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DEREK AUSTIN JOHNSON
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Covid Waters

6/23/2020

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Roger Waters, in collaboration with other musical artists in lockdown. offers two fantastic renditions of Pink Floyd's most haunting songs from The Final Cut and The Wall.

Enjoy.

"Two Suns in the Sunset."
"Mother."
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Foundations

6/23/2020

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Apparently Apple TV+ is adapting Isaac Asimov’s landmark Foundation Trilogy.
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I never considered myself an Asimov fan. I still don’t. I respected his fiction, but even the books I enjoyed (The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun) read as bloodless and uninvolving, like diagrams of stories rather than stories themselves. Characters were stiff and unconvincing. His Foundation Trilogy spanned an entire galaxy yet remained painfully provincial, lacking even the basic worldbuilding successors like Larry Niven took as a given. 
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It didn’t help that, by the time I became a teenager, I received monthly sense-of-wonder infusions from my Omni subscription, making any reading of Asimov (or Heinlein or most of the big writers from the pulp era, though I had a soft spot for Clarke) seem quaint and, worse, insular, separated from me not only by a few decades but also by the little frame of reference allowing me almost no footing. Given the choice between Asimov’s The Gods Themselves, Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, or a stories like Gibson’s “Burning Chrome,” Sterling’s “Sunken Gardens,” and Cadigan’s “Roadside Rescue,” what do you think a teenager weaned on Star Trek, Blade Runner, and Repo Man would choose? 
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That said, the trailer for this looks impressive, and may breathe life into what always seemed a workmanlike effort. Here’s hoping it joins the ranks of The Expanse and Picard.
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Update

6/1/2020

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Several months ago, I sold a few stories to an editor. After signing, I began hearing rumors about some of the editor’s views, none of which I share. At the time I had little concern, because my working relationship with them was strictly professional.

I want it clear that most of my friends know my politics, and I’ve no major qualms with those whose world views don’t quite align with mine. Courtesy, decency, dignity, and compassion have to be on display, but otherwise, I require no loyalty oaths.
Views of this particular person came to light, and I realized that I cannot work with them anymore. I won’t name names; the genre writing community already knows who they are, and a quick look at my published work will allow others to guess with relative ease.
​
I’m aware all this sounds incredibly diplomatic. It may be too much so for some. I don’t enjoy gossip, nor do I enjoy bringing such matters to light. Others may do as they wish. However, for myself, I don’t think I can stand by and allow myself to be associated with this particular person or press anymore. I will not be sending them fiction from this point forward.
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    Derek Austin Johnson has lived most of his life in the Lone Star State. His work has appeared in The Horror Zine, Rayguns Over Texas!, Horror U.S.A.: Texas, Campfire Macabre, The Dread Machine, and Generation X-ed.

    He lives in Central Texas. 

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