"more than a hundred schoolmasters"

[eldritchhobbit]

Happy Father's Day to everyone who is a father (biological, step, or otherwise, to two-footed or four-footed children)! Also, happy birthday to belleferret and valancourtbooks, with best wishes for many happy returns of the day!

I have a few links to share:

* Eldritch Dark has a number of downloadable audio versions of the stories, poems, and non-fiction writings of Weird Tales author Clark Ashton Smith here.

* At Omivoracious, guest blogger China Miéville dicusses literary movements in "Neither a Contract Nor a Promise: Five Movements To Watch Out For."

* The editor of the forthcoming Shine anthology of "optimistic science fiction" discusses reasons some authors turned down the invitation to contribute: "Why I Can’t Write a Near Future, Optimistic SF story: the Excuses."

* From io9: Samuel Delany Answers Your Science Fiction Questions."

* And, last but not least, Star Trek goes steampunk in Steam Punk: The Moving Picture (thanks to jagash):

"One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters."
- George Herbert

Comments

[belleferret.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the birthday wishes and virtual pressies! *big hugs*

Haha that Star Trek parody is hysterical. I love that "Sootie" is a puppet, and that they stole the plot from "Devil in the Dark!"

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

You're most welcome! *big hugs back at you*

Isn't it a hoot? I'm so glad you liked it, too. I was cackling through the whole thing. :)

[ievil-spock-47i.livejournal.com]

Link-tastic! Thanks.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

My pleasure!

[euclase.livejournal.com]

Steampunk! Coooooool!

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly! :)

[sittingduck1313.livejournal.com]

Set those custard pies on stun.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

[scribblerworks.livejournal.com]

That is such fun! And there is someone I absolutely have to link to this. Heee!

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Ha! Glad you liked it - and you know others who will.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Steve Jackson Games published a milieu for fairly optimistic science fiction gaming that could perhaps be called "near future": Transhuman Space. The default campaign year is 2100 A.D.; that's close enough so that we need neither to envision an unrecognizable world nor to introduce factors that bring technological advance to a screeching halt. I ran a three-year series of games in it and found it quite a rich background, with its own issues and controversies.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

How interesting! I hadn't heard of that. Thanks for the heads up. Shine isn't the only optimistic SF out there, it seems!

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

http://www.sjgames.com/transhuman/ is the basic reference page.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[agentxpndble.livejournal.com]

ROTFLMAO! Steampunk Trek is *AWESOME*! Complete with Ensign Expendable and pie fight scene. :)))

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Yes! That totally cracked me up. :)

[actourdreams.livejournal.com]

You may like to check out John Hodgman's speech at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner. He referred to the event as Nerd Prom, and spent most of his speech asking Barack Obama about his nerd-dom, including whether or not he was the Kwisatz Haderach. Star Trek jokes also in abundance.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

How hysterical! I love me some random Frank Herbert references. :) Thanks for the heads up - I'll check it out!

[peadarog.livejournal.com]

Damn! I'd love to submit to Jetse's anthology, but it closes in June. His post was great, though :)

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

I'd love to submit to Jetse's anthology, but it closes in June.

Hey, you still have another week. Forget those petty habits like eating and sleeping: write, write, write! Seriously, though, perhaps an extension would be possible if Jetse knew your submission was on its way?

I liked the post - I'm glad you did, too!

[peadarog.livejournal.com]

I don't know if he would extend, but there's a bigger problem* -- I'm only two weeks from finishing my current novel and I can't/won't stop now!



*If by 'problem', you mean great thing :)

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Oh my! In that case, don't let anything get in your way. In fact, stop reading this now. Shoo! Away with you! Go write! :)

[sittingduck1313.livejournal.com]

Upon further reflection, I'm thinking another reason why SF authors avoid doing optimistic stories is because they think it involves the lamer aspects of the Trek franchise. Roddenberry has received his share of derision for envisioning a virtual utopia where the only conflict comes from encountering less enlightened outside cultures and Negative Space Wedgies. They just have to realize that an optimistic SF story doesn't have to involve such excesses. The Galaxy Railways is an SF series which manages to have an optimistic tone but not overdo it.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Oh, good point! While I am a die-hard Trekkie, I definitely understand the criticism; I remember wincing during The Next Generation, especially, when the characters blithely commented that they'd solved all problems of scarcity and inequality. (Whatever!) Even though Deep Space Nine complicated this portrait nicely, it was a day late and a dollar short in doing so. Thanks for the link to The Galaxy Railways - that's a new one for me!

[sittingduck1313.livejournal.com]

As a point of interest, The Galaxy Railways was created by Leiji Matsumoto, who also known for his involvement with Star Blazers. But you'd probably be able to guess that easily enough, as the character design in Matsumoto shows are quite distinctive.