August twenty-fourth, two thousand ten

I first heard of Paolo Bacigalupi when the Hugo-nominated podcast, StarShipSofa, broadcast his short story, Pump Six. That was two years ago, but I still remember every beat of that story -- the crumbling buildings, the drug-fueled parties, the disease, and the decay. I was horrified by the vision of the future presented in Pump Six, and by how plausible it sounded. I grew up reading tales of nuclear apocalypse. When I read Mr. Bacigalupi's Hugo-nominated novel, The Windup Girl, I was surprised to find a vision of the end of the world that was no less terrifying than those radioactive futures, but felt far more real. The Windup Girl is an thought-provoking work of science fiction. I wouldn't be surprised to see this one take the Hugo. For an in-depth review with spoilers, download the episode! The fourth volume of Fumi Yoshinaga's award-winning manga, Ooku: The Inner Chambers, has been released in the United States. In local news, the Kansas City Worldcon Committee has announced their intention to bid for WorldCon 2016. The convention would be held in downtown Kansas City, near the Power and Light entertainment district. You can support the Kansas City bid on Facebook, LiveJournal, and Twitter by friending or following KCin2016. The official announcement will be made at Worldcon 2012 in Chicago. Meanwhile, Kansas City will be licking all the cookies. In Science news, tonight is the full moon. I've heard people blame all sorts of things on the full moon. They usually start around the third quarter and sometimes keep going right through the next new moon. Depending on your definition, the full moon can last anywhere from one night to three nights. Either way, blaming the full moon for disasters throughout the month is simply unfair. Multiple scientific studies have failed to show any significant effect of the full moon on human misfortune. A good summary of the data can be found in The Hundreth Monkey and other Paradigms of the Paranormal by Kendrick Frazier. On the next Voice of the Vortex, I will be discussing the Hugo award winners! I can't wait. I still have my heart set on Spar -- But more about that next time. The Voice of the Vortex is produced under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share-alike 3.0 license. To comment on this episode, drop an e-mail to voiceofthevortex at gmail dot com.