Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged Ann Leckie, awesome, books, Fiction, genre fiction, recommendations, science fiction, sff, spaceships, speculative fiction, writing on February 17, 2014| 1 Comment »
I don’t post book reviews per se but I’m all for recommendations. I’ve just finished Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie and enjoyed it thoroughly. This space opera follows the humanoid remnants of a self-aware starship on a quest for justice. Well-written and beautifully developed, it was an entertaining and unexpected read. Worth reading for the reprogramming of your neural pathways around gender alone, and it’s so much more than that.
Recommended.
Posted in Writing, tagged books, campbell award, free, genre fiction, inspiration, literature, science fiction, sff, short stories, speculative fiction, Stupefying Stories, Writers, writing, yay on February 4, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Another year, another free Campbellian download!
Stupefying Stories has just made available M. David Blake’s “The 2014 Campbellian Pre-Reading Anthology.” This collection contains more than 860,000 words of fiction by authors eligible for this John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer award. Fabulous fiction, and all free free free!
Limited time offer, get yours today!
Posted in Writing, tagged artists, books, genre fiction, john scalzi, Samuel R. Delany, science fiction, sff, Writers, writing on December 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Terrific, this award is very well deserved:)
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has named Samuel R. Delany its newest Grand Master. All the details are here.
I’m still doing my “no comments on SFWA for a year” thing, so I won’t discuss this substantively at the moment. I will say this: This is an award both well chosen and well deserved.
Posted in Writing, tagged books, creativity, Fiction, finishing, nanowrimo, science fiction, Writers, writing, yay on November 21, 2013| 2 Comments »
“Never let perfect be the enemy of the good.”
I just passed 50,000 words on my NaNoWriMo project so I am officially done. Congratulations to the other winners and good luck to those still working!
Now it’s time to get back to… everything else:)
Posted in Funny, Writing, tagged awesome, creativity, Ender's Game, genre fiction, hacks, MIT, nanowrimo, science fiction, work, writing on November 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »
In classic MIT fashion Lobby 7 has been hacked, Ender’s Game style.
…rogue fans of the legendary science fiction book series Ender’s Game hacked Lobby 7 sometime over the weekend.
Credit: Hairuo G. ’17
See the link above for more fun photos.
In other news (and after whole minutes of deliberation), I’m doing NaNoWriMo again. Yes, on top of the other special projects I have going on. Feel free to check out my progress in the NaNo sidebar widget. This also means that I will be extra busy so posts here are likely to be, well, not here. As much.
/nano ftw!
Posted in Likes, Science!, Writing, tagged astronauts, awesome, Becky Chambers, creativity, inspiration, kids, Motivation, science, science fiction, sff, space, space exploration, writing on October 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »
As a followup to my last post on Reading for Generation Mars, I’d like to reference this piece by Becky Chambers at the Tor.com blog. She wrote it after meeting a (real! live!) astronaut and realizing that what she does is important to science and progress too, and not in an abstract way.
The fact is that if space exploration—in whatever form—is going to continue onward, it needs all the support we can muster. We need public outreach, like what the astronaut was doing, to be aware of the work that’s already being done, and to spark the next generation to follow in their footsteps. We need quality education, and a larger emphasis on scientific literacy, both in the classroom and beyond.
And we need science fiction. Now, more than ever.
We need to consider which futures are worth pursuing, which ideas we’ve outgrown, and what dangers (both practical and ethical) could be lurking along the way. Science fiction is the great thought experiment that addresses all of these things, and there is no branch of it that is not hugely relevant today. We need stories based around existing technologies, to help us determine our immediate actions. We need near-future stories that explore where our efforts might lead us in our lifetime. We need stories that take the long view, encouraging us to invest in better futures for distant generations. We need space operas, to remind us to be daring. We need apocalypses, to remind us to be cautious. We need realistic stories, and ridiculous stories, and everything in between, because all of these encourage us to dream (perhaps the ridiculous ones most especially). We need all of it.
I found this to be a really nice summary of so many of the reasons why fiction, and science fiction in particular, is important. Sure, it’s just one element in a matrix of education, outreach and exploration, but it’s in there.
Now I’m going to go write something:)
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