Search Results for: Walter Jon Williams

Birthday Reviews: James H. Schmitz’s “The Vampirate”

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James H. Schmitz was born on October 15, 1911 and died on April 18, 1981. Schmitz was nominated for the Hugo Award in 1962 for Best Short Fiction for his story “Lion Loose” and in 1967 for the novel The Witches of Karres. In 1966, he had four Nebula nominations for his short story “Balanced Ecology,” the Novelettes “Planet of Forgetting” and “Goblin Night,” and for the novella “Research Alpha,” co-written with A.E. van Vogt. “Vampirate” was first published in…

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Birthday Reviews: Edward Wellen’s “Barbarossa”

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Since I realize I jumped the gun and moved Walter Jon Williams’s birthday up a couple of weeks with my Birthday Review published earlier today, here is someone who was actually born on October 2. Edward Wellen was born on October 2, 1919 and died on January 15, 2011. Most of Wellen’s publications were short stories and he was more active in the mystery field than in science fiction, although he began publishing in the genre in 1952 with the…

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Future Treasures: The Moons of Barsk by Lawrence M. Schoen

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Lawrence M. Schoen’s novel Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard was nominated for a Nebula Award, and Nancy Hightower at The Washington Post gave it a concise and enthusiastic review, saying: Barsk is set 62,000 years into a human-less future, where anthropomorphic animals rule the galaxy. There is no record of human existence, and while the different species get along relatively well, the Fant, an elephant-like hybrid, are completely shunned and exiled to live on a rainy planet called Barsk. While labeled…

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Tor.com Celebrates 50 Years of Locus Magazine

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Over at Tor.com, Paul Weimer (who comments occasionally at Black Gate and elsewhere as PrinceJvstin) has written a fine tribute to one of my favorite magazines — Locus, the news magazine of the science fiction and fantasy field. He captures exactly what the magazine has meant to readers over the years, especially in the 80s and 90s when it was the trusted news source that tied together the entire genre. In 1968, the legendary anthologist and editor Charles N. Brown created…

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Hugo Nomination Thoughts, 2018

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Time for my annual post on what I’m thinking about for Hugo nominations. As ever, I’ll caution that I have read a lot of short fiction, but that I am less up on the other categories. I have seen a fair quantity of movies, too, however. Let me reiterate something I said last year – though I participate with a lot of enjoyment in Hugo nomination and voting every year, I am philosophically convinced that there is no such thing…

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Future Treasures: The Book of Swords, edited by Gardner Dozois

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A while back Gardner Dozois asked if I wanted a review copy of his upcoming “Sword & Sorcery” anthology, The Book of Swords. Now, Gardner does not do small anthologies — neither in the physical sense, nor in the sense of their impact on the field. If the premier anthologist in the SF community was putting his time and energy into a collection of original sword & sorcery tales, then clearly the genre still has some life in it. It…

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How to Assemble an Instant Science Fiction Collection

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I came home from the 2017 Windy City Pulp & Paper Show with a lot of books. The 120 SF & fantasy paperbacks books above represent the bulk of my purchases this year. I found plenty of additional treasures — including early issues of Hugo Gernsback’s Science Wonder Stories, a handful of hardcovers, art books, bargain graphic novels, and plenty of magazines — but this year, it was mostly about the paperbacks. And man, what a haul. As I mentioned…

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Worldbuilding a “Star Punk” Future

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You know the genre I mean. It’s the one that takes in Firefly, Dumarest… it’s Space Opera’s Sword & Sorcery. It’s Han Solo: The Early Years or Indiana Jones does Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, or Almost Any Clint Eastwood Movie Ever But In Space. It’s what Traveller RPG supports in all its incarnations.  It doesn’t have a name, so I’ve taken to calling it “Star Punk.” Here’s how I  tried to define it in my guest post for uber SF meister…

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Hugo Nomination Thoughts, 2017

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It’s that time again, right? Hugo nominations are open, and they will close on March 17th. I’ll be discussing most of the categories, but as usual, I’m better informed about short fiction than anything else. I should mention going in that there have been some significant changes to the Hugos. There is a new Hugo Category, for Best Series. (I don’t like the idea much, but I’ll play along.) There is a new non-Hugo for Best Young Adult Book, up…

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John DeNardo’s Savory Selection of Science Fiction and Fantasy for October

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Over at Kirkus Reviews, the tireless John DeNardo itemizes the 13 “must-read science fiction and fantasy books being released in October.” And John reads even more than I do, so he should know. Here he is on Faller by Will McIntosh, which will be released by Tor Books on October 25. The people of the world find themselves on floating islands of rock, with no memory of who they are, how they got there, or what happened. A man calling…

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