Fourth Street Fantasy: Not Quite Final Thoughts

Here’s a random patter of thoughts about Fourth Street. It's not my final thoughts on the Con, but I think it will be the last time I post about it.

Emma Bull is full of awesome. This cannot be disputed. I will not hear of it.

Most every panelist was interesting enough (in different ways) that I just got a much larger reading list than I anticipated. I’ve been a bit down on wanting to read Monette’s novels, but I’ll give them a shot now. Ellen Klages, Steven Brust, and Will Shetterly just got a new reader here (I was going to read Bull anyway, but now I really am). I’ll find the short fiction of Marissa Lingen, Jennifer Evans, Reesa Brown, and Kit O’Connell as available.

There are some really smart people out there who know a lot of about subjects I’ve scarcely considered.

The people at Fourth Street were great, from the fans to the writers to the organizers. Well done and well participated.

Jim Frenkel still seems like a bit of a grump, but that made for good panel.

Cory Doctorow is Guest of Honor in 2009? I’m so there!

Special thanks go to txanne, karenthology, and cloudscudding for making the non-panel part of the con such a great experience for me.

The one thing I do regret is that on Saturday I saw a young woman just kind of wandering around, in and out of consuite, and mostly by herself. She seemed a bit shy and a bit lost. I really wish that on Saturday or Sunday (I noticed it again on Sunday lunch) that I asked her to sit with the group conversing on the couch in consuite so she could be included. Hopefully she had a good time and didn’t feel isolated. I really hate that feeling and being a bit on the shy side around new people myself, I feel like I could have done something about it. I tried to speak with her before the Writer’s Lies panel, and I did see her with seabream a few times over the weekend. This is just something I’m aware of and I’m disappointed in myself for not really reaching out. Anyway, whoever you are (first name Sally), I hope you had a good time and give Fourth Street another chance next year.

And...here is a buncha links from other people about this year’s Fourth Street.

A link to a page with audio of most of the panels.

Me: Day One, Two, and Three

Thoughts From:
Mary Dell
Jennifer Evans
Abra Wiebe
Marissa Lingen
Aedifica
Michael Merriam
Clarentine
Karenthology (with some pictures midway down)
Timprov

Panel Notes
Grinding Buttons and Pushing Axes
From Cool Idea to Story (another view)
Writer's Lies


Now, I'm quite sure that I am missing more than a few links, but these are the ones I was able to find without doing an obsessive amount of searching.

Outcast

Leslie Claire Walker has a new story up at Chiaroscuro. I liked her last Chizine story "Snow for Flowers" so I'm very much looking forward to "Outcast".

This reminds me that I do like Chizine as a market and really need to go back and read the last couple of issues I've missed.

Mind Meld: Is There Gender Imbalance in Genre Publishing?

SF Signal invited me to take part in this week's Mind Meld. Tackling the question of whether there is a gender imbalance in SFF publishing are notables such as: Hal Duncan, Andrew Wheeler, Elizabeth Bear, Lou Anders, Cat Rambo, Angry Black Woman (99% positive I know who it is, but if she wants this post under that banner, so be it), Jeff Vandermeer, Abigail Nussbaum, Niall Harrison, and....

Me?

Well, I have an opinion and a GI Joe reference handy, so...go check it out. Lots of smart people (and me) weighing in.

Beauty Stolen from Another World

Ooh! My library has a listing for what looks like a short story collection from Louise Erdrich: Beauty Stolen From Another World: Selected and New Stories.

I am SO reading this.

This reminds me that I still need to read The Plague of Doves.

Erdrich's bookstore (Birchbark Books) also has a blog.

Mothers and Other Monsters

I’m about halfway through Maureen McHugh’s short story collection Mothers and Other Monsters and it is pretty good. The entire collection is available to download here.

Several of the stories are also available elsewhere.

Ancestor Money
Eight Legged Story
The Beast
Frankenstein’s Daughter

Maureen McHugh's blog.

Paolo Bacigalupi on NPR

Not a huge fan of Paolo Bacigalupi's short fiction, but Bacigalupi was featured / interviewed on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition on June 29. It's a solid 4 minute segment and well worth the listen.

Listen here.

Thanks to Jeremy Lassen for pointing out the piece. Lassen is also featured in the piece.

Interview with Nancy Kress

Nancy Kress is the author of twenty five books (18 novels, 4 short story collections, and 3 nonfiction books on writing). Her most recent books are the collection Nano Comes to Clifford Falls and Other Stories (review) and Dogs (review).

Nancy graciously agreed to answer a few questions.



How would you describe yourself as a writer to somebody who has never read any of your work before but may be interested? What do you see as your particular strength as a writer?

I write character-driven SF, often about genetic engineering. The genetic engineering part is because I believe this is the future, and not such a far-away future. The character part is because although science is interesting all by itself ("This is how the universe works"), it only becomes stories when it happens to people that readers can either care about or feel an interest in (not necessarily the same thing).

Would you talk a little bit about the origins of your new novel Dogs? Specifically, what lead you to blend the terrorism subplot with the canine plague infecting Tyler?

Probably because both interest me. I know that's a vague answer, but the creative process, most of which goes on below the surface of a writer's mind, is something of a mystery to me. Still, after thirty years! In this case, I was interested in hot agents, pathogens that may cause plagues. I also lived for a brief time while young in an Arab country, and came to have considerable respect for Arab culture. I'm not knowledgeable to write about it from the point of view of an Arab, so Tessa seemed the right lens.

Outside of perhaps demonstrating America's vulnerability to highly original forms of terrorism, is there anything in particular you tried to accomplish with Dogs? Or, is there anything you would hope readers take away from the novel.

I would hope, first of all, that they enjoy reading it. "Enjoy" can have many meanings, and I don't necessarily mean "be entertained by." I mean be interested, wanting to know what comes next. That's what drives good stories.

Then, I would hope they take away a renewed sense of how global our civilization is. An African pathogen can reach the United States by plane in about eight hours. We dodged the bullet with Ebola, when it was imported with research monkeys to Reston, Virginia, in 1989. Who's to say we will be so lucky next time? You don't need terrorists; you just need a mutated hot agent.

Although we are vulnerable to bio-terrorism.

Can you talk about specific challenges you faced researching and writing Dogs?

Not too many challenges. The science is not gone into in great detail, and I had already read a lot about epidemics. Also, I'd read many books about how the FBI is structured and functions for my two previous thrillers, OATHS AND MIRACLES and STINGER. I lived in Maryland for six years. So this book didn't require as much research as, say, my Probability series did. And, of course, when a book is set in the present, a writer is saved from having to create an entire future world.

In Nano Comes to Clifford Falls you write that "Mirror Image" is your favorite story in the collection. Is there a particular story (or novel) of yours which you are especially proud of but hasn't received the attention you hoped it would?

Yes, "Mirror Image." I liked that story, on several levels, but it sort of just disappeared. Often a writer's preference is not a good predictor of public reaction.

Instigated by the announced Table of Contents of Eclipse Two, recent weeks have seen a good deal of conversation regarding an overall lack of female contributers to anthologies and magazines and the supposed "genderblindness" of editors. As the only woman published in Eclipse Two, what is your perspective on the short fiction market for women and what do you think can be done to improve it?

I didn't know I was the only woman in ECLIPSE 2. I looked at the last few issues of both ASIMOV'S and F&SF, and you're right, there are only one or, at the most, two female-authored stories in both magazines. I don't know why this is. We have so many terrific female writers: Connie Willis, Karen Joy Fowler, Elizabeth Bear, Lisa Goldstein, Kris Rusch, Mary Rosenblum, Vonda McIntyre... I could go on and on. I don't understand the situation.

Related to the previous question, have you noticed any changes in the short fiction market since you first began publishing in the early 1980's? Are there certain types of stories selling now that wouldn't have twenty years ago, or different opportunities available for publication?

Well, of course, twenty years ago we didn't have on-line magazines. In general, I think short fiction is more accomplished now. I look at my first few sales, and I don't think that a new writer could sell those same stories today. SF is deeper, more complex. It's also more willing to publish edgy stories. Connie Willis could not find a publisher for her child-abuse story "All My Darling Daughters" until she included it in her own collection, but that kind of story is published now. I just finished M. Rikert's "Holiday," in the Strahan Best of the Year, and it's creepy and powerful and way, way out there.

What is the one question you wish somebody would ask you and how would you answer it?

I wish someone would say, "Will you accept one million dollars for the movie rights to this novel of yours?" And I would say "Yes."

Thank you very much for you time, Nancy.

Thanks also to Matt Staggs for helping to set this up.

Dogs, by Nancy Kress

Dogs
Nancy Kress
Tachyon Publications: 2008

We've seen this before, right? Vicious dogs? It's been done, right?

Not quite like this.

With Dogs, Nancy Kress does something different with what we might expect from a novel where there are killer dogs roaming the streets of a small Maryland town. Dogs is not straight horror like Stephen King might have written and it certainly is not your average (is there such a thing?) rabid dog story.

Dogs is a thriller. Here's the story, more or less: Tessa Sanderson retired from the FBI after her husband was killed by a drunk driver. She moved to Tyler, a small and quiet town in Maryland, to get a way from the Bureau and her old life. Instead she has moved into a town where something very bad is about to happen. Formerly peaceful dogs turn vicious and attack their owners, or anyone else in the area. Tyler hospital sees a rash of dog bites from breeds that are not known to be biters. Then it gets worse.

The government steps in, FEMA cracks down hard in hopes to reclaim its image and get something right for a change, and the CDC quarantines the town.

The dogs of Tyler can be considered the primary storyline of the novel (along with the Animal Control workers and just understanding what is happening to the dogs), but there is a secondary storyline intertwined with the primary: Tessa Sanderson is being sent threatening e-mails in Arabic that appear to be linked to the plague infecting the dogs of Tyler.

It's scary and riveting stuff.

For any dog owner or dog lover, simply reading a novel where such bad things happen to dogs and perhaps the only solution to the plague is to kill dogs, and where the plague could infect anyone's dog (mine, yours, the cute neighbor dog), it's terrifying to think about.

Initially there were some things that bothered me about Dogs. The first was the pit bulls. Not that I am in any sort of denial that yes, there are some horrible owners who are entirely to blame for the behavior of their dogs and help perpetuate the stereotype of pit bulls, but that what Kress does here is also help perpetuate the stereotype by having already vicious pit bulls get the virus. Yeah, of course they're nasty. They're pits. Except that there are perhaps just as many well behaved pit bulls with good owners. But, this is only half of a complaint about how Kress handled the introduction to the infected dogs (and breeds) and half of my personal issue on the perception of dog breeds. This is worth noting, and worth injecting myself into the middle of the review because who I am, and how I feel about dogs will certainly influence and pervade my perception of Dogs. What the writer does is only half of the reading experience. The other half is what the reader brings to the table and with a book about dogs, Kress is definitely going to touch on the flashpoints of many readers.

The second thing that bothered me about Dogs was any character who was overly idealistic came off as extremely one dimensional (think some of the government folks who wanted to use Tyler as an opportunity, the dog owners, and the dog haters). But, while this rubbed the wrong way, in many cases, this may have been spot on. Dog owners will get extremely narrow minded when it comes to their dogs, even if the larger society is at risk because of the virus. Dogs are not just pets. Dog haters will feel much the same way, and some politicians will play political games.

So, now that I think more about it, the seemingly negative may be one of the more realistic aspects of Nancy Kress's Dogs.

Enough about the negative, on to the positive: Once I started reading Dogs, I didn't want to stop. This isn't because I was excited about the dog plague, though Kress does a good job with it, but more that I really wanted to know where Kress brought the story next. Dogs was exciting and to use a well worn cliche, a "real page turner".

The melding of the terrorist story with the primary story of the dog plague is very well done. It is believable. Sure, the science is not explained in detail, but I don't think that is necessary. Dogs hits a very real fear: our pets should not be targets and if there is nothing we can do to protect them... That's something that would terrorize a population AND have said population be unwilling to work with the government.

Bottom line: Dogs works.

The novel has a rough patch or two (a couple more than I expected having read some of Kress's short fiction), but the reader is likely to be turning the pages so fast that any rough patch will be gone in the blink of an eye as the storytelling propels the reader a long.

Dogs is a good read and a good introduction into the novel length fiction of Nancy Kress.


Reading copy provided courtesy of Tachyon Publications.

Fourth Street Fantasy: Day Three

I started out in the consuite with a combination reason of seeing if there was any grub available and also seeing if there was anyone to talk to before the first panel. I saw cloudsudding and went over to the couches to join the conversation. Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette were both there. I joined the conversation without really intruding on it. It was a good start to the morning.

After the first panel, and just before lunch, I got a quick signing from Bear on my still unread copy of Undertow.

I was a little sad that this was the final day of Fourth Street. Even though I had gone to bed at fairly reasonable hours, I was tired but not ready to be done.


Panels:

10:00 AM: Writing in the Negative Space
Panelists: Steven Brust (moderator), Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, Will Shetterly

Emma Bull was originally on the panel, but needed a bit more rest than what is normally available at a con. Will Shetterly gave a great example of what the concept of negative space means, and that is if you try to describe something directly the description is going to be lacking and only in two dimensions. However, if you describe around the thing you want to bring attention to you’ll get a more clear picture of that thing even though you never directly describe it. This is a bit vague, but Bear gave another example: in art you don’t draw the person, you draw the stuff around the person so that what you see in the end is the person you wanted to bring out. Pretty much, how I understand this is that the negative space is that which we don’t say but is still the overall shape of the story. Negative space is what we build the story around. All this was much more clear in my mind until I tried to type it out. Good thing Brust never called on me when I had my hand raised. This was one of the better panels of the con.


12:30 PM: Writer’s Lies
Panelists: Steven Brust (moderator), Pamela Dean, Ellen Klages, Marissa Lingen, Will Shetterly, Caroline Stevermer

This is a panel dealing with the lies writers tell themselves in order to do their best work. Like the Cool Idea to Story panel from Friday, I’m not sure this panel really answered the question in a way that is truly helpful. The panel identified several lies (I’ll never publish this, this doesn’t suck, Grandpa will never read this story) that has helped them get through and finish work, but then the panel sort of devolved into coming up with lies on why their work ISN’T good (led by Bear’s question from the audience about her incredibly negative inner critic) and that’s when I think the panel got off topic a bit. I don’t mind the off topic bits because listening to the panelists riff on various ideas and topics is great. I think the topic for this panel wasn’t quite sufficiently broad enough to get to the core of Brusts’s questions.


2:00 PM: Stuff
Panelists: Patrick Nielsen Hayden (moderator), Elizabeth Bear, Emma Bull, Arthur Hlavaty, Sarah Monette.


Throughout the con, and probably any con, there are things that come up in panels that the only appropriate response to the question or idea is: And that’s really another panel. This is that panel. The focus of this panel ended up being...well, I don't really remember. I remember discussion about researching, wikipedia being like the children's nonfiction section of your library, metafilters, and something that is juuust grasping at the edge of my consciousness but failing.


Following the last panel was the Closing Ceremonies. This included a drawing for a Kindle. I didn’t want one, per se, but I’d have loved to have won one. Closing ceremonies were much like the opening ceremonies, with a little bit of info on next year’s con, and other quick goodness. Steven Brust seemed quite happy with how this con went and I’d say he should be. It was a great experience.


Before the closing ceremonies I had the chance to speak with Will Shetterly. I let him know that I enjoyed his Disney copyright story and this led to a conversation about copyright, Disney, Cory Doctorow, Canada, and the odd dynamic of wanting a company like Disney to hold on to their copyright so they can protect the Mouse as a brand while understanding that doing so can be damaging to the public discourse and the ability to write stories using 100 year old characters which in most cases, should no longer be protected by copyright. In that case the brand may be the trust in Disney’s brand even if there are knock off stories and property out in the public domain using the mouse. But, we both suspect that Disney may not necessarily want the company to be the public brand as opposed to Mickey, even though the company has already pretty well branded themselves with the Disney “name”. Good conversation.

After closing ceremonies I had a chance to thank both Elizabeth Bear and Emma Bull for coming, say goodbye to a couple people I met, and then head on home to finally sit down and relax at home for the first time that weekend.

I’m quite happy that Fourth Street returned, that Bear was the Guest of Honor, that the Shadow Unit crew was almost all able to attend, that most everyone at the Con were interesting to talk with (when I talked), and that the whole thing was a fantastic experience and one which I hope to repeat next year.

Fourth Street Fantasy: Day Two

Saturday was an awesome day at the Con. I don’t know in what order I met people, but I had some great conversations with cloudscudding, aedifica, karenthology, somebody named Ginger, and a bit with seabream. I wish I got to talk more with seabream, he seemed pretty cool and he came from Toronto for the con, which I think is just nuts (not necessarily more nuts than Texas, but still). And I chatted with other people in larger groups up in the consuite and I have no idea who they are, but collectively, it was a great group.

This was the big long day with 6 panels. On Sunday Steven Brust talked about maybe having one or two fewer panels next year, and I think I like how many panels we had. Saturday was crazy and some of the meal breaks ran long when the hotel restaurant wasn’t really staffed to handle the volume of con guests (even the 60 – 100 guests we had), but I think the panels were a good length (no clue how long...some felt longer than others, the Shadow Unit panel felt way too short, and others felt rushed at the end when there was still good panel going on. I think that’s the way of it, though. There is always something more to be said.

Because I really prefer going to panels and hearing what the professionals have to say, I’d be just as happy with shorter breaks. Yeah, I had a great time talking to the other con goers, and I know that’s an essential part of con experience, but we’ve got some really great panelists here.


On to the Panels:


9:30 AM: The Dreaded Second Draft
Panelists: Elizabeth Bear (moderator), Eleanor Arnason, Emma Bull, Pamela Dean, Catherine Lundoff, Caroline Stevermer.

Cool! There are folks here I’ve never heard of, though obviously they are here for a reason. Maybe because this was 9:30 AM or the room was arranged weird (different room from Friday night), but this was a quiet panel. What was interesting was just how many different ways the various writers drafted. From outlines to running through a complete draft to constantly revising on screen so that by the time the first draft is done it is quite a bit more polished than the average first draft. Good stuff, though a quiet opener.


11:00 AM: The Chewy Bits
Panelists: Teresa Nielsen Hayden (moderator), Steven Brust, Emma Bull, Pamela Dean, Jim Frenkel

Kevin Maroney was listed as a panelist, but I’m not quite sure that he was there. I’m also not sure who he is. My apologies if he was actually up there and I’ve forgotten it. The core of this is that the Chewy Bits are the aspects of the story that really makes the reader think, even if they are missed on the first read through. It’s what makes the story deep and what we talk about with our friends when we talk about stories. It’s not the Shiny bits (the cool ideas that are fun to write and read), but where we get our nutrition from. I may not be saying this right. There were some interesting dynamics going on here. I believe I said yesterday how much I was impressed with Emma Bull (and seriously, she’s awesome), but Steven Brust is one of the most entertaining people ever on panel. When he is in the audience he asks great questions, he’s a fantastic moderator, but the man has clear opinions and states them very well with a high dose of entertainment. He’s smart, cares about all of this in regards to writing, and just how honestly interested he is in how this all works comes across. I wouldn’t complain if he was on every panel. I’ll talk about Teresa Nielsen Hayden when I get to the 8:00 PM panel.


1:30 PM: Advice From New Writers
Panelists: Teresa Nielsen Hayden (moderator), Reesa Brown, Jennifer Evans, Marissa Lingen, Michael Merriam, Kit O’Connell, Jon Singer

Rather than giving advice to new writers, we got advice from new writers. The first piece of advice: sit in the comfy chairs. Rather than simply take what is given you (i.e. a table with uncomfortable chairs), go grab the plush comfy chairs from the hallway. If there is a single point that defines this panel and what the New Writer panel is about, that’s it. I don’t know that the panel really gave advice in the sense of what can help other new writers, but it was a collective conversation about changing the landscape of fiction, what new writers hate and don’t want to see anymore (from other writers, from publishers, etc), and just the overall sense of what these particular new writers think of when they think of fiction. This was probably my second favorite panel of the day and this is mostly because of the entertainment value of the panel. I don’t mean mindless entertainment, that’s not what I want to get across, but it was just so fascinating to listen to. Different perspectives.


3:00 PM: Playing with Structure
Panelists: Elizabeth Bear (moderator), Alec Austen, Emma Bull, Jim Frenkel, Jon Singer

I’m starting to blank and people on the panel. My program has a Bernadette Bosky on the panel, but this is another case of I really don’t remember that person. We start with a bit of varied definition of structure, some examples of variations of story structure, and a wide ranging question on how to use it, what it means, what it can be used for, and how structure can be just as important as the story (example – the movie Memento). Good panel, but I’m not sure it really was a favorite of mine. This is because I’m not really a writer or using structure in any informed way. I think other people took a lot from this panel.


4:30 PM: 21st Century Storytelling
Panelists: Steven Brust (moderator), Alec Austen, Elizabeth Bear, Emma Bull, Sarah Monette, Will Shetterly.

Ostensibly this panel was actually about with models will be used to tell stories in the twenty first century. This was the Shadow Unit panel. Shadow Unit was used as the lens with which we viewed 21st Century Storytelling because while not completely original (stuff like this HAS been done says a grumpy guy named Pat who seemed somewhat bitter that his history wasn't really recognized), it is part of what the new wave of storytelling may look like. What is old is new again. Plus, four of the five writers of Shadow Unit were on the panel. Emma Bull gave a run down on the history of Shadow Unit, how it came about, what they intended with it. I love Shadow Unit (surprise!), so I thought it was a great panel. The only part that I didn’t quite get was Patrick Nielson Hayden’s taking issue with the SU folk seeking a publisher to print the SU stories as a book. It took me a while, but I figured out that PNH is concerned that the website will be considered publicity for the “real” story, the book. How the panelists are taking this is that the book is publicity for the website. Or, better yet, merchandise for the more interactive storytelling done online. The reason I want a book is because a) I like having a book, and b) I want Bear / Bull / Monette / Shetterly / Downum to get PAID so that not only is it fun to create Shadow Unit, it is profitable. This is also why I’ve been donating a couple dollars at a time via the website. Shadow Unit is professional quality work given away for free. This was my favorite panel of the Con.


8:00 PM: Food, Fashion, and Fornication
Panelists: Elise Matheson (moderator), Elizabeth Bear, Catherine Lundhoff, Sarah Monette, Kit O’Connell, Jon Singer

This was probably the most informative panel of the entire Con. What does food, fashion, and sex have to say about the fantasy worlds being written about? The best way to really get to the main...thrust...of the panel is to try to paraphrase what Teresa Nielsen Hayden had to say when asked about fabric. She was called on and asked what lace and linen and some other fabric meant in terms of economics. She started with lace. In a pre-industrial society lace is a true luxury item. Like everything else it has to be hand made and it takes a lot of time. A lacy trim on the dress of a noblewoman would take approximately a year’s worth of labor to create. Think about that. The average lower class townfolk or provincial would NEVER have a lace trimmed dress because they could not possibly afford it and they wouldn’t take the time to make one because if it takes a year to make there are many more things they could be doing with their time (making the rest of their clothing, sheets, curtains, or, doing other manual labor). Not to mention the possibility of sumptuary laws. The core of this panel, to me, was that what characters wear and eat says a lot about what sort of world / land the story is set in and is something that really does need to be carefully considered. And then there’s fornication. Apparently there was a woman from England who is a serious historical sex scholar in the audience and she was invited up on panel because she’s extensively knowledgeable about the topic.


The point I wanted to make about TNH was simply that she was a wealth of knowledge about a huge range of topics and even though she was not involved in many panels, it was so cool that she was there. I was more than impressed with how much TNH knew about and all of her contributions to panels (both as moderator and just when called up in the audience).


This was such a great day at Fourth Street. I don’t what I’ll think about other cons as I start going to more of the local conventions, but Fourth Street was a perfect Con to have for my first one. I met some great people, went to awesome panels, had good conversation about fantasy / bookish type stuff and overall just had a great time.

I’m glad I went.

Fourth Street Fantasy: Day One

I stand in the very short registration line to get my name badge and whatever other miscellany is given out at the con. I hear a woman talking with somebody else about her drive up from Texas and I think, “I wonder if that is txanne”. Txanne, because apparently I think in Livejournal tags, is a very active member of the Shadow Unit forums who I knew was coming to the Con. I take a wild guess that txanne is short for Texas Anne. Deep, I know.

I tell the lady at the table (Beth Friedman) my name and mystery woman from Texas excitedly repeats my name and introduces herself as...well...Txanne (pronounced Tex-Anne).

The start of my convention experience is already kinda cool.

I should add, at this point, that Fourth Street is my first convention.

I head in to the room which host the panels for the evening, have a nice Shadow Unit discussion with Txanne about the ending of the first season. Txanne repeats my theory on Chaz in a loud stage whisper because apparently Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette are sitting two rows in front of us, but we’re ignored.

A guy walks by in black jeans, black t-shirt, leather vest, and a black cowboy hat. I only see him from the back. I ask if that’s Steven Brust because just from that back, that’s exactly what I expect Steven Brust to look like. It is.

Opening Ceremonies: Steven Brust introduces himself, welcomes us to Fourth Street, gives a bit of a background on how this happened so many years after the last Fourth Street, briefly introduces our Guest of Honor (Elizabeth Bear). Elise Matheson stands up, says that the con is going to happen NEXT year, too, that she will be running it, and that the confirmed Guest of Honor is Cory Doctorow. I haven’t even been to a single panel yet and I already want to go next year to hear Cory speak.

After Opening Ceremonies txanne introduced me to Emma Bull and Will Shetterly in order to briefly share my Chaz theory. Bull looks at me and says “and you know that we’re not going to tell you anything, even if you’re right. It’s just too much fun” Bull was awesome. Bear came over and gave Bull a small carved platypus, which makes sense if you know Shadow Unit.


Two Panels on the First Day:

3:30: From Cool Idea to Story. This is where writers talk about how they take the Great Idea they have and make it a Story.

Panelists: Jim Frenkel (moderator), Alec Austen, Ellen Klages, Marissa Lingen, Will Shetterly

I don’t know when I got this idea, but Jim Frenkel is an awesome grump. He just seems cranky on panel, but not necessarily in a negative way. In a damned entertaining way.

I also don’t know if the panel ever *really* answered the question of how the cool idea really gets to be a story, though I think they tried, but it was fascinating listening to the conversation. Ellen Klages: funny as hell on panel.

This is also where I noticed Alec Austen. Not necessarily because of anything he said. He spoke kind of quietly and so I am pretty sure I missed a good deal of what he said. But Alec has a fairly severe stutter when on panel and it was very impressive and VERY cool that he was up there. I was slightly bugged by some of the other panelists finishing the occasional sentences of Alec’s, but I don’t know his opinion on it. I did briefly tell him on Saturday that I was thought it was awesome he was up there, because that takes a bit of courage, but this wasn’t a panel / con on stuttering, so I really didn’t bring it up ever again.


5:00: Grinding Buttons and Pushing Axes for Fun and Profit. A panel on “message” stories, anything that tries to push an agenda. This was a damn interesting panel that ran the gamut of Left Behind (but only barely) to Pilgrim’s Progress and other didactic literature, to pretty much anything trying really hard to make a point.

Panelists: Elizabeth Bear (moderator), Alec Austen, Emma Bull, Marissa Lingen, Sarah Monette.

Bull is great on panel. She has a lot to say and she takes a bit of a different, more moderate perspective from the others. Not necessarily a more academic perspective, because I think that’s where Sarah Monette comes from, but it was a great panel.


After dinner there was “A Very Shiny Evening of Readings and Celebration”. On one hand it was a jewelry showcase for Elise Matheson, but also readings of poetry (some very funny haiku: Bring on the asps!) and short fiction. Lois McMaster Bujold was there, too.

I only stayed for the first reading, which had a short story from Sarah Monette. I left at 10:00 after the first round of readings because the next round wouldn’t be over until 10:45 and it felt late. Unfortunately, I missed Bear’s reading and then I missed the party where there was singing, but that’s okay (well, the fact that I left...I really, really wished I got to hear Bear read)


For a first day at my first convention, I had a good time. I wanted more panel, but that shouldn’t be a surprise. The social aspect isn't my forte, but I like to listen.

It was a very good day. I'll wrap up Days Two and Three soon and then make some concluding comments, overall impressions, and try to link to as much Fourth Street commentary as possible.

Vandermeer's Favorite Short Fiction Fantasists

Jeff Vandermeer just posted his list of favorite short fiction fantasists. All women.

Vandermeer's post was more in light of the Tin House: Fantastic Women issue as well as his reading for Best American Fantasy, but I see it also in relation to Eclipse Two.

After making a list of women who were NOT to be on the list, Vandermeer then goes on to list twenty three MORE women who are talented writers.

And I wonder: How the hell did Strahan only manage to include ONE woman when Vandermeer lists 36 and didn't include novelists?

Sometimes stuff don't make sense.

Pretties, by Scott Westerfeld

If you have not yet read Uglies and have no desire to be spoiled on a major plot point of the novel, please stop reading at the end of this paragraph. You can safely assume that I think that Uglies is a delightful novel and is chock full of awesome shiny bits. It is. You should drop everything and go read it right now. Afterwords, please return right here and read the rest of the review to find out if you should read Pretties, too. (You should). This is the part where you should stop reading the review if you haven’t read Uglies. The first sentence of the next paragraph is a rather major spoiler for Uglies but is also essential to the story of Pretties.

At the end of Uglies (I warned you)...


At the end of Uglies Tally Youngblood made the decision to return to Prettytown to be made Pretty. She knows that doing so will subject her to a surgery to change her overall physical appearance, but that it will also damage her brain. Reversable brain lesions are somehow caused by the surgery to ensure that the Pretties stay fairly docile, unthinking, and unquestioning. Tally made this decision so that she could later test an experimental cure for the lesions. The only ethical way to test the cure was to have an ugly agree before she is made pretty, because after the surgery, Tally won’t remember.

So, Pretties starts out with Tally as a Pretty. She is vapid and uncaring and engages in all the Pretty fun that occurs in New Prettytown. The last time we saw her, she had a working brain and now she’s just like the rest of the Pretties. Pretties is a very different novel than Uglies was. Up until the very last pages of Uglies, this is not what I expected from the second novel, but now it is the only possible way to tell the story given how Uglies ended.

The book starts out interesting, but annoying. The Pretties would have gotten on my nerves anyway. They are the personification of the spoiled rich children of Hollywood (or, just spoiled rich children). They don’t care about anything but themselves and maintaining their status, and they behave accordingly. Granted, in New Prettytown, this is completely appropriate for who and what they are, but I still dislike them.

Scott Westerfeld does something very interesting with Pretties. Tally Youngblood was already something of an annoying protagonist (aka, a seemingly realistic teenager in an unreal world). Now he ratchets up the annoyance by making her Pretty. This should be enough to kill the book / series for me, but it isn’t. Westerfeld’s storytelling is just so damn good that with each page I want to know more. I want more. Not necessarily of Tally, but just of the whole experience, the world of Uglies and Pretties.

What we know and what we expect is that at some point Tally will receive the note explaining why she is Pretty and what it means and what the cure is. This has to happen and it does. We know a central conflict will be Tally’s decision on whether or not to remain Pretty and also dealing with her new identity as a Pretty and how this will affect how she views the Uglies from her past. This is a central conflict of the novel, but Westerfeld also expands the world in ways I will not describe so as not to take away the sense of discovery that still pervades this, the second novel in a four book trilogy (yes, you read that right).

Where Scott Westerfeld reset the story with the ending of Uglies, he does the same thing in a different way with the ending of Pretties. This is another ending I did not expect at all. Perhaps the ending was inevitable, but it was not until the book was almost over that I saw it clearly.

The real review here is that if someone liked Uglies, they can expect more of the same competence in storytelling from Scott Westerfeld. Pretties isn’t going to change anyone’s mind who did or did not like Uglies. That said, Pretties is well worth reading. Westerfeld is telling a damn good story here and he deserves all the audience he can get (and that’s fairly large).

It’s good stuff.


Previous Review:
Uglies

future posts

The next week or so should feature the following entries

• A multi-part wrap up of Fourth Street Fantasy, which has been an awesome experience
• a link filled post trying to cover the range of responses to the TOC of Eclipse Two.
  
• A review of Pretties, by Scott Westerfeld
  
• A review of Dogs, by Nancy Kress
• A review of Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow

And then I'm sure I'm going to come up with something else that I'm just not thinking of right now because I have to leave soon to get back to the Con.

I do have to say, and I'll expand on this in the Con wrap up, that Emma Bull is full of awesome and an absolute delight in person.

oh, and...

Oh, and since I'm feeling cranky right now...

Cujo sucks.

Meme this...

Mary Robinette Kowal tagged me with the dreaded "Page 123, fifth sentence" meme.

To participate, you grab the closest book, go to page 123, find the fifth sentence, and blog it. Then tag five people.

Reaper's Gale, by Steven Erikson.

Well, for one, it was self-contained, walled, entirely covered by multi-level roofing - even the plazas, alleys and streets.

What a boring ass sentence.

But then I'm struggling with this book. I'm just tired of the damn Letherii storyline.

I'm also breaking the chain of tagging, mostly because I'm a little tired and have blisters from spending an hour trying to start my car after work until my wife rescued me with a spare key that wasn't stripped.

Fruitless Recursion

Who reviews the reviewers?

Jonathan McCalmont introduces us to Fruitless Recursion. Fruitless Recursion is a paying market for reviews of SFF nonfiction.

Fairly cool idea, and while not the paying review site that Scalpel was supposed to be (sorry for bringing up that hot mess, but it was a great idea for fiction reviews), Fruitless Recursion will provide a showcase for nonfiction works.

From the website:

Fruitless Recursion is an online journal devoted to discussing works of criticism and non-fiction relating to the SF, Fantasy and Horror genres. It will cover biographies, substantial works of critical theory, collections of reviews as well as any interviews, profiles or examinations of any other works that are deemed to be fitting.

The aim of FR is to stimulate discussion of these kinds of works, raise the profiles of the people producing them and to help inform the purchasing decisions of people who might otherwise have to turn to journals to find reviews.

I'd love to submit something, but I have no clue what.

One Woman? Really?

I thought Eclipse One, edited by Jonathan Strahan and published by Night Shade Books was a great anthology. Not quite as full as awesome as, say, Fast Forward 1, it was still a damn solid anthology and I enjoyed reading it. So much so that I looked forward to Volume Two.

Then I saw the table of contents posted over at SF Signal.

I remember the debate last year regarding the lack of female names on the cover Eclipse One (despite women making up nearly half of the anthology). The debate is summed up here and is wrapped up in regards to a panel at Wiscon.

The table of contents is nearly final, with one left to be determined, but here is the list courtesy of Strahan's website.

1. The Hero, Karl Schroeder
2. Turing’s Apples, Stephen Baxter
3. Invisible Empire of Ascending Light, Ken Scholes
4. Michael Laurits is: Drowning, Paul Cornell
5. Elevator, Nancy Kress
6. The Illustrated Biography of Lord Grimm, Daryl Gregory
7. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, David Moles
8. The Rabbi’s Hobby, Peter S. Beagle
9. The Seventh Expression of the Robot General, Jeffrey Ford
10. Skin Deep, Richard Parks
11. Ex Cathedra, Tony Daniel
12. Truth Window: A Tale of the Bedlam Rose, Terry Dowling
13. We Haven’t Got There Yet, Harry Turtledove
14. Fury, Alastair Reynolds

Now, I'm willing to accept that I may be missing androgynous names here, but I checked and Terry Dowling is male.

One woman? Seriously.

Think that argument last year was rough?

One woman? I'm not sure how that happens. You'd think accidentally Strahan would have selected a second woman. Like, by mistake and all.

Ouch.

That's embarrassing. I'm sure each of the stories are great and all, but I'm going to have a difficult time looking at Eclipse Two and not consider the fact that only woman was included. Conscious decision or blind selection / submission process, it's a slap in the face.

Shadow Unit: DVD Extra

You thought I was done talking about Shadow Unit?

Nope!

There will be bonus features throughout the summer. Tonight brings us "Vigil", a short from Elizabeth Bear.

Anyone pissed off at Reyes after Refining Fire should check out "Vigil". This is the beginning of what comes after.

It's heartbreaking.

Sense of Wonder

David deBeer attempts to define "sense of wonder" in comparison to "sublime" when talking about SFF.

The closing statement and quite possibly the perfect answer:

If sense of wonder is an invitation the writer extends to the reader, saying “take my hand and walk with me in never-neverland,” then the sublime is that ideal idea of perfect grace we project onto something.