Top 10 News Snippets from EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing

TOP TEN - Hot News

1) Podcast:


This week Dragon Page Podcasting talks to a roundtable of Edge Publishing authors, K.A. Bedford and his Hydrogen Steel and Eclipse, Rebecca Rowe with Forbidden Cargo, and Lynda Williams with Righteous Anger and Courtesan Prince. Give Cover to Cover show #222 a listen.

2) Inducted:

Rebecca K. Rowe was formally inducted into the Denver Woman's Press Club. Congratulations Rebecca!

3) Successful Launch:

The Canadian launch of Alphanauts by J. Brian Clarke was a great success (May 24, 2006). The next reading will be at The Sentry Box, in Calgary. Wednesday, June 14th, 7pm.

4) Vote!

TESSERACTS NINE: Nominated for an Aurora Award - Best Work in English (Other). Thankyou to everyone who is voting to help support this nomination.

5) Mayfly by Peter Watts and Derryl Murphy (Tesseracts Nine): Nominated for an Aurora Award - Best Short-Form Work in English.

6) Lemmings in the Third Year by by Jerome Stueart (Tesseracts Nine) won "honorable mention" for the 2006 SLF Fountain Award.

7) Before the Altar on The Feast of All Souls by Marg Gilks (Tesseracts Nine) was shortlisted for the Carl Brandon Society Kindred Award.

8) TESSERACTS NINE: Is a finalist for the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award.

9) A Game of Perfection: Reviewed in Science Fiction Weekly by Paul Di Filippo.

10) The Courtesan Prince by Lynda Williams: Recommended for consideration by this year's James Tiptree Jr. Literary Award jury.

Rebecca Rowe's 'FORBIDDEN CARGO' - Secret Illegal Nano-DNA Modification - the Next Step in Evolution, or a Crime against Humanity? You Decide.

Secret Nano-DNA Modification - the next step in evolution, or a crime against humanity? Rebecca Rowe's 'FORBIDDEN CARGO' raises powerful personal questions.

Rebecca Rowe's 'FORBIDDEN CARGO' will be released in the US at World Con in Los Angeles in August. Rebecca told us a bit about the book from her home outside of Denver,Colorado.

EDGEnet: Could you please tell us about the book 'FORBIDDEN CARGO', and why you believe this is an important book.

Rebecca: Well, it's a high adrenaline, fast-paced story—Tokyo-on-overdrive with a new wild west. It's about future ronin-styled cowboys, especially Sashimu and Thesni, who don't fit easily into societal confines, if at all. This gets them in a lot of trouble first on Mars and then the Denver of 2110 and in Novus Orbis, the new frontier of our minds.

I didn't set out to write an "important" book, although I appreciate you asking, but a hyper-real novel that reflects the complexities we're dealing with today. Okay, so Sashimu and Thesni are fugitives with forbidden nano-DNA on the run from government agents; they get help from the Cadet, who's an underground gamer and Ochbo who defines his own unorthodox brand of activism. Also, they receive help from the least likely of sources, the famous father of Novus Orbis, Creid Xerkler. There's a government cover-up, black market profiteers selling nano-band caught up in a political coup, two girls coming of age, and even a moment for romance. I've nothing against a fast read and unadulterated fun, but it might be a mistake to take Forbidden Cargo as a joy ride with cotton candy.

EDGEnet: So, what's the relevance of 'FORBIDDEN CARGO' to us and our society?

Rebecca: Right here and now, we're standing on the threshold of several key technologies that are set to change our world and us in potentially very good ways, but with risks we've only begun to explore. For the first time in human history, we are approaching control over our genetic code and altering our DNA. This may mean that our children's children won't inherit many debilitating genetic diseases that plague our generation. It also has other darker implications. As we grow in our knowledge, there are many difficult issues in potentially designing our own children. In a few short generations, we could forever change the face of humanity and to what? And even more importantly, who will control these changes? With all our amazing potential, our future could still turn grim.

Mass production, quantum computing may only be decades away. Nanotechnology may offer our salvation in climate control, environmental cleanup and medical applications. And yet, with genetic modification, quantum computing and nanotechnology, there will inevitably be unintended consequences. We know from experience that new technologies simultaneously bring great change and tragic loss. Forbidden Cargo avoids a black & white, good vs. evil, pro/anti-tech take on tomorrow, but presents the many shades of grays in our future where we are neither consumed by gray-goo-nanotechnology-gone-bad nor basking in a dreamy utopia, but grappling with our self-made demons both personal and societal in 2110, as we do today.

EDGEnet: Will you be available to discuss your book at WorldCon?

Rebecca: Yes, I will be available at the EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing booth at scheduled times throughout the World Con event for signings, plus we will be celebrating the launch of Forbidden Cargo. Schedule details are posted daily at the booth, plus you have an opportunity to enter to win an i-POD NANO. I am really looking forward to meeting everyone there.

Rebecca K. Rowe

Rebecca K. Rowe is a freelance writer, published author and member of the National Space Society and The Mars Society. She has M.A.'s in Journalism and International Relations. Her short work / poetry has been published in Polyphony, Ascent Magazine, and Sol Magazine. Rebecca is a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Workshop, and has been recently formally inducted into the Denver "Women's Press Club"

FORBIDDEN CARGO by Rebecca Rowe
ISBN-10: 1-894063-16-3
ISBN-13: 978-1-894063-16-6
Trade Paperback
5.50" X 8.50"
$14.95 US
$16.95 CN
352 pages


Forbidden Cargo is Rebecca Rowe's first novel.

J. Brian Clarke to Read From New Release 'ALPHANAUTS', Wednesday, June 14 at The Sentry Box, in Calgary, Alberta.

"SF could ask for no better ambassador. So, sit back, relax and enjoy." - Robert J. Sawyer
J. Brian Clarke
'Alphanauts'
Book Reading and Signing
Wednesday June 14th
The Sentry Box
1835 - 10th Ave SW, Calgary
7:00 pm to 8:00 pm

Join us for a special opportunity to hear J. Brian Clarke read from his novel "Alphanauts", newly published by EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing.

About 'Alphanauts'

After nearly fifty years in suspended animation a crew of human space explorers, known as the "Alphanauts", return to Earth; only to discover that a medical side effect of their faster than light travel prevents them from remaining on their home planet. Now, in a desperate bid for survival, they must return to space and attempt to colonize an alien world under an alien sun.

Along the way, they encounter the descendants of another space traveling species, symbiotic cat birds, and an evolving malevolent computer intelligence that threatens to destroy everything the Alphanauts work so hard to build.

Their greatest challenge, though, is still to be faced as a hoard of refugees from a ruined Earth are fast approaching, determined to set up a Fascist utopia on this new world.

Can they survive? Can they find the "right stuff" to fend off the control of their Earthly invaders?

Discover the answer in J. Brian Clarke's stellar new space adventure - 'Alphanauts', now available at The Sentry Box in Calgary.

About J. Brian Clarke

J. Brian Clarke is best known for sixteen stories published by ANALOG magazine ... five were 'cover' stories ... one of which, 'Dinoshift', was nominated for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) Nebula award.

Clarke's stories have also appeared in GALAXY, EXPANSE and ON-SPEC. 'Earthgate' was the lead in Donald A. Wollheim's 1986 annual WORLD'S BEST SF. 'Testament of Geoffrey' appeared in the Russian publication INVENTOR AND INNOVATOR. Another story has been translated into Spanish for 'Editorial Serio' in Spain.

About Clarke's Writing
Clarke writes about scientists and engineers, about people who think and do, about problems that have to be solved and the men and women who roll up their sleeved and get the work done.

His characters are the "scientists-as-heroes" that were the mainstay of the Golden Age of science fiction, and are brought to life again through Clarke's powerful abilities as a story teller.

J. Brian Clarke is a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society - as well as past president of the Calgary chapter of The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.
He lives in Calgary, Alberta.

Book Details:
Alphanauts by J. Brian Clarke
ISBN10: 1-894063-14-7
ISBN13: 978-1-894063-14-2
5.5" x 8.5" - Trade Paperback
$14.95 US - 18.95 CD - 325 Pages
Read Chapter One:
http://www.edgewebsite.com/books/alphanauts/an-sample.html

===================================
For further information please contact:
Janice Shoults, Marketing Director
EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing
P.O. Box 1714,
Calgary, AB, T2P 2L7, Canada
780-460-1756 (marketing office)
403-254-0160 (EDGE office voice)
403-254-0456 (fax)
http://www.edgewebsite.com