Brenda Cooper's Blog, page 38

Shall we go skiing with robots tomorrow?

This seems to be the moment for robot research for me.  At least that's the topic I picked for this month's version of my column over at Futurismic, Today's Tomorrows.  Since I don't like to let my column over there get to be longer than about 1,000 words, I couldn't include everything.  So for the column I picked non-humanoid bots.  That left out this one pretty cool robot I wanted to share here – the skiing robot.  Here's a Singularity Hub article on the skiing robot.  I can just imagine...

Good Science News

I'm not really surprised so many people are skeptical about science.  After all, what do often hear?  Food A or Food B causes cancer.  The glaciers are melting faster than we thought possible.  Species (your favorite) is now endangered.  Drug A which was supposed to be good for you just caused organ B to fail.  So sorry.  Not that bad news should cause disbelief, but sometimes I understand why people would rather ignore it.

So this is a good week.  Why?

Well, there's apparently enough water on...

Thanks so much!

I really appreciate the community out here – there were many post and retweets and the like to celebrate the Wings of Creation release yesterday.  It makes a writer (at least this writer) feel surrounded by family even when she's off at work and wearing her other, more mundane hats.

Congrats to Sara A. Mueller for winning the full set of the series-so-far in hardback .  Drop by her lovely blog, Clockwork Curiosity. By the way – Sara may be a writer to watch.  I haven't seen her work or read...

Release Day for Wings of Creation!

Pardon the happy little post in advance.  It's a gray day here is Seattle – with a touch of pink sunrise still in the window – but I'm hoping for a good one.

A lot of writing is work.  By the time a book comes out,  I'm two books or more past it, and living in some other world.  But today, I'm going to enjoy the release of Wings of Creation.  I'm sending copies to the Times and to two book winners (from Goodreads) and drawing a winner for all three books in a hardcover set (That's The Silver S...

Reading Recommendation: The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia

At World Fantasy, they give you a ton of books.  I had brought one with me (Ken Scholes' Canticle) which I finished there.  I also bought a new book,The Alchemy of Stone[image error] Ekaterina Sedia's "The Alchemy of Stone." Besides an art book (and art) by John Picacio, and a collection by my friend Tobias Buckell, that's all I bought (Oh, and some jewelry by Willow).  I just finished The Alchemy of Stone.

I found it beautifully written, and slightly disturbing...

World Fantasy Report

This was my second World Fantasy, and it has definitely become my favorite convention.  I waited a few days to let the experience sink in a bit.  A few observations:

The awards are administered differently than the Hugos.  It's partly a voted choice, but mostly a long slog through almost everything "Fantasy" written all year.  The result is that the awards often end up going to works based more on merit and uniqueness than on commercial success or having a wide readership.   Kudos to the...

New winner, and the book giveaway continues….

I'm pleased to announce that Samuel Montgomery-Blinn is the latest winner in the book giveaway.  He chose The Silver Ship and the Sea.

There are two more drawings left – one this Friday and one on the 10th which is the release date for the hardcover of Wings of Creation.  The release date drawing will be for all three books in a hardcover set (and the hardcovers of books one and two are getting rare, so this is an opportunity).

To enter:

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Shiny New Wings of Creation Hardbacks

A box of books arrived for me last night.  I threw it in the back of my car, thinking it held copies of Reading the Wind (which I am also expecting, but which I've seen), and it turned out to be the Wings of Creation hardbacks.  The book design is very beautiful; the cover and the colors and all of that even prettier than the other two books. 

There's a moment when you first hold a finished book and it feels like a just-birthed child.

It's one of the moments when writing is worth it.

Now, don't ...

Reading Recommendation: Canticle, by Ken Scholes

I finished Canticle at the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose, sitting in my twelfth-story room while morning light washed the night out of the sky.   This is book two of  The Psalms of Isaak, which is planned to be five books (the first book is Lamentation).

This series is an engaging for me as the George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire."  The books are a little shorter and are coming out more regularly, and so I feel like there's a chance of an epic fantasy series that will begin...

Daybreak, Killer Bunnies, Wings, and Geeks

I leave tomorrow for the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose.  I'll be participating in a group reading on Friday night (in the Crystal room at 9:00 PM – Fairmont San Jose) for the exciting new web-based magazine called "Daybreak," published by Jetse DeVries.  Jetse is also bringing out the Shine Anthology.  Shine and Daybreak are both created around the idea that fascinating stories that contain hope can be written.  I'm really pleased to have had a story included since when I'm wearing my ...