Friday, June 29, 2012

June 29, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles
Advice/Articles
News

Absinth / The Song of Synth by Sebastien Doubinsky

Thursday, June 28, 2012

June 28, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles

Advice/Articles

News
The Troika by Stepan Chapman

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Lauriat: A Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction Anthology


Hi,

One of my current projects is Lauriat: A Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction Anthology. It's being published by Lethe Press and will be released in August 2012, although you'll find early copies at Readercon. Thanks to my publisher Steve Berman for making this project possible.

To my readers, thanks for supporting me these past few years. Without you, I wouldn't be here. I hope you'll support me once again in this project. Lauriat: A Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction Anthology is important to me because it's giving voice to a group that not often gets a voice (and in that, I'm proud to be published by Lethe Press, which has also given opportunities and voices to diverse groups). Some of the writers in the book are veteran Filipino authors. Others are new. But this is the first time that the Filipino-Chinese experience is filtered through the speculative fiction lens and collected into an anthology. And unlike our locally-published speculative fiction titles, you can order print copies of the book from major retailers and bookstores, as Lethe Press has global distribution.

Here's where I'm asking for your help:
  • Pre-order the book, purchase it upon release, or special order it from bookstores.
  • Spread the word about the book through the various social networks like blogs, Twitter, Tumblr, Goodreads, etc.
  • Review the book (either before the release or after... I can email PDFs [yes, I know it's not the most optimal eBook format so apologies for that] to prospective reviewers) or contact me for interviews, guest blog posts, etc.
If you need to contact me, I can be reached at charlesatan[at]gmail[dot]com.

Here's the cover copy:
Filipinos and Chinese have a rich, vibrant literature when it comes to speculative fiction. But what about the fiction of the Filipino-Chinese, who draw their roots from both cultures? This is what this anthology attempts to answer. Featuring stories that deal with voyeur ghosts, taboo lovers, a town that cannot sleep, the Chinese zodiac, and an exile that finally comes home, Lauriat: A Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction Anthology covers a diverse selection of narratives from fresh, Southeast Asian voices. 
And the Table of Contents:

  • Introduction
  • "Two Women Worth Watching" by Andrew Drilon
  • "Ho-We" by Erin Chupeco
  • "The Chinese Zodiac" by Kristine Ong Muslim
  • "Pure" by Isabel Yap
  • "Dimsum" by Christine V. Lao
  • "August Moon" by Gabriela Lee
  • "The Captain's Nephew" by Paolo Chikiamco
  • "The Stranger at my Grandmother's Wake" by Fidelis Tan
  • "Chopsticks" by Marc Gregory Yu
  • "Fold Up Boy" by Yvette Tan
  • "The Tiger Lady" by Margaret Kawsek
  • "The Perpetual Day" by Crystal Koo
  • "Cricket" by Kenneth Yu
  • "The Way of Those Who Stayed Behind" by Douglas Candano 
And here's an advanced review from Publisher's Weekly.

Thanks.

June 27, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles

Advice/Articles

News

The Book of Apex: Vol. 3 edited by Catherynne M. Valente

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

June 26, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles

Advice/Articles

News

Obsidian & Blood by Aliette de Bodard

Monday, June 25, 2012

June 25, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles

Advice/Articles

Maul by Tricia Sullivan

Friday, June 22, 2012

June 22, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles

Advice/Articles

News
The Hammer and the Blade by Paul S. Kemp

Thursday, June 21, 2012

June 21, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles

Advice/Articles

News
Nightglass by Liane Merciel

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

June 20, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles

Advice/Articles

News

Other Worlds Than These edited by John Joseph Adams

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

June 19, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles

Advice/Articles

News
Amped by Daniel H. Wilson

Monday, June 18, 2012

Guest Post - Bryan Thomas Schmidt on Culture in World-Building



Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novels The Worker Prince, a Barnes & Noble Book Clubs Year’s Best SF Releases of 2011 Honorable Mention, and The Returning, the collection The North Star Serial, Part 1, and several short stories featured  in anthologies and magazines.  He edited the anthology Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 for Flying Pen Press, headlined by Mike Resnick. As a freelance editor, he’s edited a novels and nonfiction.  He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat every Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter under the hashtag #sffwrtcht. A frequent contributor to Adventures In SF PublishingGrasping For The Wind and SFSignal, he can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Bryan is an affiliate member of the SFWA.

What is culture? 

Looking at www.dictionary.com, we find the following definitions:

cul·ture (noun)

1. the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.; 2. that which is excellent in the arts, manners, etc.; 3. a particular form or stage of civilization, as that of a certain nation or period: Greek culture.; 4. development or improvement of the mind by education or training.; 5. the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group: the youth culture; the drug culture.

For me, the most significant of these for world-building purposes are numbers 1 and 5. The others play a role, yes, but they really flow out of 1 and 5. Artistic excellence comes from education, training, and from behaviors and beliefs of an age, social or ethnic group.  And the determination of excellence various by your age, social and/or ethnic group. Each of these groups has different influences and tastes. Number 3, stagesof culture, is a period, part of the larger, developing picture. So, when I talk about culture in world-building I want to be clear: I am talking about the qualities in persons or societies which arise from concerns for what is excellent in arts, letters, manners, etc. and the characteristic behaviors and beliefs of those persons or societies, divided by age, ethnic and social group.

To create a more realistic world, culure is essential because how people react to different events, people and situations is dependent upon their culture. Culture is an influence on how we life, what we value, and how we view the world and everything in it. It affects our understandings of joy, of meaning, of excellence, and of so much else. It affects how we choose to spend leisure time an what we even consider that to be. It affects our determinations of what is creativity and which results of creative action applied are worthy of respect and admiration and which are not.

The culture in the Borali Alliance of my Saga of Davi Rhii novels (The Worker Prince, The Returning, The Exodus-forthcoming 2013) has similar social divisions to many on Earth, particularly those of the Western world cultures. The Boralians are, after all, colonists who emigrated to the stars to escape fighting on Earth. The rich and powerful are the elite. The middle class are somewhere between and are workers. The lower class are the slaves and servants. There’s some blending, yes. Your richest man’s servant may be paid wages that make him or her middle class, for example. But along with this class division comes a mindset. Not only the mindset of who your higher ups tell you you are, but also the mindset of whom you think you are determine where you fit. Some are on a fine line between groups. Others are more firmly placed. But the level of comfort they have in their identity affects how they live and react to various situations.

In the same way, those who are wealthy are less likely to pursue artistic pursuits. They enjoy art appreciation and funding the arts, not just for enjoyment but also to claim they are generous or to act as benefactors to society, thus improving their reputation and spreading their names. But the actual artisans tend to be servant class, and, occasionally middle class. It takes a special class and skill to do art that’s worthy of admiration and there’s not much money in it, but it does elevate you as you succeed in prestige, reputation and demand for your presence and work. 

The wealthy, especially those who serve in the governing group, the Council of Lords and the Royal Palace, tend to think as if they are genetically deserving, despite the fact these positions are elected. They support this false impression by voting in each other’s heirs to positions and thus helping to perpetuate the sense that you are born into power.  Artisans take on apprenticeships and endowments, etc. And many business owners pass their business acumen and, they hope, their businesses to heirs. I think you get the idea.

The various goals and differences and understandings of place, role, and opportunity to move up or down or sideways affect how each person in each group relates to the others and goes about life and how they dream, what they dream, how they live, etc. Thinking through these things is vital to lend a sense of realness to your worlds because all worlds, as we know them, tend to have hierarchies. And the characters must understand the hierarchy and their place in it to be comfortable in the world. We as readers must also understand to get a sense of the order of the world.

In addition to all of that, of course, and even some of these details don’t necessarily get discussed openly in the novels due to space, etc. but the story itself is affected by culture because at the heart of this story, people are trying to move themselves from a forced grouping, as Vertullians and slaves, into free, equal citizens, thus, those who are wealthier want to join the upper classes. Only a few attempt and even fewer succeed. Others want to join the middle class. And still others move laterally from slave servants to free servants. But even that small adjective affects how they view themselves and their rights. Davi Rhii, our protagonist, drop a bit in class and that’s part of his arc, moving from prince to slave in The Worker Prince, and then having to move from salve to free man and find his place in the middle in The Returning.
Within all that comes a sense of the value of education and the opportunities it provides as well as its limits. The importance of art, money, property, vehicles, etc. All of these things are different between classes and individuals in many ways but form the heart of cultural values and understandings in the world.

Have you thought through the implications of all of this for your world? If not, you should. Even if most of it doesn’t go in the book directly, it will be reflected in the relationships, attitudes and actions of the characters and thus subtly portrayed for and understood by your readers. So much of what we do in fiction is subtle and unspoken. Readers grasp it based on their own education, class, social, ethnic, and class levels and how their worldviews and understandings interact with the nuances of the material. Without sitting down and being asked specific questions, most would never likely be able to tell you what those nuances are. They might not even be consciously aware of them. But if they are missing from the text, they will be missed and noticed, at the very least, subconsciously, and your world will, as a result, feel incomplete. It will lack layers of reality they expect to be there, and, thus, be weakened in those readers’ minds.

What areas of culture have you concerned yourself with in your writing? What are the unique approaches you’ve taken? Have you gone so far as to define specific art forms, styles, genres, etc.? Or do you deal with those more generally? Have you defined them by artistic terms, social terms, age group or ethnic terms? What are your criteria? Thinking through questions like these and coming up with the answers will be invaluable to your world-building. Readers picking up your books and stories will do the same. And if they corner you at a Con or event to ask those questions, you’ll actually be able to give an articulate, reasonable answer. Not a bad thing for the “god” of a world to be able to do, right? For what it’s worth...

In Bryan’s second novel, The Returning, new challenges arise as Davi Rhii’s rival Bordox and his uncle, Xalivar, seek revenge for his actions in The Worker Prince, putting his life and those of his friends and family in constant danger. Meanwhile, politics as usual has the Borali Alliance split apart over questions of citizenship and freedom for the former slaves. Someone’s even killing them off. Davi’s involvement in the investigation turns his life upside down, including his relationship with his fiancée, Tela. The answers are not easy with his whole world at stake.

June 18, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles

Advice/Articles

News
The Last Selchie Child by Jane Yolen

Friday, June 15, 2012

June 15, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles
Advice/Articles
News
The WisCon Chronicles: Volume 6 Futures of Feminism and Fandom edited by Alexis Lothian

Thursday, June 14, 2012

June 14, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles

Advice/Articles
News
 Worldsoul by Liz Williams

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

June 13, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles

Advice/Articles

News
Obsession: Tales of Irresistible Desire edited by Paula Guran

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

June 12, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles

Advice/Articles

News
And the Cultural Imperialism Bingo Card:
If you think colonialism is dead... think again. Globalisation has indeed made the world smaller--furthering the dominance of the West over the developing world, shrinking and devaluing local cultures, and uniformising everything to Western values and Western ways of life. This is a pernicious, omnipresent state of things that leads to the same unfounded things being said, over and over, to people from developing countries and/or on developing countries.

It's time for this to stop. Time for the hoary, horrid misrepresentation clichés to be pointed out and examined; and for genuine, non-dismissive conversations to start.

Accordingly, here's a handy bingo card for Western Cultural Imperialism--and we wish we could say we've made it all up, but unfortunately every single comment on this card was seen on the Internet.

Card designed by Aliette de Bodard, Joyce Chng, Kate Elliott, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, @requireshate, Charles Tan, @automathic and @mizHalle. Launch orchestrated with the help of Zen Cho and Ekaterina Sedia in addition to above authors (and an army of volunteer signal boosters whom we wish to thank very much!)

Monday, June 11, 2012

June 11, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles

Advice/Articles

News
The Fires Beneath the Sea By Lydia Millet

Friday, June 08, 2012

June 8, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles

Advice/Articles

News
Apex Magazine #37

Thursday, June 07, 2012

June 7, 2012 Links and Plugs

Interviews and Profiles

Advice/Articles

News

Ray Bradbury Tributes