What do you recommend?

Guest Blog by on September 01 2008

Read any good books lately? Come tell us about it.

This is an open post, where we would like to invite everyone to come tell us about any good books and short stories you’ve read recently. A good movie you’ve seen. Your favourite television series. An exciting new writer you’ve discovered; best comic book/ graphic novel of the year; must read short fiction anthology or favourite magazine; your favourite anime and manga. A good blog that deserves to be read.

11 comments so far.

1. Charles Tan on 01st September 2008 at 6:43 am

As far as short fiction goes, I really enjoyed the magazine/anthology Nemonymous: Cone Zero. I think the book strikes the right balance between “fun” and “literary”.

2. David de Beer on 01st September 2008 at 7:50 am

My picks:

1)Books:
The Truth - Terry Pratchet:
After a 5 year hiatus from Pratchett, this was a terrific book to start with again. Brilliantly funny, and it is about time Pratchett poked fun at publishing and journalism. Lots of cameos and in-jokes to older stories, but it shouldn’t detract from this book for people who haven’t read them which does mostly feature a new group of characters. And dwarves. Can’t have enough dwarves.

2) Shorts:

One of my favourite of the shorter stories this year has been Robin Wayne Bailey’s “The Children’s Crusade.”
Idealistic? wishful thinking? absolutely, but it’s the kind of wishful thinking I can get behind, and I’ll keep on saying this but that ending image is just one of the most vivid and haunting I’ve read in some time.

And I simply have to do a shout out for AC Wise’s Matthew:
http://chizine.com/matthew.htm
a story that’s just not gotten enough attention, imo. A woman has to deal not only with the dead rising, but with her own attraction to her best friend’s resurrected husband.
Very beautiful and touching. A gentler story, which makes for a nice turn of pace from more plot-heavy and action oriented shorter fictions.

3) Comics:
Crossing Midnight - Mike Carey (Vertigo).
Two twins. One born a minute before midnight, one a minute after. To appease their superstitious grandmother, their father accidentally promised them to the God of the shrine.
Carey flawlessly weaves Japanese folklore with modern urban realism.

4)TV:

Chuck—missed the first 3rd of this series, but at the end of season 1 (there had better be a season 2!), I’m as addicted to this as Boston Legal and I’m a HUGE Boston Legal fan.
This is in keeping with what’s a typical trend now—nerdy boy, utterly useless in a fight and forever the...dude in distress, with a kick-ass girl to keep on saving him and looking out for him. And of course they can’t be together, for professional reasons.
Excellent balance between humor and a bit more serious-toned, surprisingly absorbing plot once you get into it and of course a whole army of minor characters who often steal the show.
I really should ban television from my house. This kind of show is just too addictive for me.

3. Gustavo Bondoni on 01st September 2008 at 10:27 am

The story that simply blew me away is actually a couple of years old: “Zima Blue” by Alastair Reynolds.

I finished it and just sat there, thinking wow wow wow wow, before sanity kicked in, and my thinking became “I wish I’d written that.”

Anyhow, this one sent me off to find more of his writing, and I have been enjoying it since.

4. David de Beer on 02nd September 2008 at 2:09 am

I had a similar experience with Alistair Reynolds a few months back. Different story, from the Hartwell&Kramer;Best of SF 12, but stunning.

Definitely want to read more of his work myself.

5. J. Andrews on 02nd September 2008 at 7:41 pm

YA novel. Cory Doctorow’s _Little Brother_.

British television shows “Doctor Who”, “Torchwood”, and “Young Dracula”. And sort of pilot movie, since it’s to be a series soon, “Being Human”.

6. Petréa Mitchell on 03rd September 2008 at 12:06 pm

<cite>The book of Joby</cite> by Mark J. Ferrari.

TV series: <cite>Noein</cite> and <cite>Mushi-Shi</cite>. The latter is in the process of being posted to YouTube by its US distributor, and the manga series it’s based on has been partially published in English. Both are worth checking out in partial form because they’re completely episodic.

Incidentally, the “Preview” button doesn’t seem to work, even with JavaScript switched on…

7. Bob on 04th September 2008 at 1:58 am

I haven’t read much from 2008 yet but the two books from 2007 that are elegible that I think are classics are BRASYL by Ian McDonald and SHELTER by Susan Palwick.

8. Paul Cornell on 06th September 2008 at 8:56 am

Two books in the timeframe that I greatly enjoyed, one by a friend of mine: MultiReal by David Louis Edelman, which is as real and crunchy as the first book in the trilogy, Infoquake, but now with added adventure. I think this business based the-Singularity-was-kind-of-meh future feels much more real that virtually anything else I feel in the genre, and the technology is new and yet kind of obvious too. This is The West Wing with nanobots, and now, did I mention, guns? The other book is The Martian General’s daughter by Theodore Judson, which is large-scale military/epic history of the future stuff, again with an emphasis on who, in the end, is going to empty the bins. I commend them!

9. Larry on 06th September 2008 at 8:05 pm

Sadly, I’ll have to limit myself to novels alone, but here goes:

Ursula Le Guin, Lavinia - what she managed to accomplish here was amazing, considering how well-known Vergil’s Aeneid is.

Michael Cisco, The Traitor - two re-reads and there’s still layers of meaning to decipher in this feverish tale.

More later, once I look through my collection.

10. Sarah L Edwards on 14th September 2008 at 8:28 pm

Two eligible stories I’ve been terribly impressed with are David Moles’ “Finisterra” and Elizabeth Bear’s “Shoggoths in Bloom.” Both are beautifully written, though the Moles is more epic and the Bear is more intimate. Amazing stories.

11. Bob on 01st October 2008 at 12:46 am

One short story that I think has been horribly neglected is “IN THE FOREST OF THE QUEEN” by Gwyneth Jones (from ECLIPSE 1). A novella to be read is “THE TEAR” by Ian McDonald (in Galactic Empires ed by Gardner Dozois). Other novellas would be “THE HOB CARPET” by Ian R. MacLeod (in Asimov’s June 2008) and “PINOCCHIO” by Walter Jon Williams (from The Starry Rift ed by Jonathan Strahan) Also two short stories from that same collection are “DISMANTLED INVENTION OF FATE” by Jeffrey Ford and “AN HONEST DAY’S WORK” by Margo Lanagan. Another Novel - “THE DRAGON’S OF BABEL” by Michael Swanwick.

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2008 Nebula Award Novel Nominees

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Powersby Ursula K. le Guin

Cauldron by Jack McDevitt

Brasylby Ian McDonald

Making Money by Terry Pratchett

Superpowers by David J. Schwartz

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems. But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days. When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.

About the Author

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction novelist, blogger and technology activist. He is the co-editor of the popular weblog Boing Boing (boingboing.net), and a contributor to Wired, Popular Science, Make, the New York Times, and many other newspapers, magazines and websites. He was formerly Director of European Affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards and treaties. In 2007, he served as the Fulbright Chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.

Powers by Ursula K. Le Guin

In the third entry in Ursula K. Le Guin's widely acclaimed Annals of the Western Shore saga (GIFTS and VOICES), Gav, a young slave, finds that he has amazing powers of recollection: he can remember a page of text after seeing it only once, and sometimes, he can even "remember" things that haven't happened yet. Gav's world is turned brutally upside-down when his sister is killed by a member of the household he has been taught to trust, and, blinded by sorrow, he runs away from the only world he has ever known, embarking on a journey of transformation and discovery.

About the Author

Ursula K. Le Guin writes both poetry and prose, and in various modes including realistic fiction, science fiction, fantasy, young children's books, books for young adults, screenplays, essays, verbal texts for musicians, and voicetexts. She has published seven books of poetry, twenty-two novels, over a hundred short stories (collected in eleven volumes), four collections of essays, twelve books for children, and four volumes of translation. Few American writers have done work of such high quality in so many forms. Most of Le Guin's major titles have remained continuously in print, some for over forty years. Her best known fantasy works, the six Books of Earthsea, have sold millions of copies in America and England, and have been translated into sixteen languages. Her first major work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness, is considered epoch-making in the field for its radical investigation of gender roles and its moral and literary complexity. Her novels The Dispossessed and Always Coming Home redefine the scope and style of utopian fiction, while the realistic stories of a small Oregon beach town in Searoad show her permanent sympathy with the ordinary griefs of ordinary people. Among her books for children, the Catwings series has become a particular favorite. Her version of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, a translation she worked on for forty years, has received high praise. Three of Le Guin's books have been finalists for the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and among the many honors her writing has received are a National Book Award, five Hugo Awards, five Nebula Awards, SFWA's Grand Master, the Kafka Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Howard Vursell Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the L.A. Times Robert Kirsch Award, the PEN/Malamud Award, the Margaret A. Edwards Award, etc.

Cauldron by Jack McDevitt

The year is 2255. The academy that trained the starfarers is long gone and veteran star pilot Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins spends her retirement supporting fund-raising efforts for The Prometheus Foundation, a privately funded organization devoted to deep space exploration. But when a young physicist unveils an efficient star drive capable of reaching the core of the galaxy, Hutch finds herself back in the deepest reaches of space, and on the verge of discovering the origins of the deadly Omega clouds that continue to haunt her.

About the Author

Jack McDevitt is a former English teacher, naval officer, Philadelphia taxi driver, customs officer, and motivational trainer. With the nominations of Infinity Beach, Ancient Shores, “Time Travelers Never Die,” Moonfall, “Good Intentions” (cowritten with Stanley Schmidt), “Nothing Ever Happens in Rock City,” Chindi, Omega, and Polaris,, "Henry James, This One's for You," and Seeker, his work has been on the final Nebula ballot ten of the last eleven years.

Brasyl by Ian McDonald

Think Bladerunner in the tropics... Be seduced, amazed, and shocked by one of the world’s greatest and strangest nations. Past, present, and future Brazil, with all its color, passion, and shifting realities, come together in a novel that is part SF, part history, part mystery, and entirely enthralling.

About the Author

Ian McDonald's mother is Irish, Fatrher Scottish, was born in England but has lived for almost all of his forty something years in Northern Ireland, more speciafically, in that narrow strip of land along the southern edge of Belfast Lough. From that vantage he's seen the Troubles start and also, he hopes, end. His first story was sold in 1983 to short-lived but very glossy local SFF magazine Extro. He bought a guitar with the money. His first novel, Desolation Road came out in 1988 from Bantam Spectra, this year PYR republish it for the first time since then in the US. His most recent novel was the Hugo and Nebula nominated Brasyl, just out from PYR in the US and Gollancz in the UK is Cyberabad Days, a collexction of stories from teh future India of his 2006 novel River of Gods, including Hugo winning novelette The Djinn's Wife. In progress is a new novel, The Dervish House, set in near-future Turkey. In daylight hours he works for local animation company Flickerpix.

Making Money by Terry Pratchett

The Ankh-Morpork Post Office is running like . . . well, not at all like a government office. The mail is delivered promptly; meetings start and end on time; five out of six letters relegated to the Blind Letter Office ultimately wend their way to the correct addresses. Postmaster General Moist von Lipwig, former arch-swindler and confidence man, has exceeded all expectations—including his own. So it's somewhat disconcerting when Lord Vetinari summons Moist to the palace and asks, "Tell me, Mr. Lipwig, would you like to make some real money?" Vetinari isn't talking about wages, of course. He's referring, rather, to the Royal Mint of Ankh-Morpork, a venerable institution that haas run for centuries on the hereditary employment of the Men of the Sheds and their loyal outworkers, who do make money in their spare time. Unfortunately, it costs more than a penny to make a penny, so the whole process seems somewhat counterintuitive. Next door, at the Royal Bank, the Glooper, an "analogy machine," has scientifically established that one never has quite as much money at the end of the week as one thinks one should, and the bank's chairman, one elderly Topsy (née Turvy) Lavish, keeps two loaded crossbows at her desk. Oh, and the chief clerk is probably a vampire. But before Moist has time to fully consider Vetinari's question, fate answers it for him. Now he's not only making money, but enemies too; he's got to spring a prisoner from jail, break into his own bank vault, stop the new manager from licking his face, and, above all, find out where all the gold has gone—otherwise, his life in banking, while very exciting, is going to be really, really short. . . .

About the Author

Terry Pratchett sold his first story when he was thirteen, which earned him enough money to buy a second-hand typewriter. His first novel, a humorous fantasy entitled The Carpet People, appeared in 1971 from the publisher Colin Smythe. Terry worked for many years as a journalist and press officer, writing in his spare time and publishing a number of novels, including his first Discworld novel, The Color of Magic, in 1983. In 1987 he turned to writing full time, and has not looked back since. To date there are a total of 36 books in the Discworld series, of which four (so far) are written for children. The first of these, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, won the Carnegie Medal. A non-Discworld book, Good Omens, his 1990 collaboration with Neil Gaiman, has been a longtime bestseller, and was reissued in hardcover by William Morrow in early 2006 (it is also available as a mass market paperback (Harper Torch, 2006) and trade paperback (Harper Paperbacks, 2006). Terry's latest book, Making Money, was published in September 2007 and was an instant New York Times and London Times bestseller. In 2008, Harper Children's will publish Terry's new standalone non-Discworld YA novel, Nation. Regarded as one of the most significant contemporary English-language satirists, Pratchett has won numerous literary awards, was named an Officer of the British Empire “for services to literature” in 1998, and has received four honorary doctorates from the Universities of Warwick, Portsmouth, Bath, and Bristol. His acclaimed novels have sold more than 45 million copies (give or take a few) and have been translated into 33 languages.

Superpowers by David J. Schwartz

Madison, Wisconsin: In the summer of 2001, five college juniors wake up with . . . not just a hangover, but superpowers. . . . Jack Robinson: Grew up on a farm, works in a chem lab, and brews his own beer. Age: 19. Superpower: SPEED. Caroline Bloom: Has a flair for fashion design and a mother who’s completely out of touch. Works as a waitress for a lunatic boss. Age: 20. Superpower: FLIGHT. Harriet Bishop: Studied violin, guitar, and piano . . . and was terrible at them all. Now writes about music for the campus paper. Age: 20. Superpower: INVISIBILITY. Mary Beth Layton: Is managing a 3.8, but feels like she’s working three times as hard as the people around her. Age: 20. Superpower: STRENGTH. Charlie Frost: Has an anxious way about him, and always looks like he’s on day 101 of his most recent haircut. Age: 20. Superpower: TELEPATHY. But how do you adjust to an extraordinary ability when you’re an ordinary person? What if you’re not ready for the responsibility that comes with great power? And how do you keep your head in a world that’s going mad?

About the Author

David J. Schwartz's short fiction has appeared in numerous markets, including the anthologies Paper Cities, The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and Twenty Epics. He attended Odyssey in 1996 and has participated in workshops with the Semi-Omniscients, the Supersonics, and the Sycamore Hill Writing Workshop. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. You can visit his website at http://snurri.livejournal.com/.

The Nebula Awards