Happy Easter!

Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Coming in May 2010

Hardcover

Climate of Change – Piers Anthony

Occultication – Laird Barron

Ark – Stephen Baxter

The Legions of Fire – David Drake

Speak to the Devil – Dave Duncan

Much Fall of Blood – Mercedes lackey, Eric Flint & Dave Freer

Dead in the Family – Charlaine Harris

Dragon Haven – Robin Hobb

Migration – James Hogan

Five Odd Honors – Jane Lindskold

Who Fears Death – Nnedi Okorafor

Recovering Apollo 8: And Other Stories – Kristine Kathryn Rusch

West of the Mountains, East of the Sea – Brian Sibley

A Taint in the Blood – S.M. Stirling

Cholly & Flytrap: Center City – Arthur Suydam

Trade Paperback

Darkling Fields of Arvon – James Anderson

Afterblight Chronicles: Children't Crusade – Scott Andrews

The Windup Girl – Paolo Bacigalupi

Destroyer of Worlds – Mark Chadbourn

The Stranger – Max Frei

Metro 2033 – Dmitry Glukhovsky

Nightshade – Shea Godfrey

Stealing Fire – Jo Graham

Honeymoon of the Dead – Tate Hallaway

Avilion – Robert Holdstock

Moonshine – Alaya Johnson

ParaSpheres 2: Extending beyond the Spheres of Literary and Genre Fiction – Ken Keegan, Ed.

The Thief of Broken Toys – Tim Lebbon

Immortal Quest – Alexander Mackenzie

Ares Express – Ian McDonald

What Were Once Miracles are now Children's Toys – Ira Nayman

The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld – Terry Pratchett

Citizens – John Ringo & Brian Thomsen

Forgotten Realms: The Legend of Drizzt Collector's Edition, book II – R.A. Salvatore

God of War – Matthew Stover

Broken Angel – S.W. Vaughn

The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories – Ian Watson, Ed.

Twilight of Kerberos: Engines of the Apocalypse – Mike Wild

The Machinery of Light – David Williams

Mass Market Paperback

Edge of the World – Kevin Anderson

Magic Bleeds – Ilona Andrews

A Legacy of Daemons – Camille Bacon-Smith

Inhuman Resources – Jes Battis

Forgotten Realms: The Captive Flame – Richard Lee Byers

Conspirator – C.J. Cherryh

Forgotten Realms: Circle of Skulls – James Davis

Web of Lies – Jennifer Estep

The White Road – Lynn Flewelling

Year's Best SF 15 – David Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer, Ed.

The Kingdom Beyond the Waves – Stephen Hunt

Sword of Shadows – J.V. Jones

Unholy Ghosts – Stacia Kane

Angel – Garry Kilworth

Daemon's Mark – Caitlin Kittredge

Warhammer: Bloodborn – Nathan Long

The Dragon and the Stars – Derwin Mak & Eric Choi, Ed.

Spell Crash – Kelly McCullough

Banners in the Wind – Juliet McKenna

Magic of the Storm – Devon Monk

Lord of the Changing Winds – Rachel Neumeier

The Game of Stars and Comets – Andre Norton

Cheat the Grave – Vicki Pettersson

Magic the Gathering: The Purifying Fire – Laura Resnick

Eye of the Storm – John Ringo

Stargate SG-1: The Power Behind the Throne – Steven Savile

Darkborn – Alison Sinclair

Overthrowing Heaven – Mark Von Name

Elfland – Freda Warrington

Dragon Lance: Dragons of the Hourglass Mage – Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

Phantasm – Phaedra Weldon

Dark Oracle – Alayna Williams

And I'd like to thank my husband for writing a program that could alphabetize these lists for me. Saves me lots of time! You're the best. :D

Moon, Movie Review

Moon
Director: Duncan Jones, 2009
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1182345/

Pros: good acting, thought provoking plot

Cons: slow (but you don't really notice), little action (again, you don't really notice)

Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) only has 2 weeks left on his solitary three year mission mining energy on the moon. He's looking forward to seeing his wife and daughter on Earth again, when he has an accident.

Saying more than that would ruin the movie and that would be a real shame. This is a film you'll be thinking about long after it ends. Go see it.

Public Lending Right

Think downloading a book for free is the same as borrowing it from the library? If it's a local author, you could be denying them renumeration. Twice.

When libraries buy books the author gets their royalties from the sale. In addition to this, many countries have a public lending right program, which pays authors based on the number of books they have and or how often the books are borrowed from the library.

From the PLR website's downloadable pdf explanation:

"What is Public Lending Right (PLR)?
Public Lending Right is the right of authors to receive payment for free public use of their works in libraries.

How long has it existed?
PLR has been around since the 1 940s. The first country to establish a PLR System was Denmark in 1946, followed by Norway in 1947 and Sweden in 1954. The UK System was set up by the PLR Act of 1979.

How many countries recognise PLR?
Currently around 30 countries recognise lending rights in their legislation; but of these, only 15 have taken the next step of setting up a PLR scheme. (This should increase to 16 next year (2002) when a PLR scheme is set up in France.) Most of the working systems are in Europe, but PLR can also be found in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Israel."

Here's the link for established PLR programs around the world. Click on each country and you'll see how they renumerate their authors.

Yes, that's right, in many countries libraries pay their country's authors.

I discovered this through a comment on Robert J. Sawyer's website. The post is about remaindered books. The segment I'm quoting is part of the second comment.

"On public libraries compensating authors, it depends where you live. If it's in the United States, the author gets his or her normal $2.50 royalty when the library buys the hardcover -- and if 20 people read that hardcover over its life, the author gets 12.5 cents per reader.

If you live just about anywhere else in the Western world, there will be a Public Lending Right system, by which the government will compensate authors for the lost royalties on copies of their books circulated in their own country's libraries (on the assumption that it's wrong to use the author's tax dollars to fund a system that deprives the author of income).

In Canada, the maximum kickback to authors from libraries is about $2,800 per year -- not to be sneezed at, of course, but not huge [and down from $4,300 15 years ago], and only a very small percentage of Canadian SF authors would get the maximum (although I'm lucky enough to be one who does); you need a lot of books, and you need them to be stocked in just about every library, to get that amount."

It may not be much, but authors need to live if readers are to get more books. Just something to consider the next time you contemplate stealing an ebook with the justification of "it's just like borrowing it from the library".

And note, I find it unfortunate that the US doesn't have this system yet.

Jeff Somers - A Typical Day in a Writer's Life

I saw this on Orbit's blog. It looks pretty familiar, minus the drinking.
Here's a link to Jeff Somers's blog, where you can read his comments on the writing life. The video itself is embedded from his youtube site.

Lyrebird - Sometimes Fantasy Can't Compete With Reality

I love fantasy novels. I love the different worlds people have created. I love the various mythologies drawn upon to populate these worlds, both animals and people. I love medieval bestiaries, and their explanations of animals, real and imagined. I love creating my own creatures.

But sometimes I forget that the real world has some pretty amazing creatures in it as well. Animals with characteristics it would never have occurred to me to give a fantasy creature I create.

Like the lyrebird. It's mating call includes the sounds of other birds and things it has heard in the forest (animal and man) in order to impress a mate. Things like cameras and chainsaws. And this bird is an incredible mimicker.

The first video is taken from Mackaframmalamma's youtube site.


The second is from the Adelaide zoo, which apparently had construction done. The bird mimics some human speech and it's electric screwdriver is pretty impressive. It's taken from RZSSA's youtube site.

Christopher Moore Signing near Toronto

That's right, Christopher Moore, author of Lamb, Island of the Sequined Love Nun, Fool, Stupidest Angel and more, will be at the Queensway Chapters (1950 Queensway, Etobicoke, (416)622-2838) Tuesday April 20th at 7 pm, signing copies of the third book in his San Francisco Vampire trilogy, Bite Me.

There will be prizes for best costume (dressed as a Moore book character), and he has a fan book you can bring notes and fan art for.

Proof of purchase required.

He'll also be doing signings in Montreal, Ottawa and Waterloo as well as several locations in the US.