All Hail Our Artists

June 2, 2019 at 8:04 am

I am a lucky guy in a lot of ways… one of them being that I get to work with some of the greatest SF and fantasy artists in the world.

ASFA has just announced this year’s finalists for the Chesley Awards, and I’m thrilled to note that Wild Cards and A Song of Ice and Fire both have artists among this year’s finalists.

Michael Komarck has been doing spectacular Wild Cards covers for Tor for years now, with way too little recognition, so it’s great to see that his cover for LOW CHICAGO is a finalist for Best Cover Illustration, Hardcover. Marko Kloos’s Khan is the featured character.

The redoubtable John Picacio has no fewer than three nominations on this year’s Chesley ballot… all great, but of course my favorite is the illustration he did for “EverNight,” a Wild Cards story by Victor Milan on Tor.com. It’s been nominated for Best Interior Illustration.

John tells me he was especially pleased by this nomination. “I want to celebrate Vic, and I want people to remember him and his story.”

I speak for the whole Wild Cards Consortium when I say how lucky we are to have amazing talents like John Picacio and Michael Komarck bringing our characters to life.

Meanwhile, that other series of mine is also well represented on the Chesley ballot, with a nomination for John Jude Palencar’s 2019 Ice & Fire calendar as Best Product Illustration. You can see the cover here, but there’s a lot more stunning Ice & Fire art inside. JJP is one of the premiere artists in the field, and a joy to work with.

The entire list of this year’s Chesley nominees can he found here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17afhGHSQ1c22ogC_LNr2wdx0qxD3SefO_90Sl94keqs/edit#

Congratulations to all the nominees. I love fantasy art, and it’s nice to see some great work being recognized.

(Signed copies of LOW CHICAGO and the 2019 Palencar calendar are both available from the bookstore at the Jean Cocteau Cinema. Vic Milan’s “EverNight” can be found and read on Tor.com, along with lots of other great Wild Cards stories).

Current Mood: happy

Tags: a song of ice and fire, artwork, awards, calendar, wild cards

Memorial Day Sadness

May 28, 2019 at 6:55 pm

Memorial Day started as a day of remembrance, originally for soldiers slain in the Civil War. In more recent decades it has come to mark the beginning a summer, a holiday celebrated in thousands of back yards across the nation with hot dogs and potato salads. In the science fiction community, it has also become a traditional date for conventions, taking advantage of the three-day weekends. There are a dozen or more Memorial Day cons around these days… but some of them go way back.

It was at one of those conventions that I first met Gardner Dozois: Disclave 1971, in Washington D.C. Gargy (unbeknownest to me at the time) was the assistant editor at GALAXY who had found my story “The Hero” in the slush pile and passed it along to Ejler Jakobsson with a recommendation to buy. That became my first professional sale. A few months later, when I walked into Disclave, the first con I ever attended, Gardner was the first person I met. He was working the registration desk. “Hey,” he said. “I know you. I fished you out of the slush pile.”

He went on to become one of my oldest and dearest friends. We never lived in the same city, oddly, not even the same time zone… but we hung out together at worldcon every year, and sometimes at other cons as well, we workshopped together, taught together, talked together on the phone and by letter (those papery things we exchanged before email), won awards together, lost awards together, founded the Hugo Losers Party together (Kansas City, 1976), edited books together… and laughed together, that above all. Gardner was a brilliant writer (albeit very very slow — yes, even slower than I am) and one of the greatest editors our genre has ever produced, but he was also a very funny man, a joy to spend time with.

He died a year ago, on May 27th. To my shock — we had spoken on the phone only three days before, and he was the same old Gardner, full of jokes and plans for what he’d do when he got out of the hospital — and dismay. A year has come and gone, and I still find it hard to accept that I will never see him again, still have days when I think, “I should give Gargy a call, it’s been a while,” before I remember. I fear, given the date of his death, that Memorial Day weekend is always going to be a day of sadness for me from now on. (FWIW, Gardner was also a veteran, having served in the army during the Vietnam era, though in Germany rather than Nam).

Some of you may never have known Gargy, except as a byline on ASIMOV’S and BEST OF THE YEAR and our crossgenre titles, WARRIORS and ROGUES and DANGEROUS WOMEN. Here, to give you a taste of the man, is a YouTube of the panel I did with Gardner and Howard Waldrop a few years ago at Capclave, the D.C. area con that succeeded Disclave after the… ahem… unfortunate incident. There’s no subject for this panel, no big issue to discuss, just three old friends telling stories and having fun.

I love that someone taped it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvdsmhQYTyc

That’s a great memory for me. But there are so many more. And maybe the best times were back in the 70s, when we were both “Young Turks” (yes, people really called us that) and Rising Stars, just starting out, sleeping on floors and sharing rooms and rides at cons, scrounging meals off editors, with none of us having a pot to piss in.

Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end.

Miss you, Gargy.

Current Mood: sad sad

Tags: fandom, life and death, worldcon

DE WAAL WINS MISKATONIC AWARD

May 27, 2019 at 8:00 am

I am pleased to announce that KYLE DE WAAL is the winner of this year’s Miskatonic Scholarship to the Odyssey Writers Workshop in New Hampshire, given each year to a student working in the area of Lovecraftian cosmic horror.

Here’s the press release from Odyssey:

George R. R. Martin. . . created the Miskatonic Scholarship to provide financial support to a promising new writer of Lovecraftian cosmic horror attending the Odyssey Writing Workshop. Martin said that, reading the works of H. P. Lovecraft as a boy, he “fell in love with monsters and scary stories.” With the ongoing Miskatonic Scholarship, Martin would like to encourage a new generation of writers to explore Lovecraftian cosmic horror. He hopes the scholarship “will offer an opportunity to a worthy applicant who might not otherwise have been able to afford the Odyssey experience.”

Odyssey Director Jeanne Cavelos said, “We were thrilled at the number and quality of the applications for the Miskatonic Scholarship this year. The scholarship is definitely encouraging writers to explore the fascinating genre of cosmic horror. Of course, that made choosing a winner more difficult. But everyone on the judging panel was drawn to one story, which we found suspenseful, involving, intense, and frightening.”

This year’s winner is Kyle de Waal, who loves to write anything with a monster in it, especially cosmic horror with a bent towards YA-lit. He also enjoys tabletop games, mountain biking, and Greek and Roman history. He lives in Canada with his border collie who is named after a poetic device: Volta.

Of de Waal’s winning story, “What We Took from the Old Country,” scholarship judge Carrie Vaughn, a New York Times bestselling author, said, “A great urban fantasy/horror set up.” Scholarship judge Ti Mikkel shared this feedback with de Waal: “Beautifully written. You’re on solid footing with your craft and have great instincts for storytelling.”

De Waal explained the genesis of his story: “‘What We Took from the Old Country’ draws inspiration from the works of H. P. Lovecraft (because cults, monsters, and malevolent entities from beyond our world are cool) as well as my questions of family heritage and finding a place in the context of history.”

About Odyssey

The Odyssey Writing Workshop is widely considered one of the top programs for writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Writers from all across the world apply to the six-week program held each summer in Manchester, New Hampshire. Fifteen are admitted. Top authors, agents, and editors serve as guest lecturers. Intensive instruction in advanced writing techniques, in-depth feedback on manuscripts, and one-on-one guidance help students to make major improvements. Graduates include New York Times bestsellers, Amazon bestsellers, and award winners.

To learn more about Odyssey, visit www.odysseyworkshop.org. Odyssey offers many programs and resources for writers, including online classes, webinars, a critique service, consultations, coaching, free podcasts, author interviews, writing tips, and a monthly online discussion salon.

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Tags: scholarships, writing

Thanks, New Zealand

May 21, 2019 at 8:20 pm

I was surprised last night when Air New Zealand went to the internet to invite me down for a visit… to help me finish my book.

I cannot say I was not tempted. New Zealand is a beautiful place. As it happens, I have already visited there a number of times. I’ve been to Auckland and Wellington and Christchurch and Rotoroa… and Hobbiton, of course. I’ve gone whale watching (we never saw a whale, but there were hundreds of dusky dolphins), checked out the Te Papa, the Weta Workshop, the aquarium in Auckland, and a cool automobile museum somewhere near Wellington. From Rotoroa I took a helicopter out to White Island, with its boiling mud pools and lovely lake of sulfuric acid. (With Hobbiton and Mordor on the same island, you really ought to change your name to Middle Earth). I’ve been to a few hangis too, and my minions have a video of me attempting to do a haka that they periodically use to blackmail me.

In short, I love New Zealand. You don’t need to convince me.

And as it happens, I already have plans to return. In the summer of 2020, Wellington is hosting the World Science Fiction Convention, the oldest and most important con in the SF/ fantasy calendar, and they’ve asked me to serve as Toastmaster for the Hugo Awards. Writers, fans, and artists from all over the world will be headed down to check out all of your wonders. I hope lots of you Kiwis will join us.

www.conzealand.nz

Of course, I was especially moved by your offer to bring me to New Zealand “on us.” How wonderfully generous. As it happens, I do have enough money to make it to New Zealand on my own… but there are many American writers, fans, and artists who do not. If you’d care to fly, say, twenty or thirty or fifty of them to Wellington in place of me, I have no doubt they would instantly accept, and fall in love with Middle Earth.. er, New Zealand… just as I have. And you have such big planes, I’m sure you could squeeze them in.

As for finishing my book… I fear that New Zealand would distract me entirely too much. Best leave me here in Westeros for the nonce. But I tell you this — if I don’t have THE WINDS OF WINTER in hand when I arrive in New Zealand for worldcon, you have here my formal written permission to imprison me in a small cabin on White Island, overlooking that lake of sulfuric acid, until I’m done. Just so long as the acrid fumes do not screw up my old DOS word processor, I’ll be fine.

Current Mood: amused amused

Tags: a song of ice and fire, travel, worldcon, writing

An Ending

May 20, 2019 at 8:41 pm

The last night, the last show. After eight epic seasons, HBO’s GAME OF THRONES series has come to an end.

It is hard to believe it is over, if truth be told. The years have gone past in the blink of an eye. Can it really have been more than a decade since my manager Vince Gerardis set up a meeting at the Palm in LA, and I sat down for the first time with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss for a lunch that lasted well past dinner? I asked them if they knew who Jon Snow’s mother was. Fortunately, they did.

That was how it started. It ended last night.

I had no clue, that afternoon at the Palm, that I was about to embark on a journey that would change my life. I had optioned books and stories for television and film before. Some had even been made There was no way to know that this one was going to be different, that this pilot would not only be shot, but would go on to become the most successful show in the history of HBO, win a record number of Emmy Awards, become the most popular (and most pirated) show in the world, and transform a group of talented but largely unknown actors into major celebrities and stars. Even less did I imagine that I would somehow become a celebrity as well… and if truth be told, I’m still not sure how that happened.

It has been a wild ride, to say the least.

I want to thank people, but there are so many. There were forty-two cast members at the season eight premiere in New York City, and that wasn’t even all of them. And the crew, though less visible than the cast, were no less important. We had some amazing people working on this show, as all those Emmys bear witness. David & Dan assembled a championship team. The directors were incredible as well. I should start naming names, but then I’d miss someone, there were so many. But I do need to mention David Benioff, Dan Weiss, Bryan Cogman (the third head of the dragon, as I said in the recent VANITY FAIR piece about him), and of course the great team at HBO, headed by Richard Plepler. Any other network, and GAME OF THRONES would not have been what it became. Most other networks, this series never gets made at all.

I could go on and on… and have, as I’ve been writing this post in my head… but there’s really too much to say. Parting is such sweet sorrow, the Bard wrote. In the weeks and months to come, I may post about some of my favorite moments from the making of this show… now and again, when I am feeling nostalgic… but just now, there are so many memories, and no time to do them all justice.

Let me say this much — last night was an ending, but it was also a beginning. Nobody is retiring any time soon. David and Dan are going on to STAR WARS and other projects beyond that. Amazon scooped up Bryan Cogman, and put him to work on developing shows of his own, as well as helping out on their big Tolkien project. Our brilliant cast has scattered to the four winds, but you’ll be seeing a lot of them in the years to come, in all manner of television shows and movies. Our directors are keeping busy as well. I suspect that you have not seen the last of Westeros on your television sets either, but I guess that all depends on how some of these successor shows turn out.

And me? I’m still here, and I’m still busy. As a producer, I’ve got five shows in development at HBO (some having nothing whatsoever to do with the world of Westeros), two at Hulu, one on the History Channel. I’m involved with a number of feature projects, some based upon my own stories and books, some on material created by others. There are these short films I am hoping to make, adaptations of classic stories by one of the most brilliant, quirky, and original writers our genre has ever produced. I’ve consulted on a video game out of Japan. And then there’s Meow Wolf…

And I’m writing. Winter is coming, I told you, long ago… and so it is. THE WINDS OF WINTER is very late, I know, I know, but it will be done. I won’t say when, I’ve tried that before, only to burn you all and jinx myself… but I will finish it, and then will come A DREAM OF SPRING.

How will it all end? I hear people asking. The same ending as the show? Different?

Well… yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes.

I am working in a very different medium than David and Dan, never forget. They had six hours for this final season. I expect these last two books of mine will fill 3000 manuscript pages between them before I’m done… and if more pages and chapters and scenes are needed, I’ll add them. And of course the butterfly effect will be at work as well; those of you who follow this Not A Blog will know that I’ve been talking about that since season one. There are characters who never made it onto the screen at all, and others who died in the show but still live in the books… so if nothing else, the readers will learn what happened to Jeyne Poole, Lady Stoneheart, Penny and her pig, Skahaz Shavepate, Arianne Martell, Darkstar, Victarion Greyjoy, Ser Garlan the Gallant, Aegon VI, and a myriad of other characters both great and small that viewers of the show never had the chance to meet. And yes, there will be unicorns… of a sort…

Book or show, which will be the “real” ending? It’s a silly question. How many children did Scarlett O’Hara have?

How about this? I’ll write it. You read it. Then everyone can make up their own mind, and argue about it on the internet.

Current Mood: melancholy

Tags: game of thrones, hbo

More Stuff, More Nonsense

May 19, 2019 at 8:01 am

Aside from the idiocy on the internet, what else has been going on of late?

Well, I went to LA to moderate the Q&A at the premiere of the new TOLKIEN biopic in Westwood. The picture is lovely, by the way, and I had a great time. Got to meet Nicholas Hoult and the lovely Lily Collins, the stars of the film, as well as director Dome Karukoski. Afterwards I flew home to Santa Fe, and we did the New Mexico premiere at the Jean Cocteau.

The JCC followed that up with two nights of magic, comedy, and juggling featuring Ben Seidman and Marcus Monroe. Wonderful shows. The audience had a great time, howling and laughing. Ben is a great magician and very funny, Marcus the juggler is hilarious, and the two of them together make for a helluva evening.

While I was at the JCC, of course, my staff forced me to descend into the basement and sign books for a couple of hours. So if you are looking for autographed copies of FIRE & BLOOD, A GAME OF THRONES, or any of my other titles, check out the JCC website, they have plenty of stock once again… while it lasts. And lots of signed books by the other writers who have appeared at the theatre as well.

Oh, speaking of FIRE & BLOOD… very pleased to learn that it has been nominated for a Locus Award by the readers of LOCUS magazine, the Publisher’s Weekly of SF and fantasy. It’s a finalist in the “Best Collection” category:

2019 Locus Awards Finalists

Oh, I should mention that while I was in LA, I spent a few hours at the Petersen Automobile Museum and had a great time. They have just opened a special new exhibit of cars from television and film, so I got to gawk at a couple of cars from MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, the DeLorean from BACK TO THE FUTURE, various Transformers, the VW from DEATH RACE 2000, Kit from KNIGHT RIDER, and all sorts of other cool stuff, along with the usual displays of classic automobiles through the ages.

If you love cars, check it out.

I also met with the writing staff for the WILD CARDS tv shows being developed by UCP for Hulu. Had a great dinner, and was blown away by their talent and enthusiasm. I think we could have something very special coming your way.

And I visited another writer’s room as well, for another show. But if I talk about that one, they will kill me.

I am back home again now, and back once more in Westeros, working on WINDS… which, let me add once more, has NOT been finished and hidden away for years. (sigh)

Current Mood: busy busy

Tags: awards, jean cocteau, jean cocteau cinema bookstore, signed books

Long Is The Way

May 15, 2019 at 10:57 am

Hey, Wild Carders… we’ve got a brand new original Wild Cards novelette up this morning over at Tor.com.

The title is “Long Is the Way,” and its from the gifted pens of Sage Walker and Carrie Vaughn.

Best of all, it’s FREE.

So head over to Tor.com and enjoy.

Long is the Way

The artwork once again is by the one-and-only John Picacio, winner of the Hugo and Alfie Awards.

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Tags: tor, wild cards

Idiocy on the Internet, Three

May 13, 2019 at 4:55 pm

Okay, this one is true.

At the Q&A following the premiere of the new TOLKIEN film in Los Angeles last week, I did indeed say that Gandalf could kick Dumbledore’s ass.

Got a nice laugh. Which was good. Cause it was a joke, y’know.

Which doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Gandalf COULD kick Dumbledore’s ass. I mean, duh. He’s a maia, folks. Next best thing to a demigod. Gandalf dies and come back. Dumbledore dies and stays dead.

But if it will calm down all the Potterites out there, let me say that Gandalf could kick Melisandre’s ass too.

More Idiocy on the Internet

May 13, 2019 at 4:30 pm

As long as I am shooting down loony stories on the internet… there was also one that claimed I hate the character Bronn and/or the actor who portrays him, Jerome Flynn.

Total bullshit. Not a shred of truth.

I created Bronn, so it would be immodest of me to say he’s a terrific character… but what the hell, he’s a terrific character, and my readers will definitely be seeing more of him in the books to come.

And Jerome Flynn has been just WONDERFUL. It’s been a honor to work with him. He’s done a marvelous job of bringing Bronn to life.

Again: don’t believe anything you read on the internet.

Idiocy on the Internet

May 13, 2019 at 3:00 pm

Internet journalism is an oxymoron, I am more and more convinced.

Of late it seems there’s a new story about me somewhere on the net every day, or near enough to make no matter. Many get things wrong. For the most part I ignore them. I have better things to do than try and track down every weird rumor or out-and-out fabrication that pops up on some obscure website trolling for traffic.

Every so often, however, one of these stories gains an improbable currency, and just chuckling at the insanity no longer suffices.

That seems to be happening right now. All of a sudden this crazy story about my finishing THE WINDS OF WINTER and A DREAM OF SPRING years ago is popping up everywhere. No, I am not going to provide links. I don’t want to reward purveyors of misinformation with hits.

I will, however, say for the record — no, THE WINDS OF WINTER and A DREAM OF SPRING are not finished. DREAM is not even begun; I am not going to start writing volume seven until I finish volume six

It seems absurd to me that I need to state this. The world is round, the Earth revolves around the sun, water is wet… do I need to say that too? It boggles me that anyone would believe this story, even for an instant. It makes not a whit of sense. Why would I sit for years on completed novels? Why would my publishers — not just here in the US, but all around the world — ever consent to this? They make millions and millions of dollars every time a new Ice & Fire book comes out, as do I. Delaying makes no sense. Why would HBO want the books delayed? The books help create interest in the show, just as the show creates interest in the books.

So… no, the books are not done. HBO did not ask me to delay them. Nor did David & Dan. There is no “deal” to hold back on the books. I assure you, HBO and David & Dan would both have been thrilled and delighted if THE WINDS OF WINTER had been delivered and published four or five years ago… and NO ONE would have been more delighted than me.

I have said it before: don’t believe everything you read on the internet.

Except here, of course.

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