Nick Mamatas's Blog, page 35
June 1, 2014
Jay Lake
Jay Lake and I were not close friends. Friendly acquaintances. We worked on a book together—the anthology Spicy Slipstream Stories—and after the first publisher fell through, he actually wrote checks for most of the contributor stories. I think I paid for two people's stories, and subsequent to that just had the publisher send my half of the royalties (there were some!) right to Jay.
When Jay was the Guest of Honor at BayCon and some attendee made an oblique threat to me (something along the lines of "You stay out of my way; I'll stay out of yours. You'd better not get in front of me at BayCon") Jay used his GoH powers to solve that problem.
Why weren't we closer friends? Partially it's because we were just very different. He loved all the trappings of skiffy—strategizing for success in fandom (in his case, writing a new story every week and submitting to semi-pro magazines to achieve ubiquity), Hawaiian shirts and trading footrubs with fans and goofball rituals and using the term "worldbuilding" without immediately snorting and rolling one's eyes—and all that stuff makes me want to hang myself.
He was also the sort of liberal who that radicals of my sort don't get along with—a little too open to this or that dumb idea. I didn't even follow his LJ, though he followed mine.
Ultimately, the issue is mine: I'm just not very friendly.
He was very prolific, especially given his short fiction strategy, and what I liked and what he liked didn't often coincide. My favorite piece of his is this novella, which is not otherwise widely acclaimed.
But I liked Jay a lot. I liked what I called, to myself, Real Jay, as opposed to Skiffy Jay. Real Jay was thoughtful, entirely unmercenary with his time, attention, and willingness to help people, his enthusiasm for the creative efforts of others, and his interest in a secular philosophical pragmatism. Skiffy Jay had all this stuff too, but Real Jay was more interesting, more thoughtful, and always a pleasure to be around. When we slipped away from one of those big con dinners to have a little dinner; when we found ourselves standing in Borderlands Books right before one of his events before anyone else had shown up, in little notes here and there—that was Real Jay.
Of course, we all contain multitudes. My Real Jay isn't the Real Jay of his daughter, or his exes, or his close friends, or his doctors. But we all, over the past few years, got to see Real Jay come out.
Some disagreed with Jay's decision to extend his life rather than preserve the quality of his life, but I think his interest in science and his hope to see his child grow up—for another year, for another month, for another moment—and his desire to help people drove him to put himself through all those experimental regimens so that the people of the future might be free of cancer. That's a very good thing to do with one's life. That's the Real Jay I knew.
May his memory be eternal.
Information about donating to a medical fund is here.
When Jay was the Guest of Honor at BayCon and some attendee made an oblique threat to me (something along the lines of "You stay out of my way; I'll stay out of yours. You'd better not get in front of me at BayCon") Jay used his GoH powers to solve that problem.
Why weren't we closer friends? Partially it's because we were just very different. He loved all the trappings of skiffy—strategizing for success in fandom (in his case, writing a new story every week and submitting to semi-pro magazines to achieve ubiquity), Hawaiian shirts and trading footrubs with fans and goofball rituals and using the term "worldbuilding" without immediately snorting and rolling one's eyes—and all that stuff makes me want to hang myself.
He was also the sort of liberal who that radicals of my sort don't get along with—a little too open to this or that dumb idea. I didn't even follow his LJ, though he followed mine.
Ultimately, the issue is mine: I'm just not very friendly.
He was very prolific, especially given his short fiction strategy, and what I liked and what he liked didn't often coincide. My favorite piece of his is this novella, which is not otherwise widely acclaimed.
But I liked Jay a lot. I liked what I called, to myself, Real Jay, as opposed to Skiffy Jay. Real Jay was thoughtful, entirely unmercenary with his time, attention, and willingness to help people, his enthusiasm for the creative efforts of others, and his interest in a secular philosophical pragmatism. Skiffy Jay had all this stuff too, but Real Jay was more interesting, more thoughtful, and always a pleasure to be around. When we slipped away from one of those big con dinners to have a little dinner; when we found ourselves standing in Borderlands Books right before one of his events before anyone else had shown up, in little notes here and there—that was Real Jay.
Of course, we all contain multitudes. My Real Jay isn't the Real Jay of his daughter, or his exes, or his close friends, or his doctors. But we all, over the past few years, got to see Real Jay come out.
Some disagreed with Jay's decision to extend his life rather than preserve the quality of his life, but I think his interest in science and his hope to see his child grow up—for another year, for another month, for another moment—and his desire to help people drove him to put himself through all those experimental regimens so that the people of the future might be free of cancer. That's a very good thing to do with one's life. That's the Real Jay I knew.
May his memory be eternal.
Information about donating to a medical fund is here.
May 31, 2014
Back
As detailed earlier, there's been a lot of travel. A week ago, to Tampa. Monday, back to Cali. The baby held up extremely well. On Tuesday, Olivia's students—all of whom either have AS or other, similar, disorders—toured my workplace, so I got up earlier than usual to accompany them all. Wednesday morning, I flew to New York, met my sister and together we went to the Edge of Tomorrow premiere. When we stopped at the Starbucks near Lincoln Square, we got to see an authentic yuppie meltdown—a customer wanted milk in her drink. She didn't want to go to the bar and pour her own milk, she wanted milk in her drink. The manager, who had served her, was unimpressed with the problem, so customer and boyfriend started shouting "I want the name and number of your regional manager, now!" How about a refund? "No, you keep the money you CUNT, give me the name and number of your regional manager!" When that was not forthcoming, the pair called the police.
They called the police.
I don't like single-sentence paragraphs, but I didn't want you to miss that. They called the police, and the police came, looked around for about ten seconds, and left.
Edge of Tomorrow's NY premiere was the culmination of a three-nation stunt, so the film was set to begin at 11:59pm...the edge of tomorrow, get it? There was a black carpet, and Cruise showed up early, and he does seem to authentically like his fans. There was a fan appreciation event and two round-the-block riff-raff lines of people who just win tickets from radio stations and whatnot. Luckily, my sister and I were able to just swan past them and attend the 3D IMAX premiere, which had free popcorn and soda and Cruise, Emily Blunt, Doug Liman, and one of the producers showed up to say hello. I have an interest in the commercial success of the film, and so an extensive review here is inappropriate, but I will say that it was pretty good, and that I expect the very high Rotten Tomatoes score of 95% to hold more or less steady when the film hits theaters next week. I doubt it will dip down past 88% critical approval. At 3am, we were back at Off-Soho Suites, in an "economy" room. Basically OSS is apartments rented out in a hotel fashion; this one was a two-bedroom place but we shared the bathroom and kitchen with another guest. We saw nothing of them except for two pair of sneakers, one for men and for women, outside the locked door of their bedroom. Manhattan hotels!
On Thursday, I went briefly to Book Expo America, which is so obviously dying it isn't funny. There's no need for it anymore—everyone's catalogues are online. The first shoe dropped when it settled in NYC instead of traveling; people just weren't coming. At least now publishing people might split a cab to head out to 10th Avenue. The public-access part of the show, BookCon, will predominate in a few years, I bet. It's already gone from 1000 attendees to 10000 and everyone in the main show were holding back most of their ARCs and their best signings till Saturday. In BEAs past, I'd walk out with a huge bag of books and ARCs—good ones! This year I picked up all of four, two from Grove Atlantic, one cookbook-history-thing for my mother, and one book I had to beg for and only got because I a. wrote two successful books for the publisher and b. used to work with the publicist at my day job. Neil Patrick Harris's Choose-Your-Own-Adventure memoir was the big hit on Thursday, which says it all. I ended up evacuating to a nice Italian place a few blocks away with two friends, one of whom had an expense account (!) from the alternative weekly newspaper (!!) for which he reviews books (!!!). So for a moment it was 1993 all over again.
I actually got a more interesting book at the Penn Station Long Island Concourse bookstore—My Salinger Year. We live on a planet when a woman who was the assistant for Salinger's literary agent for a single year can write a memoir about it, and I'll buy it in hardcover, and enjoy it. (The book was an extended riff on her life and this essay if you want a taste.)
Thursday evening I headed out to Long Island to visit my family. I slept in for the first time in a week, saw a deer, had some lunch, and took the trip back to JFK, then got home at midnight. I would have stayed on Long Island longer but today my latest Writing Salon workshop begins—nine students!
I mentioned having to write several short stories. I finished two of the three I was aiming for (the last is due tomorrow) and one has sold. It was my first ever acceptance via telephone. Anyway, "Der Kommissar's In Town" will appear in the anthology Streets of Shadows. This was a Kickstarted anthology, but out of concern for both my mental health and his own physical well-being editor Maurice Broaddus only solicited my work after the Kickstarter funded.
Okay, time to pack for class. Oddly, this one has more male students than female, which is very unusual for a writing class. Will egos clash? Yes they will.
They called the police.
I don't like single-sentence paragraphs, but I didn't want you to miss that. They called the police, and the police came, looked around for about ten seconds, and left.
Edge of Tomorrow's NY premiere was the culmination of a three-nation stunt, so the film was set to begin at 11:59pm...the edge of tomorrow, get it? There was a black carpet, and Cruise showed up early, and he does seem to authentically like his fans. There was a fan appreciation event and two round-the-block riff-raff lines of people who just win tickets from radio stations and whatnot. Luckily, my sister and I were able to just swan past them and attend the 3D IMAX premiere, which had free popcorn and soda and Cruise, Emily Blunt, Doug Liman, and one of the producers showed up to say hello. I have an interest in the commercial success of the film, and so an extensive review here is inappropriate, but I will say that it was pretty good, and that I expect the very high Rotten Tomatoes score of 95% to hold more or less steady when the film hits theaters next week. I doubt it will dip down past 88% critical approval. At 3am, we were back at Off-Soho Suites, in an "economy" room. Basically OSS is apartments rented out in a hotel fashion; this one was a two-bedroom place but we shared the bathroom and kitchen with another guest. We saw nothing of them except for two pair of sneakers, one for men and for women, outside the locked door of their bedroom. Manhattan hotels!
On Thursday, I went briefly to Book Expo America, which is so obviously dying it isn't funny. There's no need for it anymore—everyone's catalogues are online. The first shoe dropped when it settled in NYC instead of traveling; people just weren't coming. At least now publishing people might split a cab to head out to 10th Avenue. The public-access part of the show, BookCon, will predominate in a few years, I bet. It's already gone from 1000 attendees to 10000 and everyone in the main show were holding back most of their ARCs and their best signings till Saturday. In BEAs past, I'd walk out with a huge bag of books and ARCs—good ones! This year I picked up all of four, two from Grove Atlantic, one cookbook-history-thing for my mother, and one book I had to beg for and only got because I a. wrote two successful books for the publisher and b. used to work with the publicist at my day job. Neil Patrick Harris's Choose-Your-Own-Adventure memoir was the big hit on Thursday, which says it all. I ended up evacuating to a nice Italian place a few blocks away with two friends, one of whom had an expense account (!) from the alternative weekly newspaper (!!) for which he reviews books (!!!). So for a moment it was 1993 all over again.
I actually got a more interesting book at the Penn Station Long Island Concourse bookstore—My Salinger Year. We live on a planet when a woman who was the assistant for Salinger's literary agent for a single year can write a memoir about it, and I'll buy it in hardcover, and enjoy it. (The book was an extended riff on her life and this essay if you want a taste.)
Thursday evening I headed out to Long Island to visit my family. I slept in for the first time in a week, saw a deer, had some lunch, and took the trip back to JFK, then got home at midnight. I would have stayed on Long Island longer but today my latest Writing Salon workshop begins—nine students!
I mentioned having to write several short stories. I finished two of the three I was aiming for (the last is due tomorrow) and one has sold. It was my first ever acceptance via telephone. Anyway, "Der Kommissar's In Town" will appear in the anthology Streets of Shadows. This was a Kickstarted anthology, but out of concern for both my mental health and his own physical well-being editor Maurice Broaddus only solicited my work after the Kickstarter funded.
Okay, time to pack for class. Oddly, this one has more male students than female, which is very unusual for a writing class. Will egos clash? Yes they will.
May 26, 2014
All these things and more...
My grandmother, who has dementia, was thrilled to meet her great-grandson for the first time yesterday, all seven first times she met him. She was also very upset the three times she asked where her husband, my grandfather who died last month, was. She recited one of the 500/800/1000 poems she wrote for the local community weekly a number of times. (When I put my boy to bed/I think of cute things he has said...) and in between those episodes and perseverations she was as funny, loving, clever and rhetorically aggressive as she ever was.
My grandmother always had a lot of stories about triumphing over bullies, bad employers, awful customers and the like. Recently, her home health aid, who works part time as mostly my aunts and uncles care for my grandmother, told my grandmother that her son Peter would be late getting home late so she'd stay.
"But your shift is over, you have to go home," my grandmother said.
"No, I'll go home later," the aide said.
"No. You'll go home NOW!" my grandmother said. Then she went to the kitchen area, grabbed a rolling pin and started chasing the aide around with it. Horrific and sad, but honestly my grandmother would likely have gone for the rolling pin at any time in the past forty years.
In other news, the Alta Vista murder rampage was shocking and upsetting. Frustrations are obviously boiling over, but I think some people are making a mistake in discounting the role of mental/neurological problems. Yes, plenty of people with mental issues don't go on rampages but it is also true that plenty of misogynist loser virgins just spend their lives fuming online and building Gundam scale models and never hurt anybody. I've seen people complain that only white* men get to be labeled mentally ill when they commit such shootings, which as far as I am concerned is equal to taking a big old shit on the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre.
Back after 9/11, the left warned that the term "terrorist" would be radically expanded and indeed this is what happened. The discussion of mental illness v. terrorism has come up before on this blog as well. But the difference between terror and rampage is obvious: Blanquism/focism/leaderless resistance/Jihad**/propaganda by the deed are all sets of fairly coherent political frameworks for militant action/terror. Whether one agrees with them tactically or politically is besides the point. PUAhate.com is not the IRA or the Weather Underground or even Stormfront. If one's violence is politically motivated and involves terror, as opposed to mere sabotage, then the terror label is appropriate, even if one also has mental or neurological problems. If there is no real political framework and political goal, it's not terrorism. Going along with the received idea to categorize every violence as terrorism it itself an argument from privilege, specifically the middle class privilege of participating in the political mainstream without having to even peacefully step outside of it.
Mental illness doesn't excuse violence, nor is noting it a way of expressing sympathy for a killer. I cannot help but notice that many of the people on Twitter objecting to the idea that this murderer was mentally ill have also objected in the past to anyone suggesting that the many Internet-borne self-diagnoses of ADHD, PTSD, AS, and even otherkinism might be inaccurate. In the real world, mental illness is not a Get Out of Jail (or Criticism) Free card. Even insanity pleas, which have little to do with mental illness, rarely keep anyone out of prison.
Finally, speaking of the failures of the left, good job Europe. Funny how in the US the Tea Party often accuses liberals of wanting to make America more like Europe. and it is true that plenty of liberals dream gently of Sweden while dutifully voting for Clinton or Obama like dutiful simpletons. But Europe is on the verge of an extreme rightward shift, and this is due to the failure of the left to articulate an alternative to moribund and bureaucratized social democracy, and the politics of austerity. It wasn't the fault of the BBC or the lack of rigor in prosecuting "hate speech", or the European phalange on the Koch Bros, it is a failure of the leftist imagination, and of course the tendency of the left itself to protect the rapists and crooks in its ranks.
*The murderer in this case was mixed race and expressed a lot of anxiety and abjection over it, actually. But why stop a good meme with facts?
**in the particular sense; jihad means many other things.
***Typing on an iPad mini. There may be substantial edits to this entry.
My grandmother always had a lot of stories about triumphing over bullies, bad employers, awful customers and the like. Recently, her home health aid, who works part time as mostly my aunts and uncles care for my grandmother, told my grandmother that her son Peter would be late getting home late so she'd stay.
"But your shift is over, you have to go home," my grandmother said.
"No, I'll go home later," the aide said.
"No. You'll go home NOW!" my grandmother said. Then she went to the kitchen area, grabbed a rolling pin and started chasing the aide around with it. Horrific and sad, but honestly my grandmother would likely have gone for the rolling pin at any time in the past forty years.
In other news, the Alta Vista murder rampage was shocking and upsetting. Frustrations are obviously boiling over, but I think some people are making a mistake in discounting the role of mental/neurological problems. Yes, plenty of people with mental issues don't go on rampages but it is also true that plenty of misogynist loser virgins just spend their lives fuming online and building Gundam scale models and never hurt anybody. I've seen people complain that only white* men get to be labeled mentally ill when they commit such shootings, which as far as I am concerned is equal to taking a big old shit on the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre.
Back after 9/11, the left warned that the term "terrorist" would be radically expanded and indeed this is what happened. The discussion of mental illness v. terrorism has come up before on this blog as well. But the difference between terror and rampage is obvious: Blanquism/focism/leaderless resistance/Jihad**/propaganda by the deed are all sets of fairly coherent political frameworks for militant action/terror. Whether one agrees with them tactically or politically is besides the point. PUAhate.com is not the IRA or the Weather Underground or even Stormfront. If one's violence is politically motivated and involves terror, as opposed to mere sabotage, then the terror label is appropriate, even if one also has mental or neurological problems. If there is no real political framework and political goal, it's not terrorism. Going along with the received idea to categorize every violence as terrorism it itself an argument from privilege, specifically the middle class privilege of participating in the political mainstream without having to even peacefully step outside of it.
Mental illness doesn't excuse violence, nor is noting it a way of expressing sympathy for a killer. I cannot help but notice that many of the people on Twitter objecting to the idea that this murderer was mentally ill have also objected in the past to anyone suggesting that the many Internet-borne self-diagnoses of ADHD, PTSD, AS, and even otherkinism might be inaccurate. In the real world, mental illness is not a Get Out of Jail (or Criticism) Free card. Even insanity pleas, which have little to do with mental illness, rarely keep anyone out of prison.
Finally, speaking of the failures of the left, good job Europe. Funny how in the US the Tea Party often accuses liberals of wanting to make America more like Europe. and it is true that plenty of liberals dream gently of Sweden while dutifully voting for Clinton or Obama like dutiful simpletons. But Europe is on the verge of an extreme rightward shift, and this is due to the failure of the left to articulate an alternative to moribund and bureaucratized social democracy, and the politics of austerity. It wasn't the fault of the BBC or the lack of rigor in prosecuting "hate speech", or the European phalange on the Koch Bros, it is a failure of the leftist imagination, and of course the tendency of the left itself to protect the rapists and crooks in its ranks.
*The murderer in this case was mixed race and expressed a lot of anxiety and abjection over it, actually. But why stop a good meme with facts?
**in the particular sense; jihad means many other things.
***Typing on an iPad mini. There may be substantial edits to this entry.
May 22, 2014
Edge of Tomorrow
I'm going to the New York premiere of Edge of Tomorrow, which promises to be semi-exhausting as I am going to Tampa this weekend. There are no direct flights from the Bay to Tampa, so Saturday and Monday will be consumed by travel, and Sunday by seeing my grandmother and missing my grandfather. Oliver and Olivia, are coming, of course. On Tuesday, Olivia's class is coming to my workplace for a tour. Wednesday I leave for NY, see the movie at midnight, and then wake up on Thursday and go to BEA. Then to Long Island to see my folks, then I fly back out to Cali on Friday because my next Writing Salon class starts on Saturday.
I also have...three stories to finish by month's end? (I wrote one last week as well. Post-Oliver productivity continues to be low, but the time has come to write anyway.) I hope to finish one tonight or tomorrow. Another is 2000 words max and in a non-story form. The third...ugh.
And yet, all I can do is read early reviews for the movie, which are quite enthusiastic, though many of the are predicting some sort of bomb based on early tracking information. This doesn't matter to me materially—whatever success we'll have from the film at my day job, we've experienced anywhere from 70 to 90 percent of it already, but all the box-office handicapping is still a drag. There are a million speculative counteraguments and refutations, but nothing really matters until the 6th of June, a date I cannot even imagine experiencing thanks to the immediate travel and other deadlines right ahead of me.
Anyway, the reviews make the movie—of which I've only seen about fifteen minutes, all of it from the first thirty and last ten minutes—seem pretty interesting. If you were thinking about checking it out, check it out. If you were worried about giving money to Scientology...well, I don't blame you. I'm seeing this shit for free, yo!
I also have...three stories to finish by month's end? (I wrote one last week as well. Post-Oliver productivity continues to be low, but the time has come to write anyway.) I hope to finish one tonight or tomorrow. Another is 2000 words max and in a non-story form. The third...ugh.
And yet, all I can do is read early reviews for the movie, which are quite enthusiastic, though many of the are predicting some sort of bomb based on early tracking information. This doesn't matter to me materially—whatever success we'll have from the film at my day job, we've experienced anywhere from 70 to 90 percent of it already, but all the box-office handicapping is still a drag. There are a million speculative counteraguments and refutations, but nothing really matters until the 6th of June, a date I cannot even imagine experiencing thanks to the immediate travel and other deadlines right ahead of me.
Anyway, the reviews make the movie—of which I've only seen about fifteen minutes, all of it from the first thirty and last ten minutes—seem pretty interesting. If you were thinking about checking it out, check it out. If you were worried about giving money to Scientology...well, I don't blame you. I'm seeing this shit for free, yo!
May 21, 2014
Science Fiction
For years people have cried out, "Save us!"
From what?
"From Orson Scott Card! From Hitchhiker's Guide! They've been the bestsellers for decades!"
But you like those books. That's why you keep buying them, isn't it?
"It's been thirty years! Help! Save us from the Star Wars tie-ins! Give us something new! Please please please save science fiction! Save us from ourselves!
And I said...
Okay.
That's right, Edge of Tomorrow is the number one science fiction title in the US according to Bookscan.
Any bets on when was the last time either a work in translation, or a work by a person of color got the top spot? (Hint: the movie tie-in edition of Solaris doesn't seem to have had an inexpensive mass market edition.)
So now if you'd just buy the All You Need Is Kill graphic novel, that would be sweet.
From what?
"From Orson Scott Card! From Hitchhiker's Guide! They've been the bestsellers for decades!"
But you like those books. That's why you keep buying them, isn't it?
"It's been thirty years! Help! Save us from the Star Wars tie-ins! Give us something new! Please please please save science fiction! Save us from ourselves!
And I said...
Okay.
That's right, Edge of Tomorrow is the number one science fiction title in the US according to Bookscan.
Any bets on when was the last time either a work in translation, or a work by a person of color got the top spot? (Hint: the movie tie-in edition of Solaris doesn't seem to have had an inexpensive mass market edition.)
So now if you'd just buy the All You Need Is Kill graphic novel, that would be sweet.
May 15, 2014
Phew!
New version of Livejournal! Luckily, I found the "Switch Back to Old Version" button right away. I really recommend pressing that button.
Anyway, Oliver has always reminded me of someone. Obviously, he's supposed to look a bit like me and a bit like Olivia, and of course also resembles our other relatives. But...
There was someone else, somewhere deep in my brain. Thanks to True Detective I found it. If you're on Twitter you might know the #TrueDetectiveSeason2 hashtag, in which people post photos of two people to comically suggest that they will be playing the detectives in the next season. (The rumor is that next season will be all different characters; whether that really means different actors remains to be seen.) Anyway, my sister posted this photo to the tag yesterday.
That's him. Little Ricky from I Love Lucy! Something about the cheeks and chin, I think.
A great mental mystery has been solved. Thanks, detectives!
Anyway, Oliver has always reminded me of someone. Obviously, he's supposed to look a bit like me and a bit like Olivia, and of course also resembles our other relatives. But...
There was someone else, somewhere deep in my brain. Thanks to True Detective I found it. If you're on Twitter you might know the #TrueDetectiveSeason2 hashtag, in which people post photos of two people to comically suggest that they will be playing the detectives in the next season. (The rumor is that next season will be all different characters; whether that really means different actors remains to be seen.) Anyway, my sister posted this photo to the tag yesterday.
That's him. Little Ricky from I Love Lucy! Something about the cheeks and chin, I think.
A great mental mystery has been solved. Thanks, detectives!
May 14, 2014
Some junk
The mass market paperback of Edge of Tomorrow came within 150 copies of being the number one science fiction novel in the country, according to Bookscan this week. If you've not bought it and are at all curious—the mass market is the original Japanese novel, not a novelization of the film—why not buy it now? Especially for the #weneeddiversebooks crowd! After all, when was the last time a work in translation was the number one SF title on Bookscan? (Hint: never happened.)
In related news, here's a brief interview with me about All You Need Is Kill: Graphic Novel. So far, amazoners in the UK like it and in the US not so much. Note: according to an aggrieved tweeter, the interview contains spoilers for the manga. Not the five-year-old novel. The manga on which it is based. Now I know why people say "Whatev" instead of "Whatever."
My latest class in the Bay Area is coming up in a couple of weeks: Nick Mamatas: Fabulous Fiction: Mysteries, Thrillers, Romance, Sci Fi, Fantasy & More. Perhaps worth noting is that class alumnus Rahul Kanakia just sold two books to Disney-Hyperion.
In related news, here's a brief interview with me about All You Need Is Kill: Graphic Novel. So far, amazoners in the UK like it and in the US not so much. Note: according to an aggrieved tweeter, the interview contains spoilers for the manga. Not the five-year-old novel. The manga on which it is based. Now I know why people say "Whatev" instead of "Whatever."
My latest class in the Bay Area is coming up in a couple of weeks: Nick Mamatas: Fabulous Fiction: Mysteries, Thrillers, Romance, Sci Fi, Fantasy & More. Perhaps worth noting is that class alumnus Rahul Kanakia just sold two books to Disney-Hyperion.
May 11, 2014
World Horror Convention 2014
But first, a moment of woo-hoo before the action begins: the queer Poe anthology Where Thy Dark Eye Glances has been nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award. It includes my story "Eureka!", which is basically about what happens to a young goth when he's not so young anymore. All that velvet doesn't expand along with an aging waistline. Please check the book out. And now, Portland Oregon's World Horror Convention, from which I've just returned.
When I signed up to attend WHC 2014 back in February 2013, I had the idea that I would just use it as an excuse to visit Portland. This was pre-baby and even pre-inkling-of-baby and everything, so it was a clever plan. Though I had little interest in WHC, WHC ended up having great interest in me. It was a very strange weekend, and I barely left the hotel.
I didn't have high hopes for the con, as a lot of early communications were snarled and there was actually little outreach to likely attendees. (Please shoot me if I ever use the phrase "horror community", for reasons that will become clear in a few moments.) And indeed it was clear that the group running WHC had organized it like a local science fiction convention, but smaller.* So, the goodie bags contained either zero free books or one free book, the programming was ultimately good but was obviously pulled together at the last minute, at least one prominent person who should have been flown out and feted on the convention's dime was just told to show up to receive his honors if he felt like it, and there was no real integration of Portland's local publishing scene, despite it actually having one.
I ended up with a very busy schedule, including several back-to-back panels on Friday, plus things to do on Thursday and Saturday. And, here was the strange part, people were interested to talking to me. I don't often attend WHC—though people think I do and will even say that they've met me in Salt Lake City or Long Island or or or...—so that may have been part of it, but it certainly wasn't everything. On Thursday night, I was given a reading slot, though I didn't ask for one and no longer do readings. But about a dozen people showed up—some because they knew my work, some because I had just been in the "What Editors Want" panel and they were interested. (In the past, basically nobody showed up to readings.)
I also usually avoid mass signings, since they tend to be 58 minutes of sitting alone, and two minutes of activity. But I actually was fairly busy, sold some books I had with me, signed a lot of older books, and even some stories. Stories that people had read in magazines, I mean, not just anthologies by completist weirdos. One woman came up with a copy of Dark Discoveries in which my story "The Big Dark"—about my amateur sleuth characters trying to stop an impromptu rooftop production of The King in Yellow by a bunch of hipsters—had appeared a few years ago. The story had turned her into a KiY fan, and before her other friends had cottoned to that figure thanks to this year's HBO series True Detective. I'd made her into something before it was cool.
There was a lot of stuff like that.
The horror field is very into the idea of generations of writers. This isn't surprising, since it operates on a boom-bust cycle. I was struck by this when someone I consider a new writer told me that she hardly knew anyone at WHC as most of the names on the various award and membership and panelist lists were new to her, and that she had come to find out what the new writers were doing...and to get them to buy her books, of course. WHC 2014 was interesting partially because Brian Keene, of the late-1990s "horrornet cabal", was named WHC grandmaster.** Already! (The previous GM, Dan Simmons, was first published in 1982.) The next coherent generation is the Bizarro, which was founded in 2005, though Carlton Mellick III had been trying terms like avant-punk and bizarre (no o) for a while before anything stuck. Anyway, I was first published in 2001, and only participated in the post-cabal Horrornet. And one of my first projects was The Urban Bizarre, which was originally to be published by Mellick. This is all to say that I'm right in the middle, between these two generations***. Oh, and then there is the Lovecrafian segment of the field, which is also constantly regenerating itself—faster than the rest of horror, actually—and of course I'm in there too. WHC, as it is a *world* con, will also attract other local fantasists and SF writers who don't normally work in the horror field, and I was hanging out with that bunch as well.
And then at a party, a crime writer who knew my name only thanks to The Big Click asked me if I did anything else. Did I, for example, write books?
"I always feel like an outsider, unless I'm at [some con]" is a common enough sentiment, and I heard it more than once this weekend, despite the fact that WHC is supposedly an industry/professional conference and not a fan convention. I can't say that I feel like an outsider in my everyday life or an insider at WHC. What was strange was the double-reverse secret alienation: people thought I was an insider to this thing or that thing or the other, and thus not to anything else.
*As it turns out, Portlandia does use a lot of local talent. I saw this guy at the con:
**Another sign of the rise of this generation to prominence came in the Gross-Out Contest, which is something I've always been mildly against and had never attended before. Nine out of the ten contestants told stories that basically vilified the vagina as a site of disease, disgust, and ruin. Of course, even in the I-hate-vaginas genre there are hacks and virtuosos, so some of it was actually amusing or interesting, but generally it was hateful and stupid...and the originators of the contest have vowed to correct all this with next year's contest. It should an epic!
***The post-Bizarro generation are the Zombie Kindlers, which is a good name as it refers both to their favorite themes and their enthusiasm for marching ahead with book after book, story after story, all for the Kindle.
When I signed up to attend WHC 2014 back in February 2013, I had the idea that I would just use it as an excuse to visit Portland. This was pre-baby and even pre-inkling-of-baby and everything, so it was a clever plan. Though I had little interest in WHC, WHC ended up having great interest in me. It was a very strange weekend, and I barely left the hotel.
I didn't have high hopes for the con, as a lot of early communications were snarled and there was actually little outreach to likely attendees. (Please shoot me if I ever use the phrase "horror community", for reasons that will become clear in a few moments.) And indeed it was clear that the group running WHC had organized it like a local science fiction convention, but smaller.* So, the goodie bags contained either zero free books or one free book, the programming was ultimately good but was obviously pulled together at the last minute, at least one prominent person who should have been flown out and feted on the convention's dime was just told to show up to receive his honors if he felt like it, and there was no real integration of Portland's local publishing scene, despite it actually having one.
I ended up with a very busy schedule, including several back-to-back panels on Friday, plus things to do on Thursday and Saturday. And, here was the strange part, people were interested to talking to me. I don't often attend WHC—though people think I do and will even say that they've met me in Salt Lake City or Long Island or or or...—so that may have been part of it, but it certainly wasn't everything. On Thursday night, I was given a reading slot, though I didn't ask for one and no longer do readings. But about a dozen people showed up—some because they knew my work, some because I had just been in the "What Editors Want" panel and they were interested. (In the past, basically nobody showed up to readings.)
I also usually avoid mass signings, since they tend to be 58 minutes of sitting alone, and two minutes of activity. But I actually was fairly busy, sold some books I had with me, signed a lot of older books, and even some stories. Stories that people had read in magazines, I mean, not just anthologies by completist weirdos. One woman came up with a copy of Dark Discoveries in which my story "The Big Dark"—about my amateur sleuth characters trying to stop an impromptu rooftop production of The King in Yellow by a bunch of hipsters—had appeared a few years ago. The story had turned her into a KiY fan, and before her other friends had cottoned to that figure thanks to this year's HBO series True Detective. I'd made her into something before it was cool.
There was a lot of stuff like that.
The horror field is very into the idea of generations of writers. This isn't surprising, since it operates on a boom-bust cycle. I was struck by this when someone I consider a new writer told me that she hardly knew anyone at WHC as most of the names on the various award and membership and panelist lists were new to her, and that she had come to find out what the new writers were doing...and to get them to buy her books, of course. WHC 2014 was interesting partially because Brian Keene, of the late-1990s "horrornet cabal", was named WHC grandmaster.** Already! (The previous GM, Dan Simmons, was first published in 1982.) The next coherent generation is the Bizarro, which was founded in 2005, though Carlton Mellick III had been trying terms like avant-punk and bizarre (no o) for a while before anything stuck. Anyway, I was first published in 2001, and only participated in the post-cabal Horrornet. And one of my first projects was The Urban Bizarre, which was originally to be published by Mellick. This is all to say that I'm right in the middle, between these two generations***. Oh, and then there is the Lovecrafian segment of the field, which is also constantly regenerating itself—faster than the rest of horror, actually—and of course I'm in there too. WHC, as it is a *world* con, will also attract other local fantasists and SF writers who don't normally work in the horror field, and I was hanging out with that bunch as well.
And then at a party, a crime writer who knew my name only thanks to The Big Click asked me if I did anything else. Did I, for example, write books?
"I always feel like an outsider, unless I'm at [some con]" is a common enough sentiment, and I heard it more than once this weekend, despite the fact that WHC is supposedly an industry/professional conference and not a fan convention. I can't say that I feel like an outsider in my everyday life or an insider at WHC. What was strange was the double-reverse secret alienation: people thought I was an insider to this thing or that thing or the other, and thus not to anything else.
*As it turns out, Portlandia does use a lot of local talent. I saw this guy at the con:
**Another sign of the rise of this generation to prominence came in the Gross-Out Contest, which is something I've always been mildly against and had never attended before. Nine out of the ten contestants told stories that basically vilified the vagina as a site of disease, disgust, and ruin. Of course, even in the I-hate-vaginas genre there are hacks and virtuosos, so some of it was actually amusing or interesting, but generally it was hateful and stupid...and the originators of the contest have vowed to correct all this with next year's contest. It should an epic!
***The post-Bizarro generation are the Zombie Kindlers, which is a good name as it refers both to their favorite themes and their enthusiasm for marching ahead with book after book, story after story, all for the Kindle.
May 7, 2014
May 6, 2014
All You Need Is This Comic Book!
It's release day for my first graphic novel, the dayjob assignment All You Need is KILL, which I adapted from the novel (and soon to be big movie) by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. Art by Lee Ferguson! (If you like comics or are concerned enough about race relations to very earnestly hashtag about diversity and books on Twitter, go buy some Miranda Mercury, which also features art by Lee.)
Anyway, we are The Big Idea on Scalzi's blog, are running a two-book (comic and Edge of Tomorrow tie-in paperback) giveaway contest at my work blog. And we got our first review already, which reads, in part:
If I had to compare it to anything I would compare it to Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film, Full Metal Jacket.
Like Full Metal Jacket, All You Need is Kill the graphic novel tackles the absurdity of the war machine – from training soldiers and equipping them to sending them into battle. At the same time, writer Nick Mamatas finds space in cutting the original text to present Keiji’s training method for survival as something that is plausible. Basically Mamatas has adapted the novel into a graphic novel that does not seem like a collection of plot points and a narrative stream of the original novel’s best action scenes. It is a complete comic book story with a good plot and well-developed characters and settings.
There; in one day I am both an official graphic novelist and an official writer of military SF.
Anyway, we are The Big Idea on Scalzi's blog, are running a two-book (comic and Edge of Tomorrow tie-in paperback) giveaway contest at my work blog. And we got our first review already, which reads, in part:
If I had to compare it to anything I would compare it to Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film, Full Metal Jacket.
Like Full Metal Jacket, All You Need is Kill the graphic novel tackles the absurdity of the war machine – from training soldiers and equipping them to sending them into battle. At the same time, writer Nick Mamatas finds space in cutting the original text to present Keiji’s training method for survival as something that is plausible. Basically Mamatas has adapted the novel into a graphic novel that does not seem like a collection of plot points and a narrative stream of the original novel’s best action scenes. It is a complete comic book story with a good plot and well-developed characters and settings.
There; in one day I am both an official graphic novelist and an official writer of military SF.
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