This Week in Google Alerts: misc

Every year since 1966, The Nebula Awards Showcase has presented the award winning and nominated stories, novellas and poems for the Nebula Awards, which are presented by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America?. While Mike Resnick is the chair of the anthology committee, a different editor is chosen each time. This year's editor is Kij Johnson, author of three books and and associate director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas....Another favorite in the collection is by new Grand Master Gene Wolfe. The Grand Master is a lifetime achievement award and Wolfe certainly has earned it. The story he selected to represent his work in the anthology is "Christmas Inn," and it has the layers of meaning in a deceptively straight-forward narrative that one expects from Wolfe...In addition to these entries, the anthology includes two essays about Gene Wolfe by Neil Gaiman and Michael Dirda and several poems which won specialty awards.

Seven Lions at Marquee Dayclub A group of lions is called a pride; former metal drummer Jeff Montalvo is now called Seven Lions, a name pulled from Gene Wolfe’s fantasy novel Latro in the Mist. The DJ/producer (and Game of Thrones fan) will bring his progressive dubstep sound to a sunny setting this weekend at Cosmo’s party pool.

...Although this has moments of obscurity and some of the political subtext is slightly naive, this proves to be one of Wolfe’s more accessible novels as we slowly discover more about this country and its political system. There are some quite pleasing aspects to the investigation itself and the process of deduction is moderately rigorous. I suppose one more cynical responses to this narrative might be to see it as a dream. Our hero falls asleep as the train approaches the border and what happens after that is just the product of his subconscious. This would help explain the sometimes quite arbitrary way in which our narrator skips over events and sometimes refuses to elaborate on the bare bones of description offered. Since no country this backward exists in Europe (North Korea might approximate this level of poverty both in political and material terms) and no-one today seriously believes in vampires or supernatural devices such as a hand of glory, we could safely treat this as an allegory. Yet, there always comes a moment when our narrators wake. This could be when the border guards invade his compartment on the train, or it might be as the last page turns. You should read the book to find out. _The Land