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Postmarked From the Stars Interview
Postmarked From the Stars is an online bookstore emphasizing fantasy and science fiction. They've also got a YouTube channel with reviews and interviews. And this week you can see an hour-long interview with me. It's quite wide-ranging, discussing my earlier works like A Darkling Sea and Corsair, as well as recent titles like The Godel…
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Happy Tricolor Day!
Today is Italian Tricolor Day. To celebrate, I prepared homemade pasta with red and green pesto: Italy and Mexico are fortunate countries, in that their national colors match their cuisine. Making an Italian dish patriotic-looking is pig-easy. Just use some tomato sauce, some greenery, and some mozzarella. In other words, make some generic Italian food.…
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Better Late Than Never
The legendary Gordon Van Gelder sent me the link to this review of Corsair by Patrick Mahon. It's a nice writeup, and I'm pleased to see it. One can only imagine the size of his "to be read" pile. Amazon still has it available in all formats.
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Kitchen Report: Pudding!
This Christmas, we had a traditional English Christmas Pudding for dessert after our dinner. What's a Christmas Pudding? It's . . . well, it's a lot more akin to a fruitcake than anything most Americans would describe as "pudding." I'll try to generate some suspense in this 'blog post by not revealing how it tasted…
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Christmas Menu
Menu for this year's Christmas dinner: Oyster Patties Cremant de Bourgogne Cold Poached Salmon Onion Soup Sourdough Rolls Roast Goose Chateau Les Grands Sillons 2010 Chestnut Rice Roasted Brussels Sprouts Salad Christmas Pudding Apple Pie Ice Cream Overall it was quite delicious. The pudding will rate its own post soon. The…
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Last Thoughts on Dune
I finished re-reading Frank Herbert's epic novel Dune a few days ago, and had some final thoughts about the book. I asked myself "How would I have done it?" The book is about the desert planet first and foremost, and so I'd keep that. I'd keep the interstellar intrigue plot, as well. Reluctantly, I guess…
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Ecological SF
I've been re-reading Frank Herbert's Dune after seeing the stunning new film version by Denis Villeneuve, and I noticed something which I found hilarious, in my usual contrarian way. Consider the two factions struggling for control of the desert planet Arrakis: On one side you have the villainous Harkonnens, fortified in the spaceport city of…
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A Curious Omission
Dr. Kelly and I went to see Denis Villeneuve's new version of Dune a couple of weeks ago. It was good — the director has shown himself in the past to be a skilled and faithful adapter of science fiction stories to the screen. Good acting, beautiful visuals, a good score . . . But…
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Building A New World
My first foray into teaching worldbuilding went so well I'm doing it again — only more so. This Saturday (November 6) the Pioneer Valley Writers Workshop is offering the first of a two-part online course I'm teaching. It's called "Building the Iceberg," and is all about science fiction worldbuilding. In session 1 we'll be looking…
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Mysteries of the Bride
Last week a much-reduced Crack Team of moviegoers went to the endearingly ramshackle Greenfield Garden Cinema to watch a special showing of the original The Bride of Frankenstein. It's still my favorite of all the classic Universal black-and-white monster movies. Maybe The Invisible Man is in the same league, but the rest of the pack…
The Cambias Digression
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