When in doubt, start a riot.

So my UK publicist is setting me up with a radio interview with the BBC.* On the one hand, Yay!, and on the other, I hope I can manage not to make myself so nervous that I puke on the phone.

On to other things:

Poll #1188775 I Think We All Know Where This Is Headed
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Depths of Space or Depths of the Sea?

Red, White and Blue or Wide Red Lapels?

*Yes, I will let you know if/when it makes it on the air.

Of Superpowers, natch. Just a snippet:

"Schwartz strikes the right balance between vicarious superhero adventure and thoughtful reflection on the hidden costs of being a Good Samaritan."

Sweet. Hear that, librarians? BUY MULTIPLE COPIES.

Quick announcement: my story "Mike's Place" will appear in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #22 (TOC here). Whoo doggies, that's good company to be in!

All right, back to the wrongheaded-ness:

Poll #1187644
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

High Seas Regional Finals

Time and Space Regional Finals

Comics Regional Finals

Unknown Regional Finals

I posted this in a reply to Rudi last night, but it occurs to me that it since this place is low on content lately, I may as well put it here for all y'all to read. My rankings of the five books in my snazzy Jules Verne omnibus, just completed (SPOILER WARNING OMG):

1. A Journey to the Center of the Earth: the funniest of the bunch, with the best characters and the wildest "science." Hans the Icelandic guide = my hero. A faithful film adaptation would be a laugh riot (apparently there is some 3-D monstrosity with Brendan Fraser about to be released), and I don't even mean the suspect (or outright wrong) science. Best chapter heading: "TERRIBLE SAURIAN BATTLE." How can you go wrong?

2. Around the World In Eighty Days: the best-plotted of the bunch. Some cringe-worthy colonialist commentary, but hardly stands still long enough to be offensive. The characters are not quite as well drawn as in Journey, but Passepartout has some great moments, and Fogg works well after an iffy beginning. Oh, and there's an actual FEMALE character in it, wonder of wonders.

3. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea: exciting in parts, but too often a catalog of undersea flora and fauna and/or a menu of meals served on the Nautilus. Some surprisingly effective description; when they were trapped under the icebergs and running out of air, I actually started to feel rather short of breath. Overall, though, it's just a travelogue, with no real payoff or anyone to root for. Ned Land the Canadian is annoying. Nemo's pretty much the only character of any interest here, and he's left an enigma in the end. (More on that here; thanks to Rudi for the link.)

4. From the Earth to the Moon: the main virtue of this is that it's short. The mild parody of the Gun Club is amusing, but a little goes a long way, and too much of the book turns out to be caught up in the mathematics and design of the, well, moon-shot. The most interesting part of the book for me was wondering how much Verne influenced the naming and siting of the actual American space program nearly a century later.

5. Round the Moon: there's even more astronomy talk (both elementary and advanced) in this sequel, but it's worse because it all takes place between three guys stuck in a bullet. I actually gave up on this one about a third of the way through and skimmed ahead to see if they ever actually landed on the moon. (They didn't.)

I am on a temp assignment where I am able to read, like, 5-6 hours a day. (Yes, it is kind of awesome.) Today I started and finished both Around the World In Eighty Days and The Killer Inside Me.

I can't stop envisioning a mash-up in which Phileas Fogg leaves a trail of bodies behind him for Passepartout to clean up. And I ask you: Aouda/Amy--COINCIDENCE?

Actually, most of the information is right up there on top, but I'll elaborate for purposes of clarity.

I'll be reading from Superpowers at Dreamhaven Books, 912 West Lake Street in Minneapolis, at 7 PM on Thursday June 12th.

Mark your calendars, people. I want a CROWD.

"For most of the city, the morning of May 17, 1978 began like any other Wednesday. Celeste Simon sang to the shoppers at the Cagliari Street Farmer's Market, the bridge schools convened classes promptly at second bell, and the Mayor's convoy of horse-drawn limousines and war bicycles traveled the half-mile from Faldbakken Mansion to City Hall. . . . Across town from Cedar Hill, near the overgrown stretch of interstate which bisects the city, the settlement known as Bus Town had just begun to stir. Populated largely by transients, Bus Town had grown up in one of the transit authority lots, a 'circled-wagon' community centered on a living fire, one of those summoned by Cyril de Saavedra during his infamous rampage (see p.402) and the only one known to have escaped his thrall. . . . The fire had established a bond with the denizens of Bus Town, particularly its de facto mayor, the flautist Toby McGowan, who used to organize recitals for it every evening. The fire, it seemed, was a music-lover. . . . Roberta Stommel AKA 'The Wandering Comic,' was among those living in Bus City at that time. 'The fire would talk to us sometimes,' she said in a recent interview. 'You could hear his voice when you were half-asleep, or drunk, or when the music made you forget yourself. Toby called it Joe. We fed Joe scraps of wood that we didn't have a use for, although he burned fine without any fuel. All he wanted was to hear the music, and to burn.' . . . Stommel believes that it was the general laziness of the Bus Town residents that saved their lives. 'There were a few early risers there,' she says quietly. 'But most of us made a habit of staying up late around Joe, and sleeping until noon. You wouldn't think it, but with enough blankets and pillows, those buses could be really comfy.' . . . In Stommel's own words: 'I might not have noticed when the darkness fell. We might have kept on sleeping if not for Joe. He called out to me, to all of us, and that was when I realized I couldn't see his light. The sun is a pain when you're trying to sleep, but most of us really liked having Joe flickering out there at night. There was a primal sort of comfort in it, even if he was too far away to feel the warmth.' . . . 'Joe's voice was faint, like it was coming through a wall, or from under the ground. He was being smothered by the dark. He was still there, still burning--somehow--but his light was hidden by whatever had happened. I got up and I fumbled around in the dark until I found a window. Some of them were tinted, so I thought maybe I just couldn't see Joe from inside. But all that happened when I opened the window was that the dark came inside. It was in the air; it was like I was breathing it. My lungs felt tight. That's when the rain started.' . . . Those who liken the travails of The Day of Two Nights to the biblical Ten Plagues of Egypt usually count the darkness as the first, and the rain as second. . . . 'We couldn't see it, of course, but it came in a torrent. Have you ever heard rain on the roof of a bus? Except, this was rhythmic. Martial. I put my hand out to feel the rain, and my hand . . .' Stommel trails off, her eyes flickering past the stump where her right hand used to be. 'It was like the rain--instead of making my skin wet, it took all the moisture out of me. I could hear my skin crackling. I mean, I was screaming and I could still hear it. Like someone stepping on dried leaves.' . . . What it was that possessed the rain, even the hydromancer Gwandoya Kyoga has been unable to say with certainty. But where it struck it sucked up moisture, from the ground and from living things. Specifically, living things with blood. . . . Stommel was reluctant to talk of those who died at Bus City that day, but Toby McGowan was among them, and citywide dozens of citizens were caught in the rain that did not soak but rather desiccated. Seventy-four were killed at the Cagliari Street Market alone. . . . 'I managed to shut the window with my other hand,' says Stommel. 'Most of the screaming stopped right away. The rain killed them that quickly. But the fire--Joe--was in agony. He begged us for help. We didn't know what to do. And then someone started swearing. It might have been me. In a few seconds all of us, in all of the buses, were letting loose with the foulest talk you can imagine. Fouler. It was a sort of mass hysteria, only it worked.' . . . The torrent of obscenities poured upwards and seemed to stagger the murderous rain. 'The marching slowed. Some of them were staggering. I never saw them--no one did--but I think they had combined into larger drops. They were shoving at the sides of the bus, trying to tip us over, and when the sun came back there were big dents in the roof where they had been trying to force their way in. When we first moved into the buses a lot of the roofs leaked, but luckily we'd plugged them. But if it hadn't let up they would have broken in anyway'. . . . 'I was scared at first. I don't care if you're afraid of the dark or not, once you can't see anything it's like being buried alive. But once the swearing started'--Invocations professor Denise Pezzelli has referred to the Bus Town defense as 'good old-fashioned cursing'--'I was just mad. It was like a song, after a while. The filthiest song you've ever heard. I used to work blue before that, but I haven't said a nasty word since that day.' . . . While the inventive invective of the Bus Town residents knocked the rain back on its heels, it was not enough to banish it entirely. . . . 'Joe didn't say what he was going to do. He just said goodbye. I think he knew that Toby was gone. I think he wanted to do something to honor his memory.' . . . The nature of the elemental struggle which took place in the darkness of that 'first night' is still unclear. That the Bus Town Fire could have burned away the rain falling all over the city seems unlikely, but Stommel is convinced that it somehow did. 'I think Joe went up into the atmosphere or something. I think he sealed whatever rift in the shell had opened to let that rain in.' . . . The battle at Bus Town continued for some time after the rain stopped falling, and the fire's efforts did not burn off the unnatural darkness. For that part of the story, we must shift our focus to an apartment building at 2312 Honeymoon Avenue." (p.416-417)

Time Out Chicago expresses anticipation for Superpowers (and for Jennifer Stevenson AKA smokingpigeon's new novels as well!). It has me down as a Chicago writer (which I was until about a year ago, so), but I don't mind the mistake :-)

I think that's pretty self-explanatory. Googling is allowed.

( Polls under here . . . )

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Running on the plains, attacking with a reflective halberd, cometh Snurri! And he gives a low roar: "I'm going to hack into your brain, and type FORMAT C: !!"

Find out! Enter username: Are you a girl, or a guy ?

created by beatings : powered by monkeys

Via chestervhe.

- Jules Verne, and how I always thought Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was a measure of depth, and not, um, the distance which the Nautilus travels while under the sea. Also how the book should really be titled The Misanthropic Genius's Guide to Huntin' and Fishin'. (A Journey to the Center of the Earth is next, and it's already quite a bit funnier than Nemo & Co.)

- The first season of the new "Doctor Who," because grahamsleight told me it got better after episode 5 or so, and it really did.

- Thoughts I've been having about revision, which are probably wholly unoriginal and mostly an excuse to keep me from actually revising.

- My first book report for the Africa Reading Challenge, for Sundiata, which is awesome in every way except for the part where it doesn't really have an ending, except that the reasons it does not have an ending are also awesome.

- Something whiny about the terrible ordeal of having a book come out that will make you despise me, followed by a silly poll to win back your love.

I will probably post about all of these things soon, but not today. In the meantime I give you an elephant retirement home.

Check it.

Title: League of Substitute Heros

Saturday, 1:00-2:15 P.M.

Fair Trade (Coffee shop owned by the same folks as Michelangelo's, but a couple of blocks further down State Street. I dare to guarantee you that it will be worth the trip. And hey, you can come by even if you're not going to the con itself!)

David Schwartz
Meghan McCarron
David Moles
Alice Kim


Title: Does It Have to Get Boring Before it Gets Good?

Do you suffer from zombie fatigue? Are you getting superbored with superheroes? Excellent books like World War Z and Soon I Will Be Invincible seem to be the exception to the rule of endless zombie and superpowered crap being produced -- but are they? Or does there have to be a pop culture saturation of a certain kind of genre--a laying of the groundwork--before we can get the kind of detailed and finessed dissection and resurrection of tropes that these books pull off?

Saturday, 4:00-5:15 P.M.

Assembly

M: Liz Gorinsky
Jim Munroe
David Schwartz
Nicole Bunge
Ellen Datlow

I think there are obvious reasons why I am on this panel. Number one being: To Make a Fool of Myself.

Check it out! Mega-awesome writer buddy Chris Barzak has been nominated for a one of the first ever LOGO NewNowNext awards: "Brink of Fame: Author" for his wonderful book One For Sorrow. The award will be voted for online on the NewNowNext awards show web page, and the winner will be announced there as well. The awards show will be broadcast on LOGO on Saturday, June 7th at 9pm. And just in case you miss it, you can check out a full stream of the show on AfterEllen.com, AfterElton.com or Downelink.com on Monday, June 9th.

If you read Chris's book, or even if you just like Chris, or if you just trust me that Chris is an amazing writer, all you have to do is click here and vote for him. Note that you may want to uncheck the box that subscribes you to notices from Logo, unless you really like getting emails from corporations and stuff.

"There is nearly universal agreement that there was no single cause for the chaos and destruction that took place on the Day of Two Nights. Tensions in the city--between factions, between magical forces, even (according to some) between the buildings themselves--had become so high that some confrontation was inevitable; it needed only a catalyzing event. This event, known to students of the Day of Two Nights (and there are more lectures, pamphlets, and domestic disputes related to the DoTN in the city than any other topic other than the Exile itself) as the Cedar Hill Incident, took place on the private grounds of the Cedar Hill School for the Deaf. The school was established in 1934 by June and August Wall in honor of their brother March. March Wall had been born deaf, and was killed at four years old while crossing a street. Once grown, his siblings established Cedar Hill as a boarding school and safe place for deaf children to be prepared for life in the hearing world. What was not generally known, however, was the school's full name: the Cedar Hill School of Gesticulation Magic and Dance for the Deaf. . . . It seemed that the parents of March, June, and August had been members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and had passed certain teachings on to their children, particularly those concerned with protection and conjuration. For forty years students at Cedar Hill learned American Sign Language, interpretive dance, and methods for attracting and maintaining their own guardian spirits. . . . The school itself, housed in three historic mansions, was protected by a network of warding spells. While some of these were disrupted by the Exile, the continued presence of June and August on the grounds--as well as that of faculty members like Hector Fajardo and Matilda Hoag (listed respectively as teachers of 'Composition' and 'European History,' but in reality among the most powerful conjurers of their generation) allowed the school to continue to operate much as it always had. However, the school's historic brick buildings were prime temptations for the Snake Doctors. . . . The Snake Doctors, so named by an early witness who noted their resemblance to oversized dragonflies, had plagued the city since the Exile. At irregular intervals they swarmed historic buildings and pulled them apart, stone by stone or brick by brick, and then flew away with the pieces. Sometimes they stacked the materials in precarious towers in a vacant lot or the middle of a street, and sometimes--to the frustration of every citizen--they carried them out of the city entirely, flying through the enclosing shell as though it were nothing but an illusion. . . . The Snake Doctors had attempted to breach Cedar Hill's mystical defenses on more than one occasion already, and while the buildings stood intact the attacks had taken their toll. Hector Fajardo fell defending the school in 1970, both June and August failed in late 1973, and Matilda Hoag passed away in 1977, apparently of exhaustion. Left on their own, the community of Cedar Hill--many of them adult students with children of their own, and some as magically able as their teachers had been--determined to rid the city of the Snake Doctors once and for all. . . . The complexity of their operation was such that it took several months of planning and rehearsal, during which only the constant beating of timpani-like drums gave any hint of what was happening upon the hill. . . . Whether by chance or design, it happened that Channel Spider broadcast the rite's performance on May 17, 1978, though no one watching could have known what the effects would be. Shot from above, the broadcast (still shown every May 17 on Channel Spider) shows over a hundred students clad in simple ceremonial robes, lined up in a wide circle. Five older graduates stand at the center, and five drummers stand at points outside the circle. It is dawn. The drums begin, and--apparently guided by the vibrations--the dancers execute a series of complex steps, collapsing the circle and weaving between one another to reform as a pentagram. The five at the center 'speak' the language of Gesticulation Magic, matching the rhythm if not the full-body motion of the dancers. . . . Over the course of the performance--which lasts for three and a half hours--the drums speed up their rhythm almost imperceptibly, and the dancers progress through several group shapes and begin to splinter into smaller glyphs and runes. The words of power begin to linger upon the screen like streaks of light, and under and above the beating of the drums a hum begins to rise. The dancers show signs of exhaustion, but not one of them misses a step. The conjurors at their center lean into each other, and their motions take on the quality of movements made in windstorms or under water, as if some force were resisting them. And then, at the point where the drumbeats can no longer be distinguished from one another, and the eye can no longer take in the strokes of light left by bodies in motion, the broadcast ends with a flash of light, quickly replaced by static. . . . The effects of the Cedar Hill Incident were immediately felt, and at least one was long-lasting; the Snake Doctors have not plagued the city since. In the short term, however, the consequences of such powerful magic, so contained, were disastrous beyond what the residents of Cedar Hill could have predicted. Firstly, the residents of Cedar Hill were never seen again, alive or dead. Secondly, in the place of the Snake Doctors certain entities were admitted into the city which it would take all of its defenders to repel, and at no small cost. Thirdly, the sun went out entirely, along with all other light in the city, a magical darkness which was not lifted until several hours later. By then a great deal of damage had already been done, although there was much more to come before the day was through." (p.414-6)

Poll #1181327
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

This is a story about:

with:

who starts a:

and learns that:

As in, my story "Oma Dortchen and the Pillar of Story" has been named one of the Million Writers Award Notable Stories of 2007. It's a very long list, with lots of other good stories on it, so I have no expectations of the ultimate prize, but it's cool nonetheless. More notable than my inclusion is the fact that the good folks at Farrago's Wainscot, who published the story, have been named the Best New Online Magazine by the same poll. Congratulations, guys!