The World in the Satin Bag

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Milestone Reached
2008-05-26 06:55:00
I officially have 20,000 hits as of today. Thanks to everyone who has been coming here for the last year-ish! I appreciate it. Tell all your friends about me (if you want).Thanks again!(Don't click the read more, there isn't any more after this!)
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A San Francisco Trip
2008-05-25 03:07:00
This is late in coming, but so be it. I recently went on a lovely, yet strangely difficult trip to San Francisco to meet with Paul Genesse, author of The Golden Cord (you can find the review here and my interview with the author here). So, here's how it went down:    Figuring out how to get to San Francisco without a car is actually a lot more difficult than you might think. You see, there are plenty of ways to get to San Francisco from the actual Bay Area (i.e. places that actually border the same bay as San Francisco). But when you're coming from the South Bay, across the Santa Cruz Mountains along the coast it's a whole different experience. There is only one public bus that goes over the mountains and it doesn't go to San Francisco, but to San Jose. Then you have to get from San Jose to a train or subway that will take you into San Francisco, which is a problem because there is no direct route from San Jose to San Francisco at all, despite it being ...
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RIP: Rober Asprin
2008-05-23 18:54:00
I just learned that Mr. Asprin died yesterday. You can find out more about it here. Another great lost.(Don't click the read more, there isn't any more after this!)

What’s Your Writing Style? (another meme)
2008-05-23 07:15:00
Well, I figure memes are of some interest, so here is one and anyone with a blog is hereby tagged. 1. Are you a “pantser” or a “plotter?”It depends on the situation I suppose. Sometimes I plot, and sometimes I don't. Most of the time I don't, to be honest. I have a general idea where a story is going, but that's about all. 2. Detailed character sketches or “their character will be revealed to me as a I write”?The character is revealed to me as I write. I usually have a good idea who the characters are as far as personality goes in my head, though. I think you have to know your characters a little in your head to even write about them. 3. Do you know your characters’ goals, motivations, and conflicts before you start writing or is that something else you discover only after you start writing?It's a little of both, actually. I knew Carl in The Lies of Venicia was going to be a sort of ruffian with women problems before I really started writing him just as I ...
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Question About Food
2008-05-22 06:31:00
This might sound like a stupid thing to ask but: can you kill yourself or become really unhealthy if you eat too much fruit? For clarification, I don't mean eating only fruit, but eating an especially large quantity of fruit.The reason I ask is I am obsessed with fruit. I love it. To death. The only way I could be vegetarian is if I could eat nothing but fruit. As I write this I'm looking at what remains of a package of raspberries, which isn't much at all to be honest. I do this with just about all berries (blackberries, blueberries, and any other berries I can get my hands on). I also plow through ripe peaches and apricots because they are simply divine.So, seriously, can I kill myself if I eat too much fruit? Or is it okay to eat fruit like candy?(Don't click the read more, there isn't any more after this!)
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Rejection: Interstellar Realty
2008-05-22 01:41:00
Well, apparently my humorous SF story about home foreclosure failed to appeal to the judged of Writers of the Future. Oh well. I think it needs a quick edit and then I'll send it elsewhere.Right now would be fitting for some sort of worldly advice about the world going round and round or something of that nature.Anywho.
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Interview w/ Susan Beth Pfeffer
2008-05-19 18:30:00
Thank again to Susan for doing a second interview. You can find out more about her on her blog and be sure to check out her books on Amazon (Life As We Knew It and the dead & the gone, the latter of which is released on June 1st, for example). Without further ado!Thanks for doing another interview with me, Susan. I think we can skip the simple introductions since I've done an interview with you before. So let's get right to it. Your new book is called The Dead & the Gone, a companion novel to Life As We Knew It. What was the inspiration for writing this second book?I had a wonderful time writing Life As We Knew It and I was eager to write a sequel. However Harcourt, my publisher, wasn't eager to have one. So one day I thought, well I'll write a book about a whole different set of characters living through the exact same catastrophe. It won't be a sequel, but it will be fun. And Harcourt liked the idea also, so I wrote the dead & the gone.What are some challenges ...
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Wednesday: Too Far Away
2008-05-19 07:13:00
I'm going slightly insane at the moment. I won't know with any certainty if "Interstellar Realty" will be rejected until Wednesday , since that is apparently the day when finalists are announced. It's driving me absolutely bonkers right now. Some part of me wishes they'd just call me and say "no, it sucked, better luck next time". Obviously I'd love to be a semi-finalist or a finalist, but I'm being realistic, however pessimistic that might be. You can hit me at any point and tell me to stop being that way, though. It might help.The good news is I spent some time with Jennifer who took the Modern German Fiction class along with me two quarters ago and we had a fascinating discussion about Philip K. Dick and his amazing work Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. We may be having another discussion next weekend, which would be a lot of fun, to be honest. As soon as I know what my grade is on my first serious essay for my PKD class I'll post it.Alright, I'm off before my...

Magazine Review: F & SF, July 2008
2008-05-19 02:39:00
Just thought I'd let you all know that I posted my review of the July 2008 issue of F & SF magazine. You can check it out here.Enjoy!
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Ubik, the Miracle Cure For All Your Needs
2008-05-17 04:22:00
Here is my response to the novel Ubik by Philip K. Dick for my independent study course. Hope you enjoy it!    Philip K. Dick’s fascination with what is real and what isn’t real is inextricably linked to his fictional and non-fictional dealings with aspects of the mind—psychosis and mind-altering drugs especially. The fascinating thing about Ubik is that it is illusive. Who is actually dead? Is it Runciter or Joe Chip? Or are both of them dead? Or perhaps nobody is dead, but they all think they are dead? Dick has taken liberties with the story for a good reason: to give you an ending which defies everything that had happened previously.    On the one hand this produces a cyclical effect. If Joe Chip really did die, then at the end Runciter has died as well and the manifestations of Joe Chip in his half-life “reality” are nothing more than markers of what it is to have died—for Joe Chip it works in the opposite, with manife...
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F & SF Magazine Subscription Offer
2008-05-15 20:01:00
I feel rather stupid for not putting this up earlier. I recently opted to get a free issue of F & SF magazine to review. I'm about half-way through right now and expect to get it done this weekend to help promote the magazine. It's actually pretty decent and I'm enjoying it thus.However, F & SF contacted me the other day to tell me there is a special offer to bloggers for subscriptions to the magazine (meaning anyone who reads this blog is eligible).Here are the two links:Regular subscription area and the Paypal subscription area.I recommend if you enjoy the magazine to get a subscription and support one of speculative fiction's oldest and more prestigious magazines.(Don't click the read more, there isn't any more after this!)
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Anticipation Station
2008-05-15 19:49:00
I'm biting my nails off right now. Lindsey decided it would be a good idea to remind me that my story is still in the Writers of the Future Contest, Second Quarter, and also decided to mention that the honorable mentions (or most of them) are up, which means the contest is coming to a close. Why is that a problem? Well, first off, I have no idea how they deal with the semi-finals and finals, since I've never been there. Do they call you at the same time as the honorable mentions? Or is it right before posting? What?I'm going nuts right now because I have a feeling my story didn't place at all, but because I don't know for certain I have the desperate desire to know. I don't mind losing. Really, I don't. What I hate is realizing that some people already know their fates and I haven't a clue. It's...insanity.(Don't click the read more, there isn't any more after this!)P.S.: This is in no way an attack on the WOTF folks. They can't really help how it works and ...
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Ethanol = Bad
2008-05-14 08:10:00
Right now on Channel 8 in Santa Cruz they're talking about something I seem to recall saying myself when ethanol first was released and ethanol cars came out: it's bad.Well, it's being blamed for a food crisis, which is exactly what I was saying before. Since ethanol uses something called corn, and we Americans, and much of the world, seem to like this particular vegetable when it comes to food, the result is that food costs are going up, particularly in lovely places like Mexico, which has enough problems as it is with poverty.Here's a word of advice: how about we stop being retarded and thinking about TEMPORARY solutions and get us some PERMANENT solutions instead? Or is that too logical for the world? Where the hell are the Japanese on this? Shouldn't they be firing off a bunch of cars that run off recycled soda cans or something?Yeah.(Don't click the read more, there isn't any more after this!)P.S.: Apologies for the short posts, but in an effort to keep active whi...
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Woes of Living On My Own
2008-05-14 03:47:00
Things I didn't want when I moved:Loud argument, screaming matches, and the stress that comes with it.People who don't pay the rent.Problematic relationships between the owner of the house and tenants, often resulting in the above screaming matches.The unfortunate desire to remain like a hermit in my room at all times, only coming out to get water and rarely coming out to cook food.Things I got:All of the above.Yeah. Not feeling it right now.(Don't click the read more, there isn't any more after this!)
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Do Electric Sheep Have Android Dreams?
2008-05-12 06:22:00
Yes, that is a clever pun and it's entirely intentional. I've been incredibly unproductive today, mostly because I wrote two essays yesterday (still have two left) and my brain literally just wants to sit around and do nothing. I spent most of today trying to think of a good topic for one of my other essays and finally came up with one. Still, I feel that I've fallen away from this blog a little so I thought I'd present one of my earlier essays. This is a reader response, so it isn't a typical essay (for the record it's on Do Android s Dream of Electric Sheep ? by Philip K. Dick). So, enjoy: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is a trip into the subconscious of one of science fiction’s most renowned authors since the fall of the Golden Age, the Age of Science, and, for the most part, the Age of Sociological SF. Dealing with the overrunning theme of empathy—from a human perspective and from an android perspective—the text reflects some of Dick’s largest concerns wi...
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Essays Galore
2008-05-11 05:47:00
I just wrote two essays today. Needless to say my brain is almost dead. I have two more to go. Not fun. Luckily one of them is going to be somewhat entertaining, since it is for my Philip K. Dick course and the other won't be so bad since all I have to do is a simple observation of an animal (I've done it before and it can be somewhat entertaining).Anywho(Don't click the read more, there isn't any more after this!)
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Does the Genre Tag Matter?
2008-05-09 07:34:00
I recently came upon an article featuring Michael Chabon and Jeffrey Ford in which both authors gave some reasons as to why tagging fiction with certain genre tags isn't really that important. Chabon states that, "the people it matters the least to are the ones who are doing it. In so many other artistic mediums, it's not weird at all." This got me thinking about whether or not tagging novels within certain genres really matters and I'll send the question in the direction of the reader as well. To me it seems like this is a difficult question to answer. To a certain extent the genre tags are important. They help book stores figure out where to put things and are great for categorizing in libraries and online. I think the question applies, however, to the growing number of works that don't really sit into any one genre. Take Zoran Zivkovic's work. His work is highly literary, in my opinion, but there is a lot of that "fantastic" element within each story, some more so t...
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Aww, the Bachelor Life
2008-05-08 03:46:00
There are great advantages to being on your own. One of the best ones is that I don't have to fight anyone over the toy in the cereal box. That's right, it's all mine.What is that in my hand? Well it's certainly not a razor, because why would I be flashing around a razor instead of shaving off my rather rugged-man beard? That is a plastic, light-up Indiana Jones spoon that I managed to procure in a box of Cocoa Krispies. Another benefit is that I can eat all the cereal I want and my brother can steal the good stuff.Oh and I'm fairly certain I will become a green tea junkie.Yeah. Green tea is good.
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How to Tell When the Religious Right Has Lost Its Damn Mind
2008-05-07 03:04:00
Really? Are you sh*tin' me?Since when has doing a magic TRICK been considered wizardry? Alternately, how far backwards have we gone when someone can be fired for doing something as silly as making a toothpick disappear and reappear? He did a circus trick...who gives a flying fig?So if you can't tell, this is a prime example of why the religious right has completely gone off the deep end. This guy should sue.
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Interview w/ Dave A. Law
2008-05-06 21:06:00
Thanks very much to Mr. Law for doing this interview with me. You can find check out my review of The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction here.First, tell us a little about yourself and your relation to the speculative fiction field--a little history if you will.From my earliest memory I always wanted to be a scientist and from that grew a love of science fiction. In my teens I got interested in writing and at eighteen I was working as an editor/writer/letterer for a comic book company formed with some friends that I helped run but got nowhere. I went on to write and edit (as well as help run) a variety of comic book companies over the years. I started my own SF zine but couldn’t get it off the ground in the traditional format, so this eventually revised the format to an eZine that I ran for a few years. I got married, finally received my science degree and have been working as a software developer ever since. In more recent past I have been co-running an ePublisher, Virtu...
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SF Crowsnest Nabs Another!
2008-05-06 19:00:00
I'm a little late with this news, but SF Crowsnest nabbed another of my interviews to put in their latest issue (May 2008, #174). You can check that out here if you haven't read the interview with Mr. Melko yet.(Don't click the read more, there isn't any more after this!)

I Hate CNN
2008-05-03 18:14:00
Why? Because of this article. What it's attempting to do is make it seem like Americans are being pathetic babies about the gas price thing. What's the problem with that? Well, first off they say in the article that the prices shown don't reflect wages...so my question is this: how can you presume to know whether Americans really don't have anything to bitch about if you aren't even taking into account the difference in wages from country to country? My girlfriend is from England, so I decided to use that as a basis, since it is often said that England has such ridiculous prices for gas (or petrol, if you will).Minimum wage in England is about 5.60 pounds. Roughly converted to U.S. dollars, that is $11.20. That's MINIMUM wage. For most states in the U.S. minimum wage is well under $7.00 (all these are based on hourly wages). Some states the minimum wage is still under $6. So, when CNN tells us that gas is about $8.36 per gallon in the UK we're supposed to think, "W...
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Reviewing Ethics: A Question For All
2008-05-03 02:48:00
I have a question that I think needs answering from more people than just myself (which is why I'm asking the question):Is it unethical for me to enter into contests on a blog I do reviews for even if I'm told it's okay by the owner of the blog?I ask this question because SQT of F & SF Lovin' Book Reviews often has some really good little contests for free books. As most of you know I do reviews for that blog. So, while SQT says that it's okay for me to enter, I feel some apprehension because I have a feeling that there is something unethical about it. Some part of me doesn't feel right about entering those contests because I get this sense that I shouldn't be entering seeing how I'm a member of the reviewing crew. What do you think on this issue? Am I just being silly?(Don't click the read more, there isn't any more after this!)
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Rejection: Artemis
2008-05-01 22:13:00
Well, Artemis was rejected once again, this time by Apex Digest. Now it's off to some place else. Yay! Everyone wish it luck. The good news is that Apex didn't hate the story, it just wasn't the right fit, which is entirely my fault for not realizing that. Doh!(Don't click the read more, there isn't any more after this!)
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Rejection: To Lie With Spirit
2008-05-01 22:13:00
That's right, I have two rejections to update on. Well, technically this isn't a rejection, but my SF short about Mars that went to the Eaton Conference short story contest for UC students didn't get 1st or 2nd. Technically it didn't place at all, so, I'm basically it's rejected. I don't know if it was a close 2nd, or if it was all the way at the bottom, and probably never will know, but regardless, it's rejected and now off to Neo-opsis, who might like the story.Yeah. I like rejections.(Don't click the read more, there isn't any more after this!)
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Movie Review: Resident Evil Extinction
2008-04-29 02:06:00
Having never been a fan of the game franchise (I think they're rather stupid myself, but that's because I like FPS games instead), I have always loved the film adaptations. Why? Because I love zombie movies, even ones like 28 Days Later where the "zombies" aren't really zombies (and actually all those Romero incarnations aren't truly zombie movies either--look it up...try Haiti). Regardless of what you might think about the games, the first Resident Evil flick was darn good. It managed to terrify the crap out of us with those zombie dogs and the truly frightening zombified people. We were able to forgive the makers for the poor CGI too, since those weird mutation things were sort of bad, but didn't take up the screen much.Then came Resident Evil 2 and those of us who liked the first movie were screaming "yes", right up until we saw and we were screaming "no". It seems that awesome cliff-hanger ending in the first film was turned into another relatively interesting idea th...
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And So I Live (For the Time Being)
2008-04-27 05:18:00
This is, more or less, a completely pointless post about what has been going on with me. I'm feeling particularly bad right now as I haven't posted anything of significance in quite some time (I don't really consider the movie reviews to be of significance, though important in some way). So, what's happening with me?I moved. It happened quite suddenly actually. Preceding this I had contracted a horrible cold, or the flu, or some other equally terrible illness responsible for a terrible fever, cough, sneezing, runny nose, clogged nose, delirium, and other such issues. Maybe it was bird flu. Regardless, I was ill and when I moved it was sudden and I don't really remember it. Trust me, if you have a bad fever, a horrible cough, and about two gallons of cold medicine floating around in your belly and someone tells you "okay, we're moving you, so pack up", it's really hard to have any idea what the hell is going on. Needless to say, stuff got packed up in boxes and I had n...
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My Trip: Part Two (The First Half)
2008-04-25 20:30:00
For all your sakes, I'm going to leave out the exceedingly mushy stuff. You probably don't want to read about it, so I'm not going to bother you with it.Having arrived at Sheffield by train, I proceeded to collect my things while Lindsey, my girlfriend, stood outside wrapped in her warm jacket looking around for me in the windows. It was somewhat funny because as I lugged my heavy junk off the train she still didn't see me. So I snuck my way over and waved at her until she saw me. Then I got a hug for my efforts and all was well.A moment later and we were heading for her mother's car where her mother was waiting. I half expected there to be a confrontation of sorts, but there wasn't. This was good news of course (except the part where she was just putting on a happy face and instead was saying lots of horrible things about me behind my back, but so be it).So we left Sheffield, with Lindsey and I in the backseat holding hands and generally making other people sick (get ov...
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Psst!
2008-04-25 20:15:00
By the way, yes, I am back and alive. More to come on that subject later :P(Don't click the read more, there isn't any more after this!)

Short Hiatus
2008-04-17 02:09:00
I just wanted to let everyone know that I am going on a very brief hiatus from blogging. This is NOT permanent and will only last until around the middle of next week. Basically here is what's up:I'm moving and have to move this weekend.I'm behind on homework from trying to sell stuff off, get rid of stuff, find a place to move to, etc.I have contracted a wicked cold that is really eating me up right now and I think it's fair to everyone, including myself, to take a very short break to get over this and get my life in order.I've been struggling the last few weeks just trying to do my homework, move, sell stuff, and do writing. It's just a lot to take and now that I have this horrible cold I think I need to move away from a couple things to give myself a little breathing space until all things are situation.Again, this is not permanent. I'll be back next week (likely be wednesday).Thanks for your support and I look forward to coming back and writing again. I have lots of ...
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