little bits of everything

Five years ago Colin Ross did something extraordinary. He had a couple of successful books set in his Jewel Galaxy universe. The first book had been made into a film, and there were clearly plenty of story lines to come. Then he gave it all away. He announced that he was giving up the copyright on the texts. He wasn't claming IP rights over the characters. He welcomed people writing their own stories, creating their own merchandise, making their own films. When asked about loss of income he said that he had enough money from the books and the film to keep him going for a while. Fan fiction and cosplay isn't something new, but with an endorsement like that, there was an explosion of creativity. The difference with what emerged from that compared with fan fiction is that there was very little canonical storyline. We were only just being introduced to the characters, and there were quite a few. So the new fiction went in all different directions. Even if you're not a fan, you...

This isn't half bad This is actually pretty good This is actually very good They know much more about this than I do This is too short Why isn't there much longer stuff? How would I know if it's any good though before I commit to reading it?

A couple of hours ago I booked a day ticket (or "membership" as it's called) for the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention. I've spent the time since digging around on the internet into my past. Let me explain. I went to University in York between 1984 and 1988. From my early teens my reading material was almost exclusively SF. When I went to University I joined the British Science Fiction Association. (A while back when I was doing some vanity searching I came across an index of letters to the BSFA journal. Someone dutifully recorded that I written two letters.) I was also invited to join an Amateur Press Association , or APA, called The Organisation. If you're read the article I've linked to you'll understand how they work. What it doesn't do is explain how things were before the internet, for those who haven't experienced it. In the 80s there were three or four TV channels. There were books and magazines. There was Doctor Who and Blakes 7, and...

The year is 1970. It is around the time when a man went into a shop to complain about a parrot, and when there was a Government Ministry of Silly Walks. "Hello there, I've come for some work." "Well you've come to the right place sir, this is a Work Shop." "What sort of work do you have?" "Well, sir, we have some light secretarial, some tedious paperwork, some spurious form filling, some skilled plumbing, a bit of carpentry, and some medium-grade filing." "The light secretarial sounds good. I think I'll have some of that. How much do you pay?" "Pay, sir? I don't understand." "How much do you pay for the work?" "I'm afraid you're mistaken sir, we don't pay you, you pay us. This is a Work Shop, you come in and you buy some work." "Why would I want to buy some work?" "Well, sir, in the future, when machines meet our every need people will be des...

A gadget magazine from the future fell through a wormhole in time and it made very interesting reading. Here's an article from it about neural implants: Neural implants are the latest essential gadget, but how do they work? Although they aren't the sort of thing you can get a demo of, we talked to a few of the early adopters to find out how they got on with them. The basic setup comes in two parts. The first is an implant which goes under the skull behind the ear in the motor section of the brain. The second goes on the optic nerve as it comes out of the back of the eye. When you're first given them you don't notice any difference, apart from the after effects of the operation itself. This is the "discovery phase", when you're trying to find out which physical movements trigger the neurons that the motor implant has been attached to. The way you know you've found out is that you get a bright flash in your vision as the optic implant triggers. One...

You can spot them because they often carry two sheets of sticky labels. One is blank, to cover up spurious apostrophes that they find, such as at the greengrocer's stall at the market. The other contains apostrophes which are inserted where they are missing, often at banks: Barclay's, Lloyd's TSB, and supermarkets: Tesco's, Morrison's. However the world of guerilla pedants is a divided one. Although they all share the same standard when it comes to English as she is spoke and written, they lack a similar benchmark when it comes to communities. The Pedant's Society was torn apart (soon after their triumphant Millenium Party held on the 31 December 2000) by argument and a separate Pedants' Society was formed (both are correct). The guerilla pedants, although sharing a common need to put the written word to rights, are not united in the tactics. There are those who think that if people only ever see correct English they will absorb it and only produce it ...

Roadside apple tree sheds its fruit in front of cars vegetarian roadkill It would be a proper haiku if I used the word "vegetable" in the last line, but I think "vegetarian" is better.