Nope. Still Winter.

 It’s been four weeks now since the hospital sent Karen home to die. Three and a half weeks since she passed from this world. Somehow I lived through Christmas without collapsing into a complete blubbering mess—at least, not constantly. I do start every morning off with a cup of coffee and a good cry, though. The next test comes in two weeks, on our 30th wedding...

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The Seemingly Obligatory Christmas Column; "Christmas Eve, 2017,” by Bruce Bethke

(This 2017 photograph of Queen Elizabeth II is here because she was amazing, engendered a sense of  good cheer, good sense, and stability...some qualities ~brb shares)I had a column I used to recycle every Christmas Eve. It was a mopey, sentimental thing about my Dad and the 8mm movie camera he used to take to every family gathering when I was a kid. The technology of...

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MINING THE ASTEROIDS #2: Can An Asteroid Be OWNED??? By Whom? How?

Using the Programme Guide of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as the program firms up, I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy...

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SF/F Writers in the Real World by Bruce Bethke (October 11, 2018)

Eric Dontigney found and posted an interesting article on our facebook page and here’s the link:https://www.facebook.com/StupefyingStories/posts/2348861001822526The original article is on syfy.com, and the subject is, “Does your science fiction or fantasy world have to be woke? Experts debate at NYCC.”It’s an interesting question, and one that deserves further debate, which...

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Requiem for Karen

 I bought a Christmas tree last night. I wasn’t planning to. But as we were having dinner my son said, “Dad, you have to. A real Christmas tree this year, like Mom would have wanted.”So after dinner I went out, and to my surprise found one—and not a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, either, but a good-looking, fresh and green Balsam fir, and at 50% off, too. I guess these...

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SETI: What Do We Do When We Find Them? Thoughts on a session from the 2018 World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, California by Guy Stewart

As I've never been to a "real" World Science Fiction Convention, I spend lots of time LOOKING at the Program Guides during and after each convention. I use them to inspire thought and spark ideas. The following is based on a session that occurred at the World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, California in August 2018. The BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the...

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“2018: Where We Stand: We began with a Kindle..." by Bruce Bethke

That sounds much better than, “We began with a series of expensive blunders, some of which continue to this day.”A decade ago, when we first incorporated Rampant Loon Media LLC, I really had no interest in becoming an SF/F fiction publisher. At that time I’d already spent about 30 years in the publishing business, on one side of the desk or the other, and in the end, I’d walked...

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Writing Research and Thoughts: MINING THE ASTEROIDS #1: The Asteroids In Fiction and Fact

Dawn of the Asteroid Belt: Exploring Vesta and CeresAsteroids are relics of the ancient Solar System. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft orbited Vesta for a year. Now its ion thrusters have propelled it across the Asteroid Belt to Ceres, the largest asteroid, where Dawn has again entered orbit. Join Bill Higgins to explore Dawn’s findings at Vesta and its plans for doing science at Ceres.Bill...

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Status Update • 8 December 2022

After a lifetime in the writing racket, these are some of the most difficult words I’ve ever had to write. BETHKE (Karwacki), Karen M. Passed away peacefully at home and surrounded by family on December 3, 2022, after a courageous 12-year battle against metastatic breast cancer. An avid reader, talented cook, and loving mother, stepmother, and grandmother, Karen is preceded...

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"The Talk" (Part Two) by Bruce Bethke

...continued from Part One..."Mr. Bethke? How do I become a writer?"The Snark is strong with me. You have no idea how hard it is not to answer, "Well, what exactly is a writer? It's someone who writes, isn't it? Have you ever written anything? You have? Congratulations! You're a writer!"Next question?"But it's cruel to leave the kid hanging there gaping and floundering like that, so instead I answer: "As a writer, words are the tools of your trade....

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Creating Alien Aliens 20...How Might Aliens Think Differently Than We Do?

It's been a while since I seriously analyzed my writing – though I’ve certainly analyzed individual stories as well as concepts (like “What went RIGHT?” and “Can this story be SAVED?”, creating Alien Aliens, and mining the asteroids, as well as gleaning advice from writers who’ve influenced me (both living and dead)), I’ve never looked at where my ideas come from and how they...

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"The Talk" (Part One) by Bruce Bethke

And once again, Spring returns to the North Country. In the space of two short weeks we've gone from watching the glaciers calve...To watching the trees bud, the grass turn green, and the crocuses, tulips, and daffodils erupt from the ground in a glorious riot of color, only to get nommed to bits every night by hordes of ravenous bunnies.Still, the flowers keeping trying....

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Creating Alien Aliens 19 -- How Do the Heptapods in “Arrival” and CS Lewis’ God Perceive Time?

I was having trouble writing this and couldn’t figure out why. After a six hour interval during which I went to a Celebration of Life for a work friend of mine, I sat down again to try and finish this.The problem was that I hadn’t defined my goal; my question. I got hold of the question as soon as I sat down again: Why is an altered perception of time OK in an alien and ridiculed...

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