links for 2007-10-16
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On pre-2007 books, while stock lasts (or until the end of November).
Im in ur social networking sites collecting ur passwords
What’s with all these social networking sites inviting you to enter your email address (and/or your instant messenger screenname) and your email address’s password in order to grant the site access to your account? (Not using your email address as a username for the networking site, mind you, but actually granting the site access to your personal email account.) Do people actually do this? Who thought this was a good idea?
links for 2007-10-15
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A story similar to the “The Life and Death of Jesse James” piece I linked to the other day.
Breaking News: "SCI FI" Label is a Stigma, sez actor on SCI FI show
Over at the Galactica Blog, they quote an interview with Jamie Bamber (Apollo) in which he talks about how he dislike (sic) the label "SCI FI":
I think that’s a problem that science fiction has that it will always marginalize itself by calling itself SF. It’s unfortunate that we’re on the SCIFI channel; we can’t even get away from [the sci-fi label]. We couldn’t brand the show as anything else because of the network we’re on.
No, dude, you couldn’t brand the show as anything else because it employs numerous genre conventions and to call it anything else would be fucking stupid.
I should really be used to this by now, since seemingly every star of every SF television show or movie has to, at some point, deny their show/film’s SFnal nature. To be fair, the interview question did bait that response. But still. Frakkin’ idiot.
links for 2007-10-14
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Do you type your words in a chair? Do you type them with some flair? Do you type your words late at night? Do you type them to cause a fright?
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When a strange meteor smashes into a ship en route to Illyria, the bodies pile up as fast as the romantic complications. Will true love prevail? Can a zombie be made to understand the affairs of the heart, without eating it? Or will the fools of Illyria n
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via http://www.sfsignal.com/ (again)
Improve this Blog!
So, the new blog has been up for a while now, and I’ve got it pretty much where I want it. What I’d like to know from you readers: What else should I have on the site? I ask that you keep in mind that I’ve merged my blog and my personal website (or virtual business card), so that this one site incorporates all the data from both. So what’s missing? Is there additional information I should have included on the "About Me" page? Anything else I’ve left out? Are there any blog posts you’d like to see me make that I haven’t been?
links for 2007-10-13
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What’s wrong with America that the guy we *didn’t* elect is the one that wins the fucking Nobel Prize?
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This has got to be the weirdest — and most disturbing — fucking internet love story I’ve ever heard. With a special guest appearance by Harlan Ellison.
A Meme of Questionable Utility
via Andrew Wheeler
MOUTHOLOGY
Q. What is your salad dressing of choice?
A. I don’t use salad dressing. When I eat salad, I usually just top it with parmesan cheese.
Q. What is your favorite fast food restaurant?
A. Wendy’s. Also, my first job! Actually, that’s why I’m bald — shaving my head was the only way to get all that fucking grease out of my hair.
Q. What is your favorite sit-down restaurant?
A. I don’t really have one. Maybe Grand Sichuan or Mitali East.
Q. On average, what size tip do you leave at a restaurant?
A. 15-20%
Q. What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of?
A: No question: pizza. I could eat pizza every day for every meal forever, I think.
Q. What are your pizza toppings of choice?
A. I take mine plain–no additional toppings, just cheese. (And no extra cheese, thank you.)
Q. What do you like to put on your toast?
A: Grape jelly
The Serial Slushie
We’ve got this serial submitter at F&SF who sends in three or more stories every week, none of them very good. Typically, I wouldn’t mention something like this on my blog, lest some poor writer stumble across mention of it and think, "Oh, he must mean me!" and then feel bad. In this case, I feel safe discussing the case, since I’m fairly certain this writer doesn’t have a computer–all of his manuscripts are hand-written. (And, you know, if he does have a computer and he’s still submitting hand-written manuscripts? Then screw him–I don’t care if he feels bad if he stumbles across this.)
This week, Gordon joked that we should publish a chapbook of this guy’s stories, since he’s so prolific. But even if he had never submitted anything previously, we had enough of his work to publish a chapbook from that day’s batch of mail alone–we got FIVE separate submissions from him, all on the same day.
But hey, at least he sends each manuscript separately (rather than five in one envelope) and includes separate SASEs for each story (and always has the appropriate amount of postage on the envelopes). At least he’s doing something right.
Poll: Who should finish writing the final book in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time sequence?
So, who should finish writing the final Wheel of Time book? The authors I’ve listed below are all Tor authors who have written epic/heroic fantasy, and so theoretically could be considered for the role. One of the options, Harriett McDougall, is Jordan’s book editor and widow, so she’s a possibility (at least theoretically–for all I know she might not be a writer at all). One other option seems to me very unlikely–Gene Wolfe–but I put him in there to see if anyone out there for some reason thinks that would be a good idea. (It would be a terrible mismatch, but man, the results would likely be wild.)
Update: I added an “Other” option to the poll, if you don’t like any of those choices.