Lyda Morehouse's Blog, page 92

Oh noz!

My beloved planet Gilese 581g might not EXIST!!!

What's next? Is someone going to decide Pluto isn't a planet... oh, wait... uh, dang.

Comic book Politics

HPBooks run again, so that means comic book time! I picked up:

CAPTAIN AMERICA #33 "The Death of Captain America Act 2, The Burden of Dreams Part 3"(Brubaker/Epting)

CAPTAIN AMERICA #603 "The Two Americas Part 2" (Brubaker/Ross)
CAPTAIN AMERICA #604 "The Two Americas Part 3" (Brubaker/Ross)
CAPTAIN AMERICA #605 "The Two America Conclusion" (Brubaker/Ross)

THE MARVELS PROJECT (Brubaker/Epting)

SECRET WAR Book 1 of 5 (Bendis/Dell'Otto)
SECRET WAR Book 2 of 5 (Bendis/Dell'Otto)
SECRET WAR Book 3 of 5 (Bendis/Dell'Otto)

CAPTAIN AMERICA #33 was just an issue I was missing in the story leading up to how Bucky becomes Captain America. However, I do need to point out a rather funny (though I doubt intentionally) set of panels in which Bucky/Winter Soldier's cybernetic arm comes alive in S.H.I.E.L.D's science lab and starts whacking the scientists trying to study it.

The CAPTAIN AMERICA two America's storyline, a little like Civil War, takes a critical look at contemporary political issues. Bucky/Captain America must stop the insane Captain America from the 1950s, who has started a wingnut anti-government group called "The Watchdogs" -- a kind of a paramilitary version of the Teabaggers. The Watchdogs want to take "old" America back by force. It becomes pretty clear which old America they want, one where the one where Watchdog members feel free to use a six-letter swear word when talking to Falcon (who, if you don't know, is black).

I think it's cool that Brubaker is using the Captain America title to make the point that this kind of thinking from the far right is wrong-headed and dangerous. But, since this was only a four issue story, there wasn't very much time to build much complexity into the Watchdog movement. Personally, I happen to agree that the equation is pretty simple (racists/Tea Baggers=bad), but it might have been interesting to see how the murky ideals of the Tea Party can be seductive to some people, or perhaps, why it is that some folks are so angry about the direction this country is headed.

Brubaker does make some stabs at answering that. He suggests that one of the big seducers is the desperate poverty brought on by economic collapse. The crazy 1950s Cap looks out at farm foreclosures and such, and is reminded of the Great Depression, and he's angry to find America in such a sorry state once again. He can't understand why the wars aren't pulling Americans together (like World War II did), and instead seem to be sucking even more life out of the country.

And once again, I picked up an eerily similar themed collection in SECRET WAR by Bendis. And, as much as I hate to admit it, I ended up finding Bendis' stuff more interesting. I suspect if I ever met Brian Michael Bendis in person I'd find his politics... less clearly mirror mine the way Ed Brubaker's seem to. I say this if only because he seems much more able to articulate the positive aspects of policies that I find somewhat odious. Though, weirdly, like when watching the new BSG, I found that the more clearly he articulates the point of the oppostion, the more clearly I can focus on why it's WRONG.

At any rate, SECRET WAR has a copyright date of 2004 which seems to place it pre-New Avengers and pre-Civil War. 9/11 is only two years old, and Nick Fury, director of S.H.E.I.L.D. goes to see the president of the United States to present evidence that Latvaria is harboring scientists who have been supplying supervillians with superpowered technologies. In an interesting twist, the US government has been sending monetary aid to Latvaria as well as making diplomatic inroads into the very insular country, so they tell Fury they've got it covered. He's horrified that they're ignoring information that could lead to another assault on US soil and hatches a (diobolical?) plan to illegially overthrow the government of Latvaria.

He enlists an early version of the New Avengers: Captain America, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Luke Cage/Power Man, and Wolverine... along with a mysterious new woman, whose identity I never get because I only had the first three issues.

The reader can tell through forward/back flashes that something has gone horribly wrong with Fury's plan. There's been an attack in the now on Luke Cage that's left him hospitalized in a coma... and the doctors can operate on Luke's injured internal organs because of his unbreakable skin.

One of the things I've come to appreciate (and sometimes hate) from Bendis is his sense of humor. Sometimes it seems stuck in inappropriate places (like during a briefing on the S.H.E.I.D. helicarrier,) but other times it's read-out loud funny. I ending up relating to Shawn a scene where a drunk Wolverine sniffs out Peter Parker and Matt Murdock's secret identities. Wolverine leers over at Pete and says, "I've never seen you out of costume before." To which a very irritatated Peter replies, "I've never seen you drunk," and Wolverine scoffs, "Sure you have!"

I may have to look for the last issues of this series because I'm curious what the fall out for Fury is....

Got a new gig (volunteer)

I'm reviewing graphic novels and more for "Science Fiction and Other ODDysseys." My first post is up today: Review of Haven (Graphic Novel).

Even though this is volunteer, it is, in many ways, my second dream job (first, of course, is getting to be a writer.) I mean, how awesome is this new gig? I get early copies of graphic novels/comicbooks AND someone has to listen to what I have to say about them!

As it happens, the very first graphic novel I got happens to be a superhero(ine) who gets her powers from being a descendant of Donte, of the Divine Comedy fame. So, I was kind of the ideal reviewer being familiar with "Inferno," at least, (does anyone outside of academia ever tackle Pergatorio or Paraidiso?)

In other news, Mason and I had a blast once again at our karate class. I broke a board with my foot! Alas, before you ask, I can NOT remember the name of this place. It's Korean and on University Avenue about two blocks from our house, but the name is long and... well, foregin so it bounces out of my head the second I try to get it in. The sign in English says "Family Martial Arts," but I'm sure that describes a dozen studios in this town. So I'll write it down next time I'm at home and let y'all know what it is next time. Anyway, we found it through the St. Paul Community Education catalogue that goes out to everyone. They offered a parent and child combo, and it just looked too fun to resist. I'm glad we didn't. It's been doing WONDERS for my back, which has been kind of stiff lately (growing old, you know.)

Shawn has an appointment, so I need to go soon, but I just wanted to put in a pointer to my first big review!

Um, Eek?

....I guess we were JUST missed by an asteroid this morning!* Apparently, TD54 came within 28,000 miles of Earth.

I think I'm glad I slept through this.

*Unnerving knowledge brought to my attention thanks to an SF Signals tweet.

Weekend Report

Mason has started taking swimming lessons again. He had a breakthrough this last summer, when he spontaneously figured out how to back float on his own. He's had lessons on and off throughout his life (starting in a baby class when he was only six or eight months old,) but he's now got a certain amount of confidence that may have been previously lacking. He was FEARLESS with the kickboard/back float they had him do on Saturday morning. I could hear him shouting from across the pool, "I can do it on my own!" And he did. He was so good, in fact, that the instructor, who follows along for safety, had a hard time keeping up with him.

Of course, this was the first and only time Shawn skipped. The nice weather has been playing havoc with her sinuses, sometimes triggering migraines, so she stayed home at my insistance when she said she was feeling a bit under the weather. Of course, wouldn't you know it? Saturday was also the day that they let the kids jump off the diving board... in the deep end!

Mason has been doing cannon balls off our friend Gerriann's dock all last summer, but the diving board was a bit more intimiating. Even so, he did extremely well. Only a little hesitant, and no one had to push/drop him in. I'm only sorry Mommy missed it, and I didn't think to bring my camera (what? Usually they do the same stuff over and over again! How was I supposed to know?)

I had to take the cat, Deliah, to the vet after swimming class where we got the startlingly good news that the diet seems to be working! My personal theory is that the cats so HATE the dry food that they only eat the 1/4 can of wet they get every day... with only a few nibbles of the dry when they're desperate, but hey, if it works, this is good.

The rest of Saturday was spent preparing some furnature my folks brought up on Friday. I spray painted a foot stool -- it was a dingy brown wicker, and now it's shiney white! Yay! Shawn stained a battered wooden cabniet, and I picked up some fun drawer pulls from Menards (shape of... a frog! Form of... a leaf!) I also took advantage of the nice weather and mowed and did a bit of yard work. We topped the day off with a cook out of brats and hotdogs!

Sunday I hung out with Eleanor as part of the St. Paul Art Crawl. Wyrdsmiths purchased a table, but, it turned out, none of us really wanted to staff it all weekend. Eleanor would have been able to do it, but, by chance, she had family in town until Sunday. So we compromised by agreeing to just have the table on Sunday and not bothering with a reading or anything else. I misunderstood the time things started and showed up about forty-five minutes early, so instead of hanging around twiddling my thumbs I wandered over to the St. Paul Farmer's Market. Of course, I ended up buying fresh dill and cucumbers, as well as some handcrafted soaps. I don't think we had many visitors to our table, but it, for me, at least, turned into a very nice afternoon.

I was very impressed with the St. Paul Farmer's Market. I'd never been. (I know, for such a stalwart St. Paulie, you'd think I would have.) I think I was expecting the chaos that is the Minneapolis Farmer's Market and so shied away. I wish I hadn't waited so long! It's really quite managable. I think even Shawn, who has been known to faint in large crowds, might enjoy the more relaxed atmosphere of the St. Paul Farmer's Market.

Otherwise, I don't know much. How's by you?

Depressing SF vs. Dystopian SF

I finished MOCKINGJAY, the last book in the HUNGER GAMES trilogy by Suzanne Collins, at about ten p.m. last night. I set the book down, turned off the lights, crawled into bed and hugged Shawn really tightly.

I laid there for a long, long time feeling awful.

If you don't know anything about this trilogy (...I'm surprised, because it's all over the NY Times bestselling list, even Entertainment Weekly has already put up votes for their dream cast for the eventual movie, but you might be like me and be about ten years behind any current trend, so...), the basic story at the start is about a fifteen year old girl, Katniss Everdeen, who lives in a future America where every year a kind of ultimate reality show is hosted in the Capitol, called "The Hunger Games." Children from each of the twelve districts (excuding the Capitol) are chosen to fight to the death as a kind of grisy bread-and-circuses, but with a political twist, as the twelve districts all took part in a revolution against the Capitol.

This kind of story has been kicking around science fiction since at least "The Running Man," if not before. But that doesn't diminish the power of Collins's take on it, IMHO, because what she does is give us an unblinking, relentless portrayal of the horrors of war and the effect violence has on individuals and communities.

That's a really worthy story. There is no violent act in this book that doesn't irreversibly change... well, everything.
I got to the end (which I describe under the cut above to avoid spoilage, as MOCKINGJAY is brand, spanking new), and I realized that I could NEVER write a story like this. My own personal experience with loss is too raw, too painful. Collins never specifically touches on the experience I had, but she clearly gets how losing someone unexpectedly affects a person... and so the ending is just a bit TOO real for me.

And that was a surprising response that I suspect I'll be thinking about for years to come. Science fiction often gets a bad rap because we deal in things that aren't real (or, more accurately, things that are possible, but haven't happened yet and may never happen, but could.) Our films get mocked because we tend towards epic battles with bright explosions. And, maybe we aren't taken seriously sometimes because our genre tends to be optimistic -- hopeful, even.

And that's not terribly realistic.

Eleanor and I were talking about this a couple of weeks ago at our usual coffee/writing get together and she said she remembered a quote about science fiction that she thought was attributed to Asimov, but she wasn't sure. Anyway, she paraphrased it like this: science fiction is ultimately optimistic because it shows that there WILL be a future and it WILL be different.

I think even at our most dystopian, like cyberpunk, we might show a world as dark and brutal, but our hero/ines triumph in a satisfying, hopeful way.

Frankly, given what sh*t real life is, I need that.

MOCKINGJAY didn't pull any punches, and, honestly, I'm glad it didn't. I think the series is an awesome and worthy addition to our genre, but, for me, reading it... hurt. And I don't want to do that again for a while.

Ms. Confrontational

If I were in a beauty-type pagent right now, I'd be Ms. Confrontational.

I think my mood took a nose-dive this morning when I got a semi-angry/semi-panicked e-mail from the people who are running a Writers' Festival that I agreed to give a workshop at in March 2011. Apparently, the internet ate some of the messages that this group tried to send me (to my Hotmail account, so, yeah, that's actually very possible...) and, anyway, they were in a tizzy because they have a printing deadline and hadn't received any information from me at all. The concern was very reasonable, but the way that the organizer wrote to me, TOTALLY rubbed me the wrong way. Especially when it looked like they'd only sent me the request for stuff yesterday. And, before it was clear that the ether had eatten some of the earlier requests they'd sent, we had a very strange/strained back and forth which ended with a very weird exchange that still kind of baffles me. I'd explained that I have dial-up and so I'm not on-line very often (this was when I was apologizing, yet a bit snippy because I thought they'd only first tried to get this information from me yesterday), and the organizer's response was, "Don't you live in the city?"

I still don't understand that reaction. I *do* live in the city. In fact, I live in the capitol city. But, what does that have to do with my ability to afford high-speed internet?

Luckily, the whole conversation got shunted to another person involved in the event, and everything got resolved, but the whole thing left me feeling sort of on EDGE.

Then, I went over to check to see if anyone had updated the Wyrdsmiths blog, and discovered a whole bunch of responses from fellow Wyrdsmiths to a re-direct post I'd put up on Saturday about author self-promotion. Of course, I was already irritated, so the thing that struck me was how insular the conversation was. Here we were talking about whether or not author self-promotion worked or not, and it seemed mightly clear to me that not one of us knew a damn thing about self-promotion... since it seemed like we were the only ones who read our own blog. So I posted that observation.

No one has responded.

The more I think about this, the more our blog becomes a really interesting experiment/testament to our ability to self-promote. We set up the Wyrdsmiths blog specifically as a promotional tool for the group as a whole. From the comments I got to my re-direct post, it's pretty clear that the majority of the Wyrdsmiths don't think web/self-promotion works. But is that circular logic? Or a self-fufilling prophecy? Or... are they right?

Would the blog be more popular if we all thought that web promotion worked? Would we spend more time/effort making the blog more effective/interesting if more of us believed in self-promotion? Or is it simply true that an author comes with a certain amount of "it" factor, and there's really nothing you can do to change that?

Interestingly, if you look at the number of people "following" Wyrdsmiths vs. the number of people "following" Tate (via subscriptions or RSS feeds or whatever it is that blogspot tracks,) Tate has almost double the number of followers. And Tate almost NEVER posts on her blog.

Which would seem to imply the latter.

Yet, I can't shake the feeling that by expecting nothing, we get nothing. Which, I think, just ended up making me more cranky/confrontational. :-)

Also, Wyrdsmiths is supposed to have a presence at the St. Paul Art Crawl this weekend. We have almost completely dropped the ball on this (which also made me cranky and confrontational), but it looks like we will be staffing a table in the lobby of the Cosmopolitan on Sunday, October 10. If you are so inclined, please feel free to stop by. We will have chapbooks for sale, and I'll have some free promotional material out, including magnets!

Whoot.

Grumble.

Since I have a cat on my lap...

Since I have a cat on my lap, I'm kind of stuck at this computer for a while. I'd dislodge her, but, you know, she's Soooooooo warm and Soooooooo snuggly, and she's making that cute little huffing sound she does when she snores.

I'm stuck, I'm afraid.

I completely geeked out yesterday over the new planet discovered inside the "goldilock's zone" (not too close, not too far) from its red dwarf sun. I love that the folks over at .io9 are already calling it Gloaming (although it's officially named Zarmina.)

For myself, I'm fascinated by the fact that Zarmina/Gloaming/Gliese 581g doesn't rotate on its axis. It's in the same kind of orbit around its sun as Mercury is to ours (or our moon is to us). In the article I read, scientists have speculated that the temperate zone would be right along this horizon/twilight line. How weird/cool is that? Plus, since it doesn't rotate, I spent a good portion of the day trying to imagine weather on this world. It's going to have one hot side, one cold side, and a line of moderate temperatures, but no spin... does that mean the weather will be static? Or will there be constant storms where the two halves meet?

Of course, I'm already starting to try to figure out any religion/spiritual concepts sentient life on Zarmina/Gloaming/Gliese 581g might have. So much of our own culture is based on the fact that we have day and night, sun and moon, and other groups of two that it would be interesting to try to figure out how someone might conceptualize a worldview where there was dark, light, and in-between. And time would be quiet meaningless, since it would ALWAYS be sunrise (or sunset) and that would only change if you moved closer or further from the horizon/twilight band.

Does anyone know if it has a moon? I suspect it can't attract one without spin, but I don't really know. Do Uranus's moons roll around it, since it's rolling head over heel in space?

You can see why I don't write a lot of space SF. Although I suppose I know just enough to be dangerous, which is, in point of fact, the perfect position to write from. I may just have to set a story here, just because I've spent far too much of my waking hours trying to imagine living there already.

Already Irritated

I'm already irritated and it's only just past 10:00 am. The number one thing I'm irritated with this morning is SFWA. They have a really... I mean, REALLY nice, spiffy newish webpage, which does not generally irritate me, though some of the specifics do.

Specifically, I can't seem to figure out how to nominate something for a Nebula any more. I've been a member of SFWA since I was first eligible in 1999, and it used to be so easy. Once they knew who you were, you could send a simple e-mail listing the publication, its title, author, publisher, and other information... and you were done. You'd later receive a printed version of the FORUM in the mail and in the back would be the listings of all the nominated works, by author, and you would see your first inital and last name in bold behind the listing. You could very easily figure out how many more nominations it would take to get a story or novel on the ballot. Plus, every month they'd send you a reminder about how the whole thing was done... IN PRINT, and you could hold it in your hand!

Now there seems to be a reading/nominating period and it all seems to be electronic in a way that completely baffles me.

It's hard to believe I write cyberpunk. You kids and your technology stump me. Utterly.

Probably someone will write me and explain how ridiculously EASY this whole thing really is, if I'd only read direction A on page 3. But right now I feel old and cranky and baffled.

I suppose what this really shows is how divorced I've been from SFWA. SFWA, as you pixel-stained peasants know, has been in the center of some interwebs brouhahas in the recent past and I simply checked out for a while, which is one of the main advantages of having been grandfathered in as a lifetime member (smartest damn thing I ever did with my career.) Now I've woken up, and like Rumpelstiltskin, the entire world has changed around me.

As my son would say, "sigh-yi-yi."

While the Cat is Away...

... the Mouse is sad.

Shawn's off on a business trip, and usually when she's gone I have one of two responses. Either I get a whole boatload of things done (what we call "and learning Sanskrit") _or_ I mope around depressed.

Yesterday was the depressed day. To be fair, I think I'm catching Mason's cold, and I really can't afford to be sick right now. So I did something I almost never do, which was take a nap in the middle of the day. I also went to bed early.

Today, I'm feeling a bit better and sincerely hoping to get some stuff done. I've so far failed to go to the gym, but I do have a writing date with Eleanor and naomikritzer in about a half hour, which means that I'll get some work done at least. Despite what you might imagine, we're all pretty good at sitting and writing together with minimal chit-chat. We do chat. I mean, what is the point of getting together with other writers if not to chat a little, but I'm often surprised at the amount of work I also get done.

So here's hoping.

Plus, there's sunshine today. That seems to help a lot.

I've been very slowly working on my editorial revisions for Tate's second young adult book, which aren't nearly as painful as the ones for the previous book. I still need to rewrite the synopsis for book #3. I finished one draft, but, re-reading it, it's really kind of boring, which is never a good in a synopsis that needs to excite my editor. At least I have ideas down on page....

Probably part of my blah mood has to do with the fact that I'm not happy with what I've been reading. I bought MOCKINGJAY over the weekend, and I tried to start it at lunch yesterday. OMG, is the beginning depressing! I set it down and searched around for something else... while we were at HalfPrice Books, I picked up a couple of cheesy "classics" for our bathroom shelf. One of them was TARNSMAN OF GOR, which I have to admit to only mocking, never having read. I can now say, after reading the first 80 or so pages, it's totally mock-worthy, though not nearly as porn-y (so far) as I expected given its reputation (and... er, lifestyle.)

I don't know that I'll finish it, though it's a fine bathroom read. And, I'll probably pick up MOCKINGJAY again soon.... since I can't imagine it can possibly stay this depressing all the way to the end.

Though this does remind me that I wanted to ask your opinion of something. I've been listening in to a discussion among some writer friends about psuedonyms and gender. Do you boy children care if they're reading science fiction/fantasy by women, as the popular belief would have us think? I realized when I put my two cents into the discussion that Mason is not very average, in that he has two moms, and thus may not think of the world in terms of "boy stuff" vs. "girl stuff," AND he's also still young enough that he's not ooged out by romance, etc., which apparently (according to some people in this discussion, anyway,) may be the turn off factor -- as in, boys are leery about books by women because, at a certain age, they hope to avoid any potential taint of that oogy romance stuff.

All the extremely popular authors over the past few years begs to differ (J.K. Rowling, Suzanne Collins both been women and writing SF/F with that oogie romance-y stuff present, if not central to the plot). But what do you think?