Older denizens of the Net probably remember the name Gareth Branwyn. His name and visage were well known amongst people who were active in what came to be known as the cyberculture of the late 1980's and early 1990's, that weird mish-mash of hacker culture, people who identified as cyberpunks, psychedelic culture, rave culture, and other tiny social groups so far out on the fringe that they never really coalesced but instead moved in the cracks and fissues left in the wake of those other groups. Most of us remember two major projects he worked on at the time, the …

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If you're not familiar with the work of Dr. Peter Watts, you really should be. His degrees in marine ecophysiology aside, he is also a sci-fi author of some talent and is best known for releasing his novels under a Creative Commons license in addition to having them published through Tor, among them Starfish and the mind-bending transhumanist novel Blindsight, which will certainly make you reconsider what you think about how you think. His work is well known by the science fiction fandom for taking hard SF in …

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, famous for writing novels such as 2001: A Space Odyssesy and Rendezvous With Rama died today at his home in Sri Lanka. Clarke was 90. A prolific author during his lifetime, he penned over one hundred texts, science fiction and otherwise. Clarke had been confined to a wheelchair since the year 1995 due to the onset of post-polio syndrome, an affliction that plagued another famous author some time ago, one Robert Anton Wilson. Clarke is also widely credited for the invention of something we take for granted today, telecommunication satellites in geostationary orbit around the planet …

Heads-up for the Maryland contingent: Author Christopher Penczak will be doing a couple of classes at Spark of Spirit (9937 Rhode Island Avenue; College Park, Maryland 20740; phone number301-345-1486) on 13, 14, and 15 April, 2007.