Tag Archives: fantasy

Spotlight on Books: the 'Mother of Milstar,' Eating Clouds, and Subversion

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A few new books that have come to my attention, that I’d like to bring to yours …

Over at New Scientist, there’s a review of a new book about actress Hedy Lamarr, who invented the frequency-hopping and spread-spectrum techniques that made Milstar satellite communications secure … and that make WiFi and other modern communications possible.


(Artist’s conception of Milstar satellite. USAF image.)

My commander at the 4th Space Operations Squadron, where I “flew” Milstar satellites, called Ms. Lamarr the “mother of Milstar” because of her invention. This new book sounds as if it captures not only the essence of her invention but also the trouble she ran into as a movie star who also happened to be a first-rate thinker.

Meanwhile, my writing friend Edmund Schubert has a new short story collection out entitled The Trouble with Eating Clouds.

Ed’s stories are very entertaining, often thought-provoking, and sometimes a little quirky. You might already have guessed that from the title, if not from the striking cover art, but I figure there’s no harm in stating the point.

And speaking of short stories, the folks behind Crossed Genres magazine (which published my story “The Tower” in one of their quarterlies) have brought out an anthology entitled Subversion, which they describe as “science fiction & fantasy tales of challenging the norm.”

Of course, ’tis the Season: if you know someone who might enjoy one of these books, now you can satisfy their Christmas wishes.

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Read Any Good Books (or Shorter Works) Lately?

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Hey, blogosphere and Facebook folks: YOU can help me fulfill my solemn duty to the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America!

It’s “award season,” and this will be the first time I’m able to nominate and vote for the Nebula Awards.

I’m pretty excited about being able to take part in the Nebula voting: It feels good to be able to participate in this professional ritual. Plus, my writing friends Eric James Stone and Rachel Swirsky won Nebulas last year, and I’ve enjoyed several of the award-winning novels of recent years.

Problem is, I don’t get to do a lot of reading for pleasure. I’ve collected together all of my 2011 issues of Analog, Asimov’s, Bull Spec, Realms of Fantasy, etc., to go through them, but I’m also looking for suggestions. What else should I read, in hopes that I’ll enjoy it enough to nominate it?

Some of my writing friends have sent me their eligible work,* but if you read — or wrote — a novel or story that was published this year that you think I should consider, let me know about it!

I have until mid-February to submit my nominations, but the sooner I get suggestions the more time I’ll have to read the stories.

And if you haven’t read any good books or good stories lately, WHY NOT?

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*And a few of them are also kindly reading my eligible novelette: “Therapeutic Mathematics and the Physics of Curve Balls,” from the September Analog.

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Part of the Profession

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Meet the newest Active member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America: me.

It’s nice to check that off the “writing career” list —

  • First story sale … CHECK (2007)
  • First professional story sale … CHECK (2010)
  • SFWA qualification (3 pro stories or a novel) … CHECK

— especially as my entry into SFWA was a little unconventional. I originally joined as an Affiliate member, based on my work with Baen Books, since I hadn’t yet made any qualifying sales of my fiction. Even my first professional-level story, “Memorial at Copernicus,” didn’t qualify me for Associate membership because Redstone Science Fiction was too new and had not yet been recognized as a professional market.

Of all the professional organizations I’ve joined at various times in my life (e.g., Air Force Association, American Society for Quality Control [now just ‘ASQ’]) SFWA’s entrance qualifications were the hardest to meet. Now that they’ve let me in, I’m reminded of the Groucho Marx bit — wondering if I should be leery of joining a group that would have me as a member — especially as I feel more like a lucky hack than a professional. Maybe it’s something I have to live up to.

Of course, this doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. To paraphrase one of my parents’ favorite sayings, to account for inflation and personal preference: that and a buck will buy me a diet soda.*

So, on to the next thing: finishing the next story.

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*Even though “That and 50 cents will buy you a cup of coffee” sounds better, since I don’t drink coffee I’m not sure how many places still sell it for 50 cents.

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Two Chimps: One an Astronaut, One a Writer

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Fifty years ago today — November 29, 1961 — NASA launched the last “orbital qualification flight” for the Mercury program.


(Enos, the Mercury-Atlas 5 passenger. NASA image.)

Mission Mercury-Atlas 5 carried a chimpanzee, Enos, that “performed various psychomotor activities during the flight and was found to be in excellent physical condition following splashdown.” Enos was supposed to make three orbits around the Earth, but mission controllers brought him back after only two orbits because of a propulsion system problem.

(Aside: Lucky chimp, got to be an astronaut.)

As for the writer chimp, that would be me.

Usually, when it comes to literary primates, I think about hypothetical monkeys at typewriters, trying to produce Shakespeare; you too may be familiar with the infinite monkey theorem.* But monkeys have tails, and we already have Shakespeare, so I’ll live with the chimp metaphor.

Anyway, yesterday marked another metaphorical milestone for me in terms of my writing career, such as it is: I sent in my contracts — and, perhaps more important, my money — to upgrade to “Active” membership in the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America.

Soon, then, even though my fiction doesn’t come close to paying the bills, I may be considered a “professional” writer.

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*An even more entertaining Wikipedia entry: the infinite monkey theorem in popular culture.

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Can’t Get Enough Monster Hunter?

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Ballad, that is … “Monster Hunter Ballad.”

Today Alethea Kontis posted on her blog a video shot during her “traveling sideshow” at Dragon*Con, which includes me doing a rough-but-passable rendition of my song, “The Monster Hunter Ballad.” Appropriately, I’m sporting one of the Monster Hunter International hats that were given out during the con.

My song starts at around the 7 minute mark. Before my song, Leanna Renee Hieber did an evocative reading (I was particularly taken with the imagery), and after my song, Danielle Friedman performed a wonderful “poi” routine … unfortunately, without fire. You will also hear some “zombie haiku,” which have become something of a staple at Alethea’s readings.

Thanks again, Alethea, for letting me play along!

P.S. For anyone who may not have seen it, the first video of the “Monster Hunter Ballad” is still available for viewing.

___

FULL DISCLOSURE: The Monster Hunter International books by Larry Correia, which inspired the aforementioned ballad, are published by Baen Books. I work for Baen as a contributing editor.

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STEREO-A and STEREO-B

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I haven’t had a lot of space history posts recently. I try to limit myself to anniversaries in multiples of 5 years, to keep from repeating things, and to keep the pace from getting overwhelming. I also try not to include “routine” events like the launch of the Nth in a series of satellites … not that anything about space operations has become truly routine, of course. But here’s one for the record:

Five years ago today — October 26, 2006 — a Delta 2 rocket out of Cape Canaveral placed two solar observatories in orbit.


(STEREO spacecraft. NASA image.)

The Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory consisted of two identical spacecraft, STEREO-A and STEREO-B. Once in space, the two satellites were allowed to drift into different heliocentric orbits: STEREO-B ahead of the Earth (leading), and STEREO-A behind the Earth (lagging). From those vantage points, their observations could be combined to image the Sun “stereographically” and predict whether a coronal mass ejection was heading toward the Earth.

On February 6th of this year, STEREO A and B reached 180 degrees of separation, which “enabled, for the first time, the simultaneous observation of the entire Sun.”

In other news, I’m heading to the World Fantasy Convention today. Folks have been urging me to go to WFC for years; it’s a small convention, primarily of SF&F professionals. It seems a little odd to think of myself as an SF&F professional in my own right, but my 3rd and 4th professional sales are forthcoming: more on those later, when the contracts are signed (or when the editors give me the okay).

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Thanks Are in Order, So: Thanks, Whoever You Are

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Imagine my surprise at learning that I now have a page of my own in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.


(Image from the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.)

The page lists all of my published stories to date, which is pretty cool.

The database is maintained by a rather large community of volunteers, so I have no idea who entered my information. As a result, I can only offer general (but genuine!) thanks to the kind person(s) responsible, and wish them — and you — only the very best.

Thanks!

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Dragon*Con 2011 Pictures, Part 3: Fun

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For reference: Pictures, Part 1 were of me and my friends, and Pictures, Part 2 were of the filk track.

Conventions like Dragon*Con are a lot of fun, and at a convention the size of D*C a lot of the fun comes in seeing the costumes … or, in some cases, the lack of costumes!

Here, the family that cosplays together stays together:

As do the Stormtroopers and Sand People who play together:

The workmanship of some of the costumes is remarkable. It’s hard to see, but parts of this costume lit up:

And, of course, there’s always the danger that someone else will show up with the same costume:

Which, if you haven’t seen it, reminds me of the cosplay public service announcement starring Kaley Cuoco.

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Dragon*Con 2011 Pictures, Part 2: Filk

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(In case you missed them: Dragon*Con Pictures, Part 1: My Friends.)

This year I’ve discovered that I really enjoy filk (genre-related folk music) and filking (playing and singing same). Part of that is the warm reception “The Monster Hunter Ballad” has received over the last few months, and part of it is an immense sense of joy at doing something I never thought I could: writing and performing original music.

How did I get into this filking thing? It was an overly long journey:

  • Way back in the mid-90s I penned Titan-rocket-program-related lyrics to a number of different Beatles tunes.* So far as I know they’ve all been lost, and probably just as well. But I didn’t play an instrument, so I never considered the possibility of writing an original Titan tune.
  • In 2000 I got stationed overseas, where during my off hours I wrote a novel** and learned a few chords on the guitar. For my farewell dinner at Thule Air Base I wrote “Home on the Tundra” (to the tune of “Home on the Range”). As proof, you can look at the last page of the September 2001 issue of the Thule Times.
  • In 2008 I wrote the first of what has become an annual series of songs for the Industrial Extension Service: “The I-E-S Song.” It hasn’t made it onto YouTube yet, but there’s still hope … though you can watch the video montage for the 2009 song, “The Economic Recovery Blues.”
  • At MarsCon this January I got the idea for a Dungeons-&-Dragons-based song, which eventually became “Saving Throws” (sung to the tune of “Edelweiss”). And somewhere along the line I got the idea for the Monster Hunter song, which I debuted at StellarCon in March.
  • And at ConCarolinas this June I actually took part in a “Filk Circle” for the first time, and had a great time — which naturally led me to look up the filk track at Dragon*Con.

I played a few songs on Friday night, and went back on Saturday night to listen even though I had a headache. Then I was back again to play on Sunday night — where I took pictures!

First, the director of the Filk Track, Robby Hilliard:


(Dragon*Con Filk Track head honcho, Robby Hilliard.)

That guitar he’s playing looks awfully familiar. (I actually loaned my guitar out a couple of times.) Robby did a great job organizing the track, and his whole staff was very friendly.

Here’s Alex Boyd, who on Sunday night set himself the challenge of playing only original filk that he had made up that day.


(Alex Boyd.)

One of the songs he did was, “Don’t Bring Your Guitar to Dragon*Con.” Given the difficulty of maneuvering through the crowds, he had a point. I bought one of his CDs.

And here’s Tally Deushane, singing “The Dragon*Con Song”:


(Tally Deushane.)

Tally got very tired of singing “The Dragon*Con Song” by Sunday night; she probably sang it a dozen times over the course of the weekend. After Dragon*Con she posted on her Facebook fan page that she had been named one of Glamour Magazine’s “Top 10 College Women of 2011.” If I’d known we had a celebrity in our midst, I would’ve asked her to autograph her CD when I bought it.

Finally, guitars and ukuleles were not the only instruments to be found in the filk circle:


(The anonymous accordion player who wowed us all on Sunday night.)

In summary, a splendid time was had by all.

And meanwhile I keep coming up with new song ideas, which is both a little scary and (to me, at least) a little cool.

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*I included some of this history in a previous blog post.
**It was okay, not great. I think my second novel is better, though neither one has been published.

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Dragon*Con 2011 Pictures, Part 1: My Friends

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It’s hard to believe Dragon*Con was over a week ago already. My life is very blurry these days, so it’s good that I have pictures to look at.

The best thing about conventions, even huge ones like Dragon*Con, is spending time with friends. I wasn’t able to get pictures of all my friends, but here are a few.

Here I am with “Genre Princess” Alethea Kontis and other members of her “Traveling Sideshow.”


(L-R: Danielle Friedman, Alethea Kontis, me, Leanna Renee Hieber.)

Alethea was kind enough to bring me in off the bench to pinch hit for a sideshow member who couldn’t make it. Danielle Friedman performed a lovely New Zealand “poi” dance routine, while both Alethea and Leanna Hieber read from their work.

Note that I’m sporting my Monster Hunter International hat — it seemed appropriate, since I sang “The Monster Hunter Ballad.”

I also got my picture with Mary Robinette Kowal, who this year won the Hugo Award for best short story.


(Me with awesome author Mary Robinette Kowal.)

And who do you expect to run into when you go to Dragon*Con? Why, the person who turned over command of the Thule Tracking Station to you 11 years ago, whom you haven’t seen since! Rudy Ridolfi commanded POGO (our AF Satellite Control Network callsign) from 1999-2000, and I took over from him in July 2000. We only spent a week together, and I never realized he was a Klingon-speaking geek. It was great to see him and to meet his wife, Heather, who is a big fan of Baen Books.


(Two former commanders of Detachment 3, 22nd Space Operations Squadron, Thule Air Base, Greenland: me, and Rudy Ridolfi.)

Note that all of the above happened on the FIRST DAY of the convention! Dragon*Con, of course, is a frenzied and confusing 4-day-long hive of activity. Thankfully, I was able to enjoy breakfast one morning with some of my fellow Codex Writers:


(L-R: David M. Gill, David’s son Justin, Hel Bell, Danielle Friedman.)

My pictures from the Baen lunch didn’t turn out well enough to post, but I have pictures from the filking and random costumed folks that I will post on another day.

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