Book Review Up: The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman

It's been a while since I last posted a review, but I'm back at it and clearing out my "review pile."  This week was a little disappointing, though.  You can read my review to find out why.

Haul of Books 2010: Stuff For Review v.3

It almost seems like I'm always buying stuff for myself, rather than receiving things for review.  Well, that's not true!  You know how I know?  Because the following book arrived in my mailbox from the far away and extremely exotic land of Australia.  It came in an envelope made of kangaroo fur, and when I opened it, the sweet sound of didgeridoo's playing "Down Under" by Men At Work wafted into my living room, followed by a floating can of Vegemite.

Okay, so none of that is actually true, except the part about it coming from Australia.  But it's still cool to get stuff from far away lands, no?

Here's the image (after the fold):

The Skiffy and Fanty Show #14 is Live!

I am insanely excited to announce episode #14 of The Skiffy and Fanty Show (the podcast I've been doing for the last few months).  Why?  Because of this:

Author Jason Sanford, a two-time Interzone Reader's Poll award winner and recent Nebula Award finalist, joins us for one heck of an interview!  We discuss the state of genre short fiction, literary short fiction, scifi strange, and much more.

Excited, no?  If you'd like to hear the episode, you can find it here.  And don't forget to answer the question of the week!

The Michio Kaku Meme: Thoughts on the World of Science Fiction

Over and Big Think, Michio Kaku has posted a bunch of questions he wants fans to answer for a project he's working on. I don't know what the project is, but if Michio Kaku is involved, then it's bound to be awesome. So, considering that his questions are blog worthy, I thought I'd start a little meme. If you'd like to participate, all you have to do is steal the questions for yourself and answer them. Make sure to link here, and, if you want, post the link over at Big Think so Mr. Kaku can see what you wrote. Simple enough, right?

Here we go:

A Final Answer to the Question of Questions: Is Science Fiction Dying?

No, it is not.  Now shut up already.  The next person who raises this question, even if they're going to say "no" in their response, will get an unwelcome at-home meeting from me and my polystyrene robot.

Yes, the robot has a ray gun, and before Adam comes along and tries to tell me that a ray gun isn't science fiction without an explanation for its power source, I'm going to say that it is powered by the tears from everyone who said George Lucas ruined their childhood with the prequel movies.  That's about as science fictional as you can get.

That is all.

A Scifi Strange Anthology? Publishers, Pay Attention!

Jason Sanford recently posted the table of contents for a dream anthology of scifi strange stories that you all need to see.  The list mostly contains stories available online (primarily because Sanford is calling it an online anthology) and is perhaps one of the most comprehensive and diverse ToCs I have seen in a while.  It includes stories by Rachel Swirsky, Eugie Foster, Nnedi Okorafor, Ted Chiang, Jason Sanford, and many more.  You should definitely check out the post to see what he's picked, and if any publishers are paying attention out there, you should consider publishing this anthology!  Seriously.

If you're unfamiliar with scifi strange, then you should check out Sanford's two posts on the subject:  here and here.  Sanford also has a list of links to other places where the term has been discussed.

Now I need to do some reading...

Question for Readers: How did you find your favorite books?

We all know there are too many books for any one person to read each year (except for Larry Nolen, who reads about nine books a second and shoots laser beams from his eyes), but one thing that I don't think we talk about enough is how we discover the books that we read.

So, I'm going to throw some questions out to you, the readers:

• How did you find your favorite books?
• What process do you use to find new books?
• How do you know if a book you've discovered is a book you're going to buy?  Is it the cover?  The back cover text?  The secret code words on the first page used by publishers to send subliminal messages to their assassins?

Tell me!  I really want to know.