Editorial Archive > 2008

Bugbears Of The Grammatical Kind
02/08/2008. We all have bugbears, says Uncle Geoff. Things that crawl under your skin and nag at you to say something when something is clearly wrong. They can range from simple to complex things and you often wonder why they don't bother other people or if they do why aren't there more complaints. One of his tends to be grammar and punctuation, an occupational hazard mostly because I deal with it all the time.

It rains when it shines
01/07/2008. In this month's editorial, Uncle Geoff asks have you ever noticed how your perception of the world is determined by the condition of the weather? After all, we are very much weather dependent for mood swings and perception on what we see and feel around us to the world even before the rest of the universe hits us.

All I ask is...a...little...cooperation!!!
01/06/2008. With the disasters in Burma and China compounded by the regimes reluctance for international help in times of crisis, it's sad, says Geoff, to report paranoia and mistrust still survives in this century. Then again, as with the case of Burma, as the country rarely enters the news, outside of some of the charity organisations, how many of you knew about its political regime until recently?

Writers and societal illusions
01/05/2008. Last week, my editor, his assistant, and I were discussing some elements of a book I'd turned in. I use the word discussing in very loose terms. My editor was having a hard time with the situation in the book. I won't go into the specifics here, because some of you might read the book, but both my editor and I did agree on the facts, on the credibility of the situation, and the culture.

Thoughts on writing success
01/05/2008. Jim Baen and Eric Flint, as well as other fiction writers and editors, have both made statements to the effect that every writer and publisher is competing for a reader's "beer and movie money." While not always literally true, their underlying point is all too accurate. A successful fiction writer has to leave his or her readers feeling that their time and funds were well-spent.

The SF Future: More of the same - except better or worse?
01/05/2008. Recently, in his column about Arthur C. Clarke in the New York Times, Dave Iztkoff explored whether present and future writers would be as successful as Clarke had been in envisioning future technologies. Over the years, various writers and academics have attempted to quantify in a rough fashion just how accurate SF has been in predicting the future.

Modest revision
01/05/2008. Mark R. Leeper is getting up a petition to rearrange the titles of Jules Verne's best-known (in other words filmed) novels. Now what do he mean by that?

What constitutes freedom?
01/05/2008. A common theme used in Science Fiction is that of the oppressed fighting against tyranny often on a wider scale than a single country. Most SF tends to present the picture in black and white than shades of grey. At ground level in the 'Star Wars' films, the planets in the Empire don't seem that badly off, providing you don't annoy the stormtroopers or their nice Emperor or his henchman.

What, other than my omnipotence, scares you about me?
01/04/2008. In recent months Uncle Geoff has been asked a couple times the rather odd question as to who he actually writes for here at SFCrowsnest? Well, he doesn't know your name and the only common denominator he does know is you're sitting facing a computer monitor and have a passion for science fiction and fantasy.

How Sputnik changed your life
01/03/2008. Scottish science fiction novellist of some reknown, Ken Macleod, chats about the impact of the Sputnik launch - a potted version of the talk he gave at the Satellite 1 con. Oh, and he's thinking of getting a t-shirt printed to read 'Fandom is where people contradict you just to be polite'. Sounds like a slogan to live by!

Science and Science Fiction are class-mates not rivals
01/03/2008. December might be a long time back now but allows for a different and still pertinent perspective. Yuletide in Great Britain brought its usual spate of lectures shown on TV. One for our home-market, named the Richard Dimbleby Lecture named after the father of another pair of famous TV journalists, had the speaker, scientist entrepreneur Dr. J. Craig Venter, attributing a couple things as only seen in Science Fiction as if they were never expected to happen in real life.

Intelligence isn't the highest point of evolution merely a facet being explored.
01/02/2008. Let's talk evolution, suggests Uncle Geoff. The natural selection variety not that intelligent design malarky and how it applies to the human race.

Procrastination, stupidity, or species suicide?
01/02/2008. An asteroid appears likely to hit the planet Mars, says author science fiction LE Modesitt. Several years ago, a large comet impacted Jupiter, and its fragments created disturbances in the Jovian atmosphere that could have encompassed much of earth. Geologists have discovered the remnants of massive craters on earth itself, most of which totally restructured the environment and the atmosphere, not to mention life itself.

Real-world, real-time science fiction?
01/02/2008. When retail sales levels for the United States were recently announced, says US author LE Modesitt, stock prices in the USA immediately dropped, and a number of large retailers immediately announced plans to close down "unprofitable" outlets. His initial reaction was to think that, well, if sales were down, that would be understandable. Except sales weren't down. They were up. three percent! SFF authors couldn't make this stuff up.

Not quite human
01/01/2008. With the release of Beowulf, says Mark, we got a chance to see how far the film industry has gotten in the realistic depiction of humans in animation. I thought it was just a little off of being realistic and they reminded me of the way humans looked in Shrek.

I am not Legend
01/01/2008. I am Legend was a brilliant book says fantasy author Joe Abercrombie, but you really need to forget all about it if you watch the new Will Smith movie based on that novel. The studio seems intent on simplifying, schmaltzifying, and dumbing this film down more than ever.

The SF community & black kettles
01/01/2008. Science fiction, says Uncle Geoff, is a genre to be proud to say you belong to and a measure of eccentricity to be healthy with than to be without. It doesn’t bite or scare or hurt anyone except in the content of what you watch or read and there are so many more of us today that it no longer a dirty word. Be proud.