Adam Rakunas's Blog, page 2

Happy 1st birthday, WINDSWEPT

A year ago today, WINDSWEPT was released upon an unsuspecting public. It was a long trip from that bar in Waikiki to holding the finished paperback in my hands, and I’m glad so many of you have come along for Padma’s adventures. From the launch party at Sunny Blue, to the Welcome To Seattle And Hey You Published A Book party at Rumba on Pike, to the Philip K. Dick Award ceremony to standing at the Angry Robot Books booth with my colleagues, it’s been a hell of a year.

I have no idea what’s next for Padma. Well, I do, but whether those stories be published or not is out of my hands. I can always hope that enough people will buy my books to convince Angry Robot to take a chance on a third book, and I can always hustle to sell some more. This past year has also taught me that there is no magic formula for success as an author. There’s just a lot of writing, editing, and gnashing of teeth with moments of grace in between. There’s also the realization that I’m an author, and that means I get to tell stories for a living. That’s awesome.

So, happy birthday, WINDSWEPT. I hope you keep selling.

My schedule is up to date in Kansas City

KANSAS CITY, ARE YOU READY?

…you are? Cool. I’m not, ’cause I still have to pack, prepare, and read a ton of stuff before I launch myself into your sweaty, BBQ-sauced embrace. I’m going be at MidAmeriCon II, aka Worldcon, aka That Time I Almost Died From Meat Poisoning.

If I’m not at the Angry Robot Books table, I will eating BBQ. And, when I’m not doing either of those, I’ll be at these places. Come on by and say hi.

Thursday 16:00 – 17:00, 2208 (Kansas City Convention Center)

Debut Author Showcase

Authors whose first published works have either just happened or are about to occur talk about their first sales, whether their perceptions of themselves as authors has changed, and what their next steps are as they break into publishing.

Adam Rakunas, Martin Shoemaker, Dr Nick Wood, Ken Schneyer (M), Chelsea Mueller, Becky Chambers

Thursday 18:00 – 19:00, 2206 (Kansas City Convention Center)

Knock on Wood. From Squirrel Girl to Lumberjanes

What the junk?! In the last couple of years we’ve seen the growth of comics that might superficially appear to be aimed at a YA audience, however these titles are hitting the mainstream with a vengeance. Marvel are leading the pack with Squirrel Girl, Ms Marvel and Captain Marvel, but there’s also a vast amount of Indie work coming through such as Lumberjanes, Space Dumplin’, Kaos Komics and Footloose. Our panel discuss why these titles are so popular, and what they have to offer both new and established audiences.

Tom Galloway, Jason Sanford, Adam Rakunas, Rebecca Schwarz (M), Catherine Lundoff

Friday 09:00 – 10:00, Marriott Lobby (Kansas City Marriott Downtown)

Wrun With Writers

Strolling with the Stars has been a Worldcon fixture, but what about those who want something a little more pulse-pounding? Something a little more sweaty? Something that will help shake off those morning doldrums and jump-start the day with a three-mile run? Mur Lafferty and Adam Rakunas would like you to bring your running shoes on Friday morning at 9am for a casual, no-drop fun run around the area. All participants get bragging rights and exclusive ribbons!

Adam Rakunas, Mur Lafferty

Friday 17:00 – 18:00, 3501F – A/V (Kansas City Convention Center)

The Future of Food

As part of “The Future of” series we look at Food.

Food scarcity is a global issue, food povery is a growing issue in affluent countries where food is not scarce but wealth is increasingly divided. Food technology in production and farming methods continue to change and develop. Our panel considers some of the serious issues that impact upon the future of food and ask whether we really expect to be eating food from the yeast vats, artificially grown meat tissue or whether we will all become vegan.

Beth Cato, Adam Rakunas, Cat Rambo, Fran Wilde, Megan O’Keefe

Saturday 10:00 – 11:00, 2206 (Kansas City Convention Center)

Comics Confrontational! Social Issues in Recent Comics

Comics often address social issues in a very direct way. This year, we’ve seen comics like Bitch Planet, The Wicked and The Divine and Ms Marvel address issues from both a lighthearted approach and with more serious intent (Bitch Planet even has a reader’s guide and questions for discussion), and the ‘big name’ producers – Marvel, DC and Image, are all working hard to produce diverse comics and protagonists. Our panelists examine how modern comics are making strides towards representing important social, cultural and political issues.

Ms Sumana Harihareswara, Adam Rakunas, Arkady Martine, Goldeen Ogawa, Belinda McBride (M)

The Neighborhood Association As Metaphor For Something Or Other

I.

When my family moved to Seattle from Santa Monica last September, I knew there would be a lot of things I would miss. I would miss our awesome upstairs neighbors, a pair of lovely economists who would invite us up for pizza, beer, and vicious games of Settlers of Catan (note: never play Catan with economists). I would miss the beach and going body-boarding with my kid. I would miss the farmers market and all its luscious produce.

One thing I wouldn’t miss was local politics.

“But Adam,” I can hear my Twitter followers cry, “your Twitter feed was nothing but local politics! You went to city council meetings and Tweeted with the ferocity of a superfan at a sportsball event! How could you say you wouldn’t miss the thing you cared about almost as much as life, liberty, and the pursuit of tacos?”

Good question, Imaginary Voices In My Head. Good question. It boils down to the problem of local politics: it means having to interact with locals.

Santa Monica is a small city that has seen a hell of a lot of changes in my lifetime. Once a dumpy sleazebag of a town, it’s now filled with yoga studios and kombucha refineries and zillion dollar houses. It has more Priuses per capita, and it will probably have more Tesla 3s per capita once Elon Musk completes his Mind-Bender Machine and enslaves the state of Nevada to finish his Megafactory. It’s also chock full of homeless people begging for change, tourists seeking whatever it is they seek, and a class of politically active residents who all seem perfectly reasonable until you talk with them.

And I was one of them.

It started with the occasional letter to the editor over some city policy that got a bee in my bonnet. Then it turned into comment fights with people over new bike lanes (I was pro, they were anti. Go fig). Then I fell down the rabbit hole and never came back, because I was a dumbshit who joined my neighborhood association.

If you live in a place that has a neighborhood association, please do what I didn’t do and ask it two things: what is your budget, and what actual power do you have? If the answers are “less than five thousand dollars a year” and “we speak for the neighborhood,” run, do not walk, away. This is a group that will suck your life dry. Don’t get involved.

Me? I got involved.

In my defense, I didn’t know better. My neighborhood group got an annual grant from the city for a few thousand bucks, and they seemed to spend most of that money putting together an annual newsletter that a) touted all the great work they did to make the neighborhood great, and b) begged me to join. I looked around my neighborhood, with its terrible school traffic and substandard bike infrastructure, and threw the newsletter in the recycling bin. No way would I get involved.

Until the newspaper ad came.

At the end of my street was an old hotel called the Miramar. It was owned by Michael Dell, and Michael Dell wanted to knock it down and turn it into a great big tower with a whole bunch of condos. I wasn’t crazy about this, because it would have dumped a lot of car traffic right into the main bike lane I used, and, really, the last thing the city needed were more condos for rich people. I prepared to scribble a letter to the editor when I saw that my neighborhood association had joined the chorus of developers, land use attorneys, and other people who would make a killing from this project in approving Michael Dell’s dream. My neighborhood association thought this was a great idea.

I didn’t, and I wrote the neighborhood association to say as much. I promise that I did not use any swears, though I’m pretty sure I accused them of getting paid off to shill for the project. I thought that would be the end of it.

It was not the end of it.

A group of residents who also didn’t like Dell’s project (and didn’t like the neighborhood association’s chair, either) went to meetings and ran to join the board. The chair responded by hiring a lawyer to send them cease and desist letters. Somehow, I got lumped in with this group, which I have written about here. tl;dr: she lost, we won, and I started going to these meetings because after all this effort I was morally obligated to go. (Note: moral obligations are some bullshit, and I recommend not having any.)

At first, I thought it was great. The new board sent surveys to the neighborhood, made a point of going to planning commission and city council meetings, and talked about what was going on in the neighborhood and city hall. Sure, there were some grandstanding loudmouths, but who doesn’t have a few of those in their organizations? As long as there were people doing good work, the group would continue.

But it all soured quickly. I started to dread going to meetings. I could see that the people who showed up were old and cranky and more concerned about where to find parking than anything else. The loudmouths became louder, and one of them kept control of the group’s social media accounts, which he insisted on doing because he was a “social media expert.” He was mostly an expert at posting xenophobic bullshit and muttering about how “those people” would use the new light rail line to come to Santa Monica.

Still, I knew the board was in good hands because the new chair was awesome. She kept everyone in line, she kept meetings focused, and she was a cheerleader for civic engagement. When she asked me to run for the board, I did.

Readers: don’t do this. Just don’t get involved. Not unless you have real power and a real budget.

I saw that the grandstanding loudmouths were even worse on board emails than they were in public. I saw that the people who wanted to do good work were getting tired and burned out. I saw that this entire enterprise was a crock of shit, but for one thing: we had a teeny, tiny bit of influence. That, and I could reserve community rooms at the library for free for community meetings, which I did in order to help a friend’s street safety group.

Yes, residents of Santa Monica: I stayed on the board just so I wouldn’t have to pay to use the community room to help promote my anti-car, pro-bike agenda. Call up the city attorney, launch an investigation, and fire up the lawyers. I look forward to your subpoenas.

Somewhere in there, my wife and I hatched our plan to move to Seattle. As the dream became a reality, I realized I was looking forward to the move just so I could extricate myself from the board. I wasn’t about to quit because of my frustration with the loudmouths or with the xenophobic jerkhole or with the sheer bloody uselessness of it all. Oh, no. Not after all the crap I’d been through to join. Plus, I’d been elected, and I am stupid enough to believe in honoring the wishes of the people who’d chosen me and all that horse pucky. Quitting would not have been right. But resigning because I was moving a thousand miles away to a land that had water? That was totally cool.

Of course, I’m not quite free of it. I still get the occasional email because I’m listed somewhere as being on the board. I still look at the Facebook chatter and the letters to the editor and all that, even though I’m now up to my armpits in PTA business, working on grants to update the playground, and wondering how we’re going to meet the healthy snacks budget shortfall. Big surprise: my PTA, a group that has a real budget and real power, has had zero bullshit. The lower the stakes, the higher the drama, and vice versa.

I worry about Santa Monica’s future, because we have friends who live there. Our awesome upstairs neighbors are still there, as are the kids my daughter went to preschool with and all of our old cycling and running buddies. I worry that the continuing clashes between the people who want the city to change and the people who want it to stay exactly the way it was back in the Seventies when it was a Sleepy Beach Town will work their way up the coast to here. I worry that the aging population of renters will get chucked out into the streets, and I worry that the aging population of renters will fight every single change, even the ones that could make their lives better. You can’t spend twenty years caring about a place and just quit it cold turkey. There will always be cravings. Though, as the months tick away, I find it easier to forget.

II.

What does this have to do with Padma Mehta, and Like A Boss? Everything, probably.

I started writing this book in December of 2014. That Christmas, we visited family in Tacoma and went on a tour of Seattle with a realtor. I spent the next six months working on the first draft, one eye on our present in Santa Monica with the other on our possible future in Puget Sound. As I wrote, I knew I wanted to bail on the board. I knew I wanted to wash my hands of Santa Monica politics and burn that bridge on the way out of town. I wanted to have what Padma had won at the end of Windswept: freedom from the responsibility of having to give a shit about a place that didn’t seem to give a shit about her.

Padma never quotes Michael Corleone’s line from Godfather III, but I’m sure she felt it in the opening chapter of Like A Boss. She’d spent all her hard-earned savings and blew her sterling reputation to protect her planet and all of Occupied Space from the mutant black stripe and the Ghost Squad, and her payment was scorn, a terrible job, and a metric pantsload of debt. When the President of the Union comes to her with an offer she can’t refuse, Corleone’s words probably run through her brain: Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. Padma’s not a Mob boss, but the sentiment remains: I gave everything for these jerkholes, and they still want more?

Padma’s previous job as Ward Chair meant that she was in charge of making sure every Union member in her neighborhood got what they needed. I’ve never formalized exactly what that meant, partly because I’m lazy, but mostly because I wanted her job to be flexible to meet the needs of any story. She’s motivated by the desire to do her best and make sure people’s lives are better. Oh, plus spite. A whole lotta spite. Spite for her former employers, spite for corrupt bastards like Evanrute Saarien, and spite for people like Vytai Bloombeck, whom she has to represent even though he’s a scheming, skimming, sack of compost.

If there’s a theme to Padma’s adventures, it’s this: caring about people and places is exhausting, because entropy always wins. But, if enough people come together and hash out their differences without beating each other up, they can slow that entropic slide. Put in the work, stave off chaos. Put in a lot of work, and everyone can have a great life. Sometimes, that amount of work is overwhelming to the point where the only sane response is to walk away from it. Maybe you’ll luck out and someone else with integrity and compassion will take your place. Or some xenophobic loudmouth might do it. Shit, what if the xenophobic loudmouth does? Goddammit, I have to get back to work to make sure everything I’ve built doesn’t come tumbling down.

It helps that the stakes for Padma are a whole lot higher than they were for me and my neighborhood association. Padma is fighting for herself–in the form of her battle with The Fear–and she’s fighting for her neighborhood, her planet, and for everyone else who’s getting screwed by the Big Three. Shaking my tiny fist at Michael Dell’s condos is nowhere near the same scale as Padma’s efforts; they also make for a boring story. But I’m sure plenty of my own desires to say “Screw you guys, I’m out of here” and walk away leaked into Padma. As I wrote Like A Boss, I was looking at my family’s future bolthole in the Pacific Northwest, just as Padma looked at her beloved distillery. They were both far removed from our day-to-day surroundings, which, to be frank, sucked. Going to meetings, dealing with the endless litany of “What Can We Do?”, and rallying people to show up and do something is a pain in the ass. Padma, at least, could buy people off with rum.

And, as weird as this sounds, I’m glad I’m now buried in PTA stuff, because it’s work that matters. It’s also easier, because I’m not going to upset anyone by saying that it’s important to raise money for books, art instruction, food, the school nurse. There’s no risk in doing that. There probably wasn’t a risk by telling people that their complaints about parking were ridiculous, but I just didn’t feel like having that confrontation. Padma would have laughed in those people’s faces and told them to get off their lazy backsides and walk. If that makes her my Mary Sue, I’ll take it.

That need to stand up and say “No, that’s wrong, and that’s also bullshit” is hard to shake. It’s hard for Padma, even before Letty comes to her with a deal to erase her massive debt. It’s hard not to care, not to demand a better future. Or it’s hard for me and Padma. Plenty of people don’t give a fig about anthropocentric climate change or rolling back civil rights or the plight of refugees or any of the other giant problems of the world. It takes effort and time and money, and not all of us have enough to spare. Everyone has the same twenty-four hours a day to spend, and most people would rather spend it Not Giving A Shit.

I don’t blame them. Giving A Shit can be overwhelming and exhausting. It can also be boring as hell. Who wants to go to a city council meeting on a work night and wait through the endless drone of lawyers and cranks just for the opportunity to tell a group of bored people that you think this construction project should include protected bike lanes? Who wants to be bored when there’s a new season of UFO Archaeologists available on Netflix?

…where was I?

Right! Padma, neighborhood councils, and Giving A Shit. They’re all tied together. Sometimes things work out, and sometimes it’s a disaster. Usually, it’s a situation somewhere in between. Give as much of A Shit as you’re able, because your future depends on it. Even something as small as writing a letter, making a phone call, or asking someone about that new, mysterious factory on the edge of town, you know, the one that glows at night and makes sounds like the shrieking of a thousand tormented souls can make a difference. Small differences add up to big differences, and that big difference can mean a new park, a corrupt politician getting indicted, or getting that soul-harvesting factory rezoned. Being a citizen requires effort, and effort is a pain in the ass, but so is the horrible, entropic future that awaits us all. Better to do something about it.

Man, that ended on a much darker note than I’d planned.

Drop Everything And Read: We need your books!

I don’t talk about my kid’s school very often, mostly because I want to keep my writing and her life separate. Yes, the two are in conversation with each other. Sometimes, that conversation is mostly shouting. The point remains: at school, I’m Mister Adam, parent and volunteer. Here, I’m not.

However, something’s up at school, and it involves books. I can bend that rule a little bit. I’d like to ask for your help. More below the fold.

While Seattle has a great library system, not all of the students at my daughter’s PreK-8 (yes, that’s pre-school through middle school) school have access to those libraries. School is one of the few places where they can get books. When the kids go home for the summer, they’re going to be in a book drought for three months. Not cool.

Fortunately, there’s Drop Everything And Read. As school winds down, kids can come into the library, take four books from the DEAR shelves, and take them home to keep. Not just for the summer, but for good. I think it’s a great idea, because books keep kids entertained without beeps and boops. Yes, it also keeps their brains going all summer, but that’s a side effect. This is about helping my fellow parents stay sane.

Where do you come in? Well, if you’re a writer and you write books for a PreK-8 audience (or, you know, maybe for those sophisticated fourteen-year-olds) and you happen to have a few review copies of your books lying around, we will take them. Not only that, our school PTSA will give you a receipt for the full value of the book, and you can use it on your tax return. You’ll be building a readership and getting a write-off. Win-win!

If you’re not a writer, but you’d still like to help, you can buy us books, and it will still count as a charitable contribution. More win-win!

Now, here’s the fine print: if you want to contribute, email me via the contact form and use “Drop Everything And Read” as the subject. Please tell me the titles you’d like to contribute. I will be doing a little bit of gatekeeping, just to make sure the books won’t make too many parents’ heads explode. For instance, the Twilight books are on the school library shelf. The collected works of Chuck Tingle aren’t. Use your best judgement, and, if your judgement isn’t that great to begin with, ask someone for help. If I think your contribution is appropriate, I’ll send you the mailing address.

The school’s demographics skew more toward K-3, with much smaller classes for grades 4-8. Picture books are always welcome, as are board books for the preschoolers. Gender parity is about even. We have a lot of immigrants, most from the Horn of Africa and Central America, so books in Spanish, Eritrean, Amharic, Tigrinya, Somali, Arabic, Vietnamese, and Mandarin are welcome. Most of the student body are people of color, so now is also a prime opportunity to get books that feature protagonists who are POC. We Need Diverse Books would be a great start for suggestions.

Last thing: we need these books by June 13. School gets out late this year due to the teachers’ strike, and the week of the 13-17 is the only real breathing room I have before diving into Comicpalooza.

Any questions? Drop me a line. And thank you in advance.

How To Spear Light Like A Boss – The Tour

Brenda Cooper is awesome. She is a powerful writer, a cycling buddy, and a mentor willing to give time and advice to anyone who wades into the magically gut-churning world of publishing. Plus, she’s a lot of fun, which is why I jumped at the chance to do a bunch of joint readings with her to celebrate the launches of our new books, SPEAR OF LIGHT (the sequel to Brenda’s PKD Award-nominated EDGE OF DARK), and LIKE A BOSS, the sequel to the PKD Award-nominated WINDSWEPT, written by some jackasss.

Where are we going to be? Well, friend, if you live in the Puget Sound or Portland areas, you’re in luck! Details below the fold.

June 7 at 7 PM at University Book Store (4326 University Way NE

Seattle, WA 98105) – The tour begins! This is the actual launch day of SPEAR OF LIGHT and LIKE A BOSS. Brenda and I will read, take questions, and answer the most important question a writer can answer: where do we eat when this is done?

Facebook event

Eventbrite event

June 12 at 12 PM at Husky Stadium (3800 Montlake Blvd, Seattle, Washington 98105) – Laura Anne Gilman will join us for a flat 2.6 mile bike ride from the Husky Stadium Light Rail Station to Solsticio in Fremont. Riders of all ages and skill groups are welcome on this mellow no-drop ride. Note: if there is a catastrophic change in the weather (hurricane, hot hail, sky ferrets), the ride will be cancelled and we’ll just read at Solsticio at 1pm.

Facebook event

Eventbrite event

June 14 at 7 PM at Powell’s Books At Cedar Hills Crossing (3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd, Beaverton, Oregon 97214). Come and see how two science fiction authors are after a long day in the car. Note: probably the same as the other events, but hungrier.

Facebook event

Eventbrite event

Road Trip!

Against my better judgement, I’m going back to California this weekend. See, I went to this college called Harvey Mudd, and, despite not graduating from there, I will return for my class’s twentieth reunion. The place has a powerful gravitational pull. Plus, someone said there would be strawberry donuts.

I mention this because, while I didn’t have time to put together an official signing for WINDSWEPT, I am going to stop along bookstores and leave SPECIAL SURPRISES. Note: the surprises are tiny, tiny chapbooks with the first chapter of LIKE A BOSS. How can you get your mitts on them? Simple! Follow me on the social media, where I’ll leave clues about my location. Note: the clues will be the actual location.

Here’s where I am:

Twitter

Instagram

Facebook

Emerald City Comicon: Man, that’s a lot of people

I’m adverbially excited to be at this year’s Emerald City Comicon, because a) it sounds like a really fun time, b) it’s my first year as a fledgling pro, and c) it’s a short bus ride from home so I can flee when I’m at capacity and not have to deal with surge pricing or parking. That’s the secret to life, friends: cheap and easy public transportation.

Where will I be? I’ll be at the Angry Robot Books table on Friday from 2-4, signing books, body parts, and books made of body parts. The rest of the time, I’ll be here:

Mutants of the Wasteland, Cyborgs of the Spaceways

Apr 08, 2016, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM

T301

The Science Fiction genre is known for tackling important social issues and examining the human condition, as well as things exploding or being on fire. Alex DeCampi (Smoke, Grindhouse), Adam Rakunas (Windswept), Margaret Trauth (Decrypting Rita), Douglas Wolk (Judge Dredd: Mega City 2) and Arthur Wyatt (2000AD) take a look at the tropes and themes of modern SF and the intersection of flashy eye-candy and deeper meaning.

 

Angry Robot Books Showcase

Apr 10, 2016, 3:45 PM – 4:45 PM

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Award-winning Science Fiction/Fantasy Publisher Angry Robot was created with the intent to bring readers the best of SF, F, and WTF?! Angry Robot publishes prose SF/F for the Comic-Con generation – gamers, comics fans, media fans, and more. Sales Manager Mike Underwood gives an overview of what’s new and exciting for Angry Robot, discussing current and upcoming titles. Additionally, Underwood will lead a Q&A with some attending authors.

Like A Boss

After buying her favourite rum distillery and settling down, Padma Mehta thought she’d heard the last of her arch nemesis, Evanrute Saarien. But Saarien, fresh out of prison, has just fabricated a new religion, positioning himself as its holy leader. He wants his congregation to go on strike, and unfortunately, they’re listening to him.

Now Padma’s summoned by the Union president to help stop this strike from happening. The problem is, she’s out of practice. And, the more she digs, the more she realises this whole strike business is more complicated than anyone has let on…

Advance Praise for LIKE A BOSS

“The moment I began reading this, I immediately had to put the book down.

I was simply too sick with envy at Adam’s talent.”

– Madeline Ashby, acclaimed author of vN and iD 

 

@rakdaddy Ugh. Fine.

— Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) January 13, 2016

The two-fisted labor organizing adventures of Padma Mehta will continue in June 2016 in LIKE A BOSS, now available for pre-order.

Pre-order now from Mysterious Galaxy

Pre-order now from Elliott Bay Book Company

Pre-order now from Powell’s

Pre-order now on Amazon.com

Pre-order now on Barnes & Noble

Pre-order now on Kobo

Windswept

Buy Windswept now from these fine vendors:

Mysterious Galaxy

Powell’s Books

Amazon.com

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

IndieBound

Padma Mehta has to save her city, her planet, and Occupied Space from a devastating crop-killing plague — all before Happy Hour.

Labor organizer Padma Mehta is on the edge of space and the edge of burnout. She’s supposed to recruit 500 people to the Union, but she’s thirty-three short. When a small-time scam artist tells her about forty people ready to tumble down the space elevator to break free from her old bosses, Padma checks it out.

Of course, it’s all lies: the forty people are really six, and they’re really corporate espionage agents. Their missions: stop a plant disease that could wipe out all the industrial sugarcane in Occupied Space, even if it means sterilizing the planet from orbit. Padma has to fight her way through the city’s warehouses, sewage plants, and up the elevator itself to save her job, her planet, and her sanity. Then maybe she can finally have a drink.

WINDSWEPT has been nominated for the 2016 Philip K. Dick Award! Read more about it here.

And, coming in June 2016, the labor adventures of Padma Mehta continue in LIKE A BOSS.

Advance Praise for Windswept

“Like all the best speculative fiction set in the future, Windswept is also about the way we live now, and Adam Rakunas tackles what matters most with a metric ton of humor and heart. A promising, thrilling debut.”

– Robert Levy, author of The Glittering World

“Lush and exotic, Rakunas’s Windswept is like the booze that powers his world: a delightful cask aged añejo rum that keeps revealing greater complexity and depth the more time you spend with it. I didn’t realize I had been lacking rum-running space opera in my life, but after Windswept, I definitely have a thirst for more.”

– Mark Teppo, author of Earth Thirst and co-author of The Mongoliad

“Adam Rakunas is one funny SOB, and now everyone’s going to know it. Windswept is a zippy, zany ride, with more fast turns than a Wild Mouse rollercoaster. There’s more witty banter and laughs per page than anything I’ve read in years, making this, my friends, the rarest kind of science-fiction-comedy novel: one that’s actually funny. Buckle the hell up.”

– Daryl Gregory, award-winning author of Afterparty and We Are All Completely Fine

Read the first chapter at My Bookish Ways.

And here’s where you can add it to your GoodReads list. Why not? GoodReads is still fun.

Norweson Schedule: Stretching Sound Transit To Its Limits

Hey, I’m going to Norwescon! Are you going to Norwescon? Let’s hang out at Norwescon!

Here’s where I’m going to be, assuming both the U-Link and the Democratic Party caucus both run on time. Yes, I’m going to be commuting via train and bike so I can do both my nerdly and civic duties. Remember: if you see me and say, “Padma Mehta sent me,” I’ll have stuff for you.

Thursday

GOH Banquet

Grand 2

5–6:30 p.m.

The Guest of Honor Banquet joins great food with epic company. Seated among our Guests of Honor, attendees receive the opportunity to experience the best of food and fandom favorites.

Betsy Wollheim, Sheila Gilbert, Tanya Huff, Janny Wurts, William Hartmann, Brenda Cooper, Ramez Naam, Marguerite Reed, Adam Rakunas, PJ Manney

How a Writer’s Workshop Changed My Life

Cascade 10

8–9 p.m.

Writer’s workshops can be positive forums for young creativity in development. But for some they can lead to false expectations and disappointment. Hear panelists share their experiences with writer’s workshops, and perhaps share your own as well.

James C. Glass (M), Leslie Howle, Frog Jones, Sienna Saint-Cyr, Dean Wells, Adam Rakunas

Friday

Philip K. Dick Awards

Grand 2

7–8:30 p.m.

Presented annually at Norwescon with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust, and the award ceremony is sponsored by Norwescon and the Northwest Science Fiction Society.

Adam Rakunas, Brenda Cooper, Marguerite Reed, Gordon Van Gelder, Ramez Naam, PJ Manney, Douglas Lain

Reading: Adam Rakunas

Cascade 1

9:30–10 p.m.

“Chiang Kolodny’s Tomb,” a short story by 2016 Philip K. Dick Award finalist Adam Rakunas.

Adam Rakunas (M)

Saturday

Autograph Session 2

Grand 2

3–4 p.m.

Our Attending Professionals are available to sign autographs. PLEASE NOTE: So that as many fans as possible can participate, we will be enforcing a three-items-at-a-time (or single-sketch) autograph limit.

Amber Clark, Annie Bellet, Brenda Cooper, Carol Berg, David J. Peterson, H.M. Jones, Jeff Sturgeon, Jude-Marie Green, Julie Dillon, Katie Cord, Lawrence M. Schoen, Megan Kelso, Nina Post, Peter Orullian, Raven Oak, Stephen L. Gillett, Todd Lockwood, Marguerite Reed, Adam Rakunas, PJ Manney, Douglas Lain

You Can’t Take the Sky From Me: Mixing Genres

Cascade 3&4

7–8 p.m.

A cowboy show in space is silly, right? Nope. We love Firefly. Join us as we discuss cross genre mixes in science fiction. What makes them work? What may be next?

Nina Post (M), Raven Oak, Spencer Ellsworth, Adam Rakunas

Sunday

Philip K. Dick Award: What It Is, What It Means

Cascade 7&8

10–11 a.m.

Administrators and nominees for this year’s award discuss the Philip K. Dick Award and the legacy of Philip K. Dick.

Gordon Van Gelder (M), Brenda Cooper, Adam Rakunas, Marguerite Reed, PJ Manney

Worldbuilding: Economics in Secondary Worlds

Evergreen 3&4

noon–1 p.m.

How do you build and sustain a credible economy for your world when magic or technology grants its inhabitants the ability to create goods from essentially nothing? Discuss how story limits can or cannot be set when a narrative embraces endless abundance.

Django Wexler (M), Renee Stern, Frog Jones, Dave Bara, Adam Rakunas