Forging an Art

Daily reports on DragonCon 2010 over at BSC: Day One, Day Two, and Day Three.   Over 400 pictures of the Con over at Flickr.

And what was left out of the reports . . .

The best time to arrive and get in line to pick up badges is NOT three o’clock on Friday afternoon.  That being said, there’s plenty to do during that three hour wait, like take pictures of costumed attendees and laugh back at the businessmen pointing and staring from the parking deck above. 

DragonCon is very educational.  I’m not kidding.  Where else can you learn about crossed letters and medieval poisoning techniques?  You can also discover very quickly what sort of fans are on each track and specifics within each track.  For example – fans of certain anime series.  Why were the only ones excited about my ten year old daughter’s Hikaru (Angelic Layer) costume middle-aged men?  In real life it would be creepy to have strange men grabbing my arm and asking to take my child’s picture . . . and at DragonCon it was, yes, a little creepy to have these men asking just that.  Wearing a costume is asking for attention, though, so we played along and enjoyed it, but I secretly hoped a young girl would approach and recognize my battle doll, just once.

Where else can you find a blue Power Ranger, Gandalf, Afro’thulu, and Obi Wan on stage together, never mind throwing footballs painted as gnomes?  At an actual person.  Standing in front of a sign advertising gnome punting.  This was, obviously, the World of Warcraft party.  Later on the same stage, Finn from Adventure Time approached to choose a raffle prize to shouts of “What time is it? Adventure time!”  He looked back out into the crowd to ask, as he pointed to the prizes, “Which one, honey?” which brought on more laughter . . . later, Finn asked ‘honey’ to marry him during the ‘after hours’ Warcraft gig.  Of course she said yes, because what could be more romantic than a man in a white-eared hat costumed as a child from a cartoon series proposing at a World of Warcraft party? 

The logisitics of ordering pizza for delivery during a DragonCon weekend – an hour on hold, and a three hour wait for delivery.  Upon arrival, the stunned teenager holding pizzas stares at the lobbyfull of costumes.  “What is wrong with these people?” he asks me.  That must be the ten thousand dollar question, and not one we actually ask out loud because after all, if we’re there, he’s asking about us, too.

While waiting for my son to take a turn on Mech Corps, a military simulation game that was very reasonably priced and engaging, the man in front of us – who had a gigantic bag that had a list of why Mythbusters is so awesome written on the side – turned around to complain about a woman who had pushed him around on the escalator.  “I’m fat,” he said. “But she was fatter.  Her fault.  A weapon of ass destruction.”

One of the Tolkien-Lewis panelists, M.B. Weston, caught my interest when talking about her Elysian Chronicles titles.  These sound like must haves for fantasy fans – guardian angel warfare and treason.  Speaking of the T-L panel, I have to mention that someone said The Silmarillion was an academic exercise.  I must must must beg to differ – if The Silmarillion isn’t great storytelling – a long, difficult read, yes, but read it out loud and you’ll see what I mean – I’ll give up coffee for a week.  Okay, a day – but it’s a safe bet and my favorite Tolkien title.

Holly Black, an incredibly popular and successful young adult author, has graphic novels illustrated by the very talented and approachable Ted Naifeh, who allowed me to snap a photo as he demonstrated his talents in the comic artists alley.  Shopping opportunities: we returned diligently to the Dragon Pets booth, where we bought a sweet pink and purple dragon last year, twice; once to buy an armored dragon and again for a multicolored one.  We also found an adorable, soft squid from Cyphre Voudou that has been well-loved and spends his nights sharing a bed with two American Girl dolls.  That doesn’t sound quite right but it’s true.  My quest for earrings – usual travel purchase – brought me back to Ravenwing, where I purchased jewelry last year for myself, my daughter, and my mother, so it was easy for me to pick up where I left off and stock up on some beautiful handcrafted items, including these beautiful beautiful fish earrings in my very favorite color.

Noticed in the parade but too quick for me to catch a photo – in the Star Wars group, a woman with a “Hutters” t-shirt that looked very like a “Hooters” t-shirt.  It took a moment before several men behind me started yelling “Hutters!  Hutters!” and caught her attention.  She turned and waved like Miss America, perfectly comfortable as any Hooters girl would be, but obviously, much cooler.  At least with the DragonCon crowd.

Up at BSCreview.  It was supposed to be October, but such is life . . .

I heard vague inklings about the coming release of this steampunk novel by Cherie Priest many months ago, then definite excitement from Tor editors along with Tiffany Trent (Hallowmere) during a panel on Victorian lit and steampunk at DragonCon.  And steampunk itself?  Does Alice in Wonderland qualify, and how about A Connecticut Yankee?  Is the historical nature of a story vital to the steampunk definition?  Leaving the beaten path . . .

A boneshaker was actually – IRL – an iron bicycle with a wooden seat, sans springs.  Ouch.  In Priest’s tale, it is a mining machine, doomed to create havoc and destroy life, as it were, in late nineteenth century Seattle, a Seattle not yet part of the States, and the States still in the midst of the Civil War, which has continued for nearly two decades.   This is really a story of a tough woman set on saving her teenage son, and the relationship between the two that has led up to his adventure and how it changes during and because of their discoveries.  Priest is all about a fast pace, which keeps the reader’s eye on the page and wanting more; her descriptions are detailed but not overdone; and the emotional drama is present but not mushy or overpowering. 

My only question – and perhaps not a question, at that – regards a statement by Yaozu, in answer to Zeke’s question about the power behind the lights:  “They are powered by the future.”  Nothing more is mentioned about this ‘future’ aspect, and I was left wondering through the rest of the novel what, if anything, the future had to do with the doctor or the technology.  I thought perhaps the doctor had appeared from the future – a la Connecticut Yankee – or the knowledge/machinery itself had been transported in some manner from the future.

Originally published thirty years ago, this collection of essays, speeches, and introductions by Ursula K. Le Guin is a must for any writer, student, teacher, or reader of science fiction and fantasy.  My political and religious views could not be more different than this great writer’s, but as one who falls into the four aforementioned categories, I agree with her in most every other way, and am grateful that she has been around to give words to so much that defines the craft.  I can do no better than to note those parts of the collection that speak to me the most closely:

Absolute freedom is absolute responsibility.  The writer’s job, as I see it, is to tell the truth.

Artists are people who are not at all interested in the facts – only in the truth.  You get the facts from the outside.  The truth you get from inside.

If you want to strike out in any new direction – you go alone.  With a machete in your hand and the fear of God in your heart.

When the genuine myth rises into consciousness, that is always its message.  You must change your life.

Fantasy is the natural, the appropriate language for the recounting of the spiritual journey and the struggle of good and evil in the soul.

It is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope.

There are, however, two instances in which I do not quite understand Le Guin’s stance.  Why is poetry held separate from fiction in these situations?  Maybe someone out there can offer insight:

The lovable rogue, the romantic criminal, the revolutionary Satan are essentially literary creations, not met with in daily life.  They are embodiments of desire, types of the soul; thus their vitality is immense and lasting; but they are better suited to poetry and drama than to the novel  (141).

Always the book one imagines and the book one writes are different things.  The one exists objectively, a scribbled manuscript or so many thousand printed copies.  The other exists subjectively.  It is the other’s first cause and final cause.  Toward it the written book, during its writing, continually strives, like the image in a mirror approaching the person moving toward it.  But they do not merge.  Only in poetry, which breaks all barriers, do the two ever meet, each becoming the other (140).

One of my reviewing compatriots at BSC compiled six interviews with a variety of individuals (including me) on the topic of fantasy/sci fi books – and the results, along with his comments, are here.

This is the best of the best, according to The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.  I love these collections but sometimes wonder about the selection process.  I find very few pieces of great merit and think, well, if this is really the best of the past year, the genre(s) are in a bit of trouble.  It is a matter of taste, clearly, and is quite subjective, and my tastes in both SF and F are very particular.  I admit that I didn’t read the nonfiction entries because I had no interest; and much of the rest was marginally entertaining.  I smiled, however, as I read on the treadmill, fan at my back, and stumbled on Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse by Andy Duncan.  I knew, of course, who and what the story would concern, and in this case, the truth was and is stranger than fiction.  I do think it would have been better off ending with the pecking, instead of the shift to a future MFOC and her years later reminder of the incident, but it was still the best of the lot.

Joyce Carol Oates always terrifies me (have I written that somewhere already?) so I am always on guard, anxious but excited, as I hold a new publication in hand – it is much like standing in line at the Millennium Force, blood rushing down into my toes, smiling and trembling at the same time.  I know that afterwards, my head will feel scrambled, and I will stumble down the steps and maybe even fall, as I did last summer; and with Oates, I know she will lead me somewhere that I may fall and stumble blindly towards that which I know to bring me out and away.  Obviously, some of her work is stronger and more influential than others, depending on the reader’s experience and expectations.  As the parent of an autistic child, I was particularly moved by Special, in which a younger daughter watches as her family is victimized by her developmentally disabled older sister, and the parents wrestle with their identities as parents, as a couple, and as individuals in search of hope for themselves and their children.  A Princeton Idyll takes that sharp rollercoaster turn when a former maid reveals too much too well to the idealistic granddaughter of a deceased logician.  One looks at the fragile photo on the back flap of the book jacket and wonders how that same temperate-looking creature can explore so well the terrifying workings of the mind.  She is both brave and brilliant, but does not seem to find anything extraordinary about herself. 

When discussing the short stories and novells I have been reading in the Nebula Awards Showcase 2009 – which features some fascinating work but also some with which I had some issues, both as a writer and a reader – I mentioned to my former husband, who is a sci fi/fantasy aficionado himself, that the work that failed to speak to me stood out as that which had unnecessaries, as I refer to them, bits that are not important.  If it is there, it had better be important.  During an interview with the Washington Post several years ago, Oates was asked about this exact phenomenon, and her response: There should really not be anything gratuitous in a work of art.  I smiled as I read that, thinking that there may be hope for me, as a writer, yet, to have something in common with such a great artist.

Review over at Bookspotcentral.

Yes, this is science fiction.  Time travel, or maybe not.  Is Ralph just a bit off, or has he really stepped through time, a trip of ninety years that should be a dream come true for a history scholar?  I have always understood Ralph as a true time traveler and have never questioned his sanity, unlike critics such as J. Hillis Miller, who raises such questions in his latest book, Literature as Conduct: Speech Acts in Henry James.  Miller even considers that Ralph might be a ghost haunting the Midmores.  I think not.

 
I am rather fond of this unfinished book, which James began in 1900 after the completion of The Turn of the Screw and The Awkward Age and before the works of his major phase.  His concerns about the work are documented in his notes, where his thought processes are revealed and he becomes so much more than the polished gentleman of photos and interviews.  Worry over his characters mimics a parent’s watchful eye over his children, and James, childless, his affection lavished over close friends, family, and his adored dogs, finds his fatherhood here in the care with which he forms the fates of the figures he creates.  Obviously, this does not only apply to this specific work, but the immediacy of these notes makes his presence felt, well, immediately.  Looking at this during the same time that I was re-reading Beyond the Dreams of Avarice, I am struck again by the involvement that paintings of ancestors have on the lives of the characters.  The painting in The Sense of the Past is the vehicle of Ralph’s supernatural adventure and becomes his adversary in his struggle to find his place in time and within the relationships he is attempting to forge in his present, and extract himself from in the past.  And what about the ancestor who has replaced him in his present, what is he up to, and to what changes will Ralph return, if he does return at all?

. . . releases, per Booklist and Advance Magazine, 6/2008:
*contains science fiction/fantasy elements
*Adrienne – D. Renee Bagby
Alexia’s Secrets – Una-Mary Parker
*The Angel – Carla Neggers
The Art of Desire – Cherie Feather
Barefoot – Elin Hilderbrand
Beyond the Night – Sharon Long
The Black Moth – Georgette Heyer (reissue)
Blame it on Paris – Jennifer Greene
Blush – Opal Carew
The Cat – Jean Johnson
A Desperate Longing – Brenda Williamson
Devil’s Playground – Arianna Hart
*A Distant Magic – Mary Jo Putney
The Divorce Party – Laura Dave
Don’t Tempt Me – Sylvia Day
Driven to Distraction – Ashleigh Raine
Edge of Regret – Janet Woods
Fearless – Diana Palmer
Finding Strength – Annmarie McKenna
*Ghost Moon – Rebecca York
Highland Fire – Hannah Howell
*Highland Knight – Cindy Miles
His Convenient Affair – Tricia Jones
His Dark and Dangerous Ways – Edith Layton
Hitting the Brakes – Ken Casper (Harlequin NASCAR)
Hot Date – Amy Garvey
The Importance of Almack’s – Denise Patrick
Last Chance, My Love – Lynne Connelly
The Last Thing I Wanted – Heather Rae Scott
Let Me Love You – Mary Wine
Letters to a Secret Lover – Toni Blake
Lord Scandal – Kalen Hughes
Making Chase – Lauren Dane
Meet Me in Venice – Elizabeth Adler
Midnight Legacy – Dee Tenorio
*Moonstruck – Susan Grant
*Nightkeepers – Jessica Andersen
*The Nightwalkers: Damien – Jacquelyn Frank
Not Another Bad Date – Rachel Gibson
One Night in Boston – Allie Boniface
One with the Darkness – Susan Squires
Out of Line – Michele Dunaway (Harlequin NASCAR)
Overnight Male – Elizabeth Bevarly
*Phantom – Lindsay Randall
Pitch Black – Susan Crandall
*The Price of Eternity – Devyn Quinn
Questions to Ask Before Marrying – Melissa Senate
A Rake’s Guide to Seduction – Caroline Linden
Reilly’s Promise – Christyne Butler
Release Me – Farrah Rochon
*Revealing Skills – Summer Devon
Reversing Over Liberace – Jane Lovering
Rivals for the Crown – Kathleen Givens
Rookhurst Hall – Elizabeth Jeffrey
Running with the Devil – Lorelei James
The Scandalous Life of a True Lady – Barbara Metzger
Secrets – Jude Deveraux
Secrets of Surrender – Madeline Hunter
Seduction – Geneva Holliday
*Seratis Flame – T.J. Michaels
The Sleeping Beauty Proposal – Sarah Strohmeyer
*The Snow Queen – Mercedes Lackey
Something Good – Fiona Gibson
*Soul of a Highlander – Melissa Mayhue
Stranded – Eve Vaughn
Superb and Sexy – Jill Shalvis
Sweet Love – Sarah Strohmeyer
*Sword of the Highlands – Veronica Wolff
Tall Tales and Wedding Veils – Jane Graves
Temperature’s Rising – Karen Kelley
Tempting Evil – Allison Brennan
*Through the Veil – Shiloh Walker
To Commit – Carolyn Brown
*The Trouble with Moonlight – Donna MacMeans
Trust Me – Brenda Novak
Tumbleweed – Jane Candia Coleman
Twenty Wishes – Debbie Macomber
Under Your Spell – Lois Greiman
*The Velvet Chair – Jennifer Stevenson
*Walk on the Wild Side – Christine Warren
*When He Was Bad – Cynthia Eden
Where One Road Leads – Ceri Hebert
Wild for Him – Janelle Denison
*Wild & Hexy – Vicki Lewis Thompson
Wine, Tarts & Sex – Susan Johnson
*With Every Breath – Lynn Kurland
Your Scandalous Ways – Loretta Chase

. . . releases, per Booklist and Advance Magazine, 6/2008:

Amber and Blood – Margaret Weis
Blood Noir – Laurell K. Hamilton
Bloodheir – Brian Ruckley
The Books of the South – Glen Cook
Cosmos Incorporated – Maurice G. Dantec
Daemons are Forever – Simon R. Green
The Dark Ferryman – Jenna Rhodes
The Discworld Graphic Novels – Terry Pratchett
Dmitri: A Tale of Old Russia – Olive Jeanfreau Alexander
Dragon Forge – James Wyatt
Dragon Moon – Carole Wilkinson (YA)
Dragonforge – James Maxey
Dragonlight – Donita K. Paul
Escapement – Jay Lake
The Essential Batman Encyclopedia – Robert Greenberger
Ever – Gail Carson Levine (YA)
A Fire in the North – David Bilsborough
Goddess – Fiona McIntosh
Grantville Gazette IV – Eric Flint
Havemercy – Danielle Bennett
Hawkspar – Holly Lisle
The Host – Stephenie Meyer
In at the Death – Harry Turtledove
Invincible: Star Wars Legacy of the Force – Troy Denning
Kushiel’s Mercy – Jacqueline Carey
Midnight Never Come – Marie Brennan
Mind the Gap – Christopher Golden
The Mirrored Heavens – David J. Williams
Promise of the Wolves – Dorothy Hearst
The Ruby Key – Holly Lisle (YA)
Scarlet – Stephen R. Lawhead
Soon I Will Be Invincible – Austin Grossman
Spectre – Phaedra Weldon
Star Trek Deep Space Nine: These Haunted Seas – David R. George III
The Starry Rift: Tales of New Tomorrows – ed. Jonathan Strahan
The Summer Palace – Lawrence Watt-Evans
The Sword Lord – Robert Leader
The Swordmage – Richard Baker
Tales Before Narnia: the Roots of Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction – ed. Douglas A. Anderson
Thirteen – Richard K. Morgan
Valor’s Trial – Tanya Huff
The Vanities – Terence Lawlor (YA)
The Wolverine and the Flame – Rebecca Goings

*worth noting:  Vampires of Mars by Gustave le Rouge, adapted by Brian Stableford, released in January 2008.  This volume contains Le Rouge’s 1908 and 1909 masterworks Le Prisonnier de la Plante Mars and La Guerre des Vampires.

*Star Wars: the Essential Atlas has been pushed back to a 2/2009 release date.

Free online fiction for readers ages 10 to adult, including adventure, fantasy, drama, scifi, horror, and mystery, inspired by the short “dime novel” tradition.  Well-known works by authors such as Orson Scott Card, Bruce Coville, and Elaine Marie Alphin are included along with iPulp originals.  Promoted by David Lubar, YA author of Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie, True Talents, Dunk, and Flip.

iPulp

June
DragonLight – Paul
Coffin County – Braunbeck
Cry Wolf: A Political Fable – Lake
Into the Storm – Anderson
Promise of the Wolves – Hearst
Steampunk – ed. VanderMeer
Bloodheir – Ruckley
Daemons Are Forever – Green
The Summer Palace – Watt-Evans
Hawkspar – Lisle
The Dead and the Gone – Pfeffer (YA)
The Demon Queen – Lewis (YA)
House of Many Ways – Wynne Jones (YA)
Frozen Fire – Bowler (YA)
Noman – Nicholson (YA)
The Last of the High Kings – Thompson (YA)
The Lost Art – Morden (YA) 

July

Victory of Eagles: A Novel of Temeraire – Novik
By Schism Rent Asunder – Weber
Mage-Guard of Hamor – Modesitt
Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy – ed. Schafer
The Word of God; or, Holy Writ Unwritten – Disch
The City in the Lake – Neumeier (YA) 

August

The Gypsy Morph – Brooks
The Last Theorem – Clarke/Pohl
Mars Life – Bova

 September

Faefever – Moning
The Stowaway: Stone of Tymora – Salvatore
A Dance With Dragons – Martin

 October

The Pirate King (Forgotten Realms) – Salvatore

 November

The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia – Sansweet/Hidalgo

Pretty Fly for a White Guy

Fan vid by Lesley, my coworker who is the sci fi queen and my compatriot in Stargate Atlantis adoration (at least until they ruined it with the casting changes).

The LC just finished the second in this series, Betrayal on Orbis 2.  When asked for an opinion, he characteristically stated “it was good” but also that he took a couple of days to finish it, when if something is “really, really good” he’ll read it in a day.  Normally he hovers in fantasy-land, preferably involving dragons, but the first title of this science fiction series by P.J. Haarsma left him asking if I could bring home the sequel, which was yet to be published at the time.  There will be more of these, he assured me, and asked if I could keep an eye out for them.

Writing the Lavinia review today, and should have it up by the end of the week.