My brother is a key organizer for the biggest Sci If Fantasy Writer’s convention of 2008.
VIPs scheduled already include David Morrell, Barbara Hambly, Tom Doherty, Todd Lockwood and Tad Williams.
Our theme for 2008 is “Mystery in Fantasy and Horror”.Much of our program will look at how the mysterious is used in fantasy and horror storytelling. Be it occult detectives, Holmsian dragons, or Who Stole Frodo’s Ring? How does mystery play out in fantastical fiction?
I love Amazon.com, but it lacks some really basic features. For example:
I like certain authors (William Gibson, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, etc.). I’ll basically buy every new book from about 7-10 different authors. Give me a better way to track new books from a favorite author.
At one point in the past I created Amazon email alerts for new books from a few specific authors, but then you started sending me emails for “related” authors. As far as I could tell, there was no way to get alerts about new books without getting the unwanted “you might also like this author” emails. If you let me watch specific authors, I’d buy the new John Brockman book from Amazon instead of stumbling across the book in a bookstore.
While you’re at it, provide an RSS feed for that “new books by this author” info instead of as an email.
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO » Five tweaks Amazon needs to make
The Amazon search function is poor, has always been poor, and seems never to improve.
Why not use Google?
Ron says it well.
“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” – Kurt Vonnegut
One of my literary heroes died yesterday at age 84. Today’s New York Times has a good obit.
Vonnegut’s dark wit, playful voice and humanist values helped me and millions of other teenagers live through the 70s with our sanity intact. He was funny, imaginative and, above all, outraged to the core at the cruelty of war and the absurdity of existence.
He was a snarky, charming athiest; the Mark Twain of his time.
His work is probably one of the main reasons I became a writer, and when I think about it I realize that he’s with me every time I string a sentence together.
Goodbye, Mr. V.
Hi ho.
official website – Kurt Vonnegut
The Inside Google Book Search blog has posted maps of the Earth populated with dots representing locations referenced in books.
For your great novel you may want to choose locations that have not been over written.
original source – Google
The best book I have read in years: In Tasmania by Nicholas Shakespeare.
I knew Shakespeare as the biographer of the most celebrated travel writer of all time, Bruce Chatwin.
Shakespeare fell in love with Tasmania after a holiday hiking the Overland Track. He promptly moved there from England.
By chance discovery of family correspondence, Shakespeare learned he was related to the “founding father” of Tasmania, a con-man named Kemp.
His book — a fascinating, personal history of the island from Kemp’s penal-colony Van Diemen’s Land origins to modern day — has many parallels with the work of Chatwin. It’s eerie at times.
My conclusion: Shakespeare is an even better writer than Chatwin. This is a fantastic book.
This is the last post on the Australia travelogue.
Rockin’ tipped me off to the hilarious John Hodgman book, The Areas of My Expertise.
An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order by Me, John Hodgman, a Professional Writer, in the Areas of My Expertise, which Include: Matters Historical; Matters Literary; Matters Cryptozoological; Hobo Matters; Food, Drink, & Cheese (a Kind of Food); Squirrels & Lobsters & Eels; Haircuts; Utopia; What Will Happen in the Future; and Most Other Subjects; Illustrated with a Reasonable Number of Tables and Figures, and Featuring the Best of “Were You Aware of It?”, John Hodgman’s Long-Running Newspaper Novelty Column of Strange Facts and Oddities of the Bizarre.
The Areas of My Expertise – Wikipedia
Very original.
Actually, I downloaded it for free (email address required) from iTunes as an audio book with accompaniment by frequent collaborator Jonathan Coulton.
On a long drive to Saskatchewan I was rapt with a book on CD: The Lost Men: The Harrowing Saga of Shackleton’s Ross Sea Party.
I knew well the story of Shackleton’s miraculous escape with no lives lost. I thought.
What I didn’t know is what happened to his second ship. The 10 men he sent to the other side of Antarctica to lay out his stock pile provisions for after he crossed the continent.
Shackleton never even reached Antarctica in 1915. His Ross Sea party crew had a horrible experience. Three died. In vain.
Wow.
This is one polarizing book.
The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World by Bjørn Lomborg.
It’s far too dense, scientific and … long for me to read. So I’ll save time and leap straight to the review.
I like it. I like the author. Some of the graphs are incontestable.
Lomborg concludes:
“… children born today — in both the industrialized world and developing countries — will live longer and be healthier, they will get more food, a better education, a higher standard of living, more leisure time and far more possibilities — without the global environment being destroyed.
And that is a beautiful world.”
Things are not good. But they are still improving.
The world may still end. But there is no evidence it will.
Thanks Bjørn.
Bjørn Lomborg – official website
The Skeptical Environmentalist – Wikipedia
I had a feeling I was doing some good NOT owning a motor vehicle. That was before I found out my airline flights do far more damage.
Just watched a Penn and Teller Bullsh*t video debunking environmental hysteria. It’s not nearly as good as the others I’ve seen so I didn’t link to it here.
But Penn did have some very good points.
Some environmentalists are embarrassingly naive and uninformed. It was not difficult for Penn to film them. And cry BS.
(Turns out he was one of the protesters in the 1970s.)
The vague fear people have in 2006 regarding global warming, ozone depletion, species extinction — reminds me of the uneasy, ill-informed fear of Islam that the right wing is so quick to foster.
I’d better get schooled. I could read Al Gore.
But instead I’ll start with this book: The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World
Amazon is the big boy in on-line retail. I love just about everything they do.
But last year I shopped Chapters / Indigo as they are Canadian and finally matched prices and service with Amazon. It’s good for Amazon to have some competition.
This year … Amazon.
Lonely Planet Australia CDN$ 25.17
Love by the Beatles (Dlx Ed) (Digi) (W/Dvd) CDN$ 23.99
Free shipping. Hassle free shopping. Great prices.
Chapters / Indigo matched Amazon — but I had to join their loyalty card program to do so.
They should know that I am loyal only to companies that don’t require loyalty cards.
Rick McCharles 