Currently listening to

... The Tragically Hip's Fully Completely. Or, at least, mostly.

Always feel bad saying this, as I'm pretty sure they were trying, but they never topped this one.

Elizabeth lives

Alive and well and a proud Londoner, now.

Phew.

Why so much of it sucks: a unified theory

Commented at Holly's blog and on Judith Berman's LiveJournal on the subject of why a lot of SF (and literature) is unsatisfying, of late...

Yes, you can comment, if you wish, that for a guy who's published precious little fiction (and, actually, hasn't even been reading that much) lately, I've got a lot of opinions.

Yes, you can. But I'll delete it.

Kidding. Mostly.

Let's hear some hubris

(Alternate title: Do not taunt happy space slushball)

... duly noted in this week's Nature, UCL researcher Andrew Coates, talking about the Deep Impact mission, commented:

We used to be afraid of comets. The dinosaurs should have been afraid of comets. Now it is the comets' turn to be afraid.

— Nature, Vol 436, July 2005, p. 10

...a quotation the august journal drily tagged as getting 'a little carried away'...

To which I've little to add. I mean, it's durned impressive and all that they actually hit the thing (hey, this is rocket science), but since folks commenting on any potential effects on the orbit described the probe's encounter with Tempel as being 'like a bug hitting the windscreen of a bus', and since the actual practicality of shifting or destroying one of these things (a la a certain bad Hollywood movie) if it actually comes looking for us is seriously questionable right now, we might want to keep that in mind before we actually go taunting them.

(Looks up nervously)

What I'm reading next

I know this isn't how it's usually done, but my reading schedule's kinda slow, of late.

(Not good, I know. That old dictum 'never write more than you're reading', that's a pretty good rule of thumb, actually.)

Anyway: when I get to it, the next on the stack is James Randi's The Faith Healers.

There's a practical research reason for this, but I've also always had a perverse fascination with cons of all persuasions, their victims, and the human dynamics (hope, gullibility, desperation and sometimes greed on the part of the marks, self-delusion both on the part of the con and the mark, and a mix of motivations running finally to craven greed on the part of the con) that make the phenomenon possible. And in the religious sphere in particular, from Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard, through Peter Popoff and Benny Hinn, there's a whole rich vein of material on the machinations of the self-described prophets and healers that play and have played in that space.

I've probably read too much on this stuff already, s'true. But what can ya do? It's a vice of mine.

Prescience

Find myself thinkin' of David Rees this morning.

No reason.

Expect I'll defer all other comment on London to those who were there.

Revenge

In a radical departure from my standard operating procedure, here's an excerpt (PDF) from actually current work—a little taste of Carrion Birds.

And in case you're wondering, yes, I do share some of Berke Breathed's oft-stated hostility to bad, vapid, and painfully repetitive so-called 'humour' strips that go on for decades past their creators actually having anything remotely interesting or entertaining to say. So yes, you might consider this a bit of revenge.

Currently reading

John M. Barry's The Great Influenza.

... all in keeping with my fascination with things small and deadly.

Visiting parents/Raccoons and pears

Spent the July first weekend visiting my parents. Hence, little blogging last few days. You can connect to the net from their place, but there wasn't much time. Various folks who hadn't met our littlest one yet showed up; they kept us pretty busy.

Got back to catch some raccoons in the act of eating the pears from our trees. Pesky things. Between them and the squirrels, I haven't had a single pear off those branches yet. Chased 'em off, but the writing's probably on the wall for that fruit. I mean, it's not like I can sleep out there and lie in wait. And I expect they probably know this.

Still. Annoying. We've got so many apples, they could stuff themselves silly, we'd still have more. But no, they gotta go for the as yet rather meagre harvest from the still quite young pear trees. I'm beginning to think they're just doing it to annoy me.