F. Brett Cox sees justice done.
David Hartwell as Medusa.
Convention chair Joseph Berlant, whose fault it all was.
Nicholas DiChario.
Gardner Dozois.
Scott Edelman looks for himself (successfully) at Spa City Comics.
Bernie Goodman.
Cousin Hal Duncan.
John Langan.
Glennis LeBlanc.
Mark Wingenfeld.
Gordon Van Gelder makes an editorial comment.
Ted Chiang.
Byron Tetrick.
Darrell Schweitzer, rightly wary of being photographed by an interviewee.
Allison Baker.
Rani Graff.
David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.
Carol Emswhiller and Judith Berman.
Peter Halasz and Carol Emshwiller.
F. Brett Cox and Judith Berman.
Patrick O'Leary and Laurel Winter.
Paul Cornell and Lou Anders.
Eileen Bell and Bev Geddes.
John Douglas and Rodger Turner record the delivery, without incident, of one more World Fantasy Award nominee pin. Onward!
Kathryn Cramer, David Hartwell and Carol Pinchefsky.
Carol Emswhiller, Judith Berman and F. Brett Cox.
Walter Jon Williams, Ellen Klages and Allison Baker.
David Rivera, Alaya Dawn Johnson and Eugene Myers.
"A Diorama of the Infernal Regions, or The Devil's Ninth Question" by Andy Duncan is another decidedly unusual look at one girl's wizardry. Duncan takes magic out of the middle ages and puts it in the post-civil-war South in a story that manages to be hilarious and folksy and dangerous all at once. Pearl, the young protagonist, runs away from her freak-show of a life, pushing through a diorama and into a house full of ghosts; there are more memorable and eccentric characters in this short little work than a good many novels, and I loved every one of them, even the baddies. Heck, even the Devil's representative was a charming old rapscallion. But then, he would be, right?
And like the girl who stepped through a diorama into a ghost world, I too had to answer the Devil’s Ninth QuestionI even get a shout-out in the note at the end. How about that?
-- and more ...
Super Tuber is a great snack that uses one of my favorite vegetables: the Idaho potato. Of course, I suppose any type of potato could be used, but I cannot guarantee that a Super Tuber made with anything but a true Idaho potato would taste as good.
The ship came down from space. It came from the stars and the black velocities, and the shining movements, and the silent gulfs of space. It was a new ship; it had fire in its body and men in its metal cells, and it moved with a clean silence, fiery and warm. In it were seventeen men, including a captain. The crowd at the Ohio field had shouted and waved their hands up into the sunlight, and the rocket had bloomed out great flowers of heat and color and run away into space on the third voyage to Mars!
-- Ray Bradbury, “Mars Is Heaven” (1949)
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
-- Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House (1959)
My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.
-- Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962)
1. This is a test. Take notes. This will count as ¾ of your final grade. Hints: remember, in chess, kings cancel each other out and cannot occupy adjacent squares, are therefore all-powerful and totally powerless, cannot affect one another, produce stalemate. Hinduism is a polytheistic religion; the sect of Atman worships the divine spark of life within Man; in effect saying, “Thou art God.” Provisos of equal time are not served by one viewpoint having media access to two hundred million people in prime time while opposing viewpoints are provided with a soapbox on the corner. Not everyone tells the truth. Operational note: these sections may be taken out of numerical sequence: rearrange them to suit yourself for optimum clarity. Turn over your test papers and begin.
-- Harlan Ellison, “The Deathbird” (1973)
Eric was night, and Batu was day. The girl, Charley, was the moon. Every night, she drove past the All-Night in her long, noisy, green Chevy, a dog hanging out the passenger window. It wasn’t ever the same dog, although they all had the same blissful expression. They were doomed, but they didn’t know it.
-- Kelly Link, “The Hortlak” (2003)
We all went down to the tar-pit, with mats to spread our weight.
-- Margo Lanagan, “Singing My Sister Down” (2004)
The first bar I ever went to was The Tropics. It was and still is situated between the grocery store and the bank along Higbee Lane in West Islip. I was around five or six, and my old man would take me there with him when he went there to watch the Giant games on Sunday afternoon. While the men were all at the bar, drinking, talking, giving Y.A. Tittle a piece of their minds, I’d roll the balls on the pool table or sit in one of the booths in the back and color. The jukebox always seemed to be playing “Somewhere, Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin while I searched for figures, the way people do with clouds, in the swirling cigar and cigarette smoke. I didn’t go there for the hard-boiled eggs the bartender proffered after making them vanish and pulling them out of my ear, or for the time spent sitting on my father’s lap at the bar, sipping a ginger ale with a cherry in it, although both were welcome. The glowing, bubbling beer signs were fascinating, the foul language was its own cool music, but the thing that drew me to The Tropics was a thirty-two-foot vision of paradise.
-- Jeffrey Ford, “A Night in The Tropics” (2004)
The man’s head and torso emerged from a hole in the ground, just a few feet from the rock where Pearl Hart sat smoking her last cigarette. His appearance surprised her, and she cussed him at some length. The man stared at her during the outpouring of profanity, his mild face smeared with dirt, his body still half-submerged. Pearl stopped cussing and squinted at him in the fading sunlight. He didn’t have on a shirt, and Pearl, being Pearl, wondered immediately if he was wearing pants.
-- Tim Pratt, “Hart and Boot” (2004)
Henry asked a question. He was joking.
“As a matter of fact,” the real estate agent snapped, “it is.”
-- Kelly Link, “Stone Animals” (2004)
I personally believe that China will be back on the moon before we are. I think when that happens, Americans will not like it. But they will just have to not like it.Cue Billy Bragg's song "The Space Race Is Over":
It may look like some empty gesture
To go all that way just to come back
But don't offer me a place out in cyberspace
Cos where in the hell's that at?
One of my CW submission stories is also being published in the anthology. I dunno if you'd remember it -- "Heartstrung" which is about a woman sewing her daughter's heart to her sleeve.This is excellent news, and I well remember reading that amazing story in manuscript. This may be the first time I've ever shared a table of contents with one of my former students. "Heartstrung" first saw print this year in Interzone. Rachel has others coming up in Fantasy Magazine, Weird Tales and anthologies from Night Shade Books and Subterranean Press. Here's her blog.
I'm pleased to share a TOC!
The train stopped at a small depot and down stepped a man carrying two heavy suitcases. He finally found his way to the only hotel in town but was disappointed to hear that all the rooms were full. Having no place to stay, he pleaded with the clerk, who found a good-natured retired colonel who let him sleep in the extra bed in his room. Before he went to sleep, he asked the clerk to wake him at 6:30 a.m., as he had an early train to catch.
The next morning the bellhop greeted him with, "Good morning, Colonel." To his surprise, the doorman said the very same thing.
When he finally got on his train, he made his way to the washroom and looked in the mirror. "My God," he said, "they woke up the wrong man!"
Allen Duncan was riding down Highway 23 last week, and down near Watsonia Farms he saw something he never saw before -- a large coyote ran across the road at full speed in front of him, and a mockingbird was flying just above his head, striking at the coyote every few seconds. That bird was really mad at him.
One of the country’s leading Pentecostal figures broke off relations after Falwell publicly sneered at her effort to heal a chicken through faith. “We Baptists don’t save chickens, we eat them,” he told her.I really wanted to work this into my story "Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse," soon to appear in Jonathan Strahan's Eclipse anthology, but as the story mostly takes place before Falwell was born, I finally gave up.
I've had a good time writing my columns, but it is time for me to sign off now. I cannot put the words together anymore. I want to thank you all for reading my columns, week after week, for a little longer than 50 years. It has made me many friends and, as far as I know, no enemies.An even better epitaph may have been the last sentence of Prettyman's last column, published May 31: "I am a very fortunate old geezer, by George!"
There is a famous journalistic legend about the time a young reporter covered the Johnstown flood of 1889. The kid wrote: "God sat on a hillside overlooking Johnstown today and looked at the destruction He had wrought." His editor cabled back: "Forget flood. Interview God."I was reminded of this when I read the lead of a front-page story in the June 20 Cumberland Times-News:
The Irish responsible for the construction of the C&O Canal and the B&O Railroad finally will get the memorial their ancestors believe they deserve.My first thought was: "Forget the memorial. Get us an interview with those dead ancestors!"
"I love every one of you. Most of all I love this chamber. I'm going home, and you all have a good day."
"Teddy -- I suppose Mummy and Daddy are real, aren't they?"(Years ago, Brian W. Aldiss cast Sydney and me as Teddy's parents in a performance of his 1969 story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" at the International Conference on the Fantastic in Fort Lauderdale. We were, of course, much better than the actors in A.I., the eventual movie made of the story.)
Teddy said, "You ask such silly questions, David. Nobody knows what 'real' really means."
While watching the Weight for Height competition at Saturday's Highland Festival in McHenry, Md., I was most impressed by the contestants' nonchalance after throwing. If I were able to heave a 56-pound weight straight into the air, I would not just stand there waiting for it to come down again. I would run out of the way, probably with my hands over my head, and likely squealing -- all probably frowned on at highland games.
I love this May 20 Roanoke Times photo, by Eric Brady, of 9-year-old Taylor Maddox at the Young Chefs Academy in Salem, Va., but it doesn't seem to have made the online version of the story. Nice use of supplemental audio and video, though.
said it might be unfair to allow some people to have a technology that is not available to others who do not have the money or the yard space.Do you suppose the mayor also opposes every other sort of home improvement, however beneficial to the town as a whole, that might make the neighbors jealous?
The appearance of the aircraft set off a barrage of telephone calls to the airport, law enforcement and the Cumberland Times-News from concerned citizens, some of whom reported seeing two aircraft when in fact it was only one.I'm sure at least some of those folks will continue to insist they saw two planes (or, as the years pass, three or more planes), despite the official government denials.
BEDFORD, Pa. -- Jessica R. Sellers, 24, of Bedford, died at 11:35 a.m., Tuesday, May 29, 2007, at home after a courageous battle with anorexia.Amid their grief, Jessica's relatives did an admirable thing in publicly declaring what she died of. The more open we become about this all-too-common illness, the closer we come to eradicating it.
this is too weird...Whether this counts as evidence that she now does care about my blog is open to debate, of course.
There is a Megan Hott because I am her sister :) ... Amanda Hott ... Just wanted to inform everyone that there are girls w/the last name Hott and they do go to high school, although I recently graduated. ;)(Megan, you're also on my hero Barry Johnson's blog, and you're the subject of this follow-up post on my blog as well.)
My family owns about 80 acres of woodland in Saluda County, S.C., acreage on which -- I grew up being told -- U.S. Army troops performed battlefield maneuvers as part of their training before being shipped overseas in World War II. The cabin used as a command headquarters was still standing in my youth, and we'd stay in it for a week or more each summer.I found out this week that I had misremembered the family story. The battlefield maneuvers took place not in the mid-1940s but in the late 1950s, because my brother, Allen, born in 1944, remembers visiting the encampment with our father, and seeing the camouflaged soldiers emerging from the woods like ghosts. (My brother also reports the cabin is still standing, and in surprisingly good shape.)
Months after the Titanic sank, a tramp steamer was traveling through the foggy Atlantic with only a young boy on watch. It came into his head that it had been thereabouts that the Titanic had sunk, and he was suddenly terrified by the thought of the name of his ship -- the Titanian. Panic-stricken, he sounded the warning. The ship stopped, just in time: a huge iceberg loomed out of the fog directly in their path. The Titanian was saved.The Encyclopedia Titanica, however, points out that ex-sailor William Reeve's account of his "amazing" premonition, written 32 years after the fact, flatly contradicts newspaper accounts at the time that put the Titanian's brush with the berg quite a ways from the spot where the Titanic went down. It was "thereabouts" only in the sense of "also in the North Atlantic." (Incidentally, the Titanian incident was not "months after the Titanic sank," but in 1935, which was 23 years after the disaster.) Given the frequency with which ships encountered bergs in the North Atlantic in the 19th and 20th centuries, is Titanian's encounter a generation later so remarkable? Here's another:
In Detroit sometime in the 1930s, a young (if incredibly careless) mother must have been eternally grateful to a man named Joseph Figlock. As Figlock was walking down the street, the mother's baby fell from a high window onto Figlock. The baby's fall was broken and both man and baby were unharmed. A stroke of luck on its own, but a year later, the very same baby fell from the very same window onto poor, unsuspecting Joseph Figlock as he was again passing beneath. And again, they both survived the event.This one seems to be partially true, as Time magazine actually mentioned the incidents in a roundup column in its Oct. 17, 1938 issue, saying the second fall occurred "last fortnight." But according to Time, the falls involved two different children, two different windows, two different buildings, two different streets -- which renders the story much more plausible, if considerably less amazing. I wonder how many small children did fall from high-rise windows, in the days before day care and air conditioning. (It occasionally happens still.) Moreover, Time reports that Mr. Figlock worked as a street sweeper, and that both incidents occurred while he was on the job. Someone whose job requires him to be in the street all the time is clearly at greater risk of being hit by anything that falls from windows; one wonders what else landed on Mr. Figlock during his career, other than these two celebrated kids.
Since it would be too much to expect journalists to stop asking these questions, what the Romney episode points to is the need for a new subspecies of political consultant--one who will help candidates look literate when it comes to pop culture. Most of the candidates need a crash course on the things that ordinary people like. Desperately. Or do you think Hillary Clinton has a favorite NASCAR driver ready for the inevitable occasion when a plucky Edwards supporter demands to know if she's a Jeff Gordon or Dale Jr. kind of gal? ...
Picture a candidate who could effortlessly segue from paying homage to Dale Earnhardt's #3 to saying how much High Noon has always meant to him. Conjure up a contender who could unashamedly admit that if owning every George Strait record makes him a square, so be it, and then quickly pivot to the many times tears welled in his eyes when sports heroes like Curt Schilling or Willis Reed rose above pain to perform in an almost super-human fashion.
That guy wouldn't just have a lot of admirers who wanted to have a beer with him. He'd also eventually be known as Mr. President.
"You will not regret it, my dear sir!" cried Drawlight, "for three weeks ago I chose a set for the Duchess of B-- and she declared the moment she saw it that she never in her life saw anything half so charming!"Eliding the name of a person or place, like the Duchess of B-- above, used to be commonplace in English-language fiction, and still is among writers going for a 19th-century effect. It lends an air of verisimilitude, as if the true identity of the real-life Duchess of B-- must be protected. But what is such an elision called? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
There are no bees in the cigarette trees, no big rock candy mountains.I sure wish I had known this when I wrote my own hobo fantasy, likewise titled "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" (in Conjunctions 39: The New Wave Fabulists, edited by Peter Straub and illustrated by Gahan Wilson). I'll have to re-read it now.
No chocolate heights where they give away kites, or sody-water fountains.
He made me beg and sit on his peg, and he called me his jocker.
When I didn't get pies he blacked my eyes, and called me his apple-knocker.
So what is the beef with wind farms? I'd really like to know, since my novel includes a community that is implementing them as a source of electrical power.Just as the same question was forming in my mind, the other Anne, who began this conversation, wrote:
Yes, homeowners were displaced by the Meyersdale project. There is a CD available with residents from Meyersdale ... It is really difficult to sum up all of the issues about wind turbines in a blog entry. They are putting these within 500 feet of people's property. The manufacturer of many (GE) wrote a report that they are 10 percent efficient at best. It is hardly worth destroying people's quality of life. There are health effects, bird and bat kills, destruction of land (a non-renewable resource). They do not run without coal plants; they do not save any CO2 in their lifespan. So much is emitted in the construction of the towers, the concrete to erect the towers, and the transportation from overseas to their destination. When they say they provide power for a given number of homes, they base it on 1,000 kilowatts ... this means that you can use 10 light bulbs. Most of us enjoy using our electric appliances and the like. The developer in Meyersdale refused to pay the property taxes levied on the wind farm. The town sued and the developer countersued. What are the economics involved? There are so many federal and state subsidies, it is incredible. They can all be found at www.dsireusa.org. You can follow the links to each incentive on the given government site.Thanks, Anne, for writing. I'll check out those links. I'm still curious to know, however, what form of electrical-power generation you prefer to wind. Coal? Nuclear? Hydroelectric dams? Solar? Many argue that we're likely to need a combination of all of the above, that what society needs to talk about is the percentage to be obtained from each.
Here are more real-life experiences living by wind farms:
No. 1
No. 2
No. 3
As far as jobs go, the projected project for my town, eighty 363-foot turbines, would provide four jobs. Is that worth it? Last year at the Tug Hill Plateau project, they picked up 6,000 dead bats and 2,000 dead birds (mostly raptors). This report is available online, done by an ornithologist that is paid by wind developers, so we suspect that the number is low. We also know a person who was employed collecting the dead, and they had buried some. They also only checked two transects at each of 120 turbines (Why did they omit 75 turbines?) and only once a week. Many must have been caried off by foxes and other wildlife. Feel free to email me, and we can discuss this further. There are so many negative facets that far outweigh any benefits of the wind projects. Hope this information gives you some understanding of my stand on "wind farms."
Most Passionately, Anne
I love wind turbines, I always try to stop and take a picture when I pass them. They’re just amazing, like lighthouses to me. Massive, and functional, and graceful. Screw it, built a house underneath a really big one and I’d live under it.New Scientist has well covered the wind-farm issue in recent years. Here are two examples: First, a stirring pro-wind farm editorial, by scientist David Suzuki.
And I’m not a huge ‘wind power’ alternate power person. I don’t see most tech I’ve checked out as being workable. In a lower power usage, like on a boat, they’re barely marginal. For a power hungry US? I’m more liable to place my money on nuclear power, like France.
Yeah, I’m a nuclear power loving environmentalist.
The real risk to birds comes not from windmills but from a changing climate, which threatens the very existence of bird species and their habitats. This is not to say that wind farms should be allowed to spring up anywhere. They should always be subject to environmental impact assessments. But a blanket "not in my backyard" approach is hypocritical and counterproductive.Second, a good article by Ed Douglas, from 2006, about the largely unknown environmental effects:
In the meantime, though, there is an alternative to building huge wind farms in vulnerable habitats. We could all install our own personal turbines on the roofs of our houses. ...
My wife and I are enthusiastic subscribers to the Library of America, and a few days ago we got to talking about the fiction writer Shirley Jackson -- especially her great novels The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle and her great stories such as "The Lottery" and "One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts." Is a Shirley Jackson volume in the Library of America pipeline, and if not, how would we go about recommending such a thing? Is there a formal petition mechanism, a postal address to which our fellow Jackson enthusiasts could write, etc.? Thanks for your time, and keep up the great work.Within the week, I received an unsigned but personal reply:
Dear Mr. Duncan:So that's good news, eh?
Thank you for your message. We are happy to take suggestions for the series via email.
Jackson is in development for inclusion in the series, but no publication date has been set.
Jamie Bishop ScholarshipAlready there have been standing-room-only memorial services for Jamie at home in Georgia -- one at LaGrange College, where Michael has taught for years, and one at the family's church, First United Methodist in Pine Mountain. Funeral arrangements in Georgia will be posted by the church as they are known.
Virginia Tech Foundation
University Development
902 Prices Fork Road
Blacksburg, Va. 24061
Be alert. Death comes without warning, any day, any time. ... Never give up. Don't think of turning back.Of the many profiles of Jamie that have been published this week, one of the best was in Tech's excellent local paper, The Roanoke Times. The one in the Los Angeles Times was the first I saw. Here's the one in Time. NPR has done a couple of segments on Jamie as well.
I especially admired Jamie's outrage and indignation when three children in the first third of the novel tell seventy-two-year-old Helen Bentley that she was never young, never pretty, never blessed with a first name. Jamie could not comprehend these children's stupidity and rudeness ...Here's more of Jamie in his own words and images, at his website.
Thank you for posting your experience by the Meyersdale wind farm that has driven many people from their homes which were unsalable and some sold for under 80% less than their fair market value. Also, bear in mind that the turbines they are trying to erect in PA, MD, WV, and NY are between 393' and 600' tall....closer to peoples homes. It is simply a fleecing of taxpayer dollars to ruin taxpayer's quality of life.Anne, do you mean that homeowners were displaced when the wind farm took their land, or that people left because they didn't want to live near a wind farm, or both? And do you know how many households were involved? The area we drove through was mostly wooded hunting land interspersed with pastures, but the few houses we passed weren't vacant.
I'm way too old and fat to model now. But for a writer, I'm pretty damn young and hot!
I’ve fielded literally dozens of phone calls and e-mails this week from nationally televised programs, radio stations and local news programs eager to declare Toby a hero. ... But somehow it seems like a shame that no one from "The Oprah Winfrey Show" or "Good Morning America" has ever called to ask about the paramedics, firefighters or police officers who risk their lives to help people every day. I can say with certainty that those heroes know exactly what they’re doing.
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
The International Club at Garrett College in McHenry, Md., sent the Times-News this photo to publicize this year's International Dinner. I thought it was a hoot, far superior to the usual line-'em-up-and-shoot-'em photo, but the newspaper hasn't made it available on the website yet, so club adviser Judy Carbone was kind enough to send me this copy for posting here.
While taking the scenic route recently from Frostburg, Md., to Meyersdale, Pa., for the Pennsylvania Maple Festival, Sydney and I blundered into our nearest wind farm, the Meyersdale Wind Energy Center. Here is Sydney standing near the base of the southernmost windmill, the first of 20 that march along the ridgeline. 
The morning we drove past, which wasn't windy at ground level, the windmills sounded like the world's largest slowly turning ceiling fans: rrrrWHUP rrrrWHUP rrrrWHUP. It was a weird sound, oddly musical, and not particularly loud, quite easy to talk over. On a really windy day, I'll drive back up there to see how the sound differs.
This afternoon, on the drive home from Scott Edelman and Irene Vartanoff's place in West Virginia, we stopped at the Sideling Hill Exhibit Center, between Cumberland and Hagerstown, to get an up-close look at this remarkable artificial canyon where 10 million tons of rock was blasted out of the ridge in the 1980s to make way for I-68. The scree is the incline you drive on, for miles east and west of "the Cut." The rock walls are nearly 900 feet high and, as you can see, quite close to the highway on either side, but on the foggiest days you can drive through the Cut without seeing either one.
It was Sunday morning. Billy and his chaplain had gathered a congregation of about fifty soldiers on a Carolina hillside. An umpire appeared. There were umpires everywhere, men who said who was winning or losing the theoretical battle, who was alive and who was dead.It was a Trafalmadorian adventure, of course, because the Trafalmadorians -- the aliens who abduct Billy later on -- experience all events simultaneously: "All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist" (Ch. 2, Page 27). Anyway, I decided, reading this brief scene, that the otherwise unidentified Carolina hillside was on the Duncan farm in Saluda County, S.C. I have no evidence for it, but I'm convinced of it all the same.
The umpire had comical news. The congregation had been theoretically spotted from the air by a theoretical enemy. They were all theoretically dead now. The theoretical corpses laughed and ate a hearty noontime meal.
Remembering this incident years later, Billy was struck by what a Trafalmadorian adventure with death that had been, to be dead and to eat at the same time.
