Review: After 20 Years, Ben Bova Completes ‘Voyagers’ Saga

When Ben Bova started his Voyagers saga in 1981, the world and his depiction of it were obviously quite different from the way they manifest in 2009, as the fourth volume in the series surfaces nearly 20 years after the third (Star Brothers, from 1990).

How to reconcile any improbabilities between yesterday’s tomorrows and the up-to-date scenario Bova wants to examine now? Easy enough! Bova has his protagonists accidentally jump laterally across the multiverse to another timeline than the one they started in. Now that’s a handy drift!

In any case, our tale, The Return (Tor, $25.99), concerns the reappearance of star traveler Keith Stoner, his wife Jo and their kids, Cathy and Rick. After their encounter with alien tech, the family has assumed super-science powers such as mind-reading and teleportation. Arriving at a dystopian Earth on the point of destroying itself with nuclear war, they feel compelled to help rescue the race from self-destruction. But as Stoner ruefully acknowledges, compulsion is a dead end. Only re-education can make for a stable future. Trouble is, “Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.”

As Stoner deals with various power blocs on Earth, from the U.S. religious dictatorship known as the New Morality to their counterparts, the Islamist and Chinese dunderheads, as well as with the more enlightened spacers on the moon and around the Jovian worlds, he has transformative impacts on a variety of folks, from Sister Angelique, an ambitious politico, to Raoul Tavalera, a common-man type who finds himself sacrificing his own happiness for the good of the species. Stoner comes across as a believable human-turned-demigod, but his family, garnering less screen time, remains rather unformed.

Combining elements of Lost in Space (1965), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1963) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Bova’s conclusion to his quartet (and it does seem like a pretty definitive ending to me) offers little in the way of fresh speculation or thematic lessons that the genre has not trafficked in for decades. But dramatic counsel about the consequences of pigheadedness and shortsightedness is always a valuable, timeless offering from the SF genre.

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Were Unsolicited Texts About Stephen King Novel ‘Cell’ Against The Law?

Stephen King’s apocalyptic horror novel Cell is about a signal sent out to cell phones that turned all who heard it into homicidal monsters. Now a different sort of cell phone message has gotten King’s book publisher, Simon & Schuster, embroiled in a horror story that’s far more frightening that fiction—one involving the legal system.

An appellate court ruled Friday that Simon & Schuster might have violated federal law by allegedly sending unsolicited text messages promoting Cell, Online Media Daily reported.

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Brandon Sanderson Discusses ‘The Wheel of Time’ Ending — An AMC Interview

Interview by AMC’s Clayton Neuman

When fantasy author Robert Jordan died, it fell to one of his fans to finish Jordan’s epic Wheel of Time series. Brandon Sanderson explains why he split the last novel into three — the first of which, The Gathering Storm, will be released this November.

Q: Were you ever reluctant to take on this project?

A: I spent a long time thinking, “Can anyone do this?” And my answer came out “No.” But if someone else can try, I wanted it to be me. My goal has been to get the characters to feel like themselves when you read them. But it’s like a different director directing the same actors and using the same script. You’re going to end up with two different movies.

Q: Did you have to change the way you write?

A: I didn’t want to imitate Robert Jordan’s style — I think that would turn into parody. But I needed to be more descriptive. The Wheel of Time books are lavish in their concrete sensory descriptions. And that’s had a strong influence on my own writing: I just sent a couple of pages of something else to my editor, and he wrote back and said, “Wow, you’ve changed.”

Q: Did you struggle with any aspects of the series?

A: The biggest struggle was the sheer weight of characters. I was working on Perrin’s viewpoint at one point, and Jordan’s editorial assistant sent me this file filled with dozens and dozens of names of side characters for him that had not even appeared in the book yet. It’s like juggling boulders, because there’s so much weight to each of them.

Q: Have you written the long-awaited Tarmon Gai’don (The Last Battle) scene yet?

A: That’s going to be the third book of the series. The first two books are about bringing all these plotlines that have spread out over 11 books back together. I’m working on the second third, so I’m at the point where you can spit across the line and hit Tarmon Gai’don, but I haven’t actually written any of it yet.

Q: Robert Jordan was adamant that he was going to write only one more book in the series. Did you ever wonder what he was thinking?

A: [Laughs] I have. I think that if he had been around, there’s a chance he might have been able to get it into one book. But only because of his illness. If he would have had all the time he wanted, it would have been this long. It was always intended to be huge, but for me it was easier to write it piece-by-piece.

Q: What are the biggest questions you wanted answered by the end of the series?

A: I was really curious about Moiraine and her plot line. Her disappearance was so open-ended. I wanted to see some meetings: Elayne and her mother, Tam and Rand, getting Perrin and Mat back together. I can’t say whether or not that happens, but I was looking at them. In some cases there were opportunities and notes for it, and in other cases… I’m not going to force it. Jim did include in his notes what happened to Asmodean, and his widow made the call on where to put it in the book.

Q: Universal has optioned the series. Do you think it’s possible to make a movie of this scope?

A: It’s a difficult project. The people who are producing it seem very focused on the series, and they’ve put some of my worries to ease. It seems impossible, but I would have said the same thing about The Lord of the Rings. Impossible things can come to pass. Universal wants this to be a fantasy tentpole, and if that’s really the case I can see them splitting books and giving this series the attention it deserves.

Q: Your next novel, Warbreaker, comes out in June. What inspired it?

A: I wanted to tell a story in a world where color was the magic. I like the metaphor of color as life — when something dies the color fades, and that became a magic for color bringing things to life. I also liked the idea of a god who didn’t believe in his own religion — somebody who was worshiped, but who did not accept that worship of himself.

Q: What do you have planned after you finish Wheel of Time?

A: My next series will be The Way of Kings, which is the start of a big epic for me. I’ve plotted it as ten books. Fantasy writers, we get into this business because we love the big epics. We grow up reading Brooks and Jordan, and we get to the point where we say, “I want to do this myself.”

Click here to visit Brandon Sanderson’s website, where you can learn more about Wheel of Time and all his other fantasy projects.

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Amazon Kindle DX Coming This Summer for $489

Hot on the heels of the Kindle 2, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled an extra-large e-reader today, dubbed the Kindle DX. The 18.4-ounce device is intended to give users a reading experience closer to paper, with a 9.7-inch screen that measures 8.5 x 11 inches — 2.5 times the size of Kindle 2′s display.

This latest e-reader has a new trick — its screen can auto-rotate, so when you turn the Kindle DX on its side, an accelerometer will flip your page 90 degrees. It can now directly handle PDF files, with no need to convert them into Amazon’s proprietary format. Also new is the ability to control the line length, making the margins wider or thinner with just a few clicks. Capacity has been jacked to 4GB, though there’s still no slot for a flash-memory card. Like the Kindle 2, the DX has 3G wireless connectivity for getting content wherever you are, and the E Ink screen consumes no power except when flipping pages.

At the same time, Amazon just made a deal with three major textbook publishers to provide content for the Kindle DX: Pearson, Cengage, and Wiley. Also, five universities have agreed to pilot the DX in the fall, including Princeton, Pace and Case Western Reserve. On the newspaper front, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe plan to partner with Amazon to sell the Kindle DX at a reduced price in exchange for a subscription contract.

Shipping sometime this summer, the Kindle DX is available for pre-order today for $489.

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Author Kevin J. Anderson Hints At ‘Wonder Woman’ Novel

Science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson isn’t sure which superhero he may take on in his next book, but he hints that he’s very interested in writing a novel about Wonder Woman. He’s also working on a fantasy book series, Terra Incognita, which is coming out in June.

When calling his home in Colorado, SCI FI Wire interrupted him while he was editing the second book of his series. “I just was editing the part where the princess needs to be saved from the desert raiders,” he said in an exclusive interview. “It’s a big fantasy series with sailing ships and sea serpents and the Crusades and such. That book comes out in a couple of weeks, and we’ll do publicity on that one then.”

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The Lord Of The Rings Now Available On Kindle Through Amazon

Amazon now has available The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy) for the kindle.  Published on April 19, 2009 by Harper Collins e-books, this digital download contains the original trilogy written by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The original series was first published in 1954 and has since been reprinted in many languages and has seen millions of copies in print form.

It has now been translated into digital form for the Kindle and is available for the Kindle through Amazon.com.

The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy)

Concept Braille E-Reader – A Very Cool Idea

With the advent of Amazon’s Kindle, we are all now only too familiar with the e-reader. The technology, which uses E Ink is the technophile’s answer to a book (although this technophile would rather have her shelves groaning from the weight of the books she’s accumulated during her lifetime). But what about a version of the e-reader for the visually impaired?

A Korean quartet of designers — Seon-Keun Park, Byung-Min Woo, Sun-Hye Woo and Jin-Sun Park — have come up with a concept for a braille e-book. Simple in design, the device uses electroactive polymers, which change shape when voltage is run through them, forming the raised braille letters. Since the traditional paper braille books for the blind are roughly double the size of normal books, this could be a muscle-saver for those of us who are unseeing or partially sighted.

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World Book Day : 23rd April

World Book Day is coming up on the 23 April. This international event organised by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) got its start in Spain in 1923, where the commemoration of Miguel de Cervantes’ death by local booksellers combined with the celebration of St. George’s Day to create a new traditional exchange of flowers and… books.

The intent of World Book Day according to the UNESCO :
By celebrating this Day throughout the world, UNESCO seeks to promote reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright.

MR member Saladdin proposes we try to think of ways to make ebooks part of the celebration : for example, going back to the original Catalan tradition of booksellers offering a rose for every book purchased, and florists giving a small book with every rose purchased, and men offering roses to women who reply with a book, he proposes that we might give virtual roses for ebook purchases, or perhaps we could send e-roses to authors we appreciate (provided their work is available as ebooks, obviously ! ). Sounds like a nice idea to me !

So, how will you celebrate World Book Day ?

George Romero To Publish Two Original Zombie Novels

According to our horror loving neighbors at Dread Central, George Romero is in the final stages of negotiations with New York publishers, Grand Central Publishing, to bring readers two novels that would take place within the filmmaker’s "Dead" universe.

Considering this deal is still in negotiations it’s probably a little premature to get too invested in the idea of original Romero novel, but I must say the notion is intriguing. The few zombie novels I have read have all been pretty great and maybe some of Romero’s recent ideas that haven’t translated so well on film would be better served in print.

Another thing I should mention is that it sounds unclear as to whether Romero is actually the author of these books or is just presenting them under his banner. We’ll have to get clarification on that. If all goes well, the first book will be released in the summer of 2010.

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Michael Whelan, Others To Enter SF Museum Hall of Fame

The Science Fiction Museum and SF Hall of Fame have announced that the 2009 Hall of Fame inductees will be Edward L. Ferman, Frank R. Paul, Michael Whelan and Connie Willis.

The Hall of Fame ceremony will take place at 8 p.m. on June 27 at the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum in Seattle as part of the Science Fiction Awards Weekend. Christopher Moore, author of the vampire novel You Suck: A Love Story, will act as emcee.

Edward L. Ferman published The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from 1970-2000, and also acted as its editor from 1964 through 1991. He won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor from 1981 through 1983.

Frank R. Paul‘s artwork appeared on the cover of the first issue of Amazing Stories in 1926, and he drew dozens of other covers for the magazine during the 1920s. He was also the cover artist of 1939′s Marvel Comics #1, the first-ever Marvel Comic.

Michael Whelan‘s artwork has appeared on hundreds of book and magazine covers, for which he has won 16 Hugo Awards, 11 Chesley Awards and countless other honors. Among his notable covers are those for Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series, Michael Moorcock’s Elric books and Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series.

Connie Willis is the author of the Hugo Award-winning novels Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog. She has won 10 Hugo Awards and six Nebula Awards.

Check the Science Fiction Museum website for further information on the Hall of Fame Awards ceremony and to purchase tickets to the event.

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