Who says the science fiction is not prophetic?
Remember this:
“The secret devil of every soul on the planet all set free at once… ”
The Krel Machine has been built.
We call it The Internet.
Current Mood: 
scared
More Cool Wild Cards Stuff
April 5, 2017 at 3:46 pm
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.
Bad Journalism
March 19, 2017 at 1:03 pm
I am no fan of what passes for journalism on the internet, but I’ve got to admit, I have been taken aback by the sheer amount of bullshit that’s been proliferating all over the web about our Stagecoach Foundation initiative… some of it posted on what I would have previously regarded as reputable news outlets with familiar names, but almost all of it off-base and, well… wrong.
There seems to be some sort of grotesque echo chamber effect going on here. These stories are not only full of errors, but they are the same errors. Rather than checking facts with the primary sources, the writers here (I will not call them ‘reporters’) are just copying from one another.
When I was in journalism school at Northwestern, we were drilled in the head every day with Joseph Pulitzer’s famous maxim, “Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy.” That seems to have gone out of favor, at least on the internet.
Instead I am put in mind of Jonathan Swift, who said, “Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it.”
So please allow me to come limping up long enough to say:
— the Stagecoach building is not 30,000 square feet. Someone pulled that number out of their ass, and dozens of other reports have repeated it. That’s a rough approximate figure for MEOW WOLF, an entirely different place on the other side of Santa Fe. The Stagecoach building is perhaps a third that size,
— I did not “build” Stagecoach. David Weininger did that in 1999, as the headquarters for his compnay, Daylight Chemical Information Systems,
— I am not “opening a film studio.” Stagecoach is a non-profit foundation dedicated to bringing more film and television production to Santa Fe, it is not a film studio,
— there are no sound stages at Stagecoach (though there are several here in town, at the Santa Fe Studios and the Greer Garson Studios). It’s an office building, and will be used primarily for pre- and post-production purposes,
— I am not going to be “running” a foundation, much less a studio. That task I’ve given to a dynamic young lady named Marisa X. Jimenez, who helped open Santa Fe Studios here in town, and who will have total charge of the day-to-day operations of Stagecoach, under a board of directors.
If there are any real journalists out there who would like to do an accurate story about the Stagecoach Foundation and our plans for it, Marisa is the person to contact, at Marisa@stagecoachfdn.org. She’ll be glad to send you our press release and answer your questions. In the meantime, hey, can people please stop making shit up?
Not Me
May 10, 2016 at 10:36 am
I see from the internet that I made a hilarious tweet on Mother’s Day, trolling my readers.
It’s good to know that I’m so funny. Except…
(1) I don’t troll my readers, and,
(2) I don’t do Twitter (my minions tweet echoes of what I post here),
(3) it wasn’t me.
Sorry.
But really boys and girls, don’t believe everything you read on the internet.
PS from the MINIONS: #GRRMinion is what you’ll see when its one of us on Social Media or here on Live Journal, and ONLY @GRRMspeaking Tweets are from the Fevre River office. Thanks from the Minions-
Tags: internet
STAY ON TOPIC!
April 9, 2015 at 8:57 pm
Okay, I am getting swamped with comments on all my Hugo/ Puppygate postings. So many that I may having trouble keeping up… which is not helped by the way LJ makes it impossible to see the content of a comment on a comment without expanding it, so I don’t know what is screened or unscreened.
I thank everyone who has posted. There has been a lot of support, a lot of dissent, a lot of good discussion. The vast majority of you have kept your posts respectful and civil, even when you took issue with something I said, or with another poster. I appreciate that. I have only had to delete a handful of abusive posts.
However, I am going to delete a lot more, starting now. For a different reason. Too many posts are wandering off topic.
Each of my posts is focused on a specific aspect of the Hugo/ Sad Puppy controversy, and that’s what the comments should address.
I do not want to have to deal with long (or short) posts about GamerGate, the Tea Party, affirmative action, the Constitution, rape on campus, or any of the other myriad issues that people are beginning to drag into this. All topics worthy of discussion, to be sure, and maybe we will discuss them at some point… but not now, please.
Stick to the Puppies. Stick to the Hugos. Agree or disagree, engage with the points I am trying to make with each of the main posts.
[Comments closed on this one. I am still trying to moderate all the comments on the previous posts].
Tone
April 8, 2015 at 8:23 pm
I used the Greyjoy icon on this one for a reason.
We reap what we sow.
I will be returning to the key issues involving the Hugo Awards and the Sad Puppy slate soon. Maybe later tonight. Maybe tomorrow. But first a small aside. I want to talk about tone.
There’s a thing out there on the internet called “the Tone Argument.” Supposedly this is a bad, bad thing to do. In online discussions, one must never use the Tone Argument.
The way I have seen it work, dozens of times now, is that a debate or discussion starts out as a reasonable exchange of ideas, but then grows heated. Tempers fray, names are called, the posts get uglier and angrier… and someone, or maybe a bunch of someones, steps over the line and says something truly cruel or hurtful or just nasty. And the target, or maybe a bystander, objects and says, “no call for language like that” or “can’t we all calm down” or something along that line… whereupon a loud cry of “Tone Argument, Tone Argument, Tone Argument” goes up, and person who called for calm is shouted down or torn apart.
The essence of the trope seems to be that if you’re on my side, you can say anything you like, no matter how vicious or unkind or inflammatory, and I will defend not only your argument but your “right” to be as nasty as you want. If you’re on the other side, of course, well, that’s a whole different story. Then you might get silenced or moderated or banned.
There’s also a lot of rhetoric about kicking down and punching up and the like.
I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it.
I am against punching and kicking. Up, down, or sideways. No punching here, please.
I applaud the Tone Argument. The Tone Argument is valid. Yay for the Tone Argument.
We can disagree with each other without attacking each other. And no, I am not going to listen to you if you’re screaming at me and calling me offensive names. You shouldn’t either, no matter who you are. None of us should have to put up with that shit.
It really pisses me off, reading some of the threads and comments on both sides of Puppygate, that every time someone calls for a more reasoned discourse and an end to all the name-calling, we hear a chorus of, “they started it” and “no, THEY started it” and “they called me X so I will call them Y” and “don’t you dare silence me, I will say anything I like, I’m the one who speaks truth to power.” I don’t care who started it. I just want it to stop.
And it will. On my Not A Blog, at least.
We reap what we sow. Enough.
Tags: hugo awards, internet
Lose Some, Win Some
February 21, 2015 at 12:41 pm
So GAME OF THRONES failed to win either of the Writers Guild Awards it was nominated for. Congrats to THE GOOD WIFE and TRUE DETECTIVE and all the other winners.
All is not lost on the awards front, however. ROGUES won a Stabby!
The Stabby is given by the folks on Reddit. ROGUES won as last year’s best anthology. Which is very cool. Thank you, Redditters. And thanks to my co-editor, Gardner Dozois, and to an amazing lineup of writers, whose talents made the book what it was.
The trophy is very cool as well: an engraved dagger. I have not received mine yet, but here’s a picture of someone else’s:
I am informed that Gardner Dozois and I will both receive one of these. I’ll post a picture when it turns up. And it will be great to have an award that I can use to stab my enemies. Battering them to death with my Hugos just takes too long.
For a full list of the Stabby winners, go to:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/2rh018/best_of_rfantasy_2014_the_results_thread/
Meanwhile, on other fronts, we’ve also been informed that the audiobook of DANGEROUS WOMEN (the previous massive crossgenre anthology that Gardner and I put together) has been nominated for an Audie Award. We’re a finalist in the category of Short Story Collections. For a full list of nominees, check out: https://www.audiopub.org/Audies15/2015_Audie_Awards_Release.pdf
Thanks again to Gardner and to our writers, to Janet Stark and all the great folks at Random House Audio, and to the amazing cast of voice actors and readers they assembled: Claudia Black, Scott Brick, Karen Dotrice, Jonathan Frakes, Iain Glen, Janis Ian, Stana Katic, Inna Korobkina, Jenna Lamia, Lee Meriwether, Emily Rankin, Maggi-Meg Reed, Fred Sanders, Allan Scott-Douglas, Sophie Turner, Harriet Walter, and Jake Weber.
Current Mood: 
null
Rumors and Fabrications
December 9, 2014 at 4:52 pm
It seems I need to clarify once more.
I am NOT on Twitter. I am NOT on Facebook. The only place I post myself, in my own words, is here on Live Journal.
I do have an official Twitter account, and an official Facebook account. I established these in self-defense, because there were fake accounts out there, where people pretending to be me were making various spurious pronouncements… pronouncements that would then get picked up all over the internet and repeated as if they were gospel.
The official Twitter and Facebook accounts are maintained for me by my minions and my publishers. I don't post there myself. I don't even read them or check comments. I have other stuff to do. LOTS of other stuff.
Anyway, a few weeks ago, Raya came to me and said the folks at Random House wanted to do a special promotion on Twitter, a "Twelve Days of Christmas" with a Westerosi twist. Did they have the green light? It sounded fun, and funny, so I said sure, and thought no more of it. It was just a little Christmas celebration.
But then, somehow, from somewhere, the rumor arose that the "12 Days" were actually a countdown… not to Xmas, but to the publication of THE WINDS OF WINTER, or the announcement of its completion and/ or pub date.
Sorry. Not true. Look, I've said before, and I will say again, I don't play games with news about the books. I know how many people are waiting, how long they have been waiting, how anxious they are. I am still working on WINDS. When it's done, I will announce it here. There won't be any clues to decipher, any codes or hidden meanings, the announcement will be straightforward and to the point. I won't time it to coincide with Xmas or Valentine's Day or Lincoln's Birthday, the book will not rise from the dead with Jesus on Easter Sunday. When it is done, I will say that's it is done, on whatever day I happen to finish.
I don't know how I can make it any clearer.
And while I am debunking rumors, let me also say that this story about me being inspired to finsh WINDS by STAR WARS is also utter bullshit, and I have NO idea where that one came from. (I liked the first two STAR WARS movies, the third not so much, the prequels not at all, and the trailer for the new one had no impact on me one way or the other, and let's face it, even the best of 'em is no FORBIDDEN PLANET. Robby is my robot ideal, not C3PO or R2D2). Made up out of whole cloth, so far as I know.
It really stuns me how widely the STAR WARS thing has been disseminated. Truly, internet journalism is an oxymoron.
As Mark Twain once said, "A lie can travel halfway around the world while truth is putting on its shoes."
Current Mood: null
Tags: internet, the winds of winter
For The Record
May 27, 2014 at 6:33 pm
I originally posted this on April 23. I am bumping it to the top of my Not A Blog again, because there's a new story out there about an amusing tweet I made t'other day:
http://www.fashiontimes.com/articles/7600/20140527/game-thrones-creator-george-rr-martin-jokes-kimye-wedding.htm
It WAS an amusing tweet. But I didn't make it. Once more, let me say… well, see below.
=========================================================
I seem to have to repeat this every year or so. Okay, sure. There are always folks who come in late, who never got the memo.
Anyway…
I AM NOT ON FACEBOOK.
I AM NOT ON TWITTER.
I have a website, and I have this Not A Blog, right here on Live Journal, and every so often (rarely) I post on other people's blogs and websites, or on certain bulletin boards and news / discussion sites. But that's it for my internet presence.
There are accounts on Facebook and Twitter that carry my name, I know. Some just repost the things I post here. Others are more actively malignant, making up all sorts of crap and trying to make them seem like my own words. They're not.
Accept no substitutes. This is where I hang out, nowhere else.
Current Mood: null
Tags: internet
Not A Blog Rules
October 5, 2013 at 11:22 am
I seem to have quite a few new people visiting here, which reminds me that maybe it's time to lay down the Not A Blog rules again. I have not done that for a couple of years.
There aren't many.
I want no flamewars on this site. Debate and discussion are fine, name-calling and abuse are not. I ask that you be respectful in your comments, not only of me but of the other posters.
No spam, obviously.
I also ask that commenters STAY ON TOPIC. I do close and lock the comments thread on most of my posts as they get old and discussion dies down, but I usually have three or four posts open at any one time. Please place your comments under the appropriate subject, instead of just adding them to whatever is the most recent post. Football threads are for the discussion of football, not writing. Writing threads are for discussion of writing, not football. If I post about OLD MARS, I welcome discussion of the anthology, anthologies in general, the participating writers, other books about Mars, even SF in general… but not about the GAME OF THRONES tv show, or the Jets, or how the novel is coming. Political discussion should be restricted to political posts.
If you want to write me a fan letter, send it via email. My address can be found on my website. Don't post it here. (And, sadly, don't expect a reply. I am about three thousand emails behind at the moment).
Thanks.
Current Mood: null
Tags: internet
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