The Fredösphere

Look carefully at this post at John Scalzi's blog.  Look at the first photo.  In particular, look at the painting of the strawberry on the far wall in the picture.  Note the lower-left corner of that painting.  Notice the gray head that is almost, but not quite, obscuring that corner.

That head just happens to be the one attached to my body.  Yes, I was in attendance at the author event at the Ann Arbor District Library last Sunday.  John was joined by fellow Ohiöspheric SF authors Tobias Buckell and Paul Melko.

The one boooooing! moment occurred when a gentleman from the audience questioned the value of publishing on the internet, compared to the "relatively permanent" nature of print.  The panel responded with more grace and patience than I probably would have, but the content of their answers shot down his premise.  Scalzi noted that "the disappearance of the internet implies apocalypse."  And then he noted that apocalypse would be very bad.  For people, for books, for everyone.  Then he described the many people busy archiving the whole internet.  The Noösphere Is Eternal!  (My words, not his.  But you knew that.)

Yes, Toby and Paul are funny and smart, but John modestly fails to mention he outdid even those two in clever, cogent, articulate comments on the state of SF publishing today.  In sum, the event was marred only by its brevity.  John, if you read this:  I was the one in the question line who stuck out his tongue impatiently when you called a halt to the Q&A session.  I apologize for my bad manners.  Please come back to Ann Arbor anytime.

Labels: Fiction, sci-fi