Remembering Greg Bear

This isn’t the best photo of Greg Bear, but it’s the one I took, back at the 1984 Worldcon, in LA, the very first Worldcon I attended. I can’t tell what book he was holding, or waving — it’s his first collection, The Wind from a Burning Woman. I took similar photos of other luminaries — Haldeman, Willis, Pohl, Brin — but didn’t interact with any of them. (Perhaps I’ll post those photos too.)

The occasion for this post, of course, is that Bear, a mere 71 years old, died this past weekend. Here’s the Locus obit. Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: 20 Nov 2022

Martin Rees on science v. catastrophe; the fine-tuning argument; why the expanding world population is a good thing; the latest mass shooting and Republicans. (I try to think of more interesting blog titles, but given time constraints just give up sometimes…)

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Links and Comments: 19 Nov 2022

About FTX and effective altruism; political examples in the spirit of the recent Borowitz book; examples of how the media covers events; and a perspective on the American economy under Republicans and Democrats.

Image here: today’s sunset.

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Whither Science Fiction 2022?

It’s been obvious for a couple decades that fantasy is outselling science fiction, and dominates the books critics speak of when compile lists of the “best science fiction and fantasy” of the year.

Today’s post is about how that is playing out in 2022.

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Climate Change, 8 Billion, and Religion

Today’s items are inspired by a new Pew Survey on how religion influences Americans’ views on the environment, and by the UN announcement that Earth’s human population has reached eight billion.

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Andy Borowitz, PROFILES IN IGNORANCE: How America’s Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber (2022)

I hesitated reading this book, because I’ve seen and heard for myself over the years the vacuous platitudes of Ronald Reagan, the jejune idiocies of Dan Quayle, the conspiratorial lies of Donald Trump. So what would be gained by reading it…?

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SF Links: Stories and Crashed Spaceships

Two notable items today from the Tor.com website. About stories; about crashed spaceships (loosely).

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Post-Election Blue, not Red

Context; Where we are; Connie Willis; Christian dictatorships; More MAGA than ever; Russian delicacy; Lagniappes.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson, STARRY MESSENGER: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization

Review:

Rather similarly to a couple three other nonfiction books I’ve read lately –- Ari Wallach’s LONGPATH (review here, Jim Al-Khalil’s THE JOY OF SCIENCE (review here), and even Justin Gregg’s IF NIETZSCHE WERE A NARWHAL (review here) -– this book is another basic, entry-level book covering ideas familiar to forward-looking thinkers of all kinds, but especially to scientists and to science fiction readers.

The difference between this and those other books is that Tyson is a major cultural figure, probably the best-known scientist in the nation. He’s done TV shows (Cosmos), he does the lecture circuit, and he has lots (hundreds of thousands? Don’t know exactly) of followers on Twitter. He pokes fun at the bad science in sci-fi movies. (And in the latest Top Gun.)

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Quote of the Day: Recovering from Madness

Charles Mackay was a Scottish poet who lived from 1818 to 1889. He was the author of the book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, in 1841.

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