Beyond the Speculative Horizon

In case you weren't aware (and let's face it you are), Speculative Horizons is closing up shop. As such, I wanted to bid James a fond farewell and just say thanks for a lot of quality content over the past few years. Speculative Horizons really sets the bar when it came to emphasizing quality over quantity and based on the overflowing comment thread, I'm not the only one who thinks so. Speculative Horizons was one of the few blogs whose entries that I could read from start to finish and unfortunately one that won't easily be replaced. James is an excellent writer and his commentary is honest and concise where so many of us (myself included) write a lot without saying much. James hits the high notes without being overzealous and manages to provide criticism without it reading like an attack. Anyone who has struggled through writing a few dozen reviews will know how difficult that is.

Luckily, James isn't walking away because he lost his love for the game. Quite the opposite in fact. James is giving up his amateur status and taking an assistant editorial position at Orbit Books. I don't think I'm the only blogger who is more than a little jealous. Orbit has picked up a talented individual and one that can both cut to the core of a book and professionally communicate his opinions on it. They are also inheriting about as much genre cred as you can get in a blogger. I know I would trust anything he might pull from the slush pile. While Speculative Horizons is ending it's run, I don't think this will be the last we will hear from Mr. Long. At least I hope it's not.

Anyway, congrats to James on the new job and thanks again for putting in the hard work over the past few years. Best of luck and may the words come easily!

Two Interesting "On Blogging" Discussions

My Dream Home...

Sorry for my relative absence this week but I am currently in the midst of planning a wedding, buying a home, working twelve hours days at the day job, not to mention reading so I have something to talk about here and all that eating and sleeping nonsense.

So I don't have the time to get into anything at length at the moment but there are a few interesting discussions out there which I hope to address later.

This first is Harry (of Temple Library Reviews) and his response to Mark Charan's original response to Gav's (of Next Read) question "How Many Books are Too Many?"

Gav's Original Post with Mark Charan Newton's thoughts
Harry's Response and Thoughts

I tend to agree with Harry but more on this later. It's an interesting discussion, head over there are check it out. Plus both of these blogs are definitely worth checking out in and of themselves.

The second is from recent new blogger (look at me talking like I've been here for more than 7 months), Niall (The Speculative Scotsman). He's faced his first negative review and come out from the ordeal with a few thoughts to share. I'm still thinking them over but needless to say the first bad review is a baptism for book blogging.

I think that Niall's blog sucks but thats like 101% jealousy. He's got a much better grasp on language than I do. His being an english major and my being a mechanical engineer might have something to do with it but that doesn't make it any less true.

So yeah. I'm working on some stuff (preparing a unique well-informed post takes time) and I'm working on life. And I finished Book #2 of Kay Kenyon's Entire and the Rose so on to Book 3! I may take a brief detour into something else but its definitely a series worth finishing.

Underread/Underrated Authors

Working on some pieces behind the scenes so nothing new tonight. I did want to point out an interesting discussion at Tor.com (as a result of a question posted by James Nicoll on his livejournal.

The basic question is:

It’s easy to moan about bestsellers you don’t like, but who are the authors that should be getting the sales and the attention and yet remain obscure?

If you head on over to Tor.com there are plenty of interesting names to check out. Not suprisingly I haven't heard of many of them.

If I had to put my own penny-penny into the mix, I would say Timothy Zahn. He's always been an SF favorite of mine whose science fiction is overlooked because of his tie-in work with the Star Wars sequence. His Conquerors' Saga is still one of the best space operas I've ever read. I think I finished 1000 pages in two days or something like that. And his Manta's Gift novel is Avatar set on a gas giant.

The same holds true for Karen Traviss. Her work in Star Wars exposed me to some of her other work, most notably the Wess'Har Books. It's very interesting space opera/military SF stuff if you're into that. Traviss is a bit of an odd duck, not doing interviews and not reading fiction (?!?) but her stuff is too good to let a little thing like that get in the way. I think that tie-in fiction turns a lot of people off from a lot of good authors but thats another conversation for another day.

There are some other names I could suggest like Mary Robinette Kowal, Daniel Abraham, or Daryl Gregory but they are all still fairly new to the game. Kowal is more underwritten than underread at this point in her career and I can't wait to see more. Abraham does have 6 novels out (that I can think of) so maybe he falls into the criminally underrated category. I have a feeling that once The Dagger and The Coin finally sees the light of day that a lot of people are going to take notice. Gregory only has two books but you have a responsibility to read them if you enjoy things that are supremely enjoyable. Or maybe thats just me.

Damn it. I guess I did have something to say after all.

SciFi Group Think: Best Book Endings

Last week, I participated in a "Inside the Blogosphere" group think via John Ottinger III over at Grasping For The Wind. The question of the week His question was "What are the best endings in science fiction/fantasy novels?"
My response was:

Ender’s Game hands down. The implications of the ending are just incredible. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it makes the book because the rest of it is so good but the ending really completes Ender’s character and takes his internal conflict to a new level. I don’t want to get into specifics but if you haven’t read it, you need to.

Other SF stories with great endings…I Am Legend, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Dune Not a whole lot come to mind. Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl had a great ending but I’m just in love with that book in general. A lot of Science Fiction is about the ideas and the set-up. I find myself a little let down more often than not.


In terms of Fantasy, there are so many unfinished series or series where quality has dropped off that it’s hard to really think of a solid ending. Joe Abercrombie’s Last Argument of Kings has one of the most memorable Fantasy endings I’ve read in the past few years. It’s memorable because it takes the standard Fantasy cliche endings and slits their throat with a rusty dagger. A lot of people have mixed feelings on the ending because it was so atypical but that’s what I found so refreshing. Not to mention the fact that the whole worldview the reader sees suddenly explodes into something entirely different. Paradoxically, I found it that it left me both extremely satisfied and hungry for more. 

My answer (and many others) were posted earlier today here. Head on over to see all of the other great responses.