RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES!The USDA and agriculture officials across the U.S. have issued warnings
about unsolicited shipments of foreign seeds and advised people not to
plant them. Officials are concerned the mystery seeds, which appear to
have originated in China, could be invasive plant species.(...read more...) My first thought was, “Didn’t Frank Herbert use something like this in The White Plague? Terrorists spreading their bio-engineered...
Thursday, July 30, 2020
Sunday, July 26, 2020
SHOWCASE: “Sunday Dinner with la Famiglia (and Nonno’s Brain)” • by Franco Amati
Art by Justine BackesSunday dinner with the family was a little different this week. We all sat around a dumpy-ass table in the middle of the nursing home. From where I was sitting, I could see a big bowl of pasta. My younger sister Gina was across from me, and next to her was the big jar with Grandpa’s brain in it. We called him Nonno, and he didn’t say much these days. A...
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
Help Still Wanted
Just a quick reminder that I have a bunch of (slightly irregular) trade paperback copies of THE LOST PLANET that I will be happy to give away to people who are willing to help us promote this book. If
you have a clever idea for how to promote this book, and the time,
energy, and willingness to do so if you read it and find it worthy, drop
me a line at brb@rampantloonmedia.com...
Tuesday, July 21, 2020
On Mythaxis: “Writing Cyberpunk”
This went live more quickly than I expected. Over on Daniel Scott White’s site MYTHAXIS you will find “Writing Cyberpunk,”, which went live this morning. It’s a sort of a—well, I don’t quite know what to call it, but it grew out of Mr. White’s asking me a lot of questions about my early writing career and a certain story we all know. Rather than repeat the entire article here,...
Monday, July 20, 2020
Help Wanted
Through a technical oversight I wound up with a bunch of copies of THE LOST PLANET that I can’t sell because the margins are off-kilter and can’t return because it was our mistake that caused the margins to come out that way in the first place. Originally I was planning to donate them to the local high school, where a teacher I know is trying to build up a science fiction...
Friday, July 17, 2020
Update re THE LOST PLANET
Sometimes a quote comes in that’s just so good, I need to share it before I’ve figured out how I’m going to use it in advertising. This one concerning Henry Vogel’s novel THE LOST PLANET came in yesterday afternoon.“This has old-style big-picture adventure, somewhat Heinleinian in flavor and alien-invasion tensions. I liked it!”—Gregory Benford
THE LOST PLANET - Available...
Saturday, July 4, 2020
PRE-ORDERS AND EARLY-BIRD PRICES
Kindle users: Hart for Adventure is now available at the special introductory price of $0.99. Pre-order now and it will be auto-delivered to your Kindle on July 8.Link: Pre-order for KindleBook readers: If you’d prefer an actual printed and bound trade-paperback book, God love ya, the print edition of Hart of Adventure is available for order now, at the special introductory...
Friday, July 3, 2020
GREAT BIG BOOK SALE!
In celebration of the upcoming release of Henry Vogel’s latest novel, Hart for Adventure, we’ve put his entire catalog on sale! For the next few days the Kindle versions of most of his books will be just $0.99 USD each, and a few selected titles will be absolutely free! Load up your Kindle with a whole summer’s reading at a great bargain price!Since Hart for Adventure is a...
Thursday, July 2, 2020
Flirting with Syncretism • by Bruce Bethke
Once in a while it seems worthwhile to pull back the curtain and explain just how I got the idea to write something like yesterday’s “Culture Considered as a Generation Ship.” The piece didn’t really have a well-defined point of inception or a conclusion in mind when I began. Rather, a whole slumgullion of ideas were floating around and in play in my mind. In no particular...
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
Culture Considered as a Generation Ship • by Bruce Bethke
I made a disturbing discovery the other day. 3M’s Scotch 206/207 recording tape, the standard for pro audio studio work in the 1970s through the 1980s, is unstable unless stored under exactly the right conditions of temperature and humidity. Given enough time and less-than-perfect storage conditions, the adhesive holding the oxide to the backing will deteriorate, causing the oxide to flake off the moment the tape is loaded onto a deck and played...