Ketchup

There are still a few things I want to write about WorldCon and the days afterward, but it's been nuts, not only because I came home from Denver with a nice head cold. Before too much more time goes by, however, I wanted to note that my friend and sometime collaborator David Brin walked out of the convention center with a nice new award to add to his collection.

David's novella Sky Horizons (Subterranean Press, 2007), a stand-alone piece which serves as the first part of our work-in-progress Colony High, won the Hal Clement / Golden Duck award for best young adult book of 2007. You can find more about here at
http://www.goldenduck.org/winners.html

Before anyone's eyes explode at the idea that the guys behind books like The Postman and Plague Year could be writing young adult fiction, yes, Colony High is a YA novel, but it's YA in the same way that Ender's Game was originally released as YA. Our ongoing adventure is YA with real meat to it, as so many YA novels are these days... even, shall we say, dark and gritty? We expect grown-ups will dig it as well as any teenager. For example, how do the words "political assassination" strike you as the basis for a sub-plot? Or, for that matter, "sex" or "First Contact" or "biological contamination"? Hee hee.

I'm really looking forward to getting this one complete.

In the meantime, congrats to David!

Labels: David Brin, Hal Clement Award, Sky Horizon, WorldCon report

Behind as ever, I wanted to mention that the ever-sharp John Joseph Adams put up a nice account of our journey into NORAD here on Sci Fi Wire: http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=58573

Labels: NORAD tour, Sci Fi Wire, WorldCon report

photo: Jeremy F. Lewis and Eric James Stone

Bless the gods, for once we didn’t have anything lined up (this was Sunday morning) until I opened my mouth the previous afternoon and suggested a meeting. It was a target of opportunity. That’s what WorldCon is all about, right? Everyone’s actually in the same place. Sitting down with these guys just made too much sense.

Diana and I were still able to sleep in until 9am, which is a wild luxury, after which I headed off to the dealer’s room for the rendezvous while she enjoyed a long shower (we’re on water rationing in California) and a slow cup of coffee with the newspaper. Some vacation! “Let me take you to exotic Denver, sweetheart, where I’ll run you around in circles for three days until, finally, you can have two quiet hours on Sunday.” Bwah HA ha ha ha ha!

The meeting went well, I thought, and I was glad for the chance to cross-pollinate my brain cells with these guys. We’ll see what comes of it.

Afterward, D and I met up again and cruised for more books and souvenirs. Naturally, we also ran into six more friends and colleagues for quick, energetic exchanges of what we’d been seeing and doing, plus a few fun photos, including this one of The Men In Black. You should definitely check out the high-octane vampire novel Staked by Jeremy F. Lewis, which I nominated for the Nebula, I thought it was so much fun, and also look for the short fiction of Eric James Stone. Who is wearing a t-shirt of Eric James Stone wearing a t-shirt of Eric James Stone wearing a t-shirt of Eric James Stone. I love that guy!

The continuing mayhem was capped by lunch with a small pack of writers and editors, away from the convention center, which was nice. I was feeling worn out. But it was time to return soon enough. Literally! I had a panel on The Physics of Time Travel with two wildly intelligent people, Todd Brun and David Friedman, at which I cast myself as the color commentator. If we’d been announcing a football game, they would have been the two who gave you the statistics and the play-by-play while I said things like “Wow, that guy is running really fast!” My education in quantum physics starts and stops with BACK TO THE FUTURE, whereas they actually knew what they were talking about when we got to subjects like string theory and the topography of the space-time continuum. Holy wow!

The panel went well enough. We had a huge audience, and I got to do my Terminator impersonation in my best, slow, ominous Arnold voice: “Come with me if you want to live.” Does it get any better than that?

Afterwards, Diana and I circulated a bit and ran into several more friends and pros, including Joe and Gay Haldeman, who have been absolutely great to me, enduring fan mail for years. I got his last two books autographed and noted “WorldCon 2008,” which really put the icing on the cake that was Denver.

Afterwards (yes, I keep saying “afterwards” but, man, the days just never stopped!) Diana and I staggered out into the sunlight and walked a couple miles up and down the pedestrian mall on 16^th street, stopping for a rice bowl in Tokyo Joe’s, and browsing in a few shops. Mmm, shopping. Well, actually, fingering postcards and Broncos beer mugs bores the tits off me, but Diana had been a real trouper for endless hours, so I tagged along without complaint.

Finally, we realized we could make a showing of HANCOCK at the downtown theater, which was too good to pass up. We would have preferred the new MUMMY, but it wasn’t playing again until too late, and we wanted to get back to the hotel and clean up and pack and go to bed — our flights home were too early Monday morning — and we almost never get to go to the movies anymore. Too busy!

Will Smith was awesome as usual, but the story suffered from a horrifically large number of gaps and inconsistencies, many of which would have been easy to fix. One of the major unanswered questions could have been addressed with a single line of dialogue, but instead the characters danced around the topic, as if the writer couldn’t think of a decent explanation. Shit, I thought of five just kicking back there in the dark with some salty popcorn and a Sprite. “Originally, we were created by the aliens of Neptune to be the guardians of all primates.” Or, alternatively, “Transdimensional cyborgs brought their biotech to ancient Earth and built us as a joke.” That’s all they had to tell us and the story would have gelled. Just say it, please. Give the audience something to hold onto.

At last, we made it back to the hotel. Packing was easy. Mostly it was just dirty laundry, except for the bazillion books we’d had autographed. My carry-on would include nearly a dozen novels, plus some goodies from NORAD.

Diana called up a room service salad and a sandwich again, which we picked at while watching more Olympics on that giant plasma screen from our giant white bed. The ife of kings! Then sleep.

Labels: panels, photos, pros, WorldCon report

I was set to do a book release party in Leadville, which is about a two hour drive west of Denver, so Diana and I tried to escape the convention center. No luck. We ran into several more friends and acquaintances. A nice problem to have!

The drive was spectacular and we were actually glad for the quiet time. The two previous days felt like a week. And we’ve been to The Book Mine in Leadville before, where they treat us like royalty. Check out this window display! Lance Armstrong had been in town that same day for the Leadville 100, a grueling high-elevation mountain bike race that brought a lot of foot traffic to this tiny tourist town.

The event went well, and the owner, Carol Hill, had me sign an entire case of books before I left, seating them on a front-of-store display. I’m not sure who’s having more fun with the series, me or her. ;)

Afterwards, Diana and I walked up and down the main street and eventually found our way into the Tennessee Pass Café, where we had a giant fresh spinach salad and teriyaki buffalo steak sandwiches. You don’t get that in Burger King, folks. Yum!

We’d planned on returning to Denver in time for the awards ceremony, but we were running late, as always, and after returning the rental car we wanted to stop into our hotel room to drop our backpacks and change our shirts. And the peace that the room offered was too sweet to ignore. I summoned up enough energy to stride quickly to the nearby Barnes & Noble to sign stock there, too — running into two more pros on the sidewalk, of course, for a quick hello — then returned to our massive bed for more Olympics, some tangerines, and the rest of the buffalo sandwich that we hadn’t been able to kill off in Leadville. Whew.

So far, this had been the calmest day of the convention by far.

Labels: book signing in Leadville, Colorado, WorldCon report

Saturday morning, I was scheduled for 10am reading that I was certain would be unattended. I’ve seen major names with an audience of just two or three people at that hour, especially after the Friday parties, but I played it honestly, arrived on time myself, and gave it fifteen minutes before packing it in. The guy in the room next to me, a magazine editor, was also skunked, so we shook hands and commiserated briefly, and then Diana and I returned to the dealer room to hunt more books.

We weren’t there long before we ran into the hilarious and energetic Frank Wu, who previously I’d known only online, and his new fiancee Brianna. Congrats, guys! Frank and I did a piece together in Fantastic Stories #25. I wrote the story. He did the perfect illustration. And he’d been good enough to let me use the artwork for “Meme” on my web site, where the story is now posted for free.

Frank, being Frank, a visual guy, suggested that simply posing for a photo was silly. Instead, here you have the Intergalactic Space Ninjas. Kiiiiyah!!!!

Labels: artwork, Frank Wu, readings, WorldCon report

As we ran inside just ahead of the deluge, Jessica pointed out a large bug on the rooftop jogging track, five stories above the endless roads and sidewalks of central Denver.

It was a preying mantis, lost and unexpected among the immeasurable square miles of glass, steel, and concrete.

I figure MIB sent him to suck out our brains.

Labels: an unexpected guest, WorldCon report

But the whirlwind wasn’t done yet. We finally shook hands with Carsten, who had another meeting, and went off to another meeting of our own, hooking up with Ace editor Jessica Wade, who joined us on an open fifth-story rooftop for virgin daiquiris, city views, and shop talk. Like most of the other pros we’ve met, Jessica clearly enjoys what she does and was energetic, articulate, and great fun.

It was also fantastic to be outside after most of the day inside hotels or the convention center. There was a fresh breeze curling through the skyscrapers of downtown Denver, and, far above, the evening sky was loaded with puffy white clouds that were darkening in the west.

After an hour, in fact, it began to sprinkle. I suggested waiting it out, but the ladies were more rational... and as we walked inside, the sky opened up. Rain hammered down in sheets and the clouds rippled with blue-white lightning strikes that echoed and rolled throughout the city. Holy shikes! The next morning, the news said Denver received two inches in a single hour. There were flash floods in some neighborhoods. So don’t listen to me when I suggest that we just hang out and enjoy the rain.

Diana and I said goodbye to Jessica and retreated to our room, where we sprawled on our giant bed and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, decompressing from the nonstop day as we ate surprisingly good room service food: a Mediterranean salad, french fries, and a tasty club sandwich. Then sleep.

Labels: Ace, editors, WorldCon report

Photo: Cartsen Polzin, Ginger Buchanan, and Jeff

One of the things that was the most fun about this WorldCon for Diana and myself is that we’re really starting to be in with the in-crowd. Most of the pros in science fiction and fantasy are open, interesting, and interested people, not at all fatheaded with their success. They’re welcoming and friendly…

…although there are notable exceptions. One idiot with a single novel under his belt went out of his way to snub me, for no reason I can imagine except possibly that I don’t share his high level of education. I found this bizarre. In the crowd, I would have barely noticed if he simply hadn’t been nice. Instead, he made an *effort* to be rude, so now he’s made an enemy, pointlessly, and you never know who’s going to end up where. For one thing, I’m now editing anthologies. And I won’t be shy about sharing my opinion of this fathead. It’s a small community. Why go out of your way to blacklist yourself? I'm guessing his behavior must be about ego gratification– trying to make me small to make himself big. I find that bizarre and sad.

But I digress! Half the fun in Denver was that we’ve come to know a bazillion writers and editors, from those with a few short stories in print to those with thirty bestselling novels, and it quickly became obvious that we couldn’t walk from one room to another without meeting three friends in between. Sometimes everyone was in too much of a rush to do more than point and grin. Sometimes we huddled together for five minutes, or twenty, in a fast-talking rush to catch up and share.

It’s exciting to be part of the excitement. I’ll spare us all a blow-by-blow naming of names, but Diana and I introduced ourselves to several writers whom we respect and happened to run into. We also caught up with a dozen more pros whom we'd become acquaintanced with during the NORAD tour or had been friends with in the years before.

My first gig for Friday was a kaffeeklatch, an event designed as a chance to sit down with your favorite writer or editor in a limited group of ten folks and talk for an hour and a half. I didn’t really expect anyone to sign up for me. My second novel is barely out, and folks like Joe Haldeman and Michael Swanwick were also available… or not. I saw the sign-up sheets. Joe had fifteen people on standby, waiting for the first ten to get hit by a bus. Nobody waited all morning in their sleeping bags to be the first to get on my sheet, and yet there were four autographs beneath “Jeff Carlson.” Awesome. Diana made five, and we had a good time talking about breaking into publishing. Three of the four were would-be writers themselves.

The kaffeklatch was followed by my first panel, Are Writers’ Workshops Right For You?, which was fairly well attended and proceeded nicely. All of my co-panelists had impressive resumes as instructors for Clarion and other workshops. We also kicked around the pros and cons of local writers’ groups, college courses, and the like.

Off to the dealer room! Every table had my books in stock. I signed big stacks of War especially and saw some more friends and colleagues, some of whom were the book sellers themselves, others who were editors or fellow writers.

After that, already dizzy, we ran back to my hotel room. My publicist had interested the San Francisco Chronicle in an interview, and I wanted to eat and to be in a calm, protected space for that phone call. Kudos to Valerie Cortes at Ace/Penguin! The interview went very well, I think, and we’ll see what the Chronicle has to say tomorrow, 8/14.

After that we trotted back toward the convention center to the Hyatt Regency bar, where we were due to sit down with my German editor at Piper Verlag, who is releasing Plague Year as Nano in just a few weeks. More excitement.

Naturally, we were unable to walk into the bar without being accosted by more friends and acquaintances. This being-at-the-nexus-of-the-sf-world stuff is awesome! We traded more hugs and handshakes in a hurry, then sat down with Carsten Polzin, my German guy, for cool drinks and a bilingual get-to-know you. Diana grew up in Germany, the daughter of a U.S. Armyman and a local fraulein, so they had fun listening to my few, rudimentary phrases in German. It was also no surprise to discover that we had favorite movies, books, and early influences in common. Carsten is an educated, passionate, well-spoken and well-read successful young man. But not as good-looking as me, right?

There were lots more familiar faces in the bar, including Ace chief Ginger Buchanan, who joined us for several minutes and for the photo at the top. She’s telling Diana to put down my drink! ;)

Labels: editors, science fiction, WorldCon report, writers

After nearly four hours inside Cheyenne Mountain, we drove north again to the now infamous post-NORAD KJA BBQ at the Anderson mansion, where we were also joined by Rebecca Moesta, treated to buffalo burgers, given free books, and encouraged to indulge in mayhem such as what you see here, the Rob Sawyer vs. Boba Fett Death Match. You know the drill. Two men enter. Only one leaves!

Not your typical day at home, yes?

Labels: NORAD BBQ, WorldCon report

This will be impossible to do without sounding like I’m bragging, but, fortunately for us all, I don’t have time to get into great detail about those five wildly fantastic days in Denver. So here’s the highlight reel.

On Thursday, Diana and I attended a VIP tour of the NORAD complex in Cheyenne Mountain along with about twenty other writers and editors. Half the fun was just driving there! These were some extremely fun, bright, and interesting folks to hang out with. Even our early lunch at Denny’s was hilarious and mentally nutritious, if overloaded with butter in the physical realm.

From right to left: Blake Charlton, John Joseph Adams, Diana and Jeff Carlson, Kevin J. Anderson, Walter Jon Williams, Kathy Hedges, David Marusek, Sharry and Robert Charles Wilson, Annalee Newitz, Erin Cashier, Robert J. Sawyer, David J. Williams, Paolo Bacigalupi, Sean Williams, Lou Anders, Ed and Darcy Robert, “Bear” and Christina Lihani, Jeremy F. Lewis, and Carolyn Clink.

Annalee wrote up the tour nicely, and I’m too busy to do my own report at this point except to say that it was, well, completely phenomenal. ;)

Check out her take here at http://io9.com/5034540/deep-inside-norad-with-only-a-felt+tip-pen-and-twenty-science-fiction-writers

Labels: Cheyenne Mountain, NORAD tour, sci fi writers, WorldCon report

WorldCon is finally over, but it's still going on inside my brain. We were here four days. Felt like two weeks. More soon. But for now I'll just say it again.

Holy shit, dude.

Ho Lee Shit!!!! ;) It's been unspeakably awesome.

Labels: WorldCon report