Michael Swanwick's Blog, page 195
May 3, 2012
This Glitterati Life, Part 4,328
.
It was a Big Apple day yesterday. Marianne and I drove to the city for a reception honoring Liz Hand's new book, Radiant Days . So long as we we were there, we took in the MOMA retrospective of Cindy Sherman's photographs, which have significant relevance to a fantasy novel I'm working on.
Then we took a pedicab (my first such ride of the year and Marianne's second -- her first was in Peiking) uptown for the reception. I'd list all the major writers who put in an appearance, but there were so many I'd be sure to miss some. And writers are delicate creatures and easily offended.
Above is a snapshot taken during the reception showing (from left to right) Rick Bowes, Jack Womack, superstar editor Ellen Datlow and, back there in the shadows, me.
*
It was a Big Apple day yesterday. Marianne and I drove to the city for a reception honoring Liz Hand's new book, Radiant Days . So long as we we were there, we took in the MOMA retrospective of Cindy Sherman's photographs, which have significant relevance to a fantasy novel I'm working on.
Then we took a pedicab (my first such ride of the year and Marianne's second -- her first was in Peiking) uptown for the reception. I'd list all the major writers who put in an appearance, but there were so many I'd be sure to miss some. And writers are delicate creatures and easily offended.
Above is a snapshot taken during the reception showing (from left to right) Rick Bowes, Jack Womack, superstar editor Ellen Datlow and, back there in the shadows, me.
*
May 2, 2012
The Higgs Boson (Sort Of) Explained
.
When I was young, I followed physics closely. Even when it got extremely weird, I was there on the sidelines cheering it on. But then by slow degrees it became unmoored from physical consequence. Branes, dimensions folded in upon themselves, string theory -- famously derided as being "not even wrong" -- and the like were inherently neither provable nor falsifiable. By their very nature, we were never going to know for sure. So I let my level of interest downgrade to "casual."
The CERN Super Hadron Collider, however, is Old School in that it involves actual experimental data. So I was happy to find a short animation explaining the Higgs boson in words so simple that I can follow them.
Mind you, this is not the Higgs boson as physicists themselves know it. But it's nice to have a glimmer.
You can view the video here.
And as always . . .
I'm on the road again! Just a day trip to NYC this time. I'll let you know all about it tomorrow.
*
When I was young, I followed physics closely. Even when it got extremely weird, I was there on the sidelines cheering it on. But then by slow degrees it became unmoored from physical consequence. Branes, dimensions folded in upon themselves, string theory -- famously derided as being "not even wrong" -- and the like were inherently neither provable nor falsifiable. By their very nature, we were never going to know for sure. So I let my level of interest downgrade to "casual."
The CERN Super Hadron Collider, however, is Old School in that it involves actual experimental data. So I was happy to find a short animation explaining the Higgs boson in words so simple that I can follow them.
Mind you, this is not the Higgs boson as physicists themselves know it. But it's nice to have a glimmer.
You can view the video here.
And as always . . .
I'm on the road again! Just a day trip to NYC this time. I'll let you know all about it tomorrow.
*
May 1, 2012
Just Another . . .
.
Over on Locus Online, they've announced this year's inductees into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. The 2012 honorees are Joe Haldeman, James Tiptree, Jr., James Cameron, and Virgil Finlay.
When Gardner Dozois was inducted into the SFHofF a year or three ago, he came back to report that those entered into it had their names and images etched into a (ceramic or glass, I forget) brick, which was then literally placed into a wall. "So, all in all," he said, "I'm just another brick in the wall."
Gardner is one of the wittiest guys in science fiction. Joe is another. When I was the emcee for the Nebula Awards last year, he presented the best novel award and murmured something to me on the way to the mic and something else on the way back, and cracked me up each time. So I'm sorry I won't be present for this particular award ceremony.
Above: Roses! We have blossoms on the rosebush out front. Spring is now in full bloom.
*
Over on Locus Online, they've announced this year's inductees into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. The 2012 honorees are Joe Haldeman, James Tiptree, Jr., James Cameron, and Virgil Finlay.
When Gardner Dozois was inducted into the SFHofF a year or three ago, he came back to report that those entered into it had their names and images etched into a (ceramic or glass, I forget) brick, which was then literally placed into a wall. "So, all in all," he said, "I'm just another brick in the wall."
Gardner is one of the wittiest guys in science fiction. Joe is another. When I was the emcee for the Nebula Awards last year, he presented the best novel award and murmured something to me on the way to the mic and something else on the way back, and cracked me up each time. So I'm sorry I won't be present for this particular award ceremony.
Above: Roses! We have blossoms on the rosebush out front. Spring is now in full bloom.
*
April 30, 2012
It's Official! Nobody Knows
.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch wrote a blog entry recently about what she calls "life rolls." This is a term taken from a role playing game mimicking a writing career which she and Dean Wesley Smith (and Loren Coleman) invented for their Master Class workshop. The Master Class is meant for professional writers who want to learn how to actually make money from their careers. And life rolls are unexpected life events that have a huge, negative impact on your writing career. The death of a parent, say, or coming down with cancer, or having your house burn down. All of which will lose you serious writing time.
In her and Dean's case, the catastrophic event was being given responsibility for an agonizingly difficult estate, which required that one of them quit writing entirely for a year to take care of it. For which they have my profoundest sympathy.
The essay is lucid and instructive because, well, because that's what Kris's blog posts are. But what struck me most was this statement taken from the middle of the post:
To which I can only add: Wow. I knew the climate business climate was confusing. But so confusing that Kris and Dean, who can tell you everything about how much insurance you'll need, what percentage of your income you ought to be socking away, what contracts to sign and which to shun, don't know what will be useful five years from now?
If they don't know, nobody knows.
So if you're a writer, all I can say is: Be careful out there. Do as much research as you can before committing your writing to a project that may not pay off as well as you hope. And keep your fingers crossed.
You can read Kris's essay here.
Above: The logo for Kris's blog.
*
Kristine Kathryn Rusch wrote a blog entry recently about what she calls "life rolls." This is a term taken from a role playing game mimicking a writing career which she and Dean Wesley Smith (and Loren Coleman) invented for their Master Class workshop. The Master Class is meant for professional writers who want to learn how to actually make money from their careers. And life rolls are unexpected life events that have a huge, negative impact on your writing career. The death of a parent, say, or coming down with cancer, or having your house burn down. All of which will lose you serious writing time.
In her and Dean's case, the catastrophic event was being given responsibility for an agonizingly difficult estate, which required that one of them quit writing entirely for a year to take care of it. For which they have my profoundest sympathy.
The essay is lucid and instructive because, well, because that's what Kris's blog posts are. But what struck me most was this statement taken from the middle of the post:
Before I go any farther, no, we’re not teaching the Master Class right now, because publishing is in such flux that we have no idea how to present it in a way that will be useful to professionals five years from now.
To which I can only add: Wow. I knew the climate business climate was confusing. But so confusing that Kris and Dean, who can tell you everything about how much insurance you'll need, what percentage of your income you ought to be socking away, what contracts to sign and which to shun, don't know what will be useful five years from now?
If they don't know, nobody knows.
So if you're a writer, all I can say is: Be careful out there. Do as much research as you can before committing your writing to a project that may not pay off as well as you hope. And keep your fingers crossed.
You can read Kris's essay here.
Above: The logo for Kris's blog.
*
April 26, 2012
The Milky Way's Vast Polar Structure
.
This is being trumpeted as a major blow to the concept of "dark matter," but I'm going to ignore that aspect of it, which skirts the edge of being celebrity science gossip. It's a very cool discovery, and one that expands our image and understanding of our home galaxy.
A team of scientists from the University of Bonn in Germany, led by PhD student Marcel Pawlowski and astronomy professor Pavel Kroupa, say they have found a complex structure of satellite galaxies, globular clusters, and star and gas swarms gravitationally connected with the Milky Way Galaxy, at right angles to the galactic north and south. These exist as close as 33,000 light years from the center of the galaxy to as far as a million light years away.
There's a simple animation of their their findings up above. They're calling the totality a Vast Polar Structure.
You can read about it here.
It's a strange and beautiful universe we live in, innit? I wonder what kind of stories you could set on one of those star swarms.
*
This is being trumpeted as a major blow to the concept of "dark matter," but I'm going to ignore that aspect of it, which skirts the edge of being celebrity science gossip. It's a very cool discovery, and one that expands our image and understanding of our home galaxy.
A team of scientists from the University of Bonn in Germany, led by PhD student Marcel Pawlowski and astronomy professor Pavel Kroupa, say they have found a complex structure of satellite galaxies, globular clusters, and star and gas swarms gravitationally connected with the Milky Way Galaxy, at right angles to the galactic north and south. These exist as close as 33,000 light years from the center of the galaxy to as far as a million light years away.
There's a simple animation of their their findings up above. They're calling the totality a Vast Polar Structure.
You can read about it here.
It's a strange and beautiful universe we live in, innit? I wonder what kind of stories you could set on one of those star swarms.
*
April 25, 2012
"A Profound Work of Appropriation"
.
"Appropriation artist" Richard Prince has come up with a new way of grabbing attention. He's commissioned (artists at his level don't actually "make" things) an exact recreation of The Catcher in the Rye with his name on the cover, credits, etc., instead of J.D. Salinger's. Copies of which he's been selling for a hefty markup.
Prince couldn't have picked a better way to be found guilty in a court of law, or a more litigious estate to pull this on.
You can read an admiring account of his exploit here.
And speaking of Annapolis . . .
David Joyner has posted a 25-minute edited excerpt of The Craft of Writing Workshop - Science Fiction: Past and Future , the panel which Chuck Gannon, Catherine Asaro, and I held at the Annapolis Book Festival last Saturday.
You can see the video here.
*
"Appropriation artist" Richard Prince has come up with a new way of grabbing attention. He's commissioned (artists at his level don't actually "make" things) an exact recreation of The Catcher in the Rye with his name on the cover, credits, etc., instead of J.D. Salinger's. Copies of which he's been selling for a hefty markup.
Prince couldn't have picked a better way to be found guilty in a court of law, or a more litigious estate to pull this on.
You can read an admiring account of his exploit here.
And speaking of Annapolis . . .
David Joyner has posted a 25-minute edited excerpt of The Craft of Writing Workshop - Science Fiction: Past and Future , the panel which Chuck Gannon, Catherine Asaro, and I held at the Annapolis Book Festival last Saturday.
You can see the video here.
*
April 23, 2012
Things and Stories That Fly
.
I just spent the day working on applying for a Russian visa and are my arms tired! But that's what Mondays are for . . . a return to the work week. On Friday I was in Bombay Hook, looking at eagles and ospreys. Saturday I was at the Annapolis Book Festival, hanging with my pals Catherine Asaro and Chuck Gannon and listening to panels, and cruising a very fine used book sale. So now it's time to get back to paying the rent.
And speaking of which . . .
I just got my contributor's copies of The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, which contains thirty stories by Jeff VanderMeer, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Elise Tobler, Jay Lake, Genevieve Valentine, Cat Rambo, Shweta Narayan, Aliette de Bodard, N.K. Jemisin, Peter M Ball, Sharon Mock, Catherynne M. Valente, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Tobias Buckell, Matthew Kressel, Margo Lanagan, Amal El-Mohtar, Barth Anderson, Jeffrey Ford, James Morrow, Cherie Priest, Margaret Ronald, Megan Arkenberg, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Mary Robinette Kowal, Samantha Henderson, Nick Mamatas, Nicole Kornher-Stace and Lavie Tidha. That's a terrific lineup and several of the stories are original to the volume.
Plus, of course, "Zeppelin City" by Eileen Gunn and myself. Who can resist a story that has an ornithopter pilot named Amelia Spindizzy, a spunky girl inventor named Radio Jones, and giant naked brains floating in glass jars? I enjoyed writing that story.
And because Ellen Datlow asked me to . . .
I'm posting here a review she just received from Countgore.com. As follows:
You'll have to go to Countgore.com to click on the link. Jack Dann and I contributed "Ships, " a story that practically vibrates with negative energy. Really. Much more of a downer than you'd expect from me. I like it a lot.
Above: An osprey. Those things were common as dirt last weekend. It gave me hope for the future.
*
I just spent the day working on applying for a Russian visa and are my arms tired! But that's what Mondays are for . . . a return to the work week. On Friday I was in Bombay Hook, looking at eagles and ospreys. Saturday I was at the Annapolis Book Festival, hanging with my pals Catherine Asaro and Chuck Gannon and listening to panels, and cruising a very fine used book sale. So now it's time to get back to paying the rent.
And speaking of which . . .
I just got my contributor's copies of The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, which contains thirty stories by Jeff VanderMeer, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Elise Tobler, Jay Lake, Genevieve Valentine, Cat Rambo, Shweta Narayan, Aliette de Bodard, N.K. Jemisin, Peter M Ball, Sharon Mock, Catherynne M. Valente, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Tobias Buckell, Matthew Kressel, Margo Lanagan, Amal El-Mohtar, Barth Anderson, Jeffrey Ford, James Morrow, Cherie Priest, Margaret Ronald, Megan Arkenberg, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Mary Robinette Kowal, Samantha Henderson, Nick Mamatas, Nicole Kornher-Stace and Lavie Tidha. That's a terrific lineup and several of the stories are original to the volume.Plus, of course, "Zeppelin City" by Eileen Gunn and myself. Who can resist a story that has an ornithopter pilot named Amelia Spindizzy, a spunky girl inventor named Radio Jones, and giant naked brains floating in glass jars? I enjoyed writing that story.
And because Ellen Datlow asked me to . . .
I'm posting here a review she just received from Countgore.com. As follows:
WILD JUSTICE edited by Ellen Datlow
Once again, award-winning editor Ellen Datlow has assembled an incendiary anthology of short fiction that both embraces and transcends its stated theme. In this case, the subject is vengeance. Oh, how wickedly delicious! These stories are so toothsomely universal in their bitterness, sadness, horror, strangeness and even hilarity that readers are sure to detect a whiff of their own most malevolent imaginings of a perfect payback while enjoying these extraordinary tales. Featuring some of the most renowned voices of modern speculative fiction, vengeance comes in varied permutations: a dead ship’s captain seeks atonement, a pornographer misuses an employee for the last time, satirical hatreds of warring television personalities clash, a playboy cad receives a graphically horrific comeuppance, a Poe-esque scheme unfolds in an old theater, a flock of plastic yard flamingoes gets hilariously out of hand, festering family secrets become unendurable, and so much more. The battlegrounds and methods of revenge are each unexpected, unsettling and memorable. Authors of these sixteen remarkable stories include such luminaries as Joyce Carol Oates, Christopher Fowler, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Thomas Tessier, Douglas Clegg, Jonathan Lethem, Pat Cadigan, Michael Swanwick and Jack Dann, David J. Schow, Richard Christian Matheson, A. R. Morlan and others. This is a must-have digital anthology that you can read right now!
Click on the cover for an instant download link. You will love these stories…with a vengeance. For more about the editor and this anthology, please visit www.datlow.com.
You'll have to go to Countgore.com to click on the link. Jack Dann and I contributed "Ships, " a story that practically vibrates with negative energy. Really. Much more of a downer than you'd expect from me. I like it a lot.
Above: An osprey. Those things were common as dirt last weekend. It gave me hope for the future.
*
April 20, 2012
Now That You've Published a Story or Three . . .
.
A while back, I was chatting with an agent and he said, "You have no idea how lucky you are to have published so many books."
"Oh?" I said.
"Most writers get three novels, tops. If they haven't hit the best-seller lists by then, they become unpublishable." And he proceeded to give me some very depressing examples.
So today, I thought I would offer the best piece of advice I have for new writers. This advice doesn't apply to gonnabe writers, mind you. Only to those who have already proved that they can get published in Asimov's or F&SF or another of the major science fiction and fantasy markets. If you're not published yet, continue doing what you're doing. It feels like you're thrashing about in random desperation but what you're actually doing is learning and it's important.
But.
If you're already published and you're pretty confident that you can go on selling your stories, then it's time for you to get more serious. You've only got so much time in your life and the realities of publishing are such that you might be frozen out of the market before then. So you need to be ambitious.
Here's my advice: Write the most difficult story you can imagine. Not difficult to the reader, mind you -- to you. Write the story that you were hoping you'd be a better writer before tackling. Because you might not get that chance.
Start it today.
Above: The azalea is in bloom! Can the roses be far behind?
*
A while back, I was chatting with an agent and he said, "You have no idea how lucky you are to have published so many books."
"Oh?" I said.
"Most writers get three novels, tops. If they haven't hit the best-seller lists by then, they become unpublishable." And he proceeded to give me some very depressing examples.
So today, I thought I would offer the best piece of advice I have for new writers. This advice doesn't apply to gonnabe writers, mind you. Only to those who have already proved that they can get published in Asimov's or F&SF or another of the major science fiction and fantasy markets. If you're not published yet, continue doing what you're doing. It feels like you're thrashing about in random desperation but what you're actually doing is learning and it's important.
But.
If you're already published and you're pretty confident that you can go on selling your stories, then it's time for you to get more serious. You've only got so much time in your life and the realities of publishing are such that you might be frozen out of the market before then. So you need to be ambitious.
Here's my advice: Write the most difficult story you can imagine. Not difficult to the reader, mind you -- to you. Write the story that you were hoping you'd be a better writer before tackling. Because you might not get that chance.
Start it today.
Above: The azalea is in bloom! Can the roses be far behind?
*
April 18, 2012
Annapolis Book Festival Saturday
.
The flyer above pretty much says it all: This Saturday, I'll be on a panel at the Annapolis Book Festival with Catherine Asaro and Charles Gannon. I think it'll be a lot of fun.
*
The flyer above pretty much says it all: This Saturday, I'll be on a panel at the Annapolis Book Festival with Catherine Asaro and Charles Gannon. I think it'll be a lot of fun.
*
April 17, 2012
No Blog Today
.As usual, I'm on the road again. As unusual, I have nothing to say. You have no idea how strange this feels to me.
*
*
Michael Swanwick's Blog
- Michael Swanwick's profile
- 546 followers
Michael Swanwick isn't a Goodreads Author
(yet),
but they
do have a blog,
so here are some recent posts imported from
their feed.
