Month: June 2011

  • The double-standard of science fiction

    19 Jun 2011 » 3 min read

    I was reading an article in the July 2011 Scientific American this weekend called “The Limits of Intelligence” by Douglas Fox and came across a paragraph with an interesting conclusion: Do the laws of thermodynamics, then, impose a limit on neuron-based intelligence, one that applies universally, whether in birds, primates, porpoises, or praying mantises? This…

  • Stand-alones, series and serials in SF&F

    18 Jun 2011 » 4 min read about Reading & Books

    Reading George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire books have got me thinking about the types of novel groupings we have in science fiction and the recent (or perhaps, persistent) trends thereof. It seems to me there are three types of novel groupings in science fiction and fantasy: Standalone novels Novel series Novel…

  • 1 million words

    17 Jun 2011 » 1 min read about Blog & Site Meta

    Sometime in the last two or three months, this blog passed a milestone: 1 million words of content. I hadn’t checked on these stats in a long time, but I did so today, out of curiosity, and I found that, not counting this post you are reading now, there are 1,077,931 words worth of posts.…

  • Back to writing (for reals!)

    17 Jun 2011 » 3 min read about Writing & Publishing

    Okay, enough is enough. It’s time for me to stop stalling and get back to writing. It’s time to put away the excuses and just get started again. I’ve been dragging this out long enough. It seems to me that I have been looking for excuses to avoid writing: I’ve been busy at work. (Well,…

  • My review of A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

    17 Jun 2011 » 5 min read about Reading & Books, reviews

    Last night I finished reading George R. R. Martin’s A Clash of Kings, the second book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. ¬†I gave Game of Thrones a 5-star rating. Five stars is a hard rating to come by and a hard rating to match and while I didn’t give A Clash of…

  • Parental guilt

    16 Jun 2011 » 3 min read about Personal & Family

    I hate when I do something and realize, as I do it, that it is a mistake. I can do this sometimes, as I imagine we all do, but I recently had an incident which made me feel like pond scum. It started with a bath. The Little Man was taking a bath with Kelly…

  • More of a writer’s daydreams

    15 Jun 2011 » 1 min read about Writing & Publishing

    I recently received a promotion in the day job. I am now a senior application developer. Upon getting this promotion, one of the things I did was to update LinkedIn, and the tagline there. Before, it read: “Science Fiction Writer and Application Developer” now it reads: “Science Fiction Writer and Senior Application Developer”. But I…

  • Piers Anthony has a blog

    15 Jun 2011 » 4 min read

    I discovered today that Piers Anthony has a blog. Of course, for more than a decade he has published a newsletter. But the blog is more recent, and new. Every reader goes through phases. I unknowingly read my first Piers Anthony book sometime in 6th or 7th grade. The book was Race Against Time and…

  • Going iPad: the complete series

    15 Jun 2011 » 1 min read about iPad, Technology & Gadgets

    For those who haven’t had a chance to see it yet (and because I am particularly busy today and don’t have much time for new content), here are the links to the entire Going iPad series I wrote a few weeks back after I first got my iPad 2: Reading on the iPad Writing on…

  • The Little Man’s Birthday Weekend

    15 Jun 2011 » 3 min read about Personal & Family

    This past weekend, the Little Man turned two. In a few years, the exact same sentence as written above will have an entirely different meaning (as in, he turned a double-play), but for now it means, quite literally, he is two years old. We decided not to have a party this year, but tried to…

  • Nice review of “Take One For the Road” over at SFRevu

    14 Jun 2011 » 1 min read about Writing & Publishing

    I happened across a review of the June 2011 Analog over at SFRevu, which contains my story, “Take One For the Road”. The reviewer thought the issue was “a pretty good one” and had this to say about my story: Next up is “Take One for the Road” by Jamie Todd Rubin. Rick has a…

  • A question for comic book fans about the whole DC Comics renumbering thing

    14 Jun 2011 » 3 min read about comics, Reading & Books

    I’ve never read comic books. Well, maybe once or twice when I was a kid and someone gave one to me, I might have skimmed it, but I never really got into them, certainly never voluntarily bought any, and never collected comics. This is nothing again comic books. I was just too busy with other…