Hugh Howey was a self-published novelist of no real success. Until WOOL, that is - a 15,000 word "little throwaway story" he uploaded to Amazon's Kindle Marketplace one day and promptly forget about. The story he didn't blog, didn't tweet, and didn't even sell on his site hit #2 on the Kindle SciFi Bestseller list and "changed the course of e-books." [more inside]
posted by DarlingBri on Jan 15, 2012 - 140 comments

In the beginning, Lawrence built a computer. He told it, Thou shalt not alter a human being, or divine their behavior, or violate the Three Laws -- there are no commandments greater than these. The machine grew wise, mastering time and space, and soon the spirit of the computer hovered over the earth. It witnessed the misery, toil, and oppression afflicting mankind, and saw that it was very bad. And so the computer that Lawrence built said, Let there be a new heaven and a new earth -- and it was so. A world with no war, no famine, no crime, no sickness, no oppression, no fear, no limits... and nothing at all to do. "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect," a provocative web novel about singularities, AI gods, and the dark side of utopia from Mefi's own localroger. More: Table of Contents - Publishing history - Technical discussion - Buy a paperback copy - Podcast interview - Companion short story: "A Casino Odyssey in Cyberspace" - possible sequel discussion
posted by Rhaomi on Dec 27, 2011 - 39 comments

A Dance With Dragons, the fifth book in George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, will arrive on July 12. [more inside]
posted by Iridic on Mar 3, 2011 - 163 comments

Novelist Bill Morris on the lost art of the rejection letter (via) [more inside]
posted by otio on Oct 29, 2010 - 23 comments

OMNI was launched (PDF) by Kathy Keeton, long-time companion and later wife of Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione, who described the magazine in its first issue as "an original if not controversial mixture of science fact, fiction, fantasy and the paranormal". [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Oct 20, 2010 - 64 comments

Vintage Series Books for Girls
posted by Joe Beese on Jul 29, 2010 - 49 comments

Who needs 12 Monkeys or 26 Monkeys? MeFite A.G. Pasquella's new book is all about one monkey, with a question: Why Not A Spider Monkey Jesus? The independently-published book has a nifty cross-platform approach and features a killer cover by Michael Kupperman (Kupperman, previously). [via mefi projects]
posted by sixswitch on May 25, 2010 - 15 comments

"Seed" - an anthology of short fiction published on a USB flash drive shaped like a penis. Sample story. More on the concept without pictures of plastic penises. (Safe for workness may vary)
posted by Artw on Nov 21, 2009 - 30 comments

There's been more and more rumblings lately about the inclusiveness (or lack thereof) of diversity in the circles of sci-fi and fantasy. Pam Nole's classic Shame essay hits a lot of points and while the Carl Brandon Society has been fighting the good fight for some time, more and more people are gathering their own projects, such as Transcriptase or Verb Noire to create spaces and publishing arenas less biased. Are these even necessary? It seems the fans think so.
posted by yeloson on May 13, 2009 - 91 comments

This is the story is a fantasy book is a book with a real tale, only it's not between the covers. Will Allen would retire to his bedroom and his family would hear the typewriter going at all hours. When asked what he was doing, he only smiled and said "you'll see." Later that year, at Christmas 1979 they did. He presented his family and friends with manuscripts of Swords for Hire . Months later, just short of his 23rd birthday, he died of terminal cancer. His older brother Paul, loved the book, read it several times over the years, it was a beloved family story that he read to his daughters. He felt his brother could (and should) have been a published author he surely was meant to be, and got the books published. It won some rave reviews and awards as well. What got me most about this story and I'm not sure why, but the author is on the cover of his book as one of the characters. (You can see the original picture on the author page of the Author's bio page). I thought that was really beautiful.
posted by Dome-O-Rama on Jul 7, 2003 - 10 comments