Thought of the Day and Bad Astronomy

From David Mitchell, in the Guardian: "The media like nothing more than to be contrarian about their own manufactured consensus on which the paint is still not dry..." The best part is that he's talking about a survey in which women are alleged to have professed a preference for guys who are a little bit overweight and smell like beer. Casual brilliance, in the way that a newspaper column allows you to be casually brilliant if you are capable of it in the first place.

Also, if you're not stopping by the Bad Astronomy blog at Discover.com, you really should be.

Pynchon Sells Out

Not really. At least, Inherent Vice isn't any kind of sellout. I refer, of course, to the question of whether the great man himself broke his self-imposed silence by narrating this book trailer. I kind of hope he did.



The book is pretty good, I think. It traces a lot of the same trajectories as Vineland and Lot 49, but in a much less thinky way. It's almost as if Pynchon, in his seventies, has decided to leave the coming generations of readers with a book that will serve as a zippy, fun gateway drug leading to the rest of his oeuvre.

Comic Book Club

I regret and apologize for the lengthy hiatus. To get everyone back up to speed and encourage them to healthful activities tomorrow night, I will note that I am going to be the August 4 guest at the Comic Book Club at the Peoples Improv Theater in NYC, hosted by Alex Zalben, Justin Tyler, and Pete LePage. I'm not sure what I'm in for, but whatever it is will happen tomorrow, August 4th, in the evening, on 29th Street between 6th and 7th. Hope to see you there in the live audience that has the chance to pepper me with unanswerable questions in between the gibes and sallies of the show's hosts. Topics sure to arise include Daredevil Noir, Buyout, the writing of comic books, and an enrapturing blend of pop-cultural and comic-book-related conversational moments. If you've listened to the show's podcast, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, stop by tomorrow night or catch the podcast. See you there...

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.)

Dear Olympia Snowe

You are my favorite of my adopted state's two senators. This makes me bang my head on the desk when you say something like this:

In an Associated Press interview in Portland, Snowe said it would be unfair to include a government-run health insurance option that would take effect immediately.

"If you establish a public option at the forefront that goes head-to-head and competes with the private health insurance market ... the public option will have significant price advantages," she said.

See, an industry which has doubled its premiums over the last 10 years...



... while increasing profits by 428 percent and creating monopoly conditions for 94 percent of consumers maybe needs competition with a "price advantage" to keep it from ripping us off more than it already has.

Sincerely yours,

A constituent

(image from the WSJ online; quote clipped from the Baltimore Sun)