Views from Medina Road

Among Ellen Datlow's photos from Glasgow is this one of my partner and me on The Tall Ship in Glasgow, site of the HarperCollins party, where guests were handed small bags with pirate paraphernalia -- eyepatches and sashes. I wore the eyepatch for a while, but couldn't see well with it on (especially climbing and descending those steep stair/ladders). Yeong tied his sash around his head, samurai style, and looks pretty good. The sun was in my eyes.

As of last night's New Books page, I've re-instated links to BookSense, the network of independent booksellers, which I suspended a few months ago when I realized that, after a couple years of posting them, I'd never gotten any kind of feedback from BookSense, let alone commissions. (The Amazon links throughout the site do provide a few cents commission for each purchase made through them.) Some feedback from independent bookstore owners -- who contribute to Locus Magazine's monthly bestseller list -- has led me to re-instate the BookSense links, even though BookSense itself reports absolutely no purchase activity through the previous links. So... if anyone does use the BookSense link for any book I've listed, and buys a book that way, please let me know. I'd like to know if the system is working.

There were some comments to my earlier post about losing the Hugo by one vote, so check them out, and my response, if you're curious.

Finally, this passage from Entertainment Weekly's August 19th Fall Movie Preview issue, concerning A SOUND OF THUNDER, due in theaters September 2. It's directed by Peter Hyams and written by Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, and Gregory Poirier... it says.

[Ben] Kingsley also likes Ray Bradbury, the science fiction titan who wrote the futuristic story Thunder is based on. You know that old adage about how a butterfly flapping its wings can change the course of history? Legend has it that its origins lie in Bradbury's 1952 tale.

Legend?