The voting for the 2010 Hugo Awards closed last night. I sent in my ballot yesterday, but I’m trying to limit my computer time this weekend, so I didn’t post about it until today. The following lists are my votes, with miscellaneous commentary. The Hugos use a complicated vote-counting scheme, including a “No Award” option… Continue reading My Hugo Awards Ballot
Category: SF
Why I Can’t Take Doctor Who Seriously
It was miserably swampy for most of the day today– when it wasn’t actually raining, it was so humid that you expects water to condense out of the air at any moment– so I spent a while sitting on the couch watching tv with SteelyKid. The best kid-friendly option seemed to be an episode of… Continue reading Why I Can’t Take Doctor Who Seriously
Launch Pad for Quantum Physics
Over at Jeff Vandemeer’s blog, Rachel Swirsky has a series ofm guest posts (start here if you prefer direct post links) about the recently completed Launch Pad workshop. this is a NASA funded workshop bringing a group of writers together for six days of lectures on modern astronomy from working astronomers. From the workshop web… Continue reading Launch Pad for Quantum Physics
Hugo Reading: Unpleasant Short Fiction
I have now finished all of the short fiction on this year’s Hugo Award ballot (links to most nominees are available here), and I have to say, the pickings here are pretty slim. The stories that aren’t forgettable or preachy are deeply unpleasant, leaving me wanting to put a lot of stuff below “No Award.”… Continue reading Hugo Reading: Unpleasant Short Fiction
Hugo Reading: Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente
When the Hugo nominees were announced, Catherynne Valente’s Palimpsest was the only one of the three Best Novel nominees I hadn’t already read that I was pretty sure I would read. I have very little interest in Robert Sawyer’s work, and I’ve read just enough of Paolo Bacigalupi’s short fiction to dread the thought of… Continue reading Hugo Reading: Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente
On the Fragile Suspension of Disbelief
I’ve already read three of this year’s six Hugo-nominated novels, and am highly unlikely to read two of the remaining three, but since I have voting rights, and want to be as responsible as I can about this, I started on Palimpsest by Cat Valente last night. The language is very rich, and I’m not… Continue reading On the Fragile Suspension of Disbelief
The Limits of Rohirrim Vision
Over at Tor.com, Kate has a Lord of the Rings re-read post about the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, which includes a shout-out to me that I missed because I was driving to NYC: Ãomer is “scarely a mile” away when the standard unfurls and is clearly seen to bear the White Tree, Seven Stars,… Continue reading The Limits of Rohirrim Vision
The Periodic Table Is Not a Crossword Puzzle
A number of SF-related sites have been talking about the “Periodic Table of Women in SF” put together by Sandra McDonald, presumably passed around at Wiscon. James Nicoll has a list of the authors, and SFSignal has a link to the table, which I will reproduce here to save you the annoyance of opening a… Continue reading The Periodic Table Is Not a Crossword Puzzle
The One Thing to Believe If You’re Only Going to Believe One Thing
Over in Twitter-land, S. C. Kavassalis notes a Googler who’s not afraid to ask the big questions: Weird Google search of the week: ‘the “one” scientific idea that we need to believe’. Uh um, I’m sure my blog couldn’t possibly answer that. It’s a good question, though, ad there are a couple of different ways… Continue reading The One Thing to Believe If You’re Only Going to Believe One Thing
Hawking on Aliens: Not as Silly as You’d Like to Think
I’m a little surprised at the vehemence of some of the negative reactions to Stephen Hawking’s comments about aliens. Not so much in blogdom– Ethan’s response is pretty reasonable, for example– but there was a flurry of Twitter traffic yesterday of the form “Where does Stephen Hawking get off pontificating about aliens?” which strikes me… Continue reading Hawking on Aliens: Not as Silly as You’d Like to Think