a mini promotional post

I was going to rant about TV shows today, but a couple of things came up, so I’m doing a mini promotional post instead.

Daniel Abraham’s story about Curveball, “When We Were Heroes,” is live on Tor.com.   One of the fun things about working on Wild Cards is a) getting to play with other authors’ characters, and b) seeing what other authors do with your characters.  This story marks a big step in Curveball’s life, and I have to be honest, I’m kind of glad I wasn’t the one writing about this.  I would have tried to be a little too nice and polished.  But Daniel did a great job.  I get teary, reading this story.

A reminder:  the e-book of my collection Straying from the Path is available on all platforms.  (This link goes to Kindle.)  Go forth and read!

My writing has been a bit manic over the last week.  I’m working on three different things, pretty much simultaneously.  I’m revising Dreams of the Golden Age (aka Age of Tin), but because I don’t want to lose forward momentum on two other projects I’m working on, I’m trying to get new words down on them as well.  It’s a little frenetic, but I finally feel like I’m getting stuff done, after lurching out of the holiday season.  I’m going out of town at the end of the month — let’s see if I can wrap one or two of these up before then, shall we?

Wild Cards news

A couple of cool things on the Wild Cards front:

The e-books of the re-released Volume 1, Inside Straight, Busted Flush, and Suicide Kings are on sale until Dec. 14.

The first two books are now available on audio.

If you’ve been wanting to give the series a try, this is a great chance.  Especially since movie rights to the series have just sold and Melinda Snodgrass is writing the screenplay.  *fangirl squee* Back in the day, when I was in college, I wrote George fanmail about Wild Cards.  (He still has my letter, and I still have the letter he wrote back.)  One of the questions I asked was about the possibilities of a movie.  So you can see, this has been a long time coming.

 

 

A couple of links…

Author L.A. Banks is ill, and a benefit auction is being held to help with medical expenses.  I’ve donated a book package — the latest three Kitty books plus CD’s of the playlists for them.  Leslie blurbed my first book, and we were on a panel together at DragonCon a few years ago.  We had an awesome time — because she is an awesome person. Go, find something cool, and bid on it!

Book recommendations:  a couple of books are out now that I’ve read/blurbed/enjoyed:

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey.  Big spaceships FTW!

Spellcast by Barbara Ashford.  Fantasy + musical theater = awesome.

The next Wild Cards book, Fort Freak, is out this week.  I’m not in this one, but I’ll be rushing out to grab it ASAP…

me and Wild Cards

Today is the official release day for the reissue of Wild Cards I, the very first Wild Cards shared-world anthology originally released in 1987.

I love this cover so much.  It’s so evocative.  And it’s also so clearly JETBOY!  Hooray!

I followed the Wild Cards series almost but not quite from the beginning.  The first one I read was Volume V, Down and Dirty (in keeping with my habit of picking up a series in the middle rather than the beginning).  It grabbed hold, hooked me, reeled me in, and I was a fan forever more.  George still speaks of this book with a tone of simmering antagonism, because of how difficult it was to edit.  But I loved it.  I picked it up because of this cover:

I’d never seen anything like it.  No dragons, no aliens (well, unless you count Dr. Tachyon, but I didn’t know that from the cover), no half-naked women.  It looked real and rooted.  The book turned out to be the same — real and rooted.  It really was New York City, but different.   It was superheroes, but it wasn’t good guys v. bad guys, it was lots of likable, or at least sympathetic, people getting in over their heads.  Who just happened to have superpowers.  I’d never read anything like it.

It was 1989.  I hunted down the first four books, then picked up the subsequent books as soon as they came out.  I got the GURPS game.  I ran fan club meetings at Starfest.  I wrote George fan mail.  (And he wrote back.  When I started writing for Wild Cards, I pulled out the letter and we had a chuckle over it.)

I have a vivid memory of racing through the PSAT exam, which all high schoolers were required to take at the time, because we were allowed to read if we finished early, and I had a Wild Cards book sitting under my desk, just waiting.

In retrospect, I have to wonder how much impact Wild Cards had on my aesthetics — on the way I write and the things I write about.  After all, every single one of my published novels takes place in a “real” world, a world that’s recognizable as our own. . .but different.  Did I learn how to write alternate realities from Wild Cards?  The idea that you take one moment in history, change it, and see what the world looks like forty years later?  Say, returning dragons to the world after the atomic blasts of World War II (much like the alien virus infected the planet in 1946, in the Wild Cards world).  Or imagining that werewolves and vampires are real, and instead of focusing on the magic bits of that, start a radio talk show on the subject…

It’s been a little surreal working on Wild Cards, meeting all the writers, using their characters.  I find myself wondering what the behind-the-scenes process looked like on my beloved high school novels.  Knowing now what it looks like with the current books — what gets left on the cutting room floor, for example — I know there must be hundreds of untold stories.  Hundreds of directions the series could have taken and just didn’t.  The fan in me wants to read every single one of them.  The professional in me knows that the other Wild Cards writers would be horrified to hear me say that.

So, the return of Wild Cards I.  It’s the original book, with three new stories.  Including one of mine, “Ghost Girl Takes Manhattan,” which tells the origin story of a character who becomes much more important later on.  I am now retroactively a part of the series from the very beginning.  (Who says time travel doesn’t exist?)  The best part — I got to write a scene with Dr. Tachyon.  Working on the new volumes means we’ve started with mostly a new slate of characters.  My favorite characters from the early books — the Turtle, Dr. Tachyon, Croyd, Jay Ackroyd, Jack Braun — are retired or just gone.  I’d never get a chance to write about them.  But this story is set in 1981, and they’re all still around and in their primes.  So I now have a canon Dr. Tachyon scene under my belt.  And. . .the other main character in the story is very much a favorite, and I think I did him justice.  To say any more would be a spoiler.

My high school self would be flabbergasted.

this is just to say — book signing!

I’ll be in Albuquerque on Saturday, signing Kitty’s House of Horrors at the Coronado Center Barnes and Noble.  Also on hand, the whole Wild Cards gang signing Suicide Kings.  The event starts at 1:30.

I’ve been taking in as much of the Olympics as I can.  These opening ceremonies were probably my favorite since the Athens summer games in 2004, which had the really amazing living art history procession.  Vancouver gave us a really spectacular use of technology (those projected whales!), the First Nations presentation at the forefront, and some really heartfelt musical performances.  Yeah.  (One of my least favorite opening ceremonies has to be Atlanta 1996, where I thought, “You’re showcasing American culture and all you can come up with are pickup trucks and cheerleaders?!”)

Here’s my favorite bit from the Athens opening ceremony.  This clip doesn’t have the original music, but gives the clearest view of the performers.  (Can you spot Homer at the 3:05 mark?)

happy May Day!

I did an interview for my publisher on Blog Talk Radio a couple of months ago but just found the link for it.  So if you’ve ever wanted to hear what I sound like, get thee hence.  I think my favorite question was about having a female werewolf pack leader.  Apparently, this was really subversive, and I didn’t even know it until people starting telling me, “Yay, female pack leader!”  Apparently, the convention is that fictional werewolf packs are male dominated.  Which feeds right back into my rant about this genre not being as female empowering as people like to think it is.  It also reminds me of the time I explained to someone that my series was about a werewolf named Kitty.  He said, “But there’s no such thing as female werewolves.”  Here, I learned a new emoticon, let me try it out:      o_O

Yeah.

And this weekend, the first big summer movie:  HUGH JACKMAN, SHIRTLESS.  I mean, um….that Wolverine flick…

UPDATE:  This just breaking, George R. R. Martin’s annoucement that Wild Cards Vol. 1 is in plans for re-release, with new material, including a story by… ME!  Yes, I’ll be busy this summer…

a couple of wild cards interviews

To celebrate the release of Busted Flush and the paperback release of Inside Straight, Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist has a 10-way interview with some of the writers and creators.  Jezebel the Demon interviews my characters here.

The horrifying thing seen on television last night:  “Santa Baby,” as performed by the Pussycat Dolls and Snoop Dogg.

vicarious thrill

Here it is, via Eat Our Brains, the group photo of the Wild Cards Consortium from Saturday’s signing.

Much fun was had, many books were signed, and sangria consumed. Huzzah!

a question

So, who will be the next American Hero?

I know, but I’m not telling.

Now, I drive. Drive like the wind!

on the road

1. Tomorrow, I hit the road for Albuquerque for Saturday’s Wild Cards: Inside Straight event at Page One Books. 2 pm! Meet many authors! Get books signed!
2. Lovevampires.com has posted a new interview with me.
3. It snowed yesterday! Real, big, fluffy, pretty snow! Then it stopped! Today it’s sunny and beautiful. This is why I love Colorado.
4. Tuesday at fencing practice, I got smacked by an epee, right on the funny bone. I couldn’t move my arm for like a minute. Everyone laughed. That was when I realized why it’s called the funny bone — it’s because everyone else thinks it’s funny.
5. I got nuthin’. I’m in that state of trying to get done everything I said I was going to get done by the end of the month. Guess what? It’s the end of the month! Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!