Author: eidolon

Jay Lake has a well-reasoned and well-informed post on his blog about the Google Book Search settlement.  It’ll take 3 minutes of your time, and whether you’re a reader or writer, it’s worth it. 

It’s no small secret that I dream of one day living in a giant, floating, pirate sea arcology.  And that the Seasteading Institute wants to make my dream a reality.  And that while they sound slightly insane, they are to date my best hope of seeing my dream become reality.  (Even if it doesn’t include robot sharks.) 

This is the obligatory blog post where I jump on the let’s-discuss-Watchmen bandwagon. It’s also where I reveal that I belong to that strange minority of people who find Watchmen (both the novel and the film) to be way, way overhyped. Other brave souls have already come forward on this delicate and emotionally-charged topic, including Sarah Zettel over at the Book View Cafe, and Vic Milan. Watchmen isn’t terrible, but in my humble opinion, it’s not great  either. Below the cut, I’ll try to explain why it doesn’t work for me.

Spoilers ahoy!

Tomorrow (March 7) a rag-tag fugitive fleet of Wild Cards authors will descend upon Page 1 books in Albuquerque to sign copies of the latest Wild Cards release, Busted Flush.

Palimpsest is one of my favorite words.  (I even managed to work it into my thesis, which — given the research had absolutely nothing to do with palimpsests — I admit gave me some joy at the time.)  It’s also the title of Catherynne Valente’s newest novel, which has a premise so amazingly cool that I ache with envy.

And, just to rub it in for the rest of us mortals, she writes some of the most amazing prose I’ve ever read.  She is seriously the most stone-cold talented writer I’ve had the pleasure of meeting.  I realized this about 2 pages into her submission at Rio Hondo last spring.  Oh, and she tops it off by being nice.  The nerve!