Jim C. Hines's Blog, page 109

April Fools Day Roundup

This is my list of April Fools Day stuff that made me laugh and/or smile. I’ll be updating throughout the day.

Google introduces Auto Awesome Photobombs with David Hasselhoff.
HabitRPG appears to have turned my character into an eggplant.
ThinkGeek. Always worth checking out on April 1. (I want the NERF Nuke!!!)
Ada Hoffmann posts the programming schedule for Dinosaurcon 2014. (Apparently I was invited as Guest of Honor, but I never got the email. CURSE YOU, SPAM FILTER!!!)
Over on Facebook, Jeff VanderMeer announced that he’d be writing a novelization of the popular game Candy Crush.
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day: Space Station Robot Forgets Key Again.

Return of the SFWA Bulletin

The SFWA Bulletin is back after a roughly ten-month hiatus. I’m not interested in reruns of arguments from a year ago, but I wanted to take a look at what SFWA has put together for the relaunch of their professional magazine. (And of course, Jason Sanford beat me to the punch pretty much as soon as I started writing this blog post.)

One of the biggest changes is that the Bulletin will now be available in both print and electronic format. Members can log into the Forums and download the magazine here in .epub, .mobi, or .pdf format. I’m told the electronic edition will also be made available for sale to non-members, though I don’t believe that’s happened yet.

Given the events of last year, I suspect most everyone’s going to immediately check out the cover. The artwork is by Galen Dara. I like it a lot as an image. Dara does nice, evocative work. I’m not entirely sold on it as a cover for the Bulletin, though. The text layout doesn’t really pull together for me, and the overall cover … it just doesn’t scream “professional journal” to me.

That said, this is an interim issue. Moving forward, John Klima is taking over as editor of the Bulletin, and I suspect there will be more changes to come. As a transition/relaunch, I think the cover works well enough, and definitely sends the message that the organization is working to avoid the mistakes of the past.

The contents have a distinctly different feel, with an emphasis on what SFWA is and what the organization does. The very first piece is Susan Forest’s, “SFWA at its Core,” which talks about SFWA’s five core goals (inform, support, promote, defend, advocate), and the different ways it works to achieve those goals.

There are articles about the website, the SFWA Forum, the Ombudsman’s role, the SFWA Reception and other events, the online discussion boards, the YA/MG group, and more. If you wanted to put together an introductory packet for new and prospective members, you could pick up this issue and be halfway there.

And there are HONEY BADGERS! Comic relief honey badgers from Ursula Vernon and MCA Hogarth. I don’t know what Klima is planning for future issues, but please consider this a plea for more honey badger comics!

This is a good relaunch, and worth reading for anyone who wants to know why they should bother joining SFWA, or what the organization really does. Thank you Tansy Rayner Roberts, Jaym Gates, Neil Clarke, Steven Gould, and everyone else who worked to make this issue happen. I’m looking forward to seeing where the new editor takes it from here.

Cool Stuff Friday

This is my Friday. It’s little and broken, but still good. Yeah. Still good.

30 Naughtiest Dogs. (Have I linked to this before? I don’t care. It made me laugh again.)
Man who rescues owls, and the one that refuses to leave.
Ferrets playing in packing peanuts. (Link from wyldbutterflies)
Now I want a lawn dinosaur for my birthday!
And finally, a Cyanide & Happiness cartoon that might appeal to fans of Goblin Quest…

My Zombie Hamster, by Havelock McCreely

My Zombie Hamster [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy], by Havelock McCreely, is … well, it’s pretty much exactly what it says on the box. There’s this hamster, you see. And he’s a zombie…

Naturally, there’s more to it. Let’s start with the official synopsis:

Matt Hunter and his buddies are looking forward to Christmas — actually, they’re looking forward to receiving the latest sword-and-fantasy video game. But Matt’s parents have other thoughts — they give him a fluffy little mammal, a hamster called Snuffles, for the holiday. And his grandmother makes it worse by giving him a hamster cage and wheel. But the hamster isn’t all that cute — at least not after part of its cheek and belly fall right off — without bothering it a bit! And why is it staring at Matt with black beady eyes and a lean and hungry look?

Say hello to Anti-Snuffles, the zombie hamster! Or better yet, run!

This is a middle grade book set in the very near present. The zombie apocalypse has led to a society of walled cities and towns, but aside from the zombie-hunting cops wandering around to make sure you’re still alive, and the presence of life chips that go off when you expire (alerting said zombie-hunting cops to come and dispose of your potentially brain-hungry corpse). On the other hand, Matt still has to go to school, still references present-day pop culture, and still lives a life that’s in many ways pretty similar to most kids these days.

Similar except for the never-named-but-clearly-hinted-at ex-movie star who’s come to town to take charge of zombie security, of course. And the mayor’s big pet contest. And of course, Anti-Snuffles, who may or may not be building an army of undead critters…

It’s a quick read, one the author describes as “a cross between Shaun of the Dead, The Goonies, and The Diary of Adrian Mole.” The short, daily chapters are interspersed with Matt’s lists of things to do, whether it’s his plan for breaking into [SPOILER] or the things he plans to do once he becomes a megamillionaire.

Despite the undead hamster, the book isn’t particularly gross or scary, so it shouldn’t give young kids nightmares about the family pets. On the other hand, reading it as a not-quite-40-year-old, that also meant the stakes didn’t feel quite as urgent to me.

One of my favorite parts was a subplot with one of Matt’s friends, something I can’t really talk about without spoiling things. But it was an unexpected development, and I really enjoyed the way the characters handled it.

It’s a light-hearted story about a boy vs. his undead hamster. What else is there to say?

The book comes out on July 8, 2014.

ETA: And the author has confirmed a sequel is in the works, set about six months after the events of book one.

Update and Release Date for Invisible

I’m aiming for an April 15 release date for Invisible, the collection of essays on representation in SF/F. Everything is put together except for three pieces, one of which is my own afterword. (Oops!)

Contributors should have proofs in their email on or around April 1. I may also try to query a few folks about sending review copies. If you know of a good place that might be willing to review an ebook collection like this, please let me know.

Mark Ferrari was kind enough to lend his expertise to the cover art. This isn’t 100% final, but it’s relatively close, and has a bit more visual punch than what I had originally put together. What do you think?

The order of the contributors may change. I still need to go through and look at the flow of the whole thing.

All in all, I’m really excited about this!

Website Update

I spent the past week or so rebuilding www.jimchines.com. I had two main goals:

Set up a theme that would work on mobile devices.
Make everything as clean and readable as possible.

I went with the Simfo theme and trimmed a lot out of the sidebar content. I’m pretty happy with the home page. I like the slider, the thumbnails for the different series, and the recent blog posts. But some of the other pages, like the bibliography, look a little too stark now.

I know I need to clean a few things up, like the Press Kit page. But I think I’m at the point where I’d love to have folks poke at it a bit to see what works, and if there’s anything that either breaks your browser or just makes you gag in disgust. So far, it’s worked well on my phone and my internet browsers. It gave my parents trouble on IE8, but I think that might be something weird in their system setup.

Anyway, feedback is very much appreciated for anyone who has time to go exploring…

Cool Stuff Friday

After losing the first round of DABWAHA by a mere 12 votes, I need something cheerful today!

LEGO Doctor Who bookends, by Adam Dodge.
T Rex Trying…
Functioning LEGO computer keyboard, by Jason Allemann.
30 Happiest Animals in the World.

Website Update, Hugo Deadline, and Con Crud

Some of you have noticed I’ve been messing about with the website this week. My main goals are to set up a theme that’s cleaner, more mobile friendly, and generally just looks better. It’s still a work in progress, but so far I’m pretty happy. I’ll probably ask for feedback once I finish figuring out how all of these new-fangled buttons and features all work.

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Hugo Award nominations close at the end of the day on March 31. If you’re interested in a copy of my short story “Stranger vs. the Malevolent Malignancy” for consideration, just email me at jchines -at- sff.net and I’ll be happy to send it your way.

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In other news, this week continues to kick my butt, courtesy of con crud, work deadlines, and a conspiracy among various appointments and activities that won’t ease up until at least Sunday. Which is why you get a few short updates in lieu of a real blog post.

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But on the bright side, remember the (overdue) story I was working on this past weekend? Well, the editor liked it, and it sounds like “On the Efficacy of Supervillain Battles in Eliciting Therapeutic Breakthroughs” will be appearing in Unidentified Funny Objects 3. This story features the return of Jarhead, therapist to the superpowered set, from my UFO2 story.

Back from Millennicon

Millennicon was great fun. Unfortunately, both the kids and I seem to have come down with post-con crud, but the convention itself was awesome … if a little dangerous for the blood sugar. (There was a birthday cake for my son, and another cake a few hours later at the GoH reception.)

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My wife Amy was kind enough to do most of the driving, which gave me time to finish a short story for that blown deadline I mentioned the other day. Story is off to the editor, and I owe Amy many, many hugs.

As always, there was far too much cool stuff going on for any one human being to do. I missed the launch party for Stephen Leigh’s newest book, Immortal Muse. (I did get to see him receive the Hal Award, given each year to “an educator who creates a program utilizing science fiction literature to improve children’s proficiency in science and math.”

I also missed the Detcon1 takeover of the consuite on Saturday.

On the other hand, I got to do a reading that went rather well, a panel about dumb questions (which Laura Resnick TOTALLY SABOTAGED by prohibiting any and all sex-related questions, just because her father was on the panel with her…sheesh), had my son thrown into Klingon jail, heard a new (to me) Tom Smith song, and finally got to wear the T-shirt I got for Christmas in public.

(Photo by Hugh Staples. Cape assistance by Stephen Leigh.)

Huge thanks to Christy Johnson, Cheryl Whitford, and everyone else who put so much time and energy into making the convention happen.

As is often the case, the only downside was having to come back to the real world. Not only was there housework and day job work waiting for me, but apparently at least one mouse moved into the house this weekend and was throwing a little convention of its own. Taz the cat spent the whole night trying to get at it, and actually caught it briefly this morning, but when I tried to get cat and mouse outside to let the little rodent go free, it pulled a Houdini and managed to disappear beneath the couch.

And how was your weekend?

Millennicon Schedule

I’m thrilled to be heading over to Ohio this weekend to be a Guest of Honor at Millennicon. Here’s the schedule, just in case you want to come say hello or make sure you know how to avoid me all weekend.

Friday

6 pm,  MR 1210, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! (In which the convention throws a birthday party for my son, because they are AWESOME!!!)
7 pm, Harrison, Opening Ceremonies
8 pm, Con Suite, GOH reception

Saturday

10 am, Harrison, GOH Reading
2 pm, Hotel Lobby, GOH Autographs
3 pm, McKinley, There are No Dumb Questions (Moderator)

Sunday

10 am, McKinley, Fan Fiction and “Real” Writing
Noon, Hotel Lobby, GOH Autographs
2 pm, Harrison, GOH Q&A
3 pm, Harrison, Closing Ceremonies

Tom Smith will be there as Filk Guest of Honor, which should make my wife happy. She tolerates me, but she’d much rather hang out at one of Tom’s concerts

There are a lot of great people at this one, some of whom I haven’t seen in a while, so I’m expecting this to be a lot of fun.