This one has been a long time in coming, because this past year or so has been, well, this past year.
That said, here is a new Zenfolio gallery of “recent” work. A few of the images, of the flowers in particular, were done using my new close-up filter kit. I finally broke down and bought one. I used to use these a lot.
Anyway, enjoy.
I’m feeling remarkably blah today. Nothing in particular wrong, just…blah.
So to avoid passing it on to the rest of the world, let me share a pleasant prospect, namely the following:
From Donna’s garden.
This is a cool thing.
Dan Reus of Disruptive Diner contacted me a bit over a month ago and asked me to participate in this. Naturally, I had no real idea what I wanted to say or how I would say, which was compounmded by the format—Pekchuka, which means literally fast talking. I came up with something, which is posted above. I had fun. I’d have fun doing it again.
So…
Just a little something beautiful for a beautiful day.
One of the things I have been notably bad at over the years is promoting myself. I’ve published ten novels and still have a hard time sounding my own trumpet. So this is a departure for me.
Announcing the official release party for my new book, Gravity Box and Other Spaces, published by Walrus Publishing.
June 25th, 2014, at Left Bank Books— here —we’re having a book release party. There will be refreshments, there will be fascinating people, there will be copies of my new book (plus copies of some of my other titles). Seven PM, in the Central West End, St. Louis, MO. Did I mention to go here for more information?
This is my first book-length short story collection and I am very proud of these stories. As a bit of a departure from the normal collection, most of these stories are new and previously unpublished. A number have seen print elsewhere. I have been graced with a wonderful cover by the brilliant John Kaufmann.
I’ll be posting updates when I have updates to post. But for now, be aware, this is a happening thing. I’m sending out direct invitations via email to various people, but consider this notice as well that, if possible, you should come to this event. It would make my heart glad.
More later.
The Hugo Award nominees have been announced and, imagine this, there is Controversy.
I don’t have a dog in this hunt, as I have nothing on the list nor have I published anything in the last year or two that would be eligible. That will change this year, as I have a short story collection coming out soon which includes a number of Brand New Previously Unpublished stories, but for this year, I’ m not involved. None of this affects me.
But controversy, oh my.
First off, let me send a big congratulations to Ann Leckie. Her really excellent novel, Ancillary Justice, has made the short list on a scad of awards. She did not take the PKD, which kind of puts us in the same company. Both our first novels (counted as the first novel that was entirely our own original work—my first published novel was a franchise work) made the PKD shortlist and we both did not win. (I prefer that to “we both lost” but it may appear a quibble to some.)  Ancillary Justice is a fine piece of work and I will be writing up a review of it any minute now over on The Proximal Eye. It’s on the Hugo ballot and for my money should take the award. Of course, it’s also on there against Charlie Stross, who writes my kind of skiffy as well, so…
Which brings me to controversy number one. Robert Jordan’s entire Wheel of Time series is on the slate as a single work.
Long ago there was a Hugo given for best series, which Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy won. (It was up against Lord of the Rings, which causes me to ponder which would win today, but I’ll leave that for another post or another blogger entirely.) Why they didn’t find a way to continue the award is one of the mysteries of the Hugo, especially since series always have been and today are even more prominent in the genre.
But this thing is 15 books, all of them massive. By sheer volume, the Wheel of Time makes Game of Thrones appear to be light reading.
Disclaimer: I tried to read the first book. Tried. Gamely charged at it three or four times. I realize there are fans out there who probably have named their children after characters in the series, but frankly this is really not my thing. To me, this is like reading a full genetic chart of category Fantasy and I found it mind-numbingly boring. I have since been told by people who read maybe seven or eight of them that basically they’re the same book over and over again and that this is indicated by the series title. Wheel, get it? But this is simply what I’ve been told, I did not make it past 50 pages of volume One.
To put a whole series up, though, directly competing with individual, standalone novels seems at base unfair. I’ve always had some ambivalence about single novels within a series winning awards, because how can they not be at least partly judged by what went before? So the award goes to a work that has an edge to start with. But I concede that it is entirely likely that a single novel in a series can rise above the rest, so…
But to intentionally nominate the whole series? No, I think this is a touch unfair unless it competes against other series.
This, however, brings us to the fundamental truth of the Hugo Award which many people tend to overlook. This award is not about the work, it’s about the fan. A work derives kudos, certainly, from what the fan decides, but the only metrics being time period (when was it published) and how many people liked it, it doesn’t matter about the work so much as it does about the reader.
Which brings me to the second Major Controversy. A writer who goes by the nom de blog Vox Day has a story on the ballot. This has caused consternation among folks who know something about this guy. He was expelled from SFWA last year, the first time a member has ever been ejected. He is a vocal presence on the internet and his opinions are, to put it mildly, eyebrow-raising in the extreme. His name popping up on the Hugo Ballot has caused a lot of noise to bubble up about “fixing” the ballot, as if he could not possibly have gained such a slot because he wrote a worthy story.
Gaming the Ballot has happened in the past. It’s based on membership to the world science fiction convention. Buy enough memberships, vote them all, whatever you want to see on the ballot can be there. (Yes, I know, it’s not quite that simple, since supposed safeguards have been put in place, but on the other hand, yes, it is that simple.) There have even been nominees in the past who were a bit embarrassed by their continued presence year after year because of the efforts of a group of dedicated (and presumably moneyed) fans.
As to Vox Day himself, I will only say that, based on what I’ve read of his posts (which fed into his getting ousted from SFWA), he and I do not share a world view.
But again, it doesn’t matter, because the Hugo is not about the story as much as it is about the reader. We can’t say to one group that their choice of nominee is invalid because this other group over here thinks the author is a world-class curmudgeon. (If that were the basis of qualifying nominees I can think of at least half a dozen off the top of my head who should never have gotten on the ballot.)  Vox Day didn’t get on the ballot, he was put on the ballot. By readers.
Everyone has their own set of standards about what ought to be. There are other awards where such things matter more. This one—the Hugo—is based on reader reaction. The fans.
Which is not to say I undervalue it. I’d love to be nominated for one of those sleek rockets. More, I’d like to bring one home. It means people like the work.
Not me, so much. The work. That’s the part that matters. It’s not about you (me) it’s about the reader and how much he or she likes the work.
So as another season of controversy unfolds, maybe it would be a good idea to keep that in mind.
So good luck to the nominees.
Okay, it has been a while. I’ve been busy. I have two novels in the works, which will take up most of my free time this year, but that’s no excuse to ignore everything else.
So first off, an upcoming event.
At the Missouri Regional Library on April 29th, 7:00 PM, Professor Tom Dillingham and I will be doing a presentation on the value of science fiction. What Science Fiction Can Teach Us will be a discussion of the potential scholastic, edifying, and just plain useful aspects of SF. This is the talk that would have happened back in February had the Second Ice Age not threatened glaciation. This should be a fun evening. Tom is a delight and I sort of know a thing or two about the subject.
So—April 29th, 7:00 PM, Missouri Regional Library, 214 Adams Street, Jefferson City, Missouri, 2nd Floor.
Also, hopefully, fingers crossed, the short story collection will be out in mid to late May. We’re going to do a release party at Left Bank Books, the specific date still a bit up in the air, but either the 14th or the 21st. I will let the world know when I know.
I’m changing the night of the reading group I moderate at Left Bank Books to the first Thursday of each month, starting May 1st. The title at hand is Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, which is available at Left Bank Books now at 20% off, so for all you local folks, go get a copy, support your local independent bookstore, and consider attending the meeting. Thursday evenings, 7:00 PM.
No doubt there is more and I will get to it as soon as I remember what it is. For now, have a good weekend.
I have a friend who likes to engage me on our points of departure. He’s a self-admitted conservative, I am not. He’s a sincere Christian, I’m an atheist. Looking around at the current culture, you would think that should make any conversation we might have problematic at best, impossible at worst.
Yet we carry on the occasional hour, two-hour, sometimes three hour conversation and never once descend into anger or dismissive rhetoric. And yes, we talk about religion regularly. We talk about politics. We talk about meaningful living. It’s the kind of exchange of ideas from different perspectives that seems both rare and uniquely pleasurable. Would that we taught kids growing up how to appreciate this kind of conversation as, at the very least, an æsthetic pleasure.
Consequently, when he questions me on priorities, I tend to listen.
A couple weeks ago, after the monthly jam session (he runs a church basement coffeehouse to which I’ve been going and participating for more than a few years now) we hung around and started talking about current subjects. My opening statement concerned the new movie Noah and the absurd fact that the studio has decided to put a disclaimer on it to appease religious reactionaries who are bothered by “historical inaccuracies.” I expected a laugh over the ridiculousness of this—these are not people who have much patience for that kind of shallow literalism—but instead what followed was a discussion of my obsessive attention to people like Ken Ham and the anti-evolution crowd and biblical literalists in general.
“Why do you pay any attention to them?”
Well, I replied, somewhat glibly, stupidity is fascinating.
Patiently, though, my friend worked at that. Really? Aren’t there better things to focus your attention on than the obdurate intractability of intellectual ostriches? Don’t you have, like, books to write?
At the end of the conversation (which is not to say that it’s over) I had to concede that I spent far too much time and mental energy worrying over the misreadings, misinterpretations, manglings, and malignancies of what is a minority example of entrenched ignorance. Like watching a neighbor gradually destroy his property (and being unable to do much about it), or watching a slow-motion train wreck, or even repeatedly viewing and complaining about a very expensive yet utterly brainless film, it is both attractive and repellant to observe this particular bit of cultural shadow-play.
The answer to the question has occupied me now since. Why do I give them so much of myself?
The glib answer is that they draw attention to themselves in such a way as to seem important and relevant. Paying attention to them feels, on a shallow level, like being engaged. Noticing them, knowing what they’ve been saying and seeing what they’re doing, seems like being a responsible agent in my own culture. Every time they manage to censor discussions in schools about evolution or try to force prayer into the classroom or some other culture-war battleground is pushed into the news, being aware of it just seems the thing to do.
A somewhat less glib answer is that the very real political power such groups seem to enjoy worries me. I don’t want to live in a country designed by biblical literalists. And determining how they’re wrong and why is basic to any kind of pushback.
And of course, since this conversation took place, we have the incident of the FOX television affiliate in Oklahoma blocking fifteen seconds of the new Cosmos program, the 15 seconds dealing with evolution, and my blood boils. I react. I become insensed.  And I immediately go to write a new blog post about how stupid this is and how malevolent this kind of nonsense is and how—
Which is, actually, a waste of my time. Really, there are better-qualified people doing exactly that. You can find links to some of them on the sidebar over to the right. You want to read a better-informed and more current tirade against this kind of thing, go to Freethought Pharyngula—P. Z. Myer is an evolutionary biologist and apparently has more time, energy, and inclination than I do to keep abreast of all this nonsense—or check the science blogs to which I maintain links.
I don’t have to do this.
And yet…and yet…I keep doing it. Even here, in addressing a different kind of question, I’m thrashing about and striking back. Willful ignorance, asserted as if it is a positive attribute, with an insistence that it is Right and Truth and we should all bow to its inevitable godlines MAKES—ME—CRAZY.
Why?
Because, at base, I loathe my own ignorance. I loathe that part of me that desperately wants to be right, whether I am or not. Because I am aware of my ignorance and strive to correct it and because I see that as an important fight it disturbs me—more, it frightens me—when others not only don’t see the worth in that fight but are dedicated to preventing the triumph of knowledge.
So, I suppose the simple answer to my friend’s question is—fear. Those people scare me. They are the ideological descendents of Inquisitors, witchfinders, book-burners, imperialists of dogma, stone-throwers, and censors. Because I read Lest Darkness Fall and Fahrenheit 451 and my imagination is such that I can see what a victory for them would mean for people like me.
And because I honestly lack any kind of faith in those who are my intellectual and cultural kindred that we will win this fight.
But that still doesn’t fully address the challenge he laid at me feet. Why do I pay so much attention to all this when I could better serve my own purpose and the purpose of the civilization I support in so many other ways?
Because, when combined with all of the above, this has become a rut. It is easy. And it feeds my sense of relevance. But really it’s a paltry diet. There are richer meals to be had, that would be more beneficial, to me and to others. So it is an itch which has become easy and habitual for me to scratch. And in certain company, it’s a sign that I am part of a certain group of like-minded.
It’s a poor excuse. I could be doing better things with my time and frankly getting more out of my intellectual life. Because at the end of the day, I’m not going to change their minds, and those who nod along with me when I dive into one of my tirades don’t need me to tell them about this.
I think it is worth paying attention to when tax money goes to something like Ken Ham’s Creation Museum. That’s an abuse of public trust and a violation of the law, frankly, and should be made public and stopped.
But I don’t need to go on about Ken Ham’s idiocy.
The spot that itches has grown raw and inflamed from repeated scratching and no salve is in sight. I need to leave it alone. I have a book on mathematics to hand, another about the history of science fiction, and still another about World War I. Yes, I have a couple of books dealing with the assault of reason, which is not only from a religious reactionary quarter—reason is under assault from many quarters—but I’m a fiction writer. My job is to tell stories about the world and because I write science fiction I can do a little prognosticating. I have to stop pissing away time on pointless subjects.
Besides, I really do think they’ll fade. When I sit myself down and really examine it, the world view we define as that of Reason will maintain and eventually the nattering naysayers will diminish. It’s just difficult to see that day to day and believe it when there are people worrying over the “historical” inaccuracies in a Hollywood film about a mythical event.
So I wish to thank my friend for opening a door and pointing out that I’ve been perhaps wandering the wrong hallway for a time.
This is why we must cultivate relationships with people we disagree with.
Because, it was a long year, and memory is sometimes a tenuous thing. These are my favorite rambles from the past year.
Colloquial For “Why, I Didn’t Mean Nothin’ By It!”
On The Extraction of Feet From Mouths
I did not include links here to last July and August because almost all of those months were about our trip, so just flip back to them in the archives and enjoy.
I included a couple of reviews from the Other Blog, The Proximal Eye. I guess I did a bit in 2013. I hope 2014 is just if not more productive.
Thanks for your indulgence.
To start, I put up a new theme. This one just appeared in the available queue and I really like it. So I intend sticking with it for a while. The last one was okay, but after a couple of weeks, it wore on me, so…
End of year review. The good, the bad, the post ugly.
I turned 59 this year. Not sure how to feel about that, but whatever I feel, it is what it is, I have no say in the matter. (A meme going around is that the 70s are the new late middle age. Well, that would give me about 30 more years or so to get it right, hm?) More on that later.
As noted, I am now working for Left Bank Books, which has turned out to be a mixed benefit. More benefit than not, frankly, since I am still not a Famous Author, able to live on my writing, despite my best efforts. I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching about those efforts, believe you me, trying to figure out just what I did—or didn’t—do right. And wrong. And working a bit harder at fending off a touch of bitterness. You do the best you can and then wait to see if that’s enough. If I could do it better or do it just as well differently, I would.
I should explain about the mixed part of the job. Much to my relief and enormous pleasure, I find myself looking forward to going to work. I’ve fallen in with marvelous, subversive, intellectual types, each one amazing in a different way. My last job, which lasted far longer than it should have, was one where I said regularly that if I hadn’t liked the people I worked with, I wouldn’t be there. No sense slaving away at a job you don’t like in company with people you despise. Granted, many folks—too many—do not have the luxury of choosing, and in that I’ve been fortunate, but even working with good and fun people can fail to compensate for the drudgery of a job you hate. Such is not the case now. I’m enjoying this immensely and my co-workers are wonderful.
But I’ve been staggering through the year trying to accommodate the new schedule and my writing and because of the nature of the job, the hours are staggered. It’s been surprisingly difficult to get any kind of rhythm for my work and the net result has been a lot of fragmentary stories and not nearly as much progress on any of my novels as I would like.
I can’t blame all this on the job. In fact, while the schedule has been a bit awkward, the job has nothing to do with my lack of progress.
I’m beginning—finally—work on the third novel in the Oxun Trilogy. I’ve been building up to this—and more than a little intimidated by it—since finishing the second novel. This one is the one set in the Napoleonic Era and is the most concretely historical, and frankly, it’s been daunting. A couple months ago I opened a file and began. And began again. Began two more times before realizing that I’d started it in the wrong place. Which also meant the research I’d been poring over was all wrong and I needed to deal with a different year and a different place. I’ve begun once more and now it feels right.
Could I have begun sooner? As much as I wanted to, no. I didn’t have a way in till now.
Time weighs on my mind. I’m about a decade behind where I wanted to be. Maybe more. (Okay, this is the tantrum part. Just sayin’.) When Compass Reach came out in 2001, I’d really thought it was the start of what would be an uninterrupted string of novels. At this point there ought to be at least six, maybe seven Secantis novels. At least. I had a schedule drafted of which books would come next. The collapse that came in 2005 derailed everything.
There are days I think I’m not really very good. Not as good as I need to be, not as good as I want to be. Such thoughts drag at me, so I dismiss them and move on.
So moving on. (Tantrum over.)
I read far fewer books cover to cover this past year than the year before. 33, in fact. But some of them were really good books.
The best of them included my friend Nicola’s new novel, Hild. (See previous post.) Also, Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, a quasi-fantasy, bizarre story about Ursula Todd, who lives again and again after dying in different ways and then starting all over. It covers the big, violent middle of the 20th Century and is a fascinating piece of work that I hesitate to describe other than as a quantum biography.
I read Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and his newest, And The Mountains Echoed. I will read the one that came in between them, but, as beautifully written as these books are, as poignant and heart-grabbing, there is a sadness in them that, in the latter book, is almost unbearable.
Going Clear by Lawrence Wright is a detailed and comprehensive history of Scientology. Well-written, thoroughly researched, it is a disturbing story that cannot but call into question the entire idea of religious movements. Somewhat thematically—coincidentally so—linked, I also read John M. Barry’s Roger Williams and the Creation of America, about the pilgrims, John Winthrop, and Roger Williams and the nature of one of our founding myths. A likewise disturbing history, it made me wonder why Roger Williams is not taught as one of the primary heroes of our national story—but then, the answer to that is also in the book.
One of the best SF novels I read this year is Lexicon by Max Barry. It’s about language and love and power and freedom. Superbly executed, it does not fail its premise.
I also read David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas this year and I’m glad I did. I also saw the film this year—twice, now—and I have to say this is one of those rare instances where book and film complement each other marvelously.
Possibly the most disappointing read was William Gass’s purported “last novel”—Middle C. I reviewed it at length over on the Proximal Eye. Gass is legendary, one of those bastions of high literary culture, and this was the first novel of his I’d encountered. I cannot recommend it.
I am starting a reading group at Left Bank Books. One of the things I’m hoping to do there is increase the profile of science fiction represented in the store, and after fumbling about a bit I decided this was the best way to do it. It’s being tied in to Archon and will, if successful, result in a panel or two at next year’s convention about the books under review. To that end, I reread Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks.
Anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time will know the esteem in which I hold Banks. It deeply saddened me when he passed away this year. We were both born in 1954. Cancer took him and there will be no more Culture novels. It was with great pleasure that I reread his first Culture book and found it even better than on my first encounter. I’d looked forward to some day meeting him, but that will not happen now.
We’ve lost a number of people this year in this field, some of whom I knew. Frederik Pohl died. Gateway is still, in my opinion, one of the best SF novels ever written. Jack Vance also passed away, a writer I respect and have difficulty reading. A paradox, that, and I consider the fault entirely mine. There are riches to be found in his enormous body of work and I have yet to figure out how to extract them.
British writer Colin Wilson died. I was peripherally aware of his work, which seemed to me to combine Kurt Vonnegut and Philip K. Dick in peculiar and occasionally fascinating ways. I recall The Philosophers Stone in particular, but he will, for better or worse, be remembered for Space Vampires, from which the movie Life Force was made. He called himself the greatest writer in the world once. Well.
The biggie for literature in general, though, was Doris Lessing, who was a Nobel Laureate and had the audacity to write science fiction unapologetically and then tell the critics they were idiots when they derided her for it.
Ray Harryhausen died. I still marvel at his special effects work in movies such as Jason and the Argonauts, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, and many, many others. I had a chance to meet him when he and Ray Bradbury were co-guests of honor at an Archon many years back.
Which brings me to the part where I ruminate on mortality. I have a great deal I want to do yet. I have a list of books I want to write, places I want to see, things I want to do. The fact that it seems to be taking me an inordinate amount of time to get firmly established as a writer irritates me on the level of how much more I want to accomplish. If I have a fear of death at all, it is that I won’t get finished with what I want to do. The thought of leaving things undone, to be either completed by others, tossed out, or ignored bothers me. That is my only reservation about mortality. (Oh, I fear getting old and sick, but death holds no terror for me. For one, once dead, I won’t know. I expect it is very much like a switch thrown, then nothing. Power off, lights out. But I don’t like the idea of suffering. Never did.)
On a more positive note, I did learn that I will have a short story collection coming out in 2014. Much to my surprise. From a local publisher, Walrus. Closer to release date (May, we think) I’ll tell the story about it, but it will be called Gravity Box and Other Spaces. The stars align and the chips fall properly, we’ll do a release event at Left Bank Books.
I’ve been continuing to recover from my near-death experience of August 2012. Appendicitis, you will recall. Then a complication, an abscess. Didn’t get completely over the surgery(s) till December. I went back to the gym in March of this year. Right before coming down with the seasonal grunge, I was nearly back up to all the weights I’d been doing, with the addition of an aerobic section on the treadmill. I did 900 lbs on the leg press before the Cold From Hell, which is 30 lbs shy of where I was before my appendix burst. Still not gonna make the thousand I wanted to do by year’s end, but hey, not too shabby for an old man. (Oh, right, middle aged.)
We took a major vacation this past year to northern California. The excuse was a kind of Clarion class reunion in Sacramento. Nicola Griffith and Kelley Eskridge were joint GoHs at Westercon and the idea for a reunion spawned. Several of us showed up. I wrote about it back in August. It was amazing. After the con, we rented a car and drove up the coast to see redwoods and Pacific Ocean and cool fog and wineries and ended up staying with Peter and Nan Fuss on their (modest) mountaintop. Expensive and we could ill afford it, but it was also one of those cases of we couldn’t afford not to. There are pictures over in the Zenfolio galleries.
Donna is almost—almost—recovered from the Job From Hell. It took more out of her than either of us realized. It’s been two years and she’s finally feeling something of her old self. I continue to take care of her.
Especially now, for reasons I don’t wish to go into here. Suffice it to say that years have caught up in an all-too common way and she has extra burdens, with which I’m trying to help. We’re fine. But…
We had a very low-key Christmas. Didn’t even decorate. But it was the Christmas we needed, because we spent it together.
This coming spring we will be celebrating 34 years together and I can truthfully say I love her more now than ever before. We’ve been through hell together. And heaven. We are comfortable with each other and I cannot imagine life without her.
So all in all, 2013 was a better year than many in the last decade. We made some fabulous memories and did some wonderful things and we’re going into 2014 feeling better and more optimistic than we have in some time. In closing, I’d like to thank all the friends and acquaintances—and most especially the new friends we’ve made at Left Bank Books (Kris and Jay and Lauren and Shane and Jonesey and Jessi and Jenni and Randy and David and Sarah and Evan and Mariah and Robert and Cliff and Erin—which reminds me, next paragraph—and Wintaye and Bill and the other David and I know I’m forgetting someone)—and those we’ve known almost all our lives and those we’ve known only part of our lives and those we’ve known only a short time…
Next paragraph, yes. I shot my (I think) fourth wedding. Erin, a coworker, wed Frank in the store at Left Bank Books on December 1st. I shot the pictures (the “official” pictures) and must report that this was one of the coolest weddings I’ve ever been to. Another coworker, Jonesey (Sarah Johnson) officiated and great joy, a few tears, an annoyed cat, and tremendous celebration ensued. I’ve never attended a wedding held in a bookstore before, but now that I have I wonder why it doesn’t happen more often.
There is, I know, much more to say about this past year, but for now this is enough. We’ve come through better than we were last year at this time and ready for next year. Anyone who can say that is in the plus column of life.
Happy New Year.
