Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 207 entries, all of them here in full.
October 12, 2011 · 92 words
I Am At Snow Bear
I am at Snow Bear for a one-man writer’s retreat, wherein I plan to exercise mightily, eat simply, and write lots and lots. I could use a little less snow and ice, frankly. But I’ll just have to go below the snow line for my trail hikes. I would also like to upload some […]
Read entry →October 12, 2011 · 114 words
Goldman’s Game of Life
Does anyone remember The Game of Life? You drove in a little plastic car around the game board, and if you made all the right decisions, you’d end up with a home in the suburbs, a mortgage, and 2.5 children. Which was the game’s definition of happiness, I guess. Those zany jokers at Goldman have […]
Read entry →October 11, 2011 · 58 words
Skynet Got Drones!
A computer virus has hit the entire U.S. drone fleet. The virus— a keylogger— was first spotted a couple weeks ago, and is proving very difficult to scrub from the drones and their servers. So far the virus hasn’t interfered with the drones’ missions, but that only means that Skynet is biding its time [&hel
Read entry →October 10, 2011 · 542 words
Reviews Too Late: Max Manus (2008)
Fearful, apparently, that American audiences might not know that Max Manus was a celebrated Norwegian resistance fighter, the American release is subtitled MAN OF WAR, so everyone will think the film is about a race horse. Max Manus was the most expensive film ever made in Norway, and is based on Max’s two autobiograph
Read entry →October 7, 2011 · 119 words
Doom Plus. Gloom Plus.
Last week I linked to a BBC video interview with Alessio Rastani, a trader who predicted that, well, Europe is well and truly fucked, and the rest of us with it, and that he and a lot of other people were prepared to make a lot of money off Europe’s misery. The response from the […]
Read entry →October 6, 2011 · 786 words
Prayers on the Wind
I got a little weary of copy-editing entire novels, so I decided to make my Nebula-nominated novelette, Prayers on the Wind, available for your reading pleasure. You may download it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. It’s only 99 cents! What have you got to lose? The story was written at the request of [&hellip
Read entry →October 2, 2011 · 863 words
Reviews Too Late: 13 Assassins
13 Assassins is a terrific film, but only if you’re the sort of person who enjoys films that end with an excruciating 40-minute bloodbath in which a couple hundred people are sliced, decapitated, shot, disemboweled, stabbed, run through, blown up, buried under collapsing buildings, and trampled by a herd of stampeding
Read entry →October 1, 2011 · 164 words
Ebook Updates!
The Hardwired ebook is now available for your reading pleasure on Kindle, Nook, and via Smashwords. Smashwords will distribute to all you Sony Reader, iPad, and Kobo users, though it may take some weeks for this to appear in all catalogs. (The formatting problems mentioned in an earlier post have all been resolved. Dow
Read entry →September 28, 2011 · 103 words
No Money Changed Hands
I would like to salaam in the direction of author Jo Walton, who has once again defied Internet tradition by committing another unsolicited act of total niceness. In other words, she wrote another discerning essay for Tor.com about my work, in this case Metropolitan and City on Fire. Honestly, I’m not paying this woman
Read entry →September 27, 2011 · 171 words
Market Value? What Market Value?
Wondering why you may not have heard of hacking collective Anonymous for a while? Because, as it appears, the ad hoc organization has been busy assembling Anonymous Analytics, a public equity research entity (and we venture to guess focused mostly on the short side) whose motto is “Acquiring information through unconve
Read entry →September 27, 2011 · 76 words
Truth To The Powerless
Here we see a video of trader Alessio Rastani telling startled BBC interviewers that the world economic system is going to collapse, that millions will lose their money, and Goldman Sachs will rule the world (if it doesn’t already). Why is he telling saying this in public? Because nothing we do matters, that’s why. All
Read entry →September 22, 2011 · 333 words
“Flying Pigs Now Ice-Skate in Hell,” says Physicist.
A fundamental pillar of physics – that nothing can go faster than the speed of light – appears to be smashed by an oddball subatomic particle that has apparently made a giant end run around Albert Einstein’s theories. Scientists at the world’s largest physics lab said Thursday they have clocked neutrinos travelling fas
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