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Posts Tagged ‘science fiction’

Monday, Busy, So Have Some Free Fiction

Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 23, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Between regular life and my super exciting NaNoWriMo experiment, my schedule has been a bit busy of late. (Hence the relative quiet here.) So I thought I’d start your week off right, with some free fiction.

Today’s selection is a new collection of shorts produced by none other than Microsoft, which is venturing into the fiction futurism business. What’s it all about?

Future Visions: Original Science Fiction Stories Inspired by Microsoft is an anthology of short stories written by some of today’s greatest science fiction authors. These visionary stories explore prediction science, quantum computing, real-time translation, machine learning, and much more. The contributing authors were inspired by inside access to leading-edge work, including in-person visits to Microsoft’s research labs, to craft new works that predict the near-future of technology and examine its complex relationship to our core humanity.

How will the technologies the company is exploring affect our world? They’ve brought together a pretty great group of authors and artists to speculate on that very topic. Contributors include Elizabeth Bear, Greg Bear, David Brin, Nancy Kress, Ann Leckie, Jack McDevitt, Seanan McGuire, Robert J. Sawyer, Blue Delliquanti and Michele Rosenthal, and Joey Camacho.

This link takes you to a Microsoft news page with jumps to Amazon and other download sites where you can get the e-book file for free free free.

Enjoy!

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Back to Work? No, Back to the Future!

Posted in Entertainment, Likes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 21, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Today is Back to the Future Day! In honor of Marty McFly’s time travel to the future in the second installment of that classic movie series, I shall microwave all beverages for exactly 1 minute and 21 seconds, wonder when I’ll finally be able to buy a real hoverboard, and think fondly of mad scientists.

You know, pretty much a normal day here at Chez J 🙂

FYI: I really did go back to work, but only after reading Neil deGrasse Tyson’s tweets on living in the future (us, now!), and Charlie Jane Anders’ 11 Incredible Secrets About The Making Of Back To The Future (because she is awesome and so is the movie), and then, heck, a couple of Star Wars articles, because Star Wars! Ahem.

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New Story At Terraform!

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 15, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I’m very pleased to announce that my new story “The NuCorYou Guide for New Corporate Persons” (complete with terrific animated artwork by Gustavo Torres) is now up at Terraform!

We say this all the time, but: ours is a science-fictional world. Those Democratic debates? Staged like the Thunder Dome, sponsored by Facebook, with candidates talking marijuana and the finer points of Democratic Socialism? Couldn’t have made that up. As for Bernie Sanders railing against the catastrophic effects of corporate personhood, well—have we got a story for you. —The Eds.

The story is free and available to all. Enjoy!

NuCorYouTerraform

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I Like a Little Fiction with My Science

Posted in Entertainment, Likes, Reviews, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 13, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I finally got to see The Martian this past weekend, and if you’ve been following the reviews at all my reaction will come as no surprise: it was great. What’s that, you’ve been busy/off the grid/media fasting? Here’s a trailer.

I read Andy Weir’s book last year so the specifics weren’t a surprise, but in this case knowing the story did nothing to detract from the experience. The execution, whether in terms of writing, acting, directing, or visuals, was a delight. The movie compressed the story in exactly the right ways, maintaining dynamism and tension in what could have been a dull one-man alone setting.

Also, no stupid characters were required to move the plot. Yay! You may not agree with every decision, but at no point did the script make some hapless individual look down at a big red button under glass and say, “Gosh, I know they told me not to touch anything but I wonder what this does,” literally or otherwise. Also times two, smart, strong characters, women included. How refreshing is that?

 

A lot has been written about the movie, and about Weir’s journey from self-published indie author to Hollywood hit, and it’s both interesting and well-deserved (see here and here and here and here, for examples).

As an entertainment consumer both versions scored high for me. As a writer, I was impressed by Weir’s concrete attention to detail, his willingness to dig himself into seemingly impossible holes, and his facility at getting out of them in realistic ways. Drew Goddard did an excellent job translating the book into a screenplay (I’d expect nothing less from this Buffy/Angel/Alias+ alum) for Ridley Scott.

I came out of the theatre kicking myself for not studying more math in school. Astronauts are awesome, and while most of us will never make that exalted level, there’s nothing to say we can’t try. (Ok, fine, my eyesight is bad and I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that astronauts need to be able to do more than 10 pushups, but you get my point.)

Helping kids (and everyone else) see that science is about exploration, discovery, innovation, capability and (in this case) freaking outer space?

That’s exactly the kind of story I can get behind. Recommended.

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Download Stross’s Accelerando, Gratis!

Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 17, 2015| 1 Comment »

Sci-fi writer Charles Stross has two of his works available as free ebooks, including the Hugo-nominated-novellete-series-turned-book Accelerando:

It’s the definitive Singularity novel, covering three generations of a highly dysfunctional posthuman family as humanity itself is rendered obsolescent by the blistering pace of technological change.

Granted, I’d rather not be rendered obsolete just yet but it’s good to be prepared, right?

If you’re looking for more Stross to sample, a free ebook of Stross’s collaboration 2012 with Cory Doctorow The Rapture of the Nerds is also available. Thank you, Creative Commons!

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The Left Hand of Radio

Posted in Entertainment, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 13, 2015| Leave a Comment »

BBC Radio 4 is producing a radio drama of Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. The BBC is known for its adaptations, including Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens last December. I read a lot of Le Guin as a teen but I haven’t revisited this classic novel in a long time, and I’m looking forward to hearing what they do with it.

Adapted for radio by Judith Adams and released one episode per week, the series has just begun. Find it and supporting material, including a documentary with author interview, at BBC Radio 4.

Each episode will be available for 30 days, so if this interests you, don’t wait!

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Mad Scientist Journal

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 28, 2015| 2 Comments »

I am happy to announce that I will have a story coming out in the Summer quarterly of Mad Scientist Journal. “Just Like [Illegible] Used to Make” originally appeared in Perihelion Science Fiction, and I’m quite pleased that this story has found another venue.

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To Boldly Go…

Posted in Entertainment, tagged , , , , on February 27, 2015| 2 Comments »

‘Star Trek’ Star Leonard Nimoy Dies

So sad. His artistic vision, creativity and (of course) Spock, will be missed.

* Edited to add a link to his obituary, detailing more on the extensive range of Nimoy’s experiences and abilities, in The New York Times.

** Here’s another nice piece by Emily Asher-Perrin on the Tor.com blog: Goodbye, Mr. Nimoy — What Spock Meant to One Geeky 12-Year-Old Girl.

*** Here’s a great piece from NPR recalling Leonard Nimoy’s Advice To A Biracial Girl In 1968. As a biracial geek girl I wish I’d seen this advice growing up.

**** Also, from Astronaut Terry Virts, currently on the International Space Station…

 

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SFWA Welcomes Self-Published and Small Press Authors

Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Interesting news, and a big change for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America:

SFWA Welcomes Self-Published and Small Press Authors!
…the basic standards are $3,000 for novel, or a total of 10,000 words of short fiction paid at 6 cents a word for Active membership.

More information is included in the linked article, and full details will be posted at the SFWA site in March. Given the shifting landscape of publishing and the multitude of ways authors now have to reach an audience, this is great news. If you write and are paid at a professional level, you will be eligible for SFWA membership regardless of venue. All the more reason to keep at it:)

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From Annihilation to Acceptance

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 29, 2015| Leave a Comment »

This week there’s a fascinating piece in The Atlantic by Jeff VanderMeer, author and editor, on the experience of writing:

From Annihilation to Acceptance: A Writer’s Surreal Journey: The author agreed to publish three novels in one year—and then things got weird.

In it, the author details the terrors, trials and triumphs that went into the making of his latest series. Annihilation, Authority and Acceptance make up the Southern Reach trilogy, about “a dysfunctional secret agency called Southern Reach and its efforts to solve the mysteries behind Area X, a strange pristine wilderness.”

I’ve had this series on my books to read list and now plan to bump them up to the top. For more on the books, including sample chapters and links to retailers, or on the author, check out the links above.

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