Episode #252 of Fast Forward: Contemporary Science Fiction is out.  Better late than never!  This month we look into our stack of “unpublished” interviews, and present both Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, recorded at Capclave 2010.  Ann and Jeff were both Guests of Honor at the convention, and were gracious enough to give us a few minutes of their time to talk about their work.

In our intervew with Ann VanderMeer, she talks about her early editing and publishing ventures, her work as editor-in-chief at Weird Tales magazine, and her collaborations with husband Jeff.  She also discusses her views on steampunk and new weird fiction.  (Please note that in August of 2011, Weird Tales was sold to another publisher and Ann left her editorial position at the magazine.  In November of 2011, she and Jeff launched Weird Fiction Review, a website that calls itself “your non-denominational source for the weird”.

Also in this episode:
Marianne Petrino reviews the anime feature film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.
A special mini-interview (also from Capclave 2010) with small press publisher Alisa Krasnostein of Twelfth Planet Press

Episode #252 of Fast Forward: Contemporary Science Fiction is out.  Better late than never!  This month we look into our stack of “unpublished” interviews, and present both Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, recorded at Capclave 2010.  Ann and Jeff were both Guests of Honor at the convention, and were gracious enough to give us a few minutes of their time to talk about their work.

In our interview with Jeff Vandermeer, he talks about his acclaimed and unusual fiction, as well as his editorial collaborations with wife Ann.  He also discusses his take on both steampunk and new weird fiction.

Also in this episode:
Marianne Petrino reviews the anime feature film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.
A special mini-interview (also from Capclave 2010) with small press publisher Alisa Krasnostein of Twelfth Planet Press

I just finished Zoo City by Lauren Beukes who is from South Africa. A fascinating book. It was a kind of an alternate history, hard-boiled detective, magical, strange combination of a book.

It seems that when you do something really bad (being the cause of someone’s death will do it), you get an animal familiar that stays with you, you are animalled. In fact if your animal gets too far away you go through debilitating anxiety. If it dies, then you die a nasty death where shadows come together and tear you apart. Zizi, the main character, has a sloth.
Oh yeah, when you get animalled, you get some kind of psychic power. Zizs’s is that she can find things that are lost. She sees everyone with threads tying them to whatever they feel they have lost.
This new version of our world (it takes place in an alternate version of today), particularly Johannesburg, is a very good bit of worldbuilding as the social repercussions are explored in the book.

Due to complicated circumstances involving Zizi’s debt to a drug dealer that she is paying off by her involvement in ’419′ scams, Zizi takes on a missing persons case involving a pop twin singing duo. This, in classic hard-boiled tradition, leads her into many more privileged parts of Jo-burg society.
It’s a really cool book (it won the 2011 World Fantasy Award among others) and hit a number of my hot buttons for the kinds of things I like to read. I’ve already gotten her first novel, Moxyland, on my Nook.

Happy New Year to one and all!  We’re still working on finishing up a couple of special interviews for you, and hope to produce some interesting special reports during the year.  Who knows, maybe we’ll even get that new Fast Forward website up and running!

Author Terry Pratchett

Here’s an early Christmas present for you.  It’s the latest Fast Forward interview with fantasy author Sir Terry Pratchett.  Mr. Pratchett was gracious enough to stop by the studio in mid-October, during his promotional tour for his latest novel, Snuff.  Many thanks to Mr. Pratchett and his staff for making this interview possible.

Even though the complete TV episode containing the interview won’t be released until sometime in December, you can watch (or just listen to) the interview at the Fast Forward website or on the Fast Forward Youtube channel right now – or just click on the links below.  Enjoy!

Stay tuned, as we should have other videos to release in December.  We’re still trying to catch up with our backlog of interviews.

Anne McCaffrey (image from Random House website)

A Random House Publisher website reports that the popular and prolific author Anne McCaffrey, best known for her Dragonrider of Pern books, has died.  The post from Random House says that she passed away at her home in Ireland after suffering a stroke. McCaffrey was 85.  During her lifetime she published nearly 100 books, won numerous major awards and was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

Our condolences to Ms. McCaffrey’s family.  Her passing is a great loss to the science fiction and fantasy community.

Author Neal Stephenson

Welcome to our 250th episode!  The interview from episode #250 is now available online at both the Fast Forward website and the Fast Forward Youtube channel.  Happy viewing!

This Fast Forward interview features author Neal Stephenson, talking about his latest novel, Reamde.

Also in Episode #250:

Colleen Cahill reviews the Terry Pratchett book, Snuff.
Marianne Petrino reviews the anime television series, The Wallflower.

Author Kathleen Ann Goonan

The interview from Fast Forward episode #249 is now available to view at both the Fast Forward website and the Fast Forward Youtube channel.  The interview is with author Kathleen Ann Goonan, who talks about her latest, highly acclaimed novel, This Shared Dream.

Also in Episode #249:

Colleen Cahill reviews a novel by Ben Aaronovitch, Midnight Riot.
Marianne Petrino reviews the anime film, Summer Wars.

This episode was originally shown in October, 2011.

Halloween 2011

The Fast Forward team hopes you all had a Happy Halloween.  Now that November is here we want to offer encouragement and support to Marianne Petrino, Laurie Mann, and everyone else who is taking up the NaNoWriMo challenge this month!

At Fast Forward we will be working on processing multiple interviews this week and posting them for you.  Stay tuned!

This past weekend much beloved author Terry Pratchett was wrapping up the US tour for his latest book, Snuff.  He had a sold-out speaking event at the National Press Club here in Washington, DC.  He also came by the studio and gave Fast Forward an interview, which we hope to post on the website in the next week or so!

Then, on Saturday, Mr. Pratchett and his assistant, Rob Wilkins, stopped by Capclave (a local science fiction convention that Fast Forward team members are involved with).  Author and editor Scott Edelman has posted his flipcam video of the event on Youtube.
There is also an audio only version of the talk on the Capclave web site.

Terry Pratchett at Capclave ©2011 Michael Nelson

All in all, a very busy weekend!