Alexander Jablokov's Blog, page 21
July 26, 2012
My Readercon - Friday
If I do this with enough speed, I will be done detailing the 2012 Readercon before it is 2013. One must have ambitions, after all.
Friday I had to work, then zip to Burlington to moderate a panel on "Evaluating Political Fiction", a potentially fraught topic. We were essentially supposed to be helping readers make judgments on the appearance of politics in fiction, when you should just accept it as an amusing quirk on the part of the writer, and when that is impossible, and how writers try to...
July 23, 2012
My Readercon - Thursday
Jeez, it's been a week and I haven't reported on my Readercon experience. I'll have to be quick before it all fades into the usual obscurity of things that happened more than a couple of days ago.
This year the con started on Thursday, which seemed absurd to me. But it was well-attended from the start, and I'd say the extension was a great success.
As a local, I could fill in the panels on Thursday night and Friday afternoon, and, in fact, most of my work was done by the time the weekend proper...
July 11, 2012
My Readercon schedule
Most SF writers in my area will be spending this weekend in Burlington, MA at Readercon, everyone's favorite literary SF convention. If you live around Boston and have never tried it, you should, at least for a day.
This is my schedule, if you want to track me down.
Thursday July 12
8:00 PM ME Managing Motivation to Write. Alexander Jablokov, Steve Kelner (leader), Toni L.P. Kelner, Matthew Kressel, Ben Loory. Kipling (an SF writer himself) wrote: "There are nine-and-sixty ways/of composing t...
July 9, 2012
The war on the 50s
As I've mentioned before, PSAs about child abuse, substance abuse, spousal abuse, etc. tend to be lame and/or creepy, because there is no way of measuring effectiveness, there is free money from some charity or agency, and young designers like to do them to build their portfolios.
Here (via copyranter) is a PSA about child abuse that at first (in the "clever" twist invented by the Energizer bunny) seems to be about learning how to make model rockets. Watch it, then think about what it's real m...
June 18, 2012
On buying books at full price
Like anyone else, I get seduced by getting books at a discount off cover price, whether at Amazon, or with coupons, or at special sales. It's nice to save money.
There are two problems with this. One, how much money am I saving? Given that I sometimes like to go out and get a drink at a local bar like the Saloon or Casablanca, which runs over $10. And sometimes I have more than one. It's not that saving money on books is thus irrelevant, or that I drink way more than I read (really!), but it s...
June 16, 2012
My first audio book: Nimbus
Quite some time ago, a gentleman by the name of Colby Elliott wrote me, said he was a fan of my novel Nimbus, and asked if he could an audio version of it. How could I say no?
Colby worked hard on the book, slowed down at almost every step by my unresponsiveness, my confusion, and my general ability to make simple things complicated. He never lost his humor or his determination, and now, at long last, we have an audio version, voiced entirely by Colby.
Nimbus is my brain surgeon/jazz musician f...
June 8, 2012
Why is one tiny hand so funny?
I have no idea why I find the tumblr One Tiny Hand so fascinating, and hilarious. But I do.
And I'm not even sure what a tumblr is, or how it works, and will certainly never create one.
May 28, 2012
We are our symptoms
As I've mentioned, I had a retinal detachment, and have been in for three successive eye operations, none of them pleasant. Presumably, this did more damage than just one operation, but the results will not be clear for months.
Like most people, I immediately search online for the experiences of other people suffering the same physical disorder, since that is where you discover that the unique is actually fairly common.
Except, it seems, in my case. In various iterations of my freedom-seeking r...
May 24, 2012
The eyeball's return
I am finally cleared to read and write, though I don't want to overdo it. My retina seems to have fitted back where it is supposed to be. Thanks to all who have written me. I hope to be back to regular communication shortly.
May 14, 2012
Out again
My eye had another detachment last week, and some failure in that operation means I have to go in again today. So you won't be hearing from me for a while, since I will again be banned from reading and writing. I'll let you all know when I am back up.
