SF Universe

Category: General

  • The Blogging Life – My Experiences With WordPress, Part Two

    In Part One, I recounted the rise and demise of my first blog, SFreaders.com, between 2007 and 2009. I made the first post to that blog on May 3rd, 2007, and the final post on October 29th, 2007, so I was actually only posting for a few days short of six months. The blog itself…

  • The Blogging Life – My Experiences With WordPress, Part One

    I was rooting through the archives the other night, looking at stuff I have squirrelled away in old folders on my hard drive, and I came upon some long-forgotten, but very interesting bits \’n\’ bobs. One folder in particular stood out, a big one, with multiple sub-folders, containing all the back-up material that I\’d saved…

  • EMPIRE by H. Beam Piper

    TITLE: EMPIREAUTHOR: H. Beam PiperCATEGORY: Short FictionSUB-CATEGORY: CollectionFORMAT: PaperbackPUBLISHER: Ace Books, New York, 1981 (ISBN: 0-441-20557-7-250) CONTENTS: Terro-Human Future History Chronology Introduction, by John F. Carr The Edge of the Knife A Slave is a Slave Ministry of Disturbance The Return (with John J. McGuire) The Keeper Last time out, I featured FEDERATION, the first…

  • CLASSIC TUNES: \”Tighten Up\” by Archie Bell & the Drells

    I\’ve been sitting back on a quiet Saturday evening, chillin\’ out and listening to some good music. Playing right now, all the way from 1968, it\’s one of the great funk classics, \”Tighten Up\”, by another of my favourite groups, Archie Bell & the Drells. This is one of the early true funk masterpieces, with…

  • CLASSIC TUNES: \”Tighten Up\” by Archie Bell & the Drells

    I\’ve been sitting back on a quiet Saturday evening, chillin\’ out and listening to some good music. Playing right now, all the way from 1968, it\’s one of the great funk classics, \”Tighten Up\”, by another of my favourite groups, Archie Bell & the Drells. This is one of the early true funk masterpieces, with…

  • Classic Tunes: \”Separate Ways\” by Journey

    I\’m sitting back at the moment, relaxing, and listening to one of the greatest arena rock albums of all time, the classic 1983 six-times platinum masterpiece, FRONTIERS, by US band Journey, which came out on the Columbia Records label. This is one of my all-time favourite rock albums, and is, in my opinion, Journey\’s strongest…

  • FEDERATION by H. Beam Piper

    TITLE: FEDERATIONAUTHOR: H. Beam PiperCATEGORY: Short FictionSUB-CATEGORY: CollectionFORMAT: PaperbackPUBLISHER: Ace Books, New York, 1981, ISBN: 0-441-23189-6-295) Contents: Preface, by Jerry Pournelle Introduction, by John F. Carr Omnilingual Naudsonce Oomphel in the Sky Graveyard of Dreams When in the Course- The book starts with the brief Preface by Jerry Pournelle, a short but fitting tribute to…

  • Classic Tunes: \”Disorder\” by Joy Division

    I\’m sitting here on New Year\’s Eve, with barely ten minutes to go before 2014 is upon us, listening to some excellent music. At the moment, it\’s Joy Division\’s classic post-punk anthem 1979 debut album, Unknown Pleasures, released on the fledgling Factory Records indie label. Playing right now is the first track, and one of…

  • VOYAGERS IN TIME edited by Robert Silverberg

    In my last post I commented that I\’d recently bought a couple of nice old SF anthologies from Amazon UK. I made a few comments about one of the anthologies, TRIPS IN TIME and gave a contents listing for it. Here\’s the same routine for the other anthology, which was published ten years earlier, but…

  • Classic Tunes: \”Damaged Goods\” by Gang of Four

    I\’m listening to this one right now on a various artists double-CD compilation of indie music, FEAR OF MUSIC. Damaged Goods is one of my absolute favourite Gang of Four tracks, from their first classic 1979 album ENTERTAINMENT, although it had actually appeared previously as the A-side of their legendary first single, the 1978 Damaged…