PHXCC 2015: Ann Leckie Spotlight Panel

At last, some of my coverage from Phoenix Comicon 2015 appears on the blog! It was great fun this year, with lots of amazing author panels and signings, and some time left over for people watching and exploring the dealer’s hall. I was super, super psyched to go to Ann Leckie’s spotlight panel, as I had recently started her Imperial Radch series. I hadn’t yet finished the first book, Ancillary Justice, at the time, but it was a calculated risk between going there and possibly perhaps maybe getting a little spoiled, and going there and learning all kinds of neat things about the books and her writing. In the end (as if there had ever been any question!), the chance to hear all the cool stuff she had to say won out. We were a fairly small group at the panel, which made it nice and cozy, and pretty much everyone who wanted to ask a question had a chance to do so (even me!). As usual, I did my best with transcription of the audio, and hope you enjoy this taste of what went down at the panel!

A random smattering of interesting topics, tidbits, and happenings during the panel:

• A story (that no one could state with certainty was true) that C.J. Cherryh’s publishers made her put an “h” on the end of her name because they thought no one would buy a sci-fi novel from a woman named Cherry
• Lots of interesting information about what a rodman does on a surveying crew, which was a previous job of Ms. Leckie’s
• The lesson that one should make sure they’re not holding a machete in the hand that they’re using to swat a horsefly that has landed on their body
• Discussion of Breq as an unreliable narrator when it comes to herself
• Jack Vance as a writer of gorgeous visual stuff—Ms. Leckie read a lot of Vance because she wanted to learn how to create good visuals in her work
• Historical smuggling of tea out of China
• Learning that it took her almost 10 years to write Ancillary Justice

And now for some of the questions she fielded during the panel that I found particularly interesting (and spoiler-free, for anyone who hasn’t read the books yet!).

Audience Member: Can you talk about the origins of the Ancillary series?

Ann Leckie: Basically, it was me putting shiny stuff together. I was one of those people who always wanted to be a writer from when I was quite young, but I never felt like any of my ideas were any good, or any of what I was doing was any good. Shortly after college I actually sold a story to True Confessions—which does not give you a byline, so that doesn’t count—not because I liked True Confessions—and this was an important lesson. I said, “Well, I want to write, but I don’t know what to write,” so I went to the drugstore and I got six dozen—the company had like 40 million different versions—there was True Love, and True Romance, and True Confessions, and True This and True That. I bought armfuls of these, and I read them until my eyes bled. And just whatever I flopped down on the paper was the story and I sent it in and they bought it. And I said, “Oh my gosh, I can actually do this. So, now write another one.” And I was like, “…no. It would not be worth it.” Even if they bought it. Because I really hated doing that. I hated reading them. I hated writing it. I’m never going to do that again. So then I didn’t write anything for a very long time.

Then in about 2002, I had smallish kids and I was home, because I had discovered very quickly after having kids that with the low paying jobs I was working—rodmen do not make a lot of money—I would be paying to go to work, what with childcare. So I was home, but I was just incredibly bored. I love my kids, they’re marvelous, and I would not trade them for anything. When they were one and a half they were not very intellectually stimulating. And so I said I need to do something. I’d heard about NaNoWriMo, and I said, “I’ll do NaNoWriMo, and I’ve got all these shiny things!” Because that’s what you do when you don’t have much else to think about—you put these shiny things together. So I sat down, and by then I already had the basic idea for Ancillary Justice, but I didn’t think I could write it because writing from the point of view of that particular character seemed impossible. I didn’t think I could do it. So, I wrote around the edges of that novel. I finished it and I said, “Well, this isn’t half bad. I’m going to revise it and send it out.” I sent it around to a number of different places, sent it around to some agents, and of course nobody took it. I am now eternally grateful that nobody bought it. Looking back on it now, it really wasn’t very good, which was another important lesson. I wrote a sequel to that novel just because next year’s NaNoWriMo came around. And then I said no, I’m going to do short fiction. So I did short fiction for 7, 8 years, I think. Then finally, I said okay, I’m going to sit down and I’m going to try and write the point of view from this particular character and just see what happens. What’s the worst that could happen? I waste the time and it goes in the drawer with the other two novels. That didn’t kill me. So that’s pretty much where that came from.

Audience Member: What was it like to win the Hugo?

Ann Leckie: Really surreal. Very strange. I strongly suspect that most science fiction and fantasy writers have a secret grandiose fantasy of winning the Hugo, and I suspect that most of us then say to ourselves, “Yeah, right. Now back to work.” Because, no. Lightning will strike first, right? So you always have that—you’re all alone, fantasizing being up on the stage giving a speech or whatever, and then you’re like, no. It’s not going to happen. So when it actually happened, I was lucky not to faint on the way up to the stage. I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to happen, in fact. I was pretty sure Wheel of Time was going to win. […] It still seems weird. But I can look at my mantle at home and there they are, so they must’ve really happened!

Audience Member: There was something in Ancillary Justice that I really enjoyed, and I was wondering if it was influenced by some of the Golden Age science fiction. In the beginning there’s a lot of mind wipe that was often used extensively within the Golden Age of science fiction to indicate that someone had their mind taken away, but they were still alive, still a person. I liked how in Ancillary Justice that you dealt with the overlay—what it does to what was there before, and the fact that even though physically they look the same, basically it’s a death of the personality.

Ann Leckie: Once I had the thought of the character with multiple bodies, then I said, “Well, what are the implications of that? What is there to play with there?” I started to look into the neurological basis of identity, which is really creepy when you read too much about it. If you have the right kind of brain damage, you will think you do not exist. If you have the right kind of brain damage, you can think you’re dead. Walking around—no, I’m dead, I’m not actually here. There was—I don’t remember her name, but she wrote a book, and she had what was probably a stroke. She died fairly young of a stroke, probably a series of strokes I suspect—where first she suddenly one day felt that she had been displaced out of her body and was following herself around. Eventually that came to a point where she believed she did not exist. She was like, “I know this body’s walking around, but there is no ‘me’ inside here. I’m talking to you, but there’s no ‘I.’” It was really distressing to her, and eventually she came to a settlement with herself about it by framing it as the sort of enlightenment of Buddhism, where the goal is to lose yourself. She felt more comfortable with the situation she was in after that.

That was really an interesting thing to read. It was pretty clear that she was having some neurological things and having to deal with them, and I’m like—you know, we kind of feel like “I’m me” is common sense, like I stop at my body and I am who I am. But it’s so fragile. It’s so subject to these tiny little physical changes that maybe we don’t have any control over. We don’t have any control over whether we’re going to have a stroke, or a particular kind of head injury.

The other one that I already sort of knew about, but read some more about was the two hemispheres of the brain. Most of the communication between them is handled by the corpus callosum between the two halves. In people who have really severe epilepsy, sometimes the only thing you can do to keep that from killing them is to actually sever that connection between the two hemispheres of the brain. Most of the time they do pretty well afterwards and it saves their lives. But if you do a thing where you put headphones on them and, say, goggles, and you show a picture to one eye and say something in the one ear, and then say, “Pick up whatever I’m showing you,” each hand will do a different thing, depending. And it’s very clear that the two halves of the brain aren’t communicating with each other and are responding to different things. It’s almost as though you’re talking to two different people. But if you talk to the person, they don’t experience themself as two different people. And so the more I looked into these things, the more kind of creepy it was, the idea that we know who we are, but do we really know who we are, or is that just a function of how our brains are working, and how fragile all of that is? So that was a lot of what I was thinking about when I was thinking, you know you kill that person—it’s actually very easy to do that, if you hit the right spot in somebody’s brain.

Audience Member: Can you talk about how you came up with the treatment of gender in the Radch? It felt very unique, something I hadn’t seen before.

Ann Leckie: That was something that, very naively, very early on, I said to myself, “I want to write a society that really does not care about gender. Genuinely does not.” And in that first novel that I wrote for NaNoWriMo I tried to do that. I assigned genders to people and I used the pronouns that seemed appropriate for those genders, and was really unhappy with the result because what I could see happening was that I was slotting people into particular kinds of roles based on gender. And I was like, “This is not really getting across the idea of not caring about gender.” There was a short story I wrote that thankfully has never sold, where I used “he” for everybody, and I was really unhappy with the result of that. And so I kind of began to poke around at ways to do that.

At this point I had not read The Left Hand of Darkness, which I probably should have read earlier in my science fiction career, but I did know that Le Guin had used “he” for everybody in that book, and that later on, years later, she had kind of regretted that. Although I suspect, as is often the case, in hindsight you think you could’ve made another choice, but I don’t doubt that she made what was the best choice possible at the time. That she genuinely felt at the time that that was the way to go. And so I said, what if I use “she?” I briefly considered using “they,” but when you’ve got characters who have thousands of bodies, using “they” introduces an ambiguity—normally, there’s nothing wrong with singular they, right? But we only have one body each and there’s no question about the plural thing. I also considered a number of the newer genderless pronouns, which are really cool and I really kind of hope that some of them get used more often because I think there is really a need for that. I felt like that was not going to work for the project, that it would be even more distancing than playing with the pronouns to begin with. Whether that was the best choice possible I don’t know. I made the choice that seemed most appropriate to me. So I said, well, what if I just use “she,” and what if I treat it like it’s being translated out of this language with no gendered pronouns? The confusing thing for some folks is then when they’re speaking another language, to use the gendered pronouns. So it was really just a matter of trying to get that first idea, and then playing around with ways to get it.

Same Audience Member: And then treating the characters—they don’t care about gender, not giving them attributes or forcing them into certain roles.

Ann Leckie: Yeah, and that was tricky. In fact, in the first draft of the first chapters of Ancillary Justice, I did assign genders to some of the characters. And then I found when I went back and just overlaid “she,” that it had a really interesting effect because it did kind of change the way that I was looking at those characters. So I thought that was really kind of interesting.

Audience Member: Can you speak about the religious system [in the Radch books]?

Ann Leckie: I am an atheist myself, but I find religion really fascinating as a human activity. I am not one of the folks who—occasionally I’ll run across somebody who’ll say, “Of course, once we’re all sufficiently educated, we’ll evolve beyond religion.” I don’t think that’s happening. I don’t think it’s going to happen. So I wanted to treat religion seriously, and I wanted it to have a place in the cultures I was making up. But I also didn’t want for whatever I was designing to be basically thinly-veiled Christianity, which happens very frequently. There are reasons why that happens, and that’s perfectly promulent. That’s cool. But I didn’t want that. And I said, well, it would be interesting to have a polytheistic, multi-god situation going on. I think because Christianity and Judaism and Islam, which are all very closely related religions, are so popular and so dominant in this country and in our culture, we tend to think of religion as working the way that particular kind of monotheism works. But in fact the actual variety of existing religions, existing now and historically, is much wider.

Well, okay, what if I look seriously at polytheism—how would that maybe work? And that’s one of the areas actually where I did pretty explicitly look at the Romans. Who, not alone in this, were in the habit of saying, “Oh, this is your local god, well obviously—because we know our gods are real, so obviously this is just Minerva in another guise. This is obviously Jove with a different name.” And so I said, “Well, that could kind of work.” And it worked well for the Romans, politically as well as religiously. I was also kind of interested in the contracts between [people and their gods]. We tend to think of religion as something that’s about faith, that’s about “you believe a particular fixed doctrine.” With the Romans…not so much. Some things were just obviously true, and if you behaved properly, then the gods would behave properly in their turn. If you did the right thing…if you didn’t do the right thing, you were in trouble, and then you would try and figure out what you’d done that was wrong. Some of that religious stuff was very contractual—it was kind of interesting, saying, “Well, if I give you exactly this thing, then you will give me this thing back, right? That’s our deal, right?” And so I was sort of intrigued by that. I was modeling it on that style of polytheism. And I said, well, realistically also, it worked for a large empire. It worked very well for a large empire for quite a long time. So yeah, that was kind of what I was thinking about with that. I was trying to take that idea seriously.

Same Audience Member: But it seems like the main character is not a believer.

Ann Leckie: No, she’s not. She isn’t. And not everybody is. Sometimes I get frustrated with the way that we often sort of reflexively talk about, in particular Greek and Roman religion, as though it was obviously just superstition and meaningless, and Christianity came in and obviously superseded it because it was so much better. It wasn’t “superstition, and now religious people have real faith and a real god”—no, that system meant a lot to the people who lived it. It was deeply important to them. Serious thinkers thought seriously about what the implications of the beliefs were. There were of course people who were superstitious, and there are people who are superstitious now. There had to have been, because people are people, as wide a variety of attitudes towards religion 2000 years ago as there is now. So you’re going to get people who are like, yeah, I don’t really believe any of it, but I’m not going to say anything because otherwise I’ll really get in trouble. You’re going to have people who fervently have mystical experiences and feel like they have some kind of personal relationship with God or with gods, and everything in between. You’re going to have that because people are people.

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Awesome, right? Those were some of the panel questions that I found to be really interesting, and all in all it was a very thought-provoking panel! I also got my copy of Ancillary Justice signed by Ms. Leckie during the con, yay! She was so kind when I was talking to her, and gave me a fantastic Awn Elming pin! I love things like that that bring the fictional reality into our reality. I took the opportunity to ask her if she was a big language/linguistics nerd, because I’d gotten that impression from the book (for the record, she said she was more of a dabbler!). Lots of fun, and I found myself finishing Ancillary Justice a couple days later. Now on to Ancillary Sword!

Phoenix Comicon 2014: “Writing Rogues” Panel Report

“Writing Rogues” was the final panel I attended at this year’s Phoenix Comicon, and it was definitely a high note to end on. The lineup of author panelists was stellar, with Jim Butcher, Kevin Hearne, Patrick Rothfuss, Pierce Brown, Sam Sykes, and Scott Lynch all present to discuss rogues in literature with each other, the audience, and the moderator. The panel blurb went like this: “Kvothe, Harry, Atticus, Locke, Darrow, and Lenk are their names. Meet the writers who created these rogues.” In case you’re unfamiliar with these authors and their work, the author/protagonist-and-alleged-rogue match up is…Rothfuss/Kvothe (The Kingkiller Chronicle series), Butcher/Harry Dresden (The Dresden Files series), Hearne/Atticus (The Iron Druid Chronicles), Lynch/Locke (The Gentleman Bastard series), Brown/Darrow (the Red Rising trilogy), and Sykes/Lenk (The Aeons’ Gate trilogy). With regards to that “alleged”…there was a little discussion of whether or not some of these characters truly are rogues, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. This was probably my favorite panel I attended during the whole convention! It felt kind of like those really good classes in college—you know, the ones where the discussion was always lively, you really felt like you were learning things and contributing to the dialogue, and left each session with a little fire in your brain and belly. Did you have classes like that? I had a couple, and felt really lucky to be a part of them. I’m digressing a bit, but that’s kind of what this panel was like—the conversation got into some deep, potentially sensitive territory, and I was impressed by the authors’ attitudes and their handling of the subject matter. Intellectual and geeky and respectful and so awesome!

Sam Sykes and Scott Lynch were the first to arrive, soon joined by Kevin Hearne.

As I entered the room, found a seat, and read the panel description in my guide, my first thought was, “Huh. There are no women on this panel.” (This comes up again later, which is why I make a point of mentioning it here.) As we waited for the other panelists to get there, Sam Sykes and Scott Lynch talked back and forth a bit, and Scott made a joke about how terrible it was that we’re at a panel about rogues, but were all so punctual. The other authors soon began to file in, and the panel got under way. Even before it had really started, though, Scott Lynch had us laughing some more when he told us about how at the Drinks With Authors event the night before, someone had mistaken him for Jim Butcher and began gushing to him about how much they loved the Dresden Files. Oops! They’ve both got long hair and glasses, so I guess I can see how it might happen… XD

Authors assemble! Left to right: Pat Rothfuss, Jim Butcher, Pierce Brown, Sam Sykes, Scott Lynch, Kevin Hearne, and our moderator (whose name I did not catch).

The moderator introduced all the authors and their books, and then brought up an interesting point to get the conversation started: “The name of the panel is ‘Writing Rogues’ and I’m not entirely sure why. A lot of your characters are beloved, and I’m not sure I’d qualify them as rogues. But I’m going to go with the theme, because I work in programming and programming tells me what to do. So, across literature, television, and books, everybody seems to like that roguish character. Not truly evil, but for lack of a better phrase, an SOB—but they also have those lovable qualities. Is that easy, or more difficult, to write? To keep them in that grey area, and not true black or white?”

Pat Rothfuss: I think it’s more of a return to basics. At some point, we forgot what the Greeks knew really well—that a good hero had flaws. And then at some point our heroes stopped having flaws, and when that happens, you need an external conflict generator, which is a villain, typically. And who’s really interesting? The villains are the interesting ones. When I was thinking of this character [Kvothe, I assume?], I’m like, ‘He should be a little bit of an arrogant bastard.’ And it’s charming, in a way.

Pierce Brown: Is that easy for you to write? Arrogant bastard? [much laughter from audience] Oh, sorry, Scalzi’s not here. [even more laughter] …I hope he doesn’t hear about that. [or something to that effect]

Rothfuss: I think it’s not so much a different thing…I think in some ways it’s a lot easier. I mean, Superman is fine and good, but who gets tired of Superman? Right? It’s like, goddamn Superman… Who likes Batman? [cheering from audience] Good internal flaw—it’s the classic flaw, it’s hubris. And there’s a reason it’s a great flaw—that really complicates your life, it complicates your story. It can kinda write itself. Except it really doesn’t actually write itself…

Sam Sykes: I think it’s also that it’s harder and harder to relate to the idea of someone not driven at least in a large part by self-interest. And I wouldn’t necessarily describe a rogue as a jerk or an SOB, but comparatively…yeah, they are kind of jerks, but I would classify a rogue as driven in no small part by self-interest. Like Han Solo—not necessarily a dick, but he clearly was not in it for the rebellion or the Force, just looking to get some. [laughter] Trapped on a ship with a wookie for awhile, anything else looks pretty good. I would say that it’s easier for people to identify that self-interest, and I think the appeal of it is not necessarily ‘Oh, you lovable bastard,’ but looking at what that rogue did and saying, ‘Ahh…I might’ve done the same thing, and that’s interesting.’

Pierce Brown: A lot of time I look at heroes from the past and sometimes I feel like they’re shaped more by what’s around them—they’re forced to do things, either good or bad, and they’re forced to do them. But I think the characters with agency are the ones that are interesting to me. Like Han Solo always had his own moral compass. He decided what he wanted to do and he did it. That’s more interesting for me because it creates that air of unpredictability, but also believability, because we do what we want to do. If we want to eat a Snickers bar, we eat the Snickers bar. At least I do. The point is basically that rogues are that unpredictable factor which makes stories so much more interesting than the cookie cutter King Arthur. Although, if you look at the classic King Arthur tale, he’s kind of an asshole as well. And it creates that interesting human layer which makes that story span a thousand years in our consciousness.

Scott Lynch: It’s difficult to get emotionally riled up about somebody for whom being good and decent is a persistent, easy attainment, something that’s always intrinsic to them and never goes away. Because for those of us living in actual reality, being decent human beings is a matter of making decision after decision, situation after situation—it’s something to aspire to. It’s not something you just automatically have, as a parity of virtue. Parities of virtue are very boring. People trying to be virtuous in the face of life itself are interesting. Rogues just bring a little bit more of that to the foreground. They’re just a little bit grayer than your average hero.

Phoenix Comicon 2014: Panel Salad

And now for a roundup of some of the other bookish-and-author-y things that went down at Phoenix Comicon last month! Jeez, was that really a month ago? I need to get a move on, little doggie, and finish up these reports. Probably only one or two more after this one, so I’ve been making progress! Anyway—rather than my traditional transcription of Q&As and other dialogue from panels, I think these ones are better served by the summary/bulleted list approach, supported by a healthy smattering of photos and other people’s YouTube videos to further enhance your vicarious PHXCC experience. What say you??! I say let’s check out…

Authors Being Silly

The Taco Council

After my enjoyment of the Author Chair Dancing Panel at last year’s comicon, I made a point of fitting into my schedule this year’s apparent analog, The Taco Council Panel. Blurb as follows: “The Taco Council convenes to give its mandates and rulings for 2014. Really, hang out with some awesome authors while they hang out with each other.” I knew not this Taco Council of which they spoke, but it sounded like fun silliness, and I’m always looking for more silliness in my life.

The Council speaketh

The author-panelists from left to right are Leanna Renee Hieber, Sam Sykes, Delilah Dawson, Chuck Wendig, Kevin Hearne, Brian McClellan, and Jason Hough. The panel did end up being similar to last year’s in that it featured a bunch of authors who are prominent on Twitter/spend a lot of time talking to each other there/are possessed of awesomely goofy senses of humor, and that the focus was not strictly on their books and writing. But whereas last year was kind of a free-for-all with wide-ranging topics and tangents, this year was focused on their latest project, the Holy Taco Church. What is a Holy Taco Church, you ask? Well, handily enough, I have this helpful flyer to show you:

But no, it’s not just a flyer—they have an actual website, too! Turns out it’s a place for them to talk about food, share recipes, and have some information about their upcoming books. Of course, with this here blog of similar interests (reading and eating really do go hand in hand after all, or more often, hand-in-bag-of-chips-and-then-on-book-leaving-a-greasy-fingerprint), this is something I am totally down with. The panel mostly consisted of them talking about what the Holy Taco Church is and giving silly and hilariously deadpan serious answers to silly questions from the audience. Half the reason the panel was so fun was because the audience was completely willing to go down this rabbit hole of Mexican food madness and bookish fun with them! A smattering of topics that came up:

• Dr. Pepper carnitas
• Whether or not a Choco Taco counts as a true taco
• What the Taco Church’s gesture of benediction should be
• The dictation of a churro recipe from author Beth Cato (it now appears on the site here)
• The Taco Church’s conception of the apocalypse
• Taco vs. Burrito
• Holy days on the Taco Church calendar

It was fun to hang out with these guys for an hour and join them in the silliness of the Church and the coolness of the website. (I’m going to be making those churro bites for sure!)

The Author Batsu Game Panel

Similar in tone and craziness was the Batsu Game panel, advertised thusly: “Join Sam Sykes and a group of author friends for a rollicking good time. Batsu is a type of Japanese game show where contestants are given a challenge—and punished if they fail to complete it.” I remember my junior high students in Japan always asking me if it was a batsu game when I told them I had a game planned for class, so this was particularly amusing to me. The potential for hilarity here seemed pretty high, especially with John Scalzi and Pat Rothfuss involved. The other authors who unwittingly got themselves into this were Aprilynne Pike, Delilah Dawson, Leanna Renee Hieber, Myke Cole, and Chuck Wendig, with Sam Sykes on board to run the show.

Left to right: Myke Cole, Chuck Wendig, John Scalzi, Delilah Dawson, Pat Rothfuss, & Leanna Renee Hieber, with Sam Sykes running things in the red jacket.

What it came down to was this: The only rule was not to laugh. If you laughed, you had to eat a spoonful of salsa. Every time you laughed, you had to eat a spoonful of salsa. With Sam Sykes pulling out all sorts of tactics, from reading humorous essays to making someone wear a Gandalf hat, following the One Rule was easier said than done. Predictably, John Scalzi was the first to cave and burst out laughing, and all the other authors fell in turn. The women held out for quite awhile, especially Aprilynne Pike, but everyone laughed eventually and had to pay the price. For the audience, the enjoyment of this was definitely rooted in schadenfreude—cackle at the misfortune of those being forced to consume straight spoonfuls of spicy salsa!!! Seeing how we the audience showed no mercy in condemning those on the panel whose smile may or may not have been an actual laugh to a dose of salsa, it’s easy to see how that whole gladiator thing happened in Rome. Some things that happened:

• Making authors write the sexiest sentence they could think of, and then Sam reading them out loud
• Pat Rothfuss eating a paper napkin
• Myke Cole showing an astonishingly low tolerance for capsaicin
• Myke Cole possibly, uh, ridding his stomach of salsa into that blue bucket you see in the photo
• Rothfuss being forced to wear a wizard hat, with the penalty for removing it being a shot of salsa
• Scalzi texting his wife to bring him a glass of milk
• Scalzi’s wife actually bringing him a glass of milk

The hat was eventually transferred from Rothfuss to Scalzi.

This is merely a sampling of the shenanigans perpetrated at this panel. I had hoped someone out there recorded the whole panel to put on YouTube, but I could only find this short clip. Here it is for your enjoyment, to give you a little taste of the madness (and thanks to Rachel Thompson for uploading it!):

Nighttime Revels

The Paul & Storm Concert

On Friday night, after a full-to-the-brim and rather exhausting day, we trekked to the huge North Ballroom to attend the Paul & Storm concert. We knew Scalzi and Rothfuss were going to be part of it, and had heard rumors that Seanan McGuire and possibly others would make appearances, too.

This astonishingly blurry photo gives a good impression of our state of mind at this point in the day—woozy, a bit out of it, unable to focus , but still able to appreciate pretty bright colors.

To give our poor aching feet a rest, we arrived early, got pretty good seats, and had the pleasure of watching Paul & Storm do the soundcheck and get all the equipment squared away. They were cracking me up even when they weren’t technically performing yet! I can’t quite remember how exactly it came about, but I think Storm joked about it being the Celebrity Cheese Panel, which led to many more cheese-related jokes throughout the pre-show setup. It was asserted, among other things, that George R.R. Martin loves gruyère, and that Seanan McGuire is a fan of cheddar so sharp it can cut you.

The Celebrity Cheese Panel getting ready. (Paul on the left, Storm on the right with the guitar.)

Scalzi was also wandering around the stage a bit during this time, which made this awesome moment of a mini The Cure singalong possible:

Scalzi retweeted this photo and posted it on his blog, which very nerdily made my day!

It was a real bonding moment between the performers and the audience. (That’s Amber Benson, Paul, and Scalzi up there.)

John Scalzi started the shindig off as the opening act, making his first-ever go of public stand up comedy. Pretty much every panel of his I’ve attended or book of his that I’ve read has made me laugh A LOT a lot, and his premiere stand up performance was no different. Maybe not Scalzi at his absolute, punchiest best, but pretty damn good for his first ever foray into stand up, I’d say! Following that, he and Amber Benson (y’know Tara from Buffy, and an author in her own right) performed a script he’d written called “Denise Jones, Super Booker,” in which a man interviews this Denise Jones about her work as the Super Hero Booking Coordinator for the International Society of Super-Beings, wherein she helps cities under attack book superheroes to help them out of whatever nasty situation they find themselves in. You can check out both amusing parts of this opening act in this video posted by Transmatrix:

They were followed by the evening’s second and headliner act, Paul & Storm! This musical comedy duo is great fun to see perform live, and serenaded us with such worthy ballads as the afore-and-oft-mentioned-on-this-blog “Write Like The Wind,” a hilarious song about boxing nuns, an ode to an American hero, and many others. Their banter between songs had us in stitches as much as the songs themselves, with all the great “______ is the name of my ______ cover band” jokes, and other such gems as cockatiels and catheters as the newest hipster affectations and the logic tree for determining if you are Pat Rothfuss. These guys seem like they’re really cool people to hang out with, and it was great to be able to do so for an evening. There’s also a surprise song performance by Seanan McGuire hiding in the middle! Check out the hilarity of this segment of the show in yet another video awesomely posted by Transmatrix:

Paul & Storm were followed by Patrick Rothfuss, who favored us with a reading from his Auri novella (coming in October), as he had promised on the blog. (I seriously think there might have been a riot if that reading didn’t happen.) Before Auri, though, he read us one of his old advice/humor columns from his college years about keeping pets in dorms illegally, and whether a guinea pig can be considered a fish. (I got a bit mixed up while writing these reports and had originally thought this was something he read at his spotlight panel on Saturday, but alas, it was at this event instead—sorry for the confusion!) Following that, despite his worries and anxiety about sharing it with the world (because it’s weird and not like a normal story, he says), he read us a sample of the Auri novella, and I honestly think it sounds great. I can’t wait to get my hands on the rest of it in the fall.

And the Roth-fun didn’t end there! Next up was a reading/slideshow of the first of his not-for-children-children’s-books, The Princess and Mr. Whiffle: The Thing Beneath the Bed. I had always been curious about these books, and this ended up being the perfect way to be introduced to them—through story time with the author himself! It was so cool—he read it to us once, and then went back through and broke it down for us a little bit to ensure we got the most out of it that we could. It’s a story that messes with the reader’s expectations, and it was awesome to hear him talk about that a little bit, since that whole messing-with-your-expectations aspect is one of my favorite things about his epic fantasy series, The Kingkiller Chronicle.

So ended the Rothfuss portion of the evening, and by this time the exhaustion of a very busy day had caught up with me and I was seriously fighting to keep my fingertip-hold on consciousness. To finish off the night, everyone came back on stage to perform a, uh, NSFW song called “The Captain’s Wife’s Lament,” that involved lots of pirate argh-ing and puns and audience participation. It took at least 25 minutes to get through the song, and in my head it was a war between being genuinely amused by the hilarious chaos of the performance and my desire to go to sleep and recover for the next day. It really was hilarious (I’m laughing again as I watch the video), and I found myself making chronic arghhh puns for the duration of the weekend. Check it out, and thanks again to Transmatrix for making and sharing these videos! The concert was an awesome experience and I’m glad I stuck it out to the end. If you like laughing and geeky things and have the chance to go to a Paul & Storm show, DO IT. And maybe prepare some pirate puns in advance.

Drinks With Authors

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this event, besides the titular authors and drinks. Was it a panel? Was it a party? Which authors would be there? Big ballroom? Smaller, more intimate setting? SO MANY QUESTIONS. And, of course, only one way to answer them, so at 8 o’clock on Saturday night it was off to the Renaissance Hotel we frolicked! (“Frolicked” might be a generous term to describe our ambulation in the direction of these festivities—after two crazy, hectic, fun days and very little sleep, “shuffled zombie-like” might be more accurate.)

I was surprised (though in retrospect I don’t know why) to see that there was already a long line snaking through the hallways of the Renaissance when we arrived. I was also surprised (again, I’m not sure why) to see many suspiciously underage-looking comicon-goers eagerly awaiting the opening of the doors. Surely the drinks in “Drinks with Authors” meant adult beverages, and not simply hot cocoa and cola? I was too busy focusing on staying awake and giving the impression of being a pleasant individual to stand near in line to give it too much thought. But sure enough, a con worker soon came walking up and down the line to remind us that it was an 18-and-over event, and that they would be checking IDs at the door. Even through the haze of sleepiness I managed to feel both amusement and sympathy as at least a third of the line dejectedly trudged away.

I chatted with some people near me in line, and once the doors were open the line moved quickly. A few of the meeting spaces (or “salons,” in fancy hotel-speak) had been opened and connected to create a nice-sized mingling space—neither huge like the convention center ballrooms, nor too small to fit a goodly number of authors and fans. There were some tables and chairs around the area, but mostly the tall, bar kind of mini tables with no seating. (I imagine this promotes mixing and mingling with people you don’t know, but after a day of standing and walking I would’ve loved to sit down for a bit.) To the excitement of the attending bookworms and SFF nerds, there were copies of Django Wexler’s The Thousand Names lying about on the tables as swag for the guests. And on top of that, throughout the night there were drawings to give away prize packs of books from various publishers. So cool!

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. After I’d scouted the bar and decided the drinks were a little too dear for my wallet and would probably only send me off to sleepyland anyway, I settled on some nice, cold water and found a comfortable-looking wall to lean on while I struck up a conversation with some nearby strangers. It was also at this point that I noticed that there were various authors sprinkled throughout the crowd, chatting with people and doing a very good job of blending in. It was kind of like Where’s Waldo! I had spotted Jim Butcher, Jason Hough, Pierce Brown, and Delilah Dawson engaged in conversation at various points around the room when Myke Cole and Sam Sykes made their way to the front to make the inaugural address. I did not have the presence of mind to think of taking any photos at this event, but Jason Hough tweeted this excellent picture of the author-totem kicking things off:

And here's The Cole Sykes pic.twitter.com/zl7s3HCFFA

— Jason M. Hough (@JasonMHough) June 8, 2014

Myke Cole (top of the totem), appearing to have made a full recovery from his Batsu experiences, welcomed us and explained the idea behind the event a bit—how it’s fun to see your favorite authors on panels and things, but how it’s also cool to sometimes break down that barrier and get to interact more personally. He continued, saying that since we are the ones buying their books and making their livelihoods possible/worthwhile, they thought a party where we could all mingle, have a good time, and talk to each other as fellow humans sounded like an awesome idea. And with the ribbon cut, so to speak, the shindig commenced in earnest! I didn’t end up staying very long since I was dead on my feet and finding it hard to be an interesting and attentive conversation partner with those around me, let alone to muster up the energy and confidence to go say hi to an author or two, but for the hour-ish that I stayed I had a good time. I think there were two drawings for book prizes during the time I was there, and though I didn’t win I thought it was nice addition to the party. Who doesn’t like door prizes and swag? (I gave my ticket to a random person as we were leaving, so hopefully their increased chances of winning scored them a prize!) And even in my sleep-deprived stupor, I managed to be pleasantly startled/starstruck to see John Scalzi and Pat Rothfuss hanging out together outside the doors to the party as I was leaving.

I think I would’ve enjoyed the evening even more if I’d had a chance to sneak in a nap and some rest for my poor little feet some time during the day, but even so, it was a really cool, unique event and I hope they do something like it again next year! Authors and fans, together at last. :)

It looks like I’ve got only one panel left to recap after this: the awesome “Writing Rogues” panel from Sunday of the con. Until then, what do you think of some of the events covered in this panel salad post? Will you check out the Taco Church? Find some Paul & Storm songs on YouTube? Satisfy a sudden craving for salsa? Let us know what you think in the comments!

Phoenix Comicon 2014: John Scalzi Spotlight

As mentioned previously, Scalzi was one of the two author spotlight panels on my schedule that I absolutely did not want to miss. (I had originally planned to have this one and the Rothfuss panel report share a post, but when I realized that together they would end up being a pretty huge chunk of words, I decided to split them.) His was at noon on the final day of the con, and it was kind of the inverse of the Rothfuss panel with regard to structure—he started off the panel by reading some of his work to us, and then followed with Q&A.

I slid in to the panel a few minutes late, but made it there in time to hear the end of a poem Scalzi wrote once upon a time, called “Ode to a Clone.” I missed the context but was nonetheless amused by the poem, especially this phrase: “a Nome clone dome home.” (If that doesn’t hook you, then I don’t know what will.) Later, I wanted to read the beginning of the poem and tracked it down on this website of science jokes (it’s about the 5th one down the page). Check it out if you’re into nerdy rhyming science humor.

Next up in Scalzi storytime, we were given a choice between a piece called “Flaming Babies” and another called simply “Chocolate.” There was some dissent in the audience over which to choose, but the flaming babies won out (and how could they not, really?). So Scalzi read us a piece from when he was a writer at AOL in the ‘90s (I think that’s where the clone poem is from, too), wherein he recounts a tale of calling the Pampers and Huggies hotlines to discuss the chances of diapers catching on fire, as had happened to him when he was a baby. It’s just as funny as it sounds (my favorite bit: “Is there some sort of weird diaper lady cabal?”), and you can read it here on his blog.

After we all vicariously learned to keep diapers away from bonfire pits and intense sunlight, Scalzi decided we had enough time to do “Chocolate” as well, another short piece from his early writer days that addresses the topic of his wife’s passion for the stuff and how though he himself has never been able to appreciate it, he can appreciate her appreciation for it. It was especially funny because his wife was in the panel audience, bearing up well. Later in the Q&A someone asked her if it was strange to hear him read that out loud, and she said, “The moment he said ‘chocolate’ I knew what it was…and I know exactly the dinner he’s referring to.” Again, if you find yourself so inclined, you can read it on his blog here. It’s short. It’s funny. Give it a go. I just re-read it, and now I really want to go hunt down the Hershey’s Kisses I know are in the freezer somewhere.

After finishing off that one, he said, “So that was okay, right? The fifteen-years-ago stuff worked alright.” We agreed that yes, it was definitely alright, and he continued, explaining the worry a little bit. “The thing is,” he said, “I’m being super highly selective, because when I was doing my column for the newspaper way back in the day, I was 24, 25 years old. I was the smuggest twenty-something you ever met, and I thought everything I wrote was pure gold. Then I became an editor for AOL and had to be writing a humor area where every year I had 20 open slots for humor-related material, and I would have 1000 submissions a month, because we did this thing called paying people, which apparently gets a lot of people to actually submit things. After going through all thousand submissions, I would still have ten open slots, because comedy’s actually hard. So I’d actually have to start telling people, ‘Well, here’s what you can do to tweak it and improve it,’ and then give you some examples and all this other stuff, doing what editors do. Then later on I went back to all the stuff that I wrote at the newspaper, which I had thought was gold, and my reaction to most of it was—[choking, horrified noise]—because it was terrible! Whoever thought it was a good idea to let me have a column—they were high.” Everyone laughed at that, and he added, “It wasn’t that they were high, it was just that I made enough noise that they were like, ‘Fine, give him Wednesday.’ I went back to that newspaper to visit at one point and I went to my editor at the time, and I was like, ‘Thank you so much for not stabbing me in the eye during all that time I was writing that column.’ And he was like, ‘I have waited for this day.’ I’m a much better writer now. Thank God. It was only 20 years.”

Q&A of DOOM

The reading portion of the panel thus completed, we moved into the question-and-answer session in earnest. After a compliment from an audience member that resulted in a short discussion of Dave Barry and piles of money, the first question he got was if there are any more plans for Scalzorc. “She’s referring to something we did…5 years ago now, which was called Clash of the Geeks, where I commissioned a picture of me as an orc and Wil Wheaton in his clown sweater and hot, hot blue shorts astride a unicorn pegasus kitten, battling each other while there was a volcano behind us. As you do. And we commissioned writers like Patrick Rothfuss, Cat Valente, Stephen Toulouse, and a number of other ones to write very short stories about what the hell was actually going on in that particular painting.”

Feast yer eyes!

“It was actually very impressive. We put that all together, and we put it up as pay-what-you-want with all proceeds going to the Lupus Society of Michigan because Subterranean Press, which was publishing it—the founder’s wife has lupus. We raised about $25,000 with it, which was actually really, really wonderful. Because people were totally down with it—‘I’ll happily pay $5 for this absolutely ridiculous thing.’ It was great, because Patrick Rothfuss did an edda, an actual epic poem, Wil did something, Rachel Swirsky, who has won two Nebulas now…just an amazing amount of talent in that actual, ridiculous thing. We don’t really have any plans to revisit Scalzorc or Hot Pants Wheaton, although Hot Pants Wheaton is the name of my next band. Somebody tweet that now! Done, and done… But certainly I will be doing more charitable stuff because I like doing the charitable stuff. It’s nice to be actually able to sort of spontaneously generate tens of thousands of dollars to worthy causes and not tell them about it until all the money starts rolling in. It’s like, surprise, here’s some money! Cuz we love you! So, yeah, there will be more charitable stuff, maybe not particularly that. Wil and I talk about, like, ‘Let’s get the band back together,’ sort of thinking on that one, but it’s just a matter of time and scheduling and everything else. But definitely I will be doing more charitable things.”

Phoenix Comicon 2014: Patrick Rothfuss Spotlight

Plenty of the especially big-name authors attending PHXCC had their very own spotlight panels, in addition to the appearances they made on group panels geared toward various book-nerdy topics (such as “Magic Systems: Urban Fantasy vs. Epic Fantasy” and “Magic and Power in Young Adult Fiction,” two that I wanted to attend but couldn’t make play nice with the rest of my schedule). There were so many spotlights I wanted to attend—Charlaine Harris! Jim Butcher! Laini Taylor! Naomi Novik!—but the two that occupied non-negotiable positions in my schedule were those of Pat Rothfuss and John Scalzi, both very entertaining individuals (and, y’know, not too shabby in the writing department, either). Pat Rothfuss’ was at noon on Saturday, and after a 5 minute walk down the street from the convention center to the Sheraton where the panel was being held (you’d be surprised how long five minutes can feel when it’s 108° F out), we collapsed in the lovely air conditioned ballroom and listened to The Beard share big secrets and the ending for The Doors of Stone. (Don’t freak out. I was kidding about that last bit.)

Patrick Rothfuss Spotlight Panel

Pat’s deep voice and the acoustics of the ballroom did funny things to my recording device (er, iPhone). Additionally, it appears that when you try to take a photo while voice recording on said device, it stops the recording, but makes it look like it’s still doing so, until you end the recording and only however many minutes you got before photographing show up saved in your memos. (Not that that bugged me.) (Or that it took me 3 days to figure out why so few of my recordings were of the entire panel.) So…I don’t have too much of the Rothfuss panel available to transcribe, but that actually turned out okay since he spent about half of it reading to us. Yay story time!

Uproarious applause greeted him when he walked on stage, and after a mike check he greeted us and told us the plan. “I don’t know how these normally go, but I tend to enjoy a little Q&A,” he said, and then added that reading of some things he has written could follow. “I used to write a humor column back in the day. I’ve got some of those that you’ll probably never see anywhere…the dark secrets from my misspent youth. I’ve got an advanced copy of the Rogues anthology. I could read you Neil Gaiman’s story,” he suggested. (Everyone laughed, but he actually did read us the opening paragraphs of Gaiman’s story at his event at a local bookstore the Wednesday before the con!)

Before the Q&A portion began, he had to get the attention of a techie to make a few adjustments to the stage lighting. “I kinda feel like I’m in an interrogation room,” he joked. “‘Where were you on the night of the 27th? Why weren’t you writing book three?!’” (It’s cool that he has a sense of humor about it, since there are some real big jerks online, whining/harassing him about why the third book isn’t done yet.) The first audience question followed neatly on the coattails of that, asking how the progress is on book three. “That’s a good one to deal with right away,” Pat said. “Things are going fairly well. They’re not going as fast as I would like, but it’s going well. I start to get real antsy, like I really wish I had book three to give people, and then I remember what Tim Powers said to me ages ago. When I missed my deadline for book two, I was really sick to my stomach over it, and I called him like, ‘Tim, I’m screwing up my whole career with this…I did 30 interviews and promised to have book two out in a year…but the problem is I was doing 30 interviews and so I didn’t have any time to write.’ And he goes, ‘I’ve never made a deadline in my life. And you know what? So-and-so told me,’ like a person he got advice from back in the day, ‘It’s late once, but it sucks forever.’ And I’m like, ohhh, you’re right—I’d much rather be late once and write a good book than to rush it, get it out on time, and have it be crap. I mean, we really don’t want a Matrix Revolutions.”

He expanded on that idea a bit as he discussed his process of revisions and making the books as excellent as they can be. “The thing people have is really kind of flattering…they’re like, ‘It’s great, we’re sure it’s great!’ I know that you’re sure it’s great, but what happened is you saw the end result of 14 years of revision in book form. You did not see the 400 other versions of that book. All of which were not good enough to get published. Well…some of them were good enough to get published, but they weren’t a book that was really worthy of love. They weren’t as perfect as I could make them. Those early versions…the very first didn’t have a frame story. There was no inn, there was no Chronicler, there was no Bast. Later versions, there was no Devi. No loan sharking. No Auri. A book with no Auri. That’s not a book I would really like to write. So yeah, it’s coming along well, it’s just not coming as quickly as I’d like. There’s a lot of things I need to get absolutely right.”

The next question asked about other things he may write after he’s done with Kvothe’s story. “It’s a little far out in the future, because I kind of have to always keep one eye on book three no matter what, but I had an idea for an urban fantasy for about ten years that I didn’t pursue. I think that’d be fun,” he said. He continued, “There’s another story…a story that happens in Modeg. It’s the story of a different hero—the beginning of that hero, Laniel. I started that, thinking it’d be a novella, about 15,000 words…because I owed somebody a novella, I thought I’d write it, fulfill this obligation…and when it hit about 60,000 words…[bad muzzy audio here, sorry]. It was a really great experience writing that because it wasn’t first person. I was learning a lot about how to do third person, and it’s really interesting for me writing a story that’s what I think of as a short little simple story, which means it’s, like, 120,000 words. [much laughter] It’s not part of this great metafictional framed story narrative like The Kingkiller Chronicle. So you’ll probably see that reasonably soon as well.”

Next up was a question about his writing process. “Boy, what’s my process…” he mused. The girl started to amend her question and he joked, “See, yeah, that’s the better question—‘Do you have a process?’ I don’t think I have a process.” She amended further to ask if he bases his characters off people he knows, and he replied, “That I can answer—I do not model characters after people I know.” He asked for a show of hands of aspiring writers, and then explained why he’d advise against creating characters that way. Following that, he continued, “I would steal pieces of people. And pieces of people, like for example, Kvothe eats an apple, and he eats all the way around it, and eats the core. I had somebody come up to me and say, ‘I know where you got that. That’s the way Sarah eats an apple.’ He was so smug. I was like, ‘You got me. Now you know how I wrote my book.’” He explained further, saying, “It’s like a little true thing. A little true thing that adds a little texture.”

He looked like he was going to leave it at that, but then he continued: “Okay, now, saying that, because I’m kind of a scrupulously honest person…I did kind of base one character in the book off someone. But I don’t know if you want to hear about that. Do you want to hear about that?” The answer was an obvious and unanimous YES, and he began telling the story. “There’s nobody here from Madison, is there? Have you guys heard about Tunnel Bob? There’s somebody in Madison that people know of as Tunnel Bob. Tunnel Bob, he’s one of our local crazy people, not to put too fine a point on it. Every city of a certain size has crazy people. And if they’re sufficiently colorful, they become characters in the city. There’ve been a couple write-ups about Tunnel Bob in the local papers. I came to know Tunnel Bob because my dad had run into him at work. Under Madison there are steam tunnels, and access tunnels to the university, for all the pipes and everything…and my dad worked at one of the major hospitals.” He continued, explaining how Tunnel Bob, though there was no harm in him, would continually get arrested for hanging around in these tunnels. So Pat’s dad set up a volunteer shift for him at the hospital once a week, where it would be okay for him to be down in the tunnels under the hospital. After 3 hours in the tunnels he would come out of them and talk with Pat’s dad for a bit, and then Pat’s dad would share stories with his son about Tunnel Bob. “Apparently once he was in the university’s tunnels and he got arrested, put in jail, and for his phone call, he called my dad because he was going to have to miss his volunteer shift. He’s like, ‘This is the one place that lets me go in their tunnels,’ and he didn’t want to jeopardize that. Dad’s a very clever guy—that’s the secret here: you give him a time where he can be in there, and that’s acceptable. And he’ll do whatever he can to not jeopardize that. He’s not going to be knocking around when he shouldn’t be. So my dad would tell me these stories about Tunnel Bob. He’d say, ‘So, Tunnel Bob, we’ve got Christmas coming up. Are you doing anything for Christmas?’ [deep voice] ‘Nope.’ ‘Get any presents for Christmas?’ [deep voice] ‘…Nope. Just coal.’ Dad’s like, is he…making a joke?”

In another conversation with Tunnel Bob, Pat’s dad tried to find out what was up with the tunnel thing, anyway. “He said, ‘What do you do in the tunnels?’ [deep voice] ‘Well, the first hour I kind of cleans up a bit. And the second hour, I kinda rolls around. And the third hour, well…that’s just for me.’” [so sorry, that’s the closest I could come to deciphering what the first and second hour were from the recording, and I don’t know if it’s right!] Pat went on, “And I hear this story, and all he wants to do is be in these tunnels. Of course, when I’m working on the book, which is kind of always, something happens and I’m like, ‘Ohhh yes, I’ll take this, thank you.’ I learn something in anthropology class and I’m like, ‘Oh, thank you, yes. I will have this for later.’ Oh, so Constantine in the Roman Empire married a prostitute? I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, that’s awesome, I’m going to bring that in.’ Once a week they put her up on a stage, naked, scattered grain over her, and let geese eat it off her. And this was, like, quality entertainment. And Constantine, he saw this and went, ‘That’s the woman who will be my empress.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, thank you. I could not have made that up. I’ll save that for later.’ Tunnel Bob…of course he doesn’t fit [in my story]. He fits in Madison, Wisconsin—even then not very well. He’s like something someone would make up if you were writing a story about Madison. And so what I did was I just put one piece of him, and then a character kind of accreted around that seed crystal. You know who that character has to be, right? It’s Auri. And Auri really has nothing to do with Tunnel Bob, so I did not take Tunnel Bob and put him in the story, but that’s where Auri started. And I think that when you do that, when you build a character around a tiny little kernel of something true, they end up being a different sort of character.”

And on that sweet note about Auri’s emergence from a guy in Madison who likes tunnels and the stories Pat’s dad told about him, I tried to take a photo of Pat up on the stage and cheated myself out of further recording of the panel. It’s not even a good photo! In it, Mr. Rothfuss has somehow morphed into a glowing blue blob…

After the Q&A finished up, Pat read us one of his humor columns from college (about keeping pets in dorms illegally, and whether a guinea pig can be considered a fish), and it was really very funny. I don’t know if you can track those down on the internet anywhere, but if you can, you should do it. After that, he read us the second in his series of not-for-children children’s books, The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle: The Dark of Deep Below. [EDIT: While Pat did read us some things after the Q&A, apparently my brain had reached saturation point and, lacking a memory or audio recording of what was actually read to us at this panel, filled in the guinea pig story, which had actually been read to us the previous night at the Paul & Storm concert. So while I can’t tell you what reading(s?) came before, I can confirm that he did in fact finish off the panel with a reading of Princess/Mr. Whiffle 2. Sorry for the confusion!]

To our chagrin, the panel ended before we could finish the book, and of course we were left at a very cliffhang-y moment. Such a tease! But it was a good, albeit unplanned (I think?), marketing technique—the next time I found myself in the vicinity of Mysterious Galaxy’s booth in the dealer hall, all the Princess/Mr. Whiffle books were sold out. And now that I know what they’re about, I’ll probably buy them for myself someday. Overall, it was a surprisingly spoiler-free panel (for a panel related to a fantasy series this beloved with two massive books in stores, I figured there would be at least a few minor spoiler-type-things coming up!), and it was a lot of fun. I tried to find a YouTube video of it to link you to for interested parties, but I’m not sure there is one to be found! If you ever hear Pat Rothfuss is in your neck of the woods (or weeds, as I first typed), make a point to get to that event—you’re pretty much guaranteed a good time.

Have you read The Kingkiller Chronicle series yet? How about the Princess/Mr. Whiffle books? Do you know Tunnel Bob? Hit the comments and let us know!

Phoenix Comicon 2014: Angry Robot Preview Panel

In my lap around the exhibitor hall on Thursday evening, I stopped by all the publisher booths to say hi and make an effort towards the whole networking thing. Though they didn’t have books to give away like the others, the people at the Angry Robot table were super nice to me as a blogger (the nicest, in fact)—very friendly and happy to tell me what they’re all about, which books of theirs I might be interested in, get me signed up on their mailing list, etc. I told the man I was chatting with that I had heard about them via a recent episode of the SF Squeecast podcast, and was surprised to find out I was speaking to none other than Mike Underwood, who had been on that particular podcast episode and is also the author of Geekomancy, which I have yet to read, but have heard only good things about! We talked a bit about their YA imprint (called Strange Chemistry), cover design, and some of their authors who were in attendance at the con, and I promised to come back later to pick up a few of their titles. Which I did!

Because they were so nice to me and so many of their books that I’d perused sounded intriguing, I decided to check out their preview panel the next morning. It ended up being the only publisher preview I was able to fit in my schedule, and it was perfect as a nice, low-key-yet-entertaining chaser after the fun-yet-also-a-bit-on-the-terrifying-side Improbable Dystopias panel I had attended the hour before. The panel consisted of Lee Harris (Senior Editor), Mike Underwood (North American Sales and Marketing Manager), Chuck Wendig (Blackbirds), Wesley Chu (The Lives of Tao), Danielle Jensen (Stolen Songbird), and Jay Posey (Three). Here’s a bit of Angry Robot 101 from the panel:

• Launched initially in the UK, with their first books hitting the shelves in July 2009
• Humorously self-described as a publisher of “SF/F/WTF?!”
• Has three different imprints: Angry Robot (Science fiction, fantasy, and the aforementioned WTF?!), Strange Chemistry (YA), and Exhibit A (Mystery/Crime Thrillers)
• They publish their books simultaneously worldwide, so if you’re looking forward to a book coming out, you don’t have to wait months for it to become available in your country after its debut in the UK
• They publish e-book, paperback, and audio (where possible) formats on the same day
• They offer e-book subscriptions where you can pay one flat, discounted price and receive monthly downloads off all e-books released during the period of your subscription (pretty neat idea, eh? You can get more info on it here!)
• They also have a nifty e-book and paperback bundling program called “Clonefiles.” It’s a simple yet brilliant idea—you buy the paperback, you get the e-book version free. Lee Harris stated, “It makes absolute sense. I don’t understand why everybody isn’t doing this, because the readers want it and it costs next to nothing to provide that service.” Hear, hear!

Mr. Harris then turned it over to the authors on the panel to talk a bit about themselves and their books. Chuck Wendig talked about his various works, such as the Miriam Black series and the Mookie Pearl series, as well as his blog at TerribleMinds.com, where he talks about writing (Lee Harris gave Terrible Minds a whole-hearted endorsement, too). Wesley Chu introduced us to his Tao series and may have let slip a few spoilers for the published volumes, but was careful to keep a tight lid on anything related to the third volume in the series, out this December. Danielle Jensen, the sole representative of the Strange Chemistry YA imprint, discussed Stolen Songbird, the first book in a trilogy that debuted in April. Opera divas! Trolls! Underground cities! (You can see why I purchased that one.) Lastly, Jay Posey told us a bit about his Legends of the Dustwalker series, and also a little about his work on video games and as a screenwriter.

The panel was then turned over to Mike Underwood to share with us some upcoming and buzz-worthy Angry Robot books. Here are some of the ones I thought sounded exciting and will be adding to my TBR list:

Arriving: 6/24/2014

In a land riven with plague, inside the infamous Walled City, two families vie for control: the Medicis with their genius inventor Leonardo; the Lorraines with Galileo, the most brilliant alchemist of his generation.

And when two star-crossed lovers, one from either house, threaten the status quo, a third, shadowy power – one that forever seems a step ahead of all of the familial warring – plots and schemes, and bides its time, ready for the moment to attack...

Assassination; ancient, impossible machines; torture and infamy – just another typical day in paradise.

“A great adventure for anybody who likes The Lies of Locke Lamora, or if you like the Romeo and Juliet story,” said Mr. Underwood, also noting that it’s got some of the fun flavor of Assassin’s Creed 2.

Phoenix Comicon 2014: Improbable Dystopias?

The first panel on my schedule on Friday was “Improbable Dystopias?” (“A look at dystopian fiction—what makes some worlds believable, and others not?”), featuring authors Janni Lee Simner (The Bones of Faerie), Jason Hough (The Darwin Elevator), Laini Taylor (Daughter of Smoke and Bone), Pierce Brown (Red Rising), and Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant (Feed and Parasite). They probably also could’ve called it, “Most Terrifying Panel of the Con.” Seriously, the takeaway from this one is that WE ARE LIVING IN A DYSTOPIA RIGHT NOW! When I left the panel I had a strong urge to purchase hand sanitizer and not eat chicken for awhile. But in all seriousness, it was a great panel—lots of ideas, lots of audience interaction, and lots of time spent digging deep into many different aspects of the theme. As usual, I arrived 10 minutes late, but made it there in time to catch the tail end of some discussion of utopias giving rise to dystopias. Seanan McGuire then brought up the idea that there are also dystopias that didn’t start out as utopias, but rather as a frantic bid to fix things. She built on the idea by saying that if you want to see how a dystopian future could come to pass, you should go to the airport and have a look at TSA—lots of people doing what they’re told, in a pretty arbitrary way. She noted that over the course of 15 years, we’ve gone from being able to walk up to the gate to meet arriving friends and family, to getting manhandled by strangers, having our liquids thrown away, being subjected to the radiation box, etc. “What do we do when they start putting in those steps where the TSA takes over the buses? Who’s going to stand up and say no, I’d rather risk terrorism than have TSA agents at the Greyhound station?” she asked.

Laini Taylor also thought the airport example was a good one. She mentioned how when she’d been at the airport recently, she’d flashed back to the scene from The Pianist (“unfairly, exaggeratedly,” she added), when people are being herded out of the ghetto and they’re going along with it simply because they didn’t believe anything extreme could happen. Pierce Brown also had an airports-as-the-beginnings-of-dystopia story, mentioning how when he’d been sitting in the airport to fly to Phoenix, he was listening to the broadcast and realized that it sounded like something straight out of Total Recall or Robocop—“Due to increased security measures…” It was like all the sci-fi movies he grew up with in the ‘90s are real!

The panel agreed that as things escalate incrementally, you’re afraid to say anything about it or rock the boat. Janni Lee Simner added, “Dystopia gets out of control when we believe in the illusion of safety,” which I thought was a really compelling, and scary, idea. Talk then turned to the concept of the “boiled frog dystopia.” Apparently, if you try to put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump right out. No surprise, right? It’s not going to tolerate that. But if you put it in a pot of room temperature water and slowly turn up the heat, it will allow itself to be boiled alive because it won’t notice the tiny incremental changes in the water around it. (How this was all discovered, I do not want to know.) Seanan thought that these kinds of dystopias are the ones that feel the most realistic to her—the situation where something bad has happened, be it a bio attack or a terrorist attack, and we put in all sort of new measures that help us feel a little safer, and now we’d feel unsafe without those things. And if people want to look like they’re doing something about terrorism, they have to do something more extreme and go a little bit further, because you can’t dial it back. People would start to feel unsafe, even though their state of safety would be the same as it was before.

Phoenix Comicon 2014: The Books and Authors Kickoff Panel

Hello, internet! It feels like it’s been so long since I’ve seen you! After an intense-but-awesome weekend, Phoenix Comicon has come and gone, until it swings around again in 2015. It was just as amazing as last year (if not more so!), not least because there were even more authors I completely adore in attendance. That alone would’ve been enough to make the event spectacular, but there were some fun surprises in store, too—like free books! I believe last year the only publisher in attendance was Tor, but this year Del Rey and Angry Robot also had booths and panels. And maybe because Phoenix Comicon is gaining a higher profile thanks to all the word-of-mouth buzz generated by author guests and attendees, there was a bit of a BEA model in place this year. When I walked into the exhibitor hall on Thursday night, Del Rey was handing out free copies of books by authors in attendance and some who were not, and they hosted signings for those books during the rest of the convention. Tor also had books to give away and signings for some of their authors, and all sorts of other swag. Angry Robot wasn’t tossing out any free books, but they were very friendly and recommended which of their books you might be interested in based on other books you like. Between the publisher giveaways and signings, the comicon-scheduled signings, and the time authors spent hanging out at their own tables to sign books, it was a busy weekend with many opportunities to interact with the writers you fangirl or -boy over.

After picking up my badge on Thursday night and doing a pass around the (huge) exhibitor hall to get the lay of the land before the masses arrived on the morrow, I headed over to the Books and Authors Kickoff Panel. This was high on my list of must-see panels because the one last year was frikkin’ hilarious, and because I thought it would be a good opportunity to see some of the authors interact who wouldn’t have panels together later in the con.

Scalzi gesticulating while Pierce Brown, Naomi Novik, L.E. Modesitt, and Carrie Vaughn wait for the panel to start.

The room filled up and the panel moderator got things underway, joking about how some say Phoenix Comicon has become “Author Con,” and then introduced Paul & Storm. Scott Lynch noted that his niece loves them, to which Paul replied, “Beloved of nieces everywhere!” They then introduced themselves and said, “We’re gonna do the song that makes all the people sitting up at this table mad at us… But it comes from the heart, and it probably comes from your heart, as well.” And so they launched into “Write Like the Wind,” which I hope you’ve listened to by now. If you haven’t, here’s that video again:

DID YOU WATCH IT?!? If so, good. If not, you don’t know what you’re missing…

Moving on. Everyone found the song to be hilarious (as well they should’ve!), and after we’d all recovered from our laughter, the moderator introduced the panelists: Seanan McGuire, whose recent books include Sparrow Hill Road and Parasite (the latter under a pen name, Mira Grant). John Scalzi, writer of the Old Man’s War series and Redshirts (he greeted us with, “hello, nerds”). Scott Lynch, who, when the moderator mentioned he writes the Gentleman Bastard series, replied that he also has “a forthcoming book called The Doors of Stone,” the first of many good-natured digs at Patrick Rothfuss over the course of the weekend. (Pat responded, “Oh, so it’s going to be one of THOSE cons!”) Pierce Brown, who debuted as an author earlier this year with Red Rising. The moderator said she’d heard it would be a trilogy, to which he deadpanned, “Yeah, everything is a trilogy now.” Naomi Novik, author of the Temeraire series featuring dragons and the Napoleonic wars. L.E. Modesitt, who has written many things, including the currently-17-volume Saga of Recluce series (someone, probably Scott Lynch, joked, “It’s a trilogy!”). Carrie Vaughn, author of the Kitty Norville urban fantasy series. And lastly, “the beard himself,” Patrick Rothfuss, author of the Kingkiller Chronicles (“More or less,” he amended).

The moderator started off the questions by asking for how many of them was it their first Phoenix Comicon, and how many are returning guests.

(Someone): Do we raise our hands?

Mod: You can raise your hands, go down the line…just talk. That’s what John does.

John Scalzi: What did I do??

Seanan McGuire: There’s a reason we didn’t let you sit at the table! (There weren’t enough chairs at the panel, so Paul & Storm sat on the floor until chairs were found for them, Scalzi was seated further back from the table, and Rothfuss was standing at the end of it.)

Scalzi: I’ve got a tattoo that says “born to lurk.”

L.E. Modesitt: Which he does superbly.

PHXCC 2013 Report: In Which There is a Lot of John Scalzi

Back again, and striving to finish up Phoenix Comicon coverage with this post, by smashing TWO panels into one report. The last two panels I wanted to summarize for your vicarious enjoyment both involve successful science fiction writer John Scalzi (not weather man John Scalzi, or masonry award John Scalzi, just to be clear). The first is his spotlight panel, and the second is a panel that consisted of him and Wil Wheaton talking about…stuff, which was way more awesome than it sounds. So, following the precedent of my other author-panel-reporting-posts, here is John Scalzi:

Okay, okay, maybe he didn’t look quite like that when I met him, but that’s the picture on his Goodreads and Wiki pages. And it’s funny! Here are some books he has written:

John Scalzi Spotlight Panel

Important Thing #1 I Learned at Phoenix Comicon: John Scalzi is a very funny man. It was entertaining just to watch him get up on stage and talk about really anything, as we saw at the Author Chair Dancing panel. And this panel, his very own, was no different in that respect. He talked about random stuff, he talked about his work, he read to us, and he answered questions, all in a way that made me think he’s probably a really cool guy to hang out with. Things that went down:

• While at the Redondo Beach stop on his current book tour, someone from his high school brought him a copy of his high school literary magazine, which contained 2 stories Scalzi had written as an ickle high schooler. One of them was a science fiction story, and as he re-read it he came to two conclusions: “One, it was very clear early on that I was going to be a science fiction writer, and two, holy crap, when I was 17 I was a terrible writer.” Oh yes, we’ve all been there… XD



• He gave us our choice of readings—he could read to us from the new book he was on tour promoting, The Human Division, or from his upcoming book The Mallet of Loving Correction, a collection of entries from his popular blog, Whatever. He said that if we chose the latter, the piece he’d read would be “Who Gets to Be a Geek? Anyone Who Wants to Be,” and that is what we the crowd very democratically decided on.



• He wrote “Who Gets to Be a Geek?” during the uproar last year when lots dudes were talking about how females can’t be “real geeks,” whatever that means. Specifically, Scalzi composed it in response to an article a guy wrote for CNN.com about fake geek girls going to Comicon (the Comicon, I assume, the big one in San Diego). It’s a really awesome piece, and you can read it here. Seriously, go read it. It’s fantastic and awesome, for any and all sorts of geeks, and even for those who may not be of the geekly persuasion. It is perhaps even MORE fun to hear the author read it himself, and I am quite confident there are videos floating around the Youtubes where you can do just that.

PHXCC 2013 Report: Previews and Recommendations

I have almost completely recapped Phoenix Comicon! Can you believe it? Soon I’ll get back to the usual reviews and recipes and read-alongs and things. But for now, here’s another potpourri sort of post, with reports on preview and rec panels I attended at the con.

Tor Books Preview

I had scampered off to the weird world underneath the convention center to grab some autographs (John Scalzi and Cherie Priest, I do believe), and ended up being a little late to the panel promoting upcoming books from Tor, the prominent SFF publisher. Still, I managed to learn about some exciting books on the horizon and to partake in a raffle! Thank you, Patty Garcia from Tor, for the info and the cool raffles and the free book (more on that last in a moment)!

This is not a complete list of everything previewed at the panel, just the ones that I was able to scrawl down while still paying attention. Up first we have:

Jacket copy, according to Goodreads:

“A sharp, original urban fantasy about a near-immortal secret society's battle to save itself—on the streets of Las Vegas.

The Incrementalists—a secret society of two hundred people; an unbroken lineage reaching back forty thousand years. They cheat death, share lives and memories, and communicate with one another across nations and time. They have an epic history, an almost magical memory, and a very modest mission: to make the world better, a little bit at a time. Their ongoing argument about just how to accomplish this is older than most of their individual memories.

Phil, whose personality has stayed stable through more incarnations than anyone else’s, has loved Celeste—and argued with her—for most of the last four hundred years. Celeste, recently dead, embittered, and very unstable, has changed the rules—not incrementally, and not for the better.

Now the heart of the group must gather in Las Vegas to save the Incrementalists, and maybe the world.”

Sounds like fun to me! I’ll probably give this one a go when it comes out.



Next up: The newest book by Kendare Blake, of Anna Dressed in Blood fame. Jacket copy, according to Goodreads:

“Old Gods never die… Or so Athena thought. But then the feathers started sprouting beneath her skin, invading her lungs like a strange cancer, and Hermes showed up with a fever eating away his flesh. So much for living a quiet eternity in perpetual health.

Desperately seeking the cause of their slow, miserable deaths, Athena and Hermes travel the world, gathering allies and discovering enemies both new and old. Their search leads them to Cassandra—an ordinary girl who was once an extraordinary prophetess, protected and loved by a god. These days, Cassandra doesn’t involve herself in the business of gods—in fact, she doesn’t even know they exist. But she could be the key in a war that is only just beginning.

Because Hera, the queen of the gods, has aligned herself with other of the ancient Olympians, who are killing off rivals in an attempt to prolong their own lives. But these anti-gods have become corrupted in their desperation to survive, horrific caricatures of their former glory. Athena will need every advantage she can get, because immortals don’t just flicker out. Every one of them dies in their own way. Some choke on feathers. Others become monsters. All of them rage against their last breath. The Goddess War is about to begin.”

Again, sounds interesting enough that I will probably give it a go when it’s released. Maybe based on the mythology slant, Susan might be interested, too? But then again, as a hardcore classicist, maybe not. Whaddaya say, Sus? Will you read this one?

PHXCC 2013 Report: Panel Potpourri

Here are mini-reports on a jumble of some of the other panels I attended:

The Unfettered Panel: New Tales by Masters of Fantasy

This panel focused on the upcoming fantasy anthology, Unfettered. The anthology’s editor, Shawn Speakman, was present, along with 4 other authors who contributed to it (Terry Brooks, Brandon Sanderson, Kevin Hearne, and Peter Orullian). The story behind the anthology is that Shawn Speakman was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma a couple years ago. As is often the case with writers, he had no health insurance, and over the course of his treatment has incurred a massive medical debt. This isn’t really the place for me to get on my personal soapbox about health insurance, but it’s kind of ridiculous, right? Shawn is a member of the SFF community and he runs Terry Brooks’ Shannara website (I believe), so when Terry heard about what was going on he offered to donate a short story to help cover some of those medical bills, and suggested that Shawn might ask some of his other author friends to do the same.

And a good suggestion it was! There are a total of 23 stories in the anthology, with the proceeds going to help defray the medical costs accrued by Shawn’s treatment and also to help author Dave Wolverton, whose son was in a terrible accident and is experiencing the same problems with healthcare costs. Shawn talked a little bit about the story behind the book, and then he and the other panelists discussed their stories and how cool it is that the SFF author community is able to come together to support one of their own. There was a special preview of the anthology containing the stories of the 5 panelists on sale at the convention, with the full anthology available for order here and shipping at the end of June.

I found it was very touching that the SFF community is so supportive of its own when they come up against tough times. You can read more about the anthology here on Tor.com, and they also have articles about the stories from the preview.

The Awesome Hour with Wil Wheaton

Not strictly book- or author-related, but I felt it was awesome enough that it needed to be mentioned. Wil Wheaton, actor, author, and all-around famous geek, did basically a stand-up set in the biggest auditorium at the convention center on Friday night. It cost $10 extra to attend, and it was completely worth it. He was hilarious, and also so kind and genuine. I won’t try to recap his jokes and stories here, but I do have an audio recording and I’m sure there’s video floating around the internet. After the comedy portion of the evening, he spent some time answering questions. I had wanted to ask him about what it was like to record the audio book for Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, but did not get the chance. Next year! If you ever get the chance to see him, I would completely recommend it, and also to check out his Geek & Sundry show, Tabletop. I hadn’t heard of it until that night, and I just recently watched an episode—basically it’s Wil Wheaton playing various tabletop games with friends and famous people. Interesting and entertaining! :D

Brandon Sanderson Spotlight Panel

On Saturday I attended another Branderson panel, this time one not focused specifically on the Wheel of Time. WoT did come up (I remember a fan thanking him whole-heartedly for completing the series…awww), but he also talked about his own series and books and projects and things. He read us the prologue of his newly-released debut YA novel, The Rithmatist, and touched again upon how he really enjoys creating new and different magic systems for his books. Other points of interest include that he envisions his Stormlight Archive series to be two sets of five books, that he’s planning on expanding the world of his first published novel Elantris with a new book to take place 10 years after the first one (hopefully to be released in 2015), and that he is a fan of the BBC Sherlock. Another thing I found interesting is that he talked about how he knows how hard it is to wait for new books by authors you love to come out, which is why he has progress bars for all his projects on his website that he makes an effort to keep updated, to keep the process transparent. Very cool!

Following the panel, we naively headed downstairs to the exhibition hall to go get books signed by him, not having any idea what we were in for. And let me tell you, the line that awaited us was EPIC. I should have figured, since it was Saturday and all the people who couldn’t attend the prior 2 days would be there, but just…whoa. We were near the end of the line, and must’ve waited at least an hour. But it was okay, and we passed the time by people-watching (which takes on a whole new dimension at a comicon) and chatting with our neighbors in line. When we finally made it to the signing table, the exhaustion of the past 3 days had fully sunk in, and I am ashamed to say that when Branderson asked if I had any questions for him, I drew a complete blank and said, “Uh…no, actually, I don’t. I’m sorry. I’m very tired.” Very smooth... But he was very kind and gracious, and wrote nice things in my books and gave me cool swag. See?

Since we chose to wait in line for Branderson, we ended up missing the panel for Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong’s new middle-grade novel, Loki’s Wolves. Instead of dashing upstairs for the last 5 minutes of the panel, we stayed down in the underbelly of the convention center to wait in line for their signing. I am happy to say we were third in line this time. :) Unfortunately, exhaustion was still plaguing me, and while Marr and Armstrong seemed very nice, I just babbled at them about the hot Phoenix weather the whole time my books were being signed. I also felt bad that, a) I did not have the funds to purchase the book they were promoting, and b) I had nothing for Kelley Armstrong to sign. Oh well, I guess that’s how the cookie crumbles sometimes. Anyway, Melissa Marr signed some of my books of hers from a while ago:

And then I went home and slept, in hopes of being a little more coherent on Sunday. :)