Marvin leaned forward and squinted at Bacon’s image on his computer screen. “Will you do it?”
“Will the greatest writer in the history of the human race ghostwrite your pitiful little novel?” sneered Bacon. “Absolutely not.”
“But you ghosted for Shakespeare!” protested Marvin. “That’s why I had my computer assemble you.”
“Marvin, go write limpware and leave me alone.”
“It’s called software.”
Referenced Sites:
EP070: Squonk the Dragon
“How to Talk to Girls at Parties” by Neil Gaiman
2007 Hugo Nominees
“What’s a ‘prentice?”
Without thinking, Wendel answered. “An apprentice is young person who wants to be a wizard, so they find an older wizard to teach them.”
The moment the words left his mouth, Wendel’s heart stopped and his eyes went wide. If he’d known a spell that could grab those words and stuff them back down his throat, he would have cast it.
Instead, those words scampered all the way across his bedroom, as words are inclined to do, and rushed into the ears of the dragon in the window. Wendel watched in horror as the words sunk into Squonk’s brain. Squonk’s eyes grew wide, his mouth dropped open, and before Wendel could think of anything to say–
“You can learn to be a wizard?! That’s awesome! I wanna be a wizard! Lemme be your ‘prentice!”
Genres: Aliens
2007 Hugo Nominee!
Referenced Sites:
The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories by Bruce McAllister
Balticon 2007 Trip Report
The alien and the boy, who was twelve, sat in the windowless room high above the city that afternoon. The boy talked and the alien listened.
The boy was ordinary — the genes of three continents in his features, his clothes cut in the style of all boys in the vast housing project called LAX. The alien was something else, awful to behold; and though the boy knew it was rude, he did not look up as he talked.
He wanted the alien to kill a man, he said. It was that simple.
Eighteen months later, the fledging Web network declared bankruptcy, and a small consortium acquired its assets, including Invasion of a Small World. Eager to recoup their investment, the new owners offered all eight episodes as a quick-and-dirty DVD package. When sales proved somewhat better than predicted, a new version was cobbled together, helped along by a genuine ad budget. The strongest initial sales came from the tiny pool of determined fans–young and well educated, with little preference for nationality or gender. But the scientists in several fields, astronomy and paleontology included, were the ones who created a genuine buzz that eventually put Invasion into the public eye.
2007 Hugo Nominee!
Referenced Sites:
Diversity in SF Markets (blog post by Tobias S. Buckell)
Finis: A Book of Endings
Nina Kimberly the Merciless
SciFi Smackdown
The simulations, while good, are not impenetrable even to their own inhabitants. Scientists teaching baboons to sort blocks may notice that all other baboons become instantly better at block-sorting, revealing a high-level caching mechanism. Or engineers building their own virtual worlds may find they cannot use certain tricks of optimization and compression‚Äîfor Matthias has already used them. Only when the jig is up does Matthias reveal himself, asking each simulated soul: what now? Most accept Matthias’s offer to graduate beyond the confines of their simulation, and join the general society of Matthias’s house.
You may regard them as bright parakeets, living in wicker cages with open doors. The cages are hung from the ceiling of the priest’s clay hut. The parakeets flutter about the ceiling, visit each other, steal bread from the table, and comment on Matthias’s doings.
He went to the Sci-Fi shelf–and had another shock. “I, Robot” was there, but not the forgettable action movie with Will Smith–this was older, and the credits said “written by Harlan Ellison.” But Ellison’s adaptation of the Isaac Asimov book had never been produced, though it had been published in book form. “Must be some bootleg student production,” he muttered, and he didn’t recognize the name of the production company. But… but… it said “winner of the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.” That had to be a student director’s little joke, straight-facedly absurd box copy, as if this were a film from some alternate reality. Worth watching, certainly, though again, he couldn’t imagine how he’d never heard of this. Maybe it had been done by someone local. He took it to the counter and offered his credit card.
She looked at the card dubiously. “Visa? Sorry, we only take Weber and FosterCard.”
Genres: Artificial Intelligence
Rated X. Contains explicit sexual description, sexual innuendo, sexual themes — and some sex.
Referenced Sites:
Joe Murphy Memorial Fund
Jonathan Coulton
Musical guest: “First of May,” written by Jonathan Coulton and performed by many podcasters for the Joe Murphy Memorial Fund.
Yet Mme. Theuret’s word-of-mouth reputation was to die for. Both the official feedback data and the school’s on-line forums placed her among Wilhelm U’s most popular instructors. It was a matter of technique. Wilhelm U was awash in eye candy, but Monique’s pitch-perfect mastery of lascivious restraint was something else entirely.
All thirty-eight of her new students–she’d have wagered a month’s salary that not a soul had skipped this class–now looked at her with naked desire, even though she’d merely introduced herself.
She remained silent to let the anticipation build a bit, to inform them they were now at her mercy. “Welcome,” she finally said, “to Computer Science 338, Artificial Intelligence.”
Rated PG. Contains mild language, some violence, and the Observer Effect gone very awry.
Referenced Sites:
Dr. Howard V. Hendrix’s “Webscab” essay
Jo Walton’s “International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day” essay
International Pixel-Stained Technopeasants Community
Pseudopod
Air Out My Shorts
One must show the proper respect for knowledge, and learn by watching and counting and copying. The Doctor does almost nothing but learn — although he watches the wrong things — and some of us think he might be a little sacred as well, which is one of the reasons he is still alive. It might be unlucky to eat a sacred person.
But the main reason he is still among us is someday we will learn something valuable from him, and then maybe the village will support the lives of a few more of the People. We watch him carefully.
Rated PG for corporal punishment and death of family members.
That spring in math class, after we’d all kind of got back to normal about the Challenger blowing up, we were studying angles. Because I do good in class, Mrs. Doornie gave me a protractor to work with, and I used it to measure the angle of my dreams. That’s when I figured exactly how steep a hill needed to be for me to fly in real life.
1998 Hugo Winner!
Rated PG. Contains mild documentary references to violence and sexual acts. It’s also not very upbeat.
Referenced Sites:
Joe Murphy Tribute Podcast
Joe Murphy Memorial Fund
Beatnik Turtle
A man, a woman, and a child emerge from the Temple of the Honored Sun. The woman holds a camera to her eye, capturing the same image from a dozen unimaginative angles. The child, his lip sparsely covered with hair that is supposed to imply maturity, never sees beyond the game he is playing on his pocket computer. The man looks around to make sure no one is watching him, grinds out a smokeless cigar beneath his heel, and then increases his pace until he joins them.
They approach me, and I will myself to become one with my surroundings, to insinuate myself into the marble walls and stone walkways before they can speak to me.
I am invisible. You cannot see me. You will pass me by.
“Hey, fella — we’re looking for a guide,” says the man. “You interested?”