Chrononautic Log

August 30, 2006

William Gibson:

Readers, recently, ask: What are these things “really” like?

Well, really, you the reader are expected to do a bit of imagining on your own; you see black marks on white paper, interpret them, and form an image. Part of the writer’s task is in judging whether you’re being given too much information or too little. As a reader of sf, I often felt I was being given too little, and that the writer probably wasn’t bothering to form that detailed an image in her own mind. Part of my initial urge to write sf grew out of a frustration with that, leading to what Bruce Sterling (I believe) deemed “the hyperspecificity of the cyberpunk style.”

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In no particular order (but numbered, since I’m tired of bullets):

1. This old post of John Clute’s. Keywords: uncanny, marvelous.
2. Ben et. al. Keywords: Irrealist, fantastic, joke, label, magical stuff.
3. Matt Cheney, in the YA slapfest. Keywords: ghetto, groupthink, Frankenstein, secret (superior) history.
4. Hal Duncan, in the same slapfest. Keywords: plot, meaning, “central metaphoric conceit.”
5. Hal again. Keywords: aesthetic form, commercial formula, arbitrary.

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So, I know that quite a few of my readers know a hell of a lot more about YA than I do, having, e.g., written a bunch of it, and certainly having read a bunch of it. (I’ve only read maybe half a dozen YA books in the last half a dozen years, not counting Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket.) So — educate me? Please? Three questions:

1. What one* YA novel should I read, as an example of what you like about what’s currently going on in the genre?
2. What one* popular YA novel do you think I shouldn’t read, on account of it being way overrated?
3. What lessons should somebody writing about/for not-so-young adults take away from what’s going on in YA now?

P.S. Contemporary genre YA, please, not Twain or Salinger.

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* Yes, I know it’s unfair. In a pinch, something like “the Midnighters trilogy” can pass for one book. “All the Weetzie Bat books” can’t. (And “anything by so-and-so” is not all that helpful.)

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August 27, 2006

I figure right now, when everybody down in Anaheim is still riding high, is as good a time as any to ask . . .

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August 24, 2006

Thankfully the IAU seems to have adopted a proposal that more or less makes sense,* but just in case No Iceball Left Behind should again rear its ugly head:

My View Embraces Moving Classifications, Just Stop Uncovering New Planets Called 2003 UB313

(Via Asymptotia)

Unfortunately, Jackie’s proposal to drop Pluto into the sun was not adopted. The IAU may yet live to regret this.

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* By “more or less makes sense,” I mean it’s fairly simple, can unlike the earlier proposal be applied to new discoveries without the intervention of a committee, and conforms broadly to the way the word is generally used. Also, I’m pleased to see that by limiting its application to our own solar system, it avoids unfair discrimination against bodies like Oph 1622 B.

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Spread it around:

Girls and Science: Call for Proposals

The Feminist Press, in collaboration with The National Science Foundation, is exploring new ways to get girls and young women interested in science. While there are many library resources featuring biographies of women scientists that are suitable for school reports, these are rarely the books that girls seek out themselves to read for pleasure. What would a book, or series of books, about science that girls really want to read look like? That is the question we want to answer.

You’ll find several requests for specific proposals at our website. One calls for scientific detective stories based on the life, research, and discoveries of real women scientists. Another calls for stories featuring real young women—aspiring gymnasts, ice skaters, actors, dancers--using a knowledge of science to help them become really good at what they do. A third recognizes how popular Manga and graphic novels are with girls, and asks for imaginative new collaborations between Manga writers and artists to create adventures about girls who use real science to accomplish their goals. If any of these three book ideas interest you, please check out our website (www.feministpress.org) for more information about deadline and how to submit proposals.

But we do not want to limit our exploration. If you are a writer and have an idea for a book or series of books that is guaranteed to get girls excited about science, we want to hear from you. You may want to create a girl detective series featuring a set of friends—from geeks to sports nuts to mechanical geniuses—each with a knowledge of science that helps in solving crimes. You may want to create a story about a shy girl who goes on field trips with her favorite aunt, a forensic anthropologist, and helps to solve problems as she learns to think like a Dr. Bones. You may want to tell the story of a young science fiction writer who needs to study different fields of science in order to create her adventures. Whatever your vision, if you can write like a dream and can create works that are guaranteed to instill a curiosity about science in girls and young women, send us your proposals. We want to hear from you.

All proposals will be reviewed. Several proposals will be offered standard contracts.

Publisher: The Feminist Press at City University of New York as part of a National Science Foundation grant. (see feministpress.org)

Deadline: October 31, 2006

Format: Proposals should describe the project, the plot, characters, and length. No more than ten pages please.

How to submit: Electronic submission (word doc) to fhowe@gc.cuny.edu with the subject line "Girls and Science." Please include in the body of your email your address, phone number, email address and a short bio. Please also attach a brief sample of your writing (about five pages), and a resume that includes information about publications.

(Via Cocktail Party Physics.)

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August 18, 2006

I recently discovered this amazing comic called Copper, by Kazu Kibuishi. It’s a little bit Studio Ghibli, a little bit Little Nemo in Slumberland, a little bit Subconscious Comics. (Check out, for instance, “Blue,” “Bubbles,” or “Jump Station.”)

Figure 1. Copper always looks on the bright side. Fred often doesn’t.

Seeing something like Copper reminds me that, much as I like reading and writing, they’re not the killer app for every kind of storytelling. And while drawing a comic this beautiful looks like a hell of a lot of work, it looks like fun, too.

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August 16, 2006

Because if they wre, they would find this collection of Bruce Schneier fun facts absolutely goddamn hilarious. The rest of you, don’t bother . . . nothing to see . . .

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August 14, 2006

Figure 1. Some of the logos have changed. And I’m sure I’ve missed a couple. But it’s a start.

(b3co.com. Via all sorts of people.)

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August 7, 2006

Some of you may remember the appalling behavior of the Gretna, LA police department in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last year. Now a grand jury is going to investigate.

Now, they may yet stack that grand jury with the spiritual descendants of David Duke and Huey Long, but still, we can hope.

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Apologies to Huey Long. I don’t know who I was thinking of. (George Wallace?) Well spotted, Will.

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August 6, 2006

So, as you might have guessed, last weekend I bopped down to Paris. Because that’s the sort of thing you can do here.

This was my first trip to Paris since I was about three feet tall, and all I can remember from that trip is that it was cloudy and we couldn’t go any higher than the second level of the Eiffel Tower. This time, there wasn’t much point in trying to fit the Complete Paris Experience into twenty-four hours; I figured if I managed to intercept Jeff and Ann VanderMeer in the middle of Jeff’s European tour and maybe hit the Musée des Arts et Métiers — in honor of my teenage obsession with Foucault’s Pendulum (the book, that is) — I’d be doing okay.

Result: success!

Not only were the VanderMeers cool people to meet, at long last — the best we’d managed to date was forty seconds in a WFC elevator — they were great people to wander around Paris with, drink with, and generally hang out with.

I got in around 2:00 Saturday afternoon. Being me, I decided to walk from the Gare de l’Est to my hotel over by L’Opéra. On the map it’s pretty straightforward, but, being me, I only memorized about half the street names, and I overestimated my sense of direction by about 90 degrees, so it took me about an hour longer than it should have. But if I hadn’t, I never would have got to see three dead rats hanging in a window.

But if you want to see them, you’ll have to continue on, below the jump . . .

(Continued)

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August 2, 2006

William Sanders on copyright:

1. Then (19 July)
2. Now (29 July)

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