Apparently, writer and poet Thomas Disch committed suicide this weekend. I'd normally let this pass without comment, save for the fact that I'd corresponded with him a couple years ago in order to try to get his OK to republish a poem of his for the Strange Horizons series of articles on the Rhysling award, specifically this piece. (As a side ( Read more... )

I've known Susan Groppi for over a decade, and almost all of that time, it's been within the context of the speculative fiction community. Well, strictly speaking, that's not entirely true. The earliest significant interaction I had with Susan was as her lab partner in a freshman college physics class (E&M, for those who care), and she and I were ( Read more... )

A few weeks ago, swan_tower went to Vericon, and when she left, I asked her to get something signed by Guy Gavriel Kay, since he was the Guest of Honor. Since I'd forgotten to hand her a copy of any of his books that we owned before she left for the airport, I suggested that she might grab a copy of whatever book he had most recently written. She returned ( Read more... )

I've been remiss in being entertaining and interesting here. A few mentions:

• swan_tower's novel is starting to appear in stores across the country. Go find one, tell her, and cause her to hide under the bed again.
• In the SpecFic world, the last week or so has been a sad one:
  • Jane Yolen's husband David Stemple passed away; her thoughts;
  • Robert Jordan was ( Read more... )

As a number of my friends aren't as "tuned in" to the speculative fiction scene as I am, I figure I should note the fact that the SciFi Channel's online publishing arm, SCIFICTION, is closing down. From their site:As SCIFI.COM gears up to expand with exciting new ventures utilizing the newest technology, it will discontinue SCI FICTION, the online ( Read more... )

So, the story I linked to about Harlan Ellison and Gabe of Penny Arcade appears to be disputed. rollick posted here with more details, referencing the tempest-in-the-teapot that nihilistic_kid's post defending Harlan had become ( Read more... )

The boys at Penny Arcade have an amusing "angry Harlan Ellison" story up (scroll down a bit). Harlan is a brilliant fellow, but tact is not precisely his forté ( Read more... )

So, as you all know, I'm running the Bes Din time-travel convention Changeling game in July down here in Bloomington. What I would like from folks are suggestions of books, TV shows, movies, and the like which have to do with time travel which I haven't thought of already. You can be as specific or as general as you want, but I'm looking for ( Read more... )

The last two weeks have been filled with packing, traveling, unpacking, packing, traveling, and unpacking again. Along side of that, there was a lot of cool stuff.

The 17th through the 19th was filled with ICFA, down in Fort Lauderdale. bneuensc and I went there with ninja_turbo, pythia_akrypta, ancientwisdom, and kitsune_den, although I arrived on the second day of the conference. To describe the ( Read more... )

Consider, for a moment, a fantastic city. It could be an alternate-historical Medieval city, a Steampunk metropolis, a generic Dungeons and Dragons capital city, a decaying far-future necropolis, a theocratic Renaissance city-state, or any of countless similar settings. The question is this: What three things do you expect will be first described ( Read more... )