Podcast #4 Promotes World Peace, Solves Energy Crisis

Hey guys,

So we're still going. We're kind of stretching the "monthly" concept here, since this is the April podcast and it's mid-May. Maybe we'll sneak a date change on you and call the next one the June podcast. I bet you won't even notice. We'll just go right ahead and do that shit.

Anyway, that's the rather oblique way of announcing the Fourth Abaddon & Solaris Books Pocast, winging it's way to your iTunes folder as we speak! Point your iTunes to this link, or search "Abaddon" (or "Solaris") in the "Search Store" box at the top-right corner of iTunes, to check it out. As ever, if you're a subscriber, iTunes should upload it automatically; it's probably already done so, cheeky little scamp that it is.

David, Jenni and Jon at Abaddon Books and Solaris Books drill directly in through your ears to your cerebrel cortex, monkey up your medulla oblongata and play hell with your limbic system in "what consistently remains the Coco Pops™ of the Podcast world."*

The Abaddon & Solaris Books Podcast #4: Shiny, Happy Gods is introduced by Editor-in-Chief Jon Oliver, who decided to have a rest and let his minions do all the interviewing today. Desk Editor David Moore gushes uncontrollably over interviews James Lovegrove, author of Solaris's Age of Ra and Age of Zeus, and talks about gods, inspiration, writing, research, and frogs and rabbits. Junior Editor Jenni Hill, meanwhile, catches up with Jetse de Vries and Gareth L. Powell - respectively the anthologist of and one of the contributors to the upcoming Shine anthology - at EasterCon, and talks about the anthology and the convention. A good time was had by all.

Special Note: We promise in the blog that James will remember the name of the book of essays he discusses and we'll blog it. And we always keeps our promises. James briefly discusses D'Aulaire's Book of Norse Myths and the introduction by Michael Chabon, but can't remember the name of Chabon's collection of essays, Maps & Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands. He urges you to look both books up.

Now, as promised, I have managed to rein this one in to the tune of ten minutes, so it's about an hour and five. We'll try and make the next one even shorter, but we just have loads of cool stuff to offer you.

As always, give us your tasty, tasy feedback. We love it. We made completely different mistakes this time, so we want to know what mistakes to make next time.

Cheers,

David



*I think this one was Jenni's mum, but don't quote me.

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Reviewspam! (Redux)

Okay lads,

Some reviews for you.

• Catherine at Reading Whilst Writing has written this very nice review of Jetse de Vries' Shine anthology.
  
  "And that, I think, is what I like most about 'Shine'. So much food for thought."
  
  
• John Klima at The Library Journal has included Tim Akers' Heart of Veridon in a list of 20 Steampunk titles everyone should have.
  
  "The action keeps the pages turning, and readers will want more novels set in this world."*
  
  
• Issue 114 of Hub Magazine includes a measured but mostly pretty complimentary review of James Lovegrove's Age of Zeus by Martin Willoughby.
  
  "What kept me reading was the characters. I cared what happened to them."
  
  
• On that subject, Den Patrick of Total Sci Fi Online has written this review about Zeus.
  
  "This mix of mythology and science fiction isn’t a natural one at first glance, but Lovegrove pulls it off with aplomb."

And that's all the news that's printed to fit.

Cheers,

David

*Your wish is our command, John. Dead of Veridon is coming out early next year.

Shine Reviews

Wotcher all,

Loads of reviewers have been hassling Jetse de Vries for copies of his upcoming Shine anthology (here's that beautiful Vincent Chong cover again), and the first few reviews are coming in now...

• Charles A. Tan (Twitter @charlesatan) the Bibliophile Stalker, has written this very measured review.
  Charles writes "what I want to highlight are the stories that grabbed me by the balls, so to speak. Originally, I didn't think this anthology would contain much of them, but by the time I read the closed the book, the number of memorable stories was surprising."
  
  
• Genre webzine Sci Fi Wire (Twitter @scifiwire) has posted "Sick of the Apocalypse? Check out 16 futures worth living in!", another very reasoned look at the book.
  "Shine isn't all rainbows and flowers," the Wire explains, "but luckily it isn't all policy wonks riding their ideological hobbyhorses either. Have I mentioned the thrash-metal dinosaurs?"

You go ahead and mention the thrash-metal dinosaurs, dude. They really can't be mentioned often enough.

There should be many more reviews on the way. Keep a weather eye out here...

David

Praise and Previews

The ladies at The Book Smugglers have posted an introduction the the steampunk genre to kick off their 'Steampunk Week' event. They've also highlighted a few books which define the genre, including, we're pleased to hear, Tim Akers' Hearts of Veridon.

"'Hearts of Veridon' by Tim Akers is a new book to the Steampunk consortium, published late last year – but it is already referred to as a classic work by many afficionados. Thea will be reviewing this bad boy in our second Steampunk Week, next month."


Also, Niall at The Speculative Scotsman has previewed the Shine anthology over here.

"I love me a good short story collection, and Shine looks it could be just what the doctor ordered..."

-

Life Imitating Art...

Hi all,

So here's a turn-up for you. As you may or may not yet know, Jetse de Vries' upcoming anthology Shine (and here's that sexy cover by Vincent Chong again) features a story, "Twittering the Stars," by the talented Mari Ness.

"Twittering" tells the story of a group of astronauts who travel to the asteroid belt to harvest lithium and of the tragic accident that occurs while they're out there, and tracks the narrator's reaction to what happened. The twist? It's told entirely in the form of Twitter posts, or "tweets."

Now, in a classic case of life imitating art, astronaut Soichi Noguchi (@Astro_Soichi) is sending pictures from the International Space Station via Twitter. This is Mt. Kilimanjaro. Neat, huh? Check out his tweet feed for all the pictures.

Off to Press!

Hi folks,

Just to let you know, we sent Age of Zeus and Shine off to press over the past week or so.

Still a month or two before they hit the stores, but you can warm up by looking at the covers now.

Mmm...

David

Shine update and competition!

Hi all,

We've already blogged about Jetse de Vries' upcoming Shine anthology, and about the fantastic Daybreak Magazine blog in support of the book, which will publish an optimistic short story every two weeks until the book's release next year.

So far, the magazine has published "The Very Difficult Diwali of Sub-Inspector Gurushankar Rajaram" by Jeff Soesbe on October 16th, and "Horrorhouse" by David D. Levine on October 30th; we're waiting with bated breath for this weekend's third instalment.

In case you missed it, the @Outshine project on Twitter is publishing 140-letter prose poems on the subject of the future (along with quotations, soundbytes, and similar stuff for those who are interested); you can submit your poem by emailing shineanthology@gmail.com, or go here for submission guidelines.

Finally, Jetse informs us that he will be running a competition on the Shine website, starting on November 20th this year. He will be posting an excerpt from each of the sixteen stories in the anthology and challenging readers to guess which of four alternative endings is the correct one, and who wrote which excerpt. So jump on there and take a look, next Friday.

Cheers and stay hopeful,

David