Who’s going to Wiscon this year? The website doesn’t list any of the members to protect member privacy, which is all nice and good, except, you know, if you’re trying to plan ahead for things like interviews and/or figure out who you’ll be hanging out with, or find a roommate, etc.
So, who’s going?
I’m trying to figure out what might be the easiest way to compile a database cataloging all of the short fiction I own (i.e., all of the stories contained in anthologies, collections, or magazines I own). You know, because it’s useful to know these things, especially since I hope to sell more anthologies in the future, some of which are likely to be reprint anthologies. Also, it would be useful if I just want to read a particular story too. I’ve purchased new anthologies on a number of occasions to read one particular story, only to later discover I already had it in another book.
What I’d want to be able to do is not only catalogue everything, but also be able to tag entries, so that I could label stories not only by author, publication, and date, but also by sub-genre and whatever else comes to mind.
At the moment, after some discussions with some HaX0R d00dz, I’m contemplating going with the rather simple Excel to sort the data, but if anyone has any other suggestions I’m all ears. Basically, I want it to be easily searchable, I want to be able to have fields for Title, Author, Publication, Date, Length, and Tags, and I’d like it to be somewhat easy to enter vast sums of information into it.
One problem I’ve run into in my initial explorations of Excel is that although I can cut and paste a TOC from the ISFDB or Locus Index, I have to tediously move the author into the author column, etc. I’m not sure there’s any way around that. Is there?
As the dutiful Steve Buchheit noticed, the comment system on my blog has been restored, at least for now. Usually when I announce that the comments are back up, spammers attack and force us to shut them down. We’ll see how it works this time around.
At Comic Con last weekend, someone handed me a little credit card-sized card embalzoned with the Star Wars logo. Turns out it’s an offer to get a free download of the audiobook Star Wars: Legacy of the Force #1: Betrayal by Aaron Allston. If you go to www.audible.com/comiccon, you should be able to download it for free. There’s no code on the card, so anyone should be able to go grab it.
Hard SF author Wil McCarthy, whose novel To Crush the Moon was named a finalist for the Nebula Award, told SCI FI Wire that the book is about extremely long-lived people in a society with big ambitions.
Dave Truesdale pontificates about alien invasions in his latest “Off on a Tangent” column for F&SF:
Alien invasion has been one of SF’s most enduring themes. It has taken many literary variations and forms since H. G. Wells wrote The War of the Worlds in 1894, exposing our vulnerability and scaring everyone to death. While the human race survived his Martian invasion, it was due not to anything we as human beings did–after all, our military was powerless against the invaders–but through the inability of the Martian life forms to assimilate safely our planetary microbes, which turned out to be deadly to their alien immune system. If not for this oversight on the part of the Martians we would have been dead meat. Their overwhelming force and singular desire to crush us like bugs would have sealed our fate, no questions asked. They weren’t interested in negotiation or compromise, or enslaving us for whatever malevolent purpose most suited their alien intellect. They wished simply to exterminate us and take over earth for their own purposes. And there was nothing we could do about it. We were helpless. Toast.
Go read it and then argue about it.
Jess Lebow, content director of Flying Lab Software, told SCI FI Wire that the new massively multiplayer online game Pirates of the Burning Sea takes place during the golden age of Caribbean piracy.
Mar. 1 —
Winners of the 14th annual Spectrum Awards, honoring SF&F art, were announced in Kansas City, Mo., over weekend.
Mar. 1–
Horror author Jonathan Maberry, whose novel Ghost Road Blues was named a finalist in two categories for this year’s Bram Stoker Awards, told SCI FI Wire that the book grew out of his fascination with how people make choices and how those choices affect their lives.
Feb. 28 —
Joe Quesada, editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, unveiled a new slate of projects–including new Spider-Man, Daredevil and Annihilation titles–during a panel at New York Comic Con over the weekend.
