m. c. de marco

I saw Cloverfield tonight, and loved the smashing of Manhattan and eating of whiny 20-somethings. It reminded me of a link in my to-blog list: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair is Gerry Canavan’s collection of post-apocalyptic images of the Statue of Liberty.

SCI FI Wire has a review of Black Sheep by Ben Peek, another timely science fiction novel.

Peek said he’s always been interested in race, but writing the book got him interested in representation—and, especially, in the representation of the white figure, he said. “I’m a mean-looking white guy from the western suburbs of Sydney, and the thing that always got me about novels and TV and pretty much everything was how little whiteness was paid attention to,” Peek said.

Via del.icio.us sf: Strange Horizons reviews Brian Aldiss’s timely novel HARM.

HARM, however, is unambiguously (and for a publisher, intimidatingly) about the present War on Terror, and Paul’s torturers, at the titular Hostile Activities Research Ministry, are unambiguously American and British officials. Consequently it makes the reader identify with a figure mainstream opinion has these last several years regarded as expendable—the faceless “disappeared” swept by the thousands into secret prisons on flimsy pretexts and often no pretext at all in the name of “national security.”

The Children of Hurin is out, and Amazon has a review by Christopher Tolkien's son Adam:

Remarkably, considering that the earliest passages in The Children of Húrin are 90 years old, Christopher's reworking of the book works brilliantly.

Via a mailing list: Time’s comprehensive review of George R. R. Martin’s A Feast for Crows.

TrekWeb posted an overview of SNW8 a while back, and the more critical folks at Egghead and Ivorytower have dissected yet another SNW volume. See the links at the bottom of the review for their previous efforts.

TrekWeb.com has a review up of Strange New Worlds 8. Thanks to Paul Tseng for the link.