Mataglap SF

Here’s an interesting early Herbert story that posits the introduction of a virus that systematically kills the Earth’s entire canine population, not just dogs but wolves, coyotes, etc.  Herbert has been studying up on microbiology and even dabbles a bit in genetic engineering, as the scientist hero, Varley Trent, has to ring up his Vegan […]

My memory of  McHugh’s successful first novel, China Mountain Zhang, is now 20 years in the past, but what I do remember of it includes her resolve to tell a human story amidst an original and interesting mélange of future extrapolation involving foreign countries, future entertainment, and a certain amount of “alienness” right here on […]

Frank Herbert broke into the SF field with “Looking for Something?”,  published in Startling Stories in 1952.  Prior to that he’d been a newspaper writer and was good enough at fiction to have a story published in Esquire in 1945.  The online bibliography is thin, there are references to a couple of other non-genre stories […]

Frank Herbert’s first novel has been published under three different titles.  The least common, “21st Century Sub”, would have given it an SF branding, since it was published in 1956, but its otherwise pretty bland.  This was the title of the first paperback version.  The title “Under Pressure” puts it more in the realm of […]

I’ll start by saying I dreaded reading this book, I could tell by the back cover blurb that this was not my thing and once again the Hugos are causing me to read a book I would otherwise blissfully ignore.  I had one false start where I just wasn’t into it, I even got my […]

  Winner: 2012 Hugo – short  story Winner: 2012 Nebula: – short story Liu has appeared seemingly from nowhere to capture both the Hugo and Nebula award for this story, along with a bunch of nominations for other awards.  And it shows a tremendous amount of craft, what struck me the most about it was […]

  Read it here. 2012 Hugo nominee – short story 2012 Nebula nominee – short story A story this short and with such a non-descript title is in danger of being overlooked before it is even read. Much like when reading poetry the reader has to make a conscious effort to devote the time and […]

Winner: 2012 Hugo Award – Best Novella Winner: 2012 Nebula Award – Best Novella Nominee: 2012 Locus Award – Best Novella The title of this story describes exactly what it delivers, a quiet unassuming tale of Kit, a government official who is assigned to a rural area to oversee the construction of a quarter-mile suspension […]

With every year, the Locus Award nominees look more representative of the field than the Hugos, particularly in the shorter categories.  But while there are no sparkly vampire stories here, it’s worth noting that there are still no novelette or short stories nominees from the big 3 magazines.  What the heck happened? SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL […]

Looking at the Hugo nominees for this year and cross referencing them with what was chosen for the 3 big year’s best anthologies we find: No Hugo-nominated novellas were included.  While there isn’t room to print all of them, usually a couple make the cut. Two of the five Hugo-nominated novelettes were included “Fade to […]