The OFloinn's random thoughts on science fiction, philosophy, statistical analysis, sundry miscellany, and the Untergang des Abendlandes
Hello Friends & Fans of Michael Flynn, The Libertarian Futurist Society has made available the text of the acceptance speech Dad's brother Kevin gave on behalf of the family on their blog . You can also watch the entire ceremony, featuring Astrid Bear Anderson and David Friedman (for Poul Anderson) and Dad's publisher Shahid Mahmud here: Again, as a family, we thank you for reading Dad's words…
Folks, I know I'm late with this. I know you know. We've been updating what was Dad's childhood home (something Dad and I intended to do in the summer of 2023 before everything went very, very sideways) and the computer was put away somewhere safe from all of the dust and debris, and I still don't know where the mouse is, so I'm using (aka struggling with) the trackpad on the laptop. 😫 In any…
Hi All The National Space Society reviewed Dad's last work, In the Belly of the Whale. Take a read here , and don't forget you can buy the book anywhere books are sold (including Amazon, B&N, Indigo, etc). It was also reviewed in Locus by Paul DiFilippo as a TOF Spot reader graciously informed me. Check it out here . DiFilippo refers to the large cast of characters that Dad created and it reminds…
Dear Readers, Dad's final (? maybe?) work is now available at Amazon, B&N, and many other fine retailers. I compiled a list a few posts back - here it is .
Greetings All. Mike (Dad) has a new story in the July/August edition of Analog . I know Analog is available on Kindle store and Analog themselves also sell digital editions. It may also be available at your local bookseller. Check it out! It's a story called "Mandarins," an idea he and Harry Turtledove were bouncing around some years (decades?) ago between themselves. Their joint work never came…
It's not the rhythm that's going to get you. It's the bots. I've turned comment moderation on for The TOF Spot because it was overrun with spam comments. I just don't have the time or the energy to be on here daily like Dad was (lol or weekly or...) and I guess since the blog isn't really maintained anymore, the bots are just throwing up trash comments on his more popular posts. I've just spent…
Hello Fans of Michael Flynn. I am pleased to let you know that Dad's novel In the Belly of the Whale will be released by CAEZIK on July 16, 2024. It has received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly, which you can read here . Publisher's Weekly calls it "thought-provoking" and "an impressive and original epic." If you're wondering where and how you can get your hands on it, no worries! Several…
Hello family, friends and fans of Michael F. Flynn. It is with sorrow and regret that I inform you that my father passed away yesterday, Sept 30, 2023. He was sleeping peacefully in the home that he loved. His father built the home 70 years ago and my dad had an outsized attachment to it. Many happy memories of his childhood and of his parents, and his brothers, especially Dennis, were contained…
from editor, Cat Rambo, in re In the Belly of the Whale. "I absolutely loved this rollicking, expansive generation-ship world and the voice in which it’s told, a folksy but expansive epic full of wordplay and wonder. So much fun, and such a great cast of characters. While sometimes it felt like an awful lot of characters, they all manage to be distinctive and interesting, with dips in and out of…
Showing/Telling S ince the rise of movies followed by television, the common imagination has shifted from words to images, from logos to ikon . Narration is in disfavor. Show, we are told, don't tell. But we ought to be judicious about it. There are a variety of ways to show things. 1. Use evidence to support your claim. Compare... Betsy was worried. versus Betsy fiddled with the bottles on the…
Teodorq sunna Nagarajan has joined an expedition tasked with evaluating the"serving tray" as a suitable observation post for the Nooby Empire. The bulk of the party consists of a squad of rangers, who ride the borderlands tracking down outlaws, bandits and other malefactors. In this scene, Sharn Nickle is a part-time deputy marshal who drives the chow wagon. He is a settler , whose ancestors had…
TOF's grandfather's grandmother, Ann Elizabeth Lynch , was born in Burlington VT, in Jun 1847. according to said grandfather, "two days after her parents arrived in America." She was , which tThe travel-savvy Reader will understand that Burlington was no two days travel from any seaport in 1847. Yet, the Liber Baptismorum of Rev Jeremiah O Callaghan confirms the date and place. It is likely that…
"Don't bug him about the blog," writes a commentor with the mysterious and ominous name of Unknown, "he's busy WRITING stuff for you." For those who may be wondering what TOF is writing, the following is a some-ary; that is, some of what is in progress. Several of them have appeared intermittently as Opening Passages here in this vast wasteland known as the TOF Spot. The Shipwrecks of Time. Set in…
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE The Journeyman: On the Mangly Steppes by Michael F. Flynn For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. -- Robert Louis Stevenson \ a tall one, warm Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand sat on the patio of the Turf and Peak and enjoyed a schooner of beer. Or he would have enjoyed it had it been chilled rather than warm. “If yer honor wisht it…
The New World by Michaelmf Flynn Đặng Văn Denizci, puhāvam of Golden Wind for Sriwijaya’s Palembang, stood in the bow of the junk and studied the eastern horizon through his farseer, praying to the Buddha that he would raise land before the crew grew more mutinous than it already had. After a long voyage across seas both strange and hazardous, a bit of solid land would not go unappreciated.…
On the Nature of Poetry Had poetry no nature, How would you know You had written one? And yes, the title of today's post is a pun on Cicero's famous epigram, " O tempora , o mores." TOF once heard a member of a writers group explain that she did not wish to be confined by rules, and so her poem fell into no particular pattern, But then how do we know it was a poem rather than some perhaps pithy…
On Groundhog Day, the rodent sees His shadow on the ground then flees Back to his burrow, safe and sound, And so Winter hangs around. (Or is it SHE? Die Deitsche say GrundSAUsdag all on that day.) Hence, the paradox. O'ercast skies Cast no shadows when rodents rise; And so announce the coming spring With all the pleasures rodents bring. Burma Shave!
Recently, TOF happened upon the following list of words to avoid in one's scrivening and thought to share it with his Faithful Reader. The original YouTuber was unbearably chatty and triggers one of TOF's Pet Peeves [ vide infra ], so he will not actually link it here. However, a few comments may be in order. First, at the risk of falling into the Spanish Barber Paradox, TOF will state the First…
What do the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Dodgers, a steel mill, and a chapel of Benedictine nuns have in common? Nothing more or less than the rise of the West from a backwater to a formerly dominant position in the world -- as well as her later decay. There are any number of factors that contributed. For example, the specific shoreline of Western Europe, her broad continental shelf, the…
A perennial issue has come up again elsewhere. Yes, Tofians, another physicist has strayed from the pasture. Sabine Hossenfelder posted a YouTube video a while back which the Algorithm presented to TOF's oculars for sober consideration. In it, Dr Hossenfelder provides her insight as a physicist on the philosophical concept of Free Will. She doesn't buy it. (But then, she was forced to say so by…
... of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the guns in Europe fell silent at last. The United States built a wall inscribed with the names of 58,220 servicemen killed or missing in the nine years' war in Vietnam, more than twice as many as in three days at Gettysburg. The AEF doughboys engaged the Hun from Oct 21, 1917 to Nov 11, 1918 and suffered 116,516 killed or missing, i.e., about twice…
This completed alternate fiction was rejected bt Analog , but since the main characters had their different lives in other Analog yarns, it's hard to see where else it may find a home. The Book Barn in question existed years ago, but eventually went under. Its collection became the Quadrant Used Book store in downtown Easton, PA. The old building in Tatamy, repurposed, still exists. Moonrise at…
This opening os for a fact article, essentially done, but being rewritten, Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Adventures in Mythistory by Michael F. Flynn “We need to share truths with one another, and not just truths about atoms, stars, and molecules, but about human relations and the people around us.” -- William M. MacNeill, “Mythistory” While rightly decrying junk science in his…
This is the beginning of a short story. I know whodunnit and how. I just don't know how Mickey figures it out. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Hunter’s Moon by Michael F Flynn As nearly as anyone could reconstruct matters afterward, it happened like this. Zdravko Sirajov was standing on the peak of Mt. Hadley watching the Meteors…
This is the opening chapter of a novel TOF started writing in a night class he took from John Dunning, lo, these many years ago. It is sorta kinda complete, but it sucks. A few years ago, TOF conceived of rewriting it as a magical fantasy, but with the magic understated. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Uair robo tarisi le macaib Ruaidri a n-airecht fein arna cuired do cech oen fo…