Blog Post
Recent Fiction Award Winners
by manz
In the past month or so, a few big awards have been announced in fiction in various genres. Paul Harding’s debut novel Tinkers won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. A New England clock repairer lies on his deathbed. The novel intertwines his final thoughts, with the memories of the death of his father, with an intricate look at life and death. Many star reviews for this eloquently written work. Apparently the book was rejected several times from publishers before being picked up.
John Hart’s The Last Child, won the 2010 Edgar Award for best novel, presented by the Mystery Writers of America. (This is the second Edgar in a row for Hart, as he also won it in 2008 for Down River.) In The Last Child, 12 year old Alyssa goes missing in rural North Carolina, and her twin brother Johnny is determined to find her. His family fell apart after the disappearance, a local officer is trying to solve the case, a year later another girl goes missing, and Johnny is convinced it was the same perpetrator. A well written stunner of a case.
The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America awarded the 2009 Nebula Award for best novel to Paolo Bacigalupi for The Windup Girl. This debut novel is a tale of Bioterrorism in a post-petroleum future Thailand. Calories become currency and bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profit. Star reviews are all over the place for this book.
Blog Post
Author Birthdays: Eoin Colfer
by marshd
Today, May 14th, is the birthday of Irish author Eoin Colfer.
Perhaps best known for his Artemis Fowl series, Colfer has been on the New York Times Best Sellers list many times over.
In 2008, Colfer wrote Airman, a teen novel which Publisher's Weekly believes is "An homage both to the 19th-century science fiction of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, and to the superheroes of Marvel and DC comics..."
More recently Colfer has written a sixth book, And Another Thing... for Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.
One of his most interesting recent works is the collaborative novel Click. Published in 2007, it is the work of ten well-loved authors, including Colfer. Each of the authors, including such greats as Linda Sue Park, Gregory Maguire, and Tim Wynne-Jones, wrote a chapter of the life and impact of a photographer named George Keane. Also, the royalties for the book are donated to Amnesty International.
Blog Post
Steampunk Discovered (and rediscovered)
by muffy
If you (like me) are new to Steampunk, here is a good definition : "A subgenre of science fiction, it typically (but not always) employs a Victorian setting where steam power and advanced technologies like computers coexist and often features themes, such as secret societies, found in mystery novels."
Though steampunk has been around since the 1980s, (check out these classics) there is a recent crop of exemplary new titles. A personal favorite is Boneshaker by Cherie Priest - a must-read for alternative history fan. It's the 2009 winner of the PNBA Award; and has been nominated for the 2010 Hugo and the Nebula Awards.
Seattle, 1860, rumors of gold, greedy Russians and inventor Leviticus Blue's Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine set the stage for this "impressive and auspicious genre-hopping adventure". When this machine inadvertently triggers the release of a deadly gas that transforms people into the living dead, a wall is built around the uninhabitable city to contain the epidemic. 16 years later, teenage Zeke Wilkes, Blue's son, impetuously decides that he must go into the walled city to clear his father's name. His distraught mother Briar, follows in an airship to try to rescue him.
Boneshaker is exceptionally well written. The plot credibly builds around zombies, steampunk technology, underground societies, mad scientists in a mix of horror/mystery. The fast-paced action is balanced by captivating characters, a strong female protagonist, and tender mother-child relationship. The young courageous Zeke will appeal to the YA crowd.
I first discovered the versatile YA author and an associate editor for Subterranean Press Cherie Priest in her genre-bending adult debut Fathom : a chill/thrill fantasy tale set in her native Florida. Part fairy tale, part modern gothic horror, it had me sleepless for a week.
Blog Post
Swan Song
by RiponGood
This is my last blog for aadl.org. It has been my pleasure to share this bit of cyberspace with you. Instead of trying to create new content, I feel it is time to bring some of my old blogs back to life. Hope you enjoy them...
If I should die before I wake... where I discussed my most favorite books, the Bible and The Hobbit.
The Martians are coming, the martians are coming. War of the Worlds in its many forms.
This is l33t, where the lines between reality and fiction get a bit blurred and I learned I'm not very l33t.
Psychohistorically Speaking, honoring the the grandmaster of science fiction, Mr. Asimov.
Going on a bug hunt. This book has its share of controversy. I'm not militaristic, but I do respect those that are willing to serve.
Have Sword Will Travel about my hero, Conan.
If TV killed the book, what did the Internet kill? This story scares me a bit. Does it scare you?
The Captain's Tale, where Captain Nemo dies. Gotta love a giant squid.
The Last Man Alive , one of my son's favorite stories and I think what got him hooked on horror books and movies.
and lastly, the blog that made me famous...
Move over Spice Girls, the story of Dune
As the great Douglas Adams said, "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish".
Blog Post
March Books to Film (and Fabulous Fiction Firsts #202)
by muffy
The latest adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is based on the perennial classic by Lewis Carroll.
This time, 17 year old Alice returns to the whimsical world she first encountered as a young girl, reuniting with her childhood friends, and embarking on a fantastical journey to find her true destiny and end the Red Queen’s reign of terror.
For a intimate perspective of the real Alice, try debut novelist Melanie Benjamin’s fictional biography in Alice I Have Been, as Alice Liddell looks back on a remarkable life, from a pampered childhood in Oxford to difficult years as a widowed mother, and how she became immortalized through a problematic relationship with the author.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is based on the first of Stieg Larsson's international bestselling Millennium trilogy, in which a disgraced journalist and a troubled young female computer hacker investigate the mysterious disappearance of an industrialist’s niece.
Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her beloved uncle is convinced it was murder and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family.
The Ghost Writer is based on The Ghost by Robert Harris. It stars Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan with Roman Polanski directing.
When a successful British ghost writer agrees to complete the memoirs of former British Prime Minister, his agent assures him it's the opportunity of a lifetime. But the project seems doomed from the start. Before long he begins to uncover clues suggesting a dark secret linking the PM to the CIA. (See The New York Times review).
The novel The Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran is adapted for the motion picture starring Matt Damon as Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, a rogue U.S. Army officer assigned to hunt down Saddam’s WMD, who must wade through faulty intelligence and high level Washington cover-ups before war escalates in an unstable region.
The Last Song is based on the bestselling novelist Nicholas Sparks’s latest novel.
This tearjerker is set in a small Southern beach town where an estranged father gets a chance to spend the summer with his reluctant teenaged daughter. He tries to reconnect with her through the only thing they have in common --- music, in a story of family, friendship, secrets and salvation, along with first loves and second chances.
Forest Whitaker and Jude Law star in Repo Men, a sc-fi thriller adapted from a novel by Eric Garcia (originally published as The Repossession Mambo).
Human lives have been extended and improved through highly sophisticated and expensive mechanical organs created by a company called The Union. But if you don't pay your bill, The Union sends its highly skilled repo men to take back its property. Remy is one of the best organ repo men in the business, until he too, find himself fitted with the company's top-of-the-line heart-replacement...as well as a hefty debt.
Blog Post
It's Funky...
by RiponGood
This morning I was walking down the sci fi section, looking for something unique to blog about. As I looked at all of the books, the title of this one jumped out at me, The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad by Minister Faust. With a title like that, how can you go wrong? Set in Edmonton Canada, the book is filled with quirky pop culture references, like RPG style statistics for all of the major characters and Star Wars quotes just to name two. Follow the exploits of Hamza and Yehat, The Coyote Kings, best friends and underachievers as they search for a lost artifact with the mysterious Sherem. Can they find it before their rivals do?
Blog Post
The End... Or is it?
by RiponGood
Tonight after work, I'll be playing Dead Reign with my son and his friends. The game is set during a zombie apocalypse. The dead have risen and man kind is holding on my its fingernails in hopes of surviving another day. Why is the genre so popular? Every where you turn you see something about the end, H1N1, global warming, and dirty bombs just to name a few.
In today's spotlight is The Suicide Collectors, the debut novel by David Oppegaard. A strange disease has spread across the globe, the Despair, causing approximately 90% of the world's population to commit suicide. After each death, the mysterious Collectors appear to take the body. After the death of his wife, Norman decides to take a stand against the Collectors and kills the one sent to take his wife's body away. This one act of defiance leads Norman on a cross country adventure to Seattle, the possible home of a rumored cure for the disease.
Blog Post
Going on a space trip...
by RiponGood
What would it be like to travel to another planet? Jamie Waterman, a Native American geologist gets to find-out in Ben Bova's Mars. At the last minute, Jamie is picked to fill the geology slot in the first International space expedition to Mars. When Jamie first steps onto the Martian surface, he is overwhelmed by the experience and instead of saying his canned politically correct speech, expresses himself in his native Navajo. This simple mistake launches a firestorm among the supporting nations of the expedition. Be sure to read this book to learn about how Jamie and his fellow astronauts survive their Martian experience.
Blog Post
What does the future hold?
by RiponGood
OK, here's the set-up. In the mid-21st century, Mexico is the world's superpower. Its wealthier citizens are linked to the central government with computer chips in their heads. As the country's dictator continues to grow in power, the poor masses are spellbound by Sister Domenica, who in her pirated radio broadcasts tells of impending doom. As people start dying in Mexico, the CDC sends Henry David Stark, the world's best virus hunter to try and stop the spread before it wipes out the entire world. You can follow Stark's story in The Patron Saint of Plagues by Barth Anderson.
Blog Post
It's only a matter of time...
by RiponGood
Time Travel. Just thinking about it blows my mind. How cool would it be to be able to travel back and forth across time and see people/places/things that you're only read about in books? I think it would be amazing. Author Harry Turtledove is the master of time travel. He has written extensively in the area for years. In his Cross time Traffic series his talent are geared toward teens. The first book in the series, Gunpowder Empire follows teens as they deal with a modern day Roman Empire (it never fell to the barbarian invasion). In the 5th book of the series, The Gladiator, we follow the adventures of Gianfranco and Annarita who live in Communist Italy, post-Cold War (the Soviet Union won). The pair help a stranded time traveler evade the Security Police. Enjoy!