Archive for May, 2007
Execution Looks At Wars Ahead
John Joseph Adams intervista Kelly e Kessel
Un Lun Dun Is Mieville’s YA Book
Rover Sojourns In Ripper Era
Tourmaline Continues Alternate History
Lamora Is Fantasy’s Pro Con
Interview with David Weber
SCI FI Weekly just published a Q&A interview I did with David Weber:
[Excerpt:]
Off Armageddon Reef could be read as an anti-religion book. Would that be fair?
Weber: I’m sure some people will read this book as an attack on organized religion. After all, the primary force for the restriction and manipulation of human freedom and character, not to mention corruption, on Safehold is to be found in a world-wide religion. I think, however, that reading this book that way would be a mistake. Yes, the Church of God Awaiting is a monstrous, deliberately fabricated, enslaving lie imposed upon the people of Safehold. But the very impetus for reform coming out of places like Charis is coming out of men and women who follow the logical implications of the Church of God Awaiting’s own moral teachings. Off Armageddon Reef is less about the evils of religion than it is about the use of any ideology or belief structure to manipulate, control and coerce. In the case of Safehold, it’s religion; it could have been communism, fascism or any other brand of authoritarianism or totalitarianism. I said that my books are about choice.
To my mind, anything which removes or denies the right, ability and responsibility to make choices is evil, destructive and a perversion. Religion that closes off, that demonizes or dehumanizes the “other” as the first step in destroying him in the name of some intolerant, oppressive, thought-denying process can be a terrible force for evil. The cynical use of religion, of man’s belief in God, as a self-serving means of manipulating others is despicable. And yet religion can be an equally powerful force for good. The people who support Merlin in Charis believe firmly and fervently in God; they simply can’t accept that God is as small and mean-spirited as the Church of God Awaiting’s current leadership apparently believe He is.
Mistborn Mixes Heist With Magic
Disunited Imagines Alternate America
Hugo Award-winning author Harry Turtledove–whose novel The Disunited States of America is a finalist for this year’s Sidewise Award for works of alternate history–told SCI FI Wire that the book is set in the late 21st century in a world where the Constitution didn’t replace the Articles of Confederation and the United States fell to pieces in the early 19th century.