Eric Rosenfield's Master Feed

Sigh. knitmeapony: Today in what in the unacceptable fuck: this...

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 18:05:08 -0400

Sigh.

Today in what in the unacceptable fuck: this is Locus Magazine’s idea of an April Fools Day joke. The article was gone in under an hour, though it was here.

No.

Just.

No.

Do I even have to explain how wrong this is?

Transcript below the cut.

Read More

The Equalizer

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 22:16:00 -0500

Intersteller Task Force One was earthward bound, from twenty years at space. Operation Tyler was complete. We had circled Barstow’s Dark Star, nearly a light-year from the Sun. The six enormous cruisers were burdened, now, with a precious cargo—on the frigid planets of the Dark Star we had toiled eight years, mining raw uranium, building atomic plants, filling the cadmium saftety drums with terrible plutonium.

We had left earth in a blare of bands and party oratory. Heroes of the people, we were setting out to trade our youth for the scarce fuel metals that were the lifeblood of the Squaredeal Machine. We were decelerating toward the Dark Star when Jim Cameron happened upon the somehow uncensored fact the both uranium and thorium are actually fairly plentiful on the planets at home, and concluded that we were not expected to return.

Allowed to test the cadmium safety drums that we had brought to contain our refined plutonium, he found that some of them were not safe. One in a each hundred—plated to look exactly like the rest—was a useless allow that absorbed no neutrons. Stacked together in our hold, those dummy drums would have made each loaded ship a director-sized atomic bomb, fused with an unshielded crticial mass of plutonium.

If Jim had been a Squaredealer, he might have got a medal. As a civilian feather merchant, he was allowed to scrap the deadly drums.

—”The Equalizer” by Jack Williamson, Astounding Science Fiction, 1947

The rest of the story isn’t nearly so good as this opening, but the opening is wonderful. I love the compounding of recompilations—there’s a dark star 1 light year from Earth; they’re sent on a one-way mission to it; even after they realize they’re betrayed by their own government, they they complete the mission as ordered; the fact that the man who saves them gets nothing for it because of his status in society; and now that they’ve completed their mission, what’s going to happen when they get back from the trip they were never supposed to return from? So many questions raised by so few paragraphs, and so much left for the reader to put together about the realities of the world of the story.

This was part of what John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction, gave to science fiction in the forties. Recompilations, where multiple sfnal ideas compound on each other to create a more interesting, and better realized, world, and one which attempts to say something about the society we live in beyond the juvenile fantasies that had ruled the pulps in the 20s and 30s.

Feuervogel: Let's Talk About First World Problems...

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 18:34:07 -0500

Feuervogel: Let's Talk About First World Problems...:

lightninglaveau:

uhuh-she-said:

Is your latte too hot? Mine was this morning. I was at the bustling Oasis shopping center in Kampala, Uganda, and I took one sip and then spilt it all over me. You know who else has these problems? The local Ugandans that frequent this shop, and make up…

myjetpack: A book of my cartoons will be out in late April.

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:42:27 -0500

myjetpack:

A book of my cartoons will be out in late April.

"I empathize with these booksellers. I hate DRM. But I wish they’d actually bothered to spend 15..."

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:32:42 -0500

“I empathize with these booksellers. I hate DRM. But I wish they’d actually bothered to spend 15 minutes trying to understand how DRM works and what it is, and how open source works, and what it is, before they filed their lawsuit.”

- Indie booksellers sue Amazon and big publishers over DRM (but have no idea what “DRM” and “open source” mean) - Boing Boing

Pointed to this by Shelf Awareness, but it’s worth reblogging.

(via amiwithani)

=

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 20:50:49 -0500

(via CHAW » attitude | design - architecture - graphic -...

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:35:32 -0500

(via CHAW » attitude | design - architecture - graphic - photo)

After arguing with Libertarians…

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 10:01:09 -0500

After arguing with Libertarians…

My story "Trials of the Dead King" to be published

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 11:17:51 -0500

My story “Trials of the Dead King” will be appearing in LORE Magazine in April!

More info: http://wetasphalt.com/content/trials-dead-king-are-coming

Django Unchained and "Accuracy"

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 13:05:52 -0500

Django Unchained and "Accuracy"

Autobiography, Diegesis, and Anachronism In Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained'

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 20:41:21 -0500

Autobiography, Diegesis, and Anachronism In Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained'

edwardspoonhands: Do it anyway.

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 10:32:44 -0500

edwardspoonhands:

Do it anyway.

The case against succession

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 10:30:42 -0500

The case against succession

"William Goldman says in Adventures in the Screen Trade that people learned the wrong lesson from..."

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 11:14:18 -0400

“William Goldman says in Adventures in the Screen Trade that people learned the wrong lesson from Jaws. The public flocked to see a well-written tautly-paced story with excellent characters, and the movie moguls learned from this that people wanted more films with… sharks.”

- Jo Walton, Something Else Like… Introduction

(via 10 Ways to Syndicate Your Online Writing - GalleyCat)

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 17:31:55 -0400

(via 10 Ways to Syndicate Your Online Writing - GalleyCat)

How to Add a Nook DRM-Removal Plugin to calibre - The Digital Reader

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 12:06:23 -0400

How to Add a Nook DRM-Removal Plugin to calibre - The Digital Reader

Upload and Sell your eBooks with Paypal - Payhip

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 23:14:40 -0400

Upload and Sell your eBooks with Paypal - Payhip

Where the internet came from.

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 14:24:38 -0400

Where the internet came from.

America's Next Author - Social Writing Contest - eBookMall

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:17:10 -0400

America's Next Author - Social Writing Contest - eBookMall

Mieville's Anticlimaxes

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 13:38:31 -0400

Mieville's Anticlimaxes:

How Mieville does fantastic materialism