On 22 June 2019, The Ferrett paid Borderlands Books another visit during the book tour for his latest novel, The Sol Majestic. From my vantage point in the audience, I took a couple of pictures.
Quite late, I know. It's been a busy year.
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Something that's always bugged me about science fiction is the lack of common sense of characters' bionic enhancements.
No, I'm not going to call them cybernetics. RPGs and movies have it wrong. Those aren't cybernetics, they're bionics. The former is a feature of the latter.
Characters pretty much always seem to have their augmentations installed bass-ackwards. Most of the time their positioning doesn't make sense at all. Let's look at some handedness statistics: Depending on where you are, between 2% and 12% of people are left-handed. Depending on your upbringing (if you were born left handed in some places, whether …
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High Gibson - noun, genre - Science fiction in the cyberpunk genre that makes no bones about being inspired by William Gibson's classic works. Stylistic influences, tropes, and character archetypes are easily recognized as being inspired by the Sprawl Trilogy and the Burning Chrome short stories. Compare with high fantasy.
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Last night, after some juggling of schedules, Lyssa, Laurelindel, and I went to see Prometheus, the long-awaited prequel to the Alien movies which feature the designs of (and inspired by) the artist H.R. Giger. I have to admit, we had some trepidation going in because the Alien movies are some of our favorites (and there were only three, we maintain) and unless it was done right the prequel was destined to suck.
Well....
Prometheus is a deeply flawed movie. The writing is good in some parts, okay in others, but it has a few scenes that should have been …
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Last week Catherine Asaro and Donald Wolcott played a live show at Stacy's to celebrate the paperback release of Diamond Star. Hasufin, Mika, Lyssa, and I had hoped to show up at Stacy's about an hour ahead of time to get the sound system set up and checked out but Dr. Asaro and Donald had beaten us by about twenty minutes; plus, we were running about ten minutes late. We spent the next half hour or so sitting around chatting amiably, settling in, and waiting for more people to arrive. They took their places behind microphone and keyboard around 1915 …
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Please boost the signal - link to this post everywhere!
I realize this is a bit late, I've been laid low by a sinus infection, but thankfully a few of us have been getting flyers put around the DC metroplex.
Saturday night, on 3 July 2010 from 7:00pm to 9:30pm Nebula Award winning author Catherine Asaro and musician Donald Wolcott will be performing live at Stacy's Coffee Parlor in Falls Church, Virginia to celebrate the release in paperback of Asaro's latest novel of the Skolian Empire series, Diamond Star. For one night only the duo will perform songs from …
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The Ferrett, who is an old friend of Lyssa and buddy of mine has made the announcement on his blog that his first published short story has hit Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. If you look on page 22 of the latest issue you’ll find his short story, Camera Obscured waiting for you. Not long after I post this Lyssa and I will be off to Border’s to grab a copy off the magazine rack.
Congratulations, Ferrett!
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It’s long been said that science fiction predicts, or at least inspires some of the things which we take for granted every day. While the exact origins of the genre could be debated until the cows come home (and they most certainly are in some circles), it was some time during the 17th century c.e. during the Age of Reason in which people really began to write stories in which the advances of the time were their inspiration. Great voyages by sailing ship and fanciful aircraft were taken to regions of the globe which had only been seen …
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A couple of weeks ago I spent an evening in a dark, cramped bar full of pirate kitsch with a bunch of people who could have stepped out of the science fiction novel of your choice (yes, even the old-school Shadowrun novels). Collectively, we had more electronic equipment than NASA at the times we were born on our person. None of were particularly aware of life imitating science fiction (or is it science fiction predicting life?) or of the horrors occurring around us at the time. On top of all of that, we all sat around appreciating a belly dancer …
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