Miscellaneous

To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods. Robert A. Heinlein – The Notebook of Lazarus Long We’ve all heard the expression “set in their ways” – which is the other side of the coin to Heinlein’s observation. There’s growing scientific evidence that “age” is a state of mind far

I confused the hell out of the readers of my novels under a different pen name recently, when I released what I was properly calling a novelette.  Those readers were confused over book lengths and what makes a book a book, or a novel a novel.  They didn’t know what to think about a novelette.

What are the facts? Again and again and again-what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history”–what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts

This year, I’ve been inundated with emails and blog posts from SF & F authors, magazines, publishers and other organizations, reminding me that the balloting is open for both the Hugo Awards and the Nebulas. This actually isn’t news to me, and I’m sure it isn’t for you, but what I do like about these

If the image didn’t give it away for you, let me surprise you: Lego® creates more tires every year than any other company in the world.  The Guinness Book of World Records says so. Although if they keep producing sets like the Millennium Falcon (which my brother in law built and has sitting on his dining room

I had a reader tell me this week: Can I just ask, though, no more cliffhangers, I absolutely hate them!! It sounds like a simple, reasonable request on the surface (especially as the grammar and spelling were impressive.  I did not edit this at all).  Yet my internal radar started dinging like crazy. I did

Of course you’re looking for the best SF out there.  You don’t want to read crap, after all.  But there’s some very good reasons why using best-seller lists, “top author”, “Best of,” “most popular” and other similar listings of books is the worst way of finding the best stories to read. The traffic stats on my blog also

(a) Get your mind out of the gutter! 😉 (b) If you would like to enjoy your reading more, read on. There is a tool out there that is currently enjoying a revival in many businesses and industries. It is the simple checklist. Dr. Atul Gawande wrote the book, The Checklist Manifesto, after he incorporated checklists into