Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain

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3rd Story CollectionAs the saying goes, there are some things you’re better off not knowing. Like how sausage is made, if you really like sausage. Still, if anyone’s curious (didn’t say you were. said “if”), here’s where the title of my third story collection came from:

In 1905, Lafcadio Hearn published a collection of pieces on Japanese legend called “The Romance of the Milky Way and Other Stories.” Including therein were several tanka written on the legend of the Weaver and Herdsman (also called the Romance of the Milky Way) from an 8th Century Japanese poetry volume, the Manyoushou. Here’s Hearn’s translation of one:

Amanogawa

Ai-muki tachité,

Waga koïshi

Kimi kimasu nari

Himo-toki makéna!

[He is coming, my long-desired lord, whom I have been waiting to meet here, on the banks of the River of Heaven…. The moment of loosening my girdle is nigh!]

When I decided to do my own take on the Weaver and Herdsman legend, choosing a title was the easy part. So credit where credit’s due: Thanks to Mr. Hearn, and the ancient poets of the Manyoushou.

I Have the Answer, but You’re Not Going to Like It

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The old guard convention-going SF/F fandom is graying. There are younger readers, but they’re a distinct minority. The meme floating around now is that the established sf/f conventions are set in their ways, insular, almost reactionary in their clinging to the glory of conventions past. There’s much discussion across the interweb tube thingies about how to attract more young readers, how the convention circuit can be more teen friendly, many a cetera. Some of it even makes sense. Most, however…

[Sarcasm mode on.]

The graying of fandom is a problem easily solved—we just turn conventions like ReaderCon into media/anime/comic conventions. Look at DragonCon. It draws 30,000+ without breaking a sweat. ComiCon, 20,000+. What’s a WorldCon go these days, 5 to 6 thousand, if we’re lucky?  I mean, it’s a nice, hopeful idea that young sf/f fans are staying away from conventions because they’re not welcome, because their elders are doing something wrong. All the conventions have to offer are the best sf/f writers in the field meeting with fans, autographing, talking to each other and their audiences about their work and the field they love. Who wants to see that?

[Sarcasm mode off]. Now we get serious. Continue reading →

No, The Internet Will Not Save You

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Today I’m on again about one of my (least) favorite subjects, the “Long Tail Theory” of online selling. For those blissfully or otherwise unaware, the Long Tail Theory says that the internet will overcome the problem of finding audiences for cutting edge, goofy, or just niche type products such as most books. Since things you can’t find easily in the brick and mortar stores are easily accessible online, such items are no longer at the mercy of the gatekeepers, et many a cetera. The internet, in effect, would level the playing field making publishers much less dependent on blockbusters, and authors less dependent on publishers. Instead both would see fewer sales but of many more titles/items (the “long tail.”) and make up the difference in overall numbers volume (ie write more). Promotion through YouTube or its variants would take care of the no longer existent promotional budget.

That was the theory. In practice, it hasn’t quite worked out that way. Yes, some authors have done really well going outside the traditional publishing paradigm. Some authors do well, period, regardless of the paradigm. That’s the Law of Averages at work. For other Indies, and in the one area where hard data now exists, the result is: not so much. For indie and online music sales, it turns out like this: 80% of the available items sold no copies. At all. Zero. See the trend? All the revenue came from the remaining 20%. Usually bands which already had a following or were otherwise promoted. One could argue that this is music and we’re concerned about books. I know I am. But think about it for a minute—if there was ever a product that should benefit from internet promotion, it’s music. It takes a minute or less to download sample music from a web site or watch the band’s home-made video on YouTube. You can try lots of new and unknown and indie bands in just a few minutes. I’m sure there are people reading this who have found good new music this way. The rest? No, because most people aren’t going to spend hours and hours downloading unfamiliar bands, any more than they’re going to the trouble to sort through all the ebook samples on Amazon. For most bands, even the better ones, the internet just isn’t working, and I think it’s reasonable to argue that it does not and will not work for writers either, at least and until we learn to leverage it properly. Exceptions? Sure, but how many? Which leaves the 80%. Continue reading →

From Kudzu to Shizu

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This is an account of a trip to Memphis my wife and I made several years ago. It’s relevant for the simple reason that it was my first real introduction to the artifacts and history of ancient China, and at least some of the interest I’ve developed over the years for Asian themes can be traced directly to it. Not to mention stories like “Golden Bell, Seven, and the Marquis of Yi,” (Black Gate, Nov. 2000) “Palace of the Jade Lion” (coming up in Beneath Ceaseless Skies next month) and my Mythopoeic Award finalist novella, The Heavenly Fox. Sometimes research is an Adventure. Continue reading →

Paging Mr. Bradbury

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Fractures on Mt. Sharp

So it’s a little late, but I wonder if he got to see this before he left us. On the left is a picture from the slopes of Mt. Sharp, on the planet Mars. It is described as a strange geologic formation created by internal stresses and fracturing in the Martian surface. And no doubt that’s true, and interesting on the face of it. The gradual fading of the pattern on the perimiter suggests some natural process at work. Yet the romantic in me just cannot stop comparing this photograph to aerial photographs of archelogoical sites on Earth, especially the Southwest and Middle East. And I see walls and alleyways and rooms and houses packed close together for a people who had to cluster together around the site of scarce resources on a dying planet. Part of me, even though pretty much all of me knows better, would like to see this as the remains of a Martian city. I think I can lay at least some of this attitude at Ray Bradbury’s feet. I mean, he wasn’t the only one with such notions. Edgar Rice Burroughs was writing about Martian princesses and four-armed tharks before Ray Bradbury was born. But you obviously won’t find Dejah Thoris hanging out in a dump like that. This is The Martian Chronicles territory.

In a little over a month, assuming all goes well, NASA will be dropping a new robotic rover, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) into the vicinity, a rover with a pretty boring name but much more muscle and payload than Spirit and Opportunity carried. (See full article at Wired Magazine). I’m sure the MSL will get to the bottom of this, since Mt. Sharp is apparently on its agenda. And we’ll discover something marvelous, like a really strange set of perfectly natural formations due to internal stresses below the Martian surface. Perhaps even some insight into how geologic processes on Mars compare to similar ones on Earth. What’s the same, but also perhaps what is totally unexpected, which is the real prize and the sort of thing that usually precedes breakthroughs in our understanding of how the universe works. And I will think that is cool, too.

“Too?” Yeah, I know. But despite the slings and arrows and yadda yadda we all have to go through, I haven’t quite managed to lose that old-fashioned sense of wonder. Granted, it takes a lot these days to pump up the spark, but it hasn’t gone out completely. Still there, still smoldering. I think Ray Bradbury may have something to do with that.

And I’m still holding out for a city.