Michael Swanwick's Blog, page 189
July 13, 2012
FRIDAY'S POST: In Which I Am Absent But Happy
.
Before I left for a science fiction convention Friday, I carefully wrote a post -- and then didn't put it up! Typical. Here's what you missed:
Look what came in the mail yesterday! One of my genuine accomplishments is that I have reached a stage in my career where inclusion in a best-of-year anthology is so common that I don't bother to keep track of them anymore and so never have any ideas how many include my fiction in any given year.
So it was a pleasant surprise to find that I'm included in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Ninth Annual Collection , commendably edited as always by Gardner Dozois. Doubly pleasant to look inside and discover that I have two stories included. So to mark the occasion, I'll tell a very brief anecdote about each.
The Dale Horse was of course inspired by the brightly-painted wooden toy horse that has, almost inexplicably, become a symbol of Sweden. It's always a surprise to foreigners to find that it was a nineteenth-century invention and has no mythological or folkloric story behind it.
When I was in Sweden for the 1999 Swecon, I bought one, intending to find its story and write it. Which, only slightly more than a decade later, I managed to do. Swecon was a great success that year and the con committee invited me to their pub meeting the night before I flew home again. Midway through a very pleasant evening, I took the small red Dala horse I'd bought out of my pocket. A silence fell over the previously=noisy table.
Finally, one of the committee members cleared his throat and said, "My . . . my parents have one of those." And changed the subject.
For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Loneliness and I'll Not Be Back Again had its roots rather earlier, when I was in Dublin one Sunday, minding my own business on O'Connell Street, when Gerry Adams walked right past me. One his way, I later realized, from a speech at the General Post Office commemorating the Easter Uprising in 1916. But its immediate cause was a song by Janis Ian titled Mary's Eyes .
Sad songs about Ireland (and are there any other kind?) are my Achilles heel -- the only things, other than my family, that can make me cry. Janis put together an anthology of science fiction stories "inspired by," as they say, her songs, and I tried hard to finish this one in time for inclusion. But it was far too personal and far too tricky for that. So it got finished when it did, which was long after the book came out. I sent her the original manuscript in way of apology, figuring she could throw it into her Pearl Foundation auction, and that was that.
A year or so ago, though, Janis made an appearance in my area, so I went to see her. During the concert, she played Mary's Eyes and called me out in the audience. Alas, my eyes were filled with tears, and I could not see to stand.
And as always . . .
I'm on the road again. This time to Burlington, Massachusetts, for Readercon. If you're there, say hello. You won't be interrupting anything important. Just a batch of panels and such.
*
Before I left for a science fiction convention Friday, I carefully wrote a post -- and then didn't put it up! Typical. Here's what you missed:
Look what came in the mail yesterday! One of my genuine accomplishments is that I have reached a stage in my career where inclusion in a best-of-year anthology is so common that I don't bother to keep track of them anymore and so never have any ideas how many include my fiction in any given year.
So it was a pleasant surprise to find that I'm included in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Ninth Annual Collection , commendably edited as always by Gardner Dozois. Doubly pleasant to look inside and discover that I have two stories included. So to mark the occasion, I'll tell a very brief anecdote about each.
The Dale Horse was of course inspired by the brightly-painted wooden toy horse that has, almost inexplicably, become a symbol of Sweden. It's always a surprise to foreigners to find that it was a nineteenth-century invention and has no mythological or folkloric story behind it.
When I was in Sweden for the 1999 Swecon, I bought one, intending to find its story and write it. Which, only slightly more than a decade later, I managed to do. Swecon was a great success that year and the con committee invited me to their pub meeting the night before I flew home again. Midway through a very pleasant evening, I took the small red Dala horse I'd bought out of my pocket. A silence fell over the previously=noisy table.
Finally, one of the committee members cleared his throat and said, "My . . . my parents have one of those." And changed the subject.
For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Loneliness and I'll Not Be Back Again had its roots rather earlier, when I was in Dublin one Sunday, minding my own business on O'Connell Street, when Gerry Adams walked right past me. One his way, I later realized, from a speech at the General Post Office commemorating the Easter Uprising in 1916. But its immediate cause was a song by Janis Ian titled Mary's Eyes .
Sad songs about Ireland (and are there any other kind?) are my Achilles heel -- the only things, other than my family, that can make me cry. Janis put together an anthology of science fiction stories "inspired by," as they say, her songs, and I tried hard to finish this one in time for inclusion. But it was far too personal and far too tricky for that. So it got finished when it did, which was long after the book came out. I sent her the original manuscript in way of apology, figuring she could throw it into her Pearl Foundation auction, and that was that.
A year or so ago, though, Janis made an appearance in my area, so I went to see her. During the concert, she played Mary's Eyes and called me out in the audience. Alas, my eyes were filled with tears, and I could not see to stand.
And as always . . .
I'm on the road again. This time to Burlington, Massachusetts, for Readercon. If you're there, say hello. You won't be interrupting anything important. Just a batch of panels and such.
*
July 12, 2012
The Great Amos Tutuola
.
So little is known about Amos Tutuola! Yet he was one of the great fantasists of the Twentieth Century. Partly our ignorance is due to the racist expectations of many Western readers. Partly it's due to an understandable suspicion on the part of Nigerians that his work was being appreciated by Westerners for all the wrong reason. Mostly, though, it's due to the fact that in the forty-five years between publication of his first book, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, and his death in 1997, nobody thought to repeatedly interview the man, his relatives, old-timers who knew him as a boy, and send out folklorists, videographers, and ethnologists to track down all the strands of influence and biography that went into his work.
But Tutuola was one of us, a fantasist, and it's very rare for a fantasist to be taken seriously while he or she is still alive.
I'm going to be on a panel about Tutuola this weekend, and I hope to learn more about him. In the meantime, here's a brief memorial I wrote for Locus when he died:
@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier 10cpi"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } AMOS TUTUOLA: AN APPRECIATION
One of the great fantasists has fallen, and most of us in the field never even knew he existed. But Amos Tutuola, a tribesman of the Yoruba people in Nigeria and author of several books, most notably The Palm-Wine Drinkard, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts , and The Brave African Huntress , was one of the best writers of fantasy in world literature.
Tutuola's fictions were, in Dylan Thomas's words, "thronged, grisley and bewitching," filled with strange creatures, magic, horror, and humor. He wrote in an oddly-cadenced and strangely-phrased English. For added emphasis he wrote words LARGER, as if he were telling a story aloud and had suddenly raised his voice to startle and alarm his listeners. For good reason: Tutuola was first-generation literate, a man who grew up in an oral culture and then managed to transplant some of its power onto the written page.
I do not know if Amos Tutuola was a literary genius or merely a conduit for the storytelling genius of his people. But to read The Palm-Wine Drinkard is to be transported back to one's first rapturous connection with literature, to that initial visceral encounter with Dickens or Nabokov or Austen that revealed what a marvelous and admirable thing fiction could be. Stripped of all familiarity, lacking the critical terminology that helps to explain and domesticate great literature (for, make no mistake about it, the underlying principles and conventions of his vastly entertaining fictions are not those of literature derived from European models), the story becomes strange again, enigmatic, and beauteous. We lack the language to explicate its appeal. But critical words are not needed. His stories speak to the soul.
Amos Tutuola discovered his vocation shortly after World War II, upon his release from military service as a coppersmith with the British army. He chanced to buy a magazine containing an advertisement for a collection of Yoruba tales. As he later recounted in an autobiographical essay, his immediate reaction was, "But Eh! By the way, when I was at school I was a good taleteller! Why, could I not write my own? Ooh, I am very good at this thing." The following day he started to write The Palm-Wine Drinkard .
It was extraordinary luck that Tutuola was published at all. As he explained:
The book appeared quietly in 1952, and has been in print ever since. It has been translated into at least fifteen languages. Tutuola's work is now widely taught throughout the world, and has had a strong influence not just in literature, but in dance, the visual arts, and music as well. Brian Eno and David Byrne's The Bush of Ghosts is probably the most famous work inspired by Tutuola's oeuvre, but there are many more.
Amos Tutuola was 77 when he died from hypertension and diabetes. I shall always regret that I never had the opportunity to meet the man. What excellent company he must have been! What a fine laugh he must have had.
*
So little is known about Amos Tutuola! Yet he was one of the great fantasists of the Twentieth Century. Partly our ignorance is due to the racist expectations of many Western readers. Partly it's due to an understandable suspicion on the part of Nigerians that his work was being appreciated by Westerners for all the wrong reason. Mostly, though, it's due to the fact that in the forty-five years between publication of his first book, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, and his death in 1997, nobody thought to repeatedly interview the man, his relatives, old-timers who knew him as a boy, and send out folklorists, videographers, and ethnologists to track down all the strands of influence and biography that went into his work.
But Tutuola was one of us, a fantasist, and it's very rare for a fantasist to be taken seriously while he or she is still alive.
I'm going to be on a panel about Tutuola this weekend, and I hope to learn more about him. In the meantime, here's a brief memorial I wrote for Locus when he died:
@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier 10cpi"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } AMOS TUTUOLA: AN APPRECIATION
One of the great fantasists has fallen, and most of us in the field never even knew he existed. But Amos Tutuola, a tribesman of the Yoruba people in Nigeria and author of several books, most notably The Palm-Wine Drinkard, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts , and The Brave African Huntress , was one of the best writers of fantasy in world literature.
Tutuola's fictions were, in Dylan Thomas's words, "thronged, grisley and bewitching," filled with strange creatures, magic, horror, and humor. He wrote in an oddly-cadenced and strangely-phrased English. For added emphasis he wrote words LARGER, as if he were telling a story aloud and had suddenly raised his voice to startle and alarm his listeners. For good reason: Tutuola was first-generation literate, a man who grew up in an oral culture and then managed to transplant some of its power onto the written page.
I do not know if Amos Tutuola was a literary genius or merely a conduit for the storytelling genius of his people. But to read The Palm-Wine Drinkard is to be transported back to one's first rapturous connection with literature, to that initial visceral encounter with Dickens or Nabokov or Austen that revealed what a marvelous and admirable thing fiction could be. Stripped of all familiarity, lacking the critical terminology that helps to explain and domesticate great literature (for, make no mistake about it, the underlying principles and conventions of his vastly entertaining fictions are not those of literature derived from European models), the story becomes strange again, enigmatic, and beauteous. We lack the language to explicate its appeal. But critical words are not needed. His stories speak to the soul.
Amos Tutuola discovered his vocation shortly after World War II, upon his release from military service as a coppersmith with the British army. He chanced to buy a magazine containing an advertisement for a collection of Yoruba tales. As he later recounted in an autobiographical essay, his immediate reaction was, "But Eh! By the way, when I was at school I was a good taleteller! Why, could I not write my own? Ooh, I am very good at this thing." The following day he started to write The Palm-Wine Drinkard .
It was extraordinary luck that Tutuola was published at all. As he explained:
Well, I wrote the script of Palm-Wine and kept it in the house. I didn't know where to send it to. Again, the following quarter I bought another magazine of the same type. Fortunately when I read it, I got to where it advertised "Manuscripts Wanted" overseas. Well then! Immediately I sent my story to the advertiser. When my script got to them they wrote in about two weeks saying that they did not accept manuscripts which were not concerned with religion, Christian religion. But, they would not return my manuscript. They would find a publisher for me because the story was strange to them that they would not be happy if they returned it to me.
The book appeared quietly in 1952, and has been in print ever since. It has been translated into at least fifteen languages. Tutuola's work is now widely taught throughout the world, and has had a strong influence not just in literature, but in dance, the visual arts, and music as well. Brian Eno and David Byrne's The Bush of Ghosts is probably the most famous work inspired by Tutuola's oeuvre, but there are many more.
Amos Tutuola was 77 when he died from hypertension and diabetes. I shall always regret that I never had the opportunity to meet the man. What excellent company he must have been! What a fine laugh he must have had.
*
July 11, 2012
Introducing Yuri Nekrosov
.
Yuri Nekrosov is a young writer of fantastika (in Russia, they do not distinguish between science fiction and fantasy) whom I asked to explain himself and his first novel in only two minutes. He did a splendid job.
And his first novel is about garbage elves! Everybody I've shown his book to has desperately wanted to read it.
Partially, of course, this is due to some really wonderfully gonzo illustrations by Meethos. But, let's face it -- garbage elves? Great idea.
I'm not sure whether Meethos is an individual or a studio. But down below is pretty much typical illo which includes a website.
*
Yuri Nekrosov is a young writer of fantastika (in Russia, they do not distinguish between science fiction and fantasy) whom I asked to explain himself and his first novel in only two minutes. He did a splendid job.
And his first novel is about garbage elves! Everybody I've shown his book to has desperately wanted to read it.
Partially, of course, this is due to some really wonderfully gonzo illustrations by Meethos. But, let's face it -- garbage elves? Great idea.
I'm not sure whether Meethos is an individual or a studio. But down below is pretty much typical illo which includes a website.
*
July 10, 2012
Ringing in the Higgs
.
I'm trying hard to work today, so . . . here's a level-headed beginner's explanation of the Higgs Boson. Not to be confused with Bos'n Higgs, over in Girl Genius .
My thanks to Gregory Frost for sending me the link.
*
I'm trying hard to work today, so . . . here's a level-headed beginner's explanation of the Higgs Boson. Not to be confused with Bos'n Higgs, over in Girl Genius .
My thanks to Gregory Frost for sending me the link.
*
July 9, 2012
Upcoming Public Appearances
.
Normally when I'm working on a novel I like to just hole up and type -- and right now I'm working on two novels. So it's unusual for me to have two public appearances coming up in the next fortnight.
The closer appearance is this weekend at Readercon in Burlington, MA. Here's my schedule:
Friday July 13 5:00 PM F The Books Readers Don't See. Christopher Brown (leader), Barry B. Longyear, Anil Menon, Michael Swanwick. This is about non-English-language science fiction & fantasy, basically.
6:00 PM RI A Story from Scratch, Part I. Elizabeth Bear, Kyle Cassidy, Lee Moyer, Michael Swanwick. This is one of Kyle's odd projects. Using models from the audience and "props provided by celebrity guests," Bear & I will create a story that will be photographed by Kyle. Lee will create a cover. The final work will be read on Sunday and an e-version of the book made available for download. For some reason, the schedule says, "business casual attire recommended." But those who are familiar with Kyle's or my or Lee's or Bear's work will probably dress up somewhat better than that.
8:00 PM E Autographs. Kit Reed, Michael Swanwick.
9:00 PM RI Readercon Classic Fiction Book Club: The Palm-Wine Drinkard. Michael Cisco, Sarah Smith, John H. Stevens, Michael Swanwick (leader), Jeff VanderMeer. Amos Tutuola was a genius. All literate people should know that. Saturday July 1411:00 AM RI A Story from Scratch, Part II.
1:00 PM NH Reading. Michael Swanwick.
3:00 PM ME A Story from Scratch, Part III. Sunday July 1512:00 PM ME A Story from Scratch, Part IV. I believe this is the public reading part.
Then I appear at:
The Wise Owl Bookstore624 Penn AvenueWest Reading, PA
July 186 p.m.
I haven't been to the Wise Owl yet, but apparently these events are (forgive me) a hoot. The website notes that "The event will begin at 5pm with music from Gary M. Celima, an open mic with area authors follows and then Swanwick will take the stage."
So if I were you, I'd show up at five.
Most importantly, this event is free of charge. You're not going to get a better deal than that.
*
Normally when I'm working on a novel I like to just hole up and type -- and right now I'm working on two novels. So it's unusual for me to have two public appearances coming up in the next fortnight.
The closer appearance is this weekend at Readercon in Burlington, MA. Here's my schedule:
Friday July 13 5:00 PM F The Books Readers Don't See. Christopher Brown (leader), Barry B. Longyear, Anil Menon, Michael Swanwick. This is about non-English-language science fiction & fantasy, basically.
6:00 PM RI A Story from Scratch, Part I. Elizabeth Bear, Kyle Cassidy, Lee Moyer, Michael Swanwick. This is one of Kyle's odd projects. Using models from the audience and "props provided by celebrity guests," Bear & I will create a story that will be photographed by Kyle. Lee will create a cover. The final work will be read on Sunday and an e-version of the book made available for download. For some reason, the schedule says, "business casual attire recommended." But those who are familiar with Kyle's or my or Lee's or Bear's work will probably dress up somewhat better than that.
8:00 PM E Autographs. Kit Reed, Michael Swanwick.
9:00 PM RI Readercon Classic Fiction Book Club: The Palm-Wine Drinkard. Michael Cisco, Sarah Smith, John H. Stevens, Michael Swanwick (leader), Jeff VanderMeer. Amos Tutuola was a genius. All literate people should know that. Saturday July 1411:00 AM RI A Story from Scratch, Part II.
1:00 PM NH Reading. Michael Swanwick.
3:00 PM ME A Story from Scratch, Part III. Sunday July 1512:00 PM ME A Story from Scratch, Part IV. I believe this is the public reading part.
Then I appear at:
The Wise Owl Bookstore624 Penn AvenueWest Reading, PA
July 186 p.m.
I haven't been to the Wise Owl yet, but apparently these events are (forgive me) a hoot. The website notes that "The event will begin at 5pm with music from Gary M. Celima, an open mic with area authors follows and then Swanwick will take the stage."
So if I were you, I'd show up at five.
Most importantly, this event is free of charge. You're not going to get a better deal than that.
*
July 7, 2012
Straddling the Continents
.
My friend Igor Iva sent me some photographs taken during and after Aelita, the Russian science fiction convention in Ekaterinurg. Here's one of them. It was taken at the border of Europe and Asia during the picnic after the con. Not everyone was there, of course. It was a picnic and nobody was giving or obeying orders. But that's a good selection.
You'll note that I'm carefully standing on both sides of the border, straddling the continents.
Above: I can identify most of the people in the photograph, but not all. So, rather than offend some of them, I'll be silent on the subject.
*
My friend Igor Iva sent me some photographs taken during and after Aelita, the Russian science fiction convention in Ekaterinurg. Here's one of them. It was taken at the border of Europe and Asia during the picnic after the con. Not everyone was there, of course. It was a picnic and nobody was giving or obeying orders. But that's a good selection.
You'll note that I'm carefully standing on both sides of the border, straddling the continents.
Above: I can identify most of the people in the photograph, but not all. So, rather than offend some of them, I'll be silent on the subject.
*
July 5, 2012
My Sincere Apologies
.As pretty much always, I'm on the road again. I've got some cool stuff to share with you, but it all requires editing, formatting, and the like. Meanwhile, I've got two novels and a nounload of short fiction to write. Plus a couple of pieces of nonfiction that I really should get down on paper.
All of which is to say: I'm on the road again. My next post will be on Monday. I apologize for having nothing of substance for you today.
*
All of which is to say: I'm on the road again. My next post will be on Monday. I apologize for having nothing of substance for you today.
*
July 4, 2012
The Mongolian Wizard Adventures Begin!
.
Big news today. My new story, The Mongolian Wizard , is up on Tor.com. As you might be able to guess from the cover illo, it's a Ruritanian fantasy set in "a fractured Europe that never was," as whoever writes Tor's intro material puts it. You can also most likely guess that it's meant to be first and foremost entertaining, that it's an adventure story, and that it has a dark edge to it.
What you can't guess from the illustration is that this is the first of a series. I liked Ritter and Sir Toby, the main characters, so much that by the time I'd finished the story I had the plot for another story. And by the time I'd finished that, I had the plot for a third. These guys -- and the situation they're in -- have really got a hold on my imagination.
Right now, in fact, I have the shape of the entire series roughed out in in my mind. I know how it's going to end and what major plot twists will occur along the way. I even know who the mysterious visitor in the final adventure will be.
Does all that sound like I'm pushing this story hard? I am. I want everybody to love these stories and these characters as much as I do. Just to keep the pressure on me to write more.
But decide for yourself. War is brewing in Europe and all the greatest wizards of the continent have gathered together to try to stave it off . . .
You can read the story here.
And speaking of the illustration above . . .
Illustrator Gregory Manchess has done a fantastic job of not only picturing the characters as I saw them myself, but of conveying the mood of the story and indeed the feel of the entire series. Mostly, though, what it does is let you know if this is the kind of story you want to read. If the picture makes you hope that "The Mongolian Wizard" is as good as it is, you'll almost certainly like the story. But if it doesn't look like your sort of thing, you can pass it by with a clean conscience.
Did I mention that I like this artwork? I really like this artwork.
*
Big news today. My new story, The Mongolian Wizard , is up on Tor.com. As you might be able to guess from the cover illo, it's a Ruritanian fantasy set in "a fractured Europe that never was," as whoever writes Tor's intro material puts it. You can also most likely guess that it's meant to be first and foremost entertaining, that it's an adventure story, and that it has a dark edge to it.
What you can't guess from the illustration is that this is the first of a series. I liked Ritter and Sir Toby, the main characters, so much that by the time I'd finished the story I had the plot for another story. And by the time I'd finished that, I had the plot for a third. These guys -- and the situation they're in -- have really got a hold on my imagination.
Right now, in fact, I have the shape of the entire series roughed out in in my mind. I know how it's going to end and what major plot twists will occur along the way. I even know who the mysterious visitor in the final adventure will be.
Does all that sound like I'm pushing this story hard? I am. I want everybody to love these stories and these characters as much as I do. Just to keep the pressure on me to write more.
But decide for yourself. War is brewing in Europe and all the greatest wizards of the continent have gathered together to try to stave it off . . .
You can read the story here.
And speaking of the illustration above . . .
Illustrator Gregory Manchess has done a fantastic job of not only picturing the characters as I saw them myself, but of conveying the mood of the story and indeed the feel of the entire series. Mostly, though, what it does is let you know if this is the kind of story you want to read. If the picture makes you hope that "The Mongolian Wizard" is as good as it is, you'll almost certainly like the story. But if it doesn't look like your sort of thing, you can pass it by with a clean conscience.
Did I mention that I like this artwork? I really like this artwork.
*
July 3, 2012
Playing Hooky
.
No blog today --- I'm off to the beach.
As filler, here's Rob Pratt's stunning trailer for an imaginary cartoon, Bizarro Classic .
*
No blog today --- I'm off to the beach.
As filler, here's Rob Pratt's stunning trailer for an imaginary cartoon, Bizarro Classic .
*
July 2, 2012
My Audible Fiction
.
Audiobooks are certainly coming up in the world. (A good thing, too, with all the traveling I do!) My stories appear in four anthologies on Audible.com . They are:
We, Robots,
Timeless Time Travel Tales
The Best of Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine
and, just the other day, The Year's Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction 4, edited by Allan Kaster. which contains "For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Loneliness and I'll Not Be Back Again," my tale of love and terrorism set a century in the future.
Six of my novels are also available as downloads -- and this is why I haven't mentioned them before; because normally I blog about my fiction when I receive the contributor's copies -- on Audible. They are:
Bones of the Earth
Stations of the Tide
Jack Faust
The Iron Dragon's Daughter
The Dragons of Babel
Dancing With Bears.
As for the job the readers have done . . . I honestly can't tell you. It turns out that I cannot listen to other people reading my work because they put the emphasis on other words than those I would. You wouldn't think it would be that big a deal, but it is.
Other people's novels, however, I have no problem with.
You can read about Kaster's audio anthology here.
And as a piece of whimsy . . .
I bought the first volume of the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series and am happy to report that it's nowhere near as gnostic as the 1969 version was. It struck me, however, that Alan Moore was at a disadvantage dealing with the year 1997 because for legal reasons he had to stay with immortal characters from out-of-copyright fiction (Orlando, Allan Quatermain) and unnamed or renamed characters we're supposed to decode and who have minor roles (Emma Peel, James Bond).
So I began in my imagination to put together a new team of EG, for an adventure that could be written a century from now. Emma Peel makes an excellent M and I'd keep her. I think that Buffy and Hannibal Lector both deserve a place on the roster.
But who else? Ideas, anyone?
*
Audiobooks are certainly coming up in the world. (A good thing, too, with all the traveling I do!) My stories appear in four anthologies on Audible.com . They are:
We, Robots,
Timeless Time Travel Tales
The Best of Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine
and, just the other day, The Year's Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction 4, edited by Allan Kaster. which contains "For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Loneliness and I'll Not Be Back Again," my tale of love and terrorism set a century in the future.
Six of my novels are also available as downloads -- and this is why I haven't mentioned them before; because normally I blog about my fiction when I receive the contributor's copies -- on Audible. They are:
Bones of the Earth
Stations of the Tide
Jack Faust
The Iron Dragon's Daughter
The Dragons of Babel
Dancing With Bears.
As for the job the readers have done . . . I honestly can't tell you. It turns out that I cannot listen to other people reading my work because they put the emphasis on other words than those I would. You wouldn't think it would be that big a deal, but it is.
Other people's novels, however, I have no problem with.
You can read about Kaster's audio anthology here.
And as a piece of whimsy . . .
I bought the first volume of the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series and am happy to report that it's nowhere near as gnostic as the 1969 version was. It struck me, however, that Alan Moore was at a disadvantage dealing with the year 1997 because for legal reasons he had to stay with immortal characters from out-of-copyright fiction (Orlando, Allan Quatermain) and unnamed or renamed characters we're supposed to decode and who have minor roles (Emma Peel, James Bond).
So I began in my imagination to put together a new team of EG, for an adventure that could be written a century from now. Emma Peel makes an excellent M and I'd keep her. I think that Buffy and Hannibal Lector both deserve a place on the roster.
But who else? Ideas, anyone?
*
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