BestSFBooks Ranking System

So, since I'm sort of obsessed with Speculative Fiction awards (you may have noticed), my boyfriend emailed me a link the other day:

BestSFBooks

I took one look at it and decided that I have serious disagreements with the rankings generated by that site, although they generally do what I do, which is count various awards that books get and then rank them by the number of awards and nominations.

The first issue that I have with their method of ranking is that they count the wins and the nominations at the same value. Which has some merit, I admit. I also maintain a straight count of nominations and wins counted as "1" each. You can look at that and get a 2 vs. a 6 and generally tell that if that first book has two wins and the second book has six nominations, that second book is probably more widely liked among a general audience.

But I also maintain a "weighted" score which provides me with a different look: where wins are worth 1 and nominations are worth .5. A book with three wins should have a higher ranking than a book with 3 nominations or even a book with 5 nominations. And so you can easily differentiate in that way between the big winners and the big nominations.

If you're looking for a list of the best speculative fiction, I don't think the straight number of awards gets you to that book. The BestSFBooks site gives second place over the last 3 years to Anathema and The Dervish House each with a count of 7. But The Dervish House has 4 wins and Anathema has 3. If you're looking for an actual ranking of the books, then I would rank Dervish House higher than Anathema, although I would still rate Anathema higher than a book that got 3 wins and two nominations (like Blackout).

The second quibble that I have with their rankings is that they're weighted toward British Books.

Several of the awards that they rank are international. Hugo Awards, Locus SF/Fantasy Awards, John W. Campbell Awards, and World Fantasy Award are (as far as I can determine) all open to books published anywhere in the world. Hugo Awards are explicitly open to books in any language, although the general voting membership is English speaking and I don't think a non-English book has ever made the shortlist.

But BestSFBooks also lists the British Fantasy Society Award, British Science Fiction Association Award, and the Arthur C. Clarke Awards, all of which are only open to books published in the U.K.

Those Awards directly compare to only one strictly American award: the Nebula Award. And, while the American Nebula Award can go to either a science fiction or fantasy book, those categories are split out amongst two of the previously listed British awards, giving double weight and twice as many nominations to the British awards before even taking into account the Arthur C. Clarke excess.

There is one more American award on their list, the Philip K. Dick award, but the Philip K. Dick award can't be directly compared to the British awards, or even the other American awards. The Philip K. Dick award is specific to a subset of American speculative publishing: original paperback science fiction publications, which means that usually the awards go to books that aren't nominated in any of the rest of the categories. There are notable exceptions (Yarn, Nova Swing, The Devil's Advocate), but mostly the Philip K. Dick award targets an entirely different category or book than the other American science fiction awards do, so it doesn't tend to boost the numbers of awards from American authors. In fact, since the Philip K. Dick targets some books that are paperback reprints of British books, it can further inflate the number of wins or nominations of British works (such is the case with Nova Swing, for example).

So the top books on the recent lists are British, and there are a lot of British authors on top as well. This year, skipping the obvious winner of The Dervish House by Ian McDonald (sometimes the out-and-out winner is British, I have no quibble with that) there are two British books and two British authors on top of the first American in either category. Overall, there are five British books and five authors writing in the British scene on the top 10 award winning lists of the last year.

Over the last three years, you can see much of the same. Five of the site's best speculative fiction books are from British authors, but there is a shift as 6 of the top 10 "best" authors are writing for a primarily British audience as well.

Over ten years, the 10 best books have Americans in only three spaces. And there are only four Americans on the authors top 10 list.

All of this shouldn't be construed as implying that British science fiction authorship isn't enjoying a bit of a golden age at the moment, with authors like Mieville, Stross, Gaiman, McDonald and Clarke, but I do think that the way that BestSFBooks counts it's points skews toward British writers and books.

Third, I'm not sure that I would count the SFsite Reader's and Editor's choices as awards with the same weight as the Hugos, Nebulas, and Locus awards. Or even smaller awards like the Philip K. Dick. That's just a personal choice though, in the same way that I count the "big three" as the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards (I freely admit my Amerocentrism, and my list is primarily for me) despite the John W. Campbell awards' claims.

Fourth, and I agree that this is a bit quibbly with regard to a website called BestSFBooks, but they're really doing a disservice leaving off all of the rest of the categories beyond novel. There are some amazing short stories out there, and there are plenty of novellas that get limited publication as their own books. Heads by Greg Bear jumps instantly to mind.

Finally, i wish they had an "all-time" option. There are lots of great older books that could easily rank against more recent books if BestSFBooks gave them the chance to compete. Let's see some Ursula K. Le Guin toward the top.

Kudos to them for maintaining a usable, clear and professional site though. That isn't easy and they should be lauded for that.

Why isn't Connie Willis really famous?

So, one of my four favorite science fiction authors won another Hugo award yesterday. I haven't read her latest duet of novels, Black Out/All Clear, but I own them and they'll be read soon. Nearly everything that I've read by her has been brilliant though, even her book of science fiction Christmas stories (it works surprisingly well).

That Hugo Award win means that Connie Willis joins the tiny club of Robert Heinlein, Lois McMaster Bujold, Vernor Vinge and Isaac Asimov as the winner of more than two Hugo Awards for Best Novel, although Asimov and Heinlein have the slight asterisk of having won a retro Hugo (given for a year prior to the establishment of the Hugos in retrospect) among his honors. Bujold and Asmiov have four, and Vinge and Willis have three.

But that doesn't mean that she's just won three Hugo awards. She's won eleven total in all categories including short stories, novellas, and once for a novelette. All four major fiction categories. And she's won seven Nebula Awards, again in all four categories.

And there's the additional matter of the ten Locus awards, again in all four categories and the additional category of best collection (twice). Granted, she's missing the fantasy novel category at the Locus awards, but she was nominated once for it.

So, she's won all of the major science fiction awards, in all twelve of the categories that they have for them (and a Locus thirteenth).

Asimov was writing before and while the three major categories of awards here were being formed. His Foundation series, which is still brilliant, missed the start of the Nebula and Locus awards by more than ten and twenty years respectively, but did win the previously mentioned retro Hugo award for one of it's sections, and a special Hugo (ish*) award for "Best all-time series." Overall, he still won 6 normal Hugos (missed the novella category), 2 special Hugos, 2 Nebulas (for novel and novelette), and 7 Locus awards (again, no award for novellas but he did win for Nonfiction [twice] and for anthology). Were you to weight those wins the same, that's 17 major wins across his lifetime.

Bujold is next. She's won those four Hugo awards for novels but only one other Hugo category, novella for The Mountains of Mourning. Bujold also has 3 Nebula awards, two novels and a novella (again for The Mountains of Mourning). She also has three Locus award wins, two for science fiction novels and once for fantasy novel (the locus splits those two up). That's eleven total.

Heinlein, similar to Asimov, was writing before the major awards were completely established, and I actually suspect this hurt him more than Asimov. He's got those four Hugo awards for best novel, one retro Hugo, and one retro Novella Hugo for a total of six. Unfortunately, he doesn't have any Nebula awards, but again, they started late and he finished rather early, although he was still nominated for best novel four different times. He does have two Locus awards, once for Job: A Comedy of Justice (fantasy novel) and a nonfiction book. So that's only eight total.

Vernor Vinge, whose work I also love, has five Hugo award in total. Three of his Hugo awards are for best novel, and two are for novella. He also has no Nebula awards (that just amazes me, actually) even though unlike Heinlein he began writing after the start of these awards. He also has two Locus awards, one for novel and one for novella (The Cookie Monster, great story, I highly recommend it). That's only six major wins across the three major science fiction awards that I'm tracking here.

Before I get back around to Connie Willis, I'm going to throw two other names out there that are required on this list: the first is Ursula K. Le Guin. She's won an astonishing number of awards. Like Connie Willis, she's won all four of the major Hugo categories (and she was the first woman to win for best novel), plus a second Hugo award for best novel for a total of five Hugos. She's won six Nebula awards (four novels, one short story, one novelette). And get this, she's won twenty-one Locus Awards in basically everything that you can possibly win, all five of the major categories (sf novel and fantasy novel, novella, novelette, short story) plus nonfiction, plus collections (five of them). And, just to make this complicated, she's also won two World Fantasy Awards, one for best novella and novel, too. That's 32 major wins without the two WFAs, and 34 with.

The second is Neil Gaiman. He's won four Hugos, with two novels and a novella and short story. He's won two Nebulas, one each for novel and novella. And he's won 15 Locus awards, including being the only person on the list to win for the Locus best YA novel category (he's won it twice) although like Asimov he doesn't have one in the Novella category. Gaiman, like Le Guin, has also won a World Fantasy Award, although in his case it's for short story. That's 22 major wins with the WFA, and 21 without.

So let's get around back to Connie Willis. As I pointed out, she's won those eleven Hugos, seven Nebulas, and ten Locus awards. That's 28 major award wins. 28 major award wins including just about every major science fiction category and major novel wins. Doomsday Book won all three major science fiction awards for best novel, incidentally.

So, as far as this little survey goes, Connie Willis is the second most award winning science fiction/fantasy author in English, trailing Ursula K. Le Guin by four or six wins depending on how you count. And she leads Neil Gaiman, Vernor Vinge, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein by sizable margins. And, if this wasn't already clear she's the only person, ever, to dual win both the Hugo and the Nebula award in every single category.

And tonight, the day after she won her 28th major award, we had some friends over for dinner. We talked science fiction for a bit and I recommended Connie Willis. And despite being a consistent reader of science fiction, he'd never heard of her before. We would have loaned him a copy of To Say Nothing of the Dog on the spot, but apparently we've already lent it out. That still staggers me. She's one of the most award winning science fiction writers of all time, and she's still completely unknown, even among many devoted science fiction fans.

Why isn't Connie Willis really famous? I just don't understand.


* Just to be clear, the best all-time series was a special Worldcon award, but since the Hugo rules apparently allows the Worldcon to tack on awards, I'm not exactly sure why it isn't explicitly a Hugo award.

NetGalley and Carina Press

So, through something I have to deal with at work, I found the website "NetGalley" which allows you to request eARCs (electronic advance reader copy(s)). Basically, you can get a digital copy of a book to read or review before the actual book comes out in stores.

The Neil Gaiman edited Best American Comics 2010 is on there, which is pretty cool. There's also a version of the Little Prince as a graphic novel. But I don't expect those things really need my attention to sell them. Neil Gaiman and The Little Prince are both brands that aren't going to be helped by a relatively minor blog review. And I'm not really interested in either of them enough to want to request them.

But I do get some blog traffic around both my comments on gay porn and science fiction fantasy. So I was especially interested to find that there was a novel listed that actually fit into that niche: Savage Sanctuary by Jacqueline Barbary. I requested that one and another one that Carina Press publishes, Life After Joe by Harper Fox.

Both were denied, which was too bad. I wouldn't have bought either of them, especially from an unknown press. It's not the loss of a sale for them. Really, the best that could have happened was that I liked them an gave them a favorable review. Well, won't bother now.

So, I guess the whole point of this post is: what's the point of NetGalley if you can't get galleys from it? If you're wondering whether to bother signing up (and they ask you for a lot of personal information, including your real address and phone number), I would say no.

Iorich by Steven Brust

It so happens that when I won the present of a book from Tor.com a while ago, instead of a copy of a book currently in print I requested and received an advance copy of a book that was not yet out: Iorich by Steven Brust.

This was particularly kind of Tor.com and especially Torie Atkinson for allowing me such a privilege and her secret source for making my Brust dreams come true.

I try to do reviews of books that I get in advance of their publications such as Little Brother, Julian Comstock, and Ender in Exile and so this is my review of Iorich by Steven Brust (2010).

Just be aware though that reviewing Iorich has massive spoilers for other Vlad Taltos novels, up to and including Iorich itself. Got that? This post contains massive Iorich spoilers.

First off, Iorich is better than Jhegaala. Don't get me wrong, I liked Jhegaala, but it wasn't anywhere close to the top of the Vlad Taltos cannon. Iorich is definitely a good Vlad book but it does have a few minor flaws.

With all of his books, Brust switches back and forth with his writing style and Iorich is a bit sparse in the wordplay compared with some of the other books. The way that Dzur focused on lavish descriptions of food and Jhereg focused on, well, the ceremony of jheregs, this book uses a legal situation as chapter leads and general tone. Thus, Iorich's style is direct and to the point, almost like reading a legal brief. This which works out fairly well for it but there are a few bits that seem tangential and thrown together, notably the elements of Vlad's personal life that appear.

Also, after Jhegaala, I was hoping for a bit more high flying action, flashy sorcery, and world threatening danger. This wasn't that type of Vlad novel, but I have to say that this type of Vlad novel is my second favorite.

Let me explain my weird theory about the types of Vlad novels which has been kicking around in my head for a while.

There are three types of Vlad novels, complicated by the fact that some novels, particularly Taltos are comprised of two or more of these types. I think these types are: 1, "Early Vlad" novels that deal mostly with Vlad's career in the Jhereg and the establishment of his area; 2, Questing novels revolving mostly around some task set by Sethra, Morrolan, or Verra and progresses the metaplot involving the gods; and 3, Politics novels in which Vlad gets to explore some particular facet of politics or society, usually at the expense of his social life.

Iorich fits solidly into the third kind of Vlad novel, following a similar structure to Orca. Where Orca was about the way trade and banking have an effect on people, Iorich is about dealing with the way the legal system fuctions, especially with regard to nobility and rank. It is set some number of years after Dzur, and apparently several years since Vlad has seen many of the major characters of the series, and is set predominantly in and around the Imperial Palace.

The general plot of the novel is that Aliera has been arrested by the Empress for the practice of Elder Sorcery, even though the Empire has been turning a blind eye to her practice (and Morrolan's, and Sethra's, and one suspects dozens of others) for many years. When Vlad hears about her arrest he rushes back to Adrilankha and begins to arrange for her defense despite the protests of Aliera herself while trying to keep himself alive from the Jhereg assassins that are still trying to kill him eight (nine?) years after the events of Phoenix.

There is, of course, a complicated and twisted reason for her imprisonment that basically boils down to Empire politics. To me, the twisted reasoning is a bit weak, but by the end I can certainly understand why the characters did what they thought they were doing, with the possible exception of Zerika's behavior toward Aliera which still is a bit of a headbanger.

So Vlad, in his efforts to clear Aliera's name in much the same way that he cleared Cawti's, is thrown into the middle of Empire politics again. Really, he almost should have been a private eye instead of an assassin, because his investigative skills shine in the midst of a high level political thriller.

As I've already mentioned, dealing with these things leads him to spend quite a bit of time in the Palace and dealing with some of the most important people in the Empire. Norathar features prominently and so does Zerika herself, the Empress putting in the most face time of any Vlad novel and seemingly almost as much as her roles in the Viscount of Adrilankha.

My favorite parts of this book involve the Empress, especially the section with the five steps. Just after that, in terms of favoritism, is the resolution at the end which really does work out nicely if you understand what's going on. Vlad's introduction to the new character of Perisil is also very nicely done.

Older characters also appear in this book, sometimes just as minor characters and sometimes as mere suggestions (if you're a big fan, you'll know the line I'm talking about when you come to it, personally I laughed out loud on the Boston T and got lots of weird looks). It's nice to see some of them, but I really want to see the resolution of the Phoenix affair. It's been a long time coming but there are suggestions that it's coming to a head.

That's really the best part of the Vlad books though. Even though each books stands on it's own and carries it's own weight and finishes with a satisfying resolution, there's a larger plot that progresses along as well. Not only do you feel good about the book that you've read but you can pick up bits and pieces from other books that fit together and provide another kind of satisfaction. The Vlad books, and the Khaavren Romances, for that matter, were meant to be read as a long, wonderful series, and I'm so very happy to have been given the chance to read this latest volume.

I want to end with a brief quote from the book, just a paragraph. But hopefully it will interest Brust fans enough to go out and buy it. A warning, it may have a few serious spoilers for the end of the book:

"I pulled the arrow from my eye, hearing myself scream. At that moment, a blast of magic from one of them hit me, and I saw my leg fly off at the knee. I fell to the ground, reaching for Lady Teldra, but one of them came in with an ax and took my right hand off at the wrist . . ."

* * *

Here's a link to the Amazon page for Iorich. If you haven't read any of the others, I recommend starting with Jhereg to see if you like the style (it is unfortunately only easily available as part of the Book of Jhereg right now). I plan on buying Iorich when it's released in a few months anyway because it is quite wonderful and I want to support Steven Brust's further writing.

Update: Tor.com's review is here.

Stories Through Pictures

I've got a couple of pictures that I keep meaning to post. First one is from the hallway of the boyfriend's apartment building:


No, there was no other information nor do we know what was stolen. Mail, perhaps?


This image comes from a Federal building: The Library of Congress. Yes, the title there says "Erotica." No, she's not a Muse, as far as I can tell. I just think that she's a very interesting addition to be recognized.


Something tells me that I would like that soup. 'Cause I like instant soup.

What? Don't you like instant soup?


Finally, I got this the other day. Yes, I've already read it (basically all in two sittings, about five hours total) and it was good. Not his best but definitely a solid Vlad Taltos novel that made me squeal with delight and giggle on the T. I will of course review it, when it gets a bit closer to the anticipated release date.

I may ask TNH if I can post a paragraph from it, just because I have discovered the most spoilerific section of any book of all time.

Why yes, I am a fifteen year old fan girl when it comes to Vlad novels. Thank you for asking. As of this week I'm pretty sure I own just about every piece of writing that Steven Brust has ever published, including a couple of short stories, Agyar, Freedom & Necessity, and now I'm even ahead one book. Yay!

Update: Whoops, forgot one. This one is self explanatory:

Noird and Sushi

On June 3 in Cambridge I got to hear China Miéville speak about his new book The City and The City, during which he let fly with the created word "noird." He was content to let it live in the wild: he refused to define it himself except for in the most general terms and refused to speculate on other authors that it may describe. (If you're interested, the first reference to it is here and Why Mice Sing delves into it here.)

During the signing, he told me that I should spread #noird, so I guess I'll have to go sign up for Twitter. China Miéville told me too.

I asked Ben to talk about his thoughts about noird, because he's substantially brighter than I am and more apt to clearly express interesting ideas. He said:

I went to see China Mieville give a reading and question and answer session last week, in which he declared that his most recent book 'The City and the City' is a member of the noir and new weird portmanteau: noird subgenre. Upon declaring this new subgenre, Mieville started the question and answer session. I fired off the first question: 'Who else would you put in the subgenre of Noird? For me, Richard K Morgan immediately springs to mind, but what do you think?' Mieville demurred and suggesting that we need to identify the authors for ourselves. To wit, I start with a modest proposal for what Mieville is defining.

Noird is a fusion of Noir and New Weird - Noir is fairly straightforward: hard-boiled detective/crime/police procedural story - I always thing of Raymond Chandler and Chinatown. New Weird is a bit more amorphous - presumably, this encompasses the new science fiction approaches, the speculative fiction which Neal Stephenson defines so cleanly here. There is certainly a current/modern component to this, so Golden and Silver Age of sci-fi/fantasy should probably be excluded.

On the author/book list (as Mieville implied that not all his work is Noird, but 'The City and the City' most certainly is) I suggest the following:

• Takeshi Kovacs (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, Woken Furies) series by Richard K. Morgan
• The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon
• Something by Neil Gaiman [not sure what, but he's certainly New Weird, and there's got to be detective elements to some of what he's done]
• Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde
• Halting State by Charles Stross [possible others like Glasshouse have references along those lines]
• The da Vinci Code/Angels and Demons by Dan Brown [possibly too mainstream to be new weird, but there's certainly elements that map onto this construct - stylistically, the noir component falls short here--there's not a lot of that hard-boiled feeling]
• Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami [though others from Murakami fits into this as well]

In many ways, I feel like Philip K Dick was a major founding influence in this Noird genre - looking at works such as Do Androids Dream, A Scanner Darkly, which wiki calls "a bleak mixture of science fiction and police procedural novels;" possibly may be the founding work. That being said, Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man is a worthy contender as well, with the heavy influence of the classic Noir style.

Obviously, there are other and further choices, but this is certainly a reasonable sub-genre which captures many works which sort of defy classification.

Personally, I'm not convinced that when Ben wrote this, his definition of New Weird was correct. I asked if he'd looked New Weird up on Wikipedia and found that he hadn't. Some of the works that Ben takes for granted as New Weird aren't necessarily part of that movement and some of them predate it by decades.

So, New Weird "subverts the romanticized ideas about place found in traditional fantasy" and invents complex and believable worlds in which the plots are set in a more realistic and not particularly utopian setting. Basically it's fantasy set in a world that extends beyond the boundaries of the story that exhibits the traits of the real world.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is on the Library Thing list above and both Ben and I agree that it deserves it's place on that list. Ben, having just finished the Chalion series by Bujold, thinks that those books belong to that movement as well and I can't necessarily disagree. I would add George R. R. Martin's ASOIAF to the movement as well. His books are subversions of a romanticized fantasy setting.

Possibly Harry Potter by J. Rowling belongs to this movement as well. It's certainly an expansive world that belongs to a world with a past and future that exists regardless of the actions of Harry. It does push the limit on the "realistic" front though, although I would argue that the later books show that the world in which Harry lives is not the typical utopian fantasy setting. The Minister of Magic is voted out, isn't he? Characters related to the main characters die. Not everyone lives happily ever after and if we're defining this movement by expansive worlds and a step away from utopianism, then I would argue that it does fit.

Ben would point out somewhere in here that J. Rowling would never describe herself as "New Weird." Considering her separation from the mainline fantasy movement I would question though whether she'd even accept the term "fantasy," so why does it matter?

It matters because China is spreading New Weird himself, as sort of a self-promotional/sales technique. That doesn't mean that it isn't a valid sub-sub-genre but it does make me question how correct the pushed definition is to the way that people use it. And since Noird is a sub-category of New Weird, how specific are we willing to get?

There are only a few examples of Noird, but Ben feels (and I would agree) that the are categorical, there are ways to parse out the differences between New Weird and Noird. Figuring out what those were led me to at least one more subset that Noird must be distinct from: Victorianeird (pronouced with a hard e at the end).

Victorianeird is that part of the New Weird that adapts the literary conventions, styles and sometimes setting and characters of Victorian England. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is the obvious genre defining work, but there are others. Brust's Viscount of Adrilankha series is probably another. Although I haven't read them I would guess that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Graham-Smith (and Jane Austen, of course), the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik probably fit into that category as well.

So yeah, Noird and Victorianeird. If I have any more thoughts, I'll have to do a follow-up post.

Moving on to the sushi part of this post: Cafe Sushi on Mass Ave in Cambridge is excellent. Really, really good. I guess they've changed management recently but they're much better now than they used to be. So, if you happen to be looking for excellent sushi in the Cambridge area, I heartily recommend them.

Expectations vs. Reality

As more of my favorite writers desperately try to lower expectations about writers as a whole based on the case of GRRM, I suddenly realized that I really wanted to respond to something that Gaiman said as part of his "[GRRM] is not your bitch" post:

"Yes, it's unrealistic of you to think George is 'letting you down[.]'"

Which brings me to this graph I created in about ten seconds:


As we can plainly see, the reality of the situation is that George R.R. Martin isn't meeting expectations. So yes, people are unrealistic when they're expecting GRRM to live up to the expectations that he and his publishers created.

A couple of things should be obvious by now to anyone looking forward to the next book in Martin's series:

1. Martin's word can't be trusted. Even if he announced the book was on it's way to publication he's lied before and we shouldn't get out hopes up.
2. The editors who are paying GRRM apparently don't care or have given up on trying to push to finish the book.
   
3. If the measure of success of a writer is the ability to write, then George R.R. Martin is a failure.

From his online persona I would expect Scalzi to point to this as an example of one of GRRM's pissy fans.

Well, I'm not a fan any more. I don't remember the characters anymore, or really even their names. I have no idea what they're doing or where they started. I haven't read a GRRM book in years and I know that I won't be buying the latest book when it comes out because it would require me to reread the series and to be honest I just don't have the time. Who cares about the book? If GRRM would just admit that he's not going to finish it maybe everyone else could all move the f*** on?

So, the next question is, why do I still care about this? Specifically, why to I care that Gaiman, Scalzi, West and Stross are all faithfully defending George Martin as though he has men with knives at the throats of their children?

Because they're defending someone without honor.

Perhaps I'm slowly going nuts while reading Starship & Haiku by Somtow Sucharitkul or something but nobody likes being jerked around. Here in the west, honor seems to equal trust that now that's out the window lots and lots of people feel jerked around by George R.R. Martin and now they're treating him like crap.

That's what happens. Welcome to real life. I'm surprised you haven't noticed how it works before.

I realize that by defending him they're in essence defending themselves: they see something of themselves in Mr. Martin and they're afraid of what might ever happen if they're ever in his unenviable position. Still, it's sad to see them try because for the most part none of them really empathizes with the end user. "We know he sucks but look, this isn't the way to treat a person" would probably go a lot farther to defuse the situation than "Anyone who got personally invested in the characters is and idiot and anyone who thought that there is an implied agreement for an author to finish a series is doubly so."

So to all of the GRRM fans out there waiting for A Dance of Dragons: give up and leave the man alone. It's not going to happen and we need to move on and return to the authors that can still produce new works.

But at the same time to all of the writers out there considering defending GRRM without acknowledging that people feel screwed over for at least semi-legitimate reasons: don't. You can't empathize and therefore it's unlikely that you'll be able to make things better.

1111 Books

So, today I picked up a few books at a science fiction used book sale and after putting them in my incredibly geeky spreadsheet I discovered that I have one thousand, one hundred and eleven books. I'm not a numerologist, but it's still very pretty to look at so I decided to write a bit about it here.

If you want to know what books I have specifically, you can check them out over at library thing, which I've kept updated. However, it is missing a few text books and obscure books so the library thing count is only 1065.

Because of the obsessively anal way that I keep track of my books, I have a bit more statistics than even appear in my library thing profile. Especially since I don't use library thing to keep track of which books I've read or not.

Here are some random numbers that should be as boring as all get out to anyone else:

Of those 1111 books, I've read 575 or 52%. Some of those volumes contain more than one book, and if you count those, I've read 685.

732 of those books are paperback, 187 are trade paperback, and 146 are hardcover. 46 are textbook sized or larger. 30 are signed (13 are just signed, 13 are personalized, and 4 are personalized first edition hardcovers).

The best represented publisher is TOR/ORB with 144 books. In second place is Del Rey with 121. Third is a near tie between ACE (88) and Bantam (87).

444 of those books are fantasy and 519 are science fiction. Altogether my speculative/strange/sf/f collection is 989 books. Interestingly, while the ratio of fantasy to science fiction is around 77/90 I've read a lot more fantasy. The ratio of sci-fi to fantasy that I've actually read is around 41/73.

The average number of pages per book is 384, the median is 339. I've read 197,440 pages of fiction in my library and I have 166,443 to go. The total number of pages is 427,013. I would guess that the average words per book is around 86,479. That means I've probably read about 44, 424,000 words from the books I own.

My collection contains 168 Hugo Award nominees and 48 Hugo winners. It also contains 84 Nebula Award nominees and 34 Nebula winners. 15 have won both awards. I've read 31 of the Hugo winners and 19 of the Nebula winners (but as I mentioned, 15 of those have won both award). I've also read 40 of the Hugo nominees and 33 of the Nebula nominees.

I also track the Locus Award, John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, World Fantasy Award, James Tiptree Jr. Award, Gaylactic Spectrum Award, and Lambda Literary Award. Usually good books will collect more than one award, so of 1111 books, 307 have won or been nominated for one or more of these awards. Of those, I've read 104, or around 34%.

If you were me, you'd be wondering what the most honored book in my little library is. Well, that depends. If you just go counting awards and nominations then China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh is by far the top with six. It was nominated for the Hugo and Nebula, won the Locus for best first novel, the Tiptree and Lambda Litterary and garnered special recognition from the Gaylactic Spectrum folk.

If your a writer and you ever wonder if anyone has sold a novel through the slush pile, then be aware that during a Boskone panel, the editor of China Mountain Zhang pointed out that it was a slush pile submission. Also, if you've never read it and you like exceedingly intellectual science fiction, then I highly recommend it as one of the best novels that I've ever read.

You'll notice that it only was nominated for the Hugo and the Nebula though, so you're probably also wondering what the biggest winner is, then I have a way of weighting books as well. I give a point for a win and a half point for a nomination (actually, it's more complicated than that, but I don't feel like explaining right now). If looked at that way then Shadow & Claw, the first half of the Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe is ranked highest. This is a omnibus edition of Shadow of the Torturer and Claw of the Conciliator. Between these two books this volume has one Hugo nomination, one Nebula win and one nomination, one Campbell nomination, one WFA win and one nomination and it won the Locus for best fantasy novel.

Alright, so what's the most recognized single volume work? Including the gay sci-fi awards, that's still China Mountain Zhang. If you discount those though, it's a tie between Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke and Gateway by Fredrick Pohl both of which achieved the quad win: Hugo, Nebula, Locus and Campbell.

Here's a few other weird things that I know about my collection. 83% of it is in boxes right now because of my move out east. For every movie on VHS or DVD that I own, I own 18 (almost 19) books. Finally, if I read a book per week, it would take me more than 13 years to get to the number of books read that I have. Which is actually a little embarassing to me, considering that I've been reading novels a lot longer than that. It means that some weeks I've been slacking (or stuck on a particular book).

I have no idea why I so obsessively and compulsively keep track of my books. It's just this thing that I do, and sometimes it helps me keep track of things and sometimes it annoys the crap out of me (like just now, when I discovered that The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon did not win the Campbell and I had to go back and fix it and this post, grrrrr).

Save Realms of Fantasy

I don't read a lot of short fiction. I never subscribed to Asimov's or Analog or any of those magazines, but years ago I was in a Borders and found this magazine called "Realms of Fantasy." It was glossy, had amazing art and short stories that I liked.

I still have a few copies of it in my room. I know right where they are: in my main desk drawer in what, as a kid, I'd decided was a place of honor.

Realms of Fantasy is folding, and I hope it doesn't. So I'm blogging to save it, as the group "Save Realms of Fantasy" requests. If you've ever read it and liked it, I hope you'll join me.

The Facebook page for the group is here: Save Realms of Fantasy Magazine.

The LiveJournal group is here: Save Realms of Fantasy.

Good luck guys. And I haven't been doing my part: if you guys succeed, I promise to get a subscription to Realms of Fantasy.

Joanne Rowling Gives the Comencement At Harvard

Why is Harlan Ellison Consider to Be Great?

A long time ago, after a bit of exposure to Harlan Ellison's personality based on second hand accounts from people like the Penny-Arcade guys, the fans that he sued for passing around e-texts, and that video of him and Connie Willis floating around, I told myself I would never buy a Harlan Ellison book.

Let me revise that: I won't ever buy a Harlan Ellison book from any source from which Harlan will receive royalties.

So, at the paperback exchange a few months ago I picked up a ratty old copy of Deathbird Stories by Ellison. It went into my catch-all reading pile and a week or so ago it got picked to be read next.

Now, this was partially due to Harlan Ellison's staggeringly great reputation as one of the phenomenal science fiction and fantasy writers of his age. I mean, that's why he's tolerated in the community, right? He might be a prick, but he's also supposed to be a really brilliant writer.

I read the first story . . . and this guy has a lyrical tongue. Each sentence seems to be a complicated masterwork wrought from the finest ingredients. The tone and the timbre and the pure fluidity are at a level that I suspect that I will never reach.

After a few more stories though, I realize that while the language is brilliant, the stories themselves are deadening. They're mind numbing. They're twisted in the way that a Steven King novel is twisted, but at least Steven King has some mastery of that indefinite quality that allows people to empathize with what they're reading. King engrosses his readers, but Ellison just grosses me out.

The story "Bleeding Stones" was really the one that turned me from only uninterested to actually repulsed. The depictions of violence, apparently for no other reason than to revel in his perfect syntax while describing the motion of blood, disgusts me.

Take for example this passage:

A gargoyle has backed a dozen Jesus People and elegant Avenue shoppers into a doorway and jabs at them with bloody talons, taunting them till they howl with dismay. The gargoyle scrapes its talons across the stones of the building till sparks fly . . . and somehow catch fire as they shower the shrieking victims. The fire washes over them and they run screaming into the fangs and talons of the marauders. They die, smoldering, and pile up in the doorway.

From page 163 of Deathbird Stories, published by Collier Books in 1990. Used for purposes of criticism.

That language is exquisite, but the entire story is basically carefully crafted paragraphs mimicking the one above, repeatedly reciting the gory details. And I didn't even go anywhere near the paragraph where the nun is raped with a stop sign.

Why? Pollution. Who? Humans, especially Christians. And those questions are explained almost that simply in the story.

Why should I care? I don't. This is a Sci-Fi Channel movie of the week in book form, but at least the Sci-Fi Channel will usually give me an "everyman" character with whom I can attempt to empathize with.

At this point, I'm lingering, my hand on the cover but my interest disabused, wondering if it's worth it to continue. Is all of his like this? Should I have started with something else?

Is this what is supposed to make him great?

Right now, I have to say, the closest that I could come to describing this book is that it's exactly what I would expect from someone that's sold their soul to the devil: the language is perfect, but there is no soul and certainly nothing that makes me want to keep reading. Not that I believe in the Devil, but the metaphor is apt.

Update: Okay, I finished it. The only worthwhile story was the last one: The Deathbird. And I suspect that I might be biased toward it by the heavily anti-Christian themes in it.

One good story doesn't seem like a particularly hit to miss ratio.

Prequels

Don't get me wrong, The Hidden City, first book of the House War was amazingly brilliant, but I wish it hadn't been a prequel.

I want to know what happens next, and while the fleshing out of Rath was amazing, as well as really getting to know the creepy Duster and Carver, I shiver to know what happens next to Jay and her den.

Because I know who grows up and who dies. I know who is important later and who isn't.

And the final battle is coming. The epic moment toward which Evayne plays is slowly drawing near.

Still, this book doesn't annoy me nearly as much as "A New Spring" did. Or, at least it won't unless she dies before finishing the House War series.

That would be unendingly upsetting to me.

I have found that the next one is going to finish the Pre-badassness that is Jewel, and go on to the conclusion of the House War after that.

I'm totally looking forward to that.

Royal Blood

Two things that I've read recently coalesced in my head, and I'd like to talk about them for a moment.

More than a year ago I had a post called Divine Right of Kings about the term African-American, and how I use the term "black" instead because I think that former term "others" the person and also about the way that our plural culture gives me a plural background. The content of that post doesn't have much to do with what I was thinking about, but the title does.

While reading a thread on Whateveresque about the Iraq war, someone mentioned the massive amount of wealth that has poured into the middle east due to their oil reserves. He pointed out that people there should be living in relative ease, but they aren't. Only a few, the richest of the rich, the Sultans and Emirs, are living in palaces and driving Lamborghinis and Ferraris. They are essentially dictators that have made themselves immensely wealthy while holding their people in poverty.

He went on to say that this presents a problem for the dictators: If people are allowed to draw those conclusions about their poverty and oppression, they might be overthrown. Thus, they look for suitable targets for popular hatred. Currently, the target of much of that popular hate is the U.S., and this is encouraged by the dictators because it allows them to continue their super-rich lifestyles without interruption.

My mind began to wander, and I thought of something that many children dream of: discovering that they are really a prince or a princess and getting swept off to a castle to live in absolute luxury for the rest of their lives. That's the lifestyle that these sheiks are living, the dream of growing up in a palace with servants.

I don't believe that the blood of the Windsors in different than mine in any way. In point of fact, it's their name that makes them special. True, name and blood usually correlates, but it isn't an absolute correlation.

As books like S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire series have pointed out royal lines are usually based on an ancestor that does something heroic or takes charge and then the line is passed down from there.

Now, granted, I have a crush on William Windsor, but it's not because he's a prince. It's because he's wealthy, cultured, blond, tall, and fairly attractive. And British accents are sexy.

Those despots in the Mideast are no different than their subjects. They have no blood right to rule; no one does.

This sort of spoils the whole long lost prince/princess fairy tale which is so common. I understand why such a romantic notion is attractive to people, but to me it's worse than silly. It's propagating the idea that certain bloodlines have an inherent authority. The Divine Right of Kings, as it were.

I was just thinking to myself that I'd like to see a subversion of this popular fairytale, but the truth is that there already two examples out there. The first is Mark Twain's The Prince and Pauper, although at the end the prince resumes his rightful role and becomes the King of England. The second example is Tatja Grimm's World by Vernor Vinge, which I dislike for reasons other than Tatja's eventual rise to royal status.

Since Twain eventually plays the Trope straight and Tatja's rise is not at all fairytale-like, I'd still like to see a more conventional subversion where the glass shoe actually checks to make sure that the person is a competent leader before it allows them to slip their foot in.

After all, one of the things about America is that we're supposed to be about the best person to do a job (discounting the two recent disastrous presidencies of the cowboy-in-chief). From the European fairy tales what could be a more American adaptation than removing the necessity of blood from rule?

I might try to write such a subversion myself, but I suspect that I'm simply too dark of a writer to do a good job. I never feel happy at the end of my own stories, and I haven't figured out how to change that yet.

50 Most Influential Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels

Yeah, as I mentioned back in the 50 Recent Hugo nominations thread, there's another 50 list, so I might as well do that one too. Idea is still from Bruce B.

Bold are the ones I've read, strike-out are the ones I hated, italics indicates those I started but never finished and I put an asterisk beside the ones I loved.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin*
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke*
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett*
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card*
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman*
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling*
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams*
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin*
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny*
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven*
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson*
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner*
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

29 our of 50 on this one, not including the ones that I haven't finished, yet.

A Happy Valentine's Day

So, yesterday was a very long, very complicated day which demands a very long , very complicated post followed by a movie review. I think I'm going to divide it into blocks of time, just so that it's easier for me to manage my thoughts about it.

First, I woke up in Albuquerque at my brother's house at 6:30 a.m. and went to a mediation with my lawyers over the whole broken neck thing.

7:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Mediation: So, I learned something today that I didn't know. The woman that ran the red light and hit me (and broke my neck) is a former Buddhist nun. She's been having horrible problems since the accident because she was absolutely devastated by what she's done. She told me that she had nightmares and wasn't able to drive for about a year after the accident.

She asked to be able to speak with me alone, to apologize, and I agreed. She was crying, and told me how upset that she'd been about disrupting my life, and basically broke down. I couldn't think of anything to say at first, but I finally told her that she had to promise me that that she would work at forgiving herself. I said "everything is going to work out," but I'd slipped into lawyer mode and I just couldn't come up with something comforting that didn't sound like admitting fault.

I can't hate her anymore though. I just can't. She suffered too.

And then there was that conversation that we had, alone in that room. Heaven help me if I ever forget that conversation. It made everything that happened at IIDB feel like a win.

I brought four books. Over the seven hours that I was there I probably could have finished two of them, but I only finished off Ursula K. Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven. It's odd because that's a book that I really hadn't heard anyone talk about, but I think that it's definitely one of her best works. I did manage to start Charles Stross's The Atrocity Archives though, so I got some good horrors of the deep laughs from that.

And then, around 2:15, we finally settled. Yes, I covered my medical bills, and I'm glad it's over. Finally, finally, finally. I'm still worried that I made the wrong decision, even though my lawyers and my mother agree that it was the right one.

I didn't think it would be over, but it is.

Let me just point out how wrenching negotiating for this money was. I'm not a good negotiator, but the guy on the other side was just jerking us around. He was good, but the mediator wasn't really conveying what my lawyers wanted to convey from him. My lawyer was giving her cues about how to say x-y-z, but she was just ignoring him. The opposing (i.e. insurance) lawyer was jerking us around, and it probably would have been better for us if we'd allowed our numbers to do the talking instead of the mediator.

I think that the reason that I'm mostly worried/convinced that I made the wrong decision is because I feel that my side didn't negotiate well. When you're on the side that has the edge, you need to push the other side out of their comfort zone. They had one up card and one reserve card, and they played really conservatively, inch by inch, in a style that allowed them to walk away without a clear victory, but without the huge losses that the opposing lawyer was there to prevent.

Perhaps if I'd sent the mediator along with one of my shoes and instructions to hit it on the desk we would have done better.

Hindsight, you know? It'll kill you every time, and it was potentially enough money to change my life. I still hope that it will, even though it's a lot less that I think we could have played for.

2:30-5:00 Hanging out with Jeff and his roommate recovering and trying not to cry: His roommate is really cute, and he's good at Halo & Call of Duty 4 as well. He was totally beating down on both of those games. Yeah, I'm not much of a first person shooter person, but those games on the XBox 360 look amazing. During this time I recovered from some of the shock that I felt about finally having settled my case.

5:30-7:30 Dinner with Pam and Jeff at Flying Star: Pam drove down all the way from Colorado to come to Jumper, which is based on a book that Steven Gould, one of our instructors at Viable Paradise, wrote. I've been promoting the movie to almost everyone I meet, and I've been looking forward to it for a weeks.

The even more cool thing is that Steven lives in Albuquerque, so he was going to the opening night showing of the movie as well with a huge group of friends and acquaintances. To be able to say that you went to the movie with the guy that wrote the book is a fairly respectable bragging point, and both Pam and I jumped at the chance to represent at the premiere.

I knew that he and a slew of others were going to go to Tuscanos, a Brazilian restaurant, after the movie, but because of the Mediation I hadn't eaten anything of substance all day so I already knew that I wanted to eat prior to the movie. Thus, I ended up with a very good Cobb salad. Hooray.

Pam has kept in much closer contact with the other VPXI alumni, so it was nice to hear what's been going on. I thought that I missed a bit because I was sick, but there seemed to be a lot more that I had either forgotten or missed out on, and I have to wonder about the way my head works some times. Pam is basically the preeminent Anne McCaffrey fan in existence, which is something that I did not have the faintest clue about from Viable Paradise. I mean, I suspect that it was mentioned, but I had no idea of the awesome depths to which her fandom goes. By comparison, my deep commitment to some of my favorite authors is purely dabbling.

If I ever have a fan like her, I will know that I've made it.

7:30-9:00 Jumper: I liked it. I really honestly did, and that's not because I'm going to send Steve a link to the review blog when I post it.

9:00-11ish Dinner at Tuscanos: So, just before the movie started, I saw a gentleman with salt and pepper hair sitting down with his wife. I'm not very good with names and faces, and I'd already been confused once, so I decided that I very much needed to make sure that it was in fact S.M. Stirling that was sitting there in the theater. I went down to talk with Laura, sidled up to her, and in a near whisper I asked her if that was S.M. Stirling, and laughingly said "I've confused him with George R. R. Martin before."

She looked at me and said, "You don't know George?" Then she looked up about four rows from where we were standing and says "Hey George! This is Ben, he'll meet you later!"

I'm not religious, but the best description that my generation uses to describe how I felt at that moment was: O.M.G. In all of the mindless valley girl splendor that phrase implies.

Absolutely extreme fandom alert. My copy of A Game of Thrones was left in Iraq with the marines by my little brother and I haven't yet replaced it, preventing me from rereading the series recently, but it's still the fantasy series at the moment.

After the show, I was trying to figure out the logistics of the situation. Jeff, Nick, and er . . . Nick's girlfriend (darn it, I'm doing really badly with names today) had driven up with me, but I had decided that I was now massively interested in staying for dinner. They volunteered to go back to school by bus, thus allowing me to indulge in a little bit of serial fan worship of a few of my favorite authors. Thank you all so much. I freaking owe you.

Pam and I wandered into Tuscanos. Since both of us had anticipated eating early, neither of us had really anticipated eating after the movie as well, and we weren't part of the 60 person reservation that Steven made at the restaurant. We mutually decided that we should hang around and see if there were any seats left before diving in.

At around this time I was standing near a table where it looked like Laura and Steve might sit, and a woman is looking up at us. She stands up from her seat and starts making conversation with us. I don't remember what the conversation started out as, but my first thought was that she was probably Laura's mother.

Then she introduced herself as Joan . . . Saberhagen.

No offense to Mr. Martin or Mr. Stirling, but of the local New Mexico authors, Fred Saberhagen is probably my favorite. I've got an entire little section of my shelf that contains all eightvolumes of The Lost Swords, The Complete Book of Swords, An Armory of Swords (merely edited by him), Merlin's Bones, and the "Saberhagen: My Best" collection of short stories. And that doesn't even scratch the surface of what he's written. He is awesome.

My eyes just absolutely lit up for a moment, and I pumped Joan Saberhagen's hand, and I gushed for just long enough that it suddenly hit me that he'd recently died.

Darn it.

Darn it, darn it, darn it.

I offered my condolences, but it must be hard to be put in a position where your connection to someone is your recently deceased husband. I can't even imagine. She looked sad for a moment, but she must have the will of a saint because it was only in her face for the briefest second.

I think it was Joan and Steve himself that suggested to us that it was eventually time to get seats, and that we should go for the seats that we wanted, and I did. The table next to George R. R. Martin was partially empty, and so I drew on my reserve of "You already regret one thing that you've done today, just suck it up and remember that if you don't do this you'll regret it tomorrow" motivation and asked George if we could pull the tables together.

Thus, it came to be that I sat across the table from George R. R. Martin for dinner at Tuscanos. I should have offered to pay, and if I wasn't worried that my debit card would be declined if I tried, I would have.

Next to George sat Pam, and between us was a hilarious friend of Steve's named Gary. On my other side was Parris, a gentleman whose name I immediately lost, and a gentleman whose name I think was Hank.

I, of course, made a complete fool of myself, which I do not for a moment regret. It was blissfully, painfully, embarrassingly funny, and I got to tell my "Are you George R. R. Martin?" "No, he's S. M. Stirling" story to George himself. Yes, I may not have made another meaningful comment for the rest of the night, but that little itsy-bitsy anecdote was worth it.

You have to take pleasure in the small things.

It's odd, I tried to listen to the conversation shooting around across the table for the rest of the evening, but the one thing that really caught my attention was when George said that he had always loved the insanely complicated rescue plans, and that one day he'd have to set up a huge one where one person dresses as the king, another as a knight, and then they swing into the feast on a rope.

This being George R. R. Martin though, he pointed out that everything would have to go wrong. I pseudo-countered, pointing out that if he was the writer, the author would expect everything to go pear shaped. It seems so obvious now, and I wish I'd come up with the obvious conclusion to that line of reasoning: If it was in one of his books, in order to subvert the reader expectations the intricate, complex, and convoluted rescue plan would have to succeed from top to bottom, and then go completely wrong once they thought they were safe.

The guy sitting between Pam and me, Gary, is unbelievably funny though. He was the most interesting dinner companion. He works with GPS systems, although I swear that we made it through dinner without touching on that subject once. It wasn't until later that I found that out.

A note about Tuscano's itself: They have cute waiters. Really cute waiters. With those pale blue eyes and short hair, and everything. Oh, and I find their premise interesting. They've got a salad bar (and it was a good one), but then the waiters traipse around the restaurant carrying kebabs of meat. Bacon wrapped veal, tri-tip steak with various glazes, roasted chicken, spicy sausages, and everything else. If you want some, you get a bit. It wasn't phenomenal, but it was still on the good side. Pam's chocolate hockey puck thing was excellent, for example, and I couldn't get enough of their spicy sausage.

At some point around 11 p.m. I realized that I'd missed a call from my mother. She told me that due to weather I was to "Stay with my brother" and two sentences later "drive right home so that you don't get caught in the storm." As of the time of this writing, a day later, there still ain't no storm, and I don't think she ever managed to fully clarify which of those two orders she actually wanted me to follow.

11ish to 12:30 Champagne at Steve and Laura's: Now, you have to understand that I'm not much of a champagne person. It think it tastes bad, but I think that about nearly everything with alcohol in it, and it apparently was a really expensive bottle of champagne, so I had half a glass, and it was the best that I've ever had, which means that I got it down and I managed to make it stay down.

Upon arrival at Steve and Laura's (and I used to live in the same part of town, actually), I realized that they have more books than I do. Way more books. Way, way more books. I mean, wowsers. I wish I had shelves like that.

We sat around, talked for a while. I told my story about the neck, and for the first time it was a story that is in the past tense. It is something that happened to me and is not still happening to me. It was a really happy evening for me.

I got to see the office, which I now know is famous. I don't get it, I thought I knew the author's online domains, but I was quite wrong about this one. Steve has a blog, and it will be going up on the side bar when I get a chance to move things around. (Note: Ta-dah!)

I did get some pictures though, by the machinations and manipulations of those around me. Two of me, one with George and one with Pam and Steve, are visible at Pam's blog here. There's also one involving the chocolate hockey puck taken of Pam by me.

12:30-2:00 a.m. Driving home: Yes, I finally did drive home, stopping to get gas and use the restroom. It wasn't the drowsiest that I've ever been on the way home, but it isn't an experiment that I'd likely repeat soon.

I just remembered something that I'd forgotten, so I'll mention it here: I was carrying around my (second) copy of Jumper, and got Steve to autograph it. He wrote something really awesome in it: "To [ST], who will write others as good." Awwwwww . . .

And that was my Valentine's day.

Fiction: Temptation of the Antichrist

Another unedited short story, typed directly into the blog. Sometimes, I have too much time on my hands. This was cross posted at Left Behind (see here) because the theme of it came up during a discussion.

Nicky was sitting comfortably at his kitchen table when his refrigerator burst into flame.

He paused, the orange juice almost to his lips, and looked at it. The ugly white enamel was blackening slowly and the rubber seals were dripping down onto the floor.

"NICHOLAS MOUNTAIN, I AM THE GOD OF THE PATRIARCHS, OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC AND JACO--."

"Aw, come on," Nicky said, interrupting the booming voice. "Could you not ruin my fridge?"

"WHAT?"

"My fridge. Jeez, I'll bet you're destroying everything in there too, aren't you?"

"ERRRRRRR . . ."

"Look, could you maybe stop with the fire?"

"THE FIRE IS A NECESSARY SIGN OF--."

"I believe you. You're the God of the Patriarchs, just put the fire out please."

The fire went out abruptly. Nicky stood up, leaving his breakfast at the table, and inspected the damage. Aside from the absolutely ruined refrigerator the paint on the wall and the ceiling was charred black and the cabinets to the side were singed. The cabinets didn't look like they needed to be replaced but the entire kitchen would have to be repainted.

He sat down again and looked around. "Hello?" he said to the otherwise empty kitchen.

"I'M HERE." Something iridescent and glowing rose out of the yellowing linoleum floor, scintillating and throwing brilliant rainbows of light around the poorly lit room.

Nicky winced, and the angel obligingly toned down the light display. "You know, 'burning fridge' doesn't have nearly the same narrative impact as 'burning bush,'" he told his guest.

"YOU LIVE IN NEW YORK," the holy seemed to shout. "I WAS LOOKING FOR AN OPPORTUNITY IN CENTRAL PARK BUT YOU'VE CHANGED YOUR RUNNING PATTERNS SINCE LAST YEAR. BESIDES, YOU'RE ALMOST NEVER ALONE OUTSIDE."

"Yeah, I suppose that's true. Are you here to tell me to go running in the park more often?"

"NO." The angel did something that came across to Nicky as clearing its throat. "You know, you don't seem all that surprised by my presence here."

"I've seen Dogma," Nicky pointed out. "Besides, this is New York and it's just before seven. If you want me to be surprised come back after nine and we'll try to work something out. What happened to your voice?"

"It wasn't worth the effort required to maintain the effect," the angel said. "How'd you like it?"

"Your voice?"

"No, the movie. Dogma."

"It was okay, I suppose. The ending was a little trite."

"I can see that," the angel said. "Deus Ex Machina and all. Do you mind if I sit?"

Nicky gestured to the chair and the being of pure light pulled it back and sat. "I'm here to inform you that you're the Antichrist," he told Nicky after he'd made himself comfortable.

"Pardon?"

"You're the Antichrist."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Nicky carefully scraped together some of the slightly runny scrambled eggs and took a bite. He chewed slowly and finally swallowed.

"Shouldn't a demon be telling me this?"

"Why would they care?"

"Er . . . cause the Antichrist is supposed to be one of the bad guys?"

"Not really. The position is more about getting the job done. Besides, demons are unreliable messengers."

"And that job is?"

"Destroying the world, of course," said the angel, sounding surprised. "You know, as foretold in John's Revelation and all that. I was told that you'd read Left Behind."

"Only the first book, and I hated it. Come on, it was mindless drivel."

The angel shrugged. "I can't argue with that."

"This is about my internship at the U.N., isn't it?"

"Think of it, 'Nickolas Mountain, youngest Secretary General in history!' I'm sure that the girls would love it."

"It's just an internship!"

"But it could be so much more. I know that you've dreamed of being the Secretary General."

Nicky paused. "I've also dreamed of being U.S. president," he finally pointed out. "Or getting lucky with Jessica Biel."

"Dominionship over the Earth has its perks," the angel responded. "We could probably work something out."

"All leading to the end of the world."

"Yup."

"When would that be?"

The angel pulled a glittering golden pocket watch out from somewhere. "One thousand and fourteen years, six months, and a few days," he announced.

"That includes the millennial reign of Christ?"

"Yup."

"I don't think so."

"The future's written, kid. I could cite the passages easy. What's got to happen has got to--."

"No, I meant I don't think I want the position."

The angel sat there, glowing over everything, and Nicky took another bite of his eggs.

"I'm offering fame, power, and unlimited unlimited wealth for seven entire years, Nickolas," the angel said.

"It's Nicky, and I'm not interested."

"I can see your heart, you know," the angel said abruptly. "I can see that you're tempted. Imagine all of that money and power. Seven blissful years of unlimited power before handing it over to the next guy. Think of the cars, the parties, the attractive women!"

"Yeah, I get it," said Nicky dismissively. "Except there's that whole part about the world ending. The power and the wealth is all nice and good, but I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I took all those people's lives away from them."

The angel seemed to shake its head, although Nicky couldn't tell for sure because the glow had surged back to full brightness. He looked down at the table and continued to munch on his food.

"You know the problem with this job?" the angel said and then continued before Nicky could swallow and speak. "You're all the same. Smart, driven, and absolutely opposed to the world ending. Do you have any idea how many times I've been turned down now? It must be in the mid twenties, at the very least."

"You mean for the Antichrist position?" asked Nicky.

"Yeah," the angel said. "Sometimes I could swear that Satan is screwing around with this whole process. Anytime someone meets the qualifications . . .," the angel must have seen the curiosity on Nicky's face or "in his heart" because he elaborated, ". . . charismatic, speaks a few languages fluently, intelligent, works at the U.N., born in Turkey, non-Christian . . .," Nicky nodded and he continued, ". . . you always turn down unlimited power and wealth. None of you are driven."

"Not at the expense of others," Nicky said. "Maybe in a few years you can try me again."

"It's a one time offer," the angel said. "There's a time line associated with it, and every time someone declines we have to put everything on hold again. You've already turned it down, you can't be offered it again."

"That's sort of a silly rule."

"I'll say," the angel said bitterly. "But the Big Guy's all about personal choice."

"I thought you said you are God."

"Technically I'm the Voice of God. You know how it goes, Dogma and all that. . . ." he waved a glowing hand dismissively and trailed off.

"So God really exists?" Nicky said. "I don't suppose you'd clue me in which denomination . . ."

"Mormonism," the angel said without hesitation, and then he chuckled. "No, sorry, that's just an angel joke. The correct answer's really Quaker, or anything similar. Imagine the irony that Nixon's in heaven."

"Er . . . okay."

"It'd be so much easier if I could just . . . you know, order you to be the Antichrist," the angel said wistfully.

"Hey, I'm sure that someday someone will say yes."

"Twenty some times, and he says that someday someone will say yes. . . ." The angel grumbled something about the power of heaven, and then fell silent.

Nicky finally ended the uncomfortable quiet. "I don't suppose you want some bacon or something?"

"No," the angel said miserably. "I should be going." He paused. "Are you sure you don't want to be the Antichrist?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Nicky said. "I thought you said it could only be offered once."

"It was worth a try," the angel said. "Maybe since I haven't left yet they wouldn't have noticed."

"Well," Nicky said as the angel stood. "Good luck on finding someone."

"That's what they ALL SAY," the angel said, ending with his voice once again like thunder. "ANYWAY, HAVE A GOOD DAY. HAVE FUN AT YOUR NEW JOB."

There was a flicker, and the being of light disappeared, backing through the far wall toward Mr. Stephen's apartment.

Nicky finished his bacon, put the plate in the sink, and examined the refrigerator again. The melting rubber had congealed on the floor. He'd probably have to pry the linoleum up and replace it before he ordered a new fridge.

Right now though he needed to catch the train into midtown for work, so he'd have to start calling around after five.

He sighed and wondered if as the Antichrist he would have been able to get a discount on fridges from Sears.

Hugo Award Nominated Novels that I've Read

So, based on this list of the 50 most significant science fiction and fantasy books of the last 50 years, I was thinking about doing the same thing for the 50 or so Hugo and Nebula award nominated novels. I figure I'll start with the Hugo Award nominees and then create a list of the Nebula's. That way, the next time I stop by my local second hand book store I'll have a typewritten list of the books that I should read, but haven't yet.

For the Hugo nominees, 50 novels is around 10 years worth of nominees, from 2007 back to 1998, but due to 2002's six nominations, that didn't come out evenly to 50, so I included 51. That includes all of the works nominated from 2007 through 1998. Information on nominated books is based on information from Wikipedia's page on Hugo Award nominations.

Bold indicates books that I've read, asterisks indicate books that I really liked, and italics indicate books that I started and never finished. Pluses indicate the Hugo Award winners.

1. Rainbows End*+ by Vernor Vinge
2. Eifelheim by Michael Flynn
3. His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik
4. Glasshouse by Charles Stross
5. Blindsight by Peter Watts
6. Spin+ by Robert Charles Wilson
   
7. Learning the World by Ken MacLeod
8. A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin
9. Old Man's War* by John Scalzi
10. Accelerando by Charles Stross
11. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell+ by Susanna Clarke
12. The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks
13. Iron Council by China Miéville
14. Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross
15. River of Gods by Ian McDonald
16. Paladin of Souls+ by Lois McMaster Bujold
17. Humans by Robert J. Sawyer
18. Ilium by Dan Simmons
19. Singularity Sky by Charles Stross
20. Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson
21. Hominids+ by Robert J. Sawyer
22. Kiln People by David Brin
23. The Scar by China Miéville
24. The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
25. Bones of the Earth by Michael Swanwick
26. American Gods+ by Neil Gaiman
27. The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
28. Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
29. Cosmonaut Keep by Ken MacLeod
30. Passage by Connie Willis
31. The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson
32. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire*+ by J.K. Rowling
33. Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson
34. The Sky Road by Ken MacLeod
35. A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin
36. Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer
37. A Deepness in the Sky*+ by Vernor Vinge
38. Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear
39. A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold
40. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban* by J.K. Rowling
41. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
42. To Say Nothing of the Dog+ by Connie Willis
43. Children of God by Mary Doria Russell
44. Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson
45. Distraction by Bruce Sterling
46. Factoring Humanity by Robert J. Sawyer
47. Forever Peace+ by Joe Haldeman
48. Frameshift by Robert J. Sawyer
49. The Rise of Endymion* by Dan Simmons
50. Jack Faust by Michael Swanwick
51. City on Fire by Walter Jon Williams
    

So, what does this list indicate to me? It indicated that I need to read books by China Miéville, Charles Stross, and Robert Charles Wilson, first off. Second, it means that I have a lot of reading to do before this list becomes respectable enough to even post publicly.

Idea via Bruce B. and his list here. I have no idea why it isn't viewable.

All Sorts of Media Disappointments

So, I went to see the Golden Compass last night, and was disappointed by the cliff hanger ending. The book ends in a much more natural place, and the final twist is important to the resolution of the plot. It wasn't complete without it. Imagine if The Two Towers had ended before the end of the battle of Helm's Deep. That's how I felt about the Golden Compass, and I was prepared to let a lot slide on the basis that I'll support atheist writers when they succeed.

Speaking of things that ended too early, Brian Sanderson has been chosen to finish the Wheel of Time series that was left incomplete by Robert Jordan/James Rigney when he died. The only exposure that I've had to Sanderson is his book called Elantris and it failed to wow me. Granted, it was certainly okay, but it wasn't anything like what Jordan made me feel.

Tin Man was also just okay, which was unfortunate, considering that the second part was pretty good and got me interested but then the third part just dragged it down into a death spiral of epic proportions. What a phenomenally boring ending . . .

Also, I want to rewrite the third Matrix movie. Too bad I can't hire the same actors and film my version, and then put it up to a vote to see which version is better. Sort of like The Phantom Edit. Here's a hint about my version: All of the humans turn against Neo near the end.

On the plus side, Cory Doctorow's Little Brother is available for pre-order now, so I've gone back and updated that blog entry with a link (Teen novel, WTF?) and added a link to a blog post that appeared in the NYTimes that I think is relevant. I also just got one of his books via Amazon, so I'll read that this weekend.

Changes

I'm home from Viable Paradise. It was a lovely time, although I wish I'd stayed a little longer on the island. I woke up late my last day because I thought I was staying an extra night, and so I never did get around to swimming in the ocean.

I think I got a lot of good advice. Not only on Colony, the short story that I submitted, but on my book as well.

One of the best parts of the conference though was meeting the staff and listening to their stories. I "studied up" by reading a few volumes of "The Year's Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy" edited by a few different editors. I'm not exceedingly well read in Spec Fiction, but I definitely try, and I recognized more names than I thought I would.

It helps that a lot of the craziest stories were about Steve Brust, who I've found out is not only one of today's legendary genre writers, but a really awesome and crazy guy.

A few of my reactions to the instructors:

TNH: Hilarious. And super nice. And I'm her slave. She knows why. I worship at your awesome feet.

PNH: Someone told me not to be taken aback by Patrick, and not to think that he didn't like me if he was quiet. I didn't find him off-putting at all, he was always very nice to me. He's got this really interesting accent, a drawl of some kind. I've been thinking about it, but I haven't yet figured out where it comes from.

Laura Mixon: I need to read your book, but I also think that your storytron project looks very interesting, and I can't wait to see what comes out of it.

Steve Gould: Only a few days after the conference, and I have now read everything that he's written. Reflex is so good that I want more. The movie based on Jumper also looks good (although he says that they've changed the premise of the movie so completely that it's a completely different work).

Cory Doctrow: Okay, okay, I'd never heard of him before VP. Here's a funny story though. Traveling back through New York City, I went out to a party at a bar in downtown Manhattan with some friends. I just so happened to run into a gay geek at this party, and his name helped me get his phone number. Awesomeness. And he had a British accent. More awesomeness. I am in debt to him for the geek cred that your presence at VP has gifted me with.

James McDonald & Debra Doyle: The two of them have some of the most interesting writing anecdotes that I've ever heard. I could listen to them talk for hours.

Elizabeth Bear: What to say about Bear? She's got so much energy that it's hard to understand how it's contained in just one human figure. I have the feeling that if I poked her with a pin she would explode with creativity, leaving little bits of characterization and plot all over the walls. That description doesn't even do her justice because despite her geekiness I think she was one of the coolest people at the conference.

The only problem that I had with the conference is that I was sick for most of it. When you're only getting five hours of sleep every night, it's nearly impossible to get over a cold.

One of the highlights of the conference for me was the reading of Shakespeare's Richard III (I was Edward IV and the Duchess of York, incidentally). I'm trying to post some YouTube videos of the end (I'm not in it, unfortunately), but I'm having some trouble. If I get them up, I'll add a link here. (Note: February 08 and the video's still aren't up. I tried, and tried, and failed.)

I return home, and what's waiting for me in my inbox? An invitation to join the IIDB Administrative staff. I accepted, of course, and spent two days trying to get caught up on the new workload, and it's immense. The changes between being a moderator and being an administrator are significant. I still think they should divide up some of the responsibilities so that no one person has to cover quite so much terrain.

Still, this is a position that I've been working toward for a long time, and I'm very much excited by it. Hopefully I can make a positive difference to the site.

Incidentally, in his "How to blog" lecture, Cory mentioned that you should give blog posts more descriptive names, so I'm considering being more expressive about my post titles. No more one word titles . . . er, after this post, that is.