… onto the Pegasus Awards ballot. C’est la vie.
(Pegasus Award logo.)
You can see the list of finalists for Best Filk Song, etc., here at the Ohio Valley Filk Festival site.
As for me, I’m off to Dragon*Con, where I will indulge my filk habit. Perhaps I’ll try to finish the song I’ve been working on the past few months … although finishing my current short story should be higher on my priority list.
Onward!
by 
Fifty years ago today — August 27, 1962 — an Atlas Agena launched from Cape Canaveral, carrying the Mariner 2 spacecraft toward a rendezvous with the planet Venus.
(Mariner 2. NASA image.)
Mariner 2 passed Venus on December 14, 1962, becoming the first spacecraft to successfully perform a planetary flyby.
Mariner 2 was a backup for the Mariner 1 mission which failed shortly after launch to Venus. The objective of the Mariner 2 mission was to fly by Venus and return data on the planet’s atmosphere, magnetic field, charged particle environment, and mass. It also made measurements of the interplanetary medium during its cruise to Venus and after the flyby.
In other space history, on this date 35 years ago, the Italian communications and scientific satellite Sirio A was launched from Cape Canaveral by Delta rocket.
by Yes, that really is my name on the cover of the November issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact, which goes on sale next week.
And yes, I am still stunned every time I look at it:
It seems so strange, seeing my name there. I am honored, and humbled, and overwhelmed.
My novelette, “SEAGULLs, Jack-o-Lanterns, and Interstitial Spaces,” began as my entry in the Codex Writers Group Halloween contest. The story prompt was a set of quotes from five different sources, following a meme that had been making the rounds during National Book Week of selecting certain lines from specified pages of nearby books. Just to be obstinate, I used each of the sources in some way, even if only a phrase or a name.
Finally, yes, I am also stunned because the story has a fetching illustration by Vincent Di Fate, one of the all-time-great SF&F artists. Last year he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, which is part of the EMP Museum in Seattle.
The whole table of contents is listed in this SFScope post.
by Once again, Labor Day weekend will find me in Atlanta for the annual Dragon*Con science fiction and fantasy conention. I don’t have very many official events, so along with my work responsibilities I’ve filled my schedule with some fun things and some service opportunities.
(Dragon*Con logo.)
Friday, 31 August
1 p.m. — Setting up for the Baen authors’ signing at the Larry Smith Booksellers booth (numbers 309-311 in the Marquis Ballroom in the Marriott) … first up at 1:30, Les Johnson & Timothy Zahn
5 p.m. — Holding down the fort at the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America table (wherever that happens to be)
7 p.m. — Filk and Cookies (Baker Room in the Hyatt)
11:30 p.m. — Open Filk (Baker Room in the Hyatt)
Saturday, 1 September
9:30 a.m. — Setting up for the Baen authors’ signing … first up at 10, John Ringo & Travis Taylor
1 p.m. — Baen Books Traveling Slide Show (Regency V in the Hyatt)
7 p.m. — Chick Fil-A Kickoff Game, Clemson Tigers vs. the like-named team from Auburn (Georgia Dome)
(Tentative) 11:30 p.m. — Open Filk (Baker Room in the Hyatt)
Sunday, 2 September
10 a.m. — Helping lead worship at the Fans for Christ worship service (Augusta Room in the Westin)
2:30 p.m. — Singing one of my original filk songs at Alethea Kontis‘s “Sideshow” (Edgewood Room in the Hyatt)
(Tentative) 7 p.m. — Open Filk (Baker Room in the Hyatt)
Monday, 3 September
10 a.m. — Holding down the fort again at the SFWA table
In between all that, I’ll try to catch some friends on their panels, swing through Barfly Central, and find the occasional quiet (!) spot to hang out. And, if I’m really conscientious, I’ll work on a short story or two, and maybe a song.
by Neil Armstrong, first human to walk on the moon, has taken his final small step, his final giant leap into the great unknown.
Other people with deeper insight will pen better tributes than I. All I can contribute is a measure of how much of an inspiration Armstrong and his astronaut colleagues have been to me: in my decision to join the Air Force and to work specifically in space and missiles, and in my desire to explore space in my imagination and my stories.
Thank you, Neil Armstrong, and Godspeed.
___
Previous Armstrong-related space history posts:
Apollo 11’s 40th Anniversary
Happy Birthday, Neil Armstrong
by if you want to read my novelette, “The Second Engineer,” it’s in the October-November issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction which goes on sale next week. Ask for it at your local bookseller.
The history of this story demonstrates how s-l-o-w-l-y I write. It began as an entry in a contest to write a short story in a weekend. I didn’t finish the story that weekend; in fact, it took almost 18 months — and wise council at a con — to produce the version that was a “Writers of the Future” semi-finalist, and another few months of subsequent clean-up to get to this version.
For the contest, the story prompts were, “Think of a human body part and a physical object that should never, ever come into contact. Write a story about the day when they do,” and selections from three poems, one of which was Sylvia Plath’s “Tale of a Tub” which includes the lines “when the window, / blind with steam, will not admit the dark.” I can’t remember how my brain went from there to here … but there is a window in the story that won’t admit the dark.
The entire table of contents is laid out in this SFScope post.
by Fifteen years ago today — August 25, 1997 — the Advanced Composition Explorer was launched from Cape Canaveral by a Delta II rocket.
(ACE. NASA image.)
The ACE spacecraft carried “six high resolution spectrometers, each designed to provide the optimum charge, mass, or charge-state resolution in its particular energy range,” in order to collect data on energetic particles from the Sun and other sources.
ACE is in a halo orbit around the L1 Lagrange point, between Earth and the Sun. According to the CalTech ACE mission site, the spacecraft “has a prime view of the solar wind, interplanetary magnetic field and higher energy particles accelerated by the Sun, as well as particles accelerated in the heliosphere and the galactic regions beyond,” and has enough fuel to maintain that orbit until 2024.
by Fifteen years ago today — August 22, 1997 (local time) — the Lewis spacecraft launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a Lockheed Martin Launch Vehicle.
(An LMLV on the pad at Vandenberg. NASA image.)
Lewis was a small satellite built under NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology Initiative and part of the “Mission to Planet Earth.” a long-term research program designed to study the Earth’s land, oceans, air, and life as a total system.
This launch (on August 23, by GMT) was the first success for the LMLV, also known as an Athena rocket, and also the first successful launch from SLC-6 — Space Launch Complex Six — at Vandenberg.
Unfortunately, Lewis encountered attitude control problems: “telemetry received early August 26 indicated that the spacecraft was spinning at approximately two revolutions per minute. The spinning resulted in the spacecraft shutting down after its solar panels could not capture enough sunlight to properly recharge onboard batteries.” The satellite burned up in the atmosphere on September 28.
by In today’s news, the results of the 2nd Quarter of the Writers of the Future contest are out, and I earned my eighth Honorable Mention.
(Image from the Writers of the Future web site.)
You can see all the results here. I recognized several names from the Codex Writers Group, and noted a sizable representation from here in North Carolina.
According to the contest rules, and as verified to me by the contest director, my forthcoming publications in Analog and Asimov’s will render me ineligible to enter the contest any more. But because the issue dates on the magazines are October and November, if I get a story submitted by September I’ll have one more shot. So guess what I’ve been working on the last week or so?
One last thing, while we’re here …
In space history, 40 years ago today — August 21, 1972 — Orbiting Astronomical Observatory 3 (OAO-3) was launched by an Atlas-Centaur from Cape Canaveral. It was the “second successful spacecraft to observe the celestial sphere from above the earth’s atmosphere,” and operated until February 1981.
by Actually, that goes for just about anyone, anywhere, but most especially for my friends in the Show-Me State who are as appalled as the rest of the thinking world at the idiocy spouted by Representative Akin.
Remember, the Anti-Candidate is available to be your write-in vote for any election, any time, anywhere.
You DO have a choice this November. As the Grail Knight said to Indiana Jones, “Choose wisely!”
I’m the Anti-Candidate, and I approved this message.
by 
