Cory Doctorow just launched a Kickstarter campaign to create a self-produced audiobook of his new book, Red Team Blues. It's a high-tech heist novel — the first in a new trilogy — about a Marty Hench, a middle-aged forensic accountant on the hunt to find his buddy's missing cryptography key before any number of crime syndicates, shady Silicon Valley financiers, or Intelligence Community Alphabet Boys catch on. — Read the rest
In Sunday's New York Times crossword puzzle, constructor Stephen McCarthy embedded a wonderful trick centered on the Star Trek vs. Star Wars debate. For the clue "The better of two sci-fi franchises," either answer works. From the Constructor Notes:
I am a fan of both "Star Wars" and "Star Trek," so it's nice to be able to highlight both (not to mention the friendly rivalry between the two fandoms) in one puzzle.
Chicago's Volante (previously) bills itself as "streetwear for superheroes," and I love their clothes. They've just released an addition to their existing canon of Star Trek-themed, cosplay-adjacent clothes: the Picard Sweater, a stretchy knit tribute to Jean-Luc himself, the perfect thing to wear while you're watching Wil Wheaton host "The Ready Room," which airs after every episode.
When I was a kid, my whole circle of D&D-playing, science-fiction reading pals was really into Roger Zelazny's ten-volume Chronicles of Amber, but somehow I never read it; for years, I'd intended to correct this oversight, but I never seemed to find the time — after all, there's more amazing new stuff than I can possibly read, how could I justify looking backwards, especially over the course of ten books?
Cordell Jackson started out playing on her father's radio show in the mid-1930s at the age of 12; she was a talented musician who'd already mastered the guitar, piano, and upright bass; she continued to play and went on to found Moon Records (a play on Memphis's iconic "Sun Records") where she was the first woman sound engineer in the country.
"Three Halflings in a Trenchcoat" is Redditor Sir_Platinum's homebrew fighter class for Dungeons and Dragons, wherein the halflings' dexterity bonus is canceled out by the need to maintain balance and movement speed is sharply reduced, but this is offset by a "Band of Brothers" effect that — while not so good for hit points — provides an armor class bonus, as well as the ability to make three attacks at once with all six arms.
Reading remains solidly popular in America, with the latest figures from Pew showing that print book readership remains at same levels as they were in 2012: about 74% of Americans have read at least one book in the past year: 67% of readers have read at least one print book. — Read the rest
On March 19, Tor Books will release my next book, Radicalized, whose four novellas are the angry, hopeful stories I wrote as part of my attempt to make sense of life in our current moment.
I've just returned home from Star Trek: The Cruise, a truly extraordinary fan event for lovers of Science, Science Fiction, and the future.
You really want to be on the next one.
Longtime Boing Boing friend Wil Wheaton headlined the third annual cruise, which this year featured stars from every series of Star Trek from The Next Generation onwards. — Read the rest
These clowns I know were having a yard sale Sunday, so I swung by. I picked up a sweet plumed marching band hat, a pair of tinted goggles for Burning Man, and a really cool long cloak, also for the desert. — Read the rest
Lauralot points out that the Jesus of the Bible doesn't have much in common with the right-wing, evangelical Christ — canon Jesus was "a brown Jew in the Middle East, conceived out of wedlock in an arguably interracial if not interspecies (deity and human) relationship, raised by his mother and stepfather in place of his absent father. — Read the rest
The nice folks at Libro.fm supply audiobooks online and through a network of the country's best indie bookstores; all their books are DRM-free, and they have a new, snappy way of describing them: Cage-Free Audiobooks.
Since the earliest days of my novel-writing career, readers have written to me to thank me for my books and to ask how they can best support me and other writers whose work they enjoy. Nearly 15 years later, I have a pretty comprehensive answer for them!
There's still time to pre-order your signed first-edition hardcover of Walkaway, my novel which comes out on April 25 (US/UK), and while you're waiting for that to ship, here's chapter one of the novel, "Communist Party" (this is read by Wil Wheaton on the audiobook, where he is joined by such readers as Amanda Palmer and Amber Benson!).
It's the narration of two gentlemen (Spencer Laboda and his father) who record and comment upon this incident in which a crew of construction workers improvise a series of tactics (some very unwise ones included!) to recapture, a spinning, potentially lethal concrete polisher on a jobsite that really makes this work. — Read the rest
