Nonpolitical (personal, minor) good news
Some things that've made me happy lately: At World Fantasy Con this past weekend, half a dozen people I didn't...
Archive for Speculative Fiction
The case of the inverted plot
Recently finished reading Tales from Earthsea. Sometimes Le Guin stories are so rich I can't read many of them at once;...
Fantasy dictionary and style guide
I've come to the conclusion that what the field needs is a dictionary, or at least a spelling guide, for...
Grammarian
I got a few birthday presents and some nice phone calls and emails and journal comments; thank you all! I...
Three Laws rephrased
The fake robot-ad trailer for the upcoming I, Robot movie came out a few months ago, but now there's a...
Fictional translation
A friend of mine used to do something interesting when running roleplaying games: he'd use real-world historical names for famous...
Three laws for the robot-kings
Someone recently wrote to Mike Resnick (and Resnick quoted in his “Ask Bwana” column in Speculations) about Asimov's robot stories....
Planetary intelligences and surprise twist endings
Just once, I'd like to see a story in which there's a planet-wide network of interlinked computational elements and/or life...
Which “Other City” Should You Live In?
In case you don't have a copy of The Book of All Cities, there's now a quiz that allows you...
Robots and heroes
Asimov's First Law of Robotics states: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human...
The Drake Equation
The Hugo nomination deadline is almost upon us, so I finally went over to Sci Fiction and read Ian R....