Nominated for Nebula Award, Ruth Nestvold’s short story “Mars: A Traveler’s Guide” online

Thanks to the generosity of Gordon Van Gelder, editor and publisher of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, “Mars: A Traveler’s Guide,” a short story by Ruth Nestvold which was published in the January 2008 issue of the magazine and is in the running for a Nebula Award, has been posted online for all to read.

Cheers to Tinkoo of the blog Variety SF for the tip!

Author Caitlín R. Kiernan on “Bradbury Weather”

Award-winning SF&F author Caitlín R. Kiernan provided some profound insight into her novella “Bradbury Weather” (2005) in a recent entry in her LiveJournal. The novella, which Kiernan considers to be “my best sf story thus far,” is set on Mars and is included in her new collection A is for Alien (Feb 2009).

In a recent review of A is for Alien by John Joseph Adams for the SF site Tor.com, Kiernan noted that although "Bradbury Weather" is a Martian odyssey "which begins at the base of Tharsis Tholus and ends up at Lowell Crater, far to the south [...] it’s the psychological distances that the characters travel that is most important here.”

New piece of flash fiction: “Gustav’s Mars” by Emily Leverett

The March 2009 issue of Flash Fiction Online has been posted and it includes a piece titled “Gustav’s Mars,” by Emily Leverett. The story is about a performance of “Mars, the Bringer of War” (the first movement in British composer Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite The Planets), a Martian invasion, and an iPhone.

Emily Lavin Leverett is a professor of English at a small college in North Carolina. She maintains a LiveJournal.

Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel Red Mars part of new Random House free digital library

Publishing giant Random House announced that Kim Stanley Robinson’s award-winning novel Red Mars (1992) is one of the first five titles in its brand new Suvudu Free First Book Library. The library, designed to introduce new readers to acclaimed and popular science fiction and fantasy series, allows readers to access free digital copies of books.

Red Mars and the four other books are available through Random House’s SF/F portal, Suvudu, as well as on other content services, including Scribd.com and the Stanza e-book reader application for the iPhone. New titles will be added to the Suvudu Free First Book Library on a regular basis.

Download Red Mars (pdf).

Thanks to John Ottinger III of Grasping for the Wind for the tip!

Burroughs Thuvia, Maid of Mars illustration by James Allen St. John coming up for auction

An illustration drawn in 1920 by American illustrator James Allen St. John (1872-1957) that served as the frontispiece of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel Thuvia, Maid of Mars (A. C. McClurg and Co., 1920) will be auctioned off next week by Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas. The illustration, mixed-media on board, 26 x 16.5 inches, and signed, is estimated to sell for $8,000 to $12,000.

Interview with Tom Glynn, the voice of Kindle 2

The news site Engadget.com has a neat interview with Tom Glynn, the voice of the text-to-speech feature in Amazon’s new Kindle 2 e-reader. Here’s an excerpt:

"The Kindle gig is an off-shoot of my work for the speech recognition company Nuance, who developed text-to-speech, or TTS. I record a massive amount of fragments and random sentences, and they're able to chop them up in a way that allows my voice to speak whatever is written down -- that's an over-simplification, since I don't understand all the intricacies of how it works. Through TTS,
I'm also the voice of the National Weather Service and the Phoenix Airport, to name a couple. I love technology, so I think it's pretty cool."

Audio review of Robert A. Heinlein’s Red Planet

Publishers Weekly has a short but positive review of an unabridged audiobook of Robert A. Heinlein’s classic juvenile novel Red Planet (1949). Produced by Full Cast Audio, the book is read by William Dufris and includes a full cast with musical score. Six CDs, 7 hrs. Here’s a description, taken directly from the website of Full Cast Audio:

“Jim Marlowe’s Martian pet, Willis, seems like nothing more than an adorable ball of fur with an astonishing ability to mimic the human voice. But when Jim takes the creature to academy and runs afoul of a militantly rigid headmaster, his devotion to his pet launches the young man on a death-defying trek across Mars.

Accompanied by his buddy, Frank, Jim must battle the dangers of a hostile planet. But it is not only the boys’ lives that are at stake: They have discovered explosive information about a threat to the survival of the entire colony -- information that may mean life or death for their families.

An irresistible mix of thrilling adventure, crackling dialogue, and brilliant speculation, deftly seasoned with politics, philosophy, and
a touch of the mystic, Red Planet is classic Heinlein.”

A Princess of Mars art: Etchings by Joel Rothberg

Will Schofield of the book blog A Journey Round My Skull has posted some cool, dark relief etchings by artist Joel Rothberg that are featured in a 1965 limited edition of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic Sci-Fi novel A Princess of Mars (1912/1917). According to Schofield, the images are "Printed from hand-etched zinc plates in an edition of 500 numbered and signed copies as one of the publications of the Pratt Adlib Press [New York] under the direction of Fritz Eichenberg." A cataloging record on Worldcat indicates that this edition is only 16 pages and is comprised of the etchings plus “excerpts” from A Princess of Mars.

Thanks to Annalee Newitz of io9 for the link. If you have time, check out her post on the Rothberg artwork, which puts Burroughs’ novel into an imperialistic framework.

All very cool, as I've never heard of Joel Rothberg or this limited edition of A Princess of Mars!

“Moment of Truth,” a short story by Basil Wells

Thanks to an awesome snowstorm earlier today and a recent post by Dave Tackett of the blog QuasarDragon, I was able to read “Moment of Truth” (1957), a short story by Basil Wells that is freely available at the site ManyBooks.net. Originally published in the December 1957 issue of Fantastic Universe magazine, “Moment of Truth” is about a woman named Ruth Halsey and the hardship she faces on Mars. Here’s an excerpt:

“She loved that old tree. She had played among its long horizontal branches from childhood. Her brother, Alex, who had been killed in the Normandy Landing during World War Three, had loved the tree too. He had built the railed, shingled-roofed little nest high up in the tree's crotched heart where Ruth kept some of her extra-special notes and jewelry and a book of poems.”

Pictured above: The cover of the December 1957 issue of Fantastic Universe.

Nebula Awards ballot error almost discards Ruth Nestvold’s short story “Mars: A Traveler’s Guide”

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America have announced a correction to the Final Ballot of
the 2008 Nebula Awards:

“Upon a procedural review, we discovered an error in the final Nebula tally. Two works that should be on the final ballot were not listed: the novelette “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story” - James Alan Gardner (Asimov’s, Feb08) and “Mars: A Traveler’s Guide” - Ruth Nestvold (F&SF, Jan08) in short stories. No other changes have been made to the final ballot. We apologize for the error and have made changes to the procedures to keep this sort of mistake from happening again.”

Thanks to the blog Science Fiction Awards Watch for the tip.

Watching a shelf full of Watchmen

As the March 6th opening of the superhero film Watchmen approaches, I’m watching the listings on AbeBooks and eBay for various publications related the Hugo Award-winning graphic novel upon which the film is based: Watchmen (1987), written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Here are just a few of the items you might consider for the "alternative investments" portion of your retirement portfolio:

• Watchmen (1986-1987), DC Comics, issues #1 to #12 of the comic book. "Might be the greatest modern age investment." -- $4,500

• Watchmen: Deluxe Portfolio (1987), a limited edition elephant portfolio of 13 prints, signed by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons -- $1,200

• Watchmen (1987), DC comics, first printing of soft cover edition of the graphic novel, signed by Dave Gibbons -- $500

• Watchmen (1986), DC Comics, issue #1 of the comic book -- $389

• Absolute Watchmen (1987), DC Comics, first edition of hardcover edition of the graphic novel, 464 pages, in slipcase, includes supplemental material -- $250

• Watchmen (1986-1987), DC Comics, first printings of the complete twelve-issue run of the comic book -- $175

• Watchmen (2005), DC Comics, hardcover edition of the graphic novel, in slipcase - $150

• Watchmen movie script, 128 pages -- $150

• Watchmen promotional poster, featuring Rorschach -- $125

• Watching the Watchmen: Diamond Exclusive Edition (2008), Titan Books, comes with a set of 8 prints, signed by Dave Gibbons -- $124

• Watchmen (1986), DC Comics, issue #4 of the comic book -- $29

The tattered photo on the cover of issue #4, pictured above, reminds me of my retirement portfolio!

Joe Haldeman’s novel Marsbound gets honorable mention in 2008 Readers’ Choice poll

Marsbound (Ace Books, 2008), a novel by award-winning author Joe Haldeman, received honorable mention in the SF Site’s Best SF&F Books of 2008: Readers' Choice poll. Here’s a detailed review of Marsbound written by Michael M. Jones of the SF Site.

I read Marsbound late last year. Highly recommended!

Desolation Road: the cast of characters

Congratulations to British author Ian McDonald, whose novel Brasyl (Pyr Books, 2007) is listed on the final ballot of the 2008 Nebula Awards. Brasyl has nothing to do with Mars, but the Nebula announcement reminds me that McDonald’s novel Desolation Road (1988), which is set on the Red Planet, is scheduled to be reprinted by Pyr Books this summer. One of the neat things about the 1988 Bantam Books paperback edition of Desolation Road is the cast of characters that appears just before the title page:

Welcome to Desolation Road

Dr. Alimantando -- The town’s founder and resident genius, he perfects his homemade time machine and vanishes forever. Sort of.

Persis Tatterdemalion -- An ace flier grounded forever in Desolation Road, she tends bar at the Bethlehem Ares Railroad/Hotel and waits for the chance to reclaim her dream.

Rajandra Das -- The railroad hobo who has a mystical way with machines -- there isn’t a mechanical object on Mars that doesn’t love him.

The Babooshka -- A barren, feisty grandmother, she wants nothing more than to settle down with a good farming man and grow herself a child -- in a fruit jar.

Paternoster Jericho -- Overthrown crime lord of the Exalted Families, he says he’s “just passing through” Desolation Road, but twenty years later he still says the same thing.

The Gallacelli Brothers -- Ed, Louie, and Umberto. Identical triplets, so identical they each fell in love with -– and married -– the same woman ...

These are just a few of the inhabitants of Desolation Road. They and their children shaped a town, a planet, and a history. And the only thing they had in common was their belief that destiny had passed them by ...

Pictured above: Cover of the 1988 Bantam paperback.

Amazon bows to Authors Guild, to allow disabling of Kindle 2 audio feature

In a stunning move in the dispute between Amazon and the Authors Guild over the legality of a text-to-speech feature in the new Kindle 2 e-reader, Amazon announced today that it will let publishers decide whether they want the electronic device to read their books aloud. Here’s the full text of Amazon’s statement, taken directly from the website of The New York Times:

"Kindle 2’s experimental text-to-speech feature is legal: no copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no performance is being given. Furthermore, we ourselves are a major participant in the professionally narrated audiobooks business through our subsidiaries Audible and Brilliance. We believe text-to-speech will introduce new customers to the convenience of listening to books and thereby grow the professionally narrated audiobooks business.

Nevertheless, we strongly believe many rights-holders will be more comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the driver’s seat.

Therefore, we are modifying our systems so that rightsholders can decide on a title by title basis whether they want text-to-speech enabled or disabled for any particular title. We have already begun to work on the technical changes required to give authors and publishers that choice. With this new level of control, publishers and authors will be able to decide for themselves whether it is in their commercial interests to leave text-to-speech enabled. We believe many will decide that it is.

Customers tell us that with Kindle, they read more, and buy more books. We are passionate about bringing the benefits of modern technology to long-form reading."

This story is still developing, so see reports from other news sources, including the Los Angeles Times and Reuters UK.

Review of “Fly Away Home,” a new short story by Ray Bradbury

Gavin J. Grant, publisher of Small Beer Press in Easthampton, MA, reviews for the Los Angeles Times Ray Bradbury’s We’ll Always Have Paris (2009), a new collection of never-before-published stories that includes a tale set on Mars: “Fly Away Home.” According to Grant, "Fly Away Home" is "one of the weirder stories, and one that, given the renown of The Martian Chronicles, can't help but be widely anticipated ... weird in the way that only an author obsessed with small towns and space travel could make it."

A Kindle 2 interview with Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild

The Engadget Interview: Paul Aiken, Executive Director of the Authors Guild
February 27, 2009
By Nilay Patel

As you're no doubt aware, this week's launch of the Kindle 2 came complete with copyright controversy -- the Authors Guild says that Amazon's text-to-speech features will damage the lucrative audiobook market. To be perfectly frank, we're of two minds on
this debate: on one hand, we're obviously all for the relentless progression of technology, and on the other, we sussed out the fundamental reasons for the Guild's objections almost immediately. It's pretty easy to find the first set of arguments online, but we wanted to make sure we weren't missing anything, so we sat down with Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken and asked him some burning questions. Read on!