A Three-Day Thaw

May 28, 2010 Daily Writing, Science Fiction

Three long days at the “real job” put a serious damper on my productivity since Monday. Hey, such is life.

I did get a bit of work done on the third novel rewrite, and I finished reading a novel I picked up because I was interested in the “free books” movement that’s obviously going around. Perhaps I’ll talk about that a bit here in a while. Not that my opinion counts for much, there. After my little step away, I sometimes feel like an ice man who’s just been dethawed.

Working on that, though. And it’s coming around, slowly but surely.

Lisa and I also watched the end of FlashForward. Interesting show, but in my opinion it was horribly morphed from the book. Apparently, the idea of using a scientist as the main character is anathema to the major channels. Shame, really. So instead of having a spiffy, smart story that really explored SFnal concepts, they created a predictable story about an FBI guy (and an FBI) who couldn’t detect their way out of a paper bag.

So count me among those who loved the book and thought the show was merely interesting for its anthropological place in the SF chain of things.

Five SF Movies You May Not Think of Right Away

May 20, 2010 Science Fiction

I was talking about science fiction with a co-worker yesterday and he mentioned some of his favorite SF movies. They were of the Star Wars, Star Trek, variety–obvious science fiction titles with lots of explosions in space. (Let’s not get into the question of whether Star Wars if fantasy or SF, m-kay?)

I realized then that the concept of SF in films to the general public seems deeply entrenched in the idea of spaceships and lasers. Kinda like golden SF, but with maybe a modern sensibility and with Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis as the lead.

It got me thinking about what I’ll call “Real SF Films.” You know? movies that are not just golden-age rip-roaring adventure tales, but work hard to explore SFnal topics in a deeper fashion.

Here are five films that jumped to mind. They fit the bill as solid attempts at real SF work, and that are outstanding stories (at least in my opinion). Some you may not even think of as SF.

1) Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind: Great story about a guy who tries to erase a love from his life. Clearly SFnal in concept, but I don’t here it talked about when SF is discussed.

2) Primer: Outstanding low-budget film that explores time travel without dumbing anything down. I needed to watch it twice to really get it. One of my favorite films, really. Smart script, true to theory, engaging. What’s not to like?

3) Sliding Doors: An interesting exploration into the multiple worlds aspect of quantum theory. It doesn’t delve into the theory behind the science much at all, but uses it in matter-of-fact fashion and presents an interesting set of stories. I don’t think this is a story that comes to mind when people think “SF Film,” though.

4) The Fountain: This one probably isn’t for everyone. Very weird at times, but wierd in a way that Lisa and I both like. It’s hard to interpret. Some will call this a fantasy. Some won’t know what to call it. But I view it as SF, so it’s on my list.

5) Momento: To me this is a well-duh selection as SF, but it doesn’t show up as SF on some folks’ register. A lot of people liked this a lot more than I did (I was digging it until the very end, but that’s a discussion for another day).

You’ll notice there’s not a space craft or a laser gun in sight with these five films–not that a laser can’t be fun. After all, I like my cinematic space opera as well as the next guy.

Your thoughts?

Nebula Awards a Harbringer?

May 18, 2010 Science Fiction

Congratulations to the newest Nebula Award winners. It’s certainly an extremely interesting collection, specifically because none of the winners of the three short fiction categories came from the big three digests. I think is the first time this happened since 2003. However, in 2003 two of the stories came out of Ellen Datlow’s big-budgeted SCIFICTION.

This year saw winners come from Subterranean, Interzone, and Clarkesworld. Does this represent a major shift? Dunno.

But I note that two of the three 2008 awards went to digests, and the entire 2007 set went to digests. Two of the three in 2006 went to F&SF, and the third was Burn–which seems to me to have been a vote for podcasting as well as for Tachyon. I wasn’t really paying enough attention at that point, so I would be interested in the cliff note version of the fallout of that year’s award process.

Anyway, you get the idea. It’s not like the digests have fallen by the wayside or anything. But this result has to make a few folks sit up and take notice.

In this vein, I was talking to a good friend of mine from work earlier today. He’s a guy who is a hard core fan of more gold-age SF. He’s a major league reviewer on Amazon, but has been away from the short fiction area for some time. We talked about magazines from the old days, and I suggested he take a look around several online publications. We discussed how we thought ebook readers might change things–I said I thought the days of the Big Honkin’ Novels might actually be coming to an end. (Please, Powers that Be, can we go back to the nice little 60-70K novel again?)

Who knows, for sure if that will happen? Or who can say the digests won’t be back in control next year?

All I can really say is that from my point of view it seems to me that the tide has strongly turned in the past five years. But, I also figure I really should stop spending time worrying about it too much and get back to writing.

Steve Ely Says Farewell

May 16, 2010 Science Fiction

At the gym today I listened to Steve Ely’s farewell podcast at EscapePod. It’s story titled “The Last McDouglas by David D. Levine that had appeared at Asimov’s earlier. The story is good and memorable enough for it’s futuristic look at fast food alone. But the story isn’t what made this podcast special.

I have never met Steve Ely, but I have to say the guy seems to be a class individual. I really enjoyed his commentary about his time with Escape Pod, and I enjoyed his final outro a lot. He sends a really nice message about being fearless, about loving SF, about doing your best, and about having fun being a responsible part of the bigger world.

Honestly, though, he sent that message with each one of his podcasts.

I’ve been grabbing Escape Pod stories for several months now, and can say without doubt that Steve Ely’s enthusiasm for his work came out in his commentary as well as his interpretation of each work. He has helped me pass many an hour on the treadmill. I cannot say this last bit about several other podcasts, and here’s why: production quality.

Yes, production quality.

Steve Ely’s podcasts are put together well, but also clearly presented. The tone is good, and he kept background noise away. He ready at a good pace and with a clear tone of voice that made it easy to follow the tales he presented. This is all important in a podcast, because as far as I can tell the most likely situation a consumer is going to be in while listening to them is “on the move.” This is true in my case. I listen in the car, and I listen on the treadmill.

In both of these cases, the environment around me can be quite noisy so poor production quality can be a kiss of death.

For example, inn addition to Escape Pod, I attempted to listen to Jay Lake’s A Water Matter from TOR.com. The story is great, pure Jay Lake. But I could only listen to it while I was over in the free weight section because it’s volume doesn’t scale up well on my nano, and because Jay’s vocal approach tends to run words together. It wasn’t clear enough for me to be able to follow while on the noisy treadmill. Truthfully, if the gym’s music had been turned up as loud as it usually was I couldn’t have listened to it at all while working out–which is my prime podcast consumption time.

Anyway.

You get the idea.

Steve Ely was really good at what he did. Congratulations to him for his successful 5-year run.

Recommended Listening

Apr 25, 2010 Daily Writing, Other Writers, Science Fiction

I’ve mentioned a time or two that I’m spending quite a bit of time at the gym the past few months, and that this has given me quite a bit of opportunity to listen to various podcasts. I thought it was only proper that I mention a few pieces that I’ve particularly liked.

If you have an iPod or other MP3 player of your choice (and, let’s face it, who doesn’t?) and a half-hour drive anywhere, you could do worse than listening to a few of these:

Rememberance is Something Like a House by Will Ludwigsen published by PodCastle.

This is a really nice tale of a house that takes a trip from Ohio to Florida–a premise that sounds funny, but is most decidedly not. Highly recommended.

The Next Invasion by Robert Reed published by TOR.com

Robert Reed is one of my favorite short fiction writers. Of course, since I don’t have tons of time I read mostly short fiction, so I guess I should say he’s one of my favorite storytellers and leave it at that. “The Next Invasion” is interesting in every way.

Progress Today (so far):

Now that I’ve got the basic story of my two pilots pretty much figured out and two-thirds of their story told, I took the morning to fix up the world around them. I also received a special gift of about 300 words that jumped into the last part of their story. I love it when that happens.

Assuming my brain is still working this afternoon, I’ll go back and see what damage I can do to their story.