“Where Do You Get Your Ideas?”

That is the question that writers often get, and scientists, too, although less often.  Harlan Ellison and others have semi-famous responses, about ordering them through mail order companies for a dime each, or other similarly snide responses.
Generating ideas is a skill that can be developed.
More importantly, I think, is the skill to recognize what ideas [...]

We Are Living in a Science Fiction World

I’m on vacation in Brazil now.  Not too much time to blog, busy seeing friends and doing things, and had some internet problems, too.  And watch out for the Brazilian pizza, I warn you.  I think that’s what I’ll blame being sick on yesterday.  It seemed pretty greasy but I ate it all up anyway…not [...]

Some Starlinks, Some Comments

Well, the semester is over, and I’m still pretty busy.  I may be posting a little less often than every day, but I will try to make more substantial original entries when I do.  Still, got to post links when I have them to share.
First, I saw IRON MAN 2 finally, and it was ok.  [...]

The Borderlands of Science

I’m a liberal, atheist scientist and hard science fiction writer and I very much identify with the skeptical community.  But you know, they piss me off sometimes.  This goes back quite a few years to when I wrote a review on amazon.com fro Michael Shermer’s book The Borderlands of Science.  If you just look at [...]

Themes in Science Fiction: Cultural Relativism and Absolute Morality

Does Captain Kirk follow the Prime Directive — not to interfere with a developing alien species, or does he choose to do the right thing as he sees it?
Does the team on Stargate: SG1 let the people on an alien world follow their own laws, or try to impose their own moral sensibilities upon them?
This [...]

Eight “Cult” Science Fiction TV Series Now Available from Amazon

Amazon.com seems to do a scary good job with their targeted marketing. I got hit up today in my email, suggesting I might be interested in purchasing these tv shows on dvd:

Earth 2 - The Complete Series
Starhunter - The Complete Series
Odyssey 5 - The Complete Series
Space Above and Beyond - [...]

The Sound and the Fury about Stephen Hawking’s Alien Warning

Last night I caught the much discussed Discovery Channel episode of Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking dealing with aliens. The initial clip on the website is “Fear the Aliens” which is the controversial bit.  Hawking, unlike Carl Sagan, apparently thinks that we would have much to fear from technologically advanced aliens and that we [...]

Shields Down to 30%, Captain…

I’m still swamped through the end of the week, and my energy levels are really low.  Last month was emotionally draining, too.  I’ve got friends who blog a lot more than me, even when life beats the crap out of them.  Guess I’m not quite there.  And it isn’t all crap-beating here.  Giving and grading [...]

I’m Turning Japanese…AGAIN!

OK, not as exciting as it sounds, but sometimes smart guys like me can be slow to realize some things.  There were some oddities about the cover to the Japanese paperback edition of Spider Star I blogged about a few days ago.  It finally sank in that they didn’t send me 4 copies of the [...]

Launch Pad 2010 Attendees

We’ve finally gotten the 2010 attendee list finalized.  I managed to squeeze the limited budget a little more again and have squeezed in an extra person or two, all of who I think are great writers and interesting people reaching broad audiences.  As usual there are some great and interesting writers I couldn’t fit in, [...]