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We’ll be in the dealers room at ApolloCon this weekend. Come by and chat with us if you have a chance!

The following stories make up The Year’s Top Ten Tales of Science Ficiton audio anthology, scheduled for release this June :

Turing’s Apples by Stephen Baxter

Shoggoths in Blooms by Elizabeth Bear

Exhalation by Ted Chiang

The Dream of Reason by Jeffrey Ford

The Ray-Gun: A Love Story by James Alan Gardner

26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss by Kij Johnson

The Art of Alchemy by Ted Kosmatka

The City of the Dead by Paul J McAuley

Five Thrillers by Robert Reed

Fixing Hanover by Jeff VanderMeer

AudioFile reviewed mini-Masterpieces of Science Fiction this month. Among their many kind comments, they refer to it as an ”enjoyable collection” that makes a “nice introduction to contemporary short science fiction.” We say, “Thanks!! If you’re already a subscriber to AudioFile, check out the review on line. If you’re not yet a subscriber to this wonderful magazine, you ought to be.”

Infinivox has just released Guest Law by John C. Wright. Thar be pirates in space, me matey! This wonderful story has an hermaphroditic space ship captain, knights with bodies adapted for life in space, a lowly non-adapted human engineer, and a mysterious guest. Does not the poet say: “Beware the strangeness of the stranger. Unknown things bring unknown danger?” The story is read by Tom Dheere. The CD is currently on sale for only $7.99. Aye, treasure indeed, matey!

Here’s another review of mini-Masterpieces of Science Fiction by John at http://www.scifidimensions.com/Sep08/minimasterpieces.htm

I like his pick up of the double meaning of “mini-Masterpieces!”

SF Crowsnest.com has recently posted their review of mini-Masterpieces of Science Fiction at their site. You can check it out here: http://www.sfcrowsnest.com/articles/books/2008/nz13052.php . I never did receive the e-mail inquiry about postage to the UK. For now it’s just $2.00.

SF Signal rated mini-Masterpieces of Science Fiction four stars!! Six of the stories rated four stars or higher with “Last Contact” by Stephen Baxter rated five stars.

You can check out the review here: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/007094.html

I thought I’d weigh in on this topic as a parent of a 17 year old high school senior. He plans to go into engineering as a career, so he should be inclined to read SF. He does but I would like him to read more science fiction.  Like many of you, I’ve got a rather large science fiction library. I’ve got the old stuff as well as the new stuff. I’ve encouraged my son on many ocassions to read contemporary SF. He quickly loses interest in those books that he starts. He would rather read older SF. It may be that he’s put off by the time investment needed to read a series of  books rather than a stand alone novel. Afterall, reading takes time away from his other pursuits (Guitar Hero, etc.) My son’s favorite SF books are Ender’s Game, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I, Robot. As you can see, there’s nothing contemporary on this list. While I don’t claim that my son is necessarily representative of his age group’s reading preferences, I do believe the older titles of our genre do have their place and cannot be entirely be dismissed as unworthy reading material for today’s teenagers.

Denice claimed her iPod Shuffle this week. Go girl!!!

The winner is Denice M Thornhill. Congratulations!!!

Denice, go to www.audiotexttapes.net. Click on contact us. Then send me an e-mail providing me with the street address you gave me at Denvention3. If the street address in your e-mail matches the street address you wrote down on the yellow index card in Denver then you’ve won an iPOD shuffle! You have through Friday, August 22nd to claim the iPOD. If you haven’t claimed your iPOD by then we’ll draw another winner on the 23rd.