The Rhysling

My buddy Greg Beatty won the Rhysling award for best SF short poetry.

Woooot!

Britain's Response:

Carry on:

ReaderCon Notes

Matt Cheney's got notes from ReaderCon up:

Day One

Day Two

I gotta get to more Cons. World Fantasy's in Madison this year...

It is 3pm, and I Have Just Gotten Up

Well, fuck.

The bank and post office are fucking closed now, and I had errands to run.

Have I mentioned how exhausted and sleep-deprived I was this week?

Dammit. I need another three days for sleeping.

Today of All Days

Because it's not the veil that makes them what they are, it's the girl inside.

Looking For Heroines

Well, I think she picked a pretty shitty lot.

But yea, shiiiiiit. We need better scripts. Something Michelle Rodriguez could be in.... yea....

Whiskey, Writing, Link Dump

"Tableaux of women pounding grain decorate the dimly lit lobby of the Rwandan parliament, but in the debating chamber inside there is a less familiar sight: rows of women MPs are seated on the black leather chairs alongside the men."

Next up after God's War, I'm going to look into writing a novel that involves me doing a lot of research into the genocide in Rwanda. It's been an interest of mine for some time.

"Boys should be taught in single-sex schools with strong male role models to help a 'lost generation' of fatherless young men find their way in life, the Tory leadership contender Liam Fox says today."

I've never been a fan of the single-sex school idea. I think it helps form a really strict gender polarity that ain't good for anybody involved. In real life, we've gotta interact with many different people, of different cultures and genders. The sooner we get used ot it, the better.

And, to be honest, being a "lost generation" likely doesn't have much to do with whether or not you went to school with boys (note the implicit assumption that only men compose this "lost generation").

"Shoes," Sheila Jeffreys says, "are almost becoming torture instruments. During a woman's daily make-up ritual, on average she will expose herself to more than 200 synthetic chemicals before she has morning coffee. Regular lipstick wearers will ingest up to four and a half kilos during their lifetime." We are talking about Jeffreys' latest book, Beauty And Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices In The West, and she is in full flow about the horrors of what she calls "the brutality of beauty".

What I enjoy about really, really radical feminism is that I can pick and choose what I want to pull away from it, look it over, interrogate it, say "Cool, that's interesting, I can use that," or "shit, she's a dingbat," and move on.

You've got to have voices from the far side of every debate acting as anchors for the rest. Radicals are fun.

Ok, back to drinking and writing. Still behind. Got some good stuff done today, but... yea... still behind.

And feeling nicely buzzed.

Ah, Friday.

Friday Beer Blogging

I am bleery and sleep-deprived and behind, and writing like mad, and I MUST catch up on my writing schedule this weekend and must continue to work, work, work... ehhhhhh

Lots of work. I got another agent nibble for the fantasy saga, which is nice only insofar as it's in play again, which is... cool.

In the meantime, I need to be halfway done with God's War by August 15th.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

But tonight, I will take time out for some beer, which is healthy.

You Gotta Love the British

The BBC has published a copy of a statement from a Islamist group claiming responsibility for the attacks.

I like the part: "Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern, and western quarters."

Who do they think they're kidding? "Britain is now burning with the desire for a cup of tea and wondering if they'll get tommorow off work" would be far more accurate.

Choose Wisely

I'm still behind on the writing. Back later.














"We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
- Winston Churchill


"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you."
- John-Paul Sartre


"The truth of that matter is, if you listen carefully, Saddam would still be in power if he were the president of the United States, and the world would be a lot better off."
—George W. Bush, second presidential debate, St. Louis, Mo., Oct. 8, 2004

A Little Cultural Bias At Work, or No?

Some people are attracted to women; some are attracted to men. And some, if Sigmund Freud, Dr. Alfred Kinsey and millions of self-described bisexuals are to be believed, are drawn to both sexes.

But a new study casts doubt on whether true bisexuality exists, at least in men.

There are about three gaping holes here that don't hold water for me.

Oh, *Now* They Raise Their Vigilance

Wouldn't it have been a little late if theirs were coordinated with ours?

I feel like it's the 1980s all over again.

And I do feel it's neccessary, once again, to point out that terrorism is a tactic, not an adversary. You can't fight terrorism any more than you can fight a forward charge.

Name it. Stop turning these people into nebulous, faceless groups of "evil doers." Tell us what they're pissed about, what their motives are, let us listen to them, because the more we know about them, the better we can fight them. Otherwise, you're just waving words around, and we're off to bomb another small desert country.

Rolling blogging news from across London as it comes in.

Notes & Quotes

I am horribly behind on just about everything, chiklits.

Need to finish a chapter of the fantasy saga (book 2), and a chapter and a half of God's War in order to catch up. Also need to edit a paper for my brother.

I am also feeling really, really, sleep deprived.

The new head manager for the office has also started cracking down on employee hours, i.e. no more of our "fuck it, not much going on, I'm outta here at 3pm," thing, which is fucking ridiculous, because, of course, it doesn't apply to Yellow or Blaine. I know for a fact that Yellow works here *because* of the flexible hours. So, when things are slow, they'd prefer we just stay here all day playing Insaniquarium instead of saving them money by going home?

The fuck?

Take away my flexibility, and I'm not particularly sure why I'd work here. I'm a writer. I'm here cause I can take a writing day whenever I want to, and come in late on days when my boyfriend's in town.

Fuck it, honey, it ain't worth it if you take that away.

I'll go somewhere else where they pay me enough to care.

5 Rights Attached to Supreme Court Decisions That Women Could Lose

No, we're not only talking abortion, baby.

Stuff You Coul Be Reading

Hot damn, Kelly Link's story collection Stranger Things Happen is now available for free under a Creative Commons license... If you like what you read, why not go out and buy a copy, or check out her new one? I plan to.

And the uber-scarily taleted Simon Owens (21 and rocking the house) has another short up a Chizine (I still maintain he's just peaking early, dammit. Someday he will not be young and talented, just talented). Check it out.

I Accidently Saw "War of the Worlds"

Did anyone else assume we'd gotten past that whole "mankind," "man," "where no man has gone before" stuff with Star Trek the Next Generation? I mean, I really thought that narrators in the future would mention, also, that women did things, built things, and genernally contributed to the formation of society, seeings as women, like, have babies and design buildings and drive forklifts and such. Women: doing everything men do, and breeding for the cause, too!

I mean, really.

But anyway, if you suck it up through the Morgan Freeman narration, this is a great little summer adventure movie.

Yea, you heard me right.

Forget a minute that Tom Cruise is the lead (I wish they'd cast somebody else - he's a celebrity who's gotten to the point where he's so much "a celebrity" in my mind that it's difficult not to just be like, "Oh, Tom Cruise), and appreciate Dakota Fanning and Steven Spielburg as a director, and go along for the fucking ride.

It hits my pet interests of course: war, genocide, apocalyptic scenerios and how they bring out the worst and (sometimes) the best in people. Speilburg knows how you make a good action flick: always bring it back to the characters. It's about the people, not the special effects (though the effects are fucking stellar). Focus on the story, the journey of these people caught up in extraordinary events. He's great with suspense, tension.

Spielburg may spend a bit too long focusing on all of the grouped military shots, but hey, he after directing so many war movies, I think he just couldn't help it.

Cruise plays an incompetent asshole pretty well (does this surprise anyone?), and it's fun to watch a sort of anti-hero fill the hero role.

Unlike some other people, I didn't have so much trouble with the ending: hell, they stayed true to the original in that sense. What ya gonna do?

I will say that the cynic in me wanted it to end with the father & daughter cowering on the stairs after Cruise takes steps to ensure their survival. I love that idea as an ending shot. But then, I adored the original ending shot of "28 Days Later" when the two women - hefting shotguns - swing through the double doors of the hospital and into the great unknown.

I enjoy just being left to dwell on how far human beings will go to protect their kin, and speculate about how well they'll do in the long run.

But hey, it's Spielburg. Everybody's gotta live, gotta maintain the happy family unit.

Ah, well.

It was a good ride. I was pleasantly entertained.

I Am Fantasizing About A Beach House

It's one of those days where I want to fast-forward things a bit and get to that beach house of mine filled with books, already.

Patience, patience.

I'm Going to Get Some Work Done Now

Really.

Damn, why do I feel so tired?

Go Check Out Alaska Before It Melts

Alaska is changing by the hour. From the far north, where higher seas are swamping native villages, to the tundra around Fairbanks, where melting permafrost is forcing some roads and structures to buckle in what looks like a cartoon version of a hangover, to the rivers of ice receding from inlets, warmer temperatures are remaking the Last Frontier State.

And yea, I lived there for two years, and yea, Fairbanks needs a major overhaul. Cabins built on tundra that never froze are now looking like shipwrecks crushed by melting ice-as-earth.

Not quite apocalyptic yet, but hey, catch it while it's still cold.

If nothing else, it'll be a great place to retire when the Midwest turns into a desert.

Wooot!

Secular Summer Camp

Who'da thought?

Neat.