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Author: John ONeill

Canadian Inventor Creates the Goblin Glider

Canadian Inventor Creates the Goblin Glider

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This week Canadian inventor Catalin Alexandru Duru conducted the first successful test flight of a working hoverboard over a pond in Quebec.

Duru broke the world record for the longest hoverboard flight — more than 250 meters, five times the previous record — at Quebec’s Lake Ouareau in May of this year, but he’s been working on a “secret, next-generation version” of his device for the past five months. On Wednesday of this week, the 31-year-old Canadian inventor and his company, Omni Hoverboards, invited Reg Sherren of the CBC to witness the first test of the new prototype in Quebec. Watch the one-minute clip above for the results, and read all the details at the CBC website.

All I can say is: It’s about time, 21st Century. And now I know what I want for Christmas.

Clones, Deep Space Ships, and Surviving the Apocalypse on a Submarine: The Pocket Richard Cowper

Clones, Deep Space Ships, and Surviving the Apocalypse on a Submarine: The Pocket Richard Cowper

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Time Out of Mind-small Profundis-small Out There Where the Big Ships Go-small

Richard Cowper was a British SF and fantasy writer who published over a dozen novels and four short story collections between 1967 and 1986. Sadly, much of his output never made it across the Atlantic. Ballantine reprinted his first two novels in paperback, Breakthrough (1969) and Phoenix (1970), and DAW published perhaps his most famous novel, The Twilight of Briareus, in paperback in 1975. But those two ignored the rest of his work.

Fortunately, in the late 70s and early 80s Pocket Books brought six of his novels to the US, including the complete The White Bird of Kinship trilogy, and they were the sole publishers of his collection, Out There Where the Big Ships Go. It was the Pocket editions that first caught my eye on bookstore shelves in Ottawa — particularly the three gorgeous Don Maitz covers above. (You’ll note the maple leaf emblem on the top left of the Canadian editions.)

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Amazon.com Files Suit Against 1,114 Review Sellers on Fiverr

Amazon.com Files Suit Against 1,114 Review Sellers on Fiverr

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Amazon HQ-smallYesterday Amazon.com filed suit against 1,114 individuals offering Review-For-Hire services through online marketplace Fiverr.

The suits follow a lengthy undercover sting operation in which Amazon purchased review-writing services from multiple sellers. Fivver is a popular online marketplace that lets sellers offer simple services, like video editing or photo conversion, typically for a flat fee of $5. Amazon claims it contacted Fiverr sellers who were advertising professional review-writing services for Amazon products.

Many sellers don’t even bother to write reviews, instructing buyers to write the reviews they want posted. In effect, they are selling the use of their online identities to post a review.

Amazon is not suing Fiverr, and in fact these services are effectively banned by Fiverr’s terms and conditions. But that obviously hasn’t prevented sellers from offering them.

See more details, and read the complete legal complaint, at Geekwire.

Future Treasures: Word Puppets by Mary Robinette Kowal

Future Treasures: Word Puppets by Mary Robinette Kowal

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Word Puppets Mary Robinette Kowal-smallIn the last few years Mary Robinette Kowal has built a name for herself as a master of historical fantasy with her Glamourist series, which began with the Nebula nominee Shades of Milk and Honey in 2010. But she’s also known for her acclaimed short fiction, and in fact in 2008 she won the Campbell Award for Best New Writer based solely on the strength of her superb short stories — no easy feat in a field where most of the acclaim (and the awards) go to emerging novelists. She’s been nominated for the Hugo Award three times (for “Evil Robot Monkey,” “For Want of a Nail,” and “The Lady Astronaut of Mars”), and won twice.

In addition to writing, Mary is also an accomplished pupeteer who has performed for Jim Henson Pictures, the Center for Puppetry Arts, and other fine institutions. She brings her two careers together with her second short story collection, Word Puppets, which goes on sale from Prime Books on November 5.

Celebrated as the author of five acclaimed historical fantasy novels in the Glamourist series, Mary Robinette Kowal is also well known as an award-winning author of short science fiction and fantasy. Her stories encompass a wide range of themes, a covey of indelible characters, and settings that span from Earth’s past to its near and far futures as well as even farther futures beyond. Alternative history, fairy tales, adventure, fables, science fiction (both hard and soft), fantasy (both epic and cozy) — nothing is beyond the reach of her unique talent. Word Puppets — the first comprehensive collection of Kowal’s extraordinary fiction — includes her two Hugo-winning stories, a Hugo nominee, an original story set in the world of “The Lady Astronaut of Mars,” and fourteen other show-stopping tales.

Word Puppets features an introduction by Patrick Rothfuss

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Interzone #260 Now on Sale

Interzone #260 Now on Sale

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Interzone 290-smallThe September-October issue of Britain’s longest running science fiction and fantasy magazine is now on sale. The cover, by Martin Hanford, is titled “All Change.” (Click the image at right for a bigger version.)

This issue has fiction from John Shirley, Priya Sharma, Jeff Noon, C.A. Hawksmoor, and Christien Gholson. Here’s Lois Tilton at Locus Online on Jeff Noon’s “No Rez”:

An experimental piece in terms of typography and page layout, with several sections that resemble lines of verse… I don’t see much of this sort of thing these days, but I’m not surprised to find it coming from IZ, a zine that doesn’t stand still. This is a cyber future with the motto: “You are what you see.” Or, As you see the world, so you think about the world. But the only way everyone can see the world is pixelated, through implants, and in higher or lower resolution, with or without more vision-pops and ads, depending on how they can pay. Because Aiden is limited, when not on work-time, to low-rez, sometimes even when he closes his eyes, the dark starts breaking up. He has to wonder what he really looks like in the unmediated world, the zero-rez world, whether a girl might find him attractive. Then one day he happens on a mysterious black box that he isn’t supposed to have.

This sort of virtual world isn’t so new, but I’ve rarely seen it expressed with such insight and verve. There are genuinely poetic moments here, not simply apparent versification. This text would have been just about as effective if laid out on the page in a more conventional manner. – RECOMMENDED

Read Lois’ complete comments on the issue here.

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New Treasures: Of Sorrow and Such by Angela Slatter

New Treasures: Of Sorrow and Such by Angela Slatter

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Of Sorrow and Such-small Of Sorrow and Such back-small

Angela Slatter has been nominated twice for the World Fantasy Award, both times for her short story collections. Of Sorrow and Such is a Medieval fantasy featuring witches, shapeshifters, and the dark thread of the supernatural in a world of superstition and fear. (Click on the front and back covers above for bigger versions.)

Of Sorrow and Such is the sixth in Tor.com‘s stellar line-up of Fall novellas, which includes exciting new releases from K. J. Parker, Paul Cornell, Nnedi Okorafor, and many others. So far I’ve been tremendously impressed with them — they’re gorgeously packaged and marketed, feature some great names and more than a few exciting debuts, and they’ve been extremely well received. I expect to see several titles at the top of awards lists next year.

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Legendary Pictures to Make Godzilla Vs. Kong

Legendary Pictures to Make Godzilla Vs. Kong

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King Kong vs Godzilla

BG blogger emeritus (and part time Hollywood correspondent) Ryan Harvey has slipped us the word that Legendary Pictures, the makers of the 2014 blockbuster Godzilla, has green-lit a trio of sequels featuring the monster-hunting organization Monarch, including a re-make of that tender slice of celluloid heaven, King Kong Vs. Godzilla. Here’s part of yesterday’s  press release from Warner Bros:

All-powerful monsters become towering heroes for a new generation, revealing a mythology that brings together Godzilla and Legendary’s King Kong in an ecosystem of other giant super-species, both classic and new. Monarch, the human organization that uncovered Godzilla in the 2014 film, will expand their mission across multiple releases… The initial trio of films are 2017’s Kong: Skull Island; Godzilla 2 in 2018; and then Godzilla Vs Kong, arriving in theaters in 2020… Production on Kong: Skull Island begins October 19th.

The original King Kong Vs. Godzilla was released by Toho Studios in Japan in 1962, and became an instant monster-movie classic. Trust me, it was biblically awesome.

Read all the details at Deadline.

Vintage Treasures: The Great White Space by Basil Copper

Vintage Treasures: The Great White Space by Basil Copper

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The Great White Space-small The Great White Space Basil Cooper Sphere-small The Great White Space Basil Cooper-small

Basil Copper received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Horror Convention in 2010, and is remembered today for his short fiction (collected in the mammoth two-volume set Darkness, Mist and Shadow: The Collected Macabre Tales of Basil Copper from PS Publishing), and for his much-loved Solar Pons stories, which Bob Byrne has discussed in detail right here at Black Gate.

But he also published a handful of fondly remembered novels, such as Necropolis (1980), The House of the Wolf (1983), and Into the Silence (1983). His first novel, The Great White Space (1974), is considered one of the best Lovecraftian horror novels ever written. Valancourt Books, whose impressive horror catalog I surveyed after getting a glimpse of their glorious table at the World Fantasy Convention last year, reprinted it in a handsome trade paperback in 2013 (above right). But the copy that tumbled into my hands was the 1976 Manor Books edition (above left), which I found in a recently-acquired collection on eBay.

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The Morbidly Beautiful Art of Chris Mars

The Morbidly Beautiful Art of Chris Mars

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Trial-by-Smoke-Chris-Mars-small

Two weeks ago I posted an article about Thomas Ligotti’s new Penguin collection Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe. I was quite taken with the cover art, but was unable to track down the name of the artist. In the Comments section, Robert Adam Gilmour correctly fingered the artist as Chris Mars, with a piece titled “Puppeteer.”

While confirming the details, I educated myself on the entirely splendid and macabre art of Mr. Mars. His work is simultaneously gleefully traditional — filled with spooky landscapes and close set, haunted villages — and relentlessly modern, refusing to give us what our eyes expect, instead cramming every inch of his canvas with vibrant colors and tortured visages. A fine example is the above piece, titled “Trial by Smoke.”

But as they say, writing about art is like dancing about architecture. I’ve collected a few of my favorite samples of Mars’ art below, so you can see for yourself.

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Future Treasures: The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak, Volumes 1-3

Future Treasures: The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak, Volumes 1-3

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I Am Crying All Inside And Other Stories-small The Big Front Yard and Other Stories-small The Ghost of a Model T And Other Stories-small

Clifford D. Simak is one of my favorite writers. He wrote over 100 short stories in his lifetime, and published more than 20 collections, but even to this day not all of his short fiction has been collected. Especially neglected is much of his early pulp work, written for magazines like Wonder Stories, Astounding, and Thrilling Wonder in the 1930s.

The lack of a complete collection of Clifford D. Simak’s short stories has been keenly felt among many old-school fans. So as you can imagine, I was delighted to discover that Open Road Media has undertaken the first comprehensive collection of all of Simak’s short stories — including his science fiction, fantasy, and western fiction. The first three books, I Am Crying All Inside, The Big Front Yard, and The Ghost of a Model T, go on sale later this month.

All three, like all six volumes announced so far, are edited by David W. Wixon, the Executor of Simak’s Literary Estate. Wixon, a close friend of Simak, contributes an introduction to each volume, and short intros to each story, providing a little background on its publishing history and other interesting tidbits.

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