Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 230 entries, all of them here in full.
October 22, 2008 · 380 words
Reviews Too Late: Ninja Vixens!
Ninja Vixens: Devilish Angels is strictly low budget. It’s a straight-to-video production with poor production quality, little control over color, an often-static camera, less-than-brilliant acting, poor special effects, and inept fight scenes. I ordered it from Netflix because I couldn’t resist something with a title
Read entry →October 22, 2008 · 193 words
The Franchise
I voted today. I will spare you the suspense and tell you that I did not vote for White-Haired Senileguy and his dingbat running mate, who grow progressively less charming as the season advances. (Obama’s too popular! No, he’s a pal to terrorists! No, he’s a socialist! No, this week he’s a commie! And he […]
Read entry →October 16, 2008 · 457 words
A Writer’s Life, Again
Amazing how much difference a couple days can make.On Monday, I wrote at some length about the distractions that were preventing me from properly thinking about my work, let alone getting much of it done.Most of Tuesday I was a total wreck. I blame the fact that we were socked in by rainclouds. I’m a […]
Read entry →October 14, 2008 · 151 words
Crystal Cave
Last night we got to watch our friend, the exobiologist Penny Boston, as she donned her moon suit and went into the Crystal Cave.No, Penny didn’t enter a Mary Stewart novel. She went into the Crystal Cave under the Naica Mountains in Mexico, a place where you can find huge crystals forty feet long and […]
Read entry →October 14, 2008 · 369 words
A Writer’s Life
Some of you, I’m sure, wonder why I’m not more prolific, like those other SF writers.A description of my day might give you a good idea.I rose this morning, fed the cats, ate a banana, and went out into the breezeway to do martial arts. I did about a quarter-hour of kata before repeated telephone […]
Read entry →October 13, 2008 · 458 words
Reviews Too Late: The Wire
Last night I screened (courtesy of Netflix) the final episode of The Wire, which over its five years has pretty damn clearly proven itself the Greatest Dramatic TV Series Ever. The series never won any major awards, but it’s so good that it ought to be inscribed, like the works of Chuck Berry, on a […]
Read entry →October 11, 2008 · 252 words
New Banks!
So while I was watching CNN yesterday while the markets were doing their Chicken Little dance, and they had a guest ec0nomist named Khan, or maybe Cahn— at any rate he wasn’t their regular correspondent Riz Khan— who had a solution to the debt crisis so pleasingly science-fictional that I immediately fell i
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