Out of the Vault - Samuree

Yeah, it's been a while since I've delved into the vault, but now the scanner's warmed up, so let's start again. I had a hard time deciding which to do first among Plop and The Realm and Samuree, but Samuree eventually took top spot due to the squick factor that starts in the very first scene.

But let's back up for a second. I've said before that I was a DC reader in the early 70's. And one reason, besides the self-contained stories in most issues, was that DC had at least as many great artists working for them as Marvel did, guys like Nick Cardy and Jim Aparo and Murphy Anderson and Dick Giordano and most importantly, Neal Adams. Neal Adams was a legendary figure in 70's comics, known for drawing one of the most iconic Joker stories of all time, "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge," in Batman #251, and his work on Green Lantern/Green Arrow, as well as reviving the X-Men and illustrating the Avengers during the Kree-Skrull War over at Marvel.

But in the late 70's, Adams became disillusioned with the big 2 and started speaking out against work-for-hire and for creators' rights. And in the early 80's, he began producing his own creator-owned properties, first at Pacific Comics and then with his own publishing imprint, Continuity Comics.

Adams appears to have created and designed the properties for Continuity, then handed them off to other creators who emulated Adams's look as a house style. But as talented as Adams is with a pen, his character concepts were pretty sucky. During the 80's, Adams's prolific mind brought us such classics as Crazyman, ToyBoy, and Skateman.

Which brings us back to Samuree. Samuree was a generic hot female martial artist who had a brief run from 1987 to 1991 or thereabouts and then was revived in 1993 even more briefly before the great mid-90's market implosion killed her for good.

I bought the first three issues, because it was Adams, man, and even if the storytelling was crap, at least the books looked good. The first issue was typical of the series: gorgeous Adams cover, interior art by Mark Beachum with inks by Akin and Garvey and muddy colors by Liz Berube. Adams is credited with the story, and right off the bat, things feel icky.

The first page is a workout montage reminiscent of the opening of this episode of Miami Vice (featuring my high school classmate Suzy Amis), followed by this scene where a 16-year-old Samuree blatantly throws herself at an older man (as always, you can click the images for a larger version). The dialogue is not only crap ("Can you hear myself?"), but it manages to be suggestive without being the slightest bit erotic ("My body is...used" - Adams loves him some ellipses, BTW). It seems as if this guy is going to be a significant member of the supporting cast, but he barely appears in the first three issues.

Spotting a newspaper article about a hostage situation in New York, Samuree rushes to the Museum of Natural History, where she disables a few SWAT team members before running into the Revengers (Armor, Silver Streak, and Megalith) who are also trying to free the hostages. After several pages of fighting and discussion (during which we're told over and over that the slightest noise could cost all the hostages their lives), the four heroes band together and kick the terrorists' butts. However, before they can talk to any of the hostages, mysterious figures appear at a skylight, throwing smoke bombs and abducting three of the hostages--Silver Streak's father, a scientist hunted by Samuree, and Tom Savini.

Yes, that Tom Savini.

Subsequent issues don't get any better. Elliot Maggin (70's comics fixture who in his DC days not only rocked the pretentious middle initial but added the even more pretentious exclamation point--Elliot S! Maggin) took over the writing, but the dialogue stayed dumb and the characterizations wooden. The layouts tried too hard to be dynamic and were often confusing, the action sometimes hard to decipher under muddy overcoloring. The story moved in fits and starts, with backstory thrown in so randomly that it's not apparent whether the pages in issue #2 are printed in order or not.

On the plus side, I guess, Samuree did feature about 80% more cameltoe than your average comic. So there is that.

Fantastic Four on the Radio

So last week, I was listening to a ton of old Superman radio episodes from 1945, looking for the first radio appearance of Batman (which I may have found, but I'm not sure). I figured it would be a good tie-in to my recent post on "The Brave and the Bold."

But then I stumbled onto these Fantastic Four episodes from the mid-70's, and had to do this first. These make the Blue Beetle episode I posted a while back sound positively lavish. Cheap classic radio shows featured sound effects usually performed by a live prop man, with a single organ for music.

The Fantastic Four series featured a canned theme song and goofy scripts based closely on the original early issues of the comic, slightly updated in places (Jonny Storm admires a stereo with Dolby in one episode, for instance). Voice acting was mediocre, and is mainly noteworthy for a young Bill Murray sleepwalking his way through the role of the Human Torch. Sound effects are limited to a bunch of theremin farts.

So, in honor of my recent post about the first appearance of Doctor Doom, here is the radio version of that story. Let Stan Lee transport your imagination through Marvel magic and dull narration. Listen to the psychedelic wonder of the Fantastic Four's talking signal flare ("four..."). Thrill to the adventures of the Fantastic Three as they travel through time on an urgent mission. Quiver with delight as the Human Torch utters the immortal line, "This beverage really quenches my thirst," with complete conviction. Tremble with fear as Doctor Doom does a cross-promotional deal with H.P. Lovecraft by summoning monsters from Carcosa.

This, my friends, is the best of the early 60's crossed with the worst of the mid-70's, brought to you through the modern future miracle of the Internets. Click the widget to listen.

Another Food Hack

I love candy apples, the ones you get at the fair on a stick covered with a hard shell of cinnamon candy. But at the store, the only candy apple kits require you to prepare the coating in a pot on a stove to make a batch of like 10 apples. It's too much work, and too much of a hassle to store the apples after, plus often I only want a small taste, not a whole apple.

So here's my quick and easy candy apple hack.

Quarter and core an apple. Now cut an oblong trench in each apple section you feel like preparing (you can save the rest in the fridge for later; this is a scalable hack). In each trench, stand up a coin of cinnamon hard candy. I then heat the apple section in my toaster oven at about 350 until the candy starts to melt and run down the sides.

Let cool and eat.

Awesome taste, super easy to fix, complete portion control. The only kinks I'm still trying to work out are how to cut the trenches to allow maximum candy melt without losing it down the sides as waste, and how long to let it cool so I don't burn my mouth, but the candy doesn't reharden too much. But those are easy to tinker with.

Food Hacking

Since I've rejoined the bachelor life, I've started making a lot more of my own meals (partly for economic reasons, partly because I don't live as close to eating places now as I did before). Back when I first got engaged, I decided to learn how to cook, at least a little, and discovered I enjoyed it.

But what I do now, you couldn't really call cooking. I don't make things from scratch; I buy prepackaged ingredients, then "enhance" them. It's more like food hacking.

For instance, ramen. Back in college, I would buy a packet of ramen and fix it according to the instructions on the label. Bland and boring. But when I was in Korea, I noticed that they use ramen like the stone in stone soup. Cook the ramen, then add all kinds of things to it to make it more nutritious and more palatable.

So here's my current take on ramen, although I reserve the right to play with stuff with every new batch. I start with a basic package of ramen and sliced hot links or sausage or hot dogs (depending on how broke I am) for protein. But when I'm boiling the water, I add a splash of wine (usually dry sherry, though I've experimented with red as well) and a sprinkle of fresh rosemary (maybe a half-teaspoon or so). The ramen is so salty that this adds only the slightest undertone of flavor, but it makes the house smell wonderful. I boil the noodles and hot dogs, then stir in the flavor packet and take it to the bowl. Once it's in the bowl, I add shredded cheese and a splash of bitters (I could do this in the pot, but the cheese makes a sticky mess, and it's easier to only clean it out of one container).

I used to add egg, also, but I haven't bought eggs in a long time. I've got some frozen shrimp I could try, and I could add fresh vegetables, but that starts to sound too much like cooking. What I'm doing now is quick and convenient, but has more flavor and depth than simply eating what comes out of the pack. That's food hacking.

Any easy food hacks you'd like to share?

Music Bleg

I'm trying to get into the groove of writing again. I want some music to write by, but the music I have isn't really suitable. I want something instrumental, like a movie soundtrack, but not necessarily orchestral. Something heroic, but with a fun edge. Maybe something like the soundtrack to "The Incredibles," but not that, because if it's too familiar, I'll just start picturing that instead of writing my own stuff.

Speaking of "The Incredibles," my absolute favorite musical moment in that movie (maybe even my favorite moment overall) is during the Hundred Mile Dash. Dash is tearing through the forest, trying to escape from the flying saucers, when he sees that he's headed right at a lake and closes his eyes. The crashing music goes almost completely silent, except for a little xylophone, as Dash opens his eyes and discovers he's running on the surface of the water. Then he gives this awesome little laugh and accelerates as the music swoops back in, changing from tense and frantic to jaunty and swinging, baby, which almost makes up for the fact that it's the freaking Perry Mason theme (well, not exactly, but close).

That's what I want, but not that, if you know what I mean.

Exploring Tomorrow

For Mary. She won the award, now she can hear the man himself.

For your enjoyment, an episode of Exploring Tomorrow, titled "Planet of Geniuses," hosted by John W. Campbell, Jr.

(ETA: Campbell makes an interesting host, but sometimes I think he's a little too inside baseball with his comments about the origins of words and the makings of tragedy and such. Also interesting that when he quotes Murphy's Law, he initially calls it Finagle's Law and specifies that it has to do with laboratory experiments. And whenever I listen to this, I always find find myself talking back to the show in one spot. When the marshall says "And I tell you the Empire can't afford what you call 'creativeness,'" I find myself saying "And I call 'creativity.'")

The Brave and The Bold

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I was a DC reader growing up. One of the books I enjoyed was The Brave and the Bold, a Batman team-up book. Both Marvel and DC had these, books that featured their most popular characters teamed up with a different guest star every issue. So besides the continuing adventures of the Fantastic Four, the Thing was constantly going off on adventures with other heroes in Marvel Two-In-One, while Marvel Team-Up featured mostly Spider-Man running into virtually every other character in the Marvel Universe. On the DC side, World's Finest teamed Batman and Superman in every issue with frequent guest-stars.

A team-up book like this demands a versatile artist and The Brave and the Bold had one of DC's best at the height of his talent: Jim Aparo. The book ended its run in 1983 with Batman forming a superhero team called The Outsiders, whose adventures began in their own book, appropriately titled Batman and the Outsiders.

Anyway, the reason I'm bringing this up now is that this Friday, Cartoon Network will debut a new Batman series titled, guess what? The Brave and the Bold. The first episode features a team-up with the Blue Beetle (if you haven't listened to the Blue Beetle radio show I posted a few days ago, listen to it here--it's a different Blue Beetle, but entertainingly wacky). Subsequent episodes are due to feature characters like Plastic Man, Aquaman, Adam Strange, Guy Gardner, Booster Gold and Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth. If you haven't figured it out from the guest stars, the show will not be entirely serious in tone.

I'm looking forward to it.

Alternate Versions

Okay, Marvel fans, you'll have to bear with me for a while, cause this one is freaking crazy. While flipping through websites looking for material on Iron Man's past, I made a really bizarre discovery. I'm sure someone else has pointed this out somewhere before, but I've never seen it, so I'm passing it on.

But first, a brief (perhaps not-so-brief) history lesson. In the late 50's and early 60's, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were working for Atlas Comics (soon to be Marvel) riding a fad of monster books. Stan Lee has mentioned how much fun he had doing those books, featuring creatures with names like Kraa and Goom and Monstrollo and (of course, you knew I had to say it) Fin Fang Foom. But, you say to yourself, how many of those books were they really doing? I mean, sure they did some monster books, but were they really that significant?

Roll over to Coverbrowser and look at the books of the time, like Tales to Astonish and Tales of Suspense and you realize, yeah, they were actually shoveling those out by the metric ton. And looking at those covers, I realized I was seeing the seeds of the Marvel Universe being planted.

Number one is the obvious stuff, like issues of Journey Into Mystery featuring a monster named Hulk a year before the debut of the Fantastic Four. Other hero and villain names were also presaged, like the Molten Man-Thing and Sandman and Vandoom, He Who Made a Creature! (presaging the FF villain Doctor Victor Von Doom in name if nothing else, about whom more later)

But more than that, you can see that when Marvel introduced its heroes, it made sure to hedge its bets by keeping one foot in the monster genre.

Fantastic Four was the first of the Marvel superhero books. The cover of the first issue was dominated by a standard giant Kirby monster, with the four heroes small in the frame surrounding him. The adventure inside featured the Mole Man attacking the surface world with his army of monsters. And not only did the Fantastic Four wear no standard superhero costumes, but they were all rather monstrous in their own ways (Mister Fantastic stretching into weird shapes, the Invisible Girl reminiscent of horror movie staple the Invisible Man, the Human Torch a mass of living flame, and of course, the Thing).

In issue two, the heroes battled the monstrous alien Skrulls, and fended off their invasion by scaring them away with Kirby monster comics (literally--they showed the Skrull leaders the comics panels and said they were photographs of actual monsters--the Skrulls fled, because aliens are stupid). I don't remember the villain in issue three, but issue four featured an attack on the surface world by the Sub-Mariner commanding an army of sea monsters. In the July issue, number 5, the Fantastic Four were introduced to their most fearsome foe of all, the nefarious Doctor Doom, a mad scientist who wore an iron mask to hide his disfigured face (click the pic for a larger version).

By that time, Marvel had introduced its second superhero, The Incredible Hulk, featuring a man who turns into (guess what?) a super-strong monster. And during this period, the other Marvel titles, like Tales to Astonish, Tales of Suspense and Journey into Mystery, were still featuring the standard collection of monster tales.

In Aug. 1962, Journey Into Mystery introduced Thor battling (what else?) the monstrous Stone Men from Saturn. Meanwhile, a character named Spider-Man appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15. For the first time, there were no monsters in a hero's debut story; then again, Amazing Fantasy was being canceled anyway, so they probably figured why bother? A month later, Ant-Man appeared in Tales to Astonish, battling both human foes and monsters over his first few adventures, to be joined soon by the Hulk, after his own book was canceled.

The last gasp of the Marvel monster fad was in Tales of Suspense in Feb. 1963. The next month, Iron Man debuted in its pages, with nary a monster in sight. And a couple of issues later, the Marvel logo began appearing on the company's covers. The superheroes had taken over; the Marvel Age had officially begun.

But here's the thing which caught my attention: while looking through all the covers of Tales of Suspense preceding Iron Man's introduction, I saw a very familiar face. Issue #31 of Tales of Suspense, cover-dated July 1962 (the same month that Doctor Doom made his debut in Fantastic Four #5), featured on its cover "The Monster in the Iron Mask." Look at this cover image and see if anything looks familiar.


Even the color scheme is the same. Either Kirby was obviously so proud of this design, he used it twice, or else he was so insanely busy he didn't have time to do another design and literally recycled it almost whole.

Either way, now you know the rest of the story.

Iron Man Nostalgia

So for my birthday, I used a Best Buy gift card to get myself the "Iron Man" special edition DVD. Just finished watching the extras last night. A few observations:

Robert Downey Jr. is really cut. You wouldn't expect it. He usually seems so frothy and insubstantial on-screen.

It's fascinating (to me, at least) to see how far the stories develop from their starting points. "Iron Man" doesn't deviate from its early versions as much as, say, "Monsters Inc.," but then it had established source material to draw from. But it's fascinating to see, for instance, a long scene depicting the actors' process in preparing for a crucial scene in which the big money line ended up on the cutting room floor, if indeed it wasn't dispensed with before it was shot. It's fascinating to see early Ironmonger designs being referred to as the Crimson Dynamo (indicating possibly a completely different story direction). It's interesting to hear Jeff Bridges talk about how the villain was originally supposed to have been the Mandarin (indicating another completely different story direction).

They put an amazing amount of design detail into that suit.

It's funny how fake and flimsy some of the practical suits look in the behind the scenes footage, yet how completely convincing the illusion is in the final film. Never underestimate the power of lighting and framing and clever editing (and digital post-processing and sound effects and the list goes on).

It's funny how many people lie about being "fans" of the original property in this behind-the-scenes stuff.

And just because I'm thinking of it, a descent into nostalgia: Iron Man #1 was the first comic book I ever bought (or that my parents bought for me). I remember the occasion. In early 1968, I was with my father in a Humpty Dumpty store in Oklahoma City (I think, though it may have been T.G.&Y.--whatever it was, both store and chain are extinct now--FWIW, Humpty Dumpty in Oklahoma City was also the birthplace of the shopping cart). We passed a spinner rack near the front of the store, and one of us suggested the idea of getting a comic book. Dad asked me which one I wanted, and I looked them over. I didn't know who any of the characters really were, but one caught my eye.

It featured a man in red and gold with a robotic face bursting out of some sort of metal prison on the cover, surrounded by smaller action vignettes. Even at that young age, I could tell the artwork was better than anything else on the rack. Dad looked at it and asked me if I really wanted it. Colan only averaged 4-6 panels a page, where most of the other books had 6-9. Dad expressed a concern that this comic would not give me a good panels-per-penny return (he didn't use that literal language, but it was something like "don't you want one with more pictures?").

Nope, I was set, and only Iron Man would do. As it turns out, it was not the best choice. Iron Man's adventures had been running for several years in Tales of Suspense, so even though this issue was numbered "1," it picked up in the middle of a storyline. Iron Man, weakened from a several issue battle against the Maggia crime syndicate including the villain Whiplash, has been captured by AIM, who analyze his armor and create a duplicate set. No wonder I'm so tired of the "hero has to fight his evil twin" trope; it was in the first comic I ever read. But the comic didn't leave a strong impact, because I didn't know anything about the hero or the villains. The story started in the middle and ended on a cliffhanger, so I got neither a beginning nor an ending.

Iron Man #1's main legacy for me was that it turned me into a DC reader, which is how I got educated in old-school comics. Because not only did DC feature more self-contained stories in its issues (which I liked, because I couldn't buy comics every month), but as a cost-cutting measure in the early 70's, they padded their books with reprints from their vast archives.

I never knowingly threw a comic away. Comics got dumped into a big cardboard box in my closet, to be pawed through and reread when the fancy took me. Years later, as I was preparing to graduate high school and leave for college, I decided to bag and box all my comics, turn them into a real collection. Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered Iron Man #1 toward the bottom of the box.

And then imagine my disappointment when I opened the comic and discovered what I had long forgotten. Kids today don't know how good they have it. In my day, they didn't have shelves and shelves of superhero toys, but I had apparently been excited enough by Iron Man to want some for myself. So I took some scissors and cut out some of the most exciting poses so I could stage my own fights (you might call them paper dolls--I call them '2-D Recyclable Action Figures"). Resourceful, I know, but also devastating for a guy who thought he'd disovered a hidden jackpot only to open it up and find shredded pages inside.

I still have it, though, bagged and boxed, shredded pages and all. It was my first, after all.

Frank Lovejoy

A palate cleanser to try to restore some equilibrium. Three classic radio shows starring Frank Lovejoy.

For the last few days, I've been listening to a melodramatic mystery show named Night Beat. Night Beat is an early 50's series about a Chicago reporter named Randy (sometimes "Lucky") Stone. Every episode starts pretty much the same way: Stone is wandering around late at night, wondering what he's going to write about, when he runs into a random stranger and gets pulled into a mystery. After he solves it, he gives a final monologue wrapping things up (a la Kolchak, the Night Stalker), then calls for a copyboy. The shows are pretty good, but try too hard to be sophisticated adult drama and often veer into melodrama instead. Here's a sample episode from 1950, titled "Mentallo, the Mental Marvel."



But what really captured my attention right away was the show's opening, in which the announcer says the star of the show is Frank Lovejoy. The name sounded familiar. I realized that he had starred in one of the shows I listened to when I was searching for good Halloween shows to post a couple of weeks ago. It was an episode of Escape titled "The Outer Limit." Escape was another high-budget show, like Suspense, that featured big-name stars and adapted short stories to radio, like "Leiningen vs. the Ants" and "The Man Who Would Be King." "The Outer Limit" is a hokey science-fiction story about a test pilot who encounters something uncanny during a high-altitude flight. The story is by-the-numbers, but at the end of the show, they emphasize that they worked with test pilots and aviation companies to confirm the details of real test flights.



So I started to wonder who Frank Lovejoy was. I didn't recognize his name, but the fact that he got top billing on Escape made me think he must have been some sort of celebrity of the day. I looked him up on Wikipedia and learned that he was a radio and movie actor. He'd appeared on Gang Busters in the 30's and starred in Night Beat in the 50's. And in between, he'd played The Blue Beetle.

I'd read the adventures of the modern Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, in the pages of Justice League in the 80's. But I was unfamiliar with the original Blue Beetle, aka Dan Garrett, rookie cop by day, avenging superhero by night, dressed in special chainmail that's "flexible as silk, but stronger than steel."

The only thing I knew about the original Blue Beetle was what I'd read in Jules Feiffer's introduction to The Great Comic Book Heroes.

His sign--the shadow of a great beetle projected into the evildoer's line of vision--struck terror into their hearts. He wore a Phantom-type uniform, with scales--rather unpleasant looking without being impressive. He was a great favorite for a far longer time than he deserved.

On radio, he battles spies and dope dealers and low-level thugs of all types, aided by kindly old pharmacist Dr. Franz. Franz is the Beetle's own personal Q, who invents all manner of super-potions and techno-weapons in his back room to help the Blue Beetle in his crusade. The production values are cheap--thin sound effects and a lone organ for music--and the stories are thrill-a-minute idiot plots (a plot that can only work if everyone in the story behaves like a idiot--criminals are always leaving behind the most obvious clues that lead the Beetle straight to their doors). Even the Beetle's catch phrases are awful: "The Blue Beetle has some nipping to do tonight!" Here's a typical episode, "Murder for Profit."

Eater of the Dead

So I'm thinking I won't even read the comments to my last post, because A) I've slept since then, B) I would probably be tempted to rebut any comments in detail while escalating the rhetoric, which C) I've spent most of the day doing already in my head and D) life's too short.

And in the "life's too short" department, Michael Crichton has died. This makes me sad, because I've liked his work, although as I look over his ouevre, I'm not finding a whole lot that I'm enthusiastic about. His work ranged from abysmal (Congo) to flawed but inriguing (The Andromeda Strain) to pretty darn good (Jurassic Park). As a novelist, his work seemed to jump the shark between Disclosure and Airframe (which seemed to me largely the same book), but his movies were influential, both the ones he directed and the ones made from his work.

He also created ER, a longtime Thursday night TV staple which was for a while the most popular drama on television and is now in its final season. Ironic that he should die as the show is also departing, and sad that he couldn't see the final episode.

Disaster

Dis-fucking-saster.

The reactionary morons have carried the day, and Obama has become the President-elect. They voted for him because he's black. They voted for him because he's young and good-looking and a smooth talker. They voted for him because he's not Bush.

They didn't vote for him because of his ethics (because from his breaking of his public financing promise to his support for ACORN to his campaign's dubious fundraising practices, his ethics are deeply in question). THey didn't vote for him because of his record of achievement, because he literally had no record (except getting elected to two offices where his opponents had to drop out). They sure as hell didn't vote for him for his policies, because they are a hodgepodge of horror (depending on which set of policies you think he adheres to, since they changed with each different audience he spoke to--see, ethics, questionable).

The only bright spots in this are that Obama has shown no initiative or drive in his political career to accomplish anything other than get elected, so maybe he'll continue to duck taking any firm stands for his four years in office. And it doesn't look like the Democrats will achieve a lock on a Senate supermajority, so there may be a limit to the damage they can do, although there are enough center-left Republicans that they'll probably have an almost blank check.

And then of course, there's the prospect of four years of the comedy stylings of Joe Biden's mouth.

FSM help us. I lived through the 70's once, and I hoped never to go through it again. But hey, at least the drugs will be cheap.

Halloweenus Interruptus

Well, after all the build-up, all the posted radio shows, production problems forced me to cancel my Halloween visit to the Secret Lab. Not that anyone missed it, I guess, but still. I'll make it up to you sometime.

Halloween With Benny

For four years, Jack Benny's radio show featured an annual depiction of Jack's Halloween party. The shows haven't aged entirely well. Some of the gags are hokey, the musical numbers are dated and creaky, and there are several uncomfortable gags featuring Rochester, Benny's black butler.

But some of the gags still shine, and there's an entertaining weirdness to some of them--Jack's pet polar bear and Don dressed as a kangaroo, with Dennis riding in his pouch, for instance.

So here are four years' worth of Jack Benny Halloween parties. Enjoy.

Halloween Lovecraft

Suspense was one of the long-running die-hards of radio, high-budget and high-profile. Most episodes (I hesitate to say all, since I haven't listened to them all) featured stars of stage and screen. Music cues were played by a small orchestra, rather than a simple organ like Dark Fantasy. Many episodes were based on popular stories of the day.

Most of the episodes I've listened to were simple mysteries or suspense stories. Even when it seems there's something uncanny going on, it usually turns out to be a plot or a hoax, much like Inner Sanctum Mysteries. But this Halloween episode from Nov. 1, 1945 is different. It's an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror."

All the Lovecraft elements are here--Miskatonic University, ancient copies of the Necronomicon, evil monsters from beyond (in this case, Yog Sothoth).

So enjoy Ronald Colman in the 1945 Suspense production of Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror."

More Halloween Radio

It's always dangerous to generalize based on the very best examples of a genre. For instance, many so-called anime "fans" judge Japanese animation as far superior in general to American animation, when they've only seen the very best Japanese shows make it to these shores. The vast majority of anything is crap. Anime fans don't see the crap, though, because it doesn't survive long enough to make it over here.

We see the same thing in nostalgia for the higher literary standards of earlier ages, or the supposed "golden age" of television and radio. We generally only see the good stuff, the enduring stuff that floated to the surface of the sea of crap and was preserved for posterity. But for every Lights Out or Inner Sanctum Mysteries, there were a ton of shows like Dark Fantasy.

Dark Fantasy was a series of stories of the supernatural, carried on the NBC radio network in 1941 and 1942. The stories were written by a guy named Scott Bishop, and although they were carried nationwide, they originated from WKY in Oklahoma City (my hometown). Trivia: WKY radio shared call letters with an OKC TV station, where Mary Hart, co-host of Entertainment Tonight, got her start as co-host of Danny's Day, a local talk show.

So here's "The Thing from the Sea,"an episode of Dark Fantasy from 1941. From the opening announcer, who sounds as if he can barely stay awake, to the final strains of melodramatic organ music, it's crap. But the remarkable thing is that this crazy adventure on the high seas, featuring ancient sorcery and exploding islands, was produced in a small city in the middle of flyover country for national broadcast. No immense special effects budgets needed. Radio was democratic that way.

Famous Last Words in Science (Fiction)

"E will be controlled."

You have to read all the way down to the money quote, but it's worth it.

Halloween State of Mind

I'm starting to get into that Halloween state of mind. I'm not decorating for it; I'm down to fifteen dollars for the rest of the month. I should make it through okay--I have a full pantry and a mostly full gas tank--but I have no money for luxuries right now.

Luckily I'm on vacation for the next couple of days, so I can sit around the house and listen to spooky radio stories on Internet Archive. I'll post a few here so you can listen yourself, and I may even visit the Secret Lab by the end of the week. We'll see.

In Danse Macabre, Stephen King talks about Lights Out being one of the scariest shows on radio. Arch Oboler wrote them, and he achieves some really creepy effects. I haven't found one that really clicks on all cylinders, though. Some are over-earnest, like "The Visitor from Hades." Some are pretentious, full of stream-of-consciousness rantings, like "Kill" (imitating Oboler's adaptation of "Johnny Got His Gun" from 1940). Some are both, like "The Ugliest Man in the World."

But other episodes seem to take sadistic glee in the way they torture both the characters and the listener, like the extended death scenes in "Murder Castle" and "The Fast One." And then there this...


Then there are the silly ones, like "The Chicken Heart" or "The Author and the Thing," in which Arch Oboler encounters a horrible gibbering creature formed from his own evil imagination. For pure hilarity, though, this one made me laugh louder than any (although I don't think the hilarity was entirely intentional)


You can hear all the others I've named at Internet Archive. More to come soon.

No More Wheel

So I've talked before about the "Wheel of Heroes" (if you don't feel like following the link, suffice it to say that in the first season, the Wheel of Heroes, like the Wheel of Time, turned exceedingly slowly). but I don't think I can use that descriptor anymore.

Because this season, they've gone to the opposite extreme, introducing potential story arcs, then resolving them almost before you know what's happened. First, Sylar's on the loose, while Now-Peter's hunting Future-Peter. Then Now-Peter's gone, trapped in level 5, and Sylar is captured. Then the Level 5 villains break loose, and we're led to think that the season will consist of hunting them down. But then Sylar wipes the floor with them next episode, and Now-Peter is freed. Then Now-Peter absorbs Sylar's power just as the real Sylar is learning to control his, and it looks like Peter is now going to become this season's Big Bad. But then Peter loses his powers, etc. etc. I'm getting whiplash from all the reversals.

I really need to work on stories again, but every time I sit down to do it, I just get a huge buzz of white noise in my brain. I know where I want the plot to go, but there are too many things I need to set up to get it going, and I can't sort out the scenes.

Life etc.

I'm very cash-poor through the end of the month, so I've been spending a lot of time at home, watching shows on Hulu and listening to old radio on Internet Archive.

On Hulu, I've been watching Life, a fascinating cop drama. The set-up: cop falsely imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit is exonerated by DNA evidence after 12 years. He gets a 50 million dollar settlement from the LAPD and a job with the force as a detective. But he is not the same man he was. His years in prison left him damaged, and he coped by studying Zen philosophy. Now he solves crimes as a police detective while also investigating the mystery of who framed him.

It's a fascinating show, and Damian Lewis is excellent as Charlie Crews, the main character. Crews is constantly walking a fine line between brilliance and dementia, and he is very aware of his surroundings at all times, seeing things that others miss. He is fully in the moment, as it were.

A new show that just debuted is My Own Worst Enemy, starring Christian Slater as a normal suburban husband and father who discovers that he has a secret life as a government spy. The agency wipes out his memories after every mission, so while he is at home, he has no knowledge of his other life, no secrets to spill. Everything is perfect until the conditioning breaks down at the wrong time, and he suddenly becomes his civilian self in the middle of an assassination attempt.

The pilot was really entertaining, but the central gimmick could get really tired very quickly. So I'm intrigued to see where the show takes the premise.

The pre-season hype for Heroes basically said, "Heroes become villains and vilains become heroes." After five episodes, it's obvious that they're taking that literally. Sylar is on the road to rehabilitation, while Peter has become this season's central villain. The world is on the path to destruction thanks to Hiro's screw-ups, while the cute speedster thief he calls "Nemesis" has been shown in prophetic dream to become a hero working to save the world. Claire is trying to become a hard-ass hero while noble HRG is going even further over the deep end in "trying to protect this family" (and I will be very happy if I never have to hear him deliver that particular line again). Nathan has once again become a tool of the bad guys, and Suresh has turned into a bug-fuck crazy monster.

I don't think I like it.

But Chuck is cool.

On the old radio front, I've been listening to X Minus One, adaptaions of classic science-fiction stories from Galaxy Magazine in the 50's. And it just reminds me how trite some of those old stories could be. But it's fun listening anyway.

Soapbox

I've been incommunibloggo for over a week now, I know. Part of it is that I've been busy on two secret projects. The other part is that every time I've had an idea for a blog post, it's been a political one, and it never works out well when I get on the political soapbox. I know of other authors' blogs I've enjoyed very much in times past, and I don't read them now, because they are so completely opposite of me politically, and I never know when they'll slip in a political post that'll just piss me off.

So I'm trying very hard to stay off the soapbox this election. I may not succeed; some things, I think, need to be said, and I'm not seeing them being said anywhere else. But I'm resisting the urge for now.

Speaking of soapboxes, I went to a soapbox derby in Sand Springs yesterday. There used to be a big annual raft race here, but it was discontinued almost twenty years ago. So as an alternative event, they decided to hold a soapbox derby and put out the call for entries earlier this year. Seeing as how this was the first year, they expected maybe 15-16 entries.

They got over 100.

Talk about a community desperate for some fun amidst a storm of bad news.

If you don't know what a soapbox derby is, it's basically a go-kart race without motors. Teams build a non-powered cart and roll it down a hill; the fastest one wins. Most of the teams weren't built for speed, though. The carts came in all shapes and sizes, and most of them were advertising some kind of sponsor. The Carrier cart was an air conditioner housing on wheels. The Blue & Gold Sausage cart was a gigantic pig's head that barely fit through the gates at the finish line. The PSO cart was a big electric transformer.

Some were rickety home-built contraptions. Others were obviously built by engineers. Zebco, the fishing reel company, entered a street luge that said it had been built by the Zebco Skunkworks.

We didn't stay for the entire day, but the time we spent was a lot of fun. Entertaining racers, a lot of creativity, and perfect weather in an old-fashioned small town community. It's not how I want to spend every Saturday, but it was fun for this one.

Black God's Kiss

I finally got around to finishing another book from the WorldCon stack. It was slow going, this one.

Black God's Kiss collects the Jirel of Joiry short stories written by C.L. Moore for Weird Tales in the 30's. Jirel was the first sword-and-sorcery heroine, so her stories have a special place in the hearts of fans of the genre.

That said, I had a hard time getting through the book. It isn't badly written, at least not according to the standards of the pulps Moore was writing for. The style is a little overblown at times, but there is a lot of imagination at work here, with moments that come alive quite vividly. And Jirel is an interesting character, as interesting as a character can be in stories that very deliberately avoid character exploration.

No, the thing that held me back was that Jirel is a swordswoman who rarely uses her sword, a fighter who rarely fights. Not that she's some Zen master just wishing for a little peace and quiet or anything. No, she's fiercely eager to run through whomever she can.

The problem is that every story pits her against magical powers she can't fight with a sword, in an alien landscape she can barely comprehend (and often can't even see-she wanders through darkness a lot of the time). The stories read more like Lovecraft's Dream tales than Howard's Conan stories. Jirel wanders through places she doesn't know with properties she doesn't understand and encounters creatures she's never seen before. It gets kind of tiring after a couple hundred pages. I picked up the book expecting action and never really got it.

That being said, I like the look of Paizo Publishing's Planet Stories line, and the concept of republishing stories from the heyday of the pulps. I'll probably end up picking some of their other titles.

Heroes Season 3

I was busy on Monday night, but I finally got around to watching the Heroes season 3 opener. And as is usual with Wheel of Heroes, I find myself torn between, "That's effin' awesome" and "why the hell did they do that?"

Things I liked:

- The revelation that Peter shot Nathan I thought was cool, but also disliked (see below)

- Claire asking Sylar if he was going to eat her brain, and his reply of "That's disgusting."

- Cute speedster chick

- Elle's awesome reaction to Sylar's attack--perfectly in keeping with what we learned about her character last season, it both solves a present problem while opening up an entirely new one

- The out-of-nowhere revelation about Sylar's origin = kick-ass

Things I didn't like;

- The blatant movie ripoffs--Claire hiding in the closet with louvered doors, clutching a knife (straight out of "Halloween"), and Suresh suddenly turning into Jeff Goldblum in Cronenberg's "The Fly"

- Once again, the story turns on time-travelers trying to prevent a future they've witnessed--Future Peter's dystopia, Hiro's glimpse of disaster, Mama Petrelli's dreams

- The introduction of a new Ali Larter character to replace StripperHulk--this could be cool, but smacks of desperately trying to have it both ways, i.e. retain a popular actor in the cast while dumping a character who has run out of story options

- characters who have not been written out undergoing wild changes in personality for plot convenience--Suresh's sudden mania to have powers, Nathan's freaking bizarre religious conversion

I'm looking forward to future developments, but damn, this show can be frustrating even when it's good.

No Scoobies?

I finally got around to watching the first two episodes of the new season of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" on Hulu. I watched the first one last night and the second one this afternoon. About five minutes into it, Sarah tells John he needs to go back to school.

So John goes to school and there's a scene where he's standing in the hallway, with scabs on his cheek and forehead from last episode's mayhem, looking at the chattering teenagers all around him, and it's obvious he feels completely isolated. And at that point, I paused the program to make a sandwich and muse on my happiness with the fact that this show has developed so much better than it could have.

I mean, it's not perfect; the time travel/parallel universes stuff is enough to make narrative hash out of any show (witness the second season of Heroes; the third season looks good, but I fear that there will be more time travel nonsense to muck it all up).

But for a show that features a high schooler on a mission to save the world, it could have been so much worse. That is to say, I love Joss, but it would have absolutely destroyed this show to go the Buffy route, with John just happening to befriend a group of high school students who are improbably good at armed and unarmed combat and computer hacking and all the rest.

So I sit down, thinking warm, fuzzy un-Scooby thoughts while eating my sandwich and watching the show, and of course, what do they do? They introduce a high school girlfriend for John who is almost certainly more than she appears. And I find that, although I like the actress (she's hot), and I'm all for John getting some and lightening up a little, I'm not thrilled with any of the most likely directions the writers will take this. Three possibilities:

1) She's a Terminator sent to get close to John and kill him. Not likely, since John slept in the same room with her and wasn't touched.

2) She's a human spy from the future, either sent by John himself to protect him, or maybe some kind of turncoat sent by the robots to seduce him into giving up his mission or something.

3) She's just a normal human, which gives three options: she gets killed, leaving John heartbroken but vengeful; she freaks out and leaves him, leaving John confused; she becomes a Scooby.

Don't let her be a Scooby, please.

Random Observation

Book five of the Worldcon stack is Black God's Kiss by C.L. Moore, and while I'm not ready to write the full review yet, I do have one strange observation.

Almost all the characters have names starting with G or J, at least so far. First of all, it's weird to have so few characters in a book--I'm almost a hundred pages in and there have only been five male and three female characters named--but to then have almost all those characters have names starting with the same letters is just bizarre.

Not only that, but all the G characters are men, and all the J's are women. Maybe the distribution will approach greater normality the farther I get (after all, the last man introduced was the first non-G name, so maybe she realized what she was doing). But it's just weird.

Victory of Eagles

Book four of seven from Worldcon (listed in the order I read them) was Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik. If you're not familiar with the series, let me just say, "Napoleonic War with dragons."

I'm not sure how much to write about this one. It's book five in a series I love, but like all extended series entries, it's kind of a closed loop. Fans of the series already know what's what and have probably already read it. People who haven't read the series aren't likely to read this one first, and a lot of people have told me they don't like to start reading long series in the middle, not knowing how long it will go on or whether it will stay good. They would rather wait for the series to wrap up and read the entire thing.

But I don't want to say nothing, so first, a random observation: this is the first book of the ones I brought back that was not in first-person (the others aren't, either, but it's odd that I would read all three first-person books back-to-back).

As far as the book itself, it was both great and disappointing. Great in the sense that it deepens the characters and the story and is wholly absorbing. I flew through this book and didn't want to put it down. I was a bit disappointed with the climax, though. Not so much with the outcome, but the way in which it unfolded felt a bit rushed to me. I can understand Novik not wanting to end on a cliffhanger--she did it with the previous book, and may not have wanted to do the same twice in a row--but it seemed like everything wrapped up a little too neatly.

Two things that strike me about the series:

Number one, it reminds me a lot of the Harry Potter books in that both concern an outsider brought into an insular society who, over the course of several books, learns of fundamental racial injustice within the society and works subtly to correct it. And both have main characters who are believably flawed, yet are basically good-hearted. They win our sympathy early and hold onto it through many trials.

Number two, the books have the feel of something written in the 19th century, which lends greatly to the flavor of this 18th century story. The characters' dialogue and subtle nuances of spelling and grammar ride a delicate balance between the old-fashioned turns of phrase which lend atmosphere and modern readability. Novik and her editor have done a great job with this. And the plotting groans with outrageous potboiler twists which fit perfectly with the tradition in which she's writing.

Money Shot

The third book I read from the Worldcon stack was Money Shot, from Hard Case Crime.

Money Shot is a taut little noir novel by Christa Faust, about a former porn star who is lured out of retirement to shoot one final scene, only things don't work out well. She is bound, interrogated, tortured, shot and left for dead, which understandably pisses her off. Over the course of the book, she pursues her revenge against the men who destroyed her life.

Like Staked, this book has a lot of heavy lifting to do in the first chapter: introduce us to a compelling character with an urgent problem, while also introducing us to the world the character inhabits and his/her place in it. I usually prefer a more leisurely approach to world-building, but as short as Money Shot is, it doesn't have time to dance around with a lot of delicate exposition. Instead, it spends the first few chapters doing some thorough scene-setting so that it can barrel ahead full-speed when the action starts.

But this is not just a by-the-numbers mystery/thriller. A book featuring a female lead in the sex trade could easily have come off as pedantic or preachy, but Money Shot manages to hit some thoughtful thematic notes while missing the obvious pitfalls that such a story could have fallen into. Faust has written an excellent story here, featuring a main character who is believably resilient and human. If you like old-school noir thrillers and aren't too offended by the porn industry, you should give this a read. Seriously.

Obligatory link to the youtube trailer here:

Staked

So I mentioned that one of the novels I brought back from Worldcon was Staked by Jeremy Lewis. I read it immediately after finishing Soon I Will Be Invincible, and was struck by an odd similarity.

Not only are both books written in first person, but both books are written in first person viewpoints that alternate between a male and a female character. However, and here's the neat trick, I think Staked makes better use of the alternating viewpoints than the big-time mainstream novel.

Staked is basically a vampire noir mystery, featuring Eric, a vampire strip club owner with memory problems. He comes to in an alley, after having just killed another vampire during a "rage blackout." Almost immediately afterward, he is forced to kill a werewolf, setting in motion a chain of events that will change Eric's (un)life, as well as the lives of everyone around him.

I have to admit, the first chapter put me off a bit. There's a lot of ugliness in Eric's world, and Eric himself is a bit of an off-putting character. Vampires in this world are not glamorous, that's for sure. Add to that the necessity to infodump lots of world detail right up front to get us up to speed on Eric's character and surroundings, and I wasn't sure if I'd like Staked after the first chapter.

But Lewis pulls off some major scores after this. Riding a thin edge of comedy and disgust, he pulls you into Eric's world deftly, showing you the standard vampire hero surrounded by a cast of stock characters.

But when the viewpoint shifts to Tabitha, Eric's stripper girlfriend/ vampire groupie, you find out that she's a deeper character than Eric gave her credit for being. And as the novel unfolds through their shared viewpoints, you realize that the world Lewis has created is a more layered, more interesting place than either of his main characters realize. By splitting the viewpoint between two characters, Lewis is able to show us things about the characters and the world that no single viewpoint could have given us, and by the end, I was eager to read a second book in the series to learn more.

Fair warning: the book is full of strong language and graphic depictions of violence and sex and foul bodily functions. And the mystery isn't very strong. It's one of those "mysteries" where you really only have one viable suspect, so the big revelation of who's behind all the madness isn't much of a surprise. But the trip getting there is mighty fine.

The Pose

So I mentioned last time about this funny thing I'd brought back from Worldcon. I've scanned it now, so here you go. But first, the set-up:

While I was at Conestoga, one of the Triple-F girls (I believe it was Tulsa resident Michele Bardsley) made a joke about how she'd been working on her standard urban fantasy cover pose. She then turned her back to us and looked back over her shoulder with one hip cocked out. I laughed, because I'd seen that kind of pose, although I didn't think it was nearly as ubiquitous as she made it seem.

So then while I'm at Worldcon, Ace is handing out these samplers of new books, with the headline "Brand-New Science Fiction and Fantasy from Ace and Roc." Only a scan of the 6 books they're sampling from reveals no science-fiction at all, only one alternate world fantasy and 5 urban fantasies. And when they show the covers on the back, here's what caught my eye (click the pic for a slightly larger view).


Anything look familiar?

Soon I Will Be Invincible

I had planned to scan something funny I brought back from Worldcon, but I haven't got my scanner set up yet, so I guess I'll do a book review first. Soon I Will Be Invincible came out in hardback last year, the debut novel from Austin Grossman. As you may tell from the title, it's a light-hearted look at superheroes, a mainstream novel that looks at some of the basic cliches of the genre and turns them on their heads, makes them fun again.

I was worried that this would turn out to be yet another parody by a writer who looks down on the genre, like Asimov's anti-Batman Batman story "Northwestward" in the anthology "Further Adventures of the Batman," or like Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude. As the authors take apart the silliest tropes of the genre, you get the sense that they're talking down to you: "You're stupid for liking this stuff, but I'll take your money anyway."

Grossman doesn't do that. He's smart enough to see how silly the genre can be, but he loves it anyway, and he lets that love shine through throughout the book. The book is written in first person, from the alternating viewpoints of two main characters, the megalovillain Doctor Impossible and the cyborg superhero Fatale. Evil genius Doctor Impossible escapes from prison and immediately launches into a new plot to take over the world; with his greatest nemesis, the superhero Corefire, missing, he actually has a shot at it this time. Meanwhile, Fatale is invited to join a superteam called the New Champions (their mission: to find Corefire and stop the doctor's villainous plot), which allows her to see the unglamorous details of the heroes' behind the scenes lives.

In some ways, it's what I wanted Hero Go Home to be, except that Hero Go Home will be explicitly series fiction, while Invincible is a literary one-off. Parts of it feel a little well-worn, but parts of it are brilliant. Grossman introduces the conceit early on that being an evil genius is actually a mental disorder, Malign Hypercognition Syndrome. So that whenever he does the obviously self-defeating things that villains do (parodied well but somewhat tediously in the Evil Overlords list), he's not being stupid or a victim of bad writing; he's merely exhibiting the symptoms of his disease, and often enough, he realizes it, which makes him even more human and sympathetic.

I wasn't as thrilled with the Fatale sections of the book. They're more drab, more downbeat, and occasionally drop into pure infodump. And though Grossman does a lot of things well in this book, sometimes the action scenes overwhelm him. A big scene in the middle where Doctor Impossible fights the New Champions single-handed suffers from some curious gaps and continuity errors; other scenes which could have been set-pieces are avoided completely and we see only their aftermath.

Overall, though, it's a funny and fast read. I recommend it for superhero fans.

Worldcon Continued

Sorry if this is hyper-detailed and boring, but I'm doing it as much for my own memory as for your enjoyment.

Friday: I mentioned yesterday that I'm in an on-line writers group called Codex. Friday morning, a bunch of us met up in the Hyatt for a get-to-know-you breakfast. Forgot my camera, of course. I'm going to name as many as I can, with links, because they're a really talented group, and probably much more fun to read than me.

Besides Mary and Ted (mentioned yesterday), there were a ton of others. Cat Rambo and her husband Wayne, Tina Connolly, Catherine Yoachim, Rachel Ann Dryden (no link, sorry), J.F. Lewis a.k.a. Jeremy, Eric James Stone, Sandra Tayler and her husband Howard (creator of Schlock Mercenary), Elaine Isaak, Rebecca Roland (sorry, no link), Camille Alexa, Lawrence M. Schoen. The two dudes I talked movies with the previous evening, Matt Rotundo and Larry Hodges, were there, along with Matt's wife Tracy. The lovely Alethea Kontis stopped in for a bit, and the equally lovely Diana Rowland (pictured at right; all party photos are from Sat. night, which is when I finally remembered my camera) organized the whole deal. I'm forgetting some people, so please forgive me, but there literally wasn't enough time to get to know everyone.

Whew. Like reading Matthew Chapter 1, isn't it? The breakfast was a $20 buffet AND I ONLY MADE ONE TRIP (thereby breaking another personal rule)! That's how busy I was meeting new people.

So anyway...

I don't remember what else I did for most of the day. I know I spent some time in the SFWA suite, eating the free lunch to compensate for the double-hit of Maggiano's and Hyatt buffet. Talked to some guys there, probably Ted and Jeremy (that's Ted to your left). I know I made a pass or two through the dealers room to talk to other Codexians at the SFWA table, and I went through the art show to check on another piece I was bidding on. I had a list of panels I wanted to attend, but for some reason, when the time came, I blew them all off.

At 4:00, I hit the Baen Travelling Slide Show, which was fun, and then I ditched the con to see a little of downtown Denver. Along about 7, I dropped back in to the SFWA suite for a bite to eat and the Analog/Asimov's Party. Lots of fun. Talked to a bunch of folks, including a Codexian I hadn't met yet, Jenny Rae Rappaport. I remember some sort of good-humored drunken argument with Camille Alexa, in which I don't think she ever got to her point, then a bunch of us went party-hopping. I stumbled back to the Marriott at 0-drunk-thirty.

Saturday: Somehow avoided a hangover and headed to the Marriott early to attend an editors panel. The one best thing about the con was meeting a bunch of people at all levels--newbie writers, rising stars, experienced pros, agents, editors--and finally internalizing the not-so-remarkable fact that people do this stuff all the time, and so can I. I've known it and paid lip-service to it for a long time, but for at least a couple of days, I really believed it. Crazy. And to prove how serious I was getting, I not only joined SFWA, but took out a year's subscription to Locus (although it didn't hurt that the curiously hot Amelia Beamer was manning the table).

Blew off the Wild Cards panel to wander the dealers room and talk to people, probably including Jeremy (pictured at right). Jeremy is the author of Staked, from Pocket Books, which is one of the books I brought back from the con and have in my To Be Read stack. At 1:00, I headed to the Upcoming Tor Books presentation. Man, Tor has a lot of books coming out. They had like five editors there presenting different pieces of the line. That was followed by a podcasting panel that was pretty informative, after which I headed to the dealers room again.

The thing about Saturday at Worldcon is, most other cons are three days long, and that's being generous. They generally start in the afternoon on Friday and go till the early afternoon on Sunday. At some point on Saturday, you realize the con is going into its fourth full day, and you're like, "God, isn't it over yet?" I was hitting that point.

In the dealers room, I hung out with Sandra Tayler at the Schlock Mercenary table for a while, then ran into Camille Alexa, who wanted to finish her comment from the previous evening, but somehow never did. She invited me to the Abyss and Apex party, then promptly left for another engagement. So I was stuck talking to lovely new writer Alycia C. Cooke for an hour or so (that's a pic of the party at left--Hadley Rille books editor Eric Reynolds, Camille Alexa and Alycia on the right--so you can tell I was really suffering by having to pass time with her), until she headed for the Hugo ceremony and I went to dinner with friends.

I headed back for parties at 10. Hit the Ace Books party first, where I spoke with the awesome Shanna Swendson (pictured at right), with whom I'd had a reading at Conestoga. You can't see them in the picture, but she was wearing killer-sexy red heels.

At some point, I hooked up with a bunch of Codexians--Rachel and her very nice friend whose name might have been Heidi, Matt and Tracy, Ted--and we hit some of the other parties, mainly the Baen Books party. I actually ended up getting stuck outside the party for ten minutes or so; the door guards said the party was crowded, so they were limiting entrance to just Baen authors and guests. Now, I'm not a Baen novelist (yet), but I have had two stories published in Baen's Universe, which was more than could be said of the rest of our group, and they all got in right away.

Eventually, they let me in, and I hooked up with my newfound friends just in time to take off again. After a couple of quick turns through other parties, we headed back down to the Ace party again, where I encountered the highlight of my night. As we're going in the door, John Scalzi comes out carrying his Hugo for Best Fan Writer (which is probably the closest I'll ever get to a real one), followed closely by Mary Robinette Kowal, who is...

wait for it...

...no longer a Campbell Award nominee, but a Campbell award WINNER. I pulled out my camera to get a picture of her and somebody there says, "No, you've got to take a picture together." So that's her on the left, there. We're both a little flushed. In her case, it's the glow of victory; in mine, it's beer. Plus, my gel was getting tired, so I've got the crazy Reverend Jim hair going, and I had spinach or something in my teeth, but I GIMP'ed it out.

Big, big congratulations, Mary.

Sunday: Hit the art show to pick up my O'Connor. Talked to a couple of folks and lingered in the dealers room, hoping to spot a few others. It was strange and sad. Saturday, I was ready to go home, at least until someone waved free booze under my nose. But Sunday, I didn't want to go without saying goodbye to the many really cool people I met, and I didn't get to. So on the drive home, though I was happy with the con, I felt incomplete.

So let this be my other excuse for all the name-dropping. Because if I mentioned you here in the recaps and went to the trouble to link, it's because I thought you were pretty cool and wish I could have talked to you more face-to-face. And if I didn't get to say goodbye in person, let me say it here.

Goodbye. It was nice meeting you. I hope to see you again.

Back From WorldCon

So I'm back from Worldcon, and gotta say, it was in many ways the best one ever (of course, I've only gone to three, so ever doesn't mean much). I had meant to liveblog via wifi, but my portable keyboard wasn't working, and neither was my wifi access, so no go. The con was held (mostly--more about that later) in the Colorado Convention Center, which features a giant blue bear peeking in. Looks pretty cute from the outside...

But from the inside as you made the long walk from the convention area to the exit, you got a prime view of bear-crotch.


Quick recap:

Wednesday: Went first to registration to pick up my badge'n'stuff. Stood in a LONG line behind this girl, kinda cute, with hair dyed shocking red and a blue dress with red lace at the bottom of the skirt--Superman colors. More about her later.

Took a couple of turns through the Dealers Room and the Art Room, both of which were still setting up. Broke my "never buy anything on your first trip through the dealers room" rule when I snapped up the new Naomi Novik, Victory of Eagles. Saw some art I liked, but didn't bid on anything.

Attended the Wizards of the Coast slideshow by the very cute and personable Erin Evans. I don't read Dungeons and Dragons books, really, but the talented Ms. Evans (who is apparently also an editor) convinced me to give one a try. After the panel, she put some free books on a table and I went up to get one. I managed to get a copy, but some other folks weren't so lucky, thanks to a couple of bookpigs who grabbed up multiple titles (one guy hoovered up six).

Also went to a panel for beginning writers, which I probably wouldn't have done if it hadn't featured Mary Robinette Kowal, someone I knew on-line from the Codex writers group (you'll see that word a lot in the rest of the recap). Mary, besides being a Codexian, is also the secretary of SFWA and was a nominee for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, which was to be awarded at the con on Saturday night.

Skipped opening ceremonies, but did attend the reception for Lois McMaster Bujold, the Guest of Honor at the con, with the friends I was staying with (who attended the first day of the con, then bummed around Denver and attended the Scottish Games over the weekend). It was not too crowded, pretty low-key. Great spinach puffs, not-so-great manners from several of the fans rushing at any waiter with a tray of food in his hands. I was still a bit fried from the drive up the day before, so we skipped the parties.

Thursday: Spent the early part of the day just wandering. Went through the art show again, and decided to buy something. This was not a small decision for me, given the amounts of money gushing through my hands at downtown Denver prices. I bought a beautiful piece: "Zephyr's Tomb" by William O'Connor. It was a Giclee' print on canvas which the artist had retouched with oils to brighten certain areas, giving it the look of an original painting. An absolutely gorgeous addition to my new house, but it means I need to make a sale now to help pay for it.

Attended a panel on getting an agent with several big names in the industry, then went to the dealers room and bought my membership to SFWA from Mary. Met Ted Kosmatka, who is also in Codex; Ted's mom Marilyn was also at the con, having co-written a book with Eric Flint from Baen. The SFWA table turned out to be a pretty regular Codex hangout throughout the convention.

Hiked over to the Sheraton to check out the SFWA suite and attend the Rising Stars reception. There was a lot of walking at this convention: I was staying at the Marriott, but the con was being held in the Convention Center, with other events held at the Sheraton and the Hyatt. Sometimes, the decision on which event to attend was made by simply saying, "How far away is it?" Met Ken Scholes at the event, another Codexian who has a book coming out with Tor.

There were some panels I wanted to attend, but skipped in favor of finding a bar where I could smoke a cigar and relax. After the cigar (Cifuentes y Cia Partagas Black Label), I went to the SFWA suite, where I got into a discussion with a couple of other writers (whose names I didn't catch) about underrated SF movies. We batted around a few possibilities, then I took off to join my friends at Maggiano's Little Italy, a fantastic Italian place, but ended up costing us $40 bucks a person. Really need to make some sales now.

After dinner, I headed to the Daw Books party held in the SFWA suite. It was fun. I talked for a while with a couple of brothers, Dani and Eytan Kollin, who have a book, The Unincorporated Man, coming out next year from Tor (I would link you to the book's website, but it seems to be down, so I'm giving you Dani's LiveJournal instead). Cool guys, and the book sounds interesting. Left the party fairly early to try the main party floor, but the line for the elevators was so long that I blew it off and headed back to the Marriott to sleep.

More con stuff tomorrow...

Off to Denver

I'm heading to Denver tomorrow for the 66th World Science Fiction Convention starting Wednesday. I expect that free Wi-Fi will be available, so I plan to do a bit of live-blogging, and hope to even remember to take pictures. I'm looking forward to meeting Codex friends, and may even join SFWA while I'm there.

They Stole Frazier's Brain Ep. 5

It's back. Yes, once again, I've dared to pick up the World's Cheapest Microphone (actually, I bought a new one, so it's actually now the World's Second-Cheapest Microphone). I've never been thrilled with the Internet Archive method of podcasting, so I'm trying something new. Click the widget below to listen to a streaming version or to download.

A New Old Secret Lab! Mysterious Noises! New Toy, Old Cliches! A Mysterious Enemy Arises! Running time: a little over 31 minutes.

Triple F

So as I was saying, I had a lot of fun at Conestoga on the panels I had with the Triple F (Fangs, Fur, & Fey) folks. The urban fiction writers appeared on several of the main Conestoga panels, but they also had their own dedicated track of programming. I only attended one of their events, their last panel on Sunday. And in some ways, I regret that, because I wonder now if it would have been a better use of my time. Not that I didn't enjoy the panels I attended, but after a while, there's a sameness to them all. The same writers talking about the same subjetcs in the same ways.

But the Triple F's don't come from the same fandom. They aren't stuck repeating the same tropes so often that they don't even recognize them as tropes anymore. The Triple F's come, often, from a romance background. It's genre literature. Like science fiction, it's often formulaic, has a devoted fan base and a professional literary organization dedicated to writing it.

But those formulas and fans and professionals are different from science fiction community's, and I wonder if it wouldn't have been valuable to learn more from them while they were there. The romance writers aren't just fluffy bunnies, after all. From my brief exposure to them, they are as professional, as dedicated to their craft and to the sales and marketing of their writing, as any SF writer I've met. And they do sell. Boy, do they.

Oh well, maybe next year.

I'm going to WorldCon in Denver next week. I wasn't sure if I would make it, but decided to take the plunge and bought my membership last week. I thought I had a place to stay, but that now appears to be in jeopardy, so I may need to find a room on short notice. But I'm looking forward to meeting some people I've only met via email, and I'm hoping to join SFWA while I'm there.

Conestoga 12

So another Conestoga is over. As usual, I had a lot of fun and forgot to take any pictures of it.

Fridays always present a slow ramp-up. I attended one panel about future trends in science fiction, then wandered around the not-fully-set-up dealers' and art rooms before running into Paula and Rick of Baen's Universe. Even though I haven't published with them in almost a year, they treated me like family, bought me dinner and a beer (thanks, guys). I never thought when I submitted "Astromonkeys!" to them a couple of years ago that it would yield such great personal dividends. I vaguely hoped to get a check; I didn't imagine friends would come with the deal.

Friday night was the Yard Dog Press party, which featured Hurling Monkeys and entertainment by Bradley "Bland Lemon" Denton and David Lee Anderson. Brad has written some of the most violent stuff imaginable, but personally, he seems like the nicest guy around. He spent the weekend carrying around a huge-ass Get Well card for Howard Waldrop, which he was having everyone at the con sign.

Saturday was when most of the action occurred. I started the day with a reading. Here's the deal: like last year, this year's Conestoga had another mini-convention piggy-backed onto it. Last year, it was 1632 fans, and I ended up attending a lot of their events, because 1632 is a Baen thing, and I really like the Baen folks (as I may have mentioned above).

This year, the con-within-a-con was a group called "Fangs, Fur and Fey," a group of urban fantasy authors. The books mostly seem to be by and for females, and usually seem to center around vampires-werewolves-witches in the modern world. One branch is mostly suspense, private eyes and like that, and the other branch is chick lit--funny, sassy books in the Sex and the City vein, only with, you know, vampires-werewolves-witches.

I'm glad they were there. Science fiction as a genre seems to be aging, and not entirely well, and the urban fantasy contingent have brought fresh life. Plus a bunch of the authors and their fans are hot. I had a great time on panels and readings with Shanna Swendson, Michele Bardsley and Dakota Cassidy. Dakota is a sultry-voiced natural beauty who had great fun purring into the microphone on our panel and teasing the audience. She sort of reminded me of those guys in the dunk tank at the fair, trying to taunt people into hitting the target, only, you know, hot. Later, Renee George took an awful picture of me, but in my defense, her flash thing took forever to go off and I got bored waiting... twice.

More later...

Conestoga Is Coming

I'll be a guest at Conestoga 12 this weekend in Tulsa, OK. I'll be giving a "Humorous Fantasy" reading at 10 AM Saturday, and I'll be participating in two other panels that afternoon, "Two Truths and a Lie" at 3 PM and "Great Cliches in SF and Fantasy" at 4 PM (yes, back to back). On Sunday, I'll be on the "Favorite Fannish Blogs and Websites" panel at 12:05 (and this is probably the only time you'll ever read the word "fannish" on this blog).

Now I just need to get my home internet access back so I can visit some blogs and websites.

Second Try

Went to a cigar and wine bar. Lots of women, insanely overpriced. And strangely, though cigar friendly, it was a non-smoking place, at least inside. Odd...

Cheap Beer

Blogging from Caz's Pub in downtown Tulsa. Cheapest night out I've had in a long time. I literally cannot buy a beer. Waitress walks right past me. I go up to the bar, and the bartender ignores me to start washing glasses. I'm saving so much money!

Absence Makes the Heart...

Well, this has been a long time coming, but here's the story behind the long absences: my wife and I are no longer together. The last couple of months have been filled up with finding a house and moving out and telling the family, not to mention all sorts of work craziness since the Newport buyout of Clear Channel Television. Never fails: ownership changes, then in comes the new broom to sweep clean and show the people left who's boss now. My group was spared any layoffs, but that may only be due to the fact that a quarter of my staff has left of their own accord. I'm trying to operate eight TV stations with the staff we used to use to operate two, and accomodate summer vacations at the same time. Not easy.

I don't have internet access from home yet, so updates may be infrequent, but they are starting again.