Monthly Archives: March 2009
Mary Robinette Kowal Ups the Ante
Posted on March 31, 2009 24 Comments
It involves taking the Giant Block of Foam to the next level. And yes, the next level involves bacon. Or, well. Should.
Reader Request Week 2009 #4: Procreation
Posted on March 31, 2009 104 Comments
M asks: If we procreate, we doom civilization through overpopulation and depletion of resources. If we don’t procreate, we doom civilization through exacerbating an aging population. What’s a potentially procreative person to do? I don’t think it’s as bad as that, personally. For one thing, personally speaking I don’t think an aging population is a […]
More Than Vaguely Terrifying: The Peekaru
Posted on March 31, 2009 46 Comments
It’s like a Snuggie and a chestburster from Alien all in one: Gizmodo has all the disturbing details here.
The Big Idea: Julia Angwin
Posted on March 31, 2009 19 Comments
Hey, folks, this Big Idea piece is a huge thrill for me to present to you because the author, Julia Angwin, is an friend of mine back to our college days, when she was an editor at the Chicago Maroon, the newspaper at which I was the editor-in-chief. We both went into newspapers, but unlike […]
Reader Request Week 2009 #3: Space!
Posted on March 31, 2009 56 Comments
Liz asks: If you could, would you go into Space? The short answer: Sure, as long as someone else paid for it. The longer answer, yes, but I resent the fact that a decade into the 21st century the only way I could get into space at this point is to spend $20 million or […]
My Favorite Quote of the Day
Posted on March 30, 2009 20 Comments
It is: “Certainly, aside from the giant block of foam strapped to his arm, you’d have no idea that anything was wrong with him.” And now, blessed context.
Hats Off to Brandon Sanderson
Posted on March 30, 2009 65 Comments
Brandon Sanderson explains how the last book of the Wheel of Time series became a 800,000(or so)-word trilogy. And all I can think is: Man, I have a hard enough time getting to 100,000 words. That man is just plain nuts. But I expect Wheel of Time fans will appreciate the extra effort in the […]
Reader Request Week 2009 #2: OMW and Zoe’s Tale (and Angst and Pain)
Posted on March 30, 2009 21 Comments
Pwstrain asks: Compare and contrast the pain, angst, and horror of writing, agenting, selling OMW vs. Zoe. Differences in process / time / fear of failure? Just in case anyone doesn’t know (which given the crowd seems highly unlikley), “OMW” here is Old Man’s War, my first published novel, and “Zoe” is Zoe’s Tale, my […]
Reader Request Week 2009 #1: SF YA These Days
Posted on March 30, 2009 115 Comments
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Reader Request Week 2009, in which you suggest the topics, and I write about them. Yes, I am your dancing monkey for the entire week! Please do not throw peanuts at me, however. They hurt my little head. As with last year, this I’m going to try to answer more […]
Today’s Unsexy Reminder Post
Posted on March 29, 2009 11 Comments
There’s still time to get in your questions for this year’s Reader Request Week (it starts tomorrow), and if you are a Hugo nominee this year, to send along your stuff for the Hugo Voter’s Packet (which if all goes well will start going out Thursday).
Quick Review: Monsters Vs. Aliens
Posted on March 28, 2009 36 Comments
It was fun, but I can’t help but feeling the screenwriters left a lot on the table rather than putting it up on the screen; it had a lot of opportunities to be a whole lot sharper than it was. It’s also pretty obvious the screenwriters (of whom there were apparently many) are 80s babies, […]
Saturday Afternoon
Posted on March 28, 2009 8 Comments
I’m off to see Monsters Vs. Aliens with Athena. Personally, I have my money on the monsters. You crazy kids have fun without me. I may check in later this evening.
No Matter How Hard You Try, You Will Never Out-Nerd This Man
Posted on March 27, 2009 45 Comments
So don’t even try. It’s the occasional pelvic thrust that makes it work, if you ask me. If you’re wondering what the hell the dude is playing, incidentally, it’s this.
Various and Sundry, 3/27/09
Posted on March 27, 2009 50 Comments
A few things rattling about in my head: * Over at Making Light, Jim Macdonald is going into great detail about traumatic brain injury, which is the media’s favorite injury of the last several weeks due to Natasha Richardson’s death of it. For those of you who don’t know, Jim’s an EMT, so he knows […]
Peter Dubuque
Posted on March 27, 2009 30 Comments
Spare a moment in your day, if you would, for my friend Peter Dubuque, who passed on quite suddenly earlier this week. Peter and I met more than a dozen years ago when we were both part of the alt.society.gen-x newsgroup on USENET, which was my first real community online, and through which I gained […]
Mostly Out
Posted on March 26, 2009 13 Comments
Athena’s home ill and I’m catching up with non-online work so don’t expect huge things here today. I might pop in a bit later. Or I might not. It’s just one of those days.
The Recession and Science Fiction Movies
Posted on March 26, 2009
I know you’ve been staying up nights, clutching the sheets in terror, wondering helplessly if this recession thing we’ve got going on is going to mean horrible things for the continuous drip-feed of science fiction films that Hollywood provides to you. Well, relax, because how the recession will affect sf/f films is this week’s topic […]
Reader Request Week 2009: Get Your Requests In!
Posted on March 25, 2009 219 Comments
Yes, it’s time once again for Reader Request Week, in which I take a week off from thinking up topics to write about here at Whatever and let you folks do all the heavy lifting. Yes! You do it for once! See how hard it is! Ha! Want to play along? Sure you do. Here’s […]
Hugo Nominees: Why Yes, You Can Get In On the Hugo Voter Packet Action
Posted on March 25, 2009 18 Comments
First, a status update on the state of the 2009 Hugo eBook Voter packet: I’m still in the process of getting permissions from various publishers to get as many of the Best Novel (and Best Related Book) nominees into the Hugo eBook packet as possible. At this point I hope to have the package ready […]
Spanish TLC; Strange Horizons Review of ZT
Posted on March 25, 2009 13 Comments
Another Minotauro edition of one of my books, another pretty damn kick-ass cover. This one is for the Spanish edition of The Last Colony, although I note they went ahead and called it “The Lost Colony,” which formalizes in Spanish a common flub of the title in English. I don’t mind. I’ll note that when […]
Whatever Everyone Else is Saying