January 2012
“RN: As soon as you say, “In the world there are writers and there are readers,”...”
– More from the same Richard Nash interview
“It has been a fascinating phenomenon in the discussion around publishing how...”
– Richard Nash always interesting when talking about publishing
[GUEST REVIEW] Jenn Brissett on ‘The Bleeding Man... →
Book Boroughing | A New York City Literary Event... →
Things I Know? →
‘Why Write Novels at All?’ →
The roots of this question, in its contemporary incarnation, can be traced back to the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who at the dawn of the ’80s promulgated the notion of “cultural capital”: the idea that aesthetic choices are an artifact of socioeconomic position. Bourdieu documented a correlation between taste and class position: The scarcer or more difficult to access an aesthetic...
Some things that were true about publishing for... →
predicting the present →
Science fiction survives on its metaphors, catching an echo from the human context then rifling current science for an image or chain of images to act as a correlative. The rationales behind this project (including the rationale that it’s all rational, the claim that the project has, or should have, more in common with scientific discourse than poetic or political discourse) are less important...
justsayins: This needs to stop...and let me tell... →
justsayins:
Okay. Guys. Guys. Two things.
1) I’m a martial artist. I’ve been studying since I was seven. I wouldn’t even hesitate to say that I’m good at it. I have done work as a fight choreographer for film, and I am trained in stage combat as well.
2) I’m a contortionist. Yes. Again, since…
Gerber and Colan’s Phantom Zone – What If Marvel... →
December 2011
Slow for a while... →
Forgive me if the site is slow for a little while (barring whatever JF Quackenbush or EL Borgnine might have cooking up in their demented brains). I’m finishing a novel.
But there will be another…
1 tag
“See, but now things have come to a head. It turned out that not only was Go...”
– ASCII by Jason Scott / GODADDY SOPA BLAH
Interview with Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson →
Recently ran into Dr. Tyson at a holiday party and recorded this interview with him with my cell phone. All apologies about the quality.
Dr. Tyson graciously answers some questions about…
Doctor Who: Worlds in Time - Home →
3 tags
“According to a press release from the National Science Foundation:
New...”
– http://io9.com/5867113/
NaNoWriMo is a Cult of Pedophiles →
I normally wouldn’t comment but it remains amazing to me that Eric’s attack on NaNoWriMo from 6 years ago still gets a bunch of angry upset comments. This sort of reaction really only happens when…
Prospecting for Gold and Gems on the Sidewalks of... →
3 tags
Neil Gaiman's Journal: Audiobooks: A Cautionary... →
And I don’t want to turn this into a big plug for Swordspoint, or a rant against publishers wasting or not using audio rights. I think what I want to say mostly is, if you are an author, Get Involved in Your Audiobooks Early. Get your agent involved and interested. Talk about them at contract stage. Find out if you’re selling the rights, and if you are selling them then find out what...
November 2011
“It’s quite common for future-oriented SF stories to loot historical...”
– World building 201: Heuristics - Charlie’s Diary
Hilarious meta-comics by Ty Templeton →
Have I mentioned I lurv Ty Templeton?
Google.ru has the most amazing doodle today →
In honor of great Polish SF writer Stanislaw Lem
Four-winged dinosaur fossilized after swallowing a... →
3 tags
“Longing for what exactly? A different kind of world. A world that makes more...”
– What Is Fantasy About? « Lev Grossman
Reading the History of Popular Literature part 3:... →
This article is part of my series Reading the History of Popular Literature.
Books marked with a red asterix (*) are recommended reading. Books that were read previous to starting this project…
Ten Anime Series You Should See Before You Die |... →
Jonathan Lethem: The literary world is like high... →
2 tags
“Here’s an excerpt from Rowan’s email: “Once the book was bought, I had to make...”
– Quentin Rowan Explains Why He Plagiarized - GalleyCat
Literary snobbery encapsulated in one sentence
Mass culture has always been banal and high culture its redemption.
Fuck you.
SF Signal: VIDEO: China Miéville on Scholarly SF/F... →
Facinating lecture by China Mieville on science fiction, fantasy and genre
My Disappointment Critic
lareviewofbooks:
JONATHAN LETHEM on being reviewed by James Wood. Pore Everything cc Lisa Jane Persky “The job of the regular daily, weekly, or even monthly critic resembles the work of the serious intermittent critic, who writes only when he is asked to or genuinely moved to, in limited ways and for only a limited period of time … What usually happens is that (the staff critic) writes for some...
LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS | My Disappointment... →
James Wood, in 4,200 painstaking words, couldn’t bring himself to mention that my characters found a magic ring that allowed them flight and invisibility. This, the sole distinguishing feature that put the book aside from those you’d otherwise compare it to (Henry Roth, say). The brute component of audacity, whether you felt it sank the book or exalted it or only made it odd. These fantastic...
VanderMeers Launch Weird Fiction Review →
In the wake of Ann VanderMeer being taken off as editor-in-chief of Weird Tales following its acquisition by another company, and the publication of the VanderMeer’s massive ombnibus The Weird,…
October 2011
Met police using surveillance system to monitor... →
The surveillance system has been procured by the Metropolitan policefrom Leeds-based company Datong plc, which counts the US Secret Service, the Ministry of Defence and regimes in the Middle East among its customers. Strictly classified under government protocol as “Listed X”, it can emit a signal over an area of up to an estimated 10 sq km, forcing hundreds of mobile phones per...
A cultural thought experiment - Charlie's Diary →
Loosely put: if you are homeless and destitute in the USA and somebody hands you a $100 bill, that money can change your life. It’s enough to feed you for a couple of weeks to a month, to get you a new set of clothes, to buy time in a net cafe to search for a job online, to find shelter for a handful of nights during terrible weather.
But if you’re Warren Buffett and you spot a $100...
LENIN'S TOMB: On consensus →
I do not deny that consensus may be an appropriate form of decision-making in small groups of people who are thoroughly familiar with one another. But to examine consensus in practical terms, my own experience has shown me that when larger groups try to make decisions by consensus, it usually obliges them to arrive at the lowest common intellectual denominator in their decision-making: the least...
Dispatches From Occupied Tucson: Week 1 →
So I’d been meaning to write something about Occupy Tucson for a little while now, and the hope was that I could blog some about it on a day by day basis. Turns out that hasn’t really been possible….
This is straight out of a horror film →
Children kidnapped, kept in basement and systematically tortured for ten years. In Pennsylvania.