Happy Halloween

I haven't had time to do much seasonal reading lately so I won't recommend anything this year, but have a safe and happy Halloween.  And try not to get eaten.

NaNoWriMo Starts in 2 Days

National Novel Writing Month, usually called NaNoWriMo, starts on Tuesday.  It's a month long project in which aspiring writers attempt to write a novel in a month.  For the month of November, I'm going to be focusin on my personal writing.  That's not going to leave a lot of time for blogging, reading, or much else.  From time  to time I'll post about how the writing is going as well as provide an excerpt or two.  I'll still be doing some blog posts on both Adventures Fantastic and Futures Past and Present, but they'll mostly be devoted to short fiction or brief news or opinion pieces.  I'll review the novel I'm currently reading, and that will probably be it as far as novels go for a few weeks.

In case you're wondering what my novel is about, it's a sword and planet adventure with a lot of hard science thrown in.  Think of a blend of Leigh Brackett, Robert E. Howard, and Larry Niven with a dash of Jack Vance.  At this point, I'll be focusing on two or three different characters from the same space ship trying to survive at different places under very different circumstances on the same alien planet.  Of course, I could change my mind and give each character their separate novel.  I'll just have to wait and see. 

Fifty thousand words is the minimum required to "win" NaNoWriMo.  I know I can write that much; the thing that will be hard will be writing that much in one month.  Thankfully the Thanksgiving holidays should allow me some time to catch up if I fall behind.

Congratulations to the World Fantasy Award Winners

Adventures Fantastic would like to congratulate all the nominees for this year's World Fantasy Awards, and especially the following winners:

Best Novel:  Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death

Best Novella:  Elizabeth Hand, "The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Belerophon"

Best Short Fiction:  Joyce Carol Oates, "Fossil-Figures"

Best Anthology:  My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me, Kate Bernheimer, ed.

Best Collection:  What I Didn't See and Other Stories, Karen Joy Fowler

Best Artist:  Kinuko Y. Craft

Special Award, Professional:  Marc Gasciogne, for Angry Robot

Special Award, Nonprofessional:  Alisa Krasnostein, for Twelfth Planet Press

Lifetime Achievement:  Peter S. Beagle and Angelica Gorodischer

A complete list of all nominees can be found here.

Adventures on Strange Worlds

Strange Worlds
Jeff Doten, ed. and illus.
189 p., $27

I grew up reading classic science fiction and science fantasy from the 1930s and 1940s, and the sword and planet story has a special place in my heart.  It's a genre we don't see very often any more, but hopefully that is changing.  If nothing else, the release of John Carter next year should cause a brief resurgence in the genre. 

But if you can't wait that long, there's a new anthology out to help whet your appetite. 

Indie Books: A Tsunami of...?

You hear a lot of talk in the publishing world these days about indie published ebooks.  Some think they're nothing short of the salvation of western civilization because they allow authors to connect directly to readers.  Others, to a large extent publishers, editors, and agents, insist that indie publishing will bury us all under a tsunami of crap.  And of course you every possible position in between those two extremes.

A couple of days ago, Passive Guy at The Passive Voice, posted something about a publisher reporting ebook sales.  In the comments section, Mick Griggs included a link to this essay.  (Thanks, PG and Mick.)

Mark Williams, the author of that essay insists, quite convincingly, that instead of  a tsunami of crap, we're starting to see a tsunami of excellence.  If you have an ereader, are thinking about buying an ereader, or even interested in what effect ereaders and epublishing will have on your future book buying, you should check that essay out.

I decided to do a little commentary myself, based on some things I've posted lately.

A Review of Stones by Gerald So, Yet Another Well-Done Ebook

Stones
Gerald So
various ebook formats, $0.99

Long ago, when the world was young, the Moon was new, dinosaurs ruled the land, and I was in high school, two of the three television networks decided to do what networks have always done.  (Yes, children, at one time there were only three television networks instead of half a million; if you didn't like what was on, you read a book.  There was no internet.  I told you, the world was young.)  They decided to cash in on the popularity a little movie entitled Raiders of the Lost Ark by airing shows in a similar vein, namely adventures set in the Pacific in the 1930s.

I don't remember which networks they were, and I'm too lazy to look it up.  One show was entitled Bring 'Em Back Alive, the fictitious adventures of real life big game hunter Frank Buck, author of a book of the same title, and starring Bruce Boxleitner.  The other was Tales of the Gold Monkey.  It starred Stephen Collins and several of the characters were spies.

It's Tales of the Gold Monkey that Stones most closely resembles.

RBE Challenge Continues

Jason M. Waltz posted a little while ago on the Rogue Blades Entertainment website that he is extending the Challenge! Stealth competition.  Due to issues related to a virus infecting the site, which have now been resolved, the 2011 Challenge will continue until 30 submissions have been accepted.


For more details, go here and here.  The artwork for this year's competition can be found here.