The current issue of F&SF has one of my stories: "Liberty's Daughter," which is either the first in a series of short stories, or the opening part of a novel (I have a lot more stories to tell about Beck, Thor, and their society.)

The story is set on a seastead. Seasteads are real-ish: they don't exist yet, but there are people who are trying to make them happen. The basic idea behind seasteading is that since all the land is claimed by existing countries, they'll build themselves an island, or a whole bunch of islands, and experiment with government systems the way startup companies experiment with entrepreneurial ideas.

The really cool thing about seasteading, science fictionally speaking, is that it lets me write a colony story in a near-future setting, because the characters don't have to be colonizing other planets.

So that's one piece. As far as the second piece goes -- well, that brings up an interesting story.

( Read more... )

Wiscon is this weekend! I'll be there from Friday until sometime Monday. I'm not going to the Sign-Out, but if someone has something they want me to sign, just stop me in the hallway or find me after a panel or something.

Here's my schedule:

Religious Agenda in SF
Fri, 4:00–5:15 pm Conference 4
LaShawn M. Wanak (M), Alex Bledsoe, Naomi Kritzer, Heidi Waterhouse

We will discuss such works as The Chronicles of Narnia, Left Behind, Battlefield Earth and other stories that have a clear religious bias. Is it possible to be religious and write SF without pushing an agenda? Who gets it right? Who doesn't?

***This panel proposal came out of a conversation I had with LaShawn about the Chronicles of Narnia after watching the "Prince Caspian" movie and re-reading the book. I should note that I haven't read "Battlefield Earth" but I HAVE read "Left Behind" (in fact, I read it as preparation for a different Wiscon panel, years ago).

Assistive Technology is One of My Fandoms
Sat, 10:00–11:15 am Room 634
Haddayr Copley-Woods (M), Naomi Kritzer, Sandy Sasha_feather

Do you baffle the mundanes with your fascination with wheelchair design? Can you geek out over assistive communication apps for the iPad, tactile maps, universal design, all-terrain wheels, hand-crafted wooden canes, specialized prosthetics? Technology is fascinating, and assistive technology is especially so. Let's talk about Hack Ability (Liz Henry's blog), the politics of having so much assistive technology under patent, and about cool stuff and how cool it is.

Addiction in Fiction
Sun, 10:00–11:15 am Room 634
Cassie Alexander (M), Naomi Kritzer, Victoria Janssen, Gregory G. H. Rihn, Derek Silver

Real drugs, imaginary drugs, and magical addictions to other people's dreams—how are addictions handled in science fiction and fantasy? Can imaginary addictions be treated with real-world methods? How about fictional worlds in which addiction is not seen as a problem? Or in which addiction has become adaptive (are vampires addicted to blood?)? Possible works to consider: Stacia Kane's Downside series (beginning with Unholy Ghosts) in which Chess Putnam is addicted to a magical drug, Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah's Sime~Gen series in which Simes can become addicted to killing Gens, Yarrow by Charles De Lint for feeding on dreams.

***I volunteered for this one but am now feeling woefully underprepared as I haven't read the works mentioned at the end.

Sex Ed (and Parenting, Teaching, and Mentoring Teens)
Sun, 2:30–3:45 pm Conference 5
Susan Ramirez (M), Naomi Kritzer, Marna Nightingale, Katherine Olson/Kayjayoh, Carrie Tilton-Jones

Let's talk about how we talk about sex with kids -- our own or other people's. Sex ed has become increasingly politicized and all too often schools wind up catering to their most conservative demographic. How do we frame these debates and argue forcefully that everyone's children deserve accurate sex ed? On a more informal level, how, when, and in what level of detail? There are a million books out there for parents about how to talk about sex with their kids, and a million more designed to give to your kids instead of actually talking to them. Are there any that are feminist, explicit enough to include the clitoris in their diagrams, frank about contraception, and sex-positive (...but maybe not TOO positive)?

So, I posted a few months back about training for a Triathlon. I've kept at it, and I'm registered to do the sprint distance in the Minneapolis (Lifetime Fitness) Tri in July.

It's actually 1/4 mile swimming (not .4 miles), 15 miles of biking, and 3 miles of running.

My first day of swimming, I swam to the end of the pool and had to hang on the side and gasp for breath for several minutes before I could even do the breaststroke back. Now I can swim a half mile. I swam 1/4 mile this morning in about 12 minutes. That's in a pool, and I haven't done any open water swimming yet, but I'm feeling really confident that the swim should be no problem. (If you need to rest during the swim, you're allowed to grab a buoy so long as you don't use it to assist yourself in making forward progress. Also, I find the elementary backstroke very restful.)

I also feel pretty good about the biking. Part of why I decided I could do this was that I looked at the distances in January and thought, "I could go bike fifteen miles right now. I don't even need to train to do that." And, in fact, on January 10th, the weather was really nice and I biked almost 19 miles. (Admittedly, around mile 18, I really wished I could be at home RIGHT NOW but the first 15 miles were really no problem at all.) Yesterday, I went biking and rode 15 miles in 1 hours 22 minutes. Now, I ride a comfort-model bike, with extremely thick tires and handlebars that put me sitting up; I tried out haddayr's slick commuter model with skinnier tires and lower handlebars and was instantly much, much faster. I am pretty sure I could significantly improve my time on the bike ride simply by getting a road bike, and I may browse the Hub's Bike Extravaganza in June to see if they have anything I like for a good price.

Then there's the run.

Apparently most triathlete wannabes come in from running, and find the swimming part really intimidating, or occasionally the biking, but the running is a piece of cake, which is convenient for them since it comes LAST. I am not a runner, and I've never been a runner. I've spent a lot of the last few months trying to be a runner, and on my very best days I average MAYBE a 13 minute 40 second mile and go a little over two miles. Most of that, I'm walking rather than running. My knees have been doing OK, but running has been seriously messing up the right side of my lower back, and prompt icing helps but not as much as not running in the first place does. I saw my chiropractor and I took some time off to see if that would get it to heal and I may try again tomorrow and see what happens.

I tried my very first double-workout the day before yesterday: after my 15 mile bike ride, I put my bike in the garage and attempted to run around the block. I almost fell down, first of all, and then I had to stop halfway around because I was completely out of air and had a horrible stitch in my side. (OK: perhaps next time, I should use my asthma inhaler when I get off the bike but before I run. It does seem to make a difference.)

My fallback: I can walk three miles in an hour. I'm pretty sure there are people who do exactly that in this triathlon, and I'll still get an official time. It won't be very impressive, though.

It's frustrating, though. I know so many people who seem to swear by the Couch to 5K plan. Admittedly, I have not followed the plan in detail but I've used a similar approach: alternating periods of walking with periods of running and tried to gradually increase the running and decrease the walking. And I've made progress, but I'm nowhere near the point of being able to run 3 miles without stopping, even slowly, even without a 15-mile bike ride first. And it's not like I actually came at this from the couch; I was not super fit, but I did have a basic level of fitness that was not completely pathetic.

(kristine_smith, I notice that in your last post you suggested orthotics. I wear Superfeet inserts, the green ones, which were recommended ages ago for knee pain. I wear shoes bought from a running store, although perhaps I should go back and ask for a new assessment and shoe recommendation. I have weird feet, and there are a lot of shoes out there that might work for my back or knees but don't work at all for my toes or ankles and I hate shoe shopping and it feels infuriatingly high-stakes because shoes never feel quite right until you break them in, but if you wear them for a week and they're just not going to work you can't return them and then you're out $200 because good running shoes are also really expensive. I know this brand is comfortable for walking in, at least, even though they wear through at the toe in about two weeks...so I'm reluctant to switch.)

Ed and I have been looking at houses; we'd like to move to a larger house. In our current house, the girls have to share a room. We'd like them to have their own. Also, it might be nice to be closer to their school, and if we're going to go through all the hassle of buying a new home and moving, we'd like a master bath.

So we've looked at houses. Lots and lots of houses.

The problem is that things we want are fundamentally incompatible. We prefer the look and feel of older homes. We like traditional styles, windows made with panes rather than big sheets of glass (and lots of them), hardwood floors instead of carpet, and the sort of quirks and weird spaces that you'll get in Victorian construction but never in new.

On the other hand, we'd like a master bathroom. A mudroom or some sort of entryway with good storage for coats and boots would be nice. I'm not a huge fan of creepy basements. I prefer forced-air heat to radiators and will miss my central air if we move to a house without forced-air venting.

There ARE houses built before 1940 that have been remodeled to provide them with modern conveniences like master bathrooms etc., and we've looked at lots of them. I now have a long list of things that seem to be trends that I find spectacularly irritating.

1. Badly designed multi-acre kitchens.

Our current house has a small kitchen. It's small, but reasonably convenient to use. Back when Ed and I took Home Ec the teachers talked about the "work triangle," and how you want the fridge, stove, and sink to be conveniently near each other. We have a nice work triangle with prep area between the stove and fridge.

We have seen an appalling number of kitchens that seem to have been designed by people for whom "work triangle" would be a novel concept. The most absurd was a kitchen with acres of countertop but cabinetry that came out the full depth of the counter -- so, you know, you'd bash your head if you tried to actually chop anything on those counters. They'd be super useful if the only thing you ever did on your counter was store appliances, though.

It's one thing when you see a small house with a vintage kitchen that hasn't been updated since 1970. The thing that boggles my mind is when I see a large house where they've clearly spent tens of thousands of dollars building this badly put together kitchen.

Part of the problem here is that Ed and I don't care whether we have an eat-in kitchen. We eat our meals in the dining room, and intend to continue eating meals in the dining room. I would kind of like a breakfast nook but I would prefer it to be a nook rather than an island with seating. I acknowledge that this is a personal quirk but for heaven's sake, people! I did some aimless open-house-type wandering today and looked at a bunch of houses that were too small. They all had smaller kitchens that looked more usable than most of the big kitchens we've seen.

2. Vinyl interior doors.

It's fine with me if people want to replace interior doors (if this is an older home, the original interior doors are almost guaranteed to be a lead hazard.) But hollow-core wood doors are not THAT expensive and frankly I think even flat hollow-core wood doors look better than vinyl up close. Vinyl oozes fakeness from every pore. (Or it would, if it had pores, which it doesn't, which is part of the problem.) Vinyl siding at least has the excuse that you never have to paint it. Interior doors are not something that require the sort of regular maintenance that the house exterior does. There's simply no excuse for vinyl.

I saw TWO houses today, both older homes that had been updated, that had vinyl interior doors.

3. Enormous master bathrooms (with an ENORMOUS tub plus a separate shower, for instance) in a house that's less than 3,000 square feet overall.

The first palatial bathroom I ever saw was at a work party at some executive's house. It had a tub big enough to fit two adults, a separate shower, and a gas fireplace. I have to admit, it was pretty awesome, but this was a 4500 square foot McMansion somewhere in Eagan. If you've got 3,000 or more square feet to play with, then sure: go for the palatial bathroom. Why anyone would waste 150 square feet of a 2,000 square foot house on a single bathroom is baffling to me. A 3/4 master bath is totally adequate, as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't need to be fancy. In fact, if there's going to be a fancy bathroom in the house, better it should be the family bathroom because I have two daughters who would be thoroughly intrigued by an enormous jetted tub and the whole point of a master bathroom is that you don't have to share it with your children!

(My parents' house has a master bath with a really nice shower and then the family bathroom has a big jetted tub, so SOMEONE OUT THERE gets it.)

The beginning of Passover is celebrated with a ritual meal, called the Seder; the prayer book that tells you what you say and when is called the Haggadah. One of the most common (even iconic) Haggadahs out there is the Maxwell House Haggadah -- as in the coffee. I got curious years ago just how it came to be that the definitive Seder was put together by a coffee company, and found the answer in Joan Nathan's Jewish Cooking in America. It was marketing; they realized that all their Jewish customers would quit drinking coffee during Passover, because coffee comes from "beans" and legumes are considered unacceptable during Passover by Jews of Eastern European descent and OMG LOST SALES. Coffee beans aren't legumes. Maxwell House hired an Orthodox Rabbi to certify their coffee as kosher for Passover, and put out a Haggadah, starting in the 1930s, to encourage their Jewish customers to enjoy their coffee throughout the Passover observance.

There are about a million different versions of the Haggadah. Off the top of my head -- my parents own (or used to own) one copy of "The Freedom Seder," in which at one point you read a condemnation of Dow Chemical. (It's not the one we used; we used one called A Seder Service for a Family Growing Up, that was oriented toward young children. I believe this is the Haggadah that included the iconic-in-my-household line, "Now is the springtime of the year, when the earth breaks free from the bonds of winter, when baby birds burst from the shell, when leaves break forth from the bud, and new life is everywhere." It was traditional in my household to pause at that point, look outside at the falling snow / sleet / other exciting weather, and mutter resentfully about springtime in Wisconsin before continuing.) There's a Twelve-Stepper Haggadah. There are multiple Feminist Haggadahs. There's the Fifteen-Minute Haggadah and the hilarious semi-satirical Two-Minute Haggadah (and the even funnier, if not exactly suitable for recitation as a family, Facebook Haggadah.) However, the Maxwell House version is sufficiently iconic that the Obamas use it for the Seder they host at the White House. (Interestingly, this tradition got started when he was on the campaign trail and some of his campaign volunteers invited him to their on-the-road Seder, for which they used Maxwell House Haggadahs because they were readily available. Now it's TRADITION. So.)

Anyway.

I majored in Religion in college, and the topic I found really interesting -- what I would have studied in graduate school, if I'd been crazy enough to go -- is the interaction between immigrant faiths, and the American experience. What does it mean to be Jewish in American, and what does it mean, if you're American and non-Jewish, to have Jews as neighbors and as part of your community? Naturally, part of what it means is that they are customers. How do you sell things to Jewish immigrants, in 1932? You make your product kosher. You hire a Rabbi to endorse it. You print up little booklets that say, "hey! here are all your prayers in convenient booklet form, DRINK OUR COFFEE!"

I've been meaning to mention that a few weeks ago, somewhat out of the blue, I was contacted for permission to reprint St. Ailbe's Hall in an anthology called "The Ursa Major Awards Sampler."

I had two thoughts on this:

1. Sure, why not? I'm generally pretty willing to let people reprint my short fiction.
2. What are the Ursa Major Awards?
3. The title of the anthology implies that I won an award and no one ever told me. What the heck?

So, I did some googling. I didn't win the award, but I was nominated for it in 2005. The Ursa Major awards are for best anthropomorphic fiction and are described on their website as the Hugo Awards of Furry Fandom.

...

So, yes, apparently back in 2005 I was up for the Furry Hugo and NO ONE TOLD ME. The editor of the anthology was startled to hear that this was the first I'd heard about this.

The worst of it is, if I'd WON, no one would have been there to graciously accept the award. I wouldn't have been there even if I'd known; this was when Kiera was still really young, so the whole family had to go to cons, which curtailed my con-going schedule pretty sharply. However, I would have at least found someone to accept on my behalf and sent a speech expressing gratitude for the honor. So thank goodness I didn't win, really; I would have looked like a complete asshole!

(And yes. I am aware of the Geek Hierarchy Chart and the overall attitude toward Furries in SF Fandom. But you know what? NO ONE ELSE has ever nominated me for THEIR Hugo or equivalent award so all you furry-haters can go snicker somewhere else. Furries are clearly AWESOME.)

Kiera wrote and illustrated a story, which Ed scanned, transcribed, and put online for your reading pleasure.

It's pretty awesome, in my totally unbiased opinion. Kiera's eight, and in second grade.

I've blogged in the past about Molly and math. My favorite illustrative story: back when Molly was in 1st grade, she figured out how to add mixed fractions by finding a common denominator based on the sample problem on the inside of her math notebook. (And then would ask me to give her fraction addition problems to work on while I brushed her hair, because she found them fun.)

When she was in 3rd grade, several people told me about a program at the U of M called UMTYMP (University of Minnesota Talented Youth Mathematics Program). UMTYMP starts in 6th grade; it goes through high school math in two years. (Algebra I and II are year one; Geometry is one semester of year two; "Math Analysis" covers Trig plus the remaining pre-Calculus stuff.) Calculus I, II, and III are covered the next three years.

UMTYMP kids are supposed to NOT take math at their middle or high school; instead, they're supposed to get that time to work on their UMTYMP homework. The UMTYMP classes are held in the evening, once a week (I think). This program was appealing to me for Molly for a number of reasons, but one big one was that it actually sounded like it would be paced well for her. Molly grasps math stuff really quickly. When I was learning math, I needed a lot of repetition and sample problems before I actually could do problems on my own; Molly just doesn't.

Admission is by exam. They had an early exam option this year, where your kid could take the test in February, and they'd let you know whether they passed in time to try again in April if necessary.

Molly got in! We got the letter on Friday. She's excited.

Here's my MarsCon schedule, for anyone wondering:

Why Do We Love the Apocalypse?
Saturday, 2 p.m., Re(ad) Mars/Taylor (2nd Floor)
Zombies, Aliens, Raptors, Graboids, Skynet…why do we love apocalypse scenarios? A discussion of why we find these scenarios so enjoyable.
With: Rebecca Marjesdatter, mod.; Tom Ashwell, Cynthia Booth, Naomi Kritzer, Lyda Morehouse, Erik Pakieser

Urban Fantasy
Saturday, 5:00 pm, Krushenko’s (13th Floor)
From Patricia Briggs to Terry Windling, Laurell K. Hamilton to Jim Butcher, come to talk about the world behind the world. Whether the story is about those that go bump in the night, hidden behind the masquerade, the ones that we have to write laws for (Is a vampire alive for reasons of life insurance?), or the story where we actively ignore them, they fascinate and entertain. Come talk about who does it well, who does it poorly, and admit to wondering if the real world is all there is.
With: Cassandra Jerde, Brandon Balfanz, co-mods.; Naomi Kritzer, Michael Merriam, Lyda Morehouse, Haddayr Copley-Woods

Technology After the Apocalypse
Sunday, 11:00 am, Krushenko’s (13th Floor)
What to take with you beyond the end of the world: A giant Mad Max car might be fun, but when gas is scarce you’ll get farther with bicycles. Guns are great against zombies, but melee weapons never run out of ammo. Discuss some unlikely technologies that have popped up in post-apocalypse fiction and weigh in what makes the best tech in a world where phones, lights, and motorcars are a thing of the past.
With: Rob Callahan, mod.; Tom Ashwell, Naomi Kritzer, Rebecca Marjesdatter, Lyda Morehouse, Michael Merriam

I fully expected Santorum to win in Minnesota, but people all over my Facebook seem to be shocked. Here's why Santorum won.

1. We have caucuses here, not primaries. You don't just stop by the caucus on your way home from work; you spend an entire evening sitting somewhere like a middle school classroom, following the Robert's Rules of Order and listening to people propose "resolutions" (which, if you're a Democrat, may eventually get incorporated into your party platform. This does not stop people from proposing huge numbers of resolutions for things that are ALREADY in the party platform. I'm actually not sure whether Republicans participate in this particular ritual, or not.)

2. In addition to the time commitment, you have to be an honest-to-God party member to go to a caucus. Joining the party is quite straightforward: you sign in at the door. However, they are fairly serious about not wanting you there if you do not honestly consider yourself aligned with the views of that party. Given that you caucus with your precinct -- which is to say, with your neighbors -- you could actually be challenged and evicted if your neighbor points out that you still have a Wellstone sign in your yard and a bumper sticker that says "Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Republican." (It's unlikely, because Minnesotans aren't very confrontational, but it could happen.)

3. Also, when you sign in they want your phone number and they will call you FOREVER. And so will all the candidates. And the national party fundraisers. And so on.

4. So it's only the really MOTIVATED people who go to these. And historically, the really MOTIVATED Minnesotan Republicans have been hair-raisingly conservative. HOW conservative, you might be wondering?

5. Back in the 1990s, we had a wildly popular Republican governor, Arne Carlson. The state Republicans declined to endorse him, instead endorsing Allen Quist. (Who was then utterly humiliated in the primary, illustrating the overlap between "Minnesotans who go to caucuses" and "Minnesotans who vote.")

6. Caucusing Minnesotan Republicans went for Romney in 2008. But that was before Obama took Romney's health care plan to the national stage and the Republicans decided they hated it. Also, he was the underdog at this point in 2008, and Minnesotan Republicans were convinced that McCain was a liberal in Republican clothing, much like they're convinced of that this year with Romney.

7. Ron Paul tries to pull in Independents, but the whole caucus setup is not very independent-friendly. I'm surprised he did as well as he did.

8. There's no way Minnesotans were going to go for a meanie like Newt. Santorum is a dickhead, but he's a mild-mannered, personable dickhead. The sort of dickhead a Minnesotan can feel comfortable with. Newt, not so much.

So: yes. Santorum surges in Minnesota. This isn't because Minnesota is a particularly conservative state, but because we run caucuses. In the highly unlikely event that Santorum wins the Republican nomination, he'll be trounced in Minnesota.