The Slushmaster just posted the Table of Contents for the June 2007 issue of Realms of Fantasy magazine. It looks like my story “Save Me Plz” won’t be appearing quite yet.
Archives for March 2007
Author Andrea Kail Now Has Official Website
My friend Andrea Kail now has her own website:
I’ll be Appearing in Santa Clarita to Discuss Ray Bradbury
I previously announced that I was invited to take part in a panel discussion on the literary influence of Ray Bradbury. The panel will be on April 21st at 4:30 p.m. at the Newhall Community Center in Santa Clarita. (22421 Market Street, Newhall, CA 91321.)
Well, I just found out who my co-panelists will be. Steven Gould (whose novel Jumper is currently being made into a major motion picture starring Hayden Christenson, Samuel L. Jackson, and Diane Lane), Harry Turtledove, Larry Niven, David Gerrold, and Sheila Finch. Wowsers. I hope to see some of you there.
Movie Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
I’m afraid I found the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie to be a bit of a bummer, dude. I was a huge TMNT fan back in the day, so maybe I had unrealistic expectations, but I was expecting something comparable in quality to The Incredibles, which TMNT definitely isn’t. It does have some awesome visuals, such as the rooftop duel in the rain, but the story and writing are standard Saturday-morning-cartoon stuff. I was also expecting the movie to be aimed primarily at 20- and 30-somethings who have fond childhood memories of the turtles, but this is strictly a kids movie.
June 2007 Realms of Fantasy
The June 2007 issue of Realms of Fantasy magazine, which will hopefully include my story “Save Me Plz,” should be out sometime in the next few weeks. If anyone spots a copy, please let me know. Alan Smale’s story “A Trade in Serpents” should also be appearing in that issue, and you can check out Tony Shasteen’s illustration for it here.
Movie Review: 300
Well, I don’t care what anyone else says, 300 gets 300 dead Spartan thumbs up from me. I saw it twice. If I’m going to pay $14 to see a film projected on a giant wall, I expect some serious spectacle, and this movie definitely delivered. I’m also partial to historical dramas, particularly wildly over-the-top and inaccurate ones. In fact, I kind of dislike plausibility in any form. I prefer stories that create their own twisted reality, the less literal similarity to this one the better. I also can’t help feeling that people who are criticizing the movie for its dumbness or politics are not in on the joke. Of course, I may just have a special affinity for this material seeing as I too was raised from an early age to be a wolf-slaying, rhinocerous-gouging badass with an incredible chest.
Back in L.A.
I made it back to L.A. this morning, took a nap, and now I’m off to my humor writing class. Later.
Derek
Last summer my friend Derek was supposed to open for Blues Traveler, but the show didn’t come off due to monsoon rains that blasted the east coast (boo!). Well, I just heard that he’s at it again, this time scheduled to open for Sugar Ray (yay!). Please everyone exercise whatever sway you have with the rain gods to ensure a fruitful concert.
Back in New York / Airline Security
I’m back in New York now. (Spring break.) I’ll be going to Lunacon this coming weekend, but I’m pretty much free during the week, so if anyone else is free and wants to hang out, drop me a line.
On my flight from L.A. to Chicago, aside from a brief interlude in which I watched the in-flight movie Night at the Museum (which was actually better than I was expecting), I spent the whole time talking to the young woman (Polly) sitting next to me. She had one of the those little dogs you carry around in a purse. The dog never moved or made a peep. Polly said that on the flight out she’d had the purse unzipped. A flight attendant had come by and told Polly to zip up the purse, so Polly zipped it up half way, thinking this would be sufficient. It wasn’t. The flight attendant appeared again and said that Polly was now facing federal felony charges for disobeying the staff in flight. When the plane landed, Polly was taken into police custody. She spent a long time explaining — contrary to what the police had been told — that no, the dog had not run amock in the cabin, and that no, she had not refused to obey the repeated orders of every member of flight crew. She was eventually released. Ah, the joys of modern air travel.
And if you think it’s bad for U.S. citizens, just try dealing with it if you’re from another country. My British friend Adam says that every time he enters the U.S. he has to face a string of interrogators who each grill him about whether he’s ever been to Missouri. He tells them, “No, I haven’t. I’ve never even heard of it.” I recently picked him up at the airport, and he related how the interrogator had asked him, “If you’re in the U.S. to go to school, then why did you leave for one week to go to Europe?,” as if to say, “Gotcha!” Adam explained, “I went to visit my girlfriend for Valentine’s Day.” “Hmmm,” said the interrogator, as if to say, “Very suspicious,” and stamped Adam’s papers with a “Probably a terrorist/Full cavity search” sort of stamp. Adam says that getting into the U.S. these days is such a nightmare that more and more people from abroad who are invited to come speak here simply refuse.
Larry Niven and Tim Pratt Appear at USC
This afternoon one of my friends emailed me and said, “Did you notice that Tim Pratt and Larry Niven are appearing at USC today?” I thought this must be some sort of joke, since it seemed too improbably awesome, especially considering that I hadn’t heard anything about it, but it turned out to be completely true. I had already missed their event, but I made it over to campus in time to hang out with them. I’d never met Larry Niven before, and it was a big thrill for me to be able to do so. He’s my dad’s favorite science fiction writer, so I read a ton of Niven growing up, and especially his short stories such as “Inconstant Moon,” “Neutron Star,” and “Death by Ecstasy” were huge inspirations to me. Tim will also be dropping by USC’s Ground Zero coffee house tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. to give a reading, so if you’re in the neighborhood you should definitely stop by. If you’re not in the neighborhood, you can still check out his new collection Hart & Boot & Other Stories, which is one of the best collections I’ve read recently (and I’ve read a lot of collections recently).
Then this evening I went to a production of Maxim Gorky’s “The Barbarians,” which was thrilling, though I found the ending pretty unsatisfying.
Big Read
This is fun. I’ve been invited to take part in a panel discussion on April 21st in Santa Clarita on the state of science fiction writing today and the impact of Ray Bradbury’s work on my writing and on the genre as a whole. The event is part of the Big Read initiative.
Badly Grammar
Most unintentionally funny line uttered during my fiction workshop last night: “I didn’t used to realize how badly my grammar was until some friends pointed it out and helped me fix it.”