Category: Miscellaneous
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Japanese Hamburgers, Hard SF, and Getting Things Right
The most recent issue of Smithsonian magazine had an interesting article about some Japanese fans of particular types of Americana — like hamburgers, bourbon, jazz, and denim. You can read it here so I don't have to summarize. It's a neat article, and it connected up with some other threads inside my skull. Second thread:…
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Congratulations, Brian!
Now that he's made the announcement on his own 'blog, I guess the secret's out: The Emperor's Blades is coming to HBO! Congratulations to Brian Staveley — you're in the big leagues now, Brian! Gonna have to get yourself a beard and one of those Greek fisherman hats! Watch the interview with Brian here.
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Lunacon Report
This past weekend my celebrated wife Diane and I drove through irritating Connecticut traffic to Rye Brook, New York for this year's Lunacon, the venerable New York science fiction convention. We had lovely weather, and took advantage of the fact that one of our kids is two weeks away from legal adulthood to have a…
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LunaCon 2014, Featuring ME!
If you're going to be near Westchester County, New York this weekend, please consider stopping by the Hilton Westchester hotel in Rye Brook for Lunacon, New York's venerable science fiction convention. I'll be there, and here's my schedule: Friday, March 14, 5pm: Alternate Technologies in Historical Fiction — I'll be moderating a panel as we discuss…
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A Darkling Sea — The Musical!
Despite having written a guest blog post about who I'd like to see in a movie version of A Darkling Sea, I'm pretty certain that it's one book which will never be filmed. As I pointed out in the blog post, it's about the most unfilmable novel ever written. Most of it takes place in…
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How To Authorify, Part 3
February 2014 was a revelation to me. Up until A Darkling Sea came out, I still had the quaint belief that the author's job was to write stuff and the publishers took care of selling it. I forgot that one of the most effective selling tools in the publisher's kit is the author. During February…
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Lovecraftian Interlude
Recently I've been re-reading H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness for the umpty-ninth time. It's one of my favorite stories, and like many great stories one keeps finding new bits in it. This time around I noticed something subtle, so subtle I can't make up my mind if Lovecraft meant it deliberately or not.…
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A New Blog
The United Nations Interstellar Cooperation Agency has a new blog devoted to their Ilmatar interstellar mission. Check it out here. There's also a link to a site with some cool HENRI KERLEREC merchandise.
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The Lost Age of Romance
What do James Bond, Don Quixote, and steampunk fiction have in common? I was talking with one of my kids about Don Quixote, and something struck me. In Cervantes's novel, the elderly Quixote is a Spanish gentleman whose wits become addled from reading too many romances of chivalry. He begins to think of himself as…
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Winter’s Tales
Winter has arrived. One can go by the calendar, using either December 1 as the start of the "winter months," or use the Winter Solstice. The latter is beloved of radio disk jockeys and talk show hosts, who love to announce on December 22 that "this is the official beginning of winter" and mock those…
The Cambias Digression 