Links : From Old Gods to New Technology

First off, yes... I have redesigned the site.  I'm been having a slow trickle of complaints about the white on black text of the old template and while I was humming and hawing about going for a white and red scheme, I have decided to go for this... see how the muted winter desert hues off-set the simple clear freshness of the text.  While this means that I no longer have the blue banner kindly designed for me by my friend Sylvain Amacher, I think after two and a half years, it was time for a re-think.  So please excuse any problems with reading the pale blue italic text I have been using.  I intend to transfer over to something darker in future posts but I most likely won't be going back and changing the old highlights.  Sorry.  So please contact me if you have any thoughts or if you completely hate the re-design.  Also contact me if you feel like designing me a new banner *flutters eyelashes suggestively*

Secondly, the title of this links post is fitting as this week I have been struggling with Tad Williams' new book.  As people no doubt know by now, I am no friend to fat fantasy.  However, in the spirit of open-mindedness and always expanding my horizons I have tried to read Shadowplay with an open mind and see the beauty in it.  So in the next few days you will be seeing my carefully considered review of 660 pages of unapologetic vanilla fantasy (or "Vanfan" as a certain online acquaintance recently insisted upon putting it).  I know that I have been relatively quiet this month but I decided to take 10 days off reviewing and decided not to write reviews of Cormac McCarthy's excellent The Road and Charlie Stross' somewhat pedestrian Missile Gap.  However, I have been writing reviews of the New Stephen Baxter and some vintage SF so reviews are in the pipeline.

Thirdly, with no more delays... here are the links of interest that I have unearthed.

* A rather splendid Guardian article by Helena Smith about the resurgence of greeks worshipping their ancient gods.  Needless to say, the Orthodox church are not best pleased.

* The proceedings of the 2006 Beyond Belief conference including recordings of people such as Steven Weinberg, Richard Dawkins, Francisco Ayala and Sam Harris.  Pretty thought provoking stuff even for those of us who have become utterly bored of the endless online discussions of religion that invariably spring up in online fora.

* The Great Nick Mamatas has decided to release is equally great novel Move Underground as a free download.  What more needs to be said about it than the fact that it's one of my favourite books and features William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac taking on Cthulhu.  Actually, more does need to be said as Voices in the Dark (who record their own audiobooks and then put them online for free) have started reading Move Underground.  No iPod should be seen without it.

* Turning to the New Technology side of things, former Gizmodo editor Joel Johnson reappeared to deliver a blistering critique of the apathy of people who buy technology.  From a willingness to upgrade every six months to putting up with DRM, he's right... consumers get the shitty products they desire.  How are we ever going to conquer the galaxy (which belongs to us humans by the way... any alien civilisations out there have a destiny in our ever expanding service industry).

* I found THIS video on BoingBoing this morning and I think it's one of the coolest things I have ever seen.  Graffiti artists using laser pointers to tag buildings in fifty foot-hight letters.

* This week's Strange Horizons featured a rather nice article by Paul Lucas about all the different kinds of megastructures that you find in SF.  From well known things like Halo-style ringworlds and Dyson spheres to lesser known stuff like Balloon Worlds and Xeelee rings.

* On the SF front, I would also like to draw attention to Adam Roberts' splendid review of Pynchon's Against the Day.  The review makes me want to read the book, which is always irritating as I have a stack to get through and Pynchon's books are invariably HUGE.

* Also worth looking at is Paul Raven's interview with Ken MacLeod.  It's quite an interesting interview but it also makes me feel intensely sorry for Paul as MacLeod doesn't seem very forthcoming at all.  It's possible that Paul edited him down but I get the impression that pulling MacLeod's teeth out might have been simpler (though I'm sure bundling MacLeod into the back of a van and pulling his teeth out in order to make him talk would never occur to as nice a chap as Paul).

* Speaking of the SF Site, I am frankly appalled by their 2006 Best Read of the Year.  Not only have they managed to not review the winning book but, in fact, they've only actually reviewed 6 out of their top 14 books.  Seems to me like the SF Site needs a serious shake-up of its reviews department as they're managing to miss everything despite churning out loads of reviews.  Maybe that pompous "We're not looking for any contributors at the present time" policy needs to be looked at again.

Comments

[Paul Raven]

Hi Jonathan; just a few things...

New design much more readable, if a little 'vanilla' - not that it matters to us RSS junkies, of course! :)

The Pynchon review is by Adam Roberts, not Baxter.

As for Ken MacLeod's interview, I think the problem is more one of the low bandwidth of text communication; having met Ken in person, he's a classic laconic Scot, and what may seem stand-offish in text is more likely just a reflection of the dry way he speaks. He seemed more than happy to be interviewed ... maybe I was just asking all the wrong questions! The extras on VCTB might be a little more exciting.

I think the thing with SF Site is that a lot of their regular reviewers seem to prefer fantasy material; I'm hoping to add some weight on the SF side of the scales as time goes by. Furthermore, they can only review what they get sent (or what a reviewer acquires for themselves); so, with the Tiptree (being a genre-specific non-fiction title), the publisher may have only sent out a small number of review copies to reflect what was probably a fairly small print run. Though it does seem a little odd that, though enough contributors had read it to recommend it as the read of the year, none of them thought to review it. Maybe they weren't comfortable with reviewing a serious academic non-fiction work? I know I'd be a bit hesitant - but being a column-inches whore, I'd have done it anyway! ;)

[Jonathan McCalmont]

Paul -

Aaaaiieeee! Typo there. I shall rectify it.

It's not so much that MacLeod comes across as standoffish, more that he seems just not particularly forthcoming, which, as you say, is I'm sure not true of him in person. In fact, given the way he posts huge diatribes on his blog, I would have thought he'd be more forthcoming than he was.

I wouldn't say he was standoffish and I certainly wouldn't say there was anything wrong with your questions but it does seem as though he didn't quite get into the swing of things. These types of interviews tend to be more excuses for authors to hold forth on different subjects so you want them to be expansive. Maybe you just got him when he wasn't in an expansive mood... still a good interview though. Good work.

Agreed on all points regarding the SF Site and I'm really glad you've got your foot in the door.

You're right that their reviewers clearly favour the fantasy novel but then it's weird that their "best of" lists don't reflect this and that the ostensible purpose of the site is SF. This is why I think that they could do with a bit of a rethink regarding the way they run their reviews department.

It's weird though as when I started reviewing maybe two and a half years ago, The SF Site was the absolute zenith of online reviewing. They had the best reviews, the best reviewers and the reviews were invariably presented in a timely fashion. I even remember discussions regarding an Interzone website were dominated by the thought that it should be "Like the Sf Site". However, over the years that perception seems to have slightly dissipated. It's comparatively rare that you see a link to an SF Site review and, I must admit, when I get the update notice it's comparatively rare that I'll immediately go to read one of the reviews.

Partly, I think, this is because of the competition, I mean Niall's done sterling work at Strange Horizons. But I think there's also an element of complacency that's set in or if not complacency then some other form of problem that has yet to be addressed.

Don't mind me though... it's just part of my seemingly ever growing campaign to piss off the operators of all the main organs of SF criticism ;-)