Archives
Predicting hits
In my 1999 young adult science fiction novel Andy Nebula: Interstellar Rock Star, I postulated a future in which the hit-making machinery of the music industry has become a science, where computers are able to determine what songs, and what singers, are sure to be the next big thing. In the book, a kid names Kit gets plucked from his hand-to-mouth existence busking on the streets of a nasty little city on a nasty little planet and turned into Andy Nebula, the next “Sensation Single,” all on the strength of a computer’s analysis of what teens want. Looks like I might have been on to something. A new study from Emory ...Unrealistic expectations, and why they’re good for you
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2011/05/Unrealistic-Expectations.mp3[/podcast] A few years ago (35 still counts as a few, right?) I was valedictorian for my high school class. This entailed making a speech. Since the theme of our class was “Climb Every Mountain” (why, yes, we had produced The Sound of Music that year; how did you guess?), my speech was based on an extended metaphor: high school as a place of mountain-climbing instruction. I’d love to tell you exactly what I said, but I think the paper I wrote the speech on crumbled to dust long ago. Still, I’m pretty sure I expressed optimism about the future and said something about “scaling peaks” and “reaching for the sky” and ...The thinking cap
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2011/02/The-Thinking-Cap.mp3[/podcast] You know, it’s not easy being a writer. Oh, I know, it doesn’t rank up there with, say, coal miner in physical difficulty or neurosurgeon in mental difficulty, but where it probably has it over both of them is in creative difficulty: the pressure to constantly come up with something new. Heck, as a science fiction and fantasy writer, I’m expected to create entire worlds, whole solar systems, mythical creatures and believable characters out of nothing more than my own brain cells. Wouldn’t it be great if there were some way to artificially stimulate creativity? Turns out, there may be. In a paper published earlier this month in PLoS One, an online ...Morally malignant magnets
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2010/03/Morally-Malignant-Magnets.mp3[/podcast] One of the things that distinguishes humans from animals is moral judgment, our ability to judge other people’s actions in terms of our own sense of right and wrong. Our moral judgment feels so integral to who we are, so much a part of our personality, that it’s a bit disturbing to discover, as MIT researchers reported this week, that it can be disrupted by magnets. Rebecca Saxe, an assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT, has focused her research on social cognition: how we interpret other people’s thoughts. She wants to understand how the brain gives rise to things like moral judgments, belief systems and language. The challenge, of course, is that we have no way to observe people’s thoughts ...Blame your brain for overeating
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/12/Why-We-Overeat.mp3[/podcast] Put on a few extra pounds over Christmas? Wonder why you feel compelled to eat half a box of chocolates half an hour after finishing your second plate of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy? Feel a little guilty? Well, new research offers clues to one of the most baffling aspects of the eternal battle of the bulge: why we keep eating even when we’re full. Short version: blame your brain. When you’re hungry, food looks more appealing than when you’re not: hence the old adage about never shopping on an empty stomach. Previous research has suggested that ghrelin, a hormone the body produces when it’s short of calories, may act on the brain to trigger this behavior. Now new research suggests that this ...To sleep, perchance to dream
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/11/Dreaming.mp3[/podcast] Why do we dream? You’d think we’d know by now. Everyone dreams, and people have been fascinated by dreams throughout recorded history. But scientifically, their origin and importance remain uncertain. Do they serve some vital psychological or physiological function? Or are they just meaningless accidents of our brain’s wiring? A few years ago, Finnish psychologist Antti Revonsuo theorized that dreams evolved as a way to rehearse threatening situations. Silvio Scarone of the Universita degli Studi de Milano in Milan, Italy, explains it this way: “The environment in which the human brain evolved included frequent dangerous events that posed threats to human reproduction. These would have been a serious selection pressure on ancestral human populations and would have fully activated ...Do you suffer from gelatophobia?
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/10/Gelotophobia.mp3[/podcast] It’s getting on toward Christmas, which means A Charlie Brown Christmas will soon be on TV...and we’ll once again get to watch Lucy give her nickel’s worth of psychiatric advice to Charlie Brown, listing all the phobias he could be subject to. One she won’t list is gelotophobia, which, though it sounds like it means a fear of Italian ice cream (and, yes, everyone who writes about it makes that same joke), actually means a fear of being laughed at. More: those with gelotophobia find it difficult or impossible to distinguish between playful teasing and ridicule. To them, all laughter is aggressive. Not surprisingly, this can cause enormous problems in their social relationships. Lots of other people don’t have a phobia, but ...The thrill of the chase
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/09/The-Thrill-of-the-Chase.mp3[/podcast] I had a hard time getting started on this column. See, as I was calling up the items I’d starred in Google Reader as possible topics, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to do a quick search for new reviews of my latest novel. And then I thought, well, as long as I’m online, maybe I’ll just skim through some blogs...and maybe check Facebook...and... Well, you get the idea. Fact is, you’re lucky to be getting this column at all. Which is ironic, because my jumping-off point is an article from Slate, written by Emily Yoffe, titled “Seeking: How the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting. And why that’s dangerous.” There’s no doubt that the seeking out of information ...Insight into the theory of mind
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/07/Theory-of-Mind.mp3[/podcast] This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention, but in addition to writing nonfiction, I also write fiction—specifically, science fiction and fantasy. Now, the writing of fiction is a very odd thing, in that it involves the making up of characters: people who don’t really exist, but for whom the illusion of existence is created by the words the author puts on the page. Quite often, these people are very different from the author. I recently interviewed renowned Canadian science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer for FreeLance, the magazine of the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild. The main character in his latest book, Wake, is a blind teenage girl, Caitlin Decter. Now, although Sawyer can draw on some experience at ...Talk to the right ear
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/06/Talk-to-the-right-ear.mp3[/podcast] If someone approaches you from your left side and makes a request, are you more or less likely to grant that request than if he approaches you from your right side? If you’re thinking, “What kind of a stupid question is that?”, and you think it would be an equally stupid question no matter which ear it was spoken into, then you probably haven’t heard of something called the “natural expression of hemispheric asymmetries,” and more specifically something called “the right-ear advantage.” Basically, it boils down to this: scientists have known for a long time that humans have a preference for listening to verbal input with their right ears. Not only that, if they hear something with both ears, they’ll pay more attention ...
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Magebane
“Spectacular” – Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Evil wizards, multi-level conspiracies, hidden kingdoms…Lee Arthur Chane…has done a marvelous job…Magebane is a very entertaining book and well worth the time.” – A.M. Donovan, Night Owl Reviews
I happily recommend Magebane and I’ll certainly give Chane’s next novel a try based on this one.” —Bill Capossere, Fantasy Literature
“…an original and delightful tale of epic fantasy and magic, steampunk science, adventure, tragedy, and love…” – Errant Dreams Reviews
Eight centuries ago, the world changed. A devastating war swept the lands, and the MageLords, who had long ruled by virtue of their spell powers, were driven to a distant place, separated from those they had ruled by a magical Barrier. With magic banished from the rest of the world, the MageLords became mere legend and people turned to science to improve their lives. But if one man has his way, all that is about to change….
Written as Lee Arthur Chane (the middle names of my older brothers, Jimmy Lee and Dwight Arthur, and myself, Edward Chane Willett).
Marseguro
Winner of the 2009 Prix Aurora Award for Best Long-Form Work in English
Water world Marseguro is home to the Selkies, a water-dwelling race created from human DNA. When an unmodified human seeks revenge on a Selkie by activating a distress beacon taken from the remains of the original colony ship, a strikeforce is sent from Earth to eradicate the genetic abomination. Yet Marseguro will not prove as easy to conquer as the Earth force anticipates…
Terra Insegura
Finalist for the 2010 Prix Aurora Award for Best Novel in English
Marseguro, a water world far from Earth, is home to a colony of humans and the Selkies, a water-dwelling race created from modified human DNA. For seventy years the colony has lived in peace. Then Earth discovers Marseguro, and a strike force is sent to eradicate this “abomination.” But Marseguro has created a genetically tailored plague to use against Earth’s Holy Warriors. With the enemy defeated, the people of Marseguro feel they are safe. But Chris Keating, the traitor who signaled Marseguro’s location to the Holy Warriors, has fled to Earth, unknowingly carrying the deadly plague within him. The people of Marseguro feel they must send a ship to Earth with a life-saving vaccine. Only time will tell what awaits them when they reach their destination.
Lost in Translation
Kathryn was a human empath whose world and life had been destroyed when the alien S’sinn slaughtered her parents before her very eyes. Jarrikk was a young S’sinn, an unproven warrior who’d seen his flight mates slaughtered by the humans who’d sought to colonize his world.
As humans and S’sinn found themselves on the brink of war, these two Translators had to work together to find a common ground and avert catastrophe. But whether their Translators’ oath and training could overcome the enemies leagued against them was very much in doubt…
Archives
Song of the Sword
My new YA fantasy novel from Lobster Press
Before the Lady called her, Ariane’s life was a mess. Two years ago, her mother disappeared. She bounced around different foster homes until her aunt finally took her in. The meanest clique at her new high school has decided to make Ariane their prime target. And to top it all off, she is having frightening premonitions, and they are becoming more intense. The moment water touches her skin, she sees visions of a lake, a lady, and a sword. When a staircase opens up in the middle of Wascana Lake and the water begins singing to her, she has no choice but to answer the call….
Historic Walks of Regina and Moose Jaw
Ten walks to points of historic and architectural interest in the cities of Regina and Moose Jaw (eight walks for Regina, two for Moose Jaw).
Johnny Cash: The Man in Black
When country music legend Johnny Cash took the stage at Folsom State Prison in 1968, he solidified the public’s perception of him as a rebel who followed his own path. Born in Arkansas during the Great Depression, Cash endured poverty, the death of his older brother, and a difficult relationship with his father. He turned to gospel and country music to express the pain, and after many years of struggling, his songs of hardship and hope would finally reach the ears of those waiting for an artist who represented them, ordinary people fighting to survive.
Andy Warhol: Everyone Will Be Famous for 15 Minutes
“Paintings are too hard. Machines have less problems…” In the 1960s, Andy Warhol became the most famous creator of a new style of art called pop art, which transformed mass-produced items of popular culture into fine works of art. From Campbell’s Soup cans to photographs of Marilyn Monroe, Warhol’s willingness to use anything and everything from the mass media in his work expanded the range of subject matter available to artists. His avant-garde films, artistic usage of American icons, and unconventional social life made him a controversial figure, both greatly admired and deeply reviled. A trendsetter rather than a trend-follower, a dispassionate observer of both the seamy and celebrity sides of life, Warhol was a true American rebel.
Disease-Hunting Scientist
The true stories of six real disease hunters. Epidemiologists travel the world trying to keep us safe from deadly diseases—from high-tech labs in Canada to remote villages in Africa. Learn how these “disease detectives” are coming up with new ways to fight disease, and find out if you have what it takes to become an epidemiologist, too!
The Bounty Mutiny
The Bounty was a British ship visiting Tahiti in 1789 when some of the crew overthrew the captain, William Bligh, and set him adrift in a tiny boat with sailors loyal to him. The mutiny resulted in a number of trials–both of the men who mutinied and of Bligh for losing command of his ship. These fascinating events have been the source for numerous Hollywood movies, most recently The Bounty. The Bounty Mutiny: From the Court Case to the Movie explores the famous case and the movies it inspired.
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