My friend and sometime partner in crime Melinda M. Snodgrass has just launched her new website and blog. The site can be found at

http://www.melindasnodgrass.com/

and I encourage all of Melinda’s friends to go and check it out and leave a calling card.

For those of you who may not be familiar with her work, Melinda has been my assistant editor and right hand on WILD CARDS since the series was first born back in the 1980s. She was the creator of Dr. Tachyon and Dr. Finn, two of our most popular characters, and has a great new character called Double Helix set to debut in the new Wild Cards book, INSIDE STRAIGHT, that Tor will be publishing next January. She and I also collaborated on a couple of screenplays back during my Hollywood days — a WILD CARDS feature film featuring the Turtle and Dr. Tachyon, and an adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs classic, A PRINCESS OF MARS. Neither one ever made, alas, but that’s the way it goes in Hollywood, and we did get wheelbarrows full of money, so it wasn’t all bad.

Snod also wrote some great television and film all by her lonesome, including the now-classic “Measure of a Man” episode of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, some great episodes of REASONABLE DOUBTS and THE PROFILER, and the pilot for STAR COMMAND, her own SF show, which filmed in Germany (ask her about the robot than ran amuck and smashed the set) and should have been picked up for series, but wasn’t. She’s written a brand new WILD CARDS feature screenplay as well, and is deep in discussions with various Hollywood studios about getting it optioned and filmed, so cross your fingers.

She also has a big new novel coming out from Tor next year.

I shouldn’t be telling you all her news, however. Give her a visit, say hi on her blog, and you can hear it all first hand.

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I have reached a final settlement with Guardians of Order, the Canadian games company that published the role-playing game based on A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE before going under last year.

We’re now all square, and that license has officially expired. It is not the ending that I would have hoped for, but I’m glad to have concluded things amicably.

As part of our settlement, I have acquired the remaining stock of the deluxe, limited edition of the RPG worldbook, a huge and lavishly illustrated hardcover. I will be listing the book for sale on the “Signed Books” page of my website in the very near future, but I thought I’d give my Not-a-Bloggers a little advance notice.

If any of you want to snag a copy, the price is $100, which includes book rate shipping within the United States (overseas is more). This is a big and beautiful book with lots of great artwork, and tons of background material on the world of Westeros that may be of interest even to those who do not play role-playing games. And needless to say, I would be glad to sign and inscribe the book on request. You can get a look at the cover and some of the graphics by scrolling back through the Archives sections of the news page.

(Please email if you are interested, don’t comment about it here).

There will be another RPG in the future. I am considering offers from several other companies right now, and expect to have a new license to announce within the next couple of months.

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It’s good to be home again.

I won’t say it wasn’t a swell trip. We saw friends, had a good time at Boskone and the New York City Comicon, did business, enjoyed a great dinner with my family…

Getting the norovirus in the middle of our travels did kind of suck, however, and then on our way home, Parris had her luggage robbed. Someone opened a locked suitcase and stole her ipod and a whole bunch of new peripherals that she’d just bought at the Apple Store in NYC. They also stole the two locks. (Both brand new “TSA approved” locks, I might add. So far as I can see, locking your luggage with a TSA approved lock is completely useless, since everyone and his brother has the keys. And of course you’re no longer allowed to use locks that might actually keep thieves out of your luggage. It’s all to make us more “secure,” hoo hah).

She’s getting the usual run-around as regards to filing a claim for the stolen items. TSA blames the airline, the airline blames TSA, and no one takes any responsibility. Continental Airlines has been especially useless. TSA and the police have actually been treating Parris with courtesy and doing what they can to help her, but from Continental she’s gotten nothing but phone trees, disconnects, brush-offs from disinterested “customer service” people, and repeated refrains of “it’s not our responsibility” — though indications are that it is the Continental baggage handlers who are the culprits here.

We also had trouble with Continental on the way east, but that was in connection with our carry-on luggage. We were seated in row 19 out of Houston to Boston, yet by the time we were allowed to board ALL the overhead space on the plane had been filled by the passengers seated in rows 20 and back, so an especially obnoxious flight attendant insisted that I check my carry on (not even a wheelie, but a nylon shoulder bag), and threatened to call “security” and have me removed from the plane when I refused to give it to her (the bag contains valuables and personal items that cannot be checked). I told her the bag would fit under the seat, but she refused to believe me, choosing to go by her own three-second “eyeball” inspection of the bag rather than listen to my assurances. That damn bag is TWENTY YEARS OLD and has fit under many airline seats over the decades. I have crossed oceans with the bag under the seat in front of me, I was trying to tell her… but she didn’t want to listen, she just wanted to threaten me with the FAA. Fortunately an older and wiser flight attendant intervened before this young obnoxious one could throw me off the plane, and actually helped, opening an overhead bin, turning one of those monstrous carry-on “rollers” sideways, and making room for my shoulder bag. If not for her, I might have been dragged off my flight.

Anyway, Continental Airlines has moved right to the bottom of our list as “airline we are least likely ever to fly again.” They won’t let you carry on your valuables, and if you check your stuff, they steal it.

But enough venting. We DID have fun on the trip as well, when we weren’t throwing up or being robbed. Boskone is still a great con, although the new hotel is a definite step down, and we had a good time at the New York City Comicon, where I did signings for Tor, Bantam, and DBPro/Marvel, got to meet the entire amazing Dabel clan, and did all sorts of business.

Even so… it IS good to be home.

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Free at last!

Parris and I finally felt strong enough to escape the Westin Waterfront and make our way down to New York. Neither of us is at 100% yet, but I’m feeling well enough to make my scheduled appearances at the NYC Comicon.

See you there!

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Wednesday morning in Boston, and matters have gone to bad to worse.

I am feeling much better this morning, though I still have a touch of whatever it was. I’m running at maybe 85% of my old self.

Unfortunately, Parris woke up with a full-blown case of whatever the hell I had. (Guess that proves it was indeed a stomach virus of some sort, and not food poisoning). She’s where I was back on Monday morning, which isn’t good. We’re not going to be able to travel.

We’re still trying to figure out what this does to our New York plans. Maybe some of them can be salvaged, but…

Boskone should never have have left the Sheraton. The new con hotel appears to be the Hotel California — we can check out any time we want, but we can never leave.

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Forgive the brevity of this. I am not feeling so well at the moment, and don’t have the energy for a long post.

I am going to have to cancel out on the pizza crawl.

I am still in Boston as I write, and may or may not be moving on to New Haven. Boskone was a lot of fun right up until last Sunday night, when I came down with . . . well, Parris thinks it’s a stomach virus, and I’m thinking it’s just plain old fashioned food poisoning. I blame a bad shrimp.

Whatever the cause, I’ve spent the last day and a half running between my bed and the bathroom. The worst is over, I think, but I’m still pretty weak, my stomach is very tender, and I seem to have lost my sense of smell. None of which bodes well for a day of eating pizza.

I am bitterly disappointed to have to post this. As sick as I felt yesterday, I have been hoping that by today I’d be back to my old self. I have been looking forward to this pizza crawl for weeks,

My sincere apologies to anyone who gets this message too late, and shows up in New Haven to meet me. If I could be there, I would be.

I still hope to have recovered in time to make all my scheduled appearances at the New York City comicon… but just now, nothing is certain.

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The pizza crawl is only a week away, so it is time we nailed down our plans.

So here’s how it is going to go (we hope).

Tuesday, February 20. We hit three of New Haven’s most famed pizzerias, to see if their pies are truly world class. We’ve learned that Sally’s, one of the city’s most famous joints, is closed for two weeks, taking them out of the running. Their loss. We still have plenty of great pizzerias to try out.

At 3:00 pm, we meet at FRANK PEPE’s on Wooster. Everyone says there will be a line. Okay. Those who are going, turn up and get in line. Parris and I will do the same. We could have anywhere from twenty to fifty people turning up for the crawl, so there’s no way we can all sit together, but we’ll make do. Parris will eat with one group, I’ll eat with another, we’ll both try and tablehop while we’re grabbing a few slices. If we have to wait an hour in line, we wait an hour in line and make friends there.

After we’re done at Pepe’s, we play it by ear, find someplace to hang out, have coffee and a drink or three.

At 6:00 pm, we adjourn across town to MODERN APIZZA for our second round of pies. Maybe there will be a line there as well, maybe there won’t. Same drill.

And for the true pizza lovers and the late night crowd, come 9:00 pm, we head over to BAR to try mashed potato pizza amongst “Alternative Lifestyle Night.” I’m told that BAR has private rooms upstairs. Maybe one of you locals can call them up and see about reserving one for us from 9pm until whenever. We’ll end the evening with some brews and pepperonis.

That’s the plan.

So… who’s coming? I know a lot of you responded on the last thread, but time passes, plans change, etc, so let’s hear from you again. And, if you can, please let us know whether you will be along for the whole crawl, or just for part of it… and if so, which part. That will help us figure out how many pizza crawlers to expect at each joint.

My thanks to all the locals who posted comments in the last thread, made phone calls, and helped put this together. You’ve all been great. We need one point man to coordinate all this, however, and it can’t be me, since I’ll be on the road as of Thursday… ergo, I hererby appoint ZEN BLADE, aka Dennis Mishler, as our semi-official Master of the Games for the Pizza Crawl. Zen Dennis (ZenDen?) was kind enough to post his contact number in his long message in the last thread. If you want to come and have questions, call him.

Zen Blade, I hope this is okay? And please, if you would, double check and make sure the plan as I have outlined it will actually work, and all these places will be open when they say they will, etc. If you can reserve that room for us at BAR, that would be great.

A few final comments. If you’re coming on the crawl, dress warmly and wear comfortable shoes. We may be walking, and there may be a lot of waiting in line.

It might be good if we had some way to recognize one another, since there will be lots of eager pizza eaters who aren’t part of the crawl. How, though? Ice & Fire t-shirts? No, too cold, the shirts will be hidden under jackets. Wear our baseball caps turned sideways?

Also, please, BRING CASH. We will have to pay for these pizzas, after all, and the pizzerias aren’t going to want to do separate checks for fifty, or handle twenty different people tossing in credit cards. Have some folding money so you can peel off your five bucks or ten bucks or whatever when the bill comes round.

And speaking of that bill… my experience with large groups is that things tend to go much better if everyone just pays an equal share. So if you’re one of these “oh, I didn’t have a coke, and I only had one slice, but he had two, so my share is two bucks less” people, be warned… that kind of stuff drives me buggy. My advice: order a coke and eat the second slice, and pay the same as everyone else. Nothing ruins a good evening more than spending an hour dividing up a check down to the last penny between fifty people.

Pepe’s! Modern! BAR! Who will be the best? Let’s see…

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It’s our last night in the city, and I’m typing this from our hotel room while Parris naps.

Tomorrow will be a long day. We’ll be headed home, but not until the evening, on Continental’s night flight out of Newark airport, the only direct flight from the NYC area to Albuquerque. Leaving that late in the day is a bit of a pain, but worth it, usually — not having to change planes shaves at least three hours off the travel time, and makes it less likely that we’ll miss a connection and wind up stranded at some hub somewhere. (The hub system is another of the crimes against humanity by the airlines). Even so, it will be a grueling day.

We’re both looking forward to getting home, however. Our annual midwinter visit to Boskone and New York City is normally a high point of our year, but this year’s version was more exhausting than usual. Nothing like a nice dose of norovirus to slow down all your fun. Neither of us is completely recovered even now. Just when you think it’s all over, you eat something you shouldn’t and your gut gives you a little reminder that no, it’s still feeling tender. I’ve been running at about 80% of my usual energy, and Phipps at no more than 50%. She had another bad bout last night and missed a wonderful dinner at Peter Lugar’s, the best steakhouse in the city.

We have had some fun, of course, but maybe only about half as much fun as we planned on having. NYC has so much to do that we always leave town regretting the stuff that we didn’t get around to doing, and this time we didn’t get around to even more than usual. Never got to a Broadway show or the IMAX theatre, never had a hot dog at Papaya King, no rides on the Staten Island ferry, never got over to Bayonne, never touched base with a bunch of our New York friends, etc. etc.

I did get to see my family, however, which was wonderful, and we also had a good time at the NYC Comicon, despite the crowds. We finally got to announce the new WILD CARDS comic series that we’ll be doing with DBPro and Marvel (to be scripted by Daniel Abraham), and we met the rest of the vast, charming, and very talented Dabel clan. Les and Ernst had some penciled pages and a cover on the SWORN SWORD comic as well, and it was great to get a look at that… and we touched base with some wonderful artists who may be doing covers for us in the future.

Well, Parris is stirring, so I’ll post now and see if she’s feeling well enough for dinner. More later, or maybe when we get home.

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Our annual winter trip to Boskone and New York City is coming steadily closer, and with it the soon-to-be-infamous pizza crawl in New Haven. Time to get organized.

My last post about this (two down, under the HBO news) drew a lot of comments. Others responded by private email. Sounds as though lots of folks want to be a part of our crawl, and try the famous slices of New Haven.

How many, though? I’m not sure. Some of those responding were interested but indefinite. Others said, “I’m in,” but they were posting anonymously, so I have no idea WHO is “in.” Others used their Live Journal handles and avatars… which is better than Anonymous, but in many cases I still don’t know who you are. Please, guys and gals, use your names, at least for this. Otherwise we may end up with twenty people standing outside of Pepe’s waiting for Billy the Mountain, none of them realizing that Billy the Mountain is really that quiet guy called Fred who turned up twenty minutes ago.

We do need to get a better notion of whether there are going to be ten of us, twenty, fifty, or a hundred (too many, I fear, and we may have logistical problems).

We could also use a volunteer on location in New Haven to help coordinate all this, someone to double check that all the pizza places are open, make reservations where reservations are accepted, and generally get our ducks in a row.

So let’s make it official now. Who’s in? Not maybe, or I’d love to, or I’d-be-in-except-I-live-in-Istanbul, but definitely going-to-be-there-on-February-20 in. And is there anyone there local who can take charge of organizing some of this?

I’ll start. Parris and I are in. That’s 2.

Oh, and please… only pizza crawl comments on this thread. If you want to talk about the HBO deal, go down to my previous post and comment there. I want this particular discussion to stay focused, thank you very much.

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Yes, it’s true.

Yes, this is the Big News that I have been hinting at.

No, the Big News was not the pizza crawl, or the delivery of the new WILD CARDS book, though of course I’m excited about those as well.

VARIETY broke the story this morning. Instead of rehashing what they said, let me just point all of you toward:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117957532.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

I’ve already gotten close to a hundred emails this morning, just off the VARIETY article. I expect that number will have swollen to several hundred before the day is out. I appreciate all the good wishes and congratulations, but I am NOT going to be able to respond to all of you individually.

I will be making my own announcement on my news page, of course, and that may answer some of your questions, but I haven’t actually written it yet, so please be patient.

I appreciate all the casting suggestions too, but guys, you’re getting way way WAY ahead of yourselves. Developing a television series is a long and time-consuming process, and we’re just getting started here. We only closed the deal a couple of days ago.

I will do my best to keep everyone informed as the project progresses, but this is not something you will be telling TIVO to record next week.

This might be a great time to subscribe to HBO, however. Regardless of what happens with A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, HBO still has the best shows on television, shows like DEADWOOD, THE WIRE, and THE SOPRANOS that stand head and shoulders above anything on the networks. The second season of ROME just started last Sunday, and it’s fabulous; the look of it, the writing, the directing, the acting, all of it is first rate. That’s why I have been saying for years that HBO was the perfect place for A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE.

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