December 25

Covering Christmas.

Happy holidays!

Workshopping on water

This year's Sail to Success Writer's Workshop is over ... but you can start thinking about next year!

One of this year's workshop attendees, Thoraiya Dyer, has a story in this month's edition of Clarkesworld. Check it out!

Here are writings by some of the other attendees:

Ron S. Friedman, "Unveiled" at Daily Science Fiction
Sandra M. Odell, "The Stars Are Juliet's Eyes" at The Story Shack
Ilana Harris, "Change of Mind" (excerpt) at her website
A poem by Therese Pieczynski
Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, "The Man Made Only Of Straight Lines: A Rectilinear Fable" in Neon 19


And we had wonderful faculty presenters:

Mike Resnick
Kevin J. Anderson
Rebecca Moesta
Nancy Kress
Jack Skillingstead
Toni Weisskopf
Paul Cook
Eleanor Wood

For serious writers, a great way to spend the first week of December. Join us next year?

Not Doctor Who, just "Man Who"

Recently read "The Man Who Bridged the Mist" by Kij Johnson (excerpt available here and Phoenix Pick e-book available for purchase here) and decided to look up other science fiction print works that have "Man Who" in the title. Here's a list:

Robert A. Heinlein - The Man Who Sold the Moon
Edmond Hamilton - The Man Who Evolved and The Man Who Saw the Future
Laurence Manning - The Man Who Awoke
David Gerrold - The Man Who Folded Himself
Henri Duvernois - The Man Who Found Himself
Thomas H. Knight - The Man Who Was Dead
Poul Anderson - The Man Who Came Early
Ralph Gamelli - The Man Who Said Good Morning
Ken Liu - The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary
Walter Tevis - The Man Who Fell to Earth
Frederik Pohl - The Man Who Ate the World

There's also the essay The Man Who Invented Tomorrow by James Gunn.

Have others to add?

A.E. Housman

Have you read Nancy Kress's story "Mithridates, He Died Old" in the January 2013 issue of Asimov's?  (Excerpt available here.) In the introduction, she mentions that "A.E. Housman is one of my favorite poets. ... His poem ‘Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff,’ which is actually about the mythical king Mithridates, has fascinated me for forty years, and I was so happy to write a story using its famous last line."

("Terence, This is Stupid Stuff" is part of Housman's long work "A Shropshire Lad.")

I started thinking about other science fiction works that have drawn on Housman's words. Here are a few:

For a Breath I Tarry by Roger Zelazny (a line from A Shropshire Lad)
Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C. Clarke (line from a Housman poem)
When Heaven Fell by William Barton (Housman poem at the beginning of the book)

Do you know of any others?

Last day for this deal

Life has spread across the stars, and everyone enjoys a long life. However, only those who are Earth-born are truly immortal. But what happens when the immortals of Earth are suddenly faced with their destruction? Hanosz Prime, a near-immortal (though not truly so, not being of true Earth stock), travels to mankind’s ancient home to discover the ultimate answer to humanity’s end.

A Silverberg story in the tradition of the old classics, with an accompanying novella by up-and-coming writer Alvaro Zinos-Amaro.

This book is part of The Stellar Guild.

Book launch special: You can get this e-book today (November 4) for 99 cents ... click here.
 

Time hacking?

Waiting to see 1:59 a.m. turn into 1:00 a.m.

If you could go either back or forward in time at any point but with a limit of one hour, would you go into the future or into the past? Think of all the possibilities!

Weathering news about the weather

The perfect storm ... in space?

As part of the preparation, maybe I should read this during the next few days?