Brenda Cooper's Blog, page 41

Comment for a chance to win a book

I'm having a triple release celebration here — Reading the Wind comes out in mass market this month, Wings of Creation comes out November 10th, and of course the Academy of New World Historians showed up on the web yesterday.

To celebrate all that, I'm giving one book a week away to someone who comments here (or on the announcement post at www.brenda-cooper.com).  Most of the books will be paperback editions of The Silver Ship and Sea or of Reading the Wind, but we will also give away one...

The Academy of New World Historians is Born

Writers have the best job in the world.  We make stuff up.  We daydream and what we daydream becomes real – as a book or a story or a poem. People read our daydreams, our musings, the things that grow out of our subconscious.

I really did it this time.

It all started with the first line on my first solo book (The Silver Ship and the Sea)…

From the story of Chelo Lee, dated July 17th, year 222, Fremont standard, as brought to The Academy of New World Historians.

It was kind of a throw-off line, a thi

We Need Healthcare Reform Now

As a futurist, I'm often asked what I think we should focus on.  I typically say health care, education, broadband, and saving the world (ecology/alternate energy and lifestyle).

We have a good chance at one of them right now. We can do health care better for millions of Americans.  We can help our businesses, our global competitiveness, and our neighbors.

Rather than write my own in-depth article, I want to point to a few of the many persuasive arguments out there right now on this topic.

First, a

3D Printing: Are we moving into a design economy?

My latest futurismic column explores 3D printing.  I'm convinced this is a wild card technology.  That is, most people don't actually see it coming, or understand its potential to change our world.  Yet the current uses and capabilities are growing exponentially.  If "fabbing" (as some aficionados call it) grows as fast as PC capability grew, and the cost falls as far as fast, then in ten years a friend might send me the design for new earrings for my birthday and I can feed them to my fab machi

In which the SF Signal Mind Meld includes me on Smart SF Movies

And I get to learn a lot from the things others have to offer.  I have a career in tech, an avocation as a writer, a calling as a futurist, and a family.  So I had to pull some smart sf out of my memory banks from a time in my life when I had more time. But they are all worth seeing for those who haven't seen them yet.

The real problem is that now I have a list of new movies to find time for if possible.

At least I will never be bored.

Drop by John DeNardo's SF Signal Mind Meld for a great list of

In with the SF Signal Mind Meld includes me on Smart SF Movies

And I get to learn a lot from the things others have to offer.  I have a career in tech, an avocation as a writer, a calling as a futurist, and a family.  So I had to pull some smart sf out of my memory banks from a time in my life when I had more time. But they are all worth seeing for those who haven't seen them yet.

The real problem is that now I have a list of new movies to find time for if possible.

At least I will never be bored.

Drop by John DeNardo's SF Signal Mind Meld for a great list of

Into a new breach: My work on an iphone app

Steampunk Tales #2 is out, and contains a story by me, and a lot of stories by other writers, too.  For $1.99, it's a good deal.  As far as I know, "Speaker for the Mayans" is the first story of mine that's been available in the iphone apps store.

Better yet, it's set in one of my favorite places, and in a new time there for me to work in.  When I was asked if I'd write this story, I knew immediately that I wanted to take my people of infernal gadget creation and great ingenuity to the Yucatan pe

Reading Recommendation: Eyes Like Stars

Lisa Matchev's debut novel, Eyes Like Stars: Theatre Illuminata, Act I, is just lovely.  I  finished it before Worldcon, and meant to blog it on my way to Montreal. And after Montreal, I've been working on a new website and thoroughly distracted. So sorry for the delayed reaction.

Eyes Like Stars  is a clever fantasy with a fantastical and charming protagonist who has sidekicks that fly.  From the very beginning, Lisa drew me into the story and caught me up in Bertie's plight, and the world she h

Reading Recommendation: Green, by Jay Lake

This was my worldcon reading book, the one I stayed up for a bit even after stumbling in late to read, and finished on the flight home.  I liked it a lot.  Green is ambitious, with a grand scale story that follows Lake's protagonist from an early age to a very mature, dangerous young woman.  While I have enjoyed Jay's other work, Green pulled up a notch for me.  Jay is a stylist, and I'm the kind of reader who prefers that the prose not slow me down.  In Green, it almost never did.  Yet it was s

World-con Midcon Report

It's Sunday morning, and I am still working on recovering from a very small taste of a yellowish drink called absinthe.  A small amount left me slightly fuzzy-heading for   panel on philosophy which (luckily) had some very capable members.  On the other hand, it's possible my fuzzy head was caused by the limerick panel I moderated at 10:00 PM.  Here are a few of the limericks created by the collective minds of three tired panelists and a handful of audience members:

 There's a small lunar crater