If I had a top ten list of things not to do if I woke up with a bad idea, I think seeding the ocean to enhance phytoplankton growth would have to be near the top.

A group of researchers, acting on a hypothesis developed by an oceanographer named John Martin, have decided to unilaterally move forward with their plan to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by ’seeding’ iron into the ocean near the Galapagos, Tahiti, the coast of South America, and the South Pacific.

I have to say I applaud the ‘thinking outside the box’ mentality, but what if it works? What if it works so well and the phytoplankton grows so much it begins to choke out other ocean life. It reminds me of the folk song about an old woman that swallowed a fly. She swallowed a spider to get the fly, a bird to get the spider, a cat to get the bird, a dog to get the cat, well you can see where this is going.

Maybe, before we go off half-cocked trying to fix global warming, we should all just sit back and take a breath.

The Arthur C Clarke Award will be presented today in London.  If you don’t know much about the Arthur C Clarke Award jump over to wikipedia and read until your eyeballs fall out.  For the rest of us, Torque Control has assembled a list of reviews for all of the books on the short list as well as some additional information links you might find interesting.  One of the commenter’s indicates that she will attempt to blog the winner live, technology permitting, at her blog Instant Fanzine.

I try to read all nominee’s from the awards lists.  I recently read Inclination by William Shunn, a novella that appears on both the Hugo and Nebula lists.

Inclination is a powerful story about a young man realizing that the religion of his father and the story of his mother’s death may not be all it appears to be on the surface.

Although the characters are interesting, the story does a better job with the scenery.  I felt like I was on board Neatherview Station.  Interacting with the population and able to get information at will by simply talking to Geoff in a nearby Geoff-room.  Geoff is the station information AI.

The novella category this year has a number fantastic stories but this one is tied in my mind for first place.  Maybe I will tell you which one it’s tied with sometime.

By-the-way, according to a Sci Fi Wire article, William Shunn is in the process of expanding this novella into a full length novel.  I can’t wait.

If you never heard of short format fiction, it might surprise you that it could be the next big publishing format. Filling the void up to a short story, short format fiction may just be the cure for the dwindling attention span.

I find writing an entire story in 500 - 1000 words is a challenging exercise. If you think it is easy, just give it a try. Every word must count. Complex plots and lavish character development must be condensed to a degree that, while still imparting the same story, is short and concise.

If you are a big SF fan, as I am, then your in luck. Get a new story each and every day at a site called 365 Tomorrows. A new story is published every day by one of the writing staff, a featured writer, or a submission. I can’t say that they are all fantastic, but I can say that they hit the mark more often than not. Reading one of these stories is a good way to start your day and you can accomplish the task in 20 minutes or less.