SF2 Concatenation

New up...

New up below, we have one of our 'Best of... Nature 'Futures' one-page SF stories.. This one is by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley and concerns an age-old SF trope: the alien invasion. But as with many of the 'Best of... 'Futures'' this story has a fresh take as well as something we like, a touch of dry wit. Enjoy.

Message of the moment: We are now on Twitter.

Because we only have three major editions of news and reviews a year (spring, summer and autumn) and one short story in between, it is very easy to miss us.  So you can be notified when we have a new posting we are now on Twitter at @SF2Concat. (We promise only to send clusters of tweets at these upload times: perhaps just a little in advance of official upload times.) Our site statistics 'unique visitors' jump by a few thousand the months of our seasonal uploads, but whether or not Twitter alerts are appropriate (or needed) remain to be seen: despite the site traffic and its new-post jumps, our Twitter following is so far very tiny.  Anyway, do feel free to spread the word to your friends with SF interests: it would be appreciated. :-)

Your good deed... (possibly)

Have you done the on-line survey to find out more about the demographics of SF&F readers. This survey is a worthy venture and we hope that our site's visitors will support it with five minutes of their time. The survey can be found here. And if you have filled it in then have a gander at the results so far here.

Other stuff...

If you are reading this in a non-English speaking country then you may care to note that we are on the lookout for non-UK-based national convention reviewers and non-British brief news reporters. Hope that some of you are up for it. Do get in touch. We just need short, almost bullet-point messages and perhaps links, of news. See one of the paragraphs of our news pages for the kind of small summaries of news we are after. Meanwhile enjoy the below.

Forthcoming

Mid-September sees our autumnal edition which includes our usual large-ish seasonal news summary of science fiction and science relating to books, films and television, and which includes lists of the season's forthcoming SF, fantasy and popular science books, links to some YouTube short vids and film trailers, book trade news among other coverage such as major SF Awards given over the summer from around the World. The autumnal edition will also include a score of stand-alone SF/F/H book reviews and one or two non-fiction science and related titles.  Then November sees a new one-page SF 'Futures' short story, and we will have another in December before Christmas. These will be the third and fourth of the four Best of Nature's 'Futures' stories we have slated for 2014. All are our choice as to the very best of the 51 (weekly) Nature 'Futures' of last year. If you can't wait then enjoy some of our past choices of 'Futures'.  Our posting schedule is regular -- so you can see when things are due by looking at what was posted when previously -- but if you want early notification of a few advance posts then join the few following us on our new Twitter thingy.

Most recently added

v24(4) 2014.7.15 -- A new story from the Nature Futures series

• The Front Line by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley
  Short Story (1 page PDF). Holding the line against a relentless, unstoppable alien invasion of the Solar system is not what you might expect.  Time for a stiff gin...
• The index to all of the Concatenation selection of Nature 'Futures' stories.
• The guidelines for prospective 'Futures' SF short stories authors.

v24(3) 2014.4.30 -- New Columns & Articles for the Summer 2014

• Newscast for the Summer 2014. Which includes within it loads of sections covering SF books, films and TV as well as science not to mention fandom and convention news. See the master newscast link index that connects to all the news sub-sections.
• Anglo-Romanian Science & Science Fiction Cultural Exchange Re-visited
• SF Film recommendations from the 20th Century -- Part 1 - Tony Chester
• 2013/14 (year to Easter) SF Film Top Ten Chart and Other Worthies  (All archive annual film charts here)
• Gaia - Annual whimsical SF and/or science snippets and exotica

v24(3) 2014.4.30 -- Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Reviews

• Jupiter War - Neal Asher
• The Silence of Ghosts - Jonathan Aycliffe
• Exit Kingdom - Alden Bell
• Arctic Rising - Tobias S. Buckell
• Black Moon - Kenneth Calhoun
• Conquest - John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard
• The Troop - Nick Cutter
• The Arrows of Time: Orthogonal Book 3 - Greg Egan
• The Devil Delivered and Other Tales - Steven Erikson
• Fortunately the Milk - Neil Gaiman
• Snowblind - Christopher Golden
• Snowblind (2nd review) - Christopher Golden
• Parasite: Parasitology 1 - Mira Grant
• An Apple for the Creature - Charlaine Harris & Toni L. P. Kelner (eds)
• M. R. James: Collected Ghost Stories - Darryl Jones (ed)
• Fearie Tales: Stories of the Grimm and Gruesome - Stephen Jones (ed) and illustrations by Allan Lee
• Fearie Tales: Stories of the Grimm and Gruesome (2nd review) - Stephen Jones (ed) and illustrations by Allan Lee
• The Walking Dead: The Fall of the Governor – Part One - Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonasinga
• Rayguns Over Texas - Richard Klaw (ed)
• Descent - Ken MacLeod
• The Disestablishment of Paradise - Phillip Mann
• In Thunder Forged - Ari Marmell
• The Falconer - Elizabeth May
• Starhawk - Jack McDevitt
• Anno Dracula: Johnny Alucard - Kim Newman
• Dodger's Guide to London - Terry Pratchett
• Dodger (2nd review) - Terry Pratchett
• Fiddlehead - Cherie Priest
• The Doctor and the Dinosaurs - Mike Resnick
• Doctor Who: Harvest of Time - Alastair Reynolds
• Steelheart (2nd review) - Brandon Sanderson
• Limit - Frank Shatzing
• The Age of Scorpio - Gavin Smith
• The Guard - Peter Terrin
• The Woman in Black: The Sequel Angel of Death - Martyn Waites

v24(3) 2014.4.30 -- Non-Fiction SF & Science Fact Book Reviews

• Think: Why you should question everything - Guy P. Harrison
• The Delinquent Teenager: Who was mistaken for the world's top climate expert - Donna Laframboise
• The Physics of War: From Arrows to Atoms - Barry Parker

v24(2) 2014.3.15 -- A new story from the Nature Futures series

• For Your Information by Connor Powers-Smith
  Short Story (1 page PDF). In the future getting genetic data on a new prospective partner is all part of the dating process. But a little knowledge...
• The index to all of the Concatenation selection of Nature 'Futures' stories.
• The guidelines for prospective 'Futures' SF short stories authors.

Full 'What's New' list