Author Archives: mataglap

Last real day of vacation, tomorrow will be mostly on a plane and be three hours shorter than normal. I left the room at 9:30 this morning and grabbed another fruit frappacino and muffin at Starbucks on my way to the convention center, not something you’d want to make a habit of. I think I […]

Today was a big day for panels, although doing six in a row is something I can’t seem to handle any more, plus you have to eat and I hadn’t really spent that much time in the dealers room. The first panel dealt with Heinlein, since next year will be his 100th birthday and the […]

Today was the day to go to Disneyland, so we got up and got going earlier than we otherwise would have, considering how late things went last night. Spent the morning there and by 12:30 or so it was time for me to take off back to the convention for the afternoon, so I left […]

First full day of the convention for me, everybody slept in and didn’t really eat breakfast. Meanwhile, I was at the convention, where I saw some worthwhile panels. G. David Nordley gave a talk about the requirements of interstellar travel, what technologies would work and which wouldn’t, and how long approximately it would take to […]

“Magic for Beginners” by Kelly Link (Magic for Beginners, Small Beer Press; Fantasy & Science Fiction September 2005) There is no magic in this story, or if there is, it’s more of the Clarkeian variety that is indistinguishable from technology. And who are the beginners in question? Link doesn’t answer that either, so while the […]

“TelePresence” by Michael A. Burstein (Analog July/August 2005) Ten years ago Burstein’s first published story, TeleAbsence, was inexplicably nominated for a Hugo. It told the story of a school age boy, Tony, who was able to hack into the virtual reality private school that he otherwise couldn’t afford because of his desire for learning. A […]

“The Calorie Man”by Paolo Bacigalupi (Fantasy & Science Fiction October/November 2005) This long novelette is bursting with ideas that can barely all fit into the required space, with a little more filling out this could be novel easily. The calorie man of the title is Lalji, something of a mercenary in a future where all […]

“The Clockwork Atom Bomb” by Dominic Green (Interzone May/June 2005) The lone UK entry in this category is a curious choice, although certainly a decent enough story. Green drops us into a complicated scenario in central Africa where the main character Mativi is the future equivalent of a UN weapons inspector, come to investigate some […]

“Seventy-Five Years” by Michael A. Burstein (Analog January/February 2005) Burstein gets two nominations this year, including this lightweight entry that I think must be tangentially related to Analog’s anniversary, since it appears in the 75th anniversary issue and has the word “seventy-five” in the title. Schmidt’s editorial in the same issue refers briefly to the […]