Well, I made my appearance on Sheep Island a few hours ago, cleverly disguised as Tyrion the Imp for a reading and Q&A session at Bantam’s virtual bookstore. Only this version of Tyrion could fly! Ah, if only the Tyrion in the books could fly, what mischief he will… ah… could… ah, never mind.

Anyway, it was great fun. My thanks to Ken and Dan and Betsy and all the other good folks at Bantam, Second Life, and Electric Sheep who made it possible and kept it running smoothly, and of course to all the fans and readers who donned their finest avatars and popped in for a listen. I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as I did. I hope you all bought a virtual copy of DREAMSONGS too, since that’s what we were supposed to be promoting.

And a special thanks to David Benioff and Dan Weiss, who made a surprise guest star appearance to answer questions about the HBO production of A GAME OF THRONES. It was great to have them there, even if they didn’t have time to fix their avatars up like the Clegane Brothers, as they wanted.

Even Second Lives must come to an end, however, so now I am back to my original life.

My next appearance will be similarly cutting edge. On Saturday, I will be meeting fans and signing books at Book Expo America in New York City, starting at 11am. I look forward to seeing some of you there, and defacing your books. Unfortunately, Parris has chained me to my desk, so I won’t actually be able to leave Santa Fe… but I’ll be there signing at the BEA all the same, thank you very much.

Current Mood: null

So, it’s been thirty years since we first saw STAR WARS. Hard to believe.

Amidst all the hype and hoopla of this anniversary, I keep seeing people calling STAR WARS “the best science fiction film of all time.” Uh… really? I don’t think so. The original STAR WARS was a good movie, and EMPIRE STRIKES BACK was even better (Leigh Brackett wrote that one, so there’s good reason), but RETURN OF THE JEDI went downhill, and you really don’t want to get me started about those three wretched prequels. Even the original triad hasn’t aged as gracefully as one might have hoped. It has become apparent that much of the charm of the first movie came from the novelty of seeing favorite tropes from classic SF books realized on the screen for the first time… but that charm wears off on repeated viewings, and once it does you realize that neither the story is, well… not all that it could have been. You also realize how much retrofitting and backfill has gone on since the movie’s first release. I don’t care what Lucas says, I will never believe that Darth was meant to Luke’s father from the outset, or that the romantic pairing was always supposed to be Leia and Han (it is plainly Luke and Leia)… and damn it, Han shoots first!

Never mind about all that. STAR WARS is what it is, and it had a profound effect on both SF and on film, for both good and ill… but it is not even close to being the best SF movie of all time.

What’s better? Try 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Try THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. Try the first ALIEN, or even better, ALIENS (but never mention the third installment in my presence). Try CHARLIE (the film version of the classic “Flowers for Algernon”). All worthy. Try George Pal’s wonderful adaptation of H.G. Wells’ WAR OF THE WORLDS (a better film than the Spielberg remake, in my opinion), or Pal’s version of THE TIME MACHINE (a MUCH better film than the really truly abominable recent remake).

The best, though?

MGM, 1956. Leslie Nielson, Anne Francis, Walter Pidgeon, Robbie the Robot. FORBIDDEN PLANET. Also known as the Tempest on Altair-4. Inspired by Shakespeare, in turn it inspired Gene Roddenberry, who borrowed heavily from it when coming up with STAR TREK. State of the art special effects (for 1956, admittedly), gripping story, some fine performances (especially by Walter Pidgeon, whose performance as Morbius beats anything ever seen in any of the STAR WARS films). Unlike STAR WARS, this is a film that only grows richer every time you watch it. A monster that makes sense, characters with a little psychological depth, science that isn’t just empty technobabble, a sexy heroine, a tragic hero, the awesome caverns of the Krel… FORBIDDEN PLANET has it all.

Winner and still champion.

The best science fiction film of all time.

Current Mood: null

I can barely keep up with my first life, if truth be told… but all the same, I’ll be having a second life come Thursday.

Yes, I’m making a virtual appearance in Bantam’s virtual bookstore on Second Life. For those of you who don’t know it, Second Life is… well, sort of like World of Warcraft without the axes, swords, and monsters. Our world, kinda sorta, virtually. Anyway, I’ll be there this Thursday evening, in avatar form, doing a reading from A DANCE WITH DRAGONS and doing a Q&A afterwards. Proceedings will start at 9:00pm eastern and run about an hour. This will be a first for me, so it will be fun to see how it goes. Ah, ’tis a brave new world, surely.

If you’d like to be part of the festivities, get thee to www.secondlife.com. You can sign up there, download the software, and design your own avatar. (I’ve never done a reading with monsters in the audience before, at least not the sort you could tell my looking at ’em).

The virtual bookstore can only hold about sixty avatars, but the overflow will be able to see and hear the reading from satellite sites, and send questions via IM.

I’ve never done this before either, so that’s about all I can tell you about how things will work… but if you live out in the bookdocks where I’m never likely to visit on a book tour, this virtual appearance could be the next best thing. See you there

Current Mood: null

Melinda Snodgrass has “tagged” me, she informs me. And now I must reveal eight things about myself. Presumably eight things that I haven’t revealed before, or at least not widely, or else what fun would it be?

So… eight things about me that most of you would probably never suspect.

1) The first vote I ever cast was for a Republican, New Jersey’s distinguished senior senator and favorite son, Clifford B. Case.

2) I had a crew cut all through junior high, high school, and most of college.

3) My favorite guilty pleasure movie is SUMMER LOVERS. I want to go to the island of Santorini and have a menage a trois with Darryl Hannah and Valerie Quinessen.

4) When I was in my twenties people used to tell me I looked like Kris Kristofferson. Now they tell me I look like Jerry Garcia. And he’s dead. I don’t like this trend.

5) I like writing when it’s going well, but I LOVE having written.

6) My favorite song is Kris Kristofferson’s “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33.” (See him busted on the sidewalk in his jacket and his jeans, wearing yesterday’s misfortunes like a smile). I am also very fond of “Me and Bobby McGee” and “To Beat the Devil” and “Silver” and a lot of Kris’s other songs. Maybe that’s why I was pleased when people said I looked like him.

7) I have never been defeated at RISK when I have the red army. Never. And I started playing RISK in grade school. Foemen tremble when I rattle my dice. Except when they make me play green or black or some other color. Then I am merely mortal.

8) Windows sucks. I use it, under protest, for the internet, but all my fiction is written on a DOS machine, using WordStar 4.0. I’m a word guy. When I want to copy something, I like to type “copy.” When I want to delete it, I like to type “delete.” I don’t like puzzling out these stupid little cartoons they call icons, or dragging them around with a mouse. The day WordStar 4.0 stops working is the day I retire.

So there you have it. My revelations.

And now, if I understand the rules of this “game of eight” correctly, I must tag someone else, just as Melinda tagged me. Let me look around. Hmmmmm, who… ah…

STEVE LEIGH! You’re tagged!

Current Mood: null