ConFusion Schedule

I have my tentative schedule for ConFusion next weekend:

  • Friday 7:00:00 PM Inclusion in an Expanding Fandom
  • Saturday 10:00:00 AM Author D&D
  • Saturday 3:00:00 PM Aicardi Syndrome Foundation Fundraiser: Group Cover Pose Unveiling
  • Saturday 4:00:00 PM Lady Voldemort
  • Saturday 5:00:00 PM Mass Autograph Session
  • Sunday 10:00:00 AM Reading: Jim C. Hines & Diana Rowland
  • Sunday 12:00:00 PM Dumb Questions

I may also be participating in a skit on Saturday night, which should be fun.

I’m excited about a lot of the programming this time. The inclusion in fandom panel is something I feel strongly about, and I love that we’ll be starting off the convention with a conversation about how to make the experience more inclusive. Because it’s nice that conventions are comfortable for me as a straight white male author, but it would be even nicer if we could work harder to make them comfortable for everyone.

The Saturday Group Cover Pose panel will be the unveiling of the collaborative efforts of myself, John Scalzi, Mary Kowal, Pat Rothfuss, and Charlie Stross, photographed by the wonderful Al Bogdan. Please note that the actual photoshoot will not be public. (I’m told there had been some questions about this.) My plan is to talk about Aicardi Syndrome and the fundraiser, about sexism in book covers and the genre, and then reveal the AWESOMENESS of our group cover. There may also be something special to auction or raffle off at the end of the panel 😉

Then there’s the Lady Voldemort panel, which started from a question I posed online. On Twitter, I think. I asked how the Harry Potter series would have been different had Voldemort been female. And not just Harry Potter, but how does gender affect the way we write villains in general? How would the evil and horror of Sauron have been different? How did the White Witch being female affect the way she came across in the first Narnia book? It led to a fascinating discussion online, and I expect the panel to be equally good.

And then there’s author D&D and reading with Diana and talking about dumb questions and seeing a ridiculous number of my friends and fellow authors.

Yeah, I’m looking forward to this con!

Five More Potential Hugo Fan Writer Nominees

Thanks for all of the suggestions and discussion on my Hugo Fan Writer post yesterday.

I’ve been struggling for a little while now to balance blogging, the fundraiser from last month, finishing CODEX BORN, and other stuff. Looking back, I realize that I rushed to get yesterday’s post done, which resulted in it feeling clunkier and a bit less thoughtful than usual. My apologies for that.

As I was reading through the names people suggested, I immediately kicked myself for not including some of them. Others were unfamiliar, which is awesome, as it gave me new people to go check out.

One of the most interesting recommendations was for Racheline Maltese, who writes both essays and fanfiction. Which got me thinking … so I checked out the category definition over at the Hugo site. As far as I can tell, wouldn’t fanfiction writers be eligible for the Best Fan Writer award?

::Bracing myself for the outraged backlash::

Anyway, here are some more names to check out, both for potential nominating purposes and just because they write stuff that’s worth reading. Please note that this is not meant to be an all-inclusive list, and I would love to see more suggestions and recommendations.

Charles A. Tan – This is definitely a “kicking myself” recommendation. I’ve been following Tan’s roundup of writing/publishing/spec fic links for ages. He’s an active reviewer, and also contributes essays to places like the World SF Blog. I will almost certainly be nominating him for Best Fan Writer.

Bogi Takacs – I hadn’t come across Takacs’ blog before, but it received multiple recommendations in the comments. I read through some of Takacs’ reviews, which focus on underrepresented groups in SF/F. You can see a master list of tagged reviews here, or check out Takacs’ Hugo Eligibility post.

Ana Mardoll – Naomi Kritzer recommended Mardoll’s essay about Twilight and disability, specifically with regards to Bella’s clumsiness. I live with someone who deals with chronic pain, and for whom a fall can mean a trip to the ER, so a lot of this resonated with me. I continued reading about Mardoll’s thoughts on video games, bullying in Narnia, and eventually decided that if I was getting this drawn into her blog, I definitely needed to give her a shout-out.

Foz Meadows – Her top ten posts from 2012 include essays on bullying and Goodreads, rape culture in gaming, racism in Revealing Eden … how come I’m not already reading this person’s blog? I blame ALL OF YOU for not bringing Meadows to my attention sooner!

Tansy Rayner Roberts – Another “kicking myself” name, because Roberts is another person I’ve been reading for a while now. She’s written about women in comics, unpacking fantasy vs. historical sexism, Doctor Who, and so much more.

Hugo Fan Writer Nominees

During my acceptance speech last year, I said, “There are so many brilliant and wonderful fan writers out there. I don’t know if there are enough rocket trophies in the world to recognize everyone who’s written passionate, insightful, clever, funny, and flat-out awesome articles and essays about our community. But I’d love to see us honor as many of those diverse voices as we can.”

Pop quiz: when was the last time more than one woman made the final ballot for the Best Fan Writer Hugo?[1. 2006] And when was the last time more women than men made the final ballot?[2. 1974, if my research is correct.]

I’m not saying the people who made the ballot didn’t deserve it. But this sort of trend makes me believe fandom needs to broaden our scope. To that end, I’m trying to pull together some of the fan writing (mostly blog posts, because that’s what I tend to read) that stood out for me last year.

I would love to hear your thoughts on who else deserves recognition, because I know there are a lot of great fan writers I’m either not aware of or else I’m just forgetting, because of brain-leaks. I’ll probably do a follow-up on this, or maybe run a few spotlight blog posts for people I believe should be on that ballot.

N. K. Jemisin: Things People Need to Understand, Issue 223.2. I like Jemisin’s writing, both fiction and nonfiction, and this piece makes a number of good points about the state of fandom and the so-called agenda of people pushing for change and accountability.

Cat Valente: Let Me Tell You About the Birds and the Bees: Gender and the Fallout Over Christopher Priest. Addressing and documenting the differences in how men and women are treated online.

Seanan McGuire: Things I Will Not Do to my Characters. Ever. In which McGuire responds to the question, “When are Toby or one of the Price girls going to be raped?” Because apparently this must happen in order for her work to be “realistic,” which is both messed-up and symptomatic of larger issues.

Genevieve Valentine. For her writing about sexism and objectification in the SF/F community.

S. S. White, aka calico-reaction. Purely for the number of good reviews and discussions of SF/F books, stories, and shows.

These are just a few of the people who come to mind as contributing to the ongoing conversations in fandom. But there are so many more. (I know the instant I post this, I’m going to kick myself for omitting someone.)

Who do you think should be honored this year for their fan writing? Please leave your suggestions in the comments, along with links and whatever additional thoughts you’d like to share. If the links cause your comment to go into moderation, don’t worry about it – I’ll be keeping an eye on the comments and free those up as quickly as I can.

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Touched by an Alien, by Gini Koch

Gini Koch‘s Touched by an Alien [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] opens with Katherine “Kitty” Katt killing a rampaging alien with a Mont Blanc pen. Based on this act of impulsive heroism, a group of hot aliens from Alpha Centauri recruit her into a secret organization devoted to finding and stopping these evil superbeings.

If you hadn’t guessed, on a scale of fluff to serious, this one falls closer to the fluff end of things. Which isn’t a bad thing. I’ve written a fair amount of fluff myself, after all. This world needs more light, fun stories!

As with most books, there were things I liked, and there were things that didn’t work for me as well. It’s a quick-paced story with plenty of action, both alien butt-kicking and romantic/sexual. And I appreciated that Koch  used her A-C aliens to explore religious prejudice and other issues. It wasn’t just heroic aliens coming to fight evil; there was a bit more backstory going on there.

The biggest thing that bothered me was the way the relationship between Katt and the A-C Jeff Martini progressed.  The explicitly sexual scenes weren’t a problem, but the jealousy and possessiveness both Jeff and another A-C display toward Katt cross the line into creepy, as in this exchange:

He grabbed my upper arms. “Prove it.”

“Prove what? Jeff, I–“

“Prove who you belong to.” His eyes flashed as he pulled me to him and kissed me.

I know this sort of aggressive domination comes up in a fair number of romances. And I recognize that there’s a lot of fantasy and wish-fulfillment going on in this book. All of the A-Cs are gorgeous, the men and women both, but they’re only interested in intellect and personality, making Katt the hottest thing on the base. And Katt has some of that Harry Potter chosen one thing going on, where she’s the one who discovers most of the solutions and saves the day. In a more serious novel, I don’t think it would work. In a lighter wish-fulfillment book, it mostly does.

I know that for some people, having a hot, sexy man (or woman) aggressively pursuing and dominating you can be a very attractive fantasy. But Jeff kept setting off my domestic violence warning bells. There were external reasons for some of what happened, but it didn’t work for me.

I’d say that if your warning bells are similar to mine, that might be a problem in reading this one. On the other hand, if you appreciate that kind of fictionalized/fantasy romantic aggression and assertiveness, I suspect you’ll really enjoy the book.

Overall, there’s a lot of fun stuff going on here. And the audience is obviously out there, judging by how well the books have been doing. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I’m the right audience for this one.

The Fishnets Pose

There I was, working on the fundraiser and talking to donors about what pose to do next. When author Allison Pang pops up on Twitter and says that if I do the cover for her book A Brush of Darkness, she’ll send me the fishnets. She even offered to pre-tear them for me!

Around the same time, two different people requested that I do–you guessed it–A Brush of Darkness.

How could I refuse?

My thanks to Allison for bringing something truly special to this cover pose, and for just generally being a fun human being.

This wasn’t the most painful pose I’ve done, though it wasn’t entirely comfortable. But I think it highlights that we haven’t moved beyond the chainmail bikini mentality as much as we’d like to think; we’ve just modernized it.

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Blog Mirrors, Award Season, Audible Libriomancy, and Other Books

Just a few quick things today. First off, LiveJournal has been acting up again, so this is a reminder that the blog is available on my site and through Dreamwidth. There’s also an RSS feed.

Secondly, it’s awards season. The only thing I really have from last year that’s eligible for anything would be Libriomancer. So if you’re eligible to nominate or vote for the Hugos, the Nebulas, the Oscars, or whatever and would like to read a copy for consideration, let me know and I’ll see what we can do to hook you up. And if not, that’s okay too.

Speaking of Libriomancer, I found out yesterday that the audio book for Libriomancer had come out…well, yesterday. I don’t see it on Amazon yet, but it’s up on the Audible website.

Oh, and while I’m thinking about it, other people have books out too! Saladin Ahmed’s book Throne of the Crescent Moon [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] is out in paperback. This one continues to get a lot of good buzz. My review of the book is here. Diana Pharaoh Francis’ latest Horngate Witches book Blood Winter [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] just came out as well. And Tobias Buckell launched his collection Mitigated Futures for his birthday. He’s also offering Tides from the New Worlds for the price of a Tweet or Facebook post.

And that’s all I’ve got today. Have a good weekend, all!

Two More for the After Dinner Crowd

We’re well past the $13,000 mark with four and a half hours to go! Every time I try to predict how much we’re going to make, y’all blow right through it. I thought $10K was a long shot, and then today I was thinking it would be awesome if we could hit $12.5K.

At this point, I’m not even going to try to guess whether or not we’ll make it to the $15,000 goal. I’m just going to say thank you and put up another pair of cover poses.

The fundraiser runs through midnight tonight!

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Two More Poses

It’s the last day of the Aicardi Syndrome Foundation Fundraiser, and we’re within two hundred bucks of the $12,500 goal!

I don’t want to sound like an NPR pledge drive, but there are only 8 hours left to donate.

To keep the excitement and momentum going, I’ve posted two more cover poses behind the cut.

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LAST DAY OF THE ASF FUNDRAISER!

Today is the last day of the Aicardi Syndrome Fundraiser, raising money to fund research into a very nasty disease, and to support the families affected by that disease. (And also to make me try to duplicate some of the sillier and more sexist book cover poses.)

I am blown away by the support and generosity we’ve seen so far. I figured $10K was a dream goal, and as of this morning, we’ve raised more than $12,000.

This is my final call for donations. I said that if we raised $15K, I’d do a calendar. I’ve started playing with ideas, and put together a mock-up of what the calendar pages might look like. This one is a little too busy for my taste, but it’s close, and I think the whole thing could be a lot of fun.

So if you haven’t already donated, if you have a little extra money at the end of the year and are looking for a good, tax deductible cause, please click here for the details.

And thank you all.

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Walking Away from Arguments

I did it again. I know better, but I let myself get drawn into another online argument that took up far more time and energy than it was worth. It was gun rights issues this time. I’m not going to link or name the folks I was talking to, because that’s not what I want to get into right now.

I spent roughly an hour on this last night, reading comments and arguments and articles, presenting links and my own thoughts in return. There were the predictable “Oh, you stupid liberals” comments from some of this persons followers, but those were more amusing than anything.

For a while, it was somewhat productive, at least for me. I walked away with a better understanding of the mindset behind wanting more guns and guards in the schools. I don’t agree with all of the arguments, but I got a clearer idea where they came from. It helped me understand some related issues as well, and the conflict between personal security/protection vs. larger preventative measures. While some of the articles and links people shoved at me were crap, others were more thoughtful, and I’m still considering those.

But as things progressed, it began to feel more and more like pedaling a stuck bike in the mud. We weren’t getting anywhere, and continuing to try was just digging me deeper and spreading muck everywhere. So I said I was done.

Holy crap, you’d think I had just busted open this dude’s gun safe and taken a big old dump on his prized rifle. Walking away proved I was never interested in debate. It was the typical liberal tactic of running away because all my ideas had failed. By the following morning, we were getting comments about putting liberals through woodchippers. (That particular comment came from one of this person’s followers. Gosh, why would I ever want to walk away from such a lovely discussion venue?) Basically, I’m just another intolerant liberal, and the only opinions I want to hear are those that agree with mine.

Right.

I have a book deadline coming up. I could have finished the third draft of CODEX BORN last night if I hadn’t invested so much time in this debate. And then there’s stuff like spending time with my family, taking care of the house, helping my wife who’s continuing to recover from surgery…all things which I consider more important than spending another hour arguing with someone on Facebook.

The thing is, the reasons shouldn’t even matter. I get to choose how I’m going to spend my time and energy. If I’m in a discussion where I feel like I’m learning things, I’ll usually choose to keep going with that discussion. If not, or if there are other things I need to do, then I walk away. Given that it’s my life, well, call me crazy, but I figure I have the right to make that choice and set those boundaries.

Have you ever noticed how pissed off people can get when you set boundaries? It feels like, having entered this discussion, I was somehow obligated to remain until such time as he decided we were done.

I don’t get it. Let it go, man. No matter how many times you post about me, tag me in comments, or whatever, I’m done. No means no, you know?

The response today pissed me off at first. It doesn’t help that this was someone I knew and had chatted with at cons and such. But now, it mostly feels kind of sad.

What gets me is how often I’ve watched this script play out. It’s not just sad. It’s boring. What is it that makes people feel entitled to as much of your time and energy as they want? That you’re not allowed to walk away, but are instead obligated to remain on the field until they feel satisfied? I don’t get it.

On the bright side, aside from a direct message restating that I was done with the conversation, I’ve stayed away from the muck today, and instead finished up the draft of CODEX BORN. Between you and me, it was a much better way to spend the morning.

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