Having spent the weekend at Readercon, I feel like I should talk about it a little. For those who have never been to a SF convention, it’s not all people dressing up like space aliens and fairy princesses– in fact, the cons Kate and I go to tend not to have all that much of […]
Category: SF
More Reading Material
Via James Nicoll, a new SF Webzine, Helix. Because you don’t have enough things to read on the Interweb.
Steelypips Book Club
Kate’s come up with a semi-ambitious plan for the summer: She’s going to re-read The Lord of the Rings (for the first time since the movies came out), and post chapter-by-chapter thoughts on her LiveJournal. At the moment, she’s only gotten through the introductory material and one critical essay, but there’s already some interesting discussion […]
Typo of the Month
Locus is the semi-official magazine of SF– its reviews are quoted almost as prominently as those of better-known mass media outlets in cover blurbs and the like– but it remains a small operation, a “semi-prozine” in Hugo ballot terms. That means most issues aren’t edited quite as carefully as they might be, and there are […]
Giant Hugo Nominees Round-Up
As you know, Bob, the Hugo Awards are one of the top literary honors in the field of science fiction and fantasy. They’re voted on by the attendees of each year’s Woldcon, held in August or September, and include awards for Best Novel, Novella, Novelette, and Short Story. I posted about the Best Novel nominees […]
Quote of the Day
Teresa Nielsen Hayden, writing about the phenomenon of fan fiction: Personally, I’m convinced that the legends of the Holy Grail are fanfic about the Eucharist. One of the most peevesome things about the hectic period I’m in at my day job is that I no longer have time to follow Making Light comment threads– I […]
Greatest Science Book?
Over at the new Seed blog, here on ScienceBlogs, Katherine Sharpe asks about the best science books ever (a topic that was also discussed at Cosmic Variance some time back. I’ve been sort of swamped this week, but that’s only part of the reason why I haven’t responded. The main reason is a shameful secret: […]
Hugo Award Nominations
Last Friday, before descending into fluff topics like a serious scholarly treatment of Chris Mooney’s The Republican War on Science, Henry Farrell of Crooked Timber posted about something really important: The Hugo Awards. Weirdly, I find myself in the position of having read all of the Best Novel nominees, and this months before the awards […]
New Book Reviews
At the Tor party at Boskone, Teresa Nielsen Hayden introduced me to Jim Kelly as “a reviewer.” While technically somewhat accurate (I do occasionally post book reviews), and a better answer to “Why are you at this party?” than “I’m a guy with a web site,” it made me feel a little guilty for shamefully […]
Boskone 43
The following will be of interest only to people who were at Boskone, or who for some reason care deeply about what I did there, so I’ll put the bulk of the text below the fold.