Category Archives: Geek

February 5, 2013 · 10:53 am

Signed galley of Daedalus up for auction!

Want to be the first on your block — perhaps the first in your broad regional area — to read The Daedalus Incident? Want to help promote diversity at SF/F conventions? Here’s your chance!

A signed galley copy of The Daedalus Incident is up for auction at Con or Bust. Proceeds help people of color attend future SF/F cons when they might not otherwise afford it. Seriously, only a dozen or so souls have read this book so far, so your geek bragging rights are all but assured. Get it months before it comes out, complete with my illegible morass of a signature.

Click here for more information. The auction starts Feb. 9 and runs until Feb. 24. Bid early, bid often!

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February 3, 2013 · 11:25 am

The Daedalus cover: Pulp remix

I am absolutely thrilled with the cover of The Daedalus Incident. Sparth‘s artwork is fantastic, and the layout and typography arranged by Night Shade Books is lovely. Honestly, I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s perfect.

But then I found the Pulp-O-Mizer, which allows you to create custom covers that hearken back to 1930s pulp magazines. And,well, I had to. I just…had to.

So…behold! The Daedalus Incident: Pulp remix!

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Filed under Books, Geek, Weird

December 1, 2012 · 9:57 pm

What’s in a name? What if it’s Enterprise?

https://i0.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Enterprise_Cruising.JPG

The now-retired U.S.S. Enterprise. For all who served aboard her over the past half-century, thank you. (Wikipedia Commons)

I noted with a bit of nostalgia and sadness that the United States Navy aircraft carrier CVN-65 was deactivated on Saturday. You may recognize her name: U.S.S. Enterprise.

Since a certain television show took to the airwaves in 1966, the name Enterprise has been synonymous with adventure and a variety of traditions, including a few hardly envisioned by the first to christen a vessel as such. Yet between the fictional and the historical, Enterprise has become an immense cultural touchstone — and for me, as an author of both science-fiction and alternate history, it raises an interesting question.

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Filed under Geek, Space, Technology

November 21, 2012 · 5:42 pm

LIVE on Blog Talk Radio tonight!

A quick reminder: I’m on SupaFi64 tonight at 10 p.m. EST talking about The Daedalus Incident! It’s my first podcast guest spot, so come see whether I sound all cool and suave, or I choke completely under the pressure. Either way, good times!

It’ll be live-streamed on Blog Talk Radio and will also be available as a podcast on iTunes. So check it out!

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November 14, 2012 · 7:31 pm

In defense of geek inclusion

Costumes at Comic-Con. No matter who you are or what you wear, you should be welcome. (Wikimedia Commons)

I saw Twitter erupt earlier this week over comments regarding women at geeky conventions like Comic-Con. Turns out that comic book artist Tony Harris had some choice words to say about women dressing up for said conventions; the inestimable John Scalzi posted Harris’ comments here, along with a typically humorous and scathing response.

I’m not going to get into the details of what Harris said, nor will I respond directly to his misogynist comments, because Scalzi did a far better job than I. Scalzi is one of those few writers who makes me wish I could write at his level. (Another is Ken Liu; read his amazing, award-winning short story here. I despair of writing anything so profoundly excellent.)

What I am going to do is talk about what kind of environment is fostered by these kind of inflammatory screeds. Because this stuff is giving geeks a bad name.

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November 11, 2012 · 2:12 pm

Six months to go, and the to-do list grows

There’s a lot of stuff sneaking up on me these days. Like giant shark jaws.

Writing a novel was a great personal accomplishment. Getting an agent, and an awesome one at that, was even better. Landing an offer from a well-respected publisher — on my 40th birthday, no less — was freakin’ incredible.

Now, with less than six months to go before The Daedalus Incident is released into the wild, I have to say…there’s a lot more to do.

Of course, you’ve seen the blog updated regularly with details on the cover and pre-orders. (There’s more sites up and running with pre-order pages, including those in Canada and the U.K., so find your favorite here.) But there’s also a lot going on behind the scenes. The machine is gearing up, and I’m going to be a big part of that.

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Filed under Books, Geek, Travel, Writing

October 30, 2012 · 9:15 pm

Darth Vader! And…Disney?

Will Darth Pumpkin turn into a carriage for Cinderella?

I had no idea that the Mouse House was going to buy Lucasfilm Ltd. when I started carving this bad boy. Had I known, I might have carved some mouse ears on it.

Yep, it’s big news. George Lucas gets to set a course for Easy Street strapped to a serious hyperdrive, in the form of $4 billion in cash and Disney stock.

But for everyone freaked out about the corporate takeover of a beloved icon…dude, you saw The Avengers, right?

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October 21, 2012 · 2:19 pm

Plugging into the geek world

Have to keep up, otherwise my view of SF/F could look like this.

OK, that was some excitement yesterday, what with The Daedalus Incident now available for pre-order and the unveiling of the cover and all. You know what’s distracting? Amazon sales rankings. The book doesn’t come out for another six months, but there I am, looking and going, wow, someone is actually BUYING MY BOOK.

Now that the shock and awe have worn off, I’m back to reality, which includes revising a short story, considering revisions for a second, and pondering just when I’m going to get the sequel to The Daedalus Incident off the back burner. These are, of course, good problems to have, considering that I’m a soon-to-be published novelist. Someone wants to read my fiction, and that’s a beautiful thing.

I’ve also been spending time becoming better immersed in geek culture and getting myself up to speed on what’s happening and who’s doing what. Yes, I’m a proud geek, but I also have limited time in which to geek out. I’ve had to do some refreshing. So without further ado, here are some of the sites I use to keep up to date on all things SF/F and geek, particularly those things with a literary bent.

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October 17, 2012 · 9:34 am

Joining the “mind meld” on SFSignal

Any good SF/F on television? Go check out SFSignal!

Just a quick note to tell folks that I’m participating in a “mind meld” over on SFSignal today. (Better that than the neck pinch, I say.) The topic is science fiction and fantasy on television, and there’s five of us opining on what’s good and what’s not.

I’m a big fan of SFSignal, so I’m pretty excited to have been included. They’re a great fanzine — so much so they won a Hugo Award for it. So go check out the mind meld and everything else they have to offer. It’s good stuff.

And yes, I mentioned Firefly. Someone had to.

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October 14, 2012 · 11:08 am

A short story isn’t an easy one

Harry’s Bar, where New York SF/F writers go to get geeky, apparently.

Nestled in Harry’s Bar in the storied Helmsley Park Lane Hotel, a 21st century version of the Algonquin Round Table took place Friday afternoon. Except for the fact that it was far more geeky than the original.

A number of my fellow genre writers descended on New York this past weekend for New York Comic Con, and a few of us met at Harry’s to celebrate our recent successes. We shared a common love of science fiction and fantasy, an inordinate ability to dissect writing processes at length, and a single literary agent — the inestimable Sara Megibow — who found each of our works a creative and commercial publishing home.

Our little bubbly-fueled chat-fest included fellow scribes Mike Underwood, Steve Vera and all the way from Europe, Stefan Bachmann, among other convivial souls. We all agreed that The Phantom Menace was unworthy, that the covers of our forthcoming books were all quite exciting — and that writing short stories is a lot harder than it seems.

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