Help Me Write A Novel!

Hey, gang! I'm stoked to have a chance at writing the type of thing I love this spring: a funny, crazy science fiction novel. It's called Hive Five and it's about a hive mind that's not very good at being a hive mind. Here's the opening:

 Everyone was covered in either blood, kisses, or barbecue sauce. 

 Sammy's Recipe for Barbecued Chaos: 

 1. Decide you want a nice little party at your house. 

 2. Forget for a moment that you're part of a hive mind with fifty-six other people. Not a very good hive mind, admittedly, but good enough that those fifty-six other people simultaneously decide they want a nice little party . . . at your house. You do have the biggest yard in the treeborhood, of course, nearly an entire limb to yourself ever since you convinced the Umumwei family there was such a thing as a cybernetic squirrelfestation thanks to the loan of your friend Barry's Travelling Squirrel Zoo, some manufactured doodads from your garage forge, and a hot glue gun. The Umumweis folded up their house and moved it two levels down that same afternoon. 

 3. Allow your now enormous party to be crashed by the rest of the treeborhood who, for some reason known only to God's Clone, have become more affectionate than spawning salmon at a grizzly bear swingers party. 

 4. Remind yourself you have to get better at creating metaphors, but in your defense there is a half-love, half-fistfight free-for-all going on in your yard at the moment.

Tell me that doesn't look like fun! Here's where you can help. I need to raise the money so I can crank this out in three months and get the finished novel into your hands this summer. Besides the book, you can also get cool rewards, like a personalized episode of Beware the Hairy Mango, a ringtone of my voice, having a character named after you, and more!

Check out my page here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/189894541/hive-five

And my video right here:

We Are The Cloud

Great story up at Lightspeed right now, We Are the Cloud by Sam J. Miller. You can read it here: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/cloud/

 Many times, I don't go for stories that seem at first to under-utilize the science fictional elements within them, but the solid writing carried me through this one until it felt like the New Wave stories of yore that I used to read years ago. In many of those stories, as in this one, the characters carried the day. Too many stories that I've been reading lately show that the author is trying to create a character-driven story, but can't quite pull it off, as far as I'm concerned. Rather, it is character-driven in that many of the elements are in place, but it's not compelling as such. Sam J. Miller nailed it. I wish I knew exactly how, so I could do it too. I'll have to re-read it. You can take a look for yourself and tell me if you catch the trick.

I’m Taking My Books And Going Home

I have snapped. I have flipped. I am swan-diving into the abyss. Whyzat, Matt?

Because you guys are bringing me down.

This isn’t just about the blog comments, e-mails and forum posts of the last week. This is about the blog posts and comments, emails and forum posts, editorials and everything else from the last few years. The genre-bashing has reached felonious levels. I have read (and yes, partaken in) so much sub-genre and author clobbering that I’m starting to feel nauseous. And I can taste the blood and bile burning up my esophagus.

The field is in decline, we say, and what’s more, it’s the fault of the writers. The jargon’s too thick, the gateways aren’t there, no one is writing real Hard SF anymore, Mundane is a stupid idea, Fantasy is taking over, where’s the sensawunda, no one has any new ideas.

The Golden Age of science fiction is twelve, yes, we all know that. I’m not sure what age you haters have reached. Whatever age it is, I’d say it’s the Raw Sewage Age of science fiction. Apparently, it has all turned to shit.

Consider the towel thrown in.

Guys and Gals, I love you all and I know that not a one of our hates weighs that much. You still enjoy the field. But the accumulated crush of the pig-piled lot of our snipes has finally squashed me.

I no longer care if the Big Three mags are in decline. I no longer care if there is a dearth of gateway books for young science fiction readers or our mainstream friends. I don’t care that no one is reading and video is overtaking us and Harry Potter has doomed us all. I don’t give a shit about Hard or Soft or F vs. SF, analysis, book sales or the state of the field.

I’m taking my books and I’m going inside. I’m going to go to my room, sit on my bed, spread out the tales before me and enjoy my stuff. I’m going to savor the evocative prose of the masters and delight in their mad ideas. I still have untold Bradbury to explore. I still have Clarke that I haven’t read. I still have untouched Simmons and Lovecraft and Brin and Haldeman. Today I delved once more into the thick, art deco glories of Saint Gibson’s fantastic, psychological, anything but science fictional, “The Gernsback Continuum” and I gleefully anticipate his next novel, again likely to be rooted in the near past. There are a few Howards and Herberts I haven’t gotten to. There are rich, untapped veins of Ellison, Lem, Wilhelm and Delany! And there are countless other names I haven’t even picked up yet. Watts, Reynolds, Banks -- I salivate as I type this.

Yes, I’ve been disappointed. I’ve read crap. But I’ve also read so much good stuff and I’m looking forward to reading so much more that I’m still excited! I can’t wait to pick up the next book or mag or computer screen and dive into some past or future award winner or overlooked treasure.

You folks read fast, much faster than I, that’s a fact. You’ve already devoured everything that is good. Your crops are gone and your fields lay barren. I can’t imagine having tackled all that’s worth tackling, but you’ve done it and they don’t write ‘em like they used to. Your future is dystopian bleak.

I’m done arguing or recommending. Your time in the field has passed and I mourn your loss of summer days when ink met paper and stars were born of galactic furnaces. The full-on pressure of our years of e-bitching together has popped me. If only I had spent that time reading more stories.

Did I Say Sunshine? I Meant Stinkshine

Okay, it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't good. Sunshine was a beautiful movie to look at. In fact I would much rather have seen it in a theater, but it was in and out of the local palaces too quickly for my retail-scheduled ass. There were too many stupid things going on in this film, too many stupid people and some questionable engineering. Add this to the pile of might-have-beens, on top of Supernova (But I still love you, Angela Bassett!), Event Horizon, Mission to Mars and countless others. Even if it had been on my shoulders it would not have made me happy.

SFSignal

I was asked to participate in SF Signal's latest Mind Meld in which we discussed the best and worst endings in a science fiction or fantasy book. Check out the results here: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/006612.html

In unrelated news, there is a stink in my house and I have not yet discovered its source. I'm hoping it's not the old "dead animal in the walls" trick.

I hate that one.

A Few Of My Favorite Addictions:

I wrote these in the order that they came to me, so they’re probably close to their order of importance. That’s not something I’m proud of, but it does explain the circumstances of my life.

1. Food (More specifically: Fats, Carbs, Sugars) (Most specifically: Cheeseburgers)
2. Porn
3. Sleep
4. Ideas (The wilder, the better.)
5. Love (I bet you didn’t expect me to get all sappy here did you?)
6. The Written Word
7. Washing my hands (Which should really be #3 when you consider #2)
8. Comics
9. Science Fiction
10. Surfing (the non-physical kind, which goes without saying if you’ve ever looked at me. See also #1.). This surfing covers everything besides #2

Notice that I get my base physical cravings out of the way early on, then work on intellectual and emotional needs.

What are your addictions? Write them down in the order they come to you. Maybe it’ll help explain your life. Not that you’ll do anything about it, but wouldn’t it be nice to know?

Again With The Future Is Here!

I've kept my trap slammed long enough. I just read this article: http://ourfuturethoughts.blogspot.com/2008/02/where-has-all-sci-fi-gone.html
or about the seventeenth one like it and it's time to spout. The following is my comment to that post, although the blog is moderated so I don't know that it will show up there:

This conversation starter runs amok all across the science fiction blogiverse. It's not the job of science fiction to predict the future. Science fiction's obligation is to fiction, not science.

Fiction consists of millions of simulations (stories) which help humankind understand itself. "What would I do in a situation like that?" "If I did that, what would happen to me?" "That guy acted like a complete ass, I hope he gets his comeuppance!" It serves one of the most basic needs of human beings, the exploration of themselves and others as they interact with one another. Fiction is a brother to gossip, but throws the net of possibilities much more widely.

Science Fiction goes wider still, exploring human actions, interactions and reactions in situations that cannot happen in the current reality due to technological limitations. The speculation is fun. It isn't meant to predict.

Occasionally, from the tens of thousands of science fiction stories that have been written, a speculated technology might come to pass in reality and we gasp and assign "genius" labels to the writer. This is how astrology works too.

We are not running out of ideas in science fiction. The future is not closing in to clamp shut upon us and create a nightmare of forever present. What is happening is the fruition of extremely tired science fiction tropes, beaten to death in literature and film. Films dominate American popular culture and the studios won't bank on ideas that are too outlandish. We've strapped ourselves to the wrecking ball weight of our past good ideas and we don't want to be set free because the unknown is too uncomfortable. Then we marvel at how science-fictiony our lives have become when capitalism catches up with ideas that were new decades ago. "Hey look, I've got a PC and a cellphone! I'm living Star Trek!"

There are thousands of ideas out there in science fiction literature that have not yet popped into existence. More are being created every day. The human imagination is unlimited. There are even ideas that might confuse a television audience. But don't worry, they'll catch up when today's ideas are adapted for the mass media audiences twenty years hence. They'll seem new to the public then.

I'm astounded that science fictional folk like ourselves get drawn into these conversations when we're the people that are reading about the fresh ideas on an almost daily basis. We know the score. We know the reality. Why are we feeding the Big Media Bimbos?

And one last thing: If the future is here, then where the fuck is my flying car?