My friend and critique partner Janice Hardy, whose wonderfully dark YA novel The Shifter is coming out in October, has a contest on her blog to win an ARC:

If you’ve been to my website, you’ve noticed I love chickens. I can’t say why, I just find them hysterically adorable. So for the next ten days, send me your very best chicken jokes. The joke that makes me snarf something out my nose from laughing so hard wins a signed ARC (advance reading copy) of The Shifter.

To enter, put your entry at the bottom of Janice’s post.
(and if you don’t win, I highly recommend pre-ordering the book on amazon. It’s the pulse-racing story of a girl who can shift pain into people, and who is desperately trying to keep her head low–but finds herself faced with a dilemma when her ability turns out to be the only thing that might help her save her sister)

I was planning to put up a worldcon post today, but I’ve clogged the blog enough as it is. Tomorrow it is, then.

For your listening pleasure: “Blighted Heart” is now available as a podcast (recorded by Beneath Ceaseless Skies). Go here (for the table of contents of BCS audio) or directly here for the mp3.

In other related news, “Blighted Heart” is also Story of the Week over at Fantastic Reviews Blog, courtesy of Aaron Hughes:

“Blighted Heart” is a powerful, beautifully written story, and a great example of why de Bodard was the runner-up for this year’s John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, losing out very narrowly to David Anthony Durham.

Wow.

An interesting post from writer Jason Sanford about the new wave of SF: Scifi Strange.

The movement combines a literary (and sometimes experimental) style with a multi-cultural viewpoint and examination of basic human desires and needs, all while staying within the real-world parameters of SF’s literature of ideas.

(yes, you won’t find it in the blog post. I cheated and lifted it from another post Jason made in the TTA Press forums)

Jason mentions a bunch of writers from Interzone: Eugie Foster, Gareth L. Powell, Mercurio D. Rivera and me–along with Paolo Bacigalupi, Ted Chiang, Ian McDonald, and Nnedi Okorafor.

That’s interesting (basically New Weird, but in SF ). It does describe pretty well the SF I write, as well as the SF I enjoy; and I can think of a couple other writers who are dealing with it, like Sara Genge.

What do you think? Is that a new movement, or has it been there all along? Any other exciting things happening in SF on a large scale?