My buddy and fellow SF author Myke Cole (left) is serving his third tour in Iraq, and sent me this picture from Camp Deutsch in the Karkh district of Baghdad:
If the building behind him were made of human bones, it could be Sharik Hora…
When google alerts points me to things like this.
Had a good time at Lunacon this weekend. Since it was in nearby Rye Brook New York, I figured there wasn’t really a need to book a room in the hotel, and just day-tripped it on Friday and Saturday.
On Friday, my first panel was at 6PM, so my con wingman Jay Franco and I decided to leave his place in Queens at 4, so we’d beat rush hour and get there with plenty of time, maybe even time enough to get dinner.
That was the plan, anyway. I left Brooklyn at 3:30, and averaged 11 MPH on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway to cover the ten miles or so to Jay’s place in Astoria. From there it was another hour and forty-five minutes to the convention. We arrived at 5:58, and had to really hustle to make my first panel on The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
I’m no expert on the show, but I do watch and enjoy it, not only because it has River Tam… I mean Summer Glau on it. I did a surprisingly good job of hold my own on a panel full of people more obsessive than I by far. Eventually the conversation just devolved into a discussion of temporal mechanics, which is enough to make anyone’s head spin.
After that I went to the room next door for a panel on D&D 4, discussing whether it was the Windows Vista of D&D. I voted yes, but that may be because I think 2nd Edition Skills & Powers expansion wasn’t broke and didn’t need to be fixed. 3rd and 4th editions seem designed to make D&D more like a computer game, which in my mind defeats the whole purpose. The beauty of D&D is that it’s NOT a computer game.
After that we hit the program participant reception where there was a cheese fountain where you could make your own nachos and take healthy vegetables and cover them with liquid processed cheese food for extra healthiness. They also had a big bubbling cauldron of chocolate and pretzel rods and marshmallows for dipping.
Never let it be said geeks don’t know how to throw a party. They even had Guinness.
After that was my reading, but it was 9PM on a Friday and competing with the Masquerade Ball and cheese fountain, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that no one showed. Readings from unknown authors aren’t much of a draw under the best of circumstances.
We headed back that night, and I got a whopping 4 hours of sleep. I might have gotten 6, but Cassie was up screaming twice. She’s got two teeth now, with more starting to cut. Doesn’t make for sleep-filled nights.
I budgeted plenty of time on Saturday, because I was driving my agent Joshua and his assistant Eddie as well. Jay, Eddie, and I all had panels at ten, and I didn’t want us to be late. We let Astoria at 8:30… and got there in 30 minutes.
Ah, New York City traffic! I love you.
My first panel was called Geeks with Kids, and I was the only man on the panel and the only one with an infant. Three of the panelists’ kids were all fully grown. I asserted my commitment to raising Cassie to not only get but also appreciate daddy’s obscure Star Wars and Lord of the Rings references, and then wisely shut up and let the established moms take over. I spent most of the remainder of the hour making faces at the baby in the front row.
After that was Jay’s panel on The Year in Comics, which was pretty good, giving an overview of both industry info and content.
I kick myself about my next event, which I had thought was another panel where I and some other authors would be discussing writing action scenes. I was really looking forward to that, as action is one of my specialties, but when I showed up, it turned out that it was not a panel at all, but an intimate class of would-be writers, and guess what? I was the only teacher.
Ugh.
I can blame the con planners in part, since they never told me that I would essentially be teaching a class, but I also blame myself for not asking more questions. My name was the only one on the participant list, but it was followed by a comma, and I figured the others were TBD.
There was a moment of terror when I realized I had to talk for a full hour, but thankfully I didn’t have time to freak, with twenty eyes staring at me. I took a deep breath, and winged it.
It went okay, I guess, but what really bothers me is that I could have done a MUCH better job if I had known what I was walking into and prepared better. I really lament the lost opportunity, because I think the attendees got shorted a bit. I am going to be angry at myself for days over it.
I had a short signing after that, and then Jay was moderating a panel on Writing Combat Scenes. Jay was nervous since he had never moderated before, but he needn’t have been. It was easily the most interesting panel I’d been to that weekend, mostly due to author Eric Flint, who had a lot of great commentary. I wish he’d taught my little breakout class. I would have wanted to attend myself.
By then it was after 8PM, and we decided to get outta Dodge. The ride back was a zip, and I was able to drop everyone off and be home by 9:30. Cassie should have been asleep by then, but she was wide awake waiting for Daddy to come home, and daddy was overjoyed to see her as usual.
Maybe next year I’ll bring her to the con with me.
I realize this is last-minute, but I figured I’d throw up a flag to note that I will be appearing at Lunacon in Rye Brook New York on Friday and Saturday, March 20-21. You can see my convention schedule here.
Lunacon is a nice, mid-sized SF convention with good paneling, a large participant list, a big dealer’s room, and some interesting panel presentations. I went last year just as a fan, and enjoyed it quite a bit.
If anyone is in the NY Westchester area and is free Friday evening or on Saturday, I encourage you to stop by.
Waiting around at the moment for a call from AM New York, who will be interviewing me for their paper this afternoon. Always a bundle of nerves before an interview, I figured I’d distract myself with a little blogging.
As usual, lots going on. Just this week I accepted an offer from a publisher in China to translate and publish The Warded Man and its sequels in Taiwan. More on that in a separate post to come. I am psyched to be able to color in some more places on the map, and to bring my stories to yet another part of the world. It really is an amazing feeling.
My launch party was also mentioned in a posting on Suvudu today. It’s always nice to get love from those folks. The article discusses how my launch was more like a birthday party than a proper book launch, but really, isn’t that what a launch party should be? A birthday party for the book. The Warded Man was born at 8am on March 10, 2009, weighing 1.4 pounds and measuring 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches. Book and daddy are both doing well, and thank you for all your kind wishes.
The Suvudu entry also shows love for my con-buddy Jackie Kessler, who took a break from writing demon stories to make you blush down to your toes to write one about superheroes. An advance copy of her upcoming book Black & White is on my to-read pile, so I can’t yet say if it’s as delightfully filthy as her usual fare. I think they might have washed her mouth out with soap for this one. They also give proper respect to the master sensei, Terry Brooks.
Some more reviews to cover, as well, starting with Tia Nevitt’s Fantasy Debut blog, who gives a great, spoiler-free review. She has a couple of fair nitpicks, but as she says, “…in spite of the critiques that are going to follow this paragraph, this is a brilliant novel.” That’s good enough for me!
Another nice, spoiler-free, 5 star review from Lady Dragoness at Dragon Views. Google alerts just pointed this one out to me a minute ago.
Pamela K. Kinney included enough spoilers in her review on her blog, Fantastic Dreams, that I would suggest not reading it until you’ve read the book, unless you don’t mind that sort of thing. That said, her review was rather postitive apart from a few critiques.
Another mostly positive but slightly spoilery review on Manga Maniac Cafe. The author makes a point of warning that the review may contain spoilers right at the start, though, so kudos for that.
Just as an aside, am I the only one who can’t say “kudos” without thinking of the candy bars? Maybe I should start sending them out to my reviewers who warn against or avoid spoilers.
Last but not least, Gustavo Bondoni received an advance review copy of the book, and gleefully threatened on his LiveJournal page to “clobber it if it sucks”. Thankfully, I managed to win him over. You can see his short, spoiler-free review here.