Category: science-fiction
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Alfred Bester and The Light Fantastic
In working through Robert Silverberg’s Science Fiction 101 (a compilation of essential Silver-era speculative fiction and analysis of how to write it), I came across The Light Fantastic by Alfred Bester in the bibliography. When I talk about silver era, I mean the post-Baron Edward John Moreton Draw Plunkett Lord Dunsany, post-H.G. Wells, pre-Nebula Award…
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The Road — Cormac McCarthy’s Inferno
I have avoided reading McCarthy’s The Road since it came out in college predominately because, after reading All The Pretty Horses, I didn’t think I needed that kind of bleak post apocalypse in my mind. You remember what you want to forget and forget what you want to remember, after all. And frankly, knowing what…
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Chat GPT Ethics, Uses, and Other Ai Ethics — Heliosphere
We gathered at Heliosphere this year for several panels and one included a talk on Chat GPT Ethics, Uses, and Other Ai Ethics. The talk featured Chris Kreuter, Renee Ritchie, and Elektra Hammond — so of course, I was out of my league trying to keep my head above water. We talked through all manner ethical…
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Writers Group Near You — House Points
Starlings NYC has met since 2016 which is, as of 2023, seven years ago. I figured we would start keeping track of “house points.” As in 10 points for Griffyndor. There’s a writers group near you — what if they kept track of group points? Only in this case, it’s sales. And we’ll do it in…
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Story Inspiration from Breaking Science
The wonderful folks who run Heliosphere invited me to moderate and participate in several panels for their conference. One of the panels was Story Inspiration from Breaking Science. The panel included Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Dr. James Prego, and Sarena Strauss. We started out hypothesizing from various abstracts we’d come across. We — mostly me — got a bit…
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Heliosphere Convention Schedule 2023
Hey gang, just got my Heliosphere convention schedule this last week, so I wanted to toss it in here in case anyone’s coming. We’re bringing several writers and creative types down to New Jersey from NYC: FRIDAY 5:00 pm – 6:15 pm – Salon CExploring the Uses and Ethics of ChatGPT and Other AI Models…
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First Winner of Nebula Award
Who was the first winner of Nebula award? The first winner of Nebula award for best novel was Frank Herbert’s Dune, but other awards were offered that year. The ceremony started in 1965 and was presented simultaneously in the east at Overseas Press Club in New York, New York on March 11, 1966 and in…
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Science Fiction Fantasy Alliance AMA
The delightful mods of the Science Fiction Fantasy Alliance (SFFA) hosted their first AMA and invited me to come and talk. Here’s the recording of what went down:
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Nebula Award Winners
Nebula Award winners are a bit difficult to find gathered all in one post on the SFWA site, no offense to them. If you go to the SFWA site — for whom I remain obviously grateful — it’s several extra clicks to get to the proper year, which makes it rather difficult to search by author. I…
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George MacDonald Universalism against Hans Urs von Balthasar on Universal Salvation
Many a wrong, and its curing song; Many a road, and many an inn; Room to roam, but only one home For all the world to win. (Eve, in MacDonald’s Lilith) I want to put two eschatologies in conversation, that of Hans Urs von Balthasar on Universal Salvation and that of George MacDonald Universalism. The…
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THE EVOLUTION OF ECOLOGICAL ATTITUDES AS REPRESENTED IN AMERICAN LITERATURE
ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS A comparative analysis of works in American literature reveals the evolving ecological attitudes of society as illustrated through the perceptions and values of characters in regards to the natural environment. Applying an ecocritical approach, elements from each work are examined in three categories to chart the evolution of ecological attitude; environmental…
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Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
Each time I teach a literature course, I ask my students some version of this question, “What is literature?” Often it’s a question they haven’t considered, and we usually end up discussing our class reading list versus some of the more popular novels they know of. This leads us to talk about why we are…