That’s using a slippery-slope fallacy—where did I say my only consideration when voting was gender? Oh, that’s right, I didn’t.

Mostly because their voting records aren’t that different. Bernie is to the left of Hillary—except on gun control and he’s pretty appalling there—but Hillary’s record is nearly identical to Ted Kennedy’s and Ron Wyden’s.

But then, Bernie’s way to the left of the general population—he’ll be creamed if he makes it to the…

Hillary and Bernie voted the same way 93 percent of the time. Bernie sucks as far as gun control and working with others, so not the fan of Bernie that others are.

Depends on how long you think your life will be. I’ve been waiting a long time for a female president. I’ve been waiting a long time for pay equity.

Or let me put it this way—women’s suffrage was bumped from the 14th Amendment because abolitionists were afraid it wouldn’t pass. It then took another 60 years before the…

They’re all good—well, except maybe Survivor, but you won’t be able to find that one anyway. Butler didn’t like it and so it’s stayed out-of-print. The Xenogenesis/Lilith’s Brood trilogy is brilliant, but depressing. The Patternist series is less cohesive (there’s a shared universe, but most of the books are direct…

Looks like no, on the other hand, if he left half to Iman, she’ll presumably leave her estate to her daughters.

Balinese religious practices are actually a mix of Hinduism and Buddhism—a little like how the Japanese combine Shintoism and Buddhism. In both places, the Buddhism tends to kick in when dealing with death.

Yep, Speech Sounds. Lovely story in how it creates a particular type of dystopia and how the people do and don’t cope with what’s happened.

Did your friend find *Survivor*—I have a copy and found out years later that it had become an expensive rarity because it’s out of print—in part because Butler didn’t like it.. Butler was harder on her work than the rest of us. (It’s really not that bad, Octavia.)

Did Butler leave notes for Parable of the Trickster? I…

Funny how she thought she wasn’t really a short-story writer—hers are some of my favorites ever. Blood Child, of course, but also Morning, Noon and Night (okay, I know I don’t have that title right.) I love the little details of that one—how the heroine and the woman doctor don’t like one another—with most writers,…

io9 is great as a gathering place for talking about SF. I’ve picked up a lot of book ideas from Charlie Jane and co. over the years, but Butler I stumbled across years ago—first book I read was Wild Seed. I think she was a bit of writer’s writer when she was alive—someone other writers read and thought “Oh wow,”…

Excellent idea—I’ll do an Octavia Butler celebration of some sort—think of appropriate foods.

I think part of the sadness is that there’s no one like her—she was so intelligent and she had such a distinct POV. She had a way of cutting through people’s delusions of heroism and grandeur without doing the gotcha! thing that happens with some of the SJWs. I still find Kindred one of the most astute and…

Wow, 10 years. Well, I guess it’s time to read the two Parable books—I’d held off reading them because once I read them I’ll have no more Octavia Butlers left to anticipate. I think I may have read all of her stories, but maybe there are a couple of ones lurking around that didn’t make it into anthologies.

Darin Morgan script? I’m there.

Oh, I don’t think Martin’s problem is a lack of creativity. If anything, I think it’s the opposite—he has so many ideas and the world he’s built up is so complex that he keeps going off in different directions, backs up and then does it over again. If you look at that very early synopsis he sent his publisher/agent…

I’m not actually that surprised by this—my parents are from the Northwest and once you get out of the major cities even now, you run into some pretty serious redneck areas. It’s not an accident that you run into serious racism in nearby states like Idaho.

I have not, I’ll check it out. Thanks.

True dat. Martin writes long, but things happen. None of his books have felt like slogs—Crossroads of Twilight, on the other hand . . . that was when I decided I hated Elayne and anything to do with Andor because it just dragged and dragged and dragged.

Well . . . on the bright side, it sounds like he’s written enough to have written himself into a hole of some sort and he still cares enough to want the books to be good instead of just done.