The first half of 2011 closed out with several small layoffs and a slight reduction in new jobs created in health care, and although only one major domestic job cut was announced in June, there was plenty of troubling employment news to go around.
I also write press releases. This is one.
The standouts for me were Rusch, Spinrad, and Josh Roseman.
Being mentioned in company like that still makes me squee a little.
Okay, more than a little.
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Nobilis Reed is a good writer — he really gets into his characters’ heads, which is all the more difficult when the story is told via first-person-limited perspective. I just felt that the first 50-60 percent of the book didn’t have enough plot advancement for me to enjoy it as much as I should have.
My review of China Mieville’s “Embassytown” has been reprinted in this month’s Soundproof Escape Pod.
Geist combines the best of what I like in 1990s fantasy fiction with the scope of a doorstop novel… and then pares out all the extraneous crap that makes a fantasy novel into a doorstop. What’s left is 300 pages that make up an enjoyable book to read, even if it’s got a few too many tropes that we’ve all read before.
I don’t think Hit List is a really good book, especially when held up to others in the Anita Blake series. While the writing is definitely better and tighter than the past couple of Anita Blake novels, this one doesn’t really stand on its own as a piece of fiction in its own right — it feels more to me like a bridge book, like the author has a story she wants to tell but had to tell this one first to get to that point.
Unlike Kraken, Embassytown doesn’t force the reader to perform mental gymnastics to keep up with Mieville’s use of language. However, the book did take me quite a while to get through. There’s a lot to absorb, and a lot of pages to do it in, and, quite honestly, for the first half or so I really wondered what the dramatic tension was going to be. If the book has a failing, that’s it — that I had absolutely no idea where the road would take me, but damn if the scenery wasn’t worth staring at, slack-jawed and awed.
My review of China Mieville’s Embassytown has been published on the Escape Pod blog.
The audio interview Livable Communities did with me. (via Audio slideshow of a modern-day commuter’s story « The Livable Communities Coalition)
To go back to my comment on storytelling style — the best way to explain it is that I felt like I was reading Anita Blake: God Hunter. The same problems I have with Laurell K. Hamilton’s storytelling, I had with Kingdoms (although this book was well-edited, whereas some of Hamilton’s novels unfortunately contain grammatical errors and spelling inconsistencies).
Warp drive. Hyperspeed. Folding space. Immersion. The Infinite Improbability Drive. Read five different pieces of science fiction and you’re guaranteed to find five different propulsion methods with five different names. But one thing I can guarantee is that you’ve never seen a starship being powered the way Nobilis Reed does it in Scouts.
Book Review: “Scouts” by Nobilis Reed : Escape Pod
Please note: the novel is for adults, and the review contains discussions of adult material.
We hope you enjoy this issue, chock full of awesome stories, reviews, and Nebula reporting. We hope you have a wonderful summer (or winter, if you’re on the other side of the world) and keep listening! We will have other announcements next month!
My review of Paolo Bacigalupi’s “Ship Breaker” was reprinted in this month’s Soundproof Escape Pod.
The Livable Communities Coalition did a story on my commute.
A young woman is considered all-too replaceable by her demanding husband Michael. This is the unofficial winner of the annual Broken Mirror Story Event for 2009.
I forgot to link this a few months ago, but “27 Jennifers” was named #4 on a Top 10 Dunesteef Episodes list.
But wait…There’s more! – Alarming episode on Dunesteef podcast
IF YOU CAN READ THIS MESSAGE ACCEPT OUR GREETINGS ATTEND THE SPORTING CONTEST BETWEEN THE TWINS OF MINNESOTA AND THE DEVIL RAYS OF FLORIDA ON THE 194TH DAY OF THE HUMAN CALENDAR YEAR INFORM YOUR COMRADES SO THEY MAY WITNESS THIS EVENT
“Belief” – Fusion Fragment – Issue #16
The above is from my short-story “Belief”. It’s one of the first stories I wrote with intent to sell.
Use of the present tense in narrative writing is generally a technique of the avant-garde, but here in “Bring On the Rain” it’s put to its use in a piece of military-oriented fiction, seeming either out of place or too much in place. Isn’t it the truth, though–there’s no hope for men at war and in the modern world where isn’t there war? I don’t think the author would dispute that his characters are war-mad. You can’t call a story pessimistic when you have nothing optimistic to compare it with, so you call it “realistic”. Yes, there’s little hope for the Earth in this one–in fact, there isn’t any. Except to say “it’s only a story”, but that doesn’t work out too well, or wouldn’t if it wasn’t sf.
Commentary on “Bring on the Rain”, from the Asimov’s forum.
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For fourteen years, David has been sharing with us the adventures of Captain Mackenzie Calhoun of the U.S.S. Excalibur — his unorthodox style, his unorthodox crew, his unorthodox worldview. In fact, if New Frontier had a single word to describe it, that word would be… well… unorthodox. And in his latest New Frontier novel, Blind Man’s Bluff, he continues in the fast-paced adventure vein that his fans have come to enjoy.
Despite generally good news on the employment front in the U.S., the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in April that the nation’s unemployment rate increased to nine percent. They noted that of the 244,000 new jobs created, 37,000 of them were in the health care field. Additionally, outplacement research firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said companies cut 12 percent fewer jobs in April than March. Also, a survey of health care and pharmaceutical news sources did not find any companies announcing new major layoffs in April.
“Bring on the Rain” is now available in the July 2011 issue of Asimov’s. You can purchase it electronically or… um… non-electronically.
It’s a huge thrill – my hands are still shaking – to be in the same magazine as such greats like Joe Haldeman, Norman Spinrad, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Robert Silverberg.
Enjoy the story.
An employment report I write monthly for MedZilla.com was reprinted by sfgate.com (the online arm of the San Francisco Chronicle). They’ve been doing this for months now; one would think I’d call attention to it.
Josh Roseman: Writer, Voice Guy, Dad, Human 