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SF/F/H Reviewer Linkup Meme, 2nd Edition

Seth — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:33:09 +0000

John Ottinger over at Grasping for the Wind presents the second edition of the Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Book Review Linkup Meme. I know I’m rather late to the party, since I haven’t been doing much blogging of late, but better late than never.

Below you’ll find lots of great resources for all manner of news, reviews, and insights into the various sub-genres of speculative fiction.

Don’t see your blog listed? Follow this link to submit your blog, and then let me know so I can update this list.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Romanian French Chinese Danish Portuguese German

A

7 Foot Shelves

The Accidental Bard

A Boy Goes on a Journey

A Dribble Of Ink

Adventures in Reading

A Fantasy Reader

The Agony Column

A Hoyden’s Look at Literature

A Journey of Books

All Booked Up

Alexia’s Books and Such…

Andromeda Spaceways

The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

Australia Specfic In Focus

Author 2 Author

AzureScape

B

Barbara Martin

Babbling about Books

Bees (and Books) on the Knob

The Billion Light-Year Bookshelf

Bitten by Books

The Black Library Blog

Book View Cafe [Authors Group Blog]

Breeni Books

C

Cheaper Ironies [pro columnist]

The Crotchety Old Fan

D

Daily Dose – Fantasy and Romance

Damien G. Walter

Danger Gal

It’s Dark in the Dark

Dark Parables

Dark Wolf Fantasy Reviews

Darque Reviews

Dave Brendon’s Fantasy and Sci-Fi Weblog

Dragons, Heroes and Wizards

Drey’s Library

The Discriminating Fangirl

Dusk Before the Dawn

E

Enter the Octopus

Erotic Horizon

Errant Dreams Reviews

Eve’s Alexandria

F

Falcata Times

Fan News Denmark [in English]

Fantastic Reviews

Fantastic Reviews Blog

Fantasy Book Banner

Fantasy Book Critic

Fantasy Book News

Fantasy Book Reviews and News

Fantasy By the Tale

Fantasy Cafe

Fantasy Debut

Fantasy Dreamer’s Ramblings

Fantasy Literature.com

Fantasy Magazine

Fantasy and Sci-fi Lovin’ News and Reviews

Feminist SF – The Blog!

Feybound

Fiction is so Overrated

From a Sci-Fi Standpoint

From the Heart of Europe

Fruitless Recursion

Fundamentally Alien

The Future Fire

G

Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review

Grasping for the Wind

a GREAT read

The Green Man Review

Gripping Books

H

Hasenpfeffer

Hero Complex

Highlander’s Book Reviews

Horrorscope

The Hub Magazine

Hypatia’s Hoard of Reviews

Hyperpat’s Hyper Day

I

I Hope I Didn’t Just Give Away The Ending

Ink and Keys

Ink and Paper

The Internet Review of Science Fiction

io9

J

Janicu’s Book Blog

Jenn’s Bookshelf

Jumpdrives and Cantrips

K

Kat Bryan’s Corner

Keeping the Door

King of the Nerds

L

La Bloga

Lair of the Undead Rat

Largehearted Boy

Layers of Thought

League of Reluctant Adults

The Lensman’s Children

Library Dad

Libri Touches

Literary Escapism

Literaturely Speaking

ludis inventio

The Luminous Page

Lundblog: Beautiful Letters

M

Mad Hatter’s Bookshelf and Book Review

Mari’s Midnight Garden

Mark Freeman’s Journal

Mark Lord’s Writing Blog

Marooned: Science Fiction Books on Mars

Martin’s Booklog

MentatJack

Michele Lee’s Book Love

Missions Unknown [Author and Artist Blog Devoted to SF/F/H in San Antonio]

The Mistress of Ancient Revelry

MIT Science Fiction Society

Monster Librarian

More Words, Deeper Hole

Mostly Harmless Books

Multi-Genre Fan

Musings from the Weirdside

MyBlog2.0

My Favourite Books

My Overstuffed Bookshelf

N

O

OCD, Vampires, and Rants, o my!

OF Blog of the Fallen

The Old Bat’s Belfry

ommadawn.dk

Only The Best SciFi/Fantasy

The Ostentatious Ogre

Outside of a Dog

P

Paper Spaceships

Paranormality

Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist

Patricia’s Vampire Notes

The Persistence of Vision

Piaw’s Blog

Pizza’s Book Discussion

Pussreboots: A Book Review a Day

Q

R

Ramblings of a Raconteur

Random Acts of Mediocrity

Ray Gun Revival

Realms of Speculative Fiction

S

Sacramento Book Review

Sandstorm Reviews

Satisfying the Need to Read

Science Fiction and Fantasy Ethics

Science Fiction Times

Sci-Fi Songs [Musical Reviews]

SciFi Squad

Scifi UK Reviews

Sci Fi Wire

Self-Publishing Review

The Sequential Rat

Severian’s Fantastic Worlds

SFF World’s Book Reviews

Silver Reviews

Simply Vamptastic

Slice of SciFi

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Solar Flare

Speculative Fiction

Speculative Fiction Junkie

Speculative Horizons

The Specusphere

Spinebreakers

Spiral Galaxy Reviews

Spontaneous Derivation

Sporadic Book Reviews

Stainless Steel Droppings

Starting Fresh

Stella Matutina

Stomping on Yeti

Stuff as Dreams are Made on…

The Sudden Curve

The Sword Review

T

Tangent Online

Tehani Wessely

Temple Library Reviews

Tez Says

things mean a lot

Tor.com [also a publisher]

True Science Fiction

U

V

Vast and Cool and Unsympathetic

Variety SF

Veritas Omnia Vincula

W

Walker of Worlds

Wands and Worlds

Wanderings

Wendy Palmer: Reading and Writing Genre Books and ebooks

The Weirdside

The Wertzone

With Intent to Commit Horror

The Wizard of Duke Street

WJ Fantasy Reviews

The Word Nest

Wordsville

The World in a Satin Bag

WriteBlack

The Written World

The Wry Writer

X

Y

Young Adult Science Fiction

Z

Romanian

Cititor SF [with English Translation]

French

Elbakin.net

Mythologica

Chinese

Foundation of Krantas

The SF Commonwealth Office in Taiwan [with some English essays]

Yenchin’s Lair

Danish

Interstellar

Ommadawn.dk

Scifisiden

Portuguese

Aguarras

Fernando Trevisan

Human 2.0

Life and Times of a Talkative Bookworm

Ponto De Convergencia

pÃ³s-estranho

Skavis

German

Bibliotheka Phantastika

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Romanian French Chinese Danish Portuguese German

Babel Clash: Borders Launches SFF Blog

Seth — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:26:55 +0000

While stopping in for a cuppa over at Fantasy Café, I learned that Borders has recently launched Babel Clash, a blog dedicated to science fiction and fantasy, which claims to be home to “the greatest debates in the galaxy.” This appears to be no empty claim, as posts aim to spark discussion of speculative fiction’s core elements. Borders has also scored illustrious guest bloggers; so far, Kim Harrison and Brandon Sanderson have contributed several posts each.

So is Borders changing its tune regarding speculative fiction? Last year io9 reported that the chain was cutting orders for books in the genre. Judging from rumors and purely circumstancial evidence–a Borders near me closed down just after the New Year–I think the company is really struggling. At this point, they need to make every effort to bring readers onto their site and into their stores. Babel Clash is evidently part of that campaign.

Reviewing 101

Seth — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:53:59 +0000

A post over at Fantasy Cafe points to an August article by David Louis Edelman, author of Infoquake and Multireal , on what he as a writer expects from a book review. Among his desired criteria are honesty, insight, and accuracy. For a relatively neophyte reviewer like myself, it’s nice to see some guidelines for just how this reiew thing is done. I know there are some similar articles out there on the mechanics of reviewing. Please feel free to post thoughts or suggestions in the comments.

In Between Reads: On Thud and Blunder

Seth — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:01:48 +0000

I came across this article several years ago when I was studying medieval history. Some academics on the soc.history.medieval newsgroup were illustrating to what extent the fantasy genre flies in the face of premodern history and even of logic itself. While this is surely the point of our genre to some extent, it’s important that all such divergences from reality be intentional, rather than the result of carelessness or lack of research.

So, without further ado, I direct you to Paul Anderson’s article “On Thud and Blunder” from the SFWA website. To illustrate his point, Anderson concocts a hilarious example of flagrant disregard for the laws of reality.

With one stroke of his fifty-pound sword, Gnorts the Barbarian lopped off the head of Nialliv the Wizard. It flew through the air, still sneering, while Gnorts clove two royal guardsmen from vizor through breasplate to steel jockstrap. As he whirled to escape, an arrow glanced off his own chainmail. Then he was gone from the room, into the midnight city. Easily outrunning pursuit, he took a few sentries at the gate by surprise. For a moment, arms and legs hailed around him through showers of blood; then he had opened the gate and was free. A caravan of merchants, waiting to enter at dawn, was camped nearby. Seeing a magnificent stallion tethered, Gnorts released it, twisted the rope into a bridle, and rode it off bareback. After galloping several miles, he encountered a mounted patrol that challenged him. Immediately he plunged into the thick of the cavalrymen, swinging his blade right and left with deadly effect, rearing up his steed to bring its forefeet against one knight who dared to confront him directly. Then it was only to gallop onward. Winter winds lashed his body, attired in nothing more than a bearskin kilt, but he ignored the cold. Sunrise revealed the shore and his waiting longship. He knew the swift-sailing craft could bring him across five hundred leagues of monster-infested ocean in time for him to snatch the maiden princess Elamef away from evil Baron Rehcel while she remained a maiden — not that he intended to leave her in that condition …

Footnote: Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Seth — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:38:06 +0000

The arcanely hilarious xkcd.com recently posted a line graph of relevance to my recent Anathem review.

Mousing over the image on the xkcd site reveals the following tooltip:

“Except for Lewis Carroll and Tolkien, you get five made-up words per story. I’m looking at you, Anathem.”

I’m not sure if I necessarily agree with this graph’s assertion, but it makes interesting food for thought. I think a good rule of thumb is that made-up words that play a functional role in the story are almost always acceptable, while made-up words that simply strive to add “local color” to a story walk a fine line between necessity and absurdity. I think another distinction involves the quality of the made-up words in question. A scholarly type like Tolkien or Stephenson can get away with made-up words because they have the linguistic chops to make the words resonant and convincing. On the other hand, dozens of fantasy or science fiction writers lazily throw together a few consonant clusters and apostrophes and call it a day.

What do you think? Post your comments!

Cool Stuff: Today in Middle Earth

Seth — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:51:24 +0000

I haven’t been following TheOneRing.net closely enough of late to know whether this is a regular thread or not, but I came across this post in my RSS reader and thought it was worth sharing.

Today in Middle Earth, 24 September

Falling just a couple days after the Baggins’s joint birthday, this date witnessed some important events in the Rings cycle.

Just a fun tidbit to peruse over a quick coffee break at work, as I’m doing.