Links Fear Death

Ahhh, back from vacation with my husband's family. I hit all the highlights in only two full days in Florida: beach walking, swimming in bath warm water, kayaking, watching the sunset, catching up with family, and drinking a stupidly fruity rum drink. I also got some reading and writing in--specifically I've now got all the Hugo nominated novels under my belt, and can focus on the short fiction and related book categories from here on out.

A few links from around the Net:

• Abigail Nussbaum continues a discussion about fantastic literature in Hebrew via a review of the essay collection With Both Feet in the Clouds. A very interesting take on culture, living in multiple cultures and multiple languages, and the impact of history.
• This one I just tripped over randomly: InnoCentive. Its mission statement is: "InnoCentive harnesses collective brainpower around the world to solve problems that really matter." It appears to be some sort of crowdsourcing effort for trying to solve larger engineering problems. It seems a bit sfnal and possibly utopian, but maybe there's some promise there. One of their efforts is asking for suggestions on helping with the Oil Spill--we'll see if anything comes of it. (I saw the Oil Spill from the airplane on the way home from Florida; very sobering.)
• Futurismic is also appealing to the Hive Mind in asking: Can You Help Free Webzines Make eBook Versions?
  
• Over at Of Blog the Fallen, Larry reviews a new Zoran Živković book that sounds fascinating. Titled The Ghostwriter, it should be available in 2011, at least in the UK. Definitely looking forward to it!
• Just for fun: a behind-the-scenes video clip [via SFSignal] about the fencing scenes in The Princess Bride, one of the most influential movies of my young life. I'd always assumed that the amazing sword fights were done with stunt doubles. I'm even more impressed to learn that it's all the actual actors doing the choreography. Cool!