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Announcement: Batting Cage, by Crawford Rhine

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QSFer Crawford Rhine has a new sci fi book out: In this world populated only by men, Brand is the uncommon man who is sexually attracted to them, which comes in handy when he is delivered to his new Master in a cage. Excerpt Brand is a marked man in a world of unmarked men. The mark identifies him as someone who is eligible to go into Service. He has been ready for this opportunity for years and thinks it will never happen. Brand moves on with his life until he receives a call from a Master, Trent Parks. He … Read more

Freaky Friday, Gender Edition

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Today’s topic comes to us from QSFer Hendrik de Jong: “How about the ability to move minds into different bodies .. and then explore a character who is male and instantly is put in a female body (or vice versa) .. and explore people who do or do not want to be in the body of the opposite sex. Allsorts comes to mind … how to deal with the sexual organs, or menstruation pains for the first time, or attraction and sex?” There was a comic book series called Camelot 3000 a few years back, where the Knights of Camelot … Read more

News: Trapped By Trash

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Fretting over space junk is universal among people who care about satellites or space travel. Even partisans in Congress agree that it is a problem. “The scientists who predicted climate change started the same way I did,” [space-junk expert and astrophysicist Don] Kessler muses. “They were thinking about what would happen if we keep dumping things into the air around us. I was thinking about what happens if we do it in space.” Yet space pollution talks have not been poisoned by political division. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California and a climate change skeptic (“CO2 is not a … Read more

Are Publishers Even Necessary?

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In the ongoing feud between the major publishing houses and Amazon, Yglesias has no sympathy for the publishers: Wisdom on this subject begins with the observation that the book publishing industry is not a cuddly craft affair. It’s dominated by a Big Four of publishers, who are themselves subsidiaries of much larger conglomerates. Simon & Schuster is owned by CBS, HarperCollins is owned by NewsCorp, Penguin and RandomHouse are jointly owned by Pearson and Bertelsmann, and Hachette is part of an enormous French company called Lagadère. These are not tiny, helpless enterprises. Were their owners interested in the future of … Read more

Me Me Monday!

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Welcome to ME ME MONDAY at our FB discussion group – your chance to pop in and tell us about your latest success. Have a new book or short story coming out? Let us know. Just sell something? Let us know so we can cheer you on. HOW IT WORKS: I’ll pin this topic to the top of our FB discussion page for the day. –Please post your announcement as a separate post, so I can also share it over to our FB page (as opposed to this discussion group). –If you want, send me your book announcement info at … Read more

There’s a Screenplay of The Princes and the Treasure!

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A few days ago, we published the story that the rumors going around of a Disney adaptation of a children’s book about two gay princes were sadly untrue. But there is a silver lining. This week, the author of the book “The Princes and the Treasure”, Jeffrey A. Miles, contacted me: “I am the author of the children’s picture book with a gay marriage titled “The Princes and The Treasure.” You wrote a very nice article about the book. However, there is a movie screenplay adaptation of “The Princes and The Treasure” children’s book with the title “Princes.” The screenplay … Read more

A Gay Messiah

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Today’s topic comes from QSFer Jim Comer: “Do we need a gay messiah? Do we want one? Basically, despite all of the “Jesus-was-gay” stuff, what would a QUILTBAG messiah be like? What would an LGBT Buddha be like? Do we want a queer Muhammad? Can we tell this kind of story? SF is fill of messiahs, such as Phil Dick’s VALIS books and Heinlein’s ‘Stranger in a Strange Land.’” Jim supplied this link to Rufus Wainwright’s video for the song “Gay Messiah”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV7UGntnEks So let’s tackle this from a sci fi angle – there are many religions in the world … Read more

Climate Change Makes for Crazy Winters

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Let the sci fi plot bunnies proliferate (and maybe a few plot squirrels too): It may be the timeliest — and most troubling — idea in climate science. Back in 2012, two researchers with a particular interest in the Arctic, Rutgers’ Jennifer Francis and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Stephen Vavrus, published a paper called “Evidence linking Arctic amplification to extreme weather in mid-latitudes.” In it, they suggested that the fact that the Arctic is warming so rapidly is leading to an unexpected but profound effect on the weather where the vast majority of us live — a change that, if … Read more

Me Me Monday!

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Welcome to ME ME MONDAY at our FB discussion group – your chance to pop in and tell us about your latest success. Have a new book or short story coming out? Let us know. Just sell something? Let us know so we can cheer you on. HOW IT WORKS: I’ll pin this topic to the top of our FB discussion page for the day. –Please post your announcement as a separate post, so I can also share it over to our FB page (as opposed to this discussion group). –If you want, send me your book announcement info at … Read more

Alexander the Great’s Lover Found?

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For all you lovers of historical fantasy – release the plot bunnies: A skeleton has emerged from the Alexander the Great-era tomb in Amphipolis in northern Greece, according to a news announcement by the Greek Ministry of Culture on Wednesday. At least one archaeologist has suggested that the remains, if male, could belong to Hephaestion, a close friend and possible lover of Alexander the Great — or someone like him. Archaeologists led by Katerina Peristeri found the human remains in a box-shaped grave. The 10.6 by 5.1-foot limestone burial was found at about 5.3 feet beneath the floor of the … Read more