Month: July 2009

RoF Drama Dying Down

By:  TempestThe Publishing Biz
RoF Drama Dying Down

And yay for that. I’m working on a post about tone which may also meld into a post I have about how two people saying the same things can garner different reactions based on their gender. Oh yes, it came up.

But first, I would like to point out that Realms publisher Warren Lapine made an appearance on the original thread yesterday. Interested parties may want to take note of the difference between his appearance and Doug’s. There are still some issues to address, mind, but there is an appearance of willingness to listen that I’m taking on face value.

Anyway, I think this is the end of my Realms-specific postings. I’m kind of impressed with the range of dialogue that’s been generated about fantasy art — it’s more than I hoped for and I’m really glad to see the issue being discussed.

Also, much love for the people in this thread.

Torchwood: Children of the Earth

By:  TempestGeekitude
Torchwood: Children of the Earth

It’s hard, sometimes, being a Torchwood fan. It’s hard loving a show that has such obvious flaws. That suffers so many episodes with a good or halfway decent premise to fall apart in the last 5 – 15 minutes. That suffers some more than occasional bouts of bad acting. That suffers Burn Gorman to be presented as a desirable sexual partner for either men or women.

It’s hard being a Torchwood fan.

Long ago I had to admit that I love Torchwood the way lots of people love fanfiction. After all, the show is essentially Doctor Who fanfiction (spinoff is such a polite term). And, like fanfiction, I’m willing to put up with a lot of crap as long as my kink is massaged. My kink is, of course, Captain Jack Harkness.

Over time I also became quite a fan of Miss Toshiko Sato, though her character was badly used through the whole of her two series. And Ianto, of course — mainly because he was snogging Jack.

As long as any one episode contained Jack, Jack snogging Ianto, and Toshiko being awesome, I was mostly happy. But man, oh man, I wished for more. I wished for plots that held together and deep emotional impact and for Gwen not to suck so much donkey balls and for the show in general to just really take chances and change the game.

I clapped very hard for this. Harder than I clapped for Tinkerbell. And my wish came true.

Torchwood: Children of the Earth is so good, so phenomenal, and so crunchy that it truly transcends its fanfiction/spinoff standing and becomes one of the best television events I’ve witnessed in the past several years.

It’s sad that we only got five episodes this series, but Russel T. Davies utilized them well, delivering a plot arc that kept the tension up without resorting to cheap tricks. In “Day One”, children all over the world freeze at the exact same moment. Just freeze. Then, a few minutes later, continue on as if nothing’s happened. That afternoon it happens again, but this time the children all speak in unison: “We Are Coming.” It’s terrifying in its simplicity and in the delivery. All children everywhere saying the same thing at the same time.

Of course the Torchwood team goes into action trying to figure it all out. But they quickly discover that their biggest obstacle and most immediate threat isn’t the aliens, it’s the British government. We find out exactly why over the course of the first three days.

I won’t go spoilerific on you yet (I have much analysis and questions, but I’ll save that for after the final episode has been aired in the US), but I will say that the tension, mystery, excitement and stuff that makes you cry is very well-balanced throughout the series.

One note I will make is that I was pleasantly surprised to discover about halfway through “Day Two” that I wasn’t as annoyed and chafed by Gwen or Rhys as I usually am. In fact, I thought Gwen was really awesome in this series. She didn’t once make me wish she had died instead of Tosh. I didn’t once want to throw her out of the airlock whenever there was a scene with her and Jack or her and Jack and Rhys all together. This is a major accomplishment for Torchwood, I think. And I’m not sure who to attribute the credit to.

I could be Eve Myles, who is a fine actress, and who is not at fault for Gwen horridness in Series 1 and 2. It could be Russel T. Davies, who just might have a better handle on writing the character than Chris Chibnall ever did. He wasn’t responsible for all of Torchwood’s previous episodes, but he was in charge of the series, and thus the writers probably took his cues more often than not. Maybe it was just that there was no time in this series for the usual stupid love triangle crap someone shoehorned into previous series. That’s fine with me. Series 4 writers please take note: this is the Gwen we should have had all along. Let’s keep her, please.

Torchwood: Children of the Earth is the best series to date. I hope its true that we’ll get a Series 4 someday, because if the show keeps going in this vein it may surpass the one that birthed it. Fanfiction rules!

Harry Potter and the… hmm, what was I saying?

By:  TempestWriting
Harry Potter and the... hmm, what was I saying?

My review of the latest HP movie is on Tor.com. What I did not say was that, during the scene in the cave when they go to get the locket? I kept falling asleep. It was THAT FUCKING DULL. I woke up at the end of it because there was fire. That is one of the most crucial, heart-rending scenes in the book and the movie managed to make it snooze-worthy. Sad.

Someone in comments pointed out that the scene with Hermione crying on Harry’s shoulder was well done — it was. I did forget to mention that.

New Writers? GTFO

By:  TempestThe Publishing Biz
New Writers? GTFO

Speaking of Realms of Fantasy, I was just paging through the new issue when I came across a letter from the editor, Shawna McCarthy, in the back. Here’s an interesting quote:

Without the magazines providing both a training ground and a platform for young writers, the genre publishing industry will be severely hampered–writers without track records have a much harder time finding agents, and should they have sufficient talent to find an agent without a short fiction history, the agent will have a much harder time selling their books to a publisher. All that will be left in the SF and Fantasy section are Old Reliable Writers, which, don’t get me wrong, have survived as long as they have because they are talented and capable, but as with all other things, they will one day pass on and who will be there to keep the industry alive?

I’m sure there are a few people who will debate her point about writers needing a short fiction track record, etc., but I’m more interested in this because of something Realms publisher Warren Lapine said at ReaderCon.

Now, I was not there for this, but my sources are multiple and reliable. Apparently on Thursday evening during a party, someone asked Warren about e-submissions and Realms. The discussion that ensued was described to me as a ‘fight’, with Warren very much against e-subs. When someone said to him that he was basically cutting out a whole generation of younger writers by being against e-subs, Warren reportedly said something like: Why do I need those writers, I’ve got Harlan Ellison in my magazine!

(Apparently there’s a Harlan story in an upcoming issue.)

This attitude is very much at odds, it seems, with the Fiction Editor’s. I don’t know how McCarthy feels about e-subs, specifically, but she doesn’t seem to feel that the presence of an Old Reliable Writer like Ellison is of so much more value than newer writers.

Later in the weekend I myself asked Warren if Realms would be accepting e-subs, and he told me something different. He said something about how if a writer rises up to a certain level, they can send submissions any way they please. I believe the words “Neil Gaiman can submit to me in crayon, if he wants” were uttered. But as concerns lower-level writers, he can’t have them sending in e-subs, that would be a disaster. But if you rise up — say have a book on the NYTimes bestseller list or something — you certainly can.

Again: Old Reliable Writers can do what they want because we want them! Young/New writers? Pfft!

(by the way, this is my last RoF post for the day, possibly forever. I’d meant to post these last week but stuff got int he way.)

Write-a-thon Week 4: BLARG

By:  TempestTechnology
Write-a-thon Week 4: BLARG

So, the Write-a-thon is chugging along and all and I completed my revision of What Fairy-Like Music Steals Over The Sea and will send it out to Weird Tales shortly. But MAN, this last week was hard!

I don’t remember if I blogged this (I know I Tweeted and FaceBooked it) but I got a call about a month ago from my old job, Laptop, asking if I wanted to return, but in a different capacity: editorial instead of web. I’m now an associate editor whose job includes fact-checking and testing, which is different than what I’m used to but also very exciting.

Luckily, returning to a place I’ve already worked meant that the first week was less about getting to know people and settling in. But I’m learning the fact-checking process for the first time, so it’s been a very full and busy week. Plus, there was the special Clarion West KGB reading and preparing for my salon and… yeah.

But I got the writing done when I could and didn’t burn myself out completely.

Another cool thing that happened last week was an interview I did with Jeff Vandermeer about the WaT went up on Amazon’s Omnivoracious blog. I was thrilled when Jeff asked me to do this and very happy with the way it turned out. Plus, OMG I am on an Amazon blog being interviewed!

In essence, last week was a very good week. Plus, the weekend before I got to see many of my peeps at ReaderCon, which was equally wonderful. My life? Is good.

Realms of Covers

By:  TempestThe Publishing Biz

A couple of weekends ago at ReaderCon I got the chance to see the newest issue of Realms of Fantasy, the magazine that, earlier this year, was canceled by the company that owned it. Publisher Warren Lapine bought the magazine because he saw that there was a groundswell of online activism around saving it. RoF is now reborn.

Here’s the cover, in case you haven’t seen it:

Realms of Fantasy cover

Someone also sent me a link to an image that’s going to appear in a forthcoming issue as art for a specific story.

For many years now — certainly since I started reading Realms, something I talk about here — the magazine has had a tendency to put some rather strange things on their covers. A lot of chicks in chainmail-type images when its not movie or television promo shots. I hear tell that these increase newsstand sales and I don’t doubt it. It can be really tiresome to look at year after year. But hey, people gotta eat.

So when I saw the new cover I wasn’t exactly surprised. I hear the nipples had to be taken out in order to make it newsstand-worthy; also not surprising. Realms has always had this tendency to put women in provocative clothing/poses/etc. on the front even though that kind of thing appeals more to men. I just don’t get it.

Warren Lapine was at ReaderCon handing out free copies of the magazine. We were both at the same party on Saturday night, so I took the opportunity to ask him a question that had been burning in my mind. What follows is an actual conversation I had with Lapine, transcribed from my memory, so there’s lots of paraphrasing and such.

Me: So, Warren, I was wondering: now that Realms is under new management and all, when are we going to see some male asses on the cover?

Warren: (raucous laughter)

Me: Because it seems like you’ve got the whole naked women thing down and the boob thing down, so how about some equal time?

Warren: That’s a good question. We should ask our new Art Director. Doug, c’mere for a second!

Doug [Cohen]: Yeah?

Me: (giving my full attention to Doug) I was just wondering when we’d see some male asses on the cover of Realms. Or even some penises?

Warren: (still highly amused) We’re not allowed to put penises on the cover, though.

Me: Makes sense. But inside, then. Because you’ve got plenty of boobs. Fish-girl boobs and nipple-less boobs and snake-woman boobs and boobs and more boobs.

Doug: (looking like he wants to shove a knife in my eye)

Me: I think it would do the magazine good to have some nice male asses around, don’t you? Or even: a shot from behind of a well-toned guy with him looking over his shoulder and a Fabio face or something.

Warren: (more laughter) I was just about to say! (turning to Doug) Our readership is, what, 4-1 female…

Me: Right! (to Doug) Don’t you think this is a good idea?

Doug: It sounds like a Tempest idea.

Me: Right, because it’s awesome! Another thing, maybe you don’t need so many boobs out there. Women in nice outfits works. You do know that women wear clothing most of the time, don’t you, Doug?

Doug: I know it now.

[I will pause here to note that I was unsure whether Cohen was trying to imply that I’d enlightened him on this fact because he’s been living in some dark cave most of his life or that he so very often sees women undressed that this was news to him. I’ll leave it to you to decide.]

Warren: Well, I was in a hair band in the 80s, and back then it sure didn’t seem like they did.

(so much laughter! OH HOHO! Also, I am given credit for ‘having a sense of humor’ because I laughed. …)

The conversation went on in this vein for a little longer, all the while certain parties not appreciating my suggestions. I think I especially riled someone when I asked if Realms had a monthly boob quota sheet in the office somewhere. But honestly, I wonder.

I overheard Warren and Doug talking about the issue together a little while later and got the impression that Warren felt I had a valid point and Doug felt that I initiated the conversation just to annoy him. Nevermind that I didn’t initiate the conversation with him; I went to the person with the power to decide stuff.

Anyway, time will tell if we get to see some male cheesecake on the cover. If we want it more inside the magazine obviously someone is going to have to step up and write some stories that call for it. Thus is my challenge to you, fantasy writers. Go to it!

Four Things Makes A Post (last day of vacation edition)

By:  TempestReadings
  1. My full Readercon schedule can be found here. I don’t know that I will actually be reading at the Interfictions 2 reading… or maybe we’re doing the thing where we each read for 2 minutes. I now have something to do on each day. When I’m not on a panel or attending one I’ll probably be hanging around the Prime Books table. There you will find copies of Sybil’s Garage and Electric Velocipede as well as Federations (and whatever else that doesn’t matter to me ;) ).
  2. My Week 2 story was complete in the early hours of Sunday morning. But it has no name, so I can’t send it anywhere. Boo! I hate titles.
  3. Today is the last full day I have to spend with my nieces here in Virginia. We went to Barnes & Noble and I bought them a TON of books. I tried desperately to interest my older niece in good stuff like Delia’s Changeling and Neil’s Graveyard Book but she wanted American Girls books. Save me. I did get her to buy Harry Potter, so that’s a start. I got a thrill when I saw Carol’s Graphic Universe books on the shelves. No Twisted Journeys, though. So I’ll have to send them to her. I have some age-appropriate Tiptree submissions I’ll send, too. I’m turning into the aunt that sends books. Hrm. (I also have a small friend in Texas who is getting some books soon, too.)
  4. Don’t forget that tomorrow is the Federations NYRSF reading. Click the link for deets and location and such.

WTF Authors AGAIN

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets
WTF Authors AGAIN

Authors… what the hell is going on? I would say that Twitter has made you insane, but I know some of you have been bringing the foolishness for a while, so obviously it’s not new media that is causing you to act out like a 10-year-old on too much sugar.

Alice Hoffman, get your butt off the internet before you embarrass yourself any further! Posting a critic’s phone number on Twitter? NO. *smacks on nose with paper* Bad author!

Ayelet Waldman, stop damning your critics to hell. It doesn’t reflect well on you. See above about 10-year-olds.

Again, I know that criticism hurts. And hey, complain about your critics all you like… in private to your friends. That’s what I do. That’s what most sensible people do. Your friends will tell you that the critic is an ass and you’ll feel better. But telling it to the world? Just makes you look like an ass.