Whales in Philadelphia

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Look what I found:  Three whales beached in a Philadelphia parking lot!  They were the work of artist Shay Church and about thirty volunteers who slathered wet clay on wooden armatures.  The installation is by no means permanent . . .  You can see the hardened clay flaking off already, after only two weeks exposure to the elements.  But they are profound in decay.

The installation is called Gray Whales: Philadelphia.  The parking lot is on opposite the University of the Arts at 313 South Broad Street, right next to the church.  You can check out the artist's home page here.  It includes a video of the construction of a similar whale elsewhere.

And here are a couple more pics:

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Does It Sound Crazy? No? Then It's Not . . .

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Okay, now this is cool.  There's a three-dollar app for the iPhone, iPad, and presumably other iProducts that I also don't own, which will take a flat photo of somebody's face -- yours, mine, George Washington's, Rush Limbaugh's, your dog's -- and then make it move, blink, and so on so that it looks three-dimensional and alive.  Tap a button and say something like, oh, "Real life was hard, so I've moved to cyberspace," and after ten seconds' processing, the photo will deliver the line convincingly.


PhotoSpeak has been available here since last September, but apparently it was a big hit in Japan for some time before that.  Here's what a (presumably) Japanese schoolkid did with it:

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And the moral of this story is . . .

Last week I was in DC to make a three-minute presentation for Sigma which began with the observation that when talking about technology, if it sounds plausible, not-crazy, not at all science fictional, then you're not talking about the future but about something that's already in development and possibly even in production.

So it was ironic that one of the future techs I cited was the notion Bruce Sterling and others have been pushing of using low-cost fabbers to make consumer goods at home out of plastic.  Ironic because in yesterday's New York Times, which is not exactly a hotbed of futuristic thinking, one of the editors chronicled a chance encounter on an Amtrak commuter train which led to two young entrepreneurs hauling out their MakerBot and manufacturing a beer opener for him  on the spot.

MakerBot is a 3-D printer, a fabber, that can build you pretty much anything that can be built from hot, squirted plastic.  You can buy a kit to make one for (wait for it) only $750.  That's cheaper than the first home computer kits were.  Check out the home site here.

And it's also a reminder that if it doesn't sound absolutely crazy, it's not science fiction.


And a little more on Science Fiction World . . .

Sanfeng has pointed out that there's an even more comprehensive article on Science Fiction World to be read here.   It's an astonishing story and those who care about the future of science fiction -- even science fiction we may not be well-educated enough  (cough!) to read -- are grateful for the courage of the magazine's editors.

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A Close Call for Chinese Science Fiction

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Three years ago I went to China for a science fiction convention in Chengdu.  Our hosts, from Science Fiction World, the largest and most-read science fiction magazine in the world, treated us extremely well and for a week afterward showed us the local sites.  We ate fabulous food.  I got to hold an honest-to-God real live panda in my lap.  There was absolutely no way our experience could have been improved upon.

Except one.

One evening, late in the trip, we guests asked politely if it would be possible to visit the Science Fiction World offices.  And it was!  Apparently it had never occurred to the SFW editors that, as science fiction people, we'd get a thrill out of visiting their place of work.  But it was one of the (admittedly many) high points of our visit.

So you can imagine how amazed I was to discover that every single editor working for SFW had signed a petition asking for the removal of chief editor Li Chang.  I've known a lot of science fiction editors, and many if not all of them had reason to resent upper management.  Yet none of them would air their grievances (to me! who wouldn't pass them on!) until at least two changes of management had occurred and tracking back the complaints to individuals wouldn't be possible.

It's almost impossible to make an editor so unhappy that he'll go public with it.

Combine that with the fact that, so far as I can tell, the Chinese are more respectful of authority than any other people in the world.  For every single editor working for the magazine to sign such a petition, something had to be seriously wrong.

And, according to the petition, there was.  Reputedly, Li Chang replaced the spectacular cover art with advertising.  Also reputedly, he told the fiction editors to write all the stories themselves and the art editor to draw the illos rather than pay artists to do so.  When Li Chang assumed command in 2009, the magazine had a readership of 150,000.  A year later, it was down to 130,000 and dropping.

You can imagine how unhappy I, as a once and maybe future columnist for Science Fiction World, felt upon learning this.  As was Rob Sawyer, who was also at the convention in Chengdu, and whom I chanced to run into at I-Con a week or two ago.  And as were, I presume, the other guests as well.

Science fiction is at an earlier stage of development in China than it is here, more at the "Golden Age" plot-and-science-driven stage of development.  The magazine gets letters of complaints from fans if a story doesn't have enough science in it.  So the genre is still growing and its most interesting developments may be yet to come, the creations of future writers who are currently readers-and-fans.  Which makes this a particularly destructive time to sabotage the world's most successful SF magazine.

The good news is that on April 1st, ten days after the petition was posted, the Communist Party of China suspended Li Chang, pending an investigation into the charges of corruption.  So it looks like Science Fiction World may well be saved, and that what had to be a terrifying act of courage on the part of the people who put the magazine together has paid off.

And I, for one, am relieved.

You can read a more comprehensive account here.

Above:  Where's Waldo?  Nancy Kress, Rob Sawyer, and Neil Gaiman are easy to spot in this group shot of visiting dignitaries at the Science Fiction World offices.  But for some reason I hid in the back row.  Usually I'm more forthcoming.

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Kosher -- and Fabulous Too!

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A month ago, my review of Ann & Jeff Vandermeer's "flash book," The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals, was published in The New York Review of Science Fiction.  So enough time has has passed for me to post it online, I think.  If you're interested in buying a copy, though, you should act fast.  I suspect it's going to go out of print pretty fast.

Here's the review:

The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals, by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer

San Francisco: Tachyon Publications, 2010, $11.00 hb, 96 pages.

 This is an excellent example (and the first I’ve seen) of what might well be called a flash book.  Authors Ann and Jeff Vandermeer got into a discussion of which mythological animals would and would not be kosher to eat, and then put the results onto Jeff’s blog.   Their meditations became a minor Internet sensation, got Boing Boing’d, went global, and were covered in a story by Swedish National Public Radio.  Publisher Jacob Weisman noticed and commissioned a book version for the 30^th anniversary of Tachyon Publications.

If all goes well, the volume (which has all the earmarks of a very limited print run) will sell out quickly, leaving all the professionals with a small profit and everybody else with a pleasant little book.

How pleasant?

Not as pleasant, obviously, as Jorge Luis Borges’s The Book of Imaginary Beings, the collection of brief essays whose existence haunts this book.  (Borges is cited by name in one of the introductions and six of the entries, and features prominently in the only entry which is fabricated by the Vandermeers from whole cloth.)   But then, it doesn’t try to be. 

What it tries to be is lighter than air.  The thirty-four entries – whose length, frankly, makes Borges look a trifle long-winded – range freely and eclectically from Dragon to Cornish Owlman to Sea-Monkey, and the essays are breezy and brief.  They are each followed by an even briefer discussion between the principals which sets the tone of the book.  In them Ann, who is Jewish, lays down the dietary law to Jeff, who is not.  Jeff is identified as Evil Monkey, his nom de blog.  Here’s an example:

            ANN:  “No reptiles or amphibians.”

            EVIL MONKEY:  “No exceptions?  What if a dragon asks politely to
            be eaten?”

            ANN:  “Jews don’t take suggestions from non-kosher food.”

            EVIL MONKEY:  “Does that mean you take suggestions from
            kosher food?!”

            ANN:  “Shut.  Up.”

And now you know whether you’d like this book or not. 

It is important when dealing with fabulous, mythical, or even religious matters to be as scrupulously honest as possible, particularly when writing about things you yourself are convinced have no physical reality.  Here, the individual essays are factually reliable for any reasonably attentive reader.  Several start out soberly and then at the end veer into Vandermeeresque whimsy.  But the break is always obvious and the inventions are not such as are likely to be picked up and passed along as fact by the gullible.  So this is, as all good books must be, an honest one.

It is a pleasant one as well.  It is pleasant enough to buy.  And it is pleasant enough to keep.   A very long time from now, it will still make people smile.

The book is bracketed by a serious introduction dealing with fabulous beasts by Joseph Nigg, who is an authority on the subject, and (strangely enough) a interview by Ann with Duff Goldman of the Food Network’s Ace of Cakes.  Goldman takes a far more catholic view of what is kosher than does Vandermeer and zestfully details how to cook such imaginary creatures as Wookiees and Mongolian Death Worms.  Personally, I think Mr. Goldman is on shaky theological grounds.  There’s not a religion in the world that would condone Wookieephagy.  Moreover, while I realize that as a former member of the Church of Rome, I have no standing here, I really must disagree on the Mongolian Death Worm question as well.  As Saint Thomas Aquinas would have put it:  “I say it’s tref and I say the hell with it!”

This, and the odd rendering of aigikornos as aigi kornos are the only two quibbles I have with this book.  It is a modest work, which wears its whimsy lightly.  It will be bought by people expecting what it is and no more.  I shall include it in my own permanent collection of bestiaries and mythobiologies and, just to make sure it doesn’t feel unwanted, I shall keep it alongside the Borges.

And there is happy news in China . . .

I've just learned that Li Chang, the "controversial" chief editor of Science Fiction World has been suspended!  This is very good news indeed.  I'll explain on Friday.

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And Once Again, I am Happy, Happy, Happy

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The Hugo shortlist has just been announced, and so now I can at last crow about being on the Best Related Work ballot for Hope-in-the-Mist: The Extraordinary Career and Mysterious Life of Hope Mirrlees.  "Best Related Work" used to be "Best Nonfiction" until it was won by the extraordinarily funny Science Made Stupid, whose author (Tom Weller) observed in his acceptance speech that he was flattered until he got to the "nonfiction" part, at which point he had to wonder about the people giving it to him.  Weller's next book, Culture Made Stupid, mentioned on the back that the prior book had won "a Hugo -- you know, one of those Yugoslavian cars?"  At which point the SF world blushed deep crimson and changed the category title.  The world is a better place for Mr. Weller being in it.

So why am I so happy?  Take a look at my competition.

Best Related Book
- Canary Fever: Reviews, John Clute (Beccon)
- Hope-In-The-Mist: The Extraordinary Career and Mysterious Life of Hope Mirrlees, Michael Swanwick (Temporary Culture)
- The Inter-Galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children's and Teens' Science Fiction, Farah Mendlesohn (McFarland)
- On Joanna Russ, Farah Mendlesohn (ed.) (Wesleyan)
- The Secret Feminist Cabal: A Cultural History of SF Feminisms, Helen Merrick (Aqueduct)
- This is Me, Jack Vance! (Or, More Properly, This is "I"), Jack Vance (Subterranean)

That's one tough category.  I've read the Clute, the Mendlesohn on Russ, and the Merrick, and of course Jack Vance is Jack Vance.  The Mendlesohn study of Kids Books I failed to get at last year's Worldcon because the only huckster selling them sold out in about ten minutes flat.  Which reminds me that it's time to call Big Blue Marble and place an order.  Shoulda done it long ago.

So who would I vote for if I weren't on the ballot?  I honestly don't know.  As I said, that's one tough category.  Luckily for me, however, I have a dog in this fight.  So all moral quandaries are solved.  I'll simply vote for myself.

The rest of you guys have got it tough, though.  I don't envy you at all.

You can see the entire Hugo ballot here.


And just a reminder . . .

The search for a title for my Darger & Surplus novel continues.  My Blue Ribbon Panel of Only Slightly Nepotistic Judges met this weekend and did a first pass-through of your title ideas to date, and eliminated about a third of them as not having a chance in Hell.  (This included the strangely brilliant Gorky Bark, alas.  Just because it's good doesn't mean that it's right.)

I'll have the novel in the mail to my agent this week.  And I'll know who if anybody is the contest winner . . . when the novel gets named.  I can't announce a winner before then because, well, if I chose your submission and then my editor overruled me, you'd be terribly disappointed.

But trust me, I'm grateful for your help and I'm taking all your suggestions seriously.  Even Gorky Bark.

Above:  There I am with the world's foremost Hope Mirrlees impersonator, Marianne Porter.  Marianne's Uncle Charles used to do a splendid job impersonating George Westinghouse at corporate meetings.  There must be something in the bloodline.

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In Which I Invent a New Holiday

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Writing is a tough dollar.  Tougher than you realize, probably.  Yeah, Stephen King is doing okay.  But most of the writers you like aren't.  A couple of years ago, David Hartwell estimated that in the mingled genres of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, only a hundred writers are actually making a living at it.  That includes King, Neil Gaiman, me, and that guy who's living in a cardboard box and eating cat food but is somehow staying alive without any other source of income.  The rest are making do with day jobs, working in academia or as editors, or are supported by an understanding spouse.

In the latest issue of the New York Review of Science Fiction, he predicts that, due to changes in publishing, that number will dwindle to twelve in a couple of years.  Twelve!

And yet every year dozens and maybe hundreds of hopeful new writers rush cheerfully into print.  Wouldn't it  be kindness itself to discourage them?

The question answers itself.

So I'm hereby declaring February 14 to be INTERNATIONAL DISCOURAGE NEW WRITERS DAY!

Why, you ask, should I choose Valentine's Day for such a grim task?  Because on February 14, 1969, Barry Malzberg wrote Memoirs of a Parisian Chambermaid, a 60,000-word novel, in only sixteen hours!!! 

Once a year, this astounding feat should be held up to all new and prospective writers as the gold standard of what a real writer ought to be able to do.  "Sound impossible?" you should ask.  "Then find another field."

When I first heard this story from the man himself, incidentally, I was gobsmacked.  "Barry!" I said.  "How could you possibly write a novel in only sixteen hours?"

"I can type two hundred words a minute," he replied.

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Just a Place-Holder

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I'm on the road again.  So there's nothing of substance to say today.  Other than that . . .

I am almost finished the Darger & Surplus novel.  Right now I'm doing the final polish, and the finished typescript goes to my agent in a couple of days.  And this book has everything!  Bears!  Demons!  Neanderthals!  Cyberwolves!  You name it, this novel's got it.

Except a title.  So keep those suggestions pouring in.  The Blue Ribbon Panel of Distinguished and Only Slightly Nepotistic Judges meets this weekend.

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