Little Bits

Lets see:

approximately one half of my books have been moved to the new place. If I have the energy, the remainder will be moved today. I’m actually getting some shelf space over there, so I may finally be able to post some pics of my collection that isn’t a pile of cardboard boxes.

I finally found out why Matt Staggs has abandoned all of the Octopi faithful – he’s doing some BIG time PR and marketing, specifically for Jeff VanderMeers’s Finch. Good on you Matt!

And speaking of Jeff – the schedule for the Finch tour (otherwise known as the “want to know what a zombie writer looks like? Check Jeff out in a few weeks and you WILL know” tour) has been posted and can be found here

I have November 20th in Boston at Borders on Boylston street marked on the calendar and have already told the wife that it is a MUST do on the schedule.

John Ottinger’s Best Endings in SF and F post here (of which I am a participant I don’t hesitate to remind you) is generating some interest and interesting factoids, which I will apply my penchant (obsession?) for adding things up to:

Top Endings

I Am Legend (6 mentions)
Lord of the Rings (4 mentions)
1984 (2)
Childhood’s End (2)
Ender’s Game (2)
Last Argument of Kings (2)
Mistborn (2)
Stormbringer (2)

Also of interest: 44 series/novels/shorts/movies were mentioned

34 novels
2 movies
2 short stories
6 series

15, or fully one third of the mentions were for “old” (pase, passed over, irrelevant, untimely, out of sync, rusty, dusty, moldy and mildewed) works.

Gee. Seems like at least some of those guys/gals did know a thing or two ’bout writin….

I didn’t name a specific work, but I have to say I agree with the selections of A Martian Odyssey (the ending still makes me laugh!), I Am Legend (the whole point of the novel’s exercise and the one thing that NONE of the movies has ever really captured), and Childhood’s End.

If I had picked a story by name, it probably would have been Alamagoosa by Eric Frank Russell. That story doesn’t just make me laugh, it makes coffee come out of my nose!

John Scalzi pleads with geeks to get over themselves and drop the complaints about SF’s lack of mainstream acceptance – here.

First – I refer John to the Amazing SF Death Stories Blog Post Template entry here from a few days ago and point out that he could have suitably modified the template for his rant. Yes, it was a funny rant, but if John had used the template, he’d have been able to spend more time writing copy that I pay for. Just sayin.

Second, I reject his contention: anything that is mainstream is, defacto, NOT science fiction. But it is still pretty cool to imagine that geeks could have a conversation with Prez Obama – and hold their own – on subjects other than the economy, Afghanistan or Fux News.