Having just mentioned that I prefer transcript to video, let me cite another case where I would make an exception.
Here’s a quote from an IM chat I was having with a Boston pal last week:
(9:15:32 AM) Chris: Friday 7pm
The Singularity: An Appraisal
Alastair Reynolds
Karl Schroeder
Charles Stross
Vernor Vinge
Arguably the idea of the Singularity — a period [...]
Posted in Books, Science and Technology | No Comments »
You know the drill: links with pithy comments.
Let’s start off this list with Jo Walton costing me a pile of money. I’ve mentioned before enjoying her Tor.com reviews, and finding significant alignment between her tastes and mine… so when she reviews a series of spy novels that I somehow have never even heard of, and [...]
Posted in Books, Linkapalooza | No Comments »
Well, the most interesting book world story right now is surely the whole hardball face-off between Amazon and Macmillan. I expect the most interesting discussion at Making Light.
It’s been a pretty depressing week in the book world: too many stories of authors dying. I guess there will only be more and more stories about the [...]
Posted in Books, Linkapalooza | No Comments »
If you are at all interested in how the business of publishing may change in response to some current disruptive technology shifts–and particularly if you’re interested in looking at the question from an author’s point of view–you should really pop over to Charlie Stross’ blog and read his post there outlining some thoughts on the question and asking for reader comments. This is one of those cases where the “don’t read the comments” rule does not apply: there are a couple of hundred comments there now with a pretty high signal-to-noise ratio, and lots of interesting (and some very scary) ideas are being kicked around.
(0 Comments)Is there really still no tool for editing “story” as opposed to text? Reading (awesome) SF author Karl Schroeder’s tweets today lamenting the lack of such a thing (in the wake of losing a document) makes me wonder why it is we don’t have it… The tweets in question: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
(0 Comments)The subjects vary — crime and penal policy, healthcare, don’t get me started on foreign policy — but there is an ideological approach in America that is distinguished by one common characteristic: words and deeds utterly lacking in the quality of mercy.
There is a cancer in the collective American soul — a mercy deficit that [...]
Posted in Political, Smart Things | No Comments »
Yesterday was a marvelous mail day at the McLaren household. Through a confluence of mail karma–or possibly because our mailman seems to be skipping a day whenever he gets bored with the route–I had several books arrive from several different publishers. This will consequently be one long post full of book porn. If you’re not [...]
Posted in Books | 1 Comment »
Holiday Monday has kept me too busy to properly blog, so you get a bit of a tab-closing list instead.
I’m not sure that it covers anything new, but the piece from More Intelligent Life (the quarterly from the Economist) about authors and drinking was a fun read anyway.
I’ve seen some stories about tough people in [...]
Posted in General, Linkapalooza | No Comments »
So, it seems Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Jane Yolen (it might be more than 5 now–I don’t keep track) is doing a YA graphic novel with comics publisher Dark Horse. I think this will be her 10,576th (this is a rough figure) published work. And it’s certainly something I’ll be picking up and reading with my daughter.
(0 Comments)When I was reading that story about the Canadian researched who uncovered the “GhostNet”–the gigantic system of compromised computers around the world, one that appears to be run out of China, and to target organizations of interest to China–my first thought was “Huh, that’s almost right out of Stross‘ Halting State.
Apparently Charlie thought so too, [...]
Posted in Books | 1 Comment »
I’m just closing some tabs here as I’m watching the adaptation of Choke. It’s actually a pretty good adaptation. Or maybe it’s just Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston carrying it.
Anyway, on to the tabs–nothing too deep tonight:
I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to hear that Sarah Palin’s daughter and her hockey player fiancee have [...]
Posted in Linkapalooza | 1 Comment »
Among the artifacts were a few scribbled notes and I recognized the handwriting. Chris McLaren was a film major who worked for us in the early ’80’s, a skinny kid who wore black clothes and spiked hair and had an intense interest in Alistair Crowley, Roman Polanski, the Illuminati and role playing games. Even when [...]
Posted in Books, Storytime | 3 Comments »
Spotted on Jonathan Carroll’s blog today:
“The secret of life,” said sculptor Henry Moore to poet Donald Hall, “is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is—it must be something you cannot possibly [...]
Posted in Smart Things | 1 Comment »
Did you get a chance to experience the cognitive dissonance that comes from VanderMeerian words read in a high-toned children’s literature type voice?
Speaking of VanderMeerian weirdness, there was a nice little slice of it over at Tor.com.
Sometime soon (yes, Real Soon Now) I will write another golden book post, and this one will focus on [...]
Posted in Books, Linkapalooza | 1 Comment »
A couple of quotations from my web reading recently:
“I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, waterboarding is torture.” –U.S. Attorney General nominee Eric Holder (via)
“Watch half a film. Ring someone up, ask them about their dreams. Make your life as patchy a discourse as possible.” –M. John Harrison, explaining something about writing
“If only it were all [...]
Posted in One-and-done | 3 Comments »
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