Buyout

My next novel, Buyout, the last sentences of which I am drafting more or less now, is already listed on Amazon even though it doesn't come out until March. Preorder it now, and then when you've forgotten all about it, the book will show up and pleasantly surprise you.

The book is a near-future noir with murders, skullduggery, and some thoughts about what an information society and an overtaxed ecosystem mean for the value (monetary and otherwise) of human life. I'm still formulating the perfect one-sentence encapsulation.

Edit: here's the cover!

If You Happen to Be in Bangor on Friday...

...make sure you check out River City Cinema's Perils of Peroxide festival.



First up, tomorrow night, is The Scarlet Empress. Oh, Marlene.

RIP Tom Disch and Tiger Stadium

Of all the obituaries coming out in the wake of Tom Disch's suicide, the New York Times version seems the most interesting, with a laudatory and evenhanded assessment of Disch's achievements in all of the various genres he tackled. It's not often you see an obit with quotes from David Pringle and Dana Gioia. When I was in grad school, a professor of mine suggested that we're more comfortable with heroes and geniuses when they're dead and we can offer our praise without worrying about what the subject of our adoration might have to say about it. Disch seems to be one more sad instance of that comfort. He was a writer's writer, that's for sure. I remember the way 334 and On Wings of Song blew me away when I was a teenager.

Another death to report, of no literary merit but deep personal relevance, is the passing of Tiger Stadium.



Actually, I guess there's a little literary relevance too, since I can't be the only person who has set scenes (in "Agent Provocateur" and The Narrows) in the old ballpark.

What Indiana Jones Should Have Been Searching For

Lost footage of Metropolis? Holy smokes.

Headed for Comic-Con

Just nailing down the arrangements to go to San Diego for the first time since 2004, when I was out there on a little tour ahead of the release of One King, One Soldier. I'll be on the following panel:

July 24th, 2008 5 – 6PM The Making of the Vertigo Encyclopedia (Karen Berger, Alastair Dougall, and Alex Irvine): Dig into the wealth of information DC Comics, VERTIGO, and DK Publishing have and find out how a comic book imprint’s encyclopedia is created. From getting the material, to organizing it and putting it out on the shelves. Get the down and dirty info from Karen Berger, Alastair Dougall, and Alex Irvine and watch the world premiere of the documentary The Making of the Vertigo Encyclopedia. Room 2!>>

Also I have set up a highly ambitious schedule of sipping beverages by the water and stuffing myself at the Brazilian meat restaurant.

Bloomsday, RIP Stan Winston

In honor of Bloomsday, I was all set to post a chipper set of links to stuff like audio of James Joyce reading, and then I heard that Stan Winston, makeup/creature/animatronic effects artist without peer, has died. (Notes from AICN, Slashfilm, and Bloody Disgusting). Not too many people did more to shape the look of our favorite monsters of the last couple of decades than him.

In other, more pleasant news: Psst! Supernatural fans! Look here!

The Tigers have won six in a row since losing Jeremy Bonderman for the season, and they're getting Rodney and Zumaya back this week. This thing isn't over yet.

Back to Bloomsday, one of my favorite Joyce-related pictures:

Continuing Memoir Backlash, Plus Acme!

Entertainment Weekly has a genuinely stupefying rundown of the metastasizing memoir industry over the past ten years or so. Why don't people just exorcise their personal demons and indulge their narcissism through autobiographical fiction, the way they used to?

And if you are a fan of Warner Brothers cartoons, which if you aren't you should be, this site is like a tour of the happiest laughs of your childhood. It also inspired me to go find Ian Frazier's hilarious story "Coyote Vs. Acme," which I can't recommend highly enough.

Oh yeah, and hooray for the rule of law.

More Mars Porn

...only of Earth this time, photographed by HiRISE from Mars. Click for a full-size version at NASA.

Vertigopedia, Hanif Kureishi, and Flannery O'Connor

Bully was at BEA, and took this picture of a spread from the Vertigopedia. Newsarama's blog noted it, and also pointed to Brian Wood, of (among other things) DMZ and Northlanders fame, saying nice things about the book.



And in another note: Hey, Hanif Kureishi, in this article you really come across like an asshole. And I say that as someone who loved The Buddha of Suburbia.

One of the things you notice is that when you switch on the television and a student has gone mad with a machine gun on a campus in America, it's always a writing student.

Wha? Exactly how often have students gone mad with machine guns on campuses? And why on earth would someone who purports to value teaching take a dump all over his students this way? One cannot help but be reminded of Flannery O'Connor's much cleverer take on the role of creative writing classes. "Everywhere I go," she said, "I'm asked if the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them."

1997, 1998, 2002, 2008...

I nearly died in the final seconds.

BoingBoing linked a little while ago to this page, which is chock-full of links to classic SF TV shows, and a few movies. Some awesome stuff, including Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot.

And here is a little note from ICv2 about the Vertigopedia.