Frankly I’m too knackered to do a proper post today so here’s a lazy list of links that pale in comparison to the useful list of links that some other, better bloggers, do.

Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot
It’s a beautifully moving passage – a kind of secular Sermon on the Mount – by Carl Sagan, and it’s been set to music and pictures in all sorts of fabulous ways on the net. God bless YouTube.

The crass:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfwY2TNehw

The obvious:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-aX4kT_N9c&mode=related&search=

The minimalist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M&mode=related&search=

And the brash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47EBLD-ISyc&mode=related&search=

Iron Man
Okay, so the second half of this trailer is your bog standard action movie malarkey – but the first bit… Is it possible they might get Iron Man right?

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/ironman/

Sci-fi futures
An amusing little article but, given that somewhere between a third and a half of the planet’s population are already living in approximations of numbers eight and six, I think there are people who might argue with the title: “8 most common sci-fi futures and why they won’t happen”

http://www.cracked.com/index.php?name=News&sid=2373

o:p>

You are a plaything of the corporate media!

Proof, if any were needed, of the way in which DRM and the corporations that espouse its use do so to manipulate their positions in a way that takes no account of the position of the citizen. Universal deliberately break their music so that it can’t be played on the world’s most successful MP3 player…
http://slashdot.org/articles/07/09/17/1927212.shtml

And finally…
Mysterious thing falls from space, strange emanations from crater, people get sick… It’s starting. It’s starting! WATCH THE SKIES! WATCH THE SKIES!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,,2171920,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

Coming soon…
I might get round to telling you why John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War is an absolutely vile tract full of deeply unpalatable politics that you should avoid like the plague if it weren’t for the fact that it’s one of the most fun sf reads I’ve had in ages – I literally couldn’t put the book down, read it in one day and had an absolute blast. Then went and ordered the sequels. And all the time I was giving myself a stern telling off for indulging in such hopelessly reactionary bollocks.

Posted September 18, 2007 Comments(2)

You know for big, dumb apes, don’t we do some amazing things sometimes – this is an image of Europa rising over Jupiter’s clouds taken by New Horizons – what a picture! This was brought to my attention by Warren Ellis’s blog)

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_907.html

And since we’re talking about Mr Ellis I’d just like to take this moment to praise his recently published short graphic novel Crécy as a piece of work that pretty much everyone should pick up. It’s a shockingly foul-mouthed and violent retelling of the story of the British victory (English and, though Ellis is clearly loath to admit it, Welsh) over the French at the eponymous battle. It’s a pretty good history lesson, but far more important and relevant than that it’s an enormous amount of fun.

How much fun?

Well, I’m Irish, I grew up in Northern Ireland during the worst of the troubles – and Ellis even manages to get me cheering for the English army.

The book is every bit as rude and bloody as outstanding cover by Felipe Massafera and the excellent writing is backed up by brilliantly detailed black and white interior art from Raulo Caceres – who both also deserve boundless praise.

You can sit down and read Crécy in a single sitting, but you can go back to it again and again, partly because of the quality of the artwork but mostly because Ellis, on form, is just about the sharpest, funniest, nastiest writer ever to put words in bubbles.

Posted September 14, 2007 Comments(0)

So, last week my daughter was sick and then so was I, so no posting for a while. But now I’m back. Here’s a new flash. Hope you like it.

Proper Little Soldier

Solomon heard them coming just before dawn. He shook me awake and then I woke the kid, putting my hand across his mouth, just in case he made a noise.

He didn’t.

He was becoming a proper little soldier.

Read more »

Posted September 13, 2007 Comments(4)

It seems like, recently, everyone’s been rushing to pronounce the imminent doom of everything sfnal.

There’s been the gloomy blogging about whether there’s any point in short fiction (a primer on that discussion is here) that took place while I, failing to notice the form’s untimely demise, have just finished enjoying the shit out of Ted Chiang’s “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” (in Subterranean Press’s beautiful little hardback)was busy reading Nina Allan’s awesome first short story collection (buy it damn you, buy it) and the excellent Zencore!, (Nemonymous seven) and then picked up two great new compilations edited Ian Whates (disLocations and Time Pieces).

Read more »

Posted September 13, 2007 Comments(2)

Well the Hugo winners have been announced.

I’m surprised but not disappointed that Vinge’s Rainbows End won (I assumed one of the fantasy novels would get the nod even though I haven’t read either) I just finished reading it yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it as an adventure story and as an extended riff on the future of communications technology, I rather wish it had existed when I was 18, I think it would have blown my head off. I did, however, feel that there was something essential missing, though what that is, I haven’t yet decided, I might post a fuller review when I’ve had a chance to think about it properly. Still, I think on balance Rainbows End edged out Glasshouse and I didn’t get on with Blindsight at all, so it looks like Hugo voters got it right this time.

The most annoying thing about Rainbows End, though, is that it is the first Vinge I’ve read and now I’ve found another author I’m going to have to play catch-up on.

I liked Robert Reed’s winning novella A Billion Eves, but I preferred Robert Charles Wilson’s Julian – again I thought the two were pretty close – can’t see how the Swanick story Lord Weary’s Empire was better than the Wilson though. Not at all.

Given the choice I’d have had to split the award between Ian MacDonald’s The Djinn’s Wife and Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter (fantasy) by Geoff Ryman so nice to see them sharing the top spots for best novelette. I have no argument with the decision.

I thought the shortlist for short fiction this year was a disgrace. If those were the best five short stories published in the time period then I’m a friggin’ Dutchman (no offence Jetse). Reed’s “Eight Episodes”, the only one I remotely liked came third, proving that I konw nothing.

For once the best dramatic presentation awards, long and short form, went to the right choices too. I thought Dr Who was over represented on the shortlist but the right episode, “The Girl in the Fireplace”, won while I’m gobsmacked but delighted that Pan’s Labyrinth saw off the more obvious (and non-subtitled) opposition in the long form category. It is worth noting, giving the discussion that’s been going on about the future of sf film that this year’s shortlist was a pretty high-powered list of movies – The Prestige, Children of Men, V for Vendetta and A Scanner Darkly might all have won on another year.

The rest of the awards I have to concede I have no real interest in, but hey, well done Japan, that’s a pretty good set of winners.

Posted September 1, 2007 Comments(3)