News You Can Bruise for 2002 September 23

"The Great Wine Glut" should be "The Great Wine Gut".

N-shot gag for sci-fi stories: deceptively eponymous devices and phenomena. The "Feynman Drive", named after 21st-century physicist Kelly Feynman; the "Hawking Effect", discovered by three-time Nobel laureate Edward Hawking; etc, etc, etc. How many times would this be funny? My guess: twice, and then three or four more times as a fleeting mention with no explanation of the eponymy.

Eventually I'll come up with enough of these ideas that I can actually write a story. "That's not the way it works," you say. It is when your stories are hastily-put-together houses of idea cards!

That reminds me, the guy from Cardhouse did me a kindness, which I need to discuss at greater length.