Various Cons and Walker Wednesday

Hey, all. Sorry I haven't been posting much, but I've been acclimatizing to New York and getting rested for a summer (and fall) of travel and appearances! The Goliath tour will start a few days before September 20, when the book comes out. I DON'T KNOW YET where I'll be going on tour, but I'll post here when I do, and in the meantime I'll be doing a few events on my own.

Event 1

I'll be at Comic Con in San Diego, July 20-25! As always, it is sold out. But for those of you coming, here's what I'm doing:

Sunday, July 24

11:15-12:15AM Building the World of Leviathan, an Illustrated Steampunk Series. Bestselling YA author Scott Westerfeld (Uglies, Midnighters) discusses how illustrated adventure novels disappeared in the early 20th Century, and how he worked with artist Keith Thompson to create one for the 21st, Leviathan, a steampunk re-imaging of WWI. Lots of visuals (and some secret news about Uglies).

There's another panel about teen comics that I'll be in, but it's not confirmed yet. It will probably be Thursday, July 21, 4:30-5:30.

Event 2

I'll also be at Leakycon in Orlando FL, from July 13-17. I'll be appearing there for Lit Day, July 13, a YA-fest run by the tireless Maureen Johnson.

Sorry, but Lit Day also appears to be sold out! For those of you who are coming, here are the bits with me:

All Wednesday, July 13

10:00-10:50AM

Let's Talk about Vampires: Let's just do it. Let's just talk about vampires. Why do people love these toothy freaks? Is there any new territory? Will they ever go away? Do we really want them to? We're just going to talk about vampires, because someone has to. (GT I)

With: John Green, Scott Westerfeld, Robin Wasserman, Barry Goldblatt, Jennifer Laughran Moderator: Maureen Johnson

11:00-11:50AM

The Scott Westerfeld Experience: Scott Westerfeld discusses working with an artist to create his illustrated steampunk series, Leviathan. He reveals hitherto unseen artwork from the final book in the series, Goliath, and from his latest top secret project. (AT I)

12:30-1:20PM

Love and Romance: What's the deal here? Common wisdom says girls demand these things in their books and boys dislike them… but is that true? How do authors decide how to handle the squishy bits of life? How is LGBTQ literature bringing a fresh perspective? How far can scenes go? Is there really a difference between a love story and a romance novel? This panel wants to be in a relationship with you on Facebook, so you know it is serious. (GT II)

With: Ally Carter, John Green, Kate Schafer-Testerman, Scott Westerfeld, Stephanie Perkins, David Levithan Moderator: Robin Wasserman

1:30-2:20PM

I Was a Teenage Author: Think all published authors start out writing works of pure, undiluted genius? Think your work is terrible and you'll never get anywhere, ever? Be prepared to be amazed. Authors read actual works from their tortured teenage years, giving you hope and inspiration to keep going. (TT IV)

With: Scott Westerfeld, David Levithan, Libba Bray, John Green, Robin Wasserman, Stephanie Perkins Moderator: Maureen Johnson

And at 2:30 I'll be signing. (Dude, Maureen is a harsh taskmistress. WHY ARE THERE NO BREAKS?)

And finally, it's time for another Walker Wednesday, the extremely infrequent feature on this blog where I share images of Clanker-ish or not walking machines. This one is from Japan's Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and has the lovely name "HRP-4C humanoid."

And it walks kinda like this:

(via io9)

Hmm. Not quite Uncanny Valley, and not quite human-like. Just sort of . . . disturbingly careful.

There's a weird thing about walkers, whether they have a face or not. Because they walk, like us humans do, we see their walking in human terms. Their movements look angry, or jaunty, or drunken to us, in a way that cars (or anything else with wheels) never quite do. And as a novelist, that expressiveness makes walkers more interesting to me than other kinds of machines.

Not that you can't write an evil car, like Steven King's Christine, but it's still very different, dramatically and novelistically speaking, when a machine stands up.

I think the world will get much more weird when more of our devices start to walk around.