Spoiler Free

So, there is a spoiler-free review of A Memory of Light upon Tor.com and I note it for a couple of reasons. 

One is because, man, I’m a fan.  If I had to guess when I picked up The Eye of the World for the first time, I’ve been reading these books for more than twenty years.  It’s been a very long journey, but a worthwhile one.  It’s one that I’m not sure I’ve really processed that it will actually come to an end.  This is meaningful to me.  Though the wheel keeps turning, seeing how it all ends is both exciting and sad. Leigh Butler notes “that this is the last Wheel of Time book you’ll ever get to read for the first time” and I think that while I’m going to buy the book on January 8 and I’m not going to hesitate to read it, I’m probably going to pause a moment before I actually open the cover.  Because once I start reading it and inevitably finish, it will really be over.  And you can’t take that back. 

Two: Up until today, I haven’t updated this blog since September and if you consider my blogging output over the last two years, I really haven’t done much with this for a while.  A lot has happened in the last three years and a lot is going to happen in the next three.  I’ve been reluctant to let go and say goodbye because I want to think that I’m going to get a flash of inspiration and motivation and start writing again on a regular basis – and that if I officially close the door…basically, for lack of a better example, I don’t want to be Brett Favre*. 

On the other hand, do I really want to just fade away like I’ve been doing and just have a random post suggest that there will be more when there isn’t more? 

So while I can’t say for sure that this is going to happen, it wouldn’t be bad to go out covering A Memory of Light – saying goodbye to both The Wheel of Time and to this part of my life.  We’ll see.  I’m wistful, thinking about the ending of the series and possibly of this blog.  I’ve made it almost ten years here and have been blogging for perhaps fifteen.  That’s like 257 years in internet time. 

*And yet, maybe I can be Shawn Michaels.  I haven’t lost my smile or nearly broken my back, but maybe after some extended time away I’d come back as good as I ever was.  You’d hear that familiar beat followed by “oh, oh, Shawn…”

2012 Hugo Award Winners

Via Tor.com

Best Novel

• Winner: Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor)
• A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin (Bantam Spectra)
• Deadline by Mira Grant (Orbit)
• Embassytown by China Miéville (Macmillan UK / Del Rey)
• Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (Orbit)

Best Novella

• Winner: “The Man Who Bridged the Mist” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s September/October 2011)
• Countdown by Mira Grant (Orbit)
• “The Ice Owl” by Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction November/December 2011)
• “Kiss Me Twice” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s June 2011)
• “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” by Ken Liu (Panverse 3)
• Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA)

Best Novelette

• Winner: “Six Months, Three Days” by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com)
• “The Copenhagen Interpretation” by Paul Cornell (Asimov’s July 2011)
• “Fields of Gold” by Rachel Swirsky (Eclipse Four)
• “Ray of Light” by Brad R. Torgersen (Analog December 2011)
• “What We Found” by Geoff Ryman (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction March/April 2011)

Best Short Story

• Winner: “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction March/April 2011)
• “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld April 2011)
• “The Homecoming” by Mike Resnick (Asimov’s April/May 2011)
• “Movement” by Nancy Fulda (Asimov’s March 2011)
• “Shadow War of the Night Dragons: Book One: The Dead City: Prologue” by John Scalzi (Tor.com)

Best Related Work

• Winner: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Third Edition edited by John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls, and Graham Sleight (Gollancz)
• Jar Jar Binks Must Die… and Other Observations about Science Fiction Movies by Daniel M. Kimmel (Fantastic Books)
• The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature by Jeff VanderMeer and S. J. Chambers (Abrams Image)
• Wicked Girls by Seanan McGuire
• Writing Excuses, Season 6 by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Jordan Sanderson

Best Graphic Story

• Winner: Digger by Ursula Vernon (Sofawolf Press) 
• Fables Vol 15: Rose Red by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham (Vertigo)
• Locke & Key Volume 4, Keys to the Kingdom written by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)
• Schlock Mercenary: Force Multiplication written and illustrated by Howard Tayler, colors by Travis Walton (The Tayler Corporation)
• The Unwritten (Volume 4): Leviathan created by Mike Carey and Peter Gross. Written by Mike Carey, illustrated by Peter Gross (Vertigo)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

• Winner: Game of Thrones (Season 1), created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss; written by David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, Jane Espenson, and George R. R. Martin; directed by Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Tim van Patten, and Alan Taylor (HBO)
• Captain America: The First Avenger, screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephan McFeely, directed by Joe Johnston (Marvel)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, screenplay by Steve Kloves; directed by David Yates (Warner Bros.)
• Hugo, screenplay by John Logan; directed by Martin Scorsese (Paramount)
• Source Code, screenplay by Ben Ripley; directed by Duncan Jones (Vendome Pictures)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

• Winner: “The Doctor’s Wife” (Doctor Who), written by Neil Gaiman; directed by Richard Clark (BBC Wales)
• “The Drink Tank’s Hugo Acceptance Speech,” Christopher J Garcia and James Bacon (Renovation)
• “The Girl Who Waited” (Doctor Who), written by Tom MacRae; directed by Nick Hurran (BBC Wales)
• “A Good Man Goes to War” (Doctor Who), written by Steven Moffat; directed by Peter Hoar (BBC Wales)
• “Remedial Chaos Theory” (Community), written by Dan Harmon and Chris McKenna; directed by Jeff Melman (NBC)

Best Editor, Short Form

• Winner: Sheila Williams
• John Joseph Adams
• Neil Clarke
• Stanley Schmidt
• Jonathan Strahan

Best Editor, Long Form

• Winner: Betsy Wollheim
• Lou Anders
• Liz Gorinsky
• Anne Lesley Groell
• Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Best Professional Artist

• Winner: John Picacio
• Dan dos Santos
• Bob Eggleton
• Michael Komarck
• Stephan Martiniere

Best Semiprozine

• Winner: Locus edited by Liza Groen Trombi, Kirsten Gong-Wong, et al.
• Apex Magazine edited by Catherynne M. Valente, Lynne M. Thomas, and Jason Sizemore
• Interzone edited by Andy Cox
• Lightspeed edited by John Joseph Adams
• New York Review of Science Fiction edited by David G. Hartwell, Kevin J. Maroney, Kris Dikeman, and Avram Grumer

Best Fanzine

• Winner: SF Signal edited by John DeNardo
• Banana Wings edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
• The Drink Tank edited by James Bacon and Christopher J Garcia
• File 770 edited by Mike Glyer
• Journey Planet edited by James Bacon, Christopher J Garcia, et al.

Best Fan Writer

• Winner: Jim C. Hines
• James Bacon
• Claire Brialey
• Christopher J Garcia
• Steven H. Silver

Best Fan Artist

• Winner: Maurine Starkey
• Brad W. Foster
• Randall Munroe
• Spring Schoenhuth
• Steve Stiles
• Taral Wayne

Best Fancast

• Winner: SF Squeecast, Lynne M. Thomas, Seanan McGuire, Paul Cornell, Elizabeth Bear, and Catherynne M. Valente
• The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan & Gary K. Wolfe
• Galactic Suburbia Podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Alex Pierce, and Tansy Rayner Roberts (presenters) and Andrew Finch (producer)
• SF Signal Podcast, John DeNardo and JP Frantz, produced by Patrick Hester
• StarShipSofa, Tony C. Smith

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

• Winner: E. Lily Yu
• Mur Lafferty
• Stina Leicht
• Karen Lord
• Brad R. Torgersen

Congratulations to all the winners, but a double helping of congratulations to Charlie Jane Anders for her fabulous story Six Months, Three Days.  And to John DeNardo and the folks at SF Signal.  Well done and well deserved.  And to E. Lily Yu.  I can't wait to see what you do next.


I don't believe I posted my ballot, but I did manage to help pick six of the winners (Novel, Novella, Novelette, Dramatic Presentation Long Form, Fanzine, Campbell)

World Fantasy Award Nominees 2012

And now, the nominees for my favorite award of the year havebeen announced!  The best part about this list is that there is very little that I have actually read. 

 

World Fantasy Award Ballot

 

Novel
•  Those Across the River, Christopher Buehlman (Ace)
•  11/22/63, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton as 11.22.63)
•  A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin (Bantam; Harper Voyager UK)
•  Osama, Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)
•  Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor) 

I’ve read Among Others and still consider it to be my favorite novel published last year and I recently finished King’s 11/22/63.  I enjoyed the King, but Walton’s novel was better.  I am still on a GRRM moratorium until I catch up my re-read of A Song of Ice and Fire, so while I own A Dance With Dragons, I still prefer to reread A Storm of Swords and A Feast for Crows before I get around to his latest novel.  On the plus side, this hopefully gets me that much closer to finishing the book with less of a gap between that and the next novel.  We’ll see.

I’ve heard good things about Osama, but haven’t been all that keen on reading it.  Until now.  Those Across the River is a complete unknown to me.  

Novella
•  "Near Zennor", Elizabeth Hand (A Book of Horrors)
•  "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong", K.J. Parker (Subterranean Winter 2011)
•  "Alice Through the Plastic Sheet", Robert Shearman (A Book of Horrors)
•  "Rose Street Attractors", Lucius Shepard (Ghosts by Gaslight)
•  Silently and Very Fast, Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA Press; Clarkesworld)
The only novella I’ve read from this list is Valente’s Silently and Very Fast.  I didn’t appreciate it.  Shepard is consistently excellent.  I was delighted by Shearman’s World Fantasy nominated collection Tiny Deaths, so I’m excited to read this story.   

Short Fiction
•  "X for Demetrious", Steve Duffy (Blood and Other Cravings)
•  "Younger Women", Karen Joy Fowler (Subterranean Summer 2011)
•  "The Paper Menagerie", Ken Liu (F&SF 3-4/11)
•  "A Journey of Only Two Paces", Tim Powers (The Bible Repairman and Other Stories)
•  "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees", E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld 4/11) 

I’m a big fan of Yu’s “The Cartographer Wasps”, it was such an imaginative and inventive story and I’m glad to see it recognized across multiple awards.  Liu has likewise had an impressive year and if he maintains the level of quality and output that he has done thus far, I’ll expect to see him on ballots for years to come.  The other three stories are new to me.

Anthology
•  Blood and Other Cravings, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Tor)
•  A Book of Horrors, Stephen Jones, ed. (Jo Fletcher Books)
•  The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Harper Voyager US)
•  The Weird, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Corvus; Tor, published May 2012)
•  Gutshot, Conrad Williams, ed. (PS Publishing) 

Collection
•  Bluegrass Symphony, Lisa L. Hannett (Ticonderoga)
•  Two Worlds and In Between, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean Press)
•  After the Apocalypse, Maureen F. McHugh (Small Beer)
•  Mrs Midnight and Other Stories, Reggie Oliver (Tartarus)
•  The Bible Repairman and Other Stories, Tim Powers (Tachyon) 

The only collection here that was on my radar is After the Apocalypse.  It’s one of those that I’ve been *meaning* to get to and just haven’t.

Artist
•  John Coulthart
•  Julie Dillon
•  Jon Foster
•  Kathleen Jennings
•  John Picacio 

I like Foster and Picacio.  This is a good time to look at the other artists and see what they are all about.

Special Award Professional
•  John Joseph Adams, for editing - anthology and magazine
•  Jo Fletcher, for editing - Jo Fletcher Books
•  Eric Lane, for publishing in translation - Dedalus books
•  Brett Alexander Savory & Sandra Kasturi, for ChiZine Publications
•  Jeff VanderMeer & S.J. Chambers, for The Steampunk Bible
 
Special Award Non-Professional
•  Kate Baker, Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan & Sean Wallace, for Clarkesworld
•  Cat Rambo, for Fantasy
•  Raymond Russell & Rosalie Parker, for Tartarus Press
•  Charles Tan, for Bibliophile Stalker blog
•  Mark Valentine, for Wormwood

The Ending of Deadline

Just like I did with Feed, I want to talk a little bit about the ending of Deadline.  This is for those who have already read Deadline or, I suppose, for those who really don’t give a crap about piddly little things like knowing how a book ends. 

Otherwise, here are my reviews of Feed and Deadline. 

So, with the ending of Feed, Mira Grant killed off Georgia Mason by having her shot with a dart carrying the Kellis-Amberlee virus, becoming infected, and in a horribly brutal scene (which I loved), was then shot and killed by her brother Shaun.  I thought this was a perfectly authentic way to kill a character and it felt right for the novel.  Loved it, despite how much I like Georgia as a character.

As I see it, the ending of Deadline was set up three times. 

First, Dr. Connolly faking her own death (with help) and letting the team know that the CDC has accomplished human cloning.  It was the Doc’s clone that was killed and destroyed to help her escape.

Second, Shaun mentioning later in the novel that the CDC had George’s blood for a period of time and had run a series of tests on it.  This seems natural, but in light of how the ending to Deadline, is also suspect.  Also, I no longer recall just how Georgia’s body was destroyed in the van. 

Third, immediately preceding the Big Reveal, Shaun’s blog post states that if he had one wish and could change anything in the world, his wish would be to get Georgia back and damn all the other consequences and damn making the world go back to how it was before the Rising.  His world is Georgia.

The last chapter opens with a person waking in a sterile room and we initially think that this is Shaun because has just in isolation after being bitten by a zombie (he also tested clean as his body is the only known body that has actually fought off the infection).  But, it isn’t Shaun.  The chapter ends with a voice from an intercom asking the individual to identify itself and it does: Georgia Mason.

At which point dropped some profanity and was confused. 

I followed confusion by annoyance.  I realized how Grant set this up and it isn’t completely out of left field, but I haven’t decided if I like this. 

One of my major pet peeves (besides the phrase “pet peeve”) in fiction is when an author just can’t let their damn characters stay dead.  Seriously, I applaud you for killing off a major character and one whom I may actually like, but once you do it – own it.  You kill a character, don’t cheat the death by turning back the clock somehow.  That’s what pissed me the hell off about To Green Angel Tower from Tad Williams.  He killed a character in a heroic manner (I think) and it was a big deal.  And then he undercut all the emotion of that event and (in my mind) the entire series by bringing him back in the epilogue with a “whoops, I survived.”  I haven’t read Tad Williams since.  Though, to be fair, his Memory Sorrow Thorn series wasn’t all that special and I wasn’t a fan of his writing style. 

Georgia Mason coming back as a clone?  I don’t know about that, people.  It fits in the context of the series and I’ll grant that science could advance to full human cloning that somehow transfers the mind / soul / identity into the clone.  I’ll give the author all of that – and I assume that there will be all sorts of implications of how Clone Georgia relates to the world as a clone, how that changes *everything* about her and her relationship with Shaun and their news organization and friendships and all of that could be fascinating as hell.  I’ll go so far as to say that I absolutely expect to be delighted by Blackout.  Mira Grant has done a fantastic job with the first two novels in her Newsflesh trilogy and I think so highly of them that I’m also going back to read the first of the novels Grant published under her real name Seanan McGuire (Rosemary and Rue). 

But I really hate when writers kill off a character and then bring them back.  I hate it.  And while bringing back the clone of a character is different than having the character magically escape death and come back, or worse, have someone else use the literary equivalent of a Phoenix Down and revive the character – it still undercuts some of the emotion of the original scene of death. 

And I hate that.

Deadline, by Mira Grant

Deadline
Mira Grant
Orbit: 2011


If you haven’t read Mira Grant’s novel Feed (review), stop right now and go read it. I’m a big fan of Feed and becoming a fan of Grant’s Newsflesh trilogy, but a central point of Deadline hinges on the ending of Feed and I can’t talk about Deadline without talking about that.

So.

Mira Grant told the story of Feed primarily through the narrative voice of Georgia Mason, a “newsie” blogger in a post zombie apocalypse world. The world had stabilized into something we might recognize, but, well, zombies. In my review of Feed I wrote that “As the first in a stated trilogy, I can’t wait to see where Mira Grant takes us with the next two novels – especially given how she ended Feed.”


How she ended Feed is that Georgia was purposefully infected by Kellis-Amberlee, the virus that causes zombification, and as she begun to amplify (i.e., she was turning into a zombie), she was shot and killed by her brother Shaun. Shaun then took over the narrative duties and finished out the election coverage (they were the first bloggers to follow a presidential candidate on the campaign trail, a campaign that led them into a very nasty political conspiracy, plus zombies, you can’t forget the zombies).


Deadline picks up a year later with Shaun semi-coping with Georgia’s death, running their news organization, and was having a slight break from reality as he was hearing her voice and carrying on conversations with his dead sister. There was an uneasy stability in his life until Dr. Kelly Connolly from the CDC arrived at their headquarters and pointed them at a larger conspiracy within the science community regarding what is really going on with Kellis-Amberlee. As the CDC is a semi-autonomous organization since the Rising, this is more than a big deal.

My primary concern after finishing Feed was how well Grant was going to be able to carry the story along with Shaun as narrator. Georgia was so much the heart of Feed that I worried that the shift would grate and not serve the story. I need not have worried. There is a certain similarity in the first person perspectives of both Shaun and Georgia, though there is a difference in the focus of each character and also in Shaun’s propensity to threaten violence. Regardless, Deadline is a smooth reading novel that damn near demands that one continues to turn the page to find out what happens next. It’s a good feeling and I could not get enough of it (even though I still missed Georgia as a narrator).

One thing that Mira Grant does very well is craft an ending that leaves the reader wanting more and wanting to know more. Feed’s ending was a natural ending point for the story and while there may have been more stories to tell in that world, Feed was done. Deadline does not have that sort of an ending. Deadline ends with a moment which causes the reader to exclaim “what the…” and where the ellipses are followed by one’s favorite exclamation or curse. Despite that, the conclusion *is* foreshadowed and set up – even Grant did something the reader didn’t exactly expect. Like with Feed, I’m not talking about it here. Unlike Feed, I’m not completely sure that Grant did the right thing, but I have personal bias regarding what happened. I’ll have to explain that in a follow up post.

That’s a little bit long winded to say that Deadline feels like half of a much longer novel and the ending served more to set up Blackout than it did to really conclude the story of Deadline. If the presumed primary storyline was Shaun’s investigation of the CDC and if there really is some sort of a conspiracy with the current investigative science behind Kellis-Amberlee; that storyline has not been resolved. Or, it has, but not in a way that fully satisfies that storyline.

Readers can pick up Deadline and follow the story just fine, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I’m a proponent of starting at, well, the beginning and moving on from there. But, if you enjoyed Feed (and I very much did) and were somehow on the fence about Deadline – don’t be. It’s almost as good. I say “almost” because Feed’s ending was a bit stronger and also just personal preference in the narrator. I can also see how some might prefer Deadline as Grant opens up the world a bit and also does some nasty stuff to set up Blackout. Either way – Deadline was a fantastically enjoyable novel filled with zombie delights.

Wonderbook

A couple of days ago Jeff VanderMeer posted about his forthcoming Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Writing Imaginative Fiction. 

VanderMeer has this to say

This will be the first creative writing guide that doesn’t just supplement text with images, but replaces text with image. In fact, its 300 pages will include over 175 diagrams, illustrations, and photographs. The diagrams will be radically different from what you find in most writing books, and the integration of the text with image will also be something you haven’t seen before.

and

The main text will include chapters on Inspiration, Elements of Story, Beginnings & Endings, Writing & Revision, The Bleeding Edge, and a special chapter on writing exercises that I think will blow most people’s minds visually—and will set out all of the things my wife and I do in our workshops and masterclasses. Elements like Characterization will be woven into the discussion in all of the chapters, since separating out the people from the story seems pointless to me.

In addition, the book will feature short essays on a variety of writing-related subjects by Neil Gaiman, Lev Grossman, Karen Joy Fowler, Lauren Beukes, Charles Yu, Karin Lowachee, Catherynne M. Valente, Michael Moorcock, and several others, as well as a long exclusive discussion about craft with George R.R. Martin. A comprehensive list of over 700 essential non-realist novels is just one item of interest in the appendices. The format of the book will allow annotations and asides in the margins for additional value.

Sounds like something to check out when it is published next year.

Art by Jeremy Zerfoss.

The Other Lands, by David Anthony Durham

The Other Lands
David Anthony Durham
Doubleday: 2009

(Note: I thought I had posted this back in August.  I have no idea why this didn't post last year.  I only noticed when I was cleaning out my drafts)

In a case of taking waaaay too long to read a book, I bring you The Other Lands from David Anthony Durham. This is the second volume in Durham’s Acacia trilogy and one I had been anticipating since I first read Acacia back in 2007…except I never picked up The Other Lands in 2009 when it was published.

Big mistake. Huge.

With a nearly four year gap between reading the novels one might well be concerned with remembering who the characters were and how things connect together. Durham opens with a refresher of “the story so far”, which is something that more big fantasy novels should include. The other thing is that Durham is both thoughtful and skilled enough to craft the story in such a way to gently remind the reader of events from the first novel while never giving the impression of dropping a huge info-dump on the reader.

Durham has written a sprawling novel set a decade after the events of Acacia. The Empire is still recovering from the invasion of the Mein and continues to deal with some of the unexpected consequences of that war. Queen Corinn holds tight control over the Empire and uses her surviving siblings to cement her own power, improve the Empire, and to keep them out of the way so as to limit their potential for threatening her reign. Aspects of The Other Lands work as a thoughtful political thriller.

The Other Lands is far more than “just” a political novel. It is a sprawling epic adventure tinged with a growing sense of magic and one character’s “journey” to the titular Other Lands opens up the wonder of just how big this world is and more fully introduces the other cultures and races of the world. While still steeped in the historical detail that readers should expect from David Anthony Durham, The Other Lands is also chock full of wonder, delight, and tells an exciting story about a threat to the Akaran Empire far greater than any seen before. It builds and builds, topping the reader off with tension.

Now, this is the middle volume of a trilogy, so while Durham does work in complete story arcs, The Other Lands does serve to set up what is likely to be an explosive conclusion when Durham publishes the final volume.

The big mistake I mentioned earlier was simply in waiting so long to read this. Though The Other Lands is worth waiting for, it is a book that you shouldn’t wait on. It should just be read. Read Acacia, then read this. You should have anyway.

Previous Reviews:
Acacia