Monthly Archives: December 2009

Final Notes on Obama’s 2009

I was going to write a long and involved piece about President Obama’s 2009 and how contrary to most popular rumor it’s been among the most successful first years of any president of the last, oh, century, but it turns out Andrew Sullivan’s pretty much written what I would have written on that subject for […]

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The God Engines, Out Tomorrow — Read the First Chapter Today

The God Engines is officially in print tomorrow; Subterranean Press tells me copies of the book are in their warehouse and they’ll be shipping them over the next week, with direct orders from SubPress being fulfilled first and Amazon orders following right behind (on account that those have to, you know, go through Amazon’s warehouses, […]

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My War (Or Not) With the “Big Three”

Got an e-mail today from someone who noticed an oblique reference to me in a recent Analog editorial which, in part, explained why the magazine still doesn’t accept e-mail submissions (I was referred to in it as a “young writer,” which as a middle-aged scribe with two decades of professional writing and publishing experience, I […]

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The Big Idea Index, 2009

And now, for your linking convenience, an index of every author who contributed a Big Idea essay this year, in alphabetical order, From Adams to Williamson. Catch up on what you missed, and keep these authors in mind when you’re cashing in your bookstore gift cards this week. John Joseph Adams C.L. Anderson Julia Angwin Paolo Bacigalupi Steven R. Boyett […]

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The Big Idea: Jasper Fforde

There are many reasons I like Jasper Fforde’s writing, but one of the main reasons I do is that Fforde has the rare talent of taking fundamentally farcical plot concepts (People enter books! Detectives solve crimes in a nursery rhyme world!) and paying them off in ways that are not, in fact, merely farcical. So […]

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Hey, You Like Snow?

Here you go, then. This evening graced us with our first winter advisory, informing us we could expect anywhere between three and five inches of the stuff. Having just driven home in this, I can say with some reasonable authority that three inches has already been achieved, and it’s just a quarter past eight. We’ll […]

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Whatever Twitter Feed Now Online

Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that generally speaking my Twitter postings don’t have much to do with what’s going on here at Whatever; they’re mostly my short (and goofy) observations. Well, for those of you who would actually like a Twitter feed for Whatever, now there is one: @blogwhatever. It updates […]

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Mecha-Zoë is Coming to End You

The cover for the upcoming Spanish edition of Zoe’s Tale: Not entirely sure it’s accurate to the content of the book, but then Minotauro (my Spanish publisher) has always made the covers more about style than anything else. And it certainly is cool looking. You don’t want to mess with this version of Zoë; she’ll […]

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The Little Gingerbread House That Couldn’t

So, for the centerpiece of our Christmas Eve feast with the extended family, we decided to make a gingerbread house, because it’s all homey and Christmasy and whatnot. For reference, here’s what the house is supposed to look like, once assembled: And this is what it looked like when we were finished: How did it […]

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