In May I created a prop book for a movie currently in production. I’ve designed and created props for some big Hollywood blockbusters over the years, but this is decidedly not one of those, thankfully. It’s a small independent film by a first time writer/director named Steve Smith, starring unknowns. Hearing that was enough to get me intrigued, but when Steve sent me part of the script, I knew I had to work on this.

The working title for the film is “The House at the End of the Lane.” It’s set in the first half of the 20th century, starting out in 1918. It has elements of horror, occult, and mystery, but basically it’s a tragedy—the story of a man who has lost something so dear to him he will go to any lengths to regain it. He eventually sets in motion a series of events that leads to a catastrophe far worse than his original loss.

Read more at Tor.com: Walpurgisnacht, the handbook.

I wish I could have been at WorldCon just to see Neil and Cory together!  I know I am a nerd.  Not metal at all…what can say…

On Saturday at WorldCon, Guest of Honor Neil Gaiman read Cory Doctorow’s short story “The Right Book” to a full house for later audio release with an upcoming self-published project. During the question and answer session afterward, the subject of giving digital work away for free came up.

via Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / Gaiman and Doctorow Discuss Giving It Away.

Anathem is a hugely ambitious book that does indeed fail in some of what it’s trying to do. Where it succeeds it succeeds so brilliantly that I don’t care whether the physics makes sense or even whether there are any female characters. What Anathem is attempting is to write about the whole development of science and philosophy in a world similar but different from ours, and then extend it forward from here to cover four thousand more years of future. He does this in a way that’s utterly immersive and absorbing—in the first person point-of-view of an appealingly obsessive geeky young man. Stephenson sets up the world of the Maths, closed communities of geek-minded people who take themselves out of the world in the manner of monasteries, but instead of worshipping God they’re withdrawing to study abstract science. He makes this absolutely fascinating and absorbing with detail piled on detail—the one year Maths, the ten year ones, the century ones, the mysterious Millenial ones that only open once a century, and did I mention that the monasteries are also giant clocks that have to be wound?—and then he tells a first contact story set in that world. But the main thing the book is doing is showing how science itself works, the scientific method, and how that is in itself exciting and engaging and fun. That’s a real achievement.

Read the rest of the Review at  Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / 2009 Hugo Best Novel Nominee Spotlight: Anathem, by Neal Stephenson.

The thing about it though is that it’s such a compelling read. The first time I read it, I literally didn’t put it down. I started reading it in bed one night and kept on reading it until 2am. This time I did manage to put it down, just about, but I still zipped through it at top speed. (It’s not as much fun reading something in manuscript as you probably think. You have to wait months to talk to other people about it, which turns out to be just as bad as waiting to read it yourself.)

via Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / 2009 Hugo Best Novel Nominee Spotlight: Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow.

Share and Enjoy:

]]> http://victhortheviking.com/2009/08/03/tor-com-science-fiction-and-fantasy-blog-posts-2009-hugo-best-novel-nominee-spotlight-little-brother-by-cory-doctorow/feed/ 0