“Going Native” in Steampunk: James H. Carrott and Brian David Johnson’s Vintage Tomorrows on Tor.com

DP's avatarBeyond Victoriana

Recently, everyone and their grandmother are trying to place steampunk in the grander scope of things. Most of pop culture has poked at it at this point. Many in the SF/F community gives the subculture a passing nod (or are slowly edging away, since, being early adapters by nature, quite a few in sci-fi are tired of it already).

Still, questions about steampunk have set people in pursuit of the deeper meanings behind the aesthetic movement. Two years ago, Intel’s futurist Brian David Johnson wanted to answer the biggest one about steampunk’s rise: “Why now?” He was joined by a cultural historian James Carrott and they filmed a documentary, which permutated into a book by the same name: Vintage Tomorrows (or two books, actually. Steampunking Our Future: An Embedded Historian’s Notebook is the free e-book companion you can get online).

I had the pleasure of meeting them at NYCC a…

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Awesome book cover Friday: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Liza Peridot's avatarMisprinted Pages

Bit of a late post today, but I really like this cover. It’s for Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Anyone know where you can find this exact version?

Here’s a description of the book:

Japan’s most widely-read and controversial writer, author of A Wild Sheep Chase, hurtles into the consciousness of the West with this narrative about a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his shockingly undemure granddaughter, and various thugs, librarians, and subterranean monsters–not to mention Bob Dylan and Lauren Bacall.

What do you think?

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New in Paperback for May

Gabrielle's avatarthe contextual life

May is here and there are lots of new paperbacks on the shelves. Here are just a few that have my attention.

The Last Interview: and Other Conversations Jorge Luis Borges
The Last Interview_BorgesDays before his death, Borges gave an intimate interview to his friend, the Argentine journalist Gloria Lopez Lecube. That interview is translated for the first time here, giving English-language readers a new insight into his life, loves, and thoughts about his work and country at the end of his life.

Accompanying that interview are a selection of the fascinating interviews he gave throughout his career. Highlights include his celebrated conversations with Richard Burgin during Borges’s time as a lecturer at Harvard University, in which he gives rich new insights into his own works and the literature of others, as well as discussing his now oft-overlooked political views. The pieces combine to give a new and revealing window on one…

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Doll Bones by Holly Black ~ A Review

Ooooh, a new Holly Black book!

CaroleHeidi's avatarCarole Finds Her Wings

Doll Bones by Holly Black

Published: 7th May 2013, Margaret K. McElderry Books

Length: 256 pages (Kindle edition)

Genre: Children’s, Young Teen, Horror, Supernatural, Mystery

Where Did I Get It? Received for review from NetGalley

Summary (from Goodreads): Zach, Poppy, and Alice have been friends forever. And for almost as long, they’ve been playing one continuous, ever-changing game of pirates and thieves, mermaids and warriors. Ruling over all is the Great Queen, a bone-china doll cursing those who displease her.

But they are in middle school now. Zach’s father pushes him to give up make-believe, and Zach quits the game. Their friendship might be over, until Poppy declares she’s been having dreams about the Queen—and the ghost of a girl who will not rest until the bone-china doll is buried in her empty grave.

Zach and Alice and Poppy set off on one last adventure to lay the Queen’s ghost…

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Six (More) Stoner Novels (And a Bonus Short Story)

It’s a day late, but here’s your 4/20 post!

Biblioklept's avatarBiblioklept

A few years ago, to celebrate 4/20, Sam Munson at the Daily Beast wrote an article praising “The Best Stoner Novels.” Not a bad list—Wonder Boys, sure, Invisible Man, a bit of a stretch, The Savage Detectives, a very big stretch, but sure, why not. Anyway, six more stoner novels (not that we advocate the smoking of the weed)—

Junkie, William Burroughs

Burroughs’s (surprisingly lucid) early novel Junkie may take its name from heroin, but it’s full of weed smoking. Lesson: weed smoking leads to heroin. And the inevitable search for yage.

Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon

Doc Sportello, the wonky PI at the off-center of Pynchon’s California noir, is always in the process of lighting another joint, if not burning his fingers on the edges of a roach. A fuzzy mystery with smoky corners.

Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace

Hal…

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