Great Thought for the Day:

“No artist believes in escapism. And we secretly believe that no audience does. We have proved, at any rate, that they will pay to see the truth, for no other reason than her nakedness.”

--Emeric Pressburger  

Fifteen years ago this month, my agent sold Iron Dawn to Roc Books, an imprint of Penguin/Putnam.

Happy birthday to my career.

Pretty soon it'll be old enough to vote.

Hey.

SmartPop, the pop culture nonfic imprint of my friends at BenBella Books, has started posting selected essays online, one of which is mine, on BS:G:

The Gods Suck

It's worth nothing that I wrote that somewhere around the end of Season Three, so I literally had no clue how many sharks that show was going to jump before it finally wrapped.

Frankly, I think if they stuck with what I thought they were gonna do, it would have worked out better for everyone concerned. But that's pretty much how I feel about everything. Nobody should be allowed to do TV SF unless they check with me first.

Well, okay, not the folks at Stargate: Universe, which has been damn good so far. But everybody else. Except for Warehouse 13, which is fantasy anyway. And Supernatural . . . still fantasy . . . and Reaper . . .

All right, fine. No one has to check with me. Though Whedon should probably have run Dollhouse past me first.  Nobody bats a thousand, y'know?

By the way, the essay's is only gonna be up for a day or two, so if you miss it, you'll have to pay for the damned thing.

Here's a question:

What is it with people who feel they have to sign in to Amazon.com just to trash my stuff?

One guy posted a one-star review after reading LS&TSOM -- borrowed from a library.

I mean, seriously: People hate my books so much they feel compelled to register with Amazon just to piss on them. The very first review they've ever posted in their lives . . . just to talk about what a shitty author I am? Really?

Seriously: what the fuck? Did I run over their dog?



In view of the first couple of comments, I think it's worthwhile to post the following clarification:

I'm really not complaining about the shots at my own books so much as I am just wondering about the phenomenon. The whole concept doesn't make sense to me.

I'm hip to critics, and reviewers, and people who just want their opinions heard. I guess what I really don't understand is why somebody would even READ a book that they hate so much . . . unless they're getting paid for it, I guess.

One guy (I don't remember for which book) posted a lengthy review in which he was sorry Amazon wouldn't let him give the book zero stars.

I mean, holy shit . . . and the really freaky thing is, he apparently read the whole book.

I guess I'm just unclear on the concept. I get the whole contrarian thing, where you feel compelled to stand out from what you think is mainstream. But this just doesn't make sense to me.

It's like sticking your hand in a fire so that you can complain about how much it hurts.

This is AWESOME.

Really.

Those of you who can't get the NYTimes, it's an article about a couple of physicists who have hypothesized that the Higgs boson (one of the last not-yet-discovered elemental particles in the Standard Model) might be so unlikely -- or so dangerous, or whatever (I believe the phrase was "abhorred by reality") that any projects to discover it will be sabotaged by their own success.

Literally. The later success of the Higgs creates a backward ripple in time to prevent itself from happening. Hence the cancellation of the SSC in the US, and the famous "random breakdown" last year at CERN . . . for example.

They have apparently proposed a way to test this hypothesis.

They're sort of kidding, but only sort of.

And one of these guys is regarded as a founder of string theory.

And I can hardly wait.

Hey, Lunatic Fringe. I know you're out there.

I have been overcome with a sudden desire to see Caine/Overworld-related fan art. Anybody who's got a dusty image or two, please post links in the comment section. (I'm looking at YOU, Greg . . .)

Oh, and only post your own shit; if there's an image that you think should be posted but wasn't done by you, encourage the actual artist to drop by and stick it up. Er . . . you know what I mean.

There are a variety of Stover-related things in the offing, including a New and Improved Web Presence.

Watch this space for details.

A proposed slogan for the 2010 mid-terms:

Vote Republican, because we're BATSHIT INSANE.