Sci-fi author Annalee Newitz has written about the exciting summer field trip she took with 20 other sci-fi writers to visit NORAD, the notorious nuclear bunker and military command center buried deep within Colorado’s Cheyenne Mountain. Lots of great photos and details at her article in the SF ezine I09, and if you look and read carefully, you’ll see an Alaska author was part of the gang: our own David Marusek.
Marusek and others were in Colorado attending Launchpad, a NASA-funded workshop for sci-fi writers, about which he writes briefly in this post on his own blog.
Sci-fi writers converge on Colorado in August to attend the World Sci Fi Convention where Hugo award winners are named.
I’m not well-
versed in the sci-fi world but I recognized the top Hugo winner immediately and what do you know, it’s a favorite novel of mine, set in Alaska: Michael Chabon’s THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN’S UNION, an alternate history involving the post-World War II settlement of Jewish refugees in the imagined “Federal District of Sitka.” Unless you’ve read it, it’s hard to believe all that Chabon packs into the story: noir mystery, Yiddish culture and lingo, a half-Tlingit cop named Berko Shemets.
versed in the sci-fi world but I recognized the top Hugo winner immediately and what do you know, it’s a favorite novel of mine, set in Alaska: Michael Chabon’s THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN’S UNION, an alternate history involving the post-World War II settlement of Jewish refugees in the imagined “Federal District of Sitka.” Unless you’ve read it, it’s hard to believe all that Chabon packs into the story: noir mystery, Yiddish culture and lingo, a half-Tlingit cop named Berko Shemets.Chabon visited Anchorage when the book was first released and gave two great talks, including one arranged by our own Lubavitcher Rabbi Yosef Greenberg.
Sci-fi writers, visiting Pulitzer (and Hugo) winners, bagels and books — Alaska is a bit more diverse than people may realize. I love this place.
That’s really cool that he came to Anchorage. I didn’t know that! How exciting!