Steven Gould's Blog, page 2

Randall Munroe, author of the wonderful xkcd Comic Strip as well as the brilliant book What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, has a new book out called: Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words which uses the most common 1,000 English words to explain scientific concepts.

Some of the many  words that are not in the most common Ten Hundred English words: fiction, science fiction, writer, author, reader, fantasy, editor, publisher, royalties, agent, novel, fable, tale, television.  

I used the Up-Goer Five Text Editor which identifies words not in the common pool to produce the following.

I write imagined stories and books about people who are like us and people who are not like us, who live in our times and in times yet to come, who are in places we already live and visit, but also in places and worlds we have yet to visit.

One of my books was made into a movie which is sometimes shown on TV. People pay me money to write, for which I have big thanks, but the biggest reason I write these stories is because I want to read them myself. I like the books best that make me feel I am in the story, that take me to new places, real and imagined, and meet new and different people, and make me think about new ideas. Reading lots of books lets me know as many places, things, and people as if I had the time necessary to live many different lives.

#vp19 @ELBlackEdits & @falconesse tell us the skinny on after your book is acquired. pic.twitter.com/Wg6wlTjZPj

— Steven Gould (@StevenGould) October 23, 2015

The weather was cold at the beginning of the week but it almost immediately warmed and we have had a wonderful time.

So there.

Yesterday we loaded up the car and drove four hours to try and catch the eclipse against this landmark.

This is Tsé Bit’a’í which means “Rock with wings” in Diné. It is also known as Shiprock and it is the most prominent landmark in northwestern New Mexico.  It the throat of an ancient volcano that originally formed 27 million years ago and, at that time, it approximately 2500 to 3000 feet below ground level. Over time, the surrounding softer sedimentary rocks have eroded away, leaving this and some really cool radial dikes that I think are the “wings”  referred to above.

We hoped to take pictures from the west and even some time lapse video of  the eclipsed moon transiting the peaks like this.

Calculations of lunar path and locations done by our good friend, Chris Crawford.

To do this, we needed to get to the location marked by the X, or, for the higher path, a spot 500 feet further north-northeast from the X. Because of several factors ranging from the rugged terrain, our exceptionally wet year resulting in extensive erosion along and across the dirt roads, I was only able to get to the spot on the western radial dike marked with the circle, and this was after going cross country 3/4 of a mile on foot across arroyos, skirting cliffs, and through lots of scratchy, scratchy vegetation from the nearest drivable path.

While this gave me this wonderful view:

it also blocked the rising moon and I couldn’t get pictures until it cleared the southern edge.

This looks bright but the moon is actually approaching totality. Still,  got to see amazing landscape and it was almost worth getting all those frigging stickers in my socks and the two hours of bumping, scary driving through the dark, after, just to reach a paved road again.

Let us go, my beamish boy,

When the sky cries forth the chortled joy,

Like a Jubjub in the tumtum tree.

Let us go, through certain half-deserted lands

The muttering demands

Of uffish thoughts on manxome foes besought

And seeking, seeking, yet only finding nought:

Lands that follow like a frumious bandersnatch

of insidious intent

Leading to the jaws that bite, the claws that catch …

Oh, do not ask, “Where is it?”

Let us go and try to stab it.

In the rooms the women gyre and rove

speaking of the borogoves.

I should have been a pair of slithy toves,

Whiffling through sunsets and dooryards of sprinkled streets.

I shall fade … I shall fade …

Keeping my mome raths outgrabe.

Shall I bear the Vorpal Blade? Do I dare to hope and pray..

I shall wear hard slivered mail, that frabjous day, Callooh, Callay.

And hear the mermaids call out “Don’t delay.”

I do not think they’re calling out to me.

We have lingered in the chambers of our fears

Watched by those who gyre and gimble against the black

Til we have slain the Jabberwock and come galumphing back.

So, the New York City Union Square Barnes & Noble event on Thursday Oct 9th, 7pm, is coming together:

So, those of you who were wondering if it was just me, I’m afraid not. This may seriously cut into my harmonica playing but I will bring one anyway.

Ilona Andrews (aka Ilona and Andrew Gordon) is the author of several bestselling urban fantasy series including Magic Rises. F. Paul Wilson writes horror, SF, and medical thrillers. Do follow the link as he has written far too many books to list here but I got chills in college reading The Keep. David Wellington is the author of numerous contemporary horror novels including my favorite title ever, Zombie Island.

We’re going to do this thing. This round-robin thing involving audience ideas. It may spectacularly fail but I can pretty much guarantee that it will be entertaining.

Cause…there’s always the harmonica.

I will be at the Union Square Barnes and Noble, Thursday, October 9th, 7pm.

I’ll be in NYC from Monday evening  until Friday morning. Monday evening. I’m attending the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America  annual industry reception, then doing agent and publisher business, and the Thursday B&N event. Friday (10/10) I’m heading up to Martha’s Vineyard for my 15th year as an instructor at Viable Paradise.

If you can’t make it on the 9th, I will be returning to New York for a reading at  Fantastic Fiction at KGB, KGB Bar, 86 East 4th Street, NYC, December 17th, 2014, 7pm (Reading with Rajan Khanna!)

I lived in New York City from 1990-1995. It will be great to get back.

—

Creative Commons HDR Image by Jerry Ferguson. (Jerry Ferguson Photography.)

7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Suite #302, San Diego, CA

September 18th 7pm

EXO reading and signing.

870 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94110

September 20th, 3pm

Exo AGAIN?

(other appearances here.)

Things are firming up for signings and other appearances over the next few months to coincided with Exo‘s release on 9 September 2014 (and joint release of a new Trade Paper edition of Jumper.)

Things start here in Albuquerque with a launch event at Bookworks on 9/12, an event at Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego on the 18th, an event at Borderland Books in San Francisco on the 20th, a signing at Albuquerque’s PageOne bookstore on the 27th.  In addition I will be at World Fantasy in Arlington, VA Nov. 6-9 and will read with Rajan Khanna Dec. 17th at the KGB Fanatastic Fiction reading series in New York City.

I will be in New York the first week in October at the SFWA’s Annual Reception for Industry Professionals on October 6th and we might arrange a signing in the area in that timeframe.

Full details for the above events are on my appearances page, and I’ll update it as events unfold.

I did draw two winners for the EXO Advance Reading Copy and notified them by email.

One of them is Fred Bolden of Solon, Ohio and I’ll be shipping it off to him momentarily.

The other winner has not responded to my email or its follow-up and if they don’t respond by midnight tonight, I will be drawing a new name from the previous entries. So, if you thought you entered, you might double-check your spam filters for an email from digitalnoir.com!