Tag Archives: genre

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Watch the Skies – Tor.com goes live beta

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Tor.com logo

This week’s big genre fiction news is undoubtedly the long-promised launch of the new-look Tor.com – a publisher’s website that is also a social network, free fiction repository, group-blog and webzine all in one. Go take a look around and see what you can find.

As Charlie Stross points out, it’s been a long time coming – not just for Tor but for big publishing houses in general, who have been slow to adapt to the post-print internet paradigm.

Of course, not everyone is all positive. Genre fiction’s gadfly-in-chief, Futurismic columnist Jonathan McCalmont, wonders if Tor.com is too little (or rather too much) too late:

“I put it to you that this community (which has been admirably quick in adapting to new technologies) is as connected as it can possibly get and that this connection is (aside from a few existing forums) nicely decentralised and organic.

In fact, I put it to you that [the genre fiction] community is getting dangerously close to the saturation point.

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Donate to Strange Horizons – support quality free genre fiction on the web

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Hey, y’know how we publish a free piece of fiction every month? Well, Strange Horizons has been publishing a free piece of genre fiction every week. Plus poetry, and non-fiction, and reviews. All of which they pay professional rates for. None of which makes them a profit, or pays the volunteer staff and editors in anything but kudos.

And they’ve been doing it for eight years.

When I sat down to think about how to make enough money to pay for Futurismic‘s fiction, I considered but rejected the idea of having a public funding drive – the main reason being that Strange Horizons already uses that model, and I didn’t want to divert any of the spare money in the genre fiction scene away from them.

So here on Futurismic you get ads, but Strange Horizons has no ads at all. Eight years of archived professional material, completely and utterly free to read and free of distracting commercial messages. It’s a genre fiction resource to which nothing compares, which has broken many great new writers into the scene, and we’re very lucky it exists.

Which is why I suggest you may want to consider popping over to Strange Horizons and donating a few dollars, especially if you’ve ever read anything on the site. And if you’ve never read anything there, now would be a great time to start.

And if you’ve got a blog, give them a little plug, just like this one. It doesn’t cost you anything, but it’ll mean a lot to them. There are even prizes and  incentives … but personally, I’m just doing this for the love. Strange Horizons is an inspiration to web publishers everywhere; long may she sail.

Blasphemous Geometries

How to define a genre … and why not to bother

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Blasphemous Geometries returns, ready to bask in your merciless indifference.

Blasphemous Geometries by Jonathan McCalmont

This month Jonathan McCalmont has been thinking about that perennial discussion that is mathematically certain to arise in any situation where three or more sf fans or critics are gathered – how do we define science fiction? Jonathan has decided that we should stop trying. Continue reading How to define a genre … and why not to bother →

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Wired interviews the VanderMeers, gives away chapbook

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Cover art: Jeff VanderMeer - The Situation Those VanderMeers are everywhere at the moment – and not just in the traditional venues of genre fiction enthusiasts. Wired‘s GeekDads blog (which strikes me as a slightly sexist masthead – are there no GeekMums?) has an interview with Jeff and Ann VanderMeer that shows them off as candid, interesting and very smart people … and explains why they’re appearing in those unusual venues:

JV – “The main thing is, the internet and the way memes move now, there is no monolithic thing called “genre” or “literary mainstream” any more. There’s all of this fascinating cross-pollinations and collaborations that you never really saw before. […] I think I like to write stuff that can connect with different kinds of readers in different ways. Like, a fantasy reader is going to perceive The Situation one way, whereas somebody who works in front of a computer all day but doesn’t read fantasy is going to take something else out of it, for example.”

Well worth a read. And even though it’s well in advance of Friday Free Fiction, I might as well mention that Wired are giving away a PDF of Jeff VanderMeer’s new PS Publishing chapbook The Situation alongside the article. Bonus!

You can find out more about PS Publishing (an excellent UK-based bespoke small press) at their website – why not order something while you’re there? [Cover art image lifted from Wired interview]

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Is science fiction still a distinct genre?

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Promotional build for Neal Stepheson's Snow Crash in Second LifeVia a number of places (though I saw it at Posthuman Blues first) comes a post at Mondolithic Studios which asks (rhetorically) whether science fiction is still a distinct genre. To quote:

I think what confuses some people is the fact that Science Fiction isn’t really a distinct genre unto itself anymore. It’s mutated into dozens of sub-genres and movements, liberally exchanged genetic material with Fantasy and social satirism and burrowed into the internet in the form of hundreds of thousands of scifi and fantasy-oriented blogs, galleries, fanzines, vlogs, podcasts and short story webzines.

Given that you read Futurismic (which is a paying market for fiction, and will continue to be one just as soon as we can get the site aesthetics fixed up so as to present the stories the way they deserve), it’s an easy to assume that you’re in alignment with that opinion. But maybe not – what do you think? Is there still a definable body to science fiction, or is it more of a conceptual bundle that various forms of entertainment partake of in varying degrees? [Image by Hiro Sheridan]