jeff vandermeer

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"Finch" Is Interdimensional, Extraterrestrial Biosteam Noir
Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
3 New Anthologies Bring Werewolves, ADD-Afflicted Drinking Birds, And Awesomeness
Is There Such A Thing As A Gloriously Unfilmable Book?
The Most Fantastical Cities On Earth, As Chosen By Ursula K. Le Guin And Michael Moorcock
Joyce Carol Oates And Jeff Vandermeer, Together At Last
Enrollment Open to Teens for "Shared Worlds" Summer Worldbuilding Workshop
Will a Mega-Dose of Classical Philosphy Destroy Jeff VanderMeer's Brain?
Your Best Ideas for Predator and Aliens Novels
Liberation Is A Better Novel Than Anathem, Says Amazon

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Valerie 'Foxy' E.
10/30/09

In reply to "Finch" Is Interdimensional, Extraterrestrial Biosteam Noir
Also, one of the best bands out there right now did the soundtrack:
[murderbydeath.bandcamp.com] #jeffvandermeer
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Annalee Newitz promoted this comment Valerie 'Foxy' E. was starred

rek
10/30/09

In reply to "Finch" Is Interdimensional, Extraterrestrial Biosteam Noir
Sounds like ribopunk to me.

[en.wikipedia.org] #jeffvandermeer
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hellbly
10/30/09

In reply to "Finch" Is Interdimensional, Extraterrestrial Biosteam Noir
Should I read Shriek first? #jeffvandermeer
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Annalee Newitz
10/30/09

@hellbly: You don't really need to, but you can if you want. There are characters from Shriek that show up in Finch, but we get enough backstory in Finch that you can easily figure out what's going on. #jeffvandermeer
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doubledeckard
10/30/09

In reply to "Finch" Is Interdimensional, Extraterrestrial Biosteam Noir
Interdimensional, Extraterrestrial Biosteam Noir - a pack of archetypes thick enough to choke a mule.

Sounds damned intriguing. #jeffvandermeer
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Nyarlahotep
10/30/09

In reply to "Finch" Is Interdimensional, Extraterrestrial Biosteam Noir
"Ambergris. Noun. A grease-like product of the sperm whale's digestive tract that is used as a base in the finest perfumes. This has been Roseanne, your guide to the world of facts." #jeffvandermeer
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Klebert L. Hall
10/31/09

@Nyarlahotep: Yeah, if you ever find anything gross on the beach, take a close look - that stuff is worth big bucks.
-Kle. #jeffvandermeer
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Starwatcher
10/30/09

In reply to "Finch" Is Interdimensional, Extraterrestrial Biosteam Noir
Right up my alley. Gawd, I love that cover too. #jeffvandermeer
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mewlink64
10/30/09

@Starwatcher: As a future Botanist specializing in Mycology in-the-making, I feel that I must read this book. Plus, that cover is spectacular, holy crap. #jeffvandermeer
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Anekanta - Go Play!
09/17/09

In reply to Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
I was very close to picking up The City of Saints and Madmen last week. Maybe I should have.
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GuinevereLagman
09/17/09

In reply to Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
just a comment from an urbanist: there's a difference between built environment and the society that inhibits it (although you can see it as combine function) - the social aspects are reflections of the built environment (and vice versa) but one should be careful to correlate them in a one-dimensional way. seeing either or both together as technology is a singular viewpoint; it's an engineer's viewpoint. for others, cities are anything from artifact to, well, text, and can be "read" in different ways. interesting to see that bruce uses the past tense in the sentence i'm referring to. in any case, one core idea of the city is proximity, and people will need that in the future too, even if it takes on other, new shapes. or they'll cease being people. my two cents. love the future metro series!
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Charlie Jane Anders promoted this comment GuinevereLagman was starred GuinevereLagman was unstarred

Lightice
09/17/09

In reply to Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
Well, Jeff VanderMeer knows what he's talking about. His Ambergris, the City of Saints and Madmen is one of the most fascinating cities I've seen in speculative fiction. It's at the same time infuriating and pleasant to know that he'll probably never reveal all its secrets.
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Charlie Jane Anders promoted this comment Lightice was starred Lightice was unstarred

Ruthless, If you let me
09/17/09

In reply to Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
I think that there is a lack of historical buildings in future city-scapes. So many old buildings gain that vaunted "historical" status that they can never be torn down/modified in exterior appearance.

I can't imagine a Coruscant type city-scape, that totally displaces these structures. A group of 10 citizens will stop it from happening.
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Edited by Ruthless, If you let me at 09/17/09 10:57 AM

Lightice
09/17/09

@Ruthless, If you let me: In the case of Coruscant it seems stranger that there are no *new* buildings. The Jedi Temple is apparently thousands of years old, yet its architecture doesn't seem significantly different from the rest of the city. The implication seems to be that now new buildings have been made in a millennia.
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Ruthless, If you let me promoted this comment Lightice was starred Lightice was unstarred

icelight
09/17/09

@Ruthless, If you let me: Those sorts of cities really only appear after wars. Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, was essentially flattened by the Nazis. With no historical sites to work around, the city is almost surreal in the quantity of glass and modern architecture it contains. It's not that any one building is notably exceptional, although there are a few. Instead, the unremitting expanse of skyscrapers, plazas and modern art make walking through the city unlike any other I've been to.
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skeksis
09/17/09

@Ruthless, If you let me: Bradbury Building, Blade Runner is the first one that comes to mind. But I am having trouble thinking of other examples.
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Ruthless, If you let me promoted this comment skeksis was starred skeksis was unstarred

Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
09/17/09

@Lightice: I think you're both right.
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braak
09/17/09

In reply to Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
I think it's important to remember, too, how economic realities affect the organization of a city--the banks are here because they want to be near the marketplace which is here, which is where it is for god only knows what reason, probably because it was the flattest part of the are six hundred years ago, and it's where all the cows stopped to graze.
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redqueenmeg
09/17/09

@braak: and this road is in this dippy place because the dippy cows decided this was the shortest way to water, even though it wasn't... heh.
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braak
09/17/09

@redqueenmeg: Yeah, cows don't like hills, so they'll go ten miles out of their way if it means not having to have to walk up.

Which explains the entire layout of Boston.
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Franklin Harris
08/20/09

In reply to 3 New Anthologies Bring Werewolves, ADD-Afflicted Drinking Birds, And Awesomeness
Anthologies like Eclipse and Fast Forward seem to be filing part of the void left by the decline of fiction magazines.
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Grey_Area promoted this comment Franklin Harris was starred Franklin Harris was unstarred

Grey_Area
08/20/09

@Franklin Harris: I spoke to Jeremy Lassen of Night Shade Books and he is definitely trying for some of that. They recently became the publishing partner of Electric Velocipede to help keep venues for speculative fiction short stories alive in print.
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Charlie Jane Anders
08/20/09

@Franklin Harris: That's my perception too... but on the other hand, you still need short fiction magazines to nurture new talent and provide stories for anthologies to reprint.
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Grey_Area
08/20/09

@Charlie Jane Anders: Isn't Eclipse all unpublished stuff?
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Franklin Harris
08/20/09

@Charlie Jane Anders: Magazines are definitely better at nurturing new talent, but the anthologies we see now are increasingly publishing previously unpublished stories. I suspect one reason anthologies are supplanting mags is anthologies tend to offer more known talent for the reader's buck. But it could end up self-defeating is there's no place for new talent to become known.
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Franklin Harris was starred Franklin Harris was unstarred

Grey_Area
08/20/09

In reply to 3 New Anthologies Bring Werewolves, ADD-Afflicted Drinking Birds, And Awesomeness
The first two volumes of Eclipse were truly great. What I really dig is that these are general Speculative Fiction, no themes. You ain't going to cotton to every single story, but I'll guarantee you'll find something you love that's not really "your type of story".

And kudos to Jeremy and Johnathan for getting that piece of vintage SF art by Richard Powers for the cover. Nice touch.
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MosesMonster
08/20/09

In reply to 3 New Anthologies Bring Werewolves, ADD-Afflicted Drinking Birds, And Awesomeness
And where might one find such gems? I'm going to blow a paycheck.
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Grey_Area
08/20/09

@MosesMonster: Eclipse 3 comes out in October, as does Last Drink Bird Head Here's a link to the first two Eclipses: [nightshadebooks.com]
...or go to Amazon.
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drdoombot
07/24/09

In reply to Is There Such A Thing As A Gloriously Unfilmable Book?
I think when you're having a discussion about unfilmable books, you need to consider the films that worked.

"The Godfather," for example, is considered by many to be the greatest film ever made. I found that, but for a subplot or two, the book was almost identical the to the movie. I wouldn't call the book the greatest book ever, but it was quite enjoyable. I don't believe anything was lost in the adaptation. In this case, it seems to me that the adaptation was so successful that it superseded the novel. I suppose the same could be said for "Gone With the Wind." I've never seen the movie or read the book, but I imagine I could just watch the movie to save time and not miss anything from the novel.

Similar to "The Godfather," I saw "Fight Club" before reading the book. Once again, but for some minor details, I found that they were quite similar. So similar, in fact, that after some time had passed, I found I couldn't remember the differences anymore.

Which reminds of the main problem I have with film adaptations: after seeing one, it seems to erase the way I had imagined the book version. Put a gun to my head right now and I wouldn't be able to tell you how main battle of The Two Towers played out in the book. The only difference I remember in "Contact" is that more than one person went on the interplanetary subway. The only versions of Dexter, Frankenstein, Interview With the Vampire, Catch-22, A Scanner Darkly and several others that I remember are the filmed versions. It's for this reason that I refuse to watch the Harry Potter movies: for fear of losing the books as imagined in my head. Thus is the power of the visual medium.

This brings me back to my main point: good adaptations seem to take the essence of a book and the most important points and make them work. I think this is why I forget the little details that have been excised from the filmed versions. The films that I can clearly differentiate in my memory are the ones that had serious departures from the original work: the end of "A Clockwork Orange," the completely different "I Am Legend," "Jumper,"etc.

So, if I had to give advice to someone trying to adapt a book, I would give these pointers:

1. Understand the essence of the source material.
2. Be careful to keep the main points intact.
3. Don't significantly change things!

(As long as this post is, it only scratches the surface of what makes a good adaptation work. I should mention that I saw the first Harry Potter film and was utterly bored by it. Perhaps because it was more a literal translation instead of an adaptation.)
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