MultiReal: A Matrix fans delight!

Over at Grasping at the Wind, John reviews David Louis Edelman's just-released MultiReal, which he proclaims, "an exciting and excellent sequel. There are many twisted and convoluted plot lines, and the web being spun around Natch is drawn ever tighter. As a good second book in a trilogy should do, it leaves us on a cliffhanger, wondering at the success or failure of its heroes."

John is also the second reviewer to suggest that Edelman beats middle-book-of-a-trilogy syndrome, as he says, " This is one of those rare cases (like The Empire Strikes Back vs. A New Hope) where the second movie far surpasses the first in quality and level of enjoyment. Fans of stories that mix philosophy and ethics, with action and technology will enjoy Edelman's works."

And who can balk at the final sentiment here: "It is a Matrix fans' delight, and a worthy successor to Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. I highly recommend Edelman as an author, and suggest you read Infoquake and its sequel MultiReal if you are looking for high-octane action, deep thinking, and eloquent writing."

MIND MELD: Interesting Areas of Scientific Research

The latest Mind Meld is up at SFSignal. This one asks, "There is a lot of scientific research being performed across a wide array of disciplines. So much that it can be difficult to keep up with it all. What current avenue of scientific inquiry do you believe people should be paying attention to, and why?"

Answers are from Kathleen Ann Goonan, Nancy Kress, Michael S. Brotherton, Nina Munteanu, and Jennifer Ouellette, as well as our own Kay Kenyon and Alexis Glynn Latner. I am particularly struck by Kathleen Ann Goonan's comment that, "...our system of education needs to have a scientific basis. It does not now. It is so dreadful because it was created to ready immigrant children for factory work. Be on time, follow directions, don't talk, do what we tell you to do. One obvious negative outcome is that we do not begin to teach reading until children are far older than the optimal age for doing so."

Also worth mentioning: Earlier on SFSignal, John DeNardo has taken it upon himself to review as many of Chris Roberson's Celestial Empire stories as he can get his hands on.

ApolloCon

Very excited to be the Editor Guest of Honor at ApolloCon, held this coming weekend, June 27th to 29th, at the DoubleTree Houston Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas.

And here is my ApolloCon Schedule:

Fri 4:00PM - 5:00PM
KaffeeKlatsch: Lou Anders - BR 2 = Rm #217
On Friday afternoon enjoy an early bird treat: coffee and chats with our Honored Guests. For names, times and locations check the pocket program and any posted Programming Updates. (Limited attendance. Sign-up may be required.)
Lou Anders

Fri 7:00PM - 8:00PM
Opening Ceremonies - Seattle I
Celebrate science fiction and fantasy! Join the concom, our Guests and the Guests of Honor in the official opening of ApolloCon 2008.
Mark B. Hall (M), Lou Anders, Brad Foster, Margaret Middleton, Allen Steele,
Anne K.G. Murphy

Fri 8:00PM - 9:00PM
What Makes a Good Book Cover - Scottsdale
Lou Anders leads our panel in a discussion of what makes a good book cover. Is it all about marketing? Fashion? The story inside? Come and find out!
David Lee Anderson, Lou Anders (M), John Picacio

Sat 11:00AM - 12:00PM
Editor GoH: Lou Anders Q&A - Seattle I
Lou Anders answers questions from the floor, and possibly off the wall. Moderated by John Picacio.
John Picacio (M), Lou Anders

Sat 12:00PM - 1:00PM
Trends in Science Fiction - Seattle II
What are the hot trends in science fiction right now? The panelists outline current trends in our genre.
Derly N. Ramirez II, John Picacio, Lou Anders, Lawrence Person (M)

Sat 4:00PM - 5:00PM
Autographs: Allen Steele, Lou Anders, Brad Foster - Autograph Table
Your chance to get your books and memorabilia signed and to chat with our guests. Please, if the line is long, limit the number of items signed to 3. (We reserve the right to enforce the limit.) For names, times and locations check the pocket program and any posted Programming Updates.
Allen Steele, Brad Foster, Lou Anders

Sat 5:00PM - 6:00PM
Balloons of War and Pearl-handled Ray Guns: Tucson
Steampunk Rampant
Steampunk is on the rise in fiction, media, art, gaming, and even costuming. Where did it come from and where is it going? Our panelists discuss this
Chris Roberson, Lou Anders, Stina Leicht, Matthew Bey (M), Scott Cupp, Martha

Sun 11:00AM - 12:00PM
What's New at Pyr - Seattle I
Lou Anders gives us a sneak peak into what's going on at Pyr Books and what we can expect to see from them in the near future.
Alexis Glynn Latner, Chris Roberson, Lou Anders (M), John Picacio, Ops

I may also be on of the judges of Saturday night's Masquerade Contest.

Heard Round the Web

David Louis Edelman is blogging about the publication of MultiReal in a series of posts. He shows off how it looks alongside the just-released Solaris mass-market of Infoquake in a post here. Also of interest, a post in which he decries attacks on Cory Doctorow for basically having " a big megaphone, and ... using it." As Dave says, "That twentieth century paradigm of advertising and promotion? You know, the paradigm where the content sits on one side of the page, and the advertisements sit on the other side of the page, and there’s a nice clear line separating the two? That paradigm’s dead. We live in an Information Age, as Boomer journalists are fond of reminding us. It’s not about selling widgets in exchange for greenbacks you can put in your pocket anymore. It’s about pushing ideas into the deep end of the swimming pool of public discourse and letting them swim. If you’ve got great ideas and you spread them around effectively, you’re gaining currency. So there’s no more hard separation; the idea and the promotion of the idea have become in many ways one and the same thing."

Meanwhile, Tom Lloyd, whose grim and gritty epic fantasy, The Stormcaller: Book One of the Twilight Reign,we'll be releasing in October, has a new website. Bear in mind it's still being tweaked and be sure to check out the new discussion forum.

Elsewhere, I've found myself drawn into an interesting discussion of "Can Hollywood Make a Good Hard SF Film?" over at Solar Flare: Science Fiction News. For the record, I think so, even if it's the exception, not the rule.

Boxers don't get good by avoiding being hit.

Fantastic writing advice from Paul Cornell here in this SFX interview.

"Boxers don't get good by avoiding being hit."

Paul is an old friend, a great guy, a fantastic writer, a two-time Hugo nominee, a superstar in Britain and around the world for his contributions to Doctor Who, a new star at Marvel comics, and his "Catherine Drewe" is the story I chose to open Fast Forward 2with, for reasons you will all understand shortly.

Enjoy!

"Long Eyes" in Hebrew

Excited about Fast Forward 2?

Want a sneak peak?

Read Hebrew?

If you answered "yes" to all three, here's one of the stories - Jeff Carlson's "Long Eyes" with illustrations. The rest of you non-Hebrew readers will just have to wait till October.

Stalking the Cover Art

Hot on the heels of our Stalking the Vampire jacket, here is the full cover for Mike Resnick's Stalking the Unicorn: A Fable of Tonight.Artwork by Dan Dos Santos, design by our own Nicole Sommer-Lecht. Also happy to let you know we've just signed Stalking the Dragon for next year, so John Justin Mallory is guaranteed to return!

Red Alert: Starship Mutiny the Audiobook

Check it. Over on SFFAudio, the first review of a Pyr book's audio edition! Yup, audio edition. Mike Resnick's Starship Mutiny is out in audio from Audible.com. I've heard about 3 minutes and was very impressed with the quality. We didn't actually have anything to do with this - it was a deal directly between Mike and Audible, but I'm happy to see it happen, and a big believer that a great audio book can inspire someone to go back and buy the "archival quality" hardcover (as I did with Neil Gaiman's Coraline and Stephen King's The Gunslinger both, for example.) Meanwhile, SFFAudio says:

"I can’t say that Resnick’s broken any new ground, but what he does is bring an immediacy and intelligence to the Military SF sub-genre. ...all the gravitas of his intellectual legacy informs the action. It’s as if SF’s own Tolstoy were writing Horatio Hornblower by way of The Odyssey....The whole novel took me less than 36 hours to consume, its highly addictive listening and I confess I was downloading the follow-up book before I’d even finished this one. For a novel so light in ideas, the heart of SF, it’s hard to call it 'unmissable,' but on the other hand it masterfully achieves precisely what it intends to; it’s intelligent and entertaining Military SF - and that is still no small feat. Starship: Mutiny: Highly recommended!"

Big Cover Art Roundup

The folks at SFSignal have another brilliant Mind Meld discussion up. This one asks, "What do you feel is the primary purpose of a book cover: To accurately reflect the story or to visually 'sell' the book? How do you balance these two ideas when creating a cover?" Answers come from such noted artists as Bob Eggleton, Bruce Jensen, Irene Gallo, John Picacio, Boris Vallejo, Dave Seeley, Todd Lockwood, Dan Dos Santos and Glen Orbik. All the responses well worth reading, though I'm struck by this line from Picacio: "The most invigorating stuff rises to the challenge and still explores that fertile place where the signs of the times and the signals of the story converge."

And on the subject of cover art, here's the full jacket to the forthcoming Stalking the Vampire: A Fable of Tonight. Artwork by Dan Dos Santos, design by our own Nicole Sommer-Lecht.
What do you think?