Tuesday, June 22, 2010

New FOG column

Here is my latest on Forces of Geek. Unfortunately, due to problems at my end my Apex blog post is not up, but will hopefully show up a little later. I will post it here when it does go up.

This is a pretty meta column, but I find myself worrying at certain generalities of the SF genre, while wanting to articulate what I see of value within it. Why is it so rewarding to read? Why does it power a thriving subculture? I really want to dig more deeply into these questions, and I find that both of these pieces are getting to that desire.

Enjoy!

Saturday, June 19, 2010

I Live!

It's been awhile, I know. Life is just a giddy thing, and that is my conclusion.

---Recent writing: My last FoG column was well-received; I got a few comments and compliments for it. It was fun to write.

Not much fiction. Life being giddy and all that.

---I am still hoping to attend Readercon 21. Samuel Delany is going to be there again (and yeah, a lot of other excellent writers as well!), and what's life without getting your picture taken annually with one of your literary influences? I just need to figure out how to get there without a car and with no money. . . .

I want to liveblog it this year. But, unless the hotel has suddenly decided to enter the 21st century, I am not sure that is viable. Their site claims that they have wireless in the public areas, but I am skeptical. Freakin' Motel 6 has a better Internet setup than the Burlington Marriott.

---Reading: I have a healthy pile to tackle. I want to re-read some Delany, get to Kiernan's The Red Tree, Stapledon's The Star-Maker, and Cory Doctorow's For the Win (which I won in an Internet contest), and some of the Gene Wolfe short stuff in my library. I am still dabbling in The Secret History of Science Fiction and The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction.

---I must highly recommend Tinariwen's new album Imidiwan. Amazing desert blues. For more background on them check out this YouTube video. I tried to link to their MySpace page for tunes but got some rap music overlaid onto their music. Weird.