Read This Book!
Nancy Farmer's The Eye, the Ear, and the Arm (1994) is one of the most innovative Young Adult science fiction novels I've ever read. It's set in a future Zimbabwe and integrates household robots with traditional Praise Singing, flying buses and plastic mining, gangs and masks. It's simply an amazing book.
Read a profile of Nancy Farmer at the Educational Paperback Association. "The only writer in the hotel was a man who wrote a western every month and was paid $300, a decent salary in those days. He lived on egg sandwiches and whiskey. One of my jobs was to make sure he got enough sandwiches to dilute the whiskey. Seeing him slumped over the typewriter day after day made me decide that writing was a lousy job." I'm glad she didn't keep that opinion!
Posted by Victoria McManus on 09.30.02 @ 11:55 AM ET [link]
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Elvish is still the King! Everything you ever wanted to know about Elvish in the Lord of the Rings movies. Contains translations and analyses of the Elvish dialogue, sound files, and a linguistic review of materials from the Casa Loma museum exhibit of props. I wonder if the Tolkien language scholars ever get together with the Klingon language scholars? Posted by Victoria McManus on 09.30.02 @ 11:35 AM ET [link]
Squishy Earthy Things Squishy Earthy Things by Judith Dinowitz The dirt in the garden fills with squishy earthy things rolling around after a rainstorm. In the bright sun, my children point at the little "snakes," Squishy Earthy Things. Squishy earthy things belong in the dirt, Not in a little boy's stomach. Squishy earthy things are much less attractive when you're taking them out of a moaning, hurting, scared little boy in the dark of the night. (September 29, 2002) Posted by Judith on 09.30.02 @ 02:35 AM ET [link]
Now this is my kind of vineyard! Listen to this description of Arcadian Vineyard's pear dessert wine. Like sky diving into the lake with Harpo Marx and Jennifer Lopez. A soft floating beginning followed by a crisp, fresh finish. I tried it-- they're right. But their sherry's better. The descriptions, though odd, are spot on. I've often described wines like this, much to the annoyance of my friends. Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.30.02 @ 12:36 AM ET [link]
Road Trip! Shelley Jackson's Tour Diary. The tale of Shelley Jackson and Kelly Link's cross-country book tour. Here's an excerpt: "We've just passed the highest point east of the Mississippi, and someone fell off it. There was a hole torn in the guard rails the size of a car. Other reminders of death: four dead deer, one in pieces, a tawny doggish thing, some hunched and desolate furries of indeterminate make, and a lot of rust- colored splash marks. And then there is the windshield, upon which what once were bugs have become pure pigment: white, cherry red and goldenrod." Posted by Victoria McManus on 09.26.02 @ 12:39 PM ET [link]
Happy Birthday, Christopher Reeve! Today is Chris Reeve's 50th birthday. Click here to send him a free birthday card ("free" meaning "you have to give them your mailing and e-mail addresses") and have someone donate $1 in your name to the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation. (Thanks, Elayne!) Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.25.02 @ 09:55 PM ET [link]
Coming soon to a dictionary near you... Fox News reports the following additions to the shorter Oxford English Dictionary: warp drive, mind-meld, Klingon, Jedi, the Force, and the Dark Side. I think the Malibu list was responsible for helping on the citation for Klingon, both in giving the earliest cite and the origin of the word (named after Lt. Herbert Clingan of the LAPD, a co-worker of Gene Roddenberry when he was still on the force.) Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.25.02 @ 06:28 PM ET [link]
Get Whippled!!! Mary Sue Whipple's Really Cool Homepage! Especially for Trek fans. Posted by Victoria McManus on 09.25.02 @ 11:54 AM ET [link]
Not annoyed enough by Jews For Jesus anymore? Try http://www.jews-for-allah.org/. If Jews For Jesus is the logical progression of Judiasm becuase of new prophecies, and now this-- can Jews for Joseph Smith be far behind? Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.24.02 @ 06:51 PM ET [link]
And now that we've revealed how to write SF... ...what do you do with it? Why, you go to work for the CIA. Wil McCarthy reports on his experiences consulting with the CIA on scenario building in his capacity as a science fiction writer. Scenario building is a fascinating field, and I should really do a long followup post on it... Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.24.02 @ 03:57 PM ET [link]
To go sort of along with Glenn's post... Developmental Stages of a Writer in Three Acts. Posted by Victoria McManus on 09.24.02 @ 11:27 AM ET [link]
Secrets of the writing trade, revealed The most asked question at a science fiction convention? (No, it's not "When is the next Robert Jordan book coming out?" but it's close.) It's "Where do you get your crazy ideas?" For years, the standard answer was a mail-order supply house somewhere in upstate New York-- Poughkepsie, Schnectady, or some other small town that makes your spell checker choke. Now, at great personal hazard to myself, I shall reveal where we really get them. The Big List of RPG Plots is one. The Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot is another. There's also The Five Act Structure and The Thirty-six Dramatic Situations and the home crowd favorite, The Evil Overlord Plot Generator (automated for the truly lazy hack here). I could be permanently blue-pencilled just for revealing this stuff. The Authors Guild is mercile-- noooo! BANG! Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.24.02 @ 03:41 AM ET [link]
A friend will help you move. A real friend... ...will point you here. Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.23.02 @ 04:59 PM ET [link]
I can't make this stuff up. A Tribute to Ray Harryhausen video. Skeletons dance, and Skeletor from "He-Man" sings the Village People song "Y.M.C.A." In Cantonese. Thanks to sidewinder for this intriguing and important link. Posted by Victoria McManus on 09.23.02 @ 02:28 PM ET [link]
MEanwhile... Mark Evanier has an excellent piece on premature cancellations of fan favorites here. He notes that this is the result of an online argument with Pat O'Neill, who he considers a friend. Having gotten into a few with him myself, and since I also consider him a friend*, I understand. *I assume he considers me one too, or maybe he just likes me because I helped move a dishwasher upstairs into his second floor apartment. He never calls, he never writes... Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.21.02 @ 01:11 PM ET [link]
Get Ready to Roomba, and every other pun on "Rhumba" you can think of Your very own housecleaning robot--well, vaccum--has arrived. roombavac.com seems to be down at the moment because the dance floor is full. But here are some more links: AVI files of the Roomba in action at PC Magazine. "Maid to Order," the Time article. You can buy your very own Roomba here at Sharper Image. Posted by Victoria McManus on 09.20.02 @ 09:23 AM ET [link]
Anti-climax We can now make antimatter. The warp drive gets closer and closer... and it's certainly an unexpected way to end an oil war. Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.20.02 @ 03:22 AM ET [link]
What number comes next? 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34... The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences helps you find out what that sequence is (a Fibonacci sequence), what the next number is (55) and what the heck a Fibonacci sequence is. And a Catalan sequence, a Motzkin sequence, and many other things that warp my brains in ways they haven't been warped since my college math classes. Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.19.02 @ 11:31 PM ET [link]
See, there's always someone nuttier than you are. The Dork Pages have a lot of those little spelling and grammar mistakes than drive me quite crazy, not to mention some wonky frames here and there. But they're worth a visit to scroll through web pages on people's bizarre collections. Where else can you find a picture of the Hamburger Harley? Of Floaty Pens of the World? Or The Macaroni and Cheese Gallery? Everyone I know should visit the classic Air Sickness Bag Virtual Museum. I bet not many people know that space sickness bags are different from air sickness bags and the rare train sickness bag. That's not even getting into the movie sickness bag. How did I survive all those pre-World Wide Web years without this information at my fingertips? Posted by Victoria McManus on 09.19.02 @ 04:29 PM ET [link]
I saw the Baja Men and they weren't half bad... Possible Follow-up Songs for One-Hit Wonders. See, I have all sorts of useful thoughts on the economics of our country. Posted by Victoria McManus on 09.19.02 @ 10:02 AM ET [link]
It's that time of year when new TV shows change color and drop from the trees... Yes, folks, it's time to play "How did THAT get on the air?" Place your bets here. My bets from this fall's lineup? Hidden Hills. Has the air of doooooooom about it. Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.19.02 @ 12:45 AM ET [link]
Superman vs. President Lu-- er, Bush Christopher Reeve would have liked to been up and around for his 50th birthday, but won't be-- and he says it's because George W. Bush is dragging his feet. "If we'd had full government support, full government funding for aggressive research using embryonic stem cells from the moment they were first isolated, at the University of Wisconsin in the winter of 1998 -- I don't think it unreasonable to speculate that we might be in human trials by now..." "I think we could have been much further along with scientific research than we actually are," he said. Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.18.02 @ 07:57 PM ET [link]
I laughed, I cried, I fell over Purple Prose Parodies at All About Romance. Check out the Laurell K. Hamilton parody "Intervention with the Vampire" in the 2002 contest in particular, though 2000 Reviews Parody contest's review of Moby Dick as a failed romance is also a gem. Posted by Victoria McManus on 09.18.02 @ 12:13 PM ET [link]
Books I Want People to Read Typhon's Children by Toni Anzetti (Ann Tonsor Zeddies). Why read this? Besides "I say so?" Because there are some great characters. They're argumentative, they have different philosophies of what it takes to be human on an alien planet, and they won't hesitate to stand up for what they believe. Some are sarcastic, some are noble, some are manipulative blowhards. All feel very real. It's also a rip-roaring adventure novel. It opens by throwing the reader in with the remnants of a human colony on the planet Typhon. Their home world appears to have forgotten them. Their children either die or suffer from unpredictable birth defects. A large number of the adults have been killed in a natural disaster, and most of their technology has been destroyed. They're considering a forced breeding program to try and produce enough people to sustain themselves genetically, even while knowing this plan is probably doomed to failure. Then the real story begins. Oceanic aliens! Mysterious undersea gods! Genetic manipulation! Whee! There's some sample text at Del Rey's website here. It's unfortunate that this book is so hard to find--it was published in 1999, with its sequel, Riders of Leviathan, released in 2001; both are mass-market paperbacks. Get those browsers cranking and find yourselves some Toni Anzetti! Posted by Victoria McManus on 09.18.02 @ 10:47 AM ET [link]
All fun until someone loses an eye... First there were lawn gnomes. Then there were lawn darts, but they took those away. So what's the next logical step? Gnome darts! Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.16.02 @ 06:17 PM ET [link]
Says who? Says God! And it came to pass that God visited the earth, and He did behold a series of billboard ads attributing to Him utterances of such banality that they would never pass His lips in a billion years. And it came to pass that God in His wrath considered a libel suit, but in the end opted simply to mount an ad campaign of His own... I never said, "Thou shalt not think." --God http://www.saysgod.com/-- now THAT'S theology. Halleluiah. Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.13.02 @ 02:29 AM ET [link]
Remember this day.. but I bet you won't A bright fellow over at slashdot gives us other days we might not want to forget-- yet, amazingly, many of us have. January 28, (1986) The Challenger Accident February 13, (2001) San Salvador, El Salvador 6.1 Earthquake March 24, (1989) Exxon Valdez March 28, (1979) 3 Mile Island April 18, (1906) The San Francisco Earthquake April 19, (1995) The Oklahoma City Bombing April 14, (1912) The Titanic May 6th (1937) The Hindenburg Disaster June 6th, (1944) D-Day July 25, (1956) The Andrea Doria sinking. August 6, (1945) Hiroshima Bombed August 16 - 28 (1992) Hurricane Andrew October 8, 9, and 10, (1871) The Great Chicago Fire October 17, (1989) Loma Prieta earthquake October 23-29, (1929) Stock Market Crash November 17-18, (1978) Jonestown November 22, (1963) Kennedy Assaination December (1984) Union Carbide Bhopal Disaster December 7, (1941) Pearl Harbour December 21, (1988) Pan Am Flight 103 Lockerbie bombing And for that matter, the Great Chicago Fire wasn't even the biggest death toll of the day. 300 people died in the Chicago fire. But on October 8, 1871 the logging town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin also caught fire, as well as the surrounding forest. 1,150 people died there. But the town's telegraph lines burned down along with everything else, so the news was late getting out, and got dwarfed by the news of Chicago, as well as the colorful story about the lantern. Just going to prove the saying If At All Possible, Involve A Cow. Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.12.02 @ 04:28 PM ET [link]
How many have YOU read? Banned books week is coming. Drive 'em crazy, read a banned book in public! Posted by Brandy Hauman on 09.11.02 @ 05:01 PM ET [link]
Try to remember the kind of September when life was slow and oh, so mellow On my weblog, I've posted an excerpt from my Star Trek novel, Oaths that's appropriate to the day. Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.11.02 @ 01:44 AM ET [link]
Undermining literacy Vickie points out lying motherf*cker, the secret weblogs of Edward Gorey, A.A. Milne, Dr. Seuss, and our friend Neil Gaiman. Wonder if he knows yet...? Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.09.02 @ 10:02 PM ET [link]
Continuing the downward spiral... Wizards Of The Coast, owners of Magic and D&D is laying lots of folks off. And Farscape has been cancelled. This is just going to be a depressing week, isn't it? Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.09.02 @ 01:45 PM ET [link]
Famous Mansions of Filmland for sale... The Ackermansion has been sold for $1.3 million, according to scifi.com. Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.09.02 @ 01:26 PM ET [link]
a friend of mine does good An excellent local musician who I am now lucky enough to call a friend is involved with a few events that are in remeberance of what happened almost a year ago here in NYC. Here's the press release: * * * * Maximum Velocity Records Artist To Help Raise Money For 9/11 Charities Maximum Velocity Records, along with Leap Dog Music and Ego Trip Entertainment, is proud to announce that John Taglieri will be performing his newest single, "Angels Among Us" on 9/11 in Harrison, NJ. The township is dedicating a monument on that day that has been built in honor of those lost in the 9/11 tragedies. The monument has actual pieces of the Twin Towers in it. After hearing John perform the song at another event, they immediately inquired and hired him to perform it at their dedication ceremony. The song will also be used that night to raise money for charities to be designated by the Harrison Council. The ceremony will be in Roosevelt Park in Harrison, NJ and will be broadcast on Channel 34 locally. Posted by Brandy Hauman on Sun, 09.08.02 @ 09:56 AM ET [more..]
So, how have you been for the last 30 years...? Discovery News reports we're going back to the moon! Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.06.02 @ 06:02 PM ET [link]
We'll know that rock is dead... ...when you need a law degree to get a job in it. Here's a question from the proposed Hum A Few Bar Exam: CONTRACTS: You couldn't get what you wanted, but you got what you needed instead. You sue for breach of warranty. What is the measure of damages? FAMILY LAW: I've got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack -- I went out for a ride and I never went back. How much alimony and child support do I owe? Am I within reach of the long-arm statute? Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.06.02 @ 01:56 PM ET [link]
Since 9/11... Overview of Changes to Legal Rights By The Associated Press, September 5, 2002, 11:44 AM EDT Some of the fundamental changes to Americans' legal rights by the Bush administration and the USA Patriot Act following the terror attacks:
Source: Newsday Posted by Glenn Hauman on 09.06.02 @ 01:31 PM ET [link]
You say you want a revolution?
Try here to determine your revolution. Mine, you ask?  What revolution are You? Made by  altern_activePosted by Glenn Hauman on 09.06.02 @ 06:36 AM ET [link] |
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