Nicola Griffith

posts about #nicolagriffith more →
3 New Anthologies Bring Werewolves, ADD-Afflicted Drinking Birds, And Awesomeness
4 Authors We Wish Would Return To Science Fiction
The Future Of Human Knowledge Is A Joss Whedon Villain?
Amazon.Com Banishes Queer SF Writers To A Null Dimension
Zeppelins On Mars, Water Purification On Earth: Research Secrets Of Two SF Writers
Science Fiction Writers Bust Out Of Lambda Scifi Category

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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
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@Charlie Jane Anders: Isn't Eclipse all unpublished stuff?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are definitely better at nurturing new talent, but the anthologies we see now are increasingly publishing previously unpublished stories.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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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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Geoffrey Sperl
06/10/09

In reply to 4 Authors We Wish Would Return To Science Fiction
This is great post.

I think Russell hit it on the head: Who cares about labels? If a writer is a good writer then it should matter if they are producing SF or romance or cookbooks - it's going to be good if they know their craft.

I personally think William Gibson's best book post-Neuromancer is Pattern Recognition, and I have a hard time seeing that as SF. But it's a good book. Stephenson's Cryptonomicon isn't SF, but it's a good book.

If the author is good, then labels really shouldn't matter. Their interests, as Griffith said, will still be a part of them and it will still color their later work. As a result I'll read just about anything she (Griffith) writes and tend to enjoy it. The same goes for Stephenson or Richard Grant (if anyone recognizes him - and I don't mean the actor) and various others.
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NerD: Blattella
06/10/09

@Geoffrey Sperl: I LOVED Pattern Recognition.
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bronzeorchidsac
06/10/09

In reply to 4 Authors We Wish Would Return To Science Fiction
Son of a bitch Charlie!

I seriously was going to finish an article for you guys tonight. Guess what it was about? Samuel R. Delany and Mary Doria Russell and why they should come back to us.

Granted, I had no interviews, just arguments.

Point being, I wanted to write it because I wanted to read it. This is why you are my favorite.

Speaking of favorites. I have had a hard on for Delany since I was 12 and yet I understand his leaving the genre. He left us with a lot to comb through and while being obvious science fiction, there was always something more going on. I won't rant, but I suggest that we all should read (or re-read) The Einsteinian Intersection.

Again, I love you Charlie.
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Charlie Jane Anders
06/10/09

@bronzeorchidsac: Oh yay! I'm glad you liked the post. And I'd be interested to see your arguments about why Delany and Russell should return to the genre...
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braak
05/17/09

In reply to The Future Of Human Knowledge Is A Joss Whedon Villain?
Well, it seems okay. I'm always forgetting how many ounces are in a cup, so that's pretty handy.
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His_Steveness
05/16/09

In reply to The Future Of Human Knowledge Is A Joss Whedon Villain?
Whenever someone claims that the thing they're working on will "change the way we think/feel/travel" there is a 95% chance they are wrong.
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rwald
05/16/09

@His_Steveness: This is Stephen Wolfram we're talking about, he believes that everything he does will "change the way we think/feel/travel." He and Dean Kamen need to have an ego-off.
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
05/16/09

@rwald: Kamen at least gets some stuff to market and in physical, usable form. It doesn't change the world, but it is there and it works.
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bonniegrrl
04/14/09

In reply to Amazon.Com Banishes Queer SF Writers To A Null Dimension
More here on the hack:

[community.livejournal.com]
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
04/13/09

In reply to Amazon.Com Banishes Queer SF Writers To A Null Dimension
Again:

1) Many people have shown how the guy who's taking credit for it couldn't have done it and is just claiming he did 4 teh lulz.

2) The anti-gay thing doesn't take into account all the facts -- namely, the anti-disabled sex part. Said credit-claiming troll doesn't mention that, b/c it's gotten very little coverage.

3) it may have been a translation error by a non-English speaking Amazon editor. A cheese eating surrender monkey

See [www.lilithsaintcrow.com]
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
04/13/09

In reply to Amazon.Com Banishes Queer SF Writers To A Null Dimension
Something that isn't mentioned in most posts about this:

Not only have they banished the queer books, they have done the same to books on the sexuality of disabled people.

So, even if you're straight, if you're in a wheelchair or such, stop having sexual thoughts and for Jesus' sake, DON'T HAVE SEX, you disgusting imperfect cripples.

This little fact puts more weight on the "fundie anti-standard-sex" side than the "hax0rs 4 teh lulz" side.
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ParryLost
04/13/09

In reply to Amazon.Com Banishes Queer SF Writers To A Null Dimension
Whoever is responsible should be fired, and should never be allowed within a ten-mile radius of any literature-related industry ever again.

Sure, a glitch. Books with gay or lesbian themes with NO explicit content whatsoever disappear, but books with sexually explicit, but heterosexual-oriented content are unaffected. Uh-huh. Funny glitch, that.

Some homophobe decided that everything gay and lesbian is automatically offensive, and this homophobe happened to be working at Amazon. That's all there is to it. The sooner they kill this policy, the more customers they'll get to keep.
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
04/13/09

@ParryLost: Yes, and the name of whoever did it should be made known so that everyone will know not to hire them. That person(s) is inappropriate to a free society. If they want to work in the publishing industry of Saudi Arabia, that's okay -- although, oops! you can't promote Christianity there. Well, I'm sure there's some tinpot dictator who'll hire them.

If the troll theory is true (and it's plausible), then Amazon needs to hire more people to keep an eye out for such things. Get some nice Buddhists to work the Passover/Easter weekend.
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Pope John Peeps II
04/13/09

In reply to Amazon.Com Banishes Queer SF Writers To A Null Dimension
There's something strange about taking a real thing which affects a lot of people and then saying "this affected science fiction writers".

It's sort of like manipulating news so that it'll reach your audience isn't it?

"Italian earthquakes kill famous Sci-fi author. Also, 15 000".
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ParryLost
04/13/09

@Pope John Peeps II:Well if it was posted here without mentioning the impact on sci-fi authors, there would be comments asking "what does this have to do with science-fiction?"
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Charlie Jane Anders
04/13/09

@ParryLost: @Pope John Peeps II: Exactly. We're a science fiction news site. That means we cover news about science fiction. If three people died in a car crash and one of them was the Pope and one of them was William Gibson, our headline would be "William Gibson Dies In Car Crash."
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Pope John Peeps II
04/13/09

@Charlie Jane Anders: Surely there's a more accurate way to phrase it than "Amazon hates queer SF! Emergency!"
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Charlie Jane Anders
04/13/09

@Pope John Peeps II: Did I say Amazon hated queer SF?
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twophrasebark
04/13/09

In reply to Amazon.Com Banishes Queer SF Writers To A Null Dimension
If this is really an issue of tags run amok (I don't think it is), then the best way to combat it is to start tagging everything as adult.
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Indigen
04/13/09

In reply to Amazon.Com Banishes Queer SF Writers To A Null Dimension
Why does the article imply Twitter is a central element of this story. It's an inane social networking site. Nobody cares about new usernames on it, and I laughed out loud at "Twitter and elsewhere". So, the rest of the internet then. Elsewhere.
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Charlie Jane Anders
04/13/09

@Indigen: Twitter was really driving this story. The discussion started on Twitter, and really took off on Twitter.
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twophrasebark
04/13/09

@Charlie Jane Anders: Twitter is Skynet.
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Slatz_Grobnik
04/13/09

In reply to Amazon.Com Banishes Queer SF Writers To A Null Dimension
Okay, is anyone else alarmed that this is known as "amazonfail"? It's like some turning point for internet lingo in our language.
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