Random questions for the day

Did the Navi of Avatar have to be blue?  Really?  It's like having yellow aliens named the Canari.   

And now comes news from James Cameron that he's working on a sequel, which will take place in the oceans of Pandora. Navi in the navy?

I'm just saying ...

Lost in my own head

Hmm .. I see it's been a while since I last posted. Been busy blogging elsewhere in conjunction with the release of InterstellarNet: Origins and working on a new novel, Energized.

The former is wrapping up, and as for the latter I just finished the first draft of a major section. It's time to try to get back to a routine.

Even in the throes of writing, I make time to surf (aka, take sanity breaks). Here are some recent finds in tune with this blog that I consider especially interesting:

Death of a genre

A genre is in trouble when the general public can't even define it. And that, I am convinced, is the current state of science fiction.

As an SF author I meet two types of people at book signings: committed SF fans and -- in much larger numbers -- passersby. Too many passersby make comments like: "Oh, like Harry Potter." (Or Superman. Or Lord of the Rings. Or Twilight. Or, or, or ... insert the non-SF media titan of your choice here.) Interestingly, not: Oh, like Star Wars, Star Trek, or Terminator, let alone any literary SF example.

InterstellarNet: Origins

Updated 12-04-2023

Hurrah! Now back in print and electrons

Updated 07-29-2023

Temporarily out of print and electrons, but under contract for reissue.

Some of my most popular novels are collaborations set in what colleague Larry Niven calls Known Space. KS brims with strange aliens and exotic locales, making it a great setting for storytelling.

Below the radar, I've been developing my own star-spanning series. The original InterstellarNet novelette, about the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and First Contact -- ran in Analog in 2000. Related stories appeared in Analog, Artemis, and Jim Baen's Universe. But magazine issues go out of print, and readers keep emailing to ask where they can find one story or another. I've had no good answer --

Until now.

Webifying company

I don't often find myself mentioned alongside Ray Ozzie (chief software architect at Microsoft), Marc Andreessen (inventor of Mosaic, the first popular web browser, and cofounder of Netscape), and Stephen Chen (cofounder of YouTube).

Attack of the killer potatoes

No ... not an obvious takeoff on Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (not -- hat tip to Jerry Seinfeld -- that there's anything wrong with that).

Nor anything to do with Frankenfoods (channeling Popeye, thinking of a really giant sweet potato trundling down the street, booming "I yam what I yam.")

So what am I yammering (sorry!) about?

Caveat reader

UPDATED October 5, 2020

 UPDATED July 4, 2017

UPDATED March 25, 2015

I've commented often about matters of privacy. It's only appropriate, therefore, that I disclose how privacy is protected and respected right here on this blog.

To keep it short and sweet:

Virginia Festival of the Book

The Commonwealth of Virginia hosts a great literary event every year: the Virginia Festival of the Book. (Great but stealthy -- although I've lived in Virginia for the run of the festival, I managed to be unaware of it for its first fourteen years.)

Charlottesville (charming home of UVa and Monticello -- I had more nice things to say in this post) hosts the festival, in venues around the downtown pedestrian mall and across town. The festival offers five days (March 17-21 this year) of mostly free activities centered on literature. For the past six years running, the festival has drawn 20,000-plus attendees.

And this is of more than academic (groan) interest.