And That’s Not All!

July 11, 2023 at 9:13 am

… for all you aces and jokers, old or new.

As it happens, PAIRING UP is not the only Wild Cards book coming out on July 11.

On the same day, Tor Books will also be releasing their trade paperback edition of FULL HOUSE.

FULL HOUSE is a collection of stand-alone Wild Cards stories originally published electronically on Tor.com.

We have a great lineup once again:

“When We Were Heroes”                                                 Daniel Abraham
“Evernight”                                                                         Victor Milan
“Lies My Mother Told Me”                                 Caroline Spector
“Nuestra Senora de la Esperanza”                  Carrie Vaughn
“Discards”                                                                             David D. Levine
“The Elephant in the Room”                           Paul Cornell
“When the Devil Drives”                                Melinda M. Snodgrass
“The Atonement Tango”                                 Stephen Leigh
“Prompt. Professional. Pop!”                      Walter Jon Williams
“How to Move Spheres and Influence People”              Marko Kloos

If you missed FULL HOUSE in hardcover, here’s your chance to fill out your collection.

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Tags: anthologies, wild cards

Hugo Nominations Open

April 2, 2023 at 8:47 am

This year’s World Science Fiction Convention (the 81st) is happening in Chengdu, China, from October 18-22.

That’s later than usual. Nominations for the Hugo Awards opened later as well, but they DID open on March 1. They will close April 30, so you have a month and change left to nominate your favorite books, stories, fanzines, writers, TV shows, and movies from last year. That is, assuming you hold a membership in the Chengdu worldcon. Both attending and supporting members are eligible to nominate, so you don’t actually need to be planning on a trip to China to take part.

If you are eligible to nominate, I urge you to do so. The Hugo Awards are our field’s oldest and most prestigious awards… and they are a FAN award, given by readers and viewers, not by a jury. It is a huge honor to win one… and a proud and noble thing to lose one too. I speak from experience. I’ve won a few, and lost a lot more, even helped found the Hugo Losers Party with the late great Gardner Dozois.

It has been a few years since I last did one of these “eligibility posts” that have become so common in the past decade or so. In large part, that’s because I did not put out anything that was eligible… aside from various Wild Cards stories and books, which qualified me in the “Editor – Short Form” category. That’s true for 2022 as well. FULL HOUSE, a hardcover collection of Wild Cards stories from Tor.com, came out in mid-year, and a number of older volumes in the series were reprinted in trade paperback and mass market. We also released the American edition of THREE KINGS, a Wild Cards mosaic novel edited by Melinda M. Snodgrass, so she is eligible in Editor as well.

I might also mention that Tor.com featured two more Wild Cards originals during the year:

GROW, by Carrie Vaughn https://www.tor.com/2022/07/20/grow-carrie-vaughn/

HEARTS OF STONE, by Emma Newman https://www.tor.com/2022/05/18/hearts-of-stone-emma-newman/

Lovely stories both, and they are also eligible for nomination. You can read them — for FREE — at the links above.

Editing was not all I did in 2022. I also did some work in television as an executive producer and co-creator of a new series on HBO. You may have heard of it. It was called HOUSE OF THE DRAGON.

The series debuted in August and ran until late October, making it eligible for nomination in either of the two Dramatic Presentation categories in the Hugo Awards. Either… but not both. The rules there are a little complex. Fans can nominate the show in both Short Form and Long Form, but it won’t appear on the ballot in both categories; if a series gets enough votes in both categories, one has to make a choice. (This happened to GAME OF THRONES twice, as it happens).

The entire first season — ten episodes, each approximately one hour long — can be nominated in Long Form, where it will compete against the year’s biggest movies (or possibly seasons of other TV shows). The first season of GAME OF THRONES was nominated in Long Form.

The usual category for television shows is Short Form, however; there it is individual episodes that are nominated, not entire seasons or the show as a whole. It helps to know the titles of the episodes if you want to nominate your favorites.

Here the first season episodes of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON:

101    The Heirs of the Dragon
102    The Rogue Prince
103    Second of His Name
104    King of the Narrow Sea
105    We Light the Way
106   The Princess and the Queen
107   Driftmark
108 The Lord of the Tides
109 The Green Council
110 The Black Queen

You can nominate as many episodes of a series as you like… but these days, only three will make the ballot. (In decades past, there were years when a popular series would completely fill the ballot, but that’s not allowed any longer). All the listed episodes were first televised in 2022, so they are all eligible.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON was adapted from portions of FIRE & BLOOD, Archmaester Gyldayn’s history of the Targaryen dynasty from Aegon’s Conquest to the regency of Aegon III. Unlike the various volumes of A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, FIRE & BLOOD was not a novel, but rather an imaginary history. Though it is still in print, it was first published in 2018, and is not eligible for a Hugo. However, in November 2022, my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic released RISE OF THE DRAGON.

RISE, if anything, is even harder to categorize than FIRE & BLOOD. Definitely not a novel, it covers the same period and the same events as Archmaester Glydayn’s history, but in far less detail. Elio M. Garcia Jr. and Linda Antonsson of the Westeros website did the abridgement. The text is only a small part of the book, however. RISE OF THE DRAGON is a lavishly illustrated coffee-table sized volume featuring 150 original paintings by fantasy artists from all over the world. Myself, I think it is gorgeous, but then, I am hardly objective.

The Hugo Awards have no category for art books, and RISE does not fit in novel… so if you would like to nominate it, the appropriate category would be RELATED WORK. That’s a bit of a grab bag category that in the past has included not only art books, but critical studies, biographies, speeches, memoirs, and… ah… other, stranger stuff.

Bottom line, though, you should nominate what you love best. That’s what gives the Hugo its meaning.

Nominations close APRIL 30.

And remember, only worldcon members can cast a ballot.

The rocket rules.

Tags: editing, hugo awards, television, wild cards, worldcon

Three Kings, One Throne

March 21, 2023 at 8:14 am

((No, no, not the Iron Throne. An entirely different throne, on an entirely different world. There are lots of worlds, you know. Lots of books. Lots of thrones)).

The queen is dead. Long live the king.

Ah… but which king? Charles III, you say? Well, maybe in this world. But not in the world of the Wild Cards, which diverged from our own reality on September 15, 1946, when Jetboy died in the skies over Manhattan. History was never the same.

Elizabeth II never took the throne of the United Kingdom in that world. It was her younger sister Margaret who ascended after the passing of their father, King George VI, and it is Queen Margaret I whose long reign has just come to an end there. Her eldest son is about to succeed her as King Henry IX… but his younger brother has his own designs on the crown, and dreams of being Richard IV… and if the whispers can be believed, there may be another claimant as well, a joker prince hidden away for half a century.

Who will claim the throne? To find out you’ll need to check out THREE KINGS, volume twenty-nine in the Wild Cards series (but have no fear, you do not need to read the first twenty-eight to enjoy this one). Tor is releasing the trade paperback edition today, and you will find it at your local bookstore or your favorite online bookseller.

(

Melinda M. Snodgrass stepped up as editor this time around… no easy task, as THREE KINGS is a mosaic novel, with the storylines interwoven from start to finish. The writing team consisted of Melinda herself, Peter Newman, Mary Ann Mohanraj, Peadar O Guilin, and Caroline Spector. Featured characters included Double Helix, the Green Man, Badh, the Seamstress, Enigma, and the aforementioned three wannabee kings. Yours truly was the assistant editor.

Some of you like signed books, I know. Have no fear: we will have them soon at Beastly Books in Santa Fe, autographed by both of the editors, Melinda and yours truly. The other signatures you’ll need to run down yourself. You can place your orders with Beastly at https://www.beastlybooks.com/

Beastly Books has signed copies of all the other Wild Cards books as well… along with autographed editions (hardcovers and paperbacks both) of that other series of mine, the one where the throne is made of iron. (Queen Elizabeth II visited our GOT set in Belfast once, and declined to sit in it. Smart woman. That thing is dangerous. All those rusty old swords. You could cut yourself).

Current Mood: busy busy

Tags: Beastly Books, editing, signed books, wild cards

This, That, T’other Thing

February 19, 2023 at 8:53 am

Lots of things going on, hard to keep up, let alone blog about it all.

Let’s see… well, big news, we wrapped filming on the second season of DARK WINDS a few days ago, with several days of shooting in Monument Valley. This is the Navajo detective series we’re doing for AMC, based on the fantastic Joe Leaphorn/ Jim Chee novels of the late great Tony Hillerman. The first season was largely based on LISTENING WOMEN, with some of PEOPLE OF DARKNESS folded in. The new season completes the PEOPLE OF DARKNESS storyline. We got some great reviews for season one — and I really hope we get some Emmy attention too, though the show ran last June, and people do forget — and they tell me season two is even better. If you missed season one, you can still catch it streaming on AMC+. Post production is just starting on season two, no release date yet, but I’m thinking summer, maybe spring.

(Please note that I did not use “Winds” in the title of this blog. The last time I did that, the internet went nuts. Guys, gals, c’mon, Tony Hillerman wrote and published THE DARK WIND decades before I ever dreamed of Westeros).

On other fronts, we’re still working on a Wild Cards television series. It’s… sigh… “in development,” which means… hell, nobody knows what it means. But if we can get it up and running, it will be a fun show. The world of the Wild Cards as a big as the Marvel or DC multiverses, with thirty-one volumes published to date and more on the way, forty odd authors, hundreds of stories, a vast lineup of characters. This particular take on the world is based largely on FORT FREAK, and centered on Jokertown.

For a glimpse into what it means to adapt a book or story for television, check out David Anthony Durham’s latest blog post on the Wild Cards website, “A Tale of A Tail.” You can find it at https://www.wildcardsworld.com/a-tale-of-a-tail/

And check out the rest of the website while you’re there. We’ve got a ton of blog posts and other content for Wild Cards fans to explore.

Oh… shifting gears again… anyone here from Wisconsin? If so, watch out: the Cooters are coming to Eau Claire.

Yes, NIGHT OF THE COOTERS has been officially accepted into the Midwest Weirdfest.

http://www.midwestweirdfest.com/

Based on the classic short story by Howard Waldrop, NIGHT OF THE COOTERS tells the tale of the day the Martians invaded Pachuco, Texas. Vincent d’Onofrio directed the short film, and stars as Sheriff Lindley. Trioscope did the effects for us.

Here’s our trailer:

Weirdfest will be screening our short on March 4, we’re told. They have a lot of other… ah, weird… movies to showcase too, so if you’re anywhere near Eau Claire, get your tickets now.

And for all you other Waldropians out there, well, this is just the start. MARY-MARGARET ROAD-GRADER finished shooting here in Santa Fe in November, with Steven Paul Judd directing. That one looks to be a lot of fun as well. We’re deep in post now. Watch this space for further news.

There’s more, there’s always more, but I don’t have the time right now. Back to work.

Current Mood: busy busy

Tags: Dark Winds, television, wild cards, writing

FULL HOUSE Is Here!

August 2, 2022 at 8:12 am

Aces Assemble! You jokers can come too. We have a new book coming for you TODAY.

Our friends at Tor will be releasing FULL HOUSE in hardcover.

FULL HOUSE is the thirty-first volume in the overall Wild Cards series, which began all the way back in 1987, before some of you were born. (Seems like last week to me, though) This one is a little different. It is not our usual mosaic, but rather a collection of stand-alone stories:

“When We Were Heroes”                                 Daniel Abraham
“Evernight”                                                          Victor Milan
“Lies My Mother Told Me”                               Caroline Spector
“Nuestra Senora de la Esperanza”                   Carrie Vaughn
“Discards”                                                            David D. Levine
“The Elephant in the Room”                            Paul Cornell
“When the Devil Drives”                                 Melinda M. Snodgrass
“The Atonement Tango”                                  Stephen Leigh
“Prompt. Professional. Pop!”                        Walter Jon Williams
“How to Move Spheres and Influence People”              Marko Kloos

Many of those titles may seem familiar to you… if you’re one of our longtime Wild Cards fans. Yes, all of these stories have appeared before. All but one of them were originally published electronically on Tor.com. This will be their first time on paper, though, in an actual book that you can put on your shelf beside all of your other Wild Cards books.

The sole exception is Caroline Spector’s novella, which originally appeared in DANGEROUS WOMEN, one of the big crossgenre anthologies I co-edited with my dear friend, the late great Gardner Dozois. (It was a great fit there. Bubbles and Hoodoo Mama are not to be messed with).

Maybe you’re read all of these. Maybe you missed a few. Maybe you missed all of them. They’re some terrific tales, however, and I’m delighted to have them all together between the same set of covers. And who knows? FULL HOUSE may get these stories a whole new readership — old guys like me who hate reading stuff on a computer, most like, but what the hell.

And if this one does well, there have been enough Wild Cards stories on Tor.com to fill two more collections… and more in the pipeline. So watch for new Wild Cards tales on Tor.com, and enjoy those collected in FULL HOUSE. On sale August 2 from your local bookstore or favorite online bookseller… and signed copies are always available from Beastly Books, via their website.

Spread the word, aces.

Current Mood: cheerful

Tags: anthologies, tor, wild cards

Good Stuff, Bad Stuff, Strange Stuff

June 1, 2022 at 8:25 pm

So much going on everywhere, it is hard to keep up. Some random thoughts —

A week ago, Parris and I went down to Bernalillo for a memorial gathering for our friend John Miller. It was good to see so many old friends, and to share our memories of John… but profoundly sad at the same time, to realize once again that we would never see John again, that there would be no more memories. John was one of the mainstays of Wild Cards, part of the series since the very beginning, the creator of Chrysalis, Yeoman, Carnifax, the Midnight Angel, Father Squid, and so many more. He probably wrote more Wild Cards stories than any other author, with the possible exception of Melinda Snodgrass… I have not counted, but the two were neck and neck. He was also a Mets fan, a baseball buff, a RPG player and gamemaster, and a fan of bad movies. I wish he had written more. He had been working on a novel called BLACK TRAIN COMING even longer than I have been working on THE WINDS OF WINTER. It would be great if one of his writer friends finishes it for him. Beyond all of this, however, John was a really good guy, very bright, always fun to spend time with. And he and his wife Gail really loved animals. More than I can ever tell you. All of us at the memorial are missing him. We will miss him for years to come, I do not doubt, until the day comes when we all go to join him.

These past few years have been rough. I miss them all. Ed Bryant, Michael Engelberg, Ben Bova, Phyllis Eisenstein, Victor Milan, Steve Perrin, Kay McCauley, Gardner Dozois… ah, Gargy… I know I am forgetting people. They made the world a richer place, and we are poorer for their absence.

And the larger world is so ugly that I can hardly bear to watch the news. What can I say about Russia’s attack on Ukraine that others have not already said? I was GOH at a con in St. Petersburg a few years ago. The con was fun, the city was gorgeous, and the Russian fans and writers — even the border security guards — were so warm and welcoming. Putin is a malign thug. That seems to be the story of the world, though. Good people with hideous leaders. Listening to reports of the fighting makes me feel so angry, so helpless…

And things are pretty ugly over here as well. The latest school shooting, for instance, and the usual response of the GOP, a refusal to do anything to fix it. Is baseball still the great American pastime, or is that school shooting now? No other country seems to have much of an issue with it, only us. And what answer do the Republicans propose? Arm the teachers? Lock the doors? Toughen the security?

We are becoming more and more a police state. I am, I am aware, very old and getting older. Young people may not believe this, but… I remember a time when security was not omnipresent. When I could get on an airplane without being x-rayed and searched and probed and made to give up my pocket knife. When I could visit any publisher in New York by walking into their building, looking at the directory to see what floor they were on, taking the elevator up, and announcing my name to the receptionist. When kids could go to schools that were not fortresses… we did learn to duck and cover under our desks in case the Russians dropped an A-bomb on us, but we did not need to fear being shot by our classmates.

It makes me want to scream. What the hell happened to this country? To this world?

I am depressing myself, and probably all of you as well. Let me talk about some happier things.

DARK WINDS debuts on AMC on June 12, and we’re getting a lot of nice press about it.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/amc-series-dark-winds-tony-hillerman-1235156491/

https://www.emmys.com/video/under-cover/dark-winds

https://www.emmys.com/news/features/cover-2022-06

First season will run six episodes, based largely on Tony Hillerman’s novel LISTENING WOMAN. Watch the show, read the book. Then read the other books, they are great. I am very proud of my association with this one, and glad that I could help make it happen… though, truth be told, I did little enough. The real credit should go to Robert Redford, Chris Eyre, Zahn McClarnon, and all the other folks mentioned in the articles… and one who was not. Let me give a shout out here to TINA ELMO, Bob Redford’s right hand and an inexhaustible champion of Tony Hillerman and his work, who was present every day on the shoot and did so much to make our series one to be proud of.

Other good stuff. NIGHT OF THE COOTERS, the short film we made based on the classic story by Howard Waldrop (the one and only) is complete. Directed by and starring Vincent d’Onofrio, and a cast of dozens. H’ard himself has seen it and pronounced it Good. The film was shot entirely on greenscreen; the actors and horses are live, everything else was supplied by the wizards at Trioscope. It clocks in at about thirty minutes. At the moment we are entering it into film festivals all around the nation and the world. We’ll let you know when and where it gets accepted. Maybe you will be able to catch it at a filmfest near you. If so, give it a look. It’s a lot of fun.

Oh, and right now, this very moment, we have a second film crew down in White Sands National Monument, shooting another short film based on another Howard Waldrop masterwork. I could tell you which, but then I might have to kill you. So far, so great, but there’s still lots of work ahead. Howard may have a new collection coming out this year as well. Who knows, 2022 could be the Year of Waldrop.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON? Glad you asked. I’ve now watched rough cuts of nine of the ten episodes, and I continue to be impressed. I cannot speak to the SFX, many of which are not in yet, but the look of it is great, and the acting, the directing, and writing are first rate. And yes, for all you book fans, it IS my story. Sure, there are some changes from FIRE & BLOOD — we could not present three alternative versions of every major event, not and keep our sanity — but I think Ryan Condal and his writers made good choices. Even some improvements. (Heresy, I know, but being the author, I am allowed to say so). For years, as some of you may recall, I have been saying the TV version of Shae, as portrayed by Sibel Kekilli, was a deeper, richer, and more nuanced characters than the Shae in my novels. In a similar vein, I am vastly impressed by the show’s version of King Viserys, played by Paddy Considine, who gives the character a tragic majesty that my book Viserys never quite achieved. Kudos to Paddy, Ryan and his writers, and Miguel and the other directors. (There are a lot of great performances in HOUSE OF THE DRAGON — or HOT D, as I hear some are calling it. You may never have heard of some of our actors, but I think you will learn to love them, just as you did with the cast of GAME OF THRONES).

Back home in Santa Fe, Sky Railway is doing really well. Many of our trains are selling out. If you are visiting the Land of Enchantment, be sure to book your ride early. Oh, and last weekend we re-opened the bar and cafe at the historic Santa Fe Southern Depot in Lamy. Right now only open weekends, but we will be expanding the hours.

I should say a word about my appearances. I have decided not to attend this year’s worldcon in Chicago, for a variety of reasons. Chicago remains one of my favorite cities, though, and it looks as though I may be travelling there once or twice during the year to come… for reasons quite different, and much more exciting, than a con. Instead of worldcon, it looks as though I will be attending this year’s San Diego Comicon… assuming they do not move to December or go virtual, as they did last year thanks to the pandemic. I would rather not attend any more virtual conventions. Guess I’m a boomer, not a zoomer.

(It will feel odd to travel again. I have only left home once since January 2020).

WINDS, you say? Yes, still working. Finally finished a clutch of Cersei chapters that were giving me fits. Now I am wrestling with Jaime and Brienne. The work proceeds, though not as fast as many of you would like.

That’s all for now.

Tags: conventions, life and death, television, television and film, wild cards, writing

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