The Skiffy and Fanty Show #3.1 is Live! (Dungeons & Dragons Reviewed!)

We're back with another bad movie review.  The title says it all:  Dungeons & Dragons.  You might remember that awful movie from the year 2000.  If not, then you've either suppressed its existence or never saw it.  The great thing about the new episode is that you don't have to watch it.  We've tortured ourselves for your benefit.

If you're interested in hearing what we have to say, check out the episode.  And don't hesitate to email us with your suggestions for future Torture Cinema episodes.

Book Review: Dark Jenny by Alex Bledsoe

Every once in a while I go out to the mailbox and discover a book in the mail that I wasn't expecting.  A lot of those books end up sitting on my review shelf, but some of those books intrigue me enough to dig my eyes into them.  Such books tend to be quite good.  Dark Jenny is one of those books.

Dark Jenny follows Eddie LaCrosse, a witty sword for hire who'll solve any case for a reasonable price.  But Eddie also has a history that most people don't know about, and it involves the fall of

RIP: Diana Wynne Jones

I hate being a day behind on things like this.  If you don't know already, fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones passed away yesterday after a long battle with lung cancer.  She was the author of a number of fantasy works, including one of my favorites:  Howl's Moving Castle (which was turned into a Hayao Miyazaki film).  

She will be missed, but hopefully she's in a better place.

A Book Blurb By Me (Andy Remic's Serial Killers Incorporated)!

I follow Andy Remic's blog, and earlier today he posted the cover art for his latest book from Anarchy Books (a new ebook publisher).  And that cover features a quote/blurb by yours truly!  See for yourself:

Now, to be fair, the quote is attributed to SQT's blog, but I wrote the review that Remic took the quote from (for Kell's Legend)!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I am going to go scream and jump around in my apartment like a buffoon.

The Skiffy and Fanty Show #3.0 is Live! (An Interview w/ Tobias Buckell)

I am really excited to let you all know that the latest episode of my podcast is an interview with Tobias Buckell!  I've been wanting to interview him for a while.  Here's the episode.  Give it a listen.  Hopefully you all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it!

ToC for ODD? (vol. one) Released (and It Looks Good!)

Jeff VanderMeer has released the table of contents for the first volume of the upcoming anthology called ODD? (edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer). Here's the list:

Amos Tutuola – “The Dead Babies”
Gustave Le Rouge – “The War of the Vampires” (new translation by Brian Evenson and David Beus)
Jeffrey Ford – “Weiroot”
Leopoldo Lugones – “The Bloat Toad” (new translation by Larry Nolen)
Mark Samuels – “Apt 205”
Michael Cisco – “Modern Cities Exist Only to Be Destroyed” (published only in a limited edition previously)
Nalo Hopkinson – “Slow Cold Chick”
Sumanth Prabhaker – “A Hard Truth About Waste Management” (revised since publication)
Hiromi Goto – “Stinky Girl”
Eric Basso – “Logues”
Edward Morris – “Lotophagi”
Karin Tidbeck – “The Aunts” (previously unpublished)
Jeffrey Thomas – “The Fork”
Rikki Ducornet – “The Volatilized Ceiling of Baron Munodi”
Amanda le Bas de Plumetot – “Unmaking” (previously unpublished)
Karl Hans Strobl – “The Head” (new translation by Gio Clairval)
Caitlin R. Kiernan – “A Child’s Guide to the Hollow Hills”
Stacey Levine – “Sausage”

I'll admit that I haven't heard of a number of folks on this list, but the fact that Amos Tutuola, Jeffrey Ford, and Nalo Hopkinson are on it tells me a lot about the quality and the vision of the anthology. You better believe that this sucker will be on my Christmas list.

What do you all think of it?

Poll Results (Plus Another Question): Which age of science fiction is your favorite?

The results are in.  Here's how you all voted:

• 10% said "the Pulps"
• 30% said "the Golden Age"
• 0% said "the New Wave"
• 20% said "Cyberpunk"
• 40% said "Contemporary"

I'm rather shocked by these results.  The science fiction community presents itself as having some kind of love affair with the New Wave, yet nobody voted for it in my poll.  Does that say something about the kinds of readers I have?  I don't know.  Maybe.  I suppose that really depends on what we include in the last category, which had the most votes.  If contemporary SF includes work that takes its influences straight from the New Wave (and that's what 40% of you were thinking at the time), then it all makes sense.  I know that's how I was thinking of the term.

Now I have another question, which I can't put in poll format:  which book in your favorite "age" is your favorite and why?  Let me know in the comments!

A new poll will be up later today.

In Defense of Signs (That Shyamalan Alien Invasion Flick)

Every few months someone says something to the effect of:  "Signs is such a dumb movie.  Why would aliens invade a planet covered in stuff they're allergic to?"  Why, indeed.  John Scalzi is the latest in a sea of Signs haters.  In a recent AMC column, Scalzi talked about the numerous alien invasion movies we've seen over the last few decades and gave each a grade on the A to F scale.  He had this to say about Signs:

Really, aliens? You invade a planet that is made up of stuff that can melt flesh off your bones? You deserve to be defeated by Joaquin Phoenix and a baseball bat. Stupidest invasion ever.

Invasion score: F

Well, actually, it's not that stupid after all.  There are two reasons for this:  1) habitable planets are not as common or as easy to get to as we would like, and 2) humans, who consider themselves to be intelligent creatures, routinely invade or inhabit lands that present serious challenges to our well being.  I'll expand these two points below:

I. Habitable Planets

The Skiffy and Fanty Show #2.9 is Live! (Colonialism and Science Fiction)

The latest episode of SandF has a lot to do with some of the things I've been discussing on this blog and related topics.  But we're not just talking about "colonizing space" and all that stuff I blogged about not too long ago.  We also talk about the intersection of science fiction and colonialism and examples of colonialism in science fiction (largely in the form of critique).

Feel free to tune in!

Our question of the week will go up tomorrow, which will be full of happy!

Music Video: "Yellow" by Sarah Fimm

I've been getting a few music requests in the last few months and I've been trying to think about how to talk about them on this blog. It's not common to find music which has a genre slant to it (soundtracks are a different beast, after all) or that contains messages influenced by revolutionary science figures like Carl Sagan or Stephen Hawking. "Yellow" is such an influenced work.

First, the music video (after the fold):

Publication: "Little Blue Planet" in Phantasmacore

Hurray for flash fiction! I've recently had my story, "Little Blue Planet," published at Phantasmacore. Astute readers may notice that the story is a near-parody of a certain movie. Think of it as a serious version of those "How the Movie Should Have Ended" things.

Hope you all enjoy the story! Go over there and leave a comment.

An Addendum: "Colonizing Space" -- It Really Is That Bad

Several days ago I wrote a post called "'Colonizing Space' is a Dirty Word:  Stop Using It," which sparked a handful of amusing debates.  io9, for instance, essentially plagiarized me on Facebook by not providing attribution for the problematic I initially set up. I say that jokingly, of course.  The more interesting response, however, came in the form of a refutation by Larry of OF Blog of the Fallen.  His post, and the comments to it, will be the focus of this addendum.

Larry's primary refutation is on the grounds of etymology.  When one looks at the creation of the word "colonization" and its roots in Latin, it does, in fact, appear to have a fairly benign usage ("to inhabit, cultivate, frequent, practice, tend, guard, respect" refers to the Latin root, colere).  The modern definition, however, is only benign if you take it literally.  To colonize means to

Guest Post: "The Weird West Subgenre" by Lincoln Crisler

Your kind host has asked me to introduce you to the wonderful world of the Weird West (and in doing so, to the unassailably awesome aesthetics of the alliteration!). If you like steampunk or alternate history, you might like Weird West stories. That Wild Wild West movie that came out a decade or two ago could be held up as an example of either subgenre: steampunk because of the machinery and Weird West because of the setting and the machinery. There's a bit of overlap with steampunk and Weird West because the time of the American West is pretty much the upper limit of the steampunk time period; that is, before the Industrial Revolution kicked into high gear in the United States and made steampunk-type technology not quite as farfetched anymore. But I digress.

The untamed American West of the 1830s to 1920s is rife with possibilities for writers and readers of speculative fiction. You have an entire half-continent or so that's just beginning to become habitable by Western European standards, you have unknown Native American tribes and people of Mexican descent with cultures, gods and rituals that no one understands and you have a sense of lawlessness that can't quite be captured as thouroughly in any other milieu. You have people

The Skiffy and Fanty Show #2.8 is Live! (Your Artificial Face Are Belong to Us!)

We're back with another episode!  This week is all about the exciting stuff that has happening in the SF/F community.  We cover everything from the SF/F-related movies coming out in March to some Gaimain-esque and Scalzian propaganda.  Oh, and there's an interesting bit about artificial skin!  So tune in and enjoy!

P.S.:  The new question of the week will go up tomorrow.  Make sure to pop on over and give us your answer.

Arthur C. Clarke Award Nominees -- Some Thoughts

Everyone has been pointing out the Arthur C. Clarke Award nominees in the last few days.  And why not?  The list has some really interesting books on it, including a second novel from one of my favorite new writers:

• Zoo City, Lauren Beukes (Angry Robot)
• The Dervish House, Ian McDonald (Gollancz)
• Monsters of Men, Patrick Ness (Walker)
• Generosity, Richard Powers (Atlantic)
• Declare, Tim Powers (Corvus)
• Lightborn, Tricia Sullivan (Orbit)

You can probably guess who I am rooting for, right?  If not, then you haven't been paying attention the last few months.  I'm all in for Lauren Beukes.  Her second novel was amazing.  She presents an astonishing level of cultural detail in the novel, which you don't always get from fantastic works set in actual places.  I really hope they select her, though she's up against some stiff competition with a Tim Powers and Ian McDonald novel on the list, not to mention that a lot of people have been talking about Tricia Sullivan's Lightborn, which could very well snatch up the award.

It's also good to see women nominated for the award, though they are still outnumbered by the menfolk.  I'm not sure which other books by women would no only be eligible, but good enough for the award, though.  Anyone out there have thoughts on that?

Anywho.  For those interested, I reviewed Zoo City here and my friend and I interviewed her for our podcast here.

We'll find out who won at the SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival on April 27, 2011.