Whoot!

Ressurection Code is ready for pre-order on Amazon.com!!! The book won't be out until March 2011, but reserve your copy now here: http://www.amazon.com/Resurrection-Code-Lyda-Morehouse/dp/1935234099/

Whoot!

Astronomy Photo of the Day

Could life once have survived on Mars? Today, neither animal nor plant life from Earth could survive for very long on Mars because at least one key ingredient -- liquid water -- is essentially absent on the red planet's rusty surface. Although evidence from the martian rovers indicates that long ago Mars might once have had liquid water on its surface, that water might also have been too acidic for familiar life forms to thrive. Recently, however, a newly detailed analysis of an unusual outcropping of rock and soil chanced upon in 2005 by the robotic Spirit rover has uncovered a clue indicating that not all of Mars was always so acidic. The mound in question, dubbed Comanche Outcrop and visible near the top of the above image, appears to contain unusually high concentrations of elements such as magnesium iron carbonate. The above image is shown in colors exaggerated to highlight the differences in composition. Since these carbonates dissolve in acid, the persistence of these mounds indicates that water perhaps less acidic and more favorable for life might have once flowed across Mars. More detailed analyses and searches for other signs will surely continue.

The places that books hold in our lives

Thanks to Niccola Griffith, by way of Lisa Gold, come a collection of wonderful images which remind us that, for all this talk of words, we as writers wouldn't be anywhere without people to read them. Surf on over to Mr. McCurry's site -- he's captured some wonderful moments (parts I and II) that speak to how captivating books can be, no matter where or who you are (and the rest of his site is pretty stunning, too).

Overheard at Critique

1. "This is a FORESHADOWING zombie."

2. "God Awful Stuff on a Stick" (tm)

3. "I'm shooting for this great redemptive moment when XX runs her sister through with a sword..."

4. "I'm really sorry. Sounds like you got my Muse accidentally."

Friday Cat Blogging

I knew I should have sprung for the battery powered cat!



You're on speakerphone, now tell me a bedtime story.



Blasé cat is unimpressed.




Cat, now available in solid or liquid!



There are two cats in this picture, really.

Smart Things

Ace/Roc editor Jessica Wade talking about what an editor does.

Jim Hines on the forthcoming "death" of print publishing. Yeah, I don't think print's on its way out any time soon either though, as with Jim I expect e-publishing to make up a much larger percentage of the market going forward than it does now.

Lilith Saintcrow on how to go about getting published.

Alyx Dellamonica on being compelled to write. File under can't not, and leaking weirdness.

Foreign Cover Art

I just got the cover art for the British edition for Many Bloody Returns, in which my short story about Sebastian and Garnet, "Fire and Ice and Linguine for Two," appears.It's not much to look at, but, hey, I'll be appearing in ENGLISH. Whoot!

And below we have Dead Sexy's German edition, which became BEISS NOCH EINMAL MIT GEFUEHL....

... and Romancing the Dead, which became VAMPIR SEIN IST ALLES.

Astronomy Photo of the Day

What's the matter with this cluster of galaxies? To find out what forms matter takes in the Abell 1689 cluster requires not only deep images from telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope, but detailed computer modeling as well. To start, almost every fuzzy yellow patch in the above image is an entire galaxy. A close inspection, however, shows that many background galaxies are strangely magnified and distorted into long curving arcs by the gravitational lens deflections of the cluster. Computer analyses of the placement and smoothness of these arcs indicate that in addition to the matter in the galaxies you can see, the cluster must also contain a significant amount of dark matter such as the model digitally superposed in purple. Now Abell 1689 remains enigmatic because the arcs are so numerous and diverse that no single dark matter model has emerged that can explain them all and still remain consistent with dark matter models needed to constrain their motion. Still, the detailed information available from clusters of galaxies like Abell 1689 gives hope that one day full solutions will be found that will not only fully reveal the dark matter in clusters, but also reveal the amounts of dark energy in the universe needed to lie along the line of sight to the distant arcs.

The Astronomy Photo of the Day website has published NASA photos for two days running. Since these are government products, our tax dollars at work, and not copyrighted, I am able to copy them. So here are two days in a row of wonderful images of the stars.

Kelly can correct me, but I have trouble with dark matter. It is a kind of plug, created to explain phenomena like this. I feel the same way about dark energy. The dark is in both names, in part because no one is sure what exactly the stuff is, and so far no one has figured out a way to prove its -- or their -- existence. This is very close to aether.

Astronomy Photo of the Day

Is this one galaxy or two? This question came to light in 1950 when astronomer Art Hoag chanced upon this unusual extragalactic object. On the outside is a ring dominated by bright blue stars, while near the center lies a ball of much redder stars that are likely much older. Between the two is a gap that appears almost completely dark. How Hoag's Object formed remains unknown, although similar objects have now been identified and collectively labeled as a form of ring galaxy. Genesis hypotheses include a galaxy collision billions of years ago and the gravitational affect of a central bar that has since vanished. The above photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in July 2001 reveals unprecedented details of Hoag's Object and may yield a better understanding. Hoag's Object spans about 100,000 light years and lies about 600 million light years away toward the constellation of the Snake (Serpens). Coincidentally, visible in the gap (at about one o'clock) is yet another ring galaxy that likely lies far in the distance.

Hanny and the Voorwerp Comic

Kelly here.

So, in addition to the new fantasy series I'm writing for Ace, The Chronicles of Aral Kingslayer, I've been working on a project for Galaxy Zoo and the Hubble Space Telescope with my astronomer friend Dr. Pamela Gay and a number of other fantastic folks. The project is a comic illustrating an amazingly nifty discovery in astronomy called Hanny's Voorwerp. It's all kinds of cool: scientific, artistic, literary, collaborative, and really worth checking out. For the broad stroke details you can look below but I'll blog about the experience in some detail in the coming days as we get closer to the official launch.



This past Monday, at about 8pm Central (GMT -4), a Voorwerpish webcomic was delivered to Sips Comics for printing. Tuesday morning we got the page proofs, and now, one by one, they are being made into full color reality.

We could say a lot of things right now: We could tell you about playing round robin with the script, digitally passing it from person to person under the guidance of Kelly, sometimes into the wee hours of the night. We could tell you about watching the art come to life; transforming from line drawings to fully rendered pages in the hand of our artists Elea and Chris. We could tell you how many pencil tips were broken, and how many digital files grew so big our computers crawled.

We could talk a lot, but instead, let us invite you to join us for the World Premier and share with you a few images.

You're Invited to a World Premier

• Time: 3 September, 10pm Eastern (GMT -5)


• Online: via Hanny’s Voorwerp Webcomic or via direct UStream Link


• In Person: At Dragon*Con
  Crystal Ballroom
  Hilton Atlanta
  255 Courtland Street NE
  Atlanta, GA

Come meet the artists, hear a brief talk by Bill, and generally revel in the Voorwerp's awesomeness.

And come dressed as a Voorwerp for a chance to win a prize for best costume!

See you in Atlanta?

Pamela, Hanny, Bill, Kelly, Elea and Chris



Oh, and let me also give a big old thank you to CONvergence for hosting the Hanny and the Voorwerp workshop this past July where much of the initial writing for this project happened.

Friday Cat Blogging

See, I told you I could hold still!
I don't like it but I can do it.



Cordzez, stringzes, Iz all same, right?



Don't I haz teh cutest little dancer feetz?



Don't think I don't see you there.

Mammoth Win!

Strange Horizons contributor Kelly Jennings posted a really awesome review of Eleanor's newest books: Mammoths of the Great Plains and Tomb of the Fathers.

$@&@%# Muse!

So the part of my Muse that I call my sense of structure has apparently been on vacation for the last 8 months, a fact I noticed when it returned this morning at 6:15 to whisper vicious nothings in my ear.

M: "Psst Kelly, I've got a question."
K :"Go 'way."
M: "No, really, there's something I've been wondering about."
K: "No, really, go 'way."
M: "You know that bit right at the end...."
K: "Sleeping here."
M: "Yeah, I heard you the first time. Still gonna ask my question."
K: "So ask, then go 'way."
M: "Right, so that bit at the end where you introduce the thing and that other thing that fixes the first thing." (Redacted for spoilers)
K: "Yes."
M: "Well, I can't help but noticing that the way things are structured now you really do introduce them right at the end even though they're really important. Do you think that's such a good idea?"
K: "Sure. I've been planning it since I wrote chapter 6. Yes, I introduce them late, but the one solves the other, so it's not like I'm just pulling a rabbit out of my hat to solve a problem."
M: "No, more like you're pulling a carrot out of your sleeve to feed the starving rabbit that just came out of the hat. You're okay with that?"
K: (waking up more) "Shouldn't I be?"
M: "I'm sure it'll be fine. You just go back to sleep."
K: "All right then." (Pulls covers over head, just like when there are bats in the room)
M: "Oh, I almost forgot...."
K: Pokes head out again. "What!"
M: "That character you introduce in chapter 8, the one who's going to be really important in book 2?"
K: "Yes."
M: "Well, since the character's familiar is going to be really important at some point don't you think you should introduce a place to put it?"
K: "Go 'way!"
M: "Sleep tight."
K: "I will, thanks. Now to get back to...Oh hell."

Stupid Muse.

And that's why at 6:20 this AM I got up and scrawled a note on a post-it note that said:
LIBRARY
RIVER
THINGXXXXXX (redacted for spoilers)
and stuck it to my cell phone. No, I don't know why I put it there either. I was mostly asleep.

And then, when Laura woke up a couple of minutes later and headed off to do things, I asked her to add EXSANGUINATION TABLE to the note stuck to my cell phone and pulled the covers back over my head. Laura, having lived with a writer for 20+ plus years, just asked where the phone was and let me go back to sleep, which I did. Wonderful lady I'm married to.

Now, I don't really believe in the Muse as an external force so much as I think of it as a collection of story processing techniques that my brain uses at a level below the conscious, often while I'm dreaming, and all of which make my job enormously less difficult. The sense of structure is really the latest major upgrade to the system, having come along in the middle of my tenth novel. So, it's the one I rely on the least (I can plot perfectly well without it, thank you very much), which is why I didn't notice its absence until it returned. But, like all the other bits of Muse I've built over the years, I know that when it does show up I'd damn well better listen.

So, I'll just leave you with this:

LIBRARY
RIVER
THINGXXXXXX
EXSANGUINATION TABLE

And ask you what questions your Muse asks you at ridiculous hours of the night and morning.

Pictures in Pizza

Squint! That pie is trying to tell you something!!

Alas, Wyrdsmiths is saying goodbye to a member: Bill Henry. We wish him well in his new adventures, but never fear! He very will likely still be posting here from time to time. Below, Sean M. Murphy cuts up the goodbye pie for Bill.



Also since Bill's last meeting also coincided with Kelly's birthday, we had a second pie made:



Pie artistry was brought to you (and us!) by the wonderful chefs at the Black Dog Coffee & Wine Bar in St. Paul, MN.

Terran Photo of the Day

This is the tow boat Cooperative Venture out of St. Louis, MO, docked at Lambert's Landing in St. Paul.

Astronomy Post of the Day

Why are some hills on Mars so layered? The answer is still under investigation. Clearly, dark windblown sand surrounds outcropping of light sedimentary rock across the floor of crater Arabia Terra. The light rock clearly appears structured into many layers, the lowest of which is likely very old. Although the dark sand forms dunes, rippled dunes of lighter colored sand are easier to see surrounding the stepped mesas. Blown sand possibly itself eroded once-larger mesas into the layered hills. Most of the layered shelves are wide enough to drive a truck around. The above image, showing an area about 3 kilometers across, was taken in 2003 October by the now defunct Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft orbiting Mars.

Friday Cat Blogging

That's no mountain…It's a cat!



What swelled head?



Can you helps me untie my legz?



It came from the blanket!

Happy Birthday to Kelly

I hope you all will join me in wishing a very happy birthday to our very own Kelly McCullough who turns... well, OLDER today.

Also, just to keep this somewhat on topic, fellow writer Alyx Dellamonica posted an interesting question on her blog, which is: Do you feel COMPELLED to write?

My answer is pretty simple. Yes, most of the time. The thing I always say is that even if this book were my last published one, I'd probably... well, sink into a deep despair... but after that, I'd still write something. So, yes, I think so. You?

Astronomy Post of Another Day

What's lighting up nebula IRAS 05437+2502? No one is sure. Particularly enigmatic is the bright upside-down V that defines the upper edge of this floating mountain of interstellar dust, visible near the image center. In general, this ghost-like nebula involves a small star forming region filled with dark dust that was first noted in images taken by the IRAS satellite in infrared light in 1983. Shown above is a spectacular, recently released image from the Hubble Space Telescope that, although showing many new details, has not uncovered a clear cause of the bright sharp arc. One hypothesis holds that the glowing arc was created by a massive star that somehow attained a high velocity and has now left the nebula. Small, faint IRAS 05437+2502 spans only 1/18th of a full moon toward the constellation of the Bull (Taurus).

Astronomy Photo of the Day

Two hours before closest approach to Neptune in 1989, the Voyager 2 robot spacecraft snapped this picture. Clearly visible for the first time were long light-colored cirrus-type clouds floating high in Neptune's atmosphere. Shadows of these clouds can even be seen on lower cloud decks. Most of Neptune's atmosphere is made of hydrogen and helium, which is invisible. Neptune's blue color therefore comes from smaller amounts of atmospheric methane, which preferentially absorbs red light. Neptune has the fastest winds in the Solar System, with gusts reaching 2000 kilometers per hour. Speculation holds that diamonds may be created in the dense hot conditions that exist under the clouds-tops of Uranus and Neptune.

We get damaging winds and hail in Minnesota in the summer. Neptune would have very damaging winds and diamonds.

LITS

Jane Yolen had a post on facebook, which I have been unable to track down. She was replying to a guy who thought YA editors were prejudiced against male authors. Yolan said in all her years as a writer and editor, she had run into only one kind of prejudice, which she called, "Life is too short." There are writers, both new and established, who are simply too difficult to deal with: prickly, paranoid, arrogant, unwilling to compromise...

I assume, if these writers are gonzo best sellers, the editors grit their teeth and deal. But if they are simply okay sellers, why should the editor put himself or herself through the experience?

It is probably not in the best interests of any author to make his/her editor hate him/her.

It is probably a good idea to use the same social skills one uses to keep a regular job.

Who Needs A Publisher?

A neat article from Newsweek on people who are self-publishing on Kindle and making it work. One guy, who had been turned down by every possible print publisher, ended up selling 4,000 books a week on Kindle and was picked up by Simon and Schuster. Another guy is making $100,000 a year. By eliminating the publisher, he can sell books for $2.99 and make a profit.

Publishing 1

Norman Spinrad has done a couple of posts on publishing recently. One was interesting, in that it told me things I didn't know. According to him, bookstores "buy to net," which leads to "the death spiral of publishing."

Suppose Barnes & Noble orders 10,000 copies of a book, and 80% sell. This is pretty good, especially considering they can return the unsold copies for credit, unlike every other kind of retailer. When a new book by the author comes out, the buyer at B&N looks at the records and says, "This author sold 8,000 copies last time. We will order 8,000 this time." Now it isn't likely that every single copy of a book will sell. Maybe some copies are left in the back room or displayed in the wrong place or end behind another book. So this time 90% of the copies sell, which is very good. So when book number three comes out, B&N orders 7,200 copies. And so it goes...

I don't know if B&N reorders. I was told years ago that B. Dalton did not. If a book sold out in a store, that was it. This makes sense, if ordering is done chain-wide. Doing well locally or in a few stores would not make an impact.

(Lyda Morehouse says she was told the problem is space. The chains have lots of books and limited space. It doesn't make sense to restock an old book, rather than bringing in a new book.)

Anyway, all of that was interesting.

Publishing 2

Spinrad then did a second post on how one of his novels got really bad treatment from the big New York house Alfred Knopf.

I posted this on facebook:

Spinrad's horror story is pretty ordinary, except that he was dealing with a 'literary' press, whose people thought they were better than those tacky sf publishers and editors. The snobbery and lack of courtesy sounds seriously angering; and the sub-under-editor he was dealing with sounds far less competent than any sf editor I have ever met. The other stuff -- a bad cover, lack of marketing, a publication date that was shifted into a dead month -- sounds not unusual. My take, which could be wrong, is they didn't pay a huge amount for his book (though his advance was far more than I have ever gotten) and they weren't paying much attention to it. But it's really hard to see a book handled badly and realize that there's no malice, just lack of attention.

A lot of authors have stories about bad covers. I have some, which I am not going to tell, because they make me angry even after many years.

A lot of authors have stories about lack of marketing. My impression is, the average science fiction book is dropped over the side to float or sink on its own. It may get an ad in Locus, but nothing other than that. If it does okay, the publisher may buy another book from the author. If not, not.

Maybe -- as I suggest above -- Spinrad's advance of $75,000 was not enough to justify serious marketing. According to him, he was promised a half page ad in New York Review of Books and did not get it; and the publisher had no interest in sending him on a book tour.

I did some quick checking via Google and discovered that Tom Clancy got $45 million for a two-book contract in 2001. The same year Michael Crichton got $40 million for a two-book contract. This is serious money, and the publishers will work hard to recover it. $75,000 is a lot less, though boy I would love to have it.

Spinrad's novel did not do well, and Knopf was not interested in his next book. Spinrad thinks the experience ruined his chance of selling in the US. It sounds like a bad experience, and I can understand why he is upset.

But in a lot of ways I thought his description of his trials was in the same class as "sun rises in east" and "rain makes most people wet."

Friday Cat Blogging

Bookend cat sees your stupid camera and refuses to pose.



Bookend cat sees your stupid...



Silhouette cat deep and thoughty.



I iz king of teh pillow, fear me!



The melt ray is coming, save yourself! Me? Going to nap.

Smart Things

Sarah Monette saying smart things about learning.

Michelle Sagara explains why she's not fussed about people not reading her books. I am in complete agreement with this post.

Jim Hines saying smart things about how rapidly publishing has been changing. Or why pros who entered the filed at different times may give you wildly different advice on the same publishing questions.

Via Lilith Saintcrow: Michael Bhaskar on the production costs of ebooks—I think he misses a few things in terms of places where costs savings can enter the chain, including, warehousing, and returns, but he's right about the large fixed costs. Also, Nora O'Neill with a historical perspective on why paper books aren't going away any time soon—though I think the percentage of physical books as a part of the whole is going to go down substantially.

TV Debut

ALMOST TO DIE FOR hit the stores yesterday, and as part of that I was on KARE-11's "Showcase Minnesota" _live_. The link to my segment is here:So Sixteen Ain't So Sweet in Tate Hallaway's Almost to Die For.

I wrote a bit about how weird it is to be on TV over at my LiveJournal blog.

Also, there's an interview with me over at Ellz Readz: Interview Tate Hallaway.

Hopefully, with all this publicity, people will feel as though they simply can not live unless they run off to the store today and buy my book (or three.)

Other High Points of Diversacon

Mike Levy said that "Mammoths of the Great Plains" is "one of the best tales of alternative history I've ever read." I can quote exactly, because the comment is on his handout for the Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy panel. I will probably frame the handout.

And Sandy Lindow said (in facebook) about seeing me at Diversacon, "I get the feeling that you are in an amazing part of your life. Retirement becomes you. You seem more vital than you have in years."

This second comment needs to be in cross stitch or maybe on a Chinese fortune cookie slip of paper.

I have been feeling really ambivalent about not working, happy to have the free time, but also scared by the idea of being old enough to retire. Of course, this economy is retiring many people of many ages...

Diversacon

I am the only person in Wyrdsmiths who goes to Diversacon. It's a small local Twin Cities con. It peaked as 200 members a number of years ago and now is somewhere under a 100. Very quiet, but for me very pleasant. The guests this year were Bill Wu and Rob Chilson, whom I had not seen for more than 20 years. They are sf and fantasy writers much like me. We've been around a long time. We've never hit it big. We keep trucking.

Mark Rich, Mike Levy and Sandy Lindow were there from Wisconsin. Mark is a science fiction writer, poet and author of a biography of Cyril Kornbluth which is apparently excellent. I am going to buy it, though it costs $40. Sandy is a poet. Mike is a scholar and reviewer for Publisher's Weekly, among other publications.

I could keep going. The con was full of people I've known for decades... Grey Johnson, who reviews for New York Review of Science Fiction and SFSite; Dave Lenander, who founded the Rivendell fantasy discussion group 30+ years ago and has been active in the Mythopoeic Society for an equally long period; Phyllis Anne Karr, a fantasy writer from Wisconsin; Martha Hood, a writer from California, who comes every year. She has published in Tales of the Unanticipated, a Twin Cities speculative fiction magazine... Greg said he needed to get a copy of Mammoths of the Great Plains, a chapbook of my work published in May of this year. So I gave him a copy, and maybe he will review it.

Over the years I have become friends with a number of people who do reviews and scholarly essays. These are all honorable people. They won't say kind words about my work because they like me. But they are likely to look at a book with my name on it; and if they like it, they will review it.

These kinds of friendships do not sell books or make one famous, but I like the regard of people I respect, and I like positive reviews.

One thing about reviewers who are friends. If they don't like something I have written, they simply don't review it. They don't write, "This is the worst garbage it has been my misfortune to read..."

I was commuting to the con from my apartment, so I did not attend parties. The high points for me were the panels on current adult science fiction and fantasy and current YA science fiction and fantasy. Mike and Greg were on the first panel. Mike and Dave Lenander were on the second. I also liked the poetry reading, done by a group including Sandy, John Rezmerski, Ruth Berman, Terry Garey and Mark Rich. (I am missing a couple of names. They may come to me.) And I liked the panels on mermaids and on rats in science fiction and fantasy.

Astronomy Photo of the Day

The astronomy picture of the day is awesome, but copyrighted. Go look at it! There is a story here!

Daily Photo from NASA

What's causing those strange dark streaks in the rings of Saturn? Prometheus. Specifically, an orbital dance involving Saturn's moon Prometheus keeps creating unusual light and dark streamers in the F-Ring of Saturn. Now Prometheus orbits Saturn just inside the thin F-ring, but ventures into its inner edge about every 15 hours. Prometheus' gravity then pulls the closest ring particles toward the 80-km moon. The result is not only a stream of bright ring particles but also a dark ribbon where ring particles used to be. Since Prometheus orbits faster than the ring particles, the icy moon pulls out a new streamer every pass. Above, several streamers or kinks are visible at once. The above photograph was taken in June by the robotic Cassini Spacecraft orbiting Saturn. The oblong moon Prometheus is visible on the far left.

Fun Interview

The Book Butterfly posted a lovely 10-question interview with me on her blog, which you should check out: "Ten Tantalizing Questions with Tate". Alas, I have since learned that my alter-ego's new book won't be out until March 2011. However, just for fun, let me reprint one of my answers here.

If you could inhabit the life of one literary character and dive into their world for just one day, who would you choose and why?

It’s a well known fact that I want to be Captain America from the Marvel Universe. Actually, I’m sort of surprised I haven’t gotten the casting call for the new movie. Something about my gender and only being 5’2”, I guess, I’m not sure…. ;-) The super soldier formula could come in really handy when I need to catch a bus is all I’m saying.

Pioneer Press Article

A VERY nice article about my newest release came out in the Pioneer Press today.