Not a Blog

FULL HOUSE Is Here!

August 2, 2022 at 8:12 am
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 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 cheerful

Good Stuff, Bad Stuff, Strange Stuff

June 1, 2022 at 8:25 pm
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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.

Stonemaiden Is Back

May 27, 2022 at 8:32 am
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There’s a brand new treat for Wild Cards fans over at Tor.com.

“Hearts of Stone” is a terrific new novelette from Emma Newman.   It marks the return of Stonemaiden, the Cornish ace first introduced in KNAVES OVER QUEENS.   That was her origin story.   She also appeared, in a supporting role, in THREE KINGS, but that was decades later.   Emma’s new story is more of a follow-up to her debut, dramatizing her introduction to the Order of the Silver Helix.

Hearts of Stone

Stonemaiden is a great new addition to the Wild Cards universe, and “Heart of Stone” is a wonderful story.

Check it out.   It’s FREE.

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Dealer Takes Two

March 15, 2022 at 8:11 am
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Kings and deuces may not be as iconic… or ominous… a poker hand as aces and eights, but it’s not a bad hand to be dealt… and Tor will be dealing those cards to all the Wild Cards fans out there with the release of two more volumes on MARCH 15.

DEUCES DOWN will be released in trade paperback that day, with stories from Melinda M. Snodgrass, Walton (Bud) Simons, Stephen Leigh, Michael Cassutt, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Daniel Abraham, and John J. Miller… from the original iBooks edition, long out of print and hard to find… and brand new tales from Caroline Spector, Mary Anne Mohanraj, and Carrie Vaughn, from Tor’s reissue.  Come join Puddleman and Chuckles, Cash Mitchell, Gary Bushorn, Father Henry Obst, the Jokertown Boys, the Myth Patrol, Aurora, Demise…and Croyd Crenson, the Sleeper.   I did the editing, with the able assistance of Melinda M. Snodgrass.

But we have more to offer than deuces.   Tor will also be releasing the first American edition of our new British adventure, THREE KINGS, in hardcover.  The twenty-ninth volume in the series, THREE KINGS is a full mosaic written by Peter Newman, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Peadar O Guilin, and Caroline Spector, featuring the Green Man, the Seamstress, Enigma, Double Helix, and Badh.   Melinda Snodgrass edited this one, with yours truly assisting… a reverse of the usual arrangement.

THREE KINGS and DEUCES DOWN will both be available at your local bookstore, and from your favorite on-line bookseller… and of course autographed copies can be had from Beastly Books in Santa Fe at https://jeancocteaucinema.com/beastlybooks/

 

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Random Updates and Bits o’ News

March 9, 2022 at 8:42 am
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I look around, and I don’t know where 2021 went.   I blinked and it was gone.   Not a year that I am going to mourn much, any more than 2020.  A global pandemic, so many deaths (including friends of mine, as well as celebrities of all sorts), politics grown increasingly toxic… it was a year best forgotten.   I did, however, get a lot of work done in 2021.  An enormous amount of work, in truth; I seem to have an enormous number of projects.

(I am not complaining.   I like working.   Writing, editing, producing.   There is nothing I like better than storytelling).

I know, I know, for many of you out there, only one of those projects matters.

I am sorry for you.   They ALL matter to me.

Yes, of course I am still working on THE WINDS OF WINTER.   I have stated that a hundred times in a hundred venues, having to restate it endlessly is just wearisome.      I made a lot of progress on WINDS in 2020, and less in 2021… but “less” is not “none.”

The world of Westeros, the world of A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, is my number one priority, and will remain so until the story is told.   But Westeros has become bigger than THE WINDS OF WINTER, or even A SONG OF ICE & FIRE.   In addition to WINDS, I also need to deliver the second volume of Archmaester Gyldayn’s history, FIRE & BLOOD.   (Thinking of calling that one BLOOD & FIRE, rather than just F&B, Vol 2).   Got a couple hundred pages of that one written, but there’s still a long way to go.   I need to write more of the Dunk & Egg novellas, tell the rest of their stories, especially since there’s a television series about them in development.   There’s a lavish coffee table book coming later this year, an illustrated, condensed version of FIRE & BLOOD done with Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson (my partners on THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE), and my Fevre River art director, Raya Golden.   And another book after that, a Who’s Who in Westeros.  And that’s just the books.

There are also the successor shows.   Those have taken a ton of my time and attention this year.    I have seen some comments out there questioning how much I am involved in these new series.   The answer is: a lot.   Deeply, heavily involved in every one of the new shows.  It’s my world, and while I have been working closely with some fantastic writers and showrunners, ultimately it is up to me to try to keep the canon… well, canonical… and to do all I can to help make the new shows great.  (And I love these stories too).

So far, I am very excited.   HOUSE OF THE DRAGON has wrapped in London and is now in post-production.   What I have seen, I have loved.    I am eager to see more.   I am excited about the other successor shows as well, however.   I am dying to tell you all about them, but I am not supposed to, so…

Well, maybe there a few things I can tell you.   Things that HBO has previously announced, or hinted at, or…

We are developing live action shows for HBO, and animated shows for HBO Max.   No, can’t tell you how many.   But it is my hope that a number of these shows will get on the air.  Not all, no, it is never all, but more than one.   I certainly hope so.  Some of the ideas we are working on are quite different in tone and approach than what has gone before, and that thrills me.   The world of Westeros (and Essos, etc) is huge, and there is room in it for many types of stories, about a wide range of characters.

What can I tell you?  Well, let’s see.   Bruno Heller, the creator and showrunner of ROME, is writing his pilot script for the Corlys Velaryon series.   That one started out as NINE VOYAGES, but now we’re calling it THE SEA SNAKE, since we wanted to avoid having two shows with numbers in the title.   The other one TEN THOUSAND SHIPS, the Nymeria series.   Amanda Segel, our showrunner, has delivered a couple drafts of that one, and we are forging ahead.   The third of the live action shows is the Dunk & Egg series, helmed by Steve Conrad.   My team and I have had some great sessions with Steve and his team, and we really hit it off.   He’s determined to do a faithful adaptation of the stories, which is exactly what I want; these characters and stories are very precious to me.   The first season will be an adaptation of the first novella, “The Hedge Knight.”   Contrary to what you may have read on line, the show will not be called DUNK & EGG, which could be mistaken for a sitcom by viewers unfamiliar with the stories.   We’re leaning toward A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS for the series title, though THE HEDGE KNIGHT has its partisans as well.

Over on the animated side… well, I am not allowed to talk about most of what’s happening, except to say that things are moving very fast, and I love love love some of the concept art I am seeing.   And.. wait, come to think of it, the news leaked several months ago that one of the animated shows would be set in Yi Ti.   That’s true.   Our working title is THE GOLDEN EMPIRE, and we have a great young writer on that one too, and I think the art and animation is just going to be beautiful.  I would tell you more if I could.   I don’t think I can say a word about the other animated shows.   Not yet.

So… there is lots going on.

And HOUSE OF THE DRAGON is coming soon.   That’s what you will see first.

And me?  I will continue to work with the writers and showrunners and directors and producers on all these shows.   Plus ROADMARKS for HBO, and DARK WINDS for AMC, and WILD CARDS for UCP and Peacock.   And NIGHT OF THE COOTERS should be finished this month.

And in addition to all that, let me say one again, yes, I am still working on WINDS OF WINTER.

 

 

 

Current Mood: tired tired

The Cards Keep Turning

February 22, 2022 at 9:01 am
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Wild Cards fans have a lot to look forward to in the next couple of years, in addition to the Marvel comics series announced below.

We have three new books in the pipeline.   FULL HOUSE will be a collection of some of the stand-alone stories that been published online on Tor.com in the past few years, but have never before appeared in print.   Contributing writers will include  Daniel Abraham, Victor C. Milan, Caroline Spector, Carrie Vaughn, David D. Levine, Paul Cornell, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Stephen Leigh, Walter Jon Williams, and Marko Kloos.   It’s a great bunch of stories, featuring some of your favorite characters.  FULL HOUSE is scheduled for hardcover publication on AUGUST 2.

And further ahead we have two brand new volumes of originals, just delivered last year and as yet unscheduled.

PAIRING UP will feature tales of love and lust in the world of ace and jokers.   We’ll have stories from Walton (Bud) Simons, Brad Denton, Peter Newman, Gwenda Bond, Christopher Rowe, Marko Kloos, Melinda M. Snodgrass, and Kevin Andrew Murphy.

And then we’ll have SLEEPER STRADDLES,  untold tales about the wildest card of them all, Roger Zelazny’s Sleeper, Croyd Crenson.  Chronicling the Sleeper’s adventures will be Christopher Rowe, William F. Wu, Carrie Vaughn, Walter Jon Williams,  Mary Anne Mohanraj, Max Gladstone, and Cherie Priest.

Keep watching this space for further news — the WILD CARDS tv show is still in development — and keep on shuffling.  You’re all aces.

 

 

Current Mood: busy busy

Make Mine Marvel

February 19, 2022 at 11:32 am
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Me and Marvel Comics go way back.

The first words of mine ever to appear in print (well, not counting my high school newspaper) were “Dear Stan and Jack,” the opening of my letter of comment in FANTASTIC FOUR #20.   That was my first appearance in the lettercols, but not my last.   I became almost a regular in Marvel letter columns over the next few years… which led me to the nascent comics fandom… and my first published stories in the comics fanzines of the early 60s, superhero stories in prose featuring characters of my own creation like the White Raider, Manta Ray, and Garizan the Mechanical Warrior, along with a few I was “hired” to write (without pay) like Powerman and Dr. Weird.

Those tales started my career, in a strange roundabout way.   As a professional, I wrote science fiction, fantasy, and horror… but I never lost my love of superheroes.   And that eventually led me to a role-playing game called SuperWorld, which in turn led to the creation of the Wild Cards series along about 1986-7.   And now, some thirty-odd books and thirty-six years later, Wild Cards and Marvel are coming together once again.

https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/george-r-r-martin-s-legendary-super-hero-universe-comes-to-marvel-comics-in-new-wild-cards-series

The series is an adaptation of the Wild Cards origin story, scripted by our own Paul Cornell, novelist, scriptwriter, and creator of Abigail the Understudy, a serious actress.   Mike Hawthorne provided the art, and Steve Morris the cover.

If you haven’t been reading the Wild Cards books for the last  thirty years… well, shame on you… but here’s your chance to see how it all began.   Jetboy, Dr. Tachyon, the Four Aces, and the Great and Powerful Turtle are waiting for you.

Current Mood: bouncy bouncy

Farewell to a Friend

January 15, 2022 at 6:01 pm
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I have been struggling with this post for ten days now.   The words come hard.    Sometimes, no matter what you say, it does not seem enough.   How do you sum up a man’s life in just a few paragraphs?  How do you do justice to forty years of friendship?

John Miller died last week at his home in Albuquerque.  John had been in ill health for some years, but even so, his sudden passing in the night was a shock to all of us who knew him.   I had spoken to him just a few days prior, and seen him as recently as November at the signing party for the Tor reissue of his Wild Cards novel, DEATH DRAWS FIVE, at Beastly Books.   He was the same old John, a little grumpy, not feeling his best, but always good to talk with.   One of the other Wild Carders was in town and we were throwing a party, and I had called John to invite him up… but he did not feel well enough to make the hour long drive to Santa Fe.   He even said he might have to give up driving entirely.  We joked about how I might have to drive down to his place to see him henceforth, and talked about me coming down to grab a dinner after things calmed down a little.

A day later, he was gone.   He is survived by his wife, Gail Gerstner Miller, by all of his fellow members of the Wild Cards consortium, and by a large circle of friends here in New Mexico.

Most of you reading this probably knew John best for his work on Wild Cards, where he wrote as both John J. Miller (in the early days) and John Jos. Miller (later on).     ((Ah, that name, that byline… John Miller is such a common name, e  John was constantly being confused with other John Millers, to his vast annoyance.   When he wrote comics, he was confused with John Jackson Miller, another comic writer.   Amazon mashed his own books together with those of another John J. Miller, a right wing journalist for the NATIONAL REVIEW.  He replaced the J with Jos. when that happened, but even that did not help.   I must have urged him to adopt a more distinctive pseudonym a hundred times, but he was a stubborn guy, and his name was his name, so… ))

John… our John, not those other guys… was one of the original Wild Carders, the founding fathers (and mothers) wh0 were with us from the start, and right through to the end.   His was the last story in the first book.   In a world full of aces and jokers, he went his own way, and made a nat his viewpoint character: Yeoman, the yen archer, a hard-as-nails Vietnam vet seeking revenge on the crime lord who killed his wife.   John had originally created the character for SuperWorld, the RPG game that preceded and inspired Wild Cards, but Brennan made the leap from game to page smoothly, and became one of our mainstays in those early volumes.

Yeoman was by no means the only character John created for the series.   Aces, jokers, deuces, nats… he contributed as much to the series as any other writer.   Chrysalis, the information broker with the transparent skin, our first iconic joker character.   Wraith, librarian and jewel thief.   SCARE agents Lady Black and Chrysalis (Billy Ray).   Mother and her children.   Father Squid was his, along with the Church of Jesus Christ, Joker.   A hardcore baseball fan, he kept the Dodgers in Brooklyn by having Walter O’Malley draw a black queen and melt into a pile of sludge.   He also short circuited the Cuban revolution by giving Fidel a better curveball, so he became a Hall of Fame major league pitcher instead of a revolutionary.   Later down the road, he gave us the Midnight Angel and her flaming sword, and John Nighthawk, born a slave, the oldest man in the Wild Cards universe.   There were more… so many more… John loved the world and its characters, and his creativity was boundless.   John probably created more characters and wrote more stories than any of the other forty+ writers who have contributed to Wild Cards over the decades, and gave us so many memorable moments.   His credits included one-and-a-half Wild Cards novels:  DEATH DRAWS FIVE, a solo novel reissued by Tor this November, and DEAD MAN’S HAND, a collaboration with yours truly wherein Yeoman crossed paths with my own character Popinjay to solve a murder.

Wild Cards was by no means the only thing he wrote.   He published a number of short stories over the decades, and wrote half a dozen work-for-hire books for a variety of franchises, among them Buck Rogers, Dinosaur Samurai, and Witchblade.   He wrote comics and graphic novels as well, including adaptations of some of my own stories.

John  had the worst luck of any writer I have known, though.  His first sale, to FANTASTIC, came out in the final issue; the magazine folded after publishing it.   So did Kitchen Sink Press, later on.  And iBooks, which published John’s novel DEATH DRAWS FIVE a week before they went bankrupt.   Only six hundred copies ever managed to make it to market.   And then there was the time another publisher sent the advance for John’s novel to another John Miller, who cashed the check.   The mistake was theirs entirely, and the other John Miller lived in Indiana rather than New Mexico, but it still took our John half a year to get paid.   (Giving birth to the saying familiar to all Wild Carders:  “Don’t buy the couch.”   For the past decade or so, he was writing an original  novel all his own, a period horror/ SF tale called BLACK TRAIN COMING.   He never finished it, though he had been laboring on that one even longer than I’ve been working on THE WINDS OF WINTER.   His declining health the past few years slowed him down considerably, sad to say.

Still, for all the setbacks and struggles and frustrations, John persisted.   He was a writer, and that’s what a writer does.

John and his wife Gail were two of the first friends I made when I moved to New Mexico at the end of 1979.   They were part of a gaming group that met weekly in Albuquerque, an amazing, creative, half-mad gang whose numbers included Walter Jon Williams, Jim Moore, Victor Milan, Chip Wideman, and Melinda Snodgrass.   Parris and I were welcomed into their fellowship,  and soon found ourselves addicted to role-playing, staying up to dawn at John’s house or Melinda’s to play MORROW PROJECT, PARANOIA, GURPS, CALL OF CTHULHU, and… eventually… SUPERWORLD, with me as gamemaster.   Thence came Wild Cards, and days that shall live in infamy.   Dr. Tachyon, the Great and Powerful Turtle, Fortunato, Peregrine, Modular Man, Golden Boy…

There is so much I could say about John.

He was born in upstate New York, and worked on a rat farm.

When he was younger, he was an athlete.  Softball, racketball, handball.   And he loved baseball with a passion.   The Brooklyn Dodgers till they moved away, then the Mets.   I am a Mets fan too.   We had that in common, and we’ll always have 1969 and 1986.

(Every writer has stories they never get around to writing.   John had one such.   On his way up, Babe Ruth played briefly for a minor league team in Providence, Rhode Island.   John had this great idea for a story called “Howard and George,” wherein Babe meets H.P. Lovecraft on the streets of Providence, and both men’s lives are changed profoundly by the meeting.   It could have been such a wonderful story, and John talked it about often, but never got around to writing it.   Breaks my heart.  I wanted to read that story).

He was a collector.   Books, comic books, baseball cards.

He and Gail loved animals.   They had tropical fish, poison arrow frogs, lizards… and dogs, and cats, and dogs, and cats.   So many dogs and cats.   John was a big guy and could sometimes seem gruff, but he had a soft heart where animals were concerned.   He refused to watch movies or TV shows where an animal was killed.   And whenever a cat needed a home — as Vic Milan’s did after his death — John was always there to take them in.

He served two years as secretary of SFWA.   One of the better secretaries SFWA ever had.

He wept when Roger Zelazny died.

He loved bad movies.   He and Gail used to have Bad Movie Night at their house once a week.   They introduced me to some truly terrible films, the kind that are so bad they are hilarious.

He was an expert on baseball’s Negro League, its history and players.   His last published story features Satchel Paige.

His academic background was in archeology, he went on many digs, but he gave up a promising career as an archeologist to write science fiction.

He loved rock music, especially the Grateful Dead.   Gail and John joined Parris and me twice for Dead concerts down in Mexico, trips we will never forget.

Whenever I had a barbeque in the back yard, John would turn up with a big crockpot of his famous baked beans, best I ever had.

And… and… and… there is so much more.   Memories.   Stories.

It really has not sunk in yet.   Part of me does not really believe he’s gone.   Part of me still thinks that if I picked up the phone and dialed his number, he’d  answer.   Then I could drive down to Albuquerque and we could go out for Mexican food and a bad movie.

John was one of the good ones.   A good writer, a good guy, a good friend.

Wild Cards, and the world, will not be the same without him.

 

 

 

Current Mood: sad sad

Wild Days Are Come Again

November 11, 2021 at 8:11 am
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It will be a wild weekend at Beastly Books and the Jean Cocteau… a WILD CARDS weekend, that is.

Two new Wild Cards books are being released this week by our friends at Tor… or rather, two old Wild Cards books, unavailable for decades, are being re-released with smashing new covers.   Looking to complete your Wild Cards collections?   Your days of searching for old used copies on ebay are over.   Pick up the new editions, and enjoy the read.

Both of these new/old books are solo novels.

DEATH DRAWS FIVE, by John Jos. Miller, was volume seventeen in the series, the second (and last) of the two originals published by iBooks, released a bare week before iBooks went under.   Very few copies were ever distributed back then.    John’s novel features the return of Fortunato,  star turns from Billy Ray (Carnifex) and Jerry Strauss (Mr. Nobody), and introduces John Nighthawk and the unforgettable Midnight Angel (that’s her on the cover).  The fate of John Fortune… and the world… hangs in the balance.

The new Tor edition is a hardcover.

TURN OF THE CARDS, by the late great Victor Milan, is the other novel to return this week.  Volume twelve in the series, this globe-trotting adventure features Mark Meadows… aka Cap’n Trips… and all of his “friends,” including an old friend and a brand new one.   It’s Vic at his finest, and it’s another volume that has been very hard to find since its original publication.   The Tor edition is a trade paperback.

It goes without saying… we are celebrating the release of these two favorites with a cool event this Saturday (NOVEMBER 13) at the Jean Cocteau Cinema and Beastly Books, on Montezuma Street in scenic Santa Fe.

The festivities will start at 4:00 pm with a Happy Hour.   Come meet the writers and your fellow Wild Cards fans.

At 5:00 we will shuffle into the JCC auditorium, where John Miller will talk about DEATH DRAWS FIVE, his Wild Cards characters, and his other work.   After that we will have a panel, “Remembering Vic Milan,” wherein John and I and Melinda M. Snodgrass will share some memories of our lost friend and the stories he left behind him.

Finally, at 6:00 PM, we will adjourn next door to Beastly Books for the booksigning.   John and I and Melinda will all be on hand, and there’s a chance a few more of your favorite Wild Cards writers may also swing by.   Cross your fingers.

Come join us if you can.   And if you can’t, well, signed copies of all the Wild Cards books, old and new, are always available via mail order from Beastly Books in Santa Fe.   And hey, Christmas is coming up soon … autographed books make GREAT gifts.

https://jccwildcards.eventbrite.com/

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Turn That Card Again

September 27, 2021 at 8:14 am
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November 9 is going to be a big day for Wild Cards fans.

That’s the day that Tor is going to be releasing not one but two classic hard-to-find Wild Cards novels as reissues.   These are not the usual mosaics, but solo novels by two of the mainstays of the series, John Jos. Miller and the late great Victor Milan.

I have already blogged about John’s novel DEATH DRAWS FIVE (take a look downstream if you missed it).  Volume seventeen in the overall series, it was initially released by iBooks a week before the company went under, and later made available by Brick Tower Press as a print on demand title.  The new Tor hardback will be the first edition to get widespread national distribution.   This will be a great chance for all of you who missed DD5 the first time around to fill that hole in your Wild Cards collection.   And it’s a helluva ride.

But that’s only half the news.   Tor will also be releasing Vic Milan’s much sought after Cap’n Trips novel, TURN OF THE CARDS, as a trade paperback the same day, with a stunning new cover by Michael Komarck.

TURN OF THE CARDS was the twelfth volume in the series, and the last to be released by Bantam Spectra, our original publisher.   Our contract was up once Vic delivered the book, and rather than re-up for more volumes, we moved Wild Cards over to Baen Books.   (Which proved to be a huge mistake, but that’s a tale for another time.   Buy me a margarita at a con some day and maybe you can winkle it out of me).

Unsurprisingly, moving the series to a rival house did not endear us much to the old team, and when TURN finally came out as a mass market paperback, only a month before the first of the Baen volumes, promotion was pretty much non-existent, and sales declined sharply from the previous volume.

Which was a disappointment to all, and a real shame.  Vic was one of the stars of Wild Cards, the guy who started the whole thing when he gave me that SuperWorld game, and  TURN OF THE CARDS is some of his very best work.   Over the years Vic created a dozen characters for us, great and small… but the most memorable and popular of them all was Mark Meadows, a blond bearded scarecrow of a hippie who ran a head shop, wore a purple Uncle Sam suit, and went by the nom de guerre Cap’n Trips.   Despite the colorful costume, Trips seemed to have no actual superpowers.   Most of the people in Jokertown regarded him as a colorful eccentric rather than an ace.  Ah, but Mark was also a genius biochemist who had concocted a number of designer drug cocktails… and he had friends.

Jumpin’ Jack Flash (that’s him above, on the cover).  Aquarius.   Starshine.   Moonchild.   Cosmic Traveller.   Monster.   Each with his (or her) own personality, quirks, passions, and powers.   And the Radical, the first and the last, who combined the powers of all of them.

Mark and his friends were among the most popular characters in Wild Cards, right from the start.

TURN OF THE CARDS is his novel, a globe-spanning adventure that takes him halfway across the world to Vietnam, with DEA agents, SCARE heroes, and all manner of other aces in hot pursuit.

Like as not, you missed it the first time around.   Don’t miss it now.

NOVEMBER 9.  From your favorite online bookseller or local brick-and-mortar bookshop.

 

 

 

 

 

Current Mood: pleased pleased