SF Tidbits for 12/20/07
By John DeNardo |
Thursday, December 20th, 2007 at
1:15 am
- At SF Gospel, Gabriel Mckee (author of The Gospel According to Science Fiction) lists The 10 Best Science Fiction Stories About Religion.
- At SciFi Wire, John Joseph Adams profiles Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, author of Borne in Blood.
- Locus Online has posted Graham Sleight’s Locus Magazine column “Yesterday’s Tomorrows” which, this month, looks at classic works by James Tiptree, Jr.
- Recently free fiction at ManyBooks.net: “Long Ago, Far Away” by Murray Leinster and “Charley de Milo” by Laurence Mark Janifer
- Free audio fiction: SFF Audio has a reading of “Trunk And Disorderly” By Charles Stross. [via Quasar Dragon]
- Reminder: Solaris continues serializing Chris Roberson’s Three Unbroken.
- Robert J. Sawyer plays Alex Trebek with this set of tough Trek trivia questions.
- Real Science: Our Moon 30 million years younger and more Earth-like than previously thought. The Moon is “merely a ‘chip off the old block’ of Earth rather than being made up of the remnants of a Mars-sized body that slammed into Earth billions of years ago.” James P. Hogan almost called it back in 1977 with his book Inherit the Stars, eh? [via Velcro City Tourist Board]
- My Paper Crane shows some Star Wars Voodoo dolls. Oddly, there’s no Jar Jar. I’m thinking they sold out. [via SciFi Scanner]
- I wish all my Cthristmas Cthards looked like this.
- Speaking of Cthulhu, check out this hilarious Amazon review (by Matt B.) of this Bic Crystal ballpoint pen. [via Pat Cadigan]
Related posts:
- SF Tidbits for 8/24/06
- SF Tidbits for 4/4/06
- SF Tidbits for 2/17/07
- SF Tidbits for 10/10/06
- SF Tidbits for 11/27/07
Filed under: Tidbits
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“James P. Hogan almost called…”
Well, as long as you overlook the fact that Hogan was talking about historical timeframes vs. geological timeframes and he had the Moon being the satellite of a planet that now no longer exists (our asteroid belt) and wandering through the solar system to neatly fall into a orbit around Earth, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I think “Inherit the Stars” is a fun book. But his theories are a bit off.
That is, without a doubt, the funniest review of a Bic pen I have ever read.
Just as all Christmas tales should read like this
Fred: Woah, man…settle down, settle down…;-) I was just talking about *** SPOILER ALERT *** the Moon originally being part of a planet. So, yeah…I guess I was overlooking all that other stuff.
Man, that “Matt B.” fellow is pretty lucky. I must’ve gone thru hundreds of Bic pens, not one had a portal in it!
Interesting question: The book has been out since the 1970′s, at what point can we assume that we no longer need spoiler alerts?
(H)
Great question, Fred! I’ve generally set the boundary at two years – anything older than that and it’s fair game without the warning. Especially in the age of the ‘net, anything older than two years has probably been discussed thoroughly and openly to a degree that you’d be likely to stumble on a spoiler or two at some point. Also, to paraphrase Jack Black in High Fidelity, you might have some desire to read a book/story or watch a show/movie, but if you really had wanted to do it, you would have already done so by now, so spoilers can’t matter much. Anything within the two year limit though, is still new enough that if you had a big in-box pile you might not reasonably have got around to reading it yet. In that case, it’s only polite to give a spoilage advisory.
The question for me then becomes, how do we treat re-cut re-releases of classic movies, like the just-released Blade Runner – The Final Cut? We already know the plot, so it should be fair game without the warning. And yet, because enough tinkering might make enough of an alteration to your experience of the movie…
You mean the sequence in the “new” BR where the androids all start throwing pies at the cops is a spoiler?
Naw, I was thinking about that scene where Roy reveals that he’s Deckard’s father.