Part-time prevaricator
This past Saturday, the sky was clear and the auroral forecast looked promising, so I drove out to a dark spot to check out out. The aurora, if it was there at all, was a very faint smear at the extreme northern horizon. But I had bought a coffee, so I stuck around long enough to get some star trails.
The photo is about 150 images, 10 seconds each, ISO 800, f/2.8, 11mm, all stacked in GIMP. The waxing half-moon lit the foreground for me.
Last night my wife and I were contemplating going to the movies. She really wanted to see the cystic-fibrosis–related teen rom-com/drama Five Feet Apart, and I wanted to see the post–alien-invasion SF drama Captive State. So we compromised: she went to Five Feet Apart, and I went to Captive State.
Continue reading “Review: Captive State”
…to quote one William Gibson.
Bonus photo:
Photos taken at Crow’s General Store, Brandon, MB.
Over on Tor.com, a discussion of Sir Terry Pratchett’s works, and how there’s more to them—far more—than just silly puns and goofy characters.
Terry Pratchett is best known for his incompetent wizards, dragon-wielding policemen, and anthropomorphic personifications who SPEAK LIKE THIS. And we love him for it. Once we’re done chuckling at Nanny Ogg’s not-so-subtle innuendos and the song about the knob on the end of the wizard’s staff, however, there’s so much more going on beneath the surface of a Pratchett novel.
Read the whole article; it’s worth it.
Since we were in Edmonton, I stocked up on author fuel whiskey.
After two previous attempts got lost in the mail (or else lost in customs), my artistic license finally arrived sometime between last Wednesday (when we left for Edmonton) and yesterday (when I checked the mail).
Continue reading “Artistic License”
I can’t decide which one I want to read first. I really like Join Scalzi’s writing; I loved Son of a Trickster and I’m looking forward to reading more of Eden Robinson’s prose; but man, Sara Gran’s last novel ended on such a cliffhanger, so I’m leaning towards The Infinite Blacktop.
This one’s for the Canadians in the crowd. Writers, SF/F fans, helpful family members…
The Aurora Awards nominations have opened, and will be open till the 18th of May. My short story “Vincent and Charlie” is eligible for nomination, as are a myriad of other great stories both long and short. You can check out the eligibility lists at the Prix Aurora Awards site (you’ll need to be a member of the site to nominate anyone; it’s $10.00 Canadian for the year).
For those that haven’t read “Vincent and Charlie”, it’s available in the anthology Parallel Prairies, which is available from McNally Robinson, Indigo/Chapters/Coles, or (if you must) Amazon.
The story, in a nutshell, is about a retired farmer, afflicted with dementia, who happens across a crashed alien craft and rescues the pilot. This attracts the attention of some people whose attention you’d prefer not to attract.
Continue reading “Aurora Awards”
I read Eden Robinson’s Son of a Trickster this weekend.
It’s the story of sixteen-year-old Jared, who’s doing his best, trying to balance baking weed cookies, caring for his elderly neighbours, keeping his dad from losing his home, keeping his aggressive mom off his case, and generally just trying to not fail grade ten.
It’s not real helpful that he’s started hearing crows talking to him.
Continue reading “Review: Son of a Trickster”
My first encounter with Gordon Lightfoot’s classic song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” was actually reading the lyrics published as a poem in a high-school English reader. (I had a similar experience with Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence”, though I think I’d probably heard that one on the radio, my dad being an aficionado of the ’60s station KY58.)
So for Throwback Thursday, please, enjoy this tale of human woe and the sinking of a massive freighter in a storm on (spoiler alert!) Lake Superior.
Header image from Wikimedia Commons, CC-Attribution-Sharealike, originally by Greenmars.
.jpg){kind=link}