Probably the most useful government reform I can think of would be to have an unwaivable requirement that in order to vote in favor of any bill, a Senator or Representative must be present on the floor of the house for a reading aloud of the entire bill.
The online magazine Apex has reprinted (repixeled?) my Writers of the Future published finalist story “In Memory.” It’s free to read.
The Fix has reviewed InterGalactic Medicine Show #10, which includes “The Robot Sorcerer.”
Here’s the money quote:
The story is personal in scale and filled with mystery, action, and even tragedy. Stone explores many themes: the nature of life, magic versus technology, magic as technology, moral dilemmas, and self-sacrifice being only a few. He does so while also creating a complex plot that doesn’t confuse the reader, establishing depth of character, and describing a rich and fascinating world while also maintaining a good pace. It is, by far, the best story in this issue.
I first read Brandon Sanderson’s novelette “Firstborn” while proofreading the story for the Leading Edge, BYU’s speculative fiction magazine, and I thought it was great. Brandon’s usual genre is fantasy, but “Firstborn” is science fiction, and he pulls it off very well.
Unfortunately, since the circulation of the Leading Edge is small, not many people had a chance to read the story when it came out.
Fortunately, “Firstborn” is now available for free at Tor.com.
For any stock held now or bought within the next quarter and sold after 2010, reduce the long-term capital gains tax rate from 20% to as low as 4%, using a sliding scale of 2% reductions for each year the investment was held.
This would have two major immediate effects:
The result of those effects would be to reduce selling and increase buying of stocks, thus ending the market’s slide.
The reason for the sliding scale is to make it so these incentive tax cuts don’t all expire at once, leading to massive sell-offs in a couple of years. (The scale may need some tweaking as to rates and length of time held, but the basic principle is there.)
Edmund Schubert, editor of IGMS, has posted a little essay of mine about the writing of “The Robot Sorcerer.”
I’m glad that Edmund posts these essays by the story authors. One of the reasons I loved reading Isaac Asimov’s short story collection The Early Asimov was because he interspersed the stories with autobiographical information, including how he came to write certain stories. I’m always interested in how writers come up with stories, and I flatter myself that others are interested in how I come up with mine.
My favorite short story I’ve read this year is “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” by Kij Johnson. It was originally published in the July issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, but now you can read it on her website.
InterGalactic Medicine Show issue 10 is online, with my story “The Robot Sorcerer.” I think this is my favorite of my published stories.
I wrote the story at the Odyssey workshop last year (more details about the writing will be posted soon at the IGMS editor’s blog), and it contains an Odyssey 2007 class in-joke–a reference to a movie in the Bloodstained Clover series.
And I have to say that Nick Greenwood’s art for my story is fantastic. (He’s the same artist who illustrated “Accounting for Dragons.”)
While I didn’t vote for him, I wish him well in doing what is best for our country.
