• Music: "Dawn of Eden," Underworld

"as little bad as you can"

* My latest dramatic narration for StarShipSofa, which is the first of a three-part reading of Rachel Swirsky's Nebula Award-winning and Hugo Award-nominated novella The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath The Queen’s Window, is now available on the most recent episode of the podcast. Parts two and three will follow on successive Wednesdays. (The same episode includes an interview with me on the subject of time travel, in expectation of my appearance with the amazing science fiction authors Connie Willis and Ted Chiang on July 23 at the Holodeck Online Time Travel Lecture.)

In other news...

• A new special collection from A Celebration of Women Writers: Pre-1923 Utopias and Science Fiction by Women: A Reading List of Online Editions. (Thanks to merrigold.)


• From the latest issue of Apex Magazine: "The Top 10 Experimental Genre Books You've Never Heard Of."


• The third edition of the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, the definitive reference work in the field, will be released online later this year by the newly-formed ESF, Ltd, in association with Victor Gollancz, the SF & Fantasy imprint of the Orion Publishing Group, whose support will enable the text to be available free to all users. Read more here.


• The Romance Relief auction on eBay for writer L.A. Banks should starts today. L.A. Banks has late stage adrenal cancer and donations to help are badly needed. (Thanks to marthawells.)

And a parting note...


see more Historic LOL


Today is the anniversary of the beheading of Sir Thomas More, so I'll let him have the final word:

"You must not abandon the ship in a storm because you cannot control the winds.... What you cannot turn to good, you must at least make as little bad as you can."
—Sir Thomas More, Utopia