The current issue of All Story magazine features a “guest designer”. I picked up the magazine, not one of my normal picks, because that guest designer is one of my favourite characters: Mr. Tom Waits. The world is much more interesting place with him in it than it would be without. There’s actually limited material in the magazine for Tom… Read more →
Category: Books
Now that’s a short-list!
The short list is up now for The British Science Fiction Association Awards, and what a list it is. 9Tail Fox — Jon Courtenay Grimwood (Gollancz) Accelerando — Charles Stross (Orbit) (Free ebook edition) Air — Geoff Ryman (Gollancz) Learning the World — Ken MacLeod (Orbit) Living Next Door to the God of Love — Justina Robson (Macmillan) I’ve actually… Read more →
The Darkening Ecliptic
I have no interest in commenting on the current book frauds. The blogosphere has both James Frey and JT Leroy covered. However, I do want to out Christopher Moore. Read more →
I Am In The Wrong Country Next Week
Sigh. Blackwell on Charing Cross Road 18th January 7pm An evening with Michael Moorcock, in conversation with Alan Moore Tickets £6 normal, £4 for leeches on society. Buy them from the shop or call 0845 456 9876. This is totally going to be the Battle Of The Beards: versus Read more →
SF authors say smart things (Part 3)
I could just as easily have titled this one “Looking forward to 2006”. Right now Bruce Sterling is having an online interactive discussion/seminar on the view for the year ahead over on The Well’s Inkwell.vue There are more than one places in the discussion already where Sterling is saying smart things, and the thread is still growing. Here’s an example:… Read more →
SF authors say smart things (Part 1)
I’ve been doing a lot of talking about how silly “Intelligent Design” theory is, but deep thinking SF writer Karl Schroeder has pointed out that I (and a whole bunch of other folks, including almost everyone more optimistic about humanity than I am) may have been guilty of making the same mistake in the other direction: The idea that organisms… Read more →
WTF (or “Amazon loses the plot”)
You know how Amazon keeps track of things you’ve purchased, and can send you emails of the form “if you liked X, then you’re sure to also like our new product Y that just came out”? Apparently there is either A) some kind of weird snag with the recommendation engine, or B) there are vast, secret, and strange connections underlying… Read more →
Attention: Go Forth And Buy
You probably have very little time to run out and order the latest Glen Hirshberg audio CD. I can personally guarantee that there are no more than 19 copies left. glen hirshberg : buy the books Glen Hirshberg and photographer Jonas Yip have collaborated on a new audio CD recording of Glen’s story, “Like a Lily in a Flood,” featuring… Read more →
Geek Book Meme
Gwenda points to where The Guardian has come up with the Top 20 geek novels. This becomes a meme when you bold the ones you’ve read. I’ll take it a bit further with some comments, since there’s only one I haven’t read. Read more →
What I’m Not Doing This Weekend
For quite a long time, I had reserved this weekend for a trip to Madison to attend this year’s World Fantasy Convention. I’ve always enjoyed WFC when I’ve attended it before, and I was looking forward to meeting a bunch of authors I like, as well as having a chance to see old friends again, and have old friends introduce… Read more →
Best Of Halifax
Every year Halifax’s free weekly, The Coast, has a couple of Best Of competitions, where the readers vote in numerous categories (typically the Food & Drink voting is one competition, and all the other Best Of voting happens in the other competitions. This year’s Best Of results are out now. I note that Strange Adventures has won again. I am… Read more →
Home Again
Safe back in Halifax. Wife and baby already in bed when I got home–might as well catch up on Rome. Normally I would read at this point, but since I already went through two books at the airport–Westerfeld‘s Pretties and the Gischler debut Gun Monkeys)–I think I’m justified in spending an hour or two catching up with Vorenus and Pullo.… Read more →
It’s Not Fair…
Heh. Pun. See, it’s not fair that I am Boston until Friday afternoon, and Friday evening is the beginning of the 2005 Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair. The 2005 Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair, one of the oldest and most respected antiquarian book shows in the country, celebrates twenty-nine years, from October 28 through October 30, 2005, at Boston’s Hynes… Read more →
Dispatches From Boston
..well, not really Boston. Since the last time I visited company HQ lots of interesting things have happened, notably including the purchase of the company by a much bigger company, the closing of the old office and movement of people to a different office in nearby Framingham. (Of course, the “Boston” office is also no longer HQ.) I am somewhat… Read more →
Why I keep reading Charlie Stross
“Listen, this Bond guy, he’s some kind of commie assassin, isn’t he? I mean, look at the evidence. He works for the state — a socialist state at that. He went to university and worked with those guys Philby and Burgess, that MacLean guy — commie spies to a man. He goes after entrepreneurs who are a threat to the… Read more →
