Supa Princesses and a Much-Needed Multi Pass

Supanova was fun, as per usual. Sure it's crowded, and sure you get to queue a few times, but the atmosphere is always incredibly genial and everyone is there to have a good time. I also like that the attendees are of all age groups, with your tiniest tots (there were two cute sisters dressed up as unicorns, and a couple of small Captain Americas with diminutive shields) mingling with happy groups of young gamers and manga fans made up as their favourite characters, right through to veteran oldies. Comics, artwork, books, movies, games, modelling - all aspects of the scene are covered, and it's a place where those just starting out can sell their wares alongside established artists.

And always, there's a parade of costumes to admire, everything from your Wookies to your Doctors, Mulders, Scullies, Leias, Solos, Vikings, robots of different persuasions, samurai, zombies and zombie hunters, one dragon, many unidentifiable (to me) gamer characters, and much Game of Thrones finery, which enthralled many of the small girls present. One particular knee-high admirer just stood in the busy exhibition hall staring up at four female Throners with an air of disbelief, a huge, blissful smile on her face while her dad looked on, and everyone politely moved around the group and made room for her moment. Every year the cavalcade changes. There didn't seem to be any steampunk costumes  this year, no Daleks or Weeping Angels, there was nary a Star Trek officer to be seen, likewise Resident Evil soldiers and girls wearing fluffy cat ears.

But there were princesses. Disney royalty and the aforementioned Game of Thrones ladies were definite hit this year, though some carried it off better than others. At one point, a pink clad figure came schlepping by, her posture stooped, bags hanging criss-cross over her outfit, and she was rather indecorously downing junk food. I felt she was letting the side down. But the others all seemed to keep their princess personas going no matter what, regularly but discretely touched up their make-up and kept an eye on their hair, and were exceedingly gracious to all the little girls (usually in pink dresses themselves) who ran up to them for a close gander, arranging their big dresses and posing with the star struck kiddies for photos.

I bought a few things, of course, including the obligatory, geeky T-shirt (actually, I got three) and a Leeloo Dallas multi pass to  hang on the odds and sods board over my writing desk. It's a bit of a running family joke, and makes me smile when I see it.

We also attended a talk with Gary Lockwood and Keir Dullea from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and heard all about the brilliance of Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C Clarke anecdotes, amusing and serious information about the making of the film, the public reaction afterwards, and much trivia about Hollywood in the 60s. There were plenty of other guests, the stars of shows from the olden days as well as the latest productions, but after a second whizz around the grounds, we called it a day.

Because it's Time to Buy that Annual T-Shirt with a Geeky Message Which I'll Probably Only Wear Whilst Writing.

Plus, this is a family thing. We do it each year.

So, to bed, to bed ASAP, for I'm off to Supanova early in the morning.

I'd better pop the tickets in my bag. Wouldn't want to be halfway to Melbourne and realise I'd forgotten them.

See you there, maybe. There's usually an awful lot of people.  

GoT v WD

Hot off the press - there's a game in progress out in the back yard of the house next door. It involves two littlies, and as an ear witness, I can testify that it began thus:

"Look, a dragon!"

"No, a zombie!"

"Dragon!"

"Zombie!"

From a such simple beginnings, it went no further. It continued, and still unfolds with that simple script, though running around in circles and squealing has been added to the routine:

"Dragon!"

"Zombie!"

I await the outcome of this titanic battle with bated breath.

 

Legend of the Luminous Last Lines

There was a book sale in town today. I almost bought The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson but opted for a couple of more modern tomes instead. Coming home tonight and finding out that the great man himself  had just passed away, I wished I had bought it.

Silly me. Tomorrow I'll go back and remedy my mistake. In the shop, leafing through it, I read again that almost last, tragic but full of wonderment, bittersweet-with-a-touch-of-hope line, which always gets me:

"If nature existed on endless levels, so also might intelligence."

Then there's the kicker of a very last line, but I won't spoil it for those who haven't yet dipped into this classic yet.  

He did last lines well. I cannot even begin to guess how many times I read I Am Legend. I loved the entire book (let's politely ignore the movies for now), but I mostly reread it just to relive over and over the full impact of that final prison scene and the very last, now very famous words which, when I first read them as a teenager, completely blew me away:

 ...a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.

 Some writers fudge endings. Not Richard Matheson. Just as you (if you hadn't read his work before) with the last page turned, might have been winding down, he slammed an image or an idea or a possibility right into your brain, and there it stayed put, sending your thoughts skittering off into multiple, deep, dark, moving and twisty philosophical places. All that, and frightening and touching and entertaining too! I loved his books. I loved his Twilight Zone episodes. And who wasn't scared out of their wits by every passing truck for at least a month after watching the movie Duel?

Thank you, Richard, for all those great stories.

Richard Matheson

1926-2013

R.I.P.

Ummmm, Misty Mountains, Ummmmm

There are dwarves inside my head, singing their plangent tunes of yearning and longing and sorrow and homesickness and the good times, before hubris struck, when dwarves were cashed up and powerful and lived in sumptuous surroundings, and folk from all over Middle Earth tipped their hats to them.

All together now:

Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To seek our pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells,
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

The rest of the movie lyrics for Over the Misty Mountains Cold are here, where you can also catch up on all things Thorin Oakenshieldish.

The Hobbit is exactly what you expect it to be. Wonderfully padded with plenty of asides for Tolkien fans, with characters taking time out to sing and eat and tell tales and give swords their proper names and due respect, as well as lots of old friends dropping by to catch up with us and each other and, continuity-wise, set the 'something Evil lurks in the shadows' vibe for LOTR. It's as comfy as bed socks and pyjamas in Winter, just with orcs. And trolls. BIG trolls. You can never have too many trolls. I actually prefer them to the orcs. Less gnashing of teeth and grunting, more personality and comedy. Disgusting as they are, the trolls of Middle Earth nonetheless know how to use the word whom correctly, I noticed. If Peter Jackson ever does a George Lucas and fiddles with the first three movies, I'm thinking he needs to go back and add a few well-spoken trolls to LOTR.

In fact, after today's rich, Tolkienesque serving of The Hobbit, I feel like digging out the LOTR box set, extended version of course, and heading back to Middle Earth for another heaped helping. Not today (I'm stuffed), but sometime soon. It'll be interesting to see how the whole eventually ties up once the next two movies of The Hobbit trilogy have been delivered for our viewing pleasure.

Princess Palooza

So I'm back, in more ways than one, after a series of shopping sprees, cooking sprees, eating sprees, laughing sprees, unwrapping sprees, aaahing sprees, recovering sprees, reading sprees, spreeing sprees. Consider Christmas 2012 done and dusted!

 After limbering up my writing brain by spending most of of yesterday, when I wasn't napping and digesting the last remnants of my rich Danish Christmas, on reading my new Connie Willis book (my cats give the best presents!) I hit the keyboard today and got in 4 hours of solid work and a few more of tinkering. I spent the first couple of hours on a zombie story, even though I was seriously put off the antho in question that I've hitherto been so excited about when I discovered a recent addition to the guidelines specifying that the editor wasn't accepting any more stories set after a certain historical date. That smacks of my pet hate, the 'until filled' anthology. I pity the poor souls who were happily planning to polish over Xmas the great works they'd laboured long and hard on, and now can't submit them because they'd committed to the "wrong" era. As I've mentioned, I had two ideas for the antho, and had to angstily choose which one to focus on. The one I was really tempted to go with, but guessed I wouldn't have enough time to do properly, would now have been deemed ineligible. Thank goodness I went with the shorter one set further back in history, otherwise I'd be RANTING and GRRRRing and THROWING FURNITURE now instead of just grumbling about the injustice of it all.

I then spent the rest of my writing day scouting around for, looking over and editing/rewriting princess stories for an upcoming anthology that accepts multiple submissions. I love editors who accept multiple subs. That way, if I have more than one story that fits the theme, I don't have to agonise over which one might be the best fit. I was surprised to discover I actually have four stories that tick the key criteria, which are, loosely,  'must feature a princess, and be dark, twisty, sinister, Gothic etc, or combinations thereof'.

So no, they're not looking for passive gals who live happily ever after, thank goodness, because none of my princesses are that psychologically flaccid, or that fortunate. Only one of these four stories is out at the moment, so I'll have to wait for it to be rejected before it can join the other three, which I'll send off tomorrow. Or possibly the one already out singing for its supper will be accepted. And so will one of the others. All of these stories have garnered good comments and/or been shortlisted for publication, but never quite made it into print. Maybe one of them will score this time. Maybe I'll end up with a slew of princess stories (well, two) hitting the market at the same time, and people will roll their eyes and mutter about my limited range :) Hah! I should be so lucky.

Anyway, the upshot of this princesserly prattle is that it looks like these holidays will be reasonably productive and full of positive writerly doings.

Waffling On About The Dead

 Bards and Sages Publishing have started their series of author interviews to promote the Return of  the Dead Men (and Women) Walking anthology. The first one is here.

Hmmm, apparently, they're micro interviews.

*gulp*

Micro? As in really tiny? Not very long? No-one told me that. I've checked my emails, and cannot see the word micro, or for that matter short, or any instructions about not waffling on anywhere. The utter wordiness of some of the answers I sent now seems a bit embarrassing. Once I get started, and I'm having fun, well, off I go. But hey, if my interview gets used, I'm sure they'll cut me down to a few pithy lines.

Much Ado About Substance

HERE the Los Angeles Review of Books gives science fiction writing the once over. Fantasy gets a slap on the wrist too. Reviewer Paul Kincaid covers in depth the short stories chosen for the three biggie 2012 Best of the Year anthologies, namely Gardener Dozois's The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Ninth Annual Collection, Richard Horton's The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy:2012, and Nebula Awards Showcase 2012.

Best of is a loaded term that is always going to provoke debates - or at least it should, if we want to keep our genre exciting and relevant. Plucking certain mortals from the mud below and elevating them to a celestial position high above others is always going to pit one person's love of straightforward, ideas-based fiction without any new-fangled experimental bells and whistles against another person's love of escapist entertainment versus a third person's loathing of mundane prose and a fourth person's hankering for more interesting story structures. Your OMG, it's the most blooming awesome story ever in the history of the universe, and if you don't agree with me you're stupid might be my meh! Talk of spheres of influence to rival the old Cold War carving up of the world into political blocks, whisperings about competent but bland talent being helped along by friends in high places, complaints about uniform editorial tastes and grumblings about timid writers resorting to backwards-looking tropes are bound to erupt, and once again, your personal writerly or readerly POV will kick in and inform your position in the debate. All of this, as long as it's done within civilized conventions, is allowable and necessary. Freedom of expression and transparency are always desirable, although one should remember (geek alert) that much like the command of a starship, an anthology is not a democracy.

There's a lot to cogitate in Paul Kincaid's article of the good, bad, maybe, and absolutely spot-on sort. Basically, he seems to think that contemporary science fiction writing is much like a cardboard character of old who is bound for a tragic ending, picturesquely languishing upon a chaise longue in a perpetual state of exhaustion and ennui as he or she sighs and awaits the final curtain.

I do hope he's wrong.