Big news in the SF/F world and my part of it

You may have been wondering what happened to Science Fiction and Other ODDysseys for the past month. Well, fearless, but not tireless, editor/writer Ann Wilkes, has been wrestling with new ventures. Though she absolutely loves boosting the signal for sci-fi indie films and interacting with her fans, the reviews have been bogging her down and her passions have shifted somewhat.

(This is where the blog shifts entirely into first person - you can say you were there.)

I'm not a fast reader, which is probably part of why I'm such an excellent editor. That said, I would like to occasionally read something - gasp - not science fiction. Or maybe not new science fiction. There are some serious holes in my reading of the classics. I got a Kindle Paper for Christmas and would just like to bury my head in it for a while. I bought a book - can't remember when I last did that! - and found myself mentally critiquing it, even though I'm not going to be reviewing it. That's a hard habit to break, but I'm looking forward to some long-awaited pleasure reading. I'll try my best to turn the critic off. If I don't like a book, I just won't finish it - period.

I have also trotted out a novel I hadn't touched since 2008, which was nearly finished. I've had a request for first chapter and synopsis from a sf/f publisher. I have to get that ending nailed down with a view to the sequels the publisher will need, so that I can write the synopsis. The latter half of the novel needed some work. The book basically died the death of chapter-at-a-time critiquing. I would get so sick of it by the middle, that I would abandon it. I only had to fix some commas and such in the first half. I did, however, enjoy rewriting the sex scene for the second half. Much steamier than its predecessor. :)

I'm also looking forward to hearing my voice on Emerian Rich's horror podnovel. I recorded my part in September. Read more about Artistic License by Emerian Rich.

I'm considering doing a site where local music lovers can find out where all the live music is on one page. Kevin and I are always scouting this venue and that, email lists and Facebook events to find the best live music to dance to. I have thought of doing this for two years now, but finally have some ideas for getting paid for my time. My husband Kevin and I are also considering teaching couples dancing on a private and group basis. People ask us about it from time to time. People actually come up to us, and with a finger pointed at us, say, "You're those dancers!" We get around. ;)

At the video/CD recording party for Gator Nation Nov. 2013

Science Fiction and Other ODDysseys will not be a thing of the past. However, it may change to match the life of its founder, Ann Wilkes. It will still cover science fiction, but will make detours into my other "ODDysseys" and contain more of my own writing news. I won't be posting any more reviews, as I said, but will keep it truly geeky. No worries there.

Now for the big news in the greater world of science fiction: Simon & Schuster has launched a sci-fi imprint. No shit! Here's the press release about Simon451:

SIMON451: NEW SCIENCE FICTION IMPRINT AT SIMON & SCHUSTER

New York, N.Y., January 14, 2014 –Simon & Schuster’s adult trade imprint announced today that it will launch a new imprint called Simon451, dedicated to publishing literary and commercial speculative fiction across categories such as science fiction, fantasy, dystopian, apocalyptic and the supernatural.

Simon451 will publish in multiple electronic and printed formats, with a focus on digital-first publishing and ebook originals. Its editors will develop new authors and branded series, and bring established authors to new audiences with the ability to move quickly and nimbly between digital and print publication, taking advantage of marketplace opportunities as awareness builds for authors and series. Simon451 will experiment with publishing serialized novels and original short stories, and will also re-issue classic backlist titles in ebook.

“Within the science fiction and fantasy genre, e-books and online communities are becoming the primary means of reading and discovery,” says Senior Editor Sarah Knight, who is spearheading the new imprint. “With Simon451 we aim to give those readers what they want, when and how they want it.”

The inaugural Simon451 list will launch in October 2014 with the first volume of the EarthEnd Saga series by actress Gillian Anderson, best known for her role on ”The X-Files,” and co-writer Jeff Rovin. Brit Hvide of Simon & Schuster acquired worldwide rights from Doug Grad at The Doug Grad Literary Agency to a trilogy of titles from Anderson and Rovin, the first of which is entitled A Vision of Fire.

“This is a very exciting endeavor, and I’m thrilled that Simon and Schuster has taken us under their wing,” says Anderson. “Together, we will make the most of what I hope will be a compelling series of adventures.”

Other launch titles include the Paris-set dystopian novel The Undying by Ethan Reid; these books and more will be featured in events and promotions at New York Comic Con, October 9-12, 2014. To sign up for the e-newsletter or find information regarding submissions, please visit www.Simon451.com.

The imprint’s name, “Simon451,” pays homage to Ray Bradbury’s seminal science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451, which has influenced countless readers, writers and publishers, and which Simon & Schuster published in e-book for the first time in 2011, along with other works by Bradbury.

Simon & Schuster, a part of CBS Corporation, is a global leader in the field of general interest publishing, dedicated to providing the best in fiction and nonfiction for consumers of all ages, across all printed, electronic, and audio formats. Its divisions include Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, Simon & Schuster Audio, Simon & Schuster Digital, and international companies in Australia, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit our website at www.simonsays.com

I'd write an article about it, but I want to write that novel ending, finish my profile at WriterAccess, get groceries and go on a bike ride. My theme for this year? Don't let people "should" on you. It's actually been my motto for a while. I'm just applying it more fully to SFOO now. I hope you'll hang in there with me and follow SFOO's possibly less-frequent sci-fi news and news of my writing endeavors. If you hear about something that would be good to share here, send me an email. Once I tell all the media folks I'm no longer doing reviews, I'll actually be able to find your email! Seriously. I even get requests to review romance novels, cook books and self-help books. What really bites is getting invited to pre-screenings of awesome-looking, yet non-sci-fi movies. First because they're in LA. Second because I can't take advantage since I'm not able to review it here.

Here's wishing all SFOO fans and my personal fans a fabulous new year filled with limitless possibilities and fantastic voyages! 

  

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Aussie Indie goodness

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes looks pretty intense. Too bad we have to wait till July to see the next Planet of the Apes movie.


And here are some still portraits from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.


Filming for the Indie flick Arrowhead is going on in the outback this winter. Arrowhead reached its Kickstarter goal, but the filmmakers want to generate more buzz via Kickstarter to make the most of the launch and recoup some of the funds they personally invested. Here's the teaser and a 10 minute proof of concept that got the initial funding. The film is slated to premiere on TV in Australia in September 2014. No word yet on a US release date.

Arrowhead Show Reel from Arrowhead: The Movie on Vimeo.


Arrowhead: Signal from Arrowhead: The Movie on Vimeo.

Vonnegut story to film project, literary freebies and gift ideas

Screenwriter Derek Ryan has teamed up with folks connected with such projects as District 9 to produce Kurt Vonnegut's "2BR02B" short story as a short film. "2BR02B" explores the effects of population control on a future earth where no one is born unless someone volunteers to die. And this in a world where, barring a random accident, where people no longer age or die. And to make it worse for the parents, they're having triplets.  You can read the story for free at the Gutenberg Project. I also just found an audio version of 2BR02B at LibriVox.

This film is still in the crowd-funding stage. I'm giving it my thumbs up as a good investment. I wouldn't post it here unless I thought it a worthwhile project. You can also visit their Facebook page for more information.



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Phoenix Pick’s free ebook for December is A. A. Attanasio’s Last Legends
of Earth. This novel has a five-star rating on Amazon. Publishers Weekly calls it an "Epic love
story, intricate, wildly imaginative and touching."

Set in the artificial planetary system of Chalco-Doror, which is no more and no less than a vast cosmic machine, The
Last Legends of Earth is a love story, a gripping saga of struggle against alien control, and an examination of the machinery of creation and destruction. Above all, it is world-building of the highest and grandest order, on a scale rarely seen in science fiction since the great works of Olaf Stapledon.

Visit Phoenix Pick's online catalog and enter 9991563 to receive this title for free through the end of December 2013.

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I've had quite a few emails from folks wanting me to include their stuff in my holiday gift guide. And which one would that be? I'm kind of fed up with the commercialization of Christmas, but there were a couple items I thought folks would be interested in, whether as a gift or a personal indulgence. Ho ho ho.

The Who's Who of Doctor Who: A Whovian Guide to Friends, Foes, Villians, Monsters, and Companions to the Good Doctor. I'm guessing it will have to be a late gift, though, as it publishes on the second of January according to the publisher's email, although their website says available 12/12. You can probably pre-order from the publisher's page and definitely from Amazon.

If you're more of a Star Wars fan and good with your hands (or know of someone that fits that description), there's this Star Wars Origami book: Star Wars Origami: 36 Amazing Paper-folding Projects from a Galaxy Far, Far Away.... 

Or you can give the gift of audiobooks from Audiobooks or Audibles. And you know about LibriVox, right? LibriVox has a ton of titles that are in the public domain that you can download for free. Think you have a great reading voice? They're always looking for more volunteer readers.

Or you could help crowdfund a worthy indie film and gift the perks. ;)

Organic English and the IT factor

Let's talk about English. If learning all of its many quirks and inconsistencies is not enough, it's constantly evolving. Into a better language is yet to be determined. If only we could go back and do damage control and make it easier to learn for those who didn't grow up with it. Not to mention those who are stymied by its many contradictions and crazy grammar rules. At least everything is gender-neutral. That is we don't have a male and feminine form for all of our nouns. However, I suspect that that would be a far easier thing to learn than memorizing all of our homophones, homonyms and the many pronunciation exceptions.

The most interesting changes to the Oxford dictionary since the inclusion of OMG and LOL is the introduction of because as a preposition and the word "selfie" for a photo you take of yourself. Still, my word, "procrastinatable", hasn't made the cut.

Here's the Atlantic article about the word "because" as a preposition, filled with examples. I'm making you go check it out there because ranting.

Now, this is where I launch into my pet peeve. I have long wanted a word in the English language for "it" that isn't derogatory when used for people. I know there have been some attempts in this direction, but none of them have stuck.



If you don't see the need for this new pronoun, ask yourself the following questions:

• What do you call an unborn child of unknown sex? 
• How do you refer to someone whose gender is unclear without being offensive? Or what do you call someone who is agender? More about agender can be found in this recent SF Gate article.
• Wouldn't you rather have one word you can use rather than having to use he/she?

You can't just use "them" when you're referring to one person of unknown or irrelevant gender. Not if you want to be grammatically correct.


You've announced the requirements for the candidate for office. You can either keep saying he/she must this and that, be incorrect and say "they", when you're referring to one candidate, or keep saying "the candidate must" this and that.

You've just learned you will be meeting with the VP of Marketing of the company at which you are applying. Congratulations.

I ask you, later that day, if you've met him or her yet, because you haven't told me the President's gender. Or, worse still, you tell me, "No. And I don't know if it's a man or woman. His/her name is Robin."

So, do we go with heshe? That's too long. And women won't like being second any more than men would for shehe. What can we do with two letters that's not already taken and wouldn't be confused with an existing word when spoken? Ba? Ga? Va? Wa? I'm using the "ah" pronunciation of the a here. Or Zo? Vo? Gu? Xo? What's your idea?

On the other hand, can we, through use, remove the derogatory connotation from that perfectly useful pronoun? Maybe that's easier. How do we reclaim the word "it" so we can use it for humans?

Exodus Code - the Barrowman's deliver!

Torchwood Exodus Code
John and Carole E. Barrowman
BBC Books Sept. 2013

Review by Ann Wilkes

This nineteenth novel written in the Torchwood world created by Russell T Davies for the BBC show of the same name (2006-2011) was written by Torchwood star John Barrowman (Captain Jack) and his sister, Carole E Barrowman.

Torchwood Exodus Code begins with madness. Jack falls from an airplane without a chute in 1930 Peru, survives (Captain Jack is from the 51st century and - unlike other humans from that time or any other - can’t stay dead) and gets prepared for sacrifice to the mountain. The Cuari tribe have been expecting a god to fall from the sky.

All the while, his mind is slipping. Reality is shattering. He’s flooded with tastes and smells and unnatural reactions to sensations.

For a beat Jack realized the chamber was inside his head and outside it. Behind him and in front of him. He laughed at the absurdity and let himself sink back into the rock. The silver veins threaded themselves across every muscle, every limb, every part of him. Closing his eyes again, he could see himself being folded into the rock.

The sensation was wonderful, yet Jack heard himself thinking that this was not a good wonderful. It was a bad wonderful. It was the wonderful at the end of a thrilling journey. It was the wonderful after intimacy. It was the last hurrah, the final chapter, the kiss goodbye, the beginning of the end.

Jack lifted his arm and tore it away from the wall, snapping the threads.

He heard a sob. It tasted like ginger.

Back in present day Cardiff, Gwen Cooper encounters a madwoman in the aisles at a grocery store who tries to end her suffering by tearing off her own ear. Gwen is also succumbing to a madness that is affecting clusters of women around the world. And it has to do with heightened and crossed senses. Like synaesthia on steroids with some delusion and hallucination thrown in. Torchwood, an organization that investigates alien threats and defends the world against invasion, having suffered grave losses and being org-non-grata with the government, has been, for all practical purposes disbanded. Only Gwen and Captain Jack Harness are left.

When Gwen realizes there’s something wrong on a worldwide scale, she contacts Jack through a computer she’s stashed away down the street while her baby sleeps in her crib. She has the baby monitor. It will be ok, she thinks. She then hears footsteps on the stairs of her house. She’s worried Rhys will get to Anwen and realize she’s not home. Then he'll really be done with her.

Gwen stopped typing. Her hands frozen in mid-air. What if it wasn't Rhys?”

Gwen comes completely unglued and attacks and nearly kills her own husband. Jack comes just in the nick of time. Gwen is put on a ward with other women suffering the same “masochistic madness”. Jack and Rhys try to figure out what’s going on, but without Torchwood computers, it’s slow going.

Meanwhile, something is happening in the Earth’s oceans. Tremors, which are inexplicably not setting off tsunamis, are opening hydrothermal vents in the ocean floor and spewing toxins. Jack enlists the help of an old friend with a arsenal of special tech equipment aboard a ship in the Atlantic.

All the characters in the story come to life. I could picture all of them. Felt I knew them. Exodus Code is the first tie-in novel I’ve ever read. Well, that’s going to have to change. What a ride! It was like getting to experience a two-part episode of Torchwood with more detail and drilling down deeper into the minds of the characters and the forces at work against them.

No real familiarity with the show is necessary to enjoy this book, but being familiar with the characters makes it come alive. It’s a swashbuckling adventure meets sci-fi meets mystery. You are in Captain Jack's muddled head as he tries to unravel the puzzle. If he doesn’t figure it out soon, the world will end. No pressure.

The Barrowmans make a great writing team. The pacing, plot and scenes were very tight. Loved this book cover to cover. More please.