Today's Grim Truth

Pluto's Atmosphere Does Not Collapse

You know who the real victims of PC are?

All the authors at Baen Books who would otherwise be worshiped as gods, GODS I SAY!, if it were not for all those evil PC types.

(Plus there's other stuff no less worthy of attention)

It’s been a slow process, but gradually we got to the point where Baen alone among the larger sf/fantasy houses was prepared to publish whatever they thought they could sell, regardless of the author’s openly declared political or religious or ethnic origins. Distributors, retailers and other publishers did their little bit to make things as hard as possible for them, and it is absolutely obligatory to have as many public sneers at their authors as possible, because they weren’t PC to the core.

So, 1997

Most recent year I could see when one of Baen Books authors who wasn't Bujold got a Best Novel Hugo nomination.

So, some numbers:

Total    Bujold  Not Bujold  F   M   F/T  B/T
 9         8         1       8   0    1   .88

Bujold also had two nominations with books from Eos.


* Two of the Bujolds first appeared in Analog.

Yay, Fig

He will let Groucho and Ophelia take his food but Ibid got a paw to the face. Ibid looked completely baffled.

I actually saw the moment

When Fig realized he could pounce on Ibid.

I'm thinking whatever their background, Ibid has a lot less experience with other cats.

Clarkesworld Podcast September 2009: White Charles (Sarah Monette)

White Charles (Sarah Monette)

Read by Kate Baker

Period piece: an enthusiast's contribution to a museum proves atypically interesting, leaving the staff of the museum to deal with the ensuing complications. Also, middle class academic learns not to be such a nob to the blue collar staff members. Although I expect he will cut them all dead in public.

I wondered while reading this how often in universes like this academics get ahead by encouraging their more adventurous chums to go poking in long forgotten tombs and libraries. "Here's a bit of chalk, old boy, Let me know how that pentagram thingie works out."

Spartacus: War of the Damned

So Julius Caesar's superpower was that unlike every other Roman he could actually pick up on subtext?

Beamjockey's Man Minus: The Voice of Frederik Pohl (1919-2013)

I'd like to share a few links, in particular audio and video where you can hear Fred tell stories and converse with his colleagues.

Patricia Anthony (1947-2013)

This morning a terrible message from Gordon Van Gelder awaited me in my inbox: Locus Online was reporting that Patricia Anthony had died Aug. 2. It's bad enough that she's gone, but for it to take more than a month for her passing to be noticed is unconscionable.