Nothing hugely substantial today; just a quick signal boost on three fronts. Strange Bedfellows First up: an anthology of political science fiction (“Where ideology is a character!”), a crowdsourced project to be edited by Ottawa insider (and personal con buddy) Hayden Trenholm. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that if there’s one thing [...]
Say what you will about this Peter Watts guy, he sure has a way with punchy quotes. Just look at some of the one-liners he’s come up with that various folks have pinched for their sigfiles, or stuck on the sidebars of their blogs. Just look at all the pithy wisdom quoted on GoodReads: “Science [...]
From “The Island” (2009), by me: “Because you can never predict the behavior of a system more complex than you. And if you want a project to stay on track after you’re gone, you don’t hand the reins to anything that’s guaranteed to develop its own agenda.” From Bowl of Heaven (2012), By Gregory Benford [...]
So I’m spending all this time dealing with the legacy of the stationary dead, only to come up for air and notice that the walking ones are back on the march. I’ve never read the Walking Dead graphic novels (unlike, apparently, every thirteen-year-old at Bowmore Public School), but I’m a big fan of the AMC [...]
So, here’s a nice surprise in my In-box: prototype cover for next year’s Finnish translation of Blindsight from Gummerus. The artist is Jussi Kaakinen, and I think he’s done a terrific job. Oooh, and just after I finished posting this the first time, a courier showed up at my door with a box of these: [...]
Colbert shut down The Bump yesterday. I assume you can see the clip here if you live in the US; for the rest of us, this1 will have to do: What I said before? I take it all back. 1Grabbed from fuckyeahstevejonandsteven
A bit of place-holding pimpage, which is all I have time for while I beaver away on things I cannot talk about. On behalf of folks doing things they can talk about.. Do It Yourself Moviemaking One of them is Jim Munro, Maestro of the Microbudget, who originally made a name for himself by [...]
We start with spoilers, right off the top: Back in 1979′s Alien, Lambert, Kane, and Dallas passed through a big spooky chamber— the Devil’s own rib cage — en route to cinematic immortality. The fossilized remains of an alien creature rested at its center like a great stone heart, embedded in organic machinery: mysterious, vaguely [...]
I admit to being both gratified and surprised by the impact that Ray Bradbury’s death is having on the cultural landscape. It’s not that his legacy doesn’t deserve the attention; I simply didn’t expect society to give a shit. He was, after all, a writer in a culture where a quarter of the population doesn’t [...]
I was going start this off by claiming that I don’t often pimp those in my own social circle — to try and convey the sense that I’m Mr. Objective and totally averse to conflicts of interest, I guess — but when I thought about that for about two seconds I realized it was bullshit. [...]
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