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In an interview with So I'm Fifty, Above World author Jenn Reese talks about her planning process, including figuring out what her "candy-bar" scenes are: More »
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Samuel Youd, who died yesterday at age 89, was better known under the name John Christopher, one of several pseudonyms. And under that name, he was best known for creating the fearsome Tripods, alien invaders who enslave the human race with the mind-controlling "cap." Christopher's Tripod trilogy is a wonderful adventure story, but it's also a direct precursor to our current flood of young-adult post-apocalyptic/dystopian novels. He also wrote the ground-breaking eco-apocalypse novel The Death of Grass. The Guardian has a fantastic tribute to an influential, fascinating author who will be greatly missed. More »
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Small Beer Press' latest volume, Three Messages and a Warning: Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic, contains 34 stories published in Mexico in the past decade — most of them from the past two years. Writing in the Seattle Times, Nisi Shawl praises this volume for presenting a fresher look at magical realism than people in the U.S. have seen lately: More »
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It's time again for the Concept Art Writing Prompt, where we ask you to write a piece of flash fiction in response to an unusual piece of artwork. This week, we're headed into the desert, where, of all things, a submarine lies rotting. You're the author, so tell us: How did it get there? More »
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We read fantasy books for all sorts of reasons, including escapism, gritty action, and immersion into detailed, ornate worlds. But one great reason to read fantasy novels is because many of the genre's best works deal with how to be a good, ethical human being. More »
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Speaking to DCist, John Hodgman explains that he felt embarrassed to be reading George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire at first, but then he got over it. For good reasons: More »
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The Sept. 11 attacks and the Iraq war have reverberated through science fiction and fantasy for over a decade, giving us plenty of stories of terrorism, wars of occupation and clashes of cultures. But Matt Ruff's The Mirage, which comes out next week, might just be the ideal prism with which to refract your memories of that brutal decade and see them anew. Plus it's an addictive, fascinating read, which keeps you guessing. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5881385&view=rss&microfeed=true "To be honest, I'm thinking much more about science than about religion when I'm writing. To me, art itself is a religion and the challenge to it is not religion, it's the hardcore materialism of science. So I spend quite a bit of time trying to make sense of how I seem to have a soul, I have this ghostly consciousness, yet I know as a believer in science that this is just coming from carbon, hydrogen and oxygen molecules. I think if you take science seriously there are a lot of interesting questions to ask. I would be happy if more novelists, not just science fiction writers, paid attention to that." — Freedom author Jonathan Franzen, quoted in the Telegraph More »
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Angry Robot Books just announced its young adult imprint, Strange Chemistry, last November — but they're already off to a thrilling start. The first three Strange Chemistry titles have been announced, and they're nothing like the usual rash of paranormal love triangles and Hunger Games-inspired dystopias we've been seeing lately. More »
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Fire up your keyboards, kids; it's time for another Concept Art Writing Prompt. This week's writing prompt features a familiar character: the one, the only Godzilla. Will your flash fiction piece star the famed Japanese monster? Or will you give this parasol-wielding lizard man an entirely different identity? Post your story in comments More »
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If you love a dash of weirdness and mile-a-minute storytelling, then you've never stopped loving the novels of Brian Aldiss. But anybody who's slept on Aldiss' dizzying writing is going to get a new chance to appreciate the master, who's probably best known for writing the story that became Spielberg and Kubrick's A.I. More »
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Science fiction and fantasy are genres where almost anything can happen — as long as the author can make it seem plausible, and as long as it's part of a good story. But that doesn't mean there are no rules. If anything, the fact that these genres are so wide open mean that there are tons of rules out there, some unspoken and some written in black and white. More »
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If in 2007, manga was like a foreign movie star who had arrived on American shores to make it big, the last four years have been like watching that star run out of roles, run out of money, sell their house, go into rehab, and end up barely limping along in infomercials. More »
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For the past two weeks, you've delighted us with your flash fiction pieces about dead (and undead) giants and disembodied brains that surf the web. This week, your inspiration is a bit of otherworldly car trouble. As always, post your story in the comments. More »
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Science may be a source of fascinating, world-changing discoveries, but that doesn't stop people from bitching about it. Two of the most common complaints from the public about scientific work are actually complete misunderstandings of how science is done. The worst part is that these two complaints divert the public's attention away from two reasons they should be criticizing science articles but almost never do. More »
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Welcome to another installment of the Concept Art Writing Prompt. Each week, we post a piece of unusual artwork, hoping to fire your imagination and get your fingers typing. If today's well-connected brain in a jar inspires you, write a piece of flash fiction and share it in the comments. More »
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We lost a great icon of science fiction and fantasy last year when Anne McCaffrey passed away. Now Robin Hobb, the author of several novels including the forthcoming City of Dragons, pays tribute to McCaffrey in a new interview, republished from the press materials for her new novel. More »
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Yet another sign that the book industry will have to catch up to movies and music, when it comes to electronic content — ChiZine Publications announced a new policy. Buy a trade paperback via their website, and you get an automatic digital download of that same title as an ebook. Convenient! More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5875360&view=rss&microfeed=true The Guardian books podcast asked some of science fiction's leading lights to speculate about where the genre is heading in the future. And one major question that came up was, "Why is science fiction growing so rapidly in popularity?" Over on his own blog, podcast participant Damien G. Walter offers one explanation: Science fiction is a literature of change, which is the perfect reading material in a rapidly changing world. "The faster the world changes, the less familiar it feels, and the weirder it becomes, the more impossible the task of directly describing our experience of it." More »
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Welcome to the Concept Art Writing Prompt, a new, much-demanded feature here at io9. Each Saturday, we'll post a piece of artwork, and ask you to write a piece of fiction based on that artwork in the comments. More »
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It's hard to perform a Michael Jackson routine night after night, lipsynching to the king of pop. But it gets a lot more complicated when you're being stalked by a psychotic robot — and it can only get worse when the robot decides that it's a Michael Jackson fan. More »
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The last time horror fiction was a thing, during the 1990s, the market flooded with terrible trend-following books, and the inevitable contraction killed or prevented the careers of some talented horror-smiths. Now, Jo Fletcher with Jo Fletcher Books predicts a new horror comeback, among other trends, in an interview with SFX: More »
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Over at Boing Boing, vN author Madeline Ashby has a great discussion of the difference between creating Strategic Foresight (attempting to predict variables for a strategic outlook) and writing science fiction. It's a really useful, quick primer in how to think about the future. Including not just identifying trends, but figuring out the underlying factors that drive those trends and the shape they could take in the future. And creating a "critical uncertainties matrix," or a list of unpredictable factors that could change your scenario. It's pretty helpful stuff, if you're planning on writing an SF story, or doing a forecast for someone. [Boing Boing] More »
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Post-apocalyptic stories are chock full of wish-fulfillment. Rugged individualism holds sway. Every survivor is as special as Harry Potter, just by virtue of being alive. We get to rebuild this whole mess, without all that postmodern clutter. And so on. More »
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H.G. Wells gave us many of our most beloved science fiction conceits — but did he also foresee how war would develop in the era of airplanes and advanced weaponry? And were his predictions more prescient than some of the Pentagon's attempts to forecast the changing nature of war have been? More »
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Over at Fantasy magazine, Genevieve Valentine has a great essay looking at the major dragon archetypes, and what they represent to the human heroes who deal with them. Valentine begins by describing the "dragon as force" archetype: More »
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Several years ago, I was getting burned out in my high-stress newspaper job, and I came across a fancy hardcover book listing science fiction publishers, agents and editors. I paged through it on my lunchbreak, until I found a part of the introduction which proclaimed: "Many writers now make a decent living just from writing science fiction short stories." More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5870146&view=rss&microfeed=true You know Paolo Bacigalupi's arrived when his next novel is already getting raves and nobody's even seen a galley yet. Over at Westword, Alan Prendergast talks about the excitement about Bacigalupi's forthcoming The Drowned Cities, which takes place in the Ship Breaker world but isn't a direct sequel. Chief among those banging the drum for the next Bacigalupi book: Time's Lev Grossman, who's also hyped for the next William Gibson book. (Sorry about the misunderstanding: It's not a novel, it's a non-fiction collection.) More »
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Good news! Walter Mosley, best known for his Easy Rawlins novels, will be publishing more science fiction next year — he has a series of SF novellas coming from Tor, whom he describes as "THE science fiction publisher." They'll be packaged as one or more flipbooks. More »
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Rudy Rucker was the first author to win the Philip K. Dick Award, right after Dick's death in 1982. Around that time, Rucker was becoming aware of the new "Cyberpunk" movement and meeting the rebellious authors who were reimagining the union of humans and computers. In this exclusive excerpt from Rucker's new autobiography, Nested Scrolls, he talks about how both events influenced his writing, and what it was like to be a science fiction writer in those strange days. More »
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Kurt Vonnegut finally got his first major biography recently, and so far everybody who's reviewed it has been shocked by one thing: just how bitter Vonnegut was, in his last years. Biographer Charles Shields spent a lot of time with Vonnegut while working on And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life. More »
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This documentary about the booming subculture of cyberpunk, made over two decades ago, bursts with enthusiasm and ideas. Plus then-cutting-edge 3D graphics. It's a great look at cyber-culture from a generation ago, plus there's tons of William Gibson talking about making science fiction post-modern and forward-looking, and Timothy Leary holding forth. It's the perfect thing to watch while you're waiting for the weekend to begin. More »
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December opens up whole new universes for science fiction and fantasy fans! How can you prepare for the onslaught of awesomeness? Only by living in the future today, with the indispensible io9 calendar. More »
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If you've been wondering just what's wrong with unemployed people, and why they won't just go get a job, then Ursula K. Le Guin has some answers for you. In the time-honored tradition of fantasists and fabulists, she's phrased her answers in the form of a fable. More »
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The Google Doodle at Google.com is some kind of Thanksgiving turkey thing — but if you go over to Google.co.uk right now, you're treated to a totally demented black-and-white animation in honor of the 60th anniversary of Stanislaw Lem's first publication. It's based on The Cyberiad illustrations by Daniel Mróz, and it really has to be seen to be believed. Go check it out now, while it's still up there! [Google.co.uk via Guardian and Matt Jones] More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5862132&view=rss&microfeed=true Science fiction and fantasy are officially ruling young-adult books — so it's no surprise that lots of science fiction publishers have been expanding into the YA niche, with often terrific results. The latest addition: Angry Robot Books is launching a YA imprint, Strange Chemistry, headed up by Amanda Rutter. They'll launch next September, with five books by the end of 2012, and one book a month thereafter. Can't wait! [Tor.com] More »
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The Inheritance, the final book in Christopher Paolini's book series that began with Eragon, has sold half a million copies on its first day. So what's Paolini going to do next? A science fiction novel, he tells the Bookseller: More »
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Science fiction tales don't stand or fall on story alone. They also need strange details and subplots to give you a sense that the world you've entered is truly alien. What would 2001 be without the bizarre advertisements in the background? And would Snow Crash really be as great of a novel if it weren't for canny details like the computerized guns that require software updates? More »
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If you've been doing National Novel Writing Month, and you're being diligent and sticking to your schedule, then chances are you're about a quarter of the way through your novel. And that means just one thing: It's time for Act One to end, and Act Two to begin. Cross the threshold to adventure! Commit your characters to their journey! And so on. More »
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Stephen King's new novel 11/22/63 involves a tunnel to the past, and a guy who tries to tamper with the Kennedy assassination. Talking to Wired, King explains something about the rules of time travel as he sees them: More »
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