If You're Going Out Tonight, You Could Do It In Worse Places Than Kansas City.

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So Tuesday night I was in a speakeasy in Kansas City. You entered through an alleyway reeking of stale cooking oil and rancid dumpsters, the ambiance was murky, the waitstaff had stern words to say if you used your cell phone to try to read the menu, and the drinks were good. Last night, I went to a steakhouse (the barbecue joints were all booked solid) with dear friends and caught up with years of missing event. And so, I hope, my evenings will go for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, at the Worldcon, I did a bookstore reading, was on an SRO panel on the contemporary influence of science fiction, and was a small part of the opening ceremonies for MidAmeriCon. (Briefly, I reminisced on sitting in the back row 40 years ago, with the bad kids who smoked and used naughty words... and if you want to know what conclusions I drew, you'll just have to have been there.)

Tomorrow, my official schedule is:

1:00 p.m.
What's New in the World of Dinosaurs
My fellow panelists are all knowledgeable and enthusiastic. I may not get a word in edgewise. Oughta be great.

4:00 p.m.
Being Michael Swanwick
My guest of honor interview. By Fran Wilde. With luck, I'll say something interesting.

8:00 p.m.
Literary Beer
People who have signed up for this get to share a beer with me and ask whatever they'd like to know. This is always fun and often surprising.

Stay tuned for more!


Above: There it is, the well-made martini, glowing in the light of its own perfection. Notice that it has but one olive. No more are needed.

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Let the Worldcon BEGIN!!!

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Yesterday, I was wandering about Kansas City having fun. (That's me up above, being menaced by one of Louise Bourgeois' spiders at the Kemper Museum.)

I also had a reading/interview at Rainy Day Books. And then went to a speakeasy. So it was an easygoing day.

Today the work begins.

Here's my Wednesday schedule:

2:00 p.m.
Does "Today's" Science Fiction Still Inspire the Future?
Spoiler Alert! The answer is: Yes and No.

5:00 p.m.
Opening Ceremony - Meet the Guests of Honor
With not only but Ruth Lichtwardt, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Tamara Pierce, and Kinuko Y. Craft. But let's be honest, the goh everybody wants to see is the fabulous Pat Cadigan.

As you can see, it's not a heavy schedule. So it's nice work if you can get it.

Daily updates and hijinks as the con progresses.

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Things To Do In Kansas City On a Tuesday

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MidAmeriCon II starts tomorrow. Why not get a jump start on it by going to Rainy Day Books tonight? I'll be doing a reading and chat there tonight at 7:00.

And while you're there, you might as well buy a piping hot and fresh from the presses copy of Not So Much, Said the Cat, my brilliant new collection of short fiction. You know that the bookstore people are secretly hoping you will.

Autograph at no additional cost.

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Beelzebub Bids Farewell to Philadelphia

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I got back home Saturday, which of course means that, as always, I'm on the road again. This time I'm off to MidAmeriCon II, the Kansas City Worldcon, where I'm a guest of honor.

Going with me is Beelzebub, who haas been doing a Cat Tour to support my fresh-off-the--presses collection, Not So Much, Said the Cat. To celebrate his stay in Philadelphia, above is a photo of him, taken at the Rocky statue at the foot of the Art Museum steps.

Beelzebub is going to Kansas City with me, but he won't be returning in my company. Instead, Tachyon Publications will be giving him away to some fortunate cat-fancyer.

You can discover the details at the Tachyon table in the huckster room.

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My Worldcon Schedule

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As always, I'm on the road again! And when I get back, I'll be flying off to Kansas City where I'm slated to be a guest of honor at MidAmeriCon II.

I'm not sure how much blogging I'll have the time to do, but I'll try to keep in touch. In the meantime, for those of you who are going to be in attendance, here's my preliminary schedule:

Wednesday

2:00 p.m.

Does "Today's" Science Fiction Still Inspire the Future? (Participant)
Heinlein, Asimov, and Bradbury inspired a generation of young minds to become today's scientists and engineers. Where have those "inspired" kids brought us today? What connections can we tie back to the works of these SF icons? Are today's SF authors still inspiring younger generations to pursue technology and science? If so, which authors are inspiring the next generation and in what ways?
2207 (Kansas City Convention Center)
with Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Cynthia Ward, Adam-Troy Castro

5:00 p.m.
Opening Ceremony - Meet the Guests of Honor (Participant)
Heinlein Stadium (Kansas City Convention Center)
with Ms Pat Cadigan, Ruth Lichtwardt, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Tamora Pierce, Ms. Kinuko Y. Craft

Thursday

1:00 p.m.
What's New in the World of Dinosaurs! (Participant)
Dinosaurs are cool! New discoveries are being made every day as we unearth bones from the past. In a recent discovery, scientists believe that a pregnant T-Rex found in Montana may have fragments of DNA preserved in her medullary bone. What else is out there? What other news from the past is there to share?

2205 - A/V (Kansas City Convention Center)
with Bennett Coles, Mel. White, Frank Wu, Ms Rosemary Claire Smith

4:00 p.m.
Being Michael Swanwick (Participant)
Tucker Stage (Kansas City Convention Center)
with Fran Wilde

8:00 p.m.
Literary Beer : GoH Michael Swanwick
Literary Beer space (Kansas City Convention Center)

Friday

8:30 a.m.

Stroll with the Stars

The Worlds Most Famous Parking Garage: A tour of the Power and Light District.

2.15 km

11:00 a.m.
Autographing: Michael Swanwick (tentative) (Reserved)
Autographing Space (Kansas City Convention Center)

2:00 p.m.

Short Fiction of the 1980s (Participant)
2210 (Kansas City Convention Center)
with Gordon Van Gelder, John Kessel, Ellen Datlow, Jo Walton

4:00 or 5:00 p.m.
Placeholder for Coode St (Participant)
2207 (Kansas City Convention Center)
with Jonathan Strahan, Gary Wolfe, Kij Johnson

7:00 p.m.
Hard Fantasy - Does it Exist? (Participant)
2209 (Kansas City Convention Center)
with Mr. Preston Grassmann, Sebastien de Castell, Mrs. Laurel Anne Hill, Courtney Schafer

Saturday

11:00 a.m.
Reading: Michael Swanwick (tentative) (Reserved)
2202 Readings (Kansas City Convention Center)

2: 00 – 2:30 p.m.

Autographing at Tachyon Booth

3:00 p.m.
The Secret History of Science Fiction (Participant)
“The first thing I did when I became an editor was to learn all the dirt, who hated who and why,” David Hartwell said. “Because if I was going to do business in this field, I needed to know where the landmines were buried.” Then he told Michael Swanwick a scandalous story. With David’s permission, Michael began transcribing his stories of the early years of the genre. (Stories about living writers were never shared.) "The Secret History of Science Fiction,” would have been a juicy addition to our literary history. Unfortunately, David died and with him the project. There are a few entries that remain and this panel is a forum to share such stories and honor David's humor and intelligence.
2504B (Kansas City Convention Center)
with Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Gordon Van Gelder, Eileen Gunn

4:00 p.m.
In Memoriam; David G. Hartwell (Participant)
3501F - A/V (Kansas City Convention Center)
with Kathryn Cramer, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Tom Doherty

6:00 p.m.
Hugo Awards Reception (Invisible)
Saturday, August 20 2016, 6:00 pm
2501D (Kansas City Convention Center)


Sunday

2:00 p.m.

MidAmeriCon I: A Conversation (Participant)
A discussion about the first MidAmeriCon from three authors who were there: Michael Swanwick who was a fan and fledgling writer; George R R Martin who was there as an author and co-founded the Hugo Losers Party, and Pat Cadigan as a committee member (and Heinlein's Guest Liaison).

Tucker Stage (Kansas City Convention Center)
with George R. R. Martin, Ms Pat Cadigan

4:00 p.m.
Closing Ceremony (Participant)
Tucker Stage (Kansas City Convention Center)
with Ruth Lichtwardt, Ms Pat Cadigan, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Ms. Kinuko Y. Craft, Tamora Pierce

Hope-in-the-Mist & What Can Be Saved from the Wreckage? E-Books!

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I have a particular fondness for my two Temporary Culture books, Hope-in-the-Mist and What Can Be Saved from the Wreckage? Firstly, because they were both labors of love, critical monographs on two fantasists of great importance to the genre. Secondly because Henry Wessells made such lovely books out of them.

The only drawback to those publications was that because a) there is a limited market for such studies, and b) Henry didn't want to have boxes of unsold books cluttering up his living room, they were issued in editions of 200 copies each, plus a very limited number of hand-bound hardcovers.

Both books went out of print very quickly.

This was a particular problem for Lud-in-the-Mist because it is the only book dedicated solely to Hope Mirrlees and thus any scholar who wants to write about her must somehow track down a copy.

So I am particularly happy to report that Temporary Culture is making both volumes available as e-books through Weightless Books.

Hope-in-the-Mist: The Extraordinary Career and Mysterious Life of Hope Mirrlees is a slim study of the life and works of a woman known in genre for her magisterial fantasy novel Lud-in-the-Mist and in Academia for her magisterial (and long lost) poem Paris, a Poem. The poem was published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf on the tabletop press and is suspected of being a serious influence on Mirrlees's friend T. S. Eliot. The novel is considered one of the founding works of fantasy by all hte usual suspects, including not only myself but Neil Gaiman. Who, not coincidentally, provided an introduction to my book.

You can find ordering information here.

What Can Be Saved from the Wreckage? James Branch Cabell in the Twenty-First Century is my attempt to make James Branch Cabell accessible again. I read everything that Cabell ever published (roughly fifty books, all told) and then passed judgment on them, holding the praiseworthy up for admiration and explaining why the lesser works are of interest only to the completist.(*) In the course of which, I give a quick sketch of the man's life and career, detailing how he took the most successful career of any fantasist of his times and drove it straight and unerringly into oblivion.

But fondly, I hope. There was a lot to like about JBC.

The introduction, believe it or not, was written by Barry Humphries, he of Dame Edna Everage fame. You can find the ordering information for it here.


(*) Neil Gaiman (and I'm sure he's not alone) believes that I've undervalued some of Cabell's works, the short fiction in particular. This is quite possible. Please feel free to decide for yourself. And if you end up feeling I gave the man short shrift, feel free to say so publicly. Fantasists can use all the publicity they can get. Above: The cover for Hope-in-the-Mist.

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Me, Interviewed

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I've been interviewed! Specifically, I was interviewed about my just-out collection Not So Much, Said the Cat. Over at mylifemybooksmyescape, DJ asks questions and I answer them.

Here's the first one:

DJ: Hey Michael! Thanks for stopping by to do this interview! For readers who aren’t familiar with you, could you tell us a little about yourself?

Michael Swanwick: In 1973, I came to Philadelphia with fifty dollars, a pack-a-day cigarette habit, and the mad conviction I could become a writer. Seven years later, my first two published stories placed on the Nebula Award ballot. Since then, I’ve published nine novels, roughly 150 stories, and countless works of flash fiction. Along the way, I’ve won several awards. I live for literature.

And there is, of course, more. You can read the entire interview here.

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