Eric James Stone's Blog, page 16

Life, the Universe, and Everything 2012

I'll be at Life, the Universe, and Everything this week. This used to be BYU's science fiction and fantasy symposium, but this year it's being held at Utah Valley University.

Here's my participation schedule:

Friday

10am Panel: Monsters & Mormons – Nathan Shumate, Dan Wells (M), Eric James Stone, Jaleta Clegg, EC Buck, Steven Peck
Noon Panel: How to write a good short story – Eric James Stone, Suzanne Vincent, Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury, Heather Frost, Dan Willis (M)

Saturday

Noon Panel: Religion in Science Fiction: Is It Possible? – L. E. Modesitt, Jr., Zachary Hill, Paul Genesse, Scott Parkin, Dan Lind (M), Eric James Stone
5pm Reading: Eric James Stone
7pm Banquet

 

Free Kindle Ebooks for the Week of February 6

Here's a list of what will be free this week:

February 6: "Attitude Adjustment"
February 7: "The Final Element"
February 8: "The Man Who Moved the Moon"
February 9: "Salt of Judas"
February 10: "The Robot Sorcerer"

Each story will be available free from Amazon's Kindle store until about midnight Pacific Time on its promotional day, but you don't need a Kindle to read it. You can use the free Kindle app on your computer or smartphone.

My latest in Analog: "To Serve Aliens (Yes, It's a Cookbook)"

My latest story in Analog Science Fiction & Fact is now available in the April 2012 issue. It's a Probability Zero short story titled "To Serve Aliens (Yes, It's a Cookbook.)" It's my little tribute to Damon Knight's short story "To Serve Man" (which was made into a Twilight Zone episode by the same name, and has been parodied on The Simpsons.) The issue may be available on newsstands at bookstores. You can also get it by subscribing (or buying the single issue) for Kindle or Nook.

You might as well just subscribe, because I've got a story coming out in the next issue, too.

It's kind of like printed-out email, but slower

I'm taking up Mary Robinette Kowal's challenge of a Month of Letters.  Basically, the idea is that you mail a letter (or postcard) every day there's mail service in February.

I wrote a letter last night that will go out in today's mail. It was kind of fun to put pen to paper and write — it's been a few years since I wrote a full page of something (other than notes) by hand.

Free Kindle Ebooks for the Week of January 30

Here's a list of what will be free this week:

January 30: "The Ashes of His Fathers"
January 31: "Tabloid Reporter to the Stars"
February 1: "Betrayer of Trees"
February 2: "In Memory"
February 3: "Like Diamond Tears from Emerald Eyes"

Each story will be available free from Amazon's Kindle store until about midnight Pacific Time on its promotional day, but you don't need a Kindle to read it. You can use the free Kindle app on your computer or smartphone.

Free Kindle Ebooks for the Week of January 23

Here's a list of what will be free this week:

January 23: "The Robot Sorcerer"
January 24: "P.R. Problems"
January 25: "Bird-Dropping and Sunday"
January 26: "An Early Ford Mustang"
January 27: "Resonance"

Each story will be available free from Amazon's Kindle store until about midnight Pacific Time on its promotional day, but you don't need a Kindle to read it. You can use the free Kindle app on your computer or smartphone.

Why My Website Won't Be Here Tomorrow

Congress is considering two ill-conceived bills, SOPA in the House and PIPA in the Senate, that would cause problems for the security of the Internet. As part of a "strike" to protest these bills, my website will be be gone tomorrow for twelve hours, and will instead forward to a site about stopping these bills. Mine will not be the only site on strike tomorrow: the English portion of Wikipedia will black out for 24 hours.

(I'm using the SOPA Strike plugin for WordPress to automatically black out my site and then restore it afterwards.)

Free Kindle Ebooks for the Week of January 16

Here's a list of what will be free this week:

January 16: "Like Diamond Tears from Emerald Eyes"
January 17: "Attitude Adjustment"
January 18: "The Final Element"
January 19: "The Man Who Moved the Moon"
January 20: "Salt of Judas"

Each story will be available free from Amazon's Kindle store until about midnight Pacific Time on its promotional day, but you don't need a Kindle to read it. You can use the free Kindle app on your computer or smartphone.

Free Kindle Ebooks This Week

Now that my free Kindle ebook promotions are repeating, I don't want to blog each one, because that would be so repetitive for many of my readers. So here's a list of what will be free this week:

January 9: "Resonance"
January 10: "The Ashes of His Fathers"
January 11: "Tabloid Reporter to the Stars"
January 12: "Betrayer of Trees"
January 13: "In Memory"

Each story will be available free from Amazon's Kindle store until about midnight Pacific Time on its promotional day, but you don't need a Kindle to read it. You can use the free Kindle app on your computer or smartphone.

The Mathematician and the King: A Fable of Cleverness

Once upon a time there was a king who had a very difficult problem. A mathematician was able to solve the problem, and the king told him to name his reward.

"I don't ask for much," said the clever mathematician. "A single gold coin today, and that each day for the next thirty days you double the amount you give me."

"So it shall be done," said the king, who was not very clever at math.

On the tenth day, when his treasurer sent the payment of 512 gold pieces, the king began to be concerned.  On the twelfth day, when the payment reached 2048 gold pieces, he became alarmed.  And when the treasurer told him that the kingdom would need to borrow in order to pay out 16,384 gold pieces on the 15th day, the king could take no more.

So he sent out one of his trusted spies, who killed the mathematician and brought back the unspent gold.

The moral of the story is: Sometimes it doesn't pay to be too clever.