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I’m quite excited - I’m on my way to WisCon, a feminist Science Fiction Convention. I’m doing a writing workshop on Friday, which I’m really excited about, then there are lots and lots of things going on until Sunday night. It’s my first scifi con, which is kinda funny, since I’ve been a science fiction fan since I was a little kid. Somehow I missed the con circuit earlier in life. I guess perhaps because I never was the fannish sort.

This should be exciting, and it has given my writing a burst of energy - now I just need to find the time to use it!

Here’s a new SF books meme, which, I think, is better than the last meme, which had no women authors. This is a longer list, and has some women in it.

I got this from Lou Anders. This is the Science Fiction Book Club’s list of the fifty most significant science fiction/fantasy novels published between 1953 and 2002.

The Key:

Bold the ones you’ve read.

Strike-out the ones you hated.

Italicize those you started but never finished.

Put an asterisk beside the ones you loved.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien*

2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov

3. Dune, Frank Herbert*

4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein*

5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin*

6. Neuromancer, William Gibson

7. Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke

8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick

9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley*

10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe

12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.

13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov

14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras

15. Cities in Flight, James Blish*

16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett

17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison

18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison

19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester

20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany*

21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey*

22. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card*

23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson

24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman

25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl

26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling*

27. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams*

28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson

29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice

30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin

31. Little, Big, John Crowley

32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny

33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick

34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement

35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon

36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith

37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute

38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke

39. Ringworld, Larry Niven*

40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys

41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien

42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut

43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson

44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner*

45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester

46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein

47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock

48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks

49. Timescape, Gregory Benford

50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

I’ve read 31 of the 50. Not too bad.

Technorati Tags: books, scifi

As a long time science fiction fan, and a new science fiction writer, there is no question that a very formative influence on me was Star Trek, which is celebrating it’s 40th year. I watched TOS (The Original Series) as a kid with my mom, and watched each series as it came out, except for the last, Enterprise, which started around when I stopped watching TV regularly, and also I heard it wasn’t great. I’ve seen every Star Trek movie at least once, some a number of times. I have my list of favorite episodes, and favorite movies.

On YouTube, there is a great tribute to the 40 years of Star Trek.

Anyway, happy 40th birthday, Star Trek.

I’ve always considered myself creative, even though I don’t consider myself an artist, per se. I spent a lot of my childhood creating worlds in my head, at the same time as I read countless creations of worlds done by many science fiction writers.

This summer, I became a world creator. I have created a new sci-fi universe, and finished a novel based in it. It was one of the most amazingly fun things I’ve done in a long time. I got to explore in depth a variety of issues that I think are important in the world, and have fun creating characters, plot, and new worlds. I have no idea what will come of it. But it was a lot of fun doing it. i don’t know if it’s worth publishing, but I have some friends who are giving me some advice about it.

One of the areas of creativity that I have is in making the active, outward manifestations of my life, including my work, more and more consonant with my highest self, what could, I guess, be described as an inner manifestation of God. I started a new stage in that process a couple of years ago, when I first decided to go to seminary. That process continues. I’ll have a lot more to say in the next few weeks about some new twists and turns in that process. There are some changes afoot.

I just read a great essay by Pam Noles about, among other things, the adaptation of "A Legend of Earthsea" by Ursula LeGuin by the SciFi channel last year. I read about this essay in BoingBoing, and there has been some interesting commentary on it.

It’s really nice to read the perspective of another black woman sci-fi fan, there are so few of us. And she’s a damn good writer, too.

technorati tags: sciencefiction, scifi, writing, race