Although Christmas 2007 isn’t even over yet, I already have an item on my wish list for next Yule’s Tide.

I’ve spoken elsewhere about futuristic sports that you see in SF movies and think “No one will ever play that.” Well, to that list I add toys of the future that you see in SF movies and think “No one will ever play with something like that.”

Presenting a toy from the future: the Fentix Cube–the world’s first cubic touchscreen computer games platform.

There’s a good article about its possibilities from the BBC here, and you can check out the website of the designer, Andrew Fentem, here.

In fact, this guy’s website demonstrates a whole slate of future toys, sure to ensure many a high-tech Christmas to come.

Oh man, I want one.

– S.

I hate cats.

And they hate me–we have an understanding. Mutual loathing is the dynamic we’ve agreed upon.

I’m a fish guy by nature.

But if there’s anything worse than a cat, anything worse than those creepy glowing eyes from the darkness, it’s when the whole cat glows.

Apparently some Korean researchers had nothing more pressing to do (like cure cancer or something) and decided to genetically engineer and then clone (mostly because they could) cats who glow under ultraviolet light.

Clearly an example of science run amok.

Creepy little buggers.

– S.

So word today that Peter Jackson and New Line have settled their tiff over a quarter billions dollars, or so, and that the way is open now for a film version of The Hobbit to proceed.

Okay. Great. I loved (with the exception of my fanboy objection to the elves showing up at Helm’s Deep) the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.

And yet I have mixed emotions at this announcement because Peter Jackson will only be executive producing The Hobbit. Apparently he’ll be too busy directing…the Tintin movie trilogy?? At least the French will be happy…

Okay. I can get past this so long as they get Ian McKellan to play Gandalf again and Ian Holm to play Bilbo (I guess they’ll have to tape his face back for the whole movie they way they did for the flashback scene in FotR of Bilbo’s discovery of the Ring–the man is in his late 70s…)

But then…

But then there’s news that the movie will actually be TWO movies.

The first would deal with the events in the novel, while the second, imagined entirely by Jackson and Walsh, would link the conclusion of The Hobbit to the start of The Fellowship of the Ring.

In a way that makes sense–The Hobbit is, after all, about a bunch of greedy adventures intent on stealing as much of a dragon’s gold as they can, no matter the destruction it might cause.

But why, oh why does everyone have to keep going back to the well? Is there no shred of artistic integrity to be found in anyone in Hollywood?

Perhaps not, considering that Sam Raimi is being considered to direct.

Now, I’m a fan of Raimi’s early work–small, low-budget cult films where he couldn’t hurt anybody.

But what this film needs, if it can’t have Peter Jackson directing, is someone who is an uberfan (like Peter Jackson) of Tolkien’s works.

Sam Raimi is a self-confessed Spiderman uberfan…and look how he ran into the ground what he claims to have loved most. Now, while not a huge fan of the first two Spidey movies, I’ll admit they were pretty good. But Spiderman 3? It was so bad it actually went back in time and tainted the previously pretty good Spiderman 1 and Spiderman 2.

Do we want this to happen to LOTR? I think not.

Let the guy who directed Pan’s Labyrinth direct The Hobbit–he at least can put a movie together the right way.

– S.

Hi everybody –

Well, despite the 5am wake-up I think I did pretty well in my first radio interview this morning.

I’m rarely aware of what I’ve said when I do things like this (I still don’t have any idea what I said on the TV interview at the Kitchener Rogers affiliate–have to wait for the DVD of that one…) but having heard the CBC interview streamed from the web when I got home I’m quite pleased with how things went.

I didn’t sound like a doofus, anyway, which is always my primary concern when I do media 🙂

Andy Barrie, the regular host of Metro Morning was snowed in at his farm (not hard to believe given the 30cm of snow we got yesterday) so guest host Jane Hawtin did a nice little six minute interview with me about gene doping in sport and about my story, “Citius, Altius, Fortius” from Tesseracts Eleven.

For those of you who missed it, check out the Real Player stream of my Metro Morning segment from their website: http://www.cbc.ca/metromorning/

They move it to a five day archive tomorrow, so I’ll try and update the link then.

– S.

This is definitely an article aimed at the politically and science fictionally nerdy–luckily I’m both.

Read this article from the New York Times.

I laughed so hard I cried.

– S.

Well, shortly after the e-mail I sent to Metro Morning today one of the producers tracked me down at the day job (via my blog–I knew this thing was worthwhile!) and asked me to be a guest on Monday’s show.

I’m going to talk about gene doping in sport and about my story, “Citius, Altius, Fortius” from Tesseracts Eleven.

This–like much that has happened to me this year–is all a bit surreal. And more than a little intimidating. Metro Morning is CBC Radio Toronto’s flagship show and is the #1 rated wake-up/drive-time radio show in the GTA, pulling somewhere around a quarter million listeners each morning.

*Gulp*

Ah well, I’m sure it will be fun.

I’m scheduled to be live on air around 6:40am Monday morning on 99.1 FM in Toronto. And for those of you outside the GTA (or who can’t get up that early) they often post sound clips on their website later in the day. Don’t know if they’ll post one of my interview, but check here Monday afternoon and find out.

– S.

Hello all –

Many thanks to fellow WOTFist Steve Gaskell for alerting us to the BestSF.net review of Writers of the Future XXIII.

Of my story the reviewer, Mark Watson, say:

Nice!

And when considering who he feels will be Writers of the Future from our cohort he pegs “one of Gaskell, Bunker, Sevcik as having that little bit something extra over the others.”

So it’s definitely on, now 🙂

You can read the full review here.

– S.

Read this and then go to www.onlinerights.ca to make your voice heard.

Seems to me that if I pay for something I should have the right to use and enjoy it personally in any manner (or format or on any player/reader, etc.) I wish to.

And, as a writer, I need to do everything I can to expand my audience not restrict or limit it. Can you imagine a world in which it’s illegal to loan a friend a book? This legislation could do just that.

– S.

Sent this to Metro Morning today after I woke up to a discussion of the Mitchell Report on steroid use in baseball.

Metro Morning is Toronto’s top-rated morning radio show, hosted by Andy Barrie. While the discussion was interesting, I think the assumption was that the future is farther off than it actually is…

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Dear Mr. Barrie –

I listened with great interest to your discussion Friday morning with Scott Regher and Michael Hlinka about the Mitchell Report on steroid use in baseball. However, I think your contention that genetic modification of athletes—so-called ‘gene doping’—will be common “in fifteen years” is a little optimistic. I can assure you that the future is now.

Experts believe that athletes at the Beijing Olympics this coming summer will be amongst the first who have undergone gene alteration to enhance their performance. Far from a sci-fi dream, the technology for gene doping—modifying an athlete’s own genome by inserting specific high-performance genes targeted at performance enhancement—already exists and is widely available. It is the same process currently used for gene therapy in hospitals around the world.

I am an award-winning science fiction author, and as is the case in my latest story, “Citius, Altius, Fortius” in the new Canadian anthology Tesseracts Eleven, the difficulty with gene doping is in the detection. Unlike steroids, growth hormone, or blood doping there are no telltale byproducts of metabolism that can be tested for. The delivery system for most gene therapy is a modified virus—the common cold. And unless we have a pre-modified copy of an athlete’s genome to compare against it will be almost impossible to determine whether a homerun champion or gold medal winner has been altered for enhanced performance.

After all, you can hardly disqualify someone for having a cold, can you?

Best wishes,

Stephen Kotowych
Winner of the 2007 Writers of the Future Grand Prize
http://kotowych.blogspot.com/