Bloggers of Gor
Colorful account of a jailed Thai blogger. Nothing to do with John Norman.
Blog
*Spoiler Alert*
This is what the King County library catalog index has in its summary of The Mayor of Casterbridge:
“A drunken, unemployed hay-trusser sells his wife and daughter at a fair, is eventually reunited with them when he is the mayor of a thriving market town, but in the end he becomes bankrupt and a social outcast.”
Hey! Maybe I didn’t want to know the whole plot!
16th and Mission
Bruce Sterling Speaks on the Future of Gaming
And he came from the future to deliver his talk. I was there to watch the presentation at the Austin Game Developers Conference, and it was a captivating talk, replete with magic tricks, gags, and audience provocation (lighting a cigarette in a smoke-free zone).
In related news, Flurb #6, is out.
(Austin by Nightphone)
Behold the Air Loom
I see from the Wikipedia entry on James Tilly Matthews that some use of this remarkable mythology has been made in fiction, but clearly not enough. I attended the wretched movie Wanted in hopes that something like this would surely be involved in a movie about a cabal of weavers who receive instructions from a mysterious loom…but this material remains to be exploited. I only hope it falls into worthy hands.
Myths of the Shelter Children
Myths Over Miami is still one of the most amazing things I’ve ever read. Over 11 years old, the link still works.
Thorium Dreams
I’m in an industrial compound. To one side, a hothouse, its windows covered with steamy vapor. On the other, an icehouse whose outer walls are rimed with frost. One of the workers is opening a blast furnace with a long flexible contraption of dark blue rubber fit with gears and faucet handles that extends his grip and guards him from the heat. But I’m getting nervous. Someone has just cleared a patch of ground, exposing a long-buried rectangular doorway with steps leading down into the earth, from which a cold blue glow emits. On the threshold are etched the words: THORIUM STORAGE. I start backing away slowly, thinking that this is a good time to leave.
The word “thorium” got into my thoughts for no good reason the other day. This is what comes of it. (I don’t even have mining skills. I’m a simple gatherer of herbs.)
UPDATE: I admit, I’ve also been thinking of Dejah Thoris and her hometown of Helium. Maybe that figures into it.
Gorlen on the Grill
Over at the F&SF website, John Joseph Adams has posted an interview with me about the writing of “Childrun,” the latest Gorlen Vizenfirthe story.
The World Without Me
I just finished listening to an audiobook version of The World Without Us. Sometimes it was exhilarating, more often so depressing that I finished my commute in the mood to just kill myself and mark on my headstone, “Let the healing begin!” If you find visions of apocalypse compelling, and love your dreams laced with ecodeath and dystopia, you love this book. Actually, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s full of paleoarchaeology, looking at the world before us as well as the world after us, and quite a bit of science fictional thought experimentation. If you can get past the chapter on plastic, there is the occasional spark of hope–or anyway, of color.
Leng Bound for Lovecraft Unbound
Well, since Laird Barron mentioned it, the wrapper of secrecy is officially off Ellen Datlow’s forthcoming anthology, Lovecraft Unbound (due in 2010 from M Press). (2010 is the most fun date to type since 2001.) I’ve been waiting to say something about it, since I wrote a story specifically for this collection. The title is “Leng.” If you believe it to have been inspired by my recent travels, you’d be correct.