james_davis_nicoll

I wouldn't have used "bad", myself, because there are reviews that are as inept as the lousiest of books and I want to reserve "bad" for them. I'd have used "negative". Although I guess inept might do.

Bad reviews are a basic fact of literary life, you might have thought. There are so many different kinds of literary taste, that no book can be all things to all readers. One person’s comfort reading is another’s trash, and what’s thought-provoking to one is high-faluting nonsense to another. But the essential subjectivity of taste is hard to keep in mind when it’s your favourite book that’s getting a pasting: what seemed to the reviewer to be a careful and evidence-based summary of the book’s failing, seems to you to be an attack on your taste, your culture, and your personality. To criticize something you like is tantamount to criticizing you, and that’s personal, damn it!

It’s this reaction, I think, that explains why responses to bad reviews so often take the form of personal attacks on the reviewer. In fact, there’s such a standard playbook of responses, that you can play along at home:

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3567404.html

Also, really area to papers published is the wrong thing to struck by. It should be population to papers published.

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3567004.html

I did get exposed to something that's triggered a major asthma attack and didn't recognize what was going on in time prevent it by taking an anti-histamine. Since I started feeling sick right after I walked across campus last week, I am guessing it was whatever I reacted to over in Physics.

I sound like a barking seal.

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3566044.html

So for whatever reason, I was thinking about crackpots on the bus this morning and why engineers seem so prone to it. (James Nicoll has repeatedly said so on his LJ.) But I think that there's a selection bias: we notice the engineers more because they fit the criteria so well.

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3565788.html

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form.

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3565374.html

Heard a bunch of high schoolers being grossed out over something in the road. Turned to be a squirrel, which the kids seemed to think might still be alive. This was not the case; they were fooled, I think, by the wind ruffling its fur. For what it's worth, it was probably pretty fast for the squirrel. Someone had to deal with it and since they didn't seem inclined to and didn't have the right tools, I did.

(No idea what I would have done had it been injured but alive. Pretty the animal control people just put injured wild animals down)

I didn't do anything about the large pool of blood but I am sure there is no way an unexplained large pool of blood in the road could lead to misundertandings.

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3565169.html

The earth is alive, asserts a revolutionary scientific theory of life emerging from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The trans-disciplinary theory demonstrates that purportedly inanimate, non-living objects—for example, planets, water, proteins, and DNA—are animate, that is, alive. With its broad explanatory power, applicable to all areas of science and medicine, this novel paradigm aims to catalyze a veritable renaissance.

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3564977.html

about the white heat excitement that is being the guy who stands on stage so the people who know what they are doing can set lighting cues?

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3564408.html

And the results take up too much space:
( Read more... )

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3564171.html

From Angry Robot:

Following a successful Open Door period in 2011 (we signed 3 debut authors from it!), we’ve decided to do it again! This time around, we’re looking for classic fantasy (for Angry Robot) and all sf/fantasy flavours of YA (for Strange Chemistry).

If you have completed a novel, and are unagented, between April 16th and 30th this year, we’ll happily read it for possible publication. If you are agented, this isn’t for you – submit via the usual route.

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3563805.html

Had I been a voter then, I would have been concerned for America's schools given the earlier sequence in this video.

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3563532.html

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich called for the creation of a permanent lunar colony that could become the nation's 51st state and a re-dedication to sending a man to Mars during a sprawling campaign speech Wednesday in Florida.

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3563424.html

Quoted with permission:

Has anyone done an in system (or interstellar for that matter) sf book
of note where the earth is NOT united? Starfarers by Poul Anderson
sorta counts, I suppose.

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3562898.html

FASS 2012 totally falls within the area covered by the Hugos.

( Read more... )

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3562536.html

The British Science Fiction Association is delighted to announce the shortlists for the 2011 BSFA Awards. The 2011 awards will be held at Olympus 2012, The 2012 Eastercon, which takes place from 6th – 9th April 2012 at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel, Heathrow, London, and will be presented by acclaimed author, John Meaney.

Short list on far side of cut:

( Read more... )

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3561827.html

But that was the worst episode of Glee ever.

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3561642.html

Are miracles magic?

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3561329.html

a new paper in science proposes a short list of methods for reducing greenhouse warming and simultaneously improving human health. the trick for doing that is to reduce methane (which reacts to increase surface ozone) and black carbon (soot, which screws up our lungs all by itself).

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3560828.html

As for me, I've seen before when successful people become so convinced that they are smart and right that they go over some edge and suddenly think that any crazy idea that flits into their head must be right, because they thought it and they're always right, right?

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3560585.html

Know how book sales in North America and in the UK break down by genre?

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/3560195.html

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Recent Entries

Gareth Rees' "A Credo for Critics"

I wasn't looking at the same part of the map Neil deGrasse Tyson is inexplicably obsessed with

Did not fry my eyeballs last night

doc_lemming's Crackpot Engineers

NASA's Kepler Announces 11 New Planetary Systems

Sad duty

Linking is not advocacy

Why did nobody ever tell me

This quiz is defective

As pointed out on rasfw

Actually, I'd never seen this famous ad

BANG, ZOOM! Straight to the moon!

Lifted from an email discussion

(sf/x: voice of Gru) Lightbulb

British Science Fiction Association Awards Shortlist Announced

I tuned in late tonight

Quick question related to another conversation

Could attempts to mitigate global greenhouse inflict better health, longer lives on Americans?

Life on Venus? Probably not.

Does anyone