60+ One-Of-A-Kind Robots From Science Fiction. "You'd think a major advantage of robots is you can mass-produce them. They're just metal-and-circuit bodies. But science fiction is full of one-of-a-kind bots. Here are all the bots for whom they broke the mold."
posted by taz
on Feb 21, 2009 -
40 comments
In 1998, a journalist at
The New Republic named Stephen Glass wrote a compelling piece in the influential magazine entitled '
Hack Heaven'. It told the story of how Glass witnessed a 15 year old hacker named Ian Restil being hired by a large Californian computer company named Jukt Micronics at a hacker convention as a security analyst after Restil hacked Jukt's website. But the entire story was, in fact, entirely fictional.
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posted by Effigy2000
on Feb 14, 2009 -
46 comments
"To make off with hubby's fortune, yea, I think I heard of that happenin' once or twice around L.A. And… you want me to do what exactly?" He found the paper bag he'd brought his supper home in and got busy pretending to scribble notes on it, because straight-chick uniform, makeup supposed to look like no makeup or whatever, here came that old well-known hard-on Shasta was always good for sooner or later. Does it ever end, he wondered. Of course it does. It did. Thomas Pynchon's next novel, the 416-page
Inherent Vice, is
described by Penguin Press as "part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon — private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog." While we wait for its August 4 publication, we can read
an essay on the dystopian musical he co-wrote at Cornell or watch
a clip of that movie they made of Gravity's Rainbow.
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posted by Joe Beese
on Feb 6, 2009 -
76 comments
New Yorker fiction 2008. Annotated list of short fiction from the past year. "As perhaps the most high-profile venue for short fiction in the world, taking stock of the
New Yorker's year in fiction is a worthwhile exercise for writers and readers alike."
posted by stbalbach
on Jan 5, 2009 -
24 comments
Some of the best short-short fiction I've read recently has been that of the
Heartbroke Daily, the stories of the love affairs of (fictional) Knox Dupree, who "fall[s] in love too easily" and "as a result [...] suffer[s] from near constant heartbreak." Start from the
beginning and work forward.
(via Presurfer) [more inside]
posted by WCityMike
on Dec 6, 2008 -
4 comments
Despite sagging paperback sales in the publishing industry, romance novels -- and particularly
hen lit -- fiction featuring older female heroines -- are thriving. In 2006, according to Romance Writers of America, 26.4% of all books sold were romances, generating $1.37 billion in sales.
In hen lit aka
Matron literature, heroines typically are over-40, widowed grandmothers whose romance yearnings are secondary to family, work, and hobbies.
posted by terranova
on Nov 21, 2008 -
29 comments
Dalkey Archive conversations with
William Burroughs,
Angela Carter,
Robert Creeley,
William Gaddis,
William H. Gass,
Danilo Kis,
Harry Mathews,
Richard Powers,
Raymond Queneau,
Hubert Selby,
William T. Vollman,
David Foster Wallace, and
many other writers.
posted by Iridic
on Oct 12, 2008 -
9 comments
Like
others before him
Benjamin Rosenbaum is making his debut short story collection,
The Ant King And Other Stories, available from his publishers,
Small Beer, as a
free download. More than this though, he is holding a
competition to find the best derivative work inspired by it. These include "translations, plays, movies, radio plays, audiobooks, flashmob happenings, horticultural installations, visual artworks, slash fanfic epics, robot operas, sequels, webcomics, ASCII art, text adventure games, roleplaying campaigns, knitting projects, handmade shoes, or anything else you feel like."
[more inside]
posted by ninebelow
on Sep 19, 2008 -
19 comments
Realist Fiction by
George Saunders:
"Last night, in a biker bar, I overheard two men discussing what distinguished “realist” fiction from more “experimental” work. Although one shouldn’t generalize, I never expect bikers to be literary critics. Well, these were literary critics, and good ones—in fact, they’d bought their “hogs” with royalties from a book they’d co-written,
Feminine Desire In Jane Austen."
Experimental Fiction by
George Saunders:
"Experimental fiction is the art of telling a story in which certain aspects of reality have been exaggerated or distorted in such a way as to put the reader off the story and make him go watch a television show."
posted by plexi
on Aug 5, 2008 -
37 comments
Goosebumps. Rotten School. Mostly Ghostly. The Nightmare Room. Fear Street. If you were born after about 1980 and had nightmares, there's a good chance
R.L. Stine had something to do with it. (
And he's certainly had a number of his own.) He's been called
the Stephen King of children's literature, one of Forbes'
top-40 best paid entertainers (beating out Michael Douglas, U2, and Bill Cosby, among others), and
America's best selling author.
It's an interesting place to end up for this
Ohio State grad, who was editor of the campus humor magazine,
The Sundial, and who has written humor under the pen name Jovial Bob Stein (including
The Ghostbusters 2 Storybook and
How to Wash a Duck and How to Do Everything Else). The
very prolific author (who
shares some credit with
Tom Perrotta), plans to be around
until the day the "kids stop reading." Until then, might I suggest getting them a nightlight?
posted by NotMyselfRightNow
on Aug 5, 2008 -
30 comments
In the summer of 1897, the Devil transported a
minor Decadent poet named Enoch Soames one hundred years into the future to see what posterity would make of
his work. The only witness to the affair was the parodist
Max Beerbohm, whose
account of Soames and his journey ensured that at 2:10 P.M. on June 7, 1997, some dozen pilgrims waited in the Round Reading Room of the British Museum
to see the poet appear...
posted by Iridic
on Jul 22, 2008 -
26 comments
Darker Projects has a bunch of original audio dramas in the sci-fi, horror, and suspense vein. Think of it as your local community audio-only theatre, or not-actually-old-timey old-time radio.
[more inside]
posted by Wolfdog
on Jun 1, 2008 -
9 comments
Free Speculative Fiction Online is a database of free science fiction and fantasy stories online by published authors (no fan-fiction or stories by unpublished writers). Among the authors that FSFO links to are
Paul Di Filippo (14 stories),
James Tiptree, Jr. (4 stories),
Connie Willis (3 stories),
Eleanor Arnason (3 stories),
Bruce Sterling (5 stories),
Robert Heinlein (7 stories),
Ursula K. LeGuin (3 stories),
Jonathan Lethem (5 stories),
Michael Moorcock (6 stories),
Chine Miéville (2 stories),
Samuel R. Delany (3 stories),
Robert Sheckley (8 stories), MeFite
Charles Stross (33 stories) and hundreds of other authors. If you don't know where to start, there's a list of
recommended stories.
posted by Kattullus
on Apr 5, 2008 -
34 comments
Edinburgh author
Iain M. Banks, creator of the post capitalist space faring society
The Culture and it's
oddly named ships, has long been the UKs top science fiction writer, but has never had
more than a toehold in the US (in part through lack of availability, in part due to lack of promotion and in part due to some pretty
awful covers. That could change:
Matter, his latest, has been heavily promoted in the US and sports a cover nearly identical to the UK edition. This week
Orbit are releasing US editions of the two earliest Culture novels, with the third following in July, which could mean a complete release of all the novels in the US in order.
[more inside]
posted by Artw
on Mar 23, 2008 -
160 comments
Ladies, have you ever dreamt of being
whisked away kidnapped by a dashing young Prince? Or being swept off your feet and losing your virginity to a dark and mysterious
stranger, who happens to be a Sheikh? Or how about being sold to an Arab aristocracy and living off the rest of your days in married
bliss. No? Then how about considering a Royal who is so
down-to-earth you won't meet anyone else quite like him? Much better than the alternative of marrying his
polar opposite, don't you think? Of course, you can always
try and keep it platonic if you wanted to. Welcome to the wonderful world of
Sheikhs and Desert Love, where all of your
fantasies can come true!
(via)
posted by hadjiboy
on Mar 15, 2008 -
44 comments
