Jack Womack's library

Jack Womack is one of my favorite authors, so it's great fun to browse his book collection (courtesy of William Gibson). Check out his prodigiously quirky UFO collection and selections from his pulp science fiction library.

(Hat tip to Richard Kadrey, via Twitter.)

Happy birthday, William Gibson!

March 17, 1948: William Gibson, Father of Cyberspace

Gibson has been my favorite writer -- and foremost influence -- since I belatedly discovered his work in high school. And he's never slowed down.

Campy science fiction book covers galore

Click here to be instantly transported to genre heaven.

"The Caryatids"

Attention cyberpunks: Bruce Sterling has a new novel out.

The good stuff

Pulp SF Book Covers That Channel Pure Id

I'm not a big io9 fan, but occasionally it surpasses itself.

To gaze upon it is to be humbled.

The Entire Terrifying Heap of Neal Stephenson's Handwritten BAROQUE CYCLE

Isn't it time you read them all?

Books to read in 2009:

Rudy Rucker reminisces on the inspiration for his classic c-punk novel "Software."

Nick Redfern reviews Gray Barker's "The Silver Bridge," newly reissued.

Ridley Scott takes on 'Forever War'

Fox 2000 has acquired rights to Joe Haldeman's 1974 novel "The Forever War," and Ridley Scott is planning to make it into his first science fiction film since he delivered back-to-back classics with "Blade Runner" and "Alien."

William S. Burroughs demonstrates his famous literary "cut-ups":



Here's a sample cut-up of my own writing (de)constructed by an online generator:

But while disclosure of alien visitation is eagerly awaited -- even expected -- encourage belief that Grays are flesh-and-blood ET anthropologists. Their antics, while horrifying, may be as bogus as But I doubt that that "something" is genetic material in the usual sense; it seems more likely spacecraft and diminutive occupants who seem to have stepped out of there's the equally appealing possibility that manifesting in terms comprehensible to witnesses reflects the vocabulary with which to understand it. Or maybe it won't, content to let us project our own unspoken semi-straight faces.

Meanwhile, the enigma persists--as always, seemingly just beyond our comprehension. And we have the nerve is both trickster and trigger -- indisputably real, but real in a way "explain" the phenomenon's intricacies to a wary public (often in the guise of would-be political discourse), an aerial object of unknown origin.)

Am I a it seems more likely to me that encounters with hybrid children and distressingly intimate "exams" are attempts Their antics, while horrifying, may be as bogus as the it should be thoroughly familiar with us and able to like this, with Fortean forces hovering at the fringes of our perception. I don't is) between cautious advocates of the Extraterrestrrial Hypothesis and know-nothing science popularizers who seem genuinely incapable of considering limited expectations of the witness. Thus we have a pageant of fantastic beings of all descriptions: robot-like monsters, winged entities need to "explain" the phenomenon's intricacies to a wary public (often in the guise if tantalizing, comments by insiders both real and imaginary) has been repeatedly enacted over the last by physical effects on the environment), demand a level of unconscious participation on behalf pass the burden of their arrival onto our collective shoulders.

Rudy Rucker discusses his lifelong appreciation of William Burroughs. I like it when writers write about writers.

Another reason to like Peter Watts. And I had the audacity to think I was a pretty good writer.

Dark Roasted Blend on "Burning Chrome," William Gibson's seminal short-story collection. Includes rare cover art.

Rudy Rucker as you've never seen him before!

Ballardian Home Movies: The Final Cut

The winners are in. Anyone for a film festival?

Science fiction writer Peter Watts is apparently working on something new. I don't know what it is at this point, but my appetite was thoroughly whetted by this teaser. By all means, read this guy's novels -- they're available for free on his website if you don't have the gas money for a trip to Borders. I'm convinced Watts is one of the top five living writers of serious fiction (of any genre), and I'm not just saying that because he responds to my emails.

Interview on Postsingular and Frek and the Elixir (interview with author Rudy Rucker)

Frek is about a maximally biotech future in which there's no more machines at all. I used to read my children a book called The Fur Family, in which a little family of furry creatures lives inside a hollow oak tree, complete with windows and a little red door. I've always thought it would be nice to live in a house like that, so that's where I put Frek's family. I get sick of machines, so the Frek world is a happy dream.

Dissecting bodies from the twilight zone: Stuart Wavell meets JG Ballard

Believing that reason and rationality failed to explain human behaviour, he resolved to become a psychiatrist. "I already had my first patient -- myself." To this end he studied anthropology, psychology and pathology at Cambridge. For the next two years he dissected cadavers, trying to exorcise the memories of dead Chinese on Shanghai's streets.

"Sometimes there would be the bodies of entire families that had perished during the night," he recalls. "I took it for granted, but I knew there was something wrong about all this. Perhaps I sensed that we were like a pack of wolves destroying itself."

(Via Ballardian.)

Aside from mentioning Ballard's cancer, the article describes his owning a Ford Granada -- my first car.