Editorial Archive > 2007

Green sky at morning, humans take warning
01/12/2007. When Mark was a teenager he read science fiction with its stories like When Worlds Collide. In those days it was not quite respectable to read science fiction. But he thought we really did live in a world where some of these things really could happen and by the time he became an adult some of this science fiction would have become reality and science fiction would be more respectable. Perhaps both have happened but they are not as tightly bound together as he would have thought.

What's in a name?
01/12/2007. Look at that title again. What's in a name? For a writer, it is a reflection of the character's persona that is being created. A hook to catch the reader's imagination. Often as not, the fewer syllables, the stronger the name. Some names look weaker than others.

Taking control of reality
01/12/2007. The yin and the yang of it. Every year, says Uncle Geoff, our reality is changing. Some times too quickly. Some times not fast enough. If its not the weather effects of global warming then it's the advances in technology or even bio-technology now the human genome has been unravelled. A brave new world. Nascent and naive in some ways. Practical Science Fiction in others.

I am always right. Well, nearly always
01/11/2007. Read those opening words in the opening title above very carefully. Either I'm turning you people reading my editorials into yes-people or I'm writing absolute truths that you don't disagree with. I mean, no one really ever disagrees with me or could it be said, don't want to try. Am I right or am I right? Are you even reading me here? That statement could lead to paranoia. I think there has to be an accepted given that no matter what is written on the Net, someone out there is reading it or why else are blogs becoming so popular?

Profound - it is what it is
01/10/2007. Don't confuse the term 'profound' with 'profanity', says Uncle Geoff. Different words. Different meanings. 'Profanity' means an irreverence where nothing is sacred. Something that probably deserves an editorial of its own sometime. Remind him when he's bothered.

The big lie
01/10/2007. I am watching The Universe on the History Channel. At first I thought it was a really good program. I am finding the program more and more frustrating. It is clear the scientists who do the talking know the truth and are just refusing to mention it. Everybody is hung up on our egocentric ways of thinking we have had from ancient times. And though astronomers and cosmologists know the truth they choose not to tell us. You have to figure the truth out for yourself. Then if you dare you can tell other people, but even then something inside them will tell them it is you who are wrong.

Oscar senses death coming
01/10/2007. A number of sources, says Mark, including Science News and the BBC News have been reporting about Oscar, the Providence, Rhode Island nursing home cat who can sense the coming of death. It seems that Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center adopted Oscar. The idea is that animals around a nursing home tend to cheer up their patients. Well, that is true in theory, anyway. Oscar it appears is not the most social of cats.

Putting science back into science fiction
01/09/2007. It might not have escaped your notice that there has been an interesting proportion of science books in the review column in recent months. You might even have read the reviews, let alone pick up the books themselves. Apart from the nature of some personal research which you should see the results of shortly, it is also a reminder of the connection to two key words in our website name: Science and Fiction. We see the two words together so much that we tend to forget that much of our fiction has a solid core of science attached to it.

I write. Therefore I am.
01/08/2007. What are we really? Not in the physical sense, asks Uncle Geoff, but here on the Internet. Think about it. As you read this editorial, what you are really seeing is a collection of symbols commonly called letters divided into consonants and vowels which are formulated into words and then meaningful sentence structures and grouped further into paragraph subject matter and expression of ideas that you can understand.

SH20-The Seeds of Destruction (Part 3)
01/08/2007. Mark been talking about SH20 (pronounced S-H-2-O), the second half of the 20th century. Specifically he has been saying that improvements in the fortunes of the average person during those years may have been self-limiting and brought about many of the problems of the 21st century.

Paradoxes on seeing the future
01/07/2007. Longtime member Frank Leisti and I have been discussing the ideas of Philip K. Dick. Two of Dick's stories: Minority Report (adapted into a film of the same name) and The Golden Man (adapted into the film NEXT) have involved people with the ability to see into the future. This is not so simple as it might sound because when you can see a bad future you can prevent it. But then what you saw was not really the future. The real question is at what point the future is set. That is really dependent on your viewpoint.

SH20 - The seeds of destruction
01/07/2007. I frequently claim that I have what I call Luck of Leeper. At one point I said that this was just very bad luck. And I really have had some amazing runs of chance events going against me. They are sort of in the nature of vacations ruined because when I visited Spain it had the worst rains and flooding in fifty years. More recently I have been saying that Luck of Leeper is worse than one would expect on small things and much better than one would expect on the big things.

The world is my bookshelf
01/07/2007. If it hasn't occurred to you by now if you look at the reviews, I love books. Reading is one of my favourite pastimes and I do a lot of it. Not just Science Fiction but a fair scattering of non-fiction as well a variety of magazines. One hundred minutes worth spread over the day gets a lot read. As a reviewer, I can also turn on my analytical side and point out the good stuff from the clinkers.

Before the Brain Eater comes for him
01/06/2007. There are so many writers and scientists and other interesting people out there, Ken Macleod noted in front of the Birmingham SF Group, that - according to careful scientific studies - statistically, a writer can expect to be invited to speak to any given local SF group at the most twice. The first time it's when their first book comes out and they're new and exciting. The second time is when people are saying things like, 'If we want to hear him again we better invite him now before the Brain Eater comes for him.'

Lies my Jedi told me
01/06/2007. I have to admit to being in some respects somewhat slower than the general population. That is only in some respects. Most people in our society learn the cold, hard facts of life when they find out that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are really mythical and do not literally exist. Being Jewish I never had such illusions and so I never had to face being disabused of these illusions. You know Jewish kids don't get brought up on many myths.

Unexpected interconnectivity
01/06/2007. A few weeks ago I talked in my editorial about Colony Collapse Disorder. This is the situation where honeybee hives are being found to have been deserted. At that point one of the prime suspects was cell phone radiation which in certain frequency ranges has been shown to disorient honeybees. I have been discussing this offline with Kenneth Howard. He sent me a reference to an article that suggests that a parasitic fungus may be the cause.

Anniversary of the Hammer Horror cycle
01/06/2007. It should be noted that May 3rd of this year is the 50th anniversary of a major milestone in the horror film, says Mark. That was the date of the rebirth of what was mistakenly thought to be moribund, the gothic horror film. Universal Studios had built a gothic horror cycle in large part out of the ruins of the German film industry and the tradition of the popular films of Lon Chaney.

A country is only as good as its reputation (or be careful where you choose to go on holiday)
01/06/2007. There is one thing that I have in common with the late Isaac Asimov, although not necessarily for the same reasons is I'm a lousy traveller. In fact, I make him look like a travel-hound compared to myself in recent years. I might send my characters around the world or even off it but I have little in the way of wanderlust myself. If I see it or not, won't change the fact that other countries will exist without my visiting them to say I've been there. With the help of the Net and a postal service, anything I really need is just a purchase away. Granted, I might not have the experience of actually visiting a place for local colour but as a card-carrying minor infection-prone diabetic, it would certainly be a different colour to the norm anyway.

If you're not one of us you're one of them
01/05/2007. Prejudice seems to be part of the human psyche, muses Geoff, hailing from tribal aspect and hostility to purely because you're different from other people. If you were an SF fan brought up in a non-SF environment, then you've at least tasted a sample of being bullied for your interest.

When should we party?
01/04/2007. Anniversaries. You have them for birthdays and post-nuptials and yet the same thing is applied to particular films and TV series as if it's a significant event. Other than getting maybe a fresh supply of photos it seems an odd thing to celebrate.

There is no rainy day. Rainy day is today.
01/03/2007. Something I've always been reluctant to do is quote from a book that I'm reading and likely to include in the review section. Mostly because it can be seen as being unfair to highlight a book higher than others. Mind you, as this particular book has been out a couple years now, was self-bought and part of my storycraft book project research, it raises an interesting point so I hope you can forgive me this one time.

Do it again
01/02/2007. It occurred to Uncle Goeff recently that there was another thing that sets us, that is people interested in SF, fantasy and horror, apart from people who aren't. Namely, it is our capacity to re-read books and even more endless replays of our favourite SF films and TV series which demonstrates a seemingly lack in the boredom threshold when doing so.

How to cheat-read
01/01/2007. Mark has a confession to make. He has recently started doing what he calls cheat-reading of certain books. He really likes cheat-reading books. Particularly because he has a house with 20,000 books and by cheat-reading he can get to a lot more of them.

Reality. Reality.
01/01/2007. Playing with realities is a common theme in Science Fiction, says Uncle Geoff. Invariably, reality is manipulated for the mechanics of any story than in any other genre although there isn't really much in the way of first hand experience in this you would think. It's just taken as a given in SF that a reality can be tweaked and rules are changed as a means to differentiate from current reality, especially as so much is set in the future.