R.I.P Trent

December 7, 2024 at 7:47 am

We spent Thanksgiving as we usually do, gathering at Melinda Snodgrass’s place in the hills above Lamy to enjoy the company of friends old and new over a sumptuous meal. Turkey, stuffing, deviled eggs, Melinda’s home made nog, a slice or two of apple pie (with cheese, of course). The food was lovely, and it was good to be with friends.

But 2024 was a dark year, and our Thanksgiving was to have a dark end. Later that night, at home, we received a shattering text from Shannon Zelazny. Her brother Trent had died earlier that day of acute liver failure.

Trent had suffered a massive stroke back in September that had left him unable to walk… but he had been in rehab subsequently, and was making good progress. He was still Trent, still a fighter, and we all hoped he was on his way to recovery. It proved not to be.

He was only 48. In fact, Thanksgiving was his birthday.

I have known Trent since he was a small boy. His father was Roger Zelazny, a brilliant brilliant writer and one of the kindest men I have ever known… and a mentor to me, of sorts. He was the only person I knew when I moved from Iowa to New Mexico in 1979. He took me under his wing, invited me to dinners and parties, introduced me to First Friday and the Albuqerque science fiction fans.. I saw Zozobra for the first time from his house on Stagecoach Road, whose windows looked down on Old Man Gloom and Fort Marcy Park.

And of course met his family. Shannon had not yet been born, though she was on her way, but his sons were never far from their dad.

Devin, the older boy, looked so much like Roger he could have been a twin, and like Roger he was painfully shy. Trent was anything but. My earliest memory of him is from the year his dad brought him to Bubonicon, where he went everywhere and charmed everyone, clad in a t-shirt that read MY DAD WROTE LORD OF LIGHT.

A later (and much sadder memory) was from 1995, where Roger lay dying in St Vincent’s Hospital. Like many of his friends, I came and went during that dreadful week, visiting as often as I could, but Trent never left his father’s side.

He got married soon after Roger left us, and his wife gave him a son. He named the boy Corwin. (What else?) For a time, he was my tenant; he and his wife and his new son were renting my old house on Declovina, the first place I lived in Santa Fe.

Life happens, though. Corwin and his mother moved to California and the marriage ended. Trent continued to write, and begin to sell. He had his own voice, though. He loved his father’s work, and knew it better than anyone, but he was never an echo. He loved horror stories, and crime fiction, and noir, and did a lot of work in those fields. Sales started to be more common. While I was out in LA working in television, Trent moved to Florida, and I lost track of him for a few years. Florida was not kind to him, through, and he lived through some sort of tragedy down there.

When he came back to the Land of Enchantment, I had just bought the Jean Cocteau Cinema. Trent needed work, and I made him my second hire. He started out selling popcorn, but soon was promoted to projectionist. He helped in promotion and scheduling as well, and sat in on some of my events, interviewing some of the writers who came by on promotional tours. He was a great employee, always… but never wanted to go full time. Writing was his true love, and he wanted to focus on that. His father would have said the same.

A few years further on, his sister Shannon his son Corwin both came to work at the JCC as well. And when declining health left his mother unable to continue managing Roger’s estate, Trent and Shannon took it on together. It was around then that they left the JCC, to devote more time to running the Amber Corporation… and giving Trent more time to write.

By then he had published a number of books, in several genres. I did not doubt that there were more to come. He had talent, and he had determination. Life had dealt him some hard blows, but he never gave up. Six months ago, if you had asked me, I would have said that Trent Zelazny was just at the beginning of his career.

I could never have dreamed that he was close to the end.

He is survived by his sister Shannon, his brother Devin, his son Corwin… and more friends than I can count.

We’re all going to miss him.

And if there is life beyond this, somewhere in Shadow on the road to Amber, I know his father is proud of him.

GRRM

Tags: friends, life and death

The Canals of Braavos

October 27, 2024 at 9:42 am

After Ashford, we went to Braavos.

Or Amsterdam, as the Dutch prefer to call it.

A lot of my readers think that Braavos was inspired by Venice. Because of the canals, of course. Thing is, though I’ve read a lot about Venice, histories and travel books and the like, I have never actually been there. I have always wanted to visit, Venice is plainly a magical place, and if I had a bucket list it would be right up near the top… but so far I have never found the time. One day, I hope. When the novel’s done, perhaps. Yes, certainly, there’s some of Venice in Braavos.. the Sealord, and the manner of his choosing, was certainly inspired in part by the Doge… but there’s some of Prague in Braavos too, and bits of other places, along with some things that were purely imaginary. The Titan of Braavos, of course, was my twist on the Colossus of Rhodes. As for those canals…

Did you know that Amsterdam has more canals than Venice?

That startled me as well, the first time I heard it. That was back in 1990, when I visited Amsterdam for the first time, after attending the first (and so far, only) Dutch worldcon in the Hague. That was a good worldcon. I liked what I saw of the Netherlands before the con, the windmills, the countryside, the castles, and the magnificent fireworks display we happened to run into at the Hague… but it was Amsterdam that I fell in love with. There was so much to see and do. Great art in world class museums (the Rijkmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum among them), all the history on display in the Maritime Museum, Indonesian rijsttafels, the coffee houses and “coffee” houses of the old red light district, the beer in the medieval taverns and sidewalk cafes, the tall narrow houses with their pointed roofs, the houseboats along the canals… Day or night, Amsterdam is a gorgeous city.

One of the museums that I had missed on my previous visits to Amsterdam was the Anne Frank House, which should need no introduction. I made certain that we did not miss it this time. I had read Anne Frank’s diary many decades ago, when I was not much older than she had been when she died, and of course I knew the broad outlines of World War II and the Holocaust… but standing in that house, climbing those steps, slipping through the bookcase into the secret rooms where Anne and her family hid during the last years of their lives… there was something profound and moving about that. It is one thing to read of camps and trains, of millions shipped off and millions starved and gassed and killed… but the story of Anne Frank and her family, of the Dutch who helped protect them, of their ultimate capture and betrayal, a story full of hope that ends in death… there’s a power to it that goes beyond all the statistics, that brings home the humanity of Anne and all the others who died in a way no history book can match. There’s often a long line in front of the Anne Frank House, and the wait can sometimes be lengthy… but it is worth it. You will leave there sadder than when you entered… but wiser too, as you contemplate all the horror and heroism of which the human race is capable.

My visit to Amsterdam was not all about museums and sightseeing and Indonesian food; our summer trip combined business and pleasure, as almost all my travel has for the past couple of decades. It had been a decade or more since I last met with my Dutch editors and publishers, and my agents and I agreed that it was past time. So my first stop was at the offices of Luitingh-Sijthoff, to meet the team.

(Megan Ellis, my newest minion, is there in the middle in the black dress, next to me).

And of course, they had a few books for me to sign.

I believe I scribbled in 600 books. Dutch editions, of course.

Afterward, my editors took us out for a lovely dinner at an outdoor cafe, where we were joined by a Dutch filmmaker, a book reviewer… and Melisandre of Asshai, the Red Lady herself, in the person of Carice Van Houten.

Our lodgings in Amsterdam were at the Hotel De L’Europe, a glorious old luxury hotel in the heart of the city, with big rooms, a grand lobby, some fine restaurants… and balconies on many of the suites. Despite the glories of Amsterdam, many a night I found myself unable to sleep after my minions had headed off to bed. Instead I wandered out to my balcony, and sat looking out on the moonlit city while I mulled life and art and the woes of the world. It was a welcome respite from all the conflict that I had been dealing with for the past half year.

The best thing about the hotel was its location, though; right on one of the canals. The canals of Braavos are its glory, and the same is true of Amsterdam. Sid booked us a cruise on a canal boat one afternoon. I had cruised the canals before, on previous visits to Amsterdam, but this was different. We got a private boat just big enough for the three of us, rather than one of the long glassed-in supper boats crowded with tourists, and for close to three hours we wound our way through the waterways of the city.

It was lovely, and peaceful, and ended too soon. Bayonne, New Jersey, where I was born and raised, is nothing at all like Amsterdam… but for my most of my childhood we lived in the projects on First Street, right across from Brady’s Dock and the deep waters of the Kill Von Kull, where the big freighters made their way from New York to Newark. As much as I love Santa Fe, I miss the water.

One of these days I need to write that story about Braavos we were developing for HBO. They shelved that one a couple of years back, alas, but that does not mean I won’t go back to it… after WINDS OF WINTER is done, of course.

Maybe then I will have enough free time to visit Amsterdam again.

Current Mood: contemplative

Tags: life and death, signed books, travel

GOING UP, COMING DOWN

September 30, 2024 at 9:52 pm

Kris Krisofferson has died.

I knew I would have to write those words eventually, and probably sooner rather than later. Kris has not looked good the past few times I’ve seen him on the tube. His health has not been good for some years. Still, one can hope. The world was so much richer with Kristofferson in it, and it is poorer now that he is gone. But we still have his songs, and what songs they are.

I am no musician myself; that’s a gift I never had. I cannot sing, I cannot dance, I cannot read music. But that doesn’t mean I do not love music… or rather, songs. Instrumental music, classical music, operas, those are all great, no doubt, but they are not for me. I am a word guy. I want the lyrics. I want them to be audible, not drowned out by the instruments. I want them to be beautiful, I want them to touch me, to move me, to make me think, become a part of me. Some of you may have noticed that the word “song” keeps appearing in the titles of my books and stories. A SONG FOR LYA, SONGS OF STARS AND SHADOWS, SONGS THE DEAD MEN SING, DREAMSONGS, A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH. There’s a would-be songwriter buried inside me, no doubt. Oh, I managed some to do “The Rains of Castamere” and “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” (part of it, anyway) and “The Dornishmen’s Wife” and “The Last of the Giants,” but damn, writing songs is hard, even if you’re only doing lyrics and leaving the actual music to the listeners.

I don’t know how Kris Kristofferson did it.

But he did it better than anyone else.

He has been my favorite singer/ songwriter ever since I first heard “Me and Bobby McGee,” back when I was in college.

It was the Janis Joplin version I first encountered, as with most people. Kristofferson was a songwriter then, but not yet established as a singer himself. The song was a huge huge hit, the biggest Joplin ever had. Sadly, it was a posthumous hit, since Janis had died shortly before it was released. In the days and years and decades that followed, many other people covered “Me and Bobby McGee; there was Roger Miller and Johnny Cash and Gordon Lightfoot and Reba McEntire and many many more.

I liked almost all of them, but the one I loved best was Kristofferson’s own version, when it was finally recorded and released.

On my recent visit to England, there were several instances where strangers came up to tell me how much they loved my books, how my writing spoke to them, moved them, even changed their lives. That’s a lovely thing to hear. I’ve been on the other end of that as well. There have been songs and stories and books and authors who have had profound effects on my own life. Sometimes it seems as if the writer is speaking only to you.

“Me and Bobby McGee” was like that for me. I’d had my own Bobby McGee not long before I heard the song. No, I did not pull my harpoon out of a dirty red bandana and she did not sing the blues, and we’d never rode a diesel from Baton Rouge to New Orleans… but we were good together, and then I’d let her slip away (not near Salinas). Afterwards, alone, I knew what Kris meant by “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” and like the singer, I would gladly have traded all of my tomorrows for a single yesterday.

Kristofferson was a poet. His best lines haunted me for years. Only a few years later, I wrote a story I titled “… for a single yesterday” for an anthology called EPOCH. A post holocaust story about a singer and a lost love, natch. I wanted it to be the best story I’d ever written. It wasn’t. Some folks liked it well enough, but as a tribute to Kristofferson, I would have liked it to be stronger.

Kris was no one hit wonder. In the years that followed, I bought every one of his albums as soon as they came out. (Albums were these big vinyl things we listened to then). And there were other great songs that I fell in love with, that spoke to me almost as deeply as “Me and Bobby McGee” had. There was “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and “Casey’s Last Ride” and “For the Good Times,” there was “Billy Dee” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night” and “The Taker,” there was “Silver Tongued Devil” and “From the Bottle to the Bottom” and “Loving Her Was Easier,” and “Silver: the Hunger” and “Darby’s Castle” and “Here Comes That Rainbow Again” and…

This one.

Half talking, half singing, Kris talking about his early days as a singer. It seemed deeply personal when I heard it; for him, but it sp0ke to me as well. Especially during the hard years, when my career crashed and burned (as it did from time to time).

Kristofferson was an amazing man, all in all. A Rhodes Scholar, Flew a helicopter in Vietnam. Swept floor as a janitor in Nashville trying to break in. Then he became an actor, and a damn good one. CISCO PIKE. BLUME IN LOVE. PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID. (Best Billy the Kid movie ever made). ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANY MORE. A STAR IS BORN (the Streisand version). LONE STAR. He was damned good at that too.

But it will be as a singer and songwriter that he will be remembered.

For “Me and Bobby McGee” and all those other songs… especially this one. He was singing about himself here, not just the friends he mentions in the opening. And he was singing about me and my writer friends as well, my collaborators and contemporaries and rivals, all of us struggling to tell our stories and make a living and survive in SF and fantasy in those bygone days. We were all pilgrims.

(I slipped a reference to this song in one of my stories as well).

I heard Kris live in concert once, back in the 1970s, when I was living in Chicago. I was never lucky enough to meet him in person. I wish I had gone backstage after that show and tried to introduce myself, but I was way too shy and I doubt I could have gotten in. I wish I had tried, though, if just to tell him how much his music meant to me. Assuming I just didn’t freeze up and lose my tongue.

If I could speak to him now, I know what I would say.

His going up was worth the coming down.

And he went up very high. We shall not hear his like again.

Current Mood: sad sad

Tags: game of thrones, life and death, music, writing

A Belated Blog

September 9, 2024 at 2:10 pm

I am way behind in my Not-a-Blogging, I know.

Along with a thousand other things.

I was traveling in Europe from July 15 to August 15. I do not travel with a computer (never have), so I had hoped to catch up before I left… but it was hard, hard. The first half of my year was pretty miserable, dominated as it was by the death of Howard Waldrop on January 14. Howard was my oldest friend in science fiction community; we had been corresponding since 1963, when we were both in high school. His passing came suddenly, only six days after our last conversation, and there’s a part of me that still cannot accept it, that wants to pick up the phone and ring him up and hear his voice again.

Nor did I find much solace in my work. Writing came hard, and though I did produce some new pages on both THE WINDS OF WINTER (yes) and BLOOD & FIRE (the sequel to FIRE & BLOOD, the second part of my Targaryen history), I would have liked to turn out a lot more. My various television projects ate up most of those months. Some of that was pleasant (DARK WINDS, and THE HEDGE KNIGHT), most of it was not. The stress kept mounting, the news went from bad to worse to worst, my mood seemed to swing between fury and despair, and at night I tossed and turned when I should have been sleeping. When I did sleep, well, my dreams were none too pleasant either.

I had been planning our European trip for some time. The Dunk & Egg show would start filming in July and I wanted to visit the shoot in Northern Ireland, and a month later there would be a worldcon in Glasgow. I had not been to a worldcon since the Dublin convention in 2019 (we won’t count Covid Con, the New Zealand worldcon in 2020 that went all virtual) and I wanted to return. Fandom had been my second family since 1971, and worldcon our family reunion. Even so, I had so much on my plate that I seriously debated whether I should cancel the whole trip so I could stay home and fight on. I am glad I decided against that. I was so stressed out that I doubt I would have accomplished much anyway… and the trip turned out to be a blessing, balm for my bruised soul.

We had a great time on the trip, and I meant to tell you all about our adventures and experiences when we returned. Those will be happy posts, made of happy memories, and I still mean to write them… soon…

But when we finally got back to the Land of Enchantment I had a thousand emails waiting for me. I also managed to bring covid back home with me, after picking it up at worldcon. It was a mild case, thankfully, but even so, it put me out of action for a week or so, with the worst sore throat of my life. (I am fully recovered and testing negative once again, thank you. Don’t get covid, boys and girls, it is no fun at all). And, alas, the moment I opened my computer again, the stress came rushing back. I managed to put my problems aside for a month, but they were still waiting for me.

So… I have a lot to blog about. Big things, small things, glad news and sad news. I do want to talk about the trip while it is still fresh in my mind, but there is so much else…

Current Mood: stressed

Tags: life and death, travel, worldcon, writing

BURN HIM! BURN HIM!

August 30, 2024 at 7:50 am

It is Fiesta here in Santa Fe, one of the oldest festivals in the City Different, and once again the highlight of the festivities will be the Burning of Zozobra (the original Burning Man, for those of you who have never heard of him).

Zozobra will be 100 this year, so the celebrations should be even more spectacular than before. For the first time, Sky Railway will be joining the madness with the FLAME TRAIN, set to carry the fire that will consume Old Z from Lamy through the heart of Santa Fe to Fort Marcy Park.

Zozobra himself is a towering marionette representing Old Man Gloom. The pyre that devours him after dark — as he shouts and screams and waves his arms and legs — contains within it all the doom and grief and depression and despair of the past year. It is Santa Fe’s way of devouring the darkness, to clear the way for the light and joy that will hopefully mark the new year.

And believe me we need that, more than ever before. The world, the country, and yes, certainly me. This has not been a good year for anyone, with war everywhere and fascism on the rise… and on a more personal level, I have had a pretty wretched year as well, one full of stress, anger, conflict, and defeat.

I need to talk about some of that, and I will, I will… I was away from my computer traveling from July 15 to August 15, so a lot of things that needed saying did not get said. I am glad I took that trip, though. My stress levels beforehand were off the charts, so much so that I was seriously considering cancelling my plans and staying at home. I am glad I didn’t, though. It was so so good to get away for a little, to put all the conflict aside for a time. I began to feel better the moment the plane set down in Belfast, and we all headed off to Ashford Meadow to see the tournament. We had five great days in Belfast and environs, and that made me feel so much better. The rest of the trip was fun as well, a splendid combination of business and pleasure that included visits to Belfast, Amsterdam, London, Oxford, and Glasgow. I look forward to telling you all about our adventures… though it may take a while. I had a thousand emails waiting for me on my return, and then I went and brought a case of covid back with me from worldcon, so I am way way behind.

I do not look forward to other posts I need to write, about everything that’s gone wrong with HOUSE OF THE DRAGON… but I need to do that too, and I will. Not today, though. TODAY is Zozobra’s day, when we turn away from gloom.

BURN HIM! BURN HIM!

Current Mood: busy busy

Tags: Fiesta, life and death, santa fe

R.I.P. Kinkster

July 1, 2024 at 10:11 am

I was saddened to read that Kinky Friedman died a few days ago.

I first encountered his music back in the 70s, and always remained fond of it. Kinky was one of the originals, one of the “Outlaw Country” movement that grew out of Austin, in reaction to the more traditional country music of Nashville. Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Townes Van Zandt, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, those were the outlaw kings back then. Kinky was the court jester. He was best known for his irreverent satirical pieces, like “The Ballad of Charles Whitman,” “Put Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed,” “They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Any More,” and the like, which inevitably provoked screams of outrage from the humor impaired, but he also wrote more serious tunes, some of them really fine. “Sold American,” “Silver Eagle” (a damn fine railroad song), “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” and this one here, a personal favorite.

I saw Friedman perform live twice. Once way back in the 70s when I was visiting Austin to hang with Howard Waldrop and Lisa Tuttle. And more recently a few years ago in Albuquerque, when Parris and I joined John and Gail Miller to see him play at the Jewish Community Center. Fun shows both times.

In between writing and singing songs, he also authored a number of detective novels set around a country bar in New York City. The detective was the owner of the bar, a musician named… ah… Kinky Friedman. Those were a lot of fun too.

Oh, and he ran for governor of Texas once, against Rick Perry. A pity he didn’t win. His campaign slogan was “How Hard Could It Be?”

Current Mood: sad sad

Tags: life and death, music

Farewell to Melanie

April 17, 2024 at 7:08 am

I was saddened to read that Melanie, the singer/ songwriter whose career took off after a memorable performance at Woodstock, died on January 23, at the age of 76. Her real name was Melanie Safka.

I was not at Woodstock, alas (though Parris was), but I started hearing Melanie on the radio soon thereafter. Never met her, never attended a concert, but I always loved her music. She had a lovely voice, and wrote some wonderful songs with roots in both rock and folk. “Candles in the Rain,” “The Nickle Song,” the lively funny sexy “Brand New Key” (her only number one hit, I believe) and many many more.

Including this one: