No, this is not a reference to the National Academy of Sciences report from a few years ago. This has to do with the newest Wheel of Time book, because while I’m a long distance removed from my Usenet days, some habits die hard. If you haven’t read the previous eleven books, none of what… Continue reading Obligatory Reaction to The Gathering Storm
Category: SF
Book Poll
There’s a new release today that everyone’s talking about. A perfect topic for a poll: New Jordan book by Sanderson! Your reaction?(survey) Your opinion is important to us, so please choose carefully.
Quasi Poll: Phone Call from the Future
I’m kind of in a fog today, which I’m choosing to attribute to airport lag (it can’t be jet lag, because I didn’t change time zones, but you get some of the same disorientation from spending too much time in airports and on planes), because the other option is incipient flu (half a dozen students… Continue reading Quasi Poll: Phone Call from the Future
Flash Forward, Left Behind
I’ve watched the first few episodes of “Flash Forward” more or less as they aired– I’ve been DVR-ing them, but watching not long after they start, so I can fast-forward through the commercials, and still see it. I could just let them sit on the DVR, but at least for me, the DVR tends to… Continue reading Flash Forward, Left Behind
What the Pope’s Astronomer Thinks
Over at Physics and Physicists, ZapperZ notes a fairly useless interview with Guy Consolmagno, and suggests some alternative questions: 1. How old do you estimate the universe to be based not only on your observation, but also the consensus among astronomers? Would this be contrary to the biblical interpretation on the age of the universe?… Continue reading What the Pope’s Astronomer Thinks
Stargate: Universe and the Myth of the Lone Genius
As you may or may not have heard, there’s a new Stargate franchise on the SyFy channel with John Scalzi as a creative consultant. It may have slipped by without you noticing, because John is too modest to hype it much… Anyway, given the Scalzi connection, I checked out the pilot on Friday, and it… Continue reading Stargate: Universe and the Myth of the Lone Genius
Mysticism and SF
Over at SciFi Wire, the house magazine of the Polish syphilis channel, Wil McCarthy has a piece with the eye-catching headline “Is Mysticism Overtaking Science in Sci-Fi?“ What really excites me right now–and not in a good way!–is the recent spate of superficially sci-fi movies that are not merely scientifically illiterate, not merely unscientific or… Continue reading Mysticism and SF
Robert Charles Wilson, Julian Comstock [Library of Babel]
Over at the Science and Entertainment Exchange, they have a nice post about the Darwin movie, which also appears in today’s Links Dump, with John Scalzi addressing the putative controversy about the movie’s distribution. John’s suggestion for how to attract major US distribution– Will Smith, explosions, and Jennifer Connelly’s breasts– reminded me of The Life… Continue reading Robert Charles Wilson, Julian Comstock [Library of Babel]
Karl Schroeder, The Sunless Countries [Library of Babel]
Jo Walton has a very nice review of Karl Schroeder’s Permanence over at Tor.com, which contains a terrific summary of what makes Schroeder great: The problem with talking about Permanence (2002), or any of Schroeder’s work really, is that it’s too easy to get caught up in talking about the wonderful ideas and backgrounds and… Continue reading Karl Schroeder, The Sunless Countries [Library of Babel]
The Blighted Hellscape of Socialized Medicine
Tobias Buckell had some heart issues a while back, and the stress of Worldcon aggravated things a bit: By Sunday morning, I was feeling completely sapped, and not getting enough sleep. I tried to nap before the pre-Hugo ceremony, but felt like I’d hit a brick wall by the time I’d walked over. I had… Continue reading The Blighted Hellscape of Socialized Medicine