Archive for the ‘science fiction’ Category

WINDUP GIRL nominated for the Hugo Award

Friday, April 9th, 2010

Just like the headline says, THE WINDUP GIRL has made the final ballot for the Hugo Award, along with a very strong slate of other works. It's been a wild ride with TWG, and I want to thank everyone who read the book and liked it enough to vote for ...

Neal Stephenson and perseverance

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

WIRED has an excellent article on Neal Stephenson's latest book, ANATHEM. The book sounds like a good read, but buried in the article was an informative bit of Stephenson's back story that I wanted to pull out. His early books, a satire about big universities and an eco-thriller, were ...

Economic Meltdown vs. Global Meltdown

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

Pop Quiz: which of these is more important? A. The banking industry is in free fall and the problem is spreading. B. There's methane bubbling out of the Arctic. To me, the really interesting thing about this period in history is the amount of uncertainty over what story lines will dominate our ...

NY Times on Arthur C. Clark

Sunday, March 23rd, 2008

This must be my fifteen minutes of fame. I'm quoted along with Charles Stross, Walter Jon Williams, and Ian McDonald. Nifty.

Optimistic CO2 Sci-Fi

Monday, March 10th, 2008

Here's my take on writing optimistic SF-- just don't make it consolatory pap. That's what advertising, TV and suburban sprawl are supposed to sell. As an example, here's the latest on the global warming front. (note: the link is changed to point directly to the Washington Post article as ...

Scalzi on SFWA

Monday, February 18th, 2008

John Scalzi has a wonderful rant about SFWA and Andrew Burt's candidacy for president posted on his site. I also like what Charlie Finlay adds in the comments, by describing some of the problems SFWA faces beyond certain candidates themselves. I myself let my SFWA membership lapse this year. ...

One step closer to Cheshires…

Thursday, December 13th, 2007

Tip of the hat to Lou Anders who passed me this link; they've made glow-in-the-dark cats in Korea. When I wrote "The Calorie Man" this questionable little trick had been performed on rabbits. It provided the creative spark for Cheshires, and also formed the basis for the grain-sniffing IP ...

The only good thing about George Lucas…

Sunday, March 25th, 2007

... is that by creating "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith" he gave Anthony Lane at The New Yorker the opportunity to write a review. I know this is an old piece, I know that Star Wars is a roadside accident fast receding in our rear view mirrors, and ...

Futurizing

Wednesday, March 14th, 2007

I'm reading a book right now. SF. And I'm struck by how much world building the author is engaged in. He's putting all this labor into describing future technologies, future cultural developments, future living structures... he's working really hard to create a highly realistic and also highly disposable ...