Just The Caffeine Talking

If The Miranda Conspiracy Was A Movie

Marshal Zeringue's Web site "My Book, The Movie" asks authors to imagine their books as films and pick actors for the lead roles. It's a fun question to answer — sometimes I know exactly who to cast, because I pictured a specific actor when writing the piece. And sometimes I have to go on a deep dive in the IMDb looking for someone who matches the person I imagined.

He asked me to cast the imaginary (so far) film version of The Miranda Conspiracy, and you can read my response here.

If anybody has different ideas or suggestions I'd love to hear them. Also if you have Denis Villeneuve's private email, send it along.

MidJourney AI says "Hooray for Hollvyodd!"

The Page 69 Test

Marshal Zeringue's "Page 69 Test" blog asks writers a simple question: what does one random page say about your book? He always picks the same one (presumably with help from Bill & Ted) but one could use a random number generator and come up with a custom version for every new book. Anyway, he asked me what I had to say about Page 69 of The Miranda Conspiracy. Read it here.

I'm not going to generate any AI art for this one. I expect using the prompt "Page 69 test" would get me an "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" response.

Unboxed!

My author copies of The Miranda Conspiracy arrived today — which implies they've also arrived at your Friendly Neighborhood Book Store and the Amazon warehouses. Now's your chance to get one! Or more!

Miranda Conspiracy Interview With Paul Semel

I did an email interview with Paul Semel, a noted reviewer and critic of games, media, and fiction. It's pretty interesting, and fills in some of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that led to the Billion Worlds and the oddly out-of-sequence nature of that sequence. You can read the interview here.

For visual interest, I asked Midjourney AI to draw me a picture of "The Miranda Conspiracy." This is what I got. I guess the one on the lower right might be one of Kavita's outfits. Does anybody recognize who the face is based on? The AI obviously has a particular person in mind.

Boskone is Coming! Boskone is Coming!

Mid-February brings blizzards, Valentines . . . and Boskone!

On February 14-16 I'll be at the fabulous Westin Boston Seaport District hotel for New England's oldest science fiction convention. This year they're keeping me busy, which is great because The Miranda Conspiracy should just be hitting the bookstore shelves. Here's my schedule, and when I'm not at these events I'll probably be attending other programming or hanging out in the delightful lobby bar.

Friday, February 14, 2:30 p.m.: Biology in SF/F — I'll be joining an erudite panel of experts to talk about how SF and fantasy fiction use (and misuse) biology.

Saturday, February 15, 10:00 a.m.: Reading — Come and hear an excerpt from The Miranda Conspiracy and pick up some bookmarks and special swag.

    2:30 p.m.: Technology and the Crisis of Conscience — I'll be moderating a crack team of writers as we discuss some thorny questions of ethics in science and technology and how SF has tackled those issues over the years.

    4:00 p.m.: Book Launch Party — Join me and all the other writers at Boskone with new books for a big combined book launch party!

Sunday, February 16, 11:30 a.m.: The Most Important Books I Never Read — I'll join an all-star panel discussing which famous works of SF and fantasy we've never gotten around to reading.

    1:00 p.m.: Autographing — I'll be signing copies of Miranda Conspiracy or anything else you want me to scribble on.

 

 

Music Theory

A while back I bought a set of CDs of all nine symphonies by Ludwig Van Beethoven. On long solo car trips I can now listen to them instead of trying to find a radio station which won't fade out after ten miles. I know — welcome to the 1990s. That's not the point.

As a result of my automotive Beethoven immersion, I've come up with my own explanation of why he was possibly the greatest composer ever.

I think Beethoven was a cheapskate.

Seriously: I think he was perpetually convinced that his musicians were slacking off, and so he wrote music to make them work. "That kettle drum player think's he's putting one over on me, sitting through the whole piece just to hit the drums two or three times at the end. I'll show that goldbrick. I'm gonna make him sweat in my Seventh Symphony." I imagine him watching rehearsals, taking notes to himself. "The horns aren't doing anything in this section. I'm paying them and they're not doing anything. Time to give them a counterpoint!"

This also applied to tempo. He famously wrote the Fifth Symphony for a tempo of 108 beats per minute. I suspect the math went something like this: "I'm paying those bums twelve groschen an hour. If I make them play twice as fast, that means I'm getting more notes for my groschen!"

And of course one sees this in the final movement of the Ninth Symphony, with the singers. "I'm paying those featherbedders to sing, not inhale!"

I'm not even joking when I say that creative endeavors are improved by this kind of artistic pennypinching. Writers should always strive to get the most work out of their words. A scene, or even a line of dialog, should do at least two jobs at once — more, if you can manage it. Hamlet's soliloquy shows what kind of a man he is, shows how depressed he is, and expresses some genuinely profound ideas, all while setting up for the next scene. Shakespeare was a manager as well as a playwright, and wasn't going to waste his actors' time or the audience's.

 

Arisia!

Boston's big January SF convention, ARISIA, is coming up in two weeks, over the weekend of January 17-20 at the fabulous Hyatt Regency Cambridge (a.k.a. "The Ziggurat"), just next door to M.I.T. As always, I'll be there. If you want to drop by, here's my schedule.

Saturday, January 18, 12:30 p.m. — Reading: Stop by and hear a sneak preview of my new novel The Miranda Conspiracy! 

5:30 p.m. — Creating Relatable Non-Humans: How do you make aliens properly non-human, while still keeping them sympathetic to an audience of humans? Join me and a team of SF and fantasy powerhouses to find out.

6:45 p.m. — Improv on a Page: A discussion of how methods and concepts from roleplaying games can be used in fiction. Useful new technique? Erosion of literature? Let's find out.

You can also find me in and around the hotel Friday through Sunday, and don't hesitate to say hi.

The illustration is what I got when I asked Midjourney AI for a picture of "Arisia." It might be a slightly de-aged Clarissa MacDougal from the Lensman books.

Ho Ho Ho

It's Christmas Eve afternoon as I write, which means it's time to click on the NORAD Santa Tracker to keep tabs on St. Nick's whereabouts. If you're in the Western Hemisphere there's still time to be good. Barely.

Christmas Day is also the first night of Hanukkah, so light 'em if you've got 'em — candles, that is. 

Happy Holidays, everybody!

 

New Baen Anthology: DEPTH CHARGE

I just got my comp copies of the new Baen Books anthology DEPTH CHARGE, edited by Hank Davis and Jamie Ibson. It's a collection of short science fiction stories set in undersea environments. Obviously, if they're sending me copies it means I've got a story in the book — in this case, "The Ocean of the Blind," which became the first chapter of A Darkling Sea. 

But that's not what's so exciting about this book.. The cool part is the company I'm keeping. There are stories by Kuttner & Moore, Arthur C. Clarke, James Blish, Robert Silverberg, and a whole lot of other heavy hitters in SF. It's an honor to appear between the same covers. Check it out, at your local bookstore or at Amazon. 

My PhilCon 2024 Schedule

In two weeks I'll be driving down to Cherry Hill, New Jersey, home of PhilCon 2024, the Philadelphia area's longest-running science fiction convention. This year it runs from November 22 through 24, and I've got events all three days.

Friday, November 22, 8:00 p.m.: Let's Design a New SF Television Show! — A panel of fans and writers brainstorm a TV series which will be good, good science fiction, and (one hopes) popular.

Saturday, November 23, 11:00 a.m.: How Real Does the Science in Science Fiction Have to Be? — Science fiction sometimes leans heavily into "rubber science" but presumably there's a line between science fiction and fantasy. Where do we draw that line? I'll be discussing that with some other creators.

Saturday, 1:00 p.m.: Writing For Aliens: Realistic Yet Relatable Perspectives — Writing alien characters, especially alien viewpoints, has a built-in conflict. We want the characters to be human enough for our (presumably) human readers to identify with, but we want them alien enough to make good science fiction.

Sunday, November 24, 10:00 a.m.: Autographing — I'll be signing any of my works anyone cares to put in front of me. There will be special swag for anyone who comes by!

Sunday, 1:00 p.m.: What's Happened to the Traditional Ghost Story? — The ghost story is one of the oldest forms of fiction, but modern horror fiction has become something very different. Where did the ghosts go? Come hear me discuss that with some other writers working in different genres.

So come see the fun at PhilCon!