Category: Books

I love SF novels, and count stories like The Forever War and The Ghost Brigades among my all-time favorites, but in the last year, I’ve grown very fond of the SF short story. Since an SF short story is what I hope to scrape out of my brains as my next writing project, I’ve been reading as many short stories as I can get my hands on, in places like Subterranean online, the Subterranean magazine, and in various anthologies.

I recently finished a great anthology called the Nebula Awards Showcase 2007, edited by Mike Resnick. In addition to some great SF from established writers, it included some fantasy (Kelly Link’s Magic for Beginners was wonderful), some poetry, and a novellette from Harlan Ellison that, while not SF or Fantasy, was probably my favorite tale in the book.

Now that I’m done with it, I’m looking for a new SF anthology. I’ve spent some time in the bookstore and on the googles trying to pick out a new one, but it’s tricky. Most anthologies are, by their nature, uneven, and some are downright garbage. I haven’t red enough to know if there’s one editor who I can rely upon more than another, of if there’s one publisher who puts out books with pretty covers and not much else.

While I wait for my sample issues of F&SF to arrive, I’m looking for a new anthology that’s not huge (some are over 800 pages, which is just too big for me to schlep around town) that focuses on speculative fiction.

Any suggestions?

I promise this isn’t going to turn into "The Happiest Days Reviews: in Exile." It’s just that I needed to come up for air for a minute, and saw this review of Happiest Days at Tech Universe:

Reading the well-written Happiest Days
was a fun experience, and you can’t help but feel like Wheaton is
telling you these stories himself . . .and these really are some happy and fun stories,
including one about his love of Star Wars action figures, or his family
run for the Susan G. Komen foundation, or his great poker game . . . or even his return to the stages
that once housed Star Trek: The Next Generation, where he played Wesley Crusher.

I
have to hand it to Wil, he brought back my own memories. I think he’s
around three years older than I am, and I fell in love with Star Wars
figures at the same time; I was stuck wearing corduroys in the late
70s/early 80s (thank God they went out of style by the time my family
moved to South Florida in 1984), and more.

Two themes are emerging in reviews and reader comments and e-mails: it feels like we’re sitting together (possibly in a nice pub, having a few pints) while I tell you these stories myself, and the stories I tell are awakening shared memories from readers who, like me, are in Generation X.

Last night, I packaged the remaining hardcover book orders. I’ll take all the domestic orders to the post office a little later today, and Anne and I will get started on the customs forms for the international orders just as soon as I get this writing assignment finished so I make my deadline a week from now. It’s a cool fiction project that I should be able to talk about relatively soon, but at the moment I’m in a serious panic over it. Once again, I wish I could stop time, or at least slow it down.

(Speaking of stopping time, is anyone else totally over Heroes this season? I haven’t been this disappointed by a series since the third season of Lost.)

My friend Dr. Pauly reviewed The Happiest Days of Our Lives!

Very few authors are able to connect with their readers, but Wil
Wheaton is not like most writers. His words are like a sleeper cell.
You have no idea they have penetrated deep inside of you, then they
spring to life and attack your senses when you least expect it.

[…]

Probably the hardest part about reading any of
Wheaton’s books is that I’m constantly day dreaming while I’m supposed
to be reading it. My thoughts drift because his words instantly trigger
flashbacks and old memories. That’s a powerful gift to have.

My
only complaint was that the book was too short. I wanted more. I equate
Wheaton’s style to Hemingway in the sense that he has an amazing
economy of words. The result is short but powerfully loaded pieces.
Although the book physically contains only thirteen short stories, the
impact is much greater. The stories, images, and memories that Wheaton
stirs up inside your head continues to fester and entertain and inspire
you long after you’re done reading his last page.

Pauly is an inspiration to me, and I aspire to write as well as he does one day. His praise of my work means a lot to me. 

I hear that a lot of the 300 are getting their books. This is awesome, and I’m happy to hear that those of you who’ve gotten your books are as excited to have them as I am for them to be in your hands. Because I’ve processed all the hardbacks out of the computer (the outstanding orders are just waiting to be sorted and filled with books), I was able to put softcovers back up for order again.

In non-HDoOL news, I just found out that a deadline was moved up from the middle of
January to December 4, so I’m probably going to be AFK (well, AFB,
anyway) for the next week or so, except when my brain demands a break
from it all and forces me to come post psychotic ramblings in my blog
about the time a Nosferatu became a Deadhead and lived out of a
converted school bus for six years, tripping his fangs off by drinking
the blood of spun out hippies in 1960.

. . . uh-oh. It’s starting already.

I just did a recount of the limited edition hardback oversells, and my count from Sunday was way off. I didn’t oversell by 24, I only oversold by 6!

While this still sucks for six people, it sucks considerably less for eighteen people, who lived in an eigenstate of suck for the last 36 hours or so. Of course, those eighteen people won’t know they were a cat in a box until they get their books, and see a number between 282 and 300.

Some of you will be getting shipping notices shortly, if PayPal can get its shit together. It’s been infuriatingly wonky this morning. International customers won’t get confirmations, because I have to process your orders manually, but your books are also shipping at the same time.

Speaking of The Happiest Days, it got a very nice review at Slashdot:

Where once it seemed as though Wil had something to prove in his
writing – that he was over showbiz, that he was over Star Trek –
Happiest Days is full of simple stories. The day he bought a Lando
Calrissian action figure essentially by mistake, a simple outing for
ice cream with his sons; they’re everyday events but artfully told. In
total he has about thirteen short tales in the chapbook-sized novel,
ranging from just two pages long to a few dozen.

Some of his most evocative stories (and the reason this review is here)
are all about Wil’s growth as a nerdling. The most evocative for me was
the chapter ‘a portrait of the artist as a young geek’, which details
Wil’s introduction to tabletop roleplaying. From his first brush with
the infamous ‘red box’ D&D set at Christmas 1983, to his experience
teaching his kids how to roll up characters under the 3.0 rulesset, the
story reminds me (and may remind you) of a D6-laden past.

And really, that’s what Wil makes this a book about. It’s about his own
past, his troubles, his triumphs, but in reality this is meant to be a
book that reaches out to you as a reader. If you see something of
yourself in the kid who agonized in the toy aisle, if you see something
of yourself in the dad who argues with his kids over the radio station
(and rocks out to 80s synth-pop), then the purpose of the Happiest Days
has been fulfilled. Or at least, as I see it.

I’ve vowed that I won’t play Rock Band until I get at least half the 300 processed, but now that Slashdot is sending people to Monolith Press, I have extra incentive to get them all processed, so we can start taking softcover orders again. PayPal is making that as difficult as possible, with the timeouts every goddamn two minutes, but if the server blots out the sun with arrows, I shall process orders in the shade!

Uh . . . yeah. if I may take a page from Lloyd Bridges in Airplane, I picked a bad day to sleep in.