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Help Out Peter Watts
Peter Watts, Hugo-nominated author of Blindsight, had a very bad experience at the U.S./Canadian border, and may need some legal help. His account of the incident is here. Even if this is a simple mistake, it’s going to be costly for him to deal with. John Scalzi and BoingBoing have information on how to help…
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December Belongs to Cthulhu
The Tor.com blog is devoting the month to all things Cthulhu, including gift suggestions for the Lovecraft aficionado, the “show us your tentacles” art meme, and poems like The Other Other Gods. There’s Pam, whose gums stink of the sea And Stephanie the bloated sun And Omar, called the Goat and Wheel And what’s-her-name, the…
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Win a Tuckerization
Tuckerization is the act of placing a real person’s name in a work of fiction. Several authors are currently auctioning off the privilege of being tuckerized in support of the Trans Atlantic Fan Fund. The authors involved in the auction are: Elizabeth Bear David Brin Julie Czerneda Cory Doctorow Nalo Hopkinson Mary Robinette Kowal Charles…
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Nooooooooooo….
Recently in Toronto, Stephen King did an on-stage interview with director David Cronenberg. He gave a short reading from his new novel Under the Dome, related amusing anecdotes…and then announced that he was thinking about a sequel to The Shining. He observed that even though things worked out okay in the original novel, Danny Torrance’s…
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Review: Don’t Panic
In the interests of full disclosure I’ll mention up front that the publisher sent me this book to review. That would not, however, prevent me from savaging it if I felt that was warranted. Fortunately for the publisher’s blood pressure, it is not; I quite liked it. Don’t Panic by Neil Gaiman isn’t precisely a…
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The Periodic Table of Science Fiction
This is kind of awesome. Author Michael Swanwick, apparently in some kind of partnership with SciFi.com, is posting his mini-vignettes from The Periodic Table of Science Fiction over on Blogspot. 2 He Helium 4.0026 Jane Carter of Mars Imagine having Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, for your great-grandmother! Her likeness, carved in marble, balloon breasts…
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You Got Your Zombies in My Star Wars!
Zombies and Star Wars. They’re two great…oh, who am I kidding? This is just ridiculous. (Click the image to enlarge for full zombie Wookiee goodness.) Death Troopers follows the adventures of a handful of survivors on an Imperial prison barge after everybody else contracts an horrific disease, dies, and comes back to life (boogedy-boogedy)! Del…
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SF Writing Contest
Over at SciFi Scanner, John Scalzi is holding an impromptu writer’s workshop. He’s provided ten writing assignments; write one or more and leave your answer in the comments over there. The assignments are just wonderful. 2. Whilst visiting an alien world to collect plant samples, one of your crew ran afoul of the local sentient…
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It’s September…
…so it’s time for my annual Worldcon/Hugo rant. I believe that the time has come for us to consider, like it or not, the need for changing the name of the World Science Fiction Convention to something like the World Speculative Fiction Convention, the World Convention for Fantastic Literature, the (to paraphrase Locus’ cover) World…
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SF Novel Crossword
UserFriendly has a geek crossword featuring clues like “tree shape in microgravity” and “Senior King on Majipoor.” Link