The Fredösphere

It's a Friday grab bag:

* Some blogger has identified a curious sub-genre of sci-fi:

stories in which human (or post-human) civilization has spread across the solar system, but in which the Earth is somehow unavailable—devastated, off-limits, or ignored.  There's no name that I know of for this genre, but I privately think of it as "Earthless circumsolar civilization fiction".

He's got summaries of some compelling stories:  The Eight Worlds Series (aliens take over Earth and Jupiter), Shaper/Mechanist Series (post-humans have outgrown Earth), Vacuum Flowers (Earth is taken over by a hive mind), Bloom (a space-born nano/viral goo kills all life on Earth) and Cowboy Bebop (an industrial accident blows up the moon, subjecting the Earth to a continuing shower of giant meteors).  Ooooh, sounds like melancholy stuff -- Alas, Babylon, and all that.

*The Well-Tempered Blog found robot music instrument that play themselves (don't miss the Emergency Bot TV Theme) and a few other cool things (the Avant-Garde Grandpa's Tribute to Beethoven is also required listening).

*On an Overgrown Path asks a question.  Here's the answer:  it's not so bad, if you can leave it alone and avoid picking the scab off of it.  (But see the comments for opinions that are more positive.)

*Yes, Don, that is the worst song ever.

*David Salvage found a bizarre story of a young pianists struggle to perform at Carnegie Hall -- where "struggle" in this case means wrestling on-stage with 62-year-old female piano teacher.  See the comments at this post if you want to taste the full range of reactionary reactions.