Science Fiction Updates: Hugos, prescience, and geeks in high places!

All right, this didn't blow just me away, but also Greg Bear, who says he went slack-jawed one night recently, while watching The Late Show. It appears that host Stephen Colbert and his guest, actor Paul Giamatti, are genuine sci-fi geeks. And not just a little bit! We knew Colbert was a Tolkien scholar. But name dropping Jack Vance, Larry Niven, Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore? Okay, they are the real deal! 

(Alas, what am I, chopped liver? Hey, guys, I'll ship you some signed stuff ;-)  

Oh, and Barack Obama has kvelled on Liu Cixin and a number of other SF authors. Is this cult of exploration and Big Ideas inveigling itself into high places?  Perhaps in time to save the world? (See reference to "TASAT," below.)

== A milestone for the genre ==

Congratulations to the 2018 finalists for the Hugo Award!  Including Mur Lafferty, Anne Leckie, N.K. Jemisin, Martha Wells, Sarah Pinsker, Seanan McGuire, Sarah Gailey, Aliette de Bodard, KM Szpara, Suzanne Palmer, Vina Prasad, Fran Wilde, Linda Nagata, Ursula Vernon Caroline Yoachim, Yoon Ha Lee, Kim Stanley Robinson and John Scalzi. Notably, except for the last three mentioned gentlemen, all of the nominees in every fiction category are women or bendgender in some way. Come a long way! (Though SF was always expansive for its time, in any time.) Ursula would’ve been proud. We soar.

(Nancy Kress, Anina Bennett and I held a memorial session for Ursula K. LeGuin this last Saturday, at San Diego's Comic Fest.)

== All you geeks! Here's your chance to save the world! ==

Locus announces UCSD's new TASAT site, for nerdy sci fi aficionados who can cite old SF tales that might be pertinent to modern problems. 

You might save the world, someday, when something weird happens and the official Investigating Commission draws an obvious-but-wrong conclusion… 

...but then a dissenting member looks to TASAT and says: “y’know… There’s A Story About That…”

== A Coming Age of Transparency ==

Chasing Shadows: Visions of Our Coming Transparent World - now out in paperback - is on the Locus 2017 Recommended reading list for Best Anthology. I don't recall ever getting such a positive review from Gardner Dozois as this praise (in Locus) for the anthology.

Much is owed to the incredible quality of the authors, from Cat Rambo and Aliette de Bodard (a 2018 Hugo nominee) to Bruce Sterling, Brenda Cooper, Robert Silverberg, and Karl Schroeder... and to the unusual theme of the volume. As well as my co-editor Stephen W. Potts. You'll find good stories that tease with truly remarkable thoughts that... well... you likely never thunk before.

Here’s the review by Bill Fawcett coming in Galaxy’s Edge:

"The subtitle of this anthology is “visions of our coming transparent world.” All the stories relate to communication and human interaction as modified by technology, and privacy. There are over thirty stories by many of the top writers in SF. Each is categorized under such sections as Big Brother, Surveillance, No Place to Hide, and Lies and Private Lies. Some of the stories and short essays are included were written from as far back as the 60’s, though more than half of the stories are new.

In a way, it was hard to review this anthology. The usual approach doesn’t apply. At the risk of frightening off readers, I have to say that this is a collection of stories that has something important to say about an issue that is vitally important to your world today, not something you can very often say about a SF anthology. Each story in each topic shows how SF authors have been concerned about the questions of privacy, control of one’s own data or even oneself, and the consequences of technology that will affect the coming decades. More importantly this rather large anthology is brimming with excellent, well-written and sometimes frightening or uncomfortable stories.

Normally you pick out a few outstanding entries that justify the collection. But whom to pick from this one is a problem. There are classics such as William Gibson’s “The Road to Oceana,” emotionally evocative classics such as Damon Knight’s “I See You,” and Robert Silverberg’s “The Invisible Man.” There are stories with an open warning such as Jack McDevitt’s “Your Lying Eyes” or David Brin’s “Insistence of Vision.” (You will never look at Apple glasses the same way again after reading David’s story.) The original stories in the volume are of equal quality and impact. There is no way to avoid one cliché phrase when describing these stories, thought-provoking. Read this just after signing off from Google, or looking up someone on Facebook."

== It wasn’t obvious? ==

How did I know? This is from THE POSTMAN: 

“It was called 'the Big Lie' technique, Johnny. Just sound like you know what you're talking about -- as if you're citing real facts. Talk very fast. Weave your lies into the shape of a conspiracy theory and repeat your assertions over and over again. Those who want an excuse to hate or blame -- those with big but weak egos -- will leap at a simple, neat explanation for the way the world is. Those types will never call you on the facts."

Lately I’ve been getting mail from folks like author Bruce Golden about this passage. And sure, another book was on my mind when I wrote it, in 1984. My dread of this evil method arose from a deep reading (even then) of history, which was manipulated all too often by monstrous liars.

Indeed, a small part of me frets about my own possible role: did some of today’s masters of Confederate Lie-Distraction read that paragraph above and decide “hey, what a good idea!” Because we are living amid the very crisis that I wrote about, in of The Postman.

Saith Bruce: “Funny, that thought crossed my mind briefly too. That someone connected to Trump (or his upbringing) read that passage and that YOU were the cause of all this havoc. Of course I laughed off that possibility immediately. And, as we know, Trump doesn't read.”

Alas, this havoc predates Trump, who is only the latest symptom. The master manipulator - Rupert Murdoch - does read… or did, back in 1984, when his campaign gained momentum to destroy Western Civilization.

== And more ==

A compilation of videos of some of my interviews on Russian media and speeches while in Moscow, March 2018.

The first issue of the latest reboot of AMAZING STORIES is planned for August, to be available at WorldCon in San Jose; several well-known writers have already committed to contributing to it. The magazine will be published on a quarterly basis after that. Hugo Gernsback published the premier issue of Amazing Stories back in April 1926.  It was the world’s first science fiction magazine and Amazing went on to publish works by writers now recognized as giants in the field, such as Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, E. E. “Doc” Smith, Robert A. Heinlein, Issac Asimov and others.

The George Slusser Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy, will be held at the University of California, Irvine, on April 26–29, 2018 

"The difference between visionary and crackpot is hindsight." - Irene Petrick

Nerrrrrds onward! Humor from SMBC Comics. 

== For writers and would-be writers ==

Would you like to become a World Famous Author? Or at least improve your writing skills? Odyssey Podcasts are excerpts from lectures given by guest writers, editors, and agents at the Odyssey Writing Workshop. Director Jeanne Cavelos runs one of the best in the world.

Futures is the award-winning science-fiction section of Nature and it accepts unsolicited articles. Each Futures piece should be an entirely fictional, self-contained story of around 850–950 words in length, and the genre should,  be 'hard' SF. Send submissions to futures@nature.com, including a 30-word autobiographical note to be appended to the story if published. Prospective authors are advised to read earlier Futures stories at nature.com/futures.

Writers! Especially of murder mystery (the most pure form of story arc execution): Here’s important news!  By analyzing changes in a deceased person's gene activity, new software can determine an exact time of death, which could assist forensic investigations. “After death, over 600 muscle genes either quickly increased or decreased activity. Meanwhile, there was minimal change in gene activity in the brain or spleen.” There are limits: the majority of increases and decreases in gene activity happen between 7 and 14 hours after death.