The Crotchety Old Fan

The folks at Simon & Schuster thought that Laura Bynum’s inaugural novel might be up my alley for a review, so they sent along a copy. This in the midst of lots of genre fail discussions (race fail, gender fail, editorial fail, etc ad nauseum) – discussions in which I took no small pot-stirring [...]

Well, admittedly my title is perhaps (perhaps) a tad premature, as the book store I’m referring to has only been open for a few months, but from what I’m seeing so far, I think that at least one formula for the continued and future survival of the independent book store is being proved right [...]

Fandom’s secret cabal is now arguing over the recently announced YA discount to Worldcon.
Short summation: Worldcon needs new blood. Offers meaningful discount to obtain it. This offends some self-identified group(s) because they will not benefit from the discount.
Fail: 1. complaining about benefits received by one minority group – instead of working to [...]

I’ve just spent close to an hour reading much of the posts and comments responding to International Science Fiction Reshelving Day (11/18/09 – go there for details), and I must say that I am a bit bemused and befuddled by the energy that so many seem to have devoted to dissing a group of people [...]

This morning’s Google Reader roundup brings yet another declaration of science fiction’s slow and agonizing, death rattle infused, demise, this time in the form of commentary from Amy Sterling Casil over at the Book View Cafe’s Blog site (via Charles Tan’s link roundup).
I have decided that enough is enough.  Most of this prognostication and eulogizing [...]

Well, it has taken me over a year, but I finally discovered what the “schedule a post” option in wordpress is good for.
Up till now I’ve gone on spasms of hunting for SF video and audio content, added a bunch of pages to Classic SF Channel and then let it lay dormant until the next [...]

Here’s the long-awaited appearance of my piece on the concision (or lack thereof) of genre fiction and paintball.
Please give it a read.  If you’ve got any ideas ’bout developing your stories for scenario games, I’m all ears.

Underland Press just sent me along an advance copy of Jeff VanderMeer’s latest Ambergris novel – Finch.
Jeff has been billed as a fantasy author though (one of the best) and with limited budget, limited time and a publicly acknowledged preference for science fiction, he has not been high on my acquisition list. Definitely in [...]

Please note – there are no ‘Ks’ in the title.
I’ve received several invites to various sites and blogs lately and noticed that one of the authors does not live all that far away from me.  This reminded me that for some time I’ve been wanting to hook up with like-minded blogging individuals in the real [...]

Working hard on websites. Who knew wrestling with themes and plugins could be so much…fun?