The old blog, active from 2006 through 2012.
How Does the Story End?
On DeepGenre today: inspired by my thinking as I write the concluding volume of the Jump 225 trilogy, I’ve posted a meditation on how stories end, and why they end, and what the purpose of ending a story is in the first place. Using Batman as a metaphor, of course. If you were to stand back at the end of Bruce Wayne’s life and try to chronicle it from the beginning, chances are that his... Continue reading→
The Final Cover for “MultiReal”
I mentioned that Pyr was moving in a new direction for the "MultiReal" cover art. Well, feast your eyes on the final cover of "MultiReal," hitting bookshelves early summer 2008. Continue reading→
Capclave 2007 Wrap-up
I’m of two minds about my experience at this year’s Capclave in Rockville, MD. From a promotional standpoint, it might seem like the weekend was a disaster. My reading was slotted Saturday at 11:30 pm, and therefore rather sparsely attended. My book wasn’t available in the dealer’s room, as far as I could tell. And my autographing session never happened, because they scheduled me for 10 am Sunday in the dealer’s room — forgetting that... Continue reading→
Ann Coulter and "Perfect" Faith
It’s a lovely, blustery October day here in Washington, DC, and I am peering into my magic crystal ball which shows me the future. What are you discussing next week? What is every newspaper and TV news show talking about 24/7? The crystal ball says we will all be discussing Ann Coulter telling Donny Deutsch that Jews need to be “perfected” into Christians. (Watch it on YouTube.) You realize, of course, that this is the... Continue reading→
My Capclave 2007 Schedule
This weekend, I’ll be attending Capclave, the largest Washington, DC-area science fiction convention. I’ve got three panels, plus a reading and a signing. The reading time they’ve assigned to me is the plum spot of 11:30 p.m. on Saturday night. The Capclave organizers originally had me scheduled in a joint reading at 5 pm alongside Guest of Honor Jeffrey Ford, with a special intro by David Hartwell and an appreciation by Sir Arthur C. Clarke... Continue reading→
Reinventing E-mail
Not only has email software not evolved in the past 10 years, it's actually moved backwards. Clients like Mozilla Thunderbird are dying, and Google seems to be the only company pushing email innovation. What can be done to fix this sorry state of affairs? Continue reading→
The Bourne Paranoia
Here are a few things that every American knows. The world is a vile and dangerous place. America is blindly and irrationally hated by just about everybody outside of our borders. If we left our security up to the peaceniks, bureaucrats, and Boy Scouts we elect to national office, the United States would be a smoldering ruin in a matter of months. Therefore it’s necessary that we fund a zillion intelligence agencies and black ops... Continue reading→
Take Control of Your Information! (Part 1)
I started a post last week about the future of web content, and the problems of content distribution in web 2.0, and why we should all adopt open standards to structure everything we write on the Internet. The piece got much too long, so I split it into three parts. Here’s part 1. *** Remember how the experts told us that computers were supposed to eliminate paper — and then for twenty years we wallowed... Continue reading→
Free Tech Tools Worth Blogging About
It’s phenomenal how much free software is out there on the web for the taking. I, for one, definitely take it for granted. Back in the days of taping LP records onto 90-minute cassette tapes, I used to pine for a computerized music library. Now I’ve got a computerized music library that I built for free, and my CDs are largely gathering dust in the basement. Do I marvel at the whole thing on a... Continue reading→
On Jewish Werewolves
The great 20th century novelist Bernard Malamud once said, “If you ever forget you’re a Jew, a Gentile will remind you.” Perhaps we can add to that what I’m going to call Edelman’s Corollary: “If you ever forget Bernard Malamud’s statement, a Jew will remind you.” Way back in January, I posted on this blog a little contest called The Jewish Marxist Werewolves in Bolivia Infoquake Giveaway. The aim of the contest was to write... Continue reading→