Tobias S. Buckell's Blog, page 23

I’m digging on this computer generated video of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy

I really dig this generated video of what SpaceX is hoping the Falcon Heavy launch later this year will look like:

If SpaceX’s latest offering is as advertised,the Falcon Heavy should be capable of generating some 3.969 million lbs (17,615 kilonewtons) worth of thrust at liftoff. Shortly after the 27 Merlin 1D engines power the booster and its precious cargo off of the pad, thethree booster cores will throttle back, not long after the two outer booster cores will detach, falling back to Earth...

Travel report: St. Mary’s College and Chattacon!

I did a poor job reminding everyone on the blog and online that I was about to do some public speaking and signing in the Bay Area. Please keep in mind, I’d been dealing with sick kids on vacation, then was sick for a couple weeks, and recovering, then catching up on a month of lost work. Then I hopped on a plane to head West!

Fortunately, thanks to the magic of Seat Guru, I scored awesome seats on the way out:

I was invited to St. Mary’s College California, at the invitation of professors Dana...

A note about RETR-O-RAMA appearance in Florida: Apparently I will not be attending

Last July I confirmed I’d be attending a Jacksonville, FL event called Retr-O-Rama, and a few Florida readers have contacted to ask about it. I was contacted July 16th by someone representing the event (I still have all the archived emails) and confirmed that I would attend back then. I requested details to hammer down the flight time in August, as I’d planned to go down early (and spend my own money on a hotel) to spend a number of days writing in the sun as it always doubles or triples my w...

Crystal Rain relaunched in trade paperback this week. Read the first 1/3 free right here

Crystal Rain launches this week in a brand new trade paperback format.

If you’re interested in diverse SF, if you’re interested in seeing what a taste of the Caribbean is like when it’s married with adventure SF, if you’re interested in reading the book that launched the Xenowealth series, then here you go.

A lot of people have taken a closer look at the book with the new cover. A lot of people have told me ‘oh, I didn’t realize it was SF.’

It is.

But don’t take my word for it. Read the first ent...

For Locus subscribers, I have a summary of the Bermuda workshop in the latest issue

I penned a few words about the awesome folks I got to meet in Bermuda for the latest issue of Locus.

(Correction: Grace Jones = Grace Welch), I apologize for any confusion).

I’m hoping that with the ongoing workshop, and the stories, that soon editors in the field will start seeing submissions from them.

Or I’ll be giving them a long-distance side eye.

Because they were talented.

Confusion schedule

I’ll be a panelist at Confusion this January 16-18th. In addition to the panels and mass autograph session, I’m excited to be interviewing the GoH, Karen Lord, for anyone attending.

This’ll be great. I hope to see you all show up!

The schedule:

Friday 5pm: Gadgets and Apps for Writing

Scrivener, Evernote, writing books on phones and tablets!

Saturday 4pm: Mass Autograph Session

Sunday 10am: Post-Colonial SF

Can our world’s own colonization history help us write the stories of future colonizations? W...

The Xenowealth novels are now available to non-US eBook readers

While I sort out the administrative stuff for the recently successful Kickstarter for Xenowealth: A Collection, I have another piece of exciting holiday news. I’ve been working really hard to get the eBooks of Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin up for the holiday season in non-US territories.

They are available on Amazon in non-US, non-Canada, and non-Philippine areas (Tor owns the exclusive rights to the US, Canada and the Philippines on them). So for example, UK readers, here is Crystal Rain (it is...

Authors reading one star reviews

Have you been paying attention to the Worldbuilders charity that Pat Rothfuss runs? It’s up to $574,508 raised for Heifer International. One of the stretch goals was just blown right past (450K), in which I and many other cool writers read one star reviews of our work.

You can help out Heifer International via Worldbuilders here by just buying great signed books, or other cool items, as well as entering a lottery.

The next stretch goal is getting Hank Green to perform an angry acoustic of “Shak...

More on Kindle Unlimited

When I said half the stuff indie writers are now saying in the comments here about Amazon I was called some heinous names and ‘legacy’ writer, a ‘trad pub house slave’ and many other objectionable things. All I’ve done is note in the past that putting all your eggs in the Amazon basket will one day lead to sorrow.

Porter Anderson has a pretty thorough roundup over at theBookSeller.com:

Odd how those squeals of“this is the best time to be an author!”start to fade when you hear about a major self...

They as a pronoun

I’ve noticed some reviews catch that I do my best to adopt they and them as a neutral pronoun. I’ve seen Zir and Ze around, but I’m not sure if that’ll take off. Them and they for a neutral works. Whether or not a character is gender neutral, I prefer to try to keep the character reference neutral. If the character’s gender is truly unknown, it seems fair.

It looks like it’s something younger generations are doing, and their teachers are trying to catch up:

As language catches up with culture,...