Free and reduced ebook lunches

Chasing the Queen of Sassi 
by Paul Di Filippo 
Free

The Invincible 
by Stanislaw Lem 
$0.99

Escape From Earth 
Allen Steele 
$0.99

Metropolitan 
Walter Jon Williams 
$0.99

Brave New Worlds 
edited by John Joseph Adams 
$1.99

Cosmocopia by Paul Di Filippo

In a re-re-release, Cosmocopia is now out with Open Media, a company I rather like for their affordable ebooks.  I already reviewed it here at SF Site, but let me rewrite a line to make a better blurb (my reviews are probably too cautious):

  "In a genre known for its weird, Cosmocopia ranks right up there." 

Free ebooks: Diamandis Florakis

Paul di Filippo directs our attention to Greek writer, Diamandis Florakis, who has several free ebooks available:

1. Return to the Future
2. The Ponotrons and the Anarchists of the Absolute
3. Scale: 1:1.000.000*

*For those used to commas, that's one million.

Analysis of "The Year of the Jackpot" by Robert A. Heinlein

This first appeared in Galaxy, reprinted about a dozen times by several major editors of the 50s-70s:  Frederik Pohl, H. L. Gold, Donald A. Wollheim, Damon Knight, Terry Carr, Robert Silverberg, Dick Allen, Lori Allen, James Frenkel.  It is available in a double-collection ebook (pictured below) or as a single (pictured to the right).  [Note: the cover illustration has nothing to do with the story.]

In the ebook of the same name, Paul Di Filippo astutely correlates this story to Heinlein's Future History timeline's "The Crazy Years" although the technological progress is minimal, the societal social fabric rips apart at the seams.  Heinlein's remarks on the period are:

"Considerable technical advance during this period, accompanied by a gradual deterioration of mores, orientation and social institutions, terminating in mass psychoses in the sixth decade and the Interregnum.

"The Interregnum was followed by a period of reconstruction."

Interestingly, although Heinlein is maligned for how he handles social mores (comparing him to contemporary mores rather than the common mores of his day), he constantly breaks the rules even when he seems to be flaunting a more conservative perspective.  Nailing Heinlein's social perspective is problematic as, at his characters' most staunch perspective, it often appears under the guise of banter.  If one were to summarize his socio-political perspective, it might be "Let it go" or "Take it easy,"* a phrase from the tale itself,  to either political persuasion.  Let people be whoever they want to be.

Potiphar Breen is a statistician who has been anticipating human cycles of insanity, "lemming"-like suicidal behavior among the human species.  Social mores are being shed, just as literally as Meade, a young woman, sheds her clothes in public but has no understanding of why she's doing it.  Potiphar happens to have a raincoat on him to put around her just as the cop had intended to arrest her.  The tale suggests, but does not say, that Potiphar had statistically anticipated someone stripping there.  To Potiphar, she's an interesting statistic.  He wants to know why she does, but she has no inkling.  

He anticipated a complete breakdown of humanity before it recollects its insanity.  When both lose their jobs and the insanity reaches a peak--just as strange earthquakes, weather, and nuclear weapons strike--they high-tail it out of Los Angeles.  None to soon. 

They make it to a rural area to wait out humanity's inhumanity.  Just as it looks better for humanity.  Disaster from the sun strikes.  I didn't make much of the ending--not taking the sun going nova seriously--thinking that sun sent a barrage of high energy particles to Earth.  As it was sunset, with more atmosphere to travel through, I figured they should have been safe.  Maybe they should have ducked into the shadow of a hill.  But no, the idea of which stars go nova had apparently not been codified, according to Wikipedia.

The title plays an ironic role.  "Jackpot" connoting good luck although the protagonists make the best of their short-term situation.

* From "Skylift" comes this declaration:  "The ideal pilot is relaxed and unworried. Sanguine in temperament, he never borrows trouble."

Focus on Six Writers: Andrea Barrett, Gerald Kersh, C L Moore, Frederik Pohl, Terese Svoboda, and James Gunn

Andrea Barrett

• puts science in her fiction (You've got you peanut butter in my chocolate).
• interviews

Gerald Kersh:

• article
• story "Men Without Bones"

C L Moore

• Three early stories online

Frederik Pohl

• NY Times Tribute
• Locus Interview
• blog
• reading "Day Million" (with psychedelic imagery)
• analysis of "Day Million" (#7 of the 700 posts in this blog)

Terese Svoboda 

• interview
• interview 2
• self interview
• website
• Narrative magazine (poetry and fiction)
• The Cortland Review
• "Weapons Grade" (video)
• Reading (video)
• Poets.org
• Poetry Foundation
• Blackbird
• Guernica
• Madhat (video)
• Mad Hatters Review

James Gunn:

• profile by Kansas City Star
• review by Paul di Filippo
• interview by Larry Ketchersid (SF Signal)
• interview with Amazing Stories
• interview with Bookplate
• radio interview

Three cool and invaluable--albeit astronomically expensive--ebooks, the first full of works in the public domain except for Gunn's remarks:

• The Road to Science Fiction: From Gilgamesh to Wells: Volume 1 (Road to Science Fiction (Scarecrow Press))
• Reading Science Fiction [Kindle Edition] James Gunn (Editor), Marleen Barr (Editor), Matthew Candelaria (Editor)
• Paratexts: Introductions to Science Fiction and Fantasy by James Gunn

Book Briefs: new ebooks: Paul di Filippo's Emperor of Gondwanaland

Emperor of Gondwanaland: As Paul di Filippo promised, this non-themed collection does have something you'll like, a probably a few less flavorful, depending on your tastes.  Five stories, including the collection itself, were nominated for the Locus award, the title story placing highest at third.

It opens with the over-varnished "Anselmo Merino", which reenvisions Melville's "Benito Cereno" with aliens and forbidden love at sea.  (At SF Site, I favorably reviewed "Clouds and Cold Fires" in di Filippo's short ebook collection, After the Collapse).

The title story, "Emperor of Gondwanaland", first appeared in Interzone.  Mutt Splender is an editor at PharmaNotes, a job he hates.  Surfing the net, he comes across a micro nation--an imaginary country--called Gondwanaland.  He strikes a chat with IlonaG, one of the many folks who seem to be keeping up the elaborate make-believe country.  Mutt finds himself in love with her, so he travels to find not just the country but this woman.  This updated Borgesian--the fact that Mutt travels to Buenos Aires, Argentina seems a nod to Borges--search for an imaginary country impresses and is one of the finest jewels of the collection.

"And the Dish Ran away with the Spoon" graced Dozois' Year's Best.  It tells the narrator's woes with smart house appliances.  As a child, the narrator had his parents killed by such appliances, so he's reluctant to move in  with his girlfriend who wants them.  But the appliances force him to change his ways.

Book Briefs: new ebooks: Paul di Filippo's Joe's Liver and Fractal Paisley

Joe's Liver:

Despite the advert copy, this reads more like Thomas Pynchon than George Saunders.  Orphan, Reader's Digest (named after the magazine), pilgrimages in a picaresque adventure to the said magazine's home town in New York, to find this America it describes.

Fractal Paisley: This collection, a humorous triptych to the strange, mashing up people in unusual mixes, was up for the World Fantasy award.  The main characters of "Master Blaster and Whammer Jammer Meet the Groove Thang", Master Blaster and Whammer Jammer are moving men while the Groove Thang is a music-making alien.  It is also a good-mood-making and a trouble-making one as well, but they manage to bring a bigger sense of semi-religious wonder to the lower classes.  "Lennon Spex" hit the Nebula nominations and the year's collection.   With his spex, he can see that people have medusa tendrils (shades of A. E. Van Vogt?).  These tendrils represent connections to the world--patriotism, obedience, loyalty, familial love, and partner love.  Babies and monks, though, have a single tendril going who knows where.  The narrator uses his spex to do good in the world.

Author Interviews

Ellen Datlow

Brian Evenson interview

Paul di Filippo

George Saunders interview

Electric Velocipede (one of the coolest small presses going) is interviewing its writers of issue 25 on Facebook

Mad Scientist anthology's author interviews

Absolute Sterling Shatner Jackson

Bruce Sterling interview (with Cory Doctorow, Paul Di Filippo, Richard Nash, Ted Striphas, Matthew Battles, Marianne de Pierres, Giuseppe Granieri, John Sundman, Nils Gilman, Giuliana Guazzaroni):

Ted Striphas: Beyond the fact that neologisms can make for lively writing, why push the limits of language this way? 

Bruce Sterling: I know that can sound like "pushing" language, but from my point of view, social change reveals gaps in language.

 Sterling references this article from Atlantic Monthly (wiki):  "As We May Think" by Vannevar Bush

Seth Abramson stands up for Peter Jackson and The Hobbit, backing up his thoughts from the "canon," so to speak.

Below absolute zero?  Nature magazine

Captain Kirk to Commander Hadfield (William Shattner)

Free ebooks

David Marusek, a fine and sometimes hilarious writer of science fiction, is giving away some of his short stories.

Also, Paul di Filippo offers for free his fun novella in the Linear City series, A Princess of the Linear Jungle, which pays homage to many SF classics.