21 Feb 2008

Sunborn in October 2008

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How could I forget this? I have word now that Sunborn (the continuation of the Chaos Chronicles) is firmly scheduled for October of this year, from Tor. That’s the hardcover. I don’t know yet when the paperback will be out, probably a year or so after.

Meanwhile, a reminder that you can read the beginning of the book online right now!

By the way, one of the many things I’m thinking about doing is getting some decent recording equipment and producing my own podcast or audiobook-style readings of some of my stuff. This is something that author James Patrick Kelly has been doing pretty successfully. What do you all think? Should I start with some short stories, or do Sunborn? Lemme know.

“I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.'” —Maya Angelou

21 Feb 2008

If This is Tuesday, It Must Be…No, No, That Can’t Be Right

posted in: quirky, science, science fiction, writing | 0

So I don’t know what day it is, anymore. What else is new? Last weekend, I was at Boskone, which is an always-enjoyable Boston SF convention. In the art show, I was startled to see the cover painting to one of my older books, The Rapture Effect! Beautiful painting by David Mattingly. Besides that, it was good to catch up with people I haven’t seen in a while, and devote yet more time to the question of how to make a living at this racket. (The writing racket.) More and more, it seems, writers have to look for other gigs to bring in income—even writers who are well established, and who you might think have it made. (There’s a good chance that they don’t, that they do something else to pay the mortgage.)

This isn’t going to pay the mortgage, but I’ve started a new business-hobby: Roomba resurrection. It started with my fixing my own Roomba when it seemed dead, then thinking, well, if I could get some people to give me their old, dead Roombas, it would be a great home school project to take them apart with my daughter and her home-school buddies. But it turned out nobody wanted to give me their old Roombas, so I started looking for some cheap on Ebay. Turns out there’s a constant stream of them being sold there, and it started to seem like a good idea to buy a few as cheaply as I could, fix them up, and see if I could resell them for a profit. I’ll let you know how that works out. (I still want to do the home-school project, though. If you have an old Roomba you want to lend to the cause….)

Interesting news notes:

From the Washington Post comes this: Scientists “have created a paper-thin material that absorbs 99.955 percent of the light that hits it, making it by far the darkest substance ever made—about 30 times as dark as the government’s current standard for blackest black. The material, made of hollow fibers, is a Roach Motel for photons—light checks in, but it never checks out.” It involves carbon nanotubes (what else?) and has got people thinking ever deeper thoughts about invisibility cloaks.

Meanwhile, U.S. plans to shoot down a defective and falling satellite have the rest of the world wondering what else those military tech-types might be thinking about. I take no position on that question—sure, they could be viewing this as a great practice opportunity, and probably are—but does that mean they shouldn’t do it if it might reduce the risk of an accident on the ground? I don’t have enough information to form an educated opinion. But I do like what space.com has offered us—a chance to consider the question: “What Cosmic Duo Would You Trust to Destroy a Wayward Spy Satellite?” Look through the list. It’ll amuse you, and bring back some fond memories!

“A man who had to be punctually at a certain place at five o’clock has the whole afternoon from one to five ruined for him already.” —Lin Yutang

5 Feb 2008

Chameleons of the Deep

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Whatever I was planning to write about next—probably Slicing Open Golf Balls for Fun and Profit, or something equally edifying—got knocked right out of my head when I encountered the web site, Talking Squids in Outer Space. That site by itself is pretty cool; I had no idea there were that many SF stories with squids in them. But even better, I followed their link to this video, which is real footage of cephalopods doing amazing things in the ocean. Watch it; it’s worth your time. If it doesn’t display properly in this page, go to http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/206.

Tell me these critters aren’t amazing.

“Imagination is the eye of the soul.” —Joseph Joubert

25 Jan 2008

Virgin Galactic’s Spaceliner Design Unveiled

posted in: science fiction, space | 0

So you’re ready to fly into space, but you don’t have $200,000 handy to buy a ticket? Me neither. But we can dream together, can’t we? Virgin Galactic has released designs for SpaceshipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo, currently under construction at Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites air/spacecraft factory. This thing is gigacool. It’s one of the best reasons I can think of for winning the lottery (and I can think of quite a few). They’ve also got a video, with some animated depictions of a flight. New Mexico spaceport, here we come!

It’s been a few years now since I wrote my short story, “Rocket Ride! A Short Day’s Journey into Space,” about traveling in just such a machine. But you can still read it here.

“And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”
— John Gillespie Magee, Jr

24 Jan 2008

Still Here, Still Tickin’ in the New Year

posted in: personal news, writing | 0

Good Lord, I haven’t posted in over a month! Yiiiee. Last time I checked in, I was about to head off with my family for extended holidays in London—and indeed, we had a great time there. We saw all of the usual famous buildings, the British Museum, the National (art) Galleries, the Tate Modern, the Greenwich Observatory, the London Tower, the Thames from a boat, and the insides of a good number of pubs. We also visited the famous Forbidden Planet bookstore, and saw some plays: Boeing, Boeing and Wicked. And my daughters saw Ian McKellan in King Lear! (We would all have gone, but tickets were sold out. Only by standing in line for people selling off unneeded tickets did we get two individual seats for the girls.) McKellan, they reported, was awesome as Lear. And Wicked was a stunning stage production. Oh, we also took a train to visit family friends in a real English village somewhere north of London.

Here are a few pix of us from London:

Here we are, straddling the Prime Meridian!

Julia, Lexi, and Allysen overlooking Greenwich and the Thames River.

Me, apparently looking very very serious,
in the darkness of a pub.

Immediately after our return, my brother and his girlfriend arrived for a 5-day visit. We tried turducken for the first time, as we had a belated Christmas dinner. An interesting experiment, but I think we’ll go back to regular turkey next time.

It was all great. But by the time we’d gotten back to normal and recovered from jet lag, our total “out of real life” experience was close to a month. Where did the time go?

I am now back at work on The Reefs of Time—struggling with the transition from where I thought the story was heading before to where I think it’s heading now. At the same time, I’m also looking for outside consulting work as a developmental editor. (That’s probably worth a post of its own: coming soon.) The reason, of course, is obvious: most of us can’t make a living from writing fiction alone, and sooner or later, we have to seek out gainful employment. One of those facts about writing that we wish were different.

But hey—I just resuscitated a dead Roomba! And I fixed our crippled Calypso washing machine without calling a technician! (I knew that voltmeter would come in handy one day.) And I replaced the battery in the iPod Mini I just inherited from my daughter! So I’m on a high!

“I have written a great many stories and I still don’t know how to go about it except to write it and take my chances.” —John Steinbeck

23 Dec 2007

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and All That

posted in: personal news, quirky, science, writing | 0

It’s been a busy time here, as I’m sure it has been for many of you. This will probably be my last entry for 2007, because my family and I are in the throes of getting ready not just for the holidays, but for a two-week trip to London! It’s been about twenty years since I was last in England, and it’ll be very interesting to go back. It’s in some ways a crazy time to go—the exchange rate and costs are insane, and we’re all absurdly busy—but we have a place to stay with family, and that really is what’s making it possible. Plus, as my wife points out, chances to take this kind of trip as a family are rapidly vanishing: one daughter in college and the other headed that way soon enough. I’m sure it’ll be a fine and memorable time. (But there’s no internet access where we’re staying, so chances are I won’t be posting during the trip.)

Writing update: For the last couple of months I’ve been wrestling with the storyline I’m trying to unfold in The Reefs of Time. My old outline didn’t really hold up, and I’ve been rethinking the direction of my story following the end of Sunborn (which of course you haven’t read, because it hasn’t been published yet). Looks like the plot is taking some unexpected turns—unexpected to me, that is. Figuring out what it means is taking some time. Still, I like the new direction, and it’s sparked a new interest in the story on my part. While that’s been going on, I just wrapped up the SF writing workshop I taught with Craig Gardner. We both thought we had a terrific group again, and were excited to see so much promise in their work.

As always, there are many things I’ve been intending to write about but haven’t gotten to. So I’m going to sign off with just this news item:

Young chimps beat college students in memory tests! How can you not love this story? In short-term memory tests on a computer, some young chimpanzees bested their young adult human competition. Go monkeys! You read it here first. (Actually, you probably didn’t. But if I’d written this sooner, you might have.)

“We’ve all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.” —Robert Wilensky

7 Dec 2007

Flying Saucers in Saturnian Orbit!

posted in: quirky, science, science fiction, space | 0

Yes! From no less a source than Space.com and NASA comes news of weirdo flying saucers in orbit around the planet Saturn! In fact, they’ve even got computer-generated pictures, which are almost as good as real ones. Here’s the one they’re calling the moon Atlas, as generated by computer, based on findings from the Cassini probe:


You can also look at a nice big blowup.

Now, those scientists are such jokers, they expect us to believe that those are natural moon formations, caused by ring material building up on the equators of the moons. But I say, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. So, nuthin’ doin. I believed them when they said the Face of Mars wasn’t made by aliens. And what did they do? They sent those rovers, Opportunity and Spirit, out to roll back and forth over the face until they’d obliterated the image! (But here, you can look at some other cool shots.)

You all remember the hex socket on Saturn’s pole, right?

You think it’s a COINCIDENCE that this same planet has flying saucers going around it???!!! I think NOT!

Write your Congress persons and demand that they send a mission to investigate aliens in our solar system!

So say we all.

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” —Ray Bradbury

6 Dec 2007

Autographed Books Make Great Gifts!

posted in: personal news, writing | 0

Late as usual, as one of my high school teachers liked to say to me. Still, I hope, better late than never.

This is my not-quite-annual reminder that if you’re searching for an excellent gift for that special someone, there’s nothing quite like a personalized, autographed book direct from the author. (That would be me.) Clearly I’m way behind the curve on Hanukkah. (But while I’m on the subject, Happy Hanukkah, everyone!) But for Christmas shoppers, it’s not too late.

If you’d like to peruse the books that I have available for sale, go to my web site: http://www.starrigger.net and click on book covers for information about the books themselves. Click Bookstore, and then Price List to check on availability of various titles. You can order by email, if you use Paypal. Or to order by snailmail, print out the order blank and send it with a check.

I hope you are all having a great December. I got our blue LED lights strung up on the big pine tree in front of our house yesterday, so I’m finally, sorta-kinda getting into the mood myself!

It’s surprisingly hard to take a picture of an outdoor Christmas tree,
especially when you’re hopping around
because you didn’t take time to put a coat on!

“The two most engaging powers in an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new.” —William Makepeace Thackeray

29 Nov 2007

Update on the Weirdness

posted in: personal news, quirky, writing | 0

Well, first I’ll update on the copyright infringement weirdness, just by repeating what I already said in the comments section to the last post: The guy never answered my email, forwarded through his domain-name service, but he did take my story down. And not just my story; he took the whole blog down! And recreated it, under a new name (but same URL). Odd. But life is odd.

And speaking of odd, it’s time for another roundup of links to the stupid, the strange, the weird and fun:

New Scientist has a couple of interesting columns, starting with a roundup of strange products. The first comes under the heading of, as they put it, fruitloopiness: bottled water that has had music played to it, so that it might better calm your inner feng shui. That would be H2Om, the world’s first “vibrationally charged, interactive water.” You gotta see it to believe it.

On a more down-to-earth note, also from New Scientist: Do fish get thirsty? Maybe…maybe not… It all depends on the kind of fish.

Now, I’m not a Mac lover and I’m not a Mac hater. I simply note that the Mac user in the family seems to gripe about poor performance and annoying quirks from her machine at about the same rate as the PC users. I personally find the Mac incomprehensible. But I intend no political or religious statement with the link to this video; it’s just too funny not to point to: Why Macs suck.

If you have friends, and lots of them, and you like to bike together, you gotta have a Conference bike. Don’t worry, it’s only a little over $12,000! Isn’t that worth it for a tricycle made for seven? They even have a video, if you’re interested. (Turn the sound down, though, unless you want the music to drive you mad.)

But seriously now, the gift-giving season is nearly upon us. And you should not go into it without being armed with Dave Barry’s Holiday Gift Guide. I’m eyeing the Flying Alarm Clock, myself.

And saving the best for last. Be Rocky the Flying Squirrel! (But wait until your kids are grown up and able to support themselves, in case you, er…well, you know.) This looks like so much fun, I have to do it someday. Fly like a bird! Or at least like a flying squirrel.

My writing quote of the day definitely applies to me:

“Very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it.” —Anne Lamott

19 Nov 2007

Copyright Infringement Strikes Close to Home

posted in: blogging, personal news, writing | 0

Before I start: One reason I haven’t posted for a while is that I’ve actually been focusing on working out some things about the storyline of the new book—not Sunborn, but the following book, The Reefs of Time (working title). It’s been sending out shoots in some unexpected directions, which I guess is consistent with the theme of The Chaos Chronicles—but disconcerting.

There are a number of things I’ve been meaning to write about here, but what actually kicked me into gear is a just-discovered case of copyright infringement involving one of my short stories. I have several stories up for free on my web site, and each of them has at the top a copyright notice, along with a plain language statement that it is not permissible to reproduce them elsewhere on the web. Nevertheless, someone named “Jim” has chosen to do just that.

The story in question, “Shapeshifter Finals,” was published in 1995 in the anthology, Warriors of Blood and Dream, edited by Roger Zelazny. I’ve had it up for readers to enjoy for quite a few years. Earlier today, I did something I’ve done from time to time but not lately, which is to take a line at random from my online works and run a search to see if anyone has stolen the source. To my astonishment, I came up positive with this story. It’s been posted online, in its entirety, on a blog called Tales and Tributes. The blog owner apparently lifted it directly from my website, and gave me credit as the author but neglected to ask for permission, or to reproduce the copyright notice—thus giving the false impression that the work is in the public domain. The work is not in the public domain; it is copyright © 1995 by Jeffrey A. Carver.

I would contact the blog owner, but the thing is, “Jim” has no contact information on his blog. Apparently he doesn’t want to be contacted. Another thing is, according to a Whois.com lookup, the domain name, jimblogs.net, was created on the very same day my story was posted. How odd is that?

I have contacted the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) to see if they can assist me in dealing with this, and I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of it eventually. But in the meantime, if any of you out there in blogland know anything about jimblogs.net or “Jim,” I would appreciate hearing from you.

“The problem is when you’re not writing you don’t know if you’re lying fallow or if you’ll never write again.” —Norman Mailer

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