Assorted Awesomeness

/ 7 Comments / Appearances, Fan Fun, Interview / By

Sorry for the silence lately; holidays, travel, the usual. Back now and getting into the swing of things again, so here’s a little of what I’ve been up to: The folks at Open Road Media have created a series of advertisements for Octavia Butler’s novels, which are being released in ebook form at last now that it’s the 25th anniversary of Dawn — not her first novel, but arguably her first hit. (If you haven’t read the Lilith’s Brood books, read them. They’re my favorites of hers.) The first one came out a few months ago, showcasing Butler’s agent, some

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Predators, the GOP, and you

/ 25 Comments / Controversies, The Mysterious Glowing Box, WTF World? / By

People sick of American politics and American media, you might want to look away from this one. Or not. Also, I reserve the right to use copious profanity throughout this post… because it involves American politics and media. For various reasons on Sunday night — mostly having to do with the fact that I can’t beat that one hidden boss in the Dragon Age 2: Legacy DLC wtf why doesn’t Anders heal faster he’s so damn useless and seriously why is Sebastian even in this game — I found myself watching Predators (2010) on TV. I’d been vaguely interested in

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More Awesome Compilations I’m In

/ 4 Comments / Pimping, Shorts / By

I’ve been remiss in not talking about this one here, but I have to admit I’m a little disorganized and frankly I just forgot about it — until editor and anthologist extraordinaire John Joseph Adams reminded the world that this baby is out now: EPIC, the ultimate anthology of short-form epic fantasy, from some of the biggest names in the genre and also newbies like li’l ol’ me. Here’s the Table of Contents. Yeah, just bask in that for awhile. Then if you’re interested, it’s shipping already from Amazon and B&N in the US, and I suspect other retailers will

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YAY Dystopia!

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Whenever I see the phrase “YA dystopian”, it scans as “Yay! Dystopia!” in my head. I say this because I am perhaps not the best person to write dystopian stories. For one thing, I’m generally a cheery soul. For another, I don’t really believe in most of what SFF posits as dystopia. All societies have good and bad aspects, and any society that proves stable for the long term is one that works for the majority of its people, however horrific it might seem to outsiders. One person’s nightmare is another person’s Tuesday. That’s the thing, though; most dystopian fiction

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Wealthy is she who has such friends

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So I had a little shindig this weekend: I don’t usually celebrate my birthday on my actual birthday. That’s ’cause I work in education and September is to us as April is to accountants — an extended fugue-state of overwork and chaos that can only be endured, never eliminated. (And that’s why I haven’t updated the blog much lately; sorry.) This year, tho’, was many things: my 40th birthday, my 5th year in NYC, etc. I’d been hoping to take advantage of the beauty of a New York autumn and have a rooftop party. So I asked my friends Ellen

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Shameless Begging for Presents

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My birthday is in one week. I’ll be turning the big 4-0, and yeah if you’re wondering I’m having a party; if you’re a friend of mine and in NYC you’ll get the invite soon. (Dayjob madness means I never celebrate the big day on the big day; it’ll be closer to the end of the month or early October.) But in addition to a party, I’m doing something else to celebrate: I’m gettin’ a tattoo. I mean, most people have their midlife crisis at this age, right? I got mine out of the way at 30, when I looked

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Forthcoming Stuff

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Apologies for the relative silence on the subject of writing lately, folks. I’m still hard at work on book 1 of the new trilogy I’m writing for Orbit, which as yet still has no real name other than “Untitled Magic Seismology Project”. It’s going slow, as all my new worlds are wont to do when I’m first creating them, but steadily — I’m at 25K words now. Hampered by the dayjob a bit, since it’s the beginning of the school year and I am working ALL THE HOURS, but there’s always the weekends. More on this much, much later. Review

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Things People Need to Understand, issue 223.2

/ 74 Comments / Rantage / By

For the past few days I’ve been engaged in a series of conversations on Twitter and Facebook about SFF fandom and its safety/egalitarianism — or lack thereof. I’ll just share some of what I’ve already said there, here: Some bits of a conversation on Twitter that started with me generally ranting about how unsafe I feel at Worldcon and progressed to an argument with someone who said s/he spoke for the SMOFs (“secret masters of fandom”, i.e. convention organizers). I basically pointed out that if fandom wants to change, the resources to assist with doing so have been around for

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Flipping the scrip: Can we? Should we?

/ 34 Comments / Controversies, On Writing / By

So since last week’s debacle, a lot of people have asked me whether it’s even possible to write a discrimination reversal that isn’t chock full o’ bigotry. Not really sure why they’re asking me; it’s not like I’m some kind of expert on the matter. But they are, so what the hell, I’ll share what I think. I think a workable discrimiflip is possible. Hell, I may have done one, depending on how you look at it — in the Dreamblood books, Gujaareh and Kisua are societies whose darkest-skinned denizens hold the greatest power and prestige, while people who are

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