Wild Cards Take Texas

January 27, 2017 at 3:52 pm

We’re calling the latest Wild Cards volumes the America Triad. First one up was MISSISSIPPI ROLL, which we completed and turned in back in October. Then came LOW CHICAGO, delivered in December. And now comes the third and final book in our cross country tour: TEXAS HOLD ‘EM.

Another one done. The manuscript went off to our editors at Tor yesterday. Hot damn!

The table of contents for this one:
Caroline Spector “Bubbles and the Band Trip”
Max Gladstone “The Secret Life of Rubberband”
William F. Wu “Jade Blossom’s Brew”
Diana Rowland “Beats, Bugs, and Boys”
Walton Simons “Is Nobody Going to San Antone?”
Victor Milan “Dust and the Darkness”
David Anthony Durham “Drop City”

TEXAS HOLD ‘EM is the final book in the America Triad, and the twenty-sixth volume of the overall series… but no, it’s not necessary to have read the first twenty-five to enjoy this one. In fact, it’s not even necessary to have read MISSISSIPPI ROLL and LOW CHICAGO (though we hope you will). The America books are not a triad in the traditional sense, like the ones we have done before; they are more in the nature of three stand-alones, linked thematically rather than by plot. Aside from a couple of double-dippers, each book of the three has a different roster of writers.

The cast in TEXAS HOLD ‘EM includes long time fan favorites like the Amazing Bubbles, Mr. Nobody, and Rustbelt, and brings back a couple of minor players from past books in much bigger roles (Jade Blossom from INSIDE STRAIGHT, the Darkness from SUICIDE KINGS), but you’ll meet a bunch of fun new characters as well. Diana Rowland and Max Gladstone are here making their Wild Cards debuts (Abandon hope, all ye who enter here). I think you’ll love their work as much as I do.

TEXAS HOLD ‘EM is a departure for us in other ways as well. Like the Marvel and DC universes, the Wild Cards universe is huge, and allows for all sorts of different stories. Last summer’s HIGH STAKES was our horror outing, and one of the darkest we have ever done. TEXAS HOLD ‘EM is the other side of the coin; a romp, light-hearted and frenetic, with touchs of screwball comedy.

Which doesn’t mean it was easy. “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard,” someone once said (just who is a matter of dispute).

Look for TEXAS HOLD ‘EM sometime next year. At last word, Tor is slating MISSISSIPPI ROLL for publication in hardcover in the fall of this year, with Chicago and Texas to follow, but we don’t have hard dates for those two yet, but you’ll know when we do.

Meanwhile, we have further Wild Cards books in mind… and that TV series in the works…

Remember, we can’t die yet. We haven’t seen the Jolson Story.

Tags: anthologies, editing, wild cards

Facts

January 26, 2017 at 2:54 pm

The late great Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

So make no mistake, when Kellyanne Conway talks about “alternative facts,” what she means is lies.

Here’s another quote for you: ““If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

That one is from Josef Goebbels. Keep him in mind when you hear the big lies repeated ad nauseum.

Tags: politics

Wild Card Artwork Wanted

January 23, 2017 at 3:45 pm

We’ve added a couple cool new things to the official Wild Cards website.

First off, a new blog post about Superworld, the role-playing game that inspired Wild Cards, from Steve Perrin, who created it.

Also, we’ve added a brand new art gallery at http://www.wildcardsworld.com/art-gallery/

Thing is, there’s no art in the art gallery… yet. That’s where we hope you will come in. We want Wild Cards art! Yes, we’ll be putting up some of the superb cover art and interior illustrations that the books have featured over the decades, but we also hope this page will be a place to showcase some fan art, and maybe discover some new talent.

So if you’ve got that restless urge to draw, and own a paintbrush or a box of colored pencils, we’d love to see what you can do. There’s a link right on the page where you can send your work. Everything that’s appropriate will be posted (please note, we want Wild Cards artwork ONLY, so don’t send us portraits of Jon Snow or Daenerys Targaryen, or Harry Potter, or Spider-Man, or ANYTHING that is not Wild Cards inspired).

Also, if you look through the author bios and character sketches elsewhere on the site, you’ll note that there are many Wild Cards characters who have NEVER been illustrated. We’ve love to have some thumbnails to add to those entries. We don’t promise to accept anything or everything… but for those who send us something cool enough to make the cut, we have free autographed hardcovers of INSIDE STRAIGHT.

Fly high, aces.

Tags: artwork, website, wild cards

Carrie Is Coming…

January 23, 2017 at 2:28 pm

… back to the Jean Cocteau.

Colorado’s own Carrie Vaughn, one of our favorite people, will be returning to New Mexico on Sunday for an author event at the Jean Cocteau. We’ll do doing an interview and a Q&A, and Carrie will be signing copies of her new novel, MARTIANS ABROAD.

We’ll also have plenty of copies of Carrie’s Kitty Norville series on hand for autographing, as well as all the Wild Cards books that she has contributed to. (Her Wild Cards characters include Curveball, Earth Witch, Rikki, and Wild Fox).

The fun starts on Sunday at 1:00pm. Come join us, in you’re in the vicinity of Santa Fe. And if you’re not, you can still get a signed book by mailorder through the JCC website.

Tags: jean cocteau cinema, jean cocteau cinema bookstore, signings, wild cards

Then There Were Two

January 23, 2017 at 11:22 am

Another week, another round of NFL playoffs.

Last week in the divisional round, we got two great games and two blowouts. I was hoping that this week’s conference championships would give us more exciting contests, but no such luck. The Falcons ripped right through Green Bay and the Patriots obliterated the Steelers. Neither contest was even remotely competitive.

Not much to say about either game, really. Aaron Rodgers is amazing, yes, but he doesn’t play defense, and the Packer D could not even seem to slow down Matty Ice, let alone stop him. And the Patriots… yeah, yeah, Brady is good, especially when you give him weeks to sit in the pocket unmolested and don’t cover his receivers. I watched him complete pass after pass that seemed to be totally uncontested, with the receiver standing all alone and not a defender within yards.

Anyway, we have our SuperBowl: Patriots against Falcons.

Nothing much to say but GO FALCONS.

Meanwhile, I am thinking about next year’s draft…

Tags: nfl

Drummer Boy Plays Again

January 18, 2017 at 4:39 pm

Rock and roll will never die, boys and girls… but rockers do.

Time to head over to Tor.com for the last great set from Joker Plague.

That’s Stephen Leigh on story, and John Picacio on artwork. The title of the album is “The Atonement Tango.”

You can find it — for free — at http://www.tor.com/2017/01/18/the-atonement-tango/

Boogie on down and give a listen!

Tags: tor, wild cards

Hugo Time

January 17, 2017 at 3:55 pm

It’s that time again. Another year has ended, another worldcon is on the horizon (The Finnish Convention, this August, in Helsinki), and nominations are once again open for the Hugo Awards for the best science fiction and fantasy of 2016.

To nominate, you need to be a member of at least one of these three worldcons:
— MidAmericon II, last year’s Kansas City worldcon,
— the current year’s worldcon, in Helsinki,
— the 2018 worldcon, ConJose II, in San Jose, California.

Unless you’ve got a time machine, it’s too late to join MidAmericon II, but signing up for Helsinki and San Jose is easy enough… and the sooner you do it, the less you’ll be spending, since the cost of membership rises as we get nearer to the con. You do NOT have to attend to be able to nominate. Supporting Memberships are also available, at a much lower rate.

To join the Helsinki con, go to:
http://www.worldcon.fi/

To join for San Jose, the address is:
http://www.worldcon76.org/

Join one, join the other, join both. Come if you can, but nominate even if you can’t.

Once you’ve signed up, you will be sent your own personalized link to the nominations page, which will allow you to nominate the books, stories, movies, television shows, artists, fans, and editors whose work most wowed you this past year.

The Hugo Awards were first given in 1953, and remain our field’s most prestigious, important, and meaningful awards. The list of Hugo winners is a Who’s Who in science fiction and fantasy, and you can have a voice in determining which names are added to that distinguished roster besides those of Alfred Bester, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Roger Zelazny, Ursula K. Le Guin, Jack Vance, Connie Willis, Samuel R. Delany, N.K. Jemisin, James Tiptree Jr, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, Gardner Dozois, Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, Poul Anderson, Frank Herbert, Anne Leckie, Anne McCaffery, and so many many more.

And yes, come to worldcon if you can. The best place to meet and hang with your favorite writers. Including me…

Tags: awards, hugo awards, worldcon

Playoffs, Round Two

January 17, 2017 at 3:34 pm

So this past weekend was the divisional round of the NFL playoffs.

And, yes, being a football fan I watched them all, even though my Giants were eliminated last week (and the Jets never got within shouting distance).

There was good news and bad news for the people of Houston. The bad news was, Evil Little Bill and his Patriots dismissed the Texans rather soundly. (Not unexpected, sad to say. Not when you have Osweiler going up against Brady). The good news was, the Cowboys lost, thereby eliminating any chance of a Cowboys/ Patriots Superbowl, so right-minded fans no longer need to root for a giant asteroid to strike Houston. Now we can simply root for whoever is playing New England.

With neither of my teams involved, I had a lot less invested in this weekend’s contests. The Saturday games were both pretty one-sided, so much so that I found myself multi-tasking and doing other stuff while watching. The Sunday games were better… especially the epic struggle between the Packers and the Cowboys. That one looked like a blowout too when the Pack went up 21-3, but somehow Dallas fought back, and tied the game at 28 and then again at 31. Looked like overtime, but they made the mistake of leaving thirty seconds for Aaron Rodgers. His sideline pass to set up the winning field goal was the thing of beauty, a throw and catch to rival Eli’s superbowl tosses to Tyree and Manningham. And afterwards, in the wake of the Cowboy defeat, America got to see Jerry Jones making his I-am-sucking-on-sour-lemons face, last seen in 2007 when it was the Giants who sent the Boys home.

The Kansas City/ Pittsburgh game also came down to the last second, yet somehow was not nearly as exciting. The Steelers won without scoring a touchdown. That’s not going to cut it next week against the Patriots and Evil Little Bill.

So… Pittsburgh at New England, Green Bay at Atlanta.

Should be fun.

Tags: nfl

Another Precinct Heard From

January 16, 2017 at 3:39 pm

Just signed contracts with TEAS Press for Azerbaijani editions of A Song of Ice and Fire. A first for me.

This marks the forty-seventh different language that Ice & Fire has been translated into. Not half bad. And moving in on the half-century mark.

Makes me wonder how many living languages we have on the planet at the moment. Not counting Klingon and Dothraki and other fictional tongues.

Tags: a song of ice and fire, foreign editions, game of thrones

How It All Began

January 14, 2017 at 2:50 pm

Curious about where the Wild Cards series came from, lo these thirty years ago?

All your question… well, okay, some of your questions… are answered in the latest video from Tor Books, cut together from the hours of interviews they taped at last summer’s Kansas City worldcon, during the launch party for HIGH STAKES.

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This is the third in the series. You can find the first two on the new Wild Cards website.

There will be more.

(Please restrict your questions and comments to Wild Cards).

((Signed copies of HIGH STAKES and many other Wild Cards books are available from the Jean Cocteau Cinema bookshop)).

Tags: interviews, tor, wild cards

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