We had a great event on Saturday with John Nichols. Terrific writer and fascinating guy, whose work truly captures the sights, sounds, and spirit of Northern New Mexico. Lorene Mills did a wonderful job interviewing him. We should have the video up on the Jean Cocteau website soon.
And tonight, at 7pm, we have JOHN SCALZI flying in. John’s touring for his new novel, THE COLLAPSING EMPIRE, and we’re thrilled to have him.
See you at the theatre!
Last night’s episode of THE EXPANSE was really strong, I thought. And I was pleased to hear that the show has been renewed for a third season.
Jimmy Corey’s books and the TV series based on them have both gotten a fair amount of acclaim — awards attention and the like — but not nearly enough, imnsho. The show had a good first season, but it’s only gotten stronger in season two. If it keeps on at this level, it deserves to be ranked among the best SF shows of all time. Acting, directing, writing… and my god, the look of it. The space stuff, in particular.
BABYLON 5, FIREFLY, and the various STAR TREK successor shows were all spiffy looking in their day, but THE EXPANSE is to those shows as they were to the original TREK, and as the original TREK was to ROCKY JONES: SPACE RANGER.
Speaking of Rocky, though, that is the one thing EXPANSE lacks: Pinto Vortando.
I don’t often comment on current events, but the story about the passenger that United Airlines beat bloody and dragged off a flight — for no reason but to accomodate some of their own deadheading employees, and despite the fact that he had a ticket that he’d bought and paid for and was doing nothing but sitting peacefully in his assigned seat — has me seeing red.
Jimmy Kimmel said it better than I could.
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I stand with Jimmy, with Alan Grayson, and with millions of other ordinary Americans from coast to coast who were outraged by these videos, and by the mealy-mouthed corporate bullshit the United’s CEO chose to offer afterwards.
One point Jimmy did not raise: in what world does an airline employee’s need to get to his next flight take precedence over a doctor’s need to return to his hospital?
The “police” who dragged the man off the plane and beat him do not deserve the name of police officers, and should be fired immediately. “They were just following orders” is no excuse.
The United CEO should also resign. He’s a disgrace.
I am old enough to remember when airlines were regulated, and passengers had rights. But we deregulated the airlines, and now passengers are cattle. The present rule seems to be just what Kimmel says: do what we say, or else. You may have given us your money, but we owe you nothing.
And here’s the cherry for your (bloody) sundae: United has also announced plans to begin charging passengers for carry-on luggage.
We’ve been doing our author events at the Jean Cocteau Cinema since 2013, but until recently they’ve only been available to those who could attend in person.
This summer, however, in response to numerous requests, we’ve begun taping the events.
And now, for all of you who were not able to be there, we’ve uploaded some of the videos to the Jean Cocteau website. You can find them at http://jeancocteaucinema.com/exclusive-video/
There’s some fun stuff there, including my talks with Carrie Vaughn and Stephen King, our HAP & LEONARD event with Joe Lansdale, and — from last summer — the big big WILD CARDS event where an all-star lineups of Wild Cards authors try to play their characters.
Check it out.
And for those of you who ARE in New Mexico, don’t forget the events we have coming up this week: JOHN NICHOLS on April 15 and JOHN SCALZI on April 17. Reserve your books (and your seats) for those two early, if you haven’t done so already. They’re both filling up fast.
I’ve made my life in the worlds of science fiction and fantasy, and an awful lot of people helped me along the way. I wouldn’t be where I am today without them. But if I may echo something that Robert A. Heinlein once said, you can never pay back the people who helped you when you were starting out… but you can pay forward, and give a hand to those coming after.
With that in mind, I’m pleased to announce that I will be funding a new scholarship for the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Workshop. Held every summer at the University of California San Diego under the auspices of the Clarion Foundation, the workshop’s roots go back the 1960s and Clarion College in Pennsylvania, where it was founded by Robin Scott Wilson, Damon Knight, and Kate Wilhelm. Its alumni include more professional sf and fantasy writers than I can possibly hope to name, and the list of Clarion instructors over the years is a veritable Who’s Who of our genre.
Many of the students at Clarion already receive financial aid through a variety of existing scholarships and grants that cover all or part of their expenses, but there’s always need and there’s never enough money, and it’s my hope that this new scholarship will offer an opportunity to one more worthy applicant who might not otherwise have been able to afford the experience. It will be a full scholarship, given annually, and covering tuition, fees, and lodging for a single student for the full six weeks of intensive writing and criticism that is Clarion.
We’ll be calling it the Sense of Wonder scholarship.
The award will not be limited by age, race, sex, religion, skin color, place of origin, or field of study. The only criteria will be literary.
The first science fiction novel I ever read was Heinlein’s HAVE SPACE SUIT, WILL TRAVEL, a book that begins with a boy named Kip in a used spacesuit standing in his back yard, and goes on to take him (and us) to the moon, and Pluto, and the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, along the way encountering aliens both horrifying (the Wormfaces) and benevolent (the Mother Thing), as well as a girl named Peewee. In the end it’s up to Kip and Peewee to defend the entire human race when Earth is put on trial. I had never read anything like it, and from the moment I finished I wanted more; more Heinlein, more science fiction, more aliens and spacesuits and starships… more of the vast interstellar vistas that had opened before me.
Since then I have read thousands of other science fiction novels, and written a few myself. Modern imaginative fiction is a house with many rooms, and I’ve visited most of them. Cyberpunk, New Wave, magic realism, slipstream, military SF, dystopias, utopias, urban fantasy, high fantasy, splatterpunk, the new weird, the new space opera, you name it. I’ve sampled all of it, and I’m glad it’s all there, but when it comes right down it, the SF I love best is still the SF that gives me that sense of wonder I found in that Heinlein book almost sixty years ago, and afterwards in the works of Roger Zelazny, Jack Vance, Alfred Bester, Ursula K. Le Guin, Jack Vance, Andre Norton, the early Chip Delany, Jack Vance, Frank Herbert, Robert Silverberg, Jack Vance, Eric Frank Russell, Cordwainer Smith, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, Arthur C. Clarke, Poul Anderson, and so many more. (Did I mention Jack Vance?) I love the aliens, be they threatening or benevolent, the more alien the better. I dream of starships, strange worlds beneath the light of distant suns. I want the sights and sounds and smells of times and places and cultures colorful and exotic. That was the sort of science fiction that I tried to write myself with the Thousand Worlds stories that made my name in the 70s, when I was just breaking in as a writer.
It’s my hope that this new Clarion scholarship will help find and encourage young aspiring writers who dream the same sort of dreams, that it will give a small boost up to the next Roger Zelazny, the next Ursula Le Guin, the next Jack Vance.
One student will be selected every year. The recipient of the first award is LUCY SMITH, an English writer and recent student of archaeology who has been making stories for most of her life. She has just begun tweeting at @subterranape, and can usually be found in London. I have yet to meet her, but I hope that she enjoys her six weeks at Clarion, and that the lessons she learns there will help her develop her talent and master her craft. And in the years and books to come, I hope that Lucy Smith will take us to the stars, and show us wonders.
Watch out! Here there be dragons!
“Here” in this case refers to Camino Alire, and the former Desert Academy, which building I bought a couple of years back and converted to Dragonstone Studios, low-cost studios for aspiring artists.
It’s taken longer than I thought (a lot of repair and restoration was needed first), but we finally got up a proper sign.
I love it, and hope you do as well.
The sign is the work of one of those aformentioned aspiring artists, the sculptor and metalworker TYLER EUGENE SMITH. Tyler is also the guy who makes the Alfies every year out of old hood ornaments, and who created the amazing Beast Head that welcomes patrons inside the door of the Jean Cocteau Cinema. And wait till you see what he’s making next… it will blow your minds.
Meanwhile, drive down Camino Alire, and admire his latest.
That Willis Woman is descending on Santa Fe once again!
Yes, it’s true. CONNIE WILLIS will be visiting the Jean Cocteau tomorrow (Sunday) night, to tell us all about her new novel, CROSSTALK. MELINDA SNODGRASS will be on hand as well, to interview her… and of course I’ll be hanging around, to make faces at them from the audience.
CROSSTALK is Connie’s romcom. She’ll talk about the book, about romantic comedy in general, about her favorite romcoms, about the ones that didn’t work. She’ll may talk about the Hugo Awards as well, and Donald Trump, and how much fun it is to live in The Weed State, and… well, really, anything you ask her about. We’ll be opening the floor for questions.
And then we make her sign. If you can’t be there, you can get a signed book via mailorder.
And if you CAN be there, the fun starts at 7pm.
A couple of cool new pieces about Wild Cards this morning.
The second installment of Katy Rask’s Wild Cards reread is up today on Tor.com.
This one is about volume two, ACES HIGH.
Go and join the fun and let your voice be heard. Authors have been known to drop by from time to time.
Meanwhile, over on the official Wild Cards website, we’ve added a new blog post by Mary Anne Mohanraj about the creation of her popular character, Natya the dancer.
http://www.wildcardsworld.com/the-origins-of-natya/
Oh, and I should also mention that Walter Jon’s tribute to Roger Zelazny and Croyd Crenson, originally published on the WC website, is now available on Tor.com as well:
Happy reading, aces.
That Finnish Worldcon has announced this year’s finalists for the Hugo Awards.
You can hear the nominees announced by Finns, here:
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Alternatively, you could just go to LOCUS and read the list for yourself:
http://www.locusmag.com/News/2017/04/12103/
Congratulations to everyone who made the ballot, and condolences to those who didn’t.
All in all, this is the best ballot we’ve had in several years, mostly because the impact of the slates has ebbed somewhat. Maybe it was EPH and the rules changes, or maybe they just got tired, but whatever the reason, not a single category this year was slated top to bottom. Yeah, there are some finalists that are plainly unworthy… but there’s real choice in every category, and I doubt that the halls of Helsinki will be resounding to the sound of “No Award.” I haven’t read everything that’s on the ballot — that’s one of the things the Hugo ballot has traditionally been good for, it makes a great reading list — and when I do, I probably won’t like everything. But I expect I will like something in every category, and that’s all I really ask for.
Personally, I’m thrilled to see that two episodes of GAME OF THRONES were nominated in Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: our two Emmy winners, as it happens, “Battle of the Bastards” and “The Door.” I know David Benioff and Dan Weiss will be also been thrilled, along with our cast and crew and all the good people at HBO. Helsinki is a lot closer to Belfast than the US, so there’s even a chance that David and Dan might fly in for the ceremony (shooting schedule permitting), as they did for Loncon. If they can’t, the lovely Sibel Kekilli will help me represent GOT on the night, as Ron Donachie and Rory McCann did in prior years.
Of course, we face some hellacious tough competition. “Leviathan Wakes” has also been nominated, the finale of season one of THE EXPANSE, along with “San Junipero” from BLACK MIRROR, my favorite episode from that terrific show. And of course there’s an episode of DR. WHO in there, as there always is, along with a sixth nominee that I’m unfamiliar with, as yet. As it happens, there were three episodes of GAME OF THRONES that got enough votes to make the final ballot, but this year a new rule went into effect, limiting each series to no more than two nominees. That’s the DR. WHO rule. It’s been needed for years, and I’m glad to see it in place, but it’s one of life’s little ironies that the first show it bites is not DR. WHO, but GAME OF THRONES. But one must not be greedy. It IS an honor just to be nominated, and a double honor to be nominated twice, so thanks to all the fans out there who gave us one of their votes.
Those who follow my Not A Blog regularly will know that I made recommendations in a number of different categories (though by no means all) during the nominating period. Some of them made the cut, and some did not. And that’s fine, that’s the way it goes, the way it always went before the advent of the slates. You make your picks, and sometimes your fellow fans agree and sometimes they don’t, and that’s why it’s a horse race. Anyone who works in this field for long, as writer, artist, editor, or fan, will have their share of both celebrations and disappointments. I certainly have. But you know, you can even celebrate your disappointments; that’s what the Hugo Losers Party is all about.
And yes, I will confess, I am very disappointed that WILD CARDS did not get a nod in the new Best Series category, it being our thirtieth anniversary and all. On the other hand, a number of my Wild Carders did very well. In that same Best Series category, Jimmy Corey and Max Gladstone are both finalists, Carrie Vaughn got a nomination in Short Story, and the Newmans are nominated in Best Fancast. No Alfie for them this year, they may have to make do with a Hugo. Oh, and speaking of that, I was also pleased to see how many Alfie winners made the ballot. Alyssa Wong has two nominations, Ursula Vernon is up in Short Story, Liz Gorinsky is nominated for Best Editor Long Form, John Joseph Adams for Best Editor Short Form, Julie Dillon for Best Pro Artist, and JOURNEY PLANET for Best Fanzine.
Which reminds me, now that the ballot is out, one of the things I’m doing to have to ponder is whether or not I need to give out Alfies this year. My first inclination is to say, hey, maybe not, doesn’t look as though they’re necessary. But they were fun, so let me mull that a while. I still have a lot of hood ornaments in the basement.
One thing I can say for sure about the Hugo Awards: this year, like every year, there will be more losers than winners. Which means we’ll need another Hugo Losers Party.
I do hope Robert Silverberg wins. I would so look forward to seeing him in a conehead.
Okay, you caught me… well, some of you did, at least
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Every April first, someone plunks my magic twanger and I can’t help myself.
So, sadly, I must confess that Wild Cards is NOT coming to Broadway.
(But wouldn’t it be swell if it did? After I finished writing that blog post, I was eager to see that show myself. And Kevin went ahead and wrote all the lyrics to one of the songs).
My thanks to Devilish Diana Rowland, who came up with the idea, and to Kevin Andrew Murphy and Christopher Rowe, who suggested some of the song titles.
And of course extra special thanks as well to John Hodgman, Sibel Kekilli, and the amazing Lin-Manuel Miranda, who went along with the gag and gave me permission to take their names in vain. (Though I think John really does want to play Dr. Tod. If there’s anyone out there casting for a mad scientist, take note).
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