Scalzi in his round up of the Hugo 2010 nominees mentioned:The short fiction nominations this year are interesting as much as where they come from as for their content. Consider that last year, nine of the nominees in the short fiction came from the “Big Three” SF magazines ( Read more... )

In a couple of months it would have been the anniversary of the day when I ran out of office screaming that I didn't want any more of that life. However, I stayed on and cribbed on ( Read more... )

Are zombies funny? Yes, they are, and I am just learning that.

I should have got the hint when I read Christopher Moore's The stupidest Angel, but, I promptly forgot about hunting for funny zombies. For it seemed that there isn't any fact which brims with more obviousness than that Zombies would always be there just to be shot, stabbed, chopped or ( Read more... )

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दिल जलता है तो जलने दे ( Read more... )

Eureka Forbes has started selling Roomba clones.

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Guardian "Inspired by Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing" asked a bunch of (British) authors to come up with up to 10 rules of their own. (The advices are listed here and here.)

My favourite ones:
Will Self: 10. Regard yourself as a small corporation of one. Take yourself off on team-building exercises (long walks). Hold a Christmas party every ( Read more... )

If you remember that far back then you would know that at about the turn of the century, the yahoo chat rooms seemed to be full of Indian, specially the 'Social' ones, with everyone going 'asl' all the time. Is it my imagination or all the blog comment threads clogged with Indians. Or is it confirmation bias and selection bias to blame?

One fine evening, I found myself at a chain bookstore outlet. However, since chain bookstores are not in the business of selling books and instead focus on selling music, movies, soft-toys, stationaries and chocolate, that evening found me browsing through the movie shelves. There in one of the shelves, hidden away in the far distant corner of the ( Read more... )

I had this dream. I was sitting at the table with my mother, an aunt, an uncle and a cousin. We were talking about some random shit, when all of a sudden I see this huge book, with A3 sized pages, and about 6 inches thick. I asked them, "What is that book?" They said that It was Manusmriti, the first book in Assamese. (Actually Manusmriti is not in ( Read more... )