Tomorrow night I'll be at the Can't Stop the Serenity charity event in Charlotte, NC. I had a wonderful time last year, and this year promises to be even better, because
I have a few links and reviews to share...
* One of my very favorite poets (and one whose work has been featured on more than one episode of StarShipSofa) is Ann K. Schwader (

* Just after I posted that no recent young adult dystopia novel had impressed me as greatly as books from previous years, I read Nomansland by Lesley Hague (2010), which is a fascinating and compelling read. Set in a post-apocalyptic future of environmental hardship and genetic mutation, the story describes life in a tightly-controlled, all-female world in which even pondering one's reflection is considered a moral failing and men are considered to be the enemy. Some of the teens discover a half-buried home from our time, complete with relics from our culture, and this adds pressure to the fault lines appearing in their community. The story went in directions I didn't anticipate, refused to provide easy answers for complex problems, and repeatedly raised interesting questions. Oh yes, and it doesn't hurt that it uses John Wyndham's The Chrysalids as the springboard for the story (and, in fact, it can be read as an extension of Wyndham's universe). I recommend this one.
* Speaking of young adult dystopias, I'm pleased that last year's Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins has won The Hal Clement Award for Young Adult Science Fiction in the Golden Duck Awards. The Golden Ducks will be presented at a ceremony at ReConStruction/ The 10th North American Science Fiction Convention this August. I'll be there as a guest, and I'm looking forward to it!
* From SciFi Wire: "The 20 Most Anticipated Sci-Fi Movies of 2011."
"Two, among the many orders of men who merit the contempt and hatred of their fellows, are undoubtedly these: the grovelling minds which have never aspired to fancy an Utopia, and those ardents who have had the generosity to conceive a plan of our future good, and cannot refrain from afflicting us with a presentation of it."
- from No Traveller Returns, John Collier (1931)