Category: Miscellaneous
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Big Idea Guest Post
I've got a long guest post up at John Scalzi's 'blog Whatever, part of his ongoing "Big Idea" series for writers to talk about their work. For this post I waded deep into the history of how I came up with the Billion Worlds setting and my future plans for more stories in that future.…
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More Free Time
It appears I won't need to bother going to this year's WorldCon. If they are willing to believe and promote lies about my publisher, they can get along without me. I urge everyone else who cares about science fiction to skip this year as well.
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Arisia 2021
This weekend I'll be appearing at the venerable Arisia science fiction con. Normally it's held in Boston, but this year it's happening right on your computer. You can join it here: https://www.arisia.org I'm doing three events this weekend. On Friday evening at 10:00 pm (EST) I'm doing a reading from my forthcoming novel The Godel…
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PhilCon 2020 Goes Virtual
This year's PhilCon — the venerable Philadelphia-era science fiction con now in its 84th year — is going to be all-online. On the plus side that means no New Jersey traffic and mall food; on the minus side it means no spontaneous conversations in the hotel lobby, no room parties, and no basic human contact.…
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Twenty Years!
Today marks a significant anniversary. Twenty years ago, on October 31, 2000, the first crew launched to the International Space Station. Station crews are called "Expeditions," so Expedition 1 began on that date. We're currently on Expedition 64, with three in the pipeline and many more planned. The Expeditions overlap, so that the new crew…
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Snow
It's snowing outside as I write. Feh. The leaves aren't all off the trees yet. I was waiting for all of them to fall before raking. Now there's a layer of wet unraked leaves under the snow. Feh.
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The Need For Long Campaigns
Here's an interesting — and, I think, important — brief essay on the value of long things. Listening to long pieces of music, reading long books, and (for us nerds) playing long roleplaying campaigns. It's by David McGrogan, better known as "Noisms," the somewhat mysterious author of the amazing Yoon-Suin game setting. Possibly revealing confession:…
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The Glorious Fourth of July
Two hundred and forty-four years ago a group of men signed a remarkable document: a Declaration of Independence. They wrote out their reasons for defying their King, and signed their names to it, then published the whole thing. They even sent a copy to the King they were challenging, even though they all knew this…
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Luna in the Night
We got our cat Luna as a little black kitten in 2006, and she quickly grew into a grouchy, headstrong animal — always quick to nip or hiss when she didn't get her way. She was never an "inside cat." We let her outside any morning she wanted to go. In practice this meant any…
The Cambias Digression 