The hardcover (and compiled, DRM-free electronic edition, and also the compiled audio version) of The Human Division, the latest novel in the Old Man’s War series, is officially out today, May 14, here in the US and also (because Tor owns the rights worldwide) in the rest of the world as well. You can buy it at your local booksellers (which I encourage if you like your local bookseller) or online at just about any major online book retailer; please note that not all online retailers will turn on the “sell” button at the stroke of midnight. The hardcover/compiled eBook edition includes a couple of extras not (yet) available separately. People who bought the individual episodes online need not fear, however, as those extras will be available online in the near future (i.e., you won’t have to buy the rest of the book, again, to get them).

In addition to being the fifth novel in the Old Man’s War series (after Old Man’s War, The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony and Zoe’s Tale) this also my ninth novel in total, and my nineteenth book overall, all published since 2000 (and all the novels since 2005). Time flies when you’re busy writing. I will say that although The Human Division is the fifth book in the OMW series, it was intentionally written so that people new to the OMW universe would not have to read the rest of the series to know what’s going (and to enjoy the proceedings). I’m a big believer in getting every OMW book to stand on its own, even as they form a series.

This book is unusual in that it comes to the print market not just a bestseller, but a multiple best seller — in electronic form, each of the book’s thirteen episodes made it onto the USA Today bestseller list, one after the other, for thirteen straight weeks. I don’t mind telling you that when “Earth Below, Sky Above,” the final episode, made it onto the list, I breathed a sigh of relief. The book stuck the dismount. Thank you, those of you who bought the book in the episodic form.

I’m also happy to say the book has been getting some really excellent reviews, which is also an occasion for a sigh of relief. You never quite know how people are going to respond to you, as a writer, returning to your best-known universe, even if they have been clamoring for you to go back into it. By and large, people seem to have taken to this new installment, for which I am grateful.

I’m also grateful for having gotten an opportunity to go back into the OMW universe in this way. Over the last couple of years, I knew I wanted to tell more stories in this world, but the stories I wanted to tell wouldn’t necessarily fit comfortably into the convention novel format. The fact that Tor not only allowed but actively encouraged me to aggressively play with the traditional structure of the novel is the reason this particular novel works and (in my opinion) is something special. They also did an amazing job with book — everything from art to advertising. I have never been happier to be a Tor author than I am with this book.

As most of you know by now, I am on tour to support this book; the official tour, which starts today in Redondo Beach, takes me to fifteen different cities throughout the USA. If you are in or near one of these cities, I hope you will come down and see me on tour. I promise you a fun time.

I’m really proud of this book, folks. It’s already done some amazing things, and I’m looking forward to where it takes me next. I hope you’ll read it and like it as much as I do. I think you will. I hope you will, anyway.

Yes, Los Angeles, the major metropolitan area of my youth, where I was raised on In-N-Out Double-Doubles and Thrifty ice cream scoops, listened to KROQ and yearned for checkerboard Vans. You are the perfect place to begin my tour. And so I shall, at the Redondo Beach branch of Mysterious Galaxy, tomorrow, May 14. The festivities kick of at 7:30 (which will give you enough time to trek from wherever it is you are to the store, because LA traffic remains an enduring joy, does it not) and of course I will be reading, doing a Q&A and signing the books you care to bring (although if you buy The Human Division at Mysterious Galaxy, that would be best. Support the stores that support me, and all that). Once again, the rumor is that there will be cake! There was cake at the last event, so I think this is a positive trend.

One thing to be aware of is that this is a “numbered event,” which as I understand it means that you’ll be given numbers to signal where you are in the signing queue. Or something. The details will be on at that link above. Don’t worry about the numbers. You can totally show up. I totally want you to show up. Please please please please please show up. Yes, I still have that anxiety that I will do a signing and nobody will come, and I will just sit at a table, increasingly fake smile on my face, while the customers who are in the store do everything they can to avoid eye contact with me. It’s the author equivalent of the that dream where you come in late to that final test in high school, have no pencils and somehow skipped wearing your pants.

I assure you I will be wearing pants tomorrow. Promise.

So: The Human Division Tour kickoff, tomorrow, May 14, 7:30 Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, Redondo Beach. See you there!

Not dead! Just taking long Sunday lunches with friends in LA, to be followed by long Sunday dinners with friends in LA. What are you doing? Tell all! Omit nothing!

First: Don’t check luggage. I have a dozen flights in these three weeks. That’s a dozen chances for four separate airlines to lose my luggage. If you give them that many shots on the goal, they will score, and your luggage will be lost, and as you’re rarely in the same place for more than one day, your luggage may never catch up. So: Carry on. I have a roller bag, in which are my clothes and toiletries, and a travel bag into which I put my electronics and other things I want to be able to unpack at a moment’s notice.

Second: Decide to have a casual look, which is to say you’ll do better with clothes you can tightly jam into a carry-on, like tee-shirts or short-sleeved polo shirts and jeans, all of which de-wrinkle on their own after about ten minutes of you wearing them. I’m going to be the first to admit that this is much easier to do if, say, you are a dude writing science fiction, as I am, since the level of expected sartorial sophistication for science fiction male is “Don’t show up with Kool-Aid spilled down the front of your tee shirt.” Yes, this is a very low standard. When I am on the road for three weeks, I am happy to let a very low standard work for me.

That said, you can pack better clothing than I do into a carry-on and still make it work. Mary Robinette Kowal can pack as many days worth of clothing into a carry-on as I can, and still — unfathomably — have space for a ball gown. No, I have no idea how she does it. Ask her. I do think an iron is involved somewhere. But in a general sense, casual is better if you can get away with it.

Third: Have a scheduled laundry stop somewhere in the tour, which means that what’s on the schedule for some portion of one day is you shoving your clothes into a washer (and then a dryer), either at a laundromat or at the residence of a sympathetic friend. I don’t care how good you are at clothing Tetris, if you’re over a meter tall, you’re not fitting three week’s worth of clothes into a carry-on. At some point you will need to wash things. You must put this on your schedule; if you don’t schedule it, it won’t happen.

For what I think are obvious reasons, it’s best if the laundry day is scheduled at (or just after) the halfway point in your tour. My laundry day on this tour is on Day 12, which is slightly less than optimal for a 21-day jaunt, but still perfectly doable. This means I have twelve days of clothes in my bag plus the clothes on my back that I wore the first day of the tour (13 days in all). This means a very tightly packed carry-on.

Laundry day is also another reason to pack casual clothes: I’ll be jamming all my shirts and socks into one load and all my jeans and underwear into the other. Two loads, done.

Fourth: Rolling is magic. The key to putting twelve days of clothing into a single carry-on is have each bit of clothing take of the smallest amount of room as possible, with a minimum of surface area. The means taking every bit of clothing and rolling them into a highly compact tube, and then pushing them as tightly as possible next to each other. There are other ways to make your clothes small and compact, but this is my favorite, for two reasons: One, it’s easy to do — you don’t have to be a scientist to roll a pair of jeans — and two, it makes it easy to both extract and replace clothing during the trip: Pull out one clean tube, replace it with one worn tube (I turn my worn clothes inside out before I put them back into the carry-on so I know at a glance which things are clean and which are not).

So, having said all that, what’s in my bags?

Roller bag:

Six pairs of jeans (plus one pair on my body at any one time): You can wear jeans for more than one day (provided you don’t make a mess of yourself), they’re durable and they can take a fair amount of abuse. This makes them excellent tour clothing. They can be bulky but again you can wear them for more than one day so it evens out.

Seven polo shirts: Easily packable but can be worn to places where t-shirts are not appropriate. I have business meetings during this trip, for example, so I’ll be wearing those then.

Five tee-shirts (plus the one I wore on the first day): These are good for travel days and other casual events; I’ll mostly be wearing t-shirts when I am at Phoenix Comic Con, for example.

12 pairs of socks; 12 pairs of underwear (plus the pairs I was wearing on the first day). Because you do need these. Really.

Toiletry bag: Which includes toothbrush, floss, Q-Tips, razor, beard trimmer, Claritin, tissues and underarm deodorant plus a couple other things. I don’t tend to bring my own shampoo or soap because those are generally available in the hotel rooms; also on the road I tend to use soap for when I shave.

Travel bag:

Laptop: because I am doing writing/doing other computing-intensive things on the road and want a fully-capable computer.

iPad: for more casual use (tweeting on planes, reading books etc)

Phone: this stays mostly in my pocket but occasionally gets stuffed into the bag. Aside from all the things a modern smartphone can do, it’s also a portable 4G hotspot, which means that in general I do not have to suffer at the hands of terrible hotel/airport wifi. Also, this phone is a Razr Maxx, which means that it has an extra large-capacity battery, which is handy when one is on the road.

Battery: This is a 9900mAh outboard battery that I use to recharge my phone and iPad; it can charge each of these a couple of times (or one of them a few times) before it’s totally drained. This is great for travel because I never worry about not having a charge for my portable electronics (except the laptop). It also means that I don’t have to do the Sad Airport Wall Socket Walk, desperately looking for someplace to plug in my phone.

Paperback book: Because they still make you turn off your electronics on the plane, which is stupid, but whatever. I will replace the paperback a couple of times over the course of the tour; fortunately, I’m often at bookstores, where doing this is easy.

Extra pair of glasses: Because it would suck not to be able to see.

Pens: For signing books and writing on other things. Not every store that has me come for a signing remembers that in order to sign a book I need a pen. Also, in a general sense when I have a preference for medium-weight gel ink pens, and not every store has those, so I bring my own in case.

Sweatshirt: Because planes and other spaces can be cold, and casual shirts are good at keeping one warm. Also makes an acceptable pillow for air travel if necessary.

Baseball cap: For when I am out in the sun and don’t want to get a sunburn on my bald spot and/or for mornings when I need to briefly leave my hotel room before I take a shower, because then my hair looks like hell.

Snacks and gum: For long plane rides and times when I’m so busy I will forget to eat, which happens more often than you might think. The temptation is just to stuff Snickers bars in there, but in fact I do try to snack more responsibly than that. I’m also careful to balance out snacking with a) counting calories so I don’t gain a bunch of weight on tour b) actually eating well when I’m taken places to eat. Be that as it may, it’s not a bad thing to have something to eat at your fingertips, especially if, like me, low blood sugar tends to make you cranky. This is no good when you’re supposed to be nice to people, as, for example, one is supposed to be on a book tour.

The one drawback of traveling so compactly for such a long period of time is that I have almost no space to add anything to my packing. This can be a problem because fans do occasionally like to give me gifts, which is awesome (usually) but then presents the issue of what do I do with the gift. If I have a handler at the stop (someone who drives me around, makes sure I’m where I’m supposed to be, and keeps me on schedule), I will ask them to mail that stuff home for me; otherwise I might have the bookstore do it. So if you are a fan and you give me something, be aware it’s not going with me to the next stop; it’s being shoved into a box and will catch up with me at the end of my travels. I don’t think this will bother most folks but you never know, which is why I note it.

And that’s how you (or at least, I) travel for a three-week book tour.

Why, hello, Los Angeles. You don’t change much.

A brief time recovering from the 405 Freeway, and then I am off again, to dinner with friends. Don’t wait up. See you tomorrow.

That’s right, San Diego, I will be at Mysterious Galaxy’s 20th Anniversary Party tomorrow at 2pm to sign books, meet people and otherwise be a happy performing monkey for the whole lot of you (and yes, apparently, there will be a limited number of “pre-publication copies” of The Human Division, or so it says on Mysterious Galaxy’s Web site, so come early if you want those).  I won’t be the only author there by a long shot; click on that link above to see who else is coming by to celebrate. It’ll be a fun time. There are rumors of cake. And you know what they say about cake. It is never a lie.

Please come! Bring a friend! Bring two! Have them bring friends! Have those friends bring enemies, and then we’ll all eat popcorn as they fight in the parking lot! It’ll be fantastic.

Honestly, I never imagined myself in my mid-40s. 

Which is not to say that when I was younger I expected I would be dead by now or anything. I never led a life that was either that exciting or depressing. I just simply never imagined myself as a middle-aged dude, because honestly, who does? Who imagines themselves being no longer young yet not exactly old, balding and somewhere in the middle of whatever career one is doing when one grows up? Being middle-aged is no great accomplishment in itself; you just have to make it through your 20s without getting hit by a bus then wait a bit from there. There it is: Your forties.

So, no. Never imagined myself in my forties. But I suppose that just means that everything here in my fifth decade is both a surprise and a thrill. I have a career I love and it’s going well. I have a daughter I love who gives me constant joy and occasional (well, constant) sarcasm. I have friends reaching as far back as second grade who are amazing, accomplished people, who I am delighted I get to know and snipe at. I have a wife who is the core of my life and who after 20 years together I still openly gawk at and wonder what I did to deserve such a spectacular women, whose physical gorgeousness is the least wonderful thing about her. I travel across the country — and in fact will travel across the country today — and get to meet people who like what I do enough to come out and see me when I show up in their city.

Basically, the forties kind of rock for me.

There are some downsides, I suppose. I am balding, and at the moment (not visible from the picture above) am rocking a kind of “Friar Tuck” tonsure hair pattern. I do have a little arthritis in one of my hips, although at this point I have to really torque it to notice (I am told that will eventually change). And when 10pm rolls around, what I really want to do is go to bed, because my body is going to wake me up by 6am whether I want it to or not. So I’m not exactly Mr. Excitement. But honestly if these are my downsides at the moment, I should just shut up about them right now. Here’s me shutting up about them.

As noted, I will be celebrating my birthday by going on the road: I travel to Los Angeles today to begin my book tour, which will take me all over the country over the course of the next three weeks. On one hand, yeah, it’s not great to be traveling on my birthday. On the other hand, I think about why I’m traveling and I have to admit there are far worse reasons to get on a plane on my 44th, and besides this means I get a Double Double animal style on my birthday SO I WIN. I’m looking forward to seeing all of you (well, some of you, anyway) through May. And also to my Double Double. And to being 44. Let’s see where things go from here.

If you did pre-order The Human Division from Jay & Mary’s Book Center, one, your book is in this picture somewhere, and two, I signed it as specified and it will soon be on its way to you. Thank you for supporting my local bookstore, they are awesome and so are you.

If you did not pre-order The Human Division from Jay & Mary’s Book Center and are now filled with regret that you did not get a signed copy from me, there are two things you can do at this point:

One: Call Jay & Mary’s Book Center and order a signed (but not personalized) copy from them, because they have, like, 20 copies that they will put on the shelves on Tuesday. They will send you one! Happily!

Two: Call any of the bookstores that are participating in my book tour, order a copy from them and ask them to have me sign it for you when I get there (that is, if you’re not coming to the event itself, which you should because OH GOD OH GOD WHAT IF NO ONE SHOWS UP TO MY EVENTS).

Either of these works.

In any event, you’ll be able to get one of these babies Real Soon Now. I’m excited! I’m excited for you!

Things to do:

• Go to Jay & Mary’s and sign The Human Division pre-orders
• Get a haircut
• Pick up various toiletries
• Run various errands
• Go out for birthday dinner (one day early, because I travel tomorrow, don’t wish me happy birthday yet)
• Pack
• Spend quality time with the pets who don’t actually care that they won’t see me for three weeks
• Oh, other stuff, I’m sure.

So, off to the first one right now.

This is inside pool for publishing folks, so those of you who don’t care about that stuff can skip over this to the next post.

In the last several months, I’ve noticed a couple of books coming out with blurbs from me that I didn’t remember giving — and what’s happened there is that someone in the publishing house has taken a quote from an introduction to the author’s Big Idea piece here on Whatever and used that as a blurb.

Here’s my position on that:  Please don’t unless you’ve cleared the quote with me first.

Why?

1. Generally speaking, Big Idea intros aren’t recommendations or reviews. They’re text I put in to set the scene for the Big Idea piece proper, which sometimes needs context for people who don’t know who the author is. I try to be engaging when I do that, of course, since I want people to read past the first graph to the actual piece. But unless I’m saying something in the intro like “I read this particular book and holy squirrels, it’s great,” there are two things to know: One, I probably haven’t read the book in full (time issues), so there’s not a review component to the intro. Two, I do the Big Idea mostly on a first come, first serve basis, so generally speaking no endorsement of the work from me is implied; I leave it to the author to sell the book themselves. So to position the quote from a Big Idea intro as an endorsement is generally not a correct action.

Because of the above:

2. The pull quotes you’ll get from a Big Idea intro probably aren’t all that great. Because, well, they weren’t designed to be blurbs, or reviews/endorsements. So they end up looking carefully non-specific about the quality of book itself, which again makes sense because I often don’t read the book before posting the Big Idea, nor would I have necessarily chosen that particular book for myself to read. And I suppose that if all you’re looking for is to plaster my name on the cover of your author’s book, then that might not worry you one way or another. But the thing is that most readers are not stupid and they can tell a positive blurb from an indifferent one — the difference between “Holy squirrels this is fantastic buy it now,” and “This is a book with nouns and verbs that I am aware exists in this world.” I certainly know I can tell difference. And why run a blurb that doesn’t do what a blurb’s supposed to do: Get the potential reader to pull the trigger and buy the book?

3. It does neither of us any good to dilute the effectiveness of my blurbs by using bland, non-committal pull quotes from me. First, per point two, you’re not fooling anyone. Second, I do try to limit my blurbage to just a few authors/books, so that my endorsement actually means something. Which means I’m less than 100% happy when my name is associated with something I didn’t go out of my way to endorse. Third, too many bland non-committal pull quotes from me on books means just means people will learn to discount my (apparent) endorsement on books, which will make everyone unhappy, not just me.

Now, to be clear:  publicists/editors/authors/whomever are not required to clear a Big Idea into pull quote from me, any more than they are required to get permission from a reviewer to quote a review. I did write those words in those Big Idea intros, and so long as the pull quote isn’t done in a way to misrepresent what I wrote, it’s fair use and fair game, and they have a job to do. Fair enough. That said, I will note that generally quotes from reviews are attributed to the review publication (Publishers Weekly, New York Times, Locus, etc) or if the reviewer is high-profile, to the review and publication both. When Big Idea intro pull quotes are used, they tend to be attributed to me only, and thus look more like a personal endorsement. It’s a small thing but it matters, or at least it matters to me.

That being the case:

4. I’m going to start noting when Big Idea intro pull quotes are being used without clearance. What does that mean? Well, two things. One, I’ll remember which houses are using pull quotes from me without clearance when their publicists and editors come to me for actual blurbs. Two, depending on my mood on the day, I may publicly note on the blog that I haven’t read the book the pull quote is on. Which will be embarrassing to everyone involved, I think. Much better to check with me first, no?

The good news is:

5. If you check with me, sometimes I’ll say yes, and sometimes you’ll even get an upgrade. I don’t necessarily object to Big Idea intro quotes being used, if I feel they accurately express my enthusiasm for the book or author. And sometimes if the quote doesn’t do that, it’ll because it’s not enthusiastic enough. For example, a publicist recently checked with me about a Big Idea intro pull quote for an author. It wasn’t a great quote, to be honest. So I gave her a much better, rather more on point blurb that more fully expressed my enthusiasm for the author and his books. Which made her happy (because it was a much better blurb) and made me happy (because she checked in). See? Everyone wins!

So, please: Ask before you use a Big Idea intro quote. It’ll make me happy! And I remember those people in publishing who make me happy. Thank you.

Very exciting news. 

Here’s the Locus announcement plus the full list of categories, which includes as finalists friends like Elizabeth Bear, Cat Valente, Mary Robinette Kowal, Saladin Ahmed, China Mieville, Jay Lake, Paolo Bacigalupi and Cory Doctorow — among many others. Congratulations to all!

Here are the finalists in my category of Science Fiction Novel:

• The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. Banks (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
• Caliban’s War, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• Redshirts, John Scalzi (Tor; Gollancz)

An excellent field. I am delighted to be a finalist, but I have to tell you that with all my heart I hope it goes to Iain M. Banks this year, not only for this particular novel (which is excellent) but as a salute to his entire body of work. I would be very happy with that.

The winners will be announced at the end of June — good luck to everyone.

Which is:

What is your favorite relentlessly popular song?

By which I mean: The song that everyone knows (or did know, at the time), that took over the world in its day, which may or may not be good, depending on your definition of these things, but which you still listen to all the way through every time you hear it.

Here’s an example from the 80s:

Another, more recent example:

Yeah, you got it now.

So: Share in the comments.

It’s here. And it’s good; I especially like that it talks about the intentionally multi-media aspect of the novel (that’s “multi-media” not “multimedia”), because we intentionally built it from the ground up to work effectively in more than a single medium. It’s nice when people pick up on that.

For those of you too busy for the reading, here’s the summation graph:

The bottom line: The Human Division flat out rocked. It’s a smart space opera novel that weaves together politics, characters and action that surpasses its predecessors in the series. For an experimental novel (and this isn’t the first online attempt at a serialized story), it seems to have mostly worked, and at points, worked incredibly well. More than just an experiment in the delivery medium, this is a fine read, and an excellent addition to the series. Season/Book 2 can’t come soon enough.

Sweet.

Also: One week until the hardcover release. Can’t wait.

I understand it’s fashionable to make fun of people who are using their iPads (or other large tablets) as cameras, but, you know what? I like using mine as a camera. The huge, hi-res screen is awesome for framing and picture taking. I have several cameras around the house, ranging from a DSLR down to the one on my cell phone. All of them have video screens you can look at while you’re taking the picture, but only the iPad is the one where the screen is large enough that there is no doubt whatsoever about a) what you’re looking at when you take the picture, b) what the picture is going to look like after you’ve taken it. This is great for me, especially for certain types of pictures, like the ones where I’m trying to show off new books — I can see before I take the picture whether all the book titles and author names are legible.

The camera itself is not the highest resolution out there or has the best imaging chip — my cell phone takes higher-res pictures, and my DSLR is quite obviously possessed of the better optics system, but then again 5 megapixels is perfectly serviceable for where almost all the pictures I take with the thing go, which is to say, on my Web site, where I size them to be no more than 500 pixels wide most of the time. Plus acceptable photoediting suites and good connectivity to upload photos (which is something that my DLSR doesn’t have; I have to take the memory card and stick it into a computer like a common troll) makes it my first choice for camera when I am not actually hauling out my Nikon.

The main knock on the iPad as a camera is that the thing is big and people look goofy taking pictures with it. But, you know. If you’re the sort of person who judges another person for using an iPad to take a picture, who is the actual asshole in that scenario? Hint: Probably not the dude holding the iPad. I would agree there are times and places not to haul out the iPad — for example, in any scenario where your taking the picture with it blocks the view of the actual event for someone else, or if you’re operating heavy machinery, etc. But in most circumstances: Fine with me. You shouldn’t have to whip out an entirely different piece of imaging equipment just because someone somewhere might think you look goofy for holding an iPad out for a photo. Especially if that person is the sort whose entire wardrobe is meant to be worn ironically.

Here they are. See anything you want?

(I will note that 1001 Secrets Every Birder Should Know by Sharon “Birdchick” Stiteler is a book I actually went out and purchased, because she’s a pal of mine and I’m also a fan of her work.)

And here is the very nice award they gave me there. It is interesting, and perhaps instructional, that the comment I got the most as I was showing it off was “wow, that would be an excellent award for murdering someone with.” Yes, I suppose it would be. Not that I have any plans to do that. Unless, of course, you piss me off.

I’ll tell you a story about getting the award. RT Book Reviews is a magazine that primarily but not exclusively reviews works in the romance genre, and so their Reviewer’s Choice awards are primarily (but, obviously, not exclusively) in the romance genre, which has a largely (but again not exclusively) female authorship. Correspondingly most of the Reviewer’s Choice Award recipients are women; of the thirty or so Reviewer’s Choice awards they gave out at the ceremony, I was one of two men accepting awards (the other being the male half of the “Ilona Andrews” writing team).

With that as preamble, one of the things they do at the RT Reviewer’s Choice Award ceremony is have male romance book cover models escort the award recipients to the stage; they walk them up the ramp in part to help pace the ceremony and keep it moving at a brisk clip — when one recipient was up giving the speech, the next would queue up, and so on (the winners were announced in advance so this was easy to do). On the side of ceremony room I was on there were two of the fellows, who would alternate walking up the award recipient.

When it was my turn to queue up, the two men looked over at me, wondering what they should do; my response was to signal to them that, hells yeah, one of them was going to walk me up. Because damn it, I was an RT Reviewer’s Choice Award recipient, and I wanted the full award winner experience. Which included being walked up to the stage by a hunky male romance cover model.

They both walked me up, each taking an arm. I felt very special.

Beyond that particular moment, I had a very good time at the RT Booklovers’ Convention as a whole. On a practical sense, it seemed a well-run convention — they had a book signing area, with well over a hundred authors of all sorts, that was extremely well run, enough so that I think other con runners should come to this thing to see how they do it. Likewise, I was impressed at how smoothly the awards ceremony went — there were a few dozen award recipients in total yet they got through the entire ceremony in just a couple of hours. As someone at the head of an organization that has its own award ceremony, I was taking notes.

I also have to say that I liked the vibe of the convention, which was (for the authors, at least) relaxed and fun. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and were happy to be sitting around, chatting and sharing notes. I’ll note that as RT is heavily focused on the romance genre — a field which, by the way, has significant crossover into the speculative fiction and YA genres (and often both at the same time) — the author and fan attendance skewed largely female; while men weren’t entirely absent (there were male authors and fans, and spouses of female authors and fans) they were relatively rare. In the evenings, I would be hanging out at the bar with other writers and friends and I would look around and every other person around the table would be a woman. And I would go, huh, and then go back into the conversation.

This is something that I think might be worth noting out loud: At a largely female-oriented convention, as a man, I was never excluded, resented or made to feel unwelcome. There were folks who were surprised I was there, but that surprise was always “Oh! Cool! You’re here!” rather than “Why are you here?” And that, of course, is a salient difference. No one questioned my reasoning for being there, or suggested, say, that I was a Fake Romance Boy, or quizzed me about who my favorite romance author was or if I could recite that author’s bibliography to their satisfaction. I certainly wasn’t skeezed on. On the contrary, people went out of their way to ask me if I was enjoying myself and to let me know they were glad I was there. When I admitted ignorance about certain writers or genre details they were happy to expand my knowledge, and they wanted to know more about what I did and my own experiences as a writer.  I met lots of new people and made new friends and in many ways it was one of the best convention experiences I’ve had in a long time.

This leaves wide open and hanging the question of why was it so easy for the folks at the RT Booklovers’ Convention, fans and creators both, to welcome a stranger of the opposite gender into their midst, while other enthusiast communities that skew male still have creators and fans who blow a gasket about women doing their thing in that genre. It’s not difficult to be welcoming and friendly. I wish the genres I am actively a part of could do as good a job of it as romance and the RT Booklovers’ convention did for me (and, I will note, the other men I saw at the convention).

So, in all: An excellent time with excellent people, and, hey, I got an award, too. Not a bad weekend at all.

Not dead, just traveling. Back to home, this time. Yay!

Hope your Cinco de Mayo is full of Cincosity. No, I don’t know what that means either. But it sounds nice, doesn’t it.

In case you missed the Twitter updates about this yesterday, the results of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America board of directors election are in. Steven Gould will be the new president of the organization as of July 1, joining current members Rachel Swirsky, Bud Sparhawk and Lee Martindale (who were re-elected into their positions as VP, Treasurer and South-Central Regional Director, respectively), Matthew Johnson, Jim Fiscus and Cat Valente (Canadian, Western and Eastern Regional Directors) and is newly joined by Susan Forest and Tansy Rayner Roberts (Secretary and Overseas Regional Director).

As the current president, I’m pleased with this outcome. Some of you might remember that I had endorsed him in his candidacy for the presidency, so it’s nice (but honestly not in the least surprising) that the majority of SFWA members who voted agreed with me on this particular matter. I expect very good things from Steven and the next board.

As noted, Steve and the rest of the new board take office on July 1, so I’m still in office for another two months. Most of that time, hopefully, will be given over to helping make a seamless transition from one administration to the next.

After three years at the helm, I’m happy to be handing over the reins; I believe it’s best for the organization for it to have new people in the mix on the board, with fresh perspectives and energy. But I’ve enjoyed being president, and I’m not going to lie; I’ll be a little wistful when I’m done.

This has been a good job. I’m happy that the next guy to have it is a fundamentally good person. Well done, SFWA voters.

RT Booklover’s Convention is primarily a convention by and for romance writers and fans, and so the attendance skews heavily female. It’s a very interesting experience, in a positive way, and I’m having a lot of fun. And as you can see from the photo above, I am opening myself up to new experiences, like walking a mile (or at least standing) in another writer’s shoes, in this case Rachel Caine’s. I’m not sure that color is right for me, but I am assured that the red makes the whole ensemble “pop.” Well, then.

Someone suggested that the picture meant they had blackmail material against me. So I showed her the pictures of me from Jim Hines’ Pose-Off. That settled the issue of blackmail. Sometimes being a man without shame has its advantages.

Also, my feet hurt just standing in those shoes. Honestly. I don’t know how people who regularly wear heels do it. Respect, y’all.

(Photo by Colleen Lindsay)

That headline is basically the summation from Paul Miller, who spent a year offline (on purpose, he wasn’t in jail or anything) and has now posted an article to tell folks what he learned about himself in the process. He’d hoped that being offline would help him get in touch with the “real” him; he found out basically that he was pretty much the same person online and offline. Being off the Internet didn’t make him into a better or purer person, it just made him a dude who didn’t go online.

And, well. Yes. Not terribly surprised about that. The online world can be distracting and alienating, but it is often so because people are often inclined to be distracted and alienated. If you’re one of those people, it doesn’t matter where you go or what you do, you’ll still be inclined toward distraction and alienation. You could be in a monastery on the slopes of the Himalayas and get distracted by the snowflakes. No satori for you! On the other hand, dude, snowflakes.

That said, I’ll note that I do think it’s fine to get away from the Internet from time to time, to break some default patterns and to just remind one’s self that there are other things one can do with one’s time than just stare into a screen all the time. I took advantage of being on a cruise earlier this year to remove myself entirely from the Internet for a whole week, which was the longest time that I had done that in years. It was pretty great, actually. And when I got back I had changed my online behavior a little bit, which I thought was beneficial as well. On the other hand, I wouldn’t expect at this late date that being away from the online world would change me in any significant way.

I’ll tell you a story. In 1995 — before this whole Internet thing really took off — I went on my honeymoon, and for the entire honeymoon, I did not look at a newspaper or magazine, because, you know, I wanted to focus on this whole honeymoon thing, not what was going on with the rest of the world. And it was great. And on the plane ride back, the dude in the seat in front of me was reading a newspaper and I put a crick in my neck craning to try to read it. Which amused my wife. She had no illusions as to who I was, even then. These days it’s the Internet rather than newspapers/magazines (mostly), but it’s still the same dynamic. I’m still me.

So, again, not entirely surprised by Miller’s epiphany about himself and the Internet. In the end, the Internet is an external thing. If Miller wanted to get in touch with his “real” self, that’s got to be an internal thing, I think.