Mark W Tiedemann

Category: Writing

Face Book

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Busy morning.  I like it when I find myself working in a groove that doesn’t give me time to think about what isn’t working.  Not today.

Over a foot of snow is now lying like a serene comforter over everything outside.  Fluffly, white, very beautiful—if you don’t have to go out in it.  I am a snow humbug.  After learning to drive and struggling through a few winters way back then, I quickly lost my love of snow.  Pain in the ass.  Would be nice to look at, but go out in it?

Anyway, yesterday I had a snow day from work. …

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Peter Banks

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

You wonder where they go sometimes, and then you stumble on a recording on an obscure label (of course, all labels seem obscure these days) and you think, “Damn!”

I treated myself to a new album this week.  Peter Banks, Reduction.

Who?

Peter Banks.  Let me do a little raving about Peter Banks.

Way back when my hormones and my ears synched in perfect openness and my future musical tastes became established, I discovered a small band (at the time) that I have since come to think of as seminal.  Yes.

No, really, the band Yes.  I’ve written about my affection for Yes elsewhere. …

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Cadigan, Pat Cadigan

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Pat Cadigan is a masterful storyteller.  One of her strengths is background nuance.  You know, filling in the bits and pieces of a world so that it stands up on its own and walks convincingly?  Layered on top of that are plots and characters that are among the most idiosyncratic and memorable in science fiction.

Besides which, she can be so damn funny, which science fiction sorely lacks.

Anyway, rather than post another blistering bit about the soon-to-over Bush presidency (and yes, I did watch his farewell speech and all I can say is, “Wasn’t that mercifully short?”) I thought I’d put out this link to an interview with the estimable Ms.…

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Reading And Gender

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

There is a very interesting piece over on Deep Genre about girls and reading.  Check it out and the comments.  I’m still turning it over in my head, but I’ll have something more to say about it in a few days.…

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The End of Hell

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Yesterday, our reading group did the last canto of Dante’s Inferno.  We reached the center, climbed the hairy haunch of Satan, and emerged to a place where above could be seen stars.  I’m told each volume of the Commedia ends with stars.

There is in this final fabrication a very science-fictional scenario which can easily be read as a depiction of a singularity.  All motion has ceased except for the flapping of Satan’s wings and the gnawing of his three mouths on the bodies of the ultimate betrayers, Judas, Brutus, and Cassius.  (As in most other places in the Inferno, Dante mixed post Christian Era figures with Classical forms. …

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2009

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

We begin with some quotes…

It is always an impertinence to claim to write about a community.                Bikha Parekh

The solitary creator, dreaming his or her dream, unaided, seems to me to be the only artist we can trust.                                                                Harlan Ellison, forward to The City On The Edge of Forever

…it was not logic that carried me on; as well one say that the quicksilver in the barometer changes the weather. 

…
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Roddenberry

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

JANUARY 4, 2009Public Memorial Service for the Late “First Lady of Star Trek” Majel Barrett Roddenberry

Cast Members and Fans Come Out to Celebrate and Remember Roddenberry’s Life

WHO:
Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, son of Gene & Majel Roddenberry and CEO of Roddenberry Productions, will host cast members, family, friends and fans to celebrate the life of his late mother. Fans are invited to come and pay their respects with the family and share their fondest memories of the late Trek icon.

WHAT:
Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry will hold a public memorial service for his late mother. Family, cast members, friends and fans will have an opportunity to remember the legendary “First Lady of Star Trek.”

…
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Daryl Gregory

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Hey, it seems that a buddy of mine is going to have an interview in January’s Locus Magazine.

Daryl Gregory.

We attended Clarion together, lo some 20 years ago, and Daryl was one of the ones I thought would catapult to the top of the field.  He has the gift, the ability to rivet the reader, and get under your skin.  I highly recommend his first novel, Pandemonium —first-rate stuff, keeps you thinking.  Damned impressive first novel.

Daryl took many years off to raise his kids, but a few years ago I noticed his short stories appearing here and there.  Now the novel. …

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Chapter the Next

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Yesterday, I stayed home from work again.  Nothing to do.  In a way, I like this.  I’d go on contract with the company if I could, go in only when there was actually something to do.  But it’s not that much money, so it’s a quandary.

On the other hand, I finished a chapter in a book that’s been teasing me for a couple of years.  I’d walked away form it to write something else, and I’ve been finding it difficult to go back.  I have a lot written—almost a third of it, at least—and I’m loathe to just give up on it, but with one thing or another I just haven’t been able to get any forward momentum.…

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Procrastination

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

The end of 2008 approaches.  2009 is going to be…

Not more of the same, I sincerely hope.  Mea culpa, I am procrastinating.  I watch myself do it.  I’m doing it now.  I’m writing this instead of hammering out the classic fiction of the future.

I have tio admit, since the beginning of December I have been more and more depressed, which is a horrible, downward spiral, the likes of which I haven’t felt since I broke up with a woman I thought was going to be my wife, a long long time ago.  I was a mere 24 then, contemplated ending it all, took a lot of long walks, and came out the other end determined to do better. …

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