A regular exploration of public domain genre work available through Project Gutenberg, Internet Archive, and Librivox. By Colleen McMahon: A Pixel Scroll item on October 11 mentioned a discussion among younger SF readers of a Katherine MacLean story. This led … Continue reading
The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer has been presented at the Worldcon since 1973, two years after Campbell’s death. The 47th winner was Jeannette Ng. Will there be a 48th? Many are responding to her acceptance remarks … Continue reading
(1) DEALING WITH DISSATISFIED CUSTOMERS. Chuck Wendig, who doesn’t want people using social media to shove their negative reviews of his work in his face – point taken – goes on to make an unconvincing distinction between customer complaints about … Continue reading
By John Hertz: (reprinted from Vanamonde 1334) The s-f community knows Sturgeon’s Retort “90% of everything is [worthless]” (he’d been told “90% of s-f is [worthless]”). William Tenn reported hearing it from Theodore Sturgeon in 1951. I’ve mentioned the 80% … Continue reading
(1) TAKE NO PRISONERS OF ZENDA. Ian Sales’ title “When I read a story I skip the explanations” introduces an extremely skillful dissection of a certain approach to science fictional worldbuilding that Sales compares to Ruritanian romance. That’s the essence of Ruritanian … Continue reading
(1) IRON MAN. Gregg Van Eekhout was injured at “San Diego Cracked-it-Con 2016”. Before he was taken away on a cart he signed his fan’s books! Click the link for the whole story. The bottom line — So, it’s going … Continue reading
(1) BACK TO NARNIA? According to Evangelical Focus, a fourth Narnia movie – The Silver Chair — could be ready in 2016 The story happens decades later. In Narnia, King Caspian is now an old man. Eustace and Jill will be … Continue reading
(1) John Picacio’s thoughts about “The New World Fantasy Award: What’s Next”. THE FIRST QUESTION NEEDS TO BE THE RIGHT ONE. In this case, I would offer that the first question should not be, “Hey, World: what do you think … Continue reading
No explanation is required for the popularity of any post containing the talismanic names of the genre’s enfants terribles (whatever their age may be.) On the other hand, your guess is as good as mine about the extraordinary interest in … Continue reading
(1) HE FALL DOWN BUT NOT GO BOOM. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Job #1 — Stick the landing. Oops. “Odysseus: Moon lander tipped over at touchdown, limiting the data it’s sending”.– AP News has the story. (Captain Kirk was not available for … Continue reading