Oakland
1987 - Mary And The Giant
1988 - The Broken Bubble
1988 - Nick and the Glimmung
1994 - Gather Yourselves Together (Written in 1950; Published in 1994)
2004 - Lies, Inc. (originally published 1964)
2007 - Voices from the Street

Robert Heinlein

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Robert Heinlein

Novels

1947   Rocket Ship Galileo
1948   Beyond This Horizon,
1948   Space Cadet
1949   Red Planet
1949   Sixth Column
1950   Farmer in the Sky, (Retro Hugo Award, 1951)
1951   Between Planets
1951   The Puppet Masters
1952   The Rolling Stones, (aka: Space Family Stone)
1953   Starman Jones,
1954   The Star Beast,
1955   Tunnel in the Sky
1956   Double Star, -- Hugo Award
1956 Time for the Stars
1957 Citizen of the Galaxy
1957 The Door into Summer
1958   Have Space Suit—Will Travel
1958 Methuselah's Children
1959 Starship Troopers
1961 Stranger in a Strange Land
1963 Podkayne of Mars
1963 Orphans of the Sky
1963   Glory Road
1965 Farnham's Freehold
1966   The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
1970   I Will Fear No Evil
1973   Time Enough for Love
1980   The Number of the Beast
1982   Friday
1984   Job: A Comedy of Justice
1985   The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
1987   To Sail Beyond the Sunset