Ernest Hogan's Blog, page 73

CHICANONAUTICA GOES WILD OVER SEMANA SANTA

It's Semana Santa – Holy Week, for those of you who no habla – and Chicanonautica is going wild about it over at La Bloga.
From the Philippines, where the nails are real and they don't bleed:

To Mexico, where the nails and blood are fake:

And the outfit that the Ku Klux Klan stole is popular from Spain:

To Ecuador:

Then it will time to burn those Judases:

AN UPDATE ON THE RESURRECTION OF HIGH AZTECH

Yes, the resurrection of my novel High Aztech is coming. As with most things in these days of advanced information technology, it's taking longer than expected. It's complicated. Nothing is simple any more.
I'm not sure if it's going to be a resurrection or an insurrection. Or maybe it will take an insurrection to pull off this resurrection . . .
Anyway, the proofreading has been its own special kind of hell. And I happen to be the only Españahuatl expert who's available. I'm going to look it over one more time, just to make sure all the accent marks, ñs, and upsidedown exclamation points are in the right place.
Then there's the matter of all weird things that the OCR program did to the name Xólotl . . .
I also bought the rights to an amazing painting by Dell Harris that will snag eyeballs and blow some minds. I'm keeping the cover design simple so it can do its visual voodoo at full power.
Meanwhile, I'm working on another deal – yeah, a print version may be available soon!
But I guess I shouldn't reveal all of this all at once. I'm going to need material for all the self-promotion you'll be seeing here. It'll be one hell of a sideshow.
So I better stop this fooling around and get to work, even though the hills are turning yellow and purple, and Spring fever dreams are in the air.

CHICANONAUTICA, TEZCATLIPOCA, BARACK OBAMA, AND ME

I'm plugging Smoking Mirror Blues again in the latest Chicanonautica over at La Bloga. And explaining that the black president in the novel is not based on Barack Obama.
Meanwhile, Tezcatlipoca is having an influence on Mexican Prehispanic Metal:

In Peru, the shamans like Barack Obama:

And from Orange County, America's future is looking Mexican:

Progress, gotta love it!

SMOKING MIRROR BLUES NOW ON SMASHWORDS

Good news, users of ereading devices other than Kindle: My novel Smoking Mirror Blues  in now available through Smashwords, so you can get it in other formats. And it's only $0.99! 
And you can get the same low price on Kindle.
Support the Ernest Hogan Defense Fund!

SCI-FI EYE FRY FROM SAMBADROME

2013 has had me running around in all kinds of crazy business. I didn't have a lot of time to surf the online carnaval coverage. Luckily, the YouTube channel Carnaval Completo made things easy for me.

Here's some of my favorites:
First, here's a giant snake, some spectacular aerial shots of Sambadrome, and a fantastic take on Latin American history:


Next, we start wiith a giant robot lion, and go on to sci-fi eye fry:

And this one can only be described as Edgar Rice Burroughs on acid:

Make my visual cortex smile all the way down to my hypothalamus!

CHICANONAUTICA ON THE ANTHOLOGY FRONT

My latest adventures on the anthology front are featured in Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga.
One of the stories I sold is “Pacho Villa's Flying Circus” – a post-steampunk adventure. So, here's a Hollywood version of General Villa dealing with a new technology:

That story also features Nikola Tesla:

The other story I sold is “Novaheads,” a post-cyberpunk take on masked Mexican wrestlers. Meanwhile, Mil Máscaras has come out in a new movie:


And what could be more in the Aztec Valentine mood than Santo battling witches?

BETTER LIVING THROUGH SKUGGERY

Frankly, my dears, I enjoyed the living hell out of Rudy Rucker's latest novel, Turing & Burroughs: A Beatnik SF Novel . Just look at the title: Turing – Burroughs – Beatnik – SF . . . a recipe for some kind of brain-slamming ecstasy. And it delivers!
Yes, it really is a novel about Alan Turing, one of the men who brought us into the computer age, and William Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch and seminal figure of the Beat movement. It is science fiction and takes place in beatnik spacetime.
It brings all these elements together in an adventure with two renegade homosexuals and skugs (Turing's living biocomputational inventions).  It transcends sex, sexuality, and race, reminding us of Astouding Science Fiction's influence of Burroughs, and putting a spin on history that will make the conspiracy theorists happy.
It's cutting edge, but reads like excellent classic science fiction.
Okay, the hallucinatory joys of skuggery and biocomputational transformation would have been a horror that the government would be justified in destroying in a traditonal Fifties sci-fi novel. This is a different viewpoint, more William Burroughs than John W. Campbell, but at the same time Rucker gives us a joie de vivre – or maybe I should say joie de weird – that is his own, and quite contemporary.
And you don't have to be a Burroughs/Beat scholar to enjoy it, though those in the know will be impressed at how Rucker can write in Burroughs' voice.
This is a book for the 21st century beatniks living in the new underground. Or, as Rucker has Allen Ginsberg say:
"New pariahs! The queers, the commies, the Blacks, the dope fiends, the jazz musicians, the mad, the abstract painters, the unions, the Beat poets . . . and now the skuggers."
There was a time when science fiction was such a thing. I think it's time it became that again.
Note that Turing & Burroughs was self-published rather than a big release from a New York publisher. The dying world of traditonal publishers wouldn't dare touch it, even though its appeal is to multiple crossover markets that could make it a bestseller. The corporate world is too busy chasing old formulas that are out of sync with our transmogrifying world.
They are afraid. And it's their loss.
So buy yourself a copy, read it and spread the word. The world will be a better place for it.

CHICANONAUTICA SEES OVNIS OVER AZTLÁN

We’re seeing OVNIs -- UFOs -- this time in Chicanonautica over at La Bloga with a look at Hispanic UFO lit, and one of the wildest lucha movies ever.
Meanwhile, here’s more on the first reported case a man having sex on flying saucer:

And it looks like more than volcanic rumblings are happening in Mexico:

How many UFOs are actually drones?

So, amigos, keep watching the skies, and the border!

ANOTHER ERNESTO STORY, ANOTHER ANTHOLOGY

2013 just keeps on keeping on!
“Novaheads,” my post-cyberpunk take on the masked Mexican wrestler genre featuring a dangerous chili-based drug will appear in Super Stories of Heroes & Villains . Look for it in August.
There's more about “Novaheads” and Steelsnake, my luchador hero, but let's save that for later . . .

FIRST ERNESTO STORY SALE OF 2013

I'm off and running this new year, new baktún, with another story sold.
“Pancho Villa's Flying Circus” – a post-steampunk spaghetti western with Pancho Villa, Nikola Tesla, and airship, and death rays – will be be in the anthology We See a Different Frontieredited by Djibril al-Ayad and Fabio Fernandes.
It should be hitting the bookshelves in July.