The Chimes at Midnight

July 31, 2016 at 4:20 pm

Today is the last day to get those Hugo Awards ballots in.

Vote now, or you’ll only have yourself to blame in Kansas City when the envelopes are opened.

tick

(May the best stories win).

Tags: awards, hugo award, worldcon

Hugo Deadline Approaches

July 27, 2016 at 3:40 pm

Just a reminder for all of you who are members of this year’s worldcon… the deadline for voting on the Hugo Awards is almost upon us.

Voting will be closing at the end of the month, so if you’ve been meaning to cast a ballot, this is the time to do so. Go here: https://midamericon2.org/home/hugo-awards-and-wsfs/2016-hugo-ballot/

The Hugo is science fiction’s oldest and most prestigious award. These past few years, however, the awards have been under siege, and that’s true this year as well.

Nonetheless, there are some worthy books and stories up for this year’s rockets, along with some reprehensible shit. I will leave it to your own judgements as to which is which.

Vote your own taste.

Vote your own conscience.

But vote. Every ballot counts.

Tags: hugo award, worldcon

Three Years and Counting

July 27, 2016 at 12:52 pm

Hard to believe, but we are coming up on the third anniversary of the re-opening of the Jean Cocteau Cinema. Santa Fe’s hometown movie theatre, and first art house, had been dark for seven years when we turned on the lights again and opened the doors in August 2013.

Needless to say, that calls for a celebration… a week-long celebration, in fact!!!

To mark the occasion, we are bringing back three very special films, movies that have a special significance in the history of the JJC, New Mexico’s most eclectic movie theatre.

First up we will have PANDORA’S BOX, a classic of the silent cinema starring Louise Brooks, the first film to play the Jean Cocteau when the theatre first opened in 1984.

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We will also show FORBIDDEN PLANET, the first film shown at the reborn Cocteau three years ago… and also the greatest science fiction film ever made, in my not so humble opinion.

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And finally we will have DARK STAR, our first midnight movie from three years back, a hilarious SF comedy, and the movie that gave Dan O’Bannon and John Carpenter their starts.

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Best of all, admission to all three movies will be FREE! (We will also be holding over a couple other films this week, and offering discount $5 admissions on those).

And, yes, ROBBIE THE ROBOT will be returning to the cinema for the celebrations, along with his friends Altaira, Commander J.J. Adams, and the Iron Giant.

We’ll be celebrating all week… but the BIG party will be on Saturday at 7:00 pm, when we will be adding some cake to the mix. And our friends at Jambo are sending their foot truck around that night at well, for some delicious African treats.

ANNIVERSARY WEEK SCHEDULE:

FRIDAY, JULY 29TH:
2:30 PM: Yarn ($5.00)
4:30 PM: Pandora’s Box (FREE)
7:00 PM: Forbidden Planet (FREE)
9:30 PM: Showcase Karaoke (with Cyndi and Nanci) (FREE)

SATURDAY, JULY 30TH:
2:15 PM: The Fallen Idol ($5.00)
4:30 PM: Pandora’s Box (FREE)
7:00 PM: Anniversary Party (Cake, Costumes, Games, Food Trucks, & More!) (FREE)
7:00 PM: Forbidden Planet (FREE)
9:20 PM: Dark Star (FREE)

SUNDAY, JULY 31ST:
2:30 PM: Yarn ($5.00)
4:30 PM: Forbidden Planet (FREE)
6:40 PM: Pandora’s Box (FREE)

MONDAY, AUGUST 1ST:
4:30 PM: Forbidden Planet (FREE)
6:40 PM: Pandora’s Box (FREE)

TUESDAY, AUGUST 2ND:
4:30 PM: Pandora’s Box (FREE)
7:00 PM: Forbidden Planet (FREE)

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3RD:
2:30 PM: Presenting Princess Shaw (FREE)
4:30 PM: Pandora’s Box (FREE)
7:00 PM: Forbidden Planet (FREE)
9:20 PM: Dark Star (FREE)

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4TH:
2:30 PM: Yarn ($5.00)
4:30 PM: The Fallen Idol ($5.00)
7:00 PM: Suicide Squad ($8.00)
9:20 PM: Dark Star (FREE)

So come and join us and help us hoot and holler! We’re three years old! And many more to come!

Tags: jean cocteau cinema, movie theatre, movies

Harder Than Voting

July 27, 2016 at 12:32 pm

It’s not that hard.

Compared to some other things.

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So register now.

And vote in November.

Vote as if your life depended on it.

(Because it does).

Tags: humor, politics

Ice Buckets!

July 27, 2016 at 12:04 am

Remember all the madness of the Ice Bucket Challenge that swept the world not so long ago?

Sure you do.

If not, here are some reminders:

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There were more. Hundreds more. Thousands maybe. But you get the idea.

Silly, right? Celebs, regular people, rich people, poor people, men, women, all dumping ice on their heads and squealing and shivering… and for what? Some cynics compared it to stuffing phone booths or swallowing goldfish or doing the macarena.

Well, not so fast. Turns out all that silliness made a difference.

Read it here: http://nydn.us/2arKgDf

All those buckets of ice may have helped put the freeze on ALS. No, it’s not a cure… but it’s one battle one in the war against a truly horrible disease.

And I am so pleased that my friends and I could do our tiny little bit, with all the others around the world, in bringing this about.

Tags: charity

The Evening Star Rises

July 26, 2016 at 10:43 pm

The results of this year’s Locus Awards voting were announced this weekend in Seattle, and I am delighted to announce that OLD VENUS took home the honors as last year’s Best Anthology. Alas, I was not able to be there in person to accept. Nor was my co-editor, Gardner Dozois, who is still in hospital in Philadelphia recovering from a broken ankle. But we were both thrilled.

I did send LOCUS a few words to be read in the event of our victory:

“Gardner and I are both sorry that we could not be with you tonight, but we’re surprised and delighted to accept this award for OLD VENUS. As with all of our anthologies, the real credit belongs to our writers, who gave us such amazing stories. Nonetheless, we plan on keeping the plaque for ourselves. Two years ago the readers of Locus honored OLD MARS as best anthology. This year OLD VENUS. It’s very gratifying to know that the readers still appreciate new anthologies of old stuff… that is, new old stuff… well, you know what I mean… put together by old grey editors who were new young turks just yesterday. Keep your eyes out for OLD URANUS, coming to a bookstore near you soon….”

All kidding aside, I am very proud of OLD VENUS, and I know Gardner is as well. There are some terrific stories in there, and one that in any normal year would have been a surefire Hugo finalist. This is the third year in a row that one of the original anthologies that I’ve done with Gardner has won the Locus Award, and I can’t tell you how gratifying that is. Gardner and I both began our careers (a long time ago) with short fiction, and it pleases me no end to be able to provide a showcase for some of the extraordinary short stories, novelettes, and novellas still being written in this age of the series and the meganovel. If you don’t read anthologies, friends, you are missing out on some great stuff.

Oh, and before the crazy internet rumors start flying, I had better say that I was only kidding about OLD URANUS. I do want to do some more books with Gardner, but not until I have subdued the Son of Kong. Meanwhile, Gargy is flying solo on a couple of great new original anthologies of his own, and I know those will be full of awards contenders as well.

Anyway, thanks to all the good folks at LOCUS, and everyone who voted for OLD VENUS… or for the other nominated anthologies, which were pretty special as well.

You can find the full list of nominees and winners here: http://www.locusmag.com/News/2016/06/2016-locus-awards-winners/

And if any of who would like to check out OLD VENUS… or OLD MARS, or ROGUES, or DANGEROUS WOMEN, or any of my other anthologies…. signed copies remain available from the Jean Cocteau Cinema Bookstore at http://www.jeancocteaubooks.com/

Happy reading.

Tags: anthologies, awards, jean cocteau cinema bookstore, locus awards

Fire-Breathing Ants?

July 26, 2016 at 1:02 pm

No, not quite.

But dragon ants nonetheless. And pretty cool, even if they don’t breathe fire.

http://www.popsci.com/new-dragon-ant-species-named-after-game-thrones-character?src=SOC&dom=tw

I suspect there are dragon ants in my world as well… maybe out on the Dothraki sea…

Tags: song of ice and fire, weird sh*t

Coming in August

July 25, 2016 at 2:58 pm

We had an amazing, goofy, fun event at the Jean Cocteau Cinema yesterday, when more than a dozen Wild Cards authors got together and donned the personae of their characters, while my assistant editor Melinda Snodgrass (in the person of Noel Matthews, aka Double Helix) interviewed them. The whole thing was taped, so we hope to be able to upload it here soon.

Meanwhile, Tor has just sent us the final cover for the next original volume in the series: HIGH STAKES, scheduled for release on August 23 (though we will be launching it a little earlier in Kansas City at a special group signing event).

Cover art, as always, by the amazing Michael Komarck.

HIGH STAKES is the third and concluding volume in the triad that began with FORT FREAK and continued with LOWBALL. It’s the twenty-third volume in the overall series, but don’t let that intimidate you, boys and girls. It is NOT necessary to have read all of the preceding twenty-two volumes to make sense of this one… though it would help to have read the aforementioned LOWBALL and FORT FREAK.

This one is a “full mosaic,” like many of the other climactic volumes of our triads; there are no individual stories per se, but rather six storylines featuring six different viewpoint characters, interwoven so as to create a full on collaborative novel. Which is a lot of work for all concerned, yes, but our fans and readers seem to think it’s well worth it.

In HIGH STAKES, the participating writers (and their featured characters) are John Jos. Miller (the Midnight Angel), Caroline Spector (the Amazing Bubbles), Ian Tregillis (Tesseract), Melinda M. Snodgrass (Franny Black), Stephen Leigh (Babel), and David Anthony Durham (the Infamous Black Tongue). Editing by yours truly, assisted by Melinda Snodgrass.

Fair warning, this one is not for the faint of heart. HIGH STAKES is our Lovecraftian horror volume, and things get pretty dark. But it’s when things are darkest that heroes are most needed…

FYI, while we won’t have any copies of HIGH STAKES for another month, the Jean Cocteau Bookstore can now offer both hardcovers and paperbacks of many earlier Wild Cards books with lots of signatures from the authors. Me, yes, but not just me. We have WILD CARDS, ACES HIGH, JOKERS WILD, ACES ABROAD, INSIDE STRAIGHT, BUSTED FLUSH, SUICIDE KINGS, FORT FREAK, LOWBALL… and even the very scarce and hard to find volumes sixteen and seventeen, DEUCES DOWN and DEATH DRAWS FIVE. Email the JCC for details and prices.

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

Not in San Diego

July 22, 2016 at 2:46 pm

I hope that everyone in San Diego is having fun at Comicon. HBO has a big presence there, I know, and a lot of our cast are on hand for the GAME OF THRONES panel and the usual endless rounds of signings and interviews. Also, Bantam is bringing out the 2017 ICE & FIRE calendar, which is always a great event. And Gary Gianni, who illustrated THE KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS, has a table and is selling a cool new sketchbook of his artwork.

Makes me wish I could be there as well.

But I’m not.

Now, normally, I would not feel the need to post about where I’m not and what I am not doing… only I am getting reports from friends in San Diego, and friends of friends, that I have been sighted at the con.

It’s not me.

Really. It’s not. It’s some other old fat guy in a Greek sailor’s cap and pair of suspenders, maybe. Who may or may not be consciously cosplaying as me.

((And you have no idea how weird it feels to be typing that sentence. Way back when the show was first starting, there were a couple of Daenerys Targaryen cosplayers at San Diego, and I thought that was way cool. Fans dressing up as my characters, hey, hot damn! Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that anyone would ever want to dress up as me. But now I seem to encounter it wherever I go. Witness this picture from my 2013 trip to Australia.

Anyway… just for the record… I have a big Wild Cards event at the Jean Cocteau Cinema this weekend, with nineteen writers turning up from all across the country, so as much as I would like to be at comicon, I am not there. Accept no substitutes!!

((And just to be clear, no, I do not disappove of fans cosplaying as me. I do find it surreal, but hey, what they hell, have fun… so long as they don’t actually pretend to be me)).

Moving right along… one thing that is at comicon is the new ICE & FIRE calendar, with art by Didier Graffet. It’s gorgeous. Grab a copy if you’re at the con. And if not, the calendar should be available at your favorite local bookstore or online bookseller, and will certainly be available through the Jean Cocteau.

Tags: bantam spectra, calendar, comicon, travels

Next Monday at the Jean Cocteau

July 17, 2016 at 1:36 pm

We have a very big Sunday coming up at the Jean Cocteau Cinema.

But that’s not the end of the excitement. There’s a great event scheduled for Monday, July 25 as well, one week from today.

That’s when Dutch author THOMAS OLDE HEUVELT will be be visiting us, to talk about his new horror novel, HEX. Heuvelt was the winner of a Hugo last year for his novelette “The World Turned Upside Down.” HEX is something very different, though…

Thomas does not get to this side of the pond very often, much less down here to the Land of Enchantment, so don’t miss your chance to meet him, and get your book signed. HEX is creepy and gripping and original, sure to be one of the top horror novels of 2016.

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You can reserve a seat and a copy of the book at the JCC website: http://www.jeancocteaucinema.com/

Tags: jean cocteau cinema bookstore, signed books, signings

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