SF/F/H RSS News Digest via Alltop.com

Here's a website that genre bloggers, readers and fans might want to check out (which I don't think I've seen mentioned elsewhere just yet).

In a mediabistro.com interview posted yesterday, tech-evangelist turned venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki talks about his latest project: an RSS aggregator by the name of Alltop.com that aims to provide a news-gathering service for anyone who doesn't have the time, inclination or know-how to set up their own, bespoke feed-list via a service such as Google Reader.

Alltop.com gathers RSS feeds into themed sections, the aim being to provide as wide an overview of the activity within a particular area of interest as possible, rather than a topic-specific drill-down. Kawasaki explains:

"Think of it as a digital magazine rack. If you went to a newsstand you would see racks of sports magazines, celebrity magazines, car magazines, wine magazines, and food magazines; we have our own virtual rack where we aggregate the Web sites and blogs of the top feeds for each of those topics, and we show the latest five headlines from each source."

I checked out Alltop's genre coverage and sure enough, there's a well-developed and densely-populated section that focuses on science fiction / fantasy / general genre blogs at sff.alltop.com as well as more general books- and writing-related sections (books.alltop.com and writing.alltop.com) that may also be of interest.

Speaking as someone who's spent a fair fair amount of time over the last eight months compiling my RSS-subscription list of genre bloggers, to help me track online coverage of Orbit authors and titles, I really could have done with finding this site round about last May...

January 8, 2009 | Filed Under Online Finds | Leave a Comment

Congratulations, Sir Terry!

I was delighted to learn (via @Colleen_Lindsay), that Terry Pratchett is to receive a Knighthood in the New Years honours list in recognition of his services to literature and, surely, his charity work on behalf of Alzheimer's research.

The Independent has the details of (soon-to-be Sir) Terry's reaction ("I'm having difficulty fitting it into my head. I'm very pleased indeed. It cheers me up no end.") and their op-ed piece on the subject sums up why this is a Very Good Thing Indeed.

Terry Pratchett is one of my all-time favourite authors. I picked up a copy of The Colour of Magic on the day of its paperback publication and have read pretty much everything he's written since (although that reminds me, I'm actually one or two books behind. I'd best get a copy of Nation when I spend my Xmas vouchers...)

December 31, 2008 | Filed Under Online Finds | Leave a Comment

New Genre Webzine: Three Crow Press

Stumbled across a new webzine the other day that looks rather interesting. It's called Three Crow Press and it's produced by relatively new independent genre publisher Morrigan Books.

Issue one of the 'zine is online now and features seven pieces of short fiction - by Francesca Forrest, Mark Rossmore, F.R.R. Mallory, Klaudia Bara, Alice Godwin, George Rizen and Catherine J. Gardner - as well as an interview with author Elaine Cunningham, a feature on the work of fantasy artist Ursula Vernon and a few book reviews and articles.

You can also follow their updates on Twitter, if you're that way inclined.

December 24, 2008 | Filed Under Online Finds | 1 Comment

Zombie Haiku

I'm sure I'm late to the party on this one, but in case you managed to miss it as well, there's some highly entertaining Poetry of the Living Dead online at www.zombiehaiku.com, including a selection written by some of the site owners' favourite poets and authors.

Thanks to Sam @ Orbit for the heads-up!

December 15, 2008 | Filed Under Online Finds | Leave a Comment

New TwitterFiction feed @thaumatrope

Via @Danacea (Danie Ware) this morning, a link to a new twitter fiction feed: @thaumatrope, edited by Nathan E. Lilly of GreenTentacles.com.

I'm hugely intrigued by the concept of TwitterFiction; flash-fiction taken to an imposed extreme. Is it really possible, within Twitter's 140 character limit, to effectively convey a sense of story, or portray anything more than a vague sketch of a character, or present a descriptive vignette in anything other than the sketchiest outline?

If you're likewise interested in finding out, then there are probably plenty more TwitFic feeds out there, but @thaumatrope might be a good place to start.

December 15, 2008 | Filed Under Online Finds | 2 Comments