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In fact, with this fantastic website, you can easily publish any installation manual you like.

If you're interested in such statistics, you might be interested in the Broad Universe statistics page.

Regarding a couple of the women whose names you didn't recognize:

Nancy Kress is probably the best-known woman on the Locus SF novels list; she came to prominence with the Hugo-winning and Nebula-winning novella (later turned into a novel) "Beggars in Spain" in 1991, and has continued to write good stories and novels (and to win awards) ever since. She's more recently best-known for the Probability Moon, Probability Sun, Probability Space trilogy.

Liz Williams is a novelist becoming well-known in the UK but not so well-known in the US. For a sample of her work, you could read her short story "Century to Starboard," which we just published at Strange Horizons (if I may be forgiven a small plug).

If you're interested in such statistics, you might be interested in the Broad Universe statistics page.

Regarding a couple of the women whose names you didn't recognize:

Nancy Kress is probably the best-known woman on the Locus SF novels list; she came to prominence with the Hugo-winning and Nebula-winning novella (later turned into a novel) "Beggars in Spain" in 1991, and has continued to write good stories and novels (and to win awards) ever since. She's more recently best-known for the Probability Moon, Probability Sun, Probability Space trilogy.

Liz Williams is a novelist becoming well-known in the UK but not so well-known in the US. For a sample of her work, you could read her short story "Century to Starboard," which we just published at Strange Horizons (if I may be forgiven a small plug).

Oh, what fun. I'm so excited. What a great new leap forward, blah blah blah.

How you can be blinded by one of these things. More. Still more with a pic of a laser cannon.

I'm sure you folks can find more.

As you may recall, this same line about precision and avoiding civilian casualties was in vogue when laser- or GSM-guided munitions were deployed by the US. While there has been a remarkable decrease in collateral damage thanks to these new guidance systems, the same may not be true with regards to laser weapons. If they blast a building with it, and Joe Bozo happens to be looking in that direction from a relatively close distance, he may be blinded or even receive severe burns. I recall a discussion on /. not long ago about a 100,000 watt airborne laser weapon with some discussion of this, but was not able to find the original article. Will this revert the historical trend towards lower collateral damage?

Does anyone in a position of responsibility even give a flying fuck?

There's a short story that occurs after both Deepness and Fire but was written first. Actually, it was the very first Zones of Thought story. It's called "The Blabber," and you can find it published in various Vinge compilations. The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge has it, along with some comments by Vinge on the background.

There's a short story that occurs after both Deepness and Fire but was written first. Actually, it was the very first Zones of Thought story. It's called "The Blabber," and you can find it published in various Vinge compilations. The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge has it, along with some comments by Vinge on the background.

Buried in a long interview with author Cory Doctorow is an explanation of why email is the only effective and timely means of communicating with your Washington representatives. It boils down to: (1) there's nobody to answer the phone, (2) the fax machines are all broken or out of supplies, and (3) the regular mail sits in quarantine for a month before it gets delivered to your reps.

I enjoyed this article. Not so much math, but some great paper-folding puzzles.

See here for one article, but others exist (try searching for: manhole nuclear space object).

The article ponders whether it is myth or not and provides a number of links to other sites *documenting* the situation.

But realistically, it depends on what you define as man made. Byproducts from many industrial products will certainly (at least some of them) escape the bounds of our planet due to issues such as wind, volcanos, etc... I'm certain that on a daily basis we throw off quite a bit of dna etc...

But somehow, a manhole cover seems fitting.

Strange Horizons had a great write-up on the corporate shuffling that has killed Farscape.

Personally I think Vivendi-Universal/Sci-Fi Channel has sorely miscalculated the resolve of the highly technical and intelligent Farscape fanbase. Despite the explosion of tech industry careers at all levels and the susequent rise in demand for genre programming no one has really provided quality television for them. The watchable genre shows can be counted on one hand. Of them Farscape was the most consistently daring and well written, appealing to wide (by sci-fi standards) demographic. I don't think Vivendi and company realized exactly how attached this fairly ignored market segment felt to that show. The longer they hold out, the more foolish they look.

Strange Horizons had a great write-up on the corporate shuffling that has killed Farscape.

Personally I think Vivendi-Universal/Sci-Fi Channel has sorely miscalculated the resolve of the highly technical and intelligent Farscape fanbase. Despite the explosion of tech industry careers at all levels and the susequent rise in demand for genre programming no one has really provided quality television for them. The watchable genre shows can be counted on one hand. Of them Farscape was the most consistently daring and well written, appealing to wide (by sci-fi standards) demographic. I don't think Vivendi and company realized exactly how attached this fairly ignored market segment felt to that show. The longer they hold out, the more foolish they look.

It seems to me that the toughest thing facing an author today is an industry that's going to ask for one compromise after another

That's crap. Good editors -- and there are plenty of them out there -- are a writer's best friend, where the quality of the work is concerned. (They may not be where the money's concerned, but that's why you have an agent. Which you don't need until you already have an unsigned contract in your hand, by the way.)

The toughest thing facing an aspiring author today is getting the damn book written. (All of you would-be writers in this forum wondering if Xlibris would be the way to go if, as, and when you get around to writing that book are putting the cart before the horse.)

The second toughest thing is writing a good book. Interestingly, probably 95% of the aspiring writers and up-and-coming writers I've met fall into one of two categories: Either they write really well but don't get much done, or they already have two manuscript the size of phone books that they're trying to get published, and they're crap. (The other 5% are Tim Pratt, who doesn't seem to have either problem.)

Writers of the first sort have trouble because their drive for quality makes them spend more time on their stuff, more time revising, and even yet still more time throwing it out and starting over. ("Writer's block isn't not being able to write. It's thinking that everything you write is shit." -- Maureen McHugh)

Writers of the second sort have trouble because they don't understand why they can't sell their stuff, and so they blame the editors, the publishers, the slush pile readers and the reading public, instead of putting the blame where it belongs: on themselves, for not working to improve their writing.

(P.S. Yes, IAAPW. Barely. But ask one who's been around a while. You'll get the same answer.)

Fantastic book. One of the better things about it is that it has a great cover. Most fantasy (and don't let that term spook you, this book is very urban, and has been acclaimed by both the horror and steampunk crowds) have covers that look like they were done by the Harlequin romance cover artists. It's nice to be able to read a fantasy book in public without shame.

A good interview with the author is here.

-adso

It all depends on how you define success. Some e-book publishers are trying to make money directly; it's unclear at this point whether they'll succeed. Others, like Baen, are using e-books to promote regular books; that looks to be very successful.

For a parallel, I publish Strange Horizons, one of the very few online prozines in sf/f. We're not even trying to make a profit -- we're a nonprofit organization, using a museum model for our business plan. We expect to be very successful -- in our own terms. And in the process, there's a good chance that we'll be cutting into the print sales of publications like Asimov's and Analog.

It's going to be very interesting, seeing what the e-book publishers do to the print publishers, in the next five years.

It all depends on how you define success. Some e-book publishers are trying to make money directly; it's unclear at this point whether they'll succeed. Others, like Baen, are using e-books to promote regular books; that looks to be very successful.

For a parallel, I publish Strange Horizons, one of the very few online prozines in sf/f. We're not even trying to make a profit -- we're a nonprofit organization, using a museum model for our business plan. We expect to be very successful -- in our own terms. And in the process, there's a good chance that we'll be cutting into the print sales of publications like Asimov's and Analog.

It's going to be very interesting, seeing what the e-book publishers do to the print publishers, in the next five years.