Monthly Archives: February 2015

RIP, Leonard Nimoy

He passed away today at 83. Here’s the New York Times obituary. Doubt there are many people in the world who were so plainly and simply admired as he was, and is. And rather than to be entirely sad about the end of a life lived well and prosperously, here’s a couple of music videos […]

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We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

Sam Sykes wrote on Twitter: One day I would like a picture of me as a giant shark, eating a ship piloted by @scalzi @ChuckWendig and @scottlynch78 a la Jaws. — Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) February 25, 2015 And Lartist (aka Lar deSouza, cartoonist of Least I Could Do), responded: @SamSykesSwears @scalzi @ChuckWendig @scottlynch78 I had […]

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Why Yes, I Still Have a Landline

  Gizmodo is curious to know who still has a landline and why. Well, I do, and here’s why: 1. The landline comes bundled with my DSL line and it’s not really any cheaper to have just the DSL service and not the landline, plus my provider whines petulantly if you ask for just the […]

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Reading Authors Not Like Me

I’ve been getting emails from folks asking me what I thought about and/or to comment on this article from K.T Bradford*, the headline of which is “I Challenge You to Stop Reading White, Straight, Cis Male Authors for One Year.” As with many headlines, it’s an unnuanced take of what the article actually is about, which […]

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The Big Idea: Matt Richtel

In his guise as a reporter for the New York Times, Matt Richtel won a Pultizer Prize writing on the intersection of technology and the fallible humans who use it. In fiction, and in his new novel The Doomsday Equation, Richtel does the same… but this time the results may be apocalyptic. MATT RICHTEL: Thank […]

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Note About Blurb Requests

This is for editors/publishers/PR folks: Until I am done writing The End of All Things, I am not entertaining further requests for blurbs for other authors’ books. I have to finish my own book before I can think seriously about anyone else’s. This note encompasses blurb requests that have already been made in 2015. The good […]

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Hebrew Android’s Dream + Other Notes

First, look! The Hebrew version of The Android’s Dream: I can tell it’s The Android’s Dream because of the sheep on the cover. Also, it says so inside, in English. But mostly from the cover. I’m always still geeked when I get foreign editions of my books. It’s both strange and wonderful to be read […]

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Quick Email Note

I accidentally archived a lot of email I meant to respond to over the last couple of weeks, and are now digging through the archives to respond to those emails. So if you sent me an email in the last couple of weeks and it seems like it fell down a hole, well, it did. […]

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2015 Oscar Predictions, Final

The Oscars are this weekend, so as I do every year, it’s time to look back at my first-blush impressions and see if I changed my mind, refined my thinking, or otherwise need to commit. The first-pass predictions are here; check ’em out and then come back. Now, then: Best Picture: I thought Imitation Game […]

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This Year’s Nebula Award Nominees

Oh, look, I just happen to have the SFWA Press Release for this year’s Nebula Award nominees right here. Let’s just put this sucker up, shall we? The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America are pleased to announce the nominees for the 2014 Nebula Awards (presented 2015), nominees for the Ray Bradbury Award for […]

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Oliver Sacks and Public Individuals at the Close

Oliver Sacks has terminal cancer and has decided to say goodbye to the public. It’s here, in the New York Times, and it’s both nicely done and something that’s being shared widely in my online social circle. Sacks seems, if not sanguine about the event, at least contented with the path of his life to date. […]

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Back in the Day

This is a picture of a Christmastime choral concert at my high school, roughly 30 years ago. You can tell it’s from Christmastime because of the otherwise utterly-nonessential-for-southern-California scarves the singers are wearing. I am in this picture. Can you find me? (Here’s a larger version of the photo, if you need more detail to […]

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Binary Isn’t

There’s a very interesting piece in Nature today about how science is making it more clear than ever that the binary nature of the sexes isn’t actually binary at all — that there are a lot of gradiations in biological sexual development, brought on not only via chromosomal differentation (the old “XX” and “XY” thing) but […]

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The Thing I’m Giving Up For Lent, 2015

I’m not religious, but in the last few years I’ve taken to giving up something for Lent, because I like the idea of mindful deprivation of a thing you enjoy (or at the very least, just plain do a lot), with an eye toward reflecting on that thing and its place in your life. Last […]

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You Can’t Take Back What You Already Have

First, go read this. This is only one dude, to be clear, but his defensive, angry and utterly terrified lament is part and parcel with a chunk of science fiction and fantasy fandom and authors who want to position themselves as a last redoubt against… well, something, anyway. It essentially boils down to “The wrong people are […]

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The Big Idea: Peter Darbyshire

In today’s Big Idea, author Peter Darbyshire casually subverts the Bible, Shakespeare and the reasons why one might choose a pen name, all in the service of his latest novel, The Dead Hamlets. PETER DARBYSHIRE: What if Christ left his body behind on our earthly realm when he went off to the undiscovered country? And […]

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