Friends

I am feeling unspeakably old. No, no, it’s not because of the elf costume that I’m wearing at work these days, though it is work related.

One of the men working in operations came up to me at work last night and said, “Does the phrase, ‘It happened in Narnia,’ mean anything to you?”

I hedged my bets and said, “It might…” because all I could think of was that someone had told him about the white spandex suit I used to have to wear in a production of the show.

The he said, “Do you remember little K— P—?”

My jaw dropped. Really. That’s not a metaphor. When I had last seen him, he had been twelve or thirteen years old playing Edmund. Now, I know that people age and realistically, I recognize that it has been 13 years or so since we worked together, but– but… he was twelve and now he’s an adult peer.

Comments? -- Link.

Part seventy-two in my ongoing retrospective as I read the fiction to the back issues of Realms of Fantasy and offer my thoughts, right up to the present.  This time around I'll be revisiting the August 2006 issue. This marks the first retrospective I've done since being promoted to Editor at RoF.  It also marks the first retrospective I've done since we launched the new website, which in turn means it marks the first retrospective I've done since my retrospectives were added as content to the website (the ones not currently on the website will be added soon).  So before this point, I was just posting these retrospectives on my personal blog.  Some people might have found them interesting to read since I work at RoF, but I had always done these in an unofficial capacity, i.e. I posted them on my blog because I wanted to, which was all the reason I needed. It's still all the reason I need, but now they've been added to the magazine's website, I suppose these retrospectives are part of the official RoF canon.  That's not something I ever expected, though it's certainly gratifying knowing that the magazine's publisher and webmaster believe these retrospectives should be included in the website. But given all these things that have happened since the last retrospective, going forward I'm going to make a few adjustments regarding how I handle these entries.  First, since you can see the covers anytime you want on the website, I'm going to forgo describing each cover for your benefit.  Second, I'm going to stop picking favorite stories from each issue.  It was already hard enough doing this now that we've reached the issues that I started working with the magazine.  And now that I've been promoted to Editor ...well, all I can say is that something doesn't sit right with me picking out my favorite stories each issue.  It's hard to explain it beyond this, especially since my responsibilities with the fiction remain the same, but I honestly don't feel more of an explanation is required.  Now, I could go back and delete all my favorites from previous entries, but I'm not going to do that.  What's done is done.  But I'm afraid this feature of the retrospectives is done going forward.  And so is picking my favorite piece of artwork.  Even before I was promoted to Editor, I already had an inkling I was going to discontinue this feature once I reached the issues where I started handling the selection of artwork.  But if I'm going to stop one feature now, I may as well stop the other.  There are some entries I still need to go back and edit.  These entries don't include my favorite art picks.  But for the sake of consistency, when I get around to editing these entries, I will include my selections here since I had already started this process. Otherwise these retrospectives should remain the same going forward, which means that overall they'll be pretty much the same.  So now that I'm done yakking about the retrospectives themselves, let me finally start yakking about the August 2006 issue ... The cover to this one is by Charles Keegan.  A rundown of this issue's nonfiction is as follows: In the movie/TV column, Resa Nelson covers Bryan Singer's Superman Returns (one of my most hated superhero movies ever); in the folkroots column, Midori Snyder discusses the journeys of the armless maiden; in the adult books column, Gahan Wilson reviews Star Changes, the Science Fiction of Clark Ashton Smith, edited by Scott Connors & Ron Hilger, ZIPPY/Type Z Personality by Bill Griffith, Alabaster by Caitlin R. Kiernan, and Paul Witcover reviews In the Eye of Heaven by David Keck, The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier, City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer, and In the Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss; in the YA books column, Michael Jones reviews The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima, Uglies # 3: Specials by Scott Westefeld, Dreams and Visions, edited by M. Jerry Weiss and Helen S. Weiss, Midnighters # 3: Blue Noon by Scott Westerfeld, The Cronus Chronicles # 1: The Shadow Thieves by Anne Ursu, Grail Quest # 1: The Camelot Spell by Laura Anne Gilman, and Golden by Cameron Dokey; in the artist gallery, Karen Haber covers the art of John Picacio; and in the games column, Eric T. Baker reviews Oblivion for the PC and Xbox 360, Bone: the Great Cow Race for the PC, Auto Assault for the PC, Kingdom Hearts II for the PS2, Samurai Champloo for the PS2, and the RPG Forgotten Realms supplement, Power of Faerun. On to the fiction ... I mentioned in the previous retrospective that this issue has a special place in my heart.  This is because of the fiction.  Four of my slush survivors appear in this issue, which to this day remains a personal record for most slush survivors to appear in a single issue.  There are other reasons this issue is important to me, also having to do with the fiction.  I'll get into that as I discuss the stories. First up is "The Grand Mal Reaper" by Scott William Carter.  This would be the first of the aforementioned slush survivors.  This story has the rather interesting distinction of being the only one to ever get slushed by two different people at RoF before getting passed along to Shawna (unless a similar situation occurred before I joined the magazine).  Allow me to explain ... When Carina Gonzalez, my predecessor, left the magazine, there were still some stories in her possession.  She finished reading through them, selected those she wanted to pass along to Shawna, and eventually did just that, thus concluding her last official act with the magazine.  Then Shawna turned around and gave me those stories, telling me to "re-slush" them.  So in addition to my usual slush submissions, I sifted through Carina's final picks.  Carina and I must have had fairly different taste in fantasy, because I rejected all of these stories ...except one.  The lone exception was "The Grand Mal Reaper" by one Scott William Carter.  So I passed this one along to Shawna and she ultimately bought it for the magazine.  So while I count Scott as one my slush survivors, credit should also go to Carina for first pulling that story out of the slush before I arrived.  So this would also mark her last slush survivor to appear in the magazine.  So including Shawna, Scott's story went through three separate rounds of editorial consideration before finding its way into RoF.  Truly, this story earned its way into our pages like no other has! As to the story itself, this one is an unconventional superhero story.  It deals with a young man afflicted with grand mal epilepsy, who also has the power to see people's deaths from far away.  But he's come to view his power as a curse, as he can't see any way that such a power could help people.  Given that he grew up a fan of comics and superheroes, it is a particularly bitter conclusion to come to.  And so he does his best to suppress the visions, trying to float by on the edges of society as a normal person.  But you know how it goes with superpowers ...you can't deny who you are.  Sooner or later you must confront the truth about yourself in order to become a whole person.  And sometimes the best ways to find truths are through love ...and heartache.  Art to this one was provided by Andrea Wicklund. Next up we have "Of Metal Men and Scarlet Thread and Dancing with the Sunrise" by Ken Scholes.  This is another one of my slush survivors.  When I first came across this story in the slush, I recognized Ken's name from a writing forum I belonged to.  I had never met him person, but it did mark the first story I had ever set aside where I knew this person in some capacity. This one is a science fantasy tale, and when I plucked it from the slush, I never imagined what would follow.  Nor did the author for that matter.  Those who have already read about Ken's successes that resulted from this tale should feel free to skip ahead.  For everyone else, I will give you the short version: Doug finds story and decides it is most cool and "slush worthy."  Doug passes story along to Shawna.  Shawna decides to take story.  Story is published.  Story receives much critical praise.  Ken writes a sequel and sends it to us.  Shawna rejects it and tells him to write a novel in this world.  At the same time, Ken's close friends and wife encourage him to finally sit down and write a novel.  His good friend (and regular contributor to RoF), Jay Lake, tells Ken if he writes the novel then Jay will pass it along to Jennifer Jackson, a highly respected literary agent in the speculative fiction.  Ken finally buckles and writes a novel.  It is set in the same world as "Of Metal Men."  It incorporates parts of that story and then expands upon it significantly.  Critiques, etc. follow.  When the novel is ready, Jay passes it along to Jennifer Jackson.  Jennifer signs Ken as his client.  Then she submits Ken's novel to Beth Meacham, an editor at Tor Books.  Beth accepts the novel.  Ken signs a deal for five books.  Doug finally meets Ken in person at the 2007 World Fantasy Convention.  Ken--a big man--gathers me in a monstrous bear hug that threatens to crack my spine.  In case you'd like to read it, the first novel in the series is called Lamentation (in which Ken kindly included me in the acknowledgments page).  The second was released not too long ago and is called Canticle.  Both of these have received good reviews as well.  So this I suppose is a classic example of short story spawning the beginning of a writing career.  I'm honored to have played a small part on it. As to the story itself, at the beginning of the tale Rudolpho and his gypsy scouts come upon an impact crater that represents the smoking ruins of Windwir, once the city housing the greatest repository of knowledge in the world.  In that crater, they find a sobbing robot, or "metal man."  Rudolpho sets out to find the cause of the city's destruction, only to learn that the robot is the one responsible.  But that shouldn't be possible.  And so he sets out to uncover the truth behind this tragic destruction in a tale of sorcery, deceit, and love.  Art to this one was provided Allen Douglas.  It's also worth noting that Ken has stated on more than one occasion that when he saw Alan's artwork to his story, it resonated so deeply with him that he knew there were more tales to tell about this world and its characters.  I would imagine this is one of the ultimate compliments a writer can pay his illustrator. Next up we have "The Cold Drake" by Renee Drake, another one of my slush survivors.  This one is a high fantasy tale.  Even better, it deals with dragons.  As I've mentioned elsewhere in these retrospectives, I've always been a sucker for a well-told dragon tale.  So I should point how happy I was to see this published, my first dragon slush as it were.  As to the story itself, the main character is the child of a human mother whose father was a high mage.  Her father was an evil cold drake who raped the protagonist's mother, leaving her with a half-drake child.  I will always remember being drawn into this story based on how liquid smooth the prose was.   This is worth mentioning because when I found this story I was trying to get the magazine caught up in its response times.  I was doing pretty good on this front ...until I found a hidden cache of manuscripts.  Suffice it to say this cache had been hidden from me far longer than it should have been.  I was kind of buried in manuscripts when I first joined the magazine, and in my efforts to get caught up, somehow this stack of manuscripts got lost (the first and only time such a thing has ever happened to me).  And once I found them and saw how old they were, I dived in like a madman, attempting to burn through them as fast as humanly possible.  I rejected around 50 manuscripts in a little over an hour that day.  I don't know how I managed to do that.  The only answer I have is that I had to, so I did.  I suppose you could argue I wasn't really reading the stories if I went through everything that quickly.  Except ..."The Cold Drake" was one of those stories.  Even in that frenzied pace of reading, there was no way I could let this jewel of a tale go unnoticed.  A good story will always stand out, regardless of the circumstances.  That's my story behind the story on this one.  As the story itself, our half-drake protagonist attempts to learn her origins and ultimately face them down as she attempts to reconcile the two warring halves that make up who she is.  Art to this one was provided by Brian Horton.      Next up we have "The Hero Shore" by Darrell Schweitzer, which marks his fourth appearance in the magazine.  This was another story that was accepted before I joined the magazine, so the first time I read it was when it was published.  This one is a weird fantasy that deconstructs much of the mythos surrounding being a Hero, as a man driven mad with grief reveals the true cost of bearing such a burden.  Art to this one was provided by Chuck Lukucs.  Then we have "True North" by K.D. Wentworth, which marks her third appearance in the magazine.  This one is a YA tale.  In it, we are introduced to a world much like our own.  Only in this world, nearly every adolescent will at one point experience "the Call," to "Journey" to "the North Lands."  Most adolescents heed "the Call" and make "the Journey."  There are even way stations along the way for adolescents on the road to the North Lands.  Each person's Journey is different--some beautiful, some dangerous--and this tale chronicles the Journey of one girl who receives the Call.  When you try talking to an adult about their Journey, they're unable to relate their experiences, as it's not something that can be described or understood in this world.  The big metaphor here is obvious, i.e. the North Lands are a physical manifestation of the highs and lows of adolescence, with all its beauty and scariness and ugliness and passion.  But the imagination and imagery in the writing are rich, and the metaphor is not heavy-handed, and so it works quite well.  Art to this one was provided by Peter Ferguson.  Finally we have "Indigo with Distance" by E. Catherine Tobler.  This would be my fourth slush survivor in this particular issue.  As with Ken, I had known E. through an online writing forum (actually the same writing forum as Ken), but had never met her in person.  This is one of the stories I'm most proud of pulling from the slush, for the simple reason that at this I wasn't reading much of this kind of fantasy.  So it would have been easy to let this slip past my guard.  Luckily that didn't happen.  As to the story itself, it has a bit of magic realism bent mixed with a fairy tale.  In it, a young woman translating books in Japan falls in love with and has a secret affair with the boss' daughter, only to lose her in horrifying fashion.  It's a story that poignantly illustrates how sometimes tragedy is the only to achieve happily ever after.  Art to this one was provided by Zela Lobb. So that wraps up this issue.  Next time around I'll stare down October 2006.  Until then ...                 

I’ve finished Zombie Raccoons and Killer Bunnies, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Kerrie Hughes and overall it was an OK anthology. A few stories stood out, and those I’ve denoted with bold titles. A few of the stories were disappointing, either with an ending that wasn’t as satisfactory as I would have liked, or with an ending that just didn’t make sense to me at all. There were some good chilling stories in here, along with some fun humorous takes on the theme, so a wide variety overall. If you like “creature of the night” stories, then you’ll find a couple of good reads in here, but in the end I was a little disappointed overall.





Table of Contents:

Death Mask by Jody Lynn Nye: This was a zombie raccoon story, where the raccoons come up against a farmer who doesn’t agree with the idea that you need to commune with nature. It was an OK story, but I had a hard time getting used to the voice of the farmer character, which threw me off.

BunRabs by Donald J. Bingle: And this was a killer bunny story . . . told from the POV of a chicken. *grin* The chicken’s POV of the world in general is hilarious, especially their take on modern day conveniences (and how they use them) and the mythology they’ve developed about rabbits and how they incorporate some of our own traditions into their worldview. A fun story.

for lizzie by Anton Strout: A cute little story set in Anton’s “Simon Canderous” universe, although it doesn’t feature Simon as a character. The main character is an archivist, dealing with a certain lack of social skills when dealing with the opposite sex . . . along with a rather ferocious little book wyrm.

Faith in Our Fathers by Alexander B. Potters: The idea here is that young child who can heal with his hands in upset because his pet cats keep disappearing. His father tells him it’s the fisher cats (who aren’t fishers or cats) that keep taking them, so the boy decides he wants to find these fisher cats and goes in search of them. He finds something more instead. It was an interesting story, written well, but at the end I wanted more. I wanted the story to do more, especially since there was so much potential for more in what was presented in the story. With that said, though, this is the best story in the anthology so far.

Bone Whispers by Tim Waggoner: The creature in this story is a rather large and supernatural groundhog, haunting a cemetery. The story revolves around a man returning to the cemetery to confront the groundhog, who had a run-in with when he was twelve years old. I felt like this story needed a little more development, with the connection between the groundhog, the man, the boy, and the groundhog’s hole (and the cemetery) fleshed out more. It had a creepy ending though.

Watching by Carrie Vaughn: And here we deal with pigeons. A man proposes to his girlfriend after taking her to Venice . . . only to have her say no. This sets the man’s life onto a whole new track as he sets out to backpack across Europe, discovering pigeons the entire step of the way. Only the pigeons aren’t exactly what they seem. The first half of the story was interesting, and the character drew me in, but then the story takes a hard sharp turn (perhaps even a hair-pin turn) in the middle and becomes a completely different kind of story altogether. This wasn’t a bad thing and the ending itself makes you smile, in a sort of funny/gruesome kind of way.

The Things That Crawl by Richard Lee Byers: This story doesn’t single out one particular type of creature, it sort of deals with snakes, lizards, alligators, etc, in general. And this is the most well developed story in the anthology. I connected to the main character, a detective who has an alcohol problem, so has been demoted and has relocated to the coast of Florida where, after a hurricane passes through, discovers that the local wildlife isn’t behaving as usual. He picks up on this and puts the pieces together (he is a detective after all), but the conclusion is, of course, too supernatural for the average person to believe. He ends up being forced to deal with the situation himself. Again, a very well-written, cohesive story with a rounded plot, rounded character arc, and a beginning, middle, and end.

The White Bull of Tara by Fiona Patton: This is a story centered around the White Bull of Tara. It begins interestingly enough—fairy cows are breaking through from the fairy realm to munch on the Druids’ garden and a pack of siblings/guards are tasked to stop the incursion. They figure out who’s causing the problem, and why . . . and then the story just kind of dies. They don’t really do much to stop the incursion from the fairy side, but the cows stop coming. Instead, the White Bull’s rival comes through and has his way with the local herd. It just felt like the story fell apart to me, or skewed off in a different direction from the first two-thirds of the story, and so the ending didn’t feel right.

Dead Poets by John A. Pitts: I don’t think I understand this story at all. I REALLY, REALLY liked the idea introduced at the beginning: the main animal here is the shrike, a bird, which (I didn’t know this before reading the story) apparently captures its prey and impales it on thorns on hedges and such around its nest. A cool factoid in and of itself. When, in the course of the story, the main characters finds that the shrike pestering her garden has started impaling pixies as well as rodents and such, the story jumped into a whole new level of interest for me. I seriously thought this would be the coolest story in the anthology . . . but then it completely fell apart near the end. Great setup, great idea, great animal . . . but nothing is done with it in my opinion. It kind of just trails off.

Super Squirrel to the Rescue by P.R. Frost: This story was cute, as the title suggests, with only a little touch of “evil creature from the night” to it. In this case, the evil creatures were crows, a whole murder of them, tormenting a neighborhood. Every attempt by the people to eliminate them was ignored and ridiculed with cawing. It required a rather supernatural squirrel to come to the rescue!

Her Black Mood by Brenda Cooper: This time, the creature of the night was much darker, a black toad created by the main character who can paint wooden carved creatures to life. However, she’s in such a black mood due to her life that this toad, when she paints it alive, comes out rather evil, with teeth and a lust for blood. Brenda Cooper captures the black mood of the character perfectly (we’ve all felt like this at some point, I’m sure) and the toad comes across as evil indeed, but I felt the resolution of the story could have used a little more umph. It made sense (unlike some of the other stories in this anthology), but I felt that so much time was spent on creating the situation and background that there should have been a little more time spent on resolving it all. It took 10 pages for the setup and making the toad as evil as possible, but only 2 pages to resolve the entire situation. A little unbalanced, but definitely a good read.

Ninja Rats on Harleys by Elizabeth A. Vaughan: The title pretty much says it all. *grin* A fun little story with evil rats and possums, a heroic mouse, and two flatulent dogs. Oh, plus a few humans. An interesting and enjoyable read, with just the right amount of humor thrown into the danger. But again this story felt unfinished. Unlike some previous stories in the anthology though, this one felt complete in and of itself, but also felt like the start of something much bigger. At least, I felt like I could have flipped the page and started another chapter when I reached the end. A good story overall though. Definitely entertaining.

Bats in Thebayou by Steven H Silver: Alien bats, anyone? That’s the main creature in this story (plus mosquitoes). Earth has been invaded by alien bats . . . we just don’t know it yet. The story flips back and forth between an alien bat perspective and the human perspective of two campers in Thebayou. I’m not sure this was effective overall, since I was much more interested in the alien bat perspective and not interested at all in the human perspective. But again, the ending was unsatisfactory to me. And aside from the main creature being a bat, there wasn’t much in the way of “creature of the night” feeling to this story.

Twilight Animals by Nina Kiriki Hoffman: This story was well-written, with a main character who could at this point in his life be labeled a “loser.” He’s hired to watch over his brother’s house while his brother and family tour Europe for a month. Since this guy’s in college, he decides to do some research on the neighborhood, ostensibly for a paper for school. Of course, he begins seeing things during his studies that just aren’t natural, in this case, a peculiarly large possum population. The ending is also peculiarly reminiscent of another story in this anthology, which is kind of bizarre. But overall a good story.

The Ridges by Larry D. Sweazy: The last story is about foxes . . . sort of. I can’t say much about the storyline without ruining it, so I’ll just say that the storyline here was good and it didn’t end the way I thought it would as I read it. I had the right idea, in general, but the author twisted it around into something different than what I’d expected by the end. Not really a “creature of the night” story in true form, although it certainly fit the theme of the anthology

So I spent ANOTHER few hours today transcribing the student evaluations for my second semester at Oneonta. There were more evals this time, probably because it was the first time I'd taught a couple of the courses and I admit that my perception of what the students would be able to handle was skewed at the beginning. I adjusted as the semester went along, and most of the students complained about what I'd expected at the beginning, but also noted that things changed as the semester went along. So I think, overall, the evals were good ones. I've got two more semesters of evals to transcribe now, and when I return to classes in January, the Fall 2009 evals should be waiting for me to transcribe.

But I say again, GAH, and ask, "What's the point?" I mean, I could copy the evals and put them if the administrators really do want to see them all, but I don't honestly think that they really do look at these things when they get together to discuss the portfolios. Sure, they may look at a few of them, but am I seriously expected to believe that they're going to look at the hundreds of evals I've gotten, when they probably have 50 other portfolios to look at after mine?

In any case, here are some of the typos I found during this batch. And these are just errors in spelling. I'm not even attempting to take note of the grammar errors involved.

The winner by far in the spelling wars was "quizes." I probably saw it spelled that way over 50 times. People just don't believe in z's anymore, apparently. The others, in no particular order:

"reconize"
"calculatos"
"assesments"
"metrial"
"calculters"
"calcalters" (This was on the same one as the previous word, so the student was trying to figure out how to spell it correctly.)
"explination"
"proffesor"
"resonable"
"suprises"
"ridculously"
"theroms"

And may I add that, as a writer, it is EXTREMELY difficult to type those words spelled incorrectly into the computer? Both here and when I was typing up the evals. But I push onwards. Probably not until after the trip home for the holidays though. Tomorrow I'm hoping to write some on my own stuff.

Safely arrived. Made the trip in 16 hours. Dogs were really tired of the truck. Kids were too. Only road trouble was about 40 miles of ice fog that we hit outside of Reno. Froze instantly to the windshield so had to blast the heat (too damned hot!) while having windows open and our eyes were parched. All in all, a good journey. Even the roads in MT and ID were perfectly dry. That almost never happens.

Now the visiting begins. We decorated a tree this a.m. and ate food with extended family and the kids are bouncing off the walls like demons. Girl got us up early because she was tired of waiting for us to wake up. Oh. Dear.

Tonight I hope to drive around and see the garish light shows. Kids will love it. We'll try to find the best "vegas" style house--you know, the kinds were you can't seen anything but lights?

Fog is starting to settle in. I hear there's a storm going to move through. Everything is green here. The dogs are in delighted. A little freaked by all the new stuff around them, but delighted by all the cool places to pee.

I told people I'd take more snow pictures when the sun was out. Well, the sun is out! The snow's already begun settling. It crunches when I walk on it. (Again in Jeff's shoes. He asked why his feet were wet when he put his shoes on. I dunno!)



I have a Flickr set for the Snowpocalypse here.

--

Last night in chat, I declared that my desk was full of yarn. cristalia demanded a photo.



Okay, it's pretty close, anyway.

--

This afternoon, I wanted to finish plying some yarn on Bob.

Well, to get this, you need to know how the flyer system works. The metal thing in the back (whorls) turns a spindle, which the bobbin slides onto. (The bobbin is the thing with yarn on it.) The flyer is the wood thing with arms coming off it, like a horseshoe. The flyer is also on the spindle that's connected to the whorls.



The flyer turns. Fast. It's what gives the yarn twist. Then it drags the yarn through the hook and guide, and wraps it around the bobbin. It can do that even though the bobbin is spinning, because see that white string wrapped around the back of the bobbin? That is the brake band. It keeps the bobbin spinning slower than the flyer.

Okay. Get it?

Well, today I was plying, and the bobbin was getting full...



What happens here is the bobbin was so full that the yarn was pressed against the flyer arms. No amount of tension on the break band would keep the bobbin going slower, so it wouldn't draw the yarn onto the bobbin. So every time I had to wind on, I stopped the wheel, pushed the bobbin around with my fingers, and repeated.

That is really fluffy yarn. It's a 4oz bobbin. That's 4oz of yarn. It all fit on the bobbin as singles, but the fluffiness from plying makes it take more room.

Today's post follows up on yesterday's comments about time. The title is a bit of a pun, because to some extent, our present— the world as it is today&mdash represents the future as I thought of it when I was growing up. Case in point: we did not get a newspaper delivery this morning because of the two feet of snow on the ground, so I turned the wireless on in my Kindle and bought today's Washington Post. This actually matches up to what was shown in 2001: A Space Odyssey where the astronauts read a "news pad" that can display news stories from around the world. The Kindle store offers 83 US newspapers, 8 Canadian papers, 5 British, and about 25 from other countries. The news pad looked a little spiffier than the Kindle, and it had a bigger screen (it actually looked a lot like the QUE eReader that's coming out next month), but the concept is the same.

Since I had also requested a sample of a science fiction novel for which I had seen a positive mention of, online, that downloaded, too. I was reading through the sample, not sure if I would buy the book, when a character happened to be reading a leather-bound book. When she stopped reading, she marked her place with a torn strip of newspaper. Now, this story was set far enough into the future that the setting was a space ship. And yet somehow people in this mythical future were not only still reading printed books, they were still reading printed newspapers.

Having owned (and loved using) a Kindle for a year, I simply could not buy the scene as written. It's not that I don't think there will be paper books in the future, it's that they won't be common in technologically advanced societies, certainly not on space ships. And I don't believe newspapers can survive more than a decade or two as they are now. They certainly will not be found on space ships.

It's always difficult to envision the future, but never more so that when technology is growing in leaps and bounds, and when the economy is so uncertain. Look again at 2001, as it was written by Sir Arthur C. Clarke. It's not that we don't have the technology for commercial, routine flights to space stations, it's that we can't afford them. PanAm, the carrier for the space plane (at least in the movie; not sure it was in the book), is no more, as is the Soviet Union (also mentioned).

Now think about STAR TREK, TOS another staple of 1960's science fiction. Their communicators looked one heck of a lot like cell phones, and Kirk was always signing off on orders and reports on something that looked a lot like Kindle. TOS was supposed to be hundred of years into the future, but by the 1980's, viewers could see a communicator was too big for its time. In TNG, they updated them to make them very tiny and wearable. Cell phones have caught on in a big way because they offer tremendous convenience (and sometimes life-saving features) and thus proliferated fast enough to gain economies of scale. They got more affordable and more advanced.

Publishing is caught in the technology/economy squeeze in a big way. New technology makes eReaders possible, and the cost of publishing in paper (not just printing but shipping and storage) makes change inevitable. If you read one voracious reader's account of using a Sony Reader for a year, you will see that, in the long term, this may well have a good impact on reading and on publishing.

But meanwhile, people who write science fiction need to really exercise their imaginations or risk losing credibility. Can you think of any other classic (or recent) science fiction that left you saying, "no way would that be the same in the future"?

OK, so holiday shopping is upon us, so I thought I'd reiterate some of the holiday deals I mentioned earlier this year.

First, I thought I should remention that all three of the books are available on Kindle now, for all of the Kindle lovers out there. Here are the links to the kindle versions: The Skewed Throne, The Cracked Throne, and The Vacant Throne.

All of the books are now, as far as I know, available in all other electronic formats as well. Go forth and download them!

And now for the dead tree versions. I'm currently running a few holiday specials, one for hardcovers and one for paperbacks:

Hardcover Deal: You can buy all three hardcovers of the books for a total of $30! That includes shipping.

Paperback Deal: You can buy all three paperbacks of the books for a total of $20! That includes shipping as well.

If you're interested in any of these deals, contact me at jpalmatier@sff.net and we can arrange payment and get address info, etc. Individual hardcovers and paperbacks are available as well at $15 and $8 respectively (shipping included). Just let me know what you're interested in! All prices are for the US shipping only. I can give you a quote for international shipping if you get in touch with me.

Happy holiday shopping everyone!

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Last night Ken and I went to a holiday gathering at a friend's house. Several people we hadn't seen for months plus apple martinis plus Ken's World Famous Chili plus a metric ton of sugar equaled awesome time.  We shared food and drink and stories. We talked about books and movies and vacations. I read a short story. We laughed until we cried (I woke up with stiff abdominals this morning, which is always a sign of a good night). During the drive home I felt a contentment and peacefulness that had nothing to do with the Christmas lights lining the streets. I love people. Chatting with friends or meeting new people or even people-watching at the mall makes me happy. A night spent surrounded by friends enjoying each other's company makes me damn near euphoric. Our humanity connects us. No one can take that away.

For all you writers out there, via the brain of antonstrout : The Twelve Days of WriteMSS

So, as part of my day job, and part of the tenure-track position I'm in, I have to submit a portfolio every couple of years to get rehired for another couple of years. One of the things they asked when I got my first packet back was that I include ALL of the written student evaluations (I'd assumed they couldn't possibly want ALL of them, so selected a few at random). At the time I shrugged and said, oh well. I'll just copy them all and stick them in.

But no. Apparently this is not all that they want. What they want is the original copies in the Master portfolio and then in the subsequent 6 smaller folders that you must also submit, they want TYPEWRITTEN TRANSCRIBED copies of all of the evaluations. And not just all from the past year. They want them all SINCE YOU STARTED WORKING THERE.

Now, in the normal course of events, a professor's classes at this college would consist of maybe 15 students each. But I don't teach normal classes. I teach math classes, and have taught the Gen Ed courses for the most part, which means my average class size is around 25. And generally these students don't just put down "great class" or "class sucked" as an evaluation. I somehow end up getting paragraphs for my evaluations. I generally view this as a good thing though, because it shows the students cared enough to say something about my class. And I like getting feedback. But . . .

So now I have to go back and transcribe all of my previous evaluations for the past 4 semesters. That's about 14 classes. 25 evaluations per class. Paragraphs of words. You do the math (I'm on break).

But I want to be hired for another 2 years, so today I broke out the evals and the word processor and began. I got through one semester (4 classes). It took me nearly 2 hours. My back hurts and I really wish that students would learn how to correctly spell "recammend" and "quizes" and "perfessor." (We have to transcribe them verbatim, errors and all.) So I'm putting the evals away for another day now and getting myself some chocolate, damn it!

People are time machines. We each travel in time. When we get up in the morning, the afternoon is the future, and sure enough, in a few hours we arrive there.

Of course, time travel is more impressive when expressed in terms of a lifetime. I am a Baby Boomer, born in the post-WWII generation. My dad was in the Navy, so we moved a lot— every two or three years. So, I started my life in the mid-20^th Century and now I find myself here in the first decade of the 21^st. My kids were born in the 80's (the younger one barely made it, 1989). They are now both in their 20's (the younger one again, barely).

This got me thinking how different their life is now than mine was at their ages. Aside from not being Navy brats and living their whole lives in one area (the younger one in the same house her whole life), their mother (that's me) worked outside the home the whole time they were growing up; they both went to home day care until they were about four, and then to a day care center. My mom never held a paying job until shortly before my parents divorced (when I was in my 20's). I was typical of my generation, and so are they. Times were so different then! I can remember looking at want ads in the newspaper; under the heading "Help Wanted—Male" it would say "Accountant." Think of that! And even though they might not say "No blacks," race discrimination was both rampant and blatant. I often went to all-white or almost-all-white schools.

Aside from social and legal differences, technology is radically different. I didn't use a computer until I was in my 30's. That's because mostly there weren't any. My kids both own laptops. When I was growing up, if you were meeting someone, you had to be sure you had a exact time and place or you would miss each other. Now you just text your location to the other person, who might well use GPS to find you.

And yet some things are the same. Cars are very different— smaller, more fuel efficient, more expensive, more likely to be foreign-made— but driving a car still bestows a level of freedom not found with public transportation. And reading a book, even if it happens via an eReader instead of a paper book, is still very much the same experience it was when I was young. That's one reason I love reading. It has stayed the same over my lifetime.

I remember the old days, but except for the people I have lost, I don't think I really miss them. The future holds new choices, new opportunities, new challenges; the past holds only memories. I prefer the future.

Man, people are weird. I spent today in the bear suit handing out cookies at the Saturday market. It’s actually a lot of fun because the kids totally love having a giant teddy bear give them cookies. What’s weird is that the adults just love the bear also, want hugs and will happily take a cookie.

Now. If I were dressed in normal clothes, even with a Christmas flavor, and tried to give a total stranger or a small child a cookie can you imagine the reaction? Dubious distrust. How about hugs? Sure, there would be some takers in both cases, but on the whole it would be seen as completely weird and a little sketchy.

But put me in a bear suit, so that you can’t identify me even by gender, and suddenly everything is fine. Weird.

Comments? -- Link.

I wasn't sure how to show scale in snow pictures. Eventually they just start looking like a lot of white.

Jeff's dad got out a snowblower plow thingie and verbed us a path this morning.



You can see the ground here. Jeff stuck a measuring tape in that and said it was about 14 inches. The path filled in a few more inches. Four I guess. I just stuck the measuring tape in and got 18 inches when I took these photos.



Weird snow canyon because of how the wind was blowing. (I assume.)



If anyone knows how the snow did this thing on the corner, please tell me. That's so cool. I was sad I couldn't get a better view of it. (See below for the reason why.)



The places where I could get were pretty limited, unless I wanted to wade through nearly knee-deep snow.



Fortunately I wore Jeff's shoes outside so mine didn't get snowy. *g* But still.

Deep snow! I'm standing in a few inches of snow in this photo. This is the are where Jeff's dad verbed with the snowblower plow thing.

Today we get a joke query from b_twin_1 because I forgot to email people yesterday. And maybe in celebration of my snow.

Also, in case you haven't heard it yet, my friend Authoress Anonymous sings "Snark! The Haggard Agents Sing" over on her blog. If you haven't been there yet, go listen now. It's hilarious! She's got the lyrics posted so you can sing along. (Highly recommended.)

My comments are in [brackets] . As always, I haven't read these yet unless otherwise noted. These are my reactions as I read them.

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#37

Dear Jodi,

My name is Jinny and I have written an ace book which I think you will really really love [Really!?] cuz my best friend Hazel *loves* it heaps and heaps as it reminds her of Twilight and Lord of The Rings [*blink*] (which she says is a TOTAL rip-off of Eragon) because the characters go on a huge quest where they meet all sorts of ace characters like elves and dwarves and baddies that are vampires. [I don't think I breathed during that sentence.] I called my book The Prince's Quest and it has 406 pages!! The Prince is a really cool guy who fights vampires and he discovers that there are spies in the court who want to make him a vampire. He thinks that this would be really sucky because he doesn't want to sparkle and he hates blood. [This is the best line ever.] His name is Prince Edwood. His girlfriend is called Bambi [Bambi is my iMac's name.] and she hasn't finished high school yet but she goes to hang out the palace heaps and does really cool stuff with her boyfriend. If she didn't have him then it would be awful cuz her home life sux. [What a bummer for her.]

Anyways they go on this long quest and they meet all these elves and dwarves who help them on their quest. One day they even meet a dragon. The dragon's name is Tony (short for Anthony) and he loves to hunt vampires in his spare time. He likes them BBQd and he uses his fire breath to cook them. [Second best line ever.] Well, you can't really cook vampires cuz they incinerate real quick but he has got pretty good at it and usually he can get them only slightly charred. So anyways Prince Edwood and Bambi are on this long quest and then they meet up with some vampires and they are in real danger cuz the vampires are going to eat them!!! But then the vampires so that they don't want to eat them they just want to turn them into vampires so that they can live forever and meet their true loves. And then Bambi gets into trouble cuz she falls in LOOOOVE with one of the vampires and Prince Edwood is really mad at her. But then he falls in love with a female vampire called Jilly who is really really sexy and then he forgets all about Bambi for a while. The vampires make them live in the vampire town for a while so that they can see how much they want to be vampires. Then there is a huge battle between the vampires and the next countries werewolves. And Jilly is roasted by the dragon. Prince Edwood is totally cut up by this and so he tries to have sex with Bambi who feels sorry for him so she says yes. She can't help but say yes cuz his has beautiful eyes.

At the end of the quest they live happily ever after. I really want to be able to see my book on the school library shelves so please get back to me real soon.

Love Jinny. xxxxxxxxx :) :)

[Yeah. I can't even say anything else about this. It's too awesome.]

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