• The Sparrow

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    1–2 minutes

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    Some excellent news – it seems that Mary Doria Russell’s novel The Sparrow is on track to being made as a movie. This is particularly good news because the studio concerned appears to actually understand the novel, as opposed to Universal, who originally optioned the screenplay and were going to hack it to pieces.

  • A Love of Memory

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    6–9 minutes

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    Why Kim Stanley Robinson loves the science of memory

  • Reading by the phosphor glow

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    2–3 minutes

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    There aren’t many authors left whose books I’d immediately buy, even if I didn’t know what they were about. I’d say that Neal Stephenson is up there, along with Vernor Vinge and precious few others. So yesterday, when I was browsing around at Fictionwise and saw that the October issue of Analog magazine had a…

  • AFL

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    3–5 minutes

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    2 comments on AFL

    Today was my last full day in Melbourne. In a vain attempt to try and buy some non-tacky souvenirs, we went to Victoria Market in the city. I did actually manage to buy two souvenirs that didn’t fall into the general category of ‘koalas and other Australian miscellaneia’ although it did take some time. To…

  • Ender’s Shadow

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    1–2 minutes

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    A friend, who shall rename nameless, once told me that she’d been recommended to read Ender’s Shadow, by Orson Scott Card. Ender’s Shadow is a ‘spinoff’ book that occurs during the events of the classic Ender’s Game novel, but from the perspective of Bean. If you haven’t read Ender’s Game, please read it now –…

  • Red Mars

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    1–2 minutes

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    Never mind the Beagle 2, the Sci-Fi channel is producing a miniseries based on Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars novel for late 2004. They’d better not screw it up…

  • The steam-powered drum machine

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    1–2 minutes

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    2 comments on The steam-powered drum machine

    The steam-powered drum machine – an astonishing extract from a journal written in 1894 about a steam-powered drum machine and a 19th century rave (yes, it’s a joke). Via the Culture List and spawned, in part, from the demented mind of Brendan Nelson.

  • About the Matrix

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    1–2 minutes

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    1 comment on About the Matrix

    This article about the science of the Matrix (from /.) is interesting enough from a fan-fiction ‘well, it could work!’ perspective, but it is way off on some of the hard issues, namely the whole ‘quantum mechanics microtubules’ nonsense. It might be convenient to explain away consciousness because of magical quantum ‘fairy dust’ interactions, but…

  • Pride and Extreme Prejudice

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    1–2 minutes

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    Pride and Extreme Prejudice – possibly the funniest thing I have read this year. A couple of SF authors have come up with the idea of a Terminator/Pride and Prejudice crossover on rec.arts.sf.written and are current writing it piecemeal, to the delight of the newsgroup regulars. It should, nay, must be published as a full…

  • Rubbish filter

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    1–2 minutes

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    1 comment on Rubbish filter

    Sci-Fi channel’s new lineup of shows – does Sci-Fi lack a rubbish filter, or perhaps any sense of judgement? From the looks of their new shows, the answer seems to be yes; with the exception of a few, they all sound terrible (and they’re all fantasy, not SF). I mean, ‘Dead Lawyers – lawyers that…