== Good things to read, meanwhile ==
Now available in e-version! Subterranean sold out of their deluxe collector’s edition of The Best of David Brin. Now it’s available in e-version. And just released in paperback by Amazing Stories.
If you missed my serialized sci fi comedy novel entitled The Ancient Ones… here’s a link to the first 8 or so chapters with lovely illustrations. And lots of Yuks! (Or else yucks, you decide!)
Speaking of sci fi comedy… Dang. This Star Trek one - Beam Me Up, Bubba! - makes AI worthwhile!
And one more of mine: Can industrial innovation be restored, down at the level of amateurs, hobbyists and local love of skill? Here’s my own comic book about American innovation in the near future is TINKERERS!
Terry Pratchett's comedy series is now a fun movie: The Color of Magic.
And more pertinent than ever, for right now. “Brin reads the opening of EXISTENCE.”
== Meanwhile… ==
Oh, human augmentation is also the topic of a whole chapter in ailien minds!
It's a theme that's straight outta sci fi and while I give talks to defense folks about Human Augmentation... the "Enhanced Games" will allow athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs, as in Achilles' Choice by Niven & Barnes. Let's have 5+ Olympics:
1. A return to a core one for amateurs
2. One for pros
3. The Special, of course for those who overcome so much
4. Robots! and animals
5. Cyborgs! And
6. Dome flying on the moon!... and a 7th on open-invite to any aliens or uplifted critters who wanna come on down and join in. Keep inviting till someone shows.
And no. SNUB the UFO guys! They are nasty bad-guests, if they exist. (And they likely don't.)
== Okay... this one impressed me... ==
Someone prompted an LLM to write a prologue and 1st chapters of an uplift novel in the style of David Brin. Have a look fif you like. Interestingly, the intellectual content of the piece... its complexity and pertinence of ideas... is almost satisfactory, while the basic mechanics of style and fiction narrative are so lacking that I'd have to spend hours tutoring a young author in my Out of Time YA series, in order to get it close to my standards of basic craft. My universe? Perhaps. My style? Puh-lease.
== More SciFi News ==
I truly am still writing sci fi... or at least helping others to do so.
My YA series Yanked -- or David Brin's Out of Time series* - has been re-released, with new additions, including Storm's Eye by October K. Santerelli, and The Archimedes Gambit by Patrick Freivald. Re-releases of the original three by Kress, Finch and Allen.
And now three more! Boondoggle by Tom Easton and Torion Oey, Raising the Roof, by Richard Doyle, and Snowdance by SciFi legend Allen Steele and Robin Orm Hansen!
You'll love em all!
Finally... a reminder: I'm posting my SF comedy The Ancient Ones, chapter by chapter. Samples were available on my website. Be ready for laughs + painful puns! And some sci fi concepts taken to um... extremes. Oh and there'll be freebies for best groaner comments to adjust the final version.
*The “Out of Time” (or “Yanked!”) series: Only teens can teleport through time and space! Dollops of fun, adventure & optimism for young adults.
69 comments:
I truly am still writing sci fi...
Famous last words:
"It was to be many years before he heard that voice again."
... or at least helping others to do so.
Martin has his 'High Cards' series, and you have 'Yanked'. Both worthy bootstrappers for up and coming talents. Probably a better way of doing it than collaborating, come to think of it.
I might sign up for the Hugos this year. Had a look at the lists, and have concluded that 'drama: long form' is going to be a tough one!
'Color of Magic" is fun, but was made decades ago. It's based on Pratchett's earliest Discworld stuff. 'Hogfather' is a better pick (albeit still an oldie), from when Pratchett was at the height of his powers. Apart from the absurdity of a skeletal santa providing swords as educational toys and intoning 'HO HO HO', we are treated to the best (or maybe the worst?) theological creation ever, and Death's ode to the imagination.
Somebody tried to make a series based on the City Watch, which somehow managed to be an unqualified disaster (given the material, a form of genius in itself!)
Hugo finalists: I looked at the "Games" Action and noticed that no major ("Triple A") publisher made it.
(Which isn't a surprise for me: While they would be able of producing astounding works, they aren't anymore due to risk aversity and work environments toxic to professional creatives. Instead, they are milking consumers with endless remakes. Big money, small ideas. The same is true in reverse: the challenging stuff is produced by Indie studios.)
Among the saddest cases of a botched story to film is Poul Anderson's THE HIGH CRUSADE, which a German company made. What a great story. Someone oughta.... But then, I have a list of movie soncepts as ling as your arm.
In more innocent times, I once stumbled across an online discussion of whether a fully equipped US Marine Company could take on the might of the Roman Army. I dropped a reference to Anderson's 'flip' tale of a medieval company of (also fully equipped) crusaders finding themselves taking on an interstellar empire rather than Saladin.
The general response surprised me.
Not because they tore the idea to pieces: this is part of the fun of such fora and, after all, Anderson was writing for tongue in cheek entertainment rather than historical accuracy.
No, because nobody had ever heard of it!
Ah well! As you say, there are other stories.
Or a small W Virginia coal minig town plopped into 1632 Germany and having to change Europe and the world?
Would have expected Terra Invicta to make the cut.
Minor coincidence, this, was just urging a friend to find and read DeCamp's "Lest Darkness Fall", where one of his patented bookish, mild-mannered heroes is dumped in 6th C Rome and has to 1) survive and 2) stop the fall of the Roman Empire...
Which was such an ill-defined occurrence that a 6th C Roman intellectual he says this to asks in alarm, "Is the Empire falling?"
Pappenheimer
P.S. Martin Padway tries and fails to invent gunpowder, but distilled liquor and a newspaper are easier and safer. He didn't want to talk about the Alpha version clock, either.
What I found so neat about Flint's story-verse is the ridiculous amount of research the members of that community put into what might and might not work... and then how it got mapped into stories by people who needed some coaching... and got it.
I remember a conversation with a co-worker. We were both reading the novels and the research. We mostly agreed that plywood would have been the easier composite construction product to generate with down-time tech with fiberglass taking a bit longer... but not very long.
Just finished The Invincible by Stanislav Lem and thought: What a fine movie it would be in the right hands.
A few weeks ago, I created an "Alternate History" feed on Bluesky which immediately became very active. This seems to be a hot topic for enlightenment types. It was the premise of some of the very best TOS episodes.
It also sparks very compelling use cases for archaeological/anthropological computational psychohistory, and also seeds for TASAT (I'm too posty over there).
Uknown Yep! Lest Darkness Fall was a huge classic fun read.
And one can also reference "The Crosstime Engineer" series, which several people here had mentioned before.
Maybe the voters had enough of alien conspiracies?
I do remember and did enjoy Frankowski's series but I am not sure he could get them published in their original form post-Epstein.
Pappenheimer
Seriously worried about levels of professional skill here. The rooftop where a shooter missed Trump's ear (by a mile, as he SLAPPED the ear away from cameras) should have had a cop on it. As for the Hilton a few days back? Look at the video. OMG, for a big, high stakes event, you follow the metal detector with a gracefully unobtrusive MAZE, a couple of graceful turns, meant to slow exactly that sort of charge past the gate. A few potted plants and a standing poster or two and voila. Standard precaution.
But what happened next? Watch the video. ALL of the armed guys at that checkpoint drew guns and aimed them after the running perp. One of them apparently fired inaccurately. But that's not the problem. Nor the fact tha no one charges after the guy....
...and okay, we don't see how they might pause because OTHER armed guys are handling it. That's not my complaint. Which is...
...that a trained detail will have one or two guys who know they are supposed to TURN THEIR BACKS ON THE EVENT and look the other way! Because any such event may be the DISTRACTION vs the real thing.
Watch the video. Do you see any of these supposed professionals doing that? If this had been a conspiracy, all of them would have fallen for it and been mowed down by the real, followup gang.
Of course DJT has made a point of chivvying, transferring and firing competent people. Including at least half of our best counter-terrorism folks. (Remember that, when a 9/11+ Reichstag Fire hits!) Still there must be something behind such waves of foolishness.
Oh, but one cheery thing. Salad Man rules!
Here's that video
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXlwUEsDDeR/
I conversed with Frankowski. Turned out he was a rabid vociferous anti-semite. If you read his stuff knowing that, it leaps out at you.
The real tragedy? None of the reporters who had F-U tattoos put on their butts to moon his rant got to use them!
Charles speaking of checks and balances before Congress might be the first time in history a monarch tells elected representatives in parliament to get their asses up and to do their fucking job.
Weird - Instagram blocks this video.
"We received a legal request to restrict this content. We reviewed it against our policies and conducted a legal and human rights assessment.
After the review, we restricted access to the content in the location where it goes against local law."
"...a monarch tells elected representatives..."
When DJT was first re-elected, I fantasized about asking King Charles to take us back.
And as a fan of the musical Hamilton, I couldn't help imagining the king's reply:
"When your people say they hate you...don't come crawling back to me!"
It's embarrassing to have to root for foreign leaders when they troll the US president, but it's easier to root for King Charles than for the Iranian mullahs.
@ c plus: It is just Corporate Media censorship to protect you from terrorist propaganda. Nothing to see here, citizen, mind your own duties.
Can someone remind me why DJT hates James Comey so much? IIRC, the reason most regular people know Comey's name is because he announced a re-opening of the investigation into Hillary's e-mails a week before the 2016 election, helping to doom her candidacy.
I think Trump though Comey was loyal when he re-opened the Clinton emaill investigation, and then felt betrayed when Comey wouldn't do everything Trump asked.
In 2017 Comey confirmed that there was an FBI probe into links between Trumps 2016 campaign and Russia. Comey refused to pledge loyalty and refused to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn. Comey also refused to publicly say that Trump wasn't personally under investigation. Comey compared Trump to mafia don in his book A Higher Loyalty.
Oh, yes. The loyalty pledge thing. I did forget that part.
"Comey compared Trump to mafia don..."
Mafia dons expect loyalty from others, but they also exhibit it.
Speed reading through, I misread this as alien codpieces.
I remember the icecube in the glass scene from Earth Girls Are Easy.
Don't know much about movies, but there have been a lot of Playboy cartoons.
Jerry Pournelle loved pointing out the flaw in THE HIGH CRUSADE. Working against wind resistance, a trebuchet cannot throw anything a mere few miles.
SCOTUS continues to legislate from the bench. this time destroying what was left of the Civil Rights Act.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/29/supreme-court-louisiana-congressional-map-case-ruling
David argues that the modern GOP is not racist. This ruling is more proof that the GOP are deeply, uncontrollably racist in their words, actions, and laws.
Mafia dons expect loyalty from others, but they also exhibit it.
Maybe they looked at him, and said "No way we make any deals with DJT. He will screw us over."
"Maybe they looked at him, and said "No way we make any deals with DJT. He will screw us over."
At this point, I'm surprised that the ones who do make deals with him haven't realized this obvious fact.
Somebody at another site pointed me to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89ESmjIBIWI - perhaps a challenge to OGH.
The "American Experiment" from flawed from its very beginning. I find it hard to see how it can be rescued. I hope it can be saved - but hope is not a strategy.
reason, I'd be interested in your citation of another major nation with imperial levels of power that did better, or remotely as well, at engendering the best 80 years in all of human history. Despite many flaws, the best compared to ALL other eras, combined.
As usual, matthew you lie. You lie like a rug and like a sleeping dog. You lie Trump-level. But BFD and get bent, twit.
...If a "US Marine Company could take on the might of the Roman Army."
Pournelle's 'Janissaries' series posited the same question. The answer depends on "How much can you get done before the ammo runs out?" and "How many of your troops are willing to desert/defect to the other side for gold and the offer of land, women, elephants, etc?"
Remember that the Spanish conquest of the Incas became a battle between 2 sets of conquistadors.
Pappenheimer
The GOP (Grubby old Pedophiles) LEADERSHIP may not BE racist - but they are very willing to support racism as a LOT of their BASE is very racist
The difference between "Supporting" racism and "Being" racist is probably not important
If it looks like a duck, moves like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I'm happy to type it as a duck.
(Much was made of a clip a little while back, where Trump apparently wobbles as he leaves a stage. It may be health related. It also looks as if he was reflexively avoiding cooties from a nearby black person.)
The question or point whether the last 80 years were the best in humanity is irrelevant now. They are over, at least for a decade or generation.
And the flaws it had led to that downfall.
David, whether the US was the cause of that period, or just coincidental to it is an open question. Of course the world should be grateful for what Roosevelt did in the Second World War. But beyond Roosevelt, I'm not so sure.
At this point, I'm surprised that the ones who do make deals with him haven't realized this obvious fact.
They where either blinded by their greed and ambition, or by decades of propaganda and conditioning. Trumpism had a very fertile soil to grow on.
"The difference between "Supporting" racism and "Being" racist is probably not important"
Kurt Vonnegut had good insight with, "Be careful who you pretend to be, because you are what you pretend to be."
"If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.+ - David Frum
Hence yesterday's SCOTUS decision gutting the voting rights act.
You can only keep America White by making it fascist.
Trumpism is not conservativism. It is reactionary, revanchist and revolutionary. And retarded.
Bullshit David. You have made the point that you think the GOP is not racist, including using points about Fox and commercials, more than 10 times here. You keep making excuses for your conservative and libertarian friends and you keep attacking anyone that points your behavior out.
If you want to be a pundit, then you have to expect to be held accountable for the crap you say.
Science Fiction is really blowing up the current news cycle:
(1) We have the 'Father of AGW' Al Gore sounding the alarm about a pending Ice Age due to Gulf Stream Collapse, especially in those EU countries located above the Arctic Circle, as first described in a 1940s SciFi novel about an earthquake-mediated change in the Mexican Gulf, only to be rectified by those cheeky Americans who dump rocks into the Gulf of Mexico (now 'Gulf of Trump') in order to restore the stream's historic path, making a supposedly disproven 1970s-era imminent Ice Age Theory trendy again.
Bonus points to anyone who can name the novel title.& author.
(2) Attributed to an elaborate conspiracy theory rather than routine progressive incompetence, Matthew rants about how the present SCOTUS was forced to overrule the 1964 Civil Rights Act for specifying race & gender-based criteria, after subsequent progressive politicians forced thru additional state & federal laws that absolutely FORBID the use of gender & race-based criteria in all state & federal legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Google 'California Proposition 16', a failed 2020 attempt to RE-LEGALIZE racism & gender discrimination in order to reinstate the 'good racism' of Affirmative Action, after 2019 California liberals outsmarted themselves with ACA5 & outlawed all-types discrimination, including Affirmation Action.
(3) Leftwing ''false flag' conspiracy theories proliferate about each & every Trump Assassination attempt, some promulgated by our own expert SciFi story teller, who hopes against hope that his mostly incompetent leftwing allies will finally get serious about killing 'Super-Hitler' Trump, his Super-Duper Fascists & his super-duper financial supporters at the SPLC.
The SPLC, funding the KKK & rightwing extremist boogymen since 1971 in the name of 'Fund-Raising' for Progressivism.
(4) And, in an absolutely stunning example of Mass Media manipulation, major news outlets announce today that (because of the evil GOP's Iran Conflict) Oil Prices are now at an 'all-time high' since 2022, meaning that oil prices were just as high (or higher) under the peace-loving but equally 'non compos mentis' Democrats.
Not that I object, but it appears that the barrier between 'Real News' and 'Science Fiction' has largely evaporated.
Best
This article is excellent.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/30/as-a-ukrainian-journalist-ive-covered-the-us-for-20-years-i-find-it-increasingly-shocking
Okay, I accept that part of your lying is absolute moronic imbecility and cretinous incapability to parse or grasp anything cogent. I'll not bother saying anything else to a vile liar.
For the rest of you a reminder that I said the gone-mad current US right has a wide RANGE of racism, from a very large minority of genuine racist assholes to a likely majority of Republicans who do not think of themselves as racist and resent being called the r-word and certainly have SHIFTED the style of their racism as shown by acceptance of biracial marriages like Clarence & Ginny Thomas and on Fox ads... while in fact most of that majority is certainly racist compared to anything like actual decency.
I have said all of that before. Clearly. And matthew is in many ways a worse asshat than locumranch.
He's taken vitamins andf hence a few of the idiocies are worth answering.
#4 2022 was just post Covid, dunce.
# The middle+left CONTAINS all kinds including reflexive conspiracy nuts. Your cult CONSISTS entirely of such. OBVIOUSLY this shooter was not a staged plant BECAUSE HE SURVIVED TO BE QUESTIONED. Whereas Oswald and the Butler PA "ear-shot" fake 'assassinator' did not and was clearly part of a grand fake.
#2 STOP CHEATING based on race and we moderates will negotiate easing off on compensatory advantages.
#1... see THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. The Gulf Stream stops leading to an Ice Age in dumb. No scientist believes it and I doubt Al Gore does.
"I have said all of that before. Clearly."
It's not clear what the disagreement is that prompts such invective toward matthew. You're not disagreeing that a large constituency of the Republican Party is racist--only that there are nuances within a wide spectrum of racism.
Are you therefore taking issue with "David argues that the modern GOP is not racist."?
Note, in my esteem, it matters not whether one of the subsets of Republicans "do not think of themselves as racist and resent being called the r-word". Racist doesn't necessarily mean that one hates or wants to kill anyone of a particular race. For example, someone may sincerely believe that any black person in a cerebral job must have been given the position because of DEI, and that in a truly merit-based selection, the job would have gone to a white male. That person exhibits racism, despite not frothing at the mouth about it or even obsessing over it. And he's never going to vote for a black president.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/04/30/us/trump-news
The House voted to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown by passing Senate legislation funding most of the department through Sept. 30. It was a sudden resolution to a nearly 80-day impasse after the administration warned that money for paying employees would run out after today.
...
Wow. That wasn't on my BINGO card.
The Senate legislation they're referring to does not fund ICE or Customs and Border Patrol.
I'd like to see a polite discussion on what evidence or prediction David and Matthew could make that would resolve the GOP=racist debate. What could you find/what could you predict that would be different if the proposal is true vs. if it were false.
Then we could set up a gentleman's wager and either look for the evidence or wait for the prediction.
I see it with the same eyes - I'd rather see both find a truce with each other.
But that isn't likely - both have their egos, and are quick to insult each other.
(Personally I am the type of person who sees admittance of mistakes as a sign of personal growth, but there is no way to force that in public space .)
My take, mentioned above, is that they are not perceiving the same argument. Dr Brin does not seem incensed by the argument that the party is racist so much as by the contention that "David argues that the modern GOP is not racist." (emphasis mine)
Furthermore, this miscommunication is exacerbated by our host's insistence that the actual power-brokers are not motivated by racism. That is true, but it's not what matthew (or myself in the past) is talking about. They make use of their followers'/voters' racism to manipulate them. But even that is tangential to the point that a huge majority of those followers/voters can indeed by manipulated by appealing to racism.
David and I have been arguing online for more than 30 years. He only started insulting me after I started saying that there are no good billionaires, so about 12 years back.
Coincidentally around the same time that David admitted here that most of his money comes from punditry instead of SciFi. His anger at criticism is performative to a high degree.
As usual, every single thing that matthew just said is another self-serving lie. I'd say his insanity is proof that our broad coalition does contain jibbering fools, in far lower percentages than the mad confederate side. Except that he is almost certainly proud nOT to be a member of the only coalition that can save America & the world.
Off to your delusional masturbation. We have no fear that your aim will spew near any of us,
The timing of Trump's sudden veer to at last compromise and pay Homeland Security salaries worries me. If a Reichstag. Fire is coming, he'll want to blame Democrats for 'causing this by crippling DHS!!!" And that won't work more than a month from now.
Can't hurt to buy canned goods.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/congress-expected-end-record-75-day-partial-government-shutdown-rcna342903
#1... see THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. The Gulf Stream stops leading to an Ice Age in dumb. No scientist believes it and I doubt Al Gore does.
Here's a MSN story with Al Gore predicting a New Ice Age due to Gulf Stream collapse "within 25 years", plus you can watch the whole boringly complete interview at YouTube:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/al-gore-warns-of-gulf-stream-collapse-within-25-years/ar-AA221som?ocid=Peregrine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUJ3wFrfiEk
#2 STOP CHEATING based on race and we moderates will negotiate easing off on compensatory advantages.
Absolutely no cheating was necessary as causality-impaired progressives passed additional laws that made race-based Reverse Discrimination & Affirmative Action ILLEGAL under present law, including the race-based Civil Rights Act of 1964.
#3 Whereas Oswald and the Butler PA "ear-shot" fake 'assassinator' did not and was clearly part of a grand fake.
You're thinking of the 1974 film "The Parallax View" starring Warren Beatty. You forget that 3 Trump supporters were shot on scene, one Corey Comperatore even DIED, at your so-called FAKE Trump assassination attempt in Butler, PA.
And, your #4, Oil prices were far higher in 2008 than they were in 2022, but I suppose you'll also argue that 2008 peak oil price was caused by time-traveling COVID viruses too?
Best
Sounds like it will be a good con. I am a virtual member - will they be recording your play? I do hope it will be easier than last year. For some reason I had a hard time watching the online sessions. They were very nice to me, but I still didn’t see ANYTHING till afterwards, when someone on the committee helped me. The best Worldcon for me as a virtual member was the one in Glasgow.
Yes, the High Crusade film was played for laughs. It was very silly.
"...the flaw in THE HIGH CRUSADE."
I'm not familiar with that film, but from comments here, it sounds as if it is funny in the same way that "Reefer Madness" is to a modern audience.
Highly recommend the ever interesting Breaking Points podcast, especially this one on what AI is already doing to unemployment as corporations continue to use AI as the reason (or the excuse) for mass layoffs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbsYntBnYik
The last time something like this happened was the late Roman Republic, when roman conquest brought a flood of cheap slaves back to Italy - slave that put Roman citizens out of a job or forced them to abandon their farms since that could not compete with "latifundia" slave plantations. The only career open to Roman men at the time was service in the legions.
Sound familiar?
Where is the only place poor Americans of any color can now find jobs, if not the military? UBI is inevitable, but it is just a modern version of "pan et circes" needed to keep the poor masses from rioting.
That is where we are heading.
Trumpism is conservatism in its perfect final form.
Yah... except no. Everything you quote here spells doom and gloom and I don't believe it. I think it is more likely you entered the doom spiral a while ago and now see evidence for it everywhere because of selection bias.
Let me turn this around a bit, though.
What kind of event could occur that would make you doubt the impending doom is real? What evidence would you need to see?
I saw the start of the film version, and saw why David loves it so (not!)
Much of the humour in an absurd story told straight lies in the seriousness. Start playing the whole thing for laughs, and watch the whole thing deflate. You will see this in many ill-considered productions of G&S operas.
A recent example of it being done well is "D&D: Honor Among Thieves"
"Cynicism is obedience (to the status quo). Optimism is a subversive act." - Alex Steffen
... and that's why people dress up in frog suits to take on heavily armed goons.
https://www.threads.com/@meidastouch/post/DX0DllBgh-q
Trump says anyone running for president should take a cognitive exam because you could end being stuck with a moron for years.
“I mean, you get a guy who gets in there, he's got a good line of crap. He gets in and all of a sudden you're stuck with a man who's a moron”
Words fail me.
Al I just know that even though history does not repeat, it does rhyme.
As such certain patterns repeat themselves.
And will continue to repeat themselves because human nature never changes.
Celt: prediction is not a matter of precognition. It is a matter of cognition.
Except human nature has changed. It’s painfully slow in some ways and quicksilver in others.
Absolute poverty is dying. Going extinct. Why?
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