New Science Fiction and Fantasy at the Larkspur Library Fall 2013

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

New Science Fiction and Fantasy at the Larkspur Library Fall 2013 New Science Fiction and Fantasy at the Larkspur Library Fall 2013 2312, by Kim Stanley Robinson One of the best “hard SF” novels to come out this year, this sequel to Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Mars” trilogy depicts a future in which humanity has terraformed the entire solar system, and is full of intriguing ideas: the city of Terminator on Mercury, which rolls forward on rails to keep ahead of the sun, windsurfing the rings of Saturn, quantum computing and androids. The book is heavy on exposition and the space opera style plot moves slowly, but the ideas are very engaging. MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood The conclusion to Atwood’s trilogy which began with Oryx and Crake and continued with The Year of the Flood. A waterless flood has wiped out most of humanity. Ren and Toby have returned to the MaddAddamite cob house, while Zeb, searching for God's Gardeners founder, Adam One, discov- ers his past. A wonderful dystopian novel from one of the writers who created the genre, and readable even if you have not read the first two books. The Best of Connie Willis : Award-Winning Stories Connie Willis has won six Nebula Awards and ten Hugos—the most of any SF or Fantasy Author (although Robert Heinlein and Lois McMaster Bujold have won the Hugo for “Best Novel” more times than she has—Willis “only” won the Hugo for “Best Novel” three times). As the title states, every story in this book won an award, and it would be difficult to single one out to mention! This is an essential col- lection of Willis’ work. New Science Fiction and Fantasy at the Larkspur Library Fall 2013 River of Stars, by Guy Gavriel Kay Based on the Song Dynasty of China, Kay’s alternate history, the sequel to Under Heaven, captures the nuances and subtleties of life in China during the Mongol invasions, following the story of Ren Daiyan, a boy who kills seven outlaws while helping guard an imperial magistrate, and flees into the forest to emerge many years later as a folk hero, and Lin Shan, raised by her scholar father to be a gifted poet, musician and calligrapher, who finds her unwom- anly skills valued by certain powerful people. Lovestar, by Andri Snaer Magnason Lovestar, which was chosen as “Novel of the Year” in Iceland, is set in a dystopi- an future in which LoveStar, the obsessively driven founder of the LoveStar cor- poration, has created a world in which consumerism and technology run ram- pant over all aspects of daily life. Indridi and Sigrid, two blissfully happy young lovers, are “calculated apart” and go to extreme lengths to prove their love. Their journey puts them on a collison course with LoveStar, who is on his own mission to find what might become the last idea in the world. Tuf Voyaging, by George R. R. Martin Tuf Voyaging is a science fiction novel by George R. R. Martin, based on a number of short stories he wrote in the 80s. It chronicles the adventures of Haviland Tuf, an exceptionally tall, bald, pale, overweight, phlegmatic, vege- tarian, cat-loving but otherwise solitary space trader who inadvertently be- comes the master of Ark, an ancient, 30-kilometer-long “seedship”, a war- ship with advanced ecological engineering capabilities. Like Game of Thrones, the stories are fast-moving and action packed! Other recent SF and Fantasy Purchases: After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall Kress, Nancy Babayaga Barlow, Toby The Man in the High Castle Dick, Philip K. A Memory of Light Jordan, Robert The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic Barker, Emily Croy Transcendental Gunn, James .
Recommended publications
  • Utopia Falling Into History in Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars
    Utopia falling into History in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars Giovanna Ike Coan * Abstract : This article analyzes how the concept of utopia appears in Kim Stanley Robinson’s sci-fi novel Red Mars, a book that portrays the first steps of the planet’s colonization by Earth. My purpose is to show that, even though science and biotechnology provide the means for taming a wild landscape, the utopian solution given at the end of the narrative seems to reinforce both the impossibility of creating otherness, i.e., of giving an alternative to the social system, and the maintenance of History and its flaws. Keywords : science fiction, utopia, social alternatives, Red Mars. According to Fredric Jameson, in our historical moment science fiction is the locus where “Utopian thinking and radical social alternatives, about which Mrs. Thatcher has so famously affirmed that none exist” (2005:212), can still be developed, with the projections of different worlds, i.e., of worlds that represent Otherness and “our deepest fantasies about the nature of social life, (…) as we feel in our bones it ought rather to be lived” (Jameson, 1992:34). Thus, as the American Marxist critic affirms, all ostensible Utopian content is ideological for they reinforce – through a dialectical process – hegemonic values of the present, of our reality, and, as Mannheim ( apud Bobbio et al., 2000:1285) points out: (...) a mentalidade utópica pressupõe não somente estar em contradição com a realidade presente, mas também romper os liames da ordem existente. Não é somente pensamento, e ainda menos fantasia, ou sonho para sonhar-se acordado; (...).
    [Show full text]
  • The Imagined Wests of Kim Stanley Robinson in the "Three Californias" and Mars Trilogies
    Portland State University PDXScholar Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Publications and Presentations Planning Spring 2003 Falling into History: The Imagined Wests of Kim Stanley Robinson in the "Three Californias" and Mars Trilogies Carl Abbott Portland State University, d3ca@pdx.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/usp_fac Part of the Urban Studies and Planning Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Citation Details Abbott, C. Falling into History: The Imagined Wests of Kim Stanley Robinson in the "Three Californias" and Mars Trilogies. The Western Historical Quarterly , Vol. 34, No. 1 (Spring, 2003), pp. 27-47. This Article is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: pdxscholar@pdx.edu. Falling into History: The ImaginedWests of Kim Stanley Robinson in the "Three Californias" and Mars Trilogies Carl Abbott California science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson has imagined the future of Southern California in three novels published 1984-1990, and the settle ment of Mars in another trilogy published 1993-1996. In framing these narratives he worked in explicitly historical terms and incorporated themes and issues that characterize the "new western history" of the 1980s and 1990s, thus providing evidence of the resonance of that new historiography. .EDMars is Kim Stanley Robinson's R highly praised science fiction novel published in 1993.1 Its pivotal section carries the title "Falling into History." More than two decades have passed since permanent human settlers arrived on the red planet in 2027, and the growing Martian communities have become too complex to be guided by simple earth-made plans or single individuals.
    [Show full text]
  • Vector 273 Worthen 2013-Fa BSFA
    VECTOR 273 — AUTUMN 2013 Vector The critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association Best of 2012 Issue No. 273 Autumn 2013 £4.00 page 1 VECTOR 273 — AUTUMN 2013 Vector 273 The critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association ARTICLES Torque Control Vector Editorial by Shana Worthen ........................ 3 http://vectoreditors.wordpress.com BSFA Review: Best of 2012 Features, Editorial Shana Worthen Edited by Martin Lewis ................................ 4 and Letters: 127 Forest Road, Loughton, Essex IG10 1EF, UK vector.editors@gmail.com In Review: The Best of US Science Fiction Book Reviews: Martin Lewis Television, 2012 14 Antony House, Pembury Sophie Halliday ........................................... 10 Place, London E5 8GZ Production: Alex Bardy UK SF Television 2012: Dead things that BSFAmags@mangozine.com will not die Alison Page ..................................................12 British Science Fiction Association Ltd The BSFA was founded in 1958 and is a non-profitmaking organisation entirely staffed by unpaid volunteers. Registered in England. Limited 2012 in SF Audio by guarantee. Tony Jones ................................................... 15 BSFA Website www.bsfa.co.uk Company No. 921500 Susan Dexter: Fantasy Bestowed Registered address: 61 Ivycroft Road, Warton, Tamworth, Mike Barrett ................................................ 19 Staffordshire B79 0JJ President Stephen Baxter Vice President Jon Courtenay Grimwood RECURRENT Foundation Favourites: Andy Sawyer ... 24 Chair Ian Whates chair@bsfa.co.uk Kincaid in Short: Paul Kincaid ................. 26 Treasurer Martin Potts Resonances: Stephen Baxter ................... 29 61 Ivy Croft Road, Warton, Nr. Tamworth B79 0JJ bsfatreasurer@gmail.com THE BSFA REVIEW Membership Services Peter Wilkinson Inside The BSFA Review ............................ 33 Flat 4, Stratton Lodge, 79 Bulwer Rd, Barnet, Hertfordshire EN5 5EU Editorial by Martin Lewis...........................
    [Show full text]
  • Campbrochure2017.Pdf
    WELCOME TO MARTIAN MAKER CAMP McMillan Library has held Maker Camp in the past but this year is going to be quite different. Rather than following the national Maker Camp curriculum we are choosing this year to strike out on our own. Our camp will combine pieces of a “typical” maker camp along with components of a library summer reading program. The biggest change of all though is the age range. This year’s maker camp will be open to the widest age range ever. In fact we are not putting age restrictions on our program at all. We are asking that parents look at the challenges being offered and select those that their children are capable of completing, but here’s the catch; they are welcome to come in and help their kids if they wish. Indeed we will being offering challenges throughout that can be done by both kids and adults. Parent Note: We know our kids have different abilities at different ages and no child is like any other. That being said it is important that you help your child choose tasks they can reasonably achieve. Frustration with the difficulty of a project can ruin the fun they should be having. Remember, if you feel that some projects would stretch your child’s abilities you are welcome to work with them. Points: Throughout camp participants will have the opportunity to earn points by attending programs and completing projects. Every 10 points earns you a raffle ticket to put towards cool and unique prize drawings at the end of the camp.
    [Show full text]
  • Dissertation Section 1
    Elegies for Empire The Poetics of Memory in the Late Work of Du Fu (712-770) Gregory M. Patterson Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2013 ! 2013 Gregory M. Patterson All rights reserved ABSTRACT Elegies for Empire: The Poetics of Memory in the Late Work of Du Fu (712-770) Gregory M. Patterson This dissertation explores highly influential constructions of the past at a key turning point in Chinese history by mapping out what I term a poetics of memory in the more than four hundred poems written by Du Fu !" (712-770) during his two-year stay in the remote town of Kuizhou (modern Fengjie County #$%). A survivor of the catastrophic An Lushan rebellion (756-763), which transformed Tang Dynasty (618-906) politics and culture, Du Fu was among the first to write in the twilight of the Chinese medieval period. His most prescient anticipation of mid-Tang concerns was his restless preoccupation with memory and its mediations, which drove his prolific output in Kuizhou. For Du Fu, memory held the promise of salvaging and creatively reimagining personal, social, and cultural identities under conditions of displacement and sweeping social change. The poetics of his late work is characterized by an acute attentiveness to the material supports—monuments, rituals, images, and texts—that enabled and structured connections to the past. The organization of the study attempts to capture the range of Du Fu’s engagement with memory’s frameworks and media. It begins by examining commemorative poems that read Kuizhou’s historical memory in local landmarks, decoding and rhetorically emulating great deeds of classical exemplars.
    [Show full text]
  • The Hugo Awards for Best Novel Jon D
    The Hugo Awards for Best Novel Jon D. Swartz Game Design 2013 Officers George Phillies PRESIDENT David Speakman Kaymar Award Ruth Davidson DIRECTORATE Denny Davis Sarah E Harder Ruth Davidson N3F Bookworms Holly Wilson Heath Row Jon D. Swartz N’APA George Phillies Jean Lamb TREASURER William Center HISTORIAN Jon D Swartz SECRETARY Ruth Davidson (acting) Neffy Awards David Speakman ACTIVITY BUREAUS Artists Bureau Round Robins Sarah Harder Patricia King Birthday Cards Short Story Contest R-Laurraine Tutihasi Jefferson Swycaffer Con Coordinator Welcommittee Heath Row Heath Row David Speakman Initial distribution free to members of BayCon 31 and the National Fantasy Fan Federation. Text © 2012 by Jon D. Swartz; cover art © 2012 by Sarah Lynn Griffith; publication designed and edited by David Speakman. A somewhat different version of this appeared in the fanzine, Ultraverse, also by Jon D. Swartz. This non-commercial Fandbook is published through volunteer effort of the National Fantasy Fan Federation’s Editoral Cabal’s Special Publication committee. The National Fantasy Fan Federation First Edition: July 2013 Page 2 Fandbook No. 6: The Hugo Awards for Best Novel by Jon D. Swartz The Hugo Awards originally were called the Science Fiction Achievement Awards and first were given out at Philcon II, the World Science Fiction Con- vention of 1953, held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The second oldest--and most prestigious--awards in the field, they quickly were nicknamed the Hugos (officially since 1958), in honor of Hugo Gernsback (1884 -1967), founder of Amazing Stories, the first professional magazine devoted entirely to science fiction. No awards were given in 1954 at the World Science Fiction Con in San Francisco, but they were restored in 1955 at the Clevention (in Cleveland) and included six categories: novel, novelette, short story, magazine, artist, and fan magazine.
    [Show full text]
  • WAYS to USE SCIENCE FICTION in the SCIENCE CLASSROOM by Connie Willis, David Katz, and Courtney Willis ©1999 by Connie Willis, David Katz and Courtney Willis
    WAYS TO USE SCIENCE FICTION IN THE SCIENCE CLASSROOM by Connie Willis, David Katz, and Courtney Willis ©1999 by Connie Willis, David Katz and Courtney Willis. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission of the authors. Reproduction for classroom use must contain the original copyright. Originally presented as part of a symposium on Science and Science Fiction, National Science Teachers Association national meeting, Boston, MA, March 25-28, 1999. 1. SF can be used to teach science concepts Many stories explain and incorporate science concepts. --Arthur C. Clarke's "Silence, Please" discusses wave interference --Larry Niven's RINGWORLD shows us a Dyson sphere --the setting in Connie Willis's "The Sidon in the Mirror" is based on Harlow Shapley's theory of red giants --H. Beam Piper's "Omnilingual"'s plot revolves around the periodic table --George Gamow's MR. TOMPKINS IN PAPERBACK dreams of relativity and quantum effects --Anthologies such as THE UNIVERSE, THE PLANETS, AND THE MICROVERSE (edited by Byron Preiss) put essays by eminent scients and stories by noted sf authors side-by-side --Hal Clement, a retired high school chemistry teacher, has written a number of stories, including the classic MISSION OF GRAVITY, about all those things you learned in high school science classes. Bad science in science fiction (especially in the movies) can teach science concepts, too. --Why is it impossible for the spaceship in CAPRICORN ONE to make it back from mars in a mere three months? --Why does the strength to mass ratio make King Kong and Godzilla impossible? --What about all those loud explosions in outer space? And those spaceships that bank and turn just like fighter planes? 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Special Hugo Award Issue Novel Novella Blackout/ All Clear the Lifecycle of Software Connie Willis Objects (Ballantine Spectra) Ted Chiang (Subterranean)
    The Saturday Evening H T August 20, 2011 Special Hugo Award Issue Novel Novella Blackout/ All Clear The Lifecycle of Software Connie Willis Objects (Ballantine Spectra) Ted Chiang (Subterranean) Novelette The Emperor of Mars Allen M. Steele (Asimov’s, June 2010) Short Story For Want of A Nail Mary Robinett e Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010) 2 August 20, 2011 The High Space Drifter SemiProzine Fanzine Clarkesworld The Drink Edited by Neil Clarke, Cheryl Tank Morgan, and Sean Wallace Edited by Christopher Podcast directed by Kate Baker J Garcia and James Bacon Fan Writer Professional Claire Brialey Artist Shaun Tan Editor, Long Form Lou Anders Fan Artist Brad W. Foster The High Space Drifter August 20, 2011 3 Graphic Story Dramatic Girl Genius, Presentation, Volume 10: Agatha Heterodyne and the Long Form Guardian Muse Inception Writt en by Phil and Kaja Foglio Writt en and Directed by Art by Phil Foglio Christopher Nolan Colors by Cheyenne Wright (Warner) (Airship Entertainment) Dramatic Presentation, Short Form Doctor Who: “The Pandorica Opens/ The Big Bang” Writt en by Stephen Moff at; Directed by Toby Haynes (BBC Wales) Editor, Related Work Short Form Chicks Dig Time Sheila Williams Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It Edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O’Shea (Mad Norwegian) 4 August 20, 2011 The High Space Drifter Hugo Award John W. Campbell Award Trophy Base for Best New Writer Lev Grossman Award for the best new professional science fi ction or fantasy writer of 2009 or 2010, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo Award).
    [Show full text]
  • Philip K. Dick: Five Novels Free
    FREE PHILIP K. DICK: FIVE NOVELS PDF Jonathan Lethem | 1000 pages | 13 Nov 2008 | The Library of America | 9781598530254 | English | New York, United States Library of America Philip K. Dick Edition Dick: Four Novels of the sedited by Jonathan Lethem. Now comes a companion Philip K. Dick: Five Novels collecting five novels that offer a breathtaking Philip K. Dick: Five Novels of the range of this science-fiction master. Philip K. Dick was a writer of incandescent imagination who made and unmade world-systems with ferocious rapidity and unbridled speculative daring. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb chronicles the deeply-interwoven stories of a multi-racial community of survivors, including the scientist who may have been responsible for World War III. Famous, among other reasons, for a therapy session involving a talking taxicab, Now Wait for Last Year explores the effects of JJ, a hallucinogen that alters not only perception, but reality. In Flow My Tears, the Policeman Saida television star seeks to unravel a mystery that has left him stripped of his identity. The Library of America series includes more than volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1, pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper Philip K. Dick: Five Novels will last for centuries. When you buy a book, we donate a book. Sign in. The Biggest Books of the Month. Jul 31, ISBN Add to Cart. Also available from:. Hardcover —. About Philip K. Also in Library of America Philip K. Dick Edition.
    [Show full text]
  • Medicine in Science Fiction
    297 Summer 2011 Editors Doug Davis Gordon College 419 College Drive SFRA Barnesville, GA 30204 A publicationRe of the Scienceview Fiction Research Association ddavis@gdn.edu Jason Embry In this issue Georgia Gwinnett College SFRA Review Business 100 University Center Lane Global Science Fiction.................................................................................................................................2 Lawrenceville, GA 30043 SFRA Business jembry@ggc.edu There’s No Place Like Home.....................................................................................................................2 Praise and Thanks.........................................................................................................................................4 Nonfiction Editor Conventions, Conferences, SFRA and You...............................................................................................4 ASLE-SFRA Affiliation Update....................................................................................................................5 Michael Klein Executive Committee Business................................................................................................................6 James Madison University MSC 2103 July 2011 Executive Committee Minutes...............................................................................................6 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 SFRA Business Meeting Minutes...........................................................................................................10
    [Show full text]
  • Kim Stanley Robinson, May 2019
    Science Fiction Book Club Interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, May 2019 Kim Stanley Robinson has published nineteen novels and numerous short stories but is best known for his Mars trilogy. Many of his novels and stories have ecological, cultural, and political themes running through them and feature scientists as heroes. Robinson has won numerous awards, including the Hugo Award and Nebula Award for Best Novel. Paul Schulz: Your fiction is basically optimistic, even in your more dystopian works. Do you find it difficult to hold that viewpoint in these times? Yes I do. Civilization is on a bad trajectory, and it will take a lot of imagination, skill and hard work to avoid a mass extinction event, by creating a truly sustainable civilization. Whether we’re up to the task, I don’t know. But since it is still possible, physically, to do it, I think staying optimistic is a political and moral necessity, an act of will power to keep us working for the good. Sometimes I’ve called this “angry optimism” to indicate it’s an attitude that needs to be wielded like a club sometimes. Also, I imagine giving up on optimism or pessimism, and just doing the needed work. In other words, optimism as a choice rather than just a feeling one has inherently. François Peneaud: Do you consider your Mars trilogy to be a realistic view of a possible terraformation of Mars? Not quite realistic, and less so now than when I wrote it, because since then the robotic rovers have discovered perchlorates poisonous to humans are common in Martian sand.
    [Show full text]
  • Connie Willis, June 2019
    Science Fiction Book Club Interview with Connie Willis, June 2019 Connie Willis has won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards more major awards than any other writer—most recently the "Best Novel" Hugo and Nebula Awards for Blackout/All Clear (2010). She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Science Fiction Writers of America named her its 28th SFWA Grand Master in 2011. Wow! So many questions! I’m not sure I can answer all of them, but here goes. 1. Why writing? I don’t think any writer has a good answer for this. You don’t pick it--it picks you. I’ve loved books since I first discovered them--the first one I remember began, "There’s a cat in a hat in a ball in the hall," and I instantly knew, like Rudyard Kipling, that books held in them everything that would make me happy. When I learned to read, I saw that this was true, and I gobbled up LITTLE WOMEN and Gene Stratton Porter’s A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST and L. Frank Baum’s WIZARD OF OZ books and everything else I could get my hands on, which mostly meant the books at the public library, though the girl across the street loaned me Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A LITTLE PRINCESS and my great aunt left me Grace Livingston Hill’s THE WHITE FLOWER and one of my mother’s friends loaned me Valentine Davies’ A MIRACLE ON THIRTY-FOURTH STREET. Many of the books I read were had writers as characters--Jo March and Anne of Green Gables and Betsy of the BETSY, TACY, AND TIB books--and I wanted to be exactly like them, which to me meant not only writing books, but wearing long dresses, sitting in a garret reading and eating russet apples, and tying my hand-written manuscripts up with red ribbons.
    [Show full text]