Marko Kloos's Blog, page 17

“A love story between a pilot and her drop ship”

Here’s a short YouTube clip featuring the making of the “Lucky 13” episode of Love Death & Robots on Netflix, narrated by the director Jerome Chen, and featuring lead actor Samira Wiley.

The day may come when I get tired of watching LUCKY 13 and SHAPESHIFTERS on Netflix, but it is not this day.

 

 

Wild Cards covers

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I asked for the high-resolution artwork for the covers to my Wild Cards stories because I wanted to have them printed and mounted for the office wall.

That’s John Picacio’s work on the left (for the novelette “How To Move Spheres And Influence People” on Tor.com), and Michael Komarck on the right (for the novella “Stripes” in the Wild Cards mosaic novel “Low Chicago”.)

The covers for the Frontlines novels are nice, and the ones for the Palladium Wars books are grand and epic, but the Wild Cards covers I’ve gotten so far are flat-out amazing. It’s surreal to see my characters brought to life by some of the most talented illustrators in the business.

Speaking of Wild Cards, there’s a new story up on Tor.com. This one has a Picacio cover as well. It’s called “Naked, Stoned, and Stabbed”, and it was written by Bradley Denton.

 

Canine maintenance

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I am happy to report that the three household doggos passed their annual technical inspection with flying colors.

(Left to right: Baby, Andy, and Ygraine a.k.a. Dinky.)

BALLISTIC cover art

The Amazon product page for BALLISTIC, second novel in the Palladium Wars, now has a picture of the cover on it, so I guess it’s official:

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I think it’s a gorgeous cover, and I love the art direction they’ve picked for the Palladium Wars novels so far.

Tasty treat or Devil’s Ichor?

Salty licorice is very much an acquired taste. It’s common in the Netherlands, the Nordic countries, and northern Germany. Outside of those regions, it’s hard to find people who like it. The salt in this form of licorice is ammonium chloride (“Salmiak salt”), and it gives the licorice a very astringent, almost cough medicine-like flavor. I think you have to grow up with it to really develop a preference for it.

Because the sweet treats in the house have tended to grow feet as of late (two teenagers with a sweet tooth in the house, you see), I ordered a case of these Dutch Zoute Drops to keep around as a sort of child-proof candy. When it arrived, I let the kids try some to see their reactions. Girl child spat hers out within two seconds, so it’s probably safe to say that it isn’t her thing. Boy child said it was kind of weird but not bad. 

There goes my plan. Oh well—I guess at least I know which kid stole it if it starts disappearing.

The Switcher

It’s my birthday this week, so I went out and made a frivolous purchase: a Nintendo Switch Lite.

I have always been a PC gamer, but in the last year or two, I’ve found myself gravitating toward consoles. I spend a lot of time in front of mouse and keyboard already, and I don’t really care to do the same thing for relaxation as well. It’s nice to be able to sit in a recliner or on the couch to play. (The console also doesn’t interrupt me with alerts for incoming messages or emails, which makes it easier to focus on the game.)

We already have a Switch in the house, but that one has been co-opted by the kids for a while now. I didn’t really have anything on my gadget wishlist, but the new Switch Lite caught my eye when it was released last month, and I finally got to check a demo model out at Best Buy yesterday. I liked the feel of it, and I already had half a dozen good games for the Switch, so I splurged and got myself a slightly early birthday gift. I also picked up a copy of The Witcher 3 for Switch, which marks the fifth time I’ve bought that game. (I bought it twice for the PC—first on Steam, then on GoG.com to get the exclusive extended game soundtrack that comes with the GoG version—and once for the PS4 and the Xbox.)

Graphically, the Switch version is the weakest one because the Switch just isn’t as powerful as the PS4 or Xbox One S, never mind the gaming PC which can serve it up at 4k resolution. But the reduction in texture quality and resolution isn’t such a big deal on the small screen of the Switch Lite. And there’s something amazing about being able to take the entire game along on a handheld device, expansion packs and all. TW3 is my favorite open-world RPG of all time, and it’ll be fun to play through it again while waiting to pick the girl child up from track practice, or flying across the country.

I’m totally trademarking “color kablooie”

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October brings the golden days of autumn, and the last two days have been Chamber of Commerce tourism ad weather. We’re a little late for peak leaf season this year, but the first frosts just hit a few days ago, and now the leaves are in full Color Kablooie mode.

This is my ideal weather–cool nights and crisp 60-degree days. Find me a place on the planet where it’s this weather and scenery all year round, and I’ll move there next week.

Non-Euclidean geometry, fall edition

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When I need to let my brain’s background processes figure out a story element or untie a knot in a chapter, I take a walk in the place you see pictured above. It never fails to work.

In other news, I just turned in the edits for BALLISTIC, second in the Palladium Wars series, and I think it turned out very well. In fact, it may just be the fastest-paced plot I’ve ever managed to squeeze between the front and back covers.

Next on the production schedule is Frontlines #7, which will take me the rest of the year to finish. The title of the seventh Frontlines novel is ORDERS OF BATTLE.

 

It’s OK if you like fall colors, I guess

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New Hampshire in the fall, the best time in the best place as far as I’m concerned.

Running a few Sharpies dry

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Sitting down this afternoon to sign a bunch of bookplates for hardcovers of AFTERSHOCKS. I am signing these instead of the actual books because the alternative would be to ship me the hardcovers. Those come about 25 to a box, and I have to do 1,800 signatures, so they’d have to send 72 boxes of books to sign, about two pallets.

For those of you who wonder how you sign your name 1,800 times, I can tell you that it’s a little repetitive, and best done while watching Netflix or listening to a book on Audible. Also, you don’t sign the whole stack at once. You split it into smaller stacks that look manageable, and then take breaks in between stacks.

Also, I will tell you that after signing a few hundred bookplates in a row, I understand why famous people often modify their autograph into a quick and easy simplified sort of squiggle. I am not famous and I don’t have to sign any autographs outside of SF conventions and infrequent random requests, but if I had to sign my name hundreds of times in the course of a regular week, I’d have a super simple autograph too.

Some people know that I use fountain pens, but I don’t do bookplates in fountain pen ink. That’s because they usually don’t hold that sort of ink very well, which results in a smeared signature. This stack of bookplates will eat up at least two full fine-point Sharpies.