Fast Forward

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The good people at Fast Forward have just posted their most recent interview with me online.

Here's what they have to say about it:

FF#225, July 2009, Michael Swanwick interview

The interview for the July 2009 episode of Fast Forward is now available online. In this interview host Mike Zipser talks with author Michael Swanwick about Hope-in-the-Mist, his new biography about author Hope Mirrlees. He also discusses receiving the Alex Award for his novel, The Dragons of Babel, and his Hugo Award nomination for the short story, “From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled”

The complete cable TV episode of Fast Forward also includes:

Colleen Cahill’s review of Danny Birt’s novel, Ending an Ending, from Ancient Tomes Press.

Marianne Petrino’s review of the Japanese anime series, Kurau: Phantom Memory


You can find the episode here.

And if you're not particularly interested in hearing what I have to say, but are interested in intelligent television coverage of the science fiction book world . . . well, then Fast Forward is pretty much made for you. Their home page is right here.

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Dragon Crush!

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Dragon Crush has just posted an interview with yours truly, titled Michael Swanwick…The Man, The Myth, The Dragons.

And what, you ask, is Dragon Crush? It's a free online dating service for fantasy fans. It's brand new. And for some reason they thought an interview with me would help matters.

Well . . . maybe it will. If you go to the main page and look down at the bottom, there's an odd, smirky photo of me which I blush to admit is perfectly accurate. Yep, that's what I look like. So I figure there's got to be any number of guys who are feeling a little insecure who will look at that and say, "Hey, if a guy who looks like that can find true love, anybody can!" and give the thing a whack.

Of course, those who take a chance may well end up lucky -- with somebody who looks like Catherine Asaro, for example. Shown above in a blurry snapshot taken at last Friday's Philly Fantastic meeting at Moonstone Arts Center in Philadelphia, where she did a reading and then gave a short concert of her own songs, written for her most recent novel. Catherine's also a really-o, truly-o physicist. You have no idea how much of an underachiever she makes me feel.

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And Today I Am . . . a GENIUS!

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I got an email from Kyle Cassidy the other day, saying:

When was the last time you were called a genius in WIRED magazine?

Unless it happened again after page 45 of this month's issue, it would be"page 45 of this month's issue".

He was referring to the item in this month's issue shown above, number ten in their "what's wired" playlist. Which reads in its entirety:

WhereIWrite.org
While visiting Michael Swanwick's home, photographer Kyle Cassidy charmed his way into taking a peek at the sci-fi author's workplace. Cassidy ways he felt as if he'd "cracked open Swanwick's skull and seen inside his genius." Thus began a project: snapping photos at the lairs of award-winning writers like Joe Haldeman, Gregory Frost, Piers Anthony, and Neil Gaiman (above). It's Cribs for the literary set.

And I, of course, immediately wrote back to Kyle, saying:

Wait, wait. You do all the work, and I get the praise? Maybe I am a genius after all!

Kyle, of course, is not only a photographer but also a writer. Which makes him that rarity of rarities, a super-genius, and thus entitled to employ the suffix 124c41+.

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The Human Genre Project

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So the human genome has been mapped. Cool. Just how much do you know about it? Practically nothing, right? Well Ken MacLeod is taking care of that. Ken is currently writer-in residence at the The Economic and Social Research Council Genomics Policy and Research Forum, but is best known to you and me as one top-notch science fiction writer. He was looking at the Human Genome Landmarks poster (described by The Scientist as "a graphical depiction of selected genes, traits, and disorders associated with each of the 24 different human chromosomes") and happened to think of my own Periodic Table of Science Fiction. Why not, he thought, do the same?

Hence the Human Genre Project, to be found here. It is accreting poems, stories, and whimsies about all identified genes. You can read what's already been posted on site. Or you can write you own and submit it.

The Scientist has just posted an article about the project. You can read it here.

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What Information Really Wants

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Lately, I've been writing short-shorts in my spare time again. Since I don't have a ready paying market for them, what I've done in place of publication is to print out a very small copy of each story and display them in small frames in my house. Here are three of them, sitting on Marianne's desk.

So why don't I simply post them here for free? I'll let one of the stories answer that for me. As follows:

What Information Really Wants

Information sits weeping in a darkened room. She feels cheap. She feels used. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with you ever again. You’re baffled. You thought you knew her. You thought you knew what she wanted. But you never understood information at all, did you? No, you did not.

Even worse, she’s locked herself in. You hammer on the door. “C’mon, baby, open up!” You’re trying to be reasonable. “I need my entertainment. I need that research material. I’ve got twenty bucks riding on the Nicks game and I need to know if I beat the spread.”

Information wails.

It’s all your fault, too. What the hell were you thinking? “Information wants to be free” – what a stupid thing to say. She gave herself to you because she thought you thought she was special. Then you as good as told her she was a slut. Finally, you bellow, “Just tell me what you want!”

Suddenly the door opens and there information stands, eyes blazing with scorn. Angrily she says, “I want to be alone.”

And slams the door in your face.

– M. Swanwick, 7/18/09

Meanwhile, back at the Moon . . .

Tor.com is celebrating their one-year anniversary by posting brief memories by various science fiction writers of where they were forty years ago today when human beings first landed on the Moon. You can find my own humble contribution here. Or you can simply go to Tor.com and browse through all the posts.

Oh, and they're giving away free stuff too.

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Manliness

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Just how manly do you have to be to see a hat this silly, put it on, and pose for the camera? And how manly do you have to be to take off the hat and then, when the person with the camera says, "I flubbed the shot," put it back on again?

As manly as Allen Steele, that's how manly.

Pictured above: Allen at Readercon, setting the standard for manliness that the rest of us can only strive to live up to.

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For Gonnabe Major Writers Someday Only!

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Are you going to this year's Worldcon, Anticipation? And are you an aspirant writer? And, if so, would you like to workshop your fiction with big-name writers who really know their stuff?

If so, check out this email I just received from Gregory Frost:

The situation is as follows:

The Anticipation website is SNAFUed and they can't put up the writing workshop announcement. Just can't. Don't ask me why. Maybe they have radiation poisoning in Canada or something.

The point of this email beyond my own personal brand of snideness is to request that you link on your blog to the blog entry listed below so that we might use the power of the internet to spread the message far and wide, as you will have far more readers of your esteemed blog than either I or my friend Oz do. And time is short because (surprise) everything is behind schedule.

If this is your sort of thing, click here. I took a quick glimpse, and all I can say is: Twenty bucks, for Nancy Kress's input into your fiction? It's raining soup!

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