A Blog’s Eye View

I’d like to again welcome those of you who are reading this courtesy of the Analog and/or Asimov’s “A Blog’s Eye View” portal. You may have caught the “sneak preview” of my blog last week, when it was placed into the feature slot a bit prematurely. For those who did, welcome back. For those who didn’t, welcome. Come on in, stay a while.

My blog will be featured on the “A Blog’s Eye View” pages for the month of June. Otherwise, you can find it at http://www.tuginternet.com/jja/journal/.

And don’t forget — June is Slush Writer Appreciation Month. Be sure to check out my interviews with the authors of stories I’ve rescued from the slush pile. Currently featured is my interview with Ef Deal, author of “Czesko.” Also be sure to check out my interview with Mike Shultz, author of “Old as Books.”

And finally, one last note to my regular blog readers. If you’re a regular, do SF bloggers (and me) a favor, and click over to Analog’s (http://www.analogsf.com/blog.shtml) and Asimovs’ (http://www.asimovs.com/Blog.shtml) “A Blog’s Eye View” pages, so they’ll know people like the feature, and that the magazine readers are interested in discovering new SFnal blogs.

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Magazine Banner Code

If anyone wants to place my magazine banner on their own website, here’s the code to do it:

magazine banner:



Subscribe to Fantasy & Science Fiction!

Subscribe to Locus!Subscribe to Asimov's!Subscribe to Analog!Subscribe to Realms of Fantasy!Subscribe to Weird Tales!


Read SCI FICTION!Read Science Fiction Weekly!Read The Fortean Bureau!Subscribe to The Internet Review of Science Fiction!

magazine banner code:

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The Prodigal Troll Banner Ad

Alex Wilson suggested I slow down the Troll ad a bit, and advised me on how I can workaround that whole embedded link problem, which is to include the HTML code for others to copy if they want to use the ad on their own site (so you can help Charlie sell lots of books). The ad’s been slowed down; if it’s still too fast, let me know. Here’s the HTML:

If you decide to put the banner on your site, please don’t modify the HTML. Leaving it as is will allow me to track the ad’s effectiveness, regardless of where it appears.


700x60 banner:


Banner ad: The Prodigal Troll

700 x 60 banner code:

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Comments on the Troll Ad?

I’m interested to hear comments on the The Prodigal Troll ad you see above. Is it cycling too fast? Do you have time to read the quote?

BTW, does anyone know if you can embed a link into an animated gif? I know you can do that in flash, and I initially tried to make the ad in flash, but I suck at using it, and I gave up. Making an animated gif is easy. The ad as it is now is linked to Amazon, but that URL is not embedded in the file, so if someone wanted to copy the ad and use it elsewhere, they’d have to attach a link to the image with HTML.

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Instant Messenger

Okay, so if you view my blog on the main page and not through an aggregator, you’ve probably noticed that I removed that stupid AIM remote. I didn’t remove it because IMs were bothering me; I only removed it because it was annoying me and I felt like it was cluttering up my banner space. So do still feel free to IM me if you want. I’ve moved the link over to the sidebar below my ID info, next to my email address. And if that’s too complex for you, the AIM username is johnjosephadams.

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Book Meme

1) The number of books I’ve owned?

Egad. Who could possibly know such a thing? I’d love to know how many I have now, but I’m not anal enough to do an inventory. Plus, that wouldn’t account for the books I bought then traded in at used bookstores. I certainly have enough that I shouldn’t be buying more, especially considering I get quite a few freebies from F&SF, but…

2) The last book I bought?

Natural History by Justina Robson and Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, with the latter being a blog-related purchase (go blogiral marketing!). I was nearly put off purchasing it when Scalzi mentioned that he decided to write a military SF novel solely because that’s what was selling, but in the end I decided that I still wanted to read it for myself, and figured that he should at least get points for being honest about the genesis of the novel. The Robson was just something that had been on my wish list for a while, and I needed to add about ten bucks to my Amazon order to get free shipping.

3) The last book I read?

The Prodigal Troll by Charles Coleman Finlay. Good stuff! Go order a copy immediately!

4) Five books that mean a lot to me: (in no particular order)

1. The F&SF anthologies — One Lamp, In Lands That Never Were, and Fourth Planet From the Sun, because they are the first books I worked on, and one of them is one-third dedicated to me.

2. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, because it’s my favorite novel, and was the first SF novel I read to blow my mind.

3. The Road to Science Fiction, Vol. 3: From Heinlein to Here edited by James Gunn, because it was the anthology that made me learn to love short fiction.

4. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, because it convinced me to give science fiction a try. (I’d read fantasy as a youngster, but no SF.)

5. The Prodigal Troll by Charles Coleman Finlay, because he’s my dawg, and it’s his first novel, and I got to work on it a bit officially (on the sections we published at F&SF) and unofficially (as Charlie noted in the acknolwedgements, “[I] read new additions critically at the very end.”).

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May 2005 Acquisitions

New stories this month: a suburban fantasy from Delia Sherman, a chilling apocalyptic horror tale from Claudia O’Keefe, a temporal art tale from Allen Steele, new hard SF from Daryl Gregory, a cyberpunkish sf tale from Tony Sarowitz, arrrrrr lit’ry pirate fantasy from Gene Wolfe, and a brilliant new TV show fantasy from Kelly Link (in her F&SF debut). Quite a batch this month! You’ll likely be seeing the Wolfe (Oct/Nov) and Link (Sept.) very soon, though the future is still uncertain.

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How to Determine Your PC’s Specfications and Other Mysteries — Solved

Have you ever tried to figure out what kind of RAM you need to buy for your PC, or anything else about the specifications of your machine? I can never seem to figure out how to do it, and always turn to computer geek friends for assistance. One of my geeks referred me to this cool program called Belarc Advisor.

From the Belarc website:

The Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, including Microsoft Hotfixes, and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server.

Detailed is right. It tells you all the basics, such as how much RAM you have installed (and what type and how many slots your case has available for expansion), your processor speed, etc., along with all the really geeky stuff that you and I don’t understand (but your geek will). What’s really handy is that you can just save the data as an HTML file and email it to your geek so he can advise you. Neat! Plus, it’s freeware, so the price is right.

So I think the program’s pretty useful, but you’d think there would be a standard system utility on your computer that would tell you this stuff.

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