Nick Mamatas's Blog, page 31
September 3, 2014
All This Stuff and More
The latest number of The Big Click is out, featuring a rarity for us—a story with a police officer protagonist. We also have reviews, essays, a story by Jan Mantooth, and all that sort of thing. Buy an ebook copy to keep us in "business", or subscribe via Weightless Books. My main contribution this time was the cover photo:
It was taken at the lovely beer-and-burger-garden Telegraph Oakland. Sooo tasty.
The only "legit" source for the story of the missing Libyan airliners on the first page of Google results is this Daily Mail article and honestly the whole thing sounds like bullshit. (There is a neat video of militants using the very nice pool at the US Embassy though.) Not that the planes aren't "missing", but that the militants will, on 9/11, fuel, board, and fly them for use either as terror weapons or to infiltrate civilian airports. One, the militants are already winning—why do they need suicide runs? Two, 9/11 worked because the planes got into the air normally and were hijacked mid-flight. It's a lot harder to send a secret unscheduled airliner into the air and have it fly unnoticed for any period of time.
It's interesting to see which stories get picked up and which do not. I recently signed up for the Newsmax letter (to get "gold" for a Facebook game I ended up not playing much) and the remarkable thing to me is how closely this right-wing publication mirrors the left, including all sorts of dubious nutritional news about what to eat and what to avoid (e.g., tap water). There's also a lot of sound money junk being sold, and the ad copy for one book literally read, in part, "The point is, this guy is not a quack… a fear monger… or political extremist." Everyone thinks they're a moderate, of course.
This is obvious in the latest tempest over video games, and specifically the claims of journalistic "corruption"—most of which seems to fairly obviously be a function of small world syndrome, and the fact that service journalism for anything and everything has always been chockful of penny-ante circle-jerking. (I suppose these kids would be shocked to find out that in the world of books, novelists often write book reviews, promoting or attacking their own competition!!!!) Or in SF right now, there's literally serious debate over whether John Scalzi or Larry Correia sell more books. Who can tell overall given e-, audio etc., but I'll say this: Correia's last hardcover, out since the beginning of July, has Bookscanned 4842 copies. Scalzi's latest hardcover, out since yesterday, has Bookscanned 2,147. So, do the math, as we used to say. The market rules, unless political trickery means that it doesn't!
Why are our enemies always ever so possible, yet so completely obvious, eh?
It was taken at the lovely beer-and-burger-garden Telegraph Oakland. Sooo tasty.
The only "legit" source for the story of the missing Libyan airliners on the first page of Google results is this Daily Mail article and honestly the whole thing sounds like bullshit. (There is a neat video of militants using the very nice pool at the US Embassy though.) Not that the planes aren't "missing", but that the militants will, on 9/11, fuel, board, and fly them for use either as terror weapons or to infiltrate civilian airports. One, the militants are already winning—why do they need suicide runs? Two, 9/11 worked because the planes got into the air normally and were hijacked mid-flight. It's a lot harder to send a secret unscheduled airliner into the air and have it fly unnoticed for any period of time.
It's interesting to see which stories get picked up and which do not. I recently signed up for the Newsmax letter (to get "gold" for a Facebook game I ended up not playing much) and the remarkable thing to me is how closely this right-wing publication mirrors the left, including all sorts of dubious nutritional news about what to eat and what to avoid (e.g., tap water). There's also a lot of sound money junk being sold, and the ad copy for one book literally read, in part, "The point is, this guy is not a quack… a fear monger… or political extremist." Everyone thinks they're a moderate, of course.
This is obvious in the latest tempest over video games, and specifically the claims of journalistic "corruption"—most of which seems to fairly obviously be a function of small world syndrome, and the fact that service journalism for anything and everything has always been chockful of penny-ante circle-jerking. (I suppose these kids would be shocked to find out that in the world of books, novelists often write book reviews, promoting or attacking their own competition!!!!) Or in SF right now, there's literally serious debate over whether John Scalzi or Larry Correia sell more books. Who can tell overall given e-, audio etc., but I'll say this: Correia's last hardcover, out since the beginning of July, has Bookscanned 4842 copies. Scalzi's latest hardcover, out since yesterday, has Bookscanned 2,147. So, do the math, as we used to say. The market rules, unless political trickery means that it doesn't!
Why are our enemies always ever so possible, yet so completely obvious, eh?
August 29, 2014
Some Hells
There are innumerable hells in which a writer can find himself or herself, and no heavens at all. Sick narcissists don't deserve heaven, after all, and there's a gateway to hell on every page someone might write. I suppose the following list can be seen as yet another set of "tips" or "writing advice", but this list is not meant as advice. If anything, it is a map, created by a wide-ranging reader and often-frustrated teacher. Heaven is not on this map, and worse, it is the sort of map that needs to be read while still folded up as often writers exist simultaneously in several locations at once.
And now, some hells.
They get worse as they go.
The Hell of Sighs and Cringing is where many aspiring writers go. Their stories are all finger-wagging or unsophisticated revenge tales. Stop doing that, they hiss at the reader, but they are the ones who should stop. There is never a need for a story about the importance of fair-dealing, or that serves to make valid the claim that good fences make good neighbors, or that one should always be true in romantic relationships, or never molest children. These stories cannot persuade readers who love molesting children or cheating cashiers at the grocery store, and those readers who agree with these theme don't need to read them. The road to this hell is a hope for a just universe, and perversely these very inadequate writers think that if the universe were just, they'd be its God. In the very depths of this hell some very experienced and acclaimed writers are frozen in ice, moaning that it is so unfair that the novel is superfluous to the culture. Let me tell you this, my child and my children: get down on your knees and thank Jesus that the novel is culturally superfluous, and that these monsters are encased in black glaciers of futility and uselessness forever.
The Hell With No Exit is definitionally inescapable—no hell is escapable, but this is the hell of failing to escape via escape. All fiction is "escapist" on some level—even weighty classics or experimental fiction promise escape from our personal problems (which lack thematic resonance and thus a sense of importance) and from the gray world of sense-making respectively. Writers are readers initially, and often especially enjoy the sense of escape reading offers. Their writing is designed to cultivate that escape...but writers cannot escape a prison any more than a live-in warden can. Even on vacation the warden is still thinking about his responsibilities back home. In the hell of escape, there is no escape. These writers obsess over their settings or characters, fetishizing them—making them ever stronger, which just makes the prison walls thicker. Attempting to get ones creations to approach some "reality" won't allow a writer to escape into it as their work will never be real, and once in this hell they can never escape from it.
The Hell of Being Covered in Scar Tissue These writers can't help but pick at their scabs—the injuries of early childhood, of their seminal (and semenal!) sexual experiences, or even (the poor dears) the trauma of memories of the first good books they ever read. Their writing is the expression of a grudge, and even lacks the social sanction of moral instruction. The grudge can never fade, the wounds never fully heal. The writers make sure of that, by raking their nails over their skin purposefully, in order to stay hurt and stay writing. In this hell, the scarring is truly permanent, as it can outlive the writer's own flesh. Why do writers drink? Not to numb the pain of life, or of their special awareness—it's anesthesia for daily self-administered anti-cosmetic surgery with rusty scalpels. Self-loathing is a powerful emotion; if you don't start off as ugly and as foul as you think you are, you'll be sure to end up that way in this hell.
The Hell of Idiot Slavery is the home of many successful writers, especially those pre-occupied with story. The more sophisticated, but no more intelligent, denizens of his flaming hell may call it "Story" or "narrative", but they all just mean the same thing: stuff happens so that readers can be happy. Dumb readers, usually. In this hell, there is only one story, and on some level everyone knows it—that's why they speak of "the story" and not "stories." Stephen King attempted to escape this hell once, but instead found himself shouting at a catering hall full of other authors during the National Book Awards as though addressing resentful high school students in a Maine classroom. What did he see in his hell that drove him so mad? Simple—he thought he was in another, better hell, picking his scabs, but he wasn't. Story is like being chained to an oar, rowing a boat through a dead sea, only to one day realize that the drums have stopped, the overseer has abandoned ship, and the hold was always empty anyway, but you row on because you are still chained and there is nothing else to do except wait to starve. Then you recall that you had bought a passenger ticket and put the chains on your wrists and ankles yourself, for fun.
The Hell of Endless Vomit Here, you never eat, you only spew. The "food" is inserted anally, and roughly, on a continuous basis via some devilish and rubbery reverse-enema kit. Here are the writers of what used to be called "potboilers", and also of instructional material, ten-dollar joke books (like this one), spam e-mail advertising copy, press releases for cigarette companies, scripts for industrial films about electroplating, and the like. Once, this was a higher hell, because sometimes the potboiler or instructional guide actually did pay enough to allow one to write one's good novel. However, all hells are full to bursting now, and as supply goes up and demand stays constant price falls and so all those damned to this hell can do is plant themselves on a tubular rubber spike, open their mouths, and aim streams of projectile vomit at one another, forever. It's all instructional guides, service journalism for tourists, and advertorials about boner pills. In the midst of the great plain of this hell, bombarded from every direction, are the writers whose writing-advice guides outsell their novels or poetry collections, and those to credit for some other writer's superior career.
The Hell of Being Tossed off a Cliff Forever These poor writers didn't even realize they were in hell until rough hands grabbed them, dragged them to the edge of the nice meadow in which they were having a picnic lunch with their agents and editors, and off they went. The cliff never ends, but the rocks and branches protruding from the cliff face get harder, sharper, and reach out to buffet limbs and bang heads. Though there is a constant rain of writers falling from the cliff and bouncing off the walls, every single writer thinks he's the only one in this hell. This is the hell of former best-sellers, cult authors whose work has fallen out of print, writers who cobble together unsuccessful self-publishing schemes in the hope of looking productive for the sake of a community college job, and all those people who published one short story or article in a decent venue one time. The mere fact of having formerly published doesn't bring one in to this hell; it's the continuing to write, or the giving it up, that sends writers here.
The Hell of The Spike In the Head Thousands of pages, all useless and stupid. Beginner mistakes, ossified and valorized for years. Some decent reading material on the shelves, maybe, but nothing in the brain. It may take years of people in this hell to decide that they are "ready" to submit their work, or take a course, or show their friends, and the spike in the head throbs and burns. When they're critiqued, it's an attack, when they're casually rejected, it's a lie. Every writer is a sick narcissist, but these are the worst of the lot, untreatable and incorrigible. What they see in their "mind" just isn't what is on the page. Writing is intuitive, but reading is supposedly an exercise in ruthless logic—they badger and browbeat and demand why why why they're not any good, cite chapter and verse (and imaginary conversations) that explains why their stuff really really is good and makes perfect sense. But the world won't listen. And worst of all, this hell is proof that Dante was wrong—one cannot descend or ascend. You may be in three hells, and you'll always be in three hells, but there is no way out.
And now, some hells.
They get worse as they go.
The Hell of Sighs and Cringing is where many aspiring writers go. Their stories are all finger-wagging or unsophisticated revenge tales. Stop doing that, they hiss at the reader, but they are the ones who should stop. There is never a need for a story about the importance of fair-dealing, or that serves to make valid the claim that good fences make good neighbors, or that one should always be true in romantic relationships, or never molest children. These stories cannot persuade readers who love molesting children or cheating cashiers at the grocery store, and those readers who agree with these theme don't need to read them. The road to this hell is a hope for a just universe, and perversely these very inadequate writers think that if the universe were just, they'd be its God. In the very depths of this hell some very experienced and acclaimed writers are frozen in ice, moaning that it is so unfair that the novel is superfluous to the culture. Let me tell you this, my child and my children: get down on your knees and thank Jesus that the novel is culturally superfluous, and that these monsters are encased in black glaciers of futility and uselessness forever.
The Hell With No Exit is definitionally inescapable—no hell is escapable, but this is the hell of failing to escape via escape. All fiction is "escapist" on some level—even weighty classics or experimental fiction promise escape from our personal problems (which lack thematic resonance and thus a sense of importance) and from the gray world of sense-making respectively. Writers are readers initially, and often especially enjoy the sense of escape reading offers. Their writing is designed to cultivate that escape...but writers cannot escape a prison any more than a live-in warden can. Even on vacation the warden is still thinking about his responsibilities back home. In the hell of escape, there is no escape. These writers obsess over their settings or characters, fetishizing them—making them ever stronger, which just makes the prison walls thicker. Attempting to get ones creations to approach some "reality" won't allow a writer to escape into it as their work will never be real, and once in this hell they can never escape from it.
The Hell of Being Covered in Scar Tissue These writers can't help but pick at their scabs—the injuries of early childhood, of their seminal (and semenal!) sexual experiences, or even (the poor dears) the trauma of memories of the first good books they ever read. Their writing is the expression of a grudge, and even lacks the social sanction of moral instruction. The grudge can never fade, the wounds never fully heal. The writers make sure of that, by raking their nails over their skin purposefully, in order to stay hurt and stay writing. In this hell, the scarring is truly permanent, as it can outlive the writer's own flesh. Why do writers drink? Not to numb the pain of life, or of their special awareness—it's anesthesia for daily self-administered anti-cosmetic surgery with rusty scalpels. Self-loathing is a powerful emotion; if you don't start off as ugly and as foul as you think you are, you'll be sure to end up that way in this hell.
The Hell of Idiot Slavery is the home of many successful writers, especially those pre-occupied with story. The more sophisticated, but no more intelligent, denizens of his flaming hell may call it "Story" or "narrative", but they all just mean the same thing: stuff happens so that readers can be happy. Dumb readers, usually. In this hell, there is only one story, and on some level everyone knows it—that's why they speak of "the story" and not "stories." Stephen King attempted to escape this hell once, but instead found himself shouting at a catering hall full of other authors during the National Book Awards as though addressing resentful high school students in a Maine classroom. What did he see in his hell that drove him so mad? Simple—he thought he was in another, better hell, picking his scabs, but he wasn't. Story is like being chained to an oar, rowing a boat through a dead sea, only to one day realize that the drums have stopped, the overseer has abandoned ship, and the hold was always empty anyway, but you row on because you are still chained and there is nothing else to do except wait to starve. Then you recall that you had bought a passenger ticket and put the chains on your wrists and ankles yourself, for fun.
The Hell of Endless Vomit Here, you never eat, you only spew. The "food" is inserted anally, and roughly, on a continuous basis via some devilish and rubbery reverse-enema kit. Here are the writers of what used to be called "potboilers", and also of instructional material, ten-dollar joke books (like this one), spam e-mail advertising copy, press releases for cigarette companies, scripts for industrial films about electroplating, and the like. Once, this was a higher hell, because sometimes the potboiler or instructional guide actually did pay enough to allow one to write one's good novel. However, all hells are full to bursting now, and as supply goes up and demand stays constant price falls and so all those damned to this hell can do is plant themselves on a tubular rubber spike, open their mouths, and aim streams of projectile vomit at one another, forever. It's all instructional guides, service journalism for tourists, and advertorials about boner pills. In the midst of the great plain of this hell, bombarded from every direction, are the writers whose writing-advice guides outsell their novels or poetry collections, and those to credit for some other writer's superior career.
The Hell of Being Tossed off a Cliff Forever These poor writers didn't even realize they were in hell until rough hands grabbed them, dragged them to the edge of the nice meadow in which they were having a picnic lunch with their agents and editors, and off they went. The cliff never ends, but the rocks and branches protruding from the cliff face get harder, sharper, and reach out to buffet limbs and bang heads. Though there is a constant rain of writers falling from the cliff and bouncing off the walls, every single writer thinks he's the only one in this hell. This is the hell of former best-sellers, cult authors whose work has fallen out of print, writers who cobble together unsuccessful self-publishing schemes in the hope of looking productive for the sake of a community college job, and all those people who published one short story or article in a decent venue one time. The mere fact of having formerly published doesn't bring one in to this hell; it's the continuing to write, or the giving it up, that sends writers here.
The Hell of The Spike In the Head Thousands of pages, all useless and stupid. Beginner mistakes, ossified and valorized for years. Some decent reading material on the shelves, maybe, but nothing in the brain. It may take years of people in this hell to decide that they are "ready" to submit their work, or take a course, or show their friends, and the spike in the head throbs and burns. When they're critiqued, it's an attack, when they're casually rejected, it's a lie. Every writer is a sick narcissist, but these are the worst of the lot, untreatable and incorrigible. What they see in their "mind" just isn't what is on the page. Writing is intuitive, but reading is supposedly an exercise in ruthless logic—they badger and browbeat and demand why why why they're not any good, cite chapter and verse (and imaginary conversations) that explains why their stuff really really is good and makes perfect sense. But the world won't listen. And worst of all, this hell is proof that Dante was wrong—one cannot descend or ascend. You may be in three hells, and you'll always be in three hells, but there is no way out.
August 27, 2014
Mind...MELT!
I am part of another SFSignal Mind Meld, this one on underrated authors. Only some of the answers were embarrassing: Joe Hill, Bulgakov, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. A current acclaimed bestseller with a movie coming out is not underrated. A writer whose big novel sells hundreds of copies every week in translation seventy years after his death is not underrated, a writer who is required reading sooner or later for hundreds of thousands of people is not underrated.
In other news, there are complaints of raping and killing in a best-selling series, and another best-seller mocking the pain of the world by naming his slim short story collection Trigger Warning (I bet you didn't realize that there were trigger warnings for "twee bullshit", eh?)
Funny ol' world, innit? There's nothing stopping these best-sellers from annoying sections of their audience; at this point outrage is part of the publicity machine. The problem is that most opinion-leaders read no more widely than most casual fans of reading—ten novels per annum, maybe. It's nearly impossible to have a major conversation about a book that isn't one of The Ten Chosen Books. Book pages generally won't review books 11 through 11,000, fans won't either rally around or denounce them, and so they tend to vanish. Thus, the denunciations of the Ten Books hardly matter—what are you gonna do, eh? Read something else? That none of your friends or twittermates have even heard of?
No, You Will Not.
No surprise then, that legendary figures and current popular authors show up when writers are asked to name the under-appreciated.
In other news, there are complaints of raping and killing in a best-selling series, and another best-seller mocking the pain of the world by naming his slim short story collection Trigger Warning (I bet you didn't realize that there were trigger warnings for "twee bullshit", eh?)
Funny ol' world, innit? There's nothing stopping these best-sellers from annoying sections of their audience; at this point outrage is part of the publicity machine. The problem is that most opinion-leaders read no more widely than most casual fans of reading—ten novels per annum, maybe. It's nearly impossible to have a major conversation about a book that isn't one of The Ten Chosen Books. Book pages generally won't review books 11 through 11,000, fans won't either rally around or denounce them, and so they tend to vanish. Thus, the denunciations of the Ten Books hardly matter—what are you gonna do, eh? Read something else? That none of your friends or twittermates have even heard of?
No, You Will Not.
No surprise then, that legendary figures and current popular authors show up when writers are asked to name the under-appreciated.
August 26, 2014
Here's a very interesting IMDB entry.
Bare bones right now, but more TK, including my Story credit.
Under My Roof.
Poster, that's what's up:
Under My Roof.
Poster, that's what's up:
August 25, 2014
Monday Quick Notes
It's been a lot of quick notes entries of late. The trend will probably break this week. But for new, the New York Times writes:
There is, again, no sign that Brown did anything in his encounter with the police offer who shot him six times that suggests he deserved to be killed. The story about the officer's blown-out eye socket was false (which was obvious to anyone who saw the video of him walking around Brown's body) so what happened? The Times would suggest that some of Brown's rap lyrics were not sufficiently contemplative. You heard it here first, black men! If you're not the fat guy from PM Dawn, you deserve to die:
In other news, my friend Neal Fletcher tagged me to participate in the ALS ice bucket challenge. Current temp is 57 degrees, and we're in a drought, so I was pleased to pay up. Some people think the idea is a dumb one, but it raised $80 million so far, over $2.5 million for the same period last year.
This weekend I received my contributor copy of Gargoyle Magazine #61, which includes the "retirement story" I read at KGB Bar back in January 2013, "Slice of Life." Whatever happened to that retirement? Well, let's just say that in February 2013, Olivia announced her pregnancy with my lovely son Oliver. I have managed to resist going to most SF conventions and have stayed out of most of the controversies, thanks partially to the pessure valve of subtweeting. Anyway, Gargoyle is an annual with over 400 pages of stuff, including stories by Trevor Dodge, Kit Reed, and Rafael Alvarez.
I did, however, whip up this Storify for the curious this weekend: How To Be Nominated For, and Win, a Hugo Award.
There is, again, no sign that Brown did anything in his encounter with the police offer who shot him six times that suggests he deserved to be killed. The story about the officer's blown-out eye socket was false (which was obvious to anyone who saw the video of him walking around Brown's body) so what happened? The Times would suggest that some of Brown's rap lyrics were not sufficiently contemplative. You heard it here first, black men! If you're not the fat guy from PM Dawn, you deserve to die:
In other news, my friend Neal Fletcher tagged me to participate in the ALS ice bucket challenge. Current temp is 57 degrees, and we're in a drought, so I was pleased to pay up. Some people think the idea is a dumb one, but it raised $80 million so far, over $2.5 million for the same period last year.
This weekend I received my contributor copy of Gargoyle Magazine #61, which includes the "retirement story" I read at KGB Bar back in January 2013, "Slice of Life." Whatever happened to that retirement? Well, let's just say that in February 2013, Olivia announced her pregnancy with my lovely son Oliver. I have managed to resist going to most SF conventions and have stayed out of most of the controversies, thanks partially to the pessure valve of subtweeting. Anyway, Gargoyle is an annual with over 400 pages of stuff, including stories by Trevor Dodge, Kit Reed, and Rafael Alvarez.
I did, however, whip up this Storify for the curious this weekend: How To Be Nominated For, and Win, a Hugo Award.
August 20, 2014
Up All Night
Twitter remains fascinating for conversational speed, from the events in Missouri to a local campaign against an Israeli boat docking at the Port of Oakland to some guy's meltdown over his cheating girlfriend and what it supposedly means for "journalistic integrity" among video game websites (hint: nothing, it means nothing). I've been on Twitter for a few years now, but it never really attracted my attention as completely as it has before. I suppose I finally found the right mix of people to follow for the sort of breaking news and breaking gossip in which I am interested.
Not too much else to report: Letters to Lovecraft is up for pre-order. It's yet another anthology of Lovecraftian fiction, and the gimmick this time is that the authors all flipped through Supernatural Horror in Literature and found something in it to respond to in a work of fiction. My story "The Semi-Finished Basement" is a reaction to the line "...a diluted product can never achieve the intensity of a concentrated essence." The book also includes work by:
Brian Evenson
Nadia Bulkin
Paul Tremblay
Livia Llewellyn
Stephen Graham Jones
Tim Lebbon
Cameron Pierce
Asamatsu Ken
Jeffrey Ford
Angela Slatter
Gemma Files
Chesya Burke
Orrin Grey
David Yale Ardanuy
Kirsten Alene
Robin D. Laws
Molly Tanzer
(I presume this is the order of the ToC.) Anyway, of interest is that the publisher sells print/ebook bundles: you can get both from Stone Skin Press for $13.99 and cut out all vampiric middlemen.
Not too much else to report: Letters to Lovecraft is up for pre-order. It's yet another anthology of Lovecraftian fiction, and the gimmick this time is that the authors all flipped through Supernatural Horror in Literature and found something in it to respond to in a work of fiction. My story "The Semi-Finished Basement" is a reaction to the line "...a diluted product can never achieve the intensity of a concentrated essence." The book also includes work by:
Brian Evenson
Nadia Bulkin
Paul Tremblay
Livia Llewellyn
Stephen Graham Jones
Tim Lebbon
Cameron Pierce
Asamatsu Ken
Jeffrey Ford
Angela Slatter
Gemma Files
Chesya Burke
Orrin Grey
David Yale Ardanuy
Kirsten Alene
Robin D. Laws
Molly Tanzer
(I presume this is the order of the ToC.) Anyway, of interest is that the publisher sells print/ebook bundles: you can get both from Stone Skin Press for $13.99 and cut out all vampiric middlemen.
August 18, 2014
National Guard to Ferguson
FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has ordered the National Guard to Ferguson to help restore order to the St. Louis suburb after a week of sometimes-violent protests over the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black teenager.
Nixon made the announcement in statement issued early Monday after another night of clashes between police and protesters in Ferguson.
This will almost certainly "work", though if it doesn't, it's pretty much over for Governor Nixon and everyone else involved in trying to suppress the protests. There's significant on-the-ground organizing and nowhere else for people to go, so it will be interesting to see what happens. Will the Guard ultimately just fire live ammo into a crowd? At this point, it is not beyond imagining, even if it remains somewhat unlikely.
Nixon made the announcement in statement issued early Monday after another night of clashes between police and protesters in Ferguson.
This will almost certainly "work", though if it doesn't, it's pretty much over for Governor Nixon and everyone else involved in trying to suppress the protests. There's significant on-the-ground organizing and nowhere else for people to go, so it will be interesting to see what happens. Will the Guard ultimately just fire live ammo into a crowd? At this point, it is not beyond imagining, even if it remains somewhat unlikely.
August 13, 2014
Blogging is too slow.
Get yourself a Twitter account.
#ferguson
#ferguson
More junk for you to read.
I'm on the "Geek Pride" (ugh) blog of Psychology Today, talking about being a failure. The headline, "On Success and Failure", is not mine. This is a failure-only personal essay!
The August Locus Magazine (not online, link leads to table of contents and purchase buttons) reviews my novel The Last Weekend, which is primarily a UK import only, but can be purchased from Borderlands Books or amazon.
I can't type in the whole thing, so here's a screencap of a snippet. Sorry if you're vision-impaired and can't read it, but the spoilers are that reviewer Tim Pratt really liked it, and that it is like John Fante's Ask the Dust, with zombies.
Sooo...there you go.
The August Locus Magazine (not online, link leads to table of contents and purchase buttons) reviews my novel The Last Weekend, which is primarily a UK import only, but can be purchased from Borderlands Books or amazon.
I can't type in the whole thing, so here's a screencap of a snippet. Sorry if you're vision-impaired and can't read it, but the spoilers are that reviewer Tim Pratt really liked it, and that it is like John Fante's Ask the Dust, with zombies.
Sooo...there you go.
August 12, 2014
Some stuff
Over at Haikasoru, we are running a giveaway contest for Phantasm Japan. Our last anthology, The Future Is Japanese was nominated for the Locus Award, contained the eventual Hugo Award-winning short story "Mono No Aware", featured the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated novelette "The Indifference Engine", and had four different stories reprinted in four different Year's Best annual anthologies. Why not get in on this fantastical follow-up on the ground floor and play today? You just need to write a teeny essay about your favorite short story.
I have some classes coming up. For people in the Bay Area, my Writing Salon class starts Saturday. Still time to sign up! Tell people!
And in a mere two days, my online class begins. You don't even need to be in the same room with me! Pretty cool, eh?
I have some classes coming up. For people in the Bay Area, my Writing Salon class starts Saturday. Still time to sign up! Tell people!
And in a mere two days, my online class begins. You don't even need to be in the same room with me! Pretty cool, eh?
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