Just because I’m a lame photographer doesn’t mean I can’t have a go at the photography clichés … so here is a shot from sunset last Sunday:

If someone reading has the m4d-1337 sk1llz0rz with GIMPshop (not Pshop, I can’t justify that sort of expense), and can tell me how to adjust for overexposure after the fact, please make use of the comments field at the bottom (or email if you’re shy).

Justifying the silence

So, no FPB last week due to the (as yet unexplained) server failure. Personally, it was a very weird experience; this weekly download of my life has become quite a ritual, and it felt very odd not doing it. One less load of waffle for y’all to scroll through, though, so the karmic balance probably works out quite neatly.

Nose to the editorial grindstone

I’ve also been pretty quiet between then and yesterday as far as this blog is concerned, because I’ve been fully engaged in the administrative end of my first stint as fully-fledged reviews editor for Interzone. Sandy Auden has stepped aside (with what sounded suspiciously like a sigh of relief), the training wheels are off, and from now on I have to keep my balance if I want to avoid breaking my nose (or overextending a metaphor).

So I’ve been sorting through the huge list of books that get sent to TTA Press over a two month period, working out which ones to offer to my team. This is less a science than a combination of gut feeling and arcane calculation. We only have so much space to work with, after all. The whittled list is with the reviewers, so now I wait for responses and divvy the titles out next week. It’s a lot more work than it sounds like (honestly, it is), but quite satisfying nonetheless.

(Plus I get to exercise my editorial privilege once again and cherrypick a title I really want to cover … Karl Schroeder’s Queen of Candesce should do nicely, methinks.)

Andy (Ed-in-Chief) also asked me to write an editorial for the next issue, which I have done. I think that’s what’s made the reality of the position sink in – it’s quite scary to think that my opinion on book reviews will be the first thing that people see when they open up Interzone #212. I hope I’ve managed not to sound like a total arse.

Books and magazines seen

OK, a fortnight’s worth of incoming materials. So, magazines first:

• F&SF August 2007 -  (About a fortnight after the last one. I’ve totally given up trying to predict when these will arrive; the vagueries of the transAtlantic postal system are utterly opaque to me.) I’ve actually read most of it, too; very heavy on the ‘funny’ stories, which aren’t necessarily bad as such, just not really my thing. I enjoyed the Gwyneth Jones, though.
• Murky Depths #1 – I’d totally forgotten about subscribing to this until it turned up in my letterbox. It’s an interesting idea; a genre fiction mag that takes a mixed media approach. Comic-book size, heavily illustrated, leaning more toward the shorter stories. A bold experiment, from the flick-through I’ve had so far, and I wish it the best of luck.
• Locus August 2007 – my last issue, I think, as I’m not renewing my subscription. I simply don’t get enough out of it for the money, especially now the prices are higher for postage. Would that I were richer, but so it goes.
• Vector and Matrix from the BSFA – the former featuring, among a number of far more qualified and erudite commentators, yours truly waffling on about Glorifying Terrorism (the book, not the practice), and my favourite short and long fiction of 2006.

And the books:

• Dagger Key and Other Stories by Lucius Shepard (ARC) - a bit of a change of pace for me with this latest assignment from Vector. As regular readers will know, I don’t read much fantasy, so Shepard’s work will be an interesting expedition into new pastures. I often read high praise of his work, though, so I’m hoping to be impressed.
• Halting State by Charles Stross (ARC) – George Walkley at Orbit knows me too well already, I feel! It’s all I can do to not drop my current books-in-progress and tear straight into this title immediately … if I find myself with a spare afternoon, that shred of discipline may dissolve. I get the impression from other reviews that this is the book I’ve been waiting for someone to write.

Coda

So, there we are, and here I am. It’s the end of the week, the sun is shining, and my stomach is growling, which by the calculations of any sane person surely means it’s time for The Friday Curry.

So, I’ll bid all and sundry a good weekend - I’m hoping the unusually seasonal weather holds out, myself. Whatever you have planned, I hope it works out well for you. Peace.

Just logged in to SL and found a notecard in my inbox that I thought I should share with the science fiction community. Joe Haldeman is doing a book reading in Second Life this Sunday coming:

I’d like to invite you … to a meetup with science-ficiton writer Joe Haldeman [on] Sunday [August] 12th at 9 am SLT [that's 1pm GMT BST, UK people]. Joe will give a reading from his upcoming novel, “The Accidental Time Machine,” if the voice client is feeling like working Sunday.

If the voice client is not working, we’ll just do the meetup as a text chat.

Either way, Joe will be talking about his novel, science fiction, writing, science, art and more, and answering questions from me and from the audience.

I hope to see you, and your group, there.

– Ziggy Figaro

Landmark to the event location – the Amphitheater at Dr. Dobb’s Island:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dr%20Dobbs%20Island/204/118/25

I think I’m going to be at a family gathering on Sunday, but if not I shall certainly be logging in. If anyone wants to tag along but is new to SL, drop me an email and we’ll arrange to meet up, or I’ll put you on to someone else who can chaperone you.

OK, first off let me make one thing perfectly clear – I do not want to see science fiction and fantasy short story print magazines die off. It is not a thing that would bring me any sort of joy.

Secondly, let me make it clear that Doug Cohen’s suggestion that everyone make a point of subscribing to a short story publication is well-meaning and good-spirited, and that I think anyone who can afford to do so should do exactly that.

(I recommend Interzone, myself, but then I’m biased!)

But I think that subscription drives are a short-term solution that fails to look at the long-term issues.

Where have the readers gone, and why?

Subscription rates are falling; this is undeniable. And the genre needs the short fiction markets to nurture new talent; this is also undeniable.

What we are missing are the cold hard facts. Why are subscriptions to short fiction magazines dropping? Subscription drives are an admirable thing, but until the source of the problem is located, it’s like adding more water to a leaking bucket. We need to find the hole and patch it.

Now, for all I know, the magazine publishers may well be hunting for the leak. I certainly hope so. I know some of them are looking at methods of patching the leak, too, if not already rolling out potential patches and strengthening. This is a good thing.

But what worries me is this; subscription drives may cause an unfounded short-term sense of security. If publishers look at the next twelve months and breathe a sigh of relief, they may not think ahead to the next five years. Beating the wolf away from the door is great, but it would be better to chase him back into the forest.

What should we do to save the short fiction markets?

I don’t have all the answers, sadly. Alhough I have my opinions on futureproofing the genre short fiction scene, which were not universally popular when I announced them, they are only opinions – and they are the opinions of someone who isn’t a publisher of short fiction magazines. In an absence of facts, all I can do is throw theories into the air.

So here’s what I suggest:

Follow Doug Cohen’s advice, and subscribe to a magazine if you can afford to do so.

But while you’re at it, or if you can’t afford to, or even if you don’t want to, get in touch with the magazine publisher and tell them how you feel.

Tell them why you weren’t subbed before, or why you lapsed, or why you’d like to subscribe but can’t (or won’t). Give these people some feedback, and help them find a solid path to a lasting future.

You can’t fix a problem simply by throwing money at it. We need to think smarter than that.

Ah, the wranglings of the genre; the coincident arrival of a report from a con panel and a new column from esteemed critic Paul Kincaid seems to have revived the perennial ‘what is science fiction’ debate.

In which case, I can’t see any reason that I shouldn’t add my little dose of noise to the signal, and reiterate my belief that science fiction is a floating point variable, not a binary.

A programming metaphor

OK, so that may not make a lot of sense to someone who has never been foolish enough to teach themselves computer programming, so I’ll unpack it a bit.

When you write a computer program, you create variables – little discreet data points which can be assigned a value by the programmer or by various external stimuli. But all variables are not created equal.

A binary variable can have one of two different values: a ’1′, or a ’0′, an ‘on’ or an ‘off’. No other options are available. A binary variable is either a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. That’s it.

A floating point variable, however, can be assigned any numerical value that can be made to fit inside the amount of memory allocated to it. Positive, negative, large or small – any number whatsoever, even decimal subdivisions thereof.

Can you see where this is going?

The rock music metaphor (again)

OK, so maybe you can’t. Despite the assumptions of outsiders, not all science fiction readers are computer geeks. So, I’ll deploy a metaphor that long-term readers will find familiar (maybe even distressingly so)*.

Long ago, it may have been possible to say that a particular song was a piece of ‘rock music’. It either partook of what were considered to be the tropes of rock music (the then fairly new and strange phenomena of distorted guitars, for example, or the wearing of tight trousers) or it did not.

Nowadays, that simply isn’t the case. The canon has fragmented, and the definition depends on the perspective of the listener and their conception of what the term actually means – a term whose definition has been mangled and stretched by fans, critics, marketing departments and the mass media alike.

Throw in some cliched stereotyping, and the inherently tribal nature of subcultures, and you’ve got a whole raft of cultural schisms on your hands. ‘Rock’ is in the ear of the beholder, you might say – it’s what I point to when I say it, to paraphrase Damon Knight.

Can you see where this is going now? ‘Rock’ was once a binary variable. Something either was rock, or was not rock. Now, it’s a floating point variable – each piece of music partakes of the idea of rock to a certain dgree, be it tiny or huge.

Science fiction is a quality, not an object

For me at least, it’s that simple. A book is not, in and of itself, science fiction. But it may well partake of science-fictionality (science-fiction-ness?) to a lesser or greater extent – and that extent is, at least partly, determined by my perception of the book inquestion, as well as my perception of the canon of works that inform the term ‘science fiction’.

You see? Floating point variable.

And I think the same applies to subdivisions of the genre concept – as, it appears, do several other persons considerably more learned and qualified to pontificate on such matters than me, if the discussion at Torque Control is anything to go by.

The plurality of subcultures

It’s almost like Zeno’s dichotomy paradox – no matter how much you keep dividing the set into two, you’ll never reach the final destination of a concrete definition that puts the item under discussion clearly within the set or beyond it. You can’t make a floating point number into a binary. The genie will not go back into the bottle.

This is just the way culture works. We humans develop an idea, or a concept or label, and we apply it to things. Then, humans being humans, we decide that some of the others don’t have quite the same idea of what the label really means.

And so, back in the sixties, ’rock’ music split into ‘hard rock’ and ‘heavy metal,’ and so on; bi- and tri-furcating in endless iterations, up to the current point where there are almost as many different genres as there are bands – none of whom are ever happy with the labels that get slapped on them.

If you can’t see the resonance between science fiction literature and that preceding paragraph, then either I’ve failed to explain myself properly, or I’m utterly unhinged in command of a keyboard …

… but, that said, one of the things that appeals to me about science fiction fandom is that I can actually take part in a conversation as abstract and ultimately irrelevant to the fate of the universe as this one, and in all probability have someone take me seriously enough to argue back. And that, as far as I’m concerned, rocks.

---

[* In the process of fetching that link, I realised that I started that particular rant almost a year ago. Probably time for a rewrite ... or at least a reassessment.]

Oh, man. Regular readers will be well aware that Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker are two of my favourite authors. So you can probably imagine the vigorous flailing of arms and jubilant cry of “wh00t!” that occured when I found out they’ve done another collaboration short.

It’s called Hormiga Canyon, it’s in the new issue of Asimovs, and the good people there have put up a hefty chunk of it as a teaser. And guess what? It works – I’m not waiting for that story to appear in an anthology, I want to read it real soon.

So I guess I’m going to practice what I’ve been preaching and buy my first electronic version of a science fiction magazine. I’d consider subbing, if it wasn’t for the fact that I don’t have enough reading time as it is* …

***

[* You know, even I'm starting to get sick of me saying this. I think that means it's time to stop.]

At least, it is up until the end of August. Any readers of VCTB hailing from South Africa (or with friends and family out that way), take note:

The Reader’s Paradise Bookstore in Cape Town, South Africa, is having a special two-month promotion on fantasy and science fiction titles, including a big selection of books that come with a free signed bookplate from the author included in the price.

They’re also selling other fantastic-related stuff, including DVDs and kid’s costumes, and there’s a raffle for goodies that include more signed books.

Sounds like a whole bunch of good reasons for South African readers to not buy from Amazon for the next few months, don’t you think?

***

[Disclosure: yeah, I know, that's a blatant free plug. But you know what? The guy just emailed and asked really nicely, and I like the idea of supporting small bookstores. Plus it's my own blog, so I make the rules.]

Futurismic is currently in redevelopment, having a new engine fitted … two evenings without posting to it, and I feel a peculiar absence. Blogging definitely has addictive properties.

So, in the interim, I’ll round up a batch of good stuff for sf heads to read on the web and post them here instead.

Kim Stanley Robinson on climate change

The man behind the much lauded Mars Trilogy (which I’ve still never read), Kim Robinson talks about climate change issues at Wired, in the context of his latest novel, Sixty Days and Counting.

Watts, MacLeod, McAuley and Slonczewski on science fiction and the biosciences

Thanks to Peter Watts, we can read [warning - PDF] a group discussion interview from Nature magazine where he, Ken MacLeod, Paul McAuley and Joan Slonczewski talk about their writing, the biological sciences, and the connections between the two.

There is apparently a longer and unexpurgated online version to come, reached by the URL at the end of the piece, but it doesn’t appear to be live yet.

(Special bonus material! Ken MacLeod is not too worried about doctors who think they can be terrorists. It’s the engineers we should be looking out for.)

Lewis Shiner gives it away

A little late to the pixel-stained revolution, but very welcome nonetheless, is Lewis Shiner’s decision to release all of his short fiction online under a Creative Commons licence. Yes, all of it, along with a manifesto about the importance of short fiction for developing one’s writing – and for cultivating readers, too.

I must confess to not having read any Shiner before, but his is a name I’ve had recommended to me countless times. Now I have no excuse, except the old ‘lack of time’ saw. Thanks to the omniprescient BoingBoing for the tip-off.

Happy reading!

UK sf fans may be amused to find that Crowne Plaza, the hotel chain who have hosted the last two Eastercons, are now offering virtual conference spaces for hire in Second Life.

Of course, until they provide some sort of virtual bar facility, fandom’s not going to make the shift to the metaverse. But I’m intrigued by the idea of parallel events …

“Dark Space” by Marianne de Pierres (Book 1 of The Sentients of Orion)

Orbit Books, May 2007; 432pp, UK PBK; ISBN-13: 978-1841494289

Reviewed by Paul Raven

WARNING: This critique can be considered to contain ‘spoilers’.

---

The strapline reads “Dark space is not really dark. Neither is it empty.” Twisting this to refer to the book itself, it’s half right: Dark Space is certainly not empty. It is, however, very dark. Unflinchingly so; it’s a complex and exciting novel, almost devoid of cheap sentiment and comfortable vindication. It’s not a cheerful read, but it is a very rewarding one.One of the established modes of science fiction is the story that asks “what if this carries on?” With Dark Space, de Pierres is performing a variation of that mode, which we might choose to describe as “what if this happened again?” Having created a world that draws heavily on the politics (and to some extent the language and other trappings) of the Italian city-states of the Renaissance, de Pierres is able to examine societies and interpersonal relationships from feminist and Marxist angles without seemingly having any particular axe to grind other than that of general progressiveness – though a more coherent agenda promises to reveal itself over the course of the series.

***

If you want to read my entire critique of de Pierres’ “Dark Space”, you’ll need to pop over to T3A Space, of course. I know, I’m such a tease …

DefCon 13 2005

Originally uploaded by eliotphillips.

… are way cooler looking than any sf con badges I’ve seen so far.

My sf-nal brethren, this ires me deeply. There were sf cons way before there were hacker cons. Hell, there were sf cons way before there were hackers, full stop.

The next con bid I vote for will be the one that promises badges with the same degree of awesome as the one above, or the others from the same Flickr set. Who’s with me?

[via BoingBoing]