I've been doing foresight work for about ten years now, as a side activity with strange hooks and connections into my science fiction writing. It was always evident to me that there was a lot more to it than the wild-eyed prophets and professional futurists like Alvin Toffler made evident; so, when an opportunity to gain a degree in it came up, I jumped at it.

--Actually, it's not that simple.  In early 2009 I was recovering from heart surgery and really, badly needed something to make me enthusiastic about getting out of bed in the morning, because just getting out of bed was really physically difficult.  Undertaking the degree gave me something to shoot for, and helped get me over the difficult convalescence period.  It was also, well, just a hell of a lot of fun.

Now I'm done, and I'm pretty bummed about it, because over the course of the programme I got to know a lot of really amazing people, some my classmates, some my instructors, and some consultants and business people who came in to mentor us. I was part of the first cohort in the foresight programme at OCAD, and we became a pretty tightly-knit group.  I'll be sad not to be seeing everybody on a weekly basis, though I hope to keep up my contacts with as many of my classmates and instructors as possible.

So, now what?  Oh, who knows!  It's not like recruiters are going from town to town snapping up recent Futurism graduates.  This was always going to be a profession where we defined our own path.  But that's half the fun of it, especially for someone like myself who's used to being adventurous in my career choices.

...All of which means, that hey, if you happen to hear about any futurist jobs opening up in your neighbourhood, well, drop me a line, eh?  I could sure use the work.

The August, 2011 issue of Scientific American has an article by George F.R. Ellis about whether we can prove that a multiverse exists.  I did a double-take when I saw this, because it reminded me that back in 2003, SciAm had published an article by Max Tegmark claiming that it does exist.  At the time I wrote this blog entry pointing out that Tegmark's article wasn't based on science at all, but was pure speculation.  Nice to see somebody agrees with me.

About ten years ago, David Nickle and I collaborated on a comic adventure entitled The Claus Effect.  This was a first novel for both of us, and it did very well.  But, you know, you expect that over time these things fade.  So imagine my surprise and delight when David told me the other day that there's a considerable stack of Claus Effects available in downtown Toronto--specifically at the modestly-named World's Biggest Bookstore just north of the Eaton Centre.  This is both excellent news and fantastic timing, since TCE is, after all, a Santa Claus story--albeit a Santa Claus who's psychotic and bent on world destruction.  David and I had tons of fun writing this little epic, and now's your chance to read it in all its cynical glory.

Sometimes, books last.  Ten years on the shelves is pretty good.

I'll be GOH at Minicon, Minnesota's longest-running science fiction convention, over Easter weekend, 2009.  Past GOH's include luminaries such as Gordon R. Dickson, Poul Anderson, Theodore Sturgeon, Larry Niven and Jack Vance.  I'm honored to be in their company!

Minicon is an annual gathering of science fiction and fantasy fans sponsored by the Minnesota Science Fiction Society (Minn-StF). The convention is held each year in or near Minneapolis, Minnesota over Easter weekend.  The convention has been running annually (and sometimes twice a year!) since 1968.

Hope to see you there!

Britain's Sci Fi UK website has a smashing review of Pirate Sun.  It's worth quoting at length:

This series by Schroeder succeeds remarkably on two distinct levels. Actually, three levels if you count the hybrid fusion of its two modes as a separate success itself.

On the one hand, the series exemplifies all the many wonders inherent in the Big Dumb Object-or "extremely alien environment"-mode of SF. ...Schroeder has conjured up a mind-croggling "steel beach" to add to the genre's rich roster of such places, worked out its mechanics and cultures with masterful ingenuity, and then figured out what kind of adventure such a place would best support...

But on top of this, he has found a way to legitimately recreate the melodramatic thrills found most prominently in the literature from what editor and critic David Pringle calls "the Age of the Storytellers." The exploits of Chaison and Venera, and the gleeful yet bloody-minded pellmell tone and pace of the telling, hark back to Robert Louis Stevenson, Alexander Dumas and, of course, Edgar Rice Burroughs.

I just got the July, 2008 issue of Locus magazine, and lo and behold the results of the Locus Poll are out.  Queen of Candesce got an extremely respectable 830 points worth of votes, which places me in the company of authors like Ian McDonald, Charlie Stross, and Bob Wilson as one of their readers' favourite authors of 2007.  

I knew the magazine's reviewers liked that novel--and truth to tell, I've always gotten a great critical reception for my work.  But it's hard sometimes to judge how the readers--people who aren't in the book industry in one way or another--feel about my stuff.  This is a great boost.  To all of you who voted for me... thanks!

And, oh yes, there's only four weeks until Pirate Sun comes out!  So there's much more to come.