Brief notes

1) Some responses to my “Play some old!” post from Jo Walton and . I do agree with MJH that there is such a thing as nostalgia-as-avoidance-strategy, and that it’s particularly harmful for the writer. I should also say that the post was in part brought about by the imminent closure of London’s bookshop Fantasy Centre, which has provided me with many of my classic sf books over the last few years. Their final day of trading is June 13th.

2) I’ll be at Readercon in July, and they’ve just announced their list of program items – as ever, an embarrassment of riches.

3) The week’s kerfuffle on the interwebs, if you haven’t seen it: Andy Remic and other UK writers have formed a group blog called SF & Fantasy Ethics, also discussed by them in this SFsignal Mindmeld; some confusion arises from how their stated mission (more of a positive approach, both to writing futures and responding to sff in general) is to do with ethics. Responses from Martin Lewis, David Moles, Abigail Nussbaum, Jeff VanderMeer, and Kathryn Cramer (also).

4) I’m having a Neal Barrett Jr phase at the moment, and was very happy to find that his utterly delightful “Perpetuity Blues” is free online. And speaking of underrated writers, Lewis Shiner‘s Fiction Liberation Front website contains such superb work as “Jeff Beck“, “Love in Vain“, “The War at Home“, and (great first line) “The Gene Drain“.

5) A postscript to my column in the current Locus on Octavia Butler: her work is very well-served in terms of online resources: homepage, very comprehensive fan-made page, another unofficial page, and an interview on Charlie Rose.