Monthly Archives: September 2006

“Big Posts” — How They Work

(Warning: Blog geekery in the extreme follows) From time to time I’m asked how I’ve grown my readership here on the Whatever, and whether anyone else can do those same things to grow the readership of their own blogs. In the main it comes down to four separate factors, three of which I or anyone […]

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Tales of Horror From Years Gone By

In a column in Asimov’s magazine, science fiction writer Robert Silverberg regales us with stories of the bad old days of writing, when there were no computers, you made copies of what you wrote with carbon paper, retyping your manuscript to get it clean enough to send to your publisher took a month, and Silverberg […]

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Tales of Horror From Years Gone By

In a column in Asimov’s magazine, science fiction writer Robert Silverberg regales us with stories of the bad old days of writing, when there were no computers, you made copies of what you wrote with carbon paper, retyping your manuscript to get it clean enough to send to your publisher took a month, and Silverberg […]

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On Moral Cowardice

Re: The appalling new detainee trial bill that will undoubtedly be signed into law: President Bush is a moral coward, and has always been a moral coward, since at no point has he shown anything other than incomprehension of and contempt for the United States Constitution, particularly when it comes to his pet projects of […]

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You Little Witch

Athena’s been pestering me for a number of days to make a picture of her as the Wicked Witch of the West, so here we are. I do have a version where she has green skin, incidentally, but for some reason this works better for me. I’m oddly amused she wants a picture of herself […]

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Speaking of the Technorati Top 100…

You ever notice how few of Technorati’s Top 100 blogs are actually personal blogs? By which I mean, a blog written by a single person, not for an employer or contractor, and about more than a single topic (i.e., not just tech/politics/marketing). There are damn few. Let me take the Top 25 to prove my […]

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Little Thought-Like Emanations

A bunch of little unrelated things: * I’ve been getting hit hard recently by comment spam, and as a result ended up having to put a lot of keywords on my spam blacklist. This should not be a problem for you most of the time, unless you have a fetish for casually dropping the names […]

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Wednesday Author Interview: Jo Walton

Having finished The Last Colony and sufficiently depressurized therein, I’m back on the stick with my Wednesday Author Interviews over at By The Way. This week I’ve got Jo Walton talking about her superultramegafabulous new novel Farthing, which you need to read, like, right now, and also other topics of interest as well. Here’s the […]

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Goodbye to the Free Phone

Sprint giveth and Sprint taketh away: I got an e-mail from the telephone provider letting me know that they are switching off my free service to their network next Tuesday. After that, if I want to use the superbitchin’ cell phone they provided me, I’ll have to pay just like every other common troll. I […]

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How to Make a Schadenfreude Pie

My word, what is this dark and vaguely sinister-looking pie you see before you? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s the world’s first Schadenfreude Pie, the pie to enjoy while you are reveling in the horrible misfortunes of others. Why is there a Schadenfreude Pie? Because after I wrote the headline for this entry, I wondered […]

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The Winner of the “Why I Deserve an ‘Android’s Dream’ ARC” Contest

It’s “That Neil Guy,” because he went and procreated during the actual contest, and it’s hard to top that (although, to be fair, more credit for the actual birth work goes to the mom, now, doesn’t it). I sense he’ll have more than a few late nights in the reasonably near future, tending to new […]

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TAD Review at SFReviews.net

I noted the Publishers Weekly review first, but it’s not out yet, so this is the first review of The Android’s Dream that is publicly readable in full. And it says nice things about the book: The Android’s Dream reads something like an SFnal James Bond spoof by way of South Park. Scalzi isn’t exploring […]

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The Old Media Toilers Help Themselves to a Heaping Slice of Schadenfreude Pie

You can just about sense the delight dripping off the words of this article from the Boston Herald: “Publishers say few hits on blog books”. Apparently all those bloggers out there have been striking out when it comes to turning their blog celebrity into book celebrity, or at best hitting singles when they should have […]

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John M. Ford

Oh, dear. Science fiction writer Mike Ford has died. Making Light has more details. I’d met Mike Ford on a number of occasions and had a panel with him at the most recent Boskone; we were friendly and he was a good friend to a number of my good friends in SF. I admire his […]

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Publishers Weekly on The Android’s Dream

The first review of The Android’s Dream comes from industry bible Publishers Weekly, and it’s good. They call it a “swashbuckling satire of interstellar diplomacy” and say “With plenty of alien gore to satisfy fans of military SF and inventive jabs at pretend patriotism and self-serving civil service, Scalzi delivers an effervescent but intelligent romp.” […]

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