You are here: Home / 2010 / Archives for June 2010

The God Engines Available on Kindle; Other Electronic Formats Soon

June 14, 2010 By 77 Comments

The headline pretty much says it: TGE is available on the Kindle right now, and it will soon be available in other electronic formats as well. For those other electronic formats, it has to go through the various internal processes on each of the electronic vendors, as I understand it. But in a general sense, if you have an eBook reader, the authorized electronic version will be available, one way or another. The hardcover version is also still available for those of you who enjoy your books in physical form, and as noted by me and others numerous times before, this really is one handsome book by Subterranean Press. Enjoy!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Taking the Weekend Off

June 12, 2010 By 10 Comments

Because isn’t that what weekends are for? See you Monday.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Quick Fanfic Contest Update

June 11, 2010 By 12 Comments

Getting some e-mails from folks wondering about the state of the fanfic contest. The short answer is we’ve just topped a hundred submissions, which is pretty great, and soon the Jury of Awesomeness will do the first pass of reading to see what (so far) makes the cut into the second round.

HOWEVER, remember that you still have until the end of the month to get in your submission — we’re not making any final decisions until after everything is in. So if you were wondering if it’s too late to enter: Heck no it’s not. Here once again are the contest parameters; read them, love them, and then write up your story. 19 days is more than enough time to come up with something awesome. If you don’t enter, you will make Unicorn Pegasus Kitten cry. And do you really want to make Unicorn Pegasus Kitten cry? No. No you don’t. Trust me on this one.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Big Idea: Michael Koryta

June 11, 2010 By 5 Comments

Reporters are often told to ask the “W”s — Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How? (which does not start with a “w” but which has a “w” in it, so there) — because in a news story, all of these things are usually relevant. Author Michael Koryta is a former reporter, so it would be no surprise to discover he knows to ask these questions, and you’ll read, for So Cold the River, one of these “w”s — “Where?” — plays a significant role in how all those other “w”s unfold in the course of the story.

MICHAEL KORYTA:

I’ve been patiently waiting for a Big Idea for years. I continue to do so. In the meantime, I’ve done the best I can with my small ideas.

I’d love to claim that So Cold the River is a work of staggering imaginative powers but I’m afraid someone might get around to using the interwebs and determining that all of the wonderfully creative elements – a subterranean river! a hotel with an incredible glass dome! mineral water reputed to cure all ills! – are actually real. Then I’d have some egg on my face, wouldn’t I? So, I suppose I should cop to it and admit that the Big Ideas for So Cold the River were extracted almost entirely from the true history of its setting in the small towns of West Baden and French Lick, Indiana.

At this point, the only thing most people are aware of about these places is that the name French Lick is funny and that Larry Bird once played his basketball there and not in Boston. From 1901 until 1929, though, the towns were internationally renowned resorts, with two of the finest hotels in the world, elegance of the first order, and more than a small dose of corruption. Guests ranged from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Al Capone, and while the hotels are the lasting testaments to these glory days, what built the resort in this rural portion of the Midwest was its mineral water. One brand was called Pluto Water, the other Sprudel Water, and they were believed to be healers of extraordinary power.

The Depression, as was its way, killed off the thriving little resorts. They’re coming back now – restored hotels, a Pete Dye-designed golf course, a casino that pretends to be a riverboat for reasons that no one but an Indiana legislator could possibly explain. I’m excited about all those developments, but it was the past and not the future that inspired So Cold the River. That so much fascinating history had transpired in such an out-of-the-way place was intriguing, but it was the idea of the water and the legends and folklore surrounding it that really gave life to the story.

The Big Idea couldn’t have been smaller, or simpler, but then seeds generally are, no? The idea: what if there was some truth to the mythic reputation of the water?

It was a question, really, an idle notion, but I’ve found that’s where most of my story ideas develop. This one intrigued me, but it certainly didn’t fit into the Lincoln Perry series I was writing, or into traditional crime fiction at all. The nature of the question itself called for a touch of the supernatural, of the fantastic, and there was certainly a large part of me that was leery of dabbling in something so different. But in the end, the writing is most fun when you feel a challenge, and there are a host of inherent challenges to trying something different. Whether this departure was a success will be for the readers to determine, but I know one thing: I had a hell of a lot of fun writing it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to look for a Big Idea. It’s around here somewhere, damn it. I’ll find the thing…

—-

So Cold the River: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Indiebound|Powell’s

Read an excerpt of the novel, via the Wall Street Journal. See a video about the book. Visit Koryta’s blog.

Filed Under: Big Idea

My w00tstock Bit: Morning Announcements at the Lucas Interspecies School for Troubled Youth

June 10, 2010 By 22 Comments

Enjoy. There’s a little visual shakiness near the start but it evens out soon after. Thanks to YouTube user “grnbrgb” for posting it!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Final w00tstock Notes

June 10, 2010 By 24 Comments

When I mentioned to some folks I know that I would be participating in w00tstock in Minneapolis, I got a few strange looks followed by the question of “what is w00tstock, anyway?” I could have gone the “Morpheus in the Matrix” route and say something along the line of “no one can be… told what w00tstock is,” followed by the choice of rolling a red or blue twenty-sided die. But instead I said that it was basically a vaudeville show for geeks.

And as it turns out, that’s exactly what w00tstock really was, or at least was the night I was part of it. The show featured music, it featured comedy, it featured semi-serious lectures on physics, it featured video and it feature art being made live (the poster above, which was made during the show). It was a hybrid of a 100-year-old theatrical form and cutting edge nerd enthusiasms, and it probably shouldn’t work, but it did, if the reaction of the sold out(!) theater was any indication.

YouTube is filled with audience video from the show, so I won’t bother to recount the evening act by act (except to say — hey! Audience! Why haven’t you posted my bit yet? Huh? Huh? Huh? Update: It’s here.). I will say that if I hadn’t have been a performer, I would have been busy laughing my ass off in the audience, and I know this because we were basically laughing our asses off backstage — the four principals of the show (Wil Wheaton, Adam Savage and Paul & Storm) basically pick as their guest stars the people whose work they really enjoy, which means that backstage we were all pretty much fans of each others work. Which meant we were all crowded up behind the stage craning our necks to watch everyone else.

My bit came up early, both as a matter of scheduling and as personal preference; I was playing the part of the assistant principal of the Lucas School for Interspecies Troubled Youth doing the school morning announcements, so that seemed better closer to the beginning than not. I’m happy to say the piece seemed to go over well: Everyone laughed when they were supposed to, and I had fun doing a little bit of acting, and since the character I was playing was meant to be the nervous, edgy type, it hid my own nervousness spectacularly well. And of course it was fun debuting a new piece of writing, specially created for the event, to the crowd. Thank you, Minneapolis, for enjoying it.

By other “big” moment for the night came at the end of the show, when during the legendarily long closing song “The Sea Captain’s Wife’s Lament” Paul and Storm were eliciting pirate-y “Arrrrs” from the audience and then asked for a very specific kind of “Arrrr,” that being “authorial… and science fictional and fantasyish… and Hugo award winning…” at which point I flounced on stage, triumphantly, “… and British!” At which point I stomped off stage, dejected, and Neil Gaiman came onstage instead. Yes, indeed, I was the set-up for a Neil Gaiman joke. And it went off perfectly, which is to say the audience was mildly disappointed when I went on the stage (because they were hoping for Neil), and then lost their minds when Neil actually showed up. Now, now, I feel fine, give the audience what they want, I always say. It’s not that they didn’t like me, they’d just already seen me. Yes, yes, that’s it. Also, Neil was lovely and it was great to be able to spend a little time with him backstage.

Likewise it was great to meet all the other w00ters. Wil, of course, I am friends with, as I am with Paul and Storm and with Len Peralta, but I had a great time meeting Adam Savage, who is as amusing and enthusiastic about the world in real life as he is on Mythbusters, as well as Trace Beaulieu, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy (also deeply, deeply amusing), Tim Bedore and James Kakalios (amusing? Why yes! Of course!), and also Molly Lewis and Jason Finn (by this time you should sense the theme of general amusement). I liked and geeked out about every single person who performed, basically.

In short: What a great time. If you were there, you know what I mean, and if you weren’t there, well, at least you have YouTube. The next w00tstock will be in San Diego in July; you want to be there if you can.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Six for Six!

June 10, 2010 By 64 Comments

Allow me a moment of complete parental pride here as I note that Athena has been awarded her sixth consecutive end-of-the-school-year creative writing award. This means she has a clean sweep of the award for her entire elementary school career, which is a nice trick if you can manage it. This year she actually is a co-winner of the award, as her friend Emma also got a certificate, and I think that’s a grand thing that there are two very creative kids in the same class. And Athena as you can see is pleased. She is the most award-winning author in the Scalzi household and I’m perfectly delighted about it. It closes out her elementary school years on a high note, and you can’t beat that.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Athena’s Pickle Juice Adventure

June 9, 2010 By 69 Comments

1. Athena idly wonders what, in fact, a shot of pickle juice might taste like:

2. Enabled Encouraged by her idiot loving father, our young adventurer soon has a shot glass filled with briny liquid.

3. Down the hatch.

4. Upon completion, Athena strikes a pose remarkably similar to that of Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

5. Her expression says, “It has a piquant body, with vinegar undertones and hints of cucumber and alum.”

6. Final verdict: A too-cool-for-school thumbs up.

Join us next week, when we try a mayonnaise smoothie!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Sci-Fi Rides I’d Cruise In

June 9, 2010 By

The rather astounding amount of travel I’ve had recently has put me in a mind to think about cool rides from science fiction films, so for my FilmCritic.com column this week, I’ve written about which science fictional conveyances I’d like to use, and yes, a lumpy-alien-powered Huffy is one of them. Don’t look at me like that. You would totally go for a ride on that bike, too. As always, leave your own thoughts and comments over there.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

My METAtropolis “World Without Oil” Haiku Contest Winner

June 9, 2010 By 16 Comments

It is from Wendell Shank, because I giggle every time the image it provides pops up in my head:

Mennonite cousins
Laugh at my rookie attempts;
I’m a buggy noob!

In other news, “Buggy N00b” is the name of my next band. It will be all-acoustic, of course. And no, for oil-related reasons, we won’t be doing a world tour.

That said, as noted earlier, this was a tough contest to judge, because there are a whole lot of genuinely excellent post-oil haiku in the contest thread. I really do recommend cruising through it and reading them. Some of them are funny, some of them are poignant, and some of them are even hopeful. I have to say this has been one of my favorite contests I’ve run, so far.

Want to know who won the other METAtropolis contests? Here they are:

Karl Schroeder’s winner

Jay Lake’s winner

Elizabeth Bear’s winner

Tobais Buckell’s winner

Congratulations everyone who won, and thank you to everyone who played along.

Oh, and: Hey! The Tor edition of METAtropolis is now out! Look for it in your local bookstore or at your favorite online retailer. And yes, it’s available electronically too, via Amazon, iBookstore, Barnes & Noble and other electronic outlets. Go get it and make five of your favorite science fiction authors very happy.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Big Idea: Stacia Kane

June 9, 2010 By 16 Comments

Sometimes a ghost is just a ghost — that is, a dead soul wandering about the world without having moved on, and occasionally breaking things or scaring people. But sometimes a ghost is something else entirely: evidence that the world has changed, and with it, the ground rules of how the world actually works. Stacia Kane has ghosts of the latter persuasion in her new novel Unholy Ghosts, and building the world in which ghosts actually make sense — and where a ghost hunter isn’t just an entertainer on a cable network TV show — was her challenge. Here’s how she did it.

STACIA KANE:

It actually started with one line in an old issue of STARLOG magazine, a mention of a “professional debunker;” that is, someone who investigates hauntings. This would be unlike the “Ghosts are totally real, dudes—and we will find them!” shtick of those ghost-hunting TV shows that sprout up everywhere these days, with lots of night-vision camera work and people running around screaming. (Am I the only one who thinks, “That’s right, boys. It’s Doctor Venkman!” every time I see one of those?)

I already had a series that straddled the urban fantasy/paranormal romance line—the Megan Chase books (Juno/Pocket)—but I really wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to move away from heavy romantic elements, and I wanted to write a main character with real, deep problems. Someone who couldn’t solve those problems by casting a spell or pulling a gun or sexing up a gorgeous paranormal creature; I was frankly tired of gorgeous paranormal creatures. Don’t mistake me; I’m not putting down books where gorgeous paranormal creatures are sexed up, or saying that there aren’t plenty of books out there where no gorgeous paranormal creatures are sexed up. I just wanted to do something else.

I wanted to write dark fantasy; I wanted to write something creepy and dangerous and badass, something more Escape From New York than Pride and Prejudice (with or without zombies).

I had this heroine, Chess Putnam, who is addicted to painkillers, racked with self-hatred and insecurity, but determined to keep living the best way she knows how. And I loved Chess and understood Chess and identified with her in ways I can’t even explain, and I wanted to write about her so desperately.

And having this character, and having a plot—a debunker discovers the ghosts she’s investigating are real—I needed a world where that mattered. I wanted to do a series, and while the idea of a contemporary Bill Bixby Incredible Hulk-style heroine who wanders from town to town had some appeal, it just wasn’t right for me.

So I needed a world where people actually had reason to fake hauntings. To do that I needed to do something I hadn’t really done before, at least not in so much depth. I built a world.

I decided that in this world ghosts were a real and ever-present threat, and this super-religion was in charge, this church which promised to protect people from ghosts—and the reason for that? Because the ghosts rose from the grave en masse and slaughtered the fuck out of humanity, essentially, and the church stopped them. Since most urban fantasies seemed to be placing their “then everything changed” events in 2000, I put mine—called “Haunted Week”—in 1997, just for kicks.

So I had a seriously reduced population under the control of one international government, and that government was all that stands between mankind and its extinction. If you have a haunting the Church pays you a settlement. If you fake a haunting you’re defrauding the government. And it’s Chess’s job to catch you doing it (and she’s good at it, and proud of being good at it, too).

More than that, I have a Church whose magic—based on British Traditional Witchcraft and on folklore—actually works. Everyone know that magic works, has seen it work, and owe their lives to it. Adding modern technology—and a bit of as-yet-uninvented technology as well—made the world feel even more unique, especially when I took the Church’s 18th-century origins and made that part of their “look” and culture, so it was sort of like The Crucible meets The Wicker Man (but sadly without Christopher Lee in a dress). And to top it all off, I gave it a soundtrack full of the best punk rock I know.

Now I have a world which is completely different but familiar at the same time, at least to me. A post-apocalyptic world. An authoritarian world which nonetheless has pockets of utter lawlessness. A world where magic is real but gods are not. I loved it and thought it was awesome, but it terrified me, too, because I actually had to write it, and it had to make sense, and I had to do it justice. Well, I was the idiot who wanted a challenge, right? So what more could I toss in there?

Thanks to my utter fascination with underground spaces, I also had the City of Eternity, a vast underground space where all the ghosts “live,” where the psychopomps which are one of the cornerstones of Church magic (how else do you magically banish ghosts?) take them.

Everyone knows where they’re going when they die. Everyone knows that their souls live on underground and that magic actually works. They know there are no gods, no Heaven or Hell. There is no real religion; there is a Church that preaches simply Fact and Truth.

I’m not an organized-religion girl myself, but to me this was the heart of the idea, and the world. How does that lack of faith in a higher power, and yet the unchangeable faith in the Church’s magic, inform Chess’s character? What about her drug dealer’s enforcer, Terrible, who—thanks to her debt to said dealer—gets involved in the case she works in Unholy Ghosts?

Terrible is this big, mean, ugly thug, a greaser with no formal education and no Church to believe in—but like Chess, he was saved from an even worse life by his boss. How does that mold and change his character? What about Lex, who works for a rival dealer? What about any of the characters who populate the city’s ghetto, which is called Downside and largely ignored by the Church? How does their outlook on life differ from those living “normal” lives in other parts of the city, and how does that differ from the way things are now, in our world?

What do any of us believe in? What really makes a person bad, or good? Most of my characters are junkies or thugs or drug dealers. Some might see them as bad people. But are they really? Or are they just people trying to get through the day, trying to find something to sustain them in a world where such sustenance is hard to find? Is a person “bad” because of what they do, or because of who they are? What level of badness do you need to hit before it cancels out the good, and vice versa? How do the rules change without god-based religions, and who decides “good” or “bad?”

Ultimately, you do. You, the reader. Whether you like the characters or not, whether the creepy dystopian worldbuilding—called by more than one reviewer “the best worldbuilding [they]’ve seen outside of straight science fiction”—attracts or repels you, whether you feel the story, characters, and world all integrate and build off each other or not, my goal is not only to entertain you, not only to tell the most kick-ass awesome story I possibly could, but to make you think, and feel.

Whether I’ve succeeded is entirely up to you, but I certainly tried.

—-

Unholy Ghosts: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|IndieBound|Powell’s

Read an excerpt of the novel. Check out Stacia Kane’s blog. Follow her on Twitter.

Filed Under: Big Idea

Still Reading Haiku

June 8, 2010 By 28 Comments

Harder to choose than I thought. Winners tomorrow.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

On When I’ll Announce My METAtropolis Contest Winner

June 8, 2010 By 10 Comments

In short: When I get home and have a bit of time to depressurize and see family. So expect it in the evening, basically. I will say that you guys aren’t making the awarding easy — there are a lot of good haikus in there, of all sorts.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Appallingly Early Tuesday Update

June 8, 2010 By 9 Comments

Or, alternately, appallingly late Monday update. The gist of it is: Minneapolis w00tstock went smashingly, and I had fun doing my own shtick (which I assume will pop up on YouTube sometime soon) and then assisting Kevin Murphy by being part of the chorus for a song, and then finally being the decoy for the set closer just before the w00ters brought Neil Gaiman up to the stage. After w00tstock, spend a nice amount of time depressurizing in the hotel bar with cast and crew. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it, but at the moment I’m amazingly tired and what I need to do is collapse for a few hours of sleep before I head off to the airport to go home. So off I go, and I’ll update later in the day, when I’m home again. Catch up with you then.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Reminder: METAtropolis Contests Final Day

June 7, 2010 By 1 Comment

Hey kids, remember that we’re running five different contests to give away copies of the Tor edition of METAtropolis, which officially comes out tomorrow. You have the rest of the day to get your entries in, and then we’ll announce winners.

My contest is here, and here are the contests of the other METAtropolis writers:

Elizabeth Bear

Tobias Buckell

Jay Lake

Karl Schroeder

My own contest is pretty crowded up at this point, so check out the other contests and participate in them as well. Remember that you can enter each of the contests, so you don’t have to pick and choose — enter them all! When your shiny new copy of the Tor edition of METAtropolis shows up in the mail to the envy of your friends and neighbors, you’ll be glad you did.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Prepping for w00tstock

June 7, 2010 By 21 Comments

I flew into Minneapolis yesterday with the bare minimum of my traditionally awful travel karma (the flight was delayed on the tarmac for an hour because of a tornado warning, and that was fine because all things considered I’d rather not have any plane I’m on lift off into a whirling vortex of wind), and then trucked out to my friend Neil’s house, where we had a very relaxing afternoon and evening filled with conversation, food, dogs and bees. In short, I had quite a lovely day.

Today: well, in a few hours I hop into my car and head to the Guthrie Theater to get ready for w00tstock, at which I am a special guest at tonight’s performance, or, as I like to say, I’m the Charo of this particular Love Boat. My performance piece is written and ready to go, and I won’t tell you all anything about it, except that the phrase “nacho cheese gravel” is in it. Beyond that I suspect everything is best left unrevealed until tonight.

That said, I’m really looking forward to sharing it; it’s not every day you get to get debut a whole new piece of writing to a live audience, and I think this will be fun and will also fit right in with the whole w00tstock thing. It’s going to be a fun night.

Also, once again, this is pretty much it for me today; lots of stuff to do out here in the real world, so I’m going to get to it. See you tomorrow.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Up in the Air

June 6, 2010 By 12 Comments

More travel today, and w00tstock tomorrow. Whilst I am a tube 36,000 feet up in the sky, it may amuse you to read this account by Stargate Universe writer/producer Joe Mallozzi about what it’s like when I work with him on an episode he’s written.

I might check in later, but in case I don’t, see you Monday.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Saturday Update

June 5, 2010 By 15 Comments

I’m here deep in the heart of Yuppie Connecticut, seeing the upper class in its natural habitat, and getting ready for the wedding of one of my dearest friends to her beloved. It’s a nice day — a little humid, but hey, it’s summer by the sea. This is my note to you that I’m still alive but have no intention of spending any further time near a computer today. You kids have fun. I’ll drop you a note tomorrow.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Jeanne Robinson

June 4, 2010 By 29 Comments

Many folks who read science fiction already know that Jeanne Robinson, noted dancer and choreographer, wife of Spider Robinson and a Hugo and Nebula-winning author (with Spider, for the novella Stardance), passed away earlier this week. This is a sad moment for all of us who knew her in some way, because there are few nicer and more genuinely kind human beings than Jeanne. I had the good fortune to meet her and Spider a few years ago at a book fair in Oakland, and have seen them both other times and places since. Beyond their ample qualities as individuals, I always noted how happy they were together — theirs was a partnership to admire, celebrate and to emulate.

My heart goes out to Spider and to all of Jeanne’s family and friends, but I know that their grief is tempered by the joy that Jeanne had for life, in her life. For my part, I’m glad to have been able to spend a little time with her here, and will remember her.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Oh, Joy, More Travel

June 4, 2010 By 15 Comments

You know, I like being the places I am going. It’s the going there that wears on me. And today is a “going there” day, “there” first being Connecticut to attend the wedding of a dear friend, followed by Minneapolis, where as you all know, I’ll be performing at w00tstock, along with Paul & Storm, Adam Savage, Wil Wheaton and a bunch of other deeply cool/geeky people. For those of you coming to w00tstock, I’ve been writing you something new, so when you hear me perform it, you will be the first people in the entire universe who will have done so. You’re welcome.

Anyway. Additional Whatever postings today and through the weekend dependent on Internet access and travel karma, although you should be able to follow any whining and kvetching through the Twitter feed. Stay out of trouble, okay? I don’t want to have to come back there and turn this Internet around.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »