Kopubco discounts

Victor Koman, author and proprietor of Kopubco, is running a 20% of sale. Aside from the fantastic savings, check out the fantastic offerings, from Prometheus Award winning novels, to New Libertarian issues, to Star Wars fandom and beyond.

Blogger now allows exports

Finally, I am able to output the content of the past couple of years in one export file. Alas, the format is XML, so now I have to puzzle through the file tree and see how to bring the export into a database for local storage.

Political poem

A very evocative and timely poem from Bruce Boston, over at Strange Horizons.

Fall 2008 Prometheus issue completed

No other issue exceeded deadlines as much as this one. Two months late, but finally ready, and in the mail next week. Includes coverage of the 2008 Prometheus Awards in Denver, and reviews of books by Cory Doctorow, S. M. Stirling, Lois McMaster Bujold, Joe Martino, George Zebrowski, and Brian Francis Slattery. Looks like the next issue also will be late at this point, but not nearly as late as this one.

John Shirley novel

From Gauntlet Press, this announcement:

Coming in 2009: New John Shirley Novel
We are pleased to announce we’ll be publishing a new John Shirley
novel in the fall of 2009, Welcome to Freedom. Here is the author’s
description:
“After a disaster wrecks a long section of the California northern coast, the town of FREEDOM, which has attempted to live without federal interference as much as possible, finds it has a little too much chance to go it alone. Vicious human predators take advantage of the situation, waves of brutality roll through the area, and a young man new to town has a coming of age confrontation with what it takes to survive at any cost... The town wants to maximize its freedom from outside help, influence and control. See what happens when you have real freedom day after day, and no rules? Is it heaven--or hell?”

The book is scheduled for a January 2009 release.

LFS in reason magazine

In April of this year Katherine Mangu-Ward from reason magazine interviewed me as part of a story on the 2008 Prometheus Award finalists. This article appears in the December issue of reason, and has been posted online. Tor published all five finalists, and reason thought this interesting enough to write a long story on the libertarian elements of sf and Tor. Tor should not be considered libertarian, or any -ian/ist, but they have a fearless and independent editorial policy. Tor publishes great fiction, and does not shy away from political books. SF mega-blog site io9 also picked up the story.

A few items I'd like to note: The title of the article actually comes from a speech F. Paul Wilson gave in 1983. I think I attributed those words to Wilson, but if somehow I omitted to do this, my apologies. Also, L. Neil Smith's The Probability Broach was published first by Del Rey, and that is the edition that won the Prometheus Award. Tor reprinted the book twice, for which they should be commended, as the book long had been out of print and is a libertarian classic. Many libertarian sf writers failed to get mentioned, especially Vernor Vinge, who has published many books with Tor, and won both the Hugo and Prometheus Awards.

Anyway, hopefully this article reaches more libertarian sf fans out there and gains some attention for the Prometheus Awards.

A new front runner?

Will Terry Pratchett's new novel give Cory Doctorow's Little Brother some competition for the 2009 Prometheus Award? The synopsis certainly sounds intriguing, and I am reserving judgment on Little Brother until I have read all the other nominees. I enjoyed 95% of Doctorow's novel, but felt rather let down at the end.

Trust us with your data

One more reason I avoid sites like facebook and myspace. In the first place I would not like to be peppered with advertising at my "own" page. There's the lack of time issue. And then, there's the fact that your access can be revoked at any time, for unstated reasons. It's almost like they're the government, citing "security reasons," so that users have no idea why they are banned, and can never discover the reason.

A task too important for the government

Law enforcement: seen by 99.99% of intelligent people as the sole prerogative of the state. Why? Because to let private individuals handle the task would mean only rich people received protection, that people with money could break the law with impunity (these days they just get bailed out by the federal government). Example no. 1,423,675 to show the state option is just as ludicrous as the private option. In the real world neither is perfect. Still, the state option is nearly held up as the only option.

On the drive home today this point was hammered home again. In the middle of rush hour just south of Austin I was passed by a motorcycle cop. A few minutes later I saw him parked along the highway with his radar, scoping for violators of the reduced speed segment of the highway due to construction. Not one mile later we chanced upon a car accident, with an overturned car surrounded by private samaritans. No police in sight. There is no money in saving lives. Maybe unfair, as the accident had just happened. Still, with the nearly daily examples from Radley Balko at Reason.com of police mayhem and brutality against innocents, and other mainstream articles on mis-management and fraud from the so-called thin blue line, where are the calls to eliminate the state police? I do not believe you could flip a switch and overnight have a fully private law enforcement paradigm, as the collective consciousness is too firmly wedded to the idea this is a "wild west" scenario (purely inspired by Hollywood and detatched from reality), and that bloodshed in the streets will rule.

Still, when even free-market libertarians keep faith in the holy trinity of the state (police, law, and defense -- all nation-state concepts that dovetail nicely with fatherland/motherland/homeland mystical rites of the state), there is no hope for those who view anything free market related as horrible in being open to a market for law enforcement.

The fiction of Garet Garrett

I scoffed with some light-hearted disdain the other day at at certain web site, some of whose writers are associated the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Despite my disagreements with certain aspects of what appears on the lrc site, the LVMI continues to publish some outstanding books in terms of intellectual interest, as well as books historical interest. Several of the early libertarians of the 20th century, while most well-known for essays and non-fiction, also wrote and published fiction prior to Ayn Rand. These include Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Garet Garrett. Bruce Ramsey recently wrote a review of Garrett's novels for Liberty Magazine, books which the LVMI reprinted in 2007. This review also appears online, and shows the perils of non-fiction writers trying out fiction. Although it's been nominated a few times for the LFS Hall of Fame, I have rarely read as poor an excuse for fiction as Henry Hazlitt's Time Will Run Back. Hazlitt's non-fiction is remarkable for its clarity and economic sense, but fiction is a different genre altogether.

I think this paragraph by Ramsey about Garrett's reporting relates well to current economic issues in this country.

The nut of wisdom was not to over-borrow. Many farmers had feasted on credit during World War I, when food prices, and therefore the value of farmland, were high. They borrowed to buy more land and equipment. When prices came down, borrowers were in trouble. Garrett had the bad manners to point out that they had done it to themselves.

Amazing

The "libertarian" web site pimping for Ron Paul as a Republican Presidential Candidate, actually runs a political essay that makes sense.

Libertarian science fiction lists

Over at Tor.com, Kathryn Cramer points to a list that Dan Clore maintains, on essential science fiction for libertarians. When I have more time I'll probably comment on the list. There are some interesting choices as well as omissions.

In the mail

I'm looking forward to starting Brian Francis Slattery's new novel this week, Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America. I intend to review this in the Fall issue of Prometheus. I enjoyed Slattery's first novel, which even now remains quite vividly in my memory after reading the book over a year ago. Some books are forgettable the moment you turn the last page, but not so with Spaceman Blues, his debut novel from 2007.

Musical interlude - Lotte Kester

Being the first in a series of posts about music...

I first heard the floating tones of Anna-Lynne Williams through a video podcast of the band Trespassers William on the brilliant radio program Morning Becomes Eclectic. Trespassers William (taking its name from a Winnie the Pooh story), is a Southern California band, a sort of dream-pop, mellow sound that blends acoustic instruments with occasional electronic accompaniment. To date they have released three albums, and a fourth is in the works. Some of the band members have embarked on solo projects. Lotte Kestner is the effort of lead singer Anna-Lynne Williams, and is available to purchase online. Unfortunately if you frequent brick and mortar stores for your CDs, you may not find a copy there. Listen to the songs over at Anna-Lynne Williams' mySpace site, and support beautiful music.

I have wandered many paths through the 30 plus years I have listened to and loved music. I find myself now enjoying a variety of sounds, from the diamond-edged guitar symphonies of Explosions in the Sky, to the nuanced work of Robin Guthrie, to the ambient sounds of the album leaf, to the unpretentious dream pop of bands like Devics and Trespassers William, the now defunct Azure Ray, and similar but different bands.

I don't pay much attention to pop music, either current or yesteryear; at least one person I know will shudder at the following anecdote: at a recent gathering of developers several people competed in a Rock Band play-off. A band formed by co-workers chose the song, "Tom Sawyer." I had no clue as to who originally played this, as I have never heard anything by Rush. In high school, when my musical tastes gelled, I listed to BBC's John Peel. Indie sounds... Most of the music I embrace is encountered through chance; links mentioning influences and "sounds like" that pan out one in a while. Sigur Ros was like that, a chance listen via an iTunes network connection at work. For a while whenever I was deep in the code I would listen to Sigur Ros on repeat.

I don't deliberately embrace the obscure, but I find it neat when I come upon hitherto unknown sounds like the Danish band Under Byen. I gave up pushing my tastes onto other people years ago (I think I drove people crazy in high school when I brought my Cocteau Twins tapes to play on the school bus, back in 1985), but I still feel the urge to write about some of the kinds of music I enjoy. Music is one of those elements that define who we are, and there are times we humans feel the urge to declaim those definitions from the mountaintop, perhaps as a statement to the universe: look, I exist! This is part of who I am!

The Unincorporated Man

While scrolling down the list of forthcoming books noted by Fantasy Book Critic, I read a brief blurb about what might be a very interesting novel. The Unincorporated Man, written by two brothers (Dani and Eytan Kollin), is slated for early 2009 publication by Tor.

Justin Cord is now the last free man in the human race - owned by no one and owning no one.

Database nation

Why am I not surprised to read this story out of the UK, about the proposed tracking of kids to link them back to crimes long after childhood? Sure, it's sold as a method to protect the kids, but it really is all about control. Petty, nanny-state control. Soon to be adopted in the US and civilized countries all around the world, no doubt.

Quite telling is this quote:

Britain has more CCTV cameras than any other country, and its local authorities are increasingly using powers designed to prevent terrorism to spy on people suspected of petty crimes such as littering and failing to pick up dog mess.

Little Brother

This weekend I read a tough little cookie of a YA novel, Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. Published earlier this year, the book is already nominated for next year's Prometheus Award, and could indeed be a strong contender. I'm working on a review of the novel for Prometheus (unless any other brave souls out there would like to contribute a review...), but I'm already jokingly calling this the book that sent me to the ER.

The Young Adult fiction market these days is smokin' hot. As a grown up reading some these books I can't help but be irritated and impatient with the tendency toward a very simplistic style. I struggled to get going with Little Brother, and the ended certainly fizzled into a "Rock the Vote" solution that does nothing to advance individual liberty (a recent conversation with L. Neil Smith comes to mind, where he said that it's easy to write dystopias, as we all can agree upon what we are against. But it's damn tough to come up with better solutions. ) Still, the middle part of Doctorow's novel is worth every penny, and is the part that most readers probably will remember.

Traipsing through olden times

I used to average reading 100-150 books a year. A middling amount, maybe, as some people never read a book and others read probably far more than this number of volumes. Though that number dipped for a while, I've probably ready between 1000 and 2000 books in the past two decades. Far from all are science fiction. Still, I'd be the first to admit there are far more sf books out there that I have NOT read, so I try to catch up on some of these every year.

Not sure if 1987 can be considered olden times, but 1965 predates me and so I say it qualifies.

I just finished reading David Brin's The Uplift War, which is the third volume in his Uplift series. I read some other Brin novels in the 1980s, early 1990s, but none of the Uplift books. I do have the tendency to pick up new series in the middle or end, and then work my way backwards, so now I need to check if I have the first two books in the series and seek them out. There were times I skipped ahead, but overall I enjoyed the book.

I'm in the early stages of H. Beam Piper's Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, which is another book that's been in my shelves for many, many years. I keep meaning to read it, but never get around to it. Already in the first 50 pages, hell, the first 10 pages, I can see that this book deeply influenced L. Neil Smith's novel, The Probability Broach. Good stuff also so far, but of a different cut altogether from the Brin book.

Blaylock interview

I discovered the fiction of James P. Blaylock back in 1989 around the time of my first science fiction convention, ArmadilloCon, which is held in Austin, Texas every year. Along with Blaylock, that year I started reading books by Tim Powers, K.W. Jeter, Charles de Lint, Lewis Shiner, Joe Lansdale, Bruce Sterling, and Dan Simmons. Twenty years later some of these writers are fairly established and famous, others not so much, but Blaylock and Powers stand above the rest in my eyes.

I liked the early Blaylock more so than his later fiction. While he started off quirky and light-hearted, his later books seemed darker and far more introspective. I am eagerly awaiting his latest novel, which will appear in Demember 2008. Meanwhile, the sf review site Fantasy BookSpot has posted a brief interview with Blaylock, which fans of his fiction, or people unaware of his books, may find interesting.

Half a loaf of WorldCon

I've attended three full WorldCon's, but I don't think I can count last week's Denvention as my fourth, since I was at the con for only a few hours. I had never been to Colorado aside from layovers at the Denver airport, so the plan was to remedy that with a few days in Colorado Springs followed by some time in Denver. Along the way I would attend the LFS Prometheus Awards at the World Science Fiction Convention, and meet up with some people I had not seen in a decade or more. In the Springs we did a little bit of sightseeing, including climbing two sets of stairs at Seven Falls. I thought I was in decent shape, but after step number 40 out of 185, I could feel the burn in my legs, along with being out of breath and panting from the accelerated heart rate. Perhaps it was the altitude... I then failed to learn my lesson and climbed the other sets of stairs (in the photo), which went higher and followed the seven small falls. I did not see any bears or mountain lions aside from in the news and at the zoo, but was impressed by the wonderful scenery.

We drove back to Denver on Wednesday, and I rode over to the convention center. A large blue bear stood outside, gazing in at the tasty humans inside. After a long walk to find the registration table, I signed up for a one day membership, which granted me the right to see stuff for that day, plus a photo copy of the program for that week. I was not sure about the usefulness of seeing what was happening Thursday through Sunday, aside from telling me what I would miss. I noted the room and time for the Prometheus Awards, and headed up to the dealer's room. There I ran into L. Neil Smith and Scott Bieser, manning the Big Head Press table. After chatting with them briefly I wandered around the anemic room for a while before heading to the location for the awards. I attended DragonCon in 1995, and the WorldCons from 1996 through 1998, and the number of dealers as well as selection has declined considerably since then. Most tables featured dealers who sold new books, which sad to say I can get cheaper online. It was rare to find dealers with a good selection of out of print books, and I walked out without making a single purchase, which is rare for me.


Initially I sat far in the back of the room, as the panel prior still had a few aisle-talkers. Once they cleared out I moved up, and then over some more for a better camera angle. Jo Walton appeared, followed by Harry Turtledove. Fred Moulton from LFS and Fran Van Cleave arrived and started setting up, then with little preamble launched into the presentation. Cheryl Morgan (formerly of the Emerald City fanzine) was there to take pictures for the awards web-site she co-manages. A funny moment occurred after the presentation. Morgan requested that the winners stand by a side wall, to which Turtledove quipped that "the libertarians are lining us up against the wall." Morgan replied, "I am not a libertarian." I suppose libertarians do not line people up against walls after all. Both the winners thanked the LFS and mentioned the reasons for their works, which dealt with people rebelling in various ways against variants of communism and fascism. A full convention report will appear in the Fall issue of Prometheus, as the Summer issue currently is at the printer, after getting some last minute photos dropped into the second page.


I chatted briefly with a couple of the LFS people, met a few people for the first time, and enjoyed being in the audience instead of presenting or organizing. I then headed back upstairs for another round through the dealers' room, and another long chat with Smith and Bieser. I could not make the LFS dinner that night, but did enjoy a small dinner the following night with a handful of people. I ended up spending only half a day at the WorldCon, as I was in town with the family and wanted to see more of the area. I hope to return to Colorado and spend more time there, as it's a great place and I know there is far more I want to see of that area.

I used to enjoy going to panels and listening to sf people talk, but this year I did not see one panel, and I felt somewhat removed from the whole experience. I would like to visit Montreal, but the kids are still too young to enjoy that place, and I find it difficult to split time between the conference and family. Perhaps the next time the WorldCon is in America it might be different. I believe that might not be until 2011, as 2010 is in Australia.

Robinson reviews Doctorow

Nice review over at Canada's Globe and Mail by Spider Robinson, of fellow Canadian writer Cory Doctorow's Prometheus Award nominated novel, Little Brother.

New Serenity comic online

First the TV show, then the fans, then the movie, then the comic books, now the online comic book. The voyage of Serenity continues in yet another format.

Back from CO

Normal sporadic posts to follow shortly...

Odysseus the Rebel

From Forbidden Planet, news about Big Head Press and Scott Bieser's latest project. Interesting take on a well-worn and well-known tale.

Wrapped up Prometheus content

Thursday night I finished writing the first draft of my final review for the Summer Prometheus issue. There's a lot of good stuff from other contributors, but I had one last obligation that needed to get written.

I was hoping to get this done a week ago, but other things interfered. As I'm heading to Colorado next week, I won't have time to finish the final edits before WorldCon, but the newsletter will be in the mail the week after WorldCon.

As always, I am looking for reviews, essays, letters, etc. for Prometheus so please feel free to contact me if you are interested.

Mucking about in Drupal Again

I'm exciting about new potential project dealing with sf reviews online. The structure will be based on Drupal, an open source CMS driven site that uses PHP and MySQL. I looked into Drupal a little over a year ago, built a small site and test-drove the application. Nothing came out of that effort, but now I have some incentive to take another look. I download version 6.3 (it was 5.x when I last tried), installed it and now I need to a refresher on all the aspects of Drupal. Time to stretch the brain.

WALL-E

I finally saw the movie WALL-E. I like almost everything Pixar has made, even their older short films. I regret they are so tightly connected to the Disney corp, which is an entity that has forgotten how to make good movies. Much has been made of WALL-E's attack on consumerism, and the irony that WALL-E and EVE merchandise is everywhere - buy, buy, buy! I went with my five year old daughter, so I tried to watch it from her perspective as well. The lack of dialog, which I thought would be problematic, did not hinder the story.

There were some sf inside jokes that she didn't get (ie. the auto-pilot's resemblance to HAL), but the movie snagged her on an emotional level since she expressed great concern for the fate of WALL-E, asking fearfully if he would be restored to his "old self" again after being crushed on the Axiom. She also asked about all the garbage on the planet and why the people were so fat, but whether the director and writer was trying to make a political point, or just contrasting humans with robots, I'm not sure. Life in space does alter bone structure, but the humans 700 years later certainly looked and acted a lot like American tourists at DisneyWorld. (News stories about over-weight people in other countries usually terms this an American-like problem.)

I did wonder about Andrew Stanton's lack of understand of economic reality and theory, if he thought that one company - Buy n Large - could take over the world through consumerism. Was this a veiled attack on Wal-Mart? Success does not always sustain a company, and who knows if Wal-Mart will exist some years from now. Also, not every individual is a slave to trinkets, though they are often shiny and tempting.

I also wondered how the humans could be surprised when their screens vanished, and yet still procreate. Did the space ship artificially implant the women and deliver the babies without anyone catching on? Still, it was an entertaining film, very touching, and certainly one of Pixar's better efforts. I always wonder how they pull it off. When I watched the previews for Finding Nemo and Cars, I thought, "Who could make a movie about fish or talking race cars?" But it worked. I ought to know; I watched Finding Nemo 200 times or more after my daughter got hooked on it, and we thought DVDs were better options than TV shows.

This has to be a freakin' joke

I often glance through The Libertarian Enterprise, an online newsletter published by L. Neil Smith and edited by Ken Holder. In the current issue one contributor by the name of Michael Bradshaw riffs on a letter to the editor from Victor Milan, and so I read the hole thing. A few paragraphs into the article I had to carefully lift my jaw off the table. Is this person advocating murder as a strategy for achieving liberty? I think Milan's original letter nailed the issue: too many libertarians are focused on the so-called Libertarian Party, and political campaigning such as the recent Ron Paul movement. Instead of reasonable discourse, Bradshaw instead calls for "sacrific[ing] the state. Literally. On an altar of fire" through killing political leaders. I am staggered that TLE actually published this stuff, as murder and violence never advances liberty. I abhor the loss of liberty throughout the world, but I certainly don't consider John Ross's Unintended Consequences or Vin Supryniwicz's The Black Arrow as manifestos for liberty. I am no pacifist, for I believe in self-defense, but assassination politics is still politics and better left to professional criminals. It is also insane and completely without ethical grounding.

2008 Prometheus Award Winners Announced

Breaking with tradition, the Libertarian Futurist Society yesterday announced the winners of the 2008 Prometheus Award for best novel published in 2007, as well as the classic fiction award (what used to be called the Hall of Fame). None of the five finalists consider themselves libertarian, from what I understand, but the LFS judges and voters (I am one of the latter) found enough pro-liberty content in the novels to declare one, no wait, two books the winner. Jo Walton's Ha'Penny and Harry Turtledove's The Gladiator tied for the award, which is a first in LFS history. The awards will be presented at the 2008 WorldCon in Denver. At the moment the time for the presentation has been set for 14:30 on Wednesday August 6th. I am in Colorado that week (mostly in Colorado Springs) and plan to be there in the audience that day.

As far as my own votes, I placed Jo Walton first, followed tightly by Ken MacLeod's The Execution Channel. I think I had Turtledove's book third or fourth, as I found his writing style somewhat simplistic, even for a juvie.

The classic fiction award went to Anthony Burgess for A Clockwork Orange. I have seen the movie, but not yet read the book, so I did not place it on my ballot. I have been trying to find the book in used book stores around town, but so far no luck.

Depressing Books

I'm currently reading one of the most depressing books ever published, Anne Applebaum's account of the Russian Gulag system. Entitled simply Gulag, this detailed history covers virtually every aspect of the camps, from conception to dissolution. Many years ago I read Robert Conquest's The Harvest of Sorrow, but Gulag covers a more insidious aspect of Soviet history. An aspect few Westerns remember or seem to care much about, or appear to excuse as merely trivial.

The 20th century may well have been the bloodiest and most brutal time in human history, though perhaps I say this because I came of age in that century and thus I am more aware of the detail of atrocities committed by humans against their own kind in those well-document years. I know this has been the case since time immemorial, but I still stand in shock and despair every time I read of such events. The 20th century is full of such instances, such as the Holocaust, the terror of Pol Pot, the rape of Nanking, the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The list goes on and on. If I ever feel miserable about the state of political events in America, I can always turn to books like this one; nothing here is tough compared to what the early Soviets suffered. Nothing.

RSS Restored

It appears this feature dropped in my transition to Blogger's new layout settings, or fumbled the transition somehow. I think this now should work once more.

A massive tome

Recently I ordered a new Michael Shea collection, The Autopsy and Other Tales, from Centipede Press. This has to be the biggest book I have ever owned. It measures 11 and 1/4 inches high, and barely fits in my tallest shelf. Sadly, it is not the complete collection of all his tales, but sometime after the next issue of Prometheus I plan to write a review of this book and will see if I can send it off to some sf review site or publication. It's a fairly expensive book and I wish Night Shade or Subterranean had done a smaller collection at a more reasonable rate, as this would have reached a wider audience.

Love/hate iTunes Store

I've been an iTunes fan since the moment it was released. I used SoundJam prior to iTunes, the app that apple's software was based on originally. I have all my CDs in my iTunes library, have gone through three of four different iPods over the years, and used to buy lots of stuff from the iTunes Store. My current iPod has almost 10,000 tracks, the vast majority ripped from my eclectic CD collection. I thought for a while I would stop buying CDs, since I now could find almost any album I wanted for $9.99 or less (sometime more). However, since January 14th 2008 I have not bought a single song from the iTunes Store, and am resisting out of a matter of principle. I bought an album a couple of days earlier: The Stars at Saint Andrea, by Devics. For the first time since I had listened to a song on the iTunes Store, I experienced several poorly encoded songs. I contacted the support staff to report a problem. They credited me for the five songs that clicked and hissed, and reassured me that in a matter of weeks the problem should have been corrected. Now, six months later, nothing has changed. Until those songs are fixed I will continue my resolution to only buy music in the forms of CDs, and also only buy them from a local, independent music store. Perhaps I should consider Amazon or eMusic.

I'm also peeved that Apple still has many DRM'd songs. Plus, I wanted to get Radiohead's Pablo Honey, which is the only Radiohead album I don't own, but refuse to buy anything that is tagged in bright red as Explicit. I could not believe it when Apple did this with some Lloyd Cole songs I bought a couple of years ago. A nice way to kill interest from customers.

I'd rather still be buying stuff from from iTunes, and me staying away will not affect their bottom line, but I did write an online review warning people to stay away from this album until the issue is fixed.

Cool iPhone app

I don't own an iPhone.I think it's a neat device, though over-priced for my modest needs at the moment in terms of cellular communication. Still, I saw Shazaam! in action last week, and that might be enough to make me buy one of those sexy critters. This app allows you to pick up the names of songs being played, just by pointing the phone for a few seconds at the audio. Worked fine in my car, but the background noise at Chipotle drowned out the same attempt there. Maybe that's just a cute toy affect, but it didn't help that 70% of people I was around at the conference last week had iPhones. Peer pressure...

Mind abuzz

I just returned from a week long developer conference in Phoenix, Arizona. I hesitate to state what type of development, as multiple areas were covered. I returned quite exhausted from lack of sleep, but feel rejuvenated and inspired. Many ideas are competing for time in my head at the moment, and I think the next few months will be quite busy. I am going to try to juggle editing Prometheus, this sparse site, and a myriad other projects.

Denvention Worldcon

It appears that the Worldcon time slot for the 2008 Prometheus Awards has been moved to Wednesday August 6th (the first day of the convention), at 2:30 pm. More details to follow.

I will be in Colorado that week with the family, and plan to attend the Prometheus Award presentation. This will be my first WorldCon in 10 years. Whew! Time flies.

The Tunnel

The day before July 4th I watched a German movie, The Tunnel. First
broadcast on German TV in 2001 and then shown as a feature film in
the US in 2005, I was unaware of the movie until it popped up on
Netflix as a recommended option. After long resisting Netflix, I
finally caved in two months ago and started at the second lowest
level, one movie at a time, unlimited movies per month. I figured
that if I watch one to two movies a week, that's not a bad deal. I
probably never watched that many movies during the time I picked them
up at the local Hollywood movie store,but then that establishment has
slowly been going downhill for a few years now. The preview screen
tries gamely to interest people by broadcasting in audio only, but
when the staff changes in toto almost overnight to scruffy and
unfriendly scowlers behind the counter (even donning somber black
polo shirts) you know something is not right. In retrospect I should
have switched to Netflix sooner, as I can browse and select movies at
leisure, avoid the hassle of driving and spending 30 minutes in the
store picking out something decent and waiting in line, only for the
movie to be a complete waste of time.

Most of the movies in my "queue" are ones that I have heard of
beforehand, and am now finally getting around to watching. But The
Tunnel is different. When Netflix emailed me to say it was next on my
list, I could not remember why I had picked it. Then I read the
synopsis again. This is a movie about an escape from East Berlin
after the wall went up in 1961. But this tunnel did not start on the
east side, but rather from the west, with a small group of people
digging 142 meters by hand through clay and dirt to free almost 30
people living under the glorious communism of the German Democratic
Republic. You want an actual comparison between freedom and
totalitarianism? Look no further than the GDR. Split asunder by the
Soviets and Allies after WWII, Germany existed as two worlds, one a
western style democracy, the other a Soviet-inspired socialist state.
A few months after Joseph Stalin died early in 1953, East Germany
experienced a brief attempt at self-liberation, with June 17
uprising. Shut down by Russian tanks, the uprising had the effect of
creating the idea inside Soviet and East German leaders that the west
was corrupting and leading astray the people of the GDR, and they
needed to create a physical barrier between East and West. Work on
this wall started in 1961, and the wall itself lasted 28 years until
the bricks were torn out by hand and machine in the glorious and
bloodless revolution of 1989. While this wall existed, thousands of
people risked their lives to get to the other side, either going
through the wall, over the wall (in one famous instance, via
balloon), or under it. Hundreds of people died, killed while
attempting to escape the wonderful life in the GDR. Throughout the
building of the wall the western powers stood complicit in the murder
and imprisonment of those trapped in East Germany. Churchill feared
German re-unification. The US and other allies who had carved up the
country did little but stand by and state the could only protect
those in West Germany and West Berlin. Meanwhile, families and
friends were separated. Many escaped, while others either could not,
or were too afraid to make the attempt.

The Tunnel begins with a champion East German swimmer winning a
competition mere weeks before work on the wall begins. Called Harry
Melchior in the movie, he had spent four years in prison for
participating in the 1953 uprising as a student. He remains defiant,
refusing to shake the hands of the government official as he accepts
his medal. Two weeks later he dons a disguise and uses a forged
passport to cross over to West Berlin via Checkpoint Charlie; he made
this trip with Swiss passport, as this border crossing was restricted
to Americans and non-German citizens. There he meets up with his best
friend, Mattis, an engineer who also had managed to escape, although
in the attempt became separated from his wife in the sewers. Joined
by two other confederates, they hatch a plot to tunnel from the west
to the east to rescue friends and family. They rent an abandoned
factory just across from the wall, and begin digging. The tunnel is
seven meters below ground, and zig-zags under the wall and into
abandoned apartments on the other side.

The task appears monumental and daunting. How can four individuals
hope to accomplish this act? Even joined by a young woman who hopes
to free her boyfriend they face impossible odds. The East German
government employs a massive state spy agency which actively ferrets
out defectors and collaborators. Using a vast network of informers
and government resources, they hunt down and destroy attempts to
escape. This government agency, known as the Stasi, built up a vast
network of citizen informers, people who spied on their own
neighbors. Given almost no choice in some circumstances, as with two
people in The Tunnel, the risks of discovery were huge. Later on,
many famous East Germans were discovered to have worked for the
Stasi, which in some circumstances resulted in favors and better
living, as in the case of the ice-skater Katarina Witt. In The
Tunnel, both informers seem forced into their actions, and both
redeem themselves, though at great personal cost.

Death remained a constant risk. There is a famous photograph,
available to those who enter "Berlin Wall" in Wikipedia, of young
Peter Fechter, only 18 years old, who was shot at the base of the
wall and bled to death while those across the wall in the West
watched in horror, unable to help. Anyone who tried to reach over and
help this person would also have been shot. The movie captures than
scene and makes it personal, and no less powerful. As late as 1989,
shortly before the wall came down, the last person to be killed while
trying to cross fell under a hail of bullets. The guards responsible
for his murder received awards for their efforts, and even after
reunification received minimal sentences.

The movie runs around two hours and 43 minutes. To anyone who
experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall, The Tunnel is a powerful
movie, from the opening scene to the last act. I cannot recommend it
enough.

A few minor changes

I've never been happy with the look and feel limitations of this site, but rarely do I have much time to attempt any changes. While I fiddle around with a few things this site may resemble the fate of the terminator T-1000 from second Terminator movie. I may even change the title as I have found this to be somewhat limiting of late.

History Now

Eighty-five issues.

Twenty-six years - December 1982 through April 2008 and counting...

4 Megabytes.

A couple of weeks ago I placed my trusty scanner back into its drawer, after completing phase one of a project that has taken countless hours over the past two months, namely scanning in as text every single copy of the past issues of Prometheus, the newsletter of the Libertarian Futurist Society.

In the end, probably no one cares but myself. Still, since finishing the work of scanning every issue, I have slowly been cleaning up the OCR text, and taking many a walk down memory lane. In other words, little time for web surfing or blogging.

I have no idea when I'll finish this project, but one day I'll end up with a fully searchable repository of all the past issue of Prometheus, at least via spotlight on my Mac.

Old Heinlein = New Heinlein

The latest unearthing of Heinlein material heads to the printer over at Subterranean Press. I'm not being cynical, really, as this looks like an interesting collection.

Subterranean Press does a great job producing quality books at decent prices, and I'm delighted to see that one of the authors they are carrying is Jack Vance. Now, if only they had printed the new Michael Shea collection, and made the price less staggering than the one produced by Millipede Press...

Spring 2008 Prometheus issue nearly wrapped up

It's been quiet here lately, as I've been trying to finish the latest print issue of Prometheus, the newsletter of the Libertarian Futurist Society. The quarterly publication schedule for the newsletter aims to have it in readers' hands around the middle of January, April, July, and October. Looks like I should nearly be able to meet this goal with the current issue.

It's been far, far too long

Finally, a new James P. Blaylock novel! The agony is that I will have to wait until December 2008, but Blaylock has been a personal favorite writer of mine since 1988, when I read The Disappearing Dwarf and The Elfin Ship, two of his earliest novels. To think it's been nine years since his last novel was published is just unreal.

The Last Enemy

SF blogsite io9 has an interesting post about two forthcoming projects, including a TV miniseries called The Last Enemy coming to the US. The second project stars Hugh Jackman, and I expect now we'll soon see a slew of films about the new crackdown on civil liberties.

Free book online

Read Prometheus Award finalist Tobias S. Buckell's novel Crystal Rain over at TOR Books. Free only for a limited time. This is not the Prometheus Award finalist novel (that would be Ragamuffin), but might give readers a taste of Buckell's fiction.

Backhanded compliment

Well, I'm not even sure the second word in the title comes close to accuracy. Locus Online posted the notice about the Prometheus Award finalists today. In the sentence about the Classic Novel category they editorialize with the following snarky comment - "finalists for classic fiction (which can be and are nominated year after year until they win)." Personally I have grumbled about some of the repetitiveness about the nominees, but I have rarely seen Locus Online editorialize about any other science fiction award, so this behavior is questionable at best, and simply bad form. Nor is it entirely accurate. The same nominees do not show up year after year (go check the past list of nominees at www.lfs.com), though as of late this seems to have been the case. Some years ago I compiled a list of the most nominated books in the Classic category (or as it originally was called, the Hall of Fame). Several books dominated this list, while others appeared regularly but sporadically. But it just the fact such a comment was made that bothers me, not so much having to pull the facts to dispute it. I gave up pushing a couple of Jack Vance novels that I thought deserved the award, as he never got enough votes to make the second round, and I fear too few people read Vance, and his older books now are rarely reprinted and thus inaccessible.

2008 Prometheus Award Finalists

The press release went out today, and news should be posted at LFS.com fairly soon. I have not yet read any of the finalists (I am not part of the selection committee), but I'll need to read them all soon before the voting deadline in July. I'm a little disappointed that two of the books I nominated did not make the final cut, but so it goes. From the release:
* Ragamuffin, by Tobias S. Buckell (TOR Books), set in the same world as Crystal Rain, focuses on a struggle for power that leads to total war for humanity’s right to live free from alien rulers.
* The Execution Channel, by Ken MacLeod (TOR), imagines a post-9/11 era of terrorism, paranoia, espionage in an environment of media spin, disinformation and a rogue media outlet that broadcasts murders and executions.
* Fleet of Worlds, by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner (TOR), is a prequel to Niven’s classic Ringworld that dramatizes the deception and dominations of alien Puppeteers over enslaved descendants of a human colony ship.
* The Gladiator, by Harry Turtledove (TOR) , a Crosstime Traffic story about a future where the Soviet Union won the Cold War but curious teenagers rediscover capitalism.
* Ha’penny, by Jo Walton (TOR), an alternate-history sequel to Farthing, portrays a convincing surrender of freedom for illusory safety in a 1940s-fascist Great Britain.
This is the ninth nomination for MacLeod, who has won three times (The Star Fraction, The Stone Canal, and Learning the World); the third nomination (all as collaborations) for Niven, who won in 1992 for Fallen Angels (with Michael Flynn and Jerry Pournelle).
Turtledove has been nominated once before; this is the first nomination for Buckell and Walton. Special congratulations to TOR Books, for its grand slam of all five finalist slots for the second time in this category’s three-decade history.
The Best Novel finalist-judging committee read more than 15 novels this past year as awards possibilities, including nine official nominees. Here are the other nominees: The Guardener’s Tale, by Bruce Boston (Sam's Dot Publishing); Echoes of an Alien Sky, by James Hogan (Baen Books); Gradisil, by Adam Roberts (Prometheus Books’ Pyr); and Off Armageddon Reef, by David Webber (TOR).

More kid lib lit

The new proprietors at Laissez Faire Books continue highlighting great fiction for kids in their last two posts. Here is an interesting take by Dr. Seuss.

Public schools defined

"A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare" says the judge who wrote an opinion on Californians' lack of any right to homeschool their children. Chilling.

Laissez Faire Books

When news circulated a few months ago that Laissez Faire Books was closing its doors, I was frankly shocked but not too surprised. Thirty or twenty years ago, or even ten years ago, the catalog model was quite viable for a niche market. Searching for libertarian books back then almost always meant picking up the LFB catalog. Then came the internet, and Amazon.com, the equivalent of Wal-Mart for something like LFB. However, there's still life left in the business, and after dropping the www.lfb.com domain, Laissez Faire Books now marches onward under the auspices of the International Society for Individual Liberty, and with a new domain and blog. Recently they posted a long essay on fiction for kids, starting with the Shadow Children series by Margaret Peterson Haddix. For now I have not been able to locate an online catalog, but they are posting reviews and mentions of all their title in stock.

Robert Shea story available online

Robert Shea was the co-author of the Illuminatus! trilogy (with Robert Anton Wilson), plus a great solo author who wrote many a historical novel. Now, one of his older short stories is available free online, originally published in 1957. In related new, his son Mike Shea, is trying to sustain and build up interest in Robert Shea's fiction. He manages a web site about his father, and recently posted news about Shike, a fantastic novel about Japan from a few years back. This book now is available in a free online edition. Mike Shea also links to a fan-made comic book adaptation of this story.

Harry's War

Wendy McElroy has some good news about a libertarian themed movie with newly rediscovered DVDs at a warehouse, now available at Laissez Faire Books.

The Terror

Around one year ago I bought the just-released new novel by Dan Simmons, a nearly 800 page imagined account of the real-life disastrous John Franklin expedition to sail the Northwest Passage in 1845. I've long been a fan of Simmons' books, and own a copy of almost every one of his books. Yet The Terror sat on a shelf for over a year before I pulled it out and started reading. The books sits at eye level as I leave my study, so I see it nearly every night. Yet for many months I have been daunted both by its size and subject matter. I've read Simmons' posting about the book on his website, and even many of the non-spoiler reviews. I was intrigued by the tale of polar exploration, but being aware of the inevitable ending, and of the fantastical nature that appears now and then, I felt reluctant to invest so much time in such a massive book. Yet now, nearly 300 pages into the novel (in just over one day of reading), I feel foolish for having held off so long reading the book. In my opinion this is probably the best Simmons novel since Hyperion, and despite the immense detail and sometimes long drawn out episodes, I find it impossible to desist from reading. It's hard to believe this expedition took place over 150 years ago. How quickly the world has shrunk.

From his original fantasy novel set in India (Song of Kali) to his hard sf novels, then horror, then hard-boiled fiction (yes, I'm bitter that he stopped writing that series after three books...), to The Terror, to his current work on a novel about Dickens, the art of Dan Simmons has come a long way. The coldest weather I've experienced was -13 Fahrenheit, which pales in comparison to what Franklin's men experienced. Let alone the dangers of strange and fantastical creatures hunting men on the ice, just trying to survive winter north of mainland Canada is terror enough for me.

New L. Neil Smith story online

After almost two years as a serialized publication, L. Neil Smith and Scott Bieser's Roswell, Texas saga recently wrapped up at Big Head Press. Almost without a break, a brand new Smith story debuts online, this time drawn by Sherard Jackson. TimePeeper, a futuristic juvenile tale shows great promise in the first dozen and half pages currently online, though for some reason when I clicked on the story link for the first time it took me to the last page, not the first page. Another difference is that this story is black and white, whereas Roswell, Texas appeared in full color. Not sure if that will affect the rate new pages are added, but Smith fans get to enjoy another story, although once again they will need to read at the publisher's pace, instead of being able to have the entire story available at once.

A timid libertarian

One of the stories I bookmarked some weeks ago I read in the print edition of Time. The headline virtually sneers: "Elitist, Moi?" The face that gazes back you in the photo is one a rumbled but fashion-conscious European. The story itself is far more interesting, as it profiles Tom Stoppard, who sees himself as a "timid libertarian." I first encountered his work in college, when I read his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and watched film and live play versions. Stoppard's also written screenplays, most notably Terry Gilliam's dystopian movie, Brazil. This libertarian leaning might explain some of the content and themes of his plays, such as "The Coast of Utopia, his nearly nine-hour trilogy about Russia's radical political thinkers of the 19th century." Being located far from New York (though ten minutes walking distance from San Antonio's own Broadway Ave), I have slim chance of attending any of his plays, but I'm going to have to try to located published versions of the same.

MacLeod interview

Here's another recent interview with Ken MacLeod, conducted a couple of weeks ago. In this one MacLeod discusses politics and sf in great detail. I'm behind on my reading of current books, and have not yet read The Execution Channel, but I find myself agreeing with his sentiments about the war on terror.

Friedman on his favorite poet

A slightly different version of David D. Friedman's paean to his favorite poet will appear in the next print issue of Prometheus, which currently nearing completion. Here is the original entry at Friedman's blog.

I've been collecting links of interest over the past month or so, but my computer bought the farm last month. Or rather, the hard drive itself died. The rest of the now four-year-old computer is fine. I managed to get the computer to Apple one day before my extended Apple Care ceased, and so they took care of it, replacing the entire drive. I had a back-up plan, but it seems to have been so fragmented that it took me a few weeks to re-assemble everything, and I think an item here or there vanished into the ether. I think a better and more cohesive plan is required for the future...

"Lipidleggin'" podcast

An audio version of F. Paul Wilson's very libertarian short story, which was released last year as short film on a DVD by someone unrelated this project.

'Nother interview

Here's a interview at IO9 with last year's Prometheus Award-winner, Charles Stross.

This new SF blog site rocks.

Ken MacLeod interview

Over at the new SF blog IO9, an interview with multiple Prometheus Award winning writer, Ken MacLeod. Dare I say he might be the front runner again this year with The Execution Channel? What libertarian can't help cheering at a quote like this? ("Whoops, my own 'litmus test'..." he says with a sardonic smile)

in my own case, the political philosophers whose ideas most directly give rise to SF are the libertarians. Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia more or less compels you to think science-fictionally: how would this work? (Or not work, as the case may be.) You start imagining a crazy quilt of societies, and for me it was not far from there to something like Norlonto in The Star Fraction. Then there are the ecologists, but I can only imagine dystopias about them ...

New book on the future

Via Ken MacLeod's blog, word that David D. Friedman is writing a book on the future.