I’ve been bemoaning the fact my nights have contained fewer dreams than they used to, and November seemed to have had the fewest ever since I began to sharing them with you. I still haven’t figured out the why of it, which frustrates me. But I guess I should be glad that even though my dreams are dwindling, I still had visits last month from Katee Sackhoff, Stan Lee, Robert Silverberg, and others.

Check out the dreams I originally shared in November over on Twitter.

November 2016

I dreamt I chased another car at high speed, only to have it escape when it shrunk to mouse-size and vanished through a crack in a wall. Nov 30

I dreamt I wandered a hotel heading for George R. R. Martin’s party, patting my pockets for my ticket, sure I’d get in if I found it or not. Nov 30

I dreamt three gangsters collapsed on a golf course, and when I investigated, I collapsed, too! The fertilizer was sending up poison gas! Nov 30

I dreamt I worked in a jewelry store, and the moment my boss took a break and left me in charge, the store was overrun by shoplifters. Nov 26

I dreamt I interviewed Dwayne Johnson on a movie junket — but when it was all over, realized I hadn’t asked any questions about the movie! Nov 26

I dreamt I wandered Brooklyn in search of breakfast and ended up at a 100-year-old knishery. Which I don’t think Brooklyn has in real life. Nov 24

I dreamt my HS pal @marcfrons got cast as a criminal on Law & Order, and I was hired to be his dim-witted sidekick. I used my Lenny voice. Nov 18

I dreamt I was Loki, trapped in the Roosevelt Island tram above the East River. Don’t know why, if I was Loki, I couldn’t escape. Oh, well. Nov 16

I dream I visited @PaulKupperberg in Copenhagen, where he was now in charge of tourism. I kept offering him Starbursts. He kept refusing. Nov 14

I dreamt @BELUTHAHATCHIE asked what I was working on, and I told him a story that existed only in dream. Now to decide whether to write it. Nov 13

I dreamt I was at Bob Silverberg’s house. He was decluttering, and offered me a box of his correspondence with Tom Disch. I took it eagerly. Nov 12

I dreamt I visited a cemetery and got into a conversation with a guy who’d gotten married there only 5 minutes before. Never found out why. Nov 6

I dreamt my mother-in-law built an Eiffel Tower out of cheese as a centerpiece, then grew sad when she realized she could have bought one. Nov 5

I dreamt Katee Sackhoff and I went for tattoos together. She got a skeletal rib cage over her rib cage, while I got zombie flesh on my arms. Nov 5

I dreamt I left a Moscow restaurant and saw @ResaNelson zoom by on a steamroller. I tried to follow on roller skates, but couldn’t catch up. Nov 4

I dreamt I swam to the bottom of a swimming pool and stayed there for hours, safe and happy. There seemed nothing odd about breathing water. Nov 2

I dreamt I found myself wearing wedding rings on the ring fingers of BOTH hands. Which confused me at first, but then I became OK with it. Nov 2

I dreamt I was working in the Bullpen with Stan Lee — ’70s Stan Lee — when a letter came from Larry Lieber suing Marvel for royalties. Nov 1

My final Eating the Fantastic episode recorded during the Kansas City Worldcon was also my final taste of Kansas City BBQ. I chose Q39 for my brisket farewell, as Bonjwing Lee, a foodie I trust, had written that the place offered “some of the most tender and well-smoked meat” he’d eaten recently according to his Eater survey on Kansas City burnt ends.

My guest this episode is the incredible prolific Robert Reed, who’s been writing award-winning science fiction for decades—and I do mean decades—starting in 1986, when he was the first Writers of the Future Grand Prize Winner for his story “Mudpuppies,” all the way to 2007, when he won the Best Novella Hugo Award for “A Billion Eves” (which I was honored to accept on his behalf at the 2007 Worldcon in Yokohama).

We discussed why he believes he isn’t as prolific as we all think he is, the reason Robert Silverberg was a role model for him as he was getting started, what it was like writing 500-word short shorts for the Destiny videogame, why he didn’t read the shooting script when his short story “Truth” was made into the movie Prisoner X, how he really feels about collaboration (hint: he doesn’t play well with others), and more.

Here’s how you can share the BBQ and conversation— (more…)

As I’ve told you before, I’m addicted to the obituary pages of newspapers, and not just so I can read summations of the lives of the rich and famous. I’ve always been moved by the passing of regular folks, too, and sometimes, certain write-ups stand out.

And so, here’s your uplifting obituary of the day.

I regret never having met Henry Frank Kulesza.

I’d have liked to listen to polka and eaten some kielbasa with him.

A few days ago, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America announced that the nominations period for the Nebula Awards had begun, and since all my 2016 short stories have now been published—and the recommendations period for the Bram Stoker Awards from the Horror Writers Association is ongoing as well—it’s time to gather info about my publications in one place so eligible voting members of those two organizations can take them into consideration.

First up, two science fiction tales—

“101 Things to Do Before You’re Downloaded”

This 5,850-word far future science fiction story appears in the anthology You, Human, edited by Michael Bailey for Dark Regions Press. With the Earth about to end for our descendants, there are still a few more things that need to get done before it’s all over …

[UPDATED November 27 to add video from Chessiecon, so you may now see and hear me read all four stories I published in 2016. Enjoy!]

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Remember my 44-year struggle to sell a story to Analog? Well, that long struggle is almost over.

You’ll have to wait until the double-sized January/February issue goes on sale December 20th to read “After the Harvest, Before the Fall,” but the current issue has an In Times to Come feature which made me extremely happy.

Check out the start of the third paragraph —

Nice to have proof this wasn’t just an elaborate prank by editor Trevor Quachri.

Whew!

I may have given you the impression, based on the three previous episodes of Eating the Fantastic, that all I ate while I was in Kansas City for this year’s World Science Fiction Convention was BBQ. Not true! This episode’s guest requested sushi, which led us Bob Wasabi Kitchen, giving me some respite from the meat sweats.

And who’s the guest this time? Kathleen Ann Goonan, whose first novel, Queen City Jazz, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and who won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for In War Times. And, I should add, who wrote the story, “The Bride of Elvis,” which I had the honor of publishing twenty years ago (yikes!), back when I was editing Science Fiction Age magazine.

We talked about which side she chose as a kid in the Marvel vs. DC comics rivalry, why she ended up a creator of science fiction rather than fantasy, whether she’s a plotter or a pantser when she writes, if she’ll ever continue her acclaimed Nanotech Quartet, and more.

Here’s how you can share the sushi— (more…)

As I told you the last time I gathered my dreams, I seem to be remembering fewer of them these days. It isn’t that I’m not having them—I continue to stir in the night aware I’m rising out of dreams—but between the time I reach consciousness and reach for a pen, the dreams mostly dissipate. My hold on them has for some reason weakened.

I’m not sure what that means. I only know that instead of up to seven dreams harvested a night, I’m down to one, if that. Which is why it’s been three months since I’ve bothered pulling them together like this to see whether there’s any sort of theme running through them.

In any case, this time around, my dreams featured guest stars Marilyn Monroe, Miley Cyrus, Jon-Erik Hexum, Lee Remick, George R. R. Martin, and more …

October 2016

I dreamt I tried to convince Ted Chiang to teach a workshop, and stuffing my face with cake at the same time, so he couldn’t understand me. Oct 31

I dreamt I wandered NYC looking for pie. Cherry pie. But it was eternally elusive, and I — sniff! — woke before I could find any. Oct 29

I dreamt I was kidnapped in some unspecified foreign country, and brought to meet a drug warlord, who turned out to be … Miley Cyrus. Oct 24

I dreamt Somtow Sucharitkul interviewed me about Japan, and all my answers were required to be in Japanese. (The interview did not go well.) Oct 23

I dreamt I was out at a restaurant eating a big bowl of Spider Soup, and complaining it contained too many noodles and not enough spiders. Oct 22

I dreamt I’d volunteered for a one-way trip to Neptune, but in the final days before launch, I was starting to have second thoughts. Oct 22

I dreamt an episode I’d written of The Untouchables was about to air, and I was wandering around a con looking for a TV so I could watch. Oct 21

I dreamt I caught a baby’s car seat as it was falling down the stairs, but the baby slipped out and continued plummeting. Not a nice dream. Oct 12

I dreamt Gordon Van Gelder and I were lobbying Congress to pass laws helping out independent bookstores. Don’t know whether we succeeded. Oct 2
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Another episode of Eating the Fantastic … another helping of Kansas City BBQ.

As part of my quest to eat all the BBQ I could during this year’s World Science Fiction Convention, I ended up at Gates B-B-Q, since according to the word on the street (if the Internet can be considered the street), it’s one of the two best BBQ joints in Kansas, the other being Arthur Bryant’s.

Here’s a story of the difference between the two of them which may be apocryphal, but—I’ve heard that when candidates for political office come to town, they always head to Arthur Bryant’s for their photo ops—but the journalists, the crews running the cameras, the working stiffs following those candidates—they head to Gates. I have no idea whether that’s truth or fabulation, but it sure does make for a good story!

Joining me at Gates was the ridiculously talented Alyssa Wong, nominated at Worldcon for the The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and winner of the 2015 Nebula Award for Best Short Story for “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” … which is also up for a World Fantasy Award. Whether or not she wins will be revealed at a banquet this Sunday in Columbus, Ohio.

Listen in as we chow down on BBQ and talk about what franchise inspired her to write fanfic, the exciting moment when she first encountered a character who looked like her, where she hopes to be 10 years down the road, how she encountered Faceless Ghost Grandma, why she said, “I hate being bored and I don’t like rules,” and more.

Here’s how you can share the BBQ and conversation— (more…)

Seeing Carol Tilley lecture at the National Archives on the letters kids wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Special Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1954 defending comics books turned out not to be the only comics-related thing in my life this afternoon. Because as I was heading back to Union Station for my train home, I came upon the following street art which made political statements by tweaking actual covers from old comic books.

Here are the four I saw, accompanied by the original covers I tracked down.

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Carol Tilley—who’ll be speaking Thursday at the National Archives about letters kids wrote to the Senate defending comics in 1954—just posted over on Facebook the front page from the August 25, 1940 issue of Fantasy News … and I can’t resist sharing one part of it here.

Thomas S. Gardner, whose short fiction had been published in the ’30s in Wonder Stories, complained that the new science fiction comics were so inane as to cause some readers to give up on science fiction entirely. Plus comics (or so he claimed) were even damaging the reputation of science fiction—and the fans themselves.

Science Fiction is being guffawed, ballyhooed, and ridiculed out of existence. The readers and magazines are being classified as morons as a result of the comic books.

Luckily, though, the prescient Gardner predicted comic books wouldn’t be around for long.

The comic magazines are a fly-by-night affair in all probability. The fact that few appear for the second issue but start out with a new series hoping to sell the first copies is pretty good proof of their impermanence.

Gardner lived until 1963, after the Golden Age of comics had ended and the Silver Age had begun. Wonder whether that was long enough for him to change his mind?

You can read the issue in its entirety over at FANAC.