Austin remains weird

I was surprised to see a familiar name yesterday while I was using the Associated Press. For those of you who might not know, I'm the managing editor of a small daily newspaper. Every morning, one of the first things I do is scan the AP for news briefs. Friday I stumbled across a little weirdness from Austin; apparently someone last Monday hacked the message on a temporary electronic roadside message sign. It displayed the following messages:

THE END IS NEAR!
CAUTION! ZOMBIES AHEAD!
RUN FOR COLD CLIMATES!

The AP story described the culprits as "slacker hackers with time to kill". Whoever did it apparently cut a padlock to get to the sign's electronics. The message only flashed for an hour or two.

The little story certainly made the rounds. I was watching the BBC World News Friday night and they included it in their weekly roundup of world wide weirdness (hey, that sounds like an anthology title: WWW: World Wide Weirdness).

What caught my eye is that the photo was contributed by Chris Nakashima-Brown, who I know from having once been a Turkey Citizen. Chris is an excellent writer and has published some fun neo-Cyberpunk stuff.

I didn't have an opportunity to run a photo on Friday, but I had a hole on the news briefs page for Sunday and I dropped a copy of the photo with the "Zombies ahead!" sign in there.

Gave Chris a photo credit, too. If I knew his address, I'd send him a clipping.

Anyway, I slugged the photo "Austin remains weird". Yep, the folks down there certainly are succeeding in Keeping Austin Weird. They're an interesting bunch.

Announcing the third annual Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest

I'm passing along this information from Bill Ledbetter:

Baen Books and The National Space Society applaud the role that science fiction plays in advancing real science and have teamed up to sponsor a short fiction contest in honor of Jim Baen and focusing on the near future of manned space exploration. Winners will be intelligent and entertaining stories about topics including Moon bases, Mars colonies, orbital habitats, space elevators, asteroid mining, artificial intelligence, nano-technology, realistic spacecraft, heroics, danger, sacrifice and adventure. Please don't send stories that show technology or space travel as evil or bad, or stories about Star Wars type galactic empires, UFO abductions or that contain paranormal elements.

The submission window is from January 1 to April 1 and will be judged by Baen Books senior editor Hank Davis and Jim Baen's Universe editors Eric Flint and Mike Resnick.

The GRAND PRIZE winner will be published in a future issue of Jim Baen's Universe, will receive a specially designed award, free entry into the 2009 International Space Development Conference and a year's membership in the National Space Society.

For full submission requirements and guidelines please visit the website at: williamledbetter.com/contest

And now a word from the author...

I need to note my anticipated publication schedule for "Dance With Me, Henry". I will post a chapter every Wednesday and every Sunday - so the next installment will be posted on Sunday, Jan. 18.

"Dance" is over 100,000 words long and has 16 chapters, so it will take a while to roll out. I think this schedule will allow time for everyone to read it at their leisure.

"Dance" was somewhat of an exercise - it's the first book I've ever written. I was curious to see whether I could even do it. I've seen over the years I have hung around with fiction authors that many start writing books and have trouble writing to shorter lengths. I've heard it many times - "I would write short stories but everything I write comes out to 10,000, 20,000 words." Books are real literature.

My perspective is totally the opposite. I'm a journalist. To me, a normal story is 300-600 words. When I'm at work and somebody turns in a 1,200-1,400 word story, I go "Gads!" and notify the composition department. That's probably why I've done well writing short stores, I'm very comfortable with the length.

I was just curious whether I could spin some kind of tale out to book length, and I set a goal of 100,000 words. "Henry" is the result. It may not be the greatest thing you've ever read, but I also don't think it will make your eyes bleed.

Comments would be appreciated. Stay turned for Chapter Two on Sunday.

KarlMarx Stadt

The subject of "political correctness" reminded me of this hilarious video. I wish I undestood the lyrics, but it's obviously loaded with sarcasm. So this is what a Communist World would have looked like!

Who are the heirs of Robert Heinlein?

After my recent rereading of "Expanded Universe", I am reminded how libertarian and patriotic Robert Heinlein was. Read "The Pragmatics of Patriotism" or "Who are the Heirs of Patrick Henry?" to see what I mean.

I'm thinking of this because of the hue and cry against Orson Scott Card, who is a Mormon and hasn't been hesitant about expressing his opinions. There are a number of discussions going on at various blogs on this subject. One of the more detailed is on Matt Staggs' blog, "Enter the Octopus".

So is Orson Scott Card off your reading list or what?

Interesting, huh? Like William F. Buckley once said, "Liberals profess to believe in a diversity of opinions, and then are shocked to find there are different opinions."

Let's face it, Communists subverted Western Culture by flattering and pandering to the elites; that's why political leftists - in English-speaking nations - can be so stuck up, obnoxious and arrogant (Think Gore Vidal). That allowed the conservatives to probably accumulate more political capital than they probably deserved - because the liberals were so "unlovable" - and run their tether out to the breaking point, putting our country in the fix it's in.

Card's opinions are pretty normal for a Mormon. Where I live, here is East Texas, he'd be considered a mealy-mouthed middle-of-the-roader. The fact that readers and authors suggest he be boycotted because of his personal beliefs is silly. A person's merits as an author stand apart from his personal life. William Sanders is the biggest, rudest jackass in the world. He's still a great writer.

I don't read Card's stuff. I simply don't like it - that's my taste. Whether he is a liberal, conservative, Mormon, Baptist, Catholic or member of the Schwenkfelder Church doesn't matter to me.

Subjecting an author to some sort of moral or ideological litmus test is completely against everything America stands for. After reading the blog I linked to above, it makes me wonder whether - with his background in the military, and his open and obvious libertarian and patriotic beliefs, would Robert Heinlein been able to get a start as a s-f writer today?

Or would he have been marginalized in the favor of people who are just as opinionated in the statist, collective, and secularist direction, but much more "politically correct"?

Soonercon 2009

I've set my second con for the year. I received, and have proudly accepted, an invite to be a guest at Soonercon 2009 in Oklahoma City June 5-7.

I've never gone to Soonercon. I planned to three years ago, and then auto troubles made my drop out at the last minute. I'm very impressed with the line-up of guests for this year, and I plan to be there, barring hell and high water.

The Guest of Honor will be Eric Flint; Artist Guest of Honor is Brad Foster; Toastmaster is Selina Rosen.

Also attending will be Aelle Ables, Bill Allen, Gary Babb, Julie Barrett, Rick Boatright, Peter Bradley, David A. Cherry, Kimber Chessmore, Tim Chessmore, Deborah Chester, Rosemary Clement-Moore, R. Cat Conrad, Brad Denton, Linda Donahue, Bill Eakin, Rhonda Eudaly, Melanie Fletcher, Paula Goodlett, Talia Gryphon, Beverly A. Hale, W. J. Hodgson, Dirk Hooper, Kevin Hopkins, Gorg Huff, K. Hutson-Price, Julie Kenner, K E Kimbriel, Bill Ledbetter, Julia Mandala, Lee Martinez, Jeff Provine, Oscar Ray, Shiron Ray, Susan Satterfield, Brad Sinor, Sue Sinor, David Thayer, Jeff Turner, Kathi Turski, Laura Underwood, Alain Viesca, Dayton Ward, Steve Wedel, K D Wentworth, Craig Wolf, Mario Wytch, and Brian Young.

Next publication

Johne Cook, the editor at Raygun Revival, emailed to say "The Silver Dollar Saucer" will be published in its January issue. That holds forth the potential of my having three stories in print at the same time. "Video Killed the Radio Star" is on-line right now with Apehelion in its December issue, and "Acroscaphe" - my collaboration with Ed Morris - is in the January issue of Planetary Stories.

"Acroscaphe" has some very nice art, by Mark Fults, very much in keeping with the pulp style and feeling. I've pasted a copy of the first illo here. Go have a read at www.planetarystories.com