The end of May is traditionally the time when we Sidewise Judges have to go through and release our nominations cut of short stories and novels for the award - which means that dreadful dozen stories that you haven't gotten to that look like prime stinkers are mandatory reads - along with the other stuff that 'life its ownself' have caused to be ( Read more... )

Alternate History that Doesn’t Involve WW2 or the Civil War - Friday, 02-10-2012 - 11:30 am to 1:00 pm - Birch B
As any judge for the Sidewise Awards knows, hundreds of Alternate History stories come out each year. Though many of them seem to fixate on World War II and the Civil War, some find more unique points in history for a divergence. What are ( Read more... )

I’ve been asked to speak at a Wright State University forum; their Honors Institute is having a symposium on Chinese-American relations called “Connecting With China”,  and I’m to talk on “Exploring Issues in Cross-Cultural Adoptions” from 2-4 pm, February 17th.

The event is free to the public, but you have to register in advance to get in due to ( Read more... )

The family has taken up a new and very nice practice; having family reading times - not scheduled as such, but so everyone has something good to read and is in the living room together reading.  It works pretty well, I think, and is an improvement over endless oh-I-can’t-watch-that debates about TV stuff.

Tastes run like this for entertainment:

( Read more... )

While I’m notorious in AH circles as someone who insists that a AH story be (1) A GOOD STORY and (2) have some historical basis, not to mention (3) be one simple Point Of Divergence, not a whole mess of them (I can deal with some cascade effects, but not simultaneous stuff) - I give a lot of latitude to someone who gets those points clearly covered ( Read more... )

Martin Gidron’s THE SEVERED WING, 2003 Sidewise Long Form Award Winner.    Reviews here and here.

Sometimes, you end up with a movie or book or story that you just get stuck on - as in, you’re at page 138, and the early part of the book is good, but the author has just gone off on a tear with some weird artsy material that passes all rational understanding, and you just put the darn thing down and you don’t pick it up again for a while.

Other ( Read more... )

My ‘now reading’ section on the Memnison web site is being overhauled to add a bunch of things; I got behind in my reading of stuff, and I use this to keep me honest.   I have a ton of Sidewise reading to do.  Not all of those are up, yet…don’t think the short form stuff will work via the Amazon links.

Major secret: back around Worldcon, I was approached by the shadowy forces that rule Windycon (which were about 5′4″) about possibly being the Fan Guest of Honor for Windycon for the 2005 con.

Now, admittedly, I *do* have an ego. I was GoH at Congenial several years ago, when my mom was still around, and I was GoH at Duckon a couple of years ago, ( Read more... )