Tor.com, July 2011 by Thomas Hardman

July's selection of short stories from Tor include one fantasy, and two other tales which both seem to be children's literature. Yet seeming can be deceiving, and although probably one might read these to their children with no harm done, this is adult fare. In “Dala Horse”, Michael Swanwick offers us a fairly short story...

An interview with Lavie Tidhar by Elizabeth Allen

Lavie Tidhar is an award-winning genre writer of Israeli origin. I asked him about his short fiction, one of his most recent novel-length works, Osama, the World Fantasy Award-nominated World SF blog, and his role with the World SF Travel Fund. Q: How do you use your short fiction? What does it do for you...

Dukaj, Basu coming to a bookshop near you!

We've recently found a couple of exciting announcements - Wikipedia reports that Polish writer Jacek Dukaj's novel Ice, widely considered one of the best science fiction novels to be published in Poland, will be getting an English language edition from Atlantic Books in the UK. The book is scheduled for 2012. And John Berlyne of...

South African SF/F Panel

The South African Mail & Guardian reports on the recent science fiction and fantasy in the city panel from the M&G literary festival in Johannesburg: South African writers who dare to venture into the fantastical are accused of writing "untruths", said Gwen Ansell, chairing "Science Fiction and Fantasy in the City" at the M&G Literary...

The African Batman?

Bombastic Element reports on a new DC superhero - Batwing, "spawned from Bruce Wayne's desire to franchise the Batman name across the globe." Batwing's name is David Zamvimbi from Tinasha in the DRC and he will be wearing the cape for the time being as "Africa's Batman". Batwing Issue #1was part of DC comics' historic relaunch of 52...

Monday Original Content: Brittain Barber reviews Ogawa Issui’s The Lord of the Sands of Time

The Lord of the Sands of Time Ogawa Issui  Reviewed by Brittain Barber I am going to go ahead and assume that no readers out there are currently wondering what would happen if aliens invaded ancient Japan, or how time traveling cyborgs would fight them off. Even if the cyborgs had been skipping through time...

Friday Original Content: Safe Exoticism, Part 2 — Culture

by Athena Andreadis; originally posted at Starship Reckless. Note: This 2-part article is an expanded version of the talk I gave at Readercon 2011. It appeared at the same time as overlapping discussions by Cora Buhlert and Aliette de Bodard. Perhaps this means the time is ripe for change. Part 1: Science Recently, I read...

2011 Seiun Award Winners

Locus reports on the 2011 Seiun Award winners: Winners of the 2011 Seiun Awards, the Japanese equivalent to the Hugos, were announced at Donbura Con L, the 50th Japanese Science Fiction Convention, Sept 3-4, 2011. Japanese Novel: Kyonen wa Ii Toshi ni Narudarou (Last Year Was Probably a Good Year), Yamamoto Hiroshi Japanese Short Story: “Arisuma-oo no Aishita...

Lao Steampunk: A theoretical approach

Lao-American writer Bryan Thao Worra has a post on the possibilities of Lao steampunk: In real life, the industry could not be sustained due to financial issues and social upheaval in the region. But what would have happened if things had been successful?  The outcome of the Nguyen-France War in what is now modern Vietnam...

The Immersion Book of Steampunk

Here's the table of contents for new anthology The Immersion Book of Steampunk, edited by Gareth D. Jones and Carmelo Rafala and published by Immersion Press. International contributors include Aliette de Bodard, Jacques Barcia, Anatoly Belilovsky and Lavie Tidhar. Table of contents: “Follow That Cathedral!” by Gareth Owens “The Machines of the Nehphilim” by James Targett “The...