H II Regions, 4 September 2012
Welcome to the H II Regions, a weekly compilation of SF, publishing and political news. Send thoughts and story tips to cosmicvinegar@gmail.com. The Million: Season One later this week!
Watch the Critics
“A Critic’s Manifesto“, a useful albeit inflated piece about critiquing work. The guy is a critic who loves critics, has spent his whole life reading critics and will continue to do so. Here are some of the most useful thoughts on critics and critiques:
the glimpses these [critics] gave you of their tastes and passions revealed what art and culture are supposed to do for a person.
and
What I was really learning from those critics each week was how to think. How to think (we use the term so often that we barely realize what we’re saying) critically—which is to say, how to think like a critic, how to judge things for myself. To think is to make judgments based on knowledge: period.
H II Regions, 30 August 2012
Welcome to the H II Regions, a weekly compilation of SF, publishing and political news. Send thoughts and story tips to cosmicvinegar@gmail.com. I am deep into editing of the first season of The Million; plans are to have a nice e-book ready to go late next week. Thus news this week is later than normal.
Turf Wars
China Mieville wrapped up the recent Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference with a sometimes-unintelligible statement, with which I alternately agreed and disagreed. But he pointed all of us to a statement by the Creators’ Rights Alliance, which concluded thus:
[A] fundamental part of this provision should involve education about intellectual property. … All schoolchildren should be encouraged in the habit of using the © symbol with their work, whether it be an essay or a musical composition.
The concept behind copyright is so simple that a child can understand it:
“I made it: it’s mine.”
Is that why you create art? To stare at something and think “it’s mine”? Read more…
H II Regions, 21 August 2012
Welcome to the H II Regions, a weekly compilation of SF, publishing and political news. Send thoughts and story tips to cosmicvinegar@gmail.com.
SF: The Marx’t Generation
Very interesting albeit brief post by Tyler Cowen last week, concerning morality on blogs. While he is referencing economics blogs, the dimensions implied seem relevant to what I’m doing here. This ties into larger concerns of communication: how can we communicate effectively in a partisan world, how can we change each other’s minds?
H II Regions, 14 August 2012
Welcome to the H II Regions, a weekly compilation of SF, publishing and political news. Send thoughts and story tips to cosmicvinegar@gmail.com.
Brick and Mortar
The week of Kickstarter rewards coming to fruition! First I got my copy of Zombicide in the mail, and then Singularity & Co. opened their doors to the public. This second reward is really impressive and heartening–a physical space in New York City devoted to SF novels. Check it out if you’re in the area–I intend to visit at some point in the next few months. [The Verge]
H II Regions, 7 August 2012
Welcome to the H II Regions, a weekly compilation of SF, publishing and political news. Send thoughts and story tips to cosmicvinegar@gmail.com. & a special happy birthday to my mother! And one to my father, two weeks ago.
Mars Rover Curiosity: Roundup
I’m sure you’ve heard all about it by this point, but since we’ve scrapped our manned missions for the time being, putting a robot on Mars is as exciting as things get at NASA. Which is not to belittle the project–it was incredibly difficult to orchestrate and had a sizable chance of failure (60% of Mars missions have failed). Yet it succeeded, which means that robot is going to be wandering the red planet for at least 2 Earth years, hopefully finding traces of alien life, Martian water, and other universal clues. Here’s the most recent news, with a layman’s summary of the project’s goals. Hell, you can follow the damn thing on Twitter. The future rules. [New York Times; National Geographic; NASA; io9]
Even Thinking About Money
A published research study detailing psychological effects of money (paywall). The upshot, from the abstract:
We found that subtle reminders of the concept of money, relative to nonmoney concepts, led participants to endorse more strongly the existing social system in the United States in general (Experiment 1) and free-market capitalism in particular (Experiment 4), to assert more strongly that victims deserve their fate (Experiment 2), and to believe more strongly that socially advantaged groups should dominate socially disadvantaged groups (Experiment 3).
Tough to say what reading this means to me; as a proponent of money’s negative effects, it’s an encouraging piece of evidence that I’m engaged in a worthwhile project. But in many ways it’s a terrifying conclusion. [Journal of Experimental Psychology]
Contrast That With
This article discussing the anecdotal impact of a writer being paid for their work. Specifically, the article asks if it is better for the writer to be paid than not to be paid? The article is interesting, although it’s best to approach it as an opinion piece. And in the back of my mind, I wonder what effect book sales have on the art because the concept of money is ever-present. How many authors (professional and aspiring) fit in Experiments 1 through 4, above? [NY Review of Books]
Spin Control
You can file this in the “huh, that’s interesting” category: Wikipedia entries for relevant politicians log a ton of edits just prior to a big announcement. I’m too lazy to do some original research and see what’s simply cleaned up and what details have been studiously photoshopped from these pols’ lives, but it serves as another reminder that the Internet is full of information both real, fake, and cropped. [NPR]
H II Regions, 24 July 2012 (update)
Welcome to the H II Regions, a weekly compilation of SF, publishing and political news. Send thoughts and story tips to cosmicvinegar@gmail.com.
Inequality Today
New report out detailing just how much money is possibly squirreled away in offshore banking accounts–unsurprisingly, it’s a fuckton. While there is a decent debate about the merits of paying executives huge sums of money, most reasonable people agree that secreting money away in offshore accounts so as to avoid taxes is a dishonest thing to do. It fundamentally destroys the social contract, which is predicated on the concept that we all pay our fair share for use of public utilities. People who earn millions of dollars do so not in a vacuum. Read more…
Cosmic Vinegar, July 2012
Here it is, the July issue–in which you get an ending, of sorts, to Season 1 of The Million. But unresolved issues remain, new difficulties lurk on the horizon, and so much more: Season 2 will be more intense, higher stakes, and more spaceships! I promise, more spaceships. Or at least more flying around in spaceships. This is science fiction, after all, right?
Downloads: PDF | | MOBI | | EPub
Live links: Reviews | | The Million, chapter 15 and chapter 16
We finally have our first bit of true art for the magazine, provided courtesy of my friend Robert Acock. I love the abstract shapes in it, with suggestions of real objects–you can maybe see a spaceship, an alien, plants and planets. Above is only a teaser, there are six full pieces in the issue, as well as a shot of them all together.
So we’re entering a break in the action of The Million; what will I be up to in the meantime? I’ll be fleshing out the plans for Season 2, doing more short story reviews than normal, editing and compiling a full ebook of Season 1, going through fiction submissions, and importing all of The Million into Scrivener. I have a few things to do. It’ll be October before I know it. Yikes! I better get to work.
