Recommended Reads
Leviathanby Scott Westerfeld
I loved loved LOVED this book. The Great War reconfigured in grand steampunk strokes by the inestimable Scott Westerfeld. His Clankers and Darwinists are reminiscent of Bruce Sterlings Shapers and Mechanists, but where Sterling used technologies to change the body, Westerfeld does so to change the landscape. The dual narratives of Alek Ferdinand and Deryn Sharp are compelling and fast-paced and exciting as hell; I chugged this novel in 100-page chunks, and loved every minute of the adventure. I absolutely cannot wait for the next book in the series.
Boneshakerby Cherie Priest
Cherie Priest's best book to date (this is really saying something), and hella fun. A deceptively simple premise, but Priest does much to subvert reader expectations, while at the same time providing a rollicking adventure. And though zombies have been done to death, their genesis is logically justified, and they are truly damn scary here. Awesome squared.
A Case of Exploding Mangoesby Mohammed Hanif
A stunning evocation of the political landscape of Pakistan in 1988, and an entirely plausible scenario for why then-president General Zia and his highest-level aides died in a fiery plane crash. Narrated with exquisite style by army officer Ali Shigri, the novel is simultaneously a whydunnit, a love story, a political thriller, and a travelogue to Pakistan's most brutal military monuments. Utterly engaging and unputdownable.
See all recommended reads...
Reading Queue
The Last Bookby Zoran Zivkovic
The Physiognomyby Jeffrey Ford
Memorandaby Jeffrey Ford
The Beyondby Jeffrey Ford
Four Novels of the 1960sby Philip K. Dick
Five Novels of the 1960s & 70sby Philip K. Dick
Black & Whiteby Lewis Shiner
The Painting and the Cityby Robert Freeman Wexler
The Godfather of Kathmanduby John Burdett
Who Fears Deathby Nnedi Okorafor
The Windup Girlby Paolo Bacigalupi
Jason on Twitter
To the supergeeks braving the queues at midnight tonight for the iPhone 4 release: have fun! (I'm hopefully getting mine tmrw after work.) 29 Jul 2010, 22:27:07
Snagged Ship Breaker by @paolobacigalupi and Going Bovine by @libbabray at the local library last night. Unexpected finds. Yay for YA! 29 Jul 2010, 21:14:39
LOL! RT @pornokitsch: I knew we shouldn't trust her. #ladygaga http://onion.com/dbR378 29 Jul 2010, 20:12:21
@stcom Right. Just like calling dumb people "idiots" will motivate them to learn more. This is specious logic. 29 Jul 2010, 17:48:09
@mrbrown Why am I not surprised in the slightest? And it's up to 87% now. 29 Jul 2010, 17:06:16
@charliejane Ditto this big time. 29 Jul 2010, 14:29:45
See more...
Jason Erik Lundberg is a writer of fantastical fiction, and an American expatriate living in Singapore. His work has appeared (or will soon) in over forty venues in five countries. He runs Two Cranes Press with Janet Chui; their latest book is A Field Guide to Surreal Botany. More...
UPCOMING EVENTS
KGB Fantastic Fiction
KGB Bar
New York, NY
17 Dec 2008
Dangerous Flora: An Evening of Surreal Botany
KGB Bar
New York, NY
19 Dec 2008
Singapore Writers Festival
The Arts House
24 Oct - 1 Nov 2009
Symposium: Writing Across Cultures
Hong Kong
9-10 Mar 2010
Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival
Hong Kong
11-19 Mar 2010
WorldCon / AussieCon 4
Melbourne, Australia
2-6 Sep 2010
Instituto Itau Cultural
Sao Paolo, Brasil
Fall 2010
IN MEMORIAM
Jamie Bishop
(1971-2007)
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there and back again
Mon, 19 Jul 2010 02:49:42 GMT
My latest contribution to The Daily Cabal went up Friday, called "There and Back Again", my none-too-subtle nod to Tolkien.
This installment concludes the series of YA flash pieces collectively called Looking Downward. If you would like to read the entire series, you can do so at the following links:
01: Mini Buddha Jump Over the Wall
02: The World, Under
03: Androcles Again
04: Look Into My Eyes, You're Under
05: Shiftless, Hopeless
06: Cricetinae's Paroxysm
07: Wind and Harmony
08: Dragons at Dawn
09: Goodnight Nobody
10: There and Back Again
At some point, I will be gathering all these separate pieces into one story, filling in the blank spots, smoothing out the transitions, and then sending it off into the world. If you enjoyed Anya's adventures in the Land of the Grey Dusk, please do let me know.
My next project for The Daily Cabal is another series of short shorts, but less sequentially connected than Looking Downward. It will be a 23-part linked narrative called Fragile, which will take a liberal interpretation of the song titles (but not the lyrics) of the masterful Nine Inch Nails double album The Fragile (which still remains my favorite NIN album). This is a concept I've been thinking about for a long time, although I previously thought it would take the form of a mosaic novel or collection of linked stories; I still may expand the project into such a form, but for right now, I want to get the ideas down, even if in such terse form as flash fiction. I hope you'll tune in.
in raleigh tomorrow!
Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:55:09 GMT
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marrael and I will be in Raleigh tomorrow! We're planning to hit Quail Ridge and a few other places during the day, and we'll be having lunch at Dalat Oriental; peeps who would like to meet up for Vietnamese lunch, shoot me an email or a DM on Twitter.
Yay Raleigh!
pee tee em
Tue, 25 May 2010 02:55:18 GMT
OMG, two blog posts in two days! Is this a trend? Yeah, probably not.
Today is Day One of my school's two-day Parent-Teacher Meeting, a marathon of talking to one parent after another, over and over, until my brain falls out. Or at least until 5:00, when I can go home; other teachers have to stay until 8 p.m., but I begged off the last three hours so I could get home and help with Anya. It'll be exhausting, and my bronchitis is starting to act up again, so I'm not exactly looking forward to the experience.
The nice thing is that the face-to-face meetings don't start until noon, which meant the chance to sleep in (but only a little; Anya woke at 5:30, demanding a diaper change and early breakfast, and then again at 7:30, so I didn't get to sleep in that much), but even more importantly some time to spend with my ladies this morning. I entertained Anya from 7:30 on, feeding her at 8:45, and Janet got up around 9:15 to give her a bit of solid food (bananas mixed with rice cereal, which Anya hated; she didn't spit it out, but made the funniest face of disgust I've ever seen).
I came in to school a little early to get some last minute things done, and I now have about an hour before the shebang starts. Wish me luck.
updatery: anya's recovery, solid foods, flying to the states
Mon, 24 May 2010 13:54:28 GMT
Back in January (holy monkey, has it really been so long?), I blogged about Anya's cleft palette and the upcoming surgery to correct it. The palatoplasty was seven weeks ago, and those of you following me on Twitter got to read about the recovery both in the hospital and then later at home. It was a harrowing experience seeing my baby go for such major surgery, but she did extremely well. It took a long time to get a decent amount of fluids in her afterwards, which meant staying at KK Hospital two days longer than expected, but eventually she was cleared to come home.
The first few weeks were ... well, "nightmare" isn't really the right word, but they were exhausting and frustrating and stressful times. I had to go back to work, and Janet was having trouble coping by herself (Anya was still on a medicine regimen, and her diluted formula never seemed to be enough; Janet has more details at Paint Stains), and I was doing the best I could to help but had student marking pressing down on me, in addition to dozens of other work duties. Thankfully, Janet's father's sister flew down from Hong Kong and was able to help us tremendously to get over the worst of it (she's since gone back, but the next sister in line came to visit and help out too, and she's still here).
Anya was incredibly clingy for four weeks after the surgery, refusing to be put down in the crib, only falling asleep if someone was carrying her. It took her a long time to recover emotionally from the trauma of the surgery, longer than the physical recuperation. But at some point after Week 4, we were able to start putting her down, and it has gotten progressively better since. Janet was able to put her back on the sleep schedule Anya'd been on before the operation, and getting regular naps and sleeping longer at night did a world of good for her disposition, and all the rest of us as well.
She still has her cranky times, when she'll cry and cry and refuse to sleep and we have to go through a whole routine (which includes reading Goodnight Moon) to calm her down so she'll conk out. But for the most part, she's sleeping much better.
After the surgery, we had to feed her via syringe, squirting the food into her mouth, because she couldn't take a bottle (for fear of disturbing the stitches) and after one time of liking formula in a MagMag sippy-cup refused to take it from there anymore. But we've slowly been weaning her away from the syringes and relying on the MagMags more, and now she loves it. She's discovered how to create suction in her mouth now (something she couldn't do without a palette), and she hoovers down formula at an amazing rate.
The biggest development recently, however, is that we've started her on solid foods. We had to wait until the palette was pretty much healed, and decided last Thursday that she was ready. It's astonishing how well she's taken to it, trying lots of different combinations of both store-bought and homemade mush. Sweet potatoes and butternut squash seem to be the current favorites. She loves sitting in her high chair and eating at the dinner table along with the rest of us.
Anya's also been trying out lots of new sounds now that she can make them properly. Nothing terribly coherent at the moment, but you can tell she's trying to have a conversation. Janet's pretty sure that she said "MUM MUM" last week as Janet was bringing in her food (mum mum is slang here for food, and Janet's dad refers to it that way every time Anya has a feeding). She could have been referring to Janet (mum), but it's more likely she was excited about lunch. No real repetitions yet, so we can't confirm it as a first word/phrase, but it's still exciting.
But the best thing is her smile, which has returned big time. The first four or five weeks of recovery, she was very serious all the time; still in pain and discomfort, and dealing with this weird new feeling in her mouth, and possibly feeling a bit betrayed that we would put her through it. But she's smiling regularly again now, and it just melts me every time. I still have a helluva time getting her to laugh, but that'll come too.
This is the last week of classes for Term 2, and I have some work-related things through Wednesday next week, but after that, for the rest of June, I'm on holiday. And because Anya's doing so well, we're all three going to take a trip to South Carolina for a bit of a family reunion. My mom was able to fly to Singapore last December, but my dad and sister have never seen Anya outside of Skype calls, and the rest of my side of the family has only seen pictures. My grandmother and aunt will fly in from Illinois, my sister from NYC, another aunt will drive up from Columbia, and there's a possibility that my godmother might come up from Atlanta.
We'll be in the States from 8-22 June, and though there are lots of family things planned, I have a desperate desire to drive up to Raleigh for a day trip. I miss my hometown like you wouldn't believe, and it would sadden me to no end to be so close and not come back for a bit. A trip to Quail Ridge Books is quite likely, but other than that, I have no specific plans. Raleigh peeps who would like to meet up, let me know in the comments, and when we have a more definite date and time, we can work something out. My parents have agreed to take care of Anya for that day, so it'll be just me and Janet, but it would be lovely to see some of y'all again.
ARCs: digital vs dead tree
Sun, 11 Apr 2010 08:57:24 GMT
John Scalzi's latest blog entry, "eARCs: Big Fat PublicityFail," points to a new tactic Eos Books is attempting to save money on printing and shipping Advance Reader Copies of their books to reviewers: a full-color card with book cover on one side, and scratch-off download code on the other for an eARC of the book.
Now, unrelated to the complicated process just to download the book (which is a bit boneheaded) and to the other publisher he mentions that releases eARCs with a 30-day DRM expiry date, after which, it is assumed, one can no longer read the file anymore (which is even more boneheaded), what I want to talk about is another point that Scalzi brings up: eARCs themselves. I'm not one to criticize eBooks or eARCs in general; I think that they're fantastic ways to promote and disseminate books along a great distance. However, as a reviewer, I can't stand them.
I'm lucky in that I've been reviewing books for about eight years, and have done so for a few notable publications, which means I have a bit more clout than a n00b reviewer just starting out, which also means that very nice folks at publishers like Tor and Subterranean are actually inclined to send me physical dead tree books in the post, even all the way to Singapore. It's not cheap to do so, but they know that I can be counted on to review the book in a venue that will guarantee eyeballs, and there will be some level of enthusiasm about the book because I requested an ARC in the first place (my steadfast rule as a reviewer: I only review books that I feel have merit and will enjoy on some level).
Smaller presses have asked if they could send me eARCs rather than a physical copy of the book, for the reason above: posting expense. This is understandable. When Janet and I published A Field Guide to Surreal Botany in 2008, I sent PDF review copies to any blogger who expressed an interest, which, looking at my records, was about 35 people. However, I was also very fortunate to have Merrie Haskell in the US acting as my North American Distributor, and so I sent out almost 50 physical review copies (which were not ARCs, but the way; these were the final printed books) to newspapers, journals, and high-profile bloggers. I included the download code along with the physical review copies so that the reviewers could also take advantage of the digital version.
Looking back now at both lists -- reviewers and bloggers -- there is a much larger throughput on the reviewer side, meaning that a higher percentage of reviewers than bloggers actually reviewed the book. And the biggest reason for this has to be might possibly be that the reviewers could actually hold the book in their hands and enjoy its aesthetic qualities; this is of course an anecdotal conclusion, but it makes a lot of sense, especially for a book like Surreal Botany, which begs to be caressed. They reviewed the book because they had the physical copy.
Same goes for me as a reviewer. I much prefer to have an actual physical copy of the book in my hands. I do plenty of reading on the computer screen, but it takes enormous effort and concentration to read an entire novel on my computer. As Cory Doctorow states: "The cognitive style of the computer is different from the cognitive style of the novel." There are an infinite number of distractions that my computer loves to inundate me with, to the point where I just cannot sink into that cozy narrative space that lying on the couch with the book in my hands allows me to do.
So if a publisher insists on only sending me a PDF for one of their titles, I'm very up front about my likelihood of reviewing their book. I appreciate that they sent me the file for review, but amidst all of the other things on my computer clamoring for my attention, not to mention the dozens of actual paper books in my current To-Be-Read pile, I'm less likely to actually read the eBook. Sad, but true.
Here's the list of eARCs or otherwise free eBooks that I've accumulated in the last couple of years (in alphabetical order by author's surname), almost all of which I have not yet read [ETA: not all of these books I intended to review, but many of them I did]:
A Shadow in Summer by Daniel Abraham
Seeds of Change ed. by John Joseph Adams
Grey by Jon Armstrong
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Windup Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi
My Own Kind of Freedom by Steven Brust
War for the Oaks by Emma Bull*
Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods by Frank Darabont
Content by Cory Doctorow
Labyrinth Summer by Rudi Dornemann
"Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse" by Andy Duncan
Die! Vampire! Die! by Hal Duncan
Surveillance Self-Defense International by Peter Eckersley
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet no. 22 ed. by Gavin J. Grant et al.
Dubliners by James Joyce*
Butcher Bird by Richard Kadrey
The 35 Articles of Impeachment and the Case for Prosecuting George W. Bush by Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Realms of Fantasy vol. 16 no. 1 ed. by Shawna McCarthy
Why I Love Bees: A Case Study in Collective Intelligence Gaming by Jane McGonigal
The Magician of Lhasa by David Michie
In the Midnight Hour by Patti O'Shea
The Potemkin Mosaic: First Dream by Mark Teppo
Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest*
True Names by Benjamin Rosenbaum and Cory Doctorow
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia
Orthodox Chinese Buddhism by Chan Master Sheng Yen
Dogland by Will Shetterly
Spaceman Blues by Brian Francis Slattery
Nefertiti Was Here by Jasmina Tesanovic
The Disunited States of America by Harry Turtledove
Secret Lives & The Situation by Jeff VanderMeer
Farthing by Jo Walton
Starfish by Peter Watts
Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
Speaking Treason Fluently & White Like Me by Tim Wise
Shimmer no. 10 ed. by Beth Wodzinski
Orphans of Chaos by John C. Wright
The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It by Jonathan L. Zittrain
The Last Book by Zoran Zivkovic
* I have read these books already in print form.
Lots of great books, yet they've been languishing on my hard drive for months, if not years, unread. The Last Book is the only book by Zoran Zivkovic that I have not yet read by him, for the simple reason that I don't have a physical copy, and I'm the webmaster for his website, fer crissakes!
And here are the physical ARCs that are currently waiting for me to review for SF Site or other venues:
Makers by Cory Doctorow
Clementine by Cherie Priest
A Short History of Fantasy by Farah Mendelsohn & Edward James
Technologized Desire by D. Harlan Wilson
Imagination/Space by Gwyneth Jones
The Well-Built City Trilogy (The Physiognomy, Memoranda and The Beyond) by Jeffrey Ford
Guess which ones I'll be getting to first.
library blogging
Fri, 09 Apr 2010 05:48:01 GMT
This school year, I've been writing and maintaining the blog for our school library: Hwa Chong Institution Kong Chian Library. It was originally intended to focus more on Library events and Singaporean literature, but has expanded to include public library news in the US, book reviews, e-readers, and lots of other stuff related to books and reading. I think I tweeted about this (which means Facebook friends who obsessively check my status also knew about it, you know who you are), but I just realized that I never mentioned it here at LundBlog.
So here's me mentioning it. :-j
As an email acquaintance noticed recently, I haven't blogged here regularly in a long time, mostly because of simple lack of time thanks to both teaching and childrearing. But the Library blog is justified through my work with the school library, and so I feel like the time updating it is well-spent.
So if you're interested, go give it a look-see. I may try to sqirt non-school-related posts over here if I can figure out how; would anyone know?