Michael Swanwick's Blog, page 204

The Minion Master Lays Down the Word

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Okay, so yesterday I wrote:

One of the Best of the Year editors contacted me yesterday to say that two of my stories were being picked up for this year's volume.

I won't specify which editor or which stories because these guys like to keep their lineups close to the vest until they're ready to issue a press release.

And shortly thereafter, Gardner emailed me:

I don't care if you tell people.

--Gardner

To which I replied:

No, no, no.  You're a proud man and quick to anger.  It would be worth my life to cross you in even the slightest way. 

Anonymous

And Gardner counter-replied:

I would send my dread and fell minions out against you!

--Gardner

The man has minions!  No wonder all of science fiction quakes at his slightest frown.
But, luckily, Gardner posted the following on Facebook today:

For those of you who are interested, here's the Table of Contents for my THE YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION, Twenty-Ninth Annual Collection:

THE CHOICE, Paul McAuley

SILENTLY AND VERY FAST, Catherynne M. Valente

THE MAN WHO BRIDGED THE MIST, Kij Johnson

THE ANTS OF FLANDERS, Robert Reed

A SOLDIER OF THE CITY, David Moles

THE INVASION OF VENUS, Stephen Baxter

LAIKA'S GHOST, Karl Schroeder

THE BEANCOUNTER'S CAT, Damien Broderick

THE VICAR OF MARS, Gwyneth Jones

DOLLY, Elizabeth Bear

MARTIAN HEART, John Barnes

ASCENSION DAY, Alastair Reynolds

THE SMELL OF ORANGE GROVES, Lavie Tidhar

AFTER THE APOCALYPSE, Maureen McHugh

A LONG WAY HOME, Jay Lake

WHAT WE FOUND, Gepff Ryman

THE INCREDIBLE EXPLODING MAN, Dave Hutchinson

THE COPENHAGEN INTERPRETATION, Paul Cornell 

THE WAY IT WORKS OUT AND ALL, Peter S. Beagle

THE DALA HORSE, Michael Swanwick

EARTH HOUR, Ken MacLeod

THE ICE OWL, Carolyn Ives Gilman

DIGITAL RITES, Jim Hawkins

CODY, Pat Cadigan

GHOSTWEIGHT, Yoon Ha Lee

A RESPONSE FROM EST17, Tom Purdom

DIGGING, Ian McDonald

A MILITANT PEACE, David Klecha & Tobias S. Bucknell

FOR I HAVE LAID ME DOWN ON THE STONE OF LONELINESS AND I'LL NOT BE BACK AGAIN, Michael Swanwick

THE IRON SHIRTS, Michael Flynn

THE BONELESS ONE, Alec Nevala-Lee

CANTERBURY HOLLOW, Chris Lawson

THE COLD STEP BEYOND, Ian R. Macleod

THE VORKUTA EVENT, Ken MacLeod

DYING YOUNG, Peter M. Ball

So it's probably safe to admit that two of my stories were picked up by Gardner Dozois for his best of the year volume.But just to be safe, I'll be hiding in Undisclosed Subterranean Location with a year's supply of food and a surplus minion costume to help me escape any sudden attacks.  Just in case.Above: Miss Helen Hope Mirrlees is not in the least impressed by any of this.*

Even More Christmasy Than Yesterday.

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As always, I'm on the road again.  It's just how I roll these days. In the meantime, I hear you ask:  What could possibly be more Christmasy than yesterday's H.P. Lovecraft Cthulhu Carol?

Hardly anything.  Except Cousin Bobby.  Above.  Enjoy.



And I had pleasant news recently . . .

One of the Best of the Year editors contacted me yesterday to say that two of my stories were being picked up for this year's volume.

I won't specify which editor or which stories because these guys like to keep their lineups close to the vest until they're ready to issue a press release.  But it was very satisfying news for me.

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Disturbing Christmas Video du Jour

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This one's for all you fans of H.P. Lovecraft out there.  Merry Christmas, guys!


Above:  A musical version of 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' by H.P Lovecraft.  Set to a song composed by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society.  You can find them here.  If you're mad enough to want to.

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Set Course for Arcturus!

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I spent the day working on the novel and got three pages done -- not bad for me.  In fact, since I still have to go to China to research the novel, it's amazing I'm as far into as I am.  So I don't have a lot to report, other than that the mail came today.

But what good mail!  I got my contributor's copy of StarShipSofa Tales Volume 3 -- and a very odd enterprise it is too.  I contributed "Cold Reading" to it, and this is probably going to be its only appearance in physical print.  (It was originally published online.)  Here's the table of contents:

Fiction Writers

"Electric Ladyland" by Matthew Sanborn Smith (Illustrated by Daniel Tozer)
"That Blissful Height" by Gregory Frost (Illustrated by Simon Watkins)
"Feedback" by Joe Haldeman (Illustrated by Jack Calverley)
"In The Harsh Glow of Its Incandescent Beauty" by Mercurio D. Rivera (Illustrated by Timothy Booth)
"Song of Bullfrogs, Cry of Geese" by Nicola Griffith (Illustrated by Jerel Dye)
"Nimbus" by Peter Watts (Illustrated by Evan Forsch)
"Luck" by James Patrick Kelly (Illustrated by Patrick McEvoy)
"Where Virtue Lives" by Saladin Ahmed (Illustrated by Ben Greene)
"Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time" by Catherynne M. Valente (Illustrated by Mike Dubisch)
"The Occurrence at Slocombe Priory" by Paul Cornell (Illustrated by Thomas Crielly)
"Sunsets and Hamburgers by Gareth L. Powell (Illustrated by Bradley W. Schenck)
"Martyrs of The Upshot Knothole" by James Morrow (Illustrated by Brian Thomas Woods)
"Newts" by Kevin J. Anderson (Illustrated by Richard Case)
"Cold Reading" by Michael Swanwick (Illustrated by Peter Snejbjerg)
"Drink For The Thirst To Come" by Lawrence Santoro (Illustrated by Daniele Serra)
"In Pacmandu" by Lavie Tidhar (Illustrated by Graeme Neil Reid)
"Age of Miracles, Age of Wonders" by Aliette de Bodard (Illustrated by Mark Zug)
"World Without End, Amen" by Allen Steele (Illustrated by Brent Holmes)
"The Happiest Dead Boy In The World" by Tad Williams (Illustrated by Ben Wootten)
"Nothing Ever Happens In Rock City" by Jack McDevitt (Illustrated by Dave Krummenacher)
"Halfway People" by Karen Joy Fowler (Illustrated by Patrick McEvoy)
"Friction" by Will McIntosh (Illustrated by Jouni Koponen)
"Just A Couple of Subversive Alien Warmongers Floating All Alone in the Night" by Adam Troy Castro (Illustrated by Doug Holverson)
"News From 2025″ by David Brin (Illustrated by Bradley W. Schench)
 
Fact Writers

Joy of The Flicks by Dennis M. Lane
Top Ten "Must Read" Time Travel Works by Amy H. Sturgis
Comics: what have they done for Us lately? by Frederic Himebaugh
Science Fiction Through The Looking Glass: the Ape, the Alien and the Android by Morgan Saletta (Illustrated by Timothy Booth)

The book also has a page for each of the contributors showing ourselves and our offices, along with something odd and extra.  In my case, it's my autobiography, which consists of two words, one repeated many times and the other not.



And in the same mail . . .

I also got a box of trade paperbacks of Dancing With Bears from Night Shade Books.  So It's now in softcover, priced at a quite reasonable $14.99 American.

So I am content, and hope you are too.

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Flying Into Philadelphia

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Look what I found this morning!  There's a new sculpture in Lenfest Plaza by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts -- Grumman Greenhouse by Jordan Griska.   It was created by taking a Cold War surplus Grumman Tracker II, folding it, and converting parts of its interior into greenhouses.

Either you like this sort of thing or you don't.  Me, I love it.

In the background, you may notice the latest Claes Oldenburg installation in my home city, Paint Torch .  Not only is it great art, but it lights up at night.
Philadelphia just keeps getting better and better.

And as long as I've got your attention . . .
I was researching Dragonstairs Press's Christmas card yesterday, and I ran across the assertion that the "five golden rings" in the Twelve Days of Christmas refers to ring-necked pheasants, thus making the first seven presents all avian.  
I'm not perfectly sold on that (though it does sound convincing that "calling birds" were originally "colly birds" or blackbirds), but I also ran across somebody's speculation that the "drummers drumming" were grouse and "lords a-leaping" were male cock pheasants.  Which brings the total to nine.
So, being so close, I thought I'd create an etymologically-dubious version of the song for ornithologists and birders.  And I could use your suggestions for the piper piping, ladies dancing, and maids a-milking.  Are the pipers sandpipers?  Are the ladies dancing kildeers?  What on earth could the maids possibly be?
All suggestions welcome.
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World Famous Art Dirt Cheap

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This is unexpected.  Carhenge is up for sale.

For only three hundred thousand dollars.  Which means you only have to be mildly rich to buy a world-famous work of art.  And a universally-recognized symbol of America.  And the cultural hotpoint where landscape art meets tacky roadside attraction.

You can read the article here.

There's a brief history of Carhenge here.

And the website for Carhenge is here.


And while I'm blogging old-school . . .

Remember when blogs were nothing but lists of interesting links?  Sometime back in the Sixties that was, I think.  Anyway, here's a link to a National Geographic article (with the usual caveat that the Nat is far from infallible when it comes to paleontology) that suggests that Neanderthals were loved to death!

The coarser among us might choose to use a more Anglo-Saxon verb.

Click here.


And also . . .

A time traveler was arrested at the Large Hadron Collider.  He was trying to prevent a hellish future with "limitless energy, the elimination of poverty, and Kit Kats for everybody."  Apparently the folks in the future have forgotten exactly how bad things can get.

CERN physicist Professor Brian Cox had the most insightful comment on the matter.

Click here.


And just one more . . .

I just now saw the trailer for John Carter , which raises so many questions:  Is this really a Disney movie?  Why?  And why did they drop of Mars from the title when even the most cursory glance at its contents will reveal that's it's Way Old TImey Science Fiction?  But what really struck me about it is the fact that its aesthetic is emphatically derived from video games.  This is almost ironic.

It's almost ironic because video games ripped off all the old swords-and-planet SF with both hands and no acknowledgments.  Now, when games are big as big but all the biggest games have already been CGI'd and slapped onto the silver screen, Hollywood reaches into the past for the sources to give us a game-like experience.

This would actually be ironic, if it weren't for the fact that this is the way that all literary art works.

Anyway, here's the trailer.  This movie would have been so unspeakably cool if it had been made thirty-five years ago, before the first Star Wars film.  I would have wept tears of joy.



More John Carter Videos
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Autumn Splendor

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Why do I live in the city?  Because the city has everything you might want.  You want theater?  It's got theater.  You want extreme art?  You got extreme art.  You want autumn splendor at an isolated stream with a small watermill?  It's the city!  You got it.

This is my Philadelphia.

And as always . . .

I'm on the road again.  So I can guarantee nothing.  But I'll do my best to keep you posted.

Above:  The Morris Arboretum.  Or, rather, a small portion of it.

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A Few Heartfelt Words of Praise for the Philadelphia Police

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Yesterday Marianne and I went down to City Hall to see if any of our Occupy Philadelphia friends were going to need to be bailed out.  As it turned out, no.  The OP folks were still involved in a complex dance of negotiation with the city, and the Philadelphia police continued to show gentlemanly restraint.  It made me proud to be a Philadelphian.

Which doesn't mean that things won't go Berkley sometime in the future.  But that's just another reason to tell this story while I can.

A couple of years ago there was a big G7 meeting in Philadelphia.  Protesters showed up from all over.  Back in the days when Frank Rizzo was mayor, there would have been some serious police violence.  Luckily, Rizzo was in the distant past and John Timoney was police commissioner.  Timoney was a real hard-nosed type and didn't tolerate unlawful behavior from anybody.  Not even police.

That's the background.  Here's the story.  It's a clip I saw on the news at the time.

The protesters were walking on a sidewalk, obeying the laws and chanting slogans.  At the curb was a police car and, sitting in it, a fat cop looking bored.  Suddenly an -- and I use this term advisedly -- asshole leaned into the car and hit the cop in the face with pepper spray!

In a flash, the cop was out of the car, roaring with anger, and pulling his gun.

And in that same instant, there was a police officer running alongside him, shouting, "Put down the gun!  Put down the gun!"

And, coming to his senses, the cop did. 

 It was the most astonishing proof of the value of good training.  The officer on the street knew exactly what to do . . . and two tragedies were averted.  One being whatever might have happened had the cop fired his gun.  The other being what would have happened to the cop as a result of a moment's perfectly understandable outrage.

Last I heard, Timoney was working in Miami.  I hope they deserve him.  The guy walks on water.


Above:  Big rally at City Hall.   Last night.  No violence.  This is what America looks like.

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Fortean FIsh

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We have a small water feature in our backyard, a pot buried almost to its rim.  That's it up above.  It looks a lot better in the summer when the water lettuce are healthy.  There's a small water pump which doesn't show in this shot.

In the pot we keep a few goldfish.  Last winter, which was colder than usual, they all died, so this spring I bought five and put them in the pot.  We fed them and they grew and thrived.

Over the summer, two disappeared, leaving us with a total of three.  I assumed raccoons.

And then one morning I went out to feed the fish and counted five.  They were all the same size and we hadn't seen any minnows, so their appearance was astonishing.  "Did somebody dump their fish in our pot?" I wondered.

Last August, alas, all the fish disappeared.  I kept feeding them for several days anyway.  The food floated on the surface for a long time, uneaten.  I couldn't find any of the fish when I moved the water lettuce around.  And then...  And then...

One morning I came out to find all five fish floating dead atop the water.  I buried them.  I mourned.  I moved on.

And of course, I stopped feeding them.

This morning, Marianne spotted a fish in the pot.  And then a second one.  I looked, and there they were.

Is somebody playing with my head?  Are we getting drizzles of Fortean fish-rain?  Is it possible that God has a weird sense of humor?

This is worse than New Math.

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Happy Evacuation Day!

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It's November 25.  I trust that all Americans are observing Evacuation Day today, the one time of the year that we celebrate what Linus called, "the weaselly slinking-back of the British sons of bitches to the pathetic scumbag kingdom they called home" at the end of the War of Independence.

Okay, that quote from A Charlie Brown Evacuation Day is the fictitious creation of the Daily Show.  But the holiday itself, celebrating the day when the last of the occupying British troops left New York in 1783, is well worth remembering.  As are the eleven thousand American soldiers who died in the prison ships, when they could have been released if only they'd been willing to renounce their country and pledge allegiance to the crown.

You can find Sarah Vowell's explanation here.  (I believe it's only up for a brief time.)  There's not a lot of laughs, but there is a lot to think about.

It's worth mentioning that, fun though it is to heap vituperation on the British soldiers, they started out the war as good guys -- the troops at Lexington and Concord were under strict orders to put down the rebellion without hurting anyone.  And yet they ended up creating something that Jon Stewart compared to Abu Ghraib.

This is something I wish every leader in every country in the world would think about long and hard.

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