Michael Swanwick's Blog, page 136
February 25, 2015
Talking About Hope Mirrlees
.
The good folks at Flash Forward have uploaded to YouTube an interview that Mike Zipser did with me some years ago, back when I'd just finished Hope-in-the-Mist , my account of the life and career of the very interesting Hope Mirrlees.
Hope-in-the-Mist is (and will be until Sandeep Parmar finished her biography of Mirrlees) the only book-length study of one of the most important fantasists of the last century. It was published by Material Culture in an edition of two hundred, and, as planned, sold out almost immediately. An e-book version will be e-published sometime this e-year, if all goes as planned. All questions as to exactly when should be directed to the proprietor of Material Culture, Henry Wessells.
Enjoy!
*
The good folks at Flash Forward have uploaded to YouTube an interview that Mike Zipser did with me some years ago, back when I'd just finished Hope-in-the-Mist , my account of the life and career of the very interesting Hope Mirrlees.
Hope-in-the-Mist is (and will be until Sandeep Parmar finished her biography of Mirrlees) the only book-length study of one of the most important fantasists of the last century. It was published by Material Culture in an edition of two hundred, and, as planned, sold out almost immediately. An e-book version will be e-published sometime this e-year, if all goes as planned. All questions as to exactly when should be directed to the proprietor of Material Culture, Henry Wessells.
Enjoy!
*
February 24, 2015
The Last of What Can Be Saved from the Wreckage?
.
Over the course of several years, I read (or reread) every book James Branch Cabell ever wrote. Then I penned a slim-book-length monograph, sorting and ordering the entire oeuvre. I may be the only person ever to have done so.
What Can Be Saved from the Wreckage? was published by Temporary Culture in 2007.
Now there are only five copies remaining. If you need one -- and those who do know who they are -- this is pretty much your last chance at an affordable price.
You can order it here.
*
Over the course of several years, I read (or reread) every book James Branch Cabell ever wrote. Then I penned a slim-book-length monograph, sorting and ordering the entire oeuvre. I may be the only person ever to have done so.
What Can Be Saved from the Wreckage? was published by Temporary Culture in 2007.
Now there are only five copies remaining. If you need one -- and those who do know who they are -- this is pretty much your last chance at an affordable price.
You can order it here.
*
February 23, 2015
My Annotated Office Wall
.
For no particular reason, here's a photo of one wall of my office. A little murky, perhaps, but still crammed with wonder.
Top of wall. left to right: a photo of me listening to a blood rabbit, a black&white original SF illo by Robert Walters; a West African sword (originally in the Chicago Exposition, then the Philadelphia Civic Center Museum, then the African American Museum, then Material Culture), a poster made by Ray Ridenauer for the Back Page Boyz ("the Original Boy Band from the 20th Century") based on a photo by Joanne Burke; a photo by Joanne from the same session, featuring me, Gardner Dozois, Tim Sullivan and Greg Frost; a plaque of (my thanks to Lars, below, for identifying it for me) an Ornithocheirus skull.
Lower wall, left to right: plastic moon lamp on which is written a love story addressed to Marianne; a Dilophosaurus poster by Robert Walters, the framed cover of Asimov's for "The City of God."
Atop bookcase: Globe of Mars, autographed by Kim Stanley Robinson, with a coyote face resting atop it; flash fiction in small frames; bust of Surplus; stone fu dog; guardian turtle with two masks resting atop its shell; a lantern filled with keys; a book press holding several cigar boxes filled with interesting stuff, atop which are several plastic figures, including a Dimetrodon ; a Rolodex containing the names of partially-written stories. Among much else.
One day Marianne suddenly looked about her and said, "How did I wind up living in a wizard's den?"
"The skulls are all yours," I reminded her.
Above: The rest of my office is too cluttered to show you. Maybe someday after I get it tidied up.
*
For no particular reason, here's a photo of one wall of my office. A little murky, perhaps, but still crammed with wonder.
Top of wall. left to right: a photo of me listening to a blood rabbit, a black&white original SF illo by Robert Walters; a West African sword (originally in the Chicago Exposition, then the Philadelphia Civic Center Museum, then the African American Museum, then Material Culture), a poster made by Ray Ridenauer for the Back Page Boyz ("the Original Boy Band from the 20th Century") based on a photo by Joanne Burke; a photo by Joanne from the same session, featuring me, Gardner Dozois, Tim Sullivan and Greg Frost; a plaque of (my thanks to Lars, below, for identifying it for me) an Ornithocheirus skull.
Lower wall, left to right: plastic moon lamp on which is written a love story addressed to Marianne; a Dilophosaurus poster by Robert Walters, the framed cover of Asimov's for "The City of God."
Atop bookcase: Globe of Mars, autographed by Kim Stanley Robinson, with a coyote face resting atop it; flash fiction in small frames; bust of Surplus; stone fu dog; guardian turtle with two masks resting atop its shell; a lantern filled with keys; a book press holding several cigar boxes filled with interesting stuff, atop which are several plastic figures, including a Dimetrodon ; a Rolodex containing the names of partially-written stories. Among much else.
One day Marianne suddenly looked about her and said, "How did I wind up living in a wizard's den?"
"The skulls are all yours," I reminded her.
Above: The rest of my office is too cluttered to show you. Maybe someday after I get it tidied up.
*
February 20, 2015
The Annotated Stone of Loneliness
.
So Janis Ian is up for an Audio for the audiobook of Stars , the anthology edited by her and Mike Resnick. You could search forever in the paper book for my story and never find it. But they included "For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Loneliness and I'll Not Be Back Again," which was inspired by Janis' song "Mary's Eyes," as an extra, a special treat for those who buy the audiobook.
Wednesday, I talked a little about the story and told where you can find the song that Janis wrote for it. Today it occurred to me that it might be helpful is I provided a light annotation of it.
In general, everything I say about Ireland is true, unless it's something that has yet to happen, in which case it's fiction. There can't be many readers who will have trouble telling one from the other. But a few entries are personal and there's no way you could possible know that. So, presented below are those elements that make this as close to an autobiographical story as I've ever written.
Enjoy!
... my great-great-grandfather saw Gerry Adams strolling down O’Connell Street on Easter morning of ’96, the eightieth anniversary of that event, returning from a political rally with a single bodyguard to one side of him and a local politico to the other.
All true. That is exactly where and when and what happened to me. Making me the protagonist's ancestor. The bodyguard, incidentally, was huge. His shoulders were so wide they made his head look small.
...I can see his face, liquid and wavy as if glimpsed through candle flames, as he lay dying under a great feather comforter in his New York City railroad flat, his smile weak and his hair forming a halo around him as white as a dandelion waiting for the wind to purse its lips and blow.
That was my grandfather, Michael O'Brien. He died when I was -- what? -- three years old, I think. I can see him clearly even now, smiling lovingly at me as I played on my little plastic guitar for him.
The holy well is one such antiquity, though it is only a round hole, perhaps a foot across, filled with water and bright green algae. The altar over it is of recent construction, built by unknown hands from the long slender stones formed by the natural weathering of the limestone between the grykes, which makes the local stone walls so distinctive and the walking so treacherous.
It wasn't easy to find, but Marianne and I had a geodetic survey map, and we tromped over the rocks until we all but stumbled across it it. Later that day, we struck up a conversation with a friendly waiter. The man was a talker. But when we mentioned the holy well, he clammed right up.
We met in the Fiddler’s Elbow, a pub in that part of the West which the Bord Failte calls Yeats Country.
A lovely place. We shared a pint with a dairy farmer there. When I said that Ireland was a very beautiful country, he said, "But it can be a very dirrty country, too." With a trill in the r. The peat fire, however, comes from a pub in Dublin, as does the back room where the concert was held.
“This one’s for the American,” she’d said.But how had she known?
This happened to a friend of mine. She was in the audience and the singer said, "This one's for the American in the front row." So she stayed after to ask how he knew. "You have American teeth," he said.
“Looking for your roots, then, are ye?”
This is a question all visitors to Ireland must endure. Apparently the Irish can't imagine any other reason for coming to see their country.
...and the ladies of Noraid goose-stepping down the street on Saint Patrick’s Day in short black skirts
True. Terrifying.
“It’s not the wee folk you have to worry about. It’s the boys.”
In Ireland, "the boys" is or was a euphemism for the IRA. Which is why a friend who was putting up the members of an Irish folk group in her house for a few weeks was always careful to refer to them as "the lads."
The Stone of Loneliness was a fallen menhir or standing stone, something not at all uncommon throughout the British Isles. They’d been reared by unknown people for reasons still not understood in Megalithic times, sometimes arranged in circles, and other times as solitary monuments. There were faded cup-and-ring lines carved into what had been the stone’s upper end. And it was broad enough that a grown man could lie down on it.
On a beautiful, bright day on our first visit to Ireland in 1982, Marianne and I found the Stone of Loneliness, so called because it was supposed to be a cure for heartbreak. People about the leave Ireland forever would sleep on it the night before departure. I lay down on it and I felt all the loneliness in the world flood into my body.
a nondescript cinder-block building
I swiped this bar from my mother. She took a tour of Ireland, before which she asked if there was anything I wanted her to bring back. "If you run across a bottle of Knappogue Castle," (at that time a rare whiskey) I said, "I'd like that."
Well, my mother asked the tour but driver and he hadn't heard of it either. But "I think I know what he meant," he said, and drove to a very seedy bar and after warning his charges not to leave the bus, went in. He came back with a Fresca bottle filled with illegal poteen.
When she got home, my mother told me this story, showed me the Fresca bottle, and put it back in her own liquor cabinet.
...only Ireland and my family could make me cry.
It's God's own truth.
*
So Janis Ian is up for an Audio for the audiobook of Stars , the anthology edited by her and Mike Resnick. You could search forever in the paper book for my story and never find it. But they included "For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Loneliness and I'll Not Be Back Again," which was inspired by Janis' song "Mary's Eyes," as an extra, a special treat for those who buy the audiobook.
Wednesday, I talked a little about the story and told where you can find the song that Janis wrote for it. Today it occurred to me that it might be helpful is I provided a light annotation of it.
In general, everything I say about Ireland is true, unless it's something that has yet to happen, in which case it's fiction. There can't be many readers who will have trouble telling one from the other. But a few entries are personal and there's no way you could possible know that. So, presented below are those elements that make this as close to an autobiographical story as I've ever written.
Enjoy!
... my great-great-grandfather saw Gerry Adams strolling down O’Connell Street on Easter morning of ’96, the eightieth anniversary of that event, returning from a political rally with a single bodyguard to one side of him and a local politico to the other.
All true. That is exactly where and when and what happened to me. Making me the protagonist's ancestor. The bodyguard, incidentally, was huge. His shoulders were so wide they made his head look small.
...I can see his face, liquid and wavy as if glimpsed through candle flames, as he lay dying under a great feather comforter in his New York City railroad flat, his smile weak and his hair forming a halo around him as white as a dandelion waiting for the wind to purse its lips and blow.
That was my grandfather, Michael O'Brien. He died when I was -- what? -- three years old, I think. I can see him clearly even now, smiling lovingly at me as I played on my little plastic guitar for him.
The holy well is one such antiquity, though it is only a round hole, perhaps a foot across, filled with water and bright green algae. The altar over it is of recent construction, built by unknown hands from the long slender stones formed by the natural weathering of the limestone between the grykes, which makes the local stone walls so distinctive and the walking so treacherous.
It wasn't easy to find, but Marianne and I had a geodetic survey map, and we tromped over the rocks until we all but stumbled across it it. Later that day, we struck up a conversation with a friendly waiter. The man was a talker. But when we mentioned the holy well, he clammed right up.
We met in the Fiddler’s Elbow, a pub in that part of the West which the Bord Failte calls Yeats Country.
A lovely place. We shared a pint with a dairy farmer there. When I said that Ireland was a very beautiful country, he said, "But it can be a very dirrty country, too." With a trill in the r. The peat fire, however, comes from a pub in Dublin, as does the back room where the concert was held.
“This one’s for the American,” she’d said.But how had she known?
This happened to a friend of mine. She was in the audience and the singer said, "This one's for the American in the front row." So she stayed after to ask how he knew. "You have American teeth," he said.
“Looking for your roots, then, are ye?”
This is a question all visitors to Ireland must endure. Apparently the Irish can't imagine any other reason for coming to see their country.
...and the ladies of Noraid goose-stepping down the street on Saint Patrick’s Day in short black skirts
True. Terrifying.
“It’s not the wee folk you have to worry about. It’s the boys.”
In Ireland, "the boys" is or was a euphemism for the IRA. Which is why a friend who was putting up the members of an Irish folk group in her house for a few weeks was always careful to refer to them as "the lads."
The Stone of Loneliness was a fallen menhir or standing stone, something not at all uncommon throughout the British Isles. They’d been reared by unknown people for reasons still not understood in Megalithic times, sometimes arranged in circles, and other times as solitary monuments. There were faded cup-and-ring lines carved into what had been the stone’s upper end. And it was broad enough that a grown man could lie down on it.
On a beautiful, bright day on our first visit to Ireland in 1982, Marianne and I found the Stone of Loneliness, so called because it was supposed to be a cure for heartbreak. People about the leave Ireland forever would sleep on it the night before departure. I lay down on it and I felt all the loneliness in the world flood into my body.
a nondescript cinder-block building
I swiped this bar from my mother. She took a tour of Ireland, before which she asked if there was anything I wanted her to bring back. "If you run across a bottle of Knappogue Castle," (at that time a rare whiskey) I said, "I'd like that."
Well, my mother asked the tour but driver and he hadn't heard of it either. But "I think I know what he meant," he said, and drove to a very seedy bar and after warning his charges not to leave the bus, went in. He came back with a Fresca bottle filled with illegal poteen.
When she got home, my mother told me this story, showed me the Fresca bottle, and put it back in her own liquor cabinet.
...only Ireland and my family could make me cry.
It's God's own truth.
*
February 18, 2015
Seeing (and Hearing) Stars
.
I just recently heard that Stars , the audio version of Janis Ian's anthology of stories based on her songs (released by Audible and Brilliance) has received an Audio nomination for Best Multi-Voice Performance.
This is of significance to me because while the story I wrote for that anthology, "For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Loneliness and I'll not be Back Again," though it was finished at least a year too late for the print anthology, was included in the audiobook as a sort of amuse-bouche, an extra for those buying it.
I haven't heard what Janis did with my story yet, though I am wild to do so. But I know it's great because she did something extraordinary with it. In the story, a musician sings a song called "Deirdre's Lament," snatches of which, not being a songwriter myself, I cribbed from a nineteenth-century poem of that name by Sir Samuel Ferguson. So while she was prepping for the story, Janis wrote to ask if I'd mind if she made up a tune for it.
Would I mind? Christ! "Society's Child" was a very important song for me, back when I was sixteen (and she was fifteen). Rather casually, I told her that I guessed I had no objections.
Then she wrote to tell me that she was giving me a co-writing credit.
"Nonono," I wrote back, "those weren't my words! I can't take credit for them."
But it turns out that by the arcane rules of ASCAP, I can take credit for them. So I now have a co-writing credit with Janis Ian.
The talentless singer-songwriter of my coffeehouse days would have been every bit as thrilled and appalled as I am now.
And the song itself? I think it's a heartbreaker. But then, as I said in the story, only Ireland and my family can make me cry.
In order to register the song, Janis had to make a recording of it. Which she has very generously put up to be heard for free on her website. You can download it here. It's a beautiful song, beautifully sung. You be the judge.
Janis Ian is making something of a second career (or third or eighth) as an audiobook narrator. She's also up for Audies for her narration of Miriam Therese Winter's The Singer and the Song, and as one of the readers of George R. R. Martin's and Gardner Dozois' Dangerous Women. While still holding down her day job. As a singer-songwriter. I feel like such a slacker.
*
I just recently heard that Stars , the audio version of Janis Ian's anthology of stories based on her songs (released by Audible and Brilliance) has received an Audio nomination for Best Multi-Voice Performance.
This is of significance to me because while the story I wrote for that anthology, "For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Loneliness and I'll not be Back Again," though it was finished at least a year too late for the print anthology, was included in the audiobook as a sort of amuse-bouche, an extra for those buying it.
I haven't heard what Janis did with my story yet, though I am wild to do so. But I know it's great because she did something extraordinary with it. In the story, a musician sings a song called "Deirdre's Lament," snatches of which, not being a songwriter myself, I cribbed from a nineteenth-century poem of that name by Sir Samuel Ferguson. So while she was prepping for the story, Janis wrote to ask if I'd mind if she made up a tune for it.
Would I mind? Christ! "Society's Child" was a very important song for me, back when I was sixteen (and she was fifteen). Rather casually, I told her that I guessed I had no objections.
Then she wrote to tell me that she was giving me a co-writing credit.
"Nonono," I wrote back, "those weren't my words! I can't take credit for them."
But it turns out that by the arcane rules of ASCAP, I can take credit for them. So I now have a co-writing credit with Janis Ian.
The talentless singer-songwriter of my coffeehouse days would have been every bit as thrilled and appalled as I am now.
And the song itself? I think it's a heartbreaker. But then, as I said in the story, only Ireland and my family can make me cry.
In order to register the song, Janis had to make a recording of it. Which she has very generously put up to be heard for free on her website. You can download it here. It's a beautiful song, beautifully sung. You be the judge.
Janis Ian is making something of a second career (or third or eighth) as an audiobook narrator. She's also up for Audies for her narration of Miriam Therese Winter's The Singer and the Song, and as one of the readers of George R. R. Martin's and Gardner Dozois' Dangerous Women. While still holding down her day job. As a singer-songwriter. I feel like such a slacker.
*
February 16, 2015
The Alien Worms of Truth
.
I am, as always, on the road -- and by the time I get home, 300+ miles from now, I will be exhausted. So no pictures, no bells, and no whistles today.
But I want to answer a question I was asked on a panel Saturday. Somebody asked about what I intended with my story "Passage of Earth," and I replied thatI had wanted to create an alien extemely unlike human beings and see what could be deduced about its thought processes simply by disecting it.
This was true as far as it goes. But I'd been on four program items in a row by then and was feeling a little wasted. So I only spoke about what I'd intended to do, and not what the story became during the years-long process of writing it.
Now I must spoil some of the story for those who have not read it yet. So serious readers will first go to Clarkesworld, where the story first appeared, and read it. Here.
Eliding a great deal of plot, the protagonist comes to realize he has been eaten by an alien worm and has been on continual replay for hundreds or thousands of years as the alien tries to understand him. This section gave me a great deal of trouble before I could find a resolution for it. But afterward it was clear to me that the protagonist's dilemma was a metaphor or perhaps thought experiment was an apter term for the his realization of himself as an alien and his resultant failure to comprehend himself.
I could, with a great deal of work, make that clearer, or with a little less work go into much greater detail about it. But I set out to answer a question I had not done justice to and now my task is done and I may go to bed.
*
I am, as always, on the road -- and by the time I get home, 300+ miles from now, I will be exhausted. So no pictures, no bells, and no whistles today.
But I want to answer a question I was asked on a panel Saturday. Somebody asked about what I intended with my story "Passage of Earth," and I replied thatI had wanted to create an alien extemely unlike human beings and see what could be deduced about its thought processes simply by disecting it.
This was true as far as it goes. But I'd been on four program items in a row by then and was feeling a little wasted. So I only spoke about what I'd intended to do, and not what the story became during the years-long process of writing it.
Now I must spoil some of the story for those who have not read it yet. So serious readers will first go to Clarkesworld, where the story first appeared, and read it. Here.
Eliding a great deal of plot, the protagonist comes to realize he has been eaten by an alien worm and has been on continual replay for hundreds or thousands of years as the alien tries to understand him. This section gave me a great deal of trouble before I could find a resolution for it. But afterward it was clear to me that the protagonist's dilemma was a metaphor or perhaps thought experiment was an apter term for the his realization of himself as an alien and his resultant failure to comprehend himself.
I could, with a great deal of work, make that clearer, or with a little less work go into much greater detail about it. But I set out to answer a question I had not done justice to and now my task is done and I may go to bed.
*
February 13, 2015
Persistence
.
A friend asked a question of the general world over at one of the social media sites and since I had an an answer and since the answer required a lot of typing and since I know others will be interested in this particular story, I thought I'd answer it here. I omit the question since its phrasing doesn't lead in to what I have to say here. But you can figure out the gist of it.
What is the most important quality a writer can have?
Persistence.
Decades ago, when Gardner Dozois had only been editor of Asimov's for a couple of years, I dropped by his apartment one day and asked what was new.
He held up a manuscript and let it drop. "There's a writer named Salmanezar [for obvious reasons, I'm using a pseudonym here] who keeps sending me crappy stories. I reject one and send it back to him and by return mail, I got another one with a cheerful note saying he's amazed I didn't buy the last but here's another he's sure I'll take. And it sucks too. So I send it back and by return mail I get another story and another cheerful letter. I can't get rid of the damned things!"
"That's interesting," I said.
Months went by, with the occasional reference to this energetic but unpublished writer. I dropped in on Gardner and asked what was new. "Remember that Salmanezar guy I keep telling you about? Now, when he sends me a crappy story, he includes a little catalog for even more crappy stories, with an order form for me to check off which ones I'd like to look at. Plus, the form stipulates that for every three stories I ask to look at, he'll throw in free a collaboration he's done with another guy who also can't write."
"Huh," I said.
Over time, "that Salmanezar guy" became "Salmanezar" and then "Sal." Always, his letters were cheerful and upbeat. Always, Gardner bounced the stories on first read.
Then one day I dropped by and asked what was new.
"I bought a story from Sal," Gardner said glumly.
"Really?! Is it any good?"
Gardner shook his head like a great shaggy buffalo. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know if he's gotten better or if he just wore me down."
Well, I never read the rejected stories, so I don't know if Sal got better or not. But I thought that story, and a lot of other stories that Gardner also bought from him were pretty good. I'm glad that Sal didn't let rejection stop him.
So, yeah. Persistence.
Oh, and . . .
But don't forget the part about cheerful and upbeat. Nobody ever got in trouble for addressing an editor too positively.
*
A friend asked a question of the general world over at one of the social media sites and since I had an an answer and since the answer required a lot of typing and since I know others will be interested in this particular story, I thought I'd answer it here. I omit the question since its phrasing doesn't lead in to what I have to say here. But you can figure out the gist of it.
What is the most important quality a writer can have?
Persistence.
Decades ago, when Gardner Dozois had only been editor of Asimov's for a couple of years, I dropped by his apartment one day and asked what was new.
He held up a manuscript and let it drop. "There's a writer named Salmanezar [for obvious reasons, I'm using a pseudonym here] who keeps sending me crappy stories. I reject one and send it back to him and by return mail, I got another one with a cheerful note saying he's amazed I didn't buy the last but here's another he's sure I'll take. And it sucks too. So I send it back and by return mail I get another story and another cheerful letter. I can't get rid of the damned things!"
"That's interesting," I said.
Months went by, with the occasional reference to this energetic but unpublished writer. I dropped in on Gardner and asked what was new. "Remember that Salmanezar guy I keep telling you about? Now, when he sends me a crappy story, he includes a little catalog for even more crappy stories, with an order form for me to check off which ones I'd like to look at. Plus, the form stipulates that for every three stories I ask to look at, he'll throw in free a collaboration he's done with another guy who also can't write."
"Huh," I said.
Over time, "that Salmanezar guy" became "Salmanezar" and then "Sal." Always, his letters were cheerful and upbeat. Always, Gardner bounced the stories on first read.
Then one day I dropped by and asked what was new.
"I bought a story from Sal," Gardner said glumly.
"Really?! Is it any good?"
Gardner shook his head like a great shaggy buffalo. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know if he's gotten better or if he just wore me down."
Well, I never read the rejected stories, so I don't know if Sal got better or not. But I thought that story, and a lot of other stories that Gardner also bought from him were pretty good. I'm glad that Sal didn't let rejection stop him.
So, yeah. Persistence.
Oh, and . . .
But don't forget the part about cheerful and upbeat. Nobody ever got in trouble for addressing an editor too positively.
*
February 11, 2015
My Boskone Schedule
.
Well, it's that time of year again: Time to drive and drive and drive through the cold to spend a weekend in a hotel in Boston. Either this is your idea of fun or it isn't -- and there's nothing I can do to shift you from one camp to the other.
Personally, I plan to have a blast at Boskone. If you're there, be sure to say hi.
Here's my schedule:
Friday
Apocalypse How?Friday 18:00 - 18:50, Burroughs (Westin)
A fair number of books and movies depict the end of the world. Now, it's time (relax — from a purely theoretical point of view) to see if they got it right or wrong. We’ll debunk some plausible but ultimately unconvincing scenarios of doom and lay out leading contenders for ways the world might really wind it all up.
Jeffrey A. Carver (moderator), Scott Lynch, Steven Popkes, Michael Swanwick
Saturday
Reading: Michael SwanwickSaturday 10:30 - 10:55, Griffin (Westin)
Autographing: Michael SwanwickSaturday 13:00 - 13:50, Galleria-Autographing (Westin)
Kaffeeklatsch: Michael SwanwickSaturday 14:00 - 14:50, Galleria-Kaffeeklatsch 2 (Westin)
Writing Great OpeningsSaturday 15:00 - 15:50, Marina 2 (Westin)
What elements are necessary for a great opening, and is a great opening necessity for a great novel? Is it even more important to have a great opening in short fiction?
Paul Di Filippo (moderator), ML Brennan, Alexander Jablokov, Michael Swanwick, A.C.E. Bauer
The AlienSaturday 16:00 - 16:50, Burroughs (Westin)
Let’s probe an alien for a change. What is it about aliens that captures our imagination? Does a good alien have to be different? Should it necessarily be fascinating … and maybe a bit frightening? Why? Which aliens have awakened our sense of wonder? They have been portrayed as benefactors, conquerors, victims, and even objects of desire: why? What parallels can we draw with human-to-human relationships? Perhaps we should be asking "what is it about humans?"
Walter H. Hunt (moderator), Andrea Hairston, Charles Stross, Michael Swanwick, Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Sunday
Nifty Narrative TricksSunday 11:00 - 11:50, Harbor I (Westin)
Some SF/F/H writers like to dazzle us with their out-of-the-ordinary storytelling. Let’s discuss such twisty techniques as insidious in-clues, unreliable narrators, unstated genders, shifty time-shifts, uncanny cameos, and more. What other clever things can be done with narrative to make the story more powerful and interesting?
Jo Walton (moderator), Steven Brust, Charles Stross, Michael Swanwick, Darrell Schweitzer
*
Well, it's that time of year again: Time to drive and drive and drive through the cold to spend a weekend in a hotel in Boston. Either this is your idea of fun or it isn't -- and there's nothing I can do to shift you from one camp to the other.
Personally, I plan to have a blast at Boskone. If you're there, be sure to say hi.
Here's my schedule:
Friday
Apocalypse How?Friday 18:00 - 18:50, Burroughs (Westin)
A fair number of books and movies depict the end of the world. Now, it's time (relax — from a purely theoretical point of view) to see if they got it right or wrong. We’ll debunk some plausible but ultimately unconvincing scenarios of doom and lay out leading contenders for ways the world might really wind it all up.
Jeffrey A. Carver (moderator), Scott Lynch, Steven Popkes, Michael Swanwick
Saturday
Reading: Michael SwanwickSaturday 10:30 - 10:55, Griffin (Westin)
Autographing: Michael SwanwickSaturday 13:00 - 13:50, Galleria-Autographing (Westin)
Kaffeeklatsch: Michael SwanwickSaturday 14:00 - 14:50, Galleria-Kaffeeklatsch 2 (Westin)
Writing Great OpeningsSaturday 15:00 - 15:50, Marina 2 (Westin)
What elements are necessary for a great opening, and is a great opening necessity for a great novel? Is it even more important to have a great opening in short fiction?
Paul Di Filippo (moderator), ML Brennan, Alexander Jablokov, Michael Swanwick, A.C.E. Bauer
The AlienSaturday 16:00 - 16:50, Burroughs (Westin)
Let’s probe an alien for a change. What is it about aliens that captures our imagination? Does a good alien have to be different? Should it necessarily be fascinating … and maybe a bit frightening? Why? Which aliens have awakened our sense of wonder? They have been portrayed as benefactors, conquerors, victims, and even objects of desire: why? What parallels can we draw with human-to-human relationships? Perhaps we should be asking "what is it about humans?"
Walter H. Hunt (moderator), Andrea Hairston, Charles Stross, Michael Swanwick, Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Sunday
Nifty Narrative TricksSunday 11:00 - 11:50, Harbor I (Westin)
Some SF/F/H writers like to dazzle us with their out-of-the-ordinary storytelling. Let’s discuss such twisty techniques as insidious in-clues, unreliable narrators, unstated genders, shifty time-shifts, uncanny cameos, and more. What other clever things can be done with narrative to make the story more powerful and interesting?
Jo Walton (moderator), Steven Brust, Charles Stross, Michael Swanwick, Darrell Schweitzer
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February 9, 2015
A Memoir in the Form of Four Denim Jackets (Part 4)
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Ten years went by, and I was in need of a denim jacket more suited for the Nineties. So I bought a new jacket and Marianne asked one of her right-wing colleagues at the Bureau of Laboratories to put a bullet hole in it. (Not all gunners are conservative. But it's remarkable how many conservatives own guns.)
Alas, when her co-worker returned the jacket, he'd used a .22 and the hole was barely noticeable. So, after consultation with me, she brought it back to him and asked if he'd shoot it with one of his shotguns.
"You're planning to murder your husband and frame me for it, aren't you?" the colleague said.
But, as it turned out, Marianne wasn't, and the jacket looked great on me. Particularly when I wore it with a red shirt.
When Sean was in Central High, he was desperate to be allowed to borrow the jacket and wear it to school. But we would never let him do so.
It was the Nineties, after all, and school officials had no tolerance for anything whatsoever.
And if you're curious . . .
You can read Part 1 of the memoir here.
Part 2 here.
And Part 3 here.
*
Ten years went by, and I was in need of a denim jacket more suited for the Nineties. So I bought a new jacket and Marianne asked one of her right-wing colleagues at the Bureau of Laboratories to put a bullet hole in it. (Not all gunners are conservative. But it's remarkable how many conservatives own guns.)
Alas, when her co-worker returned the jacket, he'd used a .22 and the hole was barely noticeable. So, after consultation with me, she brought it back to him and asked if he'd shoot it with one of his shotguns.
"You're planning to murder your husband and frame me for it, aren't you?" the colleague said.
But, as it turned out, Marianne wasn't, and the jacket looked great on me. Particularly when I wore it with a red shirt.
When Sean was in Central High, he was desperate to be allowed to borrow the jacket and wear it to school. But we would never let him do so.
It was the Nineties, after all, and school officials had no tolerance for anything whatsoever.
And if you're curious . . .
You can read Part 1 of the memoir here.
Part 2 here.
And Part 3 here.
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February 6, 2015
Lost Tales from Pegana
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I am not a collector of books. Rather, I am an amasser of books. Nevertheless, because I am friends with the proprietor, I have a small but rather fine collection of books and chapbooks from Pegana Press.
The latest item to arrive is Lost Tales Volume III by Lord Dunsany. Dunsany was an important figure in the history of fantasy, the author of short, lapidarian fantasies that have been frequently imitated and never equalled. He wrote a great deal more as well: plays, mainstream stories, the well-regarded "Jorkens" stories, and works that defy description ( Dean Spanley , a short novel about a man who in a previous life was a spaniel recently and quite improbably was made into a movie). But it is his fantasies that have proved to be his great contribution to English literature.
The Lost Tales series of chapbooks collects fantasies that Lord Dunsany published sixty to a hundred years ago but never collected. They are being republished for the first time. The pieces included in this volume are:
If you're a serious collector, it will not surprise you that the collection -- handmade, hand-sewn, limited to an edition of 80 -- sells for $175 in chapbook format or $235 for the deluxe hardcover. It is an item for intellectual sybarites.
You can find the Pegana Website here. If you're a well-heeled bookman, you'll surely find something you need to buy. If not, you can wander about the site, smiling wistfully and dreaming.
Above: Pardon the slightly murky quality of my photo. There are better pics on the Pegana site.
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I am not a collector of books. Rather, I am an amasser of books. Nevertheless, because I am friends with the proprietor, I have a small but rather fine collection of books and chapbooks from Pegana Press.
The latest item to arrive is Lost Tales Volume III by Lord Dunsany. Dunsany was an important figure in the history of fantasy, the author of short, lapidarian fantasies that have been frequently imitated and never equalled. He wrote a great deal more as well: plays, mainstream stories, the well-regarded "Jorkens" stories, and works that defy description ( Dean Spanley , a short novel about a man who in a previous life was a spaniel recently and quite improbably was made into a movie). But it is his fantasies that have proved to be his great contribution to English literature.
The Lost Tales series of chapbooks collects fantasies that Lord Dunsany published sixty to a hundred years ago but never collected. They are being republished for the first time. The pieces included in this volume are:
JetsamThis is, alas, of necessity a pricey piece of goods. The chapbook is, as the description on the Pegana Press page puts it:
Sources of Information
A Go-Ahead Planet
A Tale of Roscommon
The Greek Slave
A Talk in the Dusk
Fuel
Printed on Hahnemuhle Antique watermark laid paper. Soft grey heavy French paper cover, hand sewn with two color Irish linen thread. Letterpress printed using Goudy Franciscan and Civilite types from The Dale Guild Foundry.So, yes, you want it. The printing is beautiful and deep; it is impossible not to lightly run one's fingers across the page to feel the words caressing one's skin. The bottom edge of the pages is deckled, the design is lovely, it's a pleasure to hold and to read. And of course there's the pleasure of reading something very few living humans have ever seen.
If you're a serious collector, it will not surprise you that the collection -- handmade, hand-sewn, limited to an edition of 80 -- sells for $175 in chapbook format or $235 for the deluxe hardcover. It is an item for intellectual sybarites.
You can find the Pegana Website here. If you're a well-heeled bookman, you'll surely find something you need to buy. If not, you can wander about the site, smiling wistfully and dreaming.
Above: Pardon the slightly murky quality of my photo. There are better pics on the Pegana site.
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