Book Trailer: The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan

Book Trailer for The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan

Link Round-Up: July 22, 2010

Books:

• Interview: Functional Nerds interviews L.E. Modesitt Jr.
• Interview: Innsmouth Freepress interviews John Joseph Adams, former assistant editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
• Interview: Wizards of the Coast speak with the adventures designers Ari Marmell and Scott Fitzgerald Gray.
• Bookstore Bingo: 13 Of The Most Ridiculous Things Overheard In Bookstores.
• Curtis Brown debunks the Top 10 Myths About Our E-book Future.
• Digital Shockwave: How Millions of Dollars and the Survival of the Publishing Industry are at Stake
• Down This Gravel Road: A Look at Contemporary Rural Fantasy.
• Jacob Lambert offers The Millions : A Report on the Vonnegut Effect
• Laura Anne Gilman discusses The Lasting Appeal of Urban Fantasy.
• Why Cell Phones Will Dominate the E-Book Market in China.

Link Round-Up: July 21, 2010

Books:

• Interview: Orbit interviews Ken MacLeod, author of The Restoration Game.
• Interview: Southern Fried Gamer interviews Judy O’Dea of the funny yet informative How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse.
• Interview: StarshipSofa interviews Ray Bradbury. [Podcast]
• News: Toronto Burlesque Festival to showcase 'Naked Girls Reading'
• Bookstove names 100 Science Fiction Novels Everyone Should Read.
• NPR explains Why The Next Big Pop-Culture Wave Might Be Libraries.
• Online University Reviews offers a list of 75 Signs You’re a Bibliophile.
• Suite101 discusses Tolkien's Use of Language to Highlight Settings and Events.

Quote

Books. They are lined up on shelves or stacked on a table. There they are wrapped up in there jackets, lines of neat print on nicely bound pages. They look like such orderly, static things. Then you, the reader come along. You open the book jacket, and it can be like opening the gates to an unknown city, or opening the lid of a treasure chest. You read the first word and you’re off on a journey of exploration and discovery.
— David Almond

Link Round-Up: July 20, 2010

Books

• Interview: Apex Books interviews Ari Marmell, of The Conqueror's Shadow.
• Interview: Murder by the Book speaks with Gail Carriger, author the Parasol Protectorate series.
• Interview: Tim Kring discusses his new book, Shift, with Suvudu.
• News: Amazon: Kindle Books Now Outselling Hardcovers.
• News: Swiss bank to lift lid on hidden Kafka works.
  
  

Library Parodies Old Spice Guy Ads

Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library has just created the internet's most popular library promotional video.


In a 50 second spot, a university student channels the Old Spice guy, urging students to start using the library to study. Inside five days of its release, the video earned over 1.2 million views on YouTube.

The New Spice Blog has behind-the-scene photos from the production and crew credits.

Awards: 2009 Sky Awards Announced

The results of the 2009 Sky Awards, presented on July 18, 2010 at a ceremony in Beijing, China, have been announced. Sky Awards are given to science fiction and fantasy stories published in Mainland China in the previous calender year.

• Best Fiction Long Form in 2009: Once upon a Time in Shanghai, JIANG Nan (Volumes Publishing Company)
• Best Fiction Short Form in 2009: “Dark Room”, HAN Song (New Realms of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Jun 2009)
• Most Popular Translated Fiction in 2009: The Girl Who Leapt through Time, Yasutaka Tsutsui, trans. by DING Dingchong (from The Girl Who Leapt through Time, Shanghai Translation Publishing House)
• Special Contribution Award: Odyssey of China Fantasy – a SF/F magazine

Visit the Official Sky Awards Website.