(This seems to be my week for recommending books for science fiction writers.)

Last night, Nomi and I went to the Museum of Science to hear a talk by Dr. Michio Kaku.

Dr. Michio Kaku, Michael A. Burstein Photo copyright ©2008 by Nomi S. Burstein. All rights reserved.

Kaku is a theoretical physicist who has written a few very popular books on physics and what he thinks the future will bring. His current book is Physics of the Impossible, in which he discusses a variety of technologies that most of us think of us as science fiction, but which Kaku speculates will happen for real, some of them very soon.

In the book, he lays out three different classes of impossibility, as follows:

Class I Impossibilities, such as teleportation, telepathy, and invisibility, are consistent with the laws of physics as we know them and might become real within the current century.

Class II Impossibilities, such as time travel and travel faster than the speed of light, lie at the edge of known physics.

Class III Impossibilities, such as perpetual motion machines and precognition, defy the laws of physics as we currently understand them.

His talk skimmed some of the topics in his book, including invisibility and teleportation. He also discussed robots and artificial intelligence, and my favorite topic, time travel. He showed a few clips from a BBC series he's hosting, Visions of the Future, which is supposed to be broadcast in the United States sometime in 2009, but I'd love to track down a copy earlier if I can.

Kaku is clearly a fan of science fiction; his lecture slides were sprinkled with pictures from Star Trek, 2001, Terminator, and other media SF, and the cover of his latest book clearly shows a TARDIS as the time machine plunging through the wormhole. At one point, in an attempt to explain the paradoxes inherent in time travel, Kaku described a scenario that I quickly realized was the plot of Robert A. Heinlein's short story "All You Zombies–" (F&SF, March 1959). I wish he had identified it as such, though, as that might have inspired people in the audience to track it down.

When discussing the rise of the Internet and the shrinking of the computer chip, Kaku showed an artist's representation of a pair of contact lenses with chips that would give you immediate access to the Internet directly in your field of vision. The lenses would also help you identify people's faces, and I started to think about a former student of mine who has prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize faces. With contact lenses such as these, no one would ever have to know.

One thing Kaku mentioned does have me a little worried. Over the past few decades, astronomers have observed many gamma ray bursts (GRBs), short-lived bursts of high-energy photons, the most energetic events occurring today. GRBs are often caused by two energetic stars orbiting each other, occasionally emitting a burst of these photons across the sky. (For more information on gamma ray bursts, check out NASA's website on Gamma-Ray Bursts.)

Why did Kaku bring these up? Well, apparently, one of the potential gamma-ray bursters out there, WR 104, is only 8000 light-years away and, um, pointed right toward us. Should it send a burst of gamma rays in our direction, it could conceivably fry the planet we live on. Since I'm the type of guy who already worries about collisions from near-Earth asteroids and the eventual heat death of the universe, now I have something else to worry about. Thanks a lot, Dr. Kaku. :-)

Like "The Coming Convergence" by Stanley Schmidt, which I recommended earlier this week, "Physics of the Impossible" is a great read for both science fiction writers and people interested in what the future will bring.

Tags: books, science, science-fiction

This past week, I got hold of a copy of Stan Schmidt's new book, "The Coming Convergence," and I'm delighted to recommend it to others.

Just to remind those of you who might not remember, Stan is the editor of Analog magazine and therefore the editor who has published most of my stories. He's also writing an introduction to my book, "I Remember the Future." As editor of Analog, Stan has had a chance to see a lot of other writers imagine the future, but he's also a writer who has done his own share of imagining where current trends might lead. And he's done this before, in both his fiction and nonfiction.

In this case, the convergence he refers to in the title of the book is the convergence of technologies. Stan points out that a lot of technologies that originally seemed unrelated ended up working together to create something new. A few examples include the Internet and 3-D medical imaging. Stan looks at the way technologies converged in the past to speculate on how they will converge in the future; throughout the book, he explores subjects like biotechnology and nanotechnology, and he posits a variety of "metaconvergences" that will lead to dramatic changes.

If you're a science fiction writer like me, I suspect you'll come up with a lot of neat ideas for stories from reading the book. And even if you're not a writer, I think you'll find the book thought-provoking. We're going to be living in the future Stan describes, and reading his book is a good way to prepare yourself for it.

Tags: books, science, science-fiction

I discovered the sad news today that physicist John Archibald Wheeler had died on Sunday morning at the age of 96.

For those of you who have never heard of him, Wheeler will probably be most remembered by the general public as the one who invented the term "black hole" for a dead star so dense that not even light could escape its gravitational pull. Oppenheimer and Snyder had suggested this possibility out of Einstein's general relativity, and it was at a conference in 1967 that Wheeler came up with the term.

The concept of a star so massive that not even light could escape had been discussed long before the equations of general relativity suggested the possibility, but no one had come up with a good term for the idea. Probably the most well-know phrase before "black hole" was "frozen star," which doesn't quite create the same image in the mind as "black hole" does.

Black holes have become a longtime staple of science fiction; I even used one for my first cover story, "Escape Horizon" (Analog, March 2000).

As someone who studied general relativity as a graduate student, I used Wheeler's classic co-authored textbook on the subject: Gravitation by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler. It's one of the clearest explanations of general relativity for the physicist that I have ever seen. I also learned some of special relativity out of the classic Spacetime Physics book that Wheeler co-authored with Edwin Taylor; and although I did get to meet Taylor once (when I almost served as his Teaching Assistant), I never did get to meet Wheeler. I wish I had; I understand he was a great teacher. Wheeler was probably the most influential physicist of the 20th century who never won a Nobel Prize, and he deserved one a thousand times over.

If you want to learn more about him, here's a link to his New York Times obituary: John A. Wheeler, Physicist Who Coined the Term 'Black Hole' Is Dead at 96.

Tags: history, language, personal, science, science-fiction

Friends,

I'm pleased to announce that Apex Books is now ready to take pre-orders for "I Remember the Future: The Award-Nominated Stories of Michael A. Burstein," which will be published in September. The book can be pre-ordered on the Apex Books website catalog at its own URL (http://www.apexbookcompany.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=30). You can pre-order either the hardcover or trade paperback edition, and although the paperback is slightly cheaper, I can give you two good reasons to order the hardcover.

First, all pre-ordered hardcover copies of the book will be autographed. If you want one of the original autographed copies of the book, that will be the only way to get one.

But second, we decided to sweeten the pot a little for those of you willing to step up to the plate early and order a hardcover copy of the book. And so we are announcing the "I Remember the Future" Tuckerization contest.

Everyone who pre-orders a hardcover copy of the book by June 15 will be entered into a raffle. Two lucky winners will have their names used as names of characters in the two new stories, "Empty Spaces" and "I Remember the Future."

For those of you who have never heard of Tuckerization, it means the naming of characters in stories for real people. The tradition is credited to Wilson Tucker, who named many of the characters in his books for his friends. More information on the practice can be found at the Wikipedia page on Tuckerization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckerization).

So...think about it. If you pre-order the hardcover book by June 15, not only are you guaranteed to receive an autographed copy of the first bound collection of my fiction, including two brand-new stories and afterwords for each story, but you'll also have a chance to have a character in a story named after you. (You can still pre-order the autographed hardcover after June 15, but the contest deadline is June 15.)

Pre-order "I Remember the Future: The Award-Nominated Stories of Michael A. Burstein

Tags: announcements, books, i remember the future, personal, science-fiction

Let's see....

Although I had a rather tiring week, I woke up early enough Saturday morning to get to shabbat services in time to be the tenth for the minyan. Given the fact that one of the nicest guys at the shul just lost his father and needs the minyan to say Mourner's Kaddish, I was very glad to be able to help him perform the mitzvah.

Then, shabbat afternoon, we had a chance to catch up on sleep. That was good.

Sunday morning, gnomi and I had brunch with two friends whom I met through the recent HRSFA reunion: Kevin & Rose Martin, and their kids. We're trying to get together with them once a month, and so far, it's working.

My good friend and fellow writer Jennifer Pelland (LJ: jenwrites) got a very nice write-up in the Sunday Boston Globe: Her niche: Writing in the outer limits of fiction. They also quoted me commenting on her writing:

Michael A. Burstein, a fellow writer, said Pelland's work has a rare brutal honesty.

"Even though Jen's stories spin out bizarre scenarios, I find I don't need to suspend my disbelief because her characters respond to their predicaments realistically," he said. "Jen is willing to go places in her fiction that most other writers, including myself, aren't brave enough to do."

(There's more if you want to click through to the article.)

And, finally, norda posted My daily appointment, in which she responds to what is apparently a Free Topic from something called LJ Idol. The topic was "My Favorite LJ User," and, um, she picked me.

I have to admit that my natural sense of modesty is warring with my natural sense of ego. Do I link people to her post? Do I quote from it?

Well, I already linked to it. Quoting it here would be superfluous, but let me just say, publicly, thank you norda, for making me feel like it all may be worth it.

Tags: jewish, personal, science-fiction

Once again, the kind folks over at SF Signal asked me to participate in their Mind Meld discussion. This time, the question was, "Is Science Fiction Antithetical to Religion?"

I'm not going to restate here what I said there; if you'd like to read it, you can click on the following link: Mind Meld: Is Science Fiction Antithetical to Religion? They got a lot of fascinating people to respond to the question, including Mike Resnick, Lou Anders, Ben Bova, Gabriel Mckee, Jay Lake, James Wallace Harris, Carl Vincent, Adam Roberts, Larry Niven, Andrew Wheeler, D.G.D. Davidson, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., John C. Wright, and James Morrow.

I'm amused to note that Mike Resnick "outed" me in his own response to the question, listing me as one of the Orthodox Jews in science fiction (along with Avram Davidson). He also notes that Gene Wolfe is a devout Catholic and that Ray Lafferty was a devout Catholic. What he doesn't note, however, is that there's a big difference between being observant Jewish and being observant something else in science fiction circles.

Basically, the question is: why do people in the science fiction community know that I'm religiously observant? Certain parts of American society tend to play religious observance and feeling close to the vest. We consider it something personal, and tend not to discuss it in depth with others unless invited to.

But when you're trying to observe Judaism at an Orthodox level, especially at a science fiction convention, you're faced with a lot of issues that push your observance to the forefront. Most of that has to do with the restrictions you place on your activities during the Jewish sabbath, which means not participating in certain convention events. Some of it also has to do with keeping the laws of kashrut, requiring you to bring your own food to the convention and to avoid the hotel restaurants. So you find yourself missing out on some of the social networking that takes place at a convention.

And of course there's the kippah (or yarmulke) that I wear. For conventions, I have a special kippah that shows a rocket ship flying through the universe. It was a birthday present given to me years back by vettecat, and as soon as I saw it, I knew I would always wear it at conventions. It gets a lot of attention; many fans have approached me at cons to compliment me on it – come to think of it, that's how I became friends with Farah Mendelson – and at the Nebulas last year, I even overheard Norman Spinrad commenting on it.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with the Mind Meld topic. Do I think science fiction is antithetical to religion? You can probably guess my answer at this point, but you might as well go over to Mind Meld and see for yourself.

Tags: conventions, jewish, personal, science-fiction

For those of you helped me out when I was trying to determine a final Table of Contents for "I Remember the Future," thank you. Apex Books has posted the ToC on their blog at Apex Book Company » Final ToC for “I Remember the Future”. I repost it here:

“Kaddish for the Last Survivor” (Analog, November 2000)
“TeleAbsence” (Analog, July 1995)
“TelePresence” (Analog, July/August 2005)
“Broken Symmetry” (Analog, February 1997)
“Absent Friends” (Analog, September 1998)
“Reality Check” (Analog, November 1999)
“Empty Spaces” (original to the book)
“Spaceships” (Analog, June 2001)
“Decisions” (Analog, January/February 2004)
“Time Ablaze” (Analog, June 2004)
“Seventy-Five Years” (Analog, January/February 2005)
“Sanctuary” (Analog, September 2005)
“I Remember the Future” (original to the book)
“Cosmic Corkscrew” (Analog, June 1998)
“Paying It Forward” (Analog, September 2003)

There is a possibility that I might switch the order of the stories "I Remember the Future" and "Paying It Forward," but for the moment, the order you see above is the one I expect to use.

My reasoning is as follows. I'm opening with my most well-known and highly regarded story, then following with my first published story and its sequel, which appeared exactly ten years later. The four "Broken Symmetry" stories come next. followed by four "unthemed" stories in chronological order.

The last three are recursive science fiction stories, that is, science fiction stories about science fiction. In particular, they're stories about science fiction writers.

Each story will have an afterword; and Apex Book is going to start taking pre-orders in just two weeks, on April 7th. Furthermore, there'll be a little surprise in store for those of you who choose to pre-order the hardcover, which I'll announce in two weeks time.

Tags: books, i remember the future, personal, science-fiction

Congratulations to all the nominees!

Best Novel

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)
Brasyl by Ian McDonald (Gollancz; Pyr)
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer (Tor; Analog Oct. 2006-Jan/Feb. 2007)
The Last Colony by John Scalzi (Tor)
Halting State by Charles Stross (Ace)

Best Novella

“The Fountain of Age” by Nancy Kress (Asimov’s July 2007)
“Recovering Apollo 8″ by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Asimov’s Feb. 2007)
“Stars Seen Through Stone” by Lucius Shepard (F&SF July 2007)
“All Seated on the Ground” by Connie Willis (Asimov’s Dec. 2007, Subterranean Press)
“Memorare” by Gene Wolfe (F&SF April 2007)

Best Novelette

“The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairytale of Economics” by Daniel Abraham (Logorrhea, ed. John Klima, Bantam)
“The Merchant and the Alchemist”s Gate” by Ted Chiang (F&SF Sept. 2007)
“Dark Integers” by Greg Egan (Asimov’s Oct./Nov. 2007)
“Glory” by Greg Egan (The New Space Opera, ed. Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan, HarperCollins/Eos)
“Finisterra” by David Moles (F&SF Dec. 2007)

Best Short Story

“Last Contact” by Stephen Baxter (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, ed. George Mann, Solaris Books)
“Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s June 2007)
“Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359?” by Ken MacLeod (The New Space Opera, ed. by Gardner Dozois, and Jonathan Strahan, HarperCollins/Eos)
“Distant Replay” by Mike Resnick (Asimov’s April/May 2007)
“A Small Room in Koboldtown” by Michael Swanwick (Asimov’s April/May 2007, The Dog Said Bow-Wow, Tachyon Publications)

Best Related Book

The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Glyer; appendix by David Bratman (Kent State University Press)
Breakfast in the Ruins: Science Fiction in the Last Millennium by Barry Malzberg (Baen)
Emshwiller: Infinity x Two by Luis Ortiz, intro. by Carol Emshwiller, fwd. by Alex Eisenstien (Nonstop)
Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction by Jeff Prucher (Oxford University Press)
The Arrival by Shaun Tan (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

Enchanted Written by Bill Kelly Directed by Kevin Lima (Walt Disney Pictures)
The Golden Compass Written by Chris Weitz Based on the novel by Philip Pullman Directed by Chris Weitz (New Line Cinema)
Heroes, Season 1 Created by Tim Kring (NBC Universal Television and Tailwind Productions Written by Tim Kring, Jeff Loeb, Bryan Fuller, Michael Green, Natalie Chaidez, Jesse Alexander, Adam Armus, Aron Eli Coleite, Joe Pokaski, Christopher Zatta, Chuck Kim. Directed by David Semel, Allan Arkush, Greg Beeman, Ernest R. Dickerson, Paul Shapiro, Donna Deitch, Paul A. Edwards, John Badham, Terrence O’Hara, Jeannot Szwarc, Roxann Dawson, Kevin Bray, Adam Kane
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Written by Michael Goldenberg Based on the novel by J.K. Rowling Directed by David Yates (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Stardust Written by Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman Directed by Matthew Vaughn (Paramount Pictures)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

Battlestar Galactica “Razor” Written by Michael Taylor Directed by Félix Enríquez Alcalá and Wayne Rose (Sci Fi Channel) (televised version, not DVD)
Doctor Who “Blink” Written by Stephen Moffat Directed by Hettie Macdonald (BBC)
Doctor Who “Human Nature’ / “Family of Blood” Written by Paul Cornell Directed by Charles Palmer (BBC)
Star Trek New Voyages “World Enough and Time” Written by Michael Reaves & Marc Scott Zicree Directed by Marc Scott Zicree (Cawley Entertainment Co. and The Magic Time Co.)
Torchwood “Captain Jack Harkness” Written by Catherine Tregenna Directed by Ashley Way (BBC Wales)

Best Professional Editor, Short Form

Ellen Datlow
Stanley Schmidt
Jonathan Strahan
Gordon Van Gelder
Sheila Williams

Best Professional Editor, Long Form

Lou Anders
Ginjer Buchanan
David G. Hartwell
Beth Meacham
Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Best Professional Artist

Bob Eggleton
Phil Foglio
John Harris
Stephan Martiniere
John Picacio
Shaun Tan

Best Semiprozine

Ansible edited by David Langford
Helix edited by William Sanders and Lawrence Watt-Evans
Interzone edited by Andy Cox
Locus edited by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong, Liza Groen Trombi
New York Review of Science Fiction edited by Kathryn Cramer, Kristine Dikeman, David G. Hartwell, Kevin J. Maroney

Best Fanzine

Argentus edited by Steven H Silver
Challenger edited by Guy Lillian III
Drink Tank edited by Chris Garcia
File 770 edited by Mike Glyer
PLOKTA edited by Alison Scott, Steve Davies, and Mike Scott

Best Fan Writer

Chris Garcia
David Langford
Cheryl Morgan
John Scalzi
Steven H Silver

Best Fan Artist

Brad Foster
Teddy Harvia
Sue Mason
Steve Stiles
Taral Wayne

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (Sponsored by Dell Magazines and administered on their behalf by WSFS)

Joe Abercrombie (2nd year of eligibility)
Jon Armstrong (1st year of eligibility)
David Anthony Durham (1st year of eligibility)
David Louis Edelman (2nd year of eligibility)
Mary Robinette Kowal (2nd year of eligibility)
Scott Lynch (2nd year of eligibility)

(Found at http://sfawardswatch.livejournal.com/70183.html. For some reason, it's not yet on their main page, though.)

Tags: science-fiction

I'll have more to say about Arthur C. Clarke and his passing in the morning. But I have to admit that amidst the sadness I feel, I'm amused by one thing. All the news reports note that Clarke died early Wednesday morning, and here I sit on Tuesday evening and I already know. It's almost like time travel.

Many people know Clarke's Third Law; let me share with you his second, because it's what I've tried to do all my life.

"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

The last of the Big Three is gone. The future belongs to us now. Let us make the most of it.

Tags: personal, science-fiction, world-news

So, as most of you are probably already aware, Apex Books will be publishing my short story collection I Remember the Future: The Award-Nominated Stories of Michael A. Burstein in September. The cover has already been put together; my new user icon is a miniature version of the cover, which I'll probably try to use for book-related posts.

Pretty soon, we're going to have an announcement about pre-ordering the book, including a special possibility for people who pre-order the autographed hardcover edition. In the meantime, though, I've been thinking about some of the mechanics of the book, and I thought I'd throw out my question to the world and see if anyone wanted to share their thoughts.

The book will consist of 15 stories, thirteen previously published ones and two new ones. Here's the list, in chronological order:

1. "TeleAbsence" (Analog, July 1995)
2. "Broken Symmetry" (Analog, February 1997)
3. "Cosmic Corkscrew" (Analog, June 1998)
4. "Absent Friends" (Analog, September 1998)
5. "Reality Check" (Analog, November 1999)
6. "Kaddish for the Last Survivor" (Analog, November 2000)
7. "Spaceships" (Analog, June 2001)
8. "Paying It Forward" (Analog, September 2003)
9. "Decisions" (Analog, January/February 2004)
10. "Time Ablaze" (Analog, June 2004)
11. "Seventy-Five Years" (Analog, January/February 2005)
12. "TelePresence" (Analog, July/August 2005)
13. "Sanctuary" (Analog, September 2005)
14. Empty Spaces (original to the book)
15. I Remember the Future (original to the book)

Now here's the question. How should I order the stories?

One school of thought suggests that I should set the Table of Contents to be chronological. That way, people reading the book from beginning to end could track my growth (or possible lack thereof) as a writer.

But another school of thought suggests grouping the stories more thematically. For example, "Empty Spaces" is the fourth story in the "Broken Symmetry" series, and it might make sense to place it directly after "Absent Friends" and "Reality Check" (and to move "Cosmic Corkscrew"). And how should I open and end the book? I could bookend the collection with "TeleAbsence" and "TelePresence," since they are a story and a sequel that represent my first ten years in Analog. Or I could open the book with "Kaddish for the Last Survivor" and close with "Paying It Forward," which seem to be my most popular stories.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards keeping the chronological order, especially since I'm writing an original Afterword for each story. But the thematic grouping calls to me as well.

Tags: books, i remember the future, personal, science-fiction