Whatever

The Bradford Pear trees in the front yard are always the last to change color in the fall, which means occasionally I get pictures like this, when all the other trees are bare, there’s frost on the ground and the Pears are saying “hey, fall’s not over yet.” No, it’s not. It’s nice to be reminded, and I’m enjoying it while I can.

Avatar is going to cost about a half billion dollars when production and merchandising is tallied up, which is a huge amount of money. Will the film ever make that money back? At the AMC column this week, I tell you why it (probably) will. If you think I am a mad fool for saying so, let me know in the comments. I thank you in advance for your derision.

So, here you go:

Favorite track off the album, and it’s a good album.

Yes, I know, I haven’t been around today. Some days are busier than others.

That said, good news for those of you who pre-ordered The God Engines: It’s at the printer now, which means it will very likely be shipping in the near future (i.e., more then enough time for the holidays).

Also, another review of TGE, from the Fantasy Literature site. Again, some spoilers in the review, but here’s a relevant pull quote:

The God Engines is every bit as good, if not better, as advertised… It is a hauntingly powerful and provocative tale that will have John Scalzi fans, fantasy lovers, and newcomers alike talking.

Well, then. The full review is here (scroll down a bit), and remember that the review does let spill some things I’d keep for you to find out on your own as you read. It’s not the reviewer’s fault; the spoilery bits are hard not to talk about.

Which is: Thank you.

(Picture above taken from this photo essay on two years in the life of a soldier.)

The DVD player hooked up to the downstairs TV has begun to fail, which was not wholly unexpected, as we bought it for, like, $40 three years ago, so I decided today was a good day to trade up and get myself a Blu-Ray player. I wanted one that in addition to playing Blu-Rays would also stream stuff off a media server and also the Internets (we have a Netflix account which allows for streaming videos), and when you add up all those wants it turns out that the PlayStation 3 is actually not a bad choice as a Blu-Ray player, so I went ahead and got one.

What I don’t actually plan to do is spend a whole lot of time playing games with the thing. My preferred type of video game is the first person shooter, and playing one of those on a console controller is like driving while a gremlin sits on your head and scratches off your corneas. Yes, I know a lot of you play them that way. You are all WRONG. That said, it’s nice that the PS3 also has game options, and I won’t say I’ll never use the machine in that capacity. It’s just not why I bought it. I got it for movies, pretty much end of story. I don’t think Sony minds.

For those of you who hankered after a printed edition of METAtropolis but didn’t get to the limited edition put out by Subterranean Press before it sold out, good news: I’ve just signed the contracts for a new, non-limited edition of the anthology, which will come out through the good graces of Tor Books. Right now the scheduled (but tentative) street date is mid-2010, which is not nearly as far away as you might think.

Naturally I am hugely thrilled about this; between this, the Hugo nomination (only the second one for an anthology, ever) and its successful audio and limited runs, this has been the Little Anthology That Could, for which all credit goes to my fabulous collaborators and co-conspirators Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake and Karl Schroeder. I was lucky enough to sort of nudge myself next to them and bask in their awesome.

I’ll post more details when I get them, including a more specific date of release. And until then, remember that the audio version is still out there for the listening. And for those who play their audio books old school, there’s now a CD version of it as well, in both conventional audio and MP3 CD flavors.

You can’t accuse Scott Westerfeld of not thinking big. When he put together his latest trilogy, of which his terrific new novel Leviathan is the first installment, he not only reordered history by providing an alternate version of World War I, but also also fiddled with biology, technology and indeed the whole general run of scientific advancement from the 19th century forward into the 20th, by positing the existence of both vast, clanking machines of war and amazing new genetically-designed creatures, also used for (you got it!) war.

And to top it all off — and this is something Westerfeld’s particularly proud of — he decided to reimagine the way people read novels here in the 21st century. You know, just for kicks.

How did he did this? Well, in this Big Idea, not only will Westerfeld tell you, he will show you.

SCOTT WESTERFELD:

A picture is worth a thousand words, so let’s start with this:

Okay. It’s night, and moonlight streams through the camouflage netting, suggesting hiding and sneaking. (And, cheating a bit, the caption says “Stealing Away.”) The spiked helmets tell us that it’s World War I. A pair of Iron Crosses suggest Germany, but then we spot a tiny Hapsburg crest, so it’s Austria-Hungary. A young boy is pulling on his glove, preparing to drive the HOLY CRAP IT’S A WALKING TANK.

That is, in a nutshell, what I’ve come to love about illustration: in one glance you can mix storytelling with world-building, the familiar with the outlandish, and the fastidiously accurate with the Just Plain Historically Wrong. Unlike linear text, images dump all their information all at once, letting the viewer “read” the result in whatever order their brain sees fit.

My new book, Leviathan, has about fifty of these visual info-dumps, all masterfully executed by Keith Thompson. Mind you, I didn’t start writing the trilogy with illustrations in mind, but about sixty pages in, I had a Big Idea.

In ye olden days—let’s say 1914, when Leviathan is set—most novels were published with pictures. Whether you were reading Charles Dickens, Jane Austin, or H.G. Wells, you expected to find a half-dozen plates among the pages. And these images had great power in shaping an author’s work. For example, Sherlock Holmes’ deerstalker cap does not appear in Arthur Conan Doyle’s text, only in Sidney Paget’s drawings, and yet it’s part of our iconic image of the character.

Why these pictures disappeared is open to debate. It may have been the explosion of cheap paperbacks, or the collapse of the illustration industry after newspapers, advertising, and mail-order catalogs started using photographs. It may have been changes in literacy rates, or the advent of film or comics as mass media. But for whatever reason, novels for adults gradually became illustration-free over the middle of the last century. Novels for teenagers followed suit soon thereafter.

(Dear pickers of nits: I am aware that graphic novels exist. But I’m talking about prose novels with illustrations, which are a different form altogether.)

The Leviathan trilogy is set in an alternate history with alternate technologies, so I thought to myself, what if novels hadn’t lost their images? What if, instead of shrinking to zero, the number of illustrations in the average book had increased to, say, fifty?

In the world of Leviathan, technology has split into two tribes: the Germanic Clankers, who are machine lovers, and the British-led Darwinists, who weave the life-threads of natural creatures into fabricated beasts. (To put it simply, in this world, Origins of Species was an instruction manual.) So I needed someone who could draw both fantastical machines and strange creatures. Keith Thompson fit that bill perfectly. He’s been a conceptual artist for films and video games (like Iron Grip and Borderlands), so creating new worlds has been his job for a long time. But what sort of new world?

Leviathan is often described as a steampunk series, and fair enough (walking tanks!). But it hews closer to alternate history than most steampunk, with the son of the Archduke Ferdinand a character, and the timeline for the early war matching our own history closely. But in a way, the most “alternate” thing about it for me was simply writing an illustrated novel.

For one thing, I had to become an art director. (To maintain creative control, I agreed to pay Keith with my own money rather than the publisher’s. This is not the usual way with an illustrated book.) This new role meant knowing all sorts of details that a prose novelist could ignore. Sure, before writing this series, I would often claim to have imagined every scene down to the last detail. But that was all lies! Turns out, I didn’t really know what kind of wallpaper was in this room, or what sort of boots that character had on at that moment.

And it’s not just the details; there are also big-picture issues to contend with. In Leviathan, the Great War is not simply between two treaty-groups of countries, or two ideologies; it’s between two technologies. So to represent them, Keith had to create two opposing aesthetics. As you can see from the Stormwalker above, Clanker design has that clunky futurist, WWI-tank look. The Darwinists are more organic and art nouveau. Take a peek at Captain’s Hobbes’ cabin, where a nautilus motif appears in the mirror frame, the fabricated-wood desk, and his cufflinks and hat. (All of that Keith’s idea.)

Every image has to help build the world, or it’s a wasted thousand words.

On top of all this art direction, illustrated books require a different pace of storytelling. The series I’m best known for, Uglies, has more hoverboard chases than slow conversational scenes. But with an image gracing every chapter, stuff really has to happen in Leviathan. And not only is action important, but my characters have to arrive at new and wondrous settings to keep the backgrounds fresh. (It’s just lucky they have an airship.)

And finally, there’s the technical side of illustration: the aspect ratio of the trim size effects every composition; there are contrast issues (can’t write too many scenes at night); and even the type of paper becomes important! Luckily, I had a very indulgent publisher who gave me seventy-pound paper (only thirty pounds short of cookbook weight) and an amazing design team. They budgeted for color end-papers, which allowed Keith an amazing allegorical map of Europe. The result is a beautiful book, and one heavy enough to stun a lupine tigeresque.

So let yourself imagine if technology really had taken a different turn, and no one had invented photography, or if cheap paperbacks, or comics, or whatever it was that killed illustrated novels had never appeared. All of us writers would be facing a different set of challenges every day, and making novels would be far more research-intensive and collaborative than it is today. Imagine how a cultural imperative of fifty pictures per book might have changed the works of Charlie Stross, Octavia Butler, Salman Rushdie, or Angela Carter.

Now that would be an alternate world worth visiting.

—-

Leviathan: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Powell’s

Visit the Leviathan page, which includes links to an excerpt, the audio version of the first chapter, read by Alan Cumming, and other goodies. Follow Scott Westerfeld on Twitter. See a gallery of Leviathan illustrator Keith Thompson’s work.

An e-mail:

You talk about money and writing a lot, so let me ask you: What is it with writers and money? Lots of them seem to be in financial hot water these days.

Hmmmm. Well, let’s start by pointing out two rather salient points (note this discussion is primarily US-centric, but may have application elsewhere):

1. Things are tough all over. “These days” includes a profound recession, for which employment is a lagging factor, so let’s make sure we factor that not-trivial datum into our mindview. On top of this general employment malaise, writers of all sorts are taking an extra set of lumps: Journalism is losing thousands of full-time writers out of newspapers and magazines, writers in corporate settings are no safer than any other white-collar worker and publishing companies are actively trimming their author rosters and slicing advances. I’d hesitate to suggest that writers are having it worst of all recently, but you know what, they’re not just skating through this recession, either. They’ve got it middlin’ bad.

On top of this:

2. It’s not just writers who make lousy financial choices. There aren’t enough writers in the United States to cover all the bad mortgages out there right now, to make one obvious point. It’s not just writers who push the average consumer debt above $7,000 per card holder. It’s not just writers who save almost none of their income, leaving them vulnerable to sudden, unexpected changes in personal fortune. Writers are often bad with money, but then so are secretaries, and doctors, and teachers, and plumbers, and members of the military and any other group of people you might care to imagine, excepting possibly accountants, and honestly I wouldn’t even put it past them. So when we’re singling out writers for discussion, let’s remember they are not alone out there on the far end of the “wow, we really suck at finances” spectrum.

Having noted the above, here are some additional reasons why writers seem to so often fall face first, financially. Note that not all of these apply equally to every writer; we’re talking in vast generalities, here.

First, some practical issues:

3. Writer pay is generally low and generally inconsistent. And if one writes fiction for some/all of one’s writing output, especially so. I’ve written in detail about writing rates and payment before so it’s not necessary to go into detail again right at the moment. But what it means is that if one is a writer, one does a fair amount of work for not a whole lot of money, and then has to wait for that payment to arrive more or less at the pleasure of the person sending the check. Unfortunately, writers like pretty much everyone else have fixed expenses (mortgage/rent, bills etc), and those people generally do not wait to be paid at the pleasure of the writer; you pay your electric bill regularly or you don’t get electricity. This means writers are often in a situation where despite working prodigiously, they don’t have money in hand to pay regular, fixed monthly expenses.

4. Writers often lack what meager social net actually exists in corporate America. Writers are often self-employed, which means they bear the full brunt of the cost of health insurance or go without, and when they do pay for health insurance, they pay a lot because their individual plans don’t spread out risk like corporate plans do. Since per point three writers don’t get paid a lot (or regularly), very often they go without — as often do their spouses and children, if the spouse does not work for someone who provides health insurance. Which means they are quite susceptible to even incidental medical costs wreaking holy hell with their finances, and my own anecdotal experience with writers is that they are not exactly a hale and hearty group to start.

Self-employed writers don’t get 401(k)s and often don’t get around to funding IRAs, so their ability to save for retirement is made that much more challenging. They are on the hook for their full amount of Social Security taxes and also have to file taxes quarterly, and the IRS keeps a close eye on them (and all self-employed folks) for fraud and so on. Add it all up, and not being formally on the corporate teat makes it easier for writers to find themselves in a compromised financial situation.

5. Writers, like many people (even presumably educated folks), often have rudimentary financial skills. Which means even when they do have money and a desire to save it intelligently, they often don’t know how or have already gotten themselves into a compromised financial situation which makes smart and sane financial practices more difficult. Now, for writers, to some extent we can blame them and their arty-farty educations for this lack. I’m not sure how many MFA or undergrad writing programs out there require a “real world basic finance” class for a degree, but I’m guessing I can count them on one hand and have up to five fingers left over. Likewise, my anecdotal experience with writers suggests that not a whole lot of them have a vibrant love affair with mathematics, even the relatively basic sort that underpins day-to-day financial planning. So there are two strikes against them right there.

But to be fair to writers, once again, it’s not just them. I have a philosophy degree; it didn’t require a real world financial management class either. I don’t believe I actually ever took a class in basic financial planning and management, ever, and I’m guessing I’m not the only one there. This leaves basically everyone to get their financial educations from rah-rah financial bestsellers, fatuous talking heads on CNBC and folks like the sort who recently suckered millions of Americans into buying far more home than they could rationally afford on the basis that hey, the real estate market will never ever go down. This is, basically, an appalling state of affairs, and not just for writers.

Having enumerated some practical issues, here are some (for lack of a better term) “lifestyle” reasons why writers often have money problems:

6. Writers are often flaky. Which can mean (pick one or more) that they have short attentions spans, which penalize them for things like finances; they get bored quickly and therefore make bad economic decisions because they want to stop thinking about them and get on to interesting stuff; because they are clever with words they think that means that they are smart outside of their specific field (and particularly with money), which is common mistake people good in one intellectual area make; they trust people they should not with their money and/or their life situations; they go with their guts rather than with their brains; they prioritize immediate wants over long-term needs; and so on.

We could have a nice fun argument about whether flaky people become writers or whether being a writer makes one flaky, but it’s a discussion that’s not relevant at the moment; the point here is that many authors by their personal nature are not well-composed for the sober, staid and completely boring task of dealing with money.

(Note I’m not simply running down other writers here; ask my wife why it was when we met I had all my utilities on third notice, despite the fact I could afford to pay the bills. It will confirm my own “flaky like a pie crust” nature.)

Related to this:

7. Writers are often irrational risk-takers. Because how can you write about life without experiencing it, etc, which is a convenient rationale for doing stupid things and getting caught in bad situations, up to and including terrible relationships, addictions, impulsive life-changing decisions and so on, all of which end up having a (not in the least) surprising impact on one’s financial life. Hell, even a bog-standard nicotine addiction will set you back $9 per pack in NYC and $5 everywhere else (not counting the cost of one’s lung cancer treatments later). Whether these sorts of irrational risks actually do make one a better writer is of course deeply open to debate, but again, it’s a rationale as opposed to a reason.

Note that in the cases of 6 and 7 above, there’s another potential correlating issue, which is that writers like many creative types appear to have higher incidence of mental illness than your random sample of, say, grocery store managers or bus drivers. Mental illness — particularly illness that goes untreated/undertreated due to financial constraints — will have corresponding effects on one’s financial situation.

8. Writers are often attracted to other creative folks, including other writers. Nothing wrong with this in a general sense, mind you. We all love who we love, and what’s not to love about another witty, smart and talented person? The problem financially speaking, however, is that other writers very often have the same basic financial issues: low, irregular pay, no benefits, poor finance skills, tendencies toward flakiness and risk-taking, and such. Two incomes are theoretically better than one, but two sporadic incomes accompanied by everything else that comes attached to the writing life isn’t necessarily as much better than one would expect. And don’t forget: Kids may happen. They often do.

9. Writing can be expensive. The actual act of writing is not expensive, mind you — if one had to one could do it for free off a library computer, although few do — but everything around it adds up. Typewriters, paper, ribbons and correcting fluid have been replaced by computers, printers, printer ink and internet access, so the sunk cost there is roughly the same as it ever was, as are the costs of sending manuscripts and correspondence, at least to the markets which still require paper submissions. Writers who write in coffee shops and cafes pay “rent” in coffee and pastries; it sounds silly, but those things ain’t cheap when you check the tab. Writers are gregarious and go to things like workshops and conventions and writers’ nights at the local bar; these aren’t required costs but they are desirable activities and they cost money to attend (even if it’s just to get an overpriced beer).

Do all these things mean writers are more susceptible than other trades/professions to encounter serious financial issues? Not necessarily; folks in other creative fields (acting, music, art, dance) have the same set of practical and lifestyle challenges, and while the challenges of other lines of work will vary, they’re still there – hell, even doctors and lawyers find themselves saddled first with huge amounts of debt and then with some impressive overhead to keep their practices going. Pick a profession — there’s lots of ways to get yourself in financial hot water doing it.

However, there is one thing that can make it appear that writers as a class are in more financial trouble than other folks, regardless of whether or not it’s true:

10. Writers write about their situations. Because they’re writers, you see. Writing is what they do. And lots of writers feel the need to share their financial situations with an audience, to a greater or lesser degree. Why? Because (again, pick one or more) writing helps writers think through their situation; writing is therapy; writers feel an obligation to share; writers are hoping for sympathy, encouragement and possibly solutions or even help. Whatever their reasons, it shouldn’t be very surprising that you’ll more than occasionally read an author lay out his or her financial woes, and (yes) do it in an interesting and engaging style that sticks in your head more than, say, a similar blog post by a janitor might. It’s an interesting curse, you might say.

So those are some reasons writers might be having a hard time of it right now — and why it might seem they’re having a harder time than some others.

Whilst at Worldcon in Montreal this year, I was interviewed for a Canadian TV series called The Electric Playground on the subject of humor and science fiction. They’ve uploaded the interview to their Web site and it is here. Some irony for you: I make a crack about jocks in the interview, whilst wearing a football jersey (this one, in fact). But it does have my name on it, so that’s all right.

I’ve gotten e-mails from a number of YA authors asking whether it would be okay (and if it’s appropriate) to send copies of their books to Athena for her potential reading pleasure. So as to address this once and thereafter have something to point these folks to, here’s the ruling on that:

1. I certainly have no objection to people sending books to Athena. She’s an avid book reader, and likes all sorts of books. Send away.

2. However, if you (or your publisher/publicist/editor/whomever) are already sending me the book for consideration for The Big Idea or a mention on Whatever, you are also sending it to Athena, since I share books with her and she delights in coming into the office and looking to see what’s new.

3. So the best thing is probably to send it to me directly, via the process outlined in my Publicity Guidelines. Trust me, Athena will see it, too.

I should also note that if you were wanting to send your work to Athena in the hopes of getting a review from her that goes up here, don’t get your hopes up, as her time is at a premium (school, friends, video games, reading) and she doesn’t spend a huge amount of it online. Moreover, I generally disapprove of people wanting to use my daughter as part of their publicity apparatus, however innocent these folks are in their intent. If Athena wants to saying something publicly about a book she enjoys, that’s one thing, but I’m not going to suggest it to her as something she should do. That said, if she likes what she reads, you might get a fan letter from her. I do encourage her to let authors know she liked a book.

One of my favorite charities is back once again: Child’s Play, which helps distribute toys and video games to children’s hospitals all over the US and the world, is now open to receive your charitable donations. Go to the site, click on the map for a children’s hospital near you, and you’ll be taken to an Amazon wish list for that particular hospital, where you can buy toys and games that the hospital has chosen (For example, here’s the Amazon Wish List for the Children’s Medical Center in Dayton, which is the one I donated to). You can also or alternately donate cash to Child’s Play directly, via PayPal or through the mail.

Child’s Play is run by the folks at Penny Arcade, who originally did it to make the point that video gamers aren’t disengaged shut-ins zapping things on phosphor screens, and to point out that video games themselves could make a difficult situation — being a kid in a hospital — slightly more bearable. In both cases the charity has overachieved, with Child’s Play bringing in literally millions in contributions since it began a few years ago. And they’ve made it amazingly easy to be involved. It’s a model of how charitable giving can and should work online. Check it out and if you are of a mind to, give.

Because what is life without cats and books? Catless and bookless, that’s what.

Which was good, because it was a pretty one.

If you or someone you love speaks Portuguese and/or lives in a Portuguese speaking country, you will be pleased to know that the Portuguese language version of Old Man’s War will be available as of next Tuesday, or so I am led to understand. I believe the above is its exploderrific cover art.

More travel today. Catch you in the evening.

I’m out and about again today, so no more from me today here. I know, it’s so unfair. But to keep you occupied all day long, allow me to point you in the direction of “Bone Shop,” a short novel by T.A. Pratt, (who in his other incarnation is the Hugo Award-winning author Tim Pratt) featuring his magic-wielding heroine Marla Mason in an early adventure, which is to say it’s a prequel story, which means you do not need to have read previous works in the series. It’s fun, fast and it’s free to read — but if you like it, T.A. Pratt is accepting donations for the work. So if you read it and like it, which I expect you might, think of sending some love (and a few bucks) in the direction of the author.

Having thus pointed you in the direction of a full day of reading pleasure, I now tip my hat in your direction and bid you adieu for the day.

Events of the day conspire to keep me from conversing with you via transmission of electrical particles through this system known as “Teh IntarWeebs”! And what events are these? And do they involve tapioca pudding, a polka version of the hit song “Head Like a Hole,” and between two and six stoats and/or ferrets? I cannot say! What I can say is I’m likely to be out for most if not all of the day. Try to get along without me for as long as you possibly can. And when you can’t, well, maybe I’ll put something on my Twitter feed. Maybe. I make no promises. Stoat handling is hard work.

I am occasionally asked to give recommendations for tech/software, based on my own usage. I don’t know that I would necessarily follow my own example in terms of tech usage if I were not me, but for everyone who is curious, here’s the hard-and-software I currently use, and the short form reasons why.

Primary Computer: PC from iBuyPower, featuring Intel i7 3.066 GHz quad core processor, dual ATI 4890 graphics cards in Crossfire mode, Creative X-Fi sound card, 6GB onboard memory, and 3.5 TB total storage, with Dell 24″ monitor. I’ve got a fairly tricked out system, for a number of reasons: One, I do a lot of multimedia stuff, including most obviously photo image manipulation; two, I play media-intensive computer video games; three, because I totally wanted a tricked-out system, so there. It’s not entirely overkill for the more mundane writing things I do either, and in particular having a large monitor is really useful. But the primary computer is probably the most high-end bit of tech I have.

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium (64 Bit). Because (among other things) most computer games run on Windows but not necessarily on Mac OS or on Linux. Win7 is also nicely composed and easy to use, so there’s a bonus there, too. On my last computer I had an Ubuntu dual-boot, and Ubuntu was fine, but I didn’t actually use it much, so I haven’t installed it on the new primary computer.

Browser: Firefox 3.5.4. That’s currently, but I generally update to the latest stable version when it becomes available. Because I like it and the extent to which is it customizable, and because I’m very used to it — I’ve used Firefox and most of its antecedents almost exclusively for as long as they’ve been about. For backup and for specialized purposes I use Chrome, which I like just fine. I use Opera sparingly and IE almost not at all, except to check how Web sites look and/or for the occasional times when some Web site designer is too stupid to check that his site code works for browsers other than IE.

Mail: GMail. Up until April 2007, I used some variation of the Eudora e-mail client, but when I went on my book tour for The Last Colony I started using GMail because that way I could get my mail whether or not I was on my own computer (a smart decision, it turns out, since my then-laptop crapped out on me mid-tour). I never bothered to go back to a dedicated e-mail client because GMail’s spam blocking skills are excellent, and the thing they do of grouping e-mails into “conversations” was really useful. Basically, it’s just about the best e-mail handling service. When on occasion GMail goes down, I access my mail from my host provider’s e-mail app, which it runs off its servers, but those instances are few and far between. This isn’t to say GMail is perfect, it’s just better for me than anything else out there.

Word Processing: Microsoft Word 2007. I like the way it works and I like its aesthetics, the latter of which may seem trivial, but on the other hand you probably don’t spend as much time looking at your word processing application as I do. On the occasions that I need a backup to Word, I usually use OpenOffice (currently on its 3.x iteration). I use Google Docs for certain specific tasks but I’ve found over time it’s not as featured as I need to be to use it on a regular basis. Note to Google: When you can’t be bothered to add indenting to your word processor, you’re signaling that you’re not actually serious. I buy Word as part of the larger Office suite, so on the rare occasions I need spreadsheets or to access Powerpoint, I’m good to go, with OpenOffice again being backup.

Blogging Software: WordPress. I started out with Movable Type back in 2003, which I liked very much, but eventually it became evident that MT was not playing nice with my host provider (or more accurately, my host provider was not playing nice with MT), and switched over to WordPress. WP turns out to be an excellent choice too, as it’s got enough features and widgets to let one customize one’s site to one’s desire. Disclosure: WordPress.com now hosts this blog, so I’m not an impartial commenter on the software. But on the other hand I wouldn’t be hosted on WordPress.com if I didn’t like the software.

Photo Editing: Photoshop CS4. I’ve been using Photoshop since the early 90s, so I’m comfortable with it and its interface, and that it’s the industry standard is nice too. For quick editing or specific specialized filters, I’ll use Picnic, which is bundled into my Flickr Pro account, but generally I’ll just pop open Photoshop.

Photo Management: Flickr. Simple, friendly interface and the Pro account is cheap at $25 a year. At this point most of the pictures on Whatever are housed there and linked to; if Flickr ever goes under, Whatever’s pictures will require lots of re-sourcing. But I’m optimistic Flickr will be about for a bit (also, lazy). For photo management on the actual computer, I simply use Win7’s photo viewer.

Audio Recording/Editing: Sony Acid Pro. I’m one iteration behind on the software, so I need to upgrade, but again I’m used to it (I’ve been using it since the early part of the century) and it’s got a nice set of features. My backup is Audacity, which is free, which is nice, but which I don’t typically seem to have good luck using. I used Adobe Soundbooth briefly and I liked it very much for voice recording but have been too cheap to pull the trigger to buy it.

Music Management: Rhapsody. Which is to say that at this point I end up not actually accessing the music I have stored on my hard drive, but just stream it off Rhapsody instead. Which is not to say I don’t buy music (or store it on the computer), as I like to support the musicians whose work I like; when I do that I tend to buy it off Amazon. I tend to avoid iTunes, except to manage my iPods. For casual “radio,” I’ll use Rhapsody’s channels or Pandora. I use the Windows Media Player when I play something housed on the computer; the Win7 version is much improved.

Video Game Management: Steam. By and large I’ve stopped buying video games on physical media and instead download them via Steam, which has a nice management and game-matching interface, and a nice selection of games at good prices. I also keep a GameTap subscription for casual gaming and for games I’d like to play but don’t want to buy.

IM Client: Digsby. Accesses a number of IM services and isn’t ugly/crammed with ads.

Twitter Client: TweetDeck. Lots of functions and easier to use the the Twitter Web interface.

Personal Music/Video Player: iPod Nano (3rd generation). It’s small and holds 1,200 songs, and that pretty much works for me. And personally I prefer the 3rd gen’s square look, although I know that puts me in the minority. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it doesn’t play my “rented” music from Rhapsody, but it’s not like I don’t already own more music than I can fit onto the nano as it is. I also own an Archos 605 player, with substantially more onboard memory and a great screen (800×480 or some such) for movies. But it’s bulky and not as convenient to carry about.

Cell Phone: BlackBerry Storm: Which is much maligned but which I like perfectly well, especially with the most recent software update. That said, when the contract is up next October I’m not necessarily going to upgrade within the Storm/BlackBerry family. I like my phone fine but it hasn’t won me over as a consumer.

I think that’s everything, but if you have additional questions regarding my tech usage, drop ‘em in the comments.

I’m doing an interview about communities online. Which means I’M TOTALLY TALKING ABOUT YOU.

Jeff VanderMeer returns to his weird, fantastical city of Ambergris in his new novel Finch, but as he explains in this Big Idea, there’s more going on in this stand-alone tale than just the rich vein of fantasy he’s previously explored in this world. Finch has more on its agenda, and the idea that more is merrier when it comes to genres. Is he right? Let’s see if he convinces you below.

JEFF VANDERMEER:

Sometimes a Big Idea is about combining several different big ideas in such a way that they create what you hope is A REALLY BIG-ASS IDEA. If you do it right, these ideas create what you might remember from high school science classes as a chemical rather than physical reaction. You can’t separate out the parts, and readers don’t even notice those parts. All they notice is character and story.

In my novel Finch, a reluctant detective named John Finch and his partner Wyte must attempt to solve a difficult double murder. If Finch doesn’t, there will be a severe beat-down from his boss and if he does solve it, another faction will probably put a bullet through his head.

Fairly standard set-up, right? But layered onto that core situation are a number of major complications. The novel isn’t set in our world—it’s set in my fantastical city of Ambergris. Finch is basically a conscript. Finch’s boss, Heretic, isn’t human—he’s a gray cap, an intelligent species that has risen from the underground sections of the city and used advanced fungi-based technologies to subject Ambergris to a brutal Occupation. The people who might kill Finch if he solves the case are rebel factions fighting the Occupation. His partner Wyte is literally disintegrating into spores due to a fungal disease. The two bodies, found in an empty apartment, appear to have fallen from a great height. One of them is a gray cap missing its legs.

To make things worse, Ambergris is now the equivalent of a failed state. Although the gray caps run things, even basic necessities like electricity are inconsistent at best. The gray caps use human traitors called Partials as their security services, and to gather intel through spore cameras that supplement their vision. However, so much information is constantly coming in that the gray caps can’t process it all. This gap is what gives many people a chance to survive.

But that gap and others like it mean that Finch’s life is complicated by the presence of other forces that have slipped into the city. In a word, spies. Infiltrating from foreign countries, most are attempting to acquire gray cap technology to gain an advantage against other countries. These spies often come into conflict with the rebels. The rebels, meanwhile, are composed of two rival factions engaged in a civil war that ended only because of the need to band together to fight the gray caps. Not only do they have their own intelligence services but the simmering resentments of the old conflict sometimes puts them at cross-purposes despite their joint objective.

So…maybe it’s time to start counting. Just how many genres are we dealing with here?

(1) Noir. The set-up, the lone, reluctant detective, his friends who may or may not be in on the up-and-up, the number of beat-downs in crappy alleys, all reflect a strong noir influence. (Indeed, the British Commonwealth rights to Finch just sold to Atlantic’s new Corvus imprint, the backbone of which is mysteries and thrillers.)

(2) Thriller. Given the number of times John Finch gets embroiled in gun battles or chase scenes, I think it’s fair to add this designation, which also speaks to the novel’s pacing and the idea that a good thriller provides a test of the main character’s resolve, of their ability to persevere despite almost insurmountable obstacles.

(3) Political Thriller. With scenes involving illegal interrogation, prison camps, and other repression, you might even think about tacking on the word “political” to “thriller”, a very specific subgenre of the normal thriller. You might even start thinking about words like “Baghdad” or “extraordinary rendition.” This is entirely intentional, as is the rebel tactic of using suicide bombers. Fantasy gives me the distance to include the political so that hardwired into the story rather than a didactic statement.

(4) Spy Novel. Finch is faced with a mystery, but when the proliferating list of suspects includes a retired spymaster named Ethan Bliss, an operative from the country of Stockton named Stark, and a friend whose allegiances are uncertain, we’re suddenly in John Le Carre territory. Le Carre’s brilliant fiction is all about the individual attempting to survive in a world of hostile institutions; his spies are as often in conflict with their employers as with the enemy. He’s also exceptional at combining action and introspection, lessons that served me well in writing Finch. (Yes, there’s also the James Bond spy model, but James Bond wouldn’t last five minutes in Ambergris.)

(5) New Weird Fantasy. Okay, you may be saying, but Ambergris is still identified as a New Weird setting. Yep, and that still comes into play. Ambergris is a secondary-world decaying, fungus-shrouded major, centuries-old metropolis. That setting shapes all of the characters, all of the other elements—in sense, it’s the broth in this cross-genre soup. It’s what makes it possible for all of the other elements to work in harmony.

So that’s my Big Idea: the ultimate cross-genre mash-up in which one character finds the pressure turned up to “11” and the only way out is to navigate a landscape scarred by civil war, occupation, infiltration, insurgencies, counter-insurgencies, betrayals, and, oh yeah, surreal fungal technologies. John Finch is an honest man with militia training, clear-headed and quietly brave, but even he may find it difficult to make it out alive.

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Finch: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Powell’s

Read an excerpt of the novel (pdf link), and visit the book site. Listen to the novel soundtrack. Follow VanderMeer on Twitter.