Hi all –

While I’ve been away from the blog for a while, I’ve not been entirely out of the fiction game: I’ve joined a new writers group. It’s going extremely well, we all seem to want the same things out of the group (even if that’s where most of our similarities end) and we’ve even got a kickass name and motto:

The Stop-Watch Gang — “We will cut you!”

Before you ask: no, we’re not looking for new members and, besides, we have criteria. You have to have at least one professional sale, as defined by the SFWA rules for membership. We’re actually a pretty impressive group, if I do say so: our collective credentials include four published novels, an Aurora Award, two Aurora nominations, three Writers of the Future wins, and between us perhaps a couple of dozen short story publications.

One of the great things about writers groups is the odd and hilarious things overheard during meetings as we critique each others stories. I know that Clarion does a t-shirt every year, and I kept a running tally of bon mots from my Writers of the Future workshop week, so I thought that I’d share some of the ongoing hilarity of the Stop-Watch Gang. These are all comments that illustrate an individual’s reaction to a particular story under consideration (note: attributions have been removed to protect the innocent…)

“It’s like Piers Anthony on speed.”

“It’s Agatha Christie-punk!”

“Omniscient? That’s not good enough.”

“Just call it a big @#%$ing wall!”

“Spirits are a pain in the @#%$ing ass…”

“Sorry Stephen–there’s even more snark in yours.”

“Blah blah blah–just erupt the volcano already!”

“Oh! Alliteration! Yeah, you don’t want that.”

“I like $@#% like this…I don’t do it, but I like $@#% like this.”

More quotable quotes as they become available…

– S.

This…from this?

A truly amazing discovery: a means of transforming rattan wood into–wait for it–a replacement for human bone grafts.

Scientists in Italy have developed a way of turning rattan wood into bone that is almost identical to the human tissue. Simply, rattan is heated, carbon and calcium are added, the wood is further heated under intense pressure in an oven-like machine and a phosphate solution is introduced.

After about 10 days, the rattan wood has been transformed into the bone-like material. Within months, the real and artificial bone will have fused, as rattan has porous properties which enable blood, nerves and other compounds to travel through it. Eventually you don’t even see the joint where the graft was inserted.

Just amazing. Get all the details here.

– S.

Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, has issued a call for papers for an academic conference entitled “Social Science on the Final Frontier.” Guest authors at the event will include Robert J. Sawyer, Karl Schroeder, and Julie E. Czerneda.

Paper proposals of roughly 250 words should be submitted to Tim Nieguth by May 15, 2010.

Full text of the call for papers follows. For more information see the conference website: http://inord.laurentian.ca/SF.html

Call for Papers:
Social Science on the Final Frontier
August 23 – 25, 2010
Laurentian University Sudbury, Ontario

MIGRATIONS: THE LAURENTIAN ASSOCIATION FOR SCIENCE FICTION is pleased to invite paper proposals for a conference on science fiction and society.

As a genre, science fiction entails implicit or explicit assumptions about social ontology, societal values, norms and traditions, the operation of power, the production, distribution and consumption of goods, the motors of social change, and the nature of social laws. It therefore offers a rich field of inquiry and a valuable heuristic device to social scientists. We welcome any proposals that aim to explore the terrain of science fiction from the perspective of political science, economics, or other social sciences.

Given the conference location in Northern Ontario, we are especially (but by no means exclusively) interested in paper proposals that address the “Canadian dimension” of science fiction, internal colonialism, the relationship between frontier and utopia, or the nature of resource extraction societies.

The organizers will consider selected papers for publication in an edited collection.

Please submit paper proposals of roughly 250 words to Tim Nieguth by May 15, 2010.

Proposals should be accompanied by a brief author bio and full contact information (including email). Please feel free to contact the conference organizers for additional information about the conference.

Conference organizers:

Tim Nieguth Department of Political Science Laurentian University Sudbury, Ontario Canada P3E 2C6 Tel.: (705) 675-1151, ext. 4329 tnieguth@laurentian.ca

David Robinson Department of Economics Laurentian University Sudbury, Ontario Canada P3E 2C6 Tel.: (705) 675-1151, ext. 4285 drobinson@laurentian.ca

This is amazing:

The view from Ecuador is what I always pictured the Ringworld looking like… Can you imagine New York illuminated by the Earth’s rings at night? I can’t help but wonder how human civilization would be different if our planet did have rings. Don’t know how Earth would ever have acquired rings in the first place. A dwarf moon that broke up in orbit? Hmm. Maybe a story in there somewhere…

– S.

Apparently the veined octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus) has mastered the use of tools: members of this species have been observed in the wild using coconut-shell halves as faux shells and as hiding places.

You can find articles here, here, and here.

The veined octopus selects halved coconut shells from the sea floor, empties them out, carries them suctioned under their bodies up to 20 metres, and assembles two shells together to make a spherical hiding spot, like so:

The video on the National Geographic website (here) is just incredible to watch.

Note, though, at the end of that video the octopus demonstrating its natural hatred of man and instinct to attack him. Have we learned nothing from Capt. Nemo and the tragedy of the Nautilus?

I’ve long thought that if humans were wiped out on land, cephalopods would evolve the ability to breath air and take our place as the dominant species on the planet. They have massive brains relative to the size of their bodies, they can change shape and colour, they have eight prehensile limbs, an ink jet… Sounds like a super organism to me.

Now that they are beginning to master tools it’s only a matter of time until homo sapiens‘ existence as a species is threatened. How are we supposed to compete with a creature that has four times as many arms as we do? What if they learn jujitsu? Can you imagine how unstoppable an eight-limed ninja would be!??!

I, for one, welcome our octopus overlords…

– S.

Here’s the current state of the ‘stache. I’m happy to report that as of this past weekend, my Movemeber Team has raised over $1000 for prostate cancer research! Woohoo! And it’s only the middle of Movember.

Four teammates have raised over $100 each (and one guy has over $200 just by himself). Want to help me reach the $100-mark in donations? Yeah, I thought you would.

Go to this link http://ca.movember.com/mospace/300982/ and click on the ‘Donate to Me’ button right under the photo of me and D’Artagnan (that’s my mo’) to make your donation under my name–don’t worry: I promise it ALL goes to the charity 🙂

– S.

The ‘Mo: Week 1
I’ve decided to grow a style I’m terming ‘The Musketeer’–a moustache accompanied on the lower lip by what is alternately known as ‘the soul patch’, ‘the tickler’, or (more disturbingly) ‘the George Strombolopolous.’ In keeping with the French theme, I have therefore named my facial hair D’Artagnan.

Hello all!

I have decided to join a global movement that is bringing much needed attention to prostate cancer. I’m doing this by growing a Moustache this Movember, the month formerly known as November. My commitment is to grow a moustache all November and I am hoping that you will support my efforts by making a donation. The funds raised go directly to Prostate Cancer Canada.

What many people don’t know is that 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer to afflict Canadian men with 25,500 diagnosed and 4,400 dying from the disease each year.

Facts like these have convinced me I should get involved…that and the fact that I think I’ll look awesome with a ‘stache 😉

To make a donation, you can either:
• Click this link http://ca.movember.com/mospace/300982/ and
donate online using your credit card or PayPal account , or
• Write a cheque payable to ‘Prostate Cancer Canada’, referencing
my Registration Number 300982 and mailing it to: Prostate Cancer
Canada, 145 Front Street East, Ste. 306, Toronto, ON M5A 1E3, Canada.

All donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Prostate Cancer Canada will use the money raised by Movember for the development of programs related to awareness, public education, advocacy, support of those affected, and research into the prevention, detection, treatment and cure of prostate cancer.

For more details on how the funds raised from previous campaigns have been used and the impact Movember is having please go to http://ca.movemberfoundation.com/research-and-programs/

Thanks to all, and feel free to pass this info along to anyone who you think
might want to donate!

Oh, and I promise ‘mo update photos on my blog so you see what you dollars are paying for!

TTFN

– S.

Some cool news today: John Joseph Adams will be at the helm of a new sci-fi magazine starting next year, and (even cooler!) my friend and fellow WOTFian Andrea Kail will be involved as the non-fiction editor. Congratulations Andrea and JJA!

I’ve only met JJA once at World Fantasy, but he was a really nice guy and Andrea is just great, too. This will really be a magazine to keep your eye on, folks!

This is the press-release that went around today:

Prime Books Announces Lightspeed, a New Science Fiction Magazine

ROCKVILLE, MD, OCT. 16 — Prime Books, the award-winning independent press and publisher of Fantasy Magazine, announced today that in June 2010 it will launch a new online magazine called Lightspeed (www.lightspeedmagazine.com), which will publish four science fiction short stories every month, along with an assortment of non-fiction features. Lightspeed will be edited by John Joseph Adams, the bestselling editor of anthologies such as Wastelands and The Living Dead, and Andrea Kail, a writer, critic, and television producer who worked for thirteen years on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Adams will select and edit the fiction, while Kail will handle the non-fiction.

Lightspeed will focus exclusively on science fiction. It will feature all types of sf, from near-future, sociological soft sf, to far-future, star-spanning hard sf, and anything and everything in between. No subject will be considered off-limits, and writers will be encouraged to take chances with their fiction and push the envelope. New content will be posted twice a week, including one piece of fiction, and one piece of non-fiction. The fiction selections each month will consist of two original stories and two reprints, except for the debut issue, which will feature four original pieces of fiction. All of the non-fiction will be original.

Lightspeed will open to fiction submissions and non-fiction queries on January 1, 2010. Guidelines for fiction and non-fiction will be available on Lightspeed‘s website, www.lightspeedmagazine.com, by December 1, 2009.

About John Joseph Adams
John Joseph Adams (www.johnjosephadams.com) is the bestselling editor of many anthologies, such as By Blood We Live, Federations, The Living Dead (a World Fantasy Award finalist), and Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse. He has been called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble’s Unabashedly Bookish blog and his anthology The Living Dead was named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly. In addition to his editorial work, he is also currently a reviewer for Audible.com, a blogger for Tor.com, and the co-host of the podcast The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy.

About Andrea Kail
Andrea Kail (www.andreakail.com) is a graduate of the Dramatic Writing Program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and has spent the last two decades working from one end of New York’s television spectrum to the other: HBO, MTV, A&E, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, as well as thirteen years at NBC’s Emmy Award-winning Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Her fiction has appeared in Fantasy Magazine, and her novella, “The Sun God at Dawn, Rising from a Lotus Blossom,” was a first-place winner in the Writers of the Future contest and appeared in Writers of the Future Vol. XXIII. Since 2005, Andrea has also been writing lively film criticism for such venues as Paradox Magazine and CinemaSpy.

About Prime Books
Prime Books (www.prime-books.com), edited and published by Hugo Award-nominee and World Fantasy Award-winner Sean Wallace, is an award-winning independent publishing house specializing in a mix of anthologies, collections, novels, and magazines. Some of its established and new authors/editors include John Joseph Adams, KJ Bishop, Philip K. Dick, Theodora Goss, Rich Horton, Nick Mamatas, Sarah Monette, Holly Phillips, Tim Pratt, Ekaterina Sedia, Catherynne M. Valente, and Jeff VanderMeer.

Contacts
Sean Wallace, publisher, sean@lightspeedmagazine.com
John Joseph Adams, fiction editor, john@lightspeedmagazine.com
Andrea Kail, non-fiction editor, andrea@lightspeedmagazine.com

I’m offended on behalf of Steve’s everywhere…