Monday Gigante!

August 11th 2008 at 2:14 pm

Been on a blistering pace of writing the last three days that’s been nice, except for the odd hours, and also re-reading sections of the previous Halo books just to make sure I’m getting flavor right as I’m going along.

I really don’t have time for comments, but I do have some interesting links, and I’m starting to try and put my reviews into a once-a-week post so the stench of narcissism doesn’t clutter up this blog too much. I realize that since I’m not posting much, and that with Sly Mongoose coming out soon, there could be a major tendency for most of my posts for the next 3 weeks of crazy busy writing to equal a steady and annoying stream ‘OMG, look, another review of Sly!’

I do try.

The Generation Gap in SF

I’m fascinated by the recent discussions on SF’s Generational Gap. Patrick Nielsen Hayden at Tor.com points out the gap here:

In the comments to this Tor.com post by John Klima, I argued a bit with Elizabeth Bear’s assertion of a generation gap in modern SF, but I’m beginning to think she may have a point. There’s plenty of SF and fantasy being written by younger people, but evidently the people who vote on the Hugos and Nebulas aren’t among its readers. If the SF subculture really is “one big family” (as Jim Frenkel’s Worldcon memoir below cheerfully asserts), it would appear to be an increasingly dysfunctional one, resembling Cold Comfort Farm more than the happy creative bohemia we imagine ourselves to be.

Elizabeth Bear’s original post:

Anyway, I had an epiphany while reading the ToC of the 2007 Year’s Best Science Fiction. Which basically amounted to– “oh.”

We don’t read them. And they don’t read us.

Well, really. I wonder when the last time was that Bob Silverberg read a story by Benjamin Rosenbaum, David Moles, or Yoon Ha Lee?

See, I’m thinking I’m on to something here. There’s a generation gap in SFF; we’re having different conversations, the Greatest Generation, the Baby Boomers, and Generation X. And as the Millennials (really, guys, this Gen Y thing has to stop: grant the kids their own identity) enter the genre, they too will be having their own argument.

Vector Editors posted this handy graphic that took the data and made it all graphical and stuff:

It isn’t too hard probably to guess where my POV is from, I’m 29, and have been a making a go of writing since I was 27 which is when my first novel came out. I attended Clarion at 19 and sold my first story at 20. So I’m certainly part of a younger crowd that’s been involved in the field. And I certainly feel that the field is graying, but that it’s more core fandom and fandom activities (like Worldcon).

Going to Wiscon and Comic Con, this year, was very much a breath of fresh air for me. Seeing and meeting a vibrant and excited cross section of people who were interested in a wide variety of mediums, just as I consume SF/F in the form of video games, movies, TV, *and* print form (graphic novels, novels), was pretty nifty.

But still, I’m quite yet ready to write off the Hugo-voters. Crystal Rain was in the extended nomination list last year at #10, and it looks like I squeaked in again this year with Ragamuffin at #13. You can see those results here, where Jay Lake, Karl Schroeder and Pat Rothfuss show up.

And combine that with this picture the wonderful Joey Shoji took of a Worldcon fan in line for registration, I have to say I think the older generation is reading some of us young punks.

Whoever you are, sir, you rock!

Nonetheless, I wonder what happens to conventions other than Comic Con or Dragon Con over the next decade as following generations accustomed to being part of a social net online fail to pick up to go to conventions, and as the graying of SF con-going fandom turns into the dying of SF con-going fandom.

Shared Worlds at Wofford

Jeff VanderMeer was essential in helping me get on my freelancing feet two years ago, so it was without hesitation that I said I’d go down to Wofford in South Carolina just after Comic Con to hang out with him in person and help out with the Wofford Shared Worlds program on its very first year.

Jeff writes up the experience at Tor.com.

Reviews:

Crystal Rain gets written up by librarian blogger Book Calendar.

Mentat Jack weighs in on Ragamuffin.

Mallory on LJ reviews Ragamuffin and liked it, though didn’t like the middle structure.

Lj user Brown Betty:

I found myself wishing someone would make Ragamuffin into a movie. Or rather, a mini-series, because making it a movie would require remove about three quarters of the plot, but I think most of it could fit into a mini-series. It’s got a very cinematic quality. Nashara, the protagonist, does not indulge in a lot of introspection. When faced with problems, she generally responds with the extremely precise application of violence, or perhaps more accurately, forcefully applied kinetic energy.

It could be a bit like the BSG mini-series: a cast of about a dozen, spanning several planets, rebellion, aliens with foreign agendas, humans with sketchy ethics, and the future of the human race in the balance.

Hey, I find myself wishing that too!

And we have three big Sly Mongoose reviews.

Rob Bedford of SFF World:

Sly Mongoose also shows Buckell’s growth as a writer; the story here seems more tightly plotted than his earlier work. Not that the earlier novels weren’t, but it’s just when a writer starts out doing something very well, it’ nice to see it get even better. Buckell notes in the afterward the scientific elements that powered the idea of Chilo, which brings this novel into a more plausible light. Sly Mongoose, if not just a very good Science Fiction novel, very easily borders on great – it’s got a footing in scientific research, great extrapolation of where our world and society could go, excellent world-building, and top notch characters. It’s the kind of Science Fiction novel that mixes familiar elements with not so familiar elements to really push one’s thoughts; I wouldn’t be surprised to see Buckell garner another Nebula Award nomination for another terrific novel.

John at Grasping for the Wind:

Tobias Buckell has done it again! Sly Mongoose is a highly entertaining and energizing story. Pepper the nearly indestructible continues to delight, and Buckell’s vision of a science-based “Cloud City” is full realized.

And Annalee Newitz of io9 gave it a thumbs up as well:

If there’s anything better than a ninja fighting zombies, it’s a ninja with alien-tech-enhanced powers nuking space zombies infected by a plague of collective murderous consciousness. And I haven’t even gotten to the part about floating cities on a Venus-like planet covered in sulfur-specked clouds. That’s the beauty of Tobias Buckell’s latest novel, Sly Mongoose, out this month from Tor Books. Just when you think the action can’t get more insane, it does. Even better: Just when you think you’re reading a pure military SF adventure, Buckell gives you a wide-angle shot of the larger political context where the alien smackdown is blowing up, and takes your breath away.

And that’s all my tabs closed out, folks.

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