I will be speaking about the Writers of the Future Contest and my story. I’ll also be signing WOTF XX. The event lasts from 1:00-4:00pm. The speaking part will begin at 2:00pm.
The store is located at 5249 S. State St.
I’ve been invited to be one of the bloggers at the Bloggernacle Times. It doesn’t mean I’ll be abandoning this blog at all — the BT has a once-a-week format, rather than this blog’s blog-whenever-I-feel-like-it format.
You can read my first post here, on the subject of Life, the Universe and Everything.
Mentioning Battlestar Galactica in the last post reminded me that my viewing habits have changed recently, so I thought I’d do a rundown of the shows I watch now — basically, these are the shows for which my Tivo has Season Passes.
Mondays:
My law school friend Heather Hedquist recommended Medium on NBC. It’s quite an interesting show, about a woman with psychic powers who helps out a District Attorney. The show not only contains some intriguing mystery plotlines, but also some good interaction between the woman and her husband and children.
Tuesdays:
Steve Evans at By Common Consent recommended Veronica Mars as “the new, better written BtVS [Buffy the Vampire Slayer].” Well, he’s wrong about it being better-written than Buffy, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad show — it’s actually very good. Steve was also wrong about it being a “soon-to-be-cancelled show”: UPN has picked Veronica Mars up for a second season.
My brother Michael recommended House, a medical show. While the plots tend to be standard medical mystery fare, what makes the show is the main character, a brilliant doctor with a very acerbic personality.
Wednesday:
After seeing various references to the show, it was Orson Scott Card’s review of Lost that convinced me to give it a try. I was hooked fairly quickly.
I’ve been watching the original Law & Order for years, and still enjoy it.
Thursday:
I still watch the original CSI.
Friday:
Last year, I had no TV shows that I watched on Friday nights. But then, as a prelude to canceling it at the end of this season, UPN moved Star Trek: Enterprise to Fridays. The episodes this final season have been some of the best and most rewarding for Trek-Americans like me — they’re even finally explaining the Klingon forehead mystery.
The Sci-Fi channel moved Stargate SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis to Friday nights to be part of their new Sci-Fi Friday lineup alongside the new Battlestar Galactica series. (The assumption seems to be that sci-fi fans have no social lives. And I’m not exactly proving them wrong.)
But science fiction is not the only thing worth watching on Friday nights: there’s also math fiction. CBS’s new midseason series Numb3rs has been fun to watch. The basic premise is that a mathematical genius with a brother in the FBI uses math to help solve cases. And here’s what’s really impressive: it has dealt with advanced mathematical ideas such as the Riemann hypothesis, P versus NP problem, chaos theory and more without making a mistake I could catch. I’m no math expert, just a knowledgeable layman, so they may be making mistakes that a better mathematician would groan at. But they must have a real mathematician on staff. (Of course, they do make the occasional science groaner typical to TV, such as looking at a portion of a three-dimensional image of a DNA helix and recognizing it. But I forgive them that because of their math.)
Thursday through Saturday, February 17-19, I attended BYU’s science fiction and fantasy symposium. For the first time, I attended a science fiction convention as a panelist, rather than just a fan.
But that doesn’t mean I didn’t go as a fan, too. It’s been nearly twenty years since I first read some of my favorite hard science fiction novels: Lucifer’s Hammer, Footfall, The Mote in God’s Eye and others coauthored by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. So I was interested in what Jerry Pournelle would say as one of the Guests of Honor at the convention.
Just imagine how thrilled I was to be sitting next to Jerry Pournelle on a panel about “The science in science fiction: how ‘real’ is the science in your favorite books, movies and TV shows? Why or why not?” (Now, my presence on the panel might be considered as evidence of the scarcity of quality guests at the symposium, but I am at least qualified to discuss the subject.) Of course, Jerry Pournelle dominated the panel (as he seems to do every panel on which he appears) but I felt I managed to say a few things pertinent to the subject.
Other highlights of the convention included:
From Amazing Stories magazine’s review of All the Rage This Year:
The three best stories, “All the Rage This Year,” by David Walton;
I’m on a Writers of the Future panel at Life, the Universe & Everything, from 2:00 to 4:00pm.
I’m on a panel at Life, the Universe & Everything, from 12:00 to 1:00pm. Others on the panel include Helge Moulding, Dan Willis, Jake Black, and April Randall.
I’m on a panel at Life, the Universe & Everything, from 3:00 to 4:00pm. I think the title says it all.
I’m on a panel at Life, the Universe & Everything, discussing “The science in science fiction: how “real” is the science in your favorite books, movies and TV shows? Why or why not?”
Others on the panel include: Ruth Hanson, Robert J. Defendi, Jerry Pournelle, Scott Parkin, and Dr. Mike Joner.
