I'm coming late to the game here. If you are eligible to nominate works, and would like to see anything from the following:
Electric Velocipede 12
Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories
An Alternate History of the 21st Century by William Shunn
Electric Velocipede 13
Let me know and I'll send it your way: editor [at] electricvelocipede [dot] com
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Nebula Awards
Holiday Follow Up
In a follow-up to a previous post, I wanted to assuage people's fears and let them know that I did receive the Twin Peaks Gold Box Edition (or whatever it's called). If this goes as my normal DVD-owning-to-viewing ratio, I won't be watching it until 2015.
I'll have to make a point of watching it (at least the pilot and some of the special features) while I have a bunch of time off here.
Oh, and to be just crass and capitalistic, I also got a new coffee maker, a hot water kettle, some tea, and Best Buy gift cards.
What did you get for the holidays?
In the meantime, I continue to work on the 1,000+ posts in my Google Reader. *sigh*
Friday, December 21, 2007
The Kindle, or, Who Cares?
So all it does is allow you to read books? How is that innovation? Sure, it's LOTS of books in one book-size space, but still... I already have books on my Treo, and I didn't need to buy ANOTHER $400 device. I'm sure reading on the Kindle is more fun (and easier on the eyes) than reading on my Treo, but my Treo gets phone calls and e-mails and text messages and websites. The Kindle has books. And some newspapers, magazines, and blogs. But not all of them. Not even all of them that are available online.
The Kindle has free wireless paid by Amazon, whereas I pay a monthly bill for my Treo (in addition to paying for the device). The Kindle's access is paid by Amazon because it's not unlimited access unlike my Treo.
What if the Kindle were $99, and offered truly unlimited wireless access. Meaning, I could use it for e-mail, texting, websites, twittering, facebook, shopping, browsing, etc. with a monthy service plan? Now that would be worth getting excited about. (I don't mention phone since I don't want a book-sized phone) All my books (or a lot of books) and all the Internet? Wow. That would be something.
But just books and a selected grouping of newspapers and online services? I'll pass.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Holidays & Gifts
At my house, we celebrate Christmas (and St. Nick's, go here to read about that) and it won't be long and the gift opening will begin in earnest. I'm hoping that I get the Twin Peaks - The Definitive Gold Box Edition
What's the one present you hope to get this year over any other?
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
So What is This Exactly?
Via Warren Ellis
My Mini City!
http://klimaville.myminicity.com/
Not sure what this is for...or why I'm doing it. We'll see if it goes anywhere.
Monday, December 17, 2007
I Know the Most Awesome People!
I've been looking forward to reading this book since I first heard it announced. I'll let you know what I thought of it when I finish reading it. The truly awesome Diana Gill sent a copy the other day. Thanks Diana!
Best Editor Wiki
Some of you may know that I created a wiki last year in the attempt to track who's edited which book in order to make informed choices for the Best Editor Hugos. To be honest, I've done essentially nothing to the wiki since then.
Thankfully, Cheryl Morgan and Anne KG Murphy of SF Awards Watch have offered to take the wiki over. Jed Hartmann will likely be involved in the maintenance of the wiki as well. I think this is a great idea. It will keep the integrity of the concept intact, and relieve me of the duty of maintaining/administering the project. I will post here once it moves so that people know the wiki's new website.
I think beyond the Best Editor Hugos, this is a great reference source for agents, authors, and even editors.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Hello Meme-land!
From Mr. Wheeler. You go to Wikipedia, click on 'random article' and that's your band name. Click on 'random article' again, and that's your album name. Do this another fifteen times (which seems excessive to me, but what the heck?) to get the track listing for your album. Here's mine:
Inflluenced by his ground-breaking work in the Jesus & Mary Chain, this young band from Davenport, IA took the name William Reid as their own. You can tell the band has a sense of humor from its album name, Michigan hot dog. Nonetheless, this album is no joke. You can tell from the song titles that these guys mean business.
1 Haji Abdul Rahman Limbong
2 Royal Naval Minewatching Service
3 Paulo Sérgio da Costa
4 Moksh Marg Prakashak
5 Christopher Balfe
6 John Curulewski
7 Selters, Rhineland-Palatinate
8 Eleutherodactylus cosnipatae
9 EXR
10 The Laden Showroom
11 Haitorei Edict
12 Sligo Senior Football Championship 1989
13 Live Dates 3
14 AZAR AB Industries Co
15 Dog Show Superintendents Association
*****
I think it's funny the number of music-oriented hits I got: William Reid (of the Jesus & Mary Chain), Christopher Balfe (COO of Mercury records), John Curulewski (one of the founding members of Styx), and Live Dates 3. I wish the last track on the album was the band name, though.
Logorrhea as Told Through Appoggiatura
Part of the fun of putting together Logorrhea
At one time, Jeff had mentioned the idea of recording each section as a podcast. And I also thought it would be great to incorporate the rest of the contributors and come full circle. The contributors are going to post the section of Jeff's story that features the word they wrote about. In addition, they'll talk a little bit about why they chose their word. See below for links. Jason Erik Lundberg graciously provided his time and talents to record the podcasts for us, and they sound great.
Even if you can't make it to the sites to read about the creative process the contributors went through, you should listen to the podcasts. They are well worth your time.
Links to the Podcasts & Text of Jeff VanderMeer's "Appoggiatura":
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Logorrhea: Vivesepulture
David Prill is one of those writers that I wish more people knew about, like Howard Waldrop. Like Howard, he writes his own thing. It doesn't sound like anyone else. Take David's story about vivesepulture:
Vivisepulture
by David Prill
“Hey, where the heck is that music comin’ from?”
This was Big Jim McDiffie at a Memorial Day backyard barbecue, circa 1974, back when you knew exactly where pretty much all music came from, that was the appeal--you can’t hum along to the Unknown. Penny loafer jingles, tinny children’s songs from the ding-dong man’s truck (according to moms everywhere the music meant the truck had run out of ice cream), the mailman whistling an old Johnny Mercer standard, side A of the soundtrack of the suburbs.
And most importantly, his school song:
Wave the flag for Hillmont High School
Her colors black and gold.
Marching always on to victory,
No matter who the foe.
So, we’ll forever praise and cheer you,
Our Gobblers brave and true.
Wave again the dear old banner,
Hillmont High we’re all for you.
Brought a tear to Big Jim’s eye. Used to, anyway.
Big Jim had been a star athlete at Hillmont High, lettering in football, baseball, basketball and cheerleader-chasing. He was the missile-firing quarterback in football, pitcher and cleanup hitter in baseball, and all-city forward in basketball. Until a back condition knocked him out of his roost. His spinal column was twisted like a snake on hot blacktop. The doctors said his athletic career was over and out. It was too frustrating to attend the games as a spectator, so began the isolation with occasional detours into alienation. Almost felt like he had already graduated, especially since he didn’t spend much time in class anyway. He spent less time hanging out at the Red Barn with the gang, tough guys with french fries dangling from their mouths, more time wandering alone down the paneled station wagon-lined streets. His coaches had always admired him for his ability to see the whole playing field, to anticipate what was to come, to be one step ahead of the other players. But now Big Jim, as he wandered, was trying to see the whole field, the future, but he couldn’t see much at all, the field was too big now, and there were too many unknowns.
Like the music, today.
*****
Jeff VanderMeer also doesn't write like anyone else. And not surprisingly, David and Jeff's vivesepulture stories are quite different:
VIVISEPULTURE
And the Turk came down upon Smaragdine like a storm of plagues and breached the city gates and slew the defenders on the walls with arrows and their horsemen, led by their captain Baryut Aquelus, outstripped their infantry and so came unto the great Lyceum where the priests had hidden the Green Tablet, and Baryut took the heart of Smaragdine from that place, leaving the priests dead upon the steps as they rode out again.
And in the streets beyond they came upon the din of fierce battle, for the Smaragdineans had recovered from their surprise and now fought like demons for their city and men fell in great numbers on both sides as the city began to burn.
Raising his sword, Baryut led the way for the Turk, cutting down any who opposed them.
But when he rode under the shadow of the city gates and looked back, Baryut saw that the Smaragdinean prince Farid, upon a black charger, had come up behind and slain his riders and would soon overtake him.
Safety lay at the semaphore tower by the river, but Farid outstripped the Turk and forced him up into the hills and ravines and the coffeehouse beyond.
Farid was only a few paces behind him, driven by righteous conviction.
The Tablet became heavier and heavier in the Turk’s hands and the prince shouted at him now, sword slicing the sky into jagged pieces.
“Bring it back or I’ll feed you to my dogs!” Farid shouted. “You are very brave, although I don’t know if you understand that!”
“And here I took you for a bit of a sycophant, Farid,” Baryut shouted back. “A bit of a hanger-on.”
“Not in the least. You believe too little and know too much.”
Soon Baryut was trapped at the edge of a ravine. In a coffeehouse. A ravine. The prince would kill him now and the Tablet would go back to Smaragdine and he would never write another book. Or perhaps even another sentence.
Baryut wheeled around and drew his sword to make his stand at the edge of the ravine.
“Sacrilege!” Farid screamed, galloping forward. Their horses came together and they were now so close that he could smell the betel nut on Farid’s breath, could see the design on the green T-shirt he wore under the blazer.
The force of their swords clashing shuddered up and down his arm and the ground beneath their horses’ hooves caved away and they fell headlong into the ravine, still in their stirrups.
The horses were dead by the time they reached the bottom, necks snapped. The tablet had cracked into a hundred pieces.
Baryut and Farid were buried alive under the pebbles and rocks and boulders dislodged by their descent. Their mouths filled with dirt. Their bones broke.
Then, because Farid could not reach his sword, he shot Baryut in the stomach.
Baryut looked up at the ceiling fan and could hear a slow pounding that he knew was his blood abandoning his body.
As Baryut died, he had the satisfaction of knowing Farid would die, too, soon enough.
Within a month, the flesh decayed from the bodies of the two men, leaving only bones. In four months, the shifting of earth confused the collapsed skeletons of the horses and the men until there was no difference between the two.
That spring, the rains came and water trickled through the ravine, loosening the stones, picking through the bones and the pieces of the Green Tablet. Every year, the water dislodged more and more fragments until over time the Tablet became not a hundred pieces but two hundred and then a thousand, until no one piece was any larger than a Smaragdine coin.
Beyond the ravine, more wars were fought. Some the Turk won, some the Smaragdineans won. Men died searching for the Tablet. Smaragdine became a backwater held together by the weight of dead ritual and then, eventually, broken by a mad dictator who fancied himself an architect on a grand scale.
Pieces of the Tablet were carried away by the rainwater and entered the river. Fish ate them and became strange with the knowledge, uttering sentences in a language no one understood. Herons ate the fish and fishermen noticed how mournful and heavy their eyes became.
In a hundred ways, the Green Tablet reentered the world, but like the men, it had been buried alive and its knowledge with it. Reborn, it became a hidden thing, seen in glimpses from the corner of the eye. Sometimes things happened because of the Tablet that no one could understand because no one knew what the Tablet said anymore. Perhaps they never had.
And still people searched for it, never realizing it was all around them and in them, and that they could search their whole lives, die because of it, and yet it was there all the time, in front of them, even in the pattern of green mold across a dirty floor in a Tashkent coffeehouse or somewhere in the blood leaking from my body or in the patient whir of the ceiling fan overhead or in anything in the world that received love or hate or some lingering attention or...anything always forever.
Logorrhea: Vignette
Elizabeth Hand accepted my request for a story immediately. Then I didn't hear from her at all. Then, as the deadline drew near, a perfect story appeared in my in-box. You can read more about Elizabeth's view point of the project, as well as Jeff VanderMeer's take on 'vignette' here. In the meantime, here's an excerpt from Elizabeth's story:
Vignette
by Elizabeth Hand
The rolltop desk in this cabin belonged to your parents, you told me last night. Earlier in the evening you pointed to a top shelf in the lodge kitchen, three blown-glass bottles shaped like little birds, red, piss-yellow, the deep brownish violet of kelp on the ledges outside.
“Those glass things were my grandmother’s. They were always in her house in Stony Brook. Now they’re here. It’s so weird, this stuff. All this stuff.”
I would have said, It follows you. I was there; I am here now. One of the things that followed you.
This morning you interviewed me in your cabin, your computer set up on another desk, a big microphone on a stand. You sat in the chair before the computer and adjusted the mike, singing snatches of an old Bill Withers song, whispering, clicking your tongue, snapping your fingers.
“Don’t look at this.” You pointed at the monitor. Fizzy spikes rose and fell as you spoke. “It can be distracting. Seeing your voice.”
You’re interviewing all the visitors to the island. One by one all last week, today, after I leave. The Marriage Project. They go to your cabin and you ask them Have you ever been married? What does love mean to you? The sound bites are beautiful, spliced into swooping piano cadences, your guitar. Back on the mainland flames erupt, lines of peoples snake outside airports. Here on the island, there is music, wind in the trees, the persistent thump of the windmill that gives us power, rising from the island’s highest point, a giant with one great eye. From your computer the sound of a woman laughing — we’re all doomed — your brother’s voice soft with alcohol. Your cigarette smoke in the cabin around me. Prayer flags strung from the ceiling, tiny red lights. A piano, every year the piano tuner stays on the island for a week in exchange for keeping it in tune. Your Gibson guitar. Bottles of your medication silhouetted against the window, sunlight glinting from the plastic vials like a tiny cityscape. A city I visit. You live there.
Neither of us lives here. Nothing can be sustained. Sex, drugs, art, electricity, even the trees. It’s over.
Logorrhea: Transept
Jay Lake kept checking in with me about the length of his story; it's by far the longest piece in the book. I always assumed that I'd find places to trim and cut after I got the story. Unfortunately, there weren't any. Fortunately, we didn't need to cut anything. Jay writes about his experiences here. This is an excerpt from his story:
Crossing the Seven
by Jay Lake
When Halcyone was queen in Cermalus the blackstar first came into the sky.
With the coming of the blackstar, tradesmen and civitors alike cried for protection from the throne. The working people of the city paid no more attention to the shouting on the hill than we did to the lights in the sky. The end of the world might be at hand, but there was still bread to be baked and dogs to be fed and gutters to be cleaned.
I myself was most concerned with the state of the tiles on the roof of the villa belonging to the first mistress of the Civitor Tradelium. I was called Andrade, slave of the city.
The civitor was not an unkind man, in that he sometimes managed to remember his slaves and servants were human beings with needs and desires. It was more than most of that august class could keep in mind, who had been borne amid a cloud of attendants and would die there, either of old age or bloody assassination.
Kindness or no, his sweet mistress had experienced an inpouring of water, ruining a set of silk sheets and some quite expensive leather intimates brought at significant cost from decadent Oppius. This had sent her into a rage of epic proportions. In turn, the Civitor Tradelium experienced no little irritation as the mistress had accosted his wife.
In accordance with the fundamental principle that feces flow downward, all became my responsibility for having failed to divine in advance of the need for repairing the roof. And thusly, while the second sons of the wealthy were rending their garments in the streets for fear of the blackstar, I was up on the roof resetting glazed tiles across my carefully built grout-and-plaster. I had no intention of coming down from my perch for the sake of flood, fire or barbarian invasion, not after the civitor’s mixture of threats and promised bonuses.
I was standing on that roof with the long-bladed file in my hand, balanced on the slick curved tiles, when the high priestess of the Temple Regina rode astride her white ass down the cobbled street below. She wore only the three veils of propriety and the seven beads of virtue. Her Worship being about ten stone and forty years to the far side of lissome, the three veils were as effective as a sneeze and a promise. It was a large ass. Both of them were, in fact -- the one attached to her and the one beneath her. The high priestess’s avoirdupois was of no moment as all good Cermalians knelt in prayer facing away from her line of procession. The bad Cermalians turned away too, out of a sense of good taste or possibly sheer self preservation.
Even her temple guard marched with their eyes averted.
So it was that when the blackstar discharged its bolt of unholy violet lightning, mine were the only eyes hers chanced to meet.
Given that I stood a good fifty feet above her on the roof line, limned from behind by the blinding light -- and I thank the stars themselves I was not looking into the bolt -- what the high priestess saw was a purple angel descended from the heavens, harbinger of the blackstar.
What I saw was her great maw opening for a shriek. I figured it was me for a goner, on account of profaning the sacred form of the high priestess by casting my base eyes upon her. I’d have gladly given that vision of pulchritude right back to the pond from whence it flopped, if I had the chance.
She yelled, a second bolt struck the long-bladed file, my hair caught fire, and I was blown off the roof.
After that, things got bad.
Logorrhea: Smaragdine
Marly Youmans was one of the first people to finish her story. She read it at a KGB Bar reading in NYC. This was the reading that afterwards I talked to Juliet Ulman about the anthology idea. I like to think that Marly's story helped sell the anthology:
The Smaragdine Knot
by Marly Youmans
Infinity, when all things it beheld
In Nothing, and of Nothing all did build,
Upon what Base was fixt the Lath, wherein
He turn’d this Globe, and riggalld it so trim?
. . .
Who Lac’de and Fillitted the earth so fine,
With Rivers like green Ribbons Smaragdine?
Who made the Sea’s its Selvedge, and its locks
Like a Quilt Ball within a Silver Box?
--Edward Taylor, from God’s Determinations
I’m a child of the Puritans, though my forebears would cast me from the golden rows of the Elect, as surely as the Angel barred Adam and Eve from the garden. But I take an interest in the ‘sad’ colors, the hymnodies that scared the wolves, the hunkered children--as numb in their cloaks as stumps by a frozen church. Foremost of my kin who crossed a sea of mermaids to the New World was a certain minister, scholar, and poet. Centuries after his death, the leather-bound book wherein he had buried his poems was unearthed in the Yale Library. Championed by the Anglophile banker-poet, T. S. Eliot, his sermons and poems are still read.
What hasn’t been known is that he kept a history of his forays into other realms. He was an adept of Puritan meditation techniques meant to restore the bridge between mortals and God. A session began with an elaborate calling-up of tangible place--the drawing-room of Hell with its gilt-framed mirrors, the sogged landscape of straw outside his door, a counting-house where a clerk tallied the gold coins called angels. The more solid the imagining, the greater the chance that drops from the fount of God could fly past the stars until a seeker found himself in a waterfall of spirit. Following prescribed steps, he might commune with men, God, or angels, his soul aroused, and be floated toward new resolution by streams of love and desire and that cataract, joy.
He used no magic; being in strong communion with the next world, what was shadow to other Puritan divines eventually became living presence to him. Neighbors spied lights streaking through the house, and one Goodman Brewster testified that he had glimpsed an angel, eyed like a peacock, at the minister’s deathbed--the visitor stirring the fire on the hearth with bright hands.
The journal was inscribed with the title, The Smaragdine Knot. In childhood, I was enraptured by the mystical, fierce, and passionate accounts. A year back, I felt a blow to my sense of family because of this book.
“I’d like to borrow the Knot,” I told my Great-uncle Samuel, a long-retired professor of Renaissance history. He has been steward of the book so long that we’ve forgotten when it passed from Great-great-great-great Aunt Tabitha.
“Gone,” he groaned, slapping the arms of his chair with both hands.
*****
Jeff VanderMeer wove the concept of smaragdine through his whole story. Here's the part that was devoted to it:
SMARAGDINE
“In the vast city of Smaragdine on the edge of a dying sea-lake, from which come palm trees and a wasting disease, the color green is much prized. It matters not where it is found, nor the exact shade. The cloth-makers produce nothing but clothing in green, so that the people of the city are always swathed in it. The buildings are painted in emerald, in verdigris, edged in a bronze that quickly turns. Even the white domesticated parrots that the denizens have such affection for—these birds they dye green. Year by year the lake becomes smaller and the river that feeds into it more of a stream. Year by year, the palm trees become yellower and fewer. Yet the people hold vast and expensive festivals in celebration of the arcane and the uncanny. There is a constant state of celebration. Yet also it is a point of pride for buildings to fall into disrepair, if at the limits of their disillusion there creeps into the corners of rooms, across the ceilings, some hint of green. Someday, Smaragdine will be as a ruin and the lake will be gone and the river with it. But, in the end, it will not matter, for even when the last water is gone, this city will still be rich and fertile in color. This is all the inhabitants ask. It is all they can hope for. I know, for I lived in Smaragdine for a time. I knew the calm beauty of its streets, the dyed-green water of its many fountains, filled with green carp. I knew the slogans of the leaders in their green cloaks. I knew, too, the feel of the hot sun and was blinded by the mirage of sand eclipsed by the shimmer of the ever-more-distant lake. One day, I will return and know once again the richness of that place by its devotion to its color. One day I will walk through those empty streets and know the very definition of madness.”
– Told to one of Marco Polo’s men by a merchant selling green cloth in a Mumbai marketplace
Logorrhea: Semaphore
Alex Irvine actually wrote about two words: semaphore and sacrilegious. They were the two winning words before and after WWII. Alex wrote about what happened to the spelling bee in the intervening years:
Semaphore
by Alex Irvine
I am thinking of my Uncle Mike because he died recently, at the ripe old age of 97, and because after his death I had the belated realization that I had at some point come to believe him immortal because of all the people I ever knew, Uncle Mike was the most able to joke about death. I wonder if he lost his sense of humor and died of the loss.
Every boy at some point worships his father. I had twin idols: my brother Daniel and my uncle Mike. Because I worshipped the ground Uncle Mike walked on, I tried to joke about death, too; but because I acquired the habit during World War II, while the world stood around watching the extinction of our extended family and the rest of European Jewry, I found that my early efforts at emulating Uncle Mike were a little tone-deaf. Like many eleven- or twelve-year-olds, I figured out how to be callous before I learned anything about reflection. This tendency, like a number of others more or less salutary, I absorbed from Daniel…but he has been gone long enough that I can no longer mourn him, and Uncle Mike’s passing is fresh in my mind.
I’m an old man now, or at least the approach of my seventieth birthday makes me feel old, and like many old men I am trying to figure out why I was the kind of young man that I was. Trying to put in order my understanding of my previous self, the way you put your worldly affairs in order when you realize that you’re closer to death than birth. The answer has to do with Uncle Mike, but more importantly with my brother Daniel, who in February of 1942 shocked the entire family by not only entering the PS 319 spelling bee but winning it—and this as a fifteen-year-old eighth grader of no academic distinction whatsoever. Because he hadn’t turned sixteen or started high school, he was going to be eligible for the national tournament if he got through the regional that spring. The mystification of the Rosenthal family of 327 South Fifth, Williamsburg, was complete. None of us even knew Daniel could spell. His grades had sure never given any sign, and I don’t think I’d ever seen him read a book in his life. God is mysterious that way.
*****
Jeff VanderMeer uses the word in a more traditional way:
SEMAPHORE
When Truewill Mashburn turned eighteen, he left the US with forged documents and passed himself off as a thirty-something ESE teacher at a Costa Rican university. He’d always looked older than his age and at six-four with sandy blond hair and a Viking’s eyes and chin, people usually believed what he said. By the time he left Latin America at the age of twenty-two and headed for Europe, he’d hitchhiked through twelve countries, been a missionary, a doctor’s aide, and a bank teller.
Now twenty-five, Mashburn found himself living in an abandoned semaphore tower on the banks of a Central Asian river that eventually wound its way down to the ruins of old Smaragdine and the tired modern city that surrounded it.
He’d read about the semaphore towers while hanging out in a Tashkent library. They’d once been vital in Smaragdine’s epic battles against the dreaded Turk. Now they were just free apartments ripe for the taking, in Mashburn’s eyes.
Mashburn took the book—The Myth of the Green Tablet—and headed south. By the time he found the towers, he was ready to settle down awhile anyway, having been hassled at half a dozen borders. He could fish in the river, exchange some of his limited cash for food in the nearby village, read the book he’d stolen, or just hang out with the locals smoking dope. A few times a week, the village women walked past, giggling and talking about him. He couldn’t understand them, but he knew what they were saying.
It should have been perfect, but an odd sense of responsibility began to grow inside him with each day he lived there. He felt it in his chest every time he walked up the three stories of crumbling stone steps to stare at the tower a half-mile downriver that doubled his own.
The book was to blame, even though the author seemed contemptuous of the subject. On some level, the more Mashburn read about the fascinating history of Smaragdine, the more he couldn’t help but feel an obligation to continue its ancient fight against the Turk. It didn’t make sense, and yet it did.
Mashburn decided to become the true keeper of the tower. He removed the weeds inside and along the circular fringe. He did his best with his limited knowledge of drywall to repair the worst areas. He began to wear his tattered army surplus jacket all the time. He bought a pair of old binoculars from a villager. He even assigned himself guard duty, more often at dusk than during the day.
At night, the tower looked less ruined and it was easier to imagine he was back in Time and that he might need to use the tower’s windmill-like semaphore spokes to warn of some danger.
Then, too, Mashburn saw many strange things the longer he stood watch at night. Fish that bellowed at him from the water. Debris and bodies from some battle that had taken place many countries upriver. A man in a motorboat who looked vaguely American in a leather jacket and dark shades, a gun holster on his exposed ankle. Something was happening, Mashburn was certain. He just didn’t know what.
One moonlit night just before dawn, he saw the most curious thing of all: a river cruise ship with several smaller boats pursuing it. When they caught up, what looked like a band of circus performers jumped on board: a couple of women dressed like caliphs, a snake charmer, a mime, and a fire-eater, among others. The battle raged as Mashburn looked on with mouth open.
By the time the conflict had subsided, far to the south of his position, he couldn’t tell who had won, only that the boats remained empty and most of the river cruise crew was walking around on deck again.
Sometimes Mashburn felt prematurely old from all of his travels, but in that moment, he felt both dumbfounded and oddly blessed.
By midmorning, he had the semaphore spokes turning for the first time in two centuries and he was sending his message out across the water. He didn’t care if the next station was manned or not. That wasn’t the point.
Logorrhea: Macerate
As Paolo Bacigalupi wrote his story, he asked, "How squicky can I get?" And I said something along the lines of, "Write the best story you can." I got squicky:
Softer
by Paolo Bacigalupi
Jonathan Lilly slumped in hot water up to his neck and studied his dead wife. She half-floated at the far end of the bath, soap bubbles wreathing her Nordic face. Blond hair clung to bloodless skin. Her half-lidded eyes stared at the ceiling. Jonathan rearranged his position, shoving Pia’s tangling legs aside to make more room for himself and wondered if this peaceful moment between crime and confession would make any difference in his sentencing.
He knew he should turn himself in. Let someone know that the day had gone wrong in Denver’s Congress Park Neighborhood. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. He might not even be in prison for so very long. He’d read somewhere that pot growers got more prison time than murderers, and he vaguely remembered that murder laws might provide leeway for unintended deaths like this one. Was it manslaughter? Murder in the second degree? He stirred soap suds, considering.
He’d have to Google it.
*****
Jeff VanderMeer's version of macerate was gooey in its own way (how could you not be with a word like macerate?):
MACERATE
To: The President of Emerald Delta River Cruises
Dear Sir or Madam:
I am writing to complain in no uncertain terms.
My wife and I are not rich people, nor extravagant. I, for example, work part-time at a grocery store since my retirement. But this past summer, we decided to treat ourselves to a river cruise. We chose your service because it had come highly recommended by one of our cousins and because the rates were reasonable. Five days on a river cruise! Nothing could have delighted us more, and my poor Macha, who works twelve-hour days in a factory deserved it. Besides, the name of the boat seemed rather romantic: The Light of the Moon.
We departed in late August with the river calm and swallows skimming over the water. Our cabin seemed nice if cramped, and the people on board were pleasant. It was a surprise to find that a number of pigs had been brought on board by another traveler, but they were kept below deck and made surprisingly little sound. We looked forward to a relaxing experience.
All was well until the second night, when, as you know, river pirates tried to board The Light of the Moon, under, well I must say it, the light of the moon. We were horrified, of course, but stayed in our cabin as the crew commanded. We heard all kinds of terrible noises and what sounded like shots fired, as well as a great uproar among the pigs. But this settled down and we were reassured by some new crew members in the morning that the pirates had been repelled and would no longer be a problem. Being a war veteran, I had remained calm and my poor Macha had been calm, too, although I made her take a sleeping tablet after.
Pirates simply made an adventure for us, this late in our lives. Nor did we mind the next day when two fellow travelers playing cards shot at one another before being subdued by members of the crew. Besides, Macha missed all of it, having overslept.
Shortly thereafter, however, the menu began to change and this is where I believe the nature of our complaint will become clear. It will also explain why we began to lose weight on this so-called “idyllic cruise downriver, ending at the site of ancient Smaragdine.” Perhaps typing up a description from the menu will be enough to convince you of our claim:
Thrice-Shoved Frogs, Whole – Two whole emerald frogs, flayed alive and then lightly braised and macerated, after which the whole skin of one is pulled back over the other and vice versa. The frogs are then impaled, still fresh, on a two-headed skewer and cooked over an open flame. Both frogs are then put inside a hollowed-out river iguana, which is then stuffed into a large river fish and placed inside a box full of coals that is heated and tossed out behind the boat for further maceration. The resulting taste of the then panfried Thrice-Shoved Frogs is indescribable.
For three days, your crew and the two women serving as cooks prepared a series of dishes that included macerating anything and everything, usually “shoving” or “stuffing” it inside of some other animal. I have never seen such senseless violence done to anything or anyone as to these creatures with their bulging eyes and gutted rears. When we complained, we were told by both women that we should be happy to receive such delicacies.
Many other strange things went on aboard that ship, sir or madam. Some of them I do not feel comfortable relating to you, even now, two months after our ordeal. The crew did not seem to sleep and once, when I peeked out from the door of our cabin after midnight, I saw two of them painted green from head to foot, stark naked, engaged in a dance involving scarab beetles. During the day, they would say odd things designed, I believe, to make us react in some specific way.
After a time, we did not know if perhaps the crew had gone mad or if they just practiced insolence as a wall against boredom.
When we arrived at our destination, the crew disappeared, leaving us there by the dock. We had to take a train back to our little apartment the very next day—a trip of some thirty hours, and very hard on my poor Macha.
We do not need or want apologies. We would like a refund of our money and vouchers for free meals from our favorite restaurant. It is only symbolic, of course, to have these vouchers separate from a general refund. But there is the principle involved, isn’t there? We cannot get those “Thrice-Shoved Frogs” on the Light of the Moon out of our heads.
Thank you for your kind attention,
Saladin Davidos, Esq.
Logorrhea: Logorrhea
Michelle Richmond is one of the few contributors I've never met. I was extremely happy to see that someone chose the title word for the anthology. And I have to say, I'm extremely happy with the final results:
Logorrhea
by Michelle Richmond
He had not been born with the scales. Indeed, the origin of his condition was as enigmatic to the mother who bore him as it was to the scientists who studied him, for nowhere in his mother’s family album or in the scientists’ vast store of case histories was there another human being so gloriously esquamulose.
He was three years old when the scales began to appear—on his upper legs, at first. Tiny, half-moon shaped bits, hard and thin, the rounded edges paper-sharp. One pediatrician diagnosed it as an allergic rash, another as a severe case of keritosis peritonitis, another as an indeterminable childhood abnormality that would surely right itself with age. But when the scales began to thicken and to stretch up his body—to his groin, his stomach, his arms, shoulders, neck, and eventually, his face, the doctors stopped trying to make a diagnosis. It was like nothing they had seen, it was miraculous, it was horrific.
One thing you should understand: the scales did not cover his skin, they were his skin. Unlike hair or fingernails, there was nothing extraneous about them. To rid him of the scales would have been to rid him of his very surface.
The doctors took pictures, they referred him to specialists, they did all of the things one does when an exceptional case is dropped, like a gift of manna, into one’s hands. But they offered no answers, only a long series of lotions and pills and dermatological treatments of the abrasive and purative variety, all of which yielded nothing—nothing but a sobbing, put-upon boy.
“No one has ever loved me before,” he said, by which he meant no one had ever fucked him—and to him, the two were one and the same.
All of these things he told me on our first night together. Our first! How could he hold it back, this dark history, when my skin bore the savage marks of his scales, when his flesh literally dug into mine?
*****
As always, Jeff VanderMeer thinks of things in a way that's different from the rest of us:
LOGORRHEA
(Excerpted from “Yetis, Loch Ness, and Talking Fish?” in the English magazine Strange Phenomenon, April 1935)
“There is really no sight that stirs the blood more than witnessing a giant Logorrheic Coelacanth plowing its way across the floor of old-growth Siberian forest, bellowing for all it’s worth.” – Dr. G. Merrill Smith
The freshwater walking fish called by some the "Logorrheic Coelacanth" has again been sighted in and around Siberia's Lake Baikal, as it has at regular intervals for hundreds of years. Most sightings occur miles from any water source, the fish reported to crawl awkwardly on its thick pectoral fins. Speculation leads this reporter to the conclusion that the Logorrheic Coelacanth must have a remarkable capacity to store water in pouches concealed by its gills. Thirdhand accounts tell of hunters encountering the voice of this fish before ever sighting it. (This reporter believes that the force of cycling water through the gills creates the sibilant yet throaty noise.)
In August 1934, the Logorrheic Coelacanth’s gill mutterings came under rigorous observation by Dr. G. Merrill Smith’s zoological expedition to track and tag Lake Baikal’s freshwater seals. Dr. Smith told this reporter that he saw “what looked like a squadron of raucous walking fish ugly as bulldogs at the edge of a clearing. Imagine my surprise when I realized they were speaking in an ancient shamanistic language associated with a lost race once close kin to the Smaragdineans.” Independent analysis of the field recordings made by Dr. Smith confirms the resemblance to certain rare languages. Some scientists have postulated a kind of inadvertent mimicry to explain the phenomenon. (Dr. Smith has stated, “I think it might be as coincidental as a cat coughing up a hairball sounding like speech.”) Others have proposed more outré theories, such as symbiosis between Neanderthals and the fish. Although no serious scientist accepts this theory, no one can explain the fish’s wanderings, the long intervals between sightings, nor give any reason for the fish to have developed this “adaptation.
Logorrhea: Insouciant
When I contact Michael Moorcock about writing a story for this anthology, he said "If there's any word on this list for me, it's insouciant." Here's an excerpt:
A Portrait In Ivory
An Elric story by Michael Moorcock
I
An Encounter with a Lady
ELRIC, WHO HAD slept well and revived himself with fresh-brewed herbs, was in improved humour as he mixed honey and water into his glass of green breakfast wine. Typically, his night had been filled with distressing dreams, but any observer would see only a tall, insouciant ‘silverskin’ with high cheekbones, slightly sloping eyes and tapering ears, revealing nothing of his inner thoughts.
He had found a quiet hostelry away from the noisy centre of Séred-Öma, this city of tall palms. Here, merchants from all over the Young Kingdoms gathered to trade their goods in return for the region’s most valuable produce. This was not the dates or livestock, on which Sered-Öma’s original wealth had been founded, but the extraordinary creations of artists famed everywhere in the lands bordering the Sighing Desert. Their carvings, especially of animals and human portraits, were coveted by kings and princes. It was the reputation of these works of art which brought the crimson-eyed albino out of his way to see them for himself. Even in Melniboné, where barbarian art for the most part was regarded with distaste, the sculptors of Sered-Öma had been admired.
Though Elric had left the scabbarded runesword and black armour of his new calling in his chamber and wore the simple chequered clothing of a regional traveller, his fellow guests tended to keep a certain distance from him. Those who had heard little of Melniboné’s fall had celebrated the Bright Empire’s destruction with great glee until the implications of that sudden defeat were understood. These days, certainly, Melniboné no longer controlled the world’s trade and could no longer demand ransom from the Young Kingdoms, but the world was these days in confusion as upstart nations vied to seize the power for themselves. And meanwhile, Melnibonéan mercenaries found employment in the armies of rival countries. Without being certain of his identity, they could tell at once that Elric was one of those misplaced unhuman warriors, infamous for their cold good manners and edgy pride.
*****
Jeff VanderMeer's take was, of course, a different turn of events, but something that Elric would defnitely approve of:
INSOUCIANT
—boots smashing through brambles to the soft pine-needle floor, left hand lacerated by branches from reaching out for support at the wrong moment, heartbeat rapid, blood on the grip of his Glock, sharp pain in the shoulders as he whipped around long enough to get a few rounds off at an enemy that shattered in his vision because of the recoil, Lake Baikal behind him and more forest ahead and no hope in hell now of staking out the cabin where he suspected the girl was being held by the Russian toughs that had flushed him out, although he wondered as a bullet flecked a pine tree to his left and the bark exploded against his arm was the girl really there how could he be sure and why the hell did his watch itch so badly against his sweating wrist and all the time trying not to fall, when he heard a bellowing behind him and the sound of his pursuers brought up short, followed by a cry of surprise, and he just kept running because he’d caught a hint of something green that reminded him of a painting he’d bought but didn’t connect to his idea of reality, or anybody’s idea of reality, and it wasn’t until that moment that he realized all through the chase, until the sight of the smudge of green, that he’d been as carefree as he could ever hope to be in his line of work and how strange that was and yet so true, then tripped over something large and fleshy, fell on his side against some tree roots and, dazed, gasping for air, raised his head to find the smudge of green resolved into something so improbable that he lay there staring at it for far too long, knowing instinctively that this was part of some great mystery, a mystery he might pursue for years and never solve and yet must pursue anyway, and realizing too that because of it he would rarely know any kind of peace for the rest of his life—
Logorrhea: Eudaemonic
You can read Jay Caselberg's thoughts about the Logorrhea anthology here. Here's an excerpt from his story:
Eudaemonic
by Jay Caselberg
“Touch me bright with the demons of your soul,” she’d said to him. Bright? Michael had sat back, tasted the word, wondering at her choice. She wanted his dark places to illuminate her, or so she’d said, and Michael had considered. Sometimes we go to strange locales in search of mutual understanding.
Around that time, Michael lived near the ocean, in a big wooden house, the sound of surf muttering and crashing him to sleep on those thick summer nights heavy with the heat, the faint salt breeze offering scant relief from the gleam of sweat across his chest. The semi-dark rooms full of the scent of brine and night jasmine. He lived alone then. After two failed marriages, he’d learned; it was better sometimes to have no one but yourself to blame. Bitterness is more than simply the taste of coffee in the morning. The house, a rambling, haphazard affair, came with its own memories, but Michael happily populated them with his own.
Claire filled it with something else entirely.
In summer, the beach thronged with tourists and holidaymakers. Even late at night, moon or no moon, there’d be couples strolling hand in hand along the water’s edge. But in winter, it was a different matter, the broad, empty stretch of sand, the cold wind whipping tufts of beach grass back and forth, scattering grains in its wake, a few sun-bleached shells staring white like bones from between the hummocks in the crisp daylight. In those times, Michael would walk, alone with his thoughts and the grey ocean stirring and muttering beside him. Claire had been the last person he’d expected to meet there, along with the body that lay beside her.
Logorrhea: Dulcimer
Theodora Goss chose the word 'dulcimer' as her word for Logorrhea. This is an excerpt from her story:
Singing of Mount Abora
by Theodora Goss
A hundred years ago, the blind instrument-maker known as Alem Das, or Alem the Master, made a dulcimer whose sound was sweeter, more passionate, and more filled with longing than any instrument that had ever been made. It was carved entirely from the wood of an almond tree that had grown in the garden of Al Meseret, that palace with a thousand rooms where the Empress Nasren had chosen to spend her widowhood. The doors of the palace were shaped like moons, its windows like stars. It was a palace of night, and every night the Empress walked through its thousand rooms, wearing the veil she had worn for her wedding to the Great Khan. If the cooks, who sometimes saw her wandering through the kitchen, had not known who she was, they would have mistaken her for a ghost. The dulcimer was strung with the whiskers of the Cloud Dragon, who wreaths his body around the slopes of Mount Abora. He can always be found there in the early morning, and that is when Alem Das approached him, walking up the path on the arm of his niece Kamora.
“What do you want?” asked the dragon.
“Your whiskers, luminous one,” said Alem Das.
“My whiskers! You must be that instrument maker. I’ve heard of you. You’re the reason my cousin, the River Dragon, no longer has spines along his back, and why my other cousin, the Phoenix, no longer has tail-feathers. Why should I give you my whiskers?”
“Because when I have made my dulcimer, my niece Kamora will come and play for you, and sing to you the secrets of your soul,” said Alem Das.
“We dragons have no souls,” said the Cloud Dragon, wreathing himself around and around, like a cat.
“You dragons are souls,” said Alem Das, and he asked his niece to sing one of the songs that she sang at night, to sooth the Empress Nasren. Kamora sang, and the Cloud Dragon stopped wreathing himself around and around. Instead, he lay at her feet, which disappeared into mist. When she was done, he said, “All right, instrument maker. You may have my whiskers, but on one condition. First, your niece Kamora must marry me. And when you have made your dulcimer, she must sing to me every night the secrets of my soul.”
Kamora knew how the Cloud Dragon looked at night, when he took the form of a man, so she said, “I will marry you, if my Empress allows it.” And that is my first song.
*****
Jeff VanderMeer had quite a different take on the word:
DULCIMER
From the Book of Smaragdine, 212th Edition:
The dulcimer has many esoteric uses in the spiritual and medical worlds. Playing the dulcimer while attaching a wresting thread to a person with a sprain will hasten the winding of the thread and the healing of the sprain. A man who plays the dulcimer over the grave of his dead wife will ensure that she stays dead and does not pay unexpected visits. A woman who plays the dulcimer holding it backwards will reverse her bad luck and bring home a wayward lover. A child who stands on one leg and attempts the dulcimer with chin and left hand while the right arm is tied behind the back will inevitably fall. If making a doppelganger using the priests’ emerald powder, the dulcimer should be played during the mixing; otherwise, your monster may coalesce with a vestigial tale or tail. It is also known that playing the dulcimer after dinner increases the chance of pleasant conversation, if accompanied by wine and a nice dessert.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
READING: Christopher Barzak's One For Sorrow
Christopher Barzak's One For Sorrow
is a book I've been looking forward to reading for some time. I was not disappointed.The story of fifteen-year-old Adam McCormick as he attempts to deal with the murder of high school acquaintance Jamie Marks is equal parts touching and terrifying. It seems that Adam was perhaps the only classmate that treated Jamie with kindness; the only person who saw Jamie as a person and not an object of ridicule. Consequently, Adam is one of the few people who can see and interact with Jamie's ghost after his death.
I often felt like I was riding on Adam's shoulder as he tried to understand what was happening and figure out what to do next. It's like Barzak has torn open my memories and experiences from high school and thrown them onto the page. During the summer between my Junior and Senior years, a body was found in a corn field near an old quarry near my house where many of us used to swim. Unlike Jamie, this young man had died of an overdose, but the parallel between Adam and myself was prominent in my mind while I read the book.
High school for me was filled with ridicule, disappointment, friends' attempts on their own lives, friends' deaths, friends' getting sent away 'for their own good,' arguments with parents, my own battle with depression, and lots of confusion and anger. I have an inordinate amount of respect and sympathy for teenagers. And it's a testament to Barzak's story telling strength that I felt the same things for Adam.
Much like the protagonists in John Green's Looking for Alaska or Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, Adam McCormick doesn't get a perfect ending, not everything works out in the end and everything is magically better. But by the end of the book, Adam has matured and changed, but he still had a long way to go. At its heart, One For Sorrow is a love story between Adam and everyone around him. Adam wants to know where he fits in the world. The book takes the awkward up and down emotional ride that is teen life and exposes it for all the beauty and horror that it is. This is truly an extraordinary book full of heart and hope.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Convention Attendance 2008
As we've now hit December (what?!!?), I thought I should spend at least a little time thinking about what conventions to go to next year. There are a few definites:
WisCon 32: May 23-26, 2008 in Madison, WI
World Fantasy 2008: Oct 30 - Nov 2 in Calgary, AB
And a few possibilities:
Think Galactic Con in Chicago, IL
(last year was their first convention, and I was unable to attend since I was getting ready to move into our house; there has been no convention announced for next year; If they have one, I'll be there)
Denvention 3 (World Con 66) Aug 6 - 10 in Denver, CO
(I was all set to go to this--my brother and his family live in Denver so we could visit them, too--but when I went and looked at the membership...it's $175! Now, World Con is perhaps my LEAST favorite convention to go to, so paying $175 for a convention I don't like seems silly to me...perhaps I'll look into one-day memberships, or just go to the hotel and hang out; the big question to all of you: who's going?)
Looking beyond 2008, there's:
Wiscon 33 in Madison, WI
Anticipation (World Con 67) Aug 6 - 10 in Montreal, QC
(yes, another Worldcon; however, I can buy my membership now for either $70 or $95 depending on what sort of support I gave them pre-bid win; also, I'll take any excuse* to get back to Montreal, even a World Con)
World Fantasy 2009 in San Jose, CA
World Con 68 [2010], location: ? (the only bid right now is for Australia, and again, I'd take any excuse* to go to Australia; and typically out-of-US bids win virtually unopposed)
World Fantasy 2010 in Columbus, OH
World Con 69 [2011], location: ? (there's only one bid right now from Seattle; who knows what will happen between now and then?)
* when I say any excuse, obviously I could just take a vacation and go these spots, but to have something work-related (i.e., tax write-off related) in the same place as somewhere I'd like to travel to...well that makes it even better
Disappointing, My Score That Is
From the lovely Marguerite (who was only a drunkard, despite scoring only 1% less than me). I thought I knew my drinks better. I refused to go beyond clue #1, so I got a few wrong.
I like how these things are now trying to sneak in free advertising and that most of us strip it off the bottom.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Review of Electric Velocipede #10
SF Site has a new review of issue #10 online:
I can offer no great introduction to Electric Velocipede; this issue was my first time. Initial impressions: it looks pretty unassuming, though the cover is no less attractive and striking for that; using the back cover as a space for the subscriber's address is a nice touch, too. The stories fit broadly into a region that I'm not sure even has a name... "Literary weird"? Don't know if that's a real term, but I trust you get the gist of what I mean.The reviewer likes about half the issue, but would be willing to read more issues of the zine, which is all I'm striving for.
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