Musings

Remember how I said I don’t read reviews. I don’t seek out reviews. I don’t set up my computer to look for any mention of my book title, etc. etc. Well, there is a review that I had to read, because there is a funny story associated with it. Way back during the football season George R.R. and Patrick of Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist had a bet concerning the Giants and the Cowboys. Well, George won, and to pay up Patrick had to review two books of George’s choosing. One of the books was mine. I admit, I stressed out horribly wondering hot Edge would be received. Well, now I know, and I’m humbled and digging my toe into the carpet by the review.

You can read the review at www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/2008/04/edge-of-reason.html I recommend this site as a way to get some guidance on new books coming out, and books you might want to pick up and read. With so many titles being published, and the cost of books, it’s great to have a resource like the Fantasy Hotlist.

It’s been a fun couple of weeks for me because I actually got to read something that wasn’t my own sh**, I mean _work_, or submissions for Critical Mass. I have two books to recommend. The first is The Sharing Knife: Beguilement by Lois McMaster Bujold. I enjoyed the book, but I also was really intrigued by the structure of the book, and how in the Hell she made it work. All the action is front loaded and almost the entire second half is about these two people trying to get married. Yes, I’m serious. They are from different classes, and backgrounds with a large age gap between them, and somehow she makes this fascinating. If anybody else has read this book, please, weigh in because I can’t figure it out. It’s a given she’s a good writer on a line by line bases, and she has always created great characters — witness Miles. Perhaps men wouldn’t find this at all interesting, and this book might breakdown on gender lines.

The second book I just finished last night. Actually early this morning. Damn you John Scalzi! I sat up to finish The Ghost Brigades until 2:00 am. This is a sequel to Old Man’s War, and again the author made an interesting choice. I knew that he was setting up something with John Perry and Jane Sagan, but he didn’t use either of the characters as the direct protagonist in Ghost Brigades. Instead he created a brand new character to interact with Jane. Jared Dirac was a terrific character and I’d so date him. I liked the character so much that I stayed up way past my bedtime to see what happened to him.

I’ve really enjoyed Scalzi’s books because I’m a huge fan of early Heinlein, particularly the juveniles, and the only two people doing Heinleinesque fiction right now are Scalzi and John Varley with the Red Thunder books. If folks have other people they can mention who fall into that category, I’d love to hear them.

My wonderful and amazing publicist at Tor, Dot Lin, emailed me a review. Since it was in the body of the email I couldn’t avoid reading it, and I’m glad I did. I got a rave review from Romantic Times, and I’m really pleased. Now, why, I hear you ask would an S.F./Fantasy writer be glad for a good review from the Romantic Times?

First, the romance reading population is huge and they buy a lot of books. Second, it showed that sometimes treating this very much as a business can pay off. (Or at least I hope it will pay off.) When I sat down to write this book I was inspired by my frustration of a country that’s still arguing about whether to teach the science of evolution or the fairy tale of creationism. But once I’d made the decision to tell this story, I wanted to give the book every chance to succeed so I took into account a number of factors.

George R.R. had told me that a significant percentage of all books are purchased by women — I don’t remember the exact number but it was like 60 or 70 percent. I next began to think about what made certain characters just resonate for women — characters like Spock, or Data or Angel. I realized that what attracts us are suffering males who offer a challenge, and the secret sense that “I will be the woman who can comfort him.” Finally, I read a few of Diana Gabaldon’s time travel/romance books. I know when she sent in her first book she thought she was going to be a S.F./Fantasy writer. Instead she became an enormously successful romance author.

So, armed with all of this information I tried to write and, I hope, write well a complicated, emotionally charged protagonist. I don’t want people to think that this was just calculation. I like characters like that. I know I couldn’t write the straight up jock very well. I’m not particularly interested in that character, but give me neurosis and I’m all good.

I hope the review is good for a few sales. The review also said there was “food for thought”. Maybe a few people will ask a few more questions about comfortable assumptions.

Friday was a hectic, busy day. We began at Mark’s at eight for breakfast. In the midst of a raucous meal with some twenty people, the power went out. This offered a real challenge for Dr. Alberto Rojo who was going to give a power point lecture about the “Physics of Jumper” at 10:00 am. Alberto is handsome, charming, a physicist and with a beautiful Argentinian accent that was like warm syrup. He asked if he could tape our conversations so he could write articles for a newspaper in Argentina. We all agreed, but I’m not sure how well we acquitted ourselves. When you’re with a bunch of writers the conversations range from the sublime to the ridiculous. At breakfast we were more on the ridiculous side of the scale.

Since we didn’t see any reason to just sit in the dark we headed over to the university, and just before Alberto’s talk the power came back on. We all sat in on his lecture, and it was great — all about teleportation and entangled particles interspersed with writings from all through history that seemed to hint at an understanding of these issue of quantum mechanics.

Next we were off to the luncheon where Connie Willis served as our master of ceremonies. Steve Gould made a charming speech as did Christopher Stasheff. The luncheon ended with an announcement by Patricia Rogers that she’d convinced JPL to begin naming features on Mars after famous science fiction writers. Some of the first two were our own Jack Williamson and Roger Zelazny. It had most of us in tears.

I bought Steve’s book REFLEX, and now it was quarter to two and time to retire to the Golden Library, Special Collections for an afternoon of panel discussions. Joan Saberhagen was being honored and our first panel was in remembrance of Fred and how much he had given to the field. When you watch a Terminator movie, or the Sarah Conner Chronicles you have Fred to thank. He was the first person to have an interview with a vampire. He was an amazing man. He and Joan helped me find my voice as a writer, and I’ll miss him forever.

After that Connie and agent extraordinaire, Eleanor Wood, were doing a panel on trends in SF and Fantasy. Walter and I got pulled onto that panel too.

The day ended with a panel on From Books to Film (which was the only panel on which I was actually scheduled.) Steve Gould talked about his Jumper experiences, Ed Bryant, who has worked in Hollywood and had stories adapted discussed his time in La La Land. Craig Chrissenger discussed his work as a journalist for Starlog, and I talked about my time in the trenches. Basically we were talking or listening from two o’clock until five twenty. I was exhausted.

But we still had one more wonderful event. Gene and Jeannie Bundy???? were hosting a dinner for all of us, and the as many of the Williamson clan as could attend. We drank wine and ate lasagna, and talked and talked and laughed and remembered.

There was one distressing moment in the evening. I was sitting at the dining room table with Alberto and the topic of race and America came up. He asked me if I thought things had changed in the country, if I thought things were better, and if Obama had a chance. Thankfully, I didn’t make a sweeping statement about how much better things were. I said, I wasn’t sure. The overt racism I witnessed when I was a child and we’d go to Oklahoma to visit my grandmother seemed to be gone, but the stain was probably still there.

And then Alberto told me about being at the Portales Country Club. He was sitting at the bar having a drink and visiting with a gentleman. Now remember, Alberto was teaching at ENMU. The man asked where Alberto came from. When Alberto responded, “Argentina”, the man said, “Oh, I thought you were a beaner.” It had Scott and Ed and I fumbling to make apologies. Alberto shrugged if off. He’d never heard the slur and didn’t know what it meant. When he said as much to the man, the man became uncomfortable and left the room. Another time at the same country club Alberto heard for the first and only time the “N” word used, by a young man.

I was tired after a long two days, and depressed about Jack and Fred and Rick, and these stories just left me devastated. Maybe we really haven’t come as far as I’d hoped. Which brings me to an editorial in todays New York Times that I recommend. It’s Bob Herbert cutting through all the crap about Obama’s “bitter” comment. Herbert’s contention is that Obama tied himself in knots to avoid answering the question of why some working class whites won’t support him. Rather than give the true and obvious answer — “Because I’m a black man.” Obama tried to parse and he ended up talking himself into a hole. Anyway, here is the link. It’s worth reading. www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/opinion/15herbert.html?hp

Despite that brief moment of shame, it was a wonderful evening. I wanted to keep talking, but exhaustion won and I returned to the hotel. We all gathered for one final breakfast at Mark’s on Saturday morning, and then we all scattered to our various homes. It had that sad, letdown feeling you get at the end of a convention. You’ve spent time with all these people that mean so much to you emotionally and intellectually, and now you’ll part again for months, maybe years.

Fortunately I had company for the drive home. I gave one of my fellow Critical Mass members, Emily Mah, a ride to Albuquerque where she’d left her car. I returned home late on Saturday afternoon to find that the dog hadn’t eaten, but the cats had cleaned their plates. I have strange animals.

A big section of my novel THE EDGE OF REASON is on my website. Tell your friends and family. If you’re inclined pop over and take a look. The book’s office publication date if May 13th. I don’t know if it will be available before that.

It’s starting to become real. Yikes! Guess I’ll go eat some Tums.

I finished the very large rewrite of my second book in the EDGE series last night! I emailed it to my editor, Patrick and to my agent, Kay. I collapsed in a gibbering heap. I think it is much improved and for that I owe thanks to my amazing writer’s group, Critical Mass. I also owe a debt of gratitude to my terrific editor who gave me the time I needed to improve this book. I’m looking forward to his notes that will take this book up another level.

This book is also an example of how stress affects your work whether you’re doing something creative or working as an accountant, landscaper, nurse, you name it. I was writing THE EDGE OF RUIN during the year we were building our house. Building a house is stressful when it works well, and we had the contractor from Hell so it was a nightmare. During this period I also lost Steppi, my grand prix horse to a terrible colic. It was probably the worst year of my life.

Book One, THE EDGE OF REASON is where my protagonist learns the secret that underlies much of the history of the world. Book two is where he comes to terms with the fact that he has to be in charge, and he learns to draw on his strength of will. Those of you who’ve been to my website, and downloaded THE ENSIGNS OF COMMAND will have seen my fascination with issues of leadership.

All in all yesterday was a really good day. Now I have to go deal with Western Minerals and Oil, and stop being a creative person and transform myself into a hard nosed business woman. Far less fun.

Oh, P.S. I got a nice review in Publisher’s Weekly. Usually I don’t read reviews because the book is published and there’s not a damn thing I can do to change it, and if they hate it, it just makes me feel bad because I’m a writer and I have a fragile little ego, but a good friend, and librarian Gail Gerstner-Miller mailed me a copy of the review. When it fell out of the envelope I was puzzling over why the clipping and by then I had read part of it.

I’ve just finished reading a book that I think will be the HAVE SPACESUIT or JUMPER for these early years of the twenty-first century. It’s LITTLE BROTHER by Cory Doctorow, and it’s terrific. It’s due out from Tor Books in May 2008, and the only reason I got a chance for an early read is because Tor sent me an advanced proof. If you have teenage kids, especially a boy(s) buy them this book. If you don’t have kids buy this book for yourself, especially if you’re a person who loves this country and is devastated by the destruction wrought on our freedoms, our society, and our Constitution by the Bush administration.

Sadly, I’m too old to be hip, and while I use computers and have an IPod Touch that serves as my Palm pilot, and host a website, I’m the kind of person who when faced with a recalcitrant computer would try sacrificing a small animal to appease the god in the box. Cory’s book is filled with discussions about internet security and hacking, and what’s in all those little labor saving devices that mean we have no privacy at all, and it’s fascinating. I understood ninety percent of it, and that’s a testament to how well he writes and how clearly he explains these matters if someone like me can follow it. It took me back to being a kid and reading about Kip and slide rule and how his knowledge of technical matters helped him save Peewee and the Mother Thing, and how much I wanted a slide rule.

I also hope this book will inspire kids to grow up and pay attention to the politics of their country. I envy Cory because he has a story that offers real solutions to invasions of our privacy and the loss of personal liberty under the all encompassing cry of “keeping us safe!” A pause for a rhetorical question — when did Americans become such chicken shits?

On this blog and in my own work the best I can offer, as a former lawyer and Constitutionist, is give money to the ACLU, and take cases before the Federal bench. But that may be of no help because thirty years of Republican appointees have degraded the judiciary, and undermined the Justice Department. They now seem to be tools of the government and corporations, with the individual simply lost between these grinding boulders.

The key are the young people. We’ve got to energize them, bring them out in such numbers that dodgy voting machines can’t be used to steal elections. Close elections are the enemy — when an election is close no one will believe that its been stolen. If we’re voting in such massive numbers that it can’t be ignored, we can protect our democracy. Which is why I really hope the situation between Clinton and Obama is not resolved with party insiders. If youth and hope and promise are trumped by power and cynicism I think we will lose the young for another generation, and by then, I fear, it will be too late.

The Constitution cannot, must not, be a quaint piece of paper that we praise, but don’t defend.

Cory has taken a big step in it’s defense.

How to end a book is much on my mind right now because I’m racing like an an out-of-control train toward the end of THE EDGE OF RUIN, book two in my series. Two scenes, that’s all I have left two scenes. I was going to try and finish last night, but at 9:30 I realized I was beat and couldn’t think anymore so I shut down. I then stayed up too late to try and finish the latest novel I’m reading. I didn’t make it, but I came close enough to realize that this author has developed a habit that doesn’t work for me, and as a matter of craft I don’t think it works.

Last week I completed another book by this writer, and discovered that the big climax, the thing to which we’d been building for three volumes was completed on page 624. Then the book goes on and on and on ending on page 914. There are some minor loose ends that get tied up, people who are dead don’t stay dead (a particular pet peeve of mine. Check out my posts about HEROES and you’ll get the full rant), and finally we reach the happy ending with our hero at rest with his lady love and a new family.

I don’t think it works. Some of this is probably due to my long years working as a screen writer, but give me the big climax, and then within a few pages I better be hearing the violins and trumpets and the credits better start rolling. If you did a graph line for a book I think it should be a steady trending up. You can throw in a few dips to the tangent to give the readers a chance to breath, bond more with characters, have a character moment, but the overall direction should be up. Then you hit the pinnacle and the line should drop almost vertically down and you get out. For me this long dragging conclusion feels like watching a slow death.

Or maybe I’m missing something here. Has the taste of readers changed are they just reluctant to let go of a world and the characters, and want to luxuriate in an ending? See every step of the Happily Ever After coming toward them?

Melinda

Yesterday we had the triumphant relaunch of Wild Cards in the form of Tor’s absolutely gorgeous hardcover of INSIDE STRAIGHT. We had a mass autographing at Page One in Albuquerque, and six of the eight authors were present, and Michael Cassutt had signed bookplates. So, if you want a copy signed by seven of the eight writers please check with Page One, and order a copy. They will happily do mail order. For Albuquerque we had an enormous crowd, a lot of good commentary and questions from the audience, and then we signed and signed and signed.

Afterward our wonderful agent, Kay McCauley treated us to a reception at Garduno’s where we feasted on queso, rolled tacos, enchiladas, nachos, etc. etc. etc., washed down with magaritas and sangria. It was a great opportunity for a number of the Wild Card contributors both past and present to rub elbows, discuss the project and reminisce about fun moments, and those we have lost. Roger was with us today as we evoked Croyd.

Please check out the swell website for Wild Cards at Tor.com, and please go and take a look at our American Hero website The link is here:

http://americanhero.wildcardsbooks.com/

And talk to us. We’re eager for feedback as people start to read the book.

Melinda

I wrote all day yesterday, and by six I was unable to think any longer. So, I prepared my February pages for submission to Critical Mass, I built a fire in the fireplace, and listened to the wind howl around the house and alternated between watching the flames and watching the snow, and focussing on the book I was currently reading. It is FARTHING by Jo Walton, and it is stunning. Ian had read it first and passed it on to me, and I’m very grateful for the recommendation.

FARTHING is a British country house murder mystery set in an alternate time where Britain and Hitler reached a peace accord in 1940. Walton captures the voices perfectly and evokes the period wonderfully, and she has all these nods to those wonderful grand dames of British mysteries, Josephine Tey and Dorothy Sayers. She also tosses a few nods toward Georgette Heyer so on many levels Walton hooked me completely.

Because I am a mystery reader, (and have played in far too many of Walter Jon’s mystery games) I had figured out the motive and killer, and then I began to get the feeling that this book wasn’t going to end with the conventional “win” for the good guys. It’s a satisfying ending, but the issues she raised had me sitting by the fire and staring into the flames and thinking a lot about where our country finds itself after seven years of George Bush.

The steps she sketches for a takeover of a democratic government by non-democratic forces was chillingly familiar. We have a climate where we are demonizing brown people whether from Mexico or the Middle East. We have a return of really vicious nativism. We have a frightening level of mix between religion and politics, we have the courts being marginalized, and we have a distortion of the Constitutional grants of power between the three branches of government. Bush has deliberately and systematically aggrandized rights that are reserved to the legislature and brought them under the executive. People need to remember that these are three _co-equal_ branches.

Despite having read an absolutely terrific book I found myself very melancholy in the dark hours. And I have to say I’m getting tired of winter. I want to pull the blanket off Vento and let him play outside.