K and I are headed for Minicon 50 (yeah, fifty Minicons!) this weekend, 2 through 5 April. I love Minneapolis fandom and I love Minicon-- but this is the first time I've been able to attend in a few years. Here are the program items I'm doing. Can't wait! Inappropriate (Mis)uses of Astrophysical Matter
FRI 8:30 PM Krushenko's

Forget about using ( Read more... )

Remember that time when meteors clobbered Chicagoland? Remember that other time?

The Chicago Council on Science & Technology does a variety of things to encourage public engagement with science in our city. Including holding scientific talks in a tavern.


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A couple of weeks ago, Professor Farah Mendlesohn, Head of Department in the Department of English, Communication, Film and Media at Angela Ruskin University, spoke at the Royal Society in London. You may know her as the author and editor of many scholarly books on science fiction and fantasy, or as an organizer working on science fiction ( Read more... )

The new version of Cosmos, Todd Johnson explained tonight, differs from Carl Sagan's series.

"But," he added, "they are set in the same universe."

Michael Grebb at CableFax reports on efforts to promote the post-Saganic reboot of TV's Cosmos. The documentary series will be blasted out in "a global launch across hundreds of networks."In an unprecedented move, Fox Networks on March 9 will premiere Cosmos across 10 U.S. nets simultaneously, including Fox, FX, FXX, FXM, Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports ( Read more... )

I'll be at Capricon 34 this weekend in Wheeling, Illinois, doing a few panels and a talk.

Time Travel without Technology
- Friday, 02-07-2014 - 7:00 pm to 8:15 pm - Willow

While most time travel seems to involve a technological breakthrough, sometimes, as with Matheson’s Bid Time Return or Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, characters manage to ( Read more... )

The Boskone folks have kindly invited me to Boston for their famous convention on the weekend of Valentine's Day. And now they have put their program schedule online. A list of items sorted by panelist is also available, if there are particular people you are eager to see ( Read more... )

William Higgins appears to have been a man of peculiar habits, possessing very great abilities, and singularly comprehensive views upon science, but totally deficient in energy, and in the ambition of working out to the end any happy idea in science which might strike him, and in that peculiar tact of putting his opinions forward in such a manner ( Read more... )

My friend Fred Pohl passed away last weekend. There are appreciations of him sprouting up all over the Net. Some that have come to my attention include Jo Walton's, Joe Haldeman's, and one on his own blog site by Leah Zeldes.


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Hal Clement was one of the great science fiction writers, and an enthusiastic participant in programming at SF conventions. His talent in explaining and speculating about science, which fans experienced in reading his fiction and hearing him at cons, reminded us that he must have been very good at his vocation as a high school science teacher ( Read more... )