[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2011/05/Visualizing-Musical-Vibrations.mp3[/podcast] As the classic Disney animated film Fantasia opens, a symphony orchestra starts to play, and the music emerging from the instruments becomes visible as blasts of color and dancing shapes. In real life, alas, music is primarily an auditory rather than visual experience. Although there is certainly interest to be had in watching a …
Inspired by the column about science fiction poetry I wrote today for the next issue of the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild‘s magazine Freelance, I have done something I rarely do, and committed the act of poetry; specifically, the act of science fiction limerick. An unpublished writer of rhyme Travelled three hundred years back in time. He …
[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 …
New American Library (under whose umbrella my publisher DAW Books falls) has distributed its catalogue to booksellers for its October releases, which include Magebane. This image shows the relevant page. The text reads: Four centuries ago, Magic was banished from the land… that May be about to change. Four centures ago, the world changed. A …
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2011/05/The-Shatner-Effect.mp3[/podcast] We’d like to think that we’re extremely rational beings who, when listening to someone trying to convince us of something, cannot be influenced by such superficial things as the person’s appearance or the way he or she talks. We’d like to think that, but we’d be wrong, as any number of studies have shown …
Just got this today: the cover art for Magebane, the first fantasy novel by my alter ego Lee Arthur Chane. It’s by Paul Young (and you can see more of his artwork here). The cover blurb will change slightly, because in the course of revisions that reference to “four centuries” became “eight centuries,” but otherwise, …
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2011/05/Psychohistory.mp3[/podcast] In his famous Foundation series (published six decades ago now), science fiction writer Isaac Asimov postulated a fictional branch of mathematics, discovered by scientist Hari Seldon, known as “psychohistory,” which could predict the future. Psychohistory was based on the principle that the behavior of a mass of people is predictable if the quantity of …
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2011/04/Embarrassment.mp3[/podcast] Some people are easily embarrassed. Some, not so much. I, for example, have no problem at all singing in public. (Here’s proof!). That’s not true for everyone. Which is why, I guess, that researchers studying the neurological basis of embarrassment recently chose to trigger embarrassment by making people listen to recordings of themselves singing. …
[podcast]http://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2011/04/Inattention-Blindness.mp3[/podcast]
A brief new review of Song of the Sword at the blog think.thank.thought (a trail of reading) says: Song of the Sword is carried by an exciting plot that gives a great new spin to a favourite story. It can also take credit for a great cast of characters…set up to play out what might …
…and it’s not Bullwinkle! Actually, thetalkingmoose is the LiveJournal handle of the proprietor of a blog called The Moose Pit, and this morning I ran across his/her/its review of Marseguro. An excerpt: Marseguro…stood out for me because it presents a compelling presentation as to why the human race will never truly become unified behind one …
