Online Round-Up Part 1

I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of the other blogs that are on the go out there and see what they bring to the table.

Newsletters
The only SF&F-related newsletter I make a point of reading every month is David Langford's Ansible. Langford is a consistently funny, offbeat look at the genre and is an excellent resource for rounding up all the news in the genre in any one month. He's won nearly thirty Hugo Awards for it and his other projects over the years, and it's certainly worth taking a look every month.

Blogs
The biggest blog out there is Pat's Fantasy Hotlist, which recently passed its 1 millionth page-view milestone. The Hotlist remains a valuable resource for reviews, interviews and competitions on the web, even if Pat's scoring system is so complex that it has confounded expert mathmaticians.

Blood of the Muse is a newer blog that has emerged in recent months featuring good book reviews and author interviews and picks up on the defunct Hope I Didn't Give Away the Ending's tradition of showing author's signatures to aid collectors. A good read.

The Bodhisattva is a long-running blog run by Jay Tomio, who knows of what he speaks. Jay gives good quote, does good reviews and expands beyond the standard literary reviews to take in comics as well.

The Book Swede is a solid review blog which also delves into the murky realm of television on occasion. Well worth a look.

Dark Wolf is a newer blogger who has come along in the last few months with a fine site and some good reviews on there.

The Deckled Edge is another solid blog, and carries on a fine tradition of summing up each new week's releases and bestsellers.

Aidan Moher's A Dribble of Ink has become a more impressive blog as time has gone on, adding excellent interviews and keeping abreast of the latest debates and discussions rocking the SF&F blogosphere, as well as doing a good line in those articles about various facets of the genre I occasionally think of doing and then don't because, well, people like Aidan do them better then me. Worth checking out.

In a similar manner, Fantasy Book Critic has become a more intriguing blog of late, with the team of writers expanding to ensure more regular updates and a greater range of subjects covered.

Fantasy Debut has been around for a year now, but missed my attention for quite some time. This blog concentrates on new authors to the genre and on their debut novels. It's a slightly different approach and emphasis which is distinctive, and the blog is quite interesting as a result. You may pick up the first hints of the 'next big thing' here.

Another (relatively) long-term blogger is Ken, whose Nethspace continues to offer worthwhile commentary on the genre (most recently with a scathing attack on the Locus Awards controversy) and is always worth a look.

Fellow 'lemming of discord' (long story) MinDonner runs her blog Sandstorm Reviews at this location, and is well worth a look for her great reviews as well as the colleting of various, merciless parodies of the works of Terry Goodkind.

Larry, aka 'Dylanfanatic', brings a slightly different sensibility to his appreciation of the genre over at OF Blog of the Fallen, which is always interesting.

Graeme's Fantasy Book Review has become one of my most commonly-visited blogs and features good round-ups and review of everying book-related. And I just realised I haven't got this in my links bar. Whoops, sorry Graeme!

Similar apologies must also go to James, whose Speculative Horizons is another excellent blog that's similar gone un-linked by me up to now.

Gabe Chouinard, always one for an interesting debate or review, has his blog Mysterious Outposts here. I will point out that this entry has always been here and was absolutely not added after the fact in the spirit of Soviet revisionism because he commented on the entry. Of course not. Ahem.

Unfortunately, some of my other favoured sites and blogs have gone on hiatus in the last few months:

Darren 'Ariel' Turpin has sadly recently mothballed his excellent UK SF Book News website and reduced his online presence via his blog, The Genre Files, due to a heavy workload in his new job working for Orbit. Best of luck to Darren in his new endeavour, but I hope we continue to hear from him in the future.

My fellow BwBer Race has likewise reduced his blogging frequency over at The Human Race, but hopes he might make a bit of a comeback soon, which would be most welcome.

For various reasons, some of them I believe outside his control, William 'Stego' Lexner's blog, Hope I Didn't Give Away the Ending, continues to be on hiatus. No-one does a good rant like William, but few are as strident in their passion for the genre, and we can but hope for his eventual return to the blogosphere.

Author Blogs
Frankly too many to mention, although I'm sure most people already have Neil Gaiman and George RR Martin's blogs on tap (although in the latter case the constant flamewarring over the release of his new novel is getting a little tiresome). Joe Abercrombie's blog is also becoming an enjoyable blog to read, with occasional TV and movie reviews interspersed with shamelessly outrageous self-promotion. I can also recommend the blogs of Alastair Reynolds, Adam Roberts, Melinda Snodgrass (whose latest novel, The Edge of Reason, I've just started reading and is a bit of a stormer), Kate Elliott, Daniel Abraham, Brandon Sanderson, David Deveraux, Tom Lloyd (whose books I really need to read), Lisa Tuttle, Peter F. Hamilton and in particular Peadar O'Guilin, whose blog is quite amusing to read.

Also, not quite an author blog, but I've found the blog of Mojo, a CGI artist who has worked on many major SF TV shows including Babylon 5, Star Trek: Voyager and Battlestar Galactica, to be thoroughly enjoyable and extremely funny.

This is getting a bit long, so I'll leave off here. Next time, I'll be taking a look at the myriad SF&F fan forums out there.