Matt’s Bookosphere 7/11/08
Confessions of a 21st Century Book Reviewer
Cool article on Samuel Delany doc “The Polymath”
Got any of your own questions for Samuel R. Delany?
Slave Rebellion, Sex and Space Battles
Iain Banks on how practicing with SF led to “The Wasp Factory”
Neil Gaiman on how giving away the e-version of “American Gods” affected his book sales
Cat Rambo’s Five More Things to Improve Your Manuscript’s Chances
LOTS MORE AFTER THE JUMP!
Majority of Children’s authors against age guidance
On the Importance of Having a Life
Please, ninja and pirate fans, educate Larry
Man who stole 400 year old Shakespeare volume in custody
What are you reading, Nick DiChario? (Man, I really want to read “Valley of Day-Glo” but haven’t found a copy around town!)
Nice piece on Nabokov’s “Lolita”
Release Schedule for EOS Books
Hellboy Creator Mike Mignola: Low-Tech and Bad-Ass
Review: “Creature of the Night” by Kate Thompson
Hopes and doubts over possible Kafka trove in Israel
I’m beginning to suspect that this isn’t really John Twelve Hawks. Mr. Champion, Mr. VanderMeer, what do you think?
Nice remembrance of Thomas M. Disch from publisher Jacob Weisman
Umberto Eco on the Death of Reading (Thanks, Scott!)
Check out this great collection of quotes from Thomas M. Disch on death, art and more (ditto!)
The Envelope Art of Paul Di Filippo! (bookmark Scott Edelman’s site – it’s just that good)
Marjorie M. Liu on “Iron Hunt”
Review: “Pax Britannica: Unnatural History” by Jonathan Green
Mur Lafferty reads Elizabeth Bear’s “The Something-Dreaming Game”
Neil Gaiman and the comics scene in the Philippines
Free ebook: “Soul” by Tobsha Learner (Link to PDF)
Review: “All the Lonely People” by David B. Silva
The Great Book Adventure: Don Quixote
Book vs. Film: “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (Aloha, Mr Hand!)
Writers, Beware the Drive-By When You Blog
Interview with Ekaterina Sedia
Cool cover for John Courtenay Grimwood’s “9 Tail Fox”
Interview with “Midnight Never Come” author Marie Brennan
Review of “Midnight Never Come”
Marie Brennan on Scalzi’s “The Big Idea”
“Amusing, unedited excerpts from press release we otherwise dare not mention”
SFX Magazine book special out now
Table of Contents for “Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2008″
The Baltimore of Robert B. Parker’s “Spencer”
“Forget about being liked,” says Chuck Palahniuk
Friday Free Fiction for July 11
Some of the year’s best gay speculative fiction
Social commentary lacking in urban fantasy?
Sci fi scholars and fans meet in Torrance
K. Tempest Bradford: Dear People on the Asimov’s Board and Elsewhere…
Interview with John Miller of Liquid Imagination
Ready your questions: interview with Jay Lake
HarperCollins Free Books for a Year sweepstakes
Best books chosen by Paulo Coelho
Buzz Aldrin blames SF for lukewarm interest in space exploration
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Great bunch of articles. I posted two rejections for rejection day (but I obviously took out all the stuff that could point to who it was that rejected me, because I didn’t want to get in trouble and because I respect those folks…plus, what they said wasn’t “mean” or “bigoted” to me
).
And I have a theory about why NASA and space exploration has lost its flare. Okay, two theories:
1) Once we “defeated” Russia in the space race we didn’t have anyone to compete against, and as such things sort of got old because nothing significant was really happening (at least, from the perspective of the average American, where scientific advancements tend to be unimportant unless they directly affect the individuals, such as invented the Internet or the iPod or cures for diseases).
2) We kept doing the same things and eventually it became sort of common place. Nobody gets excited about the TV anymore because, well, it’s not exciting. We don’t really care about going to the moon. We’ve been there, why are we wasting money trying to send people back there? Yeah, it’s cool for the people that get to go, but we’ve seen it and space shuttle launches aren’t exciting. Now, if we went to Mars, yes, that would be interesting. But as long as space travel plays out in the same way as a new model of a Sony TV set, the American populace isn’t going to care all that much (in general).
The problem now, however, is we have competition (a LOT of competition, actually), and we’re not stepping up to the plate, which completely throws me for a loop. Canada, China, Japan, Europe, England, Russia, and probably whole list of other countries are all getting involved and we’re just…sitting here. It’s sad, because the U.S. desperately needs to get on the invention wheel again…we’re sort of floundering in inventing anything really of interest (a few things have happened, but really, we’re not making anything super fantastic…the Japanese are…good lord, some of the new technologies that pop out of that country are mind boggling and we’re excited about inventing mp3 players that play movies and wireless headsets for headphones…)
Yeah, that’s my take on things.
I have the feeling this “education” of me might get quite surreal if people take up arms, Matt
Larry: “Throwing stars at fifty paces!”
SMD: science has taken a back seat in this country for um…about…eight years. Wonder why?
Ha! But I’m a lefty, might end up throwing a curvestar instead