Mario Acevedo's Blog, page 21

Why Would Anyone Want to be a Writer?

This has been a strange week in the writing world. First there's Q. R. Martin and his spy novel, Assassin of Secrets released on November 3. Turns out it was stitched together from John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Charles McCarry and a host of other well known thriller writers. Lifted word for word. Only the name of the protagonist was changed. Spy novelist Jeremy Duns even blurbed the book. His blog with his thoughts here . Now the book's publisher, Mulholland Books, susposedly pulled it when the plagiarism(s) came to light, but it's still on Amazon . In fact it's ranked #151 in books.

And the reviews from Kirkus (starred), Publisher's Weekly (starred), and several NYT Bestselling authors call it thrilling, smart, and, according to PW, (with an) obvious Ian Fleming influence(that) just adds to the appeal. I'll say it has an Ian Fleming appeal. Most of it is plagiarized from James Bond novels.

So here is a book earning starred reviews from most of the biggest review sites in the business and it's a fraud.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Today on a loop several authors discussed the publishing business and how so many of us are either in between contracts, pitching new series, or waiting to begin contract negotiations. Agents are telling us advances are on a downward trend. That it's up in the air if contracts will be renewed at all. No one is confident about the future. Words like unsteady and fearful are bandied about.

And yet. There is an alternative now, isn't there? E-pubbing. It's no longer something we don't want to think about or for books not considered good enough for a New York house. Well-established authors are releasing their backlists or putting new work on line.

I'm teaching an online writing class now. I want to be optimistic with my students. I tell them that talent and perseverance win out. That publishing with a New York house is the goal.

Is it really?

I don't think I know anymore.

The for real Steampunk war

Mario here:

Last week, Jeanne posted this nifty trailer of the upcoming Sherlock Holmes' movie, A Game of Shadows.



A definite must-see. What caught me were the period accoutrements--the costumes, the weapons, the gadgets--so very Steampunk. Then I realized it wasn't Steampunk at all, but historical verisimilitude (more or less).

Which got me to thinking. We've gotten so used to seeing the interplay of Victorian fashion with brass and steel as tropes of Steampunk that we've forgotten that was the way it really was back then.

Which got me thinking some more. What would a Steampunk war look like? Then I realized there had been one. It was called The First World War.

Run down the Steampunk checklist:

Women in long dresses and hats with feathers.
Handlebar mustaches.
Air ships.
Fancy-dancy khaki uniforms (notice everyone sported a 'stache--Steampunk metrosexual).
Submarines (so very Jules Verne).


Fantastic inventions like the Big Wheel. The Russians actually built a working version (which not surprisingly, got stuck in the mud).


The more practical British decided to flatten the Big Wheel concept into a land battleship (shades of H.G. Wells).


The flying machine.

Many young men were caught by the romance of adventure and signed up to serve in The Great War. Ernest Hemingway, for one, and was wounded. F. Scott Fitzgerald was commissioned in the US Army but the war ended before he could go. H. P. Lovecraft tried to enlist but was denied because of his poor physical condition. Considering his pessimistic view of humanity, it's interesting to wonder how much bleaker Lovecraft's assessment of civilization would've been had he served in the trenches. Provided of course, that he survived.

I've often said that I wasn't a fan of zombies or any supernatural monsters. How could they compare with the true horrors of one of the biggest blood baths in history? The same wonders of the Industrial Age that promised prosperity for mankind also delivered slaughter that devoured tens of thousands of men in a day...after day after day for years. The carnage spawned the Lost Generation, artists and writers disgusted with the war and the corruption and stupidity of the governments behind it. You'll find no nostalgia for The Great War in the works of the survivors who penned some of the greatest literature of the Twentieth century such as A Farewell to Arms and All Quiet On The Western Front.

So there was a Steampunk War but it was nowhere as charming and schmaltzy as we'd like to pretend it might have been.

Chatty Kathy

It's Wednesday and this is going to be a bit of a ramble (kind of like Mario's blogs) because I just don't feel like getting organized. So here goes:



First, a bit of pimping for Suzanne Lazear's upcoming release: Innocent Darkness. I'm waiting to get a copy of this new YA Steampunk. Here's the description from Suzanne's website:

Sixteen-year-old Noli Braddock's hoyden ways land her in an abusive reform
school far from home. On mid-summer's eve she wishes to be anyplace but that
dreadful school. A mysterious man from the Realm of Faerie rescues her and
brings her to the Otherworld, only to reveal that she must be sacrificed,
otherwise, the entire Otherworld civilization will perish.

Innocent Darkness is set for release in August of 2012. Steampunk fairies--I LOVE it!!

I've been doing a lot of YA reading lately. Just finished Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake and am almost finished with Nightspell by Leah Cypress. Any favorite YA authors you'd like to recommend?

It's snowing today. Good day to write, which is what I've been doing. There are still too many leaves on the trees though, and I'm afraid there will be a lot of broken branches when the sun comes out again.

Anybody doing NaNoWriMo? Started unofficially today but haven't logged in yet.

My editor emailed me to let me know Anna has been nominated for best UF protag (the second time, she won it in 2008) by RT Book Review Magazine. As always, the competition is against not only good writers, but this time, some of my friends!

Urban Fantasy
Protagonist

Angel Crawford
MY LIFE AS A WHITE TRASH ZOMBIE
Diana Rowland
Daw (Jul.)

Darian
SHAEDES OF GRAY
Amanda Bonilla
Signet Eclipse (Dec.)

Sabina Kane
GREEN-EYED DEMON
Jaye Wells
Orbit (Mar.)

Kiera Kelly
BLOOD SACRIFICE
Maria Lima
Pocket (Sep.)

MacKayla Lane
SHADOWFEVER
Karen Marie Moning
Delacorte (Jan.)

Max
CRIMSON WIND
Diana Pharaoh Francis
Pocket (Jan.)

Anna Strong
CROSSROADS
Jeanne C. Stein
Ace (Sep.)

Jane True
TEMPEST'S LEGACY
Nicole Peeler
Orbit (Jan.)

I'm glad I don't have to choose. Diana, Jaye, Nicole and I are all League of Reluctant Adults members and therefore partners in crime. Maria Lima is a friend. The only two I don't know personally are Karen and Amanda.

Went to a movie this weekend, Ides of March. I don't think there was a single new idea in the entire movie. All the political cliches were there--backstabbing, the "honorable" politician who turns out not to be, dirty tricks, extortion. I guess the only good thing about the movie is that it sets the stage for the upcoming Presidential election. A reminder of what we're in for.

However, there was a trailer for a movie I can't wait to see:


| Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows | Movie Trailer | Review

Looks good!

And lastly, a shout out to pal Stacia Kane who is under the weather. Get better soon, kid!!

So those are my rambling thoughts for this week-- what's on your mind?

Halloween's chills

Mario here:

First of all, last week at MileHiCon I had the pleasure of meeting Gardner Dozois, the award-winning editor and author of science fiction in short stories and novels. The Arapahoe Library District interviewed Dozois, and other presenters at the con, and you can listen to the podcasts for free on iTunes. Gardner's interview gives you a good idea of his wit and deep roots in the publishing biz. Of particular interest are his musings on the future of books and bookstores.

You'll also find chats with Jeanne and me, though I should caution you that she wasn't anywhere near as erudite and thoughtful as I was.

Now, on to Monsters.

It's Halloween and we love our creepy-crawlies. Most of our modern stories come from the movies. I'll admit that growing up, I wasn't a fan of supernatural monster movies or TV shows. Many of my friends, especially their sisters, were keen on Dark Shadows. Try as hard as I could, I couldn't get into Barnabas Collins. Or Dracula? Yawn. Zombies? Snooze.


Science fiction was a different story. Maybe because I lived in New Mexico and grew up on UFO sightings instead of ghost stories.

I was willing to overlook the cheesy special effects and suspend disbelief for movies like:






Them! (1954) What else could be the byproduct of nuclear weapons testing except for giant mutated ants? (The movie is better than the poster.)


Tarantula. (1955) A favorite because the monster is killed with a weapon that never fails--napalm! This movie includes one of the first big screen appearances of a young Clint Eastwood (as a pilot who drops said napalm.)




Back then, in the prehistoric days before the Internet and YouTube--in fact, even before cable-- catching monsters on TV was an iffy thing for me. There was one forgotten movie where a rocket ship lands on a Mars-like planet. The astronauts were stalked by a monster snake that burrowed through the sand and was killed with a bazooka (super cool idea to a pre-teen).

The monster movies that gave me the most chills were:

Alien. Even though the monster was played by a man in a suit (Bolaji Badejo), because of its convincing movements and details like the goo dripping from the jaws (genius!), this was at last a monster that really gave me the willies. The sequel Aliens ramped up the action and the terror.



The Thing (1982) The original movie (1951) was more of an intellectual exercise, but this remake didn't give you any chance to doubt the horror. The recent Norwegian prequel did a good job dovetailing into the story and is recommended for you monster fans.





Predator. A different kind of monster and one of the few cinema aliens smart enough to be worthy of the terror he brings.








Cape Fear. Okay, not your typical monster, but Robert De Niro played an ex-con villain who truly creeped me out.





The Day After. Again, no movie monsters but the terror came from thermonuclear war unleashed. The scene of the ICBMs shooting from their silos raised goose-bumps.

Bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.


What about monster movies that disappointed? The blue ribbon for those turkeys must go to Starship Troopers. A great story premise ruined by bad casting, bad scripting, and really stupid, stupid soldiers. The movie got so bad that by the middle, my sons and I were cheering for the alien insects.

Halloween Treat (I Hope)

In the spirit of the holiday, here's an adaptation of Little Red Riding hood by Angela Carter from her collection The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories published in 1973:

A girl goes to visit her grandmother, but encounters a werewolf on the way, whose paw she cuts off with a knife. When she reaches her grandmother's house, the paw has turned into a hand with the grandmother's ring on it, and the grandmother is both delirious and missing her hand. This reveals the girl's grandmother as the werewolf, and she is stoned to death. The girl then inherits all of her grandmother's possessions.

Of course when it's Anna involved, things are a little different.


The Wolf's Paw

An Anna Strong Short Short


David is getting antsy.

Makes me smile since it's usually me doing the squirming.

"What's the matter? We've only been here an hour. You got some place better to be?"

I turn my face away so he can't see the smile. I know he has some place better to be. I saw her in the doorway when I picked him up at his condo.

"Don't be a smart ass, Anna. Tell me again what we're doing here?"

"Easy money. Five thousand dollars, remember? Snatch and grab."

"Snatch what? Where is the prick?"

A movement from the bushes on the opposite side of the road. David doesn't see it. But I do. Vampire eyes. We've been watching the guy's front door. There's no back door out of the apartment.

Still. I catch a scent.

I reach for the door handle. "I've got to pee."

David reaches for an empty coffee cup.

"Very funny. I'll be right back."

He mutters something under his breath but I'm already behind the car and bolting to follow the sound of the rustling bushes to our right. Vampire senses jump to the fore. Eyes pierce the darkness, turning night to day. Ears hear every insect crawling, skittering or buzzing out of my path. Nose catches the scent of the creature moving away from me.

Human. Familiar.

But something else.

Feral. Fur.

What the…?

David doesn't know that I got close to the guy we're after this afternoon. Got close enough to breathe in his scent, close enough to make the grab myself before I was interrupted by a pain in the ass who stopped me on the sidewalk to ask for directions. By the time I got rid of him, the skip had disappeared.

But it's the same scent I detect now under the musk of fur and testosterone.

I move noiselessly through the bushes. Close the distance between us. He's just ahead of me. But he's moving faster than a man would be and is crouched low to the ground. It doesn't take much of a jump to determine what I'm chasing.

I let vampire have her head. Fighting werewolves is not my favorite pastime. They can be nasty creatures. If I'd known that's what I was chasing, I'd never have involved David. Can't worry about that now.

Where's the guy going? We're in Balboa Park. It's not quite dusk on a hot summer evening and I can't make out where he's headed. Until he takes a sharp turn and waits for traffic on the Prado to clear. Then he lopes across the road and straight into the dog park—the only area open to off-leash pets.

Curious. What's he doing? Looking for a chance to get lucky?

I call Vampire back and proceed after him, fully human. The park is not yet as crowded as it's going to be in an hour or so when the home-from-work crowd brings their pets for a romp. But there are a half-dozen dogs sniffing and scuffling, their owners chatting nearby.

The wolf pauses, watching. He's bigger than most of the dogs but no one pays any attention. I enter the park and start toward him.

The wolf turns and meets my eyes. He lifts his nose. He recognizes vampire. But then he turns away, casually ignoring me, resuming his perusal of the animals as if searching for just the right one.

He makes his choice with a snarl and faster than I would have thought possible, he lunges.

Toward a child, playing off by herself to the right of the group of adults.

I reach her first, scoop her up and thrust her into the arms of a startled woman.

Wolf gathers himself to lunge at me.

If I call up vampire in front of all these people, it won't be pretty. Instead, I pull the .38 from the waistband of my jeans, aim and fire.

I catch the wolf in midair, but I haven't accounted for his speed and the bullet slams into his leg, blowing off a paw and breaking bone with a sickening crack. He lands with a howl, whirls on three good legs and stumbles off the way he came.

I want to go after him but my way is impeded by a group of frantic onlookers, all reaching out hands to thank me, all asking the same questions at once.

What was that?

Who are you?

Are you a cop?

By the time I finally get free, and make it back to David, he's standing by the car, our skip, naked and bloody, already in handcuffs.

David has his cell at his ear. When he sees me, he clicks off. "Where the fuck have you been?"

I point to the skip. "What happened to him?"

David has fastened a tourniquet around the guys arm, just below the elbow. A stump at the end of his wrist drips blood. "Somebody blew this guy's hand off. He isn't saying who. I got him as he tried to sneak his way back into the apartment. The paramedics are on the way."

The guy and I—wolf and vampire—stare into each others eyes. I wonder if we're thinking the same thing…my, what big secrets we have.


Image from HellHorror.com
Happy Halloween from Anna and Me

Long times in the literary saddle.

Mario here:

Another con bites the dust. Specifically, MileHiCon 43, Denver's nexus for science fiction and fantasy literature since the 60's.


This year I was honored to be the Toastmaster, which gave me the opportunity to meet and introduce the Guests of Honor, from left, GoH Author Vernor Vinge, GoH Editor Gardner Dozior, GoH Author Glen Cook, and GoH Artist Theresa Mather. The @font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } lengthy and impressive résumés of each of these GoH's humbled me and my modest accomplishments. Much thanks to Rose Beetem for the invitation.

Besides the usual gang of suspects stalking the bar--among them Betsy Dornbusch, Warren Hammond, Carol Berg, Carrie Vaughn, Bree Ervin, and David Boop, we had the @font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } über hipsters, Jason Heller (left, of the forthcoming Taft 2012) and Eytan Kollin (he and his brother Dani co-wrote the award-winning The Unincorporated Man).




At one panel I queried the audience about their thoughts regarding ebooks and e-readers. Interestingly, every reader who commented stated they enjoyed using an e-reader (Kindle, Nook, or iPad). They cited the ease of ordering a new book, the ability to browse through sample chapters, and the convenience of carrying dozens of titles in the e-reader for travel and vacation. None of them preferred a paper copy over an ebook and said that owning an ebook would not prevent them from buying a traditional paper copy as for a personal library. When I told fans that my next books may come exclusively as ebooks, none expressed any resentment.

Stay tuned.

I love fall...

The colors, the smells, the chill in the air. Yesterday I saw my breath in the morning. Beautiful.


Mario mentioned the Robot Prom at the Art Salon on Facebook. Here he is in full costume:




I love the way families get involved in these things. Don't know who this cutie is, but he's got a great costume, doesn't he?



For more pictures check out Westword here

Ready to do a little Christmas shopping? The new Neiman Marcus catalog is out. How about an Assouline custom-build library for a mere $125,000.00?


If you live in New York, this is a much anticipated annual event: Penguin's Warehouse Book Sale.


"The Penguin Group will hold its annual warehouse book sale Nov. 12 and 14 through 19 at the former Maines warehouse on Terrace Avenue in Conklin.

"The sale runs from 1 to 8 p.m. Nov. 12, 5 to 8 p.m. Nov. 14 through 18, and 1 to 5 p.m. Nov. 19. There's no entry fee and items are priced as low as $1. Cash and checks only will be accepted, and checks require two form of identification, including one photo ID."


It's almost here...anyone else participating?

And once you get that novel finished, here's a new resource for you--

Avon Books Announces that Digitized "Slushpile" Creates New Opportunities in Publishing for Aspiring Authors --

Check it out here


This weekend Mario and I will be at MileHi Con at the Hyatt Regency - Tech center. Big book signing is on Friday evening at 8 and it's open to the public.



From one of our favorite blog commenters, Vickie: Cranium's up!!! James Marsters and Charisma Carpenter are going to on next week's episode of Supernatural!!!! *happydance*

From the website:

Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) meet Maggie Stark (guest star Charisma Carpenter), a witch who has unleashed her wrath on a small town, resulting in numerous deaths. Sam and Dean track down her husband, Donald (guest star James Marsters), to see if he can help. Donald tells the brothers that Maggie is mad at him for having an affair and is taking it out on the townspeople. Phil Sgriccia directed the episode written by Brad Buckner & Eugenie Ross-Leming.

That's tomorrow Buffybuds so get those DVR's set!!

And one last note of caution to all you writers out there:

I is what I is from my reading biz

Mario here:

When my fellow writers get together, we often discuss the books we enjoyed in our formative years. Kat Richardson is an encyclopedia of science fiction, Mark Henry cut his writer teeth on psychological thrillers with a supernatural bent, Jeanne (bless her heart) enjoyed urban fantasy back before it even had a name. As a kid, my reading interests were all over the place, heavy in historical nonfiction--lots about airplanes--and bunches of speculative fiction.

I was twelve when I first perceived the Aha!--the epiphany that these squiggles on a piece of paper could immerse me so deeply in an invented world that I momentarily forgot everything else. That book was The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton, and I pretended to be sick so I could stay home from church and finish the book. I had borrowed it from my dad, who like the characters in the story, was a government chemist, though he laughed at the strained earnestness of it all. None of the characters spoke or behaved like any federal civil servants he was familiar with.


Even though I was a book worm, there were plenty of school reading assignments I couldn't digest. I found Jonathan Livingston Seagull a simplistic bore. I slummed through Silas Marner and Wuthering Heights.

But a few assignments managed to break into my stubborn head.

Such as The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. High-school English homework and definitely outside my usual milieu. But McCullers's prose kept me hooked and made me admire the power of the well-crafted narrative.

1984 by George Orwell. This kick-to-the head hasn't lost any of its punch over the years. I recently thumbed through the story to pick up some passages to use in a writing class and I found Orwell's masterful prose incredibly fresh and as disturbingly visceral as anything in a horror novel. Wow.



Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Another story that remains inventive and crisp and remarkably prescient. Made me ponder the dark consequences of technology.

[image error]
My private library was the shelf headboard of my bed and it was crammed full of books, mostly paperbacks that I had bought for 15-25@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; ¢ at the used book store by Surplus City. One notable read was The Penetrators, a Cold War cautionary tale by Anthony Gray, pseudonym for Hank Searls. That book has been long out of print and despite my fondness for the story, one recent reviewer called it a "poor man's Fail Safe."



My best friend, Ron, and I used to trade books and a favorite series that we devoured were the Travis McGee stories by John D MacDonald. Those books laid the foundation for my appreciation of pulp noir and seedy characters.

Another book that I reveled in because it fed into my adolescent anarchistic streak was Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess. Ron and I became somewhat fluent in Nadsat and the slang still creeps into our conversations.



Even though I'm an urban fantasy author and a frequent panelist at Science Fiction/Fantasy cons, a lot of people assume I was a keen reader of vampire and supernatural fiction, which I wasn't. I enjoyed learning the myths but I couldn't get swept into the stories like I should have been. Same was true for most science fiction. I found a lot of the books dense and meandering. One exception were the John Carter series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Thoats. Radium guns. Green giants. Naked Martian women. More fantasy than science fiction but what was not to love?

There was also a collection of short stories that really grabbed me, Science Fiction Terror Tales, edited by Groff Conklin. "Lost Memory", by Peter Phillips really gave me the chills.

One book that I liked quite a bit back then was Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse. The book was about as spiritual as I've ever managed to finish and at the time (I must've been 16) the story spoke to me. Many years later, my oldest son had this book as his high-school assignment and I took the opportunity to reread it. This time however, as an adult, I found the main character Siddhartha, to be an ungrateful whiner. Get over yourself already.

Another book I thoroughly enjoyed but which does not age well, is The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian (né Rodney William Whitaker). Like the garish pink of the original book jacket, the story-telling seems dated (though I will gladly trade his sales numbers for mine). However, at one time, I could picture myself the intrepid and dangerous mountaineer sipping Laphroaig and fending off the affections of countless women. Trevanian's later novel The Main, about a police detective in Montreal, holds up much better and is one of the best mysteries I've ever read.

me, me, me

This has been one of those weeks--busy, busy, busy. Working on a new project, did a podcast for Anton Strout, here , (which I haven't been able to see because I can't figure out how to find it), and did an interview for Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Chiseled in Rock you'll find here .

Like Mario, I'm teaching a class, too, over at Margie Lawson's Writer's Academy next month. Details here . I've taught this one before but the class title, So You Want to Write Urban Fantasy is misleading. Yes, we talk about the ins and outs of the UF world, and yes, there are interviews with UF writers, but it's really a basic course on genre writing and an introduction to understanding the publishing world--from finding an agent to querying to how the business of publishing works.


Speaking of classes, pal Tamela Buhrke is teaching a Building a WordPress Blog/Website class for writers. Details here . This lady knows her stuff so for $27.00, this is the real deal.

So besides the above mentioned, I've also been reading the Young Adult novels sent to me for consideration for a 2011 Bram Stoker Award . Right now I'm reading Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake. And I like it. It's going on my keeper shelf.

After all that, you must be asking yourself just what does all this have to do with me? Or if you're super smart, you've already guessed. I've got nothing else for you this week. Nada.

Well, maybe one thing. Kudos to Penguin (my publisher) for once again holding the Read Pink Program to support the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. From Shelf Awareness: Under this year's initiative, more than 300,000 copies of eight bestselling mass market titles--by Nora Roberts, Catherine Anderson, Christina Dodd, Jillian Hunter, Lynn Kurland, Amanda Quick, Bertrice Small and Lauren Willig--will have Read Pink seals on the cover. In the back of each book, Penguin is including information to make readers aware of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Penguin is again donating $25,000 to the foundation.

Look for this seal on participating books:

On the side of good, for once.

Mario here,

Pass the word. I'm teaching a class, Make it Fresh, at the fabulous Lighthouse Writers workshops. You'll learn something about adding oomph to your narrative, make friends, and wow your brain in a truly awesome writerly space. And you get to drink wine during class.








Friend of Biting-Edge and critique group ex-pat, Jeff Shelby, is back in print. His book, Liquid Smoke, is the third installment of his ultra cool Noah Braddock series. I had a chance to read the original manuscript back when and if this book isn't on your TBR pile, then You. Are. Wrong.



Jeanne and I are big fans of two of the best online resources available to writers, Absolute Write Water Cooler and Writer Beware. In fact, I have both bookmarked on my browser. Besides giving lots of great advice about writing and getting published, both sites also warn you about scams, such as bogus literary agents and vanity presses. You'd think this was a good thing. But not according to folks lurking behind something called the Write Agenda. Last week, word got out that this Write Agenda was calling on a boycott of and impugning the motives of Absolute Write Water Cooler, Writer Beware, and the fearless champion of the forthright scribe, John Scalzi. So the League of Reluctant Adults saddled up and charged into the fray on behalf of the side of good. (Strange, yes, cuz usually the League is for all things evil and pervy.)


Our battle cry? Basically we dropped trou and shouted, Boycott this, suckers!


Get your Robo-freak on. Next Saturday, October 15, it's the event of the season, a pre-Halloween Bacchanalia we've dubbed Robot Prom. Robots, robot dancing, robot parade, robot drinking, and maybe even robot love. At the Art Salon, 2219 E 21st, Denver, CO. Tickets available through MegaRobota.com