Dunk, Egg, a Few Random Mutterings

January 28, 2025 at 7:14 am

Where does the time go? January went by in a flash. I had a lot of posts I wanted to make, a lot of things I wanted to say, I had writing to do, I had zooming to do, meetings to attend, I had scripts to read, notes to give. There was travel, some for business and some for fun. There were friends to mourn, books to blurb. I saw a few good movies and television shows, that gave me some pleasure. The NFL did not. I missed most of the games this season, but that was probably a good thing, sinceit relieved me of having to write any of those “life is meaningless and full of pain” posts… though it was, the Jets were wretched and the Giants were worse.

We returned from our summer travels on August 15, and I had a ton of things I wanted to talk about. Instead of one long post, I decided to break up my trip and make a series of shorter ones. I figured I’d have it all done by the end of August. Well, no… I still have a worldcon to cover, and the Alfies, and my visit to Tolkien’s grave. I DID cover some of that… not in my Not A Blog, but in a rambling speech I gave at Bubonicon… but my phone screwed up and the video we made was lost, so my Not A Blog ended up being Not A Speech. Sigh.

Well, I will try to get to that later… eventually… for now, let me touch briefly on better news.

A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS, for starts. It’s done. Ira and his team wrapped the first season months ago, and moved right on to post production. I’ve seen all six episodes now (the last two in rough cuts, admittedly), and I loved them. Dunk and Egg have always been favorites of mine, and the actors we found to portray them are just incredible. The rest of the cast are terrific as well. Wait until you guys meet the Laughing Storm. and Tanselle Too-Tall.

A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS is an adaptation of “The Hedge Knight,” the first of the novellas I wrote about them. It’s as faithful as adaptation as a reasonable man could hope for (and you all know how incredibly reasonable I am on that particular subject). Viewers who are looking for action, and more action, and only action… well, this one may not satisfy you. There’s a fight scene here, as exciting as anyone could ask for, but there are no dragons this time around, no huge battles, no white walkers… this is a character piece, and its focus is on duty and honor, on chivalry and all it means. “The Hedge Knight” was published between A GAME OF THRONES and A CLASH OF KINGS in Robert Silverberg’s epic anthology LEGENDS, and was so popular that it brought tens of thousands of new readers to Westeros. Sales of my novels were much higher after LEGENDS than before, and for that I credit Silverbob, and Anne Groell, and Dunk and Egg. This one ranks as one of the best stories I’ve ever written, and I am so so so pleased that Ira Parker, Ti Mikkel, Aziza Barnes (may they rest in peace), Owen Harris, and our astonishing cast and crew did right by them.

The series will make its debut late this year, I am now told. How late, I could not say. Maybe in the fall.

I hope you will love the show as much as I do.

Meanwhile, we’ll be moving on to “The Sworn Sword,” the second tale of Dunk & Egg. And once I finish THE WINDS OF WINTER, I will need to get hopping on “The Village Hero,” and all the other tales that await the lads. Don’t worry, I am sure you folks will remind me.

Current Mood: excited excited

Tags: everyday life, hbo, nfl, politics, travels, writing

Lift the Torch

October 31, 2024 at 8:48 am

I was born and raised in Bayonne, New Jersey, a city of about 70,000 just south of Jersey City in the greater New York metropolitan area. Bayonne sits on a peninsula, with New York Bay on one side and Newark Bay on the other, the two of them connected by the deepwater channel called the Kill Von Kull. For most of my childhood I lived across the street from the Kill. I could watch the freighters come and go, day and night, flying flags from all the countries of the world. The Bayonne Bridge, down at the other end of First Street, connected the city to Staten Island. Despite its proximity to the Big Apple, Bayonne was never a suburb; very few of its residents commuted to work, at least back then. Bayonne was its own place, a densely packed industrial city where generations of locals had been born and raised, gone to school, found jobs, got married, had children. Most of them worked blue collar jobs, for Texaco or one of the other oil refineries in town, or for Best Foods, or for Maidenform. Or else they worked on the docks, like my father, a longshoreman. Bayonne was home to a huge naval base, where battleships and destroyers and transports of all types were dry docked and serviced from World War II to Vietnam.

Bayonne was very much a workingman’s city. It was also an ethnic city. We had Irish, Italians, Poles, Germans, and a scattering of other nationalities. Some Protestants and some Jews, but they were heavily outnumbered by the Roman Catholics. Each ethnic group had its own parish, its own church, its own Catholic school… its own feast days and festivals, its own softball teams. There were rivalries between the various ethnicities, there were tasteless jokes… but I do not recall any real hatred. When our parents and grandparents talked about “the old country,” some meant Italy, some meant Poland, some meant Ireland… but they were all Americans now. The things that set them apart were unimportant compared to the things they had in common.

They were all immigrants.

Or the sons and daughters of immigrants. Or the grandsons and granddaughters. Or… well, go back as many generations as you like. My Irish ancestors came over during the potato famine. I am a mongrel myself. Irish, German, Jewish, Italian, a bit of English, a dollop of Welsh… a probably more. I had Irish friends, Italian friends, Jewish friends, you name it. Only a few were first generation, mind you, but everyone knew their heritage, and everyone was proud of it. And proud of being American.

I could see Staten Island from the windows of our apartment in the projects. From the Hook on the northeast shore of Bayonne, however, you could see the skyscrapers of Manhattan, Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty.

I wonder, can you see the Statue from Trump Tower? Somehow I doubt it.

Though Lady Liberty was a gift of France (our first friend, and oldest ally) nothing has ever been so quintessentially American. For generations of immigrants, she was the first thing they saw as their ships pulled into New York harbor (steaming past Bayonne and its docks on the way). She stood for all that was best of this new country. For hope. For freedom. For the dream of a new life.

We are a nation of immigrants. Except for my Native American friend, all of us came from somewhere else. Immigrants were not often welcome with open arms. The Dutch were not thrilled when the English took New Amsterdam. The English resented the arrival of so many Irish. The Irish and the Italians did not love each other, and neither of them were thrilled to see so many Poles getting off the ships. And the Jews… nobody wanted the Jews. But in time, all of them learned to get along. There were gangs, there was crime, there were riots… but the immigrants worked together, played together… ate each other’s food, played ball together, slept with each other, married each other to produce mongrels like me. The melting pot worked its magic. We all became Americans. No matter where our parents came from.

Emma Lazarus said it best, in the words on Lady Liberty’s base.

The New Colossus

By Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

That’s America to me. The best of America.

MAGA talks of making America great again. But America is great because of its immigrants. They and their descendants built her cities and her railroads, fought in her wars, contested her elections (and stepped aside peacefully when they lost). Far from the “world wide welcome” that Lazarus wrote of, Trump and his followers spew hatred, talk of mass deportations, of denying citizenship even to children born in the USA. They want to ban immigrants who worship the wrong gods and come from the wrong countries. They spew hatred every time they speak of those seeking new lives in America. (They are eating the dogs?).

And who are these people they loathe so much? Why, they are the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the “wretched refuse” of those teeming shores. (Billionaires would be welcome, of course. So long as they bring their money). Donald Trump himself is descended from immigrants; German on his father’s side, Scottish on his mother’s. His grandfather may well have been an illegal immigrant; the facts are unclear. The Trumps found welcome with the Mother of Exiles. Now the Donald wants to build a wall to keep everyone else out.

It makes me sad. It makes me sick. Yes, certainly, there are bad people crossing the border. But there were bad people and criminals in all those other waves of immigration too. Those huddled masses are not entirely made up of saints, and never were. Most of the people crossing the border, then as now, were ordinary people, looking for a better life, yearning to breathe free. Dreaming the same dream that the Poles and the Irish and the Chinese and the Russians and all the others did in their day.

“I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Lady Liberty proclaims.

If Trump has his way, that lamp will go out forever.

Current Mood: angry angry

Tags: politics

Dark Days

January 29, 2024 at 9:37 am

In years past, I would often do a Not A Blog post on or about New Year’s, looking back over the year that was ending and ahead to the year to come. This year, though, as I reflected on the year we had just lived through, I found I had no appetite for living through any of that again. 2023 was a nightmare of a year, for the world and the nation and for me and mine, both professionally and personally. I am very glad that it is over.

Unfortunately, so far 2024 looks to be even worse.

There is war everywhere. Ukraine and Gaza dominate the news, but there is a war in Myanmar as well that our western media just ignores, things are heating up in Yemen and the Red Sea, North Korea has nukes and is testing missiles and rattling sabres, Venezuela is threatening to annex three quarters of neighboring Guyana.

Meanwhile the US grows more polarized every day. Hate is rising, democracy is under threat, millions of Americans have swallowed the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Newspeak has taken over political discourse, cancel culture is destroying lives and careers, and we have a disgraced, indicted, venomous ex-president winning primaries despite openly declaring that he will be a dictator on day one and will govern on a platform of “retribution,” when he is not busy grabbing women by the pussy. His last attempt to overthrow the government failed on January 6, but some of his more ardent supporters are now saying that “next time” they will bring more guns. There are actually folks out there wanting civil war.

It is hard to escape the feeling that we are living in the Weimar Republic.

I am famous and I am wealthy and, supposedly, I have a “big platform.” Whatever that is. But I have grown more and more cynical about this supposed “power” that people keep telling me I have. Has anything I have ever written here ever changed a single mind, a single vote? I see no evidence of that. The era of rational discourse seems to have ended.

And death is everywhere. Howard Waldrop was the latest, and his passing has hit me very very hard, but before him we lost Michael Bishop, Terry Bisson, David Drake… from my Wild Cards team, Victor Milan, John Jos. Miller, Edward Bryant, Steve Perrin… I still miss Gardner Dozois and Phyllis Eisenstein and my amazing agent Kay McCauley… Len Wein is gone, Vonda McIntyre, and Harlan Ellison… Greg Bear too, and… oh, I could go on. I look around, and it seems as though my entire generation of SF and fantasy writers is gone or going. Only a handful of us remain… and for how long, I wonder? I know I have forgotten people in the list above, and maybe that is the destiny that awaits all of us… to be forgotten.

For that matter, the entire human race may be forgotten. If climate change does not get us, war will. Too many countries have nukes.

Sigh.

Well, I take solace where I can. In chocolate thrones, if nowhere else. In books. In films and television shows… though even there, toxicity is growing. It used to be fun talking about our favorite books and films, and having spirited debates with fans who saw things different… but somehow in this age of social media, it is no longer enough to say “I did not like book X or film Y, and here’s why.” Now social media is ruled by anti-fans who would rather talk about the stuff they hate than the stuff they love, and delight in dancing on the graves of anyone whose film has flopped.

And don’t get me started on immigration. We are a nation of immigrants, yet millions of us have now decided we hate immigrants… refugees dreaming of a better life who are no better or worse or different than our own ancestors.

It is all so sad.

Now that I have made you all as depressed and angry as I am, let me close with something nice. When word of Howard’s death got out, I got a lot of texts and emails of condolence from mutual friends and fans. One of them was from Steven Paul Judd, the amazingly talented screenwriter and director who worked with us on the adaptation of MARY-MARGARET ROAD GRADER that will be going out on the film festival circuit Real Soon Now (more on that in a later blog post).

Steve wrote:

“Oh, no. I’m so sorry. My heart is heavy for your loss… In my tribe (Kiowa) in the old beliefs, they said we would go ‘west’ when we walked on into the spirit world. Who knows if that’s true, but if it is, then Howard is on his journey west now, going to the place where the fields are filled with buffalo and the grass is green even in winter — and when he gets there he can tell all his wonderful stories to those around the campfire.”

Howard would like nothing better, I think.

Current Mood: depressed

Tags: life and death, politics

Words for Our Times

October 25, 2023 at 8:35 am

Tags: humanity, politics, war and peace

Words for All Times…

August 31, 2023 at 10:24 am

… but especially these times we are living in, when free speech is under attack as seldom before. Book banning has become pandemic, and now some are even threatening arrest for teachers and librarians who give students the “wrong” books to read.

Tags: free speech, politics, writing

Words For Our Times

September 14, 2022 at 9:30 am

Tags: politics, writing

Words For Our Times

July 5, 2022 at 10:50 am

CAN we keep it?

I am not so sure any more.

Current Mood: scared scared

Tags: life and death, politics

Words For Our Times

April 23, 2022 at 9:48 am

Current Mood: contemplative

Tags: life and death, politics

Words For Our Times

May 5, 2021 at 6:49 pm

Current Mood: contemplative

Tags: everyday life, life and death, politics

Violence in Turkey

March 28, 2021 at 3:45 pm

My dear friend Sibel Kekilli — Shae, for all you fans of HBO’s GAME OF THRONES — emailed me recently to alert me to some distressing news out of Turkey. (Sibel is German, born and raised in Germany, but of Turkish descent). Turkey, under the Erdogan regime, has officially withdrawn from the Istanbul convention that combats violence against women.

Here are the details:
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/20/europe/turkey-convention-violence-women-intl/index.html

Sibel herself has first hand knowledge of what it means to experience violence, and she has long been an advocate fighting violence against women all around the world. She is not only an amazing actress (she gave Shae a depth the character never had in my books), but a very brave woman, and a true hero. I admire her immensely for all she has done, and continues to do.

And I would like to echo her message to the women and girls of Turkey: Selam Ve Sevgiler.

Stay strong.

Current Mood: determined

Tags: life and death, politics

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Dunk, Egg, a Few Random Mutterings

Dark Days

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