Spaceship Earth

So I'm sucker for dramatic space porn; but I believe that images like these are now as important as ever. Space travel can no longer be thought of as the politically motivated feats of an intrepid few. We are a space faring species whether we like it or not. It's time we starting acting like it.




Protip: Full screen. Volume up. Child-like wonder.

Now with more Facebook...

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Doctor What? or Requiem for a Would-be Fanboy

Julie’s been extremely busy this summer. And I’m usually barricaded in my office or ensconced at any available coffee shop to work on the final revision of Legitimacy.

This leaves Splash and Wallclimber unparented most hours of the day. When they were wee lads Julie and I worried about them, as we called it, going feral. But as typical American tweens and teens, respectably, they clutch their birthday presents (iPod, iPads, PC) in their Gollum-like clutches and scurry into the basement. Their eyes are growing lantern wide, and they wail at the Elven torments of bedtime, chores, sunshine, or fresh air. It can’t be good for them. But I understand it. I did the same thing, except back in my day, I only had books.

But lately I’ve emerged from my office to find my boys watching Dr. Who—the latest few seasons of the BBC incarnation—on Netflix streaming. I’d never seen it, so (for purely academic purposes as a sci-fi author) I joined them for a couple of episodes.

And now, even though it might destroy my sci-fi author street cred, I must confess: I do not get Dr. Who.

I remember trying to explain Star Wars to my father. He liked Star Trek, but his eyes glazed as I went on, his face grew pained, and in the end he would give his head a little shake. How could he not see how awesome it was??? The Force. Lightsabers. Hyperdrive. The Jedi and the Sith. And now, my vision blurs as Splash describes a Time Lord, My sinuses ache as he insists that the trundling Daleks are terrifyingly evil. My mind wanders as Wallclimber tells of the one character got cast out of time, was erased forever, but somehow came back as a Roman centurion…I feel my head shake. Is there more pie in the fridge?

Am I a traitor to my professed genre? In my heart I feel like I should love Dr. Who. I should embrace its fanciful alien technologies and ride the roller-coaster of near-universal destruction that seems to come in every episode. Am I just getting old?

I have hope, however. I asked Splash: Why, if the TARDIS can go anywhere in a chaotic populated universe, does this singular Time Lord worry so much about Earth and London?

“Because that’s where they make the TV show,” he replied.

At least one of us has a healthy perspective.

The Future is Ours

Inspirational videos may be this decade's motivational posters, but I wanted to share this one:

 
The Future is Ours from Michael Marantz on Vimeo.



http://vimeo.com/44658040

Robots. Asteroid mining. Glorious launches and daring deeds. Asking the big questions. But the moment that the deaf woman hears for the first time through an implant...I'll admit I almost cried along.

As a writer of science fiction, and not a scientist, I can only hope that my work will contribute in some small way. To reflect the possible. To inspire the hitherto impossible. To allow readers a glimpse, a dream, of a possible future, and dare them to make it happen.

The Mother of all Free Book Promotions

This is it. Your last chance to get a Kindle version of Rhubarb for free. It will be free for 48 hours starting midnight Saturday 6/23 and ending midnight Sunday 6/24. (BTW: Amazon works on Pacific time.)

If this promotion goes like my previous ones, it should be a spectacular success. Rhubarb came close to #1 in free sci-fi last weekend, nearly reached the top ten in free humor, and for some reason was in the top 100 books for single women. You don't know how fun it is to see that.

But this will be my final free promotion. It's coming at the end of my exclusive obligation to the Kindle Select Program (which I won't review in this post), but it's great news for readers of other formats. Sometime in early July I will be releasing Rhubarb for the Nook, through Barnes & Noble, and for the Apple store and all the other various ereaders (Sony, Kobo, chisel and rock) through Smashwords.

Oh, and Saturday is my mother's birthday. So give her the only gift you can, and tell a dozen friends about Rhubarb. Happy Birthday, M.

Father's Day (is) Special

Just a quick post to announce that the Rhubarb will be free for the Kindle all day on Father's Day. (Sunday 6/17/12).

I don't know what my family has planned for me, but I'm sure it won't be as exciting as a free ebook. I'm jealous of you all. Peace out.

Towel Day 2012

“A towel, (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.”

My deep admiration for Douglas Adams is no secret. (Link here if you have only just crawled blinking and confused from a cave.) Those who know me very well might know that the first possession I would rescue from my burning house is my signed edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Those who know me inordinately well know that nearly every night of my life, I’ve gone to sleep listening to recordings of the Hitchhiker’s radio shows.

This morning, a couple of new Amazon reviews compared my writing and Rhubarb to DA and THGTTG. I fully, and shamelessly, claim him as an influence. But it got me thinking. What is it about Douglas Adams that I admire so much?

I was introduced to DA in the eighth grade by new friends in a new town, who thrust his books into my hands flabbergasted that I’d never even heard of him. (Hipster moment: I read DA back when his trilogy had only three books.) So is my admiration simply nostalgia—that I spent my most embarrassing emotionally formative years comforting myself by reading and rereading those books? Nah. It’s got to be more.

I do admire his writing style. He’s concise. (A sentence construction and paragraph design and planning skill, often related to proper word selection, that I have often neglected in the recent past.) He took big risks with his writing and never shied away from absurdity; yet somehow always seemed to make a salient point. (See almost any quote from Marvin the Paranoid Android.) I admire his work ethic. (“I love deadlines,” he famously said. “I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.”) And I have learned to enjoy a good soak in the tub now and then. (What better use for a towel?)

Do I admire his later work in the cause of endangered species? Is it his ability to blend true satire and speculative fiction to lampoon everyone and everything? (“To boldly split infinitives that no man has split before…”) Do I admire his willingness to wade into any and every medium that would have him—radio, novels, comics, nonfiction, television, computer games, Hollywood, theater? That the Guide is ostensibly the inspiration for Wikipedia? It’s impossible to put a finger on a single thing.

During the production of the notoriously horrible BBC television series of Hitchhiker’s, a bit actor called in sick, so Douglas stepped in to replace him. This wasn’t unusual; he played other bit extra parts in the series, and had appeared on Monty Python’s Flying Circus. But on this particular day, Douglas Adams stepped in front of the camera, and on action promptly waded naked, and towel-less, into the ocean.

That’s the kind of author I’d like to be.