I meant to get this done earlier but catching up from my trip and other sundry items interfered. Anyway:
- There’s a bit of a dustup here and there over a Readercon panel on reviewing in the blogosphere. I attended that panel and, like some commenters to one of the linked posts, felt blog reviews (as opposed to reviews in online publications) were viewed with disdain and perhaps even distaste. There seemed to be a feeling — with which I disagreed at the panel — that blog reviews are dashed off in a few minutes with little or no thought. That certainly isn’t the case with any of the reviews here. Plainly, there was a preference for reviews that are subject to review by an editor but that generally isn’t going to happen on the quintessential blog — done by one or two people who write and edit their own material. To a great extent, this is a genre-specific discussion of a recent wide debate.
- I returned from Readercon having purchased seven books, five of which were autographed or inscribed. I’ve read two already since my return and highly recommend Elizabeth Hand’s Generation Loss. It is not SF or fantasy but what I would call a wonderfully written neo-punk mystery.
- Authors David Louis Edelman and Kay Kenyon had favorable things to say about their experience at the con. Editor/writer Ian Randall Strock provides a report on it at his SFScope while Kate Nepveu has collected plenty of links.
- Paul Di Fillipo has posted the “canon” of slipstream fiction he and other members of a panel on the subject came up with. I’m not a big fan of calling stuff slipstream but the list is well worth exploring.
Historically when people have been scared and people have been nervous, there’s been an uptick in science-fiction, fantasy and horror. …. It’s a way to talk about what’s going on, but from a sideways angle.
David Goyer, September 2005
