Flying Cars and Food Pills - My Website

[enipla]

That’s just wonderful. I’ll be buying it.

[LSLGuy]

Me too. Best of luck.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Thanks, I’ll try to make it live up to expectations.

In the meantime I’m doing the basic research to pull things together that no one has ever touched. I’m compiling a database of every robot story from Golden Age SF days, from Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories to its end in the 60s when the New Wave took over. If you think Asimov invented the robot story, you shouldn’t. I’ve listed almost 250 stories, with dozens earlier than “Strange Playfellow.” Of course, now I have to read them all. I’ve got about 85% thanks to that wonderful new invention called the Internet. Most of Gernsback’s magazines are available at the Internet Archive.

I’m not sure yet whether I’ll publish that in the book itself, but if not it’ll eventually go up on my site.

[rbroome]

Great site!
looks like fun

[WordMan]

@Exapno_Mapcase

A big announcement. I’ve always intended that my website was intended to spawn books. I’ve just signed a contract with the popular culture academic publisher McFarland to write a book tentative titled From Automata to R2D2: The Robot in Popular Culture. It will be the first book on the entire history of robots, to my amazement. I’ve be covering all of popular media, from pulps and newspapers to comic books and strips, movies and television, classic SF, robot toys, popular science magazines, and anything else I can find. Take a look at the Robot tab on the site for samples of what you’ll see, though of course everything will be written over from scratch for the book.

Signing the contract is the first in a very long series of steps, obviously. I’ll be spending all next year writing with the delivery date in early 2018. Therefore the book won’t appear until late 2018 or even 2019 depending on McFarland’s publishing schedule. It’ll probably wind up having a different title, but I’ll let you know of any changes.

I’m hoping I’ll still find time to add to my website. Not on robots, though. I’ve got to save every scrap for the book. Next thing you’ll see is a report on the famous yet almost unread The Case of the Little Green Men, a classic by Mack Reynolds, set at a 1951 sf convention. Yet it’s a straight mystery, not sf. I’m pairing it with a 1951 Life magazine article on fandom. Oh, the innocence!

Hey, that’s wonderful news! Congratulations and keep us posted!

[kayaker]

Cool. Bookmarked and shared.

[iiandyiiii]

Very cool! Good luck!

[RealityChuck]

Great news!