On the evening of Tuesday 6 July 2010—a day of record 103° heat—the New York Review of Science Fiction Readings Series presented a special season-extending (its 20th season concluded in June) program featuring Paolo Bacigalupi and Saladin Ahmed. The event (whimsically likened to DVD extras) was produced by the Series’ executive curator Jim Freund, host of WBAI-FM’s Hour of the Wolf radio program on sf and fantasy, and presented at the NYRSF Readings Series’ current venue at the (mercifully air-conditioned) SoHo Gallery for Digital Art.
(The Gallery, it should be noted, is exceptional, with screens exhibiting in rotation digital displays of sf/fantasy art. This screens-instead-of-canvases approach allows the SGDA to import art electronically, sparing artists the problems of shipping artwork and offering them opportunities for wider exposure, as well as enabling the public to see and buy a diversity of high-quality prints.)
After welcoming the audience, Gallery proprietor John Ordover plugged an upcoming event, Jim’s and John’s Excellent Film Series’ presentation on Tuesday 13 July of Star Wreck, a full-length Star Trek/Babylon 5 spoof (in the original Finnish with English subtitles… not to be confused with the Turkish Trek episode on YouTube, humorous in a different way, and unrelated to the Star Wreck series of send-up novels by Leah Rewolinski), and turned things over to Freund. Jim, in turn, promised a “star-studded” 21st season and introduced the first reader of the evening, Saladin Ahmed.
Ahmed, who has been a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award, the Nebula Award for Best Short Story, and the Harper’s Pen Award for Best Sword & Sorcery/Heroic Fantasy Short Story (“not that kind of slash!”), read the spooky Western short story “Mister Hadj’s Sunset Ride”, which was published last month in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Delivered with a self-described “cartoon cowboy accent”, it was an engaging tale of two bounty hunters (one Muslim) tracking down a family of supernatural killers. (The Lone Ranger, it seems, is not alone in using silver bullets.)
After a break, Freund introduced Paolo Bacigalupi, whose debut novel, The Windup Girl, was named by TIME Magazine as one of the ten best novels of 2009, has recently won the Nebula Award, and is nominated for the Hugo Award. (He has been nominated twice before for the Nebula and four times previously been a finalist for the Hugo, and won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best sf short story of the year. Additionally, his short story collection Pump Six and Other Stories was a 2008 Locus Award winner for Best Collection and also named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly.) Stepping out of genre, from his usual sf to fantasy, he read from the first part of his novella “The Alchemist” (a story that shares the same “universe” or setting as “The Executioness” by Tobias Buckell). He captivated the audience with the tale of the titular scientist-mage fallen on hard times (the story opens heartbreakingly with him selling off his young daughter’s prized antique bed) as his city has been overtaken by the spread of a rampaging bramble plant.
The capacity crowd, exceeding 40, included John Joseph Adams, Paul Berger, Richard Bowes, Chris Cevasco, John DeNardo, Rose Fox, Irene Gallo, Amy Goldschlager, Harold Garber, N.K. Jemisin, Alaya Dawn Johnson, David Barr Kirtley, Tony Koltz, Mary Robinette Kowal, Barbara Krasnoff, Matt Kressel, and Genevieve Valentine. (The Queen of England was in town, but didn’t attend. Nor did Ringo Starr.) Afterward, as customary, the guests and a number of audience members adjourned to a nearby pub, Milady’s, for dinner.