eldritchhobbit

As some of you know, my sister is a tornado chaser and meteorological scientist, and both her family and our parents live near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (I've received a number of messages asking after them. Thank you so much!)

The devastation from the series of tornadoes on Sunday and Monday has set new records, and my family is in shock. Sunday night's tornadoes came within three miles of my parents, and yesterday's destroyed areas and claimed many lives in what is essentially my sister's backyard. All of my family members are well and unhurt, but they are grieving with their neighbors for all who have been lost or injured, and especially for the children and school staff members for whom searches remain underway.

To put it all in perspective, my sister was excited about seeing Star Trek into Darkness this weekend. Now her favorite theater and the entire neighborhood in which it was located no longer exist.



This community is smart, well informed, and prepared for the vagaries of spring weather in Tornado Alley, but the last two days have rewritten the history books in terms of severe weather. If you have good thoughts and positive vibes to spare, please send some in the direction of Moore in particular and the larger Oklahoma City area in general. Thank you, my friends!

ETA: To help, there's the Red Cross web site (or text REDCROSS to 90999). The Animal Resource Center of Oklahoma City has a link to a donation page for animal relief. And you can donate to Pet Food Pantry. (Thanks to marthawells.)

ETA 2: More links! There's The Salvation Army web site, with an option to donate specifically for Oklahoma Tornado Relief (or text STORM to 80888). In addition, Oklahoma Baptist Disaster Relief is already mobilized and in Moore, and it guarantees 100% of donations will go directly to the relief efforts underway. The Tulsa Community Foundation in Tulsa, OK (my hometown) is accepting contributions to the new Moore & Shawnee Tornado Relief Fund here.

Happy Tuesday!

* The first part of a two-part interview with me is now up here at Darkcargo, in which I talk about science fiction, classic novel/monster mashups, "further adventures of," and other literary subjects. The second half (about genre, Sherlock Holmes, and writing, among other things) will be up on Friday. Darkcargo is a terrific multi-authored blog about reading, book anticipation, con-going, and general genre-related fun, and I highly recommend checking out its other features!

* There's additional information online about this upcoming Saturday's PotterWatch 2011 Scholarly Conference on Harry Potter at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. My keynote talk will be "On Fairy-Stories, Readers, and the Potterverse." I hope to see some of you there!

* Happy belated birthday wishes to delenn1960, lbilover, shagungu, and xanath, and happy birthday to curtana! May all of you enjoy a wonderful year to come!

* In personal news, three cheers for my baby sister, Margret!
-- Her first refereed scholarly article has been published! So next time you're reading the International Journal of Climatology (who doesn't?), be sure to look for her work: "Spatial Coherence of Rainfall Variations Using the Oklahoma Mesonet." Woohoo!
-- She has a brand new, shiny job (besides perpetual tornado chaser extraordinaire) with the Oklahoma Climatological Survey. Yay!
-- She and my brother-in-law are expecting their first child. Huzzah! The whole family is excited about welcoming baby Kaitlyn in the spring.


And here's Virginia, doing her impersonation of my reaction to the new Star Wars blu-ray release:




"It's not that I expect Lucas to stop screwing with Star Wars. I imagine that he'll do so until he dies, and even then, he'll probably build a special robot that lives on after him with the sole purpose of finding things it doesn't like about Star Wars and 'fixing' them."
- A. Lee Martinez, "Why You Should Stop Telling Fans to 'Get Over It'"

I'm back from an excellent conference at Hope College and a wonderful time in Holland, Michigan, just in time to wish janissa11 a very happy birthday tomorrow. May you have a fantastic day and many more to come, my friend!

A few quick items:

* First and foremost, I have a recommendation: potboy just wrote a most remarkable story for me, "Vigil," that fills in the missing "how Qui-Gon Jinn returns to Obi-Wan as a glowing ghost'" piece of the Star Wars canon puzzle. She is an outstanding author, and this exquisite tale braids the larger threads of the Star Wars tapestry together in a profound way. I cannot recommed it highly enough to anyone interested in Star Wars and/or the ideas of the Jedi and the Force. Read it now! And thank you, potboy.

* In other news, here are the winners of this year's Hugo and John W. Campbell Awards.

* And the latest iteration of The White List, the definitive listing of writers, editors, and other publishing professionals who have LiveJournals or LJ RSS feeds, is now available here.

* Last but not least, I finally have some pictures to share from my sister Margret's wedding in July:
Margret and Me Indoors
Family Portrait (With Margret and Her New Husband Michael, My Parents, and My Husband and Me)
Margret and Michael at the Church
Margret and Me Outdoors
Margret and Michael at the Reception

I look forward to catching up with everyone soon.


'Like a stained glass window' he had thought earlier and that comparison came back now with more force. Each single hair lay against the others in pen thin lines of light and dark. But this was no ink drawing. When he looked closer, each green line revealed moving shadows, golden summers, leafy glades. Every stroke opened a hair thin gap to somewhere else, and through each one there shone the infinitely deep and living light of a whole universe.
"What are you?" he said, awed but not entirely reassured.

- from "Vigil" by potboy

I'm back from Oklahoma! My sister's wedding was beautiful. Thanks to all who wished Margret and Michael well. They are now honeymooning in St. Croix. To my great relief, I managed not to drop my bouquet, her bouquet, or the ring during the ceremony, or faint or burst into tears, and so I count myself a success as the matron of honor. I was particularly pleased by the geek content of the event; the song played during the ceremony was a slightly-rewritten standard from Pete's Dragon, and the newly married couple arrived at their reception to the sounds of the Star Wars Main Title. I hope to have pictures to share soon.

In other news...

Blogging News

* The Liberty and Power Group Blog, to which I contribute, and which is a part of the History News Network at George Mason University, has been named one of The Top 100 Liberal Arts Professor Blogs. Yay team! It is syndicated for LJ as power_liberty.


Television News

* Jeremiah, an excellent post-apocalyptic science fiction series by J. Michael Straczynski (creator of Babylon 5), will begin airing in syndication on the SciFi Channel this Thursday, July 10. In my opinion, the first season is very good, but the second season is simply fantastic. I hope this worthy series gains many new viewers! I highly recommend it.

* It's also great to learn that there will indeed be a fifth season of the brilliant Hustle, which I have sorely missed.


Literary News

* R.I.P. Thomas M. Disch (1940-2008)
I was deeply saddened to read that science fiction author and critic Thomas M. Disch (1940-2008) took his own life on the 4th of July. Honored with one Hugo win and two Hugo nominations, nine Nebula nominations, the John W. Campbell and Rhysling awards, and two Seiun awards, Disch had a long and distinguished career. I will remember him especially for his 1969 novelization of The Prisoner and his 1972 dystopian novel 334, as well as his nonfiction books The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World and On SF.

* A discussion recently began here on sf_with_bite regarding readers' top ten favorite SF short stories. I am more of a fan of novels and novellas than short fiction, but off the top of my head, here is my list, in alphabetical order:
( My Top Ten Favorite SF Short Stories )
What are yours?


"Because of his intellectual audacity, the chillingly distant mannerism of his narrative art, the austerity of the pleasures he affords, and the fine cruelty of his wit, Thomas M. Disch has been perhaps the most respected, least trusted, most envied and least read of all modern first-rank SF writers."
John Clute on Thomas M. Disch

First, regarding my sister Margret (she's the tornado chaser): I now have pictures from her recent college graduation (where she was a Phi Beta Kappa inductee and a Graduate With Distinction, adds the proud big sister). So I thought I might share a couple of photos, one of both of us with her undergraduate advisor, and one just of the two of us. In case you don't know me by sight, I'm the one who is - *ahem* - no longer twenty-two. :) I'm also known as the brunette one.


Now, an announcement that might be of interest to those of you who write and/or read fan fiction of any variety: fic_on_demand is a thriving LJ community for fan fiction. How does it work? Join, make a post there requesting a ficlet - any fandom, any pairing, any specs - as specific or vague as you want. Fic requests for all fandoms are welcome. You can only make one request per month. There's a promotion currently underway for the month of June that involves paid LJ time/shopping vouchers to anyone who fulfills at least one request per day throughout June. (They can be any length, so it's not impossible.) FYI!


A couple of random notes:

*Revolution Science Fiction has added two new features about what next season's genre television will bring: "2005-2006 Sci-Fi TV Preview: CancelQuest NBC" (a list of what's new, what's coming back, and what's gone on all of the major networks in terms of science fiction programming next season) and "2005-2006 Sci-Fi TV Preview: Sci-Fi Actors Not Yet Unemployed Again" (a list of what the new season means for actors who are famed for their sci-fi business).

*The site Star Wars Origins contains some interesting educated guesses about the inspirations George Lucas drew upon in making his saga. I hadn't listed this on my past posts re: Star Wars links, so I thought I would add it here.


And last, a quote for the day:

"This always-disappearing lake
is made of our appetites,
these movings-about,
this talking and listening.

The only offering you can make to God
is your increasing awareness..."

from "Four Questions" by Lalla, translated by Coleman Barks