A Curious Statistical Anomaly

This past month has been one thing after another. It seemed like I spent half the month in doctor’s offices or waiting for someone who was in for a procedure to drive them home.

I’m now taking an extra antihistamine and, for the last few days, it’s been making me feel like a zombie. When asked a question there’s a significant pause while I have to parse the sentence and retrieve the answer. May make you drowsy. May make you sleep through your day with your eyes open and minimal functioning. On the plus side the itching is nearly bearable but the headaches are back.

The upshot is that the two magazine (SFRevu.com and GumshoeReview.com) are going to be up online on time but missing the reviews assigned to me. Those reviews will be added in over the next few days as they’ll take me longer to draft, write, and edit. It helps if you’re awake — or so I’ve been told.

I missed Balticon this year also. I got email with my program schedule and I wasn’t on anything as far as I could tell so, since I was feel crappy I decided not stay home and sleep. Hopefully, next year May won’t jump on me with both feet.

Enough whining from me. But hopefully, I can get back to updating my blog regularly.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

This bill, which is on the fast track to passing in Congress, is so bad for free speech, the freedom of the internet, and the people who use it, that I’m baffled that Congress would even consider passage. But then I remember that Congress thinks pulling Americans off the streets and imprisoning then indefinitely, without knowing what they are accused of or by who was a wonderful enough idea to pass. Does this sound like America to you — well we’re swiftly becoming one of those countries who violate human rights and repress their people.

I’ve already signed petitions and written to my representatives begging them not to pass this legislation. Please join the fight for freedom in America and ask your representatives to vote NO on these two pieces of legislation.

The script that marked this post as censored on Nov. 22 has expired. I’d put up the script to direct readers to sign a petition that would be delivered to congress to express dismay (use stronger language if you wish) that they intended to pass a law that would have taken websites off-line if any one page on the site had a link or info that was considered in violation of copyright no matter whether that link or info was in comments or written by the site owner. To make it even more appalling is would be similar to the take downs currently in place for music and video — no real checks to make sure it was a valid request for removal and very little info on how to get the site restored if the take down was deemed in error. It’s a bad law all around that only works for corporations not for the 99%.

The petition got a lot of attention and now the supporters of the bill are calling it a jobs bill rather than what it is — a censorship bill.

Both issues went up today and you can read them at the following links:
GumshoeReview.com for reviews of mystery, thriller and related materials, and
SFRevu.com for science fiction and fantasy reviews, news, etc.

Enjoy.

We’ll be heading to Readercon this weekend. Readercon is one of the few conventions that I attend each year. SFRevu has a table in the dealers’ room — our semi-annual book sale to clear out our basement actually so if you’re there stop by the table for a chat.

Here’s my schedule:
Friday: 12:00 PM G And They Lived Happily Ever After, Until They Died: Retelling Russian Folktales. Patricia McKillip, Gayle Surrette (leader). Ekaterina Sedia’s The Secret History of Moscow, Catherynne M. Valente’s Deathless, Patricia McKillip’s In the Forests of Serre… it appears we’re in the middle of a renewed interest in fairy tale retellings—and specifically, postmodern, genre-challenging fairy tale retellings—based in the folklore of Russia. Is there a specific element to Russian stories that makes them particularly fit for contemporary adaptation?

Saturday: 7:00 PM ME The One Right Form of a Story. Judith Berman, Marilyn “Mattie” Brahen, John Langan, Meghan McCarron, Gayle Surrette (leader). Quoth Mark Twain: “There are some books that refuse to be written…. It isn’t because the book is not there and worth being written—it is only because the right form of the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and if you fail to find that form the story will not tell itself.” Anyone who has adapted a fairy tale for a poem or developed a short story into a novel might disagree, yet many authors have also spent years chasing stories that evade capture until they’re approached in just the right way. What makes some stories easygoing and others stubborn? Is the insistence on a story “telling itself” a red herring? And what does “form” really mean here?

Hyperion and I look forward to meeting our readers and making new friends.

SFRevu June 2011 now Online

Senior Editor: Gayle Surrette
Editor Emeritus: Ernest Lilley
Associate Editor, US: Paul Haggerty
Associate Editor, UK: John Berlyne
Columnists: Drew Bittner / Sam Tomaino

Editorial License:
Editorial Matters – June 2011 by Gayle Surrette

Now Reading:
Fort Freak by George R.R. Martin

Columns:
US Books – SFRevu Staff
UK Books – John Berlyne
Graphic Novels/Manga – SFRevu Staff
Media Watch – SFRevu Staff
Zines & Short Fiction – Sam Tomaino
Blu-ray & DVD Reviews by Charles Mohapel
News – SFRevu Staff
Convention Calendar

UK Book Reviews:
Equations of Life (Metrozone) by Simon Morden

US Book Reviews:
The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs by James P. Blaylock
The Crippled God: Book Ten of The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson
For Heaven’s Eyes Only: A Secret Histories Novel by Simon R. Green
Fort Freak (Wild Cards) by George R.R. Martin
Hunt the Moon: A Cassie Palmer Novel by Karen Chance
Hybrids by Whitley Strieber
Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse) by James S.A. Corey
The Magic of Recluce (Saga of Recluce) by L. E. Modesitt
Misfits, Adventures in the Liaden Universe #15 by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
The Plain Man by Steve Englehart
The Saturn Game by Poul Anderson
Steampunk’d edited by Jean Rabe and Martin H. Greenberg
Thistle Down by Irene Radford

Gumshoe Review‘s June issue now online
Contents:

Editorial License:
Just the Facts – June 2011 by Gayle Surrette

Columns:
US Books – Gumshoe Staff
Graphic Novels/Manga – Gumshoe Staff
Zines & Short Fiction – Gumshoe Staff
Review of Crimewave Eleven: Ghosts
News – Gumshoe Staff
Conventions – Gumshoe Staff

US Book Reviews:
As the Crow Flies by Maris Soule
Counterfeit Madam: A Gil Cunningham Mystery by Pat McIntosh
Felicity’s Gate: A Rounder Brothers Mystery by Julian Cole
The Hypnotist: A Novel by Lars Kepler
Jericho Cay: A Bay Tanner Mystery by Kathryn R. Wall
Purgatory Chasm: A Mystery by Steve Ulfelder
Stagestruck: A Peter Diamond Investigation by Peter Lovesey
Why Didn’t You Come for Me? by Diane Janes

Here’s my schedule for Balticon 45 starting Friday, May 26 to May 30 in Marriott’s Hunt Valley Inn, Baltimore, MD.

Fri. 6:00 PM: Salon B, Luddites of Fandom
Fri. 9:00 PM: Belmont, Fantasy Motifs in SF Literature

Sat. 1:00 PM: Belmont: Favorite Shared Worlds.
Sat. 4:00 PM: Salon C: How Plausible is Today’s Hard SF?

Sun. 9:00 AM: Salon B: Writers We Don’t Understand.

There may or may not be another panel — it was on one list I got and not on the others but I don’t have the final, final list yet. Anyway, I expect to have a good time and hope to meet many of SFRevu’s readers while I’m there.

I’ll also be spending some time at the Capclave fan table, so check there for me. Capclave is Washington D.C.’s local annual science fiction and fantasy convention held in October. Check the website for details. This year’s guests are Catherynne Valente and Carrie Vaughn.