May19

Nebula Weekend

by Chris on May 19, 2013 at 9:28 pm
Posted In: event, writing

books

This weekend I attended my first Nebula Awards Weekend down in San Jose. I met some old friends, made some new ones, and left with a massive bag full of books and magazines. As if I don’t have enough of a backlog!  The panels were interesting, if unusually freeform.  Three of the four panels I attended opened with, “We don’t know what we are supposed to be talking about, so let’s just open it up for questions!” But the panelists were were by and large entertaining and insightful.

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Congratulations to this year’s winners:

Novel: 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

Novella: After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)

Novelette: “Close Encounters,” Andy Duncan (The Pottawatomie Giant & Other Stories)

Short Story: “Immersion,” Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld 6/12)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Abilar (Journeyman/Cinereach/Court 13/Fox Searchlight)

Andre Norton Award: Fair Coin, E.C. Myers (Pyr)

Solstice Awards: Ginjer Buchanan and Carl Sagan

 

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Apr25

The Hitchcock 9

by Chris on April 25, 2013 at 12:35 pm
Posted In: event, film

blackmail anny

The SF Silent Film Festival is back, this time with The Hitchcock 9, a program of Alfred Hitchcock’s earliest films from Great Britain. For those only familiar with his later Hollywood fare, these films will be a surprise and a fantastic treat. Hitchcock’s training at the UFA studio in Germany really shines through in these dark, strange films. A few are melodramatic clunkers, but Blackmail, The Pleasure Garden and The Lodger in particular are not to be missed. A fun side note: Blackmail was both Hitchcock’s last silent film and his first sound venture, released in both versions. The main actress, Anny Ondra (pictured with bread knife in hand and murder in mind) was a German actress who was hired before the decision to add sound. Her thick accent and minimal English precluded her voice acting, so English actress Joan Barry spoke the dialog from offscreen while Ondra mouthed the words. No ADR required!

I had the pleasure of seeing a great deal of these several years ago during a run at the Stanford Theater, and they are worth the trip. BFI has done an amazing job in restoring these silent works. If you’re in the Bay Area from June 14-16, check out Hitchcock before he became enamored of Technicolor and the Hollywood Star System.

 

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Apr22

Two authors enter

by Chris on April 22, 2013 at 1:49 pm
Posted In: errata, writing

I’ve been hard at work on a new draft of my latest long form project, incorporating feedback received at Paradise Lost.  Managed just under 20k words last week, which is not bad. I’m going to try and match or come close to that this week, although I do have some other housekeeping to attend to other than just banging out the prose. Research! Plotting! Reconstructive outline surgery!

In between paragraphs I did find time to enjoy examiner.com’s list of the Top 50 author-vs.-author putdowns. Shaw vs. Shakespeare! Bronte vs. Austen! Twain vs. well, just about everyone! For starters, he wishes he could “ hit [Jane Austen] over the skull with her own shin-bone.” I would preorder this version of Mortal Kombat.

I believe my favorite is actually from the comments section, with H.G. Wells taking on Henry James:

His vast paragraphs sweat and struggle . . .It is a magnificent but painful hippopotamus resolved at any cost, even at the cost of its dignity, upon picking up a pea which has got into a corner of its den.

Flawless Victory!  Though I do like “Turn of the Screw,” it’s hard to discount the points made.

Then there are attempted smackdowns of the fun but misguided variety, as delivered by George Meredith:

Not much of Dickens will live, because it has so little correspondence to life…If his novels are read at all in the future, people will wonder what we saw in them, save some possible element of fun meaningless to them.

Say what you like about Dickens but it’s pretty clear who won that dust-up, at least as far as “the future” is concerned.

So, have at thee.

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Apr20

The mixed-up files

by Chris on April 20, 2013 at 3:29 pm
Posted In: writing

It’s been years (and years… and years) since I’ve read From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, but it was one of those books I’ll never forget. What young kid wouldn’t want to run away from home and live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Okay, maybe more than a few, but it sounded pretty cool to me. It’s a title I frequently hear mentioned fondly in writers’ circles, and with good reason. The book made me want to seek out the Met and, as an adult, it’s one of my favorite places on Earth for sheer aesthetic overload.

Today the author, E.L. Konigsberg, passed away. A little piece of my childhood has ended. Well done, and thanks for providing joyous escapism of the highest caliber.

You really can’t go back!

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Apr15

Paradise Lost III: The post-mortem

by Chris on April 15, 2013 at 2:02 pm
Posted In: event, writing

I’m home from the fun and sun in San Antonio, full of brisket and whiskey and feedback on my current work in progress. Manuscripts were exchanged, friends were made and minds were blown. So was it worth it?

Probably the highest compliment I can pay PL3 is that I returned home full of ideas and a burning need to press on and finish a draft of this novel. This was a well-run affair from beginning to end and just what the doctor ordered.  The critique sessions, led by Lynne Thomas and Stina Leicht, provided a wealth of useful feedback. A quick dinner chat with Mary Robinette Kowal yielded more useful research material than a month of Googling on my own. And Jay Lake provided the wit and insight that only he can.  Reuniting with so many great people from Viable Paradise was the BBQ sauce on top.

I’ll share more specifics as I decompress and review my notes in greater detail. Suffice it to say that I received plenty of bang for the buck. Onward!

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