Wanted to note some things from this week, for the record.

SCOTUS rulings
The Supreme Court of the United States upheld the Affordable Care Act as written, striking down a challenge to the law that would have deprived millions of Americans their health care coverage. The law isn't perfect, but it's still better than what we had before the ACA was ( Read more... )

The more I read about the Hugos and the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies and all the rest, the more upset and depressed I get. It has disturbed my sleep and been the background noise in my head for days now. I don't think I ever realized in how much esteem I held the Hugo Awards until this whole Sad Puppies thing happened. And now all I can think ( Read more... )

So, all those who care know that the Hugo Awards nominees list for this year was released yesterday at noon Pacific time. Like the kraken, it has unleashed its power upon the fannish waves. I heard about the Sad Puppies campaign last year but didn't pay much attention as I wasn't registered for WorldCon and therefore couldn't vote. This year, I ( Read more... )

I was going to make a "Five Things..." post this morning. But one of those five things was provoked by Trish Sullivan's post about sexism in SF and the Rod Rees debacle, which I still haven't been able to find anything about online; my Google-fu has failed me. But the Google brought up the Resnick/Malzberg genderfail, and it quickly overcame the ( Read more... )

Novelist and commentator Lev Grossman, prompted by the Lori Jareo/Amazon fiasco, offered an essay this afternoon on "All Things Considered" in praise of fan fiction.

(With thanks to hgross for the tip...)

Good essay. Check it out.

In today's latest exercise in procrastination, I indulged in an ego search on Google and delved deeper into the links than I ever have before. (If you're curious, my name produces 40,500 results! Round about page 20, other people who share either my first or last name start to creep into the results list.) Amongst the convention listings, book ( Read more... )

Norwescon's this weekend. You wanna find me, look in these places:

Friday
9:00 AM: Workshop (closed)
1:00 PM: Liars Panel—How to Get Yourself Published Cascade 3
2:00 PM: Workshop (closed)
4:00 PM: Workshop (closed)
5:00 PM: Doctor Who: Fantastic or Just Another Bad Wolf Evergreen 1 (And why am I not the moderator of this panel? I proposed it ( Read more... )

I just discovered that Monnaie de Paris (that's the French mint) is issuing a series of coins honoring Jules Verne and they're gorgeous. And they're kind of expensive, even the silver (as opposed to the gold) ones. But they're so pretty. I'll be ordering the least expensive of the bunch just so I can have the single commemorative (at five euros, ( Read more... )

Although my desire was to do a big, detailed con report, the reality is that I don't have the patience write one. Here's the con report in a medium-sized nutshell (and yeah, for me, this is a medium-sized nutshell):

Rode out and back with bravado111 who makes an excellent travelling companion. The trip was, I admit, much more pleasant as a passenger, ( Read more... )