If you haven’t read Chris Roberson’s The Dragon’s Nine Sons, you can now read the first three chapters online to get you started. I really like the universe he sets this story in; the two superpowers in the space race are the Chinese and Aztec empires, with the split from our timeline coming somewhere around the Black Plague. Both cultures are alien, but the people and motivations are fully fleshed out, believable and sympathetic. While Sayonara Jupiter may have gotten a few bad reviews, and even deserved them, it still contained some of the best special effects ever seen on screen in the 1980s. Like the first Star Trek movie or 2001, the effects also got more screen time than most of the actors. Still, this is a fun movie for space cadets of all variations, and especially those who love a good Godzilla/Gamera flick.
I stopped by the KADOKAWA Anime channel, and the focus is on the new Haruhi Wii game released in Japan on Thursday. Based on the video the game play looks a bit simple, but perhaps that is just level one. Word is that the Kadokawa site will be streaming the first episode of season two of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan at 10PM on February 13th. That is Tokyo time, convert for your local time zone. The group at LITA, the Library and Information Technology Association (part of the American Library Association), has put together a video singing the praises of the Hi-Fi Sci-Fi Library and posted it on Libraryman. Nerdcore at its finest!
A few links to let you read new SciFi online for free…
To start, there is the Infinite Matrix, which has both free online stories to read, and a lot of great articles for your enjoyment. Then there is Free SF Online, a German group contributing to the cause. And let us not forget Infinity Plus, a British site with a lot of good stories to share. And that doesn’t even go into such things as Star Harbor, a great superheroic and fantasy fiction story team, or Nation States, a killer online Game environment! Enjoy!
PhilCon 2004 is less than 2 weeks away; if you live on the East Coast of the U.S., this one would be worth a visit! A lot of like-minded SciFi Fans will be there, and some great Author/Artist Guests.
Chick Corea has built a great new album, with a world class group of musicians, based on a SciFi story by an old cult religion person. His music just keeps getting better and better.
Read Super 8, the new story from Terry Bisson, online at the SciFi channel web site. And for the Politically Impaired, you can be brought up to speed by reading this Interview/Inquisition.
Harry Turtledove has done it again! If you love literature; if you enjoy ParaTime stories; If Shakespeare wrote the words that inspired you; if History is you favorite place to hang out; if Language and it’s evolution is what you want more of; if you have ever been concerned with Intellectual Property Rights; if nothing excites you more than a complex story with characters you can believe in; then you need to Read This Book!!
The book being Harry Turtledove’s RULED BRITANNIA, and to my mind it may be his best book yet. If you answered YES to at least one of the above questions, this one will not disappoint!
I have given links before about places to read sci-fi online for free. Another great one you may not be aware of will let you access some truly Classic science fiction short stories. The SciFi Channel updates the page often, and has included stories by Gardner Dozois, Joan D. Vinge, Eric Frank Russell, Roger Zelazny, and many others. Besides the current online story, the link includes an archive of past presentations, both classic and original.
In a totally different way to get (and give) your free dose of reading, Bookcrossing has a unique approach. When you find a book that speaks to you on a serious level, register it with them, document it’s registration info on the inside cover, and turn it loose… Give it to a friend, leave it on a chair at the airport or restaurant of your choice, and so forth. You can later log back into the site and view it’s travels around the world. This is Chaos Theory at it’s finest; some of them never show up on the site again. Others have long listings of people who have read your released copy. And you can even play games with the service; someone can release a book into the wild and leave clues, and you can try to be the one who finds and reads it!