Continuing what I hope will be a trend here at Stainless Steel Droppings throughout the year, I present to you my Wrap Up for the month of February. The end of the month also saw the “official” end of the Sci Fi Experience 2010. After my review of February I will post a wrap up for the Experience which includes a place for you to link to if you plan to do a Sci Fi Experience Wrap Up on your site. Feel free to do so in the comments section as well.
February did not see a big drop-off on my reading production, a fact for which I am grateful. I read 8 books (I’m considering the cover to cover read of Asimov’s as a book). The breakdown is as follows:
The Love We Share Without Knowing ~Christopher Barzak
–published 2008
–Bantam Books
–288 pages
–Best Novel Nebula nomination for upcoming 2009 Nebula Awards; 2008 James Tiptree Jr. Award Honor List
–4/5 stars
Ever since the sad but understandable retirement of Endicott Studio and the Journal for Mythic Arts I am sorry to say that I have not maintained the strong awareness I used to cultivate of the authors and artists who continue to keep the movement alive. For those of you who have, the name Christopher Barzak is probably a familiar one, as his short fiction has been published with the work of many of the big names in mythic fiction over the last few years. If it were not for the recent list of Nebula nominations, my ignorance of Barzak’s work would have continued. As it was, I found myself in my local library on Friday, tracking down a copy of his latest book, The Love We Share Without Knowing. My assumptions based on the cover art and story synopsis made me curious about what seemed like an odd nomination for an award that is generally given to more obvious genre fiction.
“When the chairman introduced the guest speaker as a former illegal alien, I got up from my chair and yelled, “What’s the matter, no jobs on Mars?” When no one laughed, I was real embarrassed. I don’t think people should make you feel that way.”
~Jack Handy
The Red Planet. Its unexplored mystery has been the inspiration for stories for time out of mind. And even now, when remote controlled rovers allow us to vicariously step onto its rust-coloured surface, it remains a focal point for wonder and imagination.
The month is fast approaching which shares a namesake with the planet and while the science fictional fire continues to burn bright (and since the Once Upon a Time IV Challenge doesn’t officially start until the 21st) I thought it might be a fun idea to focus at least some of my March reading on the red planet itself. In considering this idea I thought it might be fun to put together a list of novels and short stories centered around Mars. Which is where I need your help. Now I know I could probably just Google “Mars stories” and come up with a list, but where is the fun in that? I prefer the conversational aspects of list making. What follows are the books/stories that came to mind as I contemplated this post.
Mother Nature, sensing my need to feed my classic science fiction jones, provided me with perfect reading weather this weekend: ice and snow. After returning from the early morning showing of Shutter Island we shut ourselves in for the weekend as the weather turned quite nasty. I chose to embrace the situation by reading Robert A. Heinlein’s classic, Farmer in the Sky on Saturday, followed up by a Sunday reading of the Cordwainer Smith short story collection, You Will Never Be the Same.
Listen carefully…can you hear that? That, my dear friends, is the sound of a deep sigh of satisfaction birthed from a weekend immersed in great stories. Let me tell you about them…
When it comes to the horror/suspense/thriller genre of films, I prefer work like The Others and The Orphanage to that of Friday the Thirteenth part 47 and Freddie Kills Jason’s Mother’s Favorite German Shepherd. Give me something creepy and filled with atmosphere over slasher gore any day. I am especially a sucker for any story set in an old insane asylum. The true horror of what used to be done to people in the name of mental health care coupled with locales that, when abandoned, are as creepy as they come ratchets my interest level way up. So when I saw the trailer for Martin Scorsese’s latest film, it mattered not to me that it starred the ‘sometimes good, sometimes not-so-good’ Leonardo DiCaprio or that it was being released during the months of the year where all bad films go to die. I knew I had to see it in the theater, and Saturday morning found me doing just that.
