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Robyn74 Cute! I like last one. -
spacepuppy12 Hahaha, so true. There is a difference between crafting a world for your narrative and crafting bunch of funny words.
SF Tidbits for 10/1/08
SF Signal —
... Iron Man DVD Exclusive Editions. That Costco one - with 3 Iron Man bobble heads each with one of the 3 suits from the film -- looks sweet. Time magazine named Kim Stanley Robinson as a "Hero of the Environment 2008". [via Biology in Science Fiction]
Bleak SF? Pfft! Jason Stoddard shares his Positive Science Fiction Manifesto. [via Big Dumb Object]
Web comic XKCD puts its finger on The Fiction Rule of Thumb.
IEEE Spectrum serves up a Steampunk Sensation ...
Fiction Rule of Thumb by xkcd
Big Dumb Object —
... I know I link to xkcd a lot. I know that everyone reads it anyway. But anything that makes me laugh out loud like this deserves to be blogged.
Related Entries
Height by xkcd ...
Xkcd sums it up nicely
Grasping for the Wind —
... I think you'll agree. And Neal Stephenson is not necessarily an exception. Be careful you are not blinded into thinking Stephenson is good just because he is clever. Just remember, Shakespeare was allowed, you are not. Not in a world of codified language. ...
[links] Link salad for a travel day
Lakeshore —
Cherenkov blue — A fascinating lateral take on my story “The Sky that Wraps the World Round, Past the Blue and Into the Black”, which uses the piece as a jumping off place to talk about a bit of physics.
Fiction Rule of Thumb — xkcd nails our genre.
The House on the Rock — A very cool, very weird place with a lot of (accidental) steampunk. (Thanks to lordofallfools.)
Machu Picchu’s far-flung residents — Interesting anthropology on Incan royalty and their ...
I Disagree?
Suvudu - Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, and Games —
fiction_rule_of_thumb.png (link to the xkcd site) but all of my favorite books have made up words …
The Dumbies 2008 - Comics
Big Dumb Object —
Unfortunately the judges didn't really read any comics at all this year. Well, unless you count xkcd, which we will have to. Perhaps the award should become "Best xkcd strip of the year"? xkcd - A Bunch Of Rocks xkcd - Depth xkcd - Fiction Rule Of Thumb
Related Entries
The Dumbies 2008 - Videogames The Dumbies 2008 - TV The Dumbies 2008 - Films The Dumbies 2008 - Books The 4th Annual Dumbies Doctor Who Comic Maker Changing ...
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Asking the Wrong Questions —
... the nature of matter, the universe, and existence itself are being pondered. At the same time as he describes the avout community, Stephenson charts Arbre's history in the 3,700 years since the separation between avout and Sæcular was imposed, and fills in the gaps in the Earth-adjacent history preceding it. Quite shockingly for a Stephenson novel, he achieves much of Anathem's affect, and creates a sense of the weight and presence of that history, through language and wordplay. As xkcd would have it, Anathem 's invented vocabulary is nothing more than an exmaple of the ...
Saturday/Sunday Starlinking
Mike Brotherton: SF Writer —
... Fiction rule of thumb, concerning the quality of a book and the number of made-up words in it. xkcd comic. I almost grok it. ...
Like swords, but awesomer: Made up words in science fiction and fantasy
Tor.com —
I expect everybody has seen the xkcd cartoon I’m quoting in the title. I laughed when I saw it, and yet I love the made up words in Anathem. The word “speelycaptor” makes me happy. Yet Stephenson is breaking all the rules of making up words for science fiction. There’s a rule that says “no smeerps”. A smeerp is white and woolly and grazes on mountains, you can eat the meat and make clothes from the wool... and there’s no reason not to call it a sheep because it is a sheep. (This is different from Brust‘s norska, which is exactly like a rabbit except that it eats dragons.) A ...
