Jim C. Hines's Blog, page 105

Flashback: June 5, 2006

Ah, June 5, 2006. I remember it like it was exactly eight years ago.

This was the day I wrote the very first line of Goblin War [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy]. A historic day, one which should be remembered and celebrated for centuries to come!

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At this point, I’m waiting on a few story critiques, as well as comments on Goblin Hero from my editor. So I figured, what better way to hurry things along than to start something else? That way I’m sure to get an interruption soon

So today, I wrote the first line of Goblin War. Then I wrote some other lines, but that didn’t feel as significant. Something about putting down those first few words … I’m really doing it. I’m really starting another novel. There it is, with Jig’s name and everything.

I also did a bit more brainstorming about a problem. See, in Goblin Quest, the goal is a big powerful toy with enough magic to make a man (or a goblin) pretty dang powerful. But once such a toy exists, it’s a part of your world, and you have to consider it when you’re writing further stories. Big, scary bad guy? Use the toy and blip them out of existence. Suddenly your big, challenging novel becomes a one-page short-short.

In book two, there’s a logical reason why this toy can’t be used. It’s a slight stretch, but it works. I may have to make it more clear, I don’t know … we’ll see what the editor says.

Not so for book three. My whole plot outline was set up by ignoring that magical toy, and that’s cheating. Star Trek used to do that … Kirk and Spock steal a cloaking device, but never bother to use it. They build a nifty new engineering toy, then forget about it in the next episode. That’s just dumb.

But then today I figured out how to take it out of the equation. It’s not cheating, and in fact it’s perfectly consistent with the various characters and their motivations. Plus it’ll be funny. So that’s a bit of a relief.

And to celebrate, I give you the first line of Goblin War. (Which may change when I come back and rewrite, but that’s okay.)

Goblin war drums wouldn’t be so bad, Jig decided, if the drummers could only stick to a consistent beat.

Flashback: June 4, 2007

Greetings from limbo! I’m currently en route to Continuum, but given the weirdness of time zones and the international date line, I have no idea where or when I’ll actually be when this post goes up. In fact, depending on the flight, it’s possible that I might never see June 4, 2014 at 9:30 a.m.!

In the meantime, have another post from the archives. Back in 2007, I had just begun doing LOLBooks, adding captions to various book covers and artwork…

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For anyone who missed the earlier of my book-macroing entries, you can go to http://jimhines.livejournal.com/tag/lol to see all of them.

And if you find these entries completely bizarre and confusing, I Can Haz Cheezburger should provide some background.

Anyway, today I present Tobias Buckell’s debut novel, the Nebula finalist and Locus bestseller Crystal Rain. (Art by Todd Lockwood.)

So what do folks think? Should I see how long I can ride this fad before running out of ideas? Or is it time to let the LOLing die already?

Flashback: June 3, 2005

I’m off to Melbourne for Continuum! Since I’ll be busy battling venomous were-kangaroos for the next week or so, I figured I’d run a few flashbacks from the blog.

On this date back in 2005, I was in the middle of drafting Goblin Hero [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy], and decided to share an excerpt…

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This one’s free for all, since it’s another piece that will never make it into the final book. Enjoy!

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Jig pressed his body to the wall and knelt in the snow to confirm his fears.

“That’s not fair.” Jig closed his eyes. “There were only four pixies!” he shouted. “I counted them myself! Four, not forty! You stupid author, why do you keep doing this to us?”

Braf winced. Even Slash looked nervous. “Not so loud, Jig. The pixies-”

Jig shook his head. “I’m talking to the author. Secondary characters never seem to notice when I break the fourth wall.”

Prepping for Continuum

Tomorrow I’m off to Continuum, following in N. K. Jemisin’s footsteps as their International Guest of Honor. Yeah, no pressure there! (Also, why don’t more U.S. conventions have international GoHs?)

I expect to be plenty busy for the next week and a half, and will be spending very little time online, so I apologize in advance to everyone whose emails I’ll be ignoring until I return. There may be random Tweeting, depending on the wifi in the hotel. But I’ll definitely have lots to share when I get home.

In the meantime, the blog will be going into reruns for the next two weeks.

For those of you who’ll be in Melbourne, here’s my schedule for the convention.

Friday, June 6

7:30 – 8:00, Opening Ceremonies
8:00 – 9:00, Spicks and Speckulations

Saturday, June 7

Noon – 1:00, Guest of Honor Speech
2:00 – 4:00, Podcast: Writer and Critic
5:00 – 6:00, Cover Art Pose-off
6:00 – 7:00, Demystifying Social Media
8:00 – 8:30, Costume Parade (I’ll be one of the judges)

Sunday, June 8

10:00 – 11:00, Kaffeeklatsch
1:00 – 1:30, Signing
2:00 – 3:00, YA Meet the Authors
4:00 – 5:00, Reading (with Andrew Macrae)
5:00 – 6:00, Writing Fanfic
8:00 – 10:00, Ditmar & Chronos Awards Ceremony

Monday, June 9

3:00 – 4:00, Triptych: Gender Stereotypes in Speculative Fiction
4:00 – 5:00, Fake Geek Pride
5:00 – 5:30, Closing Ceremonies

And then after that, I’ll probably go fall down and get some sleep before taking a few days for sightseeing.

Cool Stuff Friday

It was a dark and stormy Friday. Suddenly an otter rang out!

Rock climbing … with a cat. (Link from Diane Duane)
Otters playing a keyboard.
NASA’s Flickr page for the Camelopardalids Meteor Shower.
Out of Context D&D Quotes. As an old-school D&D player, reading these brought back such memories
Kittens dressed as SFF characters. (Link from Mary Robinette Kowal)

Thanking Jay Lake and Frank Wu, Twelve Years Later

This is a snippet from the speech I’ll be giving at Continuum at the end of next week. When I saw that Jay Lake had entered hospice care, I thought it would be good to share here as well.

I ended up going to World Fantasy Con next…because apparently a little local con wasn’t overwhelming enough for me. Once again I showed up, got registered, and wandered aimless and lost. I sat in on a few panels, because panels were both informative and safe. And then a little later, I found my way to the con suite, where I spotted author Jay Lake and artist Frank Wu, two people I had heard of from those online bulletin boards.

It took an absurdly long time for me to work up the courage to go introduce myself, but eventually I did. They were kind enough to invite me to sit down and join them. We chatted for a bit, and they asked if I was new to the con scene. And then they did something I’ll never forget. They took me around and introduced me to some of the other fans and writers at the convention.

That was the first time I started to feel welcome in fandom. I don’t know that either one of them remember that day, but I will always be grateful to them for that kindness.

I did get to thank Jay at Worldcon in 2012, a decade after that first meeting. I don’t think I’ve had the opportunity to do the same with Frank, at least not in person.

I’m not sure what else to say here, except that even small kindnesses can make a tremendous difference in another person’s life.

X-Men: Days of Future Past (Spoilers Ahead)

Even before going out to see X-Men: Days of Future Past, I had seen some rather mixed reviews. Some people called it one of the best superhero movies since Avengers. (And one reviewer described it as better than Avengers.) Others found it sexist, convoluted, and/or disappointing…

I’m thrilled that we’ve canonically erased the mess that was X-Men 3. It was very cool to finally see the sentinels on the screen. And I like that they took on a very ambitious storyline. But the movie didn’t work as well as it could have. I walked out of the theater feeling like I had seen a big, flashy film that was somehow … hollow. It didn’t make me feel very much.

Some of my thoughts:

Quicksilver: When I first saw photos of the character online, I winced. But his scenes were pretty much my favorite part of the movie, mostly for the fun and humor. I wish we’d seen more of him, but I can also understand why the writers didn’t go there. Given the way they portrayed his powers, he probably could have solved the whole thing himself. “Hey, would you mind flying out to Paris with us and stopping Mystique from killing Tyrion Lannister? And while we’re at it, why don’t you head into Trask Industries and destroy everything related to the sentinels project?”

Gratuitous X-Death: I get that the future is ugly, but I have very little interest in watching heroes get slaughtered in various gruesome ways. Yes, the fact that some of these mutants don’t look human means you can rip them in half or crush their heads underfoot and still keep your PG-13 rating. But what was the point? We all know those deaths are going to be reset anyway. It felt pointless and gratuitous.

Future Sentinels: Oh, look. The destroyer from Thor hooked up with the T-1000 from Terminator and had ugly babies.

Blink: I wasn’t familiar with the character before the film, but I liked her power and the various creative ways she used it. I wish there had been more moments that made me think, “Hey, that’s cool/clever/nifty!” the way most of her scenes did.

Professor X and Magneto: I’ve enjoyed the relationship between these two over the course of the franchise. But while I enjoyed what we saw of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, I found the younger Erik and Charles to be rather meh. There was nothing new to their relationship, nothing we hadn’t seen before.

Mystique: For the past ten years, Charles has been a grieving drug addict. (Perhaps not a literal addict, but that’s definitely how the movie was portraying him and his arc.) Erik has been locked away for trying to save JFK and managing to deflect the bullet right into the president instead. Smooth move, there. Meanwhile, Mystique has been running around, saving mutants, gathering info, and kicking ass. And the goal of the movie is to stop her? Topping things off, I’ll quote Jenn Reese here:

Despite the fact that the movie is literally about her decision to kill a man or not, the entire story is built around Charles Xavier anyway and framed as his decision to let her decide.

Short version: this movie needed less Charles-angst and more Mystique.

Magneto and the Stadium: What was cut out of this already-busy movie so that Magneto could carry a stadium around? And why???

The X-Men are a Team: The only real team we see is the future mutants fighting against the sentinels. Coincidentally, aside from the gratuitous slaughter of our heroes, those scenes were some of my favorite parts of the movie. I wish we’d seen more of that. Beast, Wolverine, Charles, and Magneto did not a team make. At least, not an interesting team. (Maybe next time try a mix that isn’t four angsty white dudes?)

Too Much Story, Too Little Time: I wish this had been two movies. Give us part one set in the future, showing the surviving X-Men and their battles against the sentinels. Show us who’s in charge instead of just hand-waving that the sentinels left the bad humans running things. Show us what it took to track down the turning point in time. Give us scenes of Storm, Kitty, Blink, Bishop, Iceman, and the rest kicking ass while the whole world comes crashing down around them. And then go into the past and set things up for the second movie.

In part two, take the time to show us more of what Mystique’s been up to. Make this her movie as much as Charles and Magneto. Turn the sentinels loose and show us some 70s mutant vs. sentinel action. Here’s an idea: show us a team of X-Men! And then, yes, wrap things up by showing us a better future. (I loved Professor X’s line “Welcome back,” and the way Patrick Stewart acted that scene when he realizes what’s happened and which Wolverine he’s speaking to.)

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So, yeah. Not the worst of the X-Men franchise, in my opinion. But certainly not the best, either. And it could have been so much more.

What did you think?

Cool Stuff Friday

It is Friday! Or as I like to call it, the day-before-my-wife-and-I-go-out-to-see-Xmen.

Animals getting baths. Monkey and rabbit are my favorites! (Link from Elizabeth Bear)
Put You In A Better Mood. Lots and lots of pictures and gifs to do … well, exactly what it says.
Animals who forgot they were animals.
Educational pancakes. Mm … education.

A Few Thoughts About Racism and Defensiveness

As posted on Twitter yesterday, and potentially relevant to certain conversations in fandom this week:

Saying, “But Bob has always been so kind to me” doesn’t mean Bob is incapable of racism.

Saying, “I’ve never felt personally offended by Bob” doesn’t mean Bob has never said or done anything racist.

Saying, “I’ve known real racists and Bob isn’t like that” reveals an overly simplistic & harmful all-or-nothing misunderstanding of racism.

If multiple people are angry because Bob said/did something racist and you call them a “lynch mob” … yeah, just don’t. #Facepalm

Racism is not restricted to sheet-wearing, cross-burning, moustache-twirling villains.

Also, ignorance does not make you a Bad Person. (Being called on ignorantly hurtful actions and refusing to learn, however…)

Basically, if Bob is accused of racism and your defense of Bob consists of, “But I like him so he can’t be racist,” you’re doing it wrong.

Unbound, Interview, and Website Note

I’m very close to finishing up the revisions my editor requested for Unbound … and as a result, I’m having a very hard time devoting much attention or energy to anything else. (Yesterday was one of those Revelations of Earthshattering Kaboom about what Isaac’s struggling with. Overall, I’m feeling much happier about the book, and I can’t wait to share the cover art and synopsis when they’re ready.)

In the meantime, the ever calm, cool, and collected Carrie at Geek Girl in Love just posted an interview with me about Invisible.

Oh, and back when I was revamping the website, several people asked if there was a way they could subscribe to get notifications when a new blog post went live. I’ve installed a plugin I think should do the trick. You’ll find that in the right sidebar. Please let me know if it doesn’t work.