Late, Brief, and I Fear Depressing

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Indulge me, please.  This matters to me.

I have the usual things to post but I cannot bring myself to do so.  Late last night I arrived home from a pleasant weekend jaunt to find an email informing me that a college friend -- someone I'd only seen once in all the years between -- died and was cremated two weeks ago.

Dear God.

You wouldn't think this would hit me so hard.  But Tim was such a good man, made of such solid stuff, and had such a puckish sense of humor.  Always in the back of my mind was a sense that he was out there somewhere, and happy, and that the world was a better place for that.

Now Tim Tomlinson is gone and there's a hole in the world the exact shape and size he was.

Forty years have passed like the turning of a hand.  For the first time, I feel old.  I mourn this friend as I would have had he died back then.

I will not tell you stories, sum up his character, or try to tell you why you are the poorer for his passing.  Such tales are for those who knew him.  John Donne had it right:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed way by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thy own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

When first I read those words, I was moved by their majesty but too young to understand them well.  Now I know that death is part of the price of admission, that life is hard stuff, meant for heroes only, and that we are all made profound by our final destiny.

Turtle, as we all called him back when, will be missed.  All you who never knew him would mourn his passing, if only you could.
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Gregory Frost -- Geek of the Week!

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My good friend Gregory Frost has received the highest honor that Geekadelphia has to bestow -- that of Geek of the Week!

Greg is probably best renowned for his Celtic fantasies Tain and Remscella, and for the novels Shadowbridge and Lord Tophet, both set in what may be the most inventive fantasy milieu ever created . . . a world of shallow oceans and rare, scattered islands, connected by a web of bridges, each span of which contains its own society and culture.  So that, if you wish, you can walk from 1920s Manhattan to Imperial China and from there into the Raj.

I really love those books.  God grant that he writes more for us.

I'd write more about Greg's other books -- and his stories! you should all buy his collection Attack of the Jazz Giants immediately! -- but I've been running late this week and if I want to get this posted today, I'll simply have to do the man less than justice.

You can find the interview here.


And elsewhere . . . 

Janis Ian is Kickstarting the audio book of Catherine M. Wilson's When Women Were Warriors.  Or, rather, volume 1 of the series, The Warrior's Path.

Janis approached Wilson with the idea simply because she (Janis) loved the stuffings out of the book and has since it first came out.  Having a fan like that is always pleasant for a writer, and doubly so when the fan turns out to be a musical icon.  But having Janis Ian actively anxious to do your audiobook has got to have been a major moment for CMW.

I do a lot of traveling and listen to a lot of audiobooks and I've become painfully aware that not all audiobook readers are created equal. Janis is right at the top of the field.  Figuratively!  The audiobook she made of Society's Child, her autobiography, won an Emmy.

So if you're a fan of either artist . . . why not take a look and see if you're interested?

You can find the Kickstarter page explaining everything here.

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Tor Party! Tonight! And You're Invited!

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I'll be in Manhattan tonight for a publishing party celebrating Tor.com's fifth anniversary.  I presume you all know about Tor.com, which functions as a combination fiction e-zine and high-end e-fanzine.  Which is to say, several first-rate stories every month (when you pay top rates, you get first pick), along with lots of columns and articles about matters stfictional.  As they used to say, long before my day.

This is the sort of publishing event that professional writers attend on a semi-regular basis.  Except that this particular one is not exclusive.  If you want to attend, you may -- and, indeed, should.  Because if this is the sort of event that seems to be cool to you, you're the kind of person that Tor is throwing the party for.

Here's what they have to say for themselves:

For the milestone of turning 5 Earth-years old, we’ll be offering up complimentary drinks, Tor.com swag, free book giveaways, other special birthday goodies, but also, a show. At the start of the festivities we’ll be hosting Lev Grossman, Ellen Datlow, Genevieve Valentine, and Michael Swanwick in an exclusive SF trivia contest. Hosted by Ryan Britt, and featuring secret prizes and exciting stakes, this spectacle is not to be missed. Come place your bets on your contender

It will all go down at Housing Works Bookstore and Café in New York City on Wednesday July 24th, 6:30 PM. All the Tor.com staff will be on hand to hang out, have a glass of complimentary wine/beer, and talk about the greatness of the last five years. Join us for this once-in-this-universe special birthday party! 

And if you  attend, be sure to say hi.

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Edison Remembered

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I was in New York for a family christening this weekend, so on the way home I stopped by Thomas Edison National Historic Park in West Orange, NJ.  A place which, inexplicably, I had never visited before.

Alas, the park is only open Wednesdays through Saturdays, but I prowled around the outside anyway.  Through the chain link fence I saw a slab of the historic concrete from the first concrete highway:

Even cooler, I saw the reproduction of the first film studio ever built, a building quickly nicknamed the "Black Maria" because it looked like a police lockup van and because it was so hot and crowded inside that the actors said they'd rather be in the real thing:

The building was set on wheels because, when filming, part of the roof was hinged open and the building was turned to let in sunlight. 

Besides the brick laboratory building, there remains of the complex only one other major building:  A crumbling concrete monster where batteries were manufactured, which most likely survives because the environmental cleanup costs would be exorbitant.

I cannot tell you how moved I was.  My father was an engineer for General Electric (which is what Edison's company became), and I grew up around and sometimes in these kinds of buildings.  This is the Lyonesse of my youth and (a good case could be made) the garden from which much of the science fiction genre grew.

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And As Always . . .

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I'm on the road again.

This means that tomorrow's (Monday's) post will be made later in the day than usual.

Meanwhile, have fun, play nice, and have a great day, hear?

Okay.

Support Your Local Commie Bar

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Editor superstar Ellen Datlow sent me a request to help publicize her Kickstarter fundraiser for the Fantastic Fiction at KGB (pictured above) reading series.  That was at the beginning of the week, and already they've raised their quite modest goal.  However, there are still seven days to go and I believe a number of cool incentives still available.

(My own story-in-a-bottle went for $250 pretty much immediately; so if you've been wondering how much such a thing is worth...)

The KGB Bar is a Communist-themed (really! check out the wall!) Manhattan bar , which has a strong connection with the literary arts.  And Fantastic Fiction at KGB is a monthly reading series which is a hoot and a half.  Admission is a pretty cheap donation and you get to drink while the readings are going on.

What will the series people do with the extra money?  As I understand it, they'll use it to fund the series for an extra year or three before they come begging for support again.  Elegant and simple.

You can find the Kickstarter page here.


And as long as we're talking fundraisers . . .

Bill Campbell has asked me to publicize the indiegogo fundraiser for his and Professor John Jennings's proposed anthology, Mothership:  Tales from Afrofuturism & Beyond.  Which is, as I read it, a gathering of stories by writers of African descent.

African-American writers today have a position in American literature analogous to that held by Jewish writers in my youth.  Which is to say that they're producing brilliant work all out of proportion (it seems; but I don't think anybody's ever crunched the demographics) to their numbers.  When something important is happening, writers appear to chronicle it.

Yet, until recently, there were only a handful of science fiction writers of color whom anybody could name.  So it's a pleasure to see their presence increasing and a mitzvah to make them welcome.

Supporting this book is one way of doing that.  Or maybe just buying a book by a writer of color you've heard good things about and seeing if you like it.

You can find the indiegogo page here.

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Tuesday Story Hour

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Here's a semi-animated film of John Turturro reading "The False Grandmother" by the late, great Italo Calvino.

Enjoy!

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