"Yes, I Am Wonderful, Aren't I?"

When I was in Chengdu, Neil Gaiman told me that he was in the middle of a months-long publicity tour for Paramount. Me, I made two jaunts to New York City last week to promote The Dragons of Babel. One was to read at the New York Review of Science Fiction readings series, which I'll post about sometime later this week. The other was a 5 a.m. appearance, if that's the right word, on Jim Freund's Hour of the Wolf radio show on WBAI (99.5 FM). Which raises the question -- which of us is the more fortunate?

I'll answer that question, too. But first I should talk about the show.

It was an amiable, ambling two-hour-long conversation. As Jim warned beforehand, the time melted away quickly. I read a couple of short-shorts -- which led one caller to assume that was all I wrote -- reminisced about collaborating with Bill Gibson, denied ever being a cyberpunk, talked about Being Gardner Dozois, and so on and so forth. Those who'd like to hear what I had to say (but if you're reading this blog, surely you know more than enough about me already?) can find the show posted on Hour of the Wolf's own blog at www.hourwolf.com. After two weeks, it'll be put in Jim's archives, which stay online for something like eight months. I should mention that Lucius Shepard was on recently, and Jim says that his interview went on beyond splendid. Lucius is one of the great writers of our time. So that might well be worth looking into.

At one point in the interview, Jim Freund asked one of those questions that I'd always assumed they trained radio talk-show people not to ask. It went something roughly like: You're such a great writer, and so prolific, and you write both science fiction and fantasy and long and short lengths, from flash fiction to novel . . . and rather gushily on.

I could only smile and say, "Yes, I am wonderful, aren't I?"

(Here's a tip for any new writers who may be reading this: Readers are funny beasts. Those hearing the above statement were willing to take it under advisement. But if I'd said, "Actually, I'm not that good," they'd have believed me. Nobody knows why this is so.)

Afterwards, Marianne and I went out into the city looking for breakfast. The day was bright and new and particularly scenic, since WBAI is located at the corner of Wall Street and South Street, right by the South Street Seaport Museum, a photo of whose docks is above. It was Marianne's idea to come along, just because it tickled her to travel a hundred miles to New York City for breakfast. That's the sort of person she is.

So there's the answer to the question I posed at the beginning of this blog. In my totally unbiased opinion, I'm the more fortunate man because I'm Marianne's husband. Neil may well disagree with me on this one; he seems to be perfectly content with his own family. But what the heck. He can be as happy as he likes. No skin off my nose.

*

Three Answers

Reader Stephen Saperstein Frug has posted a message on an earlier entry here that he has blogged a review of What Can Be Saved From the Wreckage? The review is mixed, and obviously I am more in sympathy with the essay I wrote than with the essay which he wishes I had written. But his opinions are honestly felt and intelligently expressed, and so I see no need to argue with them.

However, in the course of the review, he asks three questions (the first of which is phrased as a cluster of questions and the third of which is implicit) which I believe I can answer here without being discourteous. So I shall.

1. “Do I need to begin at the beginning with The Cream of the Jest? Or is Jurgen independent enough to begin with, but then I need to read The Cream of the Jest? Or can I just read the ones Swanwick says are best and get to the ‘structurally necessary components’ later?”

Read them in whatever order you like. I recommend starting with Jurgen, which is the book you are most likely to enjoy, though others are particular champions of The Silver Stallion and Figures of Earth. These three, at any rate, are the most easily appreciated. The Cream of the Jest and Something About Eve are “structurally necessary” because the former (which is extremely light on the fantasy element) introduces the Poictesme sequence and the latter concludes it. These five books should be read first, and then The High Place and The Way of Ecben. After which, the adventurous reader can go exploring. Keeping in mind that he or she should stop as soon as the books cease giving pleasure.

2. “And while Swanwick talks about the rewriting Cabell did for his collected edition, he isn't clear about whether one needs to get the rewritten texts (are the others still around? In libraries, probably, if nothing else) or if the additions are hindrances, or too minor to matter.”

I confess that after reading through some forty-five books, plus critical materials, I lacked the ambition to perform textual comparisons. But nothing I read in any of the secondary literature suggested that the changes were so great as to compel anybody but a scholar to seek variant texts.

Those who are interested in doing so, however, will probably have to go to the Library of Congress or possibly the James Branch Cabell Library in Virginia Commonwealth University. Even at that, it may be several other libraries will have to be consulted. Even a first-rate institution like The Free Library of Philadelphia has only something like 37 volumes penned by Cabell. The demand for his work is not great, and library storage space is in high demand.

3. “Why this essay wasn't released on the web -- perhaps as a pdf -- where it could have gotten a lot more readers, and quite frankly probably made Swanwick more money as an ad for his other books (or even this one) than it made in royalties, is beyond me.”

If I were convinced this was true, I’d do it. I just haven’t seen any hard research supporting this assumption. Publicity is all very well and good. But as my friend Bob Walters likes to say, “You can die of exposure.”

And that's all. I'm entering this post a day early because tomorrow night I drive to NYC for a five a.m. appearance on Jim Freund's "Hour of the Wolf" show on WBAI. So I'll probably be spending much of the day napping.

Oh, and . . . Children? In the future, please remember that this blog is for the purpose of ruthlessly selling product. You should resist posting links to anything but unqualified praise, okay?

*

Diagramming Babel (Part 21)

Diagram 21: It's odd how popular these things are in certain circles. In the January Locus, Russell Letson gave The Dragons of Babel a glowing review, which I'll almost certainly be quoting here in the near future, and ended with a plug for this blog and the diagrams in particular.

We're moving into the endgame here. From top to bottom:

Will

Lion . . . . . . . . Lion

Esme

Nat

Madness! Fear!

Z

Nat . . . . . . . .Will & Vixen

Relationship of Nat & Esme

Determines to follow it through

“Well,” she said

Bond over cigarettes

“He’ll never lie. He’ll just
convince you not to
believe when he is telling
the truth.”

Annotations:

You know my methods by now, Watson. Will has an encounter with two stone lions, one talkative and the other silent. Esme appears briefly and then Nat for some serious face time. When Z (none other than our old friend, Zorya Vechnayaya) appears, there is an essential split the nature of which is narrative surprise, and Will "determines to follow it through." Which moment is brief in the telling but essential to the book.

The lions, for those who don't live in NYC, sit outside the central branch of the New York Public Library.

Funny thing about the cigarettes. Everybody used to smoke in popular fiction. Open any book of a certain age, and the air is blue. Nowadays, nobody smokes at all. Not even the villains. They chomp down on raw broccoli instead, I guess. In the interest of realism, I decided to reverse that. In the course of the book, Will acquires a nicotine habit which he never does abandon.

(At one point, I was going to evoke a recurrent sacrifice-based magic. That way, Will could achieve some large magical effect by giving up smoking. Which, paradoxically enough, would give him a reason to acquire the habit again, as soon and hard as he could. Clever bit. Didn't need it.)

The final "he'll never lie" bit is just one of many similar snippets jotted down quickly as they occurred to me on the rest of this and all of the facing page. They're things I've thought of that need to be fitted in but which aren't structural. The vixen delivers this riff to Will, but Zorya V could have done it as well, or even (if it were set up right) Esme. And it could go earlier or later in the chapter. But Nat must depart as the Vixen enters, and Esme must appear before Nat does. The diagram is the frame and the other notes are the flesh.

Note how crisp the lines are for the parts of the chapter I've figured out, and how the diagram dissolves into scribbled words thereafter.

Reading Today!

Just a reminder . . . I'll be appearing today (January 8) at the South Street Seaport Museum (Melville Gallery, 213 Water St) in New York City, for the New York Review of Science Fiction reading series, along with my good pal and fellow Philadelphia, Judith Berman.

Here's a small promotional tip for any writers reading this: I always read from a printout, because it's easier to handle than a book. When I'm done reading, I sign and date the printout, put it back in its folder and leave it behind for whoever wants to take it. It costs me nothing, and it's a pleasant little item for those who like such things. And -- who knows? -- it might be worth something, a few years down the line.

I used to hand the typescript to whoever wanted it, but when two people stuck their hands up simultaneously, that puts you in the awkward position of turning one down for reasons they can only guess at. So now I just lay it down, make the announcement, and walk away. Luckily, I am not yet so famous that people will do each other an injury to nab it. Stephen King doesn't have this luxury.

A Boxful of Angels

Our last Christmas presents arrived the other day. My sisters Mary and Barbie, who are the executors of my mother's estate, organized various remembrances and keepsakes and sent them to the rest of the family.

The above picture will take a moment of explanation.

Every year my son, Sean, sent each of his grandmothers an angel. Marianne and I started this tradition for him when he was an infant, and it continues to this day for his Grandmother Porter but only to last year with his Grandmother Swanwick. Mom, as it turns out, saved every one. So Mary put them all in an archival box and returned them to him.

My mother died last summer. Millie Swanwick was an O'Brien by birth, and she knew more than her share of heartache -- she lost her husband and her younger son both long before their natural times. But she was a good woman and her children all loved her. An interview I did with her about her childhood in New York City is posted here.

Never Throw Anything Away!

Before I write a word, I should note that I will be appearing at the New York Review of Science Fiction Readings at the South Street Seaport Museum in New York City, along with fellow Philadelphia writer Judith Berman, this coming Tuesday, January 8th. The doors open 6:30 PM, and the requested donation is $5. That means that if five bucks pinches, you can just breeze in without paying and nobody will say boo. I'd be happy to see anybody who cares to show up.

For today's blog, I was going to finally write about bottled stories -- but then I couldn't find the photo of one I took. So I decided to write about my as-yet-unpublished review of the miniature book show at the Grolier Club -- and while I could find the picture, I couldn't find the review! Luckily, in the course of looking for it, I ran across the following unpublished (and that's rare for me) item. A couple of years ago, Capclave solicited a Dewar's Profile style series of answers to canned questions. They were going to run it in their program book if they got enough responses.

Well, they didn't. Not everybody was as good a sport as I am, apparently. And I was stuck with an item of orphan writing, for which there was no obvious market or venue. However, now -- God bless the Web! -- there is. And so here it is.

(The 11th question I added myself, incidentally. The fantasy novel in question was the exact same one I'm flogging here. So, mirabile dictu, I was telling the truth.)

Capclave's Profiles
Michael Swanwick

1. What is the first science fiction or fantasy novel you remember reading?

The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron.


2. It is the year 2020; what kind of computer are you using?

Probably one of Charlie Stross’s cast-offs. I just hope it isn’t too condescending in its opinion of my writing. I know it’ll sneer at my programming skills.


3. Superman has kryptonite; what is your weakness?

A new Gene Wolfe novel or the latest episode of The Immortal Yi Soon Shin will incapacitate me for as long as it takes to finish it. I can always save the world later.


4. If you were forced to move to another country, where would you go?

Ireland for the conversation; Canada for the neighbors; Finland for the saunas. Maybe I could commute?


5. Who is your favorite fictional villain?

Odysseus. He was a wily bastard and a murderous thug but, alone among the Greeks, capable of using his brain.


6. What is your favorite herb or spice and who taught you how to cook?

Marianne’s sweet red bell pepper and garlic rub; she dries, grinds, and mixes it herself. Good on close to everything. Living with a brilliant cook, as I do, it would be presumptuous of me to claim that I have learned how to cook yet. I can make a pretty good tuna goo, though.


7. Is a picture really worth a thousand words?

Let’s see. Paul Klee’s Fish Magic inspired a scene in “Slow Life,” a Marc Chagall retrospective was responsible for “A Midwinter’s Tale,” and “The Blind Minotaur” was based on the etchings in Picasso’s Vollard Suite. So, yeah, a thousand words seems about right. If the picture’s good enough.

8. What do you want to be when you grow up (i.e., what would be your dream profession)?

A writer like I am now, only much, much better. I’m working on it.


9. Would you trade places with J. K. Rowling (i.e., be the author of the Harry Potter books)?

No, but then she wouldn’t trade places with me. She does her thing, and I do mine. Let history judge which of us was misguided.


10. What is your favorite alcoholic (or non-alcoholic) drink?

A Boodles martini, very dry, straight up, with a twist.


11. When are you finally going to finish that fantasy novel you’re working on?

Soon, soon, I promise. Real, real soon. Really. Soon.

Diagramming Babel (Part 20)

Diagram 20. These diagrams have proved to be strangely popular among a particular sub-set of readers -- new and developing writers. (Old pro Tom Purdom tells me that they're the only entries which he finds boring.) But, as a rule, they'd like more info on how to translate my squiggles into something useful. Hence, today's diagram, the simplest of the lot, which is little more than a list I made as the novel moved into the end-game of major characters whose individual stories need to be resolved by the time the novel ends. Just so I didn't find myself trying to cram in all that resolution in the last five pages.

From top to bottom:

Bullets in Flight

Burning Man

(Name Withheld)

The Dragon

Alcyone

Nat

Fox-Spirit

Oriental features?

Annotations:

There are obvious omissions here, such as Esme, who are not included simply because they don't have a story that requires closure. Esme, by her very nature, has no story. She sold it to the Year Eater.

I went back and forth over whether to mention the fact that Victoria il Volpone Sheherazade Jones (if that truly is her name) has Oriental features. As a fox-spirit, it should go without saying. And, indeed, her human form was originally described with one short sentence: Her eyes were green and her hair was short and red. But finally I decided that with a last name like Jones, it was something that should be mentioned. So when Will meets her at last, several chapters later, she's described as follows: She was one of those women who were beautiful at first glance, then showed their age, and then were beautiful again. Her hair was red and cropped. Her features were sharp and Asian.

That is, incidentally, an unusually detailed description. Aspirant writers are convinced that fictional characters need lots of physical description. Not so. The reader is ready and willing to do the heavy lifting of imagining how the characters look. A zaftig blonde with a birthmark by the side of her mouth is all the description Marilyn Monroe requires. Paul Bunyan has a big black beard and is ten miles high.

Notice how when you read Her eyes were green and her hair was short and red you assumed that Victoria -- never call her Vickie -- was beautiful? That was a good example of the kind of hard work and good faith the reader puts into a story. Never underestimate it.