The Cambias Digression

Notes and thoughts on everything from what I had for breakfast to the fate of the Universe.

  • The All-Seeing Eye

    I recently attended another stimulating meeting of the mighty Cambridge SF Workshop, and we wound up spending a lot of time talking about the use of the "omniscient" narrative voice in the work under discussion. For those who slept through high-school English, a work has an omniscient narrator when the narrative voice describes things which…

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  • Comic Con

    This past Friday my talented wife and I spent the day on the placid isle of Manhattan, at the New York Comic Con.  I've gone to a lot of science fiction and game conventions in my time. I've manned a booth at Gen-Con during the peak of the card game boom. I've been to World…

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  • Default Futures

    One of the comments on my last 'blog post, by the inimitable Alexander Jablokow, brings up the idea of what he describes as "consensus futurelike places" as story settings, which may or may not have anything to do with the author's actual vision of what the future will look like. This is not a new…

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  • Predicting The Future

    I read this guest post on Sarah Hoyt's 'blog, and it got me to thinking. As Mr. Begley points out, one of the constant refrains of our time is how "the future" that we're living in doesn't look like "the future" as depicted in mid-20th Century science fiction and popular science articles. We don't have…

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  • Lone Star Literary Soiree

    Last weekend I had a wonderful time at LoneStarCon 3, in beautiful, blazing-hot San Antonio. I went to panels, served on a couple, went to parties, ate a great deal of meat, watched the Hugos, and generally hobnobbed with the nabobs of science fiction and fantasy. And I made a discovery which should have been…

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  • Hugo Congratulations

    Congratulations to this year's Hugo Award winners: John Scalzi for Best Novel (Redshirts) Brandon Sanderson for Best Novella ("The Emperor's Soul") Pat Cadigan for Best Novelette ("The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi") Ken Liu for Best Short Story ("Mono no Aware") Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Mary Kowal, and Howard Tayler for Best Related Work…

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  • LoneStarCon 3, Featuring ME!!

    I got my final schedule of events for LoneStarCon 3, this summer's World Science Fiction Convention held in lovely, blistering-hot San Antonio from August 29 to September 2. They've definitely found some ways to keep me busy. Here's where to find me:  Autographing: Steve Brust, James L. Cambias, Gini Koch, Jay Lake (Friday, August 30,…

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  • RIP Kepler

    Well, it's official: the Kepler planet-finding telescope is out of business. Its attitude control wheels aren't working with the precision needed to keep the spacecraft aimed properly, so it's no longer capable of looking for planets beyond the Solar System. It's still a functional telescope, and NASA's now shopping around looking for a new mission.…

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  • Belloq’s Obsession

    Recently I was listening to the soundtrack for Raiders of the Lost Ark and talking about the movie with my kids when I had a thought. Just after Indy's epic fistfight with the Giant Bald Guy at the airplane, the movie cuts away to a reaction by Indiana Jones's villainous rival Belloq. Belloq sees something…

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  • The Perpetual Tourist

    I recently got back from a trip, and of course there were lots of mundane errands to run as soon as I got home. The usual stuff — buying things, dropping kids off, mailing things, banking, all the business of middle-class life. But I found myself experiencing a sort of psychic jet-lag, as though my…

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