From Paris to San Diego...

I'll have to post some pictures from Paris one of these days. Because I am a formidable genius, I forgot my camera's USB cable so will have 17 days' and 9 time zones' worth of photos on it by the time I get home on the 31st.

My Comic-Con schedule:

Thursday 12:30 Crime, Usual and Unusual panel (Room 3) -- signing to follow (AA1)
Saturday 10:00 Signing at the Marvel booth, wherever that is

I'm assuming other stuff will come up as well. It usually does.

A couple of other things:

The Daredevil Noir: Liar's Poker TPB is now available for preorder at Amazon and elsewhere.

The NYT Magazine had a terrific article on Jack Vance last week.

Looking down on Greenland is one of the best things that can happen on an airplane.

Thursday SDCC Panel

This is what I'll be up to on Thursday at Comic-Con:

12:30-1:30 Crime: Usual and Unusual— The heart of crime fiction is a crime committed against people or institutions—but the range of subgenres is diverse and fascinating. Panelists: Max Allan Collins (The Goliath Bone), Jeffrey J. Mariotte (Cold Black Hearts), Alexander Irvine (Buyout), Gregg Hurwitz (Trust No One), Thomas Greanias (The Atlantis Revelation), and Kat Richardson (Vanished) cover traditional mysteries, espionage, paranormal mystery, and more. Moderator: Maryelizabeth Hart, Mysterious Galaxy. Room 3

Signing to follow. The rest of the schedule is still shaping up. See you there.

New Story Up at Subterranean

My story "Eagleburger's Lawn," a comic meditation on weddings and our obsession with manicured grass, is now up at Subterranean. The issue also offers an interview by Joe Lansdale with two of his most famous fictional creations, Hap and Leonard. Check it out.

Free Sample of Mystery Hill from PS

Over at PS Publishing, there are a host of free samples, including one from Mystery Hill (which is expanded from the version that appeared in F&SF last year). SF Signal has the list of the other available samples. I'm off to check them out.

And by the way, I've got another novella coming from PS sometime next year (I think). It's called Mare Ultima, and is a substantial expansion of two stories from F&SF--"Wizard's Six" and "Dragon's Teeth" (the latter forthcoming).

New Initiatives at F&SF

Recently F&SF editor Gordon Van Gelder announced that the magazine is going to create an online workshop, run by Gardner Dozois, with the aim of nurturing new writers.

For the record, I think Gordon has taken a lot of undeserved heat about the number of new writers breaking into the magazine. (I would say that, though; my first sale, "Rossetti Song," was to F&SF, in 2000.) Even so, this workshop initiative might pay some interesting dividends. There's been some controversy over the fact that the workshop will charge to join, but do people think that everyone at the magazine (plus Gardner) is just going to donate time to run the whole thing?

Gordon also notes the magazine's new website address, fandsf.com -- if you go to the old one, apparently you'll find a fishing magazine.

Happy New Comics Day

Daredevil Noir #4 is out, concluding my dalliance with The Man Without Fear. These are the issue's two covers, by Tomm Coker and Dennis Calero. (Update: forgot to include this early (p)review by Comics Bulletin's Dave Wallace.)