The illustrated man

Do you remember the SF story, by Ray Bradbury?

Space Station

How beautiful!   What an amazing photo!

This is the last voyage of the space shuttle to the International space station.  NASA is hoping private-sector shuttles will prove much cheaper than these old ones.

I've been a space junkie since I started reading SF, long, long ago.  One day ....

Meanwhile, the photo makes me realise once again that this is one world.  We share it.

P.S.  If you click on the image you can see it full sized.  It's seriously impressive.

Melissa Scott

Melissa Scott writes "alternative sexuality" SF/fantasy. I did a long piece on her Silence trilogy (as well as on 3 other novels by other authors) for my column 'Quickies' in Wilde Oats. Quickies is supposed to be short reviews of gay-shaded novels and films, but sometimes I find they get a bit longer! Anyway, the whole 'Quickies' column is here.


I've included the cover pics for these three novels. Aren't they gloriously old-fashioned? I think I rather prefer them to the modern SF covers.

Aside from being great yarns (like all SF and fantasy should be) they're interesting because Silence has a multiple marriage, to the two men pictured on the cover of Five-Twelfths of Heaven. MS doesn't go into details about how they sleep together, but before the guys met her, it was just the two of them. Fascinating. How would it work out?

I have my own speculations, based on the relationships of some ppl I know, which I discuss in Footy, and which I take for granted in the Tapestry of Life series.

And this series was published over 30 years ago, by a mainstream SF publisher, Baen!