August 4, 2011 – Mark W Tiedemann

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Posted on August 4, 2011August 5, 2011 By Mark Tiedemann

Sorry for the brief absence.Â It seems my ISP (Earthlink) upgraded their webhosting.Â One result was to knock my blog for topsy-turvy.Â The oldest posts appeared first and any new posts ended up at the bottom of the queue.Â After a few days and phone calls, this has now been resolved.Â Earthlink upgraded my Word Press for me (an unexpected service) and now I am back.

In the chaos, I lost two posts, but I was able to reconstruct them and repost them, just below this one.Â The dates are wrong, but the content is there.

The up side is I am now using the latest version of Word Press and it has all kinds of nifty features I didn’t have at my disposal before.Â …

An Evening With Ursula K. Le Guin

Posted on August 4, 2011August 4, 2011 By Mark Tiedemann

An Evening With Ursula K. Le Guin

Outside the air rippled in the late afternoon heat. Midwest summers get this bad, they do, but weâ€™ve had 95 degree-plus weather now for going on three weeks. Stepping into the air conditioned comfort of the Daniel Boone Regional Library was almost sleep-inducing.

But there was business to attend. Tonight, the 26th of July, was to be a signal event. My interview with Ursula K. Le Guin.

Very SFnal, this. A double-sided flatscreen monitor with a ray-gun style camera on top facing the almost throne-like chair in which I would sit for the evening.…

Star Wars and Science Fiction

Posted on August 4, 2011August 7, 2011 By Mark Tiedemann

On Thursday, July 21st,Â I gave a talk at the Daniel Boone Regional Library on the nature of science fiction.Â I had a good turn-out, the room was almost full, and the talk was generally well-received.

I used a comparison Iâ€™ve grown used to deploying, comparing Star Wars to something else and pointing out how it is not science fiction but rather a quest fantasy dressed up like SF, which is not at all uncommon, but can be confusing when talking about the differences that make SF unique.Â Normally, this point gets across without too much trouble and for that reason, perhaps, Iâ€™ve grown a bit complacent in how I present it.…

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