The Crotchety Old Fan

THE INTERACTIVE VERSION OF
Grasping for the Wind (The Linkup Meme Song) by John Anealio

Bookspotcentral and the Bibliosnark
SF Signal and the Accidental Bard
The Crotchety Old Fan and Blood of the Muse
OF Blog of the Fallen and Fantasy Debut

Andromeda Spaceways and the Deckled Edge
The Fantasy Cafe and AurealisXpress
The Antick Musings of the Hornswaggler Gent.
A Dribble of Ink and the Galaxy Express

Chorus
I’m Grasping for the Wind
with this Linkup Meme
I don’t know where to begin
with these RSS feeds

Speculative Fiction Junkie, Hyperpat’s Hyper Day
Cheaper Ironies and Neth Space
Dragons, Heroes, and Wizards and The Wertzone
the Sudden Curve and The Agony Column

Robots and Vamps and the Sci-Fi Guy
Urban Fantasy Land and io9
Adventures in Reading and Galleycat
Cheryl’s Musings and The Sequential Rat

Chorus

Dark Wolf Reviews and Darque Reviews
Fantasy Book Reviews and News
Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review,
The Spiral Galaxy Reviews
The Highlander’s Book Review
Sandstorm Reviews and The Sword Review

Chorus

Enter the Octopus and Walker of Worlds
Rob’s Blog of Stuff, The Discriminating Fangirl
Bibliophile Stalker and the SciFi Chick
Hasenpfeffer and the Fantasy Book Critic

Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist and Critical Mass
Jumpdrives and Cantrips, The World in a Satin Bag
Fruitless Recursion and the Book Swede
Bookcrastination and Reading the Leaves

Chorus

Dave Brendon’s Fantasy and Sci-Fi Weblog
Feminist SF the Blog!
Fantasy and Sci-Fi Lovin’ Blog
and the Fantastic Reviews Blog

Sci-Fi Fan Letter and 7 foot shelves
Author 2 Author, Billion Light-Year Bookshelf
SF Gospel and the Bookgeeks
Danger Gal and NextRead

Chorus

This morning I added ten new films to the channel - three giant creature movies - The Deadly Mantis, Tarantula (with Leo G Carrol) and the original version of King Kong, a couple of classics in Lost Horizon and King Solomon’s Mines (Challenger is an SF/F hero as far as I’m concerned), a couple of B movie standards - The Mole People and It, the Terror From Beyond Space, an historical classic in the 1916 version of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and two headliners - Dr. Strangelove and Soylent Green, both appropriately apocolyptic.

Last week I added some 11 movies and three television series; three of those films are (or were, depends on your frame of reference) headliners - The Day of the Triffids, Earth vs the Flying Saucers and When Worlds Collide. Rounding those offerings out are several B flicks - notably The Monolith Monsters and Quatermass, and the three tv shows - Space: Above and Beyond, Captain Scarlet (1st season) and Fireball XL5 - which was, surprisingly, not nearly as bad as I had expected it to be on re-watching. No technobabble in evidence, straight-forward action and pretty darned good dialogue.

I’ll be re-watching me some Charleton Heston in Soylent Green. Actually, I’ll be waiting for the scenes with Edward G. in them - he turned in a very fine performance for the last film he’d ever make - a film that brought Heston and Robinson back together well after appearing in The Ten Commandments.

In the meantime: Skiffy Tube announces that they’e spun off SciFi Wire and SciFi Weekly into their own web-slot, but apparently their powers of predicting the future are a bit off - all I get at the new site is a log in panel. Maybe later today their ‘January 5th’ prediction will come true.

And today is my first day of quitting cigarettes. If I suddenly start sounding like I have a major case of Tourette’s Syndrome, you’ll know why.

Couldn’t think of anything for the title this morning, so - no title.

It is going to be a big day. We’ve got Gaza in the news (and the attendant increase in anti-semitism that has been building - particularly on the internet - for months), Donald Westlake’s passing, yesterday’s Larry Niven chat, my trip to the Boston Museum of Science, some commentary on reviewing everyone’s blog - including the immortalization in song of The Crotchety Old Fan, even more egoboo from Glyer’s File 770 and who all knows what else.

***

Tor announced Westlake’s passing, saying in essence, he had a good life but this still sucks. Yes, it does. In fact, I’d like to have at least one month go buy this year in which someone I know, admire, respect, am interested in or watched in the movies or on television doesn’t pass on. Tall order, but it would be nice for a change, especially after the devestation to the ranks that was 2008.

***

I’ve been known to try just about anything in the pursuit of increasing traffic for the blog - I’ve stuck ‘XXX’ in the title (which worked pretty well, btw, at least for one-shots), I’ve tweaked various high-profile sites, offered contrary commentary on controversial issues, made up ‘lists-of’ and even stepped off into the venal world that is politics (endorsement of Obama). However, I’ve not ‘taken on a cause’ or engaged in trying to sway minds (except for relatively meaningless things like whether you should like a particular author or not). This is about to change, as I am both very concerned and very engaged with the Israeli-so-called Palestinian conflict and the attendant anti-semitism that has gone along with both that development and the world economic crises.

I will, however, offer at least two posts on the days that I write about the above, so if you find such tedious or out of place here, you can safely ignore it. I hope you don’t, as I intend to make a few muddied issues clearer for everyone.

Basic take? Anti-semitism is bad and is at least partially responsible for the increased world-wide support that a bunch of thugs, murderers and child killers in Gaza are receiving - but the Israeli incursion is based more on strategic military concerns than it is the recent rocket attacks.

***

Mike Glyer’s File 770 often does me the favor of mentioning my blog, and I try to return it. Today Mike reviews his top posts from 2008 and mentions both this blog and John Scalzi’s Whatever, and the boost to the traffic that getting a mention on John’s blog generates. I’ve made a career this past year out of tweaking the Whatever, but have been doing so in an obvious and deliberately transparent way; my way of saying ‘yes, it does good things for my traffic, but it’s really all about showing my appreciation for what John does with both his blog and his writing’. I also mention File 770 as frequently as a can out of respect for the job that Glyer has done with File 770, day in and day out since 1978 (when he gave me a copy of what may have been the first, or at least one of the first, issues of File 770). To illustrate how long he’s been doing that, I am preparing a piece featuring the first-ever issue of File 770, which will be appearing over the next couple of days.

***

Yesterday I managed to log on to the Larry Niven monthly chat in time to participate in the hijinks. Lensman maintains the email list that contacts everyone to remind them of the chats (he also maintains a Niven Known Space Concordance here. Both Larry and Edward M. Lerner (Larry’s co-author on the new series of Known Space novels - Fleet of Worlds and Juggler of Worlds) were in attendance, tho not at the same time.

We had a rollicking good time, with much humor attached to the discussion of teeth - teeth in general, teeth in evolution and whether certain aliens had teeth or not in particular. Sounds un-funny here, but transcripts of the chats are going up pretty fast these days and are available at the chat page on Larry’s site. 1st Saturday of every month; if you are a Niven or Lerner or Known Space fan, you should think about checking it out. I should think about mentioning it here on the first FRIDAY of every month.

***

John Anealio of the SciFi Songs blog, has responded to John Ottinger’s review blog linkup meme with a nice post - and a song. A song, that immortalizes the Crotchety Old Fan, no less. Not only am I in the song, I get credit for having sparked it! I’m going to ask John (A) if I can stick the song on my site. Here’s the first stanza:

“Grasping for the Wind (The Linkup Meme Song)
by John Anealio

Bookspotcentral and the Bibliosnark
SF Signal and the Accidental Bard
The Crotchety Old Fan and Blood of the Muse
OF Blog of the Fallen and Fantasy Debut”

Go listen, it is actually a very good tune and the lyrics work…

***

Later on today I will be posting images and commentary from my trip to the Boston Museum of Science. I got some great pictures of butterflies, various (stuffed) wild life, ancient computers (from the Enigma machine on), a few spacecraft, some excellent locomotive models and other ’stuff’. All with the wife’s Iphone, which takes better images than you’d expect.

On account of visiting the Boston Museum of Science. Lots of cool pictures tomorrow!

Lot’s of people have been writing in and still more have been saying “ADD MY BLOG, ADD MY BLOG!”, all the while jumping around insanely, pulling out their hair, using their hands and fingers to make arcane gestures in the air (presumably in my general direction) and desperately searching for the scotch tape, bacon and a cat.

I’ve been sending those folks off in John Ottinger’s direction. He’s the one that you should be making those arcane gestures at (I’ll add my own), since it’s all his fault that this got started anyway.

John as passed on his encouragement and thanks (for visiting all of the sites and compiling my reviews) - and now he has even more to thank me for - I’ve just completed the webpage that gathers up all of my review blog posts, links to all of the blogs, your own descriptions and placed them on a page on my website.

But, before I tell you all where to go (*snicker*): below you will find reviews of several more blogs that have come in since I announced my arrival at the home stretch. This latest round of reviews is not yet up on the website (it will be later on today) and there’s a surprise review in there, and a clue to its identity that you all probably skipped right over.

So make sure you read those reviews before you run off and engage in the silliness that is egoboo.

Where was I? Oh yes, telling you all where to go.

Indulge me for a second. I have this relatively large website devoted to all things classical science fiction and I thought it would be neato-peachy-keen to send you all on a scavenger hunt around that site, looking for the reviews.

You could of course go here - www.rimworlds.com - and try to figure it out for yourself. But you just might get distracted by the Classic Science Fiction Channel and decide to watch some movies, television shows, listen to some Old Time Radio or read some free (classic) SF. I highly recommend the Piper and the Chandler…but you wouldn’t find the reviews there.

You could also wander into the magazine display section here and spend hours simply staring at the screen in wonder, or immerse yourself in the history of pulp science fiction - but you wouldn’t find the reviews there either.

Or maybe you have now gotten curious about A. Bertram Chandler and are wondering ‘exactly how does the time-twisting, faster-than-light Manschenn drive really work’? You could read a set of instructions on what NOT do here and, having read that delve into a history of the Rim Worlds - but that history doesn’t say anything about blog reviews.

Perhaps this little run-around is starting to annoy you just a bit - in which case you could confirm just how much of a wretch I really am by reading some of my own stuff in the Steve Davidson section - but you also run the risk of discovering how wonderful and marvellous I truly am (just ask Karen - on a good day) and besides, the blog reviews aren’t there either.

No, the blog reviews aren’t in any of those places, nor can they be found on the many fine sites I link to on my front page. They are, in fact, located in the Classic SF section. If you’ll head on over there I will guide you past the resource page (many other cool, classic SF oriented sites), past the MASSIVE homage to some 155 classic SF authors, around the unpopulated (and closed) section devoted to a discussion of genre fiction and straight on to the GENRE BLOGS REVIEW. Yes, that’s the same section as the GENRE REVIEW BLOGS - I have to fix the title. (Maybe it should be titled Genre Review Blogs Reviews?)

Or you just click on this link and go right there.

***

Home Stretch Plus 1.

AurealisXpress: The on-line version of a monthly ebulletin prepared for subscribers to Aurealis - which of course we all know is a bastion, nay a ROCK of Australian speculative fiction. Excellent reviews, covers the typical and the surprising.

The Billion Light Year Bookshelf: Infrequent but informative; covering several series right now, both SF and fantasy; appears to know the field well and offers personal insite.

CThreepio: Keith Graham’s wanderings. I’ve been reading Keith for a while now - and he’s always good for a nifty picture, comics and also manages to pull some books off the shelf - usually ones I’ve not yet read myself. Astronomy/SF oriented, some e-book coverage and fantasy has a way of creeping in there.

Hyperpat’s Hyper Day: Obviously a big Heinlein fan with an excellent piece analyzing Heinlein’s style. Appears to cover daily happenstance, longer expositions regarding the craft and analysis. Excellent site.

The Lensman’s Children: Originally known as The Eternal Golden Braid, this is Fred Kiesche’s personal blog. Fred is a slush reader and, near as I can tell, has read EVERYTHING (and not just genre friction either). Equal parts astronomy, daily observations, reviews and other stuff, Fred ought to be on everyone’s list.

SFReader: Home of a lot of my reviews and also the home of a massive amount of contributory reader reviews. ‘Uncle Pete’ of Creative Guy Publishing handles the editorial duties and only lets good (or better) reviews past the gates. Huge number of reviews covering SF, fantasy and horror.

True Science Fiction: New review blog, just beginning to find its voice. Covers SF books (and despite his best efforts, other ’stuff’), television shows and increasing coverage/musings on the space program. The author is experimenting and learning and I expect will go far.

Whatever: John Scalzi’s blog. The blog everyone is jealous of (ok, maybe only I’m jealous - or maybe I’m jus tthe only one willing to admit it…). John’s Whatever has been a source of amusement, solid information on a host of topic and a sterling example of how to do what Scalzi does. He does do reviews ocassionally (actually mentions of what his friends are up to), but more importantly, he turns Whatever over to other authors and let’s them do their thing. If you want a good taste of what it’s like to be an award-winning SF author (one who’s had ‘the next Heinlein’ tacked onto his name), or what a top-of-the-heap blog is all about - go there and go there often.

***

Now I’ve got nothing left to review - unless you get your review-blogging friends to add their sites over at GFTW.

I have now received several comments and emails requesting that I check out Ottinger’s list and review the blogs that have been recently added.

I have also received several emails and comments from folks who registered their disappointement with not being added to my blog roll, while also stating that they understood why I wasn’t going to.

I have, on several ocassions, remarked here that I did not feel good about not adding sites I wasn’t adding and I realize that I probably made a mistake in including my ‘add/no add’ criteria in a “review” that was primarily informational in nature.

So here’s what I’m going to do:

First - despite the enormous amount of time it will require, I am going to add all of the blogs in the list to my blog roll. I’ll be categorizing them there (general, SF, romance, etc).

Second - I will be editing the previous reviews to remove the ‘add/no add’ information.

Third - I will be mentioning whether the blog is my cup of tea (ewww, that cup of tea gets used by a LOT of different people - many I don’t know in the slightest!) or not, which is, I think, a nice compromise between no finite evaluation at all and dissing people who are essentially doing the same thing(s) I am, just not in the genres I prefer.

Fourth - if something is really and truly sucky (which none have been so far) I’ll mention that as well.

Now, here’s what you all are going to do: I just copied down Ottinger’s list again as of 8:00 am, est, 1/2/09. If you add yourself to the list after that time and date, please send ME an email as well.

It should prove to be relatively easy to keep up at this point; if not, I’ll move the reviews to a single day of the week; after all, I’ve got to write about things other than you all ocassionally.

***

I don’t know what John Ottinger’s friend and he are working on as a result of the meme, but it ocurred to me last night that one nice thing that could come out of it would be a link index, by title and author, to the various works reviewed by the different blogs. Follow that with the blogs listed by genre(s) covered and you have a one-stop shop for what has got to be thousands of reviews. Bloggers can use it to see who else reviewed something they’ve covered, readers can use it to find multiple reviews of particular authors or works and…

If Ottinger and friend are NOT planning on doing that, maybe I will. Let me know what you think. (Bloggers would eventually have to update their entries themselves…)

***

I requested that the following blogs/sites be added to the list: Fred Kiesche’s The Lensman’s Children (Fred used to do excellent capsule reviews and covers a wide range of subjects still) and the SFReader site, a multi-reviewer site edited by my friend Pete Allen of Creative Guy Publishing and home of many of my own reviews.

***

The Updated List:

7 Foot Shelves
The Accidental Bard
A Boy Goes on a Journey
A Dribble Of Ink
A Hoyden’s Look at Literature
Adventures in Reading
The Agony Column
Andromeda Spaceways
The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.
Ask Daphne
aurealisXpress
Australia Specfic In Focus
Author 2 Author

Barbara Martin
Bees (and Books) on the Knob
Bibliophile Stalker
Bibliosnark
BillWardWriter.com
The Billion Light-Year Bookshelf
Bitten by Books
The Black Library Blog
Blog, Jvstin Style
Blood of the Muse
The Book Bind
Bookgeeks
Bookslut
The Book Smugglers
Bookspotcentral
The Book Swede
Bookrastination
Breeni Books

Cheaper Ironies [pro columnist]
Cheryl’s Musings
Critical Mass
The Crotchety Old Fan

Damien G. Walter
Danger Gal
Dark Wolf Fantasy Reviews
Darque Reviews
Dave Brendon’s Fantasy and Sci-Fi Weblog
Dear Author
The Deckled Edge
Dragons, Heroes and Wizards
The Discriminating Fangirl
Dusk Before the Dawn

Enter the Octopus
Eve’s Alexandria

Fantastic Reviews
Fantastic Reviews Blog
Fantasy Book Critic
Fantasy Cafe
Fantasy Debut
Fantasy Book Reviews and News
Fantasy and Sci-fi Lovin’ Blog
Feminist SF - The Blog!
The Fix
The Foghorn Review
Frances Writes
From a Sci-Fi Standpoint
Fruitless Recursion

The Galaxy Express
Galleycat
The Gamer Rat
Genre Reviews
Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review
Grasping for the Wind
The Green Man Review

Hasenpfeffer
Highlander’s Book Reviews
Horrorscope
The Hub Magazine
Hyperpat’s Hyper Day

Ink and Keys
io9

Jumpdrives and Cantrips

Lair of the Undead Rat
League of Reluctant Adults
Literary Escapism

Michele Lee’s Book Love
The Mistress of Ancient Revelry
MIT Science Fiction Society
Monster Librarian
More Words, Deeper Hole
Mostly Harmless Books
My Favourite Books

Neth Space
The New Book Review
NextRead

OF Blog of the Fallen
The Old Bat’s Belfry
Outside of a Dog

Paranormality
Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist
Piaw’s Blog
Post-Weird Thoughts
Publisher’s Weekly

Realms of Speculative Fiction
Reading the Leaves
Reviewer X
The Road Not Taken
Rob’s Blog o’ Stuff
Robots and Vamps

Sandstorm Reviews
ScifiChick
Sci Fi Wire
SciFiGuy
Sci-Fi Fan Letter
Sci-Fi Songs [Musical Reviews]
The Sequential Rat
Severian’s Fantastic Worlds
SF Diplomat
SF Gospel
SF Reviews.net
SF Revu
SF Signal
SF Site
SFF World’s Book Reviews
Silver Reviews
Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
Speculative Fiction
Speculative Fiction Junkie
Speculative Horizons
The Specusphere
Spinebreakers
Spiral Galaxy Reviews
Spontaneous Derivation
Sporadic Book Reviews
Stella Matutina
The Sudden Curve
The Sword Review

Tangent Online
Tehani Wessely
Temple Library Reviews
Tor.com [also a publisher]
True Science Fiction

Un:Bound
Urban Fantasy Land

Vast and Cool and Unsympathetic
Variety SF

Walker of Worlds
Wands and Worlds
The Wertzone
With Intent to Commit Horror
WJ Fantasy Reviews
The World in a Satin Bag
WriteBlack

Young Adult Science Fiction

Non-English Language
Cititor SF [Romanian, but with English Translation]

Elbakin.net [French]

Foundation of Krantas [Chinese (traditional)]
The SF Commonwealth Office in Taiwan [Chinese with some English essays]
Yenchin’s Lair [Chinese (traditional)]

Aguarras [Brazilian, Portuguese]
Fernando Trevisan [Brazilian, Portuguese]
Human 2.0 [Brazilian, Portuguese]
Life and Times of a Talkative Bookworm [Brazilian, Porteguese]
Ponto De Convergencia [Brazilian, Portuguese]
pós-estranho [Brazilian, Portuguese]
Skavis [Brazilian, Portuguese]

Fantasy Seiten [German, Deustche]
Fantasy Buch [German, Deustche]
Literaturschock [German, Deustche]
Welt der fantasy [German, Deustche]
Bibliotheka Phantastika [German, Deustche]
SF Basar [German, Deustche]
Phantastick News [German, Deustche]
X-zine [German, Deustche]
Buchwum [German, Deustche]
Phantastick Couch [German, Deustche]
Wetterspitze [German, Deustche]
Fantasy News [German, Deustche]
Fantasy Faszination [German, Deustche]
Fantasy Guide [German, Deustche]
Zwergen Reich [German, Deustche]
Fiction Fantasy [German, Deustche]

One of the blogs I reviewed earlier today mentioned the SFSignal discussion based on Buzz Aldrin’s statement that science fiction was responsible for the diminshment of the space program (the contention being that people’s expectations, based on SF’s prognostications, were too high, easily disappointed and led to a lack of interest in the program, leading to budget cuts and political impotence).

I don’t believe that’s the case; I think it had more to do with PR mistakes by NASA than anything else; after Apollo, the program departed from the SF magazine cover images and tried to foist bad replicas on us instead of delivering the real deal: a spaceplane that couldn’t really fly by itself, a space station that didn’t rotate, no rockets delivering the mail, etc., etc.

The disconnect between the public’s (SF-inspired) vision of what the development of space would look like no longer matched reality. Instead of actully going somewhere, all they did was park a plane in orbit (due deference to Hubble and the maintenance job on it aside).

However, I think that’s beginning to change. I recently ran across some re-postings of NASA images of the new Ares program, and I was struck by the similarity to some SF magazine covers, which are reproduced below.

Maybe the boys at the NASA art department are beginning to remember that years ago they stuck certain images in our head and then forgot about them. In some respects the whole space program thing is very much like one of those blockbuster movies where the trailer reveals all of the really cool shots; watching the actual movie is a let-down because you’ve already seen the best parts.

The Willy Ley/Werner von Braun/Chesley Bonestell/Ralph McQuarrie depictions ARE the space program - or at least the icons that most folks (particularly aging politicians) still have in their heads. Give them something they recognize, something they think they understand, or are at least familiair with, and the quest for budgetary support will probably go a lot easier.

Magazine issues depicted are Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1973 and Amazing Stories, October 1960. Nasa images courtesy of Nasa.

Housekeeping: Again, thanks to those folks who are linking to the new version of the blog and/or who have bothered to change their links. It is making a big difference: Over the past (approximately) two days, the traffic relationship between the two has shifted, with the new version now receiving the majority of unique visits. Yay!

Please do not forget to send in your self-descriptions: John Ottinger over at Grasping for the Wind (the originator of the review blog meme) said “use my existing description from the site” - so you all may already have written yours.

Note: A few of the links in John Ottinger’s list do not take you to the front page of the blog. So, when visiting, make sure you’re linking to the root and adjust things in the address bar if necessary.

***

The Specusphere: Group blog from - Australia! Seems to be more of a front-end and archive for their webzine, now in issue 5. Reviews cover everything including southern hemisphere writings - which, if you haven’t been paying attention for the past couple of years is a hotbed of new talent and innovative ideas. Add

SpineBreakers: Very interesting concept/social networking site from Penguin Books. Targeted to ’spinebreakers’ - “any story-surfing, web-exploring, word-loving, day-dreaming reader/writer/artist/thinker aged 13 to 18″. If you want to see what the targets of YA marketing are exicted about, reviewing and reading, check out this site. Add (for research value).

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books: Two self-proclaimed (smart) bitches review romance novels and give it to you straight. Pretty funny, even if you aren’t into romance novels. Might add it for the humor.

Speculative Fiction: Not sure how current this blog is, as the 6th item down (as of reporting) chronicles my debate with Ian Sales that drew in IO9, Technorati and a bunch of others over whether there’s any ‘classic’ science fiction worth recommending. (They refer to it as ‘golden age’ SF and others use the term “vintage”, but it all translates into the same thing: good, solid science fiction, unencumbered by angst, psychologically conflicted characters or literary affectations. You know - stories, rather than philosophical treatises.) If you’re keeping track, I think I won that debate and if you aren’t - don’t worry about it. The whole thing was just one of those internet spasms anyways. Or proof that I know how to stir up controversy. Anyway. The site right now features link-o-rama - and I already have them in my blogroll.

Speculative Fiction Junkie: Good reviews focused in equal parts on fantasy and SF. Also focused on identifying the ‘true first edition’ of each work - so if you are a collector… Add.

Speculative Horizons: Interviews, reviews, giveaways. Covers everything - books, games, multi-media. More fantasy than SF, and primarily focused on new works. Probable add.

Spiral Galaxy Reviews: Lots of other review blogs link to and/or reference this one - and I can see why. The author is now a slush reader for Strange Horizons and is guest blogging for several other blogs, and has a very nice mix of a wide range of product - including a fair amount of esoterica (William Atheling/James Blish’s critiques, for example). Add.

Spontaneous Derivation: Ocassional contributor to the TOR site. A celebration of the Kindle, SFF on the Kindle, epubbing and ‘everything else’. I need to keep track of epubbing, so - add.

Sporadic Book Reviews: As advertised in the title, infrequent postings and short, short reviews. Unlikely add.

Stella Matutina: Very nicely designed site, but for me the gold and red and black colors make it difficult to read. It is nice to look at though. Mostly fantasy, YA and ‘creative non-fiction’, but the blogger is beginning to ‘get into’ SF, so I will check back as that progresses through the year.

The Sudden Curve: Looks like a guy having way too much fun; more clip gathering than anything else right now. Nice GGA graphics at the top and - anyone who proclaims Johnny Quest opening credits as ‘The Best Ever’ get’s the nod. Add. (Is the title from the Meatload song?)

The Sword Review: Way slow to load - but who knows whether that’s my fault or the page’s? E-zine that has ceased publication, now serving as an archive of that magazine’s contents and as a link to MindFlights, another e-zine. I’ll link to Mindflights.

Tangent Online: Site is being updated and therefore, currently no new material. Primarily reviews of short fiction from small press and e-zines. Gotta keep up with those markets. Add.

Tehanni Wessely: More personal musings/life experiences than reviews. The author is tied in to Australian small press and things spec fic. Probable add.

Temple LIbrary Reviews: Sci-Fi, horror and literary fiction. Mmmm. Interesting, but my impression is that it’s kind of all over the place. I’ll have to think about this one.

TOR.Com. Add. Add. Add. Patrick and Theresa are amongst the best (and most repected) editors in the biz. Often features free fiction from headliners and almost always has interesting bits, as well as good reviews. (Already added btw.)

The Road Not Taken: A few reviews but, perhaps more important to bibliophiles - coverage of book sale deals, coupon availability & etc. I got me some gift cards and this site’s coupon codes are going to help me stretch them to cover additional purchases. Add.

Un:Bound: Mostly horror/urban fantasy, but starting to branch out via membership in two book clubs. A first work is A Clockwork Orange, Burgess’ tour-de-force (and a great movie as well). Might add once they get around to reviewing ACO…

Urban Fantasy Land: Hmmm. Title says it all. Books are conveniently grouped into Grades A through F, though nothing is to be found in the D’s or F’s. (What, no one flunks out of urban fantasy?) In-depth reviews, just not my cuppa.\

Vast and Cool and Unsympathetic. One of my favorite book openings - Wells’ from War of the Worlds. (Particularly excellent as read by Richard Burton on the album of the same name.) And a perfect title for a review column. Not a daily blog, but a good read when posting and primarily SF oriented. Reminded me of the SFSignal/Buzz Aldrin discussion over whether SF has destroyed the space program or not. I’ll have something on that later today on the blog. Gonna add this one.

Variety SF: Short reviews - mostly of free online fiction, as well as links to free fiction finds. Add.

Walker of Worlds:Totally SF oriented. Wide selection of reads and some interesting finds. Add

Wands and Worlds: Publisher’s blog (well, personal review blog of a small press publisher of YA F & SF). Covers just about everything YA in those two categories. Add.

The Wertzone: Games, television and books, cross genre coverage. UK based, so some of the items may be unfamiliar to US based readers/watchers. Some news coverage as well. Mmmm. Thinking about this one.

With Intent to Commit Horror: Totally horror. Mentions rats (again) in the actual url. I think this might actually be a companion blog to another reviewed earlier. In-depth reviews, but - its still that same cuppa that ain’t mind.

WJ Fantasy Reviews: Comics, books, movies. Mostly fantasy as the name suggests. The blogger is having some internet connection issues and promises to get them sorted out. In the meantime, posting is sparse. Unprobable add.

The World in a Satin Bag: SF, right now devoted to Star Wars geekery and twitter. Working writer, also features submissions and novel-in-progress. Most likely not.

WriteBlack: Two minorities in one over here (so if you’re looking to save on your minority interests…). The author is not “too dumb to walk and chew gum at the same time”; reviews and musings on genre writing by black authors, by a female black editor. As the old joke goes, if she had a Spanish surname, she’d have all the bases covered… Nice writing and a very interesting perspective. I’m tempted to make all kinds of off-color jokes (pun-intended) but I’m not sure if black or white america is quite ready as we haven’t really seen what the post-Obama world is going to be like. Will it mean more space for black authors on the shelves? Go to this site and I’m sure you’ll find out. Add.

Young Adult Science Fiction: Infrequently updated due to pregnancy. Right now, more links to interesting science/space tidbits than anything else. Linked to three other blogs. I see few actual reviews here. Hails from Alaska: I wonder if she can see roosians out her kitchen window? Hot on internet safety for kidz (can you really advocate internet safety and YA SF together? My take is: sit them down with all the RAH juvenovels and when they’re done, you’ll have little to worry about.)Probably won’t add.

And, we’re done - except for a couple of follow on reviews and investigation of the foreign language blogs.

I sincerely hope that A: I did not offend anyone (it wasn’t my intention to do so if I did) B: that you find this useful C: that you send in your own take on your blog so I can add it D: that you visit all of these blogs for yourself and make your own decisions about adding to your rolls (a little spicy mustard never hurt) E: that some of you will take the time to return the favor and review my blog F: and that once I announce the creation of the pages that archive these reviews, you link to it so that fellow travelers can utilize it as well.

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It is currently 7 degrees (feels like -19) outside and I have to go shovel the walk and the back porch. I’d MUCH rather be doing more reviews…

Housekeeping: Thank you to those who have already taken the opportunity to self-define their blogs. Those responses are currently in the comments and will be added right underneath my reviews once I: get a few more and finish out the list. They will also be added to the website page once that is compiled.

Thank you also to those who have been understanding and those who have sent comments of encouragement and approval - I really appreciate them.

NO thank you to the folks who didn’t send in instructions to my wife to get naked.

and finally - my best wishes to all of you during the coming New Year.

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There are some 28 review blogs beginning with the letter S; not surprising as we’re dealing with a double whammy with that letter. It is both one of the most popular consonants in the English language, and the initial letter in Science Fiction, Sci Fi, SyFy, SciPhi, SpecFic, SpecLit and SF (which does not stand for San Francisco).

I’ve entitled this post as part 1, anticipating that I will not make it through all 28 in one sitting - but I might depending on how the morning goes; today’s laundry list of tasks includes the laundry (we rent and must, therefore, endure foraging trips for quarters as well as establishing temporary encampments at the local lint factory), puffing up my courage and selecting a couple of short stories to send in to SFReader.com’s story contest (deadline is today), call the attorney (minor stuff - as well as wishing him and his a happy New Year) and draft a response to the response from my book distributor friends for the paintball book coming out in 2009. (That won’t take long, their changes/requests are very minor and well-within the confines of the deal I was hoping to make with them.)

And, as predicted, we have another winter storm gently floating to the ground and freezing all over everything. Which means I’m pretty much stuck indoors (or at least have an excuse to be stuck indoors).

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Sandstorm Reviews: Wide ranging (crime, history, SF, fantasy) and infrequently updated. Appears as if this blogger is trying to make time to blog but just can’t find it. Probably not.

SciFiChick.com: She has a new puppy! (Cute too - the puppy I mean. Oh, what the heck, SciFi Chick is pretty cute too. So sue me for the sexist remark.) Mostly television and film, news and links, but book reviews, mostly of an SF and fantasy nature, as well. Without the puppy - not sure. With the puppy, it’s an add.

Sci Fi Wire: Already monitoring this one. Has an annoying tendency to launch videos that you can’t turn off. A creature of SkiffyTube. Commercial and obviously so. Sometimes has breaking news, but usually follows the better news sources like Locus, BoingBoing, Signal, etc.

SciFiGuy: Not Bill. Doug. From Canada. Good grounding in classic SF, but is conentrating on urban fantasy just now. Nice layout and concept - features and author, a work and provides lots of background, supplementary material. Add

Sci-Fi Fan Letter: Bookseller. Long interviews with selected authors. Currently on fantasy. Mmmm. Probably….

Sci-Fi Songs: Probably THE most unique review blog on the list and will be added for that reason alone. Reviews music and ties it in to science fiction; also covers his own singing/songwriting efforts. Interesting and fun.

The Sequential Rat: What is it with the rat thing? Oh, after reading the “About’ over here, I have my answer. You’ll have to visit to find out for yourselves. Graphic novels are the focus here, right now particularly crime and horror and crime/horror. Probable add as I need to learn more about graphic novels (beyond what Watchmen and Dark Knight taught me).

Severian’s Fantastic Worlds: Begins with Gene Wolfe’s contention that “all literature is fantasy”; true to its self-description of being eclectic, devoted to writing, other things of interest (to the blogger) and reviews of both the fantastical and the mundane. Maybe an add. My counter quote for Wolfe would be: “anything not science fiction (or fantasy) is mundane”.

SF Diplomat: A blog that “has run its course”; permanently mothballed according to the author, who has gone off to do more film-critiquing elsewhere. Won’t be adding the flying insect deterrent.

SF Gospel: Author’s blog (author of The Gospel According to Science Fiction). Well, here we go with the mixing of genres once again. Although I must say that I didn’t feel drowned in biblical quotations, only that McKee (author) simply looks at everything through a theological lens. His view on Science Fiction, as quoted on Amazon is that “The main goal of SF is to show us how we can face the future and overcome the new challenges that our changing world may develop.” a contention that is arguable (but won’t be argued here). Well written and apparently well-researched, nevertheless the focus is one that I personally find - A: confusing and B: on a par with analyzing everything through a Freudian lens, Campbellian lens or any other affectation you might care to impose. But it is a well-presented argument for this point of view. On a slightly more picky note - the review of The Day The Earth Stood Still contains some inaccuracies that detract from the overall comparison of the two films (Klaatu was never allowed to speak to the UN in the original) and, if the director (Wise) says he was not deliberately engaging in re-writing christian parable with that movie, we’ve got to take him at his word. I will continue to point out the scene in which Klaatu reads the laundry tag with the name Carpenter on it, almost looks into the camera, smiles wrly and then throws it away as evidence that cast and crew were aware of the possible connection and deliberately denied it, in the film. But then that’s me. McKee’s point of view is intriguing enough that I’ll be adding this one, even if I’ll probably disagree with just about everything in there.

SFReviews: Ooodles of reviews, covering everything SF. Can’t fault a reviewer who gives 5 stars to Asimov’s Foundation trilogy - even if I think short shrift is given to Niven. Add

SF Revu: Blogazine. Covers - everything. Seems to be released as a monthly issue with archives. Add (but then, I’m adding all the free e-zines)

SF Signal: Oh Sf Signal. First - if they gig one of your entries, be prepared, since you’re gonna be seeing a lot of traffic. Next - their Mind Meld feature (asking a bunch of folks from the field to respond to a particular issue) is legendary, fun and informative. Reviews equally so and their TidBits (capsules of the day’s genre news) more often than not, scoop everyone else. If you had to pick one (free) genre news source/blog, this is the one. I just wish they’d pick on me every day, or at least once a week, instead of about once every month. Oh - already added.

SF Site: Home of the folks who maintain the F&SF website/forum, several author pages and hosts it’s own kinda-bi-monthly ‘magazine’ with reviews, interviews and articles. Lots of good stuff and already added.

SFF World’s Book Reviews: book review section of a lively forum that I regularly frequent. Wide selection of reviews by numerous reviewers (many of whom frequent the forum, where further discussion ensues). Already added.

Silver Reviews: A site hosted by the aforementioned SFSite. Hosts a book reviewer’s webring as well (probably worth checking out given the current subject) HUGE number of reviews archived, along with a nice little graphical index to such things as awards, nominations and etc. Covers other media in addition to literature (oops, I mean, ‘written science fiction’). Add.

OK for today! Tomorrow should see me wrapping everything up (once again, apologies to our foreign language friends; I’ll go through them and any I can understand I’ll review, but those I can’t…)

I will be fixing my rss feed link on the new version of the blog; traffic there is now achieving parity with the old blog, which means that at least some of you are going there (thank you!).

One more mention of sending in your own description of your blog - please, I think between my look-see and your own description, folks will be able to find everything they are looking for) and

even though I am guilty of this myself - think about adding a little more info to your “About” tabs…

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Be Safe and Be Well!

It is pretty obvious that in the course of scanning, overviewing, encapsulating and perusing some ten plus blogs a day, I will inevitably get some things wrong.

Getting it wrong ranges from the prosaic (you forgot to include a link) to the esoteric (I’m not a scientist, I’m an economist) to the incorrect (hey, I review SF too dammit!)

This is annoying to say the least (not the commentary, but the fact that I missed something).

It ocurred to me that there is a solution, and a solution that will enhance both the reviews, the webpage that I’m compiling for them and, potentially, YOUR traffic.

It’s very simple. All you need to do is self-characterize your site and send it along to me either in a comment or to my email. (If you take the email route, please include the name of your blog and/or a link.)

I believe that the most effective way of self-characterizing your (review) blog is to provide some assessment of the distribution of your reviews amongst the various genres (I review equal parts hard fantasy, lycanthropic romance and urban vampiric techno-thrillers) along with a nod to other esoterica that may sneak in to your blog (I mix coverage of my personal interest in caves that have been visited by Franklin Pierce, transgender delphinoids and jello sculptures of well-known fictional characters in with my reviews).

I’d make this a poll type thingie, but as I’m learning, there are far more genres, sub-genres, sub-sub-genres (those are the stories featuring whatever taking place in submarines) and particularly defined cross-overs that I’d spend more time adding possible answers than it would be worth.

To get started, I’ll attempt to characterize my own blog:

The Crotchety Old Fan is primarily devoted to commentary on Science Fiction drawing inspiration from contemporary sources, the defense of classic science fiction (against all-comers) and ocassional reviews of movies, television shows, books, comics and other art forms with a connection to classic science fiction. It also features personal silliness, makes frequent forays into whatever strikes my fancy at the moment and is an homage to my wife, who is currently NOT naked.

Go on. Give it a shot.