Tobias S. Buckell's Blog, page 10

I’ll be a Guest of Honor at the North American Science Fiction Convention 2017!

I am utterly honored and super psyched to share that I will be a Guest of Honor at the North American Science Fiction Convention in 2017. Also known as Nasfic this is the convention that is held across from a Worldcon when a Worldcon is held outside of the US (and a Worldcon is a large science fiction convention that moves from city to city throughout the world each year).

Next year, in 2017, Nasfic will be in Puerto Rico in the Sheraton Puerto Rico Hotel and Casino in San Juan, Puerto Rico f...

On having returned home…

Last Friday we packed the kids up and drove up to join my stepdad’s family up at Cedar Point. Two cousins on his side of the family that I rarely see were out here in Ohio to see family. I worked in the car and carried my backpack all around Cedar Point, did about 20,000 steps and ate All The Bad Things:

Elephant Ears
Dipping Dots (the ice cream of THE FUTURE)
Fries
Shakes
Fries with bacon and cheese
Fried cheese
and more…

With my heart defect I’m prohibited from enjoying the fast rides, but...

Superblocks: Barcelono’s traffic reclamation proposal, is somewhat fascinating

Take nine square blocks of city. (It doesn’t have to be nine, but that’s the ideal.) Rather than all traffic being permitted on all the streets between and among those blocks, cordon off a perimeter and keep through traffic, freight, and city buses on that.

In the interior, allow only local vehicles, traveling at very low speeds, under 10 mph. And make all the interior streets one-way loops (see the arrows on the green streets below), so none of them serve through streets.

(Via Superblocks:...

Suicide Squad’s big opening night might be because of women viewers

I noticed this interesting quote in a news story about Suicide Squad:

The biggest surprise in terms of audience makeup was the strong turnout among females, who made up 46 percent of Friday’s audience, according to exit poling service CinemaScore. That’s unusual for a superhero film.

(Via Box Office: ‘Suicide Squad’ Opens to Big $135M But Drops Sharply Saturday | Hollywood Reporter.)

I haven’t see it yet, I’m watching DC movies on iTunes rental because they’ve been somewhat lacking for me. I...

Suicide Squad’s big opening night might be becuase of women viewers

I noticed this interesting quote in a news story about Suicide Squad:

The biggest surprise in terms of audience makeup was the strong turnout among females, who made up 46 percent of Friday’s audience, according to exit poling service CinemaScore. That’s unusual for a superhero film.

(Via Box Office: ‘Suicide Squad’ Opens to Big $135M But Drops Sharply Saturday | Hollywood Reporter.)

I haven’t see it yet, I’m watching DC movies on iTunes rental because they’ve been somewhat lacking for me. I...

My short story Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance to appear in Cosmic Powers, a new John Joseph Adams anthology

I’m super psyched to be a part of this anthology that comes out early next year. The anthology was just announced at the B&N blog:

From the Golden Age to the modern day, from Lensmen, to Star Wars, toGuardians of the Galaxy, nothinghas served as a more ready signifier of what science fiction can do as a genre than the space opera. Futuristic weapons and instellar warfare in fantastical, pan-galactic settings: it’s truly the stuff dreams are made of. Next April, Saga Press and accomplished ed...

I’ll be signing and reading in South Carolina and North Carolina tomorrow and later this week

I’m spending the week in Spartanburg, South Carolina, teaching at the Shared Worlds two-week long writing camp.

I’m here with with visiting writers Julia Elliot, Nathan Ballingrud, Terra Elan McVoy, and Leah Thomas as well.

It’s the sixth time I’ve been here (I came last year at the last minute to help out due to a cancellation) and I’m quite honored that they keep bringing me back to teach writing and critique stories written by some amazingly talented teenagers.

As part of this, I’ll be...

Media consumption: Ghostbusters (2016 edition)

This is a little late, but TL;DR I loved it.

I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy the latest reboot. For one thing, I’m somewhat burned out by the endless churn of reboots. For another, I was really nervous about the Leslie Jones character being the sassy black best friend.

Also, I had super fond memories of the original.

Well, until a few months ago.

I mean, I always found people dressing up as Ghostbusters at cons and repeating the lines all along fairly harmless. Thumbs up, ya’ll: I love Gh...

Useful Tools: Fitbit Blaze sports watch and steps tracker

On Friday, facing a lot of work needing done yet on a rewrite and the house being a bit topsy-turvy with a remodel, summer-time kids running in and out, and a fragile ability to concentrate being a pseudo hallmark of being ADHD, I decamped for a hotel in Columbus to lock myself into a room until the novel I was rewriting was officially over.

Just a couple weeks earlier I’d traveled out to Indy Popcon, a pop culture oriented media convention where I sat at a table for the weekend. While I was...

Status update: still editing a $%&*ing novel

I’m about 100 pages from the end of this edit.

It’s still one of the more challenging rewrites I’ve done, though I did take the last two days a bit slower on it due to focusing in a spreadsheet project that ate up some time. It’ll be way worth it for me down the road, one of those things where I had to build some wheels so I wasn’t dragging a cart around on the ground. In fact, it’s something I should have done some 8 years ago as a teaching tool for myself, but didn’t.

That aside, it’s now b...