Randomness for 1/12

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1) Two Gentlemen of Lebowski (I realize this has been going around, but I collect these links over time, so just assume I found it first, even if I posted it last, okay?)

2) Readers send emails to writers. Heh. My recommendation: never email a grammar question to me. I’ll just copy and paste into Word and look for a green underline. Then I’ll replay with just a blank message, so you’ll think there’s something wrong with my email client.

For the record, I’ve gotten more than a few emails from readers, and they’ve been wonderful. Thank you. Someday I’ll get a snarky or nasty one, and I promise to post it on the blog, just as I include the slam reviews in my review round-up.

3) All of Great Britain cries out: “Atlantic Gulf Stream, come home! We miss you!”

4) Biosphere 2, falling into ruin. Amazing images. via James Nicoll

5) Early notes on the origin of Superman. If you’re like me, you find Jerry Siegel’s early ideas for the character fascinating. It’s so different from what it eventually became, even if he kept the “Man of Tomorrow” moniker.

6) How long will it last? Forget about Peak Oil. We appear to have reached Peak Indium already. Like the guy I snagged this from, I curious how accurate it is. It’s a bit scary, though. via mightygodking

7) How to be a class act.

Polish Progress

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I’m on page 156 of Man Bites World. In two hours, I’ll be putting my son in the bathtub. Let’s see how far I get.

Added later: Page 207! For me, that’s pretty good.

Living inside a movie

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Tor.com guest blogger Don T. Careallthatmuch writes a ridiculous post suggesting that Pandora, the fictional planet that serves as a setting for the movie AVATAR is where people were meant to live.

Fun quote: “Isn’t this how we were meant to live, and might live again? Hunting the forest, leaping through the canopy, killing beasts, taming others, enacting meaningful rituals? It’s the same dream offered by Tolkien’s Middle-earth—to be peaceful, nature-bonded hobbits, quietly growing crops, smoking pipes, drinking ale and laughing. An alluring fantasy life to be sure. And one perhaps worth fighting for.”

Don left out “crapping in holes” but whatever. This reminds me of something I heard Spider Robinson say at the late, lamented NW Bookfest some years ago (I paraphrase from memory, of course). He said that he reads science fiction because he wants to read about societies of the future, advanced societies where he can imagine living. Fantasy readers, he assumed, were doing the same thing–which made them fools. The typical human in a pre-industrial Europe worked incredibly hard and was incredibly uncomfortable; he’d tried to live a self-sustaining farmer’s life, and it was a nightmare. Fantasy readers, he concluded, were idiots.

Never mind that many, many people do not read books because they’re daydreaming about living in the setting. Sure, I might imagine how cool it would be to fight like Aragorn, kicking monster ass and getting to be king at the end, but that doesn’t mean I’d walk through a portal marked “Middle Earth: Entrance Only.”

I think something that throws people about this is that these action movies are taking place in a wacky setting. If I read a crime novel, does that mean I want to have a knife fight with a junkie in an alley? Hell no. Do I want to drive an souped-up car across a post-apocalyptic Australian wasteland? No and no again.

I enjoy the hell out of those sorts of stories, though. I may imagine myself standing alone on a bridge as the goblin warriors rush at me, or piloting a spaceship through a firefight, or confronting a vampire in it’s lair, but that’s part of enjoying an adventure story.

But to actually go there and do that? For real? Pass. And I think most sane people would agree.

At this point, let me tell you about a very good, very old friend of mine. At one point, he told me he was going to join the FBI. This was something of a surprise, because this was a guy who’d given up the chance to run his own martial arts school to pursue acting. He’d owned a bicycle repair business, repaired rental hardware for Lowe’s, produced documentaries and DVD extras, built movie sets, etc. But wear a suit and investigate people for the federal government? Where did that come from.

“The X-Files,” he said. Now, he knew it was a little ridiculous as he said it. He knew he couldn’t join the FBI to hunt aliens, but he’d enjoyed that show so damn much that he wanted to jump into it. (He cancelled his application midway through because he knew it was laughable, but still). There are scientists who were inspired by Star Trek, martial arts students who studied wu shu because of Jackie Chan, fencing students inspired by The Three Musketeers, kendo students inspired by Toshiro Mifune.

Yeah, there are people who love a story enough to try to make it part of their lives. But to give up everything and rush off to neverland? I look forward to Don’s future posts from the jungles of the Amazon. As for me, I’d consider it if it was an honest-to-god utopia and I could bring my wife and son. But probably not. I don’t hate my life that much, and I don’t want to crap in a hole.

Dammit

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Page 141. And to make things worse, I’m sure I’ve pissed off my wife by working later than I said I would. I’ll have to go home and see.

Why is it that every time I actually keep track of my work progress, I’m disgusted by the result?

“Lurking with intent”

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I’m on page 123. Check that against the timestamp from my previous post to see how slow I am.

In my defense (you knew I’d make excuses, yeah?) I happened to hit one of the delicate parts of the book. Certain scenes with elevated action–very powerful emotions, very intense magic, monsters, whatever–require extremely careful handling or they turn maudlin or ridiculous.

I’m not finished for the day, though. I’m going to take my computer across the street to the diner and work through lunch, then it’ll be time to work at the library.

There *is* something I’d meant to mention in my previous post that I completely forgot: One nice thing about the Game of Cages cover art (I’m not shameless enough to link to it again, don’t worry) is that you can see the guy, and he isn’t standing at the shadowy entrance to an alley or something.

For a lot of years, urban fantasy with male protagonists have been these “lurking with intent” covers, where the protagonist looks like a guy you’d circle the block to avoid. Does he have nothing better to do than stand around in the dark? Get that guy a job or a hobby or something.

Anyway, it’s nice to see Ray standing in the light, with no hint of skulking about him.

Now: food! And more revisions.

I’m supposed to be working

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So of course I’m typing this instead. Here’s my life in convenient bullet-list form, which is how I experience it myself.

* I uploaded a larger jpg of the Game of Cages cover, so anyone who missed it the first time or thought it was too dark or small can really see it now. It’s practically actual size.

* I just put the signed contracts for Russian language editions of CoF and GoC in the mail. Yay! Last night I took a deep breath and sat down to read through them, only to discover they were a civilized two pages long, with one column in Russian and one in English. Easy-peazy.

* As evidence that I am still not caught up on my sleep, I just used the phrase “easy-peazy” for the first time in my life. No, I have not been transformed into an adorable urchin in a 1950’s sitcom. I’m just feeling odd and out of sorts.

* Yesterday I got back on the “read faster” bandwagon with my current library book. As I mentioned before, I read more slowly than any novelist I’ve ever heard of, and at this point it’s a real hindrance on my productivity. The polish of Man Bites World I’ve been working would have been finished long ago if I were someone else; as it is, I’m on page 115 of 381. After I finish this post and one or two other online duties, I’ll post how far I’ve gotten at the end of my work day. Shame is a great motivator.

* If anyone is curious about the book I’m reading, it’s Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, And Why by Laurence Gonzales. It’s a bit of a narrative wander, but the subject is fascinating. So far, I recommend it highly, especially if you’re interested in why people seem to do exactly the wrong thing in stressful situations.

* Someone on Justine Larbaletier’s blog recommended Mac Freedom, a free software download that turns off a Mac’s wireless for any length of time the user wants. My eyes bugged out of my head, because this was the thing I’d always wanted without knowing it. I headed to download.com to read their review of it first, and was startled to see the review say it was a silly program because a Mac’s wireless capability was trivially easy to turn off already.

It took me a moment to realize they meant clicking the little fan in the upper toolbar. Yeah, it’s trivially easy to turn off, but it’s also easy to turn back on when I’m stuck or frustrated. Do they expect me to have some sort of self-control? I’m not made of stone, people!

Okay. More coffee, then on to page 116.

GoC Cover Art!

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One of my LiveJournal commenters (thanks, geniusofevil!) mentioned that the cover art for Game of Cages is on the Amazon.com site, which I’m taking as explicit permission to post the art here:

Whoo-hoo!

Game of Cages

Mysterious house? Check. Red lightning? Check. Windbreaker and t-shirt in the dead of winter? Check. A facial expression that suggests someone needs some killin’? Check-check!

And, because this image is a little small, the text under my name says: “Author of Child of Fire, a Publishers Weekly best book of the year”

Thank you, generous PW peoples!

Side notes: the polish of Man Bites World continues–actually, it’s picking up pace as certain distracting domestic sleep issues have been resolving. Also, I received the contract for the Russian sale yesterday. I’ll read through them tonight and mail them back tomorrow. Then, more money!

I’ll call this a good day (so far).

UPDATE: I uploaded a larger image so it’s easier to see.

My editor writes a post

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Betsy Mitchell, editor-in-chief at Del Rey, tallies up the reasons she rejected novels last year. It’s pretty interesting if you’re a writer-type. Be sure to read the comments, too; Betsy addresses several questions specifically.

Everyone Wants to Go to Heaven, But Nobody Wants to Die

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Jim Hines talks about killing characters in books, especially beloved characters and protagonists. You can see the discussion on his main website or follow a much larger conversation (by a factor of ten or more) on his LiveJournal.

I posted a comment there (my LJ handle is burger_eater, for those not reading this post there) but wanted to expand a little: When it comes to killing characters in violent stories–and many fantasies rely on fighting for their conflict–there’s a wide spectrum between the slasher flicks at one end (where everyone dies) and the A-Team (where a whole armory-worth of bullets are fired but no one is ever hit).

Where readers fall on or within those extremes depends on the type of book they’re reading, their mood at the moment, or whether the wind is southerly. That’s natural. But I was astonished by the number of people who said they felt “betrayed” by the death of a major character.

Personal (and spoiler-free) story: When [Major Character] was killed in the first book of A Song Of Ice And Fire, I was startled and grateful. It was a real Joe Bob Briggs moment*, thank you muchly, and it showed me just how much danger these characters were in.

Contrast that with the end of that Tad Williams tree-killer epic, where ten or twelve characters rush into a headlong fight with Big Evil but only one minor character loses his life.

If the reader is ready for it–if they’re willing to go along–it’s powerful and fun. If the reader is not ready for it, either because a book has too much killing or not enough, they feel manipulated.

Of course, no one story will satisfy everyone, but I sure would like to work out the fat spot on the bell curve.

* Joe Bob Briggs number one rule for a great horror movie: “Anybody can die at any moment.”

Added to the list of things I don’t need

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I don’t need my morning coffee to provide dietary fiber. Stupid broken filter.