You've heard of Moore's Law? Murphy's Law? Clarke's Laws?

How about Ripley's Law?

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Wil McCarthy produced a bunch of really neat science fiction books...but then seemed to vanish. Well, not quite totally. Seems he has a day job that is taking up all his time, working on changing some of his ideas into reality.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:07 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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A papercraft model of one of my favorite spacecraft.

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Sci-Fi-O-Rama points us towards the Aliens Archive, home of lots of xenomorph goodness.

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One thing I haven't decided on in the big read...how to count the "slush" I've read this year? I volunteer as a slush reader for a publisher of fantasy and science fiction. There are a number of us, and we make a generally futile attempt to beat the slush pile into submission.

Let me tell you folks...you think you've read a stinker of a published book? You ain't seen nothing yet! You can't imagine some of the prose I've tried working my way through this year.

There have been some good ones; I haven't recommended that every book in the pile be rejected. But, my oh my, oh dinosaurs. What the bard has spewed...

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Is there no original thought in Hollywood? Just what we need (after what I've been hearing on the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still) a whole bunch of remakes!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:13 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Reports are coming that Mr. Science Fiction has passed away. The fan's fan. more...

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Ansible Issue 257 is now available!

Lisa Shaw of Century Radio Northeast: "In which book is Room 101 a place to be feared?" Caller: "101 Dalmatians." [PE]

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So there's another attempt to make Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy into a movie afoot? As well as his The End of Eternity?

I don't think it will work. Last time I read them, I really noticed how much of the "action" is just two character's talking.

And...previous attempts have been bad from the get-go. For example, an attempt to turn the trilogy into two films (similar to what the initial attempt by Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings was). And the attempt to use the "creative team" behind that horrific version of Asimov's I, Robot. Blech!

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The Bad Astronomer talks about the bow shock around Betelgeuse (I have to pick up his new book, Death from the Skies!. Any book that uses an exclamation point in the title...)

To give this a SF twist, look up Gregory Benford's short story Bow Shock, which appeared in the first issue of Jim Baen's Universe. Why this story did not win a Hugo or a Nebula, I'll never know.

From direct images of exo-planets to stuff like this, it's amazing how astronomy keeps coming up with stuff that...well, amazes! "What a fascinating modern age we live in", as Captain J. Aubrey put it.

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Tobias Buckell is in the hospital. Again. For a heart-related condition. Again. Good gravy!

John Scalzi has a brilliant suggestion. Let's all make him feel better by buying his new novel. Heck, it's apparently already #1 in SF at Amazon, let's see if we can blip it up to the main list!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:34 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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For some wacky reason, Hollywood has decided to remake one of the all-time classic science fiction movies: The Day the Earth Stood Still (directed by Robert Wise). Before you trot off to see yet another accounting error from the studios, take some time and read the story that inspired the original. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

Posted at The Library of The Nostalgia League.

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Number 256 in a series. Dave Langford, the gift that keeps on giving.

John Norman plugs his new Gor novel: "What man, in his deepest heart, does not want to own a female, to have her for his own, utterly, as a devoted, passionate, vulnerable, mastered slave, and what woman, in her deepest heart, does not want to be so intensely desired, so unqualifiedly and fiercely desired, that nothing less than her absolute ownership will satisfy a male, her master?" [GW] Answers on a postcard, to anyone but me.

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Cast your peepers over the names of those who have contributed to the latest Mind Meld at SF Signal!

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1 J. Michael Straczynski? Awesome!

Posted by: John D. at October 29, 2008 09:23 PM (A8+6d)

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As one commentator notes, the Xeelee are at it again!

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David Drake has published his latest newsletter. His paths cross with another favorite author, Patrick O'Brian:

Visiting the vessel which was used as the Surprise in the film Master and Commander was unexpectedly moving. Jim Baen got me started reading Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series (the direct genesis of my RCN space operas); he and I touched frequently on them when we chatted, right to the end. I kept thinking as I took pictures that I'd really like to burble to Jim about this... and I would.

Well, we burbled a lot to one another while we were able to. For those of you who haven't learned the lesson the hard way, remember that you don't have anybody forever. Deal with other people so that you won't have regrets at the moment you realize that either you or the other fellow isn't going to be around any more.

Picture here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:25 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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It's my favorite (favourite?) time of month!

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Science fiction writers Steve Miller and Sharon Lee are surviving the demise of their former publisher by finding a way of making money (gasp) by "giving" away their writing (gasp gasp).

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The latest in a series: you can build anything with Legos...

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Or, more properly, what's wrong with US publishers?

Here's a guy who has written a pile of novels and short stories. Heck, he's won an award or three (Hugo, Locus and John W. Campbell Memorial, to be specific). His stories and novels are interesting...thought-provoking...they stretch your mind.

So why is it that his short story collection is only published in the US by a relatively small publisher? Why is it that his latest novel, Incandescence, is the only one of his works widely available in the US (his UK publisher published his whole backlist)?

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 11:15 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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