Via Rick Kleffel, a podcast of a recent NPR interview with Vernor Vinge. I’m resisting these recent interviews until I finish Rainbows End.

The Summer 2006 issue went out in the mail late last week to all members/subscribers/etc. This 20-page issue includes reviews of fiction by Russell Madden, Elizabeth Moon, Harry Turtledove, Vernor Vinge, Tamara Wilhite, and John C. Wright; a condensed version of Sunni Maravillosa’s interview with Scott Bieser and Vin Suprynowicz; Tamara Wilhite on SETI; review of the movie Æon Flux; anthology Future Washington reviewed; Jim Sullivan on library censorship; plus a last minute essay on private space travel and a guest editorial on RFIDs.

If you’re not a member of LFS, more information can be found at www.lfs.org. Subscriptions also are available, and if you’d like a sample issue please email me at editor AT lfs DOT org with an address and I’ll send out a free copy.

I’m now taking a brief break before starting work on the Fall issue, which I expect will feature news about the Prometheus Awards ceremony from LA CON IV, held at the end of August. I attended LA CON III back in 1996, my first WorldCon. I remember the long drive from LAX to Anaheim, the vast dealers’ auditorium where I secured some hard to find Jack Vance books, and very long nights. I attended two more WorldCons (1997 and 1998), before beginning my long and personal sabbatical away from sf fandom that lasted until the end of 2004. I’m not sure when I’ll attend my next WorldCon. With two small kids in the house I am loathe to go through the stress of travel only to spend time away from them, so I’m sure a few more years will pass before WorldCon #4.

I’m getting ready to shell out $36 for three audio CDs from the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company, with hopes of writing up the experience in the next issue of Prometheus as well. The three CDs include all the adapted Robert A. Heinlein stories. And then, I have a stack of books that need some attention…

I don’t really want to start an OS war, but in reading through Claire Wolfe’sreply to an essay by Brad over on wendymacelroy.com on Linux vs. Windows, I’m tempted to offer up Mac OS X as an alternative. I guess if you have an Intel machine your only choice is Win or Lin, though OS X now runs on Intel. The second fall-back argument is that Macs are too expensive, and while somewhat true, you do get quite a few items standard on the Mac that are add-ons in the Win/Lin world. Of course, the most powerful argument is that OS X is proprietary, while Linux is free and open-source. True again, but OS X includes Unix and exists in a healthy 3rd party developer environment so you don’t need to rely on Apple software. And it’s a gorgeous OS, far smoother to master than either Win/Lin environment. But that’s just my opinion as a Mac user since 1984.

The LA Times reviews a new translation of Hall of Fame winning novel, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We.

Personally, I like the idea of Angelina Jolie as Dagny Taggart, in as close to reality as we’ve ever seen for an Atlas Shrugged movie moment.

Sean Gabb, UK libertarian and editor of Free Life, has written a novel of “murder and intrigue, set in mediaeval Rome.” The first three chapters are available for download.

I believe Time Magazine also ran a story about protest music a few months ago. Here the Nation muses on protest and music.

Via reason’s Hit and Run, a brief story on deciphering blurbs for keys on how to avoid books. My blurbs appeared on three or four books (I remember two by L. Neil Smith and one by Vernor Vinge–though in the latter they cited the publication in which my review appeared, and not my name). In each case I think the publisher pulled my words from a review, and I wrote those words not with a blurb in mind. Culling the essence of a book down to a few sentences is tough work, and sometimes I wonder about their effectiveness. I buy books for the author or story, not from what others say. But do I read the blurbs? Usually, yes, after I’ve already bought the book.

Lack of familiarity with any of the writers mentioned makes me wonder which one is the “wrier of Libertarian SF” among this list mentioned at Emerald City. Clue me in, please.

Jim Baen, publisher and editor, passed away June 28th following a massive stroke. Baen Books website posted a brief notice. David Drake has a longer obituary. I used to buy a ton of Baen paperbacks a few years ago, especially the paperback magazines (I first read Vernor Vinge’s short story, “The Ungoverned,” in one of these), but in the last decade of so none of the writers in their line appealed to me, nor did the covers; I never really read that much military sf. I also remember meeting Jack Vance’s Cugel character in Baen’s editions of some of Vance’s books. Recently Baen also was a force in promoting unencrypted web versions of books from their line, and proved this model as a viable and ethical business model. Quite a few Prometheus Award-winning sf writers appeared in Baen editions, including L. Neil Smith and James P. Hogan, as well as F. Paul Wilson.