Monthly Archives: December 2006
Two Entirely Unrelated Thoughts
Posted on December 17, 2006 35 Comments
Here they are: 1. It’s fun to look at reviews of your work in languages you don’t know and try to figure out what the hell they’re saying. I think this one’s in Norwegian, but honestly, I can’t tell. But it looks like the reviewer liked, anyway. 2. My big-ass monitor continues to be teh […]
Meet the John Perrys
Posted on December 17, 2006 17 Comments
As most of you know, the protagonist of Old Man’s War (and the upcoming The Last Colony) is a fellow named John Perry. Now “John Perry” is not likely to be a wildly uncommon name, and I was procrastinating the other day, so I dropped the name in Google to see what might pop up. […]
Peter Watts’ Vampire Lecture
Posted on December 17, 2006 10 Comments
Peter Watts, he of the Blindsight novel I gushed about earlier, has a very amusing and also terrifyingly plausible PowerPoint presentation on evolutionary and biological roots of vampirism, as detailed from the point of view of a scientific researcher whose company is aiming to resurrect (heh) vampires in the present day. If you’ve got about […]
From the “What Does This Mean” File
Posted on December 17, 2006 53 Comments
I had a dream last night in which I was reading a quote from Harlan Ellison, in which he said “John Scalzi is everything that is wrong with science fiction today.” I find this interesting because a) I don’t have a hate-on for Ellison, and indeed I just recently purchased a collection of his and […]
Writing The Sagan Diary
Posted on December 16, 2006 24 Comments
I promised earlier in the week that I would talk a little bit about writing “The Sagan Diary,” and then I spent the rest of the week organizing my lint collection, so I hadn’t gotten around to it. Let me correct that now. “The Sagan Diary” was interesting for me to write because it’s pretty […]
Just How Terrifyingly Tuned I Am to the Early 80s
Posted on December 15, 2006 32 Comments
I’m listening to one of my online radio stations, whose app I minimized and volume I turned down to talk to my wife on the phone. When I hung up I turned up the speaker volume I heard two bars of a song I’d never heard before and instantly thought “Damn, that’s the Three O’Clock.” […]
Bleep. Bloop. Zap.
Posted on December 15, 2006 42 Comments
Hey, I’m being interviewed again, and this time it doesn’t involve something relating to science fiction: I’m part of an article on parents who play video games, over at 1up.com, along with Mike Krahulik (Gabe of Penny Arcade, and the totally excellent cover artist for Agent to the Stars) and Andrew Bub, who writes the […]
You Can Get This Book For Free. You Should Buy It.
Posted on December 14, 2006 76 Comments
Since I’ve finished “The Sagan Diary” I’ve taken up reading Peter Watts’ Blindsight, which I bought a couple of weeks ago. As noted by others, it’s a terrific book, with all the hard SF goodness you’d want, and more besides, and seems a likely contender for various SF awards next year. So, yeah, if you’re […]
First Novels First Or Not
Posted on December 14, 2006 17 Comments
For the novelists in the crowd, Toby Buckell is putting together a survey on the subject of first novels, and whether the first novel a writer sells is, in fact, the first novel they ever wrote. Most writers know all too well that their first published novel is often the third or sixth or tenth […]
Ugh and Crap
Posted on December 14, 2006 19 Comments
Woke up past 10:30, could barely drag my ass out of bed, and apparently a flock of seagulls dumped a load in the back of my throat. Yup, I’m sick. Now I have to catch up with a whole bunch of stuff. Be back later. In the meantime, enjoy this other Flock of Seagulls. They […]
How I Know It’s The Holidays
Posted on December 13, 2006 19 Comments
I know it’s the holidays because at the moment Book of the Dumb has a higher Amazon ranking at the moment than my other books. This happens every year; for most of the year the book does hardly any business at all, and then comes the holidays and suddenly everyone’s looking for a relatively inexpensive […]
OMW & TGB Collector’s Editions
Posted on December 13, 2006
A brief announcement that will be of interest to you folks what like collecting: Subterranean Press and Tor have reached a tentative agreement for Subterranean to produce limited hardcover editions of Old Man’s War and The Ghost Brigades in 2007. These editions will include cover art and illustrations by Bob Eggleton, and will be pretty […]
OMW & TGB Collector’s Editions
Posted on December 13, 2006
A brief announcement that will be of interest to you folks what like collecting: Subterranean Press and Tor have reached a tentative agreement for Subterranean to produce limited hardcover editions of Old Man’s War and The Ghost Brigades in 2007. These editions will include cover art and illustrations by Bob Eggleton, and will be pretty […]
OMW & TGB Collector’s Editions
Posted on December 13, 2006 11 Comments
A brief announcement that will be of interest to you folks what like collecting: Subterranean Press and Tor have reached a tentative agreement for Subterranean to produce limited hardcover editions of Old Man’s War and The Ghost Brigades in 2007. These editions will include cover art and illustrations by Bob Eggleton, and will be pretty […]
Confusing the Capitalists
Posted on December 13, 2006 49 Comments
This is probably my favorite story of the last week: Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster went to a media conference for financial types and made them all drop their jaws to the ground when he explained how Craigslist isn’t all that interested in finding ways to eke profits out of each of its users, it just […]
Top 51 Personal Blogs in SF/F, December 2006 Edition
Posted on December 13, 2006 74 Comments
Last July I published a list of the top 51 personal blogs in science fiction and fantasy (it was supposed to be the top 50, but there was a tie on the last ranking, so I put them both in), and it’s been long enough that I thought it might be time to refresh the […]
Leslie Harpold
Posted on December 12, 2006 7 Comments
Well, damn. Leslie Harpold, one of the bright stars of the early blogosphere, back when blogs were still known as online diaries, has died. I’m not entirely sure how, but this entry from a friend of hers seems to suggest it may have been related to chronic bronchitis. Those of us who hung out online […]
Fiddly Bits, 12/12/06
Posted on December 12, 2006 13 Comments
Busy day — I’ll be back at some point, but for now, some egocentric notes and links: * First, I’m done with “The Sagan Diary,” although I’ll spend part of the afternoon formatting it and banging out an intro chapter. But the hard part, the part where I get inside Jane’s head, is completed. I’m […]
Apocalypto Now
Posted on December 11, 2006 35 Comments
Being a professional watcher of the film industry as I am, I was asked what I thought it meant that Mel Gibson’s latest film Apocalypto opened at #1 at the box office, and my answer is: Not a whole lot. The film grossed $14 million over the weekend, which makes one of the least highest-grossing […]
It’s the Little Victories That Mean the Most
Posted on December 11, 2006 15 Comments
Happiness is: Finding the common element in the hundreds of spam comment messages one has been getting, popping it into the spam filter, and watching dozens of subsequent spam messages fail spectacularly. That’ll make me happy for days, or until the spammers figure out a workaround.
Whatever Everyone Else is Saying