New fiction: "It Gazes Back"

Longtime followers of this blog may recall that many moons ago, before my content was donimated by tiki and Friday Night Videos, much of my writing here concerned itself with writing elsewhere. I am a writer, a recovering journalist, who has long harbored interests in short fiction, genre and related non-fiction. I love science fiction and fantasy, speculative fiction if you will, although I have not published very much in recent years.

That is a roundabout way of announcing that I have a new publication available for those who are interested in such things. This marks a milestone as well, for after more than 20 years of professional publication, this latest work is my first co-authored piece. "It Gazes Back" was written with the amazingly talented Don Webb, and is unlike anything I have ever done before. Cindy Ward, the acquiring editor, said the story “reveals the connections between Nietszche’s abyss, Lovecraft’s god-monsters and non-Euclidean spaces, and Cordwainer Smith’s monsters of subspace.” If that piques your interest, the story is now available in Black Cat Weekly No. 32. Let me know what you think! Now Playing: Robert Drasnin Voodoo!
Chicken Ranch Central

That was the Armadillocon that was (2022 edition)

I attended the 44th edition of Armadillocon over the weekend. For those of you who are impatient and want me to cut to the chase: I had a good time. The end.

For those who want a more detailed recap, I'll do as best as my increasingly unreliable memory will allow. I was oddly tired all weekend. Mind you, conventions normally wear me out, so that I often take the following Monday off from work. This year, however, I was tired all day, every day, not just in the evenings. And there weren't any big room parties to keep me up late the night before. If this is indeed age sneaking up on me, I would very much like to speak to a manager.

Mask wearing in panels was mandatory. Yes, the masks were annoying, but not as annoying as the superspreader event I got to be a part of last month. The convention was wise to err on the side of caution. What's more, the guests and attendees were wise to not make a thing of it. Folks were pretty chill that way.

There were several moments over the course of the weekend where it turned out that folks I knew from science fiction circles also knew folks I know from tiki circles. It may be hard to fathom for some of you, but by and large SF crowds are broadly unaware of my interest in tiki (it being an interested that manifested only a few years pre-COVID) and tiki crowds are almost always surprised to discover I'm a published author. When those interests overlap, it can be a bit disconcerting. Nice, but disconcerting nonetheless.

Programming was interesting and varied, continuing Armadillocon's established efforts to avoid same-old, same-old programming topics. My one complaint, if it even rises to that of a complaint, was that I ended up scheduled opposite the one panel topic I had suggested (2001: How Near Future SF Has Changed). I didn't necessarily need to be on it, but would've liked to hear what others had to say on the matter. Other than that, I had no complaints. I ended up sharing two panels with Ehi Okosun, who has a duology coming next year from Harper Voyager. On several occasions, he had no qualms about telling me my half-baked ideas could probably stand another 10 minutes in the oven. I can't speak for her experience, but I thoroughly enjoyed our time spent together and look forward to seeing more of her in the future.

On other panels I obviously ran amok, and talked for entirely too much time on defunct Texas hockey leagues and the fact that more than one game was "fogged out" back in the day when hot, humid September air rolled into unairconditioned rodeo arena and engaged the retrofitted ice rinks in mortal combat. And I also worked references to the Chicken Ranch into pretty much every panel discussion, but I think by this point we all agree that's pretty much baked into the equation.

In other news, the great Sara Felix wowed everyone by presenting the GoH lineup with custom tiaras accompanied by poetic vignettes. The Willie Siros memorial panel was bittersweet (and the act of walking through the dealers' room was a surreal experience without Willie's larger-than-life presence behind the stacks of books). Malvern Books was there, selling copies of Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch, which made me quite happy. They also sold out of their stock, which made me even happier. I also signed more stuff over the weekend than perhaps I ever have before. In addition to the Chicken Ranch book, I signed copies of the Writers of the Future volume I'm in (haven't seen one of those in ages), a copy of The Leading Edge with my story "Devil in a Tiny Little Ocean Bloc Container," which I can't recall ever signing copies of, and The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities. Just about the only thing missing were old Interzone back issues!

I had great conversations with Patrice Sarath, Jess Nevins, Mikal Trimm, Mark Finn, C. Stuart Hardwick, Renee Babcock, Beth Bugbee, Jessica Reisman, Josh Rountree, Scott Cupp, Don Webb, D.R.R. Chang, Matthey Bey (who gifted me some fantastic homebrew prickly pear wine!), Stina Leicht, Troyce Wilson, A. Lee Martinez and a host of other people I'm forgetting. I also got to meet Writer Guest of Honor Dr. Darcie Little Badger, who lives in San Marcos (yet somehow doesn't work at the university). How cool is that?

Below are various photographs I took over the course of the weekend. I'm not including captions because I'd like for this to come out before Armadillocon in 2023. Those folks contained therein know who they are and if you don't know someone, consider it a challenge to attend the next Armadillocon and fill that particular blank on your social dance card.

Now Playing: Arthur Lyman The Legend of Pele
Chicken Ranch Central

Armadillocon off the port bow!

It's time once again for my favorite science fiction convention of the year, Armadillocon, taking place in Austin this weekend. Once again, it's at the Austin Southpark Hotel, which used to be the Omni Southpark and Wyndham Southpark before that. It's always a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and meet new and interesting folks. The convention's lousy with writers and one of the best things about the weekend is that everyone is so accessible--opportunities to just hang out and chat with the guests of honor, fans, other writers, artists, vendors etc. abound. I know the huge mega-conventions have become all the rage and squeezed out these smaller, regional events, but I'd rather spend my pennies in the dealers' room on new books than a fleeting encounter with Sigourney Weaver for an impersonal autograph. But that's just me.

If you're going to be there, drop by and introduce yourself. Here is my schedule for the weekend:

Friday, August 5
8 p.m. Ballroom E
Crowdfunding or Crowded Out?
Panelists: D.L. Young (moderator), Dantzel Cherry, Rhonda Eudaly, Jayme Lynn Blaschke
Brandon Sanderson recently shattered Kickstarter's record for raised capital for book publishing. Is this the start of something big, or does it herald the beginning of the end?

Saturday, August 6
1 p.m. Ballroom E
Texas Weird: What Is It, and Why You Should Seek It Out
Panelists: Jayme Lynn Blaschke (moderator), Mark Finn, Tex Thompson, Rick Klaw, Derek Austin Johnson
Texas is its own place, and its SFF literature has its own unique flavor. We bring together a few experts and novices to talk about what it is and what you should be reading.

8 p.m. Southpark A
Religion and Nationalism in SFF
Panelists: Elizabeth Cobbe (moderator), Jon Black, Melanie Fletcher, Ehi Okosun, Jayme Lynn Blaschke
In a world where we're seeing the rise of extremist nationalism, and the continual blur of church vs state, how has SFF addressed this issue in the past, and how can it address it now?

Sunday, August 7
10 a.m. Ballroom D
Willie Siros: In Memoriam
Panelists: Scott A. Cupp (moderator), Patrice Sarath, Rick Klaw, Don Webb, Jayme Lynn Blaschke, John K Gibbons
The man, the books, the conventions, the legacy...

12 p.m. Ballroom D
Power Dynamics in Built Worlds
Panelists: S.G. Wilson (moderator), Eugene Fischer, Wayne Basta, Ehi Okosun, Jayme Lynn Blaschke
Who wields the power in our fictional worlds? Where does that power come from and how does it play out in plot and character arcs? What choices can creators make in their depiction of power to best show how their worlds work?

Now Playing: Eden Ahbez Eden's Island
Chicken Ranch Central

That was the Armadillocon that was (2021 edition)

I am clearly getting old. How else to explain my intent to write this post-con report up on Sunday evening, and here it is Tuesday with the relatively brief recap still in progress? Bah!

Anyway, here's my Cliff's Notes version: I attended Armadillocon 43 this past weekend. It was a pleasant, yet odd experience. I attended no conventions in 2020 because of the pandemic, obviously. In 2019 I was only able to attend Armadillocon one day, and participated in no programming, so being back in the thick of things was not unlike trying to relearn atrophied muscle memory. Other factors contributed to the slightly out-of-sync vibe of the weekend: Because of COVID (naturally) attendance was depressed. There were fewer attendees this year, and many long-time program participants chose to not attend. For a convention that thrives in no small part on annual reunions of friends and acquaintances who don't see each other for the remainder of the year, this was a significant absence. Fortunately, Armadillocon partially made up for this with an aggressive outreach effort to authors who'd never attended before, so I got to see a bunch of fresh new faces that were as insightful and clever as they were talented.

The con itself had excellent health and safety protocols. Proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID test was necessary for admission, and masking in social situations was required. The downside to this was that very few mass gatherings of authors and fans for round-robin conversations in the bar and lobby area just didn't seem to happen. Conversations were smaller affairs, limited to small handfuls of folks, many of which migrated to hotel rooms and therefore not readily accessible if one didn't get in on the ground floor, so to speak. The result was an unusually subdued convention that appeared to close up shop rather earlier than usual.

I don't frame this as a complaint, but rather an impartial observation. For my part, I was up exceptionally late Thursday before the convention and therefore arrived in a state of sleep deprivation. Insomnia decided to pay me a visit Friday and Saturday nights, so I was punchy by sundown and in no condition for late night con shenanigans. Curse this aging body! Despite that, Armadillocon did exactly what I'd hoped it would do: Infuse me with energy and enthusiasm for my fiction and get those creative juices flowing. Because here's the thing: I've barely written any fiction in the past two years. Apart from a nifty collaboration with Don Webb and my finally getting around to completing a short story I started writing nine years ago, the cupboard had been bare. Which explains why my Venus novel remains in a perpetual state of incompletion. It's not that I had writer's block, writer's indifference is more like it. Or maybe writer's aversion. I just had no interest or desire to write. Armadillocon remedied that, for the time being at least. I came home brimming with ideas and concepts and Jonesing to dive back into fiction, so yay! There's an unfortunate downside that stemmed from that, but I'll save that for another blog post.

Friday's Writers Workshop proved a great experience. I'd not participated as an instructor for maybe six years, and I missed it. I was partnered with Britta Jensen who was a soothing, encouraging yin to my demonstrative, prescriptive yang. The submissions in our group were intriguing and broadly competent, which isn't something that can always be said about writers workshop manuscripts. One was damn near publishable already, another was maybe a draft or two away from the same status, and the other two manuscripts had some problems to overcome but excellent worldbuilding and lots of potential. Curiously, all the submissions I critiqued were first novel chapters, no short fiction at all. I moderated the "Building Your Brand" panel for the workshop, which could've been more accurately called the guerilla marketing panel, but I think we muddled through okay and, as usual, smarter people on the panel pulled us over the finish line.

There's a saying I've heard in the past: If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. The idea is that the way to improve oneself is to learn from those who are more intelligent, more skilled, more talented. In that context, I was never in the wrong room the entire weekend. I'll wager I got something of an unexpected tan, so much basking I did in reflected creative genius.

I attended two readings, one by Mark Finn and the other by the afore-mentioned Don Webb. Both were entertaining, and if you know either of them, exactly the kind of story one would expect to hear from such fonts of creative fiction-making.

My panels went swimmingly: Conventions from a Con-Runner's and Participant's POV with David Chang, Rhonda Eudaly, Brad Foster and Sarah Felix; Cli-Fi with Chris Brown, Sim Kern and Alexis Glynn Latner; and Writing YA Fiction with Kathleen Baldwin, David Anthony Dunham (who I bought a copy of Pride of Carthage from, but inexplicably forgot to have him sign it) and S.G. Wilson.

Aside from the panels, I had varying great conversations with Scott Cupp, Rick Klaw (who I kinda sorta agreed with on the King Kong vs. Godzilla panel), Jessica Reisman, Mikal Trimm, Jess Nevins, Jeremy Brett, Lawrence Person and my sworn arch-enemy, Stina Leicht. Apologies to everyone I left out--the slight is unintentional. I also came home with a carnivorous sundew plant from Texas Triffid Ranch, so that's something. Until next year!

Now Playing: The Surfaris Gone With the Wave
Chicken Ranch Central

Armadillocon off the port bow!

It's that time again, when the Texas science fiction/fantasy community comes together for a fun weekend of thoughtful discussion, art, writing and other good genre stuffs at Armadillocon 40. I'm a little slow out of the gate, but will be there amongst all those folks far more talented than myself. For those of you interested in such things, here is my weekend schedule:

Friday
4 p.m. Welcome to ArmadilloCon
Jennifer Juday (moderator), Craig W. Chrissinger, Dantzel Cherry, Rhonda Eudaly, Jayme Lynn Blaschke
Panelists will talk about the essential elements of SF cons in general and ArmadilloCon in particular. Learn about all the can't-miss events you should attend to get the most out of our con.

9 p.m. Space Operas: Reading Beyond the Expanse
Jayme Lynn Blaschke (moderator), C. Stuart Hardwick, T. Eric Bakutis, Thomas Wagner
Space opera is alive and kicking in the 21st century! What new space operas do our panelists recommend? What classics do we not want to miss, and why? How do they see the field evolving?

10 p.m. Small Presses - How They Work, and How Writers Can Work with Them
David R. Stokes (moderator), Jacob Weisman, Elizabeth Burton, Jayme Lynn Blaschke
What's the world of small presses like? What are the advantages and disadvantages for writers looking to work with them? What's the market like, and how is it changing?

Saturday
Noon Writing YA: Advice on What Works and What Doesn't
Jayme Lynn Blaschke (moderator), Ari Marmell, Patrice Sarath, Trakena Prevost, Holly Black
What are the key elements of a YA novel? What do we need to do differently?

2 p.m. Reading - Jayme Lynn Blaschke
I'll be reading a selection from my in-progress novel, Sailing Venus.

Sunday
1 p.m. Urban Fantasy and Its Evolution Skyler White (moderator), C. J. Mills, Paige E. Ewing, Jayme Lynn Blaschke, Christie Meierz
How is the field of urban fantasy evolving? What do our panelists think are "must reads," and what's up next on their "to be read" lists?

I'm also scheduled to participate on the Bill Crider memorial panel on Saturday night, but unfortunately I have a personal conflict and won't be able to attend.

Now Playing: The Surfragettes Surfrajettes EP
Chicken Ranch Central

Harlan Ellison (1934-2018)

"I almost died and it's all your fault!"

Harlan Ellison's phone calls are legendary. For a brief period, I received them on a regular basis. Some went well, some, like the one the quote above came from, went not-so-well. But they were always interesting. Harlan died yesterday at the age of 84. There will never be another Harlan phone call.

I never knew him well enough to call him a friend, but I think he might allow me to claim acquaintanceship. There are a lot of strong opinions about the man held by many. I experienced a bit of his cantankerous side. I never witnessed the boorish behavior he could be accused of. I did witness a masterful amount of self-control on his part when attendees at a convention one time went out of their way to attempt to provoke him. I once saw him instantly become gentlemanly and deferential when Ardath Mayhar walked into the room. That was nice. I'll never forget the respect he showed Ardath.

I first fell into Harlan's orbit in 1997. I'd published my first story or two, and casting about for a way to keep my name in print as the rejection slips continued to pile up, I hit upon the idea of conducting interviews. Worldcon was coming up in San Antonio that year, so I went down the list of author guests and fired off letters asking if Writer X might find an hour of their time to sit down with me for a conversation. A week later, my phone rang.

"Jayme? Harlan Ellison here..."

That was the first of many times I'd hear that phrase. The Wife heard it quite a bit, too. Turns out, Harlan wouldn't be in San Antonio. He'd had a falling out with the convention.

"Tell ya what, kiddo," he said. "Think up some questions I haven't been asked a million times before, and call me back in a week. I'll talk to you then."

It had not been my intention that Harlan be my first professional interview. I was terrified. Intimidated would be a huge understatement. But in the interim I read every interview of his I could get my hands on, and vowed not to ask any of those questions. Which meant no "Last Dangerous Visions" questions, of course. I called him back a week later, and we started slowly, with... maybe not questions he'd never been asked before, but variations on certain themes, coming at them from different angles. Then I hit him with the following, which stopped him dead in his tracks. The pause doesn't come through in print, but he hadn't been asked this before, and it made him think:

What's the worst thing you've ever done?

There are things that I have done that would stun a police dog if I spoke of them, so obviously I'm not going to speak of them. My friends know, and my wife knows, and they seem to forgive me. That's the interesting thing. The things that I would pillory myself for having done, where I would say "Shit, I never really should have done that," they will all say "But you had to do that because blah blah blah..."

Yes, I put him on the spot. Made him uncomfortable, for just a little bit. But it made for a distinctive interview. Still, he'd challenged me, hadn't he? Put me on the spot? So I played dirty. That question, good as it was, still fell within Harlan's wheelhouse. My follow-up, he outright stumbled over: Let's balance the karma: What's the best thing you've ever done?

By then, I knew I had control of the interview. It wasn't going south, it was going where I wanted. I had Harlan's buy-in. He wasn't bored. This was huge for me--I'd interviewed hundreds of people as a journalist for newspaper stories, but this was different. It gave me a shot of much-needed confidence that resulted in 40-plus additional interviews over the ensuing decade. By the time we approached the end of the interview, I was ready with the question that, I believe, encapsulates the interview overall:

When did Harlan Ellison the writer become Harlan Ellison the event?

I don't know. I've studied the lives of a number of different writers -- Emile Zola, Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway. These were people who wrote important things, but when you talk about them, people know that Scott Fitzgerald sort of was the king of the Roaring 20s and danced his way through that whole period of bootleg gin and his wife wound up in a madhouse. People know Hemingway was a great adventurer who lived at the peak of his macho ability and then finally blew his brains out with an over-and-under shotgun in Wyoming. And Zola is only known for the Dreyfuss case. But and I think there are some writers, as there are some politicians there are some adventurers there are some scientists whose lives apart from their achievements, their lives themselves are eventful. They live life more fully, they live life with a greater commitment. Now I am not extending that to me. Please be careful when you write this. I do not want people to think I am demonstrating that kind of hubris. I'm trying to answer your question as honestly as I can, and I don't think I can get any closer to it than that.

Harlan Ellison was very much like a singularity in our field. His presence and influence was undeniable. Even people who'd never met him, or didn't like him, still felt his pull. He was massive. And now he's gone, just like that. A sudden void that was once so intensely, ferociously occupied. The universe is a little smaller today.

My complete interview with Harlan Ellison may be read at SFSite.com.

Now Playing: Charlie Byrd Bossa Nova Pelos Passaros
Chicken Ranch Central

Armadillocon 2015 in the rear view mirror

Armadillocon has come and gone for another year. The 2015 edition was a very good one, indeed. Attendance seemed significantly up from last year, panels were well-attended and an energy permeated the con that had been absent in recent years. Most everyone I talked with seemed to feel the same. The guest lineup--GoH Ken Liu, Special GoH James Morrow, Editor GoH L. Timmel Duchamp, Fan GoH John DeNardo, Toastmaster Stina Leicht and Artist GoH Rocky Kelley--was very active and accessible, interacting with attendees and panelists all weekend. There was an impressive number of new panelists as well, the concom going out of their way to seek out and invite regional pros who haven't attended before. That injected a good amount of new blood to the regular panelists, and the panels themselves were stimulating and thought-provoking. Again, it was clear the concom didn't just recycle the programming items from past conventions, coming up with new topics, or clever variations on older topics, instead.

My panels were well-attended and boasted some very intelligent people who all had insightful commentary. For "Researching Your Book," I brought along a huge stack of Venus science books I'm using as reference for Sailing Venus just to scare people a little bit. J. Kathleen Cheney, Jaime Lee Moyer, Cary Osborne, Lee Thomas and Ernie Wood kept things lively and as you might suspect, each writer had different approaches to the question of how much research is necessary. I was then drafted to sit in on the "New Twists in Urban Fantasy" panel, as some of the panelists hadn't made it to the con that Friday. I kind of prattled on about the overlap between urban fantasy and contemporary fantasy, and how they're not necessarily the same. As I hadn't written any urban fantasy in quite a few years, I didn't have much to offer, but thankfully John Moore, Carrie Clevenger and Mari Mancusi knew their stuff. A lot of discussion was devoted to how publishers are declaring certain sub-genres like urban fantasy, dystopia, etc. "dead" and refuse to consider new work in these areas, but such work is still being published under different branding by an array of publishers, and quality work will always make it into print regardless of publishing trends.

On Saturday, my fellow panelists for "The Hobbit Movies" were Lillian Stewart Carl, Aaron de Orive, Paige Ewing, Shanna Swendson and Troyce Wilson, and while everyone agreed Peter Jackson had gone off the deep end with silly video game computer effects that went on far, far, far too long in the films, we disagreed a surprising amount on what the worst transgressions were and which additions actually improved the story. That doesn't change the fact that Jackson would've been better off sticking to his original plan for two films rather than three. "Writing a Strong Teen Protagonist" was the first of two panels I moderated, and Peni Griffin, P. J. Hoover, Jake Kerr, Mari Mancusi and Trakena Prevost all had far more experience writing YA than I, which made my moderating job so much easier. And interesting discussion of the differences between YA and Middle Readers ensued, along with some thoughts on the emerging "New Adult" category. Writing teens is hard, simply because teenagers are still figuring out who they are at that age, and their moods are inherently volatile. Writing teens as small adults is a no-go, and writing parents as incompetent boobs is just as bad a cliche. The absent parent--either through death, divorce or indifference--is another recurring trope that's difficult to stomach, but sometimes unavoidable as so many YA books are coming of age stories where the teens acquire their own agency, so to speak.

My other panel to moderate, "Speculative Fiction as a Mirror to Religion," went by fast. I mean fast. We started out and the next time I checked my watch, we'd run five minutes long and could've continued another two hours at least. James Morrow was the 800 pound gorilla on the panel, for obvious reasons, and he was wonderfully challenging in the best way possible. But he didn't hog the panel. On the contrary, Matt Cardin, Katharine Kimbriel, Ari Marmell and Shanna Swendson all jumped in with enthusiastic, thoughtful comments, having particular fun with the influence that the superstitious King James had on the translation of his eponymous version of the Bible. I used my story, "The Makeover Men," as an example of a exploration of misogyny that could not exist without both science fiction and religious fanaticism, but the story is currently not available online, unfortunately. This panel was probably the highlight of the con for me. So many ideas were flying back and forth that I cannot even begin to remember them all.

Other highlights include the Space Squid 10th anniversary shindig/flash fiction contest, Stina Leicht hitting no. 6 on the BookPeople best seller list, engrossing conversations with Don Webb, Sean Patrick Kelly, Joe Lansdale, Rhonda Eudaly, Bill Crider, Lawrence Person, Scott Cupp, Lillian and Paul Carl, lunch with Lou Antonelli, moving tables with John Picacio and drinking some of the magnificent Fin du Monde (a Belgian triple) at the Montreal Worldcon bid party. Oh, and I discussed with Chris Brown the possibility of reviving a misbegotten collaboration we threatened to write way back when, so feel free to be afraid. Good stuff all around, and I can't wait until next year.

Feel free to share the photos below, just be sure to include credit.

Now Playing: Violent Femmes 3
Chicken Ranch Central