APPEARANCES -- Sunday Update

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My schedule of appearances is dwindling small (though there may be yet another appearance in the works in NYC this fall!), and the free chapbooks have been given away.  But I'm working on tons of cool and interesting projects, and a couple of rather strange ones.  More as they come into print.

Meanwhile, here's where I'll be doing things in the near future:
 

August 19-21   Renovation (Worldcon)

                         Reno, NV

Sept. 10           The Spiral Bookcase (signing)

                         Manayunk

                         Philadelphia

Sept. 21            KGB Bar (reading)

                         NYC  

And in 2012 . . .

Aug. 31- Sept. 2   Chicon 7

                             Chicago


Above:  I went to an art opening on Friday in the Northern Liberties and I'll be going back there again tonight to see a film about the artist.  More on that tomorrow, probably.  Meanwhile, here's a photo of a roboticized rabbit's head explaining art.

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Speaking of Murray Leinster . . .

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Okay, this one's a real treat.  I've started posting installments of Billee Stallings' appearance at Readercon.   Billee is the daughter of Will F. Jenkins who, writing as Murray Leinster, was one of the pioneers of science fiction.  "In a just universe," David Hartwell has said, "Murray Leinster would be as famous as Robert A. Heinlein."

Billee and her sister Jo-an J. Evans have published a memoir of their father, Murray Leinster: His Life and Works, which will appear any day now from McFarland.  Like all McFarland books, it's a little pricey.  (Forty bucks.  Yikes.)  But if you need this book -- and there are plenty of people who do -- it's well worth the cost.

Personally, I think the photo of the young Will Jenkins, age 13, posing with the glider he built and flew is worth the expense in and of itself.

In any case, Billee is a delightful and intelligent lady who, as you will see, knows how to speak in public.  I could listen to her all day.


And good news if you're me . . .

I have my camera back!  Now I can post photos of my breakfast on Facebook again.


And speaking of the Gardner Dozois panel . . .

I took a look at what I posted on YouTube.  I was my usual stammering self, but other than that the panel was great.  Tom Purdom in particular deserves kudos as an articulate, abide-no-nonsense moderator.  Thank you, Tom.



Above:  There's the first of either six or seven segments.  I'll post the rest soon, probably over the weekend.

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A flyer for the Cumberland County Winter Eagle Festival.  That thing's great.  You start and end at the Mauricetown Firehall, where they've got various eco-displays, rescued owls and red-tailed hawks and such, and some good hearty food at very low prices.  Then you follow a hand-out map to various spots where they have volunteer spotters who'll say things like, "Look right over there on the mud flat.  Those three white spots?  They're bald eagles."

Yep.  Cumberland County (that's in New Jersey) has so many eagles they can guarantee you in advance that you'll see a potful.  So if you're in striking distance, and you get a bad case of cabin fever in early February, and you wouldn't mind looking at a great variety of large and impressive birds . . . well, there you are.

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A rainbow blindfold.  Then the simple surgical equivalent.  Followed by a cartoon figure falling past a curve that represents a planet or a star, and the annotations:

Lucifer fell upward for ten days,
In space all directions are the same.

Long ago I had a word program where you pressed F7 for "search."  So F7 "shrugged" meant I should go through the typescript of whatever I was working on, looking for instances of that word.  Sometimes you work a simple word too hard and you have to go through the story rephrasing, lest it appear so often the reader will wonder what subtle literary thing you mean by it.

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Speaking of Gardner Dozois . . .

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This is pretty cool.  Marianne recorded almost all of the Readercon panel on writer, editor, and bon vivant Gardner Dozois.  From left to right, the panelists are Gregory Feeley, Tom Purdom (who did a great job as moderator), Gordon Van Gelder, myself, and Don Keller.  Because of the angle of the camera, Don is unfortunately not visible.  But he can be heard well.

This video covers the first ten minutes or so of the panel.  More will be posted as I do the work of cutting and pasting.

Enjoy!

Oh, and what the heck.  Here's the second installment.

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Water, Water Everywhere . . .

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This has got to be the coolest new space environment of the year.  I wonder how long it'll take for it to appear in an Analog story.

Basically, what you've got here is 140 trillion times as much water as is contained in all of Earth's oceans  in a torus around a quasar.  Here's what NASA has to say about it:

This artist's concept illustrates a quasar, or feeding black hole, similar to APM 08279+5255, where astronomers discovered huge amounts of water vapor. Gas and dust likely form a torus around the central black hole, with clouds of charged gas above and below. X-rays emerge from the very central region, while thermal infrared radiation is emitted by dust throughout most of the torus. While this figure shows the quasar's torus approximately edge-on, the torus around APM 08279+5255 is likely positioned face-on from our point of view.

You can read about it in (of all places) the Huffington Post here. 

Or you can read the original press release here.



Above:  Picture Credit NASA/ESA

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The night whisky

mountain roots

Doodles, mostly.  I think painting faces on incandescent light bulbs is a good idea.  If I had the artistic ability, I'd do it myself.  They're only going to get more desirable as antiques as time goes on.

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Just doodles, I'm afraid.  The rather phallic hanged man is labeled doomed & nonchalant.

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Home from Confluence

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Hi, it's me again, and I don't have a photograph for you because I lost my camera at Readercon.  (If you found a cheap silver camera that operates off of AA batteries, get in touch with me and we'll see if I can trade you enough books for it to make you happy.)

Nevertheless, I had a long and productive weekend and enjoyued it immensely.  Rob Sawyer was there and it was good to see him.  At one point, I sang the opening to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in 1930s crooner style and somebody said, "You have a beautiful voice."  Rob involuntarily shook his head.

That's because a few years back when he and I (and Nancy Kress and Neil Gaiman and several others) were in Chengdu, China, Nancy and I were called up on stage to sing.  (Long story.  Let's skip it.)  Seeing a disaster in the making, Rob gamely leaped into the fray and he and his wife Caroline Clink joined us in what was possibly the worst rendition of "O Susanna" ever performed in public.  And I do not except the Tiny Tim version, if he ever recorded it.

I will be forever grateful to Rob and Caroline for voluntarily diluting the embarrassment, when they could have so easily ducked it.  And for understanding, as Nancy and I did, that if you can't be good, you must be enthusiastic.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that when Rob shook his head, he was right.  As a singer, I suck.

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MAN VS. SNAIL

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Cat Pack Fever

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It will astonish everyone who reads this blog regularly to learn that I'm on the road again.  Or, rather, I will be tonight.  First I have a reading at Moonstone Art Center, on 13th Street near the corner of Sansom at 7:30 p.m.  Then I hope in a car and drive into the wilds of Pennsylvania for Confluence, which I'll be attending Saturday and Sunday.  So I'm busily packing my bags.

If you're going to be at either event, why not ask for a very collectible chapbook?  They're running low.  I think this weekend will be the last time I make this offer.



And if you're in the market . . .

Want to buy a drab semi-detached house in Shepperton?  J. G. Ballard's home is for sale!

You can read about it here.


Above:  Ms Helen Hope Mrrrlees suspects that something is up and is doing her bit to prevent it.

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WHO'S GOT A KISS FOR THE WICKED WITCH?

Who's got a smoke for the reluctant virgin?

I like that a lot.  There are any number of stories to be gotten by expressing sympathy for the characters we've all been set up to despise.

Great round

jowly smile

from the laughing

I was trying to work up something, probably about the moon, but gave it up after only a few words.  Probably I'd've gotten further if the sketch had been better.

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Recursiving

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A few weeks ago, I went to a Janis Ian concert and, while there, lay my VIP pass down on my notebook and took a snapshot of it.  I may have posted that photo here.

Then I printed the photo and taped it to the front of that same notebook.

A while later, I ran into Henry Wessells and showed him the notebook.  He, being fascinated by examples of recursion, took the above snapshot, which he then emailed to me.

I printed out the photo and taped it to the inside back cover of the notebook.

Last weekend, I ran into Henry again, and showed him the inside back cover.  Immediately, he whipped out his camera and took a photo.

This may never end.


And if you're going to be in Philadelphia tomorrow . . . 

I'll be doing a reading for Philadelphia Fantastic at Moonstone Art Center, this Friday, July 22, starting at 7:30 p.m.

Moonstone is conveniently located in Center City Philadelphia at the corner of 13th and Sansom Streets. (That's 110 S. 13th Street, for those of you reliant on GPS.)  Copies of Dancing With Bears will be available for sale, and I'll be handing out signed-and-numbered limited edition chapbooks of the Darger & Surplus flash fiction The Nature of Mirrors to anyone who'd like one.  Both the chapbooks and the event are free.


But if you're going to be at Confluence this weekend . . .

I'll be in attendance Saturday and Sunday, and I should still have a few of the chapbooks to give away.  All you need do is ask.

Above:  Photo by Henry Wessells.

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Beside this doodle I wrote:  Not here.  But there's something in the notion. 

Actually, this illustrates one of the hardest lessons to learn about writing:  You have to turn off your critical faculties while you're writing and simply do as well as you can.  After it's done, you turn on the critic again and respond accordingly.  Here, I concluded that the doodle sucked.  But there was something worth remembering about the sweeping line.

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Light Verse

Thomas Edison

     Took his medicine

                 every day

I got that far and then wrote to the side:  Don't bother!


Underneath the single-panel excerpt from an autobiographical R. Crumb cartoon, I wrote -- a thought alien to me.  And it is. 

Down at the bottom, written upside-down probably just to make the page more interesting, is another bit of light verse.  No idea why I wrote it.

Drops of blood
A werewolf's kiss
The vampires steamy lust
Nameless horrors we abhor
Our slogan's
SLAY WE MUST!
-- The Helsing Corporation Slogan

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Why I Go to Cons

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This is why I go to so many conventions -- so Geoff Ryman can look down at me with aloof skepticism.

No, seriously.  Having intense conversations with brilliant writers (some of which involve the words, "Swanwick, you are so full of it!")  is one of the great rewards of the scribbling life.  And Geoff is definitely brilliant.  Have you read Air?  Or The Child Garden?  Or The Unconquered Country?  If not, then I strongly recommend that you do.  You'll be grateful to me forever.


Photo Credit:  Ellen Datlow.  Used with her kind permission.  Over the years, Ellen's compiled an enormous number of photographs of the doers and makers of science fiction of our times.  When we're all long gone, she'll be remembered chiefly as an editor.  But she'll have a secondary fame for these shots.

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The World Turned Upside Down

It wasn't a very good world to begin with.  Let's remember that.

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Do Not Ask Questions of the Man Behind the Curtain

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I interviewed Readercon guest of honor Gardner Dozois on Saturday and, fortunately for me, Scott Edelman was in the audience recording the whole thing on his camera.  The video (above) looks like it starts in the middle of things, but the goofing around was actual just Gardner goofing around before the interview begins.  The interview proper begins at 4:55 in.

It went pretty well.  Interviews with Gardner always do. You just ask him a question and let him fly.


And the rest of the con was fun too . . .


I got to hang out some with Eileen Gunn and Ellen Klages and John Clute and . . . well, there were a lot of interesting people there.  So many that I hardly exchanged a dozen words with my pal Greer Gilman, so maybe there should have been a couple fewer.  Billee Stallings, who (along with her sister Jo-an Evans) wrote a memoir of her father, science fiction pioneer Murray Leinster, which should be published this week, did a presentation to a packed room and wowed 'em all. 

So it was a good weekend.  And a long weekend.  And I'm exhausted.  And now I'm going to lie down on the couch with a damp cloth over my eyes and wait for the swelling in my ego to go down.

Above:  Thanks, Scott!  I appreciate this.

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From the Book of Secular Saints

Mike Ford wrote for the most intelligent person in the room, which was usually himself.  He seemed to be desperately trying to fail and never quite succeeding.  He will be forgotten, I think, because he never wrote that one work whose virtues would be as clear to the masses as they were to him.  Perhaps he would not care.  He was a stoic who went painfully down to early death, determined not to discomfort others with it.
He was the only person ever to win a World Fantasy Award for his Christmas card, a record likely to last forever.

To the left of the lamppost, it says no story here.  To the right, it says one here but I can't see it.

Every word in the abandoned brief sketch of the late John M. Ford was written in admiration, incidentally.  Just so you don't misunderstand me.  I was thinking about doing a short sketch of him, but just jotting down those few words made me so sad, sad, sad, I didn't have the heart for it.

A very smart, very witty guy.  I remember one Worldcon where they gave us all nametags reading HELLO.  MY NAME IS . . .  Under which he had written INIGO MONTOYEZ.  YOU KILLED MY FATHER.  PREPARE TO DIE.

He died too far young.  We all miss him.

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APPEARANCES -- Sunday Update

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One more con under the belt, one more weekend closer to death.  But you mustn't imagine that bothers me!  I was twelve years old when I realized that I wasn't afraid of death, and nothing since then has changed my attitude.

I'll have a con reports of sorts for you tomorrow.  In the meantime, please accept my abrupt comatose state as a symbol of my regard for you.

July 22             Philadelphia Fantastic (reading)

                        Moonstone Arts, Philadelphia

July 23-24     Confluence

                         Pittsburgh, PA

August 19-21   Renovation (Worldcon)

                         Reno, NV

Sept. 10           The Spiral Bookcase (signing)

                         Manayunk

                         Philadelphia

Sept. 21            KGB Bar (reading)

                         NYC  

And in 2012 . . .

Aug. 31- Sept. 2   Chicon 7

                             Chicago

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The Living Vegetative Dead

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Long-time readers of this blog will be completely gobsmacked to learn that I'm on the road again.  This time I'm off to Burlington, Massachusetts for a convention.  If you're going to be there, you already know which one.

But if you don't know, that means you won't be there, so it'll do you no good to learn that I'll be handing out the last of a set of four signed-and-numbered limited edition chapbooks chronicling the Swiss adventures of Darger & Surplus, The Nature of Mirrors.  This being a reader-y kind of a con, I suspect they'll go fast.


And it's a good thing I'll be out of town, too, because . . .

It appears that Philadelphia has been overrun by zombie topiary animals!  The above lion being a perfect example.  Even impaling them seems to have no effect.

Really, this whole mash-up thing has gone too far.

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The Dala Horse & Three from Asimov's

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I'm in virtual print again!  I know it's silly to feel so happy about it when Dancing With Bears is on the bookstore shelves in hardcover.  But I am nonetheless.  "The Dala Horse" just went up at Tor.com with a beautiful illo by Julie Dillon.

It's a sign of how little attention I pay to the business side of things that earlier I reported it would be available in e-book format without realizing that it would also be posted on the Tor.com site.  If anybody who pre-ordered a copy is irate at me for this, let me know.  It wasn't an effort to squeeze a few extra shekels out of people, but my habitual disorganization that was responsible.  This is why I have an agent to handle my books.

You can read "The Dala Horse" here.


And speaking of Philadelphia writers . . .

The esteemed Tom Purdom has just created another mini-collection ebook titled Three From Asimov's, because it comprises three novelettes that were originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction.  Here's how he describes it:

"The Path of the Transgressor" received great reviews from both the Locus Magazine short fiction reviewers.  It's an action story that centers on the relationship between an animal behavior researcher and his made-to-order wife.  "Research Project" is a first contact story about herbivorous aliens who land on Mars; it presents the story of one of the aliens, as told by a human researcher, as read by a nine year old girl who is reading it on an advanced ereader.  "Civilians" is the last of the three "military brat" stories I discuss in the second part of my library memoir WHEN I WAS WRITING (also available on the Nook and the Kindle).  The civilian members of several military families are caught in a violent situation and forced to decide if they're going to act like soldiers or civilians.

Tom is a terrific writer and the mini-c is only three bucks.  So those of you who are tech savvy may well want to buy it.  On sale, Tom tells me, for the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes and Noble Nook.



And speaking of great deals in short fiction . . .

I'll probably be blogging this tomorrow, but what the heck.  I'm going to be at Readercon over the weekend, and giving away copies of a small and very collectable signed-and-numbered limited edition chapbook, The Nature of Mirrors.  If you're going to be at the con, just task for one and I'll give it to you.  It's that simple.

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April 6, 2009

A Prayer for Atheists:

We who seek peace
And know better
Who serve a God
We don't believe in
And hope against hope
For what cannot be
Pray to thee, O Great Not Here
That we may be wrong
And not as we fear.

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Exoplanets App

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Okay, this is just cool.  In August, Farrar, Straus & Giroux is going to publish Scientific American's Journey to the Exoplanets as an app/book, which is a form so new it apparently hasn't been properly named yet.

Exoplanets are, of course, those newly discovered worlds orbiting stars other than our own.  The project was originally pitched as a giant illustrated print book.  The final version, which has text by Edward Bell and illustrations (including speculative renderings of some of the exoplanets) by Ron Miller, also contains video and audio clips, as well as a "build your own planet" function.

It's coming in August.  They haven't yet decided how much to charge for it.  And you can visit the micro-site (another term I'd never heard before!) here.

The model for all this appears to be Theodore Gray's bestselling app/book The Elements: A Visual Exploration (click here).  Which was not only also a physical book which you can read about here and buy in your local (independent, preferably, but whatever) bookstore, but also a wonderful interactive video display at the Chemical Heritage Foundation (click here) in Philadelphia.

Gray (or Theo, as some of us are entitled to refer to him) is the creator of the Wooden Periodic Table of the Elements (click here if you want to make yourself extremely happy) , for which he was one of the happy winner of the Ig Nobel Prize (click here). He also wrote the introduction to the print version of my own Periodic Table of Science Fiction (click here).

I used to tell people he'd written the intro and that if they knew who he was, they'd be very impressed.  Then I'd tell who he was and they'd be very impressed.  But it looks like he's catching up.

And don't forget . . .

Readercon is coming.  I'll be bringing a bundle of The Nature of Mirrors chapbooks to give away to whoever would like one.  Readercon being a pretty bookish event, and the chapbooks being a signed-and-numbered limited edition, I'm expecting to run out.

Above:  Moon of the Methuselah by Ron Miller.  From the forthcoming app/book.  There are some 75 illos and diagrams in it, and this picture is pretty typical of Miller's work.

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In the melodrama woods, under a paper-mâché moon, he was lost among the stick trees.

Believe it or not, I wasn't being sarcastic about generic fantasy there.  I was trying out words, looking to see if there was an interesting story to be told in that mode.  I didn't find one.  But that doesn't mean it couldn't be done.

Blood Gothic.

That's a fun little fantasy house, if I do say so myself.  

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The Classics Never Grow Old

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Working today.  So I thought I'd share this classic clip with you.  Astronaut David Scott, commander of the Apollo 15 mission, performs a basic science demonstration.

The truth never grows old.

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(Overheard at the movies)

Whatever I was watching when I wrote this, I was so little engaged that I decided to write down all the most banal lines of dialogue:

Should I show you?

Yes.

Keep it close to your heart.

I've had them since I can remember.

Are you all right?

Yes, thank you.

Well, then I have something for you.

It is no magic -- truth is not always appearance.

I was bound by my oath of office to keep the secret.

He will not come out at all.

You must not excite yourself.

It's all true.

I ... saw him.

Gentlemen!

We thought you'd shot your bolt.

Who's with me?

Something must connect them.

[Something something] upstairs, between father and son.

I hear nothing.

Nor I.

Quicken pace!

When the other comes, I will hold him.

He comes now.

Follow the [something] trail.

We're leaving.  We're leaving now.

Oh, wait.  According to the annotation on the side, it's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  Which, let's be fair here, looked great.

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This Glitteratti Life (Part 5,287)

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Sunday I jaunted up to Pleasantville, NY for David Hartwell's 70th Birthday celebration.  In retrospect, it seems inevitable that there would be a belly dancer.  Inevitable, too, that when beckoned to stand up and dance alongside her, he would come through.

So it was a very pleasant time.  Most of which I spent talking with friends on various matters of interest.  Here's a snippet of conversation with David himself:

Hartwell:  It's strange that so many writers fail to understand the extraordinary power of the third person past tense.  When last I taught at Clarion, all the students came to me, very aggrieved, and said, "John Crowley wanted us to only write in third person past tense!"  I told them, "That's because it works!"

Me:  (Thoughtfully, because this was something I'd never realized before) It works because it's the only voice that recognizes the existence of death, the only one that acknowledges that everyone and everything is constantly being swept away into oblivion.

So if there are any gonnabe writers reading this:  Crowley, Hartwell, and I are as one on this:  If you're going to write anything but third person past tense, you'd better have a very good reason for it.

Or, of course, be swept away into oblivion.


Above:  Rather a blurry snapshot, I'm afraid.  But quite an enjoyable afternoon.

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There are movies that make sense.  This is not one of them.

I have mercifully forgotten what movie I was watching when I wrote that.

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APPEARANCES -- Sunday Update

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This coming weekend . . . your last chance to get a free signed, numbered, limited edition chapbook just for asking.  I'll be at Readercon.  Ask and thou shalt receive.

July 15-17        Readercon

                        Burlington, MA

July 22             Philadelphia Fantastic (reading)

                        Moonstone Arts, Philadelphia

July 23-24     Confluence

                         Pittsburgh, PA

August 19-21   Renovation (Worldcon)

                         Reno, NV

Sept. 10           The Spiral Bookcase (signing)

                         Manayunk

                         Philadelphia

Sept. 21            KGB Bar (reading)

                         NYC  

And in 2012 . . .

Aug. 31- Sept. 2   Chicon 7

                             Chicago

Above:  Lilies.  My backyard.  Summer.  I love this time of year.

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My First Dirty Martini

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I am, as all true drinkers should be, a martini snob.  But one should -- nay, must! -- keep an open mind about all serious matters.  So, at the Chestnut Grill the other day, while Marianne had one of their superb Grill gimlets, I tried, for the first time, a dirty martini.  Here's my review:

my first dirty martini

At first sip, the dirty martini comes across as being distinctly . . . well, the word that comes to mind is martiniesque.  It doesn't do a violence to the concept of martinis, the way that adding fruit juice or chocolate or Pepto Bismol and then sticking a little paper umbrella in the resulting abomination does.  All the addition of olive juice actually achieves is to bring up the flavor of the olives too strongly.  The same thing could be achieved more exuberantly by filling the glass with a handful of olives and pouring the martini over them -- and then you'd have a meal to go with your drink!  It would almost be health food.

And yet . . . and yet.  We are talking about a drink so finnicky that the mere substitution of a pickled onion for the canonical olive-or-lemon-peel turns it into a completely different drink -- the Gibson.  By the eighth sip, I began to feel that the olive juice was just a bit much, a little, dare I say, gimmicky.

Hard drink scholars and cocktail rabbis will doubtless be arguing over this one for centuries to come.  But for a martini-wallah such as myself, this sense of near-excess is the killer.  The martini is a perfect drink, and it achives this perfection in part by not trying too hard.  The dirty martini tries too hard.  So it is merely an almost-martini, a martini-like drink.

Those pink things with celery stalks and multicolored sprinkles only wish they could achieve so much.


Above:  There it is, the semi-distinguished thing, after the eighth sip.

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I like this page.  It begins with a cynical observation:

Dear Lord, ...

Men always say that.  But they never mean it.

Then it moves on to a fantasy knife.  labeled [not far removed from what you can waste money on today].


The knife is about equally inspired by a dragon's wing and maple seeds.  Three of which are conveniently appended.

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Do Androids Dream of Comic Book Sheep?

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I just shipped off a review of the Pegana Press hardcover of Paris, a Poem by Hope Mirrlees,  an essay about Murray Leinster: the Life and Works by  Billee J. Stallings and Jo-An J. Evans, and three "Brief Lives" -- very short essays about Judith Merrill, Will F. Jenkins, and the all-too-mortal Edward Mott Woolley.  So I think I'm going to give non-fiction a rest for a while.  I've got a lot of unfinished short fiction to wrap up before I can get to work on my novels.

Therefore I won't be writing anything substantive -- as I half-planned to do -- about the just-completed experience of reading the Boom! Studios graphic version of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?  Which is a very thing indeed, every word of the original novel in a densely illustrated graphic novel version.  It took 24 issues to cover the novel.

I honestly don't think anybody has done the like before.

In a just world, there would be long, long essays about this project-of-love everywhere and, because in a just world somebody would throw enormous amounts of money at me to write it, one of those essays would be mine.

But, as I say, there's just not enough time.  So, very quickly, here's what I learned:

1.  The experience of reading the novel in installments, one a month, really breaks up the reading experience to the detriment of continuity.  I suspect I missed picking up an issue or two but, since I'd read the book before, there aren't any logical gaps in my understanding to indicate so. 

2.  Reading the text a sentence or two per panel slows reading time waaaay down.

3.  This in turn forces you to read more carefully and to think over what you're reading more thoroughly than the relatively frictionless experience of reading unillustrated prose does.

4.  Mostly this works to Dick's advantage.  Every line he wrote is meaningful.  Reading it slowly forces you to recognize this.

5.  It also brings up the inherent oddness of Dick's understanding of human relationships.  Rick Deckard, the protagonist, is a good family man.  He's also ready to run off with the first chrome femme fatale who comes along.  PKD didn't seem to think that needed explaining.

6.  Not being able to easily gauge, as one does with a (physical) book, when the end is coming, the conclusion of the novel comes as a sudden surprise.  The life you've been following could have gone on and on beyond the point where the book ends . . .  Which is a good reminder of exactly how arbitrary a form the novel is.

7.  This is a splendid way of making reading more expensive.  I probably paid twenty-five cents for my paperback copy of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in a used book store.  At four bucks a pop, plus tax, this reading cost me a C-note.

Above:  The graphics are of good quality, I should note, and there's an essay in each book by various celebrities and notables.  This is, as I said, a labor of love.

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Scribbledehobbledehoyden: The Magpie's Eye: Page 131

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poodle puddle

I refuse to apologize for this.

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Winter Is Coming -- and Readercon Too!

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I'll be at Readercon the weekend after next.  Which means I'll be handing out free signed-and-numbered limited edition chapbooks!

Those who have been reading this blog for a while know that, as a promotional item for Dancing With Bears, Marianne's nano-imprint Dragonstairs Press created a set of four matched chapbooks, each one containing one short-short originally published as a part of "Smoke and Mirrors:  Four Scenes from the Postutopian Future."  I handed out most of the copies of the first three chapbooks at the last three conventions I attended and, rather to my surprise, so far as I can tell not a one of them has hit eBay yet.

So these suckers are going to be collectable.

All you have to do is come up to me at Readercon and ask.

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Scribbledehobbledehoyden: The Magpie's Eye: Page 130

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Blank Page Theater Presents . . . 

The theater of the mind with ad hoc extemporized dialog.  -- Do we have time to bring on the dead bear? -- No?  Then good night, God bless, and if you're going home tonight on your bike -- wear white.

That may be a new record . . .  I got tired of the idea immediately after the title and the first line.  At least I wrapped it up quickly.

If you can identify the two quotes embedded in that paragraph, you are a true child of the Sixties.  Answers provided if anyone asks.

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Yet Another Reason Why Michael Dirda is America's Favorite Critic

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A few weeks ago, I had the honor of introducing Michael Dirda when he spoke at the Nebula Awards banquet.  That has no particular relevance to this post.  I'm just boasting.

Dirda is technically, I suppose, a critic.  I personally think of him as someone who reads a lot of books, thinks about them very carefully, and then shares what he's learned with the rest of us.  Which is to say, he's a very valuable individual indeed.

Now, over at Bookforum, Dirda has written an essay explaining why the Best Seller List is a disaster for people who love to read books.  Here's an excerpt:

The best books of a genre seldom make the list. The finest all-around American crime writer of the past forty years—I speak of Donald E. Westlake—never matched the sales of Elmore Leonard, let alone Patterson. Reviewers praised his comic Dortmunder capers, readers ecstasized over his lean Richard Stark noirs. A novel like The Ax—as brilliant a black comedy as the film Kind Hearts and Coronets—should be famous. These days, people will line up for hours to get their Neil Gaiman books signed, but whom does Gaiman admire among living authors? Gene Wolfe. You’ve never heard of Wolfe, right? (Try the majestic multivolume Book of the New Sun.) Go to this year’s World Fantasy Convention, ask its attendees to name the greatest contemporary work in their genre, and the answer will likely be Little, Big by John Crowley. You could have read this instead of the latest installment of Twilight.

You can read the entire essay here.


And if you're going to Readercon . . .

I'll be there, of course, and flogging the heck out of my brilliantly entertaining Dancing With Bears.  But, more remarkably, Billee Stallings will be there!  Yes.  You'd be very excited about this if only you knew who Stallings is.  So I'll tell you.

Billee Stallings is one of Will F. Jenkins's four daughters and, along with her sister, Jo-an Evans, has written a memoir of the great man.  You may better remember him under his pseudonym of Murray Leinster, one of the founding fathers of modern science fiction and the man who, long  before Asimov or Heinlein or Clarke, was known as "the Dean of Science Fiction."

Alas, Murray Leinster: His Life and Times will be published just a week or so too late for you to get her autograph.  But you'll get to meet the daughter of Murray Leinster!  She's not planning to go to any more science fiction conventions ever, which means this is your best and only chance to meet her.

Plus she's a very likable lady.

I met Billee's father once, almost forty years ago, and I've never forgotten the experience.  He was an amazing guy.  If you're going to be at Readercon, you'll want to chat with her about her father.  Luckily, she'll be happy to chat with you.

Above:  Michael Dirda.  I hardly ever run into him.  But I always enjoy our conversations when I do.

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Scribbledehobbledehoyden: The Magpie's Eye: Page 129

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Fluffy Bird Panic No. 1

Creating the conscience of your race in the smithy of your soul is not pretty.

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Happy Fourth of July!

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Hereabouts, the Fourth is an excuse for easy patriotism, barbecue, and illegal fireworks.

In Canada, it's an opportunity to be American for one day.  Click here to see what I'm talking about.

And in my house, it's an excuse to be a lazy blogger.  Happy Fourth, everybody!


Above:  Our porch flag.  It's flown over our nation's capital.  They have people whose job it is to hoist the flag on the flagpole, run it down, and then hoist up the next one, so that congressmen can give them away.  Yet, strangely enough, knowing all this, we still treasure it.

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Scribbledehobbledehoyden: The Magpie's Eye: Page 128

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This is what a writer's notebook page ought to look like!  First, two doodles, one labeled The man with no mouth, annotated (How to literalize this image?)  Which is a tough question when you're a fantasist.

Racial Masquerade 

O dear God, I thought when I received the invitation.  But in the actual fact, it...

There were all the usual inversions:  Black is white, white is black, black as stereotype and white as somebody you wanted to slap.  But then it got subtler and more interesting.

I'm pretty sure somebody will do this at some point, when it finally begins to look like we're putting racism behind us.  And I'm absolutely certain it will be a bad idea.  When I was in college and Fifties nostalgia was brand-new, I went to a sock hop.  It seemed like it would be fun and harmless.  Only a couple of students went as hoods.  They faked a rumble and it took about thirty seconds to turn serious.  We had to drag the combatants apart.  "I'm going to kill him!  I'm going to kill him!" one kept shouting, red with rage.

We are whatever we pretend to be.

There's a profound story to be written about a racially-themed costume party.  But I didn't feel the holy fire you'd have to have to do it up right.  So I dropped the idea like the opportunity to accidentally say something really stupid that it was.

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APPEARANCES -- Sunday Update

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July 15-17        Readercon

                        Burlington, MA

July 22             Philadelphia Fantastic (reading)

                        Moonstone Arts, Philadelphia

July 23-24     Confluence

                         Pittsburgh, PA

August 19-21   Renovation (Worldcon)

                         Reno, NV

Sept. 10           The Spiral Bookcase (signing)

                         Manayunk

                         Philadelphia

Sept. 21            KGB Bar (reading)

                         NYC  

And in 2012 . . .

Aug. 31- Sept. 2   Chicon 7

                             Chicago

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Paris, a Poem . . . in print again!

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Look what came in the mail the other day!  Hope Mirrlees's other great work (the one that's not Lud-in-the-Mist) -- Paris, a Poem.  This small press limited edition folio hardcover is only the fourth publication ever of what Julia Briggs called "modernism's lost masterpiece," the second independent edition (the first was the chapbook published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf), the third unbowdlerized publication (it was reprinted in The Virginia Woolf Quarterly in the early 1970s with all the blasphemous bits edited out or rewritten by the author, who had converted to Catholicism), and the only independent hardcover.

This letterpress edition is also, as you might guess, on the pricey side.  A copy of it will set you back $375, plus shipping.  It's clearly aimed at the collectors market.  And, yes, it is beautiful, a pleasure to hold and a joy to read.

If you're interested, you can find it on AbeBooks.com  Contrary to what its entry says, the book is a folio not a quarto and there are still forty available copies out of an edition of fifty.  (Apparently, there are a few bugs in the listing program.)

What is the poem about?  Well, I've just written a review of it which attempted to answer that very question as succinctly as possible, and it came to ten typewritten pages.  But in essence, Paris, a Poem is:

1.  A daylong journey (the day being specifically May 1, 1919) through Paris which ambitiously attempts to encapsulate the city, its culture, its past, and its then present-day moment in a 600-line poem.

2.  A recapitulation of the Eleusinian Mysteries employing a myth of Mirrlees's own invention, a year-struggle between two virgins, Mary and the moon, representing the conflict between paganism and the Catholic Church.

3.  A love poem of clandestine lesbian passion.  This last is mostly encoded, and you have to dig deep, but it's there.

After its original publication, Paris, a Poem fell into obscurity for almost ninety years before being championed by the late Julia Briggs.  The appearance of this edition is one in a series of events marking the ongoing restoration of Hope Mirrlees to her proper place in the Republic of Letters.


And I want to thank . . .

Yesterday I posted a request for suggestions of places to visit in China and Andrew, David Stone, and Bruce all came through with thoughtful (and, even better, useful) posts.  My thanks to all three.  You guys are great.

Now to ponder their ideas and the train schedules.

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Scribbledehobbledehoyden: The Magpie's Eye: Page 127

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Doodles and the slogan One Land, One Winter.

I wrote GRR[something] Treff under the largest face to acknowledge the sort-of swipe from George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire books.

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