Thanks to GalleyCat, I just learned that Charles Ardai's Hard Case Crime line will be publishing The Dead Man's Brother, a previously unpublished novel by Roger Zelazny.

The manuscript, supposedly completed 30 years ago and long thought lost, was apparently recently discovered among Zelazny's papers.

Roger Zelazny was once one of my gods. I loved "A Rose for Ecclesiastes," Creatures of Light and Darkness, Lord of Light, Nine Princes in Amber (the sequels, not so much), "The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth," and many other of his short stories and novels, so a new work, particularly one from when he was still in his prime, is big news for me.

I'm also looking forward to learning the entire history of the manuscript's submissions and rejections, and why it ended up in a desk drawer for decades instead of being read by all of us in the '70s.

The stories behind Phil K. Dick's struggles to get his mainstream novels published were fascinating, so I'm hoping that the entire story behind this particular story will also end up being revealed.

Though GalleyCat didn't provide a link to it, the publisher's site is offering an excerpt. The fragment certainly has that hardboiled feel to it, and so I'm anxious to read the entire novel to see Zelazny's take on the genre.

For a Zelazny fan, nine months will be a long time to wait.

I may be a little late to report this unfortunate news, but better late than not at all. Gene Colan, an amazing comic-book artist who is perhaps best known for his 81 consecutive issues of Dardevil, the entire 70-issue run of Tomb of Dracula, and most issues of Howard the Duck, is reportedly suffering from liver failure, which has led to perilous complications, among them fluid retention and encephalitis. Gene's wife, Adrienne, shared some of the details here.

Gene has been drawing comics for more than 50 years. If you're not familiar with his work, check out one of my favorite sites, the Silver Age Marvel Comics Cover Index, which features a gallery of some of Gene's greatest covers. Personally, I've always had a nostalgic soft spot for the cover of Marvel Super-Heroes #12, shown to the right. I can still remember encountering it in a Brooklyn candy store when I was 12 and being blown away by the first appearance of Marvel Comics' Captain Marvel. (My fondness for that memory has nothing to do with the fact that I'd end up writing his adventures a decade later.) I recall staring at the cover and desperately wanting to know, who is this guy? Gene's distinctive artwork, which displayed human emotions through facial expressions and body language in a way few could, certainly contributed to that.

If you're one of Gene's many fans, you can help in two ways. First, by simply dropping Gene a note if you wish, telling him how much his work has meant to you all these years. Supportive cards and letters may be sent to him at this address:

Gene Colan
2 Sea Cliff Avenue
Sea Cliff, NY 11579
USA

Additionally, various fundraising efforts are currently being organized to help pay for Gene's mounting medical costs. Clifford Meth is currently spearheading an effort to collect donations of books and artwork from professionals to be auctioned off, while the family is also auctioning artwork on eBay. Keep checking out both of those links for further updates.

Meanwhile, please keep both Gene and Adrienne in your thoughts.

I had a dream this morning in which I was at Readercon, sitting in one corner of a boisterous con suite, catching up with Resa Nelson. I've known Resa for more than 20 years, but these days we tend to only see each other face to face once a year at that convention, which is coming up in two months, so it made sense that she would appear in one of my dreams.

Then into the con suite comes, of all people, my mother, who plops down in a chair next to us. She's out of breath from playing tourist during the day, and tells me that she just wanted to check how I was doing. Her visitation in my dream also makes sense (even though she's never attended a convention in real life) considering that yesterday was Mother's Day, after all.

But then comes the part that doesn't make much sense, at least not now, in daylight, though it made perfect sense in dream. Kenneth, the NBC page from the TV series 30 Rock, shows up at the party, and makes a beeline for me. He pulls me away from friends and family, and asks me for a favor. I don't find his presence odd, perhaps because if he were a real person rather than just a fictional character, the fact that he's an NBC page would mean that technically we worked for the same company, since NBC and SCI FI are both part of the same conglomerate.

Kenneth asks if he can borrow my assault rifle. Strangely, nothing seems out of place about his request, even though in real life I don't own one (though I do own a 12 gauge shotgun). In the dream, I just happen to have that assault rifle with me, and hand it over to him, loading it for him before I do so. Again, in the dream, this seems natural. Kenneth wanders off happy, his usual goofy self, giving no hint as to why he needed the weapon. As soon as he was gone, I woke up.

I'm not entirely sure what all this means, but if you'll be attending Readercon this year, you'd better watch out for Kenneth!

The latest issue of the weekly Variety brings belated news of the death of Werner Groebli, who died back on April 14 at age 92. That name is probably unfamiliar to you, as it was to me. But you might recognize, as I did, the identity he took on in the '30s, when he entered show business and needed to spare his family the embarrassment of his taking part in such poorly regarded profession.

Groebli, an ice-skating wizard, dubbed himself Frick, while Hansruedi Mausch, his partner, named himself Frack, and as the team of Frick and Frack they became world famous, both as superstars of the Ice Follies and in films such as Let's Dance and Silver Skates. Groebli performed more than 12,000 times (both with and without his partner) from 1939 through 1981.

But there's more to the story than that, as some of you may have already realized, just from hearing those assumed names. For not only did the team turn into skating legends, but their names entered our language, becoming synonymous with any two people so alike as to be indistinguishable, a phrase I still hear in use today, though likely by people who have no idea of its origins, and also usually in a disparaging manner. (The phrase almost missed its chance to enter the lexicon, however, as Groebli and Mausch first thought of calling themselves Zig and Zag.)

So even though Werner Groebli is dead, Frick lives on as one half of a figure of speech!

I had two comics-related dreams this morning. I'm not sure why, as those dreams are usually sparked by something that happened in real life, such as a conversation with someone I used to know in the old days, or discovering the news of the death of a friend. (As opposed to my SF-related dreams, which seem to pop up unbidden, as anyone who follows this blog already knows). Whatever the reason, they seemed interesting to me, which means that now you're going to have to suffer.

In the first dream, I was on a panel about mainstream coverage of the history of comics. I was with others behind a table up on a stage looking down at the audience. Also in the dream were Jim Warren (former publisher of Creepy, Eerie, and Famous Monsters of Filmland), Jim Steranko (the groundbreaking artist of Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the late '60s and early '70s), and John Verpoorten (Production Manager of Marvel Comics when I was on staff there from the mid- to late '70s). Oddly, we were not the ages any of us could have possibly been at the same time in reality. Warren was the age he would have attained in real life now, Steranko was the age he had been in the mid-'70s, and Verpoorten was the age he would have been in the late '60s, a look I only know from photographs of him.

I spoke on the reasons why stories about comics in the mass media are so often flawed. This is what I'd said, which I scribbled down immediately upon waking: "The person who can get it done can only get it done wrong; the person who could get it done right can't get it done at all." Usually, the statements I make in dreams that seem to make sense in sleep make no sense in the light of day, but this one seems to have some truth to it. What I meant by this was that most writers either have the connections to get the assignment or the background knowledge, but not both.

As the panel broke up, I looked down and found a wallet. It turned out to be Steranko's. After I returned it, I looked down again and found another wallet. This time, it was Verpoorten's. I returned that one as well. Then I looked down to find yet another wallet, but before I could return it, I woke up.

In the second comics-related dream this morning, I was hanging out with Paul Levitz (currently the president and publisher of DC Comics) in a Brooklyn apartment I'd lived in during the late '60s, a place Paul had never visited in real life. We were poring over old comics that featured the Legion of Superheroes in their first appearances. Paul looked the way he had when I'd first met him at comic conventions in the early '70s. I told him that I figured the Legion was his favorite series. (He did end up writing it, after all.) I also said that even though as a kid I'd been a Marvel fan rather than a DC fan, I always had a soft spot for the Legion.

Then the dream jumped to now. I was paging through a Flash comic, one consisting entirely of many consecutive full-page splashes and double-page spreads, showing him accelerating and and continuing to get faster and faster and faster. The book (which looked nothing like any real-world issue of the Flash) had been drawn by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. I called over Irene (my wife, remember?) to show her the book, but I woke before I could share it with her.

Such is my dream life. (Or at least the part you get to hear about.)

In Sunday's Washington Post Book World, David Ignatius reviewed the new Richard Bausch novel, Peace (not to be confused with the Gene Wolfe novel of the same name). At the end of his long critique of the novel, Ignatius quoted Bausch's contrasting definitions of the novel and short story. Apparently, Bausch has written that with a novel, it's a matter of the writer "staying with it and working it over until it is right, and complete—all emotions earned, all strands of interest played out, everything resonating as it should, everything as lucid as it can be made without doing violence to the demands of the story," while a short story is instead "the world in miniature."

So far, so good. But then Ignatius inserted his own opinion about the difference between longer and shorter fictional forms, and seemed to demonstrate a complete lack of appreciation for one of my favorite story lengths. He stated that:

This book is somewhere in between the two forms—a novella would be the proper term, I guess. That's an awkward length, too long for the diamond solitaire of a story; too short for the jewel box of a novel.

First of all, I find it odd that Ignatius seemed unfamiliar with the novella, as if this was the first time that he'd ever had to grapple with the concept (indicated to me by his "I guess"). But in addition, I find his distaste for the novella to be, well, distasteful, and not just because many consider the novella to be the best tool with which to tell a science-fiction tale, which means that a slam against the novella could be taken (if we follow the thought out to its natural conclusion) as a slam against science fiction. It also stands as an illogical literary statement in its own right, because setting genre aside, many of the fiction's finest stories have been novella-sized, everything from Kafka's "Metamorphosis" to Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" to Joyce's "The Dead."

So why does Ignatius seemed baffled by novellas with his first sentence and disdainful of them with his second? His aside seems to me to be too broad a statement to be included in a review of the particular book under consideration, and completely unnecessary.

I had a dream early this morning in which I was hanging out with shunn and Wil McCarthy on the way to the Denver WorldCon. We'd bumped into each other at some interim airport at which we were changing planes. Our conversation was so interesting that at one point I realized I was about to miss my flight, and so I was forced to run for my gate. As I raced, two things caused me to wonder.

First, I passed a healthy Jerry Orbach, that song-and-dance man who became a star of Law & Order, which confused me, because I thought, "Isn't he dead?" (In the waking world, he is.) And then, as I continued running, I got to thinking—why would I bump into Wil at an airport on the way to Denver? Doesn't he live in Colorado? (In the waking world, he does.)

Once I got to my gate, I learned that I still had plenty of time, so I sat and opened my mail, which included cards (that I never got out of their envelopes, so I never learned the occasion—Happy Birthday? Congratulations? Get Well?)—or who they were from, and copies of (gulp!) Reader's Digest (which in the real world I only ever flip through when the line at the supermarket check-out aisle is moving too slowly). I woke up before I could board the plane.

Later that morning, I had a second SF-related dream (and can recall three other dreams that had nothing to do with writers or writing). I was attending a reunion of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer's Workshop—one made up not just of my year, but of all years. While there, I bumped into Cory Doctorow. We caught up for awhile, and then I moved on to look for other familiar faces. And strangely, though the public areas of the building were packed, I recognized no one else from my year or any other year.

I was given a pamphlet that contained photos of all other graduates, but I could recognize no faces there either. In the dream, I wasn't perturbed by this, just found it odd and interesting, since from my years attending cons I figured I should be able to recognize graduates from almost every year of Clarion. I woke while flipping through the pamphlet, which was laid out like a high-school yearbook.

My short story "The Awful Truth About the Circus," which appeared last year in the anthology Zencore!, has just been reviewed at the site The Future Fire. (Actually, I'm not entirely sure exactly when the review was written and published, as it's undated and was only just pointed out to me now.)

The reviewer, credited as "The Exploding Boy," had this to say:

"The Awful Truth About the Circus" and "Red Velvet Dust" are both excellent, well-written stories, nimbly capturing what magical realism is all about, turning the reader's eye inward to the human condition, describing hope and loss with delicate brush strokes.

Thank you, Exploding Boy, whoever you are!

Catching up on recent unread editions of the Washington Post Book World, I came across an interview with Tobias Wolff which accompanied the review of his new collection, Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories. As is sometimes the case, I found the questions to be as interesting as the answers.

Interviewer Daniel Asa Rose asked Wolff the following in the April 13 issue:

I'll bet you're sick of the term "dirty realism"—first applied to you and fellow writers Raymond Carver, Richard Ford et. al., by Bill Buford in Granta in 1983.

When Wolff replies that he doesn't know what that term means, the interviewer explains:

To me it means martini drinkers writing about beer drinkers: the fascination certain middle-class authors have for working-class characters.

I was glad to see that Wolff had never heard of the term, since I had never heard of the term. I understood the school of writing practiced by Carver, Jayne Anne Philips, and others to simply be referred to as "minimalism."

Need I be embarrassed by this hole in my knowledge? Raise your hand if you're also unaware of this literary distinction.

Or am I the only one?

I was so busy attending (and recovering from) the 2008 Nebula Awards weekend that I failed to mention that the June 2008 issue of SCI FI magazine went on sale last week.

In addition to our cover feature on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, we also spotlight the films Speed Racer, Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Wanted, Get Smart, Wall*E, and The Happening, plus the SCI FI projects The Sarah Jane Adventures, Doctor Who, and Heatstroke and Aztec Rex, two upcoming SCI FI Saturday night movies directed by David Kemper. The issue also includes the usual reviews of books, DVDs, games, and more.

The June 2008 issue will be available in bookstores and on newsstands through June 16.

Ads close this afternoon on the August issue, which will occupy most of my thoughts until it heads to the printer 15 days from now.

John Berkey, one of our greatest science-fiction and fantasy artists, passed away Tuesday. He was a frequent contributor to both Science Fiction Age and Realms of Fantasy. (Click on the cover at right to begin viewing a gallery of nine Science Fiction Age covers I've uploaded to honor his memory. Each cover can be clicked on yet again to be seen full size.)

His impressionistic paintings had a dreamlike quality which made them a welcome change from the photo-realistic images that many other artists seemed to be aiming for then. But John embodied more than just talent. He was a consummate professional who made all of his deadlines without complaint, whatever his circumstances. And those circumstances were often dire.

Back when I worked at Sovereign Media, I always looked forward to my conversations with John, and almost thought of them as perks. We never met face-to-face, but he was always warm to me over the phone, and we had many long talks, not only about art, but also about the differing challenges life had handed each of us.

During one of those talks, John once segued with a phrase I'd never before heard used in a conversation and am unlikely to ever hear again—"When I first came out of my coma, I ... "—which certainly perked up my attention for what he was to say next. John had been dealt some fairly tough hands in his personal life, but he always faced them with dignity and grace.

Considering his many health problems over the years, his passing was no surprise. But that doesn't make him any less missed.

I just received a review copy of the New Directions reissue of poet Kenneth Patchen's The Walking-Away World. I'm not sure why, since at first glance it seemed unlikely that I would have anything to say about the volume that would help publicize it. The illustrated poetry inside is a far cry from science fiction or fantasy, and so I'm not sure what the PR department was thinking, since there's no hook that would cause me to review the book in either Science Fiction Weekly or SCI FI magazine.

Then I read the introduction, since I enjoy reading writing about writing, regardless of the genre. It turned out to have been written by Jim Woodring, the cartoonist of the surreal wordless series Frank. I can only assume that he was chosen because of the parallels between his work and the three picture-poems of Patchen's which are gathered here.

So the reason I'm sharing about The Walking-Away World is due to an anecdote Woodring shares in his introduction, one which relates to the recent brouhaha concerning the proper way to respond to bad reviews. Since I have no one-star Amazon reviews of my work and therefore can't respond to this fiasco the way John Scalzi did, I figure this is the least I can do.

Based on this excerpt, Patchen had the right idea of it:

He responded once to all the negative criticism with an act of almost masochistic toughness: on the inside dust jacket of his book Cloth of the Tempest, he compiled not a collection of laudatory blurbs but some of the most egregious attacks on his work. Under the heading "WHAT SOME CRITICS HAVE SAID OF PATCHEN'S POETRY," we read:

"The biggest collection of arrant nonsense ever printed in America."—The Springfield (Mass.) Republican

"Patchen is not a serious poet. And his fulsome self-indulgence, combined with the continual intrusion of a personality that insists on talking, singing, weeping, fighting, and cooing to itself, is very trying ... "—The Nation

There are two more. Needless to say they had the effect of making his fans feel even more devoted to their talking, singing, weeping, fighting and cooing hero.

I've always agreed with the above method. When I was writing the Captain Marvel comic book back in the '70s, and received a letter from a reader saying that he was glad that Jim Starlin was gone and if only I would also leave the book his life would be complete, I was amused, and saved that letter like a badge of honor. And when I was editing SCI FI Universe in the '90s, and received a letter calling me a media whore, I not only published it but had a business card mocked up not only to print in the magazine's letters column, but also to carry around and hand out.

The proper way to respond to such reviews and criticism is to laugh them off. These things only hurt if we let them hurt. Why can't people see that?

Jack Williamson was born 100 years ago today, and we should all pause for at least a moment to remember the humble science-fiction Grand Master who published in nine consecutive decades.

My own feelings about Jack were laid out in an editorial titled "Celebrating Science Fiction's Living National Treasure," which I wrote about him for the March 5, 2001 issue of Science Fiction Weekly. I don't think that I could improve upon those thoughts now. One paragraph reads:

In a more just culture, Jack Williamson would be treated as the Japanese treat their elders who are masters of a given art—painters, calligraphers, writers. He would be officially named as a "living national treasure." Jack certainly qualifies as that, which is, I think, a more comfortable thing to be after all than Mount Rushmore. Jack Williamson deserves that honor not just because he has taught me how to create compelling science fiction, but also because Jack has taught me—with his honesty, his endless wonder and curiosity at the universe, his rare ability to continue to grow and change with each passing year where others would have petrified, and his graciousness for the generations of SF writers and editors who have followed him—how best to live a life.

The above picture was taken in 2003, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the publication of Jack's first short story, "The Metal Man," in the December 1928 Amazing Stories. I'm holding a copy of that magazine, which I'd just had him autograph. It now hangs framed in my office, where it inspires me each day.

I last saw Jack in 2006, shortly before his 98th birthday, and though his body was weakening, his amazing mind was as alive as ever. It almost seemed as if he could go on forever, but, of course, he could not. I wish he could be with us still, continuing to point the way.

Today I miss him a little more than usual. So please join me in missing him, too.

I'd thought I was done with the 2008 Nebula Awards weekend, and that it was done with me, so I started out the morning packing, figuring that once I was done I'd spend the few hours until my airport shuttle working in the room. Then the phone rang and I heard the mellifluous voice of Connie Willis. She was about to have breakfast with Cynthia Felice and Joe and Gay Haldeman over at the Driskoll Hotel, and wanted to know if I'd recovered enough from our feast of the night before to be able to join them.

Never one to pass up such an invitation, I changed into less scruffy garb to be worthy of both the company and the locale. The food was excellent, and was also, in one instance, art. Gay's waffle was cooked in the shape of the great state of Texas! I don't know why she was the one so blessed, because the rest of our food was just shaped like, well, food.

As usual, the topics of conversation varied widely, and included House, The Office, Steinbeck, Mencken, Herodotus, Hemingway, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Father Coughlin, Clay Shirky's recent essay about the true reason for the rise of the sitcom, and more. Then we toured the hotel, where Connie and Cynthia made a new friend, as you can see below.



And that, now that I'm back home, is definitely the end of the 2008 Nebula Awards weekend!

Sundays at conventions and conferences are always lazy days, and this is particularly true during Nebula Awards weekends. With no scheduled programming, Sunday tends to be spent primarily in the bar, hospitality suite, and restaurants, and that was how I spent the day, except for the hours I returned to my hotel room to either work on Science Fiction Weekly or update this blog.

I wandered over to the Hickory Street Bar & Grill with Mike Marano and Laura Domitz for brunch. Mike and I know the insides of each other's heads far too well, but I'd never had a chance to catch up that intimately with Laura before, which is strange, considering that, as I learned over waffles, we'd been at many of the same conventions in the early '70s, including the first Star Trek convention. While we exchanged convention war stories, Mike got along so well with our waitress that it almost felt as if Laura and I were intruding, but as far as I could tell, no phone numbers were exchanged.

Between bunch and dinner I hung out with Connie Willis and Liza Groen Trombi in the bar, oohing and aahing over baby pictures (and a video) before Liza headed for home.

For dinner, Geoff drove us out to the Salt Lick, while I attempted to navigate using the hotel's faulty pre-preprinted directions, which were flawed both coming and going. (Connie and Mary Turzillo managed to hide their horror as we bumbled our way to the outskirts of Austin.) The smell from the parking lot was stunning, and we stood awhile in front of the pit just breathing in the smoke. The restaurant sells barbecue sauce, but based on the overwhelming aroma, what I really think they should be bottling is perfume!



Our waitress brought over a bottomless plate of sausage, brisket, and pork ribs, which we did our best to do justice to. Luckily, we failed, because "all you can eat" should not be taken as a challenge. As for the quality, the brisket was far superior to that which I described a few days ago at Stubb's, but as for the pork ribs, I think Stubb's has the edge. (Though because of the peppery crust on the ribs at Stubb's, I have a feeling that some might find their flavor a little too nontraditional.) The conversation, as always, was even better than the food, and hopped around from Robert Heinlein to the recent raid on that polygamist sect to George Bush (whose name we only mentioned in a whisper, since this is Texas, after all) to Tristan and Isolde to the primaries and around and back again.

We got lost once more on the way back—I'll have to talk to the front desk this morning about their mis-directions—but as you can tell by the fact that I'm blogging here, we did eventually get back to our rooms. And unless I bump into someone in the lobby as I head to the airport this morning, this will be the end of my Nebula reporting, and these will be the last of my posted photos.

I've been hearing uncomfirmed reports that next year's gathering of the tribe will be in Los Angeles, but until you hear that from someone who knows better, that's just a rumor.

Next stop on the science-fiction caravan—Balticon 42.

I started Saturday by brunching with the Dell Magazines gang for the annual combined Analog AnLab Awards/Asimov's Readers Awards breakfast ceremony. I was seated at a long table at Ancho's restaurant between Connie Willis and Liza Groen Trombi and across from Nancy Kress, Jack Skillingstead, and Trevor Quachri. The food was fine (though only Connie was enthusiastic about the grits), and the conversation was compelling (as usual). What was unusual this year is that we seemed to expend a great deal of energy before the awards were handed out trying to convince Nancy not to steal one of the miniature milk bottles that contained the cream for her coffee.

Though Nancy will try to tell you that I have a larcenous soul, do not believe her—I am the most honest of men. I was merely far more creative in suggesting the many ways in which she could exercise her thieving inner nature. Connie was equally horrified by both of us, however, which raises the question—which is worse, the thought or the deed? The egger-on or the eggee?

After brunch, Gabrielle Faust, Michael Marano and I visited two unique museums—the Museum of Natural and Artificial Ephemerata and the South Austin Museum of Popular Culture.



The Museum of Natural and Artificial Ephemerata is meant to replicate the experience of visiting wunderkammern—those curiosity cabinets popular in the 17th century which were the precursors of our modern museums—and of dime museums, in which fraudulent fabulations were often exhibited. You could find on display as part of the museum's Impermanent Collection a taxidermy pheasant given by John Wayne to a member of one of his film crews, a fudge eyeball handed out by George Bush, Sr. one Halloween during trick or treating, and rivets from George W.G. Ferris' first ferris wheel. The patter offered by curator Jill Hirt during our tour was as much fun as the exhibits themselves. I enjoyed our visit so much that I'm thinking of offering to loan them a key once bent by Uri Geller when visiting the offices of Marvel Comics.

Gabrielle then recommended that we stop by the South Austin Museum of Popular Culture. The current exhibit was on the poster art of Frank Kozik, who first achieved prominence in Austin's underground rock scene of the mid-'80s. His dazzling imagery has promoted such bands as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was always more of a comic-book fan than a rock fan, so instead of making me nostalgia for a past spent club-hopping, I was instead reminded of all the underground comics I picked up at my first conventions in the early '70s when I learned that there was more to comics than spandex.



As much as we were enjoying wandering Austin, it was time to get back to the Omni for the main attraction of the evening, the Nebula Awards banquet. I shared a table with Paul Melko, Bill Shunn, Laura Chavoen, Geoff Landis, Mary Turzillo, Gabrille Faust, Michael Marano and Kamela Dolinova.

I don't know whose idea it was to give each attendee a small nerf moon with the name of the event printed on it amidst the craters, but I'm sorry to have to report that not all of those present treated those objects in the adult manner in which I'm sure the Nebula organizers wished. Some of us (of whom we shall not speak) flung moons across the room, not always hitting the intended targets, while others hid those moons in places they were not meant to be, behaving, rather than in an adult fashion, in what I'd have to call an adults-only fashion.

( Look behind the cut (if you dare) to see who hid those nerf moons where, and who else just couldn't keep his hands to himself. )

As for what was happening on the stage, well, yes, I guess there were some interesting things going on there as well. Toastmaster Joe Lansdale explained why all Texas writers are crazy, with a delivery I could never replicate here but which I could have listened to all night, while Nebula-winner Michael Chabon seemed moved to have been acknowledged as a member of the science-fiction club, and so was himself moving.

I'll leave it to others to list all the winners, so I don't repeat what others have already reported, but click here for further photos from the weekend.

I began Friday by sneaking out of the hotel to once more absorb at little bit of Austin culture. I decided to hit the Austin Museum of Art, which turned out to be having an exhibit titled "New Art in Austin: 20 to Watch," featuring original works by local artists.

You already know how I feel about much of what passes for modern art based on my February 20 visit to New York's Museum of Modern Art, but there were actually a few people whose work I found intellectually stimulating, notably Jill Pangallo and the team of Jen Hirt and Scott Webel, who create as the collective the Museum of Natural and Artificial Ephemerata. Those latter two turn out to have their own gallery here in Austin, and I intend to make it over there Saturday after lunch.

I then returned to the hotel, where I found the following battle in progress between competing Nebula nominees Jennifer Pelland and Mary Turzillo.



We won't learn until Saturday night whether Jennifer's "Captive Girl" or Mary's "Pride" will take the trophy in the short fiction category, or whether one of their talented competitors such as David Levine, Karen Joy Fowler, Andy Duncan, or Vera Nazarian will win, but since I think that literary competitions should always be resolved by fisticuffs in hotel hallways, I have to believe that Jennifer and Mary have the edge.

After tending to Mary's wounds, she and I and Geoff Landis headed off to Stubbs BBQ for lunch. There seems to be a disagreement among Austin natives as to whether Stubb's or Iron Works Barbecue has the city's best, and our plan was to try them both on Friday. I ordered the three-meat platter to see what they could do, and my verdict is that their pork ribs were excellent, with a nice peppery crust, the sausage was good, and the beef brisket was merely OK. The ribs were definitely worth a return trip.

At the mass autographing session, which took place from 5:30 through 8:00, I sat between Nancy Kress and Kij Johnson, the latter of whom you see with me below. I have fond memories of reading her award-winning short story "Fox Magic" at a workshop held in either 1992 or 1993 at Geoff Landis' house. (I think it was 1992, because if I was still workshopping, then Science Fiction Age had not yet eaten my life ... but I could be wrong.) I'm glad we had a chance to catch up. If you look carefully, you'll be able to see Geoff reflected in the glass of the window behind us.



After the signing, Geoff, Mary, and I had planned to hit Iron Works, but we were stunned to be told by the hotel concierge that they would only remain open until 9:00, which was inconceivable to me on a Friday. So there was to be no taste test for us that night. We instead headed to Thai Passion. I enjoyed the duck curry, which was one of the house specials, but still, this is Austin, after all, and I would have much preferred checking out those Iron Works' ribs. There was lots of good technical talk about comparative writing techniques as we ate, and I hope we each left the meal less rather than more confused.

As a thunderstorm began, we ran back to the hotel. I ended the night in the hospitality suite, where I learned my place in the science-fiction pool pantheon. Geoff, Mary and I returned to find the table empty, and so Mary and I started. Though she sank many great shots, I managed to beat her, which made up for my loss to Liza the night before. But then Geoff Landis beat me, reminding me that I wasn't the shark I'd momentarily thought I was. Then Sean Fodora beat Geoff and Robin Wayne Bailey beat Sean, leading me to believe that the challenger would always win at this table, until Robin held the title against Steven Gould. I wandered off while Robin was defending his crown against Vera Nazarian. A whole dollar was raised by these bouts for SFWA's Emergency Medical Fund.

My final conversation of the night was with Michael Marano, which ended up being mostly about the current state of comic books, following up on our chat earlier that day about the death of Steve Gerber.

The 2008 Nebula Awards weekend began for me in Baltimore rather than Austin, because I ran into Peter Heck and Jane Jewell at BWI. We were all taking the same Southwest flight, and since that airline has no assigned seating, we were able to commandeer a row and entertain each other along the way, sometimes by chatting, but mostly by snoring, since we'd all had to get up around 4:00 in the morning to make our unexpectedly shared flight.

We also shared a cab to the Omni Austin Downtown, and we arrived there ravenous. We took the concierge's recommendation for a good Tex-Mex restaurant, the Iron Cactus. Since I don't drink, I wasn't able to appreciate the range of tequilas they had—almost 100 different varieties—but the red snapper was worth the walk.

Since the opening events for the weekend wouldn't start until later in the day, I decided to spend the afternoon wandering Austin, something I hadn't managed to do at all when I was here for the 2006 World Fantasy Convention. My first stop—the O. Henry Museum.



O. Henry lived in Austin for 16 years, and in this house from 1893 to 1898. Austin was where he became known for his embezzlement rather than for his writing, and was sentenced to five years in a federal prison. Which basically means that this was the place where he decided that since he was unlikely to ever get rehired at a bank, he'd might as well head off and give writing his all.

As I wandered the small home, I kept comparing it with Thomas Wolfe's home, which I'd visited in Asheville, North Carolina, and Jack London's home, which I'd visited in Glen Ellen, California. While there was no "aha!" moment there Thursday, the way there had been when I'd looked at London's many rejection slips or hit my head in the doorways of Wolfe's home and realized that since we were both 6'4" there was a reason he didn't want to go home again, I still felt the presence of the man who wrote "The Gift of the Magi" and "The Ransom of Red Chief" as I looked at his original writing desk and imagined myself sitting there.

I then stopped at the Arthouse at Jones Center, which had an exhibit of drawings, costumes, and set designs from the collaborative work "Cult of Color: Call to Color," created by artist Trenton Doyle Hancock, choreographer Stephen Mills, and composer Graham Reynolds. The piece was very science-fictional, full of alien races and concepts, and I wish that I'd been able to see an actual performance. But if you take a look at me next to one of the costumes, you'll get an idea of the weirdness of it all.



I got back to the hotel when registration opened at 6:00, and picked up my badge and two bags of freebie books. Joe and Gay Haldeman were doing the same, and a little later I tagged along with them and with Liza Groen Trombi to try to see Austin's famous bats. But it turned out to be too early in the season, and though we waited for more than 90 minutes at one of the official viewing areas, we only saw 2-3 forlorn and lonely bats, and not the million or promised in August.

After we abandoned our vigil on one side of Ann Richards Lake, we met up with Sheila Williams, who had been watching for bats from the other side of the bridge. We poked our heads into a number of likely looking restaurants until we settled on Kyoto Japanese restaurant. I had the teriyaki eel on a bed of rice. (Thank last year's trip to Japan for making me a more adventurous eater!) As we ate, we discussed the short story form vs. the novel, books about talking animals (I won't tell you which one of us hates them), and Nero Wolfe.

Back at the hotel, I hung out in the hospitality suite for awhile, where I lost a game of nine-ball to Liza Groen Trombi. Good thing there was no money on the line, because she's a pool shark! After chatting briefly with other early arrivals, I decided to save my energy for the more intense schmoozing still to come and headed back to my room around midnight to crash.

Keep checking back here for further photos from the weekend.

Fifteen years ago, long before I started working for the SCI FI Channel, I was on the SCI FI Channel.

SCI FI Buzz, which was then the Channel's equivalent of 60 Minutes, did a short feature highlighting me on the occasion of the first anniversary of Science Fiction Age magazine. It was taped at ConFrancisco, the 1993 World Science Fiction Convention in San Francisco, and ran in December of that year.



I don't know how you'll feel about watching this, but I wince a little, not just because there's a little bit more of me, but also because there's a little bit less.

More, because I was heavier then. Less, because I was trying so hard to present myself as a calm talking head and not bounce around in my chair or talk with my hands that I seem more subdued than my usual bouncy self. I was trying to be too cool about it all. I appear too coy and sedate, and with the quiet manner of speech on display here, I remind myself of Jason Alexander playing George Costanza.

You might feel differently. In fact, I hope you feel differently. But however you feel, the clip is too good a piece of history not to share.

As I've shared here before, pgdf has for years been sending me envelopes decorated with collages culled from old magazines, newspapers, and comic books. Here's yet another example of his envelope art, which sends a Lady in Red searching for me through a casino. (Click to enlarge.)

If only I could manage to look that debonair in reality!



But thanks to the Spring 2008 issue of The Paris Review, the secret of Paul Di Filippo's inspiration has been revealed at last!

It turns out that Paul was preceded in this hobby by none other than Louis Armstrong. The fabled musician traveled with a steamer trunk filled with approximately 500 seven-inch reel-to-reel tapes, and he created collages like this one to decorate the front and back of each tape box.



Look familiar?

Admit it, Paul—you've been found out!