So this week I was reading Burnt Worlds, a science fiction novel by S.J. Madill, in which the spaceship Borealis tests out a new hyperspace jump drive by leaping 35,000 light years away from home, whereupon said jump drive promptly explodes, leaving the ship facing a multi-year journey to get back. Of course, they only packed enough supplies for a day trip. Whoops.
I was fully prepared for Spelling Bee to reject the word “Ecotone“1. Imagine my consternation when it was accepted and (almost) ruined my scheme to get a quick-n-dirty post out of it.
Hodor hodor hodor hodor*. Hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor.
Hodor hodor.
Hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor!
Hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor.
Hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor. Hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor?
Hodor hodor.
Hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor.
Hodor hodor hodor. Hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor. Hodor?
Hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor.
Hodor hodor. Hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor.
Hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor.
Hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor!
Hodor hodor hodor? Hodor hodor.
*For all you non-former-Game-of-Thrones-watchers out there:
So this week I decided to dip into my big pile of old papers that aren’t rejection letters, and as it happens, I’m still in the section that’s full of old Villains & Vigilantes NPC character sheets, and there at the top was a fellow will be familiar to anyone who used to participate in those games I ran, or who was writing on “Marvel Mania” at college back in the day: Magneto! Thunderbolt!
So this week I was reading The Guns Above by Robyn Bennis, a low-technology steampunk adventure where they fly around in zeppelins, but shoot at each other with muzzle-load muskets, cannons, and flintlock rifles. Because why not?
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday: “The Guns Above””So this week I was reading Valley of the Lesser Evil, by Carl Dane, which is not (gasp!) SF, fantasy, or (despite the title) horror, but is, in fact, an honest-to-God Western. It’s even set in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, as Westerns should be.
So if you use WordPress (which I of course do), you may have noticed a new “AI Assistant” section when creating a post. At the time of this writing (June 29th, 2024), the options available in this feature are as shown below:
Continue reading “AI Yai Yai”So a few weeks ago I mentioned we were watching Six Feet Under, some 20 years after it originally aired. One side effect of watching a show this old is that I’ve been recognizing a number of guest stars who later became famous*. Most of these guest stars are, of course, completely unknown to my wife, so when I gleefully announce who they are, her usual response is a solid meh. Usually. We’re only partway through Season 3 at this point, so I’m sure we have more future-famous guest stars to look forward to. In fact, I’m sure I’ve forgotten some who we saw already. But let’s take a look at a few of the ones I do remember, shall we?
Continue reading “Hey I Know You! And You! And You!”So this week I consulted the Gods of Randomness and they instructed me to reach into my big file of rejection letters and pull item #9 out of folder “F”. There aren’t a lot of papers in this folder, and there would be even fewer if I had decided to file rejections from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction under “M” instead of under “F”, but for whatever reason I went into the prepositional clause to sort this one. I know I sent a lot of stuff to F &SF (none of which was accepted) and there are only three rejection slips from them under “F”, so maybe I was inconsistent and there are more under “M”. We’ll find out at some point I guess.
Continue reading “Random Rejection: The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, “The Light””So this week (well, probably several weeks ago by the time this post appears) I was reading Way Station, a classic SF novel from the 1960s by Clifford D. Simak:
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday: Clifford D. Simak, “Way Station””
Viscosity 