Recently in weird fiction Category

Thanks to Robert from Fantasy Book Critic and the guys at Tor, I've just received Elizabeth Bear's new book called All the Windwracked Stars, a story that mixes SF, fantasy, time travel, steampunk and the norse sagas in what I believe to be an instant classic.

This is the first one in a trilogy called The Eda of Burdens and, according to Mrs. Bear, it is "a story which takes place after, during, and before the end of the world. In that order, yes. It stars a valkyrie who has gotten herself shipwrecked in time, a kickboxing gigolo, a kitten with a whip, a two-headed iron horse, and a nihilistic wolf, and it's about all sorts of things--the differences--or lack thereof--between service and slavery being one of them." (quoted from an interview published in Adventures in Reading)

I read the first pages and was completely hooked! Expect a full review and interview with Mrs. Bear here soon.

I've just Watched the first three episodes of Fringe today and I must say it hooked me. It has some flaws, of course, but in the overall it stands as a promising show. It has an excellent mystery in the form of "The Pattern", a big intrigue (FBI + Megacorporation + latin-speaking conspiracy), high and weird tech and interesting characters with acceptable reasons to be together.

So far Fringe has been a mix of X-Files, Millennium and Planetary, but much more didactic and maybe too worried about both the failures of Chris Carter's series and its "cousin", Lost. It seems the first season will be only about the conspiracy behind the Pattern, with no subplots: a direct consequence of the events in the series' pilot, which is quite acceptable.

The good thing is that the show stated its SFnal elements right away with a shocking exposure of cybernetics, but grounded in the "now". Also, the hard SF aesthetics, themes and tech are mixed with "pseudo-scientific" theories like telepathy and astral projection to name a few.

It's still too early to say if the show is here to stay or not, but the fact is that I'm looking forward to the next episodes.

UPDATE: There's an interesting article here about Fringe. I must say that I agree 100% with it. (Via SF Signal)

That´s a catchy one -- or is it? I just read Michael Chabon´s delightful Gentlemen of the Road, a tribute to adventure stories ranging from Conan to Prince Valiant, also adding (obviously) Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser) and a tip of the hat to Michael Moorcock´s Elric to the mix (not only Chabon dedicates this book to Moorcock, he also describes one of his protagonists as an almost Albino swordsman - the difference being that Zelikman is only a very pale man, a Jewish Frank physician, and the story takes place in the Caucasus, circa A.D. 950. Together with the giant Abyssinian Amram, former soldier for the Emperor of Byzantium, Zelikman makes his living separating fools from their money, and fighting the occasional war (though not so cheerfully). Their travels take them from the Middle East to the fabled Khazaria in order to restitute a stripling to his rightful place as bek (on of the two supreme rulers of the Khazars).

Of course that, in a first moment, we can´t possibly label Gentlemen... as New Weird (nor would we want to do that), but this return to the Old Weird, so to speak, is symptomatic - but, as George Canguilhem (and probably Jacques Lacan) would say, not every symptom is necessarily bad. For instance, this is no "sword and sorcery" story, but, as Chabon himself says in the afterword, a "swords-and-horses" tale. And is takes place in our reality - if we can it so, for more than a thousand years have passed since that age. This is the weird element of the story that appeals so much to me - the inherent weirdness of the far past.

The illustrations by Gary Gianni are a treat - he´s currently drawing Prince Valiant comic strips, so you can see (and also through the example above) the high quality of his work.

Gentlemen of the Road is one of the fortunately now-not-so-rare novels which brings back the old without being too much nostalgic and at the same time without doing the sometimes tiresome revampings that are common today. It is weird, it is old, and it is also new. And, most of all, it is really good.