Interviews with Gibson and Vinge

Poor Bill Gibson – the publicity wagon for his current novel Spook Country is still rolling, and he’s probably sick to death of public appearances and interviews, itching to get back to researching his next book. Still, lucky for us – here’s another interview with Gibson by Rick ‘Agony Column’ Kleffel, in audio form for your mobile media player pleasure.

Meanwhile, Vernor Vinge has been chatting to French science fiction site ActuSF (don’t worry, text in English) about his recent (and highly recommended) novel Rainbows End. [Both links via BoingBoing]

Life on other planets

Nothing divides space geeks like the question of extraterrestrial life. SETI boffin Seth Shostak is an avowed believer, even though he concedes there’s no compelling evidence to support the assertion so far. George Dvorsky is very interested in the Fermi Paradox, too, but much more willing to pick holes in accepted philosophy.

We’re still looking, of course – but we could do with more telescopes in space to help us locate and image exoplanets, and we’re still not entirely certain of how the universe itself came to be.