Nick Mamatas's Blog, page 28
October 22, 2014
Not at World Fantasy, But Will Be Talked About
I won't be at the World Fantasy Convention next month, but my name does appear on a panel on Saturday.
Historical People in Fantasy
Time: 1 p.m.-2 p.m., Saturday, Tidewater 2
Panelists: Eileen Gunn (M), David B. Coe, Jack Dann, Jean Marie Ward, Rick Wilber
Description: When using Samuel Adams, Joseph Warren, or perhaps one of the most used names, Nikola Tesla and other real people as characters in fiction, what liberties can authors take and what holes do they have to fill? How close to the real Jack Kerouac does Nick Mamatas get in Move Under Ground? What do creators owe to history, especially if the players are in a new world as in Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series. The panel will discuss where historical truth meets literary license.
Often panels at conventions engage in the deadly practice of treating the panel description like a precis and won't vary far from the exact questions asked in the description. I can hear the panelists now: How close to the real Jack Kerouac does Nick Mamatas get in Move Under Ground?
Gunn: Hmm, haven't read it.
Coe: Don't know that one.
Dann: Who? What?
Ward: Doesn't ring a bell.
Wilbur: *defeated-looking shrug*
ETA: Actually, Ward is reading it! (See comments.)
Historical People in Fantasy
Time: 1 p.m.-2 p.m., Saturday, Tidewater 2
Panelists: Eileen Gunn (M), David B. Coe, Jack Dann, Jean Marie Ward, Rick Wilber
Description: When using Samuel Adams, Joseph Warren, or perhaps one of the most used names, Nikola Tesla and other real people as characters in fiction, what liberties can authors take and what holes do they have to fill? How close to the real Jack Kerouac does Nick Mamatas get in Move Under Ground? What do creators owe to history, especially if the players are in a new world as in Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series. The panel will discuss where historical truth meets literary license.
Often panels at conventions engage in the deadly practice of treating the panel description like a precis and won't vary far from the exact questions asked in the description. I can hear the panelists now: How close to the real Jack Kerouac does Nick Mamatas get in Move Under Ground?
Gunn: Hmm, haven't read it.
Coe: Don't know that one.
Dann: Who? What?
Ward: Doesn't ring a bell.
Wilbur: *defeated-looking shrug*
ETA: Actually, Ward is reading it! (See comments.)
October 21, 2014
Tuesday Sick Notes
Home sick today. A hazard of eating in a college town's restaurants a lot.
Oliver got his first haircut–a quick hack away at the front bangs that were covering his face. See?
Speaking of, Olivia's Book Bonding tumblr has been updated, for those interested in reading books to infants and toddlers.
Speaking of books—man, we're rockin' with these segues—we're past 100 pre-orders for The Nickronomicon and we're still taking pre-orders. Hard copies can be had direct from the publisher at a 20 percent discount here, and various ebook systems have come on line at either $4.99 or $5.00 on the button: Kindle, NOOK, Kobo. Fucking Kobo, man! If you know the person who owns a Kobo, call him and tell him about this.
And now, a self-serving quote from someone else's blog on recent events: It strikes me that Nick Mamatas, by bringing the Requires Hate/Benjanun Sriduangkaew connection out in the open as he did, had it by the right end. Her real identity was an open secret before that, but only if you were in the loop. Mamatas made it impossible for Sriduangkaew to keep up the pretence and he cut down the whispering campaign against her off at the knees.
Just so.
Oliver got his first haircut–a quick hack away at the front bangs that were covering his face. See?
Speaking of, Olivia's Book Bonding tumblr has been updated, for those interested in reading books to infants and toddlers.
Speaking of books—man, we're rockin' with these segues—we're past 100 pre-orders for The Nickronomicon and we're still taking pre-orders. Hard copies can be had direct from the publisher at a 20 percent discount here, and various ebook systems have come on line at either $4.99 or $5.00 on the button: Kindle, NOOK, Kobo. Fucking Kobo, man! If you know the person who owns a Kobo, call him and tell him about this.
And now, a self-serving quote from someone else's blog on recent events: It strikes me that Nick Mamatas, by bringing the Requires Hate/Benjanun Sriduangkaew connection out in the open as he did, had it by the right end. Her real identity was an open secret before that, but only if you were in the loop. Mamatas made it impossible for Sriduangkaew to keep up the pretence and he cut down the whispering campaign against her off at the knees.
Just so.
October 20, 2014
October 18, 2014
Where I've Been
@nmamatas giving his reading and being both funny and super morbid. The perfect combo. pic.twitter.com/mTyCDdNO2g
— Amy Sundberg (@amysundberg) October 19, 2014
The reading at Litquake went well. The place, a fairly large café, was packed, and thanks to using my phone I read well. My selection was "Burning Stones" from the most recent issue of Lamplight.
The crowd. pic.twitter.com/2wZCBvLHHJ
— Nick Mamatas (@NMamatas) October 19, 2014
Packed, I tell you.
I was also pleased to encounter local fan Joey both on the way to the Litquake Litcrawl, and on the way back. And what did he have with him, and his giant bag of books?
.@Gitbreakr spotted on BART with a copy of #PhantasmJapan! #litcrawl #litquake pic.twitter.com/rzcO4r4CIr
— Nick Mamatas (@NMamatas) October 19, 2014
He's an autograph hound, and had Tim Pratt sign "Those Who Hunt Monster Hunters" (see this rave) from Phantasm Japan, and then on the BART I signed the title page.
It was a surprisingly good evening.
October 17, 2014
Lit Crawl
I'm part of tomorrow's giant LitCrawl series in the city, and not in one of the usual genre outlets. So if you wanted to see me, don't just show up at a science fiction event and wait. Instead I'm here:
Inside Storytime Presents Friends and Fiends
Tomorrow at 20:30–21:30
Cafe la boheme San francisco
3318 24Th St, San Francisco, California 94110
Readings from Colby Buzzell (Lost in America), Nick Mamatas (Love is the Law), Susie Hara (Finder of Lost Objects), Lauren Becker (If I Would Leave Myself Behind), and Christy Chan (Pen Pals). With MC James Warner (All Her Father's Guns).
Inside Storytime Presents Friends and Fiends
Tomorrow at 20:30–21:30
Cafe la boheme San francisco
3318 24Th St, San Francisco, California 94110
Readings from Colby Buzzell (Lost in America), Nick Mamatas (Love is the Law), Susie Hara (Finder of Lost Objects), Lauren Becker (If I Would Leave Myself Behind), and Christy Chan (Pen Pals). With MC James Warner (All Her Father's Guns).
October 16, 2014
Thursday Quick Notes
Today Oliver looked at me, said "Hi," and smacked me in the face.
My David Foster Wallace/Lovecraft story Hideous Interview With Brief Man is one of the Notable Stories for the Million Writers Award. This round is juried; then there's a popular vote to narrow the ten down to three, then another judge takes over. At least that's what I remembered. Given that everyone has surrendered to the idea of pounding away online for votes, despite the fact that it led to this past year's Hugo Award hilarity, I will pound away for votes if I make the final ten. You made this world, I just live in it.
One of the great horrors of freelancing is that expected checks are always late. One of the great joys is that sometimes you get paid more than once, by total surprise. I've had essays in something like thirteen different Ben Bella/
smartpopbooks
titles, and only House Unauthorized has ever paid out. The Star Wars and Lost titles haven't, despite being more popular in the US. Thanks to international syndication though, the House book sold to Poland a couple of years ago and thus the book earned out and all the contributors made a little more money. Seventy-seven bucks. Now it's sold to a much bigger market, Germany, and the surprise payout was much larger—just as much as the original essay fee. So one, gig, 2.25 payouts, over seven years. Nothing to bank on, but nothing is sweeter than money for nothing.
BN.com finally got it sufficiently together to have a pre-order page up for the Nook ebook of The Nickronomicon. Five smackers, cheap. Pleased with pre-orders in general so far. We blew past our month pre-order goal of sixety for the hard copies on the fourth day, and it's got a couple dozen Kindle orders as well. If you're a Nook-o it's five bucks at the link, cheap!
My David Foster Wallace/Lovecraft story Hideous Interview With Brief Man is one of the Notable Stories for the Million Writers Award. This round is juried; then there's a popular vote to narrow the ten down to three, then another judge takes over. At least that's what I remembered. Given that everyone has surrendered to the idea of pounding away online for votes, despite the fact that it led to this past year's Hugo Award hilarity, I will pound away for votes if I make the final ten. You made this world, I just live in it.
One of the great horrors of freelancing is that expected checks are always late. One of the great joys is that sometimes you get paid more than once, by total surprise. I've had essays in something like thirteen different Ben Bella/
smartpopbooks
titles, and only House Unauthorized has ever paid out. The Star Wars and Lost titles haven't, despite being more popular in the US. Thanks to international syndication though, the House book sold to Poland a couple of years ago and thus the book earned out and all the contributors made a little more money. Seventy-seven bucks. Now it's sold to a much bigger market, Germany, and the surprise payout was much larger—just as much as the original essay fee. So one, gig, 2.25 payouts, over seven years. Nothing to bank on, but nothing is sweeter than money for nothing.BN.com finally got it sufficiently together to have a pre-order page up for the Nook ebook of The Nickronomicon. Five smackers, cheap. Pleased with pre-orders in general so far. We blew past our month pre-order goal of sixety for the hard copies on the fourth day, and it's got a couple dozen Kindle orders as well. If you're a Nook-o it's five bucks at the link, cheap!
October 15, 2014
Wayback Wednesday—WMDs in Iraq
It feels like 2002 again, when the US was heavily propagandizing that Iraq was actively creating chemical and biological weapons, and also actively seeking to create an atomic bomb. There were mobile factories, and imminent threats, despite the fact that the country had been through two major wars (against Iran and then the US-backed coalition created by Bush 41), an armed rebellion, and a decade of sanctions. There was obviously insufficient industrial base from which Saddam Hussein and Iraq could do such things, but if you repeat a falsehood enough, some people will believe it and many people will at least consider it. Show a few aluminum tubes and many people will be convinced that a country is building WMDs and even some of those suspicious of the story will come around to saying that if WMDs are found, then of course the US must invade. Thus we had a whole lot of dupes supporting a superstructure of fools.
Anyway, it was all bullshit lies, and frankly fairly obvious ones. There were many reports of WMDs being found, thanks mainly to very sensitive field equipment offering false positives. This is how field equipment should work, by the way: much better to be safe than sorry. Subsequent testing generally showed the detected WMD caches, factories etc. were nothing of the sort, but follow-up news stories never quite got the attention of the initial reports. I'll never forget a thread on the off-topic/politics section of old Horror Writers Association board, in which not only did someone wish that the next anti-war protest I attended would itself be attacked by WMD-sporting terrorists (sort of a dumb tactic on their part) but who responded one time just with:
HA!
which led to a link to one of the stories that WMDs had been detected, which a week later turned out to be another false positive.
Of course, old WMDs were found—this is old news. From 2004, A roadside bomb thought to contain deadly sarin nerve agent exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday. It was believed to be the first confirmed discovery of any of the banned weapons that the United States cited in making its case for the Iraq war. It wasn't even clear whether the creators of this IED knew what the shell they had repurposed and rigged to a roadside bomb even was.
It's not unusual to this day to hear people say that of course Iraq had been producing tons of WMDs but they just...went to Syria, were really well-hidden that that that [descent into weird conspiracy theories].
A decade later, The New York Times has a lengthy report on the soldiers who encountered similar 1980s-early 1990s era WMDs, almost none of which were of local manufacture. Sources in the article suggest that the US kept this quiet because the revelations would have been embarrassing.
Honestly, the US needn't have worried. The convinced are rarely moved by mere evidence. This isn't a political issue, mind you. The folks at The American Conservative understood the Times article well enough. Meanwhile, on Facebook, let us hear from the equally right-wing "Joe the Plumber" (link here, screencap below, because FB links seem to go wonky sometimes)
Luckily, many of the comments on Joe the Plumber's Facebook suggest that Joe actually read the article, but there are also as many crowing about the revelation, or going on about commies and socialists, etc. Not everyone needs to be a fool, you just need enough fools to create a population of reasonable-sounding dupes.
One thing I always look for these days online is this: is the blogger, or tweeter, or whatever-er actually reading that which forms the basis of his or her comment? It's a challenge, since many people will link to a tumblr that links to a blog that summarized a news site that posted an article that collected some links and appropriated tweets for their quotes instead of actually asking anyone anything. Not only does the game of telephone ruin things, not only does Reinforcement Theory compel people to pick and choose what actually goes from their eye holes into the brains, but often what's actually being reported barely exists. Another favorite of mine is from a few years later, during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a story about the Astrodome, in the seventeenth paragraph, we're told that, back at the Superdome in New Orleans One ambulance official [that is, a person working for a private ambulance company—NK] overseeing the airlift rescue operations said a gunshot was fired at a military helicopter over the Superdome before daybreak was picked up by the wires, and by the time The Navy Times got to the story, a headline: Military helicopters dodge bullets over Superdome. PS: story was bullshit.
So when I look online these days, I not only always remind myself to read closely* but to see whether or not the commenters/posters/bloggers/journalists are themselves reading closely. Most often, they're not.
*Of course, it is possible to read too closely, especially when dealing with amateur or hobbyist publications, where language is often used loosely. I remember years ago, a weird debate that emerged over the headline "Shawn Michaels Resigns"—there was literally confusion over whether he resigned (quit) or re-signed (renewed his contract). One hopes that better sources—actual newspaper articles, not newspaper blogs, newspaper blogs over hobbyist blog, hobbyist blogs over quickly composed tweets, etc.
Anyway, it was all bullshit lies, and frankly fairly obvious ones. There were many reports of WMDs being found, thanks mainly to very sensitive field equipment offering false positives. This is how field equipment should work, by the way: much better to be safe than sorry. Subsequent testing generally showed the detected WMD caches, factories etc. were nothing of the sort, but follow-up news stories never quite got the attention of the initial reports. I'll never forget a thread on the off-topic/politics section of old Horror Writers Association board, in which not only did someone wish that the next anti-war protest I attended would itself be attacked by WMD-sporting terrorists (sort of a dumb tactic on their part) but who responded one time just with:
HA!
which led to a link to one of the stories that WMDs had been detected, which a week later turned out to be another false positive.
Of course, old WMDs were found—this is old news. From 2004, A roadside bomb thought to contain deadly sarin nerve agent exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday. It was believed to be the first confirmed discovery of any of the banned weapons that the United States cited in making its case for the Iraq war. It wasn't even clear whether the creators of this IED knew what the shell they had repurposed and rigged to a roadside bomb even was.
It's not unusual to this day to hear people say that of course Iraq had been producing tons of WMDs but they just...went to Syria, were really well-hidden that that that [descent into weird conspiracy theories].
A decade later, The New York Times has a lengthy report on the soldiers who encountered similar 1980s-early 1990s era WMDs, almost none of which were of local manufacture. Sources in the article suggest that the US kept this quiet because the revelations would have been embarrassing.
Honestly, the US needn't have worried. The convinced are rarely moved by mere evidence. This isn't a political issue, mind you. The folks at The American Conservative understood the Times article well enough. Meanwhile, on Facebook, let us hear from the equally right-wing "Joe the Plumber" (link here, screencap below, because FB links seem to go wonky sometimes)
Luckily, many of the comments on Joe the Plumber's Facebook suggest that Joe actually read the article, but there are also as many crowing about the revelation, or going on about commies and socialists, etc. Not everyone needs to be a fool, you just need enough fools to create a population of reasonable-sounding dupes.
One thing I always look for these days online is this: is the blogger, or tweeter, or whatever-er actually reading that which forms the basis of his or her comment? It's a challenge, since many people will link to a tumblr that links to a blog that summarized a news site that posted an article that collected some links and appropriated tweets for their quotes instead of actually asking anyone anything. Not only does the game of telephone ruin things, not only does Reinforcement Theory compel people to pick and choose what actually goes from their eye holes into the brains, but often what's actually being reported barely exists. Another favorite of mine is from a few years later, during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a story about the Astrodome, in the seventeenth paragraph, we're told that, back at the Superdome in New Orleans One ambulance official [that is, a person working for a private ambulance company—NK] overseeing the airlift rescue operations said a gunshot was fired at a military helicopter over the Superdome before daybreak was picked up by the wires, and by the time The Navy Times got to the story, a headline: Military helicopters dodge bullets over Superdome. PS: story was bullshit.
So when I look online these days, I not only always remind myself to read closely* but to see whether or not the commenters/posters/bloggers/journalists are themselves reading closely. Most often, they're not.
*Of course, it is possible to read too closely, especially when dealing with amateur or hobbyist publications, where language is often used loosely. I remember years ago, a weird debate that emerged over the headline "Shawn Michaels Resigns"—there was literally confusion over whether he resigned (quit) or re-signed (renewed his contract). One hopes that better sources—actual newspaper articles, not newspaper blogs, newspaper blogs over hobbyist blog, hobbyist blogs over quickly composed tweets, etc.
October 14, 2014
Buk Stuff
Oliver is scuttling away too much to get pictures of him with the new books as they come in, so here is one with good ol' Kazzie:
That's Streets of Shadows, an anthology of noir/urban fantasy. (I'd actually call most of it medium-boiled.) It includes my story "Der Kommisar's In Town", which is about Occupy and psychogeography. Well, basically.
Also, here is the table of contents for the forthcoming The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk, which is a mixed anthology of reprints and original material:
“The Little Dog Ohori” by Anatoly Belilovsky
“In Lieu of a Thank You” by Gwynne Garfinkle, Strange Horizons
“Blood and Gold” by Erin Hartshorn
“Thief of Hearts” by Trent Hergenrader
“Rolling Steel: A Pre-Apocalyptic Love Story” by Jay Lake & Shannon Page, Clarkesworld
“Black Sunday” by Kim Lakin-Smith, Cyber Circus
“Act of Extermination” by Cirilo S. Lemos, translated by Christopher Kastensmidt, Dieselpunks
“We Never Sleep” by Nick Mamatas (Hey, it's me!)
“Into the Sky” by Joseph Ng
“Tunnel Vision” by Rachel Nussbaum
“Dragonfire is Brighter than the Ten Thousand Stars” by Mark Philps
“Cosmobotica” by Tony Pi
“Floodgate” by Dan Rabarts
“Mountains of Green” by Catherine Schaff-Stump
“Vast Wings Across Felonious Skies” by E. Catherine Tobler
“Instead of a Loving Heart” by Jeremiah Tolbert, All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories
“The Wings The Lungs, The Engine The Heart” by Laurie Tom, Galaxy’s Edge
“Steel Dragons of a Luminous Sky” by Brian Trent
“This Evening’s Performance” by Genevieve Valentine
“Don Quixote” by Carrie Vaughn, Armored
“The Double Bind” by A.C. Wise
My novelette, "We Never Sleep", is a thematic sequel of sorts to my 2012 story "Arbeitskraft", which was widely reprinted. So if you liked that one, you might like this one. I'm also pleased to note that only one story in this Sean Wallace-edited anthology has a title with a bunch of commas in it, so perhaps our long aesthetic nightmare is finally coming to an end.
That's Streets of Shadows, an anthology of noir/urban fantasy. (I'd actually call most of it medium-boiled.) It includes my story "Der Kommisar's In Town", which is about Occupy and psychogeography. Well, basically.
Also, here is the table of contents for the forthcoming The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk, which is a mixed anthology of reprints and original material:
“The Little Dog Ohori” by Anatoly Belilovsky
“In Lieu of a Thank You” by Gwynne Garfinkle, Strange Horizons
“Blood and Gold” by Erin Hartshorn
“Thief of Hearts” by Trent Hergenrader
“Rolling Steel: A Pre-Apocalyptic Love Story” by Jay Lake & Shannon Page, Clarkesworld
“Black Sunday” by Kim Lakin-Smith, Cyber Circus
“Act of Extermination” by Cirilo S. Lemos, translated by Christopher Kastensmidt, Dieselpunks
“We Never Sleep” by Nick Mamatas (Hey, it's me!)
“Into the Sky” by Joseph Ng
“Tunnel Vision” by Rachel Nussbaum
“Dragonfire is Brighter than the Ten Thousand Stars” by Mark Philps
“Cosmobotica” by Tony Pi
“Floodgate” by Dan Rabarts
“Mountains of Green” by Catherine Schaff-Stump
“Vast Wings Across Felonious Skies” by E. Catherine Tobler
“Instead of a Loving Heart” by Jeremiah Tolbert, All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories
“The Wings The Lungs, The Engine The Heart” by Laurie Tom, Galaxy’s Edge
“Steel Dragons of a Luminous Sky” by Brian Trent
“This Evening’s Performance” by Genevieve Valentine
“Don Quixote” by Carrie Vaughn, Armored
“The Double Bind” by A.C. Wise
My novelette, "We Never Sleep", is a thematic sequel of sorts to my 2012 story "Arbeitskraft", which was widely reprinted. So if you liked that one, you might like this one. I'm also pleased to note that only one story in this Sean Wallace-edited anthology has a title with a bunch of commas in it, so perhaps our long aesthetic nightmare is finally coming to an end.
October 13, 2014
Nick Mamatas's Blog
- Nick Mamatas's profile
- 244 followers
Nick Mamatas isn't a Goodreads Author
(yet),
but they
do have a blog,
so here are some recent posts imported from
their feed.
