Friday Fun: Chapter-by-Chapter reading notes for two famous books

A couple of blogs out there are doing notes on the blog author's chapter-by-chapter reading of a famous book. One is underway and the other is just starting and I sincerely hope both are able to get all the way to the end. Both are well worth your attention.

On the fun side, Kate Nepveu is re-reading J.R.R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings with the notes on the Tor web page.

From a more scholarly perspective, John Whitfield is blogging Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species on a new ScienceBlogs blog, Blogging the Origin. This project is just getting under way.

One interesting point, one which may deserve a post all it's own, is that Tor is basically using a multi-author blog as it's home page. They do have a page dedicated to their books, but the blog is really front and centre, filled with interesting and engaging content of all types, not just about the books they publish. I wonder if there are any lessons the library world can learn from this?

(I first heard about the first project on Uncertain Principles and the second on A Blog around the Clock.)

Sunburst Award: 2008 winners and 2009 jury

The winners have just been announced for the 2008 edition of the Sunburst Award, Canada's juried award for literature of the fantastic:

• Young Adult: Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet by Joanne Proulx
  
• Adult: The New Moon's Arms by Nalo Hopkinson

The complete short lists are here.

The reason I'm posting here, aside from the opportunity to celebrate great Canadian fantastic fiction, is to mention that I'm honoured to have been asked to serve on the jury for the 2009 award, along with Barbara Berson, Ed Greenwood, Sandra Kasturi and Simon Rose. It should be great fun. Needless to say, I don't expect to be reading much else other than Canuck fantastic fiction for the foreseeable future. However, I do hope to read at least two or three more science books this year.

Of course, I encourage everyone to check out the wonderful books on this year's short list as well as the two winners.

Friday Fun: Nancy Kress rocks!

Nancy Kress has long been one of my favourite sf authors and her new book Dogs looks pretty cool.

Here she is talking about it on John Scalzi's Whatever blog:

In 1998, four years after it first came out, I read Richard Preston’s non-fiction bestseller, The Hot Zone, which harrowingly details the importation of monkeys infected with Ebola into the United States. The monkeys were housed in an animal holding facility in Reston, Virginia, destined for research by pharmaceutical companies, when they began to die with the characteristic, horrifying “bleeding out” of Ebola. Both the CDC and USAMRIID, the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, were called in to deal with the crisis. All the monkeys were destroyed.

I was riveted. Genetic engineering had already begun to take firm hold of my writing, both as potential benefit and as potentially monstrous bioweapon. But now I expanded that interest to naturally occurring pathogens that could be just as deadly. What if Ebola in its most dangerous form had been transmitted to monkey-house workers? What if it had gotten out into the general population?

Another interview with her on the Feminist SF blog.

Friday Fun: He's dead, Jim!

Yes, I'm an old school Star Trek fan. So shoot me.

If you are too (or even if you just appreciate cheese), run on over to SF Signal and catch the hilarious YouTube video of Bones letting Kirk know that one of the red-shirted guys has kicked the bucket.

Not to mention, this compilation video of McCoy giving his famous "I'm a doctor, not a..." lines.

They just don't make'em like they used to...

Friday Fun: War of the Worlds Edition

The War of the Worlds is one of my favourite novels and the old George Pal film one of my favourite cheesy old sf films. I mostly liked the Spielberg version and have very fond memories of the late 1980s TV series. I've listened to the Welles radio broadcast a few times and enjoyed the recent comic adaptation. I even vaguely remember reading a sequel Edison's Conquest of Mars by Garrett P. Serviss as an extra feature in the old Perry Rhodan books in the 1970s.

So, when I tell you that I really love the The War of the Worlds: Design, Graphical Elements page, it means that if you love TWotW (or even if you love great sf art), you should check it out too. It's a cornucopia of old book covers and interior illustrations and is obviously a work of love.