I'm in Paris. Yep. The miserable flight is over. I'm on the ground. I'm just catching a breather before heading to Epinal by train in about an hour. So, other than a warm welcome here by my editor, Carola Strang, I don't have too much to report. Well... I have already seen the Eiffel Tower, l'Arc de Triomphe, the Seine, the Louvre and a statue of George Washington. I have pictures to prove it, but they may all be blurry, taken as they were from a moving car. I'll take a look at them later.

I did want to mention some Stateside news. I'd just heard confirmation of this from GRRM a couple days ago, but he's gone public with it now on his Not A Blog - Back to Jokertown. He's announced the title and subject of the new Wild Cards book, and announced the main authors writing for it this time. Go take a look. (And, yes, I'm one of them!)

Okay, gotta catch a train...

Labels: Cons, George RR Martin, Wild Cards, Writing Life

I've been sitting on some very cool news for a little while. For the past several weeks I've been corresponding almost daily with a particular mega-bestselling author. We've been talking about whether I might be up for writing for a little series of books he's been editing for, oh, over twenty years now. He asked me to pitch some characters. I did. We batted them back and forth a bit until one in particular took shape. Then a contract came my way. I signed, and I was in! What am I talking about?

Well, the bestselling editor-very-much-in-chief is none other than George RR Martin. He needs no introduction. The ongoing series is Wild Cards, which is the terribly cool sci-fi/comics/alternative history/collaborative project that's been churning out books since 1986's Wild Cards (Volume 1). They have twenty volumes out so far, and hey, there's more to come.

First, go here and take a look at the announcement George just made about the "Fresh Blood" of which I am part.

Back? Okay, cool. Over all those volumes the series has included the work of wonderful writers, too many for me to start naming them here. I'd encourage you to look the series up, though. Even Wikipedia has quite a bit of information on it and on specific characters, of which there are many. Here's part of the intro cribbed from the Wiki page...

The series relates an alternate history of the earth after World War II. In 1946 an alien virus that rewrites human DNA is accidentally unleashed in the skies over New York City. It kills 90% of those who come into contact with it (referred to as 'drawing the Black Queen'). However, 9% mutate into deformed creatures (known as 'Jokers') and the remaining 1% gain superpowers (known as 'Aces'). There is also a class known as 'deuces' - Aces who have acquired useless or ridiculous powers, such as the ability to levitate up to two feet, or to grow bodily hair at will. The airborne virus eventually spreads all over the world, affecting tens of thousands.

It's an inspired combination of traditional comic elements spliced into a rather realistic, and decidedly dark version of our world and of the passions that drive people. The various books over the years have seen a collaborative effort among authors of the consortium, creating mosaic novels, standalone novels, and all sorts of variations, including lots of gaming variations (which is where it all began, really). The series has plumbed the depths of Jokertown and traveled right around the world.

Most of the volumes are out of print at the moment. It would be nice to see more of them back in print, admittedly, but if you're interested in giving the series a try you need not be daunted by all those hard to find volumes. Getting your hands on the first book, Wild Cards, is a good place to start. But so to is jumping in at Inside Straight, part of the newest cycle which is followed by Busted Flush.

What will I be doing in this world? Don't know yet. If I did I wouldn't be able to tell you anyway, but at the moment the future projects are in the furious planning stages. I may be in there somewhere as a writer in a future volume, and my characters may appear in other writer's stories. I can say that everyone - lead by George himself - has a great deal of enthusiasm for pushing the series into the future. I'm thrilled that he invited me in, and I'm really looking forward to how the new books take shape!

By the way... Yes, I have George's email. Yes, we correspond often. But, NO, I'm not going to ask him about A Dance with Dragons for you! You think I'm crazy?

Labels: Cool Friends, George RR Martin, Other Authors

I'm sure you're all getting tired of end of the year lists. If you're kind enough to have been checking in here, you're also likely tired of me mentioning the ones that I made. (Sorry about that. Well, sort of...) So, let's leave that behind. Now on to the New Year Stuff!

Okay, this is sort of another list of sorts, but it's too cool not to mention. George RR Martin posted a Song of Ice and Fire update on January 1st. Most of it was about the status of A Dance with Dragons. (Short version: I'm working on it. Glad you want it, but you don't need to write me everyday saying so. I'll tell you when it's done. I promise!) After that he goes on to make a few suggestions for authors people should try in the meantime. Here's what he wrote:

And if it's more epic fantasy that you're yearning for, there's never been more good fantasies being published than there are right now. Try Daniel Abraham, try Scott Lynch, try S.L. Farrell and David Anthony Durham and Peter S. Beagle, try Lisa Tuttle and Robin Hobb and Ellen Kushner, or any of myriad other authors whose work is making fantasy such an exciting genre to be a part of...

Cool... Awesome company to be in, but especially awesome for the endorsement to come from GRRM. Yikes. I'm very pleased, indeed.

That little shout out was a pleasant addition to my rather good mood going into the new year. My family had been in a bit of a funk for... well, for about six months. This had a lot to do with the fact that Fresno - where we moved last summer so I could join the faculty of the MFA Program at Cal State - can be a difficult place for some people to adjust to. You can include us in those "some people". I won't go into details, but I do want to say that a great deal of our consternation cleared up on - voilà - January 1st! My wife and I woke up talking things through in a way that really made sense for a change, and our outlook improved by leaps and bounds. It's real, genuine, and it's going to help us make the best of living and teaching in Fresno. And I don't mean to suggest there's slim pickings. I've actually landed in a terrific job that rewards in a variety of ways. I'm feeling very, very positive about both arms of my career and about the health of my family. Nice way to start the year...

Labels: Cal State Fresno, George RR Martin, Links

I've become a fan of George R. R. Martin. Strangely, I hadn't read him before completing Acacia: The War with the Mein. Actually, it had been a while since I'd read any fantasy, and most of the titles that inspired me were the classics of the genre: works by Tolkein, Ursula LeGuin, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and some sci-fi like Frank Herbert's Dune. Author's like these had a lot to do with why I came to write a fantasy. Thing is, having finished my book, I started thinking I'd better catch up on what had been done in fantasy the last twenty years or so. For all I knew I'd rehashed themes that other writers had been working on since I was a teenager. I began sampling some of the better known authors in the genre.

Fortunately, I didn't find many other writers who approached their alternative world as I did. Quite a bit of what I read was disappointing, really, but from the first pages of A Game of Thrones. I knew I'd found something inspired. I ended up loving the book, and I look forward to carrying on with the series. I loved it that Martin wrote complex, conflicted, duplicitous characters living out their lives in a grand, expansive world. I loved it that unexpected tragedy could befall even the main characters. I loved it that sentence for sentence he's a solid, mature writer in control of craft, plot, dialogue. And I loved it that good and evil aren't delineated in black and white. This last point was particularly important to me. So it was reassuring to see that another writer had chosen to break out of the mold of so much fantasy - and that he'd managed to win a loyal (and massive) base of fans.

I noticed this quote on the subject in an interview George R. R. Martin gave to Publishers Weekly. He said...

"I wanted - in writing this series - to get away from the traditional good guys and bad guys cliches of so much of contemporary fantasy. I'm a huge fan of Tolkien, but some of the things he did very well, in lesser hands, the hands of his imitators, have become terrible weights on the field of fantasy. One of them is the notion of absolute good versus absolute evil, of a dark lord who's responsible for everything and is brooding there and sending forth his evil minions in order to plunge the entire world into darkness. The struggle between good and evil is certainly a legitimate topic; but that struggle is not waged against dark lords with evil minions. It's waged within the individual human heart. All of us have good and evil in us; the question is, what choices will we make when we're confronted with difficult and dangerous situations? That's the approach [to fantasy] that I wanted to take."

I'd say he succeeded at it brilliantly.

Labels: George RR Martin, Recommendations