Category: Science
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Arisia 2013, Featuring ME
Next week I'm going to be a program participant at the always interesting Arisia convention in Boston, held at the Westin Waterfront hotel. My schedule, in case you want to follow me around and bask in my brilliance: Saturday (January 19) at 11:30 a.m.: Cambridge SF Workshop Flash Fiction Reading. The members of the coolest…
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Radical Evolution, by Joel Garreau
(I've also posted this on Goodreads.) Radical Evolution is a look at how rapid and fundamental advances in technology could produce enormous changes in human life and even in what we define as "human" in a relatively short time. It's by Joel Garreau, a Washington Post writer who wrote two books I enjoyed immensely: The…
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A Dwindling Resource
Look at today's date. It's October 11, 2012. So if you're writing a check or dating a homework assignment, it's "10/11/12." (Unless you're a European, in which case you are doing it wrong.) Mildly amusing, yes? The numbers are in sequence. What you probably don't know is that time is running out on that particular…
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How I Did It #11: “The Barbary Shore”
I love writing to an assigned theme. One of my longest-held beliefs about writing is that constraints improve one's creativity. There's something awfully daunting about a blank screen and the knowledge that you can write absolutely anything. It can cause creative paralysis, or a lot of abortive starts. But put down some boundaries and the…
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Thoughts on Dyson Spheres
One of the more interesting panels I attended at Chicon was the one about Dyson spheres. (I know what you're thinking: how long is this guy going to keep gassing about some convention he went to last month?) I learned some new things and it made me think in some new directions. Let me share…
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Chicon 7: The Final Chapter
On Sunday I ferried Agent X down to the extremely well-run ChiKids program area for Doctor Who Lego building, Jedi costumes, and steampunk Nerf guns. Agent X had a great time at Chicon. I spent the same period watching a panel on screenwriting by Michael Cassutt, Melinda Snodgrass, and the alarmingly overqualified Dr. Harry Kloor.…
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ChiCon 7: The Second Day
Our Crack Team of congoers breakfasted in the room on muffins from one of the many coffeeshops in the warren of tunnels under the Illinois Center complex surrounding the hotel. We then showered, dressed, and went off to the convention. I attended a very entertaining and high-energy panel on "The New Pulp Fiction" featuring Adam…
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An Old-Fashioned Science Fiction Gathering (Day 2)
On Sunday the 27th, most of the participants rose early (since both the Hartwell and Cambias households involve young children who think that sleeping past 7:30 is "late"). We breakfasted at one of the inns in Westport called The Inn In Westport, then gathered again at the bookstore to watch David Hartwell interview Gregory Benford.…
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An Old-Fashioned Science Fiction Gathering (Day 1)
Over the weekend of May 25-27 I was a guest of David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer at their bookstore in Westport, NY. The occasion was a "mini-con" devoted to Hard Science Fiction. The headliner on the card was Gregory Benford, who inspired the theme of the weekend with his famous remark about writing Hard SF…
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Evil Characters
There's an interesting post up at Sarah Hoyt's blog about motivations for villainous characters. She takes the position that no one is consciously evil, and evil behavior is usually motivated by a desire to do good or to fit in. This is a very common view in science fiction; it's practically the default. With some…
The Cambias Digression 