Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

The all-John Picacio cover edition.

Fast Forward 2 edited by Lou Anders

Promo copy:

When Fast Forward 1 debuted in February 2007, it marked the first major all-original, all-SF anthology series to appear in some time and it was met with a huge outpouring of excitement and approbation from the science fiction community. No less than seven stories from Fast Forward 1 were chosen to be reprinted a total of nine times in the four major Best of the Year retrospective anthologies, a wonderful testament to the quality of contributions in our inaugural book. What’s more, Fast Forward 1 was hailed repeatedly as leading the charge in a return of original, unthemed anthologies series (several more have since appeared in our wake). Now the critically-acclaimed, groundbreaking series continues, featuring all new stories from: Paul Cornell, Kay Kenyon, Chris Nakashima-Brown, Nancy Kress, Jack Skillingstead, Cory Doctorow and Benjamin Rosenbaum, Jack McDevitt, Paul McAuley, Mike Resnick and Pat Cadigan, Ian McDonald, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Karl Schroeder and Tobias S. Buckell, Jeff Carlson, Paolo Bacigalupi.

I reviewed Volume 1.

The Well-Built City Trilogy: The Physiognomy, Memoranda and The Beyond by Jeffrey Ford (three books)

Promo copy:

More than just an alternate history or Earth, the world of the Well-Built City is Ford at his finest, with bizarre creatures, trees, foods, drinks, customs—nothing is mundane in the writings of Ford. From the hallucinations of the drug, Beauty, to the destruction of buildings from a headache, the reader will find nothing like he has ever read before.

See Part One here.

Books received 10/6/08 Part Two was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

The all-John Picacio cover edition.

Fast Forward 2 edited by Lou Anders

Promo copy:

When Fast Forward 1 debuted in February 2007, it marked the first major all-original, all-SF anthology series to appear in some time and it was met with a huge outpouring of excitement and approbation from the science fiction community. No less than seven stories from Fast Forward 1 were chosen to be reprinted a total of nine times in the four major Best of the Year retrospective anthologies, a wonderful testament to the quality of contributions in our inaugural book. What’s more, Fast Forward 1 was hailed repeatedly as leading the charge in a return of original, unthemed anthologies series (several more have since appeared in our wake). Now the critically-acclaimed, groundbreaking series continues, featuring all new stories from: Paul Cornell, Kay Kenyon, Chris Nakashima-Brown, Nancy Kress, Jack Skillingstead, Cory Doctorow and Benjamin Rosenbaum, Jack McDevitt, Paul McAuley, Mike Resnick and Pat Cadigan, Ian McDonald, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Karl Schroeder and Tobias S. Buckell, Jeff Carlson, Paolo Bacigalupi.

I reviewed Volume 1.

The Well-Built City Trilogy: The Physiognomy, Memoranda and The Beyond by Jeffrey Ford (three books)

Promo copy:

More than just an alternate history or Earth, the world of the Well-Built City is Ford at his finest, with bizarre creatures, trees, foods, drinks, customs—nothing is mundane in the writings of Ford. From the hallucinations of the drug, Beauty, to the destruction of buildings from a headache, the reader will find nothing like he has ever read before.

See Part One here.

Yesterday’s New York Times had a scary article about the very real possibility of being locked out of your Gmail account.

The best strategy to deal with this danger is backing up your Gmail account. Along those lines, the helpful folks over at Lifehacker offered up this method for Gmail backup in Windows using fetchmail.

Problem is that there are at least 15% of all computer users that don’t use Windows. For the rest of us that live in the *nix (unix, linux, BSD, Mac OS X, etc.) world, I discovered George Donnelly’s helpful guide.

It’s important to know that Gmail limits how much can be downloaded at one time, so you might have to do your initial backup a few times to catch all your data.

Hopefully, Gmail will never be a bother, but it’s always good to be prepared.

Gmail backup was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

Yesterday’s New York Times had a scary article about the very real possibility of being locked out of your Gmail account.

The best strategy to deal with this danger is backing up your Gmail account. Along those lines, the helpful folks over at Lifehacker offered up this method for Gmail backup in Windows using fetchmail.

Problem is that there are at least 15% of all computer users that don’t use Windows. For the rest of us that live in the *nix (unix, linux, BSD, Mac OS X, etc.) world, I discovered George Donnelly’s helpful guide.

It’s important to know that Gmail limits how much can be downloaded at one time, so you might have to do your initial backup a few times to catch all your data.

Hopefully, Gmail will never be a bother, but it’s always good to be prepared.

I broke my supposedly indestructible titanium glasses today!

After laying down relaxing this afternoon, I opened my glasses to put them on and the nose piece snapped. My frames fell into two pieces!

I’m now using my 12 year old, backup pair. Of course, they are uncomfortable and out of prescription.

*sigh*

Broken glasses was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

I broke my supposedly indestructible titanium glasses today!

After laying down relaxing this afternoon, I opened my glasses to put them on and the nose piece snapped. My frames fell into two pieces!

I’m now using my 12 year old, backup pair. Of course, they are uncomfortable and out of prescription.

*sigh*

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

Getting To Know You by David Marusek

Promo copy:

Not since William Gibson and Bruce Sterling galvanized science fiction in the 1980s has the emergence of a new writer been heralded with such acclaim as that attending David Marusek, whose brilliant first novel, Counting Heads, appeared to rave reviews in 2005.

Now, in this collection of ten stories, Marusek’s fierce imagination and dazzling extrapolative gifts are on full display. Five of the stories, including the Sturgeon Award-winning “The Wedding Album"– a shattering look at the intended human consequences of advanced technology– are set in the same future a Counting Heads. But all ten showcase Marusek’s talent for literate, provocative science fiction of the very highest order.

The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan

Promo copy:

Named by the New York Times as "one of science fiction’s bright young lights” and winner of the Philip K. Dick and Arthur C. Clarke Awards, Richard Morgan has vaulted to the pinnacle of the science fiction world in just a few short years. Now in The Steel Remains, the first in a trilogy, he turns his talents to epic fantasy, crafting a darkly violent adventure sure to thrill old fans and captivate new readers.

After the Downfall by Harry Turtledove

Promo copy:

1945: Russian troops have entered Berlin, and are engaged in a violent orgy of robbery, rape, and revenge…

Wehrmacht officer Hasso Pemsel, a career soldier on the losing end of the greatest war in history, flees from a sniper’s bullet, finding himself hurled into a mysterious, fantastic world of wizards, dragons, and unicorns. There he allies himself with the blond-haired, blue-eyed Lenelli, and Velona, their goddess in human form, offering them his knowledge of warfare and weaponry in their genocidal struggle against a race of diminutive, swarthy barbarians known as Grenye.

But soon, the savagery of the Lenelli begins to eat at Hasso Pemsel’s soul, causing him to question everything he has long believed about race and Reich, right and wrong, Ubermenschen and Untermenschen. Hasso Pemsel will learn the difference between following orders… and following his conscience.

The Surrogates by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele

Promo copy:

The year is 2054, and life is reduced to a data feed. The fusing of virtual reality and cybernetics has ushered in the era of the personal surrogate, android substitutes that let users interact with the world without ever leaving their homes. It’s a perfect world, and it’s up to Detectives Harvey Greer and Pete Ford of the Metro Police Department to keep it that way. But to do so they’ll need to stop a techno-terrorist bent on returning society to a time when people lived their lives instead of merely experiencing them.

The Surrogates is a story about progress and whether there exists a tipping point at which technological advancement will stop enhancing and start hindering our lives. It is also a commentary on identity, the Western obsession with physical appearance, and the growing trend to use science as a means of providing consumers with beauty on demand.

More in Part Two.

Books received 10/3/08 Part One was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

Getting To Know You by David Marusek

Promo copy:

Not since William Gibson and Bruce Sterling galvanized science fiction in the 1980s has the emergence of a new writer been heralded with such acclaim as that attending David Marusek, whose brilliant first novel, Counting Heads, appeared to rave reviews in 2005.

Now, in this collection of ten stories, Marusek’s fierce imagination and dazzling extrapolative gifts are on full display. Five of the stories, including the Sturgeon Award-winning "The Wedding Album"– a shattering look at the intended human consequences of advanced technology– are set in the same future a Counting Heads. But all ten showcase Marusek’s talent for literate, provocative science fiction of the very highest order.

The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan

Promo copy:

Named by the New York Times as "one of science fiction’s bright young lights" and winner of the Philip K. Dick and Arthur C. Clarke Awards, Richard Morgan has vaulted to the pinnacle of the science fiction world in just a few short years. Now in The Steel Remains, the first in a trilogy, he turns his talents to epic fantasy, crafting a darkly violent adventure sure to thrill old fans and captivate new readers.

After the Downfall by Harry Turtledove

Promo copy:

1945: Russian troops have entered Berlin, and are engaged in a violent orgy of robbery, rape, and revenge…

Wehrmacht officer Hasso Pemsel, a career soldier on the losing end of the greatest war in history, flees from a sniper’s bullet, finding himself hurled into a mysterious, fantastic world of wizards, dragons, and unicorns. There he allies himself with the blond-haired, blue-eyed Lenelli, and Velona, their goddess in human form, offering them his knowledge of warfare and weaponry in their genocidal struggle against a race of diminutive, swarthy barbarians known as Grenye.

But soon, the savagery of the Lenelli begins to eat at Hasso Pemsel’s soul, causing him to question everything he has long believed about race and Reich, right and wrong, Ubermenschen and Untermenschen. Hasso Pemsel will learn the difference between following orders… and following his conscience.

The Surrogates by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele

Promo copy:

The year is 2054, and life is reduced to a data feed. The fusing of virtual reality and cybernetics has ushered in the era of the personal surrogate, android substitutes that let users interact with the world without ever leaving their homes. It’s a perfect world, and it’s up to Detectives Harvey Greer and Pete Ford of the Metro Police Department to keep it that way. But to do so they’ll need to stop a techno-terrorist bent on returning society to a time when people lived their lives instead of merely experiencing them.

The Surrogates is a story about progress and whether there exists a tipping point at which technological advancement will stop enhancing and start hindering our lives. It is also a commentary on identity, the Western obsession with physical appearance, and the growing trend to use science as a means of providing consumers with beauty on demand.

More in Part Two.

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

The Living Dead edited by John Joseph Adams

Promo copy:

“When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.”

From White Zombie to Dawn of the Dead; from Resident Evil to World War Z, zombies have invaded popular culture, becoming the monsters that best express the fears and anxieties of the modern west. The ultimate consumers, zombies rise from the dead and feed upon the living, their teeming masses ever hungry, ever seeking to devour or convert, like mindless, faceless eating machines. Zombies have been depicted as mind-controlled minions, the shambling infected, the disintegrating dead, the ultimate lumpenproletariat, but in all cases, they reflect us, mere mortals afraid of death in a society on the verge of collapse.

Gathering together the best zombie literature of the last three decades from many of today’s most renowned authors of fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror, including Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, George R. R. Martin, Clive Barker, Poppy Z. Brite, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Joe R. Lansdale, The Living Dead, covers the broad spectrum of zombie fiction. The zombies of The Living Dead range from Romero-style zombies to reanimated corpses to voodoo zombies and beyond.

DC Goes Ape

Promo copy:

Written by Otto Binder, John Broome, Gardner Fox and others; Art by Carmine Infantino, Wayne Boring, George Papp, Ross Andru, C.C. Beck, Jim Starlin and others; Cover by Arthur Adams
You’ll go bananas for this new title collecting simian stories from SUPERBOY #76, SUPERMAN #138, THE FLASH (VOL. 1) #127, DETECTIVE COMICS #339 and 482, HAWKMAN #16, WONDER WOMAN #170, STRANGE ADVENTURES #201, SHAZAM #9, SUPER FRIENDS #30 and THE FLASH (VOL. 2) #151!

I wrote a lengthy blog entry about this back in May when this book was announced.

Caine Black Knife by Matthew Stover

Promo copy:

In Heroes Die and Blade of Tyshalle, Matthew Stover created a new kind of fantasy novel, and a new kind of hero to go with it: Caine, a street thug turned superstar, battling in a future where reality shows take place in another dimension, on a world where magic exists and gods are up close and personal. In that beautiful, savage land, Caine is an assassin without peer, a living legend born from one of the highest-rated reality shows ever made. That season, Caine almost single-handedly defeated–and all but exterminated–the fiercest of all tribes: the Black Knives. But the shocking truth of what really took place during that blood-drenched adventure has never been revealed … until now.

Thirty years later, Caine returns to the scene of his greatest triumph–some would say greatest crime–at the request of his adopted brother Orbek, the last of the true Black Knives. But where Caine goes, danger follows, and he soon finds himself back in familiar territory: fighting for his life against impossible odds, with the fate of two worlds hanging in the balance.

Just the way Caine likes it.

See Part One here.

Books received 10/3/08 Part Two was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

The Living Dead edited by John Joseph Adams

Promo copy:

"When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth."

From White Zombie to Dawn of the Dead; from Resident Evil to World War Z, zombies have invaded popular culture, becoming the monsters that best express the fears and anxieties of the modern west. The ultimate consumers, zombies rise from the dead and feed upon the living, their teeming masses ever hungry, ever seeking to devour or convert, like mindless, faceless eating machines. Zombies have been depicted as mind-controlled minions, the shambling infected, the disintegrating dead, the ultimate lumpenproletariat, but in all cases, they reflect us, mere mortals afraid of death in a society on the verge of collapse.

Gathering together the best zombie literature of the last three decades from many of today’s most renowned authors of fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror, including Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, George R. R. Martin, Clive Barker, Poppy Z. Brite, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Joe R. Lansdale, The Living Dead, covers the broad spectrum of zombie fiction. The zombies of The Living Dead range from Romero-style zombies to reanimated corpses to voodoo zombies and beyond.

DC Goes Ape

Promo copy:

Written by Otto Binder, John Broome, Gardner Fox and others; Art by Carmine Infantino, Wayne Boring, George Papp, Ross Andru, C.C. Beck, Jim Starlin and others; Cover by Arthur Adams
You’ll go bananas for this new title collecting simian stories from SUPERBOY #76, SUPERMAN #138, THE FLASH (VOL. 1) #127, DETECTIVE COMICS #339 and 482, HAWKMAN #16, WONDER WOMAN #170, STRANGE ADVENTURES #201, SHAZAM #9, SUPER FRIENDS #30 and THE FLASH (VOL. 2) #151!

I wrote a lengthy blog entry about this back in May when this book was announced.

Caine Black Knife by Matthew Stover

Promo copy:

In Heroes Die and Blade of Tyshalle, Matthew Stover created a new kind of fantasy novel, and a new kind of hero to go with it: Caine, a street thug turned superstar, battling in a future where reality shows take place in another dimension, on a world where magic exists and gods are up close and personal. In that beautiful, savage land, Caine is an assassin without peer, a living legend born from one of the highest-rated reality shows ever made. That season, Caine almost single-handedly defeated–and all but exterminated–the fiercest of all tribes: the Black Knives. But the shocking truth of what really took place during that blood-drenched adventure has never been revealed . . . until now.

Thirty years later, Caine returns to the scene of his greatest triumph–some would say greatest crime–at the request of his adopted brother Orbek, the last of the true Black Knives. But where Caine goes, danger follows, and he soon finds himself back in familiar territory: fighting for his life against impossible odds, with the fate of two worlds hanging in the balance.

Just the way Caine likes it.

See Part One here.