Matt Ruff's Blog, page 49

Margo Lanagan, causing trouble again

Via John Scalzi, the Bitch magazine staff post a reading list of "100 Young Adult books for the Feminist Reader," and after complaints are raised about the inclusion of Margo Lanagan's Tender Morsels, they decide to do a feminist impression of the curators at the Smithsonian. A kerfuffle ensues. You may recall a similar flap a couple years back over the inclusion of Lanagan's short story "The Goosle" in The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy.

I haven't read Tender Morsels yet, but Lanagan's Black Juice was one of my most treasured discoveries during my stint as a Tiptree judge. So you may want to check it out. Gal's obviously got a knack for affecting people.

In which CNN tries to make me stupider before breakfast

Heard all of the following on CNN while making my morning coffee. The quotes are paraphrases, but not, sadly, exaggerations.

Wolf Blitzer, on the similarity between Egypt today and Iran in '79:

"Like Mubarak, the Shah of Iran was a friend to the U.S. -- but flawed!"

Two other pundits commenting on a possible successor to Mubarak:

"He looks presidential."
"And that's fine, but he's still got to go through an open election process..."

CNN tech expert, commenting on a pending Senate bill that would give the American president the ability to "switch off" the Internet, as Egypt's government just did:

"You could certainly make a case for wanting to be able to do this, in the event that, say, terrorists launched a denial of service attack against vital infrastructure like the power grid... But we need to careful not to overstep the bounds of civil liberties."

The Mirage: update

So the reason I haven't had a blog post for the last month and a half is that I've been busy finishing up the manuscript for The Mirage, which I delivered to my editor on Monday. I spent yesterday catching up on my sleep debt and enjoying fresh air for the first time in two weeks. Today I've got some other book-related chores to take care of, and then tomorrow I will start rereading the manuscript while I wait for my editorial notes.

I'm tired but excited. I'm really happy with the way the novel has turned out. I don't have an official pub. date yet, but it looks like it will be out this year. More details soon.

There goes the neighborhood

From The North County Times, via Megan McArdle:

Authorities have begun to put into place the measures they say will protect the public when they torch a house in northern Escondido that is said to be riddled with explosive materials.

On Thursday, workers began building a 16-foot-tall protective wall that will be wrapped in fire-resistant dry wall and sprayed with gel.

Also Thursday, federal prosecutors filed an eight-count indictment against George Djura Jakubec, 54, the former resident of the house, for allegations related to making and possessing bombs, as well as for three bank robberies and a failed attempt to rob a fourth bank.

As for the wall construction, officials say it will shield a neighboring house from the heat and possible debris of the burn, which is being billed as the only way to safely dispose of the chemicals and devices stored inside 1954 Via Scott, which has been described as a "bomb factory."

Why do they hate us?

Via James Fallows and today's New York Times, the latest shocking Wikileaks revelation:

In early 2008, American diplomats stationed in Ottawa turned on their television sets and were aghast: there was an “onslaught” of Canadian shows depicting “nefarious American officials carrying out equally nefarious deeds in Canada,” from planning to bomb Quebec to stealing Canadian water supplies.

In a confidential diplomatic cable sent back to the State Department, the American Embassy warned of increasing mistrust of the United States by its northern neighbor, with which it shares some $500 billion in annual trade, the world’s longest unsecured border and a joint military mission in Afghanistan.

“The degree of comfort with which Canadian broadcast entities, including those financed by Canadian tax dollars, twist current events to feed longstanding negative images of the U.S. — and the extent to which the Canadian public seems willing to indulge in the feast — is noteworthy as an indication of the kind of insidious negative popular stereotyping we are increasingly up against in Canada,” the cable said.

Oh, the humanity. Re: the propaganda "onslaught," I don't know which show had the Quebec-bombing plot, but I'm guessing the Canadian water supply theft is a reference to the H2O miniseries and its sequel, The Trojan Horse, in which Canada voluntarily merges with the U.S. and the former Canadian Prime Minister (Paul Gross) schemes with England, France, and Germany to get himself elected to the White House.

Tame foxes

Here's a clip from an episode of NOVA ("Dogs Decoded") we caught last night, which describes an ongoing Russian experiment to breed domesticated silver foxes. I'm not thrilled about the small cages, but the science is fascinating, and they really do seem like they'd make awesome pets:



Another segment, about an experiment to see what would happen if wolf cubs were raised indoors like puppies, reminded me of act one of a typical Fatal Attractions episode, except that the scientists were smart enough to call a halt once things got dangerous.

Carl Brandon Society ebook reader raffle

This month the Carl Brandon Society is raffling off five ebook readers -- two Nooks, two Kobos, and an Alex -- preloaded with books, stories, essays, and poems by such authors as Nisi Shawl, Ted Chiang, Saladin Ahmed, N. K. Jemisin,  Alaya Dawn Johnson, Terence Taylor, Shweta Narayan, Chesya Burke, Moondancer Drake, and Rochita Loenen-Ruiz.

Raffle tickets are $1 each, and may be purchased here. Proceeds go to benefit the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship, which helps writers of color attend the Clarion and Clarion West Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Workshops. More details about the raffle here. If you'd rather skip the drawing and donate money directly to the scholarship, check out the mailing address and PayPal button here.

"A return to civility is not possible"

Via Matt Yglesias, Reason magazine plugs 18th-century political campaign rhetoric into 21st-century-style attack ads:

Ray Bradbury, et. al.

[Via Research Maven] The Paris Review has just posted all of its author interviews from the past 57 years online, including the Ray Bradbury interview I referenced back in May.

You could lose days reading through all these. My favorite bit so far is from the Richard Price interview:

INTERVIEWER -- Do you find the lack of control you have as a screenwriter frustrating?

PRICE -- It's enough to drive you to write novels. Almost.

Tariq Aziz sentenced to death

[Via Research Maven] The Guardian has the story.

Talk about your weird synchronicity -- just yesterday I was rereading a scene in The Mirage where my fictional version of Aziz narrowly avoids getting killed. I knew the real Aziz was still alive, still in custody, and not looking particularly healthy, but hadn't heard he was on trial again. I wonder how the Vatican appeal for clemency will go.