That's the World Science Fiction Convention for all the non-SF/F-nerds out there.
The Rapid Fire Reading will feature 20 women each read 5 minutes from their latest novels or stories. It will be fast, fun, and fabulous!
Have bookbag, will travel |
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I'm really, really excited to be organizing the Broad Universe's Rapid Fire Reading 7-9 pm Friday, Aug. 21 at Sasquan in Spokane.
That's the World Science Fiction Convention for all the non-SF/F-nerds out there. The Rapid Fire Reading will feature 20 women each read 5 minutes from their latest novels or stories. It will be fast, fun, and fabulous!
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For me, the Hugo is an award that says a book is fabulous, shows me something new and different, blows my mind with magic, technology, setting, culture and/or concept and above all make it accessible, immediate and visceral. I need to be able to fall into the world, into the character without feeling hitches and jerks and I need to feel deeply connected to the characters and their plight.
Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Sword is my pick for first. Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor puts me in a quandary as to which book should be second place. Ancillary Sword was not what I expected. I was expecting a imperialist space opera with a helping of milSF.
That wasn’t what I got. It was a very personal story, and I’m pretty happy with that. Ancillary Sword is the second book in the Imperial Radch series. The first is Ancillary Justice, which I haven't read. Some reviewers have compared this series to the C. S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower series because Leckie is all about the personal. Ancillary Sword is a space opera, just not what some people might think a space opera should be. It was very personal, not far flung, and in some ways reminded me of Iain Banks' Matter (in his Culture series.) Ancillary Sword made my mind stretch. And it’s not because of the dominate use of the feminine pronoun. (Dudes, I cut my teen SF reading teeth on Ursula K. Le Guin's gender bending stories.) It made my mind stretch because the protagonist Breq is trying to live ethically and justly in an unethical and unjust world, and she’s not perfect but she does care about doing the right thing I never thought I'd see this happen.
Kelly Link and other writers of the fantastic and familiar were recently featured in Wall Street Journal's book section. Don't get me wrong, Link is an incredible writer and editor. I just never thought she'd get "discovered" by mainstream readers. I always thought Link would be one of those writers and editors who would be critically acclaimed, win a bunch of awards, influence the genre, and no one outside the speculative fiction genre would know who she was. Here's the link, go read it. There's some good writers and books in that story I'll wait. I remember being blown away by Link's 2005 novella "Magic for Beginners," which is about a teen who watches a mysterious television program called "The Library," and knowing I would never see a telephone booth or a TV the same way again. What book would you hand someone to get them hooked on SF/F? It's a great question isn't it?
My answer and several other writers' answers is at Novelocity. I'm guesting at Novelocity, where almost a dozen fabulous speculative fiction writers ask questions of themselves every week. You'll find their answers to questions such as: What's your idea of a perfect SF convention? How do you handle rejection? or What's the best non-English speculative fiction book you have read? Tina Connolly asked for my perspective as a librarian on the question: What book would I hand someone to get them hooked on SF/F? My perspective as a librarian is different than my perspective would be for what I enjoy personally, what I might recommend to SF/F fans, and what I would suggest to writers. So I was very excited to add to the collective suggestions of Tina, Dale Evan Smith, E.C. Ambrose, Ken Liu, Lawrence M. Schoen, Beth Cato, and Steve Bein. Their suggestions include a couple of my favorite books. Go over to Novelocity What book would you hand someone to get them hooked on SF/F? and see if you can guess which is my favorite. I recommended -- err, crammed -- 18 titles into 265 words. Hopefully there's something for every taste, though I left some categories on the editing computer's hard drive. My first draft contained 44 books in 400 words. Tina very graciously suggested that I could cut that down. (I expect she would be a little shocked to see the emails, texts to self and chicken scratched post it notes that became the sizable pile of possibles that I culled into a first draft. If I have time, I'll post my DVD extras as it were here. (I'm in the middle of three projects at work and at home this month and next so I'm not going to have time until early August.) So why are you still here reading my ramble? Zip over to Novelocity and see the post. Still, here? OK. Why don't you try to guess which of the books recommended by the authors of Novelocity that I have read and of those, which are my all time personal favorites? And you could comment here or at my Facebook. or you could just go to Novelocity and find the answer to: What book would you hand someone to get them hooked on SF/F? pera link: http://www.novelocity.org/?p=718 Right now I'm dividing my free time between thinking about a session that I'm working on with two other members of WLA's Intellectual Freedom Interest Group (IFIG) for the state conference in early May and preparing for panels at Norwescon, the regional science fiction convention in mid-April.
For WLA, I and my two fabulous IFIG colleagues will present "Material Challenge Aerobics." Basically, it's a session aimed and front-line library workers who are often the first staff members that a patron will interact with if he or she is upset about something on the library shelves. Our plan is to give participants tips and strategies about body language, vocal tone and responses that will make library works and patrons feel more comfortable in these types of situations. So If you're at the WLA conference, come to our session. It's from 10:30-11:45 a.m. Friday, May 2 and we guarantee a mental workout before lunch. Geek alert! I got my schedule for Norwescon a couple of weeks ago and found out that I'll be interviewing one of the Guests of Honor the artist Robert Gould! He's work is pretty amazing and he's best known for his illustrations and cover designs for Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone saga. He won the World Fantasy Award for Best Artist in 1991 and is credited with starting a new style of fantasy illustration. I'll also be critiquing three manuscripts for the Fairwoods Writers Workshop and participating on panels about eBooks, Steampunk, science fiction and fantasy for young readers, author's promoting their books, and rewriting and reworking stories. If you're going to be at Norwescon, don't miss my interview at 3 p.m. Friday, April 18, and don't miss the PK Dick Awards, a great evening of words and chocolate, also on Friday. I expect that I'll only have time to read a few of the nominees before April. There's at least one Northwestern writer in the group this year. I'll give you a hint, he's the one who wrote to book that is set in Seattle. If you can figure out who, post in comments. On the night of the awards, the nominees (see the list here) read from their work, and there's a huge table filled with deserts, including tons of chocolate. So load up on rich calories and listen to fabulous words. Yum! Mira Grant’s FEED packs the punch of a shotgun loaded for bearReading Mira Grant’s FEED during the last week of the presidential election was fabulous. It’s a post-apocalyptic novel about Georgia and Shaun Mason, sibling bloggers covering a presidential election 20 years after two viruses created zombies.
Grant writes journalists with the same raw reality and stark impact as Edward R. Murrow broadcast during The Blitz of London. She captures the intensity of lives focused on pursuit of truth and she drops her readers into the thick of Sean poking a zombie and gives readers a taste of the addition to danger and deadline adrenaline. Ghost Story by Jim ButcherJim Butcher and his character Harry Dresden wowed me again. Ghost Story, (Roc, 2011, pp 481) the 13th installment in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series, (not counting a collection of shorter works), opens sixth months after Changes with Harry Dresden at the crossroads.
Harry, Chicago's only wizard in the phone book, is asked (again) to risk it all, this time his very soul, to help his friends and to solve a crime that has robbed Harry of very important. It's not the first time Harry has been in between a rock and a hard place or had to recover something that he or a friend needs. Proceed with caution: Spoilers ahead. |
Pulp & Pixels:
An occasional blog with thoughts on words, books, tech, and of course, libraries. Obligatory disclaimer:
Pulp & Pixels reflects my (Marta Murvosh) viewpoint and does not represents the library system that I work for, the publications I freelances for, or any of the professional associations that I belongs to or have a leadership role in. Of course, if I happen to say how much any of those organizations rock, I expects there would be agreement on those points. Find my reviews of teen books at BiblioCommons , Goodreads and for a 2011 YA library services class at Murvosh Reads.
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