Pat Rothfuss Rocks

Our friend Pat Rothfuss just had his debut book, The Name of the Wind, named as the best book of 2007 by The Onion’s AV Club. (http://www.avclub.com/content/feature/the_best_books_we_read_in_2007). That’s Best Book, not best SF Book. I highly recommend it. Pat was able to take all of the genre conventions of Epic Fantasy and somehow made them fresh again. His prose is also exquisite.

This goes along with his Quill Award. I suspect that more awards are coming.

I'm Resting

It’s been a while since I blogged, but not for bad reasons. I have actually been taking a break. I can’t remember the last time that Lynne, Caitlin, and I did this. We’ve just been luxuriating at home, watching TV, listening to music, and reading. I’m beginning to feel recharged.

Christmas was nice. The family got together in low-key fashion. Prezzies were exchanged, and all was well in the world.

Boxing day was spent with our friends Eric and Stephanie enjoying Bond films and the RiffTrax http://www.rifftrax.com/ version of Glitter. Much fun was had.

Fluid Links work was busy with many discussions between the writers and editor. I’ve also been doing a serious rethink of the last third of the novel. I think that I have fixed some problems, and I now have a solid outline for the last four chapters.

The Bears played well today, not that it matters.

The Cubs first spring training game is February 29.

Go Cubs!!!

Fukudome Fever, Catch It!!!

Just Finished Reading: Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
Currently Reading: Dragon Champion by E. E. Knight

Merry Christmas, Or Not

I just wanted to wish all of our friends a very Merry Christmas, unless you don’t celebrate Christmas or it offends you. Then just have a nice few days with friends and family, unless you hate your friends and family. Umm...Peace on Earth. Yeah, who can’t get behind that? May there be Peace on Earth.

I do want to thank all of you for being such good friends to us this year. There was a point in our lives when it seemed like certain issues would make it impossible to socialize and meet people. Lynne and I feel so lucky that our lives remain full and rich. We are the richest family in Bedford Falls.

Happy Life Day!

May the Force be with you. Always.

The Six Greatest Christmas TV Episodes for Geeks

6- The Venture Brothers- “A Very Venture Christmas”
Eleven minutes of brilliance. Like the series, it somehow mashes up everything pop culture while never feeling like a mere parody show.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_Venture_Christmas

5- Xena: Warrior Princess- “A Solstice Carol”
It’s just a lot of cheeky Xena fun as all of our modern tropes are transported into Xena’s mythic Greece.
http://www.whoosh.org/epguide/solstice.html

4- The Avengers- “Too Many Christmas Trees”
Rarely in cult television is the Christmas episode one of the best episodes of the series (note the lack of Buffy and Angel on this list). This is one of the greatest Avengers episodes ever. It’s fun and creepy. Steed gets great lines, and Emma gets to beat people up. There’s even a great Honor Blackman joke.
http://theavengers.tv/forever/peel1-13.htm

3- “A Charlie Brown Christmas”
It’s still smart, cynical, funny, and topical. We always dance to “Linus and Lucy.” Lynne and I still know every line.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Charlie_Brown_Christmas

2- Doctor Who- “The Christmas Invasion”
Brilliant. One of the strongest introductory episodes for a Doctor ever. David Tennant is marvelous, and Billie Piper is exquisite. It’s funny, exciting, and full of Christmassy goodness.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/episodes/2005/christmasinvasion.shtml

1- “A Muppet Family Christmas”
This is Christmas. Everything Jim Henson brought together in one fantastic special. Kermit and Robin meet the Fraggles! Big Bird meets the Swedish Chef! Christmas music and laughs throughout. It is a perfect special. I dare you not to tear up when Jim Henson shows up at the end.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Muppet_Family_Christmas

Caitlin's Week Before Christmas

It’s been a challenging parenting week. Much of this is in Lynne’s blog. It started with Caitlin developing blisters on her left foot. This is, of course, not a good thing. This meant that Cait and I had to run out to her orthotic shop to get some alterations done to her Ankle Foot Orthotics (they’re like braces). So, Thursday night we ran out to the joint, which is just south of Fox Valley Mall on Route 59 during the peak of holiday shopping. It was not fun.

The worst part, however, was the massive fog that has been blanketing our area as the snow melts on the corn/soy fields. It is never fun driving at night on a rural expressway with 30 feet of visibility. The important thing is that Caitlin’s foot should be fine now.

Yesterday Caitlin finally had a big seizure. I still see this as a big win. She was almost two months seizure free. Considering that she was having two massive spasms a day during the summer, this is still a good thing. Of course, giving your five-year-old child rectal valium because she won’t stop seizing is never fun.

Caitlin is also cutting some rear molars. This has given her some bouts of crying all week. Lynne is off to get more Tylenol suppositories for her, which should help. Unfortunately, it’s all she can take.

On the plus side, she is very excited by the whole Santa thing. We’ve also had a relaxing week together as a family. The shopping was pretty much done days ago. It’s really just been a few days of hanging out watching TV.

Argentus Is Out

Steven H Silver’s Argentus Issue 7 is out. My article on Doctor Who continuity, 1963 and All That: A Look at Doctor Who Continuity, is in there. There’s a lot of good stuff in this fanzine. It’s worth reading if only for Mike Resnick’s piece about his friendship with Anton LaVey.
http://efanzines.com/Argentus/Ag07.pdf

Writers:
Matthew Appleton
Georges Dodds
Richard Horton
Howard Andrew Jones
Fred Lerner
James D. Nicoll
John O’Neill
Mike Resnick
Peter Sands
Steven H Silver
Allen Steele
Michael D. Thomas

Artists:
Sheryl Birkhead
Brad Foster
Deb Kosiba
Rotsler
Taral Wayne

Best Christmas Song Ever

I never get tired of this.

Friday!

Life at thirty-three is not all that different from life at thirty-two. Things more or less returned to normal by the middle of the week. Now it’s just cold with no rain, ice storms, or school closings.

Caitlin had a good week. She went “wandering” at school on Thursday and visited the office with her aide. The highlight was Caitlin standing at the main counter for a few minutes while blowing kisses to the staff. Her standing is really improving. Now she just needs to become more consistent with her walking.

I got some writing done this week, but less than I would have liked. I’ve been wrestling with a character. I just don’t get him yet. He plays some vital functions in the plot, but his motivations are still murky to me. It’s a good thing that writing becomes a piece of cake with experience (“Hah!” laughs all of my pro friends). I’m not sure if it helps or not to know that the self-doubt and difficulties never end.

The holidays are on schedule for a change. The decorations have been up for a couple of weeks, the cards were mailed yesterday, and Santa is finished. Lynne and I are even done shopping for each other. Hopefully all of our Internet purchases will make it on time. All that’s left is buying for my family.

We’ve started watching Flight of the Conchords (one of my birthday gifts). It’s as good as the hype. I can’t remember laughing that hard at a television show.

Our copy of Jackie Kessler’s Hell’s Belles finally arrived from Amazon. Lynne got first dibs. I’m still reading Goblin Quest by Jim Hines. It’s wonderful. I’ve decided that I want to play in a D&D game that Jim DMs.

More Bad Weather

It’s been a weird few days. If it wasn’t for the never-ending bad weather, they would have been great. Unfortunately, we are getting hit again with ice and precipitation. It’s frustrating for a variety of reasons. This first involves some stuff that I can’t publicly rant about involving something that should have been done by others months ago, but hasn’t been done for reasons that are pathetic.

The second is that our life has ground to a halt. Yesterday, Lynne was home due to weather and a threat scare at NIU. Today, Caitlin is home because school was cancelled. It’s really thrown off my routines. I was able to get some writing done this morning, but I need some time alone at Panera to bang out this next chapter. I just can’t write and take care of Caitlin at the same time.

The plus about all of these bad weather days is that we caught up on our reading and DVD viewing. I was very impressed with Blackpool. The scripts were fun, and the acting was amazing. We also polished off the first season of Heroes. It was fantastic, though I do believe that Chris Claremont is owed a check for the future jaunt in the final episodes.

I have also polished off A Clash of Kings. George R.R. Martin continues to be full of genius. He pulled off bunches of tricks that I doubt that I will ever be skilled enough to manage as a writer. It’s amazing how he juggled all of the POV characters. He made it seem like not a word was wasted in a book that was over 700 pages long. I doubt that I could get more than 400 pages out of that plot.

Just Finished Reading: See above
Currently Reading: Goblin Quest by Jim Hines

My Birthday

Today I am thirty-three. It’s one of those anticlimactic birthday ages. I don’t feel particularly old or young.

We have light plans for the day. The original plan was seeing folk artist Carrie Newcomer in Bloomington tonight. Lynne received these tickets two months ago from our super-awesome friends Sarah and David for her birthday. Unfortunately, they’re predicting another ice storm tonight. We’ve decided not to risk the 4 hours of driving on rural expressways during bad weather. After losing our friend Tara this year in a bad weather accident, we’ve become extra cautious.

It’s likely that Plan B will be a trip to the movies to see The Golden Compass. We both just read it for our library’s SF reading club, so we’re obviously interested in how it translated to the screen. It’s also pretty rare that we get out to see a movie.

My gift from my daughter came yesterday. She got me the Doctor Who Utopia action figure set. I now have a Derek Jacoby action figure, and that is, as the kids say, made of win.

My Daughter, the Fartiste

Blogging by the light of my Christmas tree...

Writing got cut short today. Little miss Caitlin had a gas bubble at school. After 45 minutes of crying, they decided that it was best for her to come home. A couple of rainbow farts later (TM Jim Hines), she is happy and singing. It would seem that she is getting her father’s bad attitude about going to school.

I did finish writing a tough chapter. I spent much of it reminding myself that I can fix things in the revision. The next chapter isn’t shaping up to be much easier. I really need to revisit my outline to figure a few things out. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m introducing a character a little too late in the novel. I may have to add some stuff to the earlier chapters to fix this.

I have been asked to be part of another MNP author’s brain trust for their sekrit project. I am very honored. People are going to be giddy about this project. It’s a book idea that I had thought about proposing, but this person is in a much better position to write it. There are also some people in the brain trust that I’ve admired for years, so it is very neat to be a part of these discussions.

More Fluid Links

Here is today’s official announcement from Mad Norwegian Press:
http://www.madnorwegian.com/news/news.php?id=219

Mad Norwegian Press has announced two new projects for release later in 2008: a Second Edition of About Time 3, and the debut of Fluid Links --- a brand-new Doctor Who novel / audio guidebook series that will entirely replace the company's debut I, Who guides.
In the Second Edition of About Time 3, Tat Wood vastly expands the discussion of the Jon Pertwee Era, bringing this About Time installment up to the size and elaborate depth of its fellows. Lawrence Miles, a co-author on the First Edition, will receive a "With Additional Material by" credit, as his text has either been left as is, or folded into the many revisions and additions of the new edition.
New essays in this Second Edition will include “What the Hell Were the Daemons Doing?”, “Where Were Torchwood When All This Was Happening?” and “Is This Any Way to Run a Galactic Empire?” At present, Mad Norwegian has no plans to do Second Editions of the other About Time volumes.
Meanwhile, the multi-volume Fluid Links is designed to benefit from the experience Mad Norwegian has gained since first releasing I, Who back in 1999. The series will start from scratch and vigorously examine the Doctor Who books and audios in lavish, comprehensive detail. This project is so sweeping that it has four authors (Lars Pearson, Robert Smith?, Michael D. Thomas and Anthony Wilson), and strives to become the definitive guidebooks to the material in question.
MNP Publisher Lars Pearson said: "I, Who served a purpose back in 1999, but it was done when I was new to the world of small-press publishing, and doesn't reflect the quality we've attained in recent years with the likes of About Time and AHistory. Unfortunately, it would've killed me to go through all those books again solo --- it's a LOT of material, after all --- so Robert, Michael and Anthony duly stepped up to the plate."
The initial Fluid Links installments (likely two volumes) will cover the whole of the BBC's Eighth Doctor Adventures - from its inception in The Eight Doctors straight through to its conclusion in The Gallifrey Chronicles. Essays in these volumes will include "How Much Occurs in the Vampire Science Gap?", "Is There Any Point to Parallel Universes?", and "Was Miranda the Doctor's Biological Daughter?"
Release months and retail prices for the new About Time 3 and the first Fluid Links books will be disclosed at a later time.