Scott Lynch's Blog

4th Street Fantasy: 2016 Final Panel List

UPDATED: June 2, 2016

Hello, 4th Streeters!

White smoke has gone up from the chimney of the 4th Street Chapel, and we have a final panel list.

Remember, the 4th Street panel structure is one programming track of ten pre-built panels, followed on Sunday by the alchemically generated "...But That's a Different Panel!"

FRIDAY
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•Truth, Lies, and Meta
Fiction, by its nature, isn't real, which means that when narration lies (deliberately or by omission), or a creator breaks the fourth wall, there are multiple layers of plausibility, trust, and 'reality' in play. How do the techniques we use to get readers to believe in a made-up world interact with cuing them that the narrator or a character in said world is a liar? (See also: Kayfabe in Wrestling; and accidental subtext, where authors make choices which suggest their world doesn't actually work the way their narrative claims it does.) What makes us believe in a world or a character, what undermines that, and how can that tension be leveraged?

•Empire and Corporation
Do corporations fill the same role(s) in our lives and in our stories that empires once did? Another suggested possibility for this panel: "Empires, Corporations, and Religions: Our Favorite Atagonism Machines!" How has representation of the corporation in SF/F changed over the years, and how has the public relationship to the concept of the corporation changed in the same time? Where do corporation and empire now sit in the pantheon of background influences and themes in SF/F?

SATURDAY
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•Interactive Fiction and Playable Stories
...and what interactivity does to narrative, both the reading and writing thereof. Roger Ebert, who was occasionally spectacularly right as well as spectacularly wrong, once famously said that video games could not be classified as art because of their very interactivity. But does that one-way prescriptive model of audience interaction hold any water, for any form of art? How can the need to create a playable game experience be in tension with the desire to create a memorable story?

•The Multi-Creative Household
4th Street has quite a few family groups with multiple professional creative folks. How do they mitigate different levels of success, competing careers, and/or high environmental levels of stress and impostor syndrome?

•Disability in Spec Fic: Seeing, Claiming, and Belonging
Representation of disability and chronic illness often comes in two forms: writing *the* experience or writing *an* experience. How much you define the character by their condition can define the story. Caitlin R. Kiernan’s The Drowning Girl follows India Phelps' struggling with her schizophrenia and treatment for it, while N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Kingdom follows Oree handling bloody plots of the gods while happening to be blind. Has there been a quantitative or qualitative shift in treatment of disabilities in SF/F in its recent history?

•Large-Scale Structures and Series Planning
There are lots of ways to jump the rails in long-form fiction, episodic or otherwise. Marie Brennan proposed that the creators of long series "pick a structure and stick with it". How much do we agree with this? What do our conclusions imply with regards to planning out the course of a series ahead of time? Also, how do we deal with the passage of time and life experience over the course of a literary performance, and the very real possibility that the writer who closes a series may be a very different person from the one who opened it?

•Writing to Strength, Writing to Weakness
How does one find the right blend? How does one find a blend at all? If we assume, as past 4th Street panels have asserted, that every writer is dealt a certain number of "cards," artistic strengths that they develop sooner or more powerfully than others, do we want to build our play narrowly around those cards or keep fishing for new ones? What's the difference between experimental self-improvement and frittering away one's more obvious gifts? What's the difference between laudable boundary-pushing and unsuccessful pretense? Who gets to decide what a writer is "meant" for, anyway?

•Implied Ideology and Narrative Convention
Fantasy isn't inherently monarchist, but action movies tend to convey that violence solves problems, while hard SF often imagines science can resolve any issue, and political and military fiction often treat gaining rank/power as an unproblematic good. What are some of the ways in which cultural assumptions are embedded in the stories we tell and the ways we tell them? How can we challenge or subvert those assumptions without completely losing our readers?

SUNDAY
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•The Tropes of Emotion
In some Victorian novels, people faint when in the throes of strong emotion. You don't see that very often these days. But are twenty-first century depictions of emotion actually realistic, or are fiction writers just using an updated set of tropes to symbolize grief, anger, passion, love, jealousy, frustration, et cetera? What are the cultural differences/expectations in displays of emotion? How can we use the emotional responses we expect, and the ones we don't, to understand and show character? How does our perception of older works of fantastic fiction change when we look at them through the lens of our emotional attitudes?

•Diving Into the Fog: Writing as a Light Trance State
...and possibly reading as the same? How much of one is consciously there when composing? What does it feel like to be transported in some fashion during the act of creation or appreciation? How can you integrate the act of creating something via conscious, deliberate steps with those times when whatever passes for your muse shoves you off a hillside without warning? This panel will also discuss the act of writing as it relates to exploration and intuition rather than deliberate pre-construction... what we seek within our art rather than what we take into it knowingly.

BONUS: THE PANEL CAULDRON
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Just because we weren't able to fit every panel idea into this year's schedule doesn't mean they were bad ideas... so into the metaphorical cauldron they go, to simmer until next year or beyond. Here are some other notions we might see in the future:

•Before Departing, Dig Two Graves
Images and ethics of revenge across cultural and historical contexts (originally inspired by Sarah Monette's blog post on Hamlet).

•Voice vs. Character
Both authors and characters can have distinctive voices, and the former can sometimes get in the way of the latter. What are some ways characters can express individuality without a distinctive speech pattern (particularly in large casts)? Are there cases where authorial voice replaces or overwhelms characterization?

•In Praise of One Writing Tool
Each panelist chooses a single element of the job of writing and explains why it means the most to him or her. Panelists will be a mix of writers, editors, and readers.

•Whose Dream is it Anyway?
The act of creative collaboration, its joys and pitfalls, its unique challenges and how they have changed over the years as technology has provided new means to enlighten or confuse one another. How does the process differ from a solitary literary pursuit, and how does one get the ball rolling with one's partner? Who, arguably, should we collaborate with-- those that conform to our own tastes and styles, or those that work in a perpendicular fashion? Those that we can work effortlessly with, or those that will push and pull all the way to the last paragraph?

•Something related to the topic of SF/F criticism

•Generational apocalypses

4th Street Fantasy: 2016 Prospective Panels, a Partial Listing

Hello, 4th Streeters--

The time for the annual airing, vetting, and discussion of our panel possibilities has begun. Please remember several things!

•This list is INCOMPLETE and more will be added for consideration.

•The panel titles and descriptions are INCOMPLETE in many instances. Some of these need more input and more time in the kiln.

•"Steve Brust, Threat or Menace?" has been retired as a panel topic because it is much too popular and we don't want to get predictable.

• The 4th Street Panel lineup has not changed-- it is one programming track of ten pre-built panels, followed on Sunday by the alchemically generated "...But That's Another Panel!"

Here's what we're noodling with right now...

•Interactive Fiction and Playable Stories
...and what interactivity does to narrative, both the reading and writing thereof.

•Writing as a Light Trance State
...and possibly reading as the same? How much of one is consciously there when composing? What does it feel like to be transported in some fashion during the act of creation or appreciation? How can you integrate the act of creating something via conscious, deliberate steps with those times when whatever passes for your muse shoves you off a hillside without warning?

•Disability in Speculative Fiction
Representation of disability and chronic illness often comes in two forms: writing *the* experience or writing *an* experience. How much you define the character by their condition can define the story. Caitlin R. Kiernan’s The Drowning Girl follows India Phelps struggling with her schizophrenia and treatment for it, while N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Kingdom follows Oree handling bloody plots of the gods while happening to be blind. What do these two forms of inclusion offer? When is it wiser to write toward one end of the spectrum?

•Writing to strength, Writing to weakness
How does one find the right blend? How does one find a blend at all?

•Before Departing, Dig Two Graves
Images and ethics of revenge across cultural and historical contexts (originally inspired by Sarah Monette's blog post on Hamlet).

•Large-scale structures and Series Planning
There are lots of ways to jump the rails in long-form fiction, episodic or otherwise. Marie Brennan proposed that the creators of long series "pick a structure and stick with it". How much do we agree with this? What do our conclusions imply with regards to planning out the course of a series ahead of time?

•Voice vs. Character
Both authors and characters can have distinctive voices, and the former can sometimes get in the way of the latter. What are some ways characters can express individuality without a distinctive speech pattern (particularly in large casts)? Are there cases where authorial voice replaces or overwhelms characterization?

•The Multi-Creative Household
4th Street has quite a few family groups with multiple professional creative folks. How do they mitigate different levels of success, competing careers, and/or high environmental levels of stress and impostor syndrome?

•Empire and Corporation
Do corporations fill the same role(s) in our lives and in our stories that empires once did? Another suggested possibility for this panel: "Empires, Corporations, and Religions: Our Favorite Atagonism Machines!"

•Truth, Lies, and Meta
Fiction, by its nature, isn't real, which means that when narration lies (deliberately or by omission), or a creator breaks the fourth wall, there are multiple layers of plausibility, trust, and 'reality' in play. How do the techniques we use to get readers to believe in a made-up world interact with cuing them that the narrator or a character in said world is a liar? (See also: Kayfabe in Wrestling; and accidental subtext, where authors make choices which suggest their world doesn't actually work the way their narrative claims it does.) What makes us believe in a world or a character, what undermines that, and how can that tension be leveraged?

•Implied ideology and narrative convention
Fantasy isn't inherently monarchist, but action movies tend to convey that violence solves problems, while hard SF often imagines science can resolve any issue, and political and military fiction treat gaining rank as an unproblematic good. What are some of the ways in which cultural assumptions are embedded in the stories we tell and the ways we tell them? How can we challenge or subvert those assumptions without completely losing our readers?

Help Wanted: Author’s Accomplice

The general response to The Republic of Thieves, from the very first mid-March announcement that we had a solid publication date, has been fantastic and heartwarming. It has also brought some serious complications into my life… but these, as they say, are the sort of problems one wants to have.

In the last nine months, the amount of e-mail hitting my inbox had quadrupled. The number of books I receive, sign, and repackage for my readers has tripled. My travel schedule has grown more complicated. The number of invitations, queries, charity requests, etc. I receive in any medium has gone up substantially. I refer to this process, overall, as “the Great Acceleration.” On a daily basis, I could now easily spend eight hours just sorting and answering e-mail, and while office administration is an important part of my career, I’ve got to claw back as much time as possible for the part that really matters… writing the damn books and stories.

I have embraced a relatively accessible lifestyle as an author; the vast majority of my readers are amazing people and I don’t want to stop communicating with them via e-mail, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. I also don’t want to stop signing books through the mail or personally appearing at stores, conventions, and workshops. In order to preserve all of these treasured things while guarding my writing hours most efficiently, and to prevent important obligations from falling through the cracks, I need help.

I am seeking applications from anyone interested in becoming my part-time personal assistant (PA).

Please read all of the following very carefully! The first notion I’m going to have of your suitability for the position, after all, is how well you absorb this:

• This position requires physical work in the city of New Richmond, in St. Croix County, Wisconsin. Check the city out on Google Maps if you’re not familiar with it; it’s east of Stillwater and northeast of Hudson. Travel time to or from the eastern Twin Cities is about an hour, sometimes less.

• Transportation is required. Even if by happy chance you won’t need to commute, you will still have regular duties requiring visits to the post office as well as occasional visits to copy centers, office supply stores, and so forth. You will also frequently have packages in your care.

• You must have a valid driver’s license.

• You must be able to pack, unpack, and lift packages of moderate weight (up to 30 pounds, let’s say).

• You will need a home computer, cel phone, internet access, etc. to handle some duties remotely.

• You will require basic familiarity and general competence with Microsoft Word, one or more plain text editors, basic spreadsheets, e-mail and Skype.

• This position will initially involve 10-15 hours per week. Hours will be extremely flexible and negotiable. You will never be expected to work on holidays, important birthdays, etc. As time goes by, more hours may become available. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

• Initial compensation will start at $15 per hour with a merit evaluation and potential raise every six months after hiring.

• The ideal applicant will have solid communication skills and the ability to engage in professional social interface. To put it bluntly, I am a clinical depressive with anxiety issues and your job might occasionally involve picking up the communications slack when I am having personal difficulties. I will need you to be able to make phone calls and send e-mails without hesitation even when I am unable to do so myself. You will, at times, be my public face and my point of public contact. Your job will involve compensating for my potential dysfunction, so it’s not going to work if we’re both in the same boat.

• Preference will be given to applicants with knowledge of science fiction, fantasy, gaming, and related fields. You will be interacting with other authors, with publishers, with fans and readers, and with the organizers of fan-run conventions; I’m not keen to have my professional life in the hands of someone for whom this is all just the equivalent of shuffling widgets. Real enthusiasm is a plus.

• INITIAL DUTIES will include

– Collecting mail from a PO Box, as well as returning it, 1-2 times per week.

– Unpacking and re-packaging books sent to me for personalization

– Organizing/cataloging books and documents in my library and archives

– Performing small miscellaneous errands in New Richmond

– Carrying out research at my request (both online and physical)

– Serving as initial e-mail contact for charity, interview, and appearance requests

– Assisting with travel arrangements, liaison with publishing contacts

– General oversight of my calendar and professional communications

• EVENTUAL DUTIES may include

– Personal assistance at conventions and other appearances

– Fulfillment of book and merchandise orders from a web store

You will not be handling my personal finances, taxes, etc.

If you are interested in applying for this position, please send me (scott@scottlynch.us) an e-mail with a general introduction to yourself and your relevant skills and work experience. If you have a prepared resume, feel free to shoot it along as well, but the absence of one will not be a mark against you.

I hope to commence interviewing in February, with an ideal hiring date of sometime in March.

Mirrored from Lynch Industries.

2014 Appearance Schedule. Facebook Page.

Here’s where I’ll probably be in 2014. This list is incomplete and tentative. I do not presently have information on where I might be signing or doing book touring, if any. Another convention or two are in contemplation but the decisions won’t be made for a few months.

BOSKONE

Boston, MA | February 14-16

VERICON

Cambridge, MA | March 21-23

MINICON

Minneapolis, MN | April 17-20

MOCON

Indiana | May 2-4

LAKEFLY LITERARY CONFERENCE

Oshkosh, WI | May 9-10

4th STREET FANTASY CONVERSATION

Minneapolis, MN | June 20-22

CONVERGENCE

Minneapolis, MN | July 3-6

FINNCON

Jyvaskla, Finland | July 11-13

NINE WORLDS

London, UK | August 8-10

WORLDCON

London, UK | August 14-18

NEW YORK COMIC CON

New York City | October 10-13

ICON 39

Cedar Rapids, IA | October 31-November 2

WINDYCON 42

Illinois | Some time in November

Also, I have at last set up a proper author Facebook page, which can be found at:

https://www.facebook.com/scottlynch78

Please give it a like if you’re interested in following my wacky shenanigans across the social media interwebz tubes.

Mirrored from Lynch Industries.

World Fantasy Convention 2013

From Thursday, October 31st to Sunday, November 3rd I will be attending the 2013 World Fantasy Convention in Brighton.

There has been a lot of noise lately about the con, and I have to say that I’m neither pleased nor impressed with certain aspects of it. I’m confident the vast majority of the people running it are quietly excelling, in the usual fannish fashion, at pulling off complex, thankless tasks for no real compensation. Whoever has been responsible for the tone of the convention’s PR materials, however, has tarred the hard work and good faith of everyone else involved. As Patrick Nielsen Hayden says (and I heartily concur): “I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen a con whose communications were more hectoring, reproving, and admonitory.”

This bafflingly unfriendly tone has limned the con’s less sensible decisions with an aura of apparent malice, while complicating the acceptance of policies that should have been routine and uncontroversial (and doubtless would have been if they had simply been presented with less of a sneer). I readily understand the desire to be firm and clear in the presentation of convention policies, but the gap between clarity and tactless disdain is a pretty wide and well-lit space. Or so you’d think.

I have already publicly and privately expressed my distaste with the handling of the Kaffeeklatsch situation. All other considerations aside, what rankles most in the end is that ‘klatsching, which is a decades-old standard practice at fan-run conventions across the world, has been touted as some sort of bold new experiment allowing the great unwashed a rare chance to breathe the same air as the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. To which I say many impolite things… the point of Kaffeeklatsch culture is that it’s a chance to sit down and chat with someone in a relaxed, informal, and human fashion, not to be shocked and awed by design.

Far more serious than that excess of hyperbole is the con’s sluggish attitude toward accessibility issues; only in the very latest WFC Progress Report was the world treated to the admission that oh, by the way, the registration area was not actually wheelchair-accessible. Sweet Jesus in an interstellar battleship. I sincerely hope the con’s announced work-around of having a staff member specially in place to handle the paperwork for those that can’t make it into the room is a robust solution; it does however beg the question of whether this is a sensible allotment of staffing for a con that previously made such a big deal about being unable to eyeball the freaking sign-up lists for the Kaffeeklatsches.

Last and not least is the very real sense* that the con has responded to complaints with a pervasive habit of a) first ignoring them as long as possible before b) proclaiming that few, if any, corroborating complaints have been received. It’s almost as though whoever is responsible for this (and look, I honestly don’t know who to blame) keeps failing to realize that attendees are perfectly capable of comparing notes and communications among themselves and spotting the inconsistencies. This dovetails pretty neatly with the overall PR approach, which seems predicated on the presumption that attendees are something less than adults.

That said… I support the idea of WFC in general, even if it’s a con that has not one but several lingering identity crises it ought to eventually try to shake out. I’m doing my best to be a good con citizen by sitting on a panel (my first ever at a WFC) and performing a reading. I’ll be at the awards banquet, too. The heart and soul of any WFC is the fact that hundreds of really cool, personable folks, pro and fan alike, descend on the site and make the best of it regardless of circumstances. It’s important for my publishers and quite a few of my readers that I be in Brighton, so I’m going to be in Brighton, and I’m going to do my damnedest to make the shindig as cool as I can for those around me.

So, here’s my appearance schedule:

FRIDAY, 8 PM: Mass Signing

I will be at the mass signing starting at 8 PM and will make an effort to stay until at least 9:30. Please don’t be shy if you have stuff you want me to sign and don’t be put off by the tone of the con’s PR. I don’t bite. Often.

SATURDAY, 11:30 AM: Reading (Hall 8B)

I will be reading a great and secret something, possibly from THE THORN OF EMBERLAIN.

SATURDAY, 2:00 – 4:00 PM: RED ROASTER COFFEE SHOP

I will be hanging out at Red Roaster, 1d St. James’ Street, just over three-fourths of a mile from the con hotel, just off the Old Steine and opposite the Royal Pavilion. This is an off-site non-convention event for all Gentlemen Bastards appreciators. I’m not actually taking over the coffee shop or anything, just plunking myself down to chill with anyone who wants to drop by. I’ll chat, sketch stupid cartoons, and sign things. Coffee is on me unless an overwhelming number of people show up. Look for the big goofy-looking American with long blond hair.

SATURDAY, 5 PM: Elvish Has Left the Building (Oxford)

My panel! “Is traditional fantasy finally over? After all these years, could it be in danger of running out of imagination and becoming simply a parody of itself, or will there always be ways of re-inventing the genre for a new generation?” Naturally, I have some opinions…

PANELISTS: Joe Abercrombie, Trudi Canavan, Scott Lynch, Stan Nicholls (mod.), Adrian Stone, Tad Williams.

I will also be in the audience for Elizabeth Bear’s panel at 5 PM on Friday and I encourage you to do likewise.

*****

*This isn’t just loose hearsay. For the record, I believe the accounts of Kameron Hurley, Mari Ness, Farah Mendlesohn, and Amal El-Mohtar, and those are just the ones that I’ve seen in public.

Mirrored from Lynch Industries.

The Right Way to Buy My Books is Your Way

I have received a number of Tweets and e-mails asking a very flattering question, namely: What version(s) of my books should someone buy if they wanted to maximize my royalty on that sale?

I appreciate this. I really, really appreciate this. It’s a kind and generous impulse and I want you to know it means a lot to me.

But.

Please don’t ever buy one of my books in a format you think will send me a maximal percentage of money. Please buy the format that is most desirable or convenient to you. Buy the format that will enable you to have the most enjoyable reading experience. After all, if I encourage you to buy an inconvenient or uncomfortable format for my own sake, I’m basically telling you to endure unnecessary bullshit for the sake of a few extra pennies or dimes in my pocket. I can’t stand that… no sane writer wants to achieve financial success by scraping it painfully out of their readers, one person at a time.

As I see it, I make my money in the aggregate. It’s why we’ve been doing these “get an e-book of The Lies of Locke Lamora for 99 cents/pence” promotions recently. I earned a respectable advance for a first-time novel on Lies, and it earned out before it was even published. Lies has been delivering regular royalties for seven years now. It’s sold about 300,000 copies in the US and UK/Commonwealth, and I don’t have up-to-date figures for the rest of the world. So… it’s done its job! It’s made its money! Everything since and henceforth is gravy… now the game, as I see it, is about trying to attract new readers and make them comfortable, not gouging them for every last possible penny.

So.

Buy my work in the format that works best for you. The format that will be least distracting. Buy it with yourself in mind, not me. I assure you I’ll be okay. The easier and more comfortable your reading experience is, the more okay I’ll be!

However.

If you are truly interested in seeing the Gentleman Bastard sequence kick in all the doors it can, and in rewarding my editors for their long-suffering patience and hard work, and in tickling the folks holding the purse strings at the various publishing HQs so they’ll cry “More! More Bastards! More Bastards for everybody!”… well, there is a thing you can do, if it’s all the same to you.

Buy a physical copy of The Republic of Thieves. Buy it soon.

There are these lists, you see. Amazon bestseller… NYT bestseller… Locus bestseller… Sunday Times… and so forth. Some of them are silly and archaic and incomplete and maddening, but some of them are worth the trouble to claw one’s way onto. And the more books are sold, and the sooner, and (sadly, for now) the more physical copies are moved… the greater the chance I have of finally nudging my way into the bottom rungs of some of those lists. And that will mean good things, if you want to see more books, and if you want to see them given decent marketing budgets, and pleasant quantities of Advance Reader Copies.

So if you have a mind to do something generous for me and my brain-droppings, don’t aim for getting me a few extra cents. Aim to bump these books up in the numbers game. Like I said, it’s silly. It’s an incomplete portrait of the bookselling market. It’s not something I would pursue for its own sake. But it can’t hurt the future of Locke and Jean one tiny bit. It can only help.

The Republic of Thieves is now available on store shelves (and in e-format) in the United States and the UK/Commonwealth. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of you who’ve waited for this day, and to all who’ve pre-ordered or already purchased it. May the book deliver something you’re hoping for.

Mirrored from Lynch Industries.

New York Comic Con

I will be appearing at the NYCC for one day (and one day only!), this Friday, October 11th.

Here are my public events, taken straight from my itinerary:

PANEL – The Wheel of Time Turns… and Epic Fantasy remains epic!

Time: 11:00am-12:00noon

Room 1A17

SIGNING (with Epic Fantasy panelists)

Time: 12:15-1:15pm

Autographing Table 21

SIGNING

Time: 3:00-4:00pm

Random House booth #2205

Mirrored from Lynch Industries.

Hey, did anyone know there’s this book coming out next week?

The Republic of Thieves-ocalypse is nigh, and just one thin week (gulp!) separates the book from retailers’ shelves. I would characterize early reviews and reactions as gratifyingly and overwhelmingly positive. For your edification, I’ve rounded up the ones that have been called to my attention, including one or two that are not overwhelmingly positive, and listed them below:

SFX is extremely kind, granting it 5 out of 5 stars.

Over the Effing Rainbow recommends murdering all who stand between you and a copy of this book.

Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist is not pleased.

Little Red Reviewer is enthusiastic about nearly everything, with one quibble.

Alex Shepherd at Fantasy Faction calls it “…an excellent addition to a stimulating series.”

Neth Space feels the love.

Fixed on Fantasy finds much to appreciate but also has strong reservations.

Shorty Monster declares it “very much worth the wait.”

SFF Book Reviews has reservations, but gives it 8 out of 10.

Nerds of a Feather also gives it 8/10.

SFFWorld believes the novel could have used some trimming here and there but is otherwise quite successful.

Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, pronounces it “fast paced, fun, and impossible to put down.”

Mirrored from Lynch Industries.

World Fantasy Convention: Some Words on the Kaffeeklatsch Situation

This year’s World Fantasy Convention, which I will be attending, has just announced its policy of charging an additional five-pound fee to attendees of its Kaffeeklatsches. A few notes:

1. I, like several authors of my acquaintance, had previously and privately declined to participate in this Kaffeeklatsch track, for all the reasons John Scalzi talks about here. I don’t come from a con-going tradition of charging added fees for these things; as many convention veterans have pointed out on Twitter, it is usually the business of cons to plan for this sort of fairly routine programming item in their budgets rather than tacking on fees after the fact. The fact that WFC has such relatively expensive memberships in the first place made the added charge seem all the more strange and uncomfortable. In short, I agree with all of Scalzi’s points and I have commented on his Whatever post.

1a. The con folks I have spoken to about this in private have not been evil or discommodious; in the main they’ve been very civil. They extended a polite invitation, I discussed my reservations and objections, they attempted to persuade me otherwise, and in the end I had to disagree, and they left it there. That said:

2. I am not at all charmed by “We are again charging £5.00 per person to cover coffee and biscuits, and to dissuade people from not showing up.” This is an actual quote from WFC Program Update #19. It strikes me as needlessly punitive and petty. Industry professionals with dozens of years of con-going and Kaffeeklatsching experience have already expressed their bemusement or disbelief on Twitter. For most of the con-going world this problem, if and when it exists, has been solved with waiting lists. The imputation isn’t a pretty one– that potential attendees for these WFC Kaffeeklatsches are assumed to be such flighty deadbeats that a pre-emptive enforcement mechanism has to be clamped to them. I don’t appreciate it.

3. I have also just discovered that these Kaffeeklatsches are to be held in an area of the con hotel that is not wheelchair-accessible. I am actually quite ashamed that I had not thought to check on this at the time I was asked to participate. I am annoyed at my own naive assumption that I wouldn’t need to check.

4. I will be working to arrange a get-together for readers of the Gentleman Bastard sequence (and anyone else who wants to hang out) somewhere in Brighton, off-site from the convention, accessible to those without con memberships and, ideally, accessible to those with mobility issues. Stay tuned for updates on this.

Mirrored from Lynch Industries.

THE GREAT BIG APPEARANCE LIST FOR THE REST OF 2013

With the looming release of The Republic of Thieves, my schedule is set to go nuts. Although I’ve said several times that I’m not doing a formal book tour, enough things have changed in very recent days that I think we can call what’s coming a sort of accidental/inevitable mini-tour. Here’s where I’ll be:

Context 26

Worthington, Ohio

September 27-29

Elizabeth Bear and I will be teaching a two-hour workshop called “Worldbuilding 201,” where we’ll do our very best to rock the hell out of a subject that is often misunderstood. There’s still time to sign up…

THE REPUBLIC OF THIEVES RELEASE DAY LAUNCH PARTY

Pandemonium Books

Boston, Massachusetts

October 8

7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

It seems I’ve written another book. Boston is where I’ll be the day it hits shelves in the US, so Boston is where the party is. Reading, signing, cookies!

New York Comic Con

Javits Center, Manhattan

October 11

I will, so far as I know, be doing a panel, a general signing, and then a signing at my publishers’ booth. More information forthcoming as soon as they give it to me. I will ONLY be appearing on Friday the 11th.

Joseph-Beth Booksellers

Lexington, Kentucky

October 24

7:00 PM

Reading, signing, blathering!

Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore

Minneapolis, Minnesota

October 26

1:00 PM

My first-ever signing at a landmark next door to my home town… I’ve been visiting Uncle Hugo’s since 1990 or so as a reader, and now I’ll be blocking an aisle as a writer and a fire hazard! Huzzah!

World Fantasy Convention

October 31 – November 3

Brighton, UK

I will be at the convention, available at the mass signing (I’m assuming they’re having one), and arranging some sort of get-together off-site in Brighton.

London Area

November 4 – ?

London, UK

I’ll be doing something, hopefully several somethings, in or around London after WFC, but they haven’t told me what yet. More news as soon as I have it.

Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore

San Diego, California

November ?

University Bookstore

Seattle, Washington

November ?

Bakka Phoenix Bookstore

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

November or December ?

I have solid plans to visit these three places, in some order, preferably as soon as possible after WFC, but the timing depends upon the end date of my London area engagements, and until I have that these cannot be officially scheduled. But know that they are coming and as soon as the arrangements are set in stone I’ll have an update.

Daisho Con

Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin

November 22-24

I am a guest at Daisho Con, not to mention possibly the oldest person in attendance. I will be asking to do more programming than before! Daisho Con is big, colorful, friendly, cheap, and skews young, but if you want to hear an old man yammer about books, I am your old man!

Now, let’s go over two of the questions I most frequently get on Twitter and in e-mail:

Why don’t you come to {insert location HERE}?????

Chances are I would absolutely love to visit {insert location here}, but a couple things need to happen first! I don’t just pick the places I visit at random, and a great many of them involve travel arrangements made and paid for by my publishers (or shared with the sponsors of the event). So, to get me to {insert location here}, someone has to invite me, and contact my publicist (at Random House in the US or Gollancz in the UK) to discuss who pays for what. I’m not much of a diva as far as things go, but I do need to get to {insert location here} somehow, and I do generally need a place to sleep and clean myself up. Events that I can easily drive myself to (say, within a few hours of the Twin Cities) are a slightly different matter but the timing still has to be convenient for me and a hotel room may still need to be arranged.

If you want to make or facilitate a serious offer to have me visit somewhere to read/sign/speak, please feel free to e-mail me at any time. I can direct you to my publicists following that initial contact, if necessary.

Can I buy a book directly from you if I find you at a convention?

This seems to have become a more frequent question recently and the answer, in most cases, is absolutely going to be no. It’s not that I don’t want to be able to conjure books to sell you, it’s that a) I try to avoid undercutting the booksellers at any given convention, and b) I prefer to travel out of one suitcase. I spend an awful lot of time these days on planes and I don’t have room to carefully pack a pile of books in my luggage, much less carry them around on foot at a convention. Now, I’ll sign damn near anything at damn near any time, but in the vast majority of cases you’ll have to provide the book yourself.

On very rare occasions I might make arrangements to have a vendor already attending a given convention sell books that I’ve personally procured, but this is unlikely to happen anywhere I can’t drive to.

Mirrored from Lynch Industries.