Just in case you missed it, this little gem from webcomic Hark, a Vagrant was doing the rounds on Twitter the other day. Click through for the whole thing, then feel free to argue about the need for hard scientific veracity in speculative fiction in the comments. đ
Just a quickie – Canadian readers may be interested to know that occasional Futurismic blogger and freelance writer Edward Willett will be teaching an evening course in genre fiction writing at the University of Regina in March and April of next year.
I’m not sure of the exact exchange rate, but I’m guessing ninety-nine Canadian bucks for eight hours tuition from a published sf novelist and prolific freelance writer is a pretty good deal… so any Regina residents with a jones for writing should maybe start scraping the pennies together, eh?
Iâve been invited to join a panel on robotics at the upcoming Orycon Science Fiction Convention, so I decided to write about them here, too. I also have a story coming out soon in Analog, called âThe Robotsâ Girl,â which started when I read an article complaining about robots being developed to help with childcare in Japan.
We were promised undersea cities and jet packs and household robots. The robots are here, and the next decade is pretty clearly a breakout time for them. Continue reading The Surprising Range of Robots
So, did you enjoy Lavie Tidhar’s story “Spider’s Moon” which we published yesterday?
It’s been a busy year for the globe-trotting Mr Tidhar, whose last email to me came from a small internet cafe in Bangkok; not only has he been writing his own material (of which a lot is scheduled for publication in the near future) and running his own blog, he’s been curating the World SF News blog as well – shining a light on fresh non-Western science fiction from around the world, and earning himself a nomination for the inaugural Last Drink Bird Head award for his activism.
“Spider’s Moon” isn’t his only publication credit for this month, either. Lavie edited and assembled the Apex Book Of World SF anthology for Apex Books, which was released at the weekend and is now available through Amazon (and, I fully expect, other major internet bookstores)… though I’d recommend you buy direct from Apex themselves, because you’ll get a better price and swifter dispatch (not to mention making the staff of a quality small publishing house very happy indeed). Here’s the table of contents:
Some familiar names, and some new ones too – so if you fancy sampling some science fiction that wasn’t written in your own backyard, why not get a copy for yourself? US$18.95 seems a pretty decent price for a sixteen story anthology, and you’ll not only be supporting the genre publishing industry at the roots but exposing yourself to some exciting new voices and ideas at the same time. So what are you waiting for? Go buy one.
Almost every short fiction venue worth its salt will have some sort of guidelines as to what sort of material they’re looking for… but I suspect almost every editor will confess that, when the story is good enough, the guidelines can flex a little to allow it through.
That’s exactly what happened with “Spider’s Moon” by globe-trotting star-ascendant Lavie Tidhar, which is set in a slightly deeper future than we usually deal with here at Futurismic. But its core concerns are closer to home, and it’s a strong tale well told – so we’re proud to be publishing it for you to read. Enjoy!
Night, a full spiderâs moon in the sky; hundreds of lanterns hung along the river, and the smell of saffron and garlic and dried lemongrass filled the air; a warm night, candles burning on street corners with offerings of rum and cooked rice, the hum of electric motorbikes, the murmur of a sugarcane machine as it crushed stalks to make the juice.
Ice tinkling in glasses; on small plastic chairs people sat by the river, drinking, talking. A hushed reverie, yet festive. Hoi An under the spiderâs moon, French backpackers singing, badly but with enthusiasm, while one of their number played a guitar.
Save me from the raven and the frog, and show me safely to the riverâs mouth, O Naga, he thought. Frogs had never been his favourites. Green and slimy, and always too loud. Like rats, almost. Like green, belligerent rats. Continue reading NEW FICTION: SPIDER’S MOON by Lavie Tidhar