Tobias S. Buckell's Blog, page 21

Congratulations Hugo Award Winners. Meanwhile, Sad Puppies smacked on nose with newspaper

I tuned in via UStream to watch the Hugo Awards as I was too busy with deadlines for it to be feasible this year as a trip.

Fandom rejected sad puppies very strongly in favor of no award for any of the areas dominated by slate voting. They’re already spinning defeat as a win, which is funny as they tried so fucking hard to win. Sour grapes.

Interestingly, the one sole category that sad puppies posted a decent piece of art was in movies. Guardians of the Galaxy as a result won. So when they s...

Twitter Vacation Until October 15th

A long while ago, I read some very good articles about the impact of news.

See, news works on us by making us anxious. Six things under your sink could be killing you! Turn it at eleven. You won’t believe this horrible thing that happened that could have been to someone like you! If it bleeds it leads.

I’d seen the effect that had on people who consumed heavy media diets. My stepdad’s grandmother in Florida, once she was unable to get out of her house much (and in pre-Fox News times) consumed...

Yes, Virginia, people of color do fucking read SF/F

Here’s an article in SF Signal about the lack of SF/F books with people of color on the cover. And here’s a fairly typical SF/F fan response in the comments that

I want to highlight

by a commenter called TheAderian that wraps up all the ignorances I’ve had tossed my way in one big bundle. Here are a couple of quick snips I want to respond to (I can’t respond to all of them, I just can’t):

Firstly, I work in a largely black city in the human services field and have done so for a very long amo...

Four Hacks I’ve Used to Focus Harder While Writing with a Computer, Plus One that Rules Them All (For Me)

I’m ADHD, which means for most of my life I’ve been dealing with distractions and interruptions that constantly thread through life on what can be sometimes a minute by minute basis. I was not diagnosed until I was an adult, by a psychologist who was at a very long practice ceremony next me that I’d been told ‘would be quick’ and ended up being hours. Usually I would have taken a book or notepad with me. Because I hadn’t, I started acting out. They were surprised I was unmedicated.

I remain s...

I’ll be a visiting instructor at Shared Worlds

I’m going to be a visiting instructor at Shared Worlds this July. Details here.

Between teaching at Clarion at the start of July, and this at the end of July, it’s going to be a month full of teaching and travel. But I’m always delighted to meet new writers.

What the ever loving fuck? I stand by Irene Gallo as well

I owe the second pseudonymous novel I’m working on by Friday.

Friday people.

But I had to weigh in.

This is my own opinion, as are all things on my blog. Obviously.

Chuck Wendig already has a great blog post covering much of what I’d like to say.

Irene Gallo made a statement on her private Facebook page (note those words: “private Facebook page”) that said the following when asked to explain the Sad/Rabid Puppies phenomenon:

“There are two extreme right-wing to neo-nazi groups, called the Sa...

Come meet me in Chicago for the Tor.com Author Drinkup this weekend! And the Nebulas!

As the flyer says, I’ll be hanging out with a bunch of Tor authors at Geek Bar Beta in Chicago, Saturday June 6th, from 2-5pm.

This is because I’ll also be attending the Nebulas over the weekend. If you’re going to the Nebulas, I’ll be at the mass book signing.

Operation Arcana is now out in audiobook!

Operation Arcana is now available. It is unabridged and produced by Skyboat Media, the production company of acclaimed producer and narrator Stefan Rudnicki. It features the vocal talents of narrators: Paul Boehmer, Gabrielle de Cuir, Richard Gilliland, Sunil Malhotra, Arthur Morey, and Stefan Rudnicki.

(Via ABOUT THE AUDIOBOOK – Operation Arcana : Operation Arcana.)

More anthology details:

In the realms of fantasy, the battlefield is where heroism comes alive, magic is unleashed, and lege...

Spying in the Arctic heats up, and Foreign Policy Magazine is there

Foreign Policy magazine has a fun article catching people up to a lot of what I was researching when putting together Arctic Rising:

While the world’s attention today is focused largely on the Middle East and other obvious trouble spots, few people seem to be monitoring what’s happening in the Arctic. Over the past few years, in fact, the Arctic Ocean countries have been busy building up their espionage armories with imaging satellites, reconnaissance drones, eavesdropping bases, spy planes,...

Bocas Lit Fest 2015: a brief recap with pics

I was invited to be a guest at Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad, which is where I headed off to last week.

The folks at Bocas put together a whole Future Friday segment, featuring Nalo Hopkinson, Karen Lord, me, and RSA Garcia. Karen and I did an all day workshop for writers interested in spec fic from the region.

Here we are during lunch break (photo via Bocas Facebook Photostream page):

And this is what it looks like when I murder a roti quickly at lunch before returning to the workshop (phot...