Waterstones fail to recognise female fantasy authors

Fantasy author Foz Meadows recently published this article, in which she challenged the failure of Waterstones (the UK's only remaining nationwide chain of bookstores) to recognise female fantasy authors - or SF authors for that matter - in their 2012 literature on the SFF genre. No less than 113 authors are listed in the booklet but only nine of them are female, which is rather an eyebrow-raising imbalance.

Could do better.

Juliet E. McKenna expands on this by claiming to have seen lots of "If you like George R.R. Martin, why not try..."-style lists in bookshops, almost invariably consisting solely of male authors. Apparently, when she challenged one bookshop on why this was so, she was told "Women don't write epic fantasy." This is blatantly untrue, and it was rather idiotic of them to say so to an author with no less than fifteen epic fantasy novels under her belt. Indeed, when people have asked me what authors they should be reading after getting hooked on the likes of Martin or Abercrombie or Lynch, I often surprise myself with how many of the recommendations that come to mind are women.

So, without further ado, here is a brief list of female epic fantasy authors you should check out if you've gotten hooked on the genre via Martin or Game of Thrones:

Robin Hobb

Robin Hobb, aka Megan Lindholm (both pen-names of Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden), writes trilogies featuring epic battles and magical creatures (including dragons), but is resolutely focused on her characters. She enjoys writing characters who have their own motivations which make sense to them, no matter how they are painted as heroes or villains by others. Martin is a huge fan, as is Steven Erikson, and she has enjoyed a lengthy and prolific career. In fact, Martin has cited Hobb's use of animal magic as one of several influences on the warging in A Song of Ice and Fire.

Her best-known works are the five sub-series set in the Realm of the Elderlings, comprising the Farseer, Liveship Traders and Tawny Man trilogies and the Rain Wild Chronicles quartet, plus a forthcoming series currently planned to be a trilogy, The Fitz and the Fool. Hobb broke away from this series to write an unrelated work, The Soldier Son Trilogy, which was not as well-received. Writing under the pen name Megan Lindholm, she also wrote ten earlier books, mostly aimed at younger readers.

Key works
The Farseer Trilogy: Assassin's Apprentice (1995), Royal Assassin (1996), Assassin's Quest (1997)
The Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic (1998), The Mad Ship (1999), Ship of Destiny (2000)
The Tawny Man Trilogy: Fool's Errand (2001), The Golden Fool (2002), Fool's Fate (2003)
The Soldier Son Trilogy: Shaman's Crossing (2005), Forest Mage (2006), Renegade's Magic (2008)
The Rain Wild Chronicles: Dragon Keeper (2009), Dragon Haven (2010), City of Dragons (2011), Blood of Dragons (2011)
The Fitz and the Fool: The Fool's Assassin (2014)

Kate Elliott

Kate Elliott is the pen-name of Alis A. Ramussen, under which name she published a fantasy, The Labyrinth Gate and an SF series, The Highroad Trilogy. After apparently disappointing early sales, she changed her writing name and returned with the SF Jaran series in the early 1990s. This was more successful and she has followed it up with a series of epic fantasies, including her more recent work, the Crossroads and Spiritwalker series.

However, Elliott's largest and best-known series is Crown of Stars, a seven-volume epic published between 1997 and 2006. If Martin's Song of Ice and Fire depicts a world set at the tail end of the medieval period, with armies in the tens of thousands, shining knights and full plate armour, Crown of Stars is set at the opposite end, when any army larger than a thousand is huge and kings tour their countries on endless processions rather than being tied to single capitals. Heavily influenced by real medieval European history (to the point where Crown of Stars can also be called an alternate history based on 9th and 10th Century Germany and Eastern Europe), Elliott weaves a large number of storylines focusing on themes such as war, chivalry religion and gender issues without dialling back (though also not over-emphasising) on the brutality of the period. Perhaps slightly overlong, but also genuinely thought-provoking.

Crossroads, which will eventually encompass at least seven novels set across three generations, is also interesting. Set in a world not based explicitly on any period of real history, it features a number of carefully-created original cultures clashing for control of a land called the Hundred. The original Crossroads trilogy will be followed by a new book later this year, The Black Wolves, set some years later.

Key works
The Golden Key (1996, with Melanie Rawn and Jennifer Roberson)
The Jaran Series: Jaran (1992), An Earthly Crown (1993), His Conquering Sword (1993), The Law of Becoming (1994)
Crown of Stars: King's Dragon (1997), Prince of Dogs (1998), The Burning Stone (1999), Child of Flame (2000), The Gathering Storm (2003), In the Ruins (2005), Crown of Stars (2006)
Crossroads: Spirit Gate (2007), Shadow Gate (2008), Traitors' Gate (2009), The Black Wolves (2014)
Spiritwalker: Cold Magic (2010), Cold Fire (2011), Cold Steel (2013)

Elizabeth Bear

Elizabeth Bear is an author I'm only recently acquainted with, thanks to her superb Eternal Sky Trilogy. However, she has published many novels in several different subgenres (including SF and urban fantasy), including her acclaimed Iskryne series, co-written with Sarah Monette.

The Eternal Sky trilogy is an epic fantasy set on an alternate version of the central Asian steppes, with a race of nomadic tribesmen who recall George R.R. Martin's Dothraki. However, whilst the Dothraki are (partly) based on the Asian nomads at the very start of their expansion and rise to power, Bear's series deals with a far more sophisticated and subtle people, depicted as intelligent warriors and capable engineers rather than just hordes of plunderers and rapists. It also features some intriguingly weird magic (the skies over each nation and culture are somehow different) and deliciously rich characterisation.

Key works
The Eternal Sky Trilogy: Range of Ghosts (2012), Shattered Pillars (2013), Steles of the Sky (2014)

J.V. Jones

Julie Victoria Jones hit the ground running with The Baker's Boy in 1995. Boosted by a Robert Jordan cover quote, it rapidly became one of the biggest-selling fantasy novels of the year and propelled her onto the bestseller lists. It was a rough novel, not unexpectedly for a debut, and she improved in leaps and bounds over the remainder of the Book of Words trilogy and a further stand-alone novel, The Barbed Coil. However, Jones found a different and far more sophisticated level of writing ability with her Sword of Shadows series, a decade and a half in the making and still incomplete.

Sword of Shadows is a (very loose) sequel to The Book of Words and picks up the story of the daughter of the previous trilogy's hero, as well as a whole host of new characters. It is set beyond the northern mountains in a bleak subarctic wilderness, heavily influenced by Scandinavia and the Inuit tribes. If you enjoyed those parts of A Song of Ice and Fire set beyond the Wall, this series is for you, with descriptions of snow and ice so vivid you may want to wrap up warm before reading. Unfortunately, Jones also seems to be emulating Martin's five-year gaps between volumes, but this is one of those series where the books are worth the long waits.

Key works
The Barbed Coil (1998)
The Book of Words: The Baker's Boy (1995), A Man Betrayed (1996), Master and Fool (1997)
The Sword of Shadows: A Cavern of Black Ice (1999), A Fortress of Grey Ice (2002), A Sword from Red Ice (2007), Watcher of the Dead (2010), Endlords (forthcoming)

N.K. Jemisin

N.K. Jemisin is a relative newcomer, but made her mark on the genre with The Inheritance Trilogy (no, not that one) and the Dreamblood duology. The latter - which regrettably is so far all I've read - is set in a fantasised take on Egypt that completely avoids cliche: no cat-headed people fighting sphinxes, thankfully. Instead, it's a well-thought-out, intelligent take on the fantasy genre and its conventions about religion, power and gender roles, whilst also being a kick-arse adventure story set in a fantasy world refreshingly not based on Medieval Europe. Her next book, The Fifth Season, is out later this year.

Key works
The Fifth Season (2014)
The Inheritance Trilogy: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), The Broken Kingdoms (2010), The Kingdom of Gods (2011)
The Dreamblood: The Killing Moon (2012), The Shadowed Sun (2012)

K.J. Parker

Okay, a slightly controversial one given that K.J. Parker's true identity and therefore gender is not known ('K.J. Parker' is a pseudonym for another, known author). I've certainly been told by one of Parker's publishers that she is a she, whilst someone else I know has been told by a different one of Parker's publishers that he is a he. Proceeding on the balance of proof (what the publisher told me plus old interviews with Parker), I'm assuming that Parker is in fact female.

Parker's first novel was Colours in the Steel, published in 1997. It depicted the siege and assault on an advanced city by a collection of plains-dwelling nomads fed up with the city impugning on their existence. The novel was notable for featuring an epic fantasy take on legal systems (with sword-wielding lawyers defending their clients in single combat) as well as a tremendously detailed account of engineering matters, such as how to build siege engines. The novel's two sequels, however, opened up this story into a more ambitious story about families, revenge and insanity. The Fencer Trilogy is a good read, and is notable for plot twists and unexpected deaths that even Martin might think are a bit on the bloody side.

After two further trilogies, Parker switched gears in 2007 to write a series of stand-alone novels instead (although there are some hints that all thirteen of her novels to date are set on the same world). These new books featured a mercenary company (The Company), a setting influenced by Ancient Rome (The Folding Knife) and a new take on sword-fighting and fencing (in Sharps). A new novel, Savages, will arrive next year.

Parker is bloody, brutal and cynical, but her books are also well-written, impressively-characterised and surprisingly subtle, not to mention often laugh-out-loud hilarious, in a very dark kind of way.


Key works
The Company (2008)
The Folding Knife (2010)
The Hammer (2011)
Sharps (2012)
Savages (2015)
The Fencer Trilogy: Colours in the Steel (1998), The Belly of the Bow (1999), The Proof House (2000)
The Scavenger Trilogy: Shadow (2001), Pattern (2002), Memory (2003)
The Engineer Trilogy: Devices and Desires (2005), Evil for Evil (2006), The Escapement (2007)

Juliet E. McKenna

Juliet E. McKenna is a prominent member of the UK SFF community, noted for her role in the writing collective The Write Fantastic. She has penned (as mentioned above) fifteen fantasy novels in four series, though all set on the same world.

I read her debut novel, The Thief's Gamble (featuring a female thief and rogue), when it was first released and found it highly enjoyable. Unfortunately, I haven't read the rest of her books but look forward to doing so.

Key works
The Tales of Einarinn: The Thief's Gamble (1999), The Swordsman's Oath (1999), The Gambler's Fortune (2000), The Warrior's Bond (2001), The Assassin's Edge (2002)

The Aldabreshin Compass: Southern Fire (2003), Northern Storm (2004), Western Shore (2005), Eastern Tide (2006)
The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution: Irons in the Fire (2009), Blood in the Water (2010), Banners in the Wind (2010)
The Hadrumal Crisis: Dangerous Waters (2011), Darkening Skies (2012), Defiant Peaks (2012)

J.K. Rowling

You may have heard of her. And yes, I count her books as epic fantasy.

This is only scratching the surface here, so hit me with some more epic fantasies (or, sod it, fantasy in general) written by women in the comments.

So, there's a GORMENGHAST board game

That's pretty much it. Someone's taken Mervyn Peake's ornate, ultra-dense gothic fantasy and turned it into a board game.

Is it any good? No idea. But it does make me think that the days of the Book of the New Sun tactical miniatures game can't be far off.

Doctor Who at 50: The Missing Episodes

Update: Since posting this article, an additional nine episodes of Doctor Who have been recovered from Africa. I have amended the article to account for this.

Evil of the Daleks, which marked the final appearance of the Daleks in the black-and-white era and their last appearance for five years, is arguably the incomplete serial fans most want to see restored.

The Missing Episodes


As a Doctor Who fan, one of the most frustrating things is the inability to watch a complete run of the series. 97 episodes of the series - almost one-in-eight of the total number - are missing from the BBC archives.

How this came about is fairly straightforward. Back in the 1960s it was standard practice for the BBC to destroy their old film stock once they had no use for it, or to recycle it to record new programmes. There was no video market and repeats were very rare, due to the high cost of repeat rights. Programmes were meant to be watched once and then discarded. The idea of holding onto the complete run of a TV series for archiving or heritage reasons would be baffling to TV executives of the day. There was almost no dedicated storage space for the videotapes or film cans either, so their destruction was necessary once the existing storage space had been exhausted.

Between 1967 and 1978 the BBC carried out a purge of their archives, destroying hundreds of episodes of classic TV series. As well as Doctor Who, episodes from series such as Z-Cars, Dad's Army and Steptoe and Son were wiped. The practice was halted in 1978 by Doctor Who's own nascent organised fandom. Fan Ian Levine (who later served as a fan consultant on the programme) led the effort to stop the junking of the old material, apparently personally preventing the very first Dalek story from being destroyed. In response to both the fan outcry and also the infant technology of home video-playing, which offered a lucrative way of exploiting old material, the BBC halted its policy of destroying old material. Indeed, they almost immediately began attempting to recover those episodes that had been destroyed for commercial exploitation.

Fortunately, Doctor Who's popularity in the 1960s and 1970s - though a far cry from its global reach today - extended to many overseas territories. Copies of episodes had been sent to the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Australia, Cyprus and numerous African countries, amongst others. By mounting a determined effort, both the BBC and individual fans (including Levine) managed to recover copies of many of the missing or destroyed episodes from overseas. Since 1978 an impressive 41 episodes believed lost forever have been recovered and returned to the archives.

However, that still leaves 106 episodes and 10 serials completely missing from the archives and a further 17 left partially incomplete. The missing episodes are completely restricted to the first six seasons (i.e. the run of William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton episodes), with the third through fifth seasons particularly badly afflicted. The full list of missing episodes is as follows:

Season 1
Marco Polo - all 7 episodes
The Reign of Terror - episodes 4 and 5

Season 2
The Crusade -  episodes 2 and 4

Season 3
Galaxy Four - episodes 1,2 and 4
Mission to the Unknown - 1 episode (the entire serial)
The Myth Makers - all 4 episodes
The Daleks' Master Plan - episodes 1, 3-4, 6-9, 11-12
The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve - all 4 episodes
The Celestial Toymaker - episodes 1, 2 and 3
The Savages - all 4 episodes

Season 4
The Smugglers - all 4 episodes
The Tenth Planet - episode 4
The Power of the Daleks - all 6 episodes
The Highlanders - all 4 episodes
The Underwater Menace - episodes 1 and 4
The Moonbase - episodes 1 and 3
The Macra Terror - all 4 episodes
The Faceless Ones - episodes 2, 4-6
The Evil of the Daleks - episodes 1, 3-7

Season 5
The Abominable Snowmen - episodes 1, 3-6
The Ice Warriors - episodes 2 and 3

The Web of Fear - episode 3
Fury from the Deep - all 6 episodes
The Wheel in Space - episodes 1-2, 4-5

Season 6
The Invasion - episodes 1 and 4
The Space Pirates - episodes 1, 3-6


Restoring Incomplete Serials

The first episode of The Invasion, restored through animation.

Due to the popularity of Doctor Who on DVD, the BBC has carried out restoration work to bridge the gap on serials where there is only an episode or two missing. The Reign of Terror, The Tenth Planet, The Moonbase, The Ice Warriors and The Invasion have had their missing episodes filled in with animations to replace the missing live-action material. However, DVD sales only make this practical for serials where they are only two missing episodes, meaning only a few more serials can be restored this way. This restoration work is only possible because Doctor Who fans, lacking VHS recorders in the 1960s, used home tape recorders to record the soundtrack of every episode. Copies of these soundtracks have been given to the BBC, meaning that every episode of the series does still exist on audio.


Future Prospects?


Rumours abound, of course, of the return of some of the missing episodes, bolstered by past events. In late 2011 it was confirmed that one episode apiece from Galaxy Four and The Underwater Menace had been recovered. In 1992 many Doctor Who fans were stunned when all four episodes of Tomb of the Cybermen (at that stage, the most critically-well-regarded missing story) were returned from Hong Kong and rush-released on VHS (at which point the critical assessment became more mixed). In the late 2000s paperwork confirmed that up to 20 missing episodes had been residing in a TV studio in Sierra Leone before it had been levelled in that nation's lengthy civil war. This information suggests that it is more than possible that copies of missing episodes may remain in existence in far-flung corners of the globe.

Work by fans and investigators have confirmed that many of the missing episodes had multiple copies made and sent around the world, making their survival and eventual return possible. However, the twelve-part mega-epic, The Daleks' Master Plan, was not widely sold abroad, presumably due to its extreme length. Three episodes from the epic have been recovered over the years and it is marginally possible that some of the 'viewing copies' sent to the broadcast companies for assessment may have survived, but otherwise it seems unlikely that many more episodes from this serial exist. That said, only Episode 7, 'The Feast of Steven' (the only Christmas-themed Doctor Who episode of the original series) was never sold or sent abroad at all, and thus is the only episode of Doctor Who that has been deemed lost forever and beyond recovery.

Last year rumours began circulating that a motherlode of missing episodes had been found. The Bleeding Cool website reported that sources within the BBC itself were claiming as many as ninety of the missing episodes had been located in the hands of a private collector. Investigations by Bleeding Cool, other websites and fan Ian Levine eventually led to the BBC and some of the personnel reportedly involved in the restoration work refuting that any new material had been found at all. However, rumours continue to circulate on the basis that the last two episodes to be found were kept under wraps for some time before being announced. This particular rumour falls into the 'too good to be true' category, but the hope remains that additional missing episodes of Doctor Who will be recovered in the future.

October Update
A few weeks after originally posting this article, the BBC confirmed that nine episodes - five episodes of The Enemy of the World (bringing the story to completion) and four of The Web of Fear (leaving it almost complete apart from its third episode) - had been returned to them from Nigeria. They rejected claims that more episodes had been found (the 'ninety' rumour as mentioned above) but various sources confirmed that the people involved in finding the episodes were chasing up fresh leads elsewhere in Africa. It is possible that this new search - which involves physically visiting and itemising some of these TV stations for the very first time - may yet turn up more missing material

Update on Paul Kearney's SEA-BEGGARS series

As long-term readers may recall, back in 2007 Bantam Books decided to drop Paul Kearney's nautical fantasy series The Sea-Beggars after two books, citing disappointing sales. Kearney was picked up by Solaris who published a new trilogy (the excellent Macht series) and reprinted his earlier, classic Monarchies of God series. The expectation was that, in time, Solaris would also be able to both reprint and complete The Sea-Beggars.

In March 2011 it was announced that this would indeed be the case: Solaris would reprint the two existing books, The Mark of Ran and This Forsaken Earth, in an omnibus complete with the brand-new third and concluding volume, provisionally entitled Storm of the Dead. To make this possible, the Bantam editions had to go out of print and Bantam had to agree to give the rights back to the author.

Unfortunately, since then there has been radio silence on the matter. It can now be confirmed that the Sea-Beggars omnibus is on indefinite hold, and may not appear at all. This is due to additional contractual and legal wrangling. Whilst Bantam UK gave up the rights as planned, Bantam Spectra in the USA refused. A check of Amazon.com reveals that the two existing Sea-Beggars books are still in-print and selling in the United States, which is presumably why Bantam Spectra have decided to hold onto the rights.

If the books are still selling well enough in the USA for Bantam to want to hold onto them, this would theoretically suggest that they might be interested in publishing the third and concluding volume as a stand-alone novel. However, this is apparently not the case. If the books are not selling well enough to warrant Bantam publishing a third volume, then it is unclear why they would want to hold onto the rights to prevent the series being completed elsewhere. If the series is selling well enough to warrant hanging onto the rights, then it is unclear why Bantam would not be interested in publishing a third volume as well. As it stands, it appears that the fans who have been waiting seven years for a conclusion to this series will have to keep waiting due to the inscrutable machinations of publishing houses.

On the bright side, Solaris are reprinting Paul's first three, stand-alone novels starting in January. Here's an art blog where they talk about the process of the creating the splendid cover art to A Different Kingdom. We may also get some news on new material next year as well.

George R.R. Martin smashes up a guitar; Neil Gaiman approves

At this year's Comic-Con, humorous geek-musicians Paul and Storm performed a rendition of their well-known song 'Write Like the Wind', a plea to George R.R. Martin to write the next Song of Ice and Fire book as fast as possible.

This then happened (filmed by Veronica Belmont from the Sword and Laser podcast):

GRRM is rock and roll. Who knew? Apart from everyone who's read The Armageddon Rag, that is.

French government to seize copyright on out-of-print books published before 2001

A curious French plan known as 'reLIRE' is in the offing which could have serious consequences for authors - SFF or otherwise - who have published books in French prior to 2001.

Under this plan, if you published a novel, novella or short story in France prior to 2001 and it is now out of print, the work would now be considered 'orphaned'. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France is placing all such works on an online database. Writers and copyright-holders have six months to check the list and register that the story is still in copyright. If they do not, the works will be auctioned off to publishers to use as they see fit, with them keeping almost all of any resulting profits.

If you do have such works, you have to fill out a form (currently only available in French) and provide a valid French ID card number or a passport number. If you don't have a passport, tough. If you don't spot the story on the database in the first six months, tough. If the author has died and his or her family or heirs fail to act on any of this, tough.

So far, works by SFF authors including Robert Silverberg, George Alec Effinger, Ursula LeGuin, Samuel R Delany, Vonda McIntyre, and Roger Zelazny have been found on the database.

The initial database list was issued on 21 March. This means that authors, their representatives and heirs have only four months from now, until 21 September, to act on the issue or risk losing control of their works in France.

More on this alarming story here and from the Science Fiction Writers of America here.

HOMEWORLD IP bought by Gearbox

Redoubtable shooter developers Gearbox have, for reasons still not yet adequately explained, bought the rights to the Homeworld series of space-based strategy games for a cool $1.35 million. They outbid strategy specialists Stardock and Paradox to get the rights. Given Gearbox's recent mishandling of the Alien licence and their release of the terrible Duke Nuke'Em Forever, the news generated the following reaction amongst the Homeworld fanbase:

Once the initial shock wore off, it appeared that Gearbox are primarily interested in updating the existing games for re-release on modern PCs (and possibly other formats). Whilst the money spent indicates they will be pursuing a fourth game in the series, they have also indicated a willingness to talk to other companies about it. There is some hope that they might talk to Blackbird Interactive, where quite a few of the original Homeworld developers ended up to work on a new strategy game called Hardware. Another company, Team Pixel, had also put a lot of work into a possible iOS-based version of the game, which I imagine Gearbox would be very interested in.

Confusingly, the purchase only includes the rights to Homeworld and Homeworld 2. The fate of the rights to Homeworld: Cataclysm (the best of the three games in the series) seems to be unknown at present.

Update: The original Homeworld creators at Blackbird have congratulated Gearbox and released some unseen concept art about the game. Blackbird also indicated they would be open to talking to Gearbox about any future project. Gearbox outsourcing a Homeworld 3 to Blackbird (the same way that Bethesda outsourced Fallout: New Vegas to Obsidian, where most of the original Fallout creators had ended up) would be a very smart move indeed.

Microsoft and NBC may resurrect HEROES

There are many TV shows that have ended before their time and fans want to see them back. Squarely not amongst that number is NBC's Heroes. Airing for four seasons in 2006-10, Heroes was infamous for having an excellent first season and then suffering a catastrophic collapse in quality. When the show finally slinked off the air, few people cared.

However, Microsoft and NBC are in discussions to resurrect the show. The thinking is to bring it back as a Netflix-style on-demand series, a bit like House of Cards, but which will air exclusively on Microsoft's download service. This service will launch with the next X-Box (but will probably also be available via the existing X-Box 360) and form part of Microsoft's multimedia-device strategy for their new machine.

Whilst a nice idea, I don't think a new Heroes - even one with a mostly new cast and possibly new producers - is the show to do it with. The show's reputation is in shambles and its return would not really excite that many people. Microsoft would be better off partnering with, say, SyFy and maybe trying to bring a different type of superhero show to the screen...

Now that might work.

Microsoft creative director tells people to go buy PlayStations

Well, as good as. 

Adam Orth is a creative director at Microsoft Studios and a fairly influential voice within the company. Strong rumours have been circulated for a while that Durango - the codename for the next X-Box - will require an always-on Internet connection, in contrast to its rival, the PlayStation 4, which will not. Gamers have been grumbling about this, with many diehard X-Box fans saying they will switch to PlayStation for the next generation if the next X-Box is online only.

Orth took to Twitter to criticise people for not having an always-on connection, stating that they "should definitely get with the times and get the Internet. It's awesome." When Manveer Heir, a senior designer at BioWare, pointed out that some people live in rural areas with spotty or no Internet connections, Orth expressed bewilderment than anyone would want to live in such areas. Other issues, such as many Internet companies imposing crippling bandwidth restrictions on users which would prevent them downloading entire games or even playing multiplayer on their consoles, were not discussed.

Orth has been thoroughly condemned for his remarks, though Microsoft's reaction was bizarre. Aaron Greenberg, a chief of staff at Microsoft well-known for his accessibility via Twitter, even said he didn't know who Orth was (which in a company as large as Microsoft is actually possible, but he should have perhaps resorted to a five-second Google search before replying). Heir later took to Twitter explaining that Orth is "a good guy," and that his remarks have been overreacted to, though by this time the damage was done.

Always-online requirements remain controversial almost a decade after the first games appeared that required them. Internet infrastructure - especially in rural areas where millions of gamers still live - is simply not up to the job of managing always-online requirements and even where it is, companies still impose cripplingly low bandwidth restrictions. Dismissing a large swathe of customers in this manner is simply going to push them onto the PlayStation 4. With the dwindling number of Microsoft exclusives (they are pretty much left just with the Halo series and not much more), the reasons for buying the next X-Box over the PS4 are likewise becoming non-existent. Unless the next X-Box is comprehensively more powerful - or substantially cheaper - than the PS4, it looks like Sony might have the next gen in the bag already.

Indeed, there were a lot of happy faces at Sony this morning, as this tweet from Sony CEO Kaz Hirai indicates:

Awesome.

UPDATE: Bah, the Sony CEO Twitter reply was from a parody account. Still funny though.

Iain Banks only has months to live

In an official statement, Scottish author Iain Banks has confirmed that he has only months to live after it was discovered he'd had cancer for several years without being diagnosed.

I am officially Very Poorly.

After a couple of surgical procedures, I am gradually recovering from jaundice caused by a blocked bile duct, but that – it turns out – is the least of my problems.

I first thought something might be wrong when I developed a sore back in late January, but put this down to the fact I’d started writing at the beginning of the month and so was crouched over a keyboard all day.  When it hadn’t gone away by mid February, I went to my GP, who spotted that I had jaundice.  Blood tests, an ultrasound scan and then a CT scan revealed the full extent of the grisly truth by the start of March.

I have cancer.  It started in my gall bladder, has infected both lobes of my liver and probably also my pancreas and some lymph nodes, plus one tumour is massed around a group of major blood vessels in the same volume, effectively ruling out any chance of surgery to remove the tumours either in the short or long term. The bottom line, now, I’m afraid, is that as a late stage gall bladder cancer patient, I’m expected to live for ‘several months’ and it’s extremely unlikely I’ll live beyond a year.  So it looks like my latest novel, The Quarry, will be my last.

Banks, 59, rose to prominence with the publication of his first, controversial novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984. In 1987 he began publishing science fiction under the cunningly impenetrable moniker 'Iain M. Banks' (M stands for Menzies), and has, for most of his career, alternated SF and non-SF work (although several of his non-SF works have strong genre elements). In SF he is best-known for his nine Culture novels, a sequence of stand-alone novels set in an AI-run, utopian interstellar society often forced to resort to shady activities to keep it safe. Banks has twice won the BSFA Award and has been nominated for the Locus and Hugo Awards. His novel The Crow Road has been adapted as a BBC mini-series, whilst Complicity has been made into a film.

Banks has approached the news with his traditional gallows humour and put the best spin possible on it, but by any standards this is devastating news. Definitely one of the British lit scene's most interesting authors (in any genre).

Gene Wolfe's BOOK OF THE NEW SUN to be a movie series

News has broken that Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun is to become a series of blockbuster Hollywood movies.

The four-volume series - actually one long, sustained novel split into four volumes due to length - is widely-regarded as one of the pinnacles of science fiction and fantasy literature, once described by The Guardian newspaper as SF's answer to Ulysses. A dense and complex tale, The Book of the New Sun follows the journey of a torturer, Severian, across a fantastical landscape to a distant city. Along the way he becomes a powerful figure, and the book suggests that Severian is an unreliable narrator who is changing aspects of his story for unknown purposes. The series has inspired significant discussion of its themes and complex characterisation since it was first published in 1980-83.

Handling the movie version will be veteran Hollywood director Michael Bay. Despite being best-known for his action movies featuring numerous and impressive explosions, Bay claims that the films will be extremely faithful to the books, and he will not sacrifice the books' subtle narrative aspects in favour of spectacle. "Plus I'm never going to get that Best Picture Award if I keep making films about Marky Mark talking to Optimus Prime, you know what I'm saying?"

Author Gene Wolfe has reported that he is happy with the script he has read, acknowledging that of course some changes are to be expected to make the dense work a better fit for the big screen. "Although I must admit I was initially unsure about the scene when Severian salvages an ancient helicopter gunship equipped with rotary laser miniguns and uses it to engage in battle with triple-headed mutants, Michael explained to me the deep thematic resonance of how the scene reflects the inherent nobility of the human spirit. Or something."

Early concept art suggests the film will feature a 'fresh interpretation' of the sword Terminus Est.

Bay confirms that Wolfe has been consulted at all levels of the project, including casting. "For the role of Severian I was initially considering Taylor Lautner, but Gene was determined that we get an experienced, method actor who could really embody the role's complexity. We compromised on Jack Black."

Black confirmed that he did, "Not have a f*****g clue what is going on," in the script but took the project on because the books' artwork "Totally looked like heavy metal album covers."


The Book of the New Sun: The Shadow of the Torturer will be released in cinemas the day after hell freezes over.

The STANEK Post

I swore a long time ago that I would not discuss the antics of Robert Stanek on this blog. There is simply not enough time in the world to give publicity to trolls and pretend-authors when there's so many good books to read out there. On the other hand, when someone starts writing lies about you online, some sort of response is required.


Who is Robert Stanek and what are his antics?
This would fill many, many blog entries of many tens of thousands of words. Fortunately, other people have already done this. This is the most exhaustive series of entries on the subject.

Briefly, William Robert Stanek is the self-published author of many technical IT manuals. He appears to have been genuinely successful at this. He has also written several fantasy novels, although it is difficult to track how many since the numerous titles for books in his bibliography seem to be retitlings and rejacketings (most recently for YA editions) of the same couple of books. According to Stanek many of these books have been bestsellers, although the evidence for this is scant. Stanek is widely-suspected of writing the many hundreds of five-star reviews of his books on Amazon, Audible and other websites himself, due to the similar diction and writing style of almost all of these reviews (many of which have now been deleted). The situation was notable enough that, ten years ago, the multi-Hugo Award-winning critic David Langford published an investigation into Stanek's antics in his SFF newsletter Ansible, which resulted in him being threatened by Mr. Stanek's alleged 'lawyer'. Since then Stanek's antics have been discussed on quite a few blogs and forums (including by myself, on Westeros.org, SFFWorld and maybe one or two other places). However, I have not devoted too much time to this because - admittedly - I knew Stanek's MO was to come after people who had criticised him online. I thought I got off lightly when he merely suggested that I (and Pat from Pat's Fantasy Hotlist) should be shanked in prison.

However, a couple of weeks back (see above link) he posted a lengthy rant about how he'd been treated and falsely accused of things online (oddly, his own antics went unmentioned, like the shanking thing). Fair enough. Everyone has the right to defend themselves and when I was linked to the article today, I was hoping to see a coherent defence of Stanek's actions and an explanation for them. Unfortunately, what we got was the same old spiel of confused gibberish. Particularly interesting were the following claims (poor grammar and punctuation left intact):

The timeline here is important because in May 2002, the following appeared in David Langford’s Ansible: “Amazon Mystery. Authors of fantasies on sale at Amazon.com have noticed a rash of oddly similar customer reviews that rubbish their work and instead recommend, say, George R.R. Martin, Robert Jordan, and Robert Stanek. The number of Big Name commendations varies, but not the plug for self-published author Robert Stanek. Who could possibly be posting these reviews (many since removed by Amazon) under a variety of names? It is a mystery, but Ansible is reminded of how Lionel Fanthorpe's pseudonymous sf would often mention those great classic masters of the genre, Verne, Wells and Fanthorpe.”

Note how they twist what they’ve done into something I’ve supposedly done to them--this is a constant tactic. I assume this post was written by David Langford friend and blogger, Adam Whitehead, as Whitehead then took to his blog to rant about how I was supposedly writing fake five-star reviews of my own books using sock puppets. As Whitehead is and was the self-professed #1 fan of George RR Martin (and is even credited in one of George’s books), all the sock puppet one-star reviews mentioning George RR Martin were suddenly starting to make sense as they were all likely written by Whitehead and his friends.

It should be noted at this point that I did not have Internet access at home until October 2005, never met George R.R. Martin until the same month and was not mentioned (along with about thirty other people) in any of his books until 2011. Also, I would not claim to the title of "#1 Fan" of anything, due to no longer being nine years old. Much more to the point, rewinding to the very first post on his blog will reveal that I did not start it until late 2006. It would have been hard even for me to have mentioned Stanek on the blog four years before it existed. In addition, until today Stanek's name has not even been mentioned on this blog (as a cursory Google check confirms). My comments about Stanek were limited to a couple of mentions on a few forums over the years and that was it.

Around this time a new group got involved as well, including authors Patrick Rothfuss and David Louis Edelman. Rothfuss and Edelman trashed me on their blogs in 2007, trying to enlist their fans in trashing me and their fans did begin trashing me in a big way. Blogger Patrick St. Dennis of Pat’s Fantasy List, Rothfuss’ #1 fan and friend, set to trashing me in his blog as well. Others joined in and quite a few who were directly associated with fantasy publisher Tor.

Another cursory Google check of Patrick Rothfuss's blog suggests that Rothfuss has also never mentioned Stanek in any of his blog posts (Stanek alleges Rothfuss also trashed him on Facebook, which again I can find no evidence of, but tracking down information on Facebook can be a lot trickier). David Louis Edelman did indeed post an article about him, and Pat has certainly not been shy about mocking him, but the dig at Tor Books seems a bit random.

I posted the following response at Stanek's blog (repeated here in case it is deleted from there):

Hello, Mr. Stanek. Normally I don't respond to such drivel (and I even ignored it when you suggested I should be knifed to death), but when someone starts talking lies about me online, I do feel the need to correct them. It's even more unwise to lie about things that are ridiculously easy to check.

1. I didn't have a blog in 2002. I didn't even have the Internet until 2005. If I was reviewing your books I would use my name. Unlike yourself when you trash other authors using sock-puppets and fake Amazon accounts, I always use my own name on my reviews. This is because I have integrity.

2. The article was written by David Langford. That's why it appears on David Langford's website, which is the creation of David Langford. That might have been a clue to the fact it was written by David Langford.

3. I have never in seven years even mentioned your name on my blog (though do not be surprised if this changes in the near future). Please provide the URL of the article in which you are mentioned or withdraw this claim.

4. Your name has never appeared on Patrick Rothfuss's blog, according to a Google search. Please provide the URL of the article in which you are mentioned or withdraw this claim.

A response is awaited.

UPDATE: As anticipated, my comment to his post was removed, as he clearly is happier running away and hiding than standing up for himself. The comment has been reposted, and I continue to await a substantive response.

Games Workshop attempts to trademark generic SF term

Games Workshop have, for a while now, claimed that they own the trademark to the term 'Space Marine'. They were largely ignored, because the term has an extremely long history in science fiction and is so generic (meaning 'marines in space') that the claim is borderline laughable.

A use of the term 'space marine' that predates Games Workshop's by fifty-one years.

However, GW's mailed power gauntlet came crashing down on SF author MCA Hogarth when she published a book called Spots the Space Marine. GW asked Amazon to remove the book from their website and informed the author that she was not allowed to use the term in either the title or text of her book. Hogarth, who is not very wealthy, declined to fight the claim legally but has publicised it, which has led to significant discussion of the subject by sites such as Boing Boing and Scalzi's Whatever (and Scalzi is taking it up with the influential Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America guild, of which he is president). This site also has interesting information for those Games Workshop customers - and that includes anyone who has bought a Black Library novel or Relic WH40K computer game - who wish to protest directly to the company.

Games Workshop's use of 'Space Marines' began in 1987 with the publication of the first edition of the Warhammer 40,000 miniature combat game.

A quick survey of the internet discovers these examples of use prior to that time:

• A short story called Captain Brink of the Space Marines, published in Amazing Stories in 1932.
• A sequel to the above, The Space Marines and the Slavers, published in Amazing Stories in 1936.
• E.E. 'Doc' Smith's Lensman series mentions space marines in Galactic Patrol (1937-38) and Grey Lensman (1939-40) in passing before they actually appear in First Lensman (1950).
• Robert Heinlein's short stories Misfit (1939) and The Long Watch (1941) both feature the phrase. Whilst it doesn't mention the phrase directly, the novel Starship Troopers (1959) is considered the definitive portrayal of space marines.
• H. Beam Piper's Space Viking series of SF novels (beginning in 1963) use characters who strongly resembler space marines.
• The roleplaying game Traveller, which debuted in 1977 and was partially inspired by both Piper and Heinlein, also used similar concepts. It should be noted that Games Workshop was originally founded in 1975 as importers of US roleplaying and wargame materials, including the original Traveller upon its release.
• A popular 'filking' song at American SF conventions in the 1970s was 'Outer Space Marines', created by Jeff Duntemann.
• Fantasy Games Unlimited released a miniature wargame called Space Marines in 1977.
• The popular anime series Space Battleship Yamato (1974-1980) directly uses the phrase. The English-language version, Star Blazers, first appeared in 1979.
• A song called 'Space Hero', by Julia Ecklar, released on her 1983 album Space Heroes and Other Fools, uses the term 'space marines' in its lyrics.
• The movie Aliens, released in 1986, features a Colonial Marine Corps. Director James Cameron had the actors read Starship Troopers as part of their training for the roles. The same term was later used for the ground component of the Colonial military in the newer Battlestar Galactica (which debuted in 2003).

 A tactical miniatures game called Space Marines, released ten years before WH40K.

There is also the small matter of Games Workshop not attempting to protect the alleged trademark prior to this point, namely not when Dark Horse released a number of Alien comics and magazines in the early 1990s which sometimes used the term 'space marine' to refer to the Colonial Marines. They have also taken no action against Barnes and Noble, which has a sub-section called 'Soldiers and Space Marines'.

More notably, GW has not attempted to sue Blizzard Entertainment, despite the latter's creation of the StarCraft franchise in 1998 which is - sometimes breathtakingly - similar to Warhammer 40,000. The Terran Marines in StarCraft not only fulfil the same role as the Space Marines in WH40K but look extremely similar. Coincidentally, Activision-Blizzard is a multi-billion-dollar company with legal resources that vastly outstrip those of GW's by several orders of magnitude.

A cover you'll remember

Best cover art of the year? Almost certainly.

This is the cover to the limited edition of Bleeding Shadows, a collection of short stories by Joe R. Lansdale, to be published by Subterranean Press in November. I have no idea what the hell is going on here, but now I want to read it.

You can now play Mario in SKYRIM

So, Skyrim is now a Super Mario Brothers title.

Any further comment at this time seems redundant.

Peter David has had a stroke

The crappiest way to end the year. News has broken that novelist and comic book writer Peter David has suffered a stroke.

David has many accolades to his name, arguably most notably as the author who ended the "Is Pluto a planet?" debate by having the Borg destroy it in a Star Trek novel. He also picked up the numerous loose ends left dangling by the Babylon 5 TV series and resolved them in a particularly fine trilogy of tie-in novels in the early 2000s. He also wrote what is arguably the greatest TV tie-in novel of all time in Vendetta (a Star Trek: The Next Generation novel) and spent twelve years writing The Incredible Hulk, to considerable critical acclaim. I wish him a full recovery and for many more comics and novels to come from him in the future.

George Lucas sells STAR WARS to Disney

George Lucas has sold Lucasfilm and its properties, including Star Wars, to the Walt Disney Corporation for a whopping $4 billion. Lucas has issued a statement saying he belives it is time to sell the franchise to a new generation of young film-makers.

So long and thanks for all the Sith.

 "For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see Star Wars passed from one generation to the next,” said George Lucas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lucasfilm. “It's now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. I've always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime. I'm confident that with Lucasfilm under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy, and having a new home within the Disney organization, Star Wars will certainly live on and flourish for many generations to come. Disney's reach and experience give Lucasfilm the opportunity to blaze new trails in film, television, interactive media, theme parks, live entertainment, and consumer products."

What effect this will have on The Clone Wars TV series and the long-in-limbo live-action TV show is unknown. However, so-far unsubstantiated Twitter chatter is that Disney is moving immediately into the planning process on a seventh Star Wars film, possibly for release in 2015.

On the plus side, George Lucas no longer gets to write Star Wars material. On the downside, it looks like the carefully-constructed Star Wars Expanded Universe could get chucked out the window in favour of a new series of films. Potentially controversial.

UPDATE: Disney confirm that Star Wars Episode VII is in active development for a 2015 release. 
Oddly, there's been no mention of what this means for the Indiana Jones franchise yet.