SNUFFING: going into a shop on some pretence, watching an opportunity to throw a handful of snuff in the eyes of the shopkeeper, and then running off with any valuable article you can lay hands on.
Read Adam Roberts' thoughts on the Hugo shortlist.
I actually do agree that shortlists often feature mediocre works.
Enjoy posting as if zombies were taking over the world! I wish I could do more for it!
At least we all can sleep easy tonight knowing that there's no such thing as real zombies.
Wait a moment - there's someone banging on the door.
[connection broken]
If you're looking for some zombie mayhem on June 13 this year, don't look here at MEAD!
Instead, check out this cool Blog Like It's the End of the World signup form/feed aggregator!
I thought they simply did a spellcheck before emailing it to be printed ... maybe that could be the fellow's alibi?
Controversation here.
The new Star Trek was enjoyable! Go see it! J. J. Abrams did a good job in making an exciting and accessible preview. I won't say much more, but look out for a cameo appearance by the Rambaldi device!
Edit: I mean the Mueller Device.
"2009 might be when Hugh Cook, who died tragically young this year, begins to get the credit he deserves, with the reissue of his The Walrus and the Warwolf (full disclosure -- I wrote the new introduction). Cook was a fantasy writer whose 1980s and early 90s decology Chronicles of an Age of Darkness, though hidden from the attentions of the middlebrow lit-snob by their wizards, dragons and high-kitsch covers, are intensely clever, humane, witty, meta-textually adventurous and pulp-avant-garde works. I read and loved several this year -- The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers and The Walrus and the Warwolf in particular."
Source: Ready Steady Book
Sad news.
Hugh Cook, my favourite fantasy/science fiction author, has died after a long struggle with cancer.
I re-read his 10-volume series The Chronicles of an Age of Darkness every year. I still can't get over the audacity of a 10-volume series in which each volume's action is concurrent, not consecutive.
His works are gritty, anarchic, and relentlessy true to his vision (and probably hence uncommercial).
The genre has lost a unique voice, and the shame of it is that it seems like few will note the fact.
Robert Rankin clearly was on to something (or on something) when he wrote his hilarious Armageddon series of humorous fantasy novels, featuring a time-travelling Elvis. Read this news story about an ancient Roman carving of Elvis.
Here's part of the cover blurb for Rankin's The Suburban Book of the Dead
And verily in the midst of his labours did Rex's spade strike a buried object of not inconsiderable size. And lo. It were a marble statue of Elvis Presley.
Oh yes siree! For Elvis looms large here, much to Rex's discomfort. Which is further increased when he discovers that the walls of Jericho fell to the strains of 'It's Now or Never' and that David slew the dwarf Goliath wearing blue suede shoes.
