Review: Inkheart (movie)
As many of y'all may recall, a year ago I committed the sacrilege of disliking Inkheart (the book). One of... (More...)
As many of y'all may recall, a year ago I committed the sacrilege of disliking Inkheart (the book). One of... (More...)
Ellen Oh, a Korean-American writer, is one of many people who've blogged about the shameful whitewashing of the cast of... (More...)
I've been reading William Tenn's stories since I was a kid; his stories were scattered through a bunch of the... (More...)
T.A. Pratt's Marla Mason series of urban fantasy novels was cancelled last year after four books. Not long ago, the... (More...)
Green Man Review reports that Kage Baker died this morning, of cancer. (More...)
A couple of weeks ago, author Kage Baker's sister Kathleen Bartholomew sent out a public note revealing that Baker had metastatic cancer. Unfortunately, things have gotten even worse. (More...)
Ari at Reading in Color blogs about the latest YA fantasy novel with a whitewashed cover. Yep, it's yet another... (More...)
Thoughtful and interesting post from N. K. Jemisin on why RaceFail was good for science fiction/fantasy. Excerpt: The angry questions that... (More...)
I came across the following description of a PDA in a book a while back; I sent it out in... (More...)
SarahP asked if there's a way to hear how the songs in Lord of the Rings are meant to be... (More...)
Started reading Pamela Dean's The Secret Country last night on the way to sleep. My comment so far: Having five... (More...)
The opportunity of a Western is that it takes issues of our culture—conflict, racial conflict, economic injustice, what is... (More...)
I'm reading William Tenn's 1958 story "Eastward Ho!" (as reprinted in the 60th-anniversary volume The Very Best of Fantasy &... (More...)
David Hartwell points out that it's easy for Year's Best editors to miss new stories (non-reprints) that appear in single-author... (More...)
I've now seen three episodes of FlashForward. So far, I'd say it's an interesting show; not brilliant, but intriguing. (I... (More...)
Nalo is going to be speaking at Swarthmore College this coming Tuesday evening (the 27th) at 7:30 p.m. She's a... (More...)
One of the things that I like about Leverage is that the hacker, Hardison, is a geek. This is particularly... (More...)
I just happened across an article from mid-2008 that says that Freema Agyeman and Jamie Bamber are starring in the... (More...)
Happened across a passing reference this morning to Sendak having come out last year (at age 80); looked it up... (More...)
Over at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories a few years back, they provided schemata for how to make a Cylon jack-o'-lantern.... (More...)
Smart and interesting discussion in the latest issue of Transformative Works and Cultures: "Pattern recognition: A dialogue on racism in... (More...)
Really must clear out some browser windows. Squirrels: Y'all know about Crasher Squirrel? This couple was on vacation in Banff,... (More...)
I recently speculated that people generally don't seem to have a lot to say in online discussions about individual short... (More...)
In recent years, there's been a great deal of discussion (and angst) about the graying of science fiction and the... (More...)
Justine Larbalestier recently posted two excellent blog entries on topics related to protagonists of color: First: "Why My Protags Aren't... (More...)
One of the things you personally can do to help work against racism in the speculative fiction world is to... (More...)
(This is another one of those entries that will probably make no sense to people not involved in the speculative-fiction... (More...)
The search engine man was not meant to know: Cthuugle. And for more Internet Cthulhu goodness: LOLTHULHU. Some of my... (More...)
Interesting pair of articles: "Space: Is the final frontier all it used to be?", by Ted Anthony, for AP, discusses... (More...)
I'm sorry to hear that Charles N. Brown, publisher of Locus for the past forty years, has died. For some... (More...)
It's been a couple of weeks since my last life-update post. I don't feel like much has been going on,... (More...)
I've been meaning for weeks now to link to Thoughtcrime Experiments. It's a science fiction anthology, edited by Sumana Harihareswara... (More...)
I wasn't going to post any more tonight, but this is way too good not to share: The idea of... (More...)
I've been aware for a while now of the penchant that many white writers have for using food metaphors to... (More...)
My backup system makes my computer unusably slow if I have too many Safari windows open that contain videos, even... (More...)
Ever since Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles started airing, I've been meaning to write in some detail about all the... (More...)
On the evening of Saturday the 18th (tonight--about 17 hours from now), Beagle and Lupoff are reading in San Francisco.... (More...)
The Times Online last week had a fun interview with David Tennant and Russell T. Davies about leaving Dr. Who.... (More...)
Sumana mentioned Thoughtcrime Experiments in a comment this evening. I hadn't previously heard of it--I'm a little out of touch--but... (More...)
Back in 2006, a guy named Shamus Young posted a couple of strips of a photonovel-style webcomic with the following... (More...)
I've been reading (well, mostly skimming) the stories in The Best of Lester del Rey, and just found this line: "War... (More...)
In science fiction stories, there are certain ideas and tropes that writers who aren't well-read in the history of the... (More...)
The Guardian provides info on relatively unknown actor Matt Smith being chosen to play the eleventh Doctor on Dr. Who.... (More...)
I'm sorry to see that Majel Barrett Roddenberry died of leukemia this morning, age 76. Memory Alpha's entry says that... (More...)
I've seen a bunch of stories in the last couple of weeks that boil down to this quasi-plot: Someone encounters... (More...)
Season 2 of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles started tonight. I'll be waiting to watch the new episode with Kam,... (More...)
Been reading Strahan's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Two. I've only read about half the stories... (More...)
Helen Merrick has started a list of female scientist characters in fiction, especially in science fiction. It's part of a... (More...)
In honor of Cory Doctorow's birthday, Eileen Gunn has put together a special one-shot issue of The Infinite Matrix, featuring... (More...)
I imagine most of you who would want to know already know by now that Thomas M. Disch committed suicide... (More...)
As a benefit for Clarion West's 25th anniversary, Nancy Pearl ("Seattle's own rock star librarian" and the only librarian with... (More...)
As I mentioned the other day, I saw the movie Jumper back in March. Back when we saw it, all... (More...)
Lengthy notes on stuff I like in fiction. (More...)
Battlestar Galactica returns to TV tonight for the start of its final season. (Or at least the start of the... (More...)
I continue to be out of touch; it's been a month now since Chris East announced that the fiction department... (More...)
Been meaning to post more about the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which I've been quite enjoying. (I've... (More...)
In discussions of early sf criticism--of writers who write serious and thoughtful critiques of speculative fiction as literature--I hear certain... (More...)
It continues to frustrate me that I don't have time to read everything I want to read. Here are a... (More...)
Annalee Newitz, Charlie Anders, and a cast of several have been running a blog called io9 for the past few... (More...)
I'm still reading the Tiptree bio. Getting close to the end; I'm becoming more and more aware of what I... (More...)
I'm sometimes surprised by how often sf stories are all about the evils of technology, and how much better unmodified... (More...)
For the past couple months, Tia Nevitt has been blogging about debut fantasy novels, including reviews of some of the... (More...)
"[St Paul's Church in Grangetown, Cardiff] is to host a Doctor Who-themed communion service aimed at young people. [The church]... (More...)
As most of you know by now, Madeleine L'Engle has died at age 88. I liked the original Wrinkle in... (More...)
For decades now, sf writers have been writing stories that go like this: Pick some big change (to a person... (More...)
I realized recently that I had never finished reading last year's Year's Best science fiction and fantasy anthologies, and that... (More...)
This happened all the time in sf stories in the 1940s: the protagonist would see something strange happen, and his... (More...)
I've just updated the Year's Best SF Info page to link to the newly posted table of contents for Best... (More...)
Which Star Trek episodes shouldn't be missed? (More...)
The discussion has taken its toll, and I've decided: I'm declaring myself to be a write-in candidate for the SFWA... (More...)
Some assorted tidbits pertaining to speculative fiction: Everyone but me appears to have known for days now that last week,... (More...)
Among my father's books, I just found a copy of a printed fanzine. It contains, among other things: A complaint... (More...)
A few noteworthy upcoming and current things happening in Redwood City and San José: Tonight (Wednesday, March 14), 7:30 p.m.,... (More...)
At WisCon last year, Samuel R. Delany interviewed Joanna Russ by telephone; I was sad to miss the event, but... (More...)
The majority of the Year's Best reprint volumes have posted tables of contents; I've been updating my Year's Best info... (More...)
In honor of Nick M's birthday (happy birthday, Nick!), I'm finally getting around to mentioning that Nick has provided his... (More...)
Carol Reid of Albany, New York writes to tell me about Io Sono, her new site honoring the life and... (More...)
A couple weeks ago, for reasons I can't remember offhand, I was trying to figure out the name of a... (More...)
In the past few days, I keep coming across various items of advice and commentary about writing. (The focus here... (More...)
It seems like every year we SH editors frantically scurry around to all sorts of websites and journals and things,... (More...)
Sometimes people complain that the word polyamory is a mix of Latin and Greek roots. I've been known to make... (More...)
To quote Locus Online: "SF Grand Master Jack Williamson, born 1908, died this afternoon at his home in Portales, New... (More...)
So with the aid of the new devil device, Kam and I watched the two-hour season opener of Battlestar Galactica.... (More...)
Borderlands Books, in San Francisco, has a bunch of readings and other events coming soon. For example: Date and time... (More...)
I've been meaning for quite some time to link to Eleanor Arnason's blog, but I don't think I ever got... (More...)
My journal will be one of the featured blogs on the featured blogs page on the Asimov's site and the... (More...)
A bunch of links to various kinds of Star Trek fan films, plus info on Phase II. (More...)
I liked it quite a bit. (More...)
One of the high points of WorldCon for me was getting to chat more than I usually do with Sheila... (More...)
I continue to be very slow in pursuing my goal of finding out more about sf published in languages other... (More...)
We at Strange Horizons have just about filled up our publishing schedule for 2006, and have started on 2007. Interestingly, even though still only about 33% to 40% of our submissions are by women, in 2006 two-thirds of the stories we're publishing are by women. (More...)
Do you like epic fiction, but don't have time to read the latest ten-thousand-page epic series? Fear not! Twenty Epics,... (More...)
I knew Jim Baen had had a stroke a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn't known until just now... (More...)
It's fairly common in science fiction these days to see sentient beings in electronic form--whether artificial intelligences or uploaded human... (More...)
This coming Tuesday, June 13, there are two events in San Francisco, at the same time and in different places,... (More...)
For over three months now, I've been meaning to post a note about Liz Henry's excellent SH review of Touched... (More...)
I keep seeing links to photos of "The Sultan's Elephant," but not to information about it. In case anyone else... (More...)
A couple of quick thoughts about BSG that don't involve spoilers (mostly discussion of the iTunes Music Store approach to... (More...)
Very big spoilers here for the last three episodes of season 2 of Battlestar Galactica. Non-spoiler summary: I loved them,... (More...)
There's a trope I like a lot in fiction when it's done well: characters who are so ardent in their... (More...)
Tomorrow night (which is to say Wednesday, 10 May), there'll be a rapid-fire reading in San Francisco to benefit Strange... (More...)
Some reasonably big and fairly specific spoilers here for the second half of season 2 of Battlestar Galactica. Kam and... (More...)
This entry contains a couple of generalized and thematic quasi-spoilers for Battlestar Galactica, especially for the first half of season... (More...)
Peter W. pointed to the Five-Minute "Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries" comic. Sort of in the style of the old Fotonovels,... (More...)
According to the SFWA obituary: Polish science fiction author Stanislaw Lem died in his home city of Krakow on Monday,... (More...)
Assorted Year's Best TOCs and news and such: Kathryn Cramer has posted the table of contents for Year's Best SF... (More...)
I wrote about this a while back, but I've learned more about the situation since then, so I wanted to... (More...)
I haven't finished reading all the non-SH stories from 2005 that I plan to read before making my Hugo nominations,... (More...)
As many of y'all know, Rich Horton reads possibly a higher percentage of the short science fiction and fantasy published... (More...)
For those who haven't heard: sf writer Octavia E. Butler died on Saturday, age 58. Here are some relevant links... (More...)
Some deadlines, to-do items, and con-related notes, and more good news for SH. (More...)
Andreas Katsulas, who played G'Kar on Babylon 5, has died of lung cancer at age 59. I knew nothing about... (More...)
Some thoughts on plausibility and genre conventions. (More...)
Just discovered that filksinger-songwriter Cynthia McQuillin died two weeks ago, on January 14, of renal and respiratory failure, at age... (More...)
Some items that may or may not add up to more than the sum of their parts: Okay, so there's... (More...)
Imagine you're an 18-year-old computer gamer in Chicago, and you're sitting around at home one evening when someone you don't... (More...)
Just a reminder that Tim Pratt will be reading at Borderlands Books in San Francisco today (Saturday, 7 January) at... (More...)
While checking the quote in that last entry, I stumbled into a forum thread on The misconceptions you had about... (More...)
Friday brought the sad news that The Infinite Matrix, once the second-highest-paying online speculative fiction venue, is closing its doors.... (More...)
Here are some of the things I've done in the past week, in no particular order: finally washed some dishes... (More...)
Back in May, I posted some links to a few entries at Hitherby Dragons. I still haven't gone back to... (More...)
I'm continuing to re-read the Narnia books. Will have more to say about that sooner or later, but for now,... (More...)
People are always talking about the amazing predictive abilities of science fiction. But what about fantasy? Yes, yes, Arthur C.... (More...)
Most of you who would care know by now that sf author Robert Sheckley died a week ago. It's been... (More...)
The Narnia movie was splendid. I went into it with very high hopes and a lot of trepidation. The hopes... (More...)
I've abandoned my original plan to spend this weekend doing a triage pass on Peter's books to get rid of a bunch of them before shipping them to my place; instead, I'm boxing them all up to mail, and I'll sort them at my leisure at home. (More...)
Like everyone else, I'm sad at the demise of Sci Fiction, which has been indisputably the premier online sf magazine... (More...)
Peter S. Beagle will be reading tonight in San Francisco, at the Make-Out Room, as part of Charlie Anders's "Writers... (More...)
About halfway through reading the Slate article "Star Wars: Episodes I-VI: The greatest postmodern art film ever," by Aidan Wasley,... (More...)
It's been argued that the Hugo Award for Best Website, if it's to become a regular Hugo category, should go... (More...)
And another weekend flies by, just like that. I have lots of things to post, but keep not having time... (More...)
Science fiction writer Andre Norton died this morning. I've been meaning to post for the past couple weeks mentioning that... (More...)
I really ought to be either editing or reading subs, but I'm gonna take a little time to point to... (More...)
Feeling a little better than yesterday, but still not up to going to work. Yesterday I didn't do nearly enough... (More...)
Some things that've made me happy lately: At World Fantasy Con this past weekend, half a dozen people I didn't... (More...)
I got a few birthday presents and some nice phone calls and emails and journal comments; thank you all! I... (More...)
The fake robot-ad trailer for the upcoming I, Robot movie came out a few months ago, but now there's a... (More...)
A friend of mine used to do something interesting when running roleplaying games: he'd use real-world historical names for famous... (More...)
Someone recently wrote to Mike Resnick (and Resnick quoted in his "Ask Bwana" column in Speculations) about Asimov's robot stories.... (More...)
Just once, I'd like to see a story in which there's a planet-wide network of interlinked computational elements and/or life... (More...)
In case you don't have a copy of The Book of All Cities, there's now a quiz that allows you... (More...)
Asimov's First Law of Robotics states: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human... (More...)
The Hugo nomination deadline is almost upon us, so I finally went over to Sci Fiction and read Ian R.... (More...)