John Joseph Adams - Editor & Anthologist

DVD Review: Fido (2007)

Do yourself a favor and check out this movie called Fido (now on DVD). Basically, it’s what you’d get if you mashed up Leave It to Beaver and Night of the Living Dead. In the 50s there’s some kind of space germ that turns the dead into zombies, resulting in a zombie war. A company called Zomcon develops technologies and strategies for beating back the zombie hordes so people can live in peace again. There are vast areas of land known as the "Wild Zone"–desolate wastelands where the zombies roam free. An oasis in that wilderness is the town of Willard, which is a sort of perfect, utopian piece of suburbia. The town is made possible by the perimeter fence that keeps the zombies out. Or the wild zombies anyway. See, some scientist developed a collar that allows you to control zombies. Put it around their neck, and you can stifle their impulse to consume human flesh. It also makes them receptive to commands, so they become a sort of slave, doing menial tasks no one else wants to do. The movie’s about a boy whose family gets their first zombie, who he names Fido.

It’s good stuff. A good, solid story, with just the right amount of humor. Pretty good performances all around, and some nice, subtle social commentary. Highly recommended.

The Fix reviews The Pirate Issue

Marshall Payne reviews The Pirate Issue for The Fix. He singles out J. K. Cheney’s "A Hand For Each," Rajan Khanna’s "The Furies," and Grant Stone’s "Hard Times for Bartelby Crow" as the best of the issue. Also, he has some additional comments on his LiveJournal.

Grasping for the Wind interview, SF Signal Mind Meld, with me, wonderful me

Yesterday, Grasping for the Wind posted a review of The Pirate Issue, and now they’ve posted an interview with me:

GFTW: You were recently invited to be a guest editor for the Pirate Issue of Shimmer Magazine. What was your approach to choosing stories for this issue?

JJA: One of the things I wanted to do with the Pirate Issue is have a broad range of pirate stories, which took some liberties interpreting the term "pirate." Of course, there are some stories in the issue that are your typical iconic Caribbean-style pirate, but it was important to me to have a certain diversity represented. So that was one factor.

Other than that, I was really just judging the stories on their own merits as I would judge any story. In fact, that was the only way I could judge them, really, because Shimmer employs a "blind" reading system, in which the names of the contributors are stripped off of their manuscripts before the editor sees them. So when I read each story, all I had was the title and the text. It was kind of a liberating feeling to read each story with absolutely no preconceptions, not even subconsciously, about what I might think about the story I was about to read. (And this was only enhanced by the fact that I read all the submissions electronically, so every submission looked exactly the same to me–there were no variations in manuscript formatting or other things like that to get in the way of me engaging with the story.)

The only other time I’ve ever read a story anonymously, as far as I know, is when I read Neil Gaiman’s "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" for F&SF. The manuscript didn’t have Gaiman’s name on it, just the title. I kind of felt like I recognized the voice, but I couldn’t put my finger on who it was. After I got to the end, I saw Neil Gaiman’s name, and so I learned who wrote it. But I was glad to have read it that way, and I enjoyed reading a whole slush pile’s worth for Shimmer that way.

Click to read the whole interview.

Also, SF Signal asked me to participate in their new Mind Meld feature, in which they get a bunch of knowledgeable folks and ask them to chime in on a certain issue. So click through to read my thoughts about online book reviewing, along with thoughts from folks like David Hartwell, Niall Harrison, James Patrick Kelly, and others.

F&SF, Dec. 2007 humor, reviews, & criticism

As I mentioned in my interview with David Moles, the December 2007  issue of F&SF is now on sale. That means that all of the non-fiction in the issue is now available on our website:

• Books to Look For by Charles de Lint, covering The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman, Blaze by Richard Bachman (Stephen King), and Strays by Ron Koertge
• Musing on Books by Michelle West, covering The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan
• Plumage from Pegasus: Survival of the Fannish by Paul Di Filippo
• Coming Attractions
• Film: Flavorless, Odorless Soulless by Lucius Shepard
• Curiosities by David Langford, on Parallel Botany by Leo Lionni (1977)

Review: A Canticle for Leibowitz radio drama

A Canticle for Leibowitz adapted for radio by Karl Schmidt and John Reeves from the novel by Walter M. Miller, Jr., read by a full cast

Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s 1959 Hugo Award-winning masterwork revolves around the Abbey of St. Leibowitz and the monks there who seek to preserve and rediscover the knowledge of the ancients, most of which was lost in the aftermath of the great Flame Deluge. Beginning in the 26^th Century and covering a span of some 1800 years, with humanity progressing from a new dark age to a new space age, A Canticle for Leibowitz tells a tale of the pursuit and folly of technological advancements and of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization.

The novel is brought wonderfully to life by this captivating radio dramatization produced by WHA Radio and Wisconsin Public Radio (in association with NPR). Carol Cowan, the primary narrator, reads the text in a grim, compelling tone that leaves the listener hopelessly ensnared. The rest of the cast deliver likewise sterling performances, breathing life into Miller’s characters, capturing at once the profundity of the novel’s themes and its sly, dark humor. Sound effects can often hamper an audiobook production, but here they complement the dramatization well; the sound of church bells and the eerie chanting of the Edgewood College Chant Group help fully immerse the listener in this vision of a post-holocaust America.

Genre purists will probably want to first read the novel, or listen to the unabridged audiobook from Books-on-Tape (read by Jonathan Marosz), but for the casual fan (or the purist who has already read the novel), this is sure to delight. Perhaps it’s best to think of this production as an illuminated manuscript—though it can never replace the sacred original, it is a pleasing replica and a fitting tribute.

Originally appeared in Amazing Stories

Review: The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold, read by Lloyd James

Complex and believable characters and an intricate religious system lie at the heart of The Curse of Chalion. The people of Chalion practice a “Quintarian” philosophy; that is, they worship the five gods: the Father, the Mother, the Son, the Daughter, and the Bastard. To the north of Chalion lies Roknar, whose people deny the Bastard his divine status. This religious schism leads to war, with Chalion victorious, but at a great cost: the heirs of the royal household are cursed thereafter, dooming them to torment and ruin.

Lupe dy Cazaril, a former page, castle-warder, and soldier, returns to Chalion after a harrowing ordeal as a Roknari galley slave and acquires the position of tutor to Iselle, sister to the heir of Chalion. Cazaril soon finds himself in the middle of the political machinations of the royal court, and to save his pupil from an unpleasant marriage, he realizes that he must be willing to sacrifice his own life to protect Iselle’s future. But Cazaril’s service to Iselle does not end there, for he must also find a way to break the Golden General’s curse that’s plagued her family for generations.

One of benefits of hearing, rather than reading, a high fantasy novel like this one is that the actor handles all of those tricky fantasy-world pronunciations for you; in this, and every other aspect of this recording, narrator Lloyd James excels. Subtle tonal shifts distinguish James’s characters, enabling him to voice males and females of all ages, of upper or lower castes—all with equal acumen. Different accents succeed in making foreigners indeed seem foreign, including a wonderful Roknari dialect spoken by the groom Umegat.

Bujold’s science fiction has always adapted well to audio; I present as evidence, the Miles Vorkosigan novella “Borders of Infinity” (download it free at www.dendarii.co.uk/MP3). Now, with The Curse of Chalion, Bujold proves that her fantasy does as well.

Originally appeared in Amazing Stories

Review: The Draco Tavern by Larry Niven

The Draco Tavern by Larry Niven
Tor, 2006, $24.95

The Draco Tavern is a hangout for interplanetary travelers – a sort of Mos Eisley Cantina but without all the droids and blasters. Which is not to say it doesn’t have it’s fair share of drama—It’s got just as much as Mos Eisley, but it’s of a much more intellectual variety. Rick Schumann established the Tavern near the Mount Forel in Siberia, after the Chirpsithtra—humanity’s first alien visitors—set up a spaceport there.

Schumann is the first-person narrator of these tales, which all take place in or around the Tavern, and whose topics run the gamut from religion to interspecies commerce, from the nature of predators and prey to the possibilities of immortality.

Each of the stories is very short—most would be considered vignettes—and as such there is not much room for character development that goes much beyond the surface. Despite that, however, there is much to like about these tales; they are thought-provoking and mostly do exactly what speculative fiction sets out to do—evoke a sense of wonder while making the reader think. The stories are uniformly well-crafted, and though none stands out they work together taken as a whole; the only questionable inclusion is "One Night at the Draco Tavern," which is not a story, but is instead a transcribed skit that was put on an SF convention.

That one minor flaw aside, the book is full of strong, idea-driven SF that’s sure to satisfy Niven’s fans and readers who like their SF hard.

Originally appeared in Shimmer Magazine

Camera Obscura: The Dresden Files

Intergalactic Medicine Show published my review of The Dresden Files, the new SCI FI Channel series based on the books by Jim Butcher.

Camera Obscura: The Lost Room

Intergalactic Medicine Show just published my review of the upcoming SCI FI Channel miniseries, The Lost Room, which airs Dec. 11, 12, and 13.

[Excerpt:] The key to room 10 of the Sunshine Motel is highly unusual for a couple of reasons. One, there is no room 10. Two, it seems to fit into any standard doorknob with a tumbler lock. And three, when you use the key to open the door, it takes you into a motel room–room 10 of the Sunshine Motel, which doesn’t exist. The motel room is pretty strange, too; for quite a lot of reasons actually, but what you first learn about it is that when you leave the room, it takes you wherever you want go.

Watch the show. It’s pretty good. Let me know what you think!

STRONG MEDICINE book reviews: October 2006

Intergalactic Medicine Show published my October book reviews today. This month, I review Wings to the Kingdom by Cherie Priest, The Last Days by Scott Westerfeld, and Majestrum by Matthew Hughes.

[Excerpt:] Although billed as the second book of a trilogy (following the excellent Four and Twenty Blackbirds), Wings to the Kingdom stands completely on its own. You should read Four and Twenty Blackbirds first, but only because it’s a great book; you don’t need to have read it to enjoy Wings. One unusual thing about Wings, as the second book of a trilogy, is how different in tone it is to Blackbirds; whereas Blackbirds felt like a modern take on classic gothic horror, Wings feels much more like a contemporary horror novel. Or a better way to put it might be to say that Blackbirds was more of a literary horror novel, while Wings is more of a fun and Buffyesque one. Which is not to say it is in any way inferior; Priest somehow manages both modes with equal skill.

Go read the whole thing and tell me what you think!