I have to find a mentor. One of these new-era ‘kids’ who seem to be able to manage their time and their output in ways that totally mystify me. I seem to be operating in a serial mode while they’re getting along famously in parallel.
Just to put a fine point on it – I’m STILL trying to find time to get on over to Locus and read Doctorow’s piece that somewhat touches on the subject – and no, I do not have time to read a book on time management.
Therein lies the rub.
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Are dashes better than astericks for denoting a change in subject?
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John Ottinger has added at least two more blogs to his list and has announced that Diana Pharaoh Francis is putting together a database of SF/F/H book reviewers as a natural outgrowth of the meme.
You can add your information here.
In related meme news, John Anealio is contemplating a reprise of the meme song and contemplating a music video.
I’d be happy to write the shooting script – but of course doing so will entail certain creative changes to the song (not everything translates from one media to the next directly, you know). Something like this:
“Oh The Crotchety Old Fan, The Crotchety Old Fan and
The Crotchety Old Fan and The Crotchety Old Fan,
something, something, something
I’m Grasping For The Wind…”
Three more capsule reviews will be coming shortly.
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Charlie Stross is going to be appearing at Pandemonium Books on Tuesday, February 10th, 7 PM, in Caqmbridge, Mass.
I’m currently reading Saturn’s Children for review (Ray Gun Revival) and will be attending this little soiree. I’m seriously thinking of bringing along some restraints and a flogger, but I need to know what size shoe Charlie wears so I can also fetch along the proper size stiletto ballet boots…
I’ve read Heinlein’s Friday numerous times (a novel that SC is an ‘homage/send-up’ of) and am, shall we say, ‘intimately’ familiar with some of the imagery Charlie borrows. I’d venture to guess that unless you are familiar with the subject matter, you’ve missed a large number of the elements in there (not that doing so will affect enjoyment of the book). I’d also venture to guess that Charlie has at least a passing acquaintance with said subject – or at least did a whole heck of a lot of (painful) research…
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I just signed up at Authonomy, the social-org/distributed slush pile reading/writing site by HarperCollins. I haven’t posted my minimal 10,000 words of fiction yet but will be doing so.
I’ve gotten a couple of very nice responses to ‘Masker Aid’ (which is one of the things I’ll probably post at the above site) and I absolutely do appreciate those missives, but what would be more instructive would be (tender) criticism of the story.
I find it extremely ironic that one reader noted that it reminded him of the kind of stories he reads in Asimov’s – which is the first publication I submitted it to and the first place that rejected it.
If you do want to read it and tell me how badly it sucks, you can find it at the end of this post. If you insist, you can also tell me how much you liked it.
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We’re scheduled for another snow storm today and tomorrow, so soon it will be off to the laundry and the supermarket to lay in survival supplies. I MUST remember to get mayonnaise (Hellmans, of course) as I have an inordinate amount of tuna fish that needs to be turned into salad.
See, these are the kind of distracting, mundane things that keep getting me further and further behind on the list of things that need doing.
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Truscifi‘s commentary on “what is or is not scifi” (playing off of Scalzi’s AMC piece this week was picked up by File 770 and Mike offers a very amusing and oft-told tale of Harlan Ellison’s gafiation.
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Gary Farber has a VERY long (interesting and entertaining and sad) piece on the soon-to-be-former administration’s use of torture. He reports on a piece by David Cole.
Being one of those kids who was subjected to (at a minimum) annual showings of ‘Night and Fog’ all I can say is that it was totally beyond my ability to comprehend in any way how the same country that liberated the death camps in WWII could sanction torture, rendition and such. (Of course that same country tried to turn a blind eye to the camps for quite a while, but eventually it did do the right thing. Kind of what Gary is hoping for now – that we’ll eventually do the right thing.)
Somewhere along the way our leaders (and much of the citizenry) seems to have lost the idea that the ‘tree of liberty’ must be nourished with the blood of patriots from time to time.
Being free AND being the good guys means that sometimes you’re going to have to take it on the chin. What about ‘not giving into the dark side of the Force’ don’t we understand? I thought Obi Wan made it pretty damned clear to Luke: if you allow yourself to use the tools of the dark side, you BECOME the dark side. You’re not the good guy anymore. At best, you can become a bad guy that redemmed himself – but as we all know from umpteen million stories dating all the way back to Homer, redeemed heros ALWAYS pay a price.
I was very happy to hear President-Elect Obama state, categorically, that the United States will no longer engage in torture and won’t be spying on its own people anymore. I sincerely hope (and do believe at the moment) that he will live up to those promises.
