![\"Among](\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/AlbedoOne45-Cover.jpg\")
<\/a>Among other things, I reminisce about partially-dismembered sea lions.<\/p><\/div>\n
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- Our buds over at Starship Sofa just dropped their latest podcast<\/a>, which contains a performance of a story I coauthored with Laurie Channer over ten years back. With the exception of a cheesy video on seal-fisheries conflicts that came out back in the nineties, “Bulk Food” is the closest I’ve ever come to documentary. Some of the names have been changed. Slightly.<\/li>\n
- If you’ve been paying attention to the sidebar, you may have noticed that I’ll be appearing at SFContario<\/a> in a couple of weeks. I’ll blog my schedule once it’s finalized, but at this point it looks like I’ll be doing five panels and a reading. Said reading is slotted for a solid hour; any thoughts as to whether I should drone on for the whole 60 minutes or keep myself to 30 and do a Q&A on the back half? Only those who actually plan on attending need respond\u2014 and I’m guessing there won’t be very many of you, given that SFContario is taking place the same weekend that the Toronto International Book Fair<\/a> invades the Toronto Convention Center to present the likes of Margaret Atwood, William Gibson, Anne Rice\u2014 oh, and a certain up-and-comer by the name of Caitlin Sweet. \u00a0(No, really, no need to apologize\u2014 I’d be down there myself, albeit only as an attendee, if I wasn’t already committed to this other thing. Between this and getting squeezed by World Fantasy a couple years back, SFContario can’t seem to catch a break. You guys have fun, though.)<\/li>\n
- A few days further on, I’ll be giving a reading at Concordia<\/a>, in Montreal. Time and place remain fuzzy from this range, but at least the Unholy Trinity of Atwood Gibson & Rice won’t be performing across the street. I don’t think they are, anyway.<\/li>\n
- For those of you looking for a little more of a challenge, the Russian iteration of Popular Mechanics recently posted an interview with me<\/a>, conducted between those times when I was inadvertently breaking chairs<\/a> outside St. Petersburg. (I don’t know how far I’d trust Google Translate on that page, though\u2014 it serves up an exchange in which Blindsight<\/i> seems to get described as a bestseller, which I don’t remember and which comes as news to me. At least, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten any royalties from those guys\u2026)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"One](\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/PopMechRU.jpg\")
<\/a>One of these things is not like the others. The Russian Popular Mechanics has a different emphasis than what I was expecting. Why, it’s almost like the American Popular Mechanics…<\/p><\/div>\n
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![\"An](\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/giants-ensmallened.jpg\")
<\/a>An illo from “Giants”. Once again, that famed sunny Polish optimism just shines through with every brush stroke.<\/p><\/div>\n
Finally, a few website updates<\/a>: a couple of new bits of art in the gallery (including the first based on the Sunflowers story “Giants”), and new pull quotes from \u00a0Echopraxia’s<\/i> second professional “meh” review that I know of\u00a0 (this one coming from Strange Horizons<\/a>; the first hailed from The Register<\/a>, a couple of months ago). I can’t really complain; even the meh reviews use words like “brilliant” and “rewarding”\u2014 they just don’t think it measures up to Blindsight<\/i>, and I’m actually kind of surprised at how little of that I’m getting.\u00a0 (More on that a couple of posts down the road.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I think that pretty much catches us up on the thumping of tubs. Next time we’ll be back to thumping on the Dystopian Drums of Doom.<\/p>\n
- If you’ve been paying attention to the sidebar, you may have noticed that I’ll be appearing at SFContario<\/a> in a couple of weeks. I’ll blog my schedule once it’s finalized, but at this point it looks like I’ll be doing five panels and a reading. Said reading is slotted for a solid hour; any thoughts as to whether I should drone on for the whole 60 minutes or keep myself to 30 and do a Q&A on the back half? Only those who actually plan on attending need respond\u2014 and I’m guessing there won’t be very many of you, given that SFContario is taking place the same weekend that the Toronto International Book Fair<\/a> invades the Toronto Convention Center to present the likes of Margaret Atwood, William Gibson, Anne Rice\u2014 oh, and a certain up-and-comer by the name of Caitlin Sweet. \u00a0(No, really, no need to apologize\u2014 I’d be down there myself, albeit only as an attendee, if I wasn’t already committed to this other thing. Between this and getting squeezed by World Fantasy a couple years back, SFContario can’t seem to catch a break. You guys have fun, though.)<\/li>\n
![\"This](\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/NebulaUT-ensmallened.jpg\")
<\/a>