m. c. de marco

Via del.icio.us sf: an old essay by Michael Wong surveys Brain Bugs, the bum memes of Star Trek and science fiction in general.

Surely no one would be stupid enough to watch the Kobayashi Maru combat simulation in ST2 and conclude that exploding consoles are the principal cause of death for bridge personnel, would they?

Via SFScope: an open anthology, Federations, edited by John Joseph Adams, will pay 5 cents per word up to 5,000 words.

Prime Books expects to publish it in May 2009. He describes the anthology thus: “From Star Trek to Star Wars, from Dune to Foundation, science fiction has a rich history of exploring the idea of vast intergalactic societies, and the challenges facing those living in or trying to manage such societies. The stories in Federations will continue that tradition.

Via SFScope: Night Shade Books has published Walter Jon Williams’ Implied Spaces, with bonus downloads. Also new in their catalog is Greg Egan’s Incandescence.

SFScope reports that Pyr Books is expanding its line to about 30 books a year.

Not every movie can star Natan Sharansky, but The Andromeda Strain was an exceptional disappointment. Blogcritics Magazine has a negative review that touches briefly on the movie’s major weakness: poor technobabble.

Since the scientists actually do very little science, the script pads out the running time with plenty of pseudo-science, giving every actor a chance to graft on some ludicrous exposition without actually explaining a thing.

This entry was intended to be a sequel to a previous entry about genetically engineered vampires, but I forgot to finish my thought and all that remains of it is a cool quote from the extended notes to Blindsight by Peter Watts:

In fact, the nonconscious mind usually works so well on its own that it actually employs a gatekeeper in the anterious cingulate cortex to do nothing but prevent the conscious self from interfering in daily operations. (If the rest of your brain were conscious, it would probably regard you as the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert.)

I’ve finally gotten around to reading Blindsight by Peter Watts. More on the book itself will follow, but first I have to link his flash presentation on the creation of Homo sapiens whedonum. Not only is it educational for those of us genetically engineering our own fantasy creatures at home, but it’s also filled with dark corporate humor.