Brenda Cooper's Blog, page 19

Reading Recommendation: Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Drowned Cities

Anyone who has been reading my blog knows I’m a fan of Paolo’s.  I find his work frighteningly plausible.  His worlds are dark, but unlike most horror which belongs under the covers on a dark night, Paolo’s work should be held up and talked about.  It feels like it could happen.

The Drowned Cities is Paolo’s second YA , but it’s quite fit reading for grown-up audiences as well. Imagine a world post-climate change (we’re likely to get there!), post government (what if the Arab Spring is followed by a vacuum, and that happens everywhere) and post-abundance.  Imagine an America covered by the types of personal armies we saw in the KONY 2012 video.  That’s the world Paolo is writing in.  He also delivers a true story, complete with engaging characters, real peril, and heart-tugging moments.

 

 

Clarion West Write-a-Thon

Well, it’s Clarion West Write-a-thon time again.  Clarion West is one of the best intensive workshops available for aspiring speculative fiction writers.  The money they raise goes to help with expenses (which are legion) and with scholarships.

I hope to have a lot of people sponsor me, even at the price of giving up a latte one morning.  I like interacting with readers and supporters during the write-a-thon.  I write up a weekly progress report that only my sponsors get (some other parts are public, and this year I’ll post those on my Facebook author page, as a way to stop neglecting it.

This year will be particularly difficult as I have not one but two important dates right close to each other, and right around Clarion season.

My first draft of the second book in my duology that’s coming out through Pyr is due August 21st.  That’s the deadline to get it to my first readers for the Wellspring worskhop, which is kind of a published-writer version of Clarion. I’m going to just make it if I keep my Clarion goals of 1,000 words minimum a day, and blow past that by a bit each day.  Even a tiny bit.
Since I hate making things easy on myself, I’m also in the middle of training for and doing the Seattle to Portland Bicycle ride event, which happens during Clarion – on July 14th.  That’s 202 miles in 2 days.  That kind of physical goal does affect writing – positively and negatively. On the good side, exercising the old brain keeps it running rather well.  Lot’s of plot issues get worked out at mile 30.  On the other hand, training for this is 2-10 hours a day on the days I train (and I should be doing more!).  That’s NOT keyboard time or family time or day-job time.

To up the ante one more time, my stretch goal for the write-a-thon is to write a lyric a week (these go with the novel, really).  Lyrics are hard, but fun. I’ll share those with the people who sponsor me if I get them done – they will be subordinate to the two goals above, work, and family.

So….please consider sponsoring me and maybe a few other writers (there are over 200 of us!).  Spread whatever you want to give around – it’s more fun to sponsor three writers at $10.00 each than to give one $30.00.  Really.  That way you get tales from three people.  The main write-a-thon page works, or here’s mine.

Thanks in advance!

 

The Power of Real-Life Drama, and Dog People

The Internet allows for true outpourings of attention and emotional resonance from time to time.  You can see this in viral videos about cats or dictators, in books or movies that seem to suddenly spring from nothing into the zeitgeist, and in real-life dramas.

Two days ago, a well-known and respected dog-trainer was involved in a horrible accident that claimed the lives of two of her dogs, left her miraculously alive, and left one dog spending the night alone in the Arizona desert.  Within moments of the news about the tragedy there were donation and FaceBook sites, crowd-funding and prayers, advice from animal rescue professionals, deep discussion and simple outpourings of support.  Nearby members of the informal tribe of dog people leapt into providing on-the-groud real assistance.  My family is part of the tribe of dog people, and we were instantly engaged, supporting and following and talking about the event.  I spent part of a critical meeting yesterday surreptitiously checking to see if the dog had been found, we left each other notes with updates, and we talked about the conversations that happened on FaceBook.  It simply became important to all of us, and to many others.  When the dog was found alive and well, a lot of the posts were about tears of happiness.

Being fascinated by the stories of other’s great challenges is very human.  I find it interesting how deeply this story of a person we have never met and dogs we have never met affected us for a day and a half.  If nothing else, I now have a better understanding of why reality TV keeps generating ratings. I also have even more respect for the tribe of dog people that I am a small part of, and for the power of instant communication to mobilize support.  Without so many searchers it is unlikely the dog would have been found alive.

 

In Which I Speak of Zeke

Zeke is our household robot.  Yes, in a house so full of women that even the dogs are all female, someone-not-me named the vacuum-cleaning robot Zeke.  So I mentioned Zeke in a blog post over at Dothefuture.com.  I used to warn audiences that “The Robots are Coming,” when in reality, “The Robots are Here.”

Time Flies When You’re Eating Cottonwood

Apparently I posted exactly nothing here in May.  Well, I’ve been training:  I plan to ride in an bicycle event from Seattle to Portland in July, and that means about 12 hours a week on the bike (and that’s fewer than I SHOULD be spending).  The rest is writing, which tends to win out over blogging.

I heard some good news today I thought I’d share:  The anthology “Tales for Canterbury” won the Sir Julius Vogel award.  What’s that, you say?  Well, I said the same thing.  But we now live in science fiction land and have the interwebs, and from them, I learned “Sir Julius Vogel was a Prime Minister of New Zealand, and wrote in 1889 what was probably the first full length Science Fiction novel by a New Zealander, Anno Domini 2000 – A Woman’s Destiny.”  It’s a fan-based award, like the Hugo’s are fan-based.  For another bit of trivia, this the first anthology I’ve been in where I shared a the TOC with Neil Gaiman, who’s wife just did the most fabulous kick-starter evah, and which I backed.  Tales for Canterbury itself is a bit of crowdfunding:  it’s a charity anthology that has raised over $2500 for the victims of the Christchurch earthquake.  A limited number of paper copies remain available. 

Oh, and about the title.  There is a certain time every year when all of the cottonwood trees in Washington send a faux snow down onto the streets and across the fields and into cyclist’s mouths.  This is that time.  I may have to figure out how many calories there are in cottonwood spores.

 

Reading Recommendation: Imagine How Creativity Works, by Jonah Lehrer

I promised some more reviews of non-fiction.  There was a bit of serendipity to me reading this book:  one of my co-workers, Christian Knight, came up and told me about the book by telling me the first story in the book (which is about how mops were improved). Christian is a creative guy who writes video scripts for us at the City (as

well as doing other communications work), and so I filed away his story about the mop.  He didn’t remember the title of the book.

So two days later, I download this book and start listening to it while walking Nixie around the block, and what do I hear but the mop story?

At any rate, the writer in me was quite happy with this.  Not only does it describe the actual creative process through example (not new to me, but interestingly told), but it then pairs the stories about how the process feels with the neuroscience of how it works.

Pretty perfect for a geeky gal.

 

 

Reading Recommendation: Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman

One of my goals this year is a bit more non-fiction reading.  What the heck…good non-fiction is free education, right?  Anyway, Thinking Fast and Slow turned out to be a surprisingly good book for the writer in me…as it discusses interesting topics like how readers (and writers) might think.  Not directly, not really.  But one of the smartest things any of my writing teachers ever told me was that a good author knows how his prose affects the reader…and controls that.  A good writer knows how and when to make his reader anxious, to surprise his reader, and to delight them (This advice came from Dean Wesley Smith).

I felt like I learned something.

Note that this is a dense and rich read.  I found myself reading a chapter and then thinking about it, and then reading another one.  The book works well that way.  But don’t expect to finish it quickly!

Reading Recommendation: After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, by Nancy Kress

Nancy Kress's new novella, After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall is out now from Tachyon.  It's a good read.  I got an advance peek at it, and I heard her read from it at a local reading earlier this year.  I've been waiting for it to be available so that I could blog about it.

This novella is good.  As in "I will remember it next award season" good.

Nancy uses a unique narrative structure that spans timelines.  As usual, the writing is impeccable, the characters interesting, and the story compelling and a bit haunting.

 

 

 

Reading Recommendation: Fragmentation, or Ten Thousand Goodbyes, by Tom Crosshill

The best science fiction stories shed light on both the future and the present, and the very best make the reader both think and feel.  My dog-walking story today was "Fragmentation, or Ten Thousand Goodbyes," by Tom Crosshill from Clarkesworld, read by the terribly talented Kate Baker. I have no idea why I have never heard of Tom Crosshill before, but now I will watch for his work.  I really, really loved this story.  It was awesome.  I highly suggest you go off and listen to it!

 

Reading Recommendation: The Games by Ted Kosmatka

Last night I stayed up late to finish Ted Kosmatka's new book "The Games."

It's really quite good – it reminded me in turn of Michael Chricton's better work or a Dean Koontz.  Yes, I'm comparing it to thriller writers.  The Games is solid near-future science fiction but it reads much more like a thriller than a classic sf-book.

I don't want to give much away, but imagine a future where genetic engineering is allowed in order to create creatures that fight each other to the death.  Then introduce a very different designer of such creatures….

I picked this up because Ted has recently moved here and he'll be a reader at our SFWA reading series on April 17th.  The Games is intense, and I enjoyed it very much.  In spite of the thriller pacing, I often stopped to admire bits of really nice prose.

Expect to hear more about Ted in the coming years!