Archive for March 11th, 2011

The sands of time.

Friday, March 11th, 2011

Latest news from Vegas: the Sahara is closing in May.

This is sad news for me personally. I’ll admit the Sahara was kind of run down, but it was one of the cheapest rooms available on the Strip. I preferred it slightly to the Imperial Palace (which seems to me to be even more run down these days); on my last few trips to DEFCON, I’ve stayed at the Sahara. (Being slightly run down doesn’t bother me too much when I’m on the road. All I’m really looking for is a bed, toilet, roof, and a place for my stuff. I don’t spend a lot of time in my room.)

(I wasn’t planning on staying there this time; since the convention is at the Rio this year, I’m more likely to stay there.)

Coverage from the Las Vegas Sun. The Sun’s coverage makes another good point; one of the stations for the Vegas Monorail (which is also in deep trouble) is the Sahara. I’ll be interested in seeing how that plays out.

(Also: are they going to try to keep the NASCAR Cafe open? I never ate there; the advertising always seemed to be more about quantity than quality, which really turned me off.)

Star Song of the Dream Dancers.

Friday, March 11th, 2011

I believe it was one of the early 80s cyberpunk writers (I’m thinking Bruce Sterling, but it could have been Lew Shiner) who suggested that the most generic possible SF book title combined the words “star”, “song”, “dream”, and ‘”dancers”. For example, “Dream Song of the Star Dancers”. Or “Star Dancers of the Dream Song”.

I was strongly reminded of this by a post at the Tor website, outlining the most common words in fantasy and SF titles. Song and dance is apparently out; dragons and war are apparently in. A reflection of the time we live in?

(Hattip: the Scalzinator on the Twitter. His list of demands for Tor if they want him to write <go to the Tor link> actually sounds pretty reasonable to me. I mean, who among us has not wanted all of those things? Well, with one exception in my case, simply because I live in an apartment. But other than that, perfectly reasonable.)