Happy birthday, John!

John Byrne and I met more than a third of a century ago, back when we were both just fans, before I’d started on staff at Marvel Comics. And since it’s traditional to embarrass old friends on their birthdays, here’s a blast from the past even he may have forgotten about! I know I almost had.

John’s first professional comic-book art was published in the Skywald black-and-white horror magazine Nightmare #20 (August 1974), just about the time I started in the Marvel Bullpen. My own first professional comic-book script appeared about a year later, in Dead of Night #11 (Aug 1975). It was the first story about the Scarecrow, which Marvel seems to be calling the Straw Man these days.

The character had gone through many incarnations before it saw print, incarnations which John had known about and, as you’ll see, even participated in. In May 1975, I received a fan letter from him in which he wrote—

Just got the first issue of SCARECROW (D. O. N. #11). Love it! Really tremendous. And I much prefer this version to my pumpkin rendition.

Enclosed is a subtle hint.

The letter was accompanied by the sketch you see below.

Now you might think as you read that note—what pumpkin version? And you know something … I was just thinking along those lines myself. (more…)

I discovered a wonderful site yesterday—The Marvel Comics Bullpen Bulletins Index, which reprints those gossipy pages which took us all behind the scenes at Marvel and enthralled me when I was a kid … and which I was eventually privileged to write!

You can see my first one, which appeared in all April 1975 Marvel Comics titles, here. (I was responsible for everything but Stan’s Soapbox, which he dutifully banged out himself each month.)

I can still remember sitting in the Bullpen typing away, and then going into Len’s office and reading it aloud to Len, my future wife Irene Vartanoff, and others, and how proud I was when they laughed as I read and then told me I’d nailed the voice.

But that’s not the Bullpen Bulletins page which I found the most interesting, at least not today. The one which just caught my attention came out the month before, in the March run of books. It included the first mention of me in a Bullpen Bulletins page, on the occasion of me making the move from my position as Associate Editor of Marvel’s British reprints to Assistant Editor on the U.S. titles. (more…)

I received a contributor’s copy of Talebones #38 yesterday. My expected copies had already shipped via a slower rate of postage and will be forthcoming , but editor/publisher Patrick Swenson was kind enough to mail me one first class when I told him that I wanted to wave it about at Readercon next week. I figured that since the story “The Only Wish Ever to Come True” made its first public appearance at a Readercon when I chose it for my reading a couple of years ago, some of the people who come to this year’s reading might be interested in knowing that it’s finally out.

This marks my third story to see print this year, and it suddenly occurs to me that it’s in my third genre.

My first short story out this year, “Glitch,” appeared in February in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Three. It’s pure science fiction, with robots both earthly and alien, an invasion of Earth, and ruminations on whether it’s possible for an artificial intelligence to understand art.

Then came The Hunger of Empty Vessels, a novella which was published in April as a chapbook by Bad Moon Books. It’s a dark story containing an unusual haunting and emotional vampires. There’s no mistaking it for anything but horror.

Now, in July, comes the Summer issue of Talebones, in which I share the Table of Contents with Mary Robinette Kowal. “The Only Wish Ever to Come True” is pure fantasy, with wishes coming true over thousands of years, and even an explanation as to why we tend to get three of them.

And as I look ahead to the other stories coming out this year, I see a zombie tale titled “The Human Race” out shortly in Space & Time, the metafictional post-apocalyptic meditation on war “The World Breaks” in Postscripts, a ghost story titled “Here Choose I” in the lettered limited edition (and only in the lettered limited edition) of The Hunger of Empty Vessels, and then perhaps one more zombie story, the title and anthology to be named later.

As you can see, my output is all over the map. Perhaps not the wisest thing to do in a day when novelists are being urged to pick a niche, or else use a different pen name for each genre so as not to confuse readers.

I don’t buy it. I remember the days when Fredric Brown could write science fiction and mysteries and not have to hide it.

Or maybe it’s that I just don’t care. What matters to me is writing the stories that demand to be written, in the order they demand it, even if that doesn’t make the best marketing sense. (Hey, there are those who would say that writing short stories instead of novels in the first place doesn’t make much sense!) If I don’t do that, then it’s just a job.

And I hope I never come to think it as only that.

One of the many magazines I edited for Sovereign Media a decade or so ago was titled Sci-Fi Universe. It had originally been edited by Mark Altman and published by Larry Flynt, but Flynt eventually grew tired of losing money, and so went looking for a buyer, which turned out to be Sovereign.

The magazine had been Altman’s dream project, but he had no ownership interest in it, which meant that when the magazine was sold, he did not come along. He was out and I was in.

(Most editors have no stake in their magazines, even when they are their babies. Want another example? My own Science Fiction Age.)

He wasn’t happy about it, and neither were a number of the readers. Sci-Fi Universe had been an edgy magazine molded in the Film Threat style. But since it was felt that however much fun that attitude might be, it also contributed to the publication’s lack of profitability, Sovereign reinvented it to be more traditional entertainment magazine. We did try to keep some lightheartedness to it, though, and I pulled in Paul Riddell to rant each issue in a department called, appropriately enough, “Rant.”

For the first few issues, the letter writers pounded me. One, as you can see in the letters column above, went so far as to tell me:

Scott Edelman, you are a media whore. You may sleep well, but no one with any intelligence reads you.

I can’ t remember whether or not I did happen to be sleeping well at the time, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is— (more…)

While following Melopoeia‘s link about a bone marrow registry drive at Readercon, one in which I hope you’ll all take part—I know I plan on using the opportunity to sign up—I read something distressing.

After browsing the indicated entry, I then scrolled down the Additional Information page to find the following warning about how harassment would be handled if it were to occur:

Harassment

Readercon has always had a zero-tolerance harassment policy. Until last year, we did not feel it necessary to call attendees’ attention to the details of this policy—but this year we are being explicit.

Harassment of any kind—including physical assault, battery, deliberate intimidation, stalking, or unwelcome physical attentions—will not be tolerated at Readercon and will result in permanent suspension of membership.

As always, Readercon reserves the right to strip membership at its discretion.

And all I could think was—what does “until last year” mean? Did I miss something last July?

I’ve always found Readercon to be the most accepting of places—which I recognize is an easy statement for me to toss off, considering I’m a 6’4″ privileged white male.

What I’m hoping is that this notice on the part of the committee is not the result of anything that actually happened at Readercon in 2008, but rather a preventative strike to avoid some of the behaviors I’ve heard have cropped up at other conventions recently.

But I’m willing to admit that could be wishful thinking. If I’m wrong, and completely out of the loop, and missed something terrible which happened last year which I could have helped prevent, or if I took some unconscious action myself by either word or deed which might have intimidated others, please, educate me.

I’ve been to every Readercon going back to 1987, and want it to remain a place of safety. If anyone out there has anything to say which would enlighten me, please let me know here, or, if you’d feel more comfortable, privately via e-mail.

Richard Thompson gets us ready for summer reading with his recent cartoon in the Washington Post. I’ve always loved his work, but this one particularly struck a chord.

If you also like the one below, follow this link to see it and many of his other cartoons at the Washington Post site.

The Readercon committee has just circulated the first draft of this year’s programming—not counting solo talks, readings, kaffeeklatsches, autograph sessions, and the like, which are still to come—and these are the panels I’m pencilled in for, along with my co-panelists as well as the descriptions which will clue you in on what I let myself in for when I signed on.

I look forward to seeing you all in Burlington!

Friday, July 10 at 11:00 AM
Egocentrism and Creativity
with Eileen Gunn, James Patrick Kelly, John Shirley, Catherynne M. Valente, and Gene Wolfe
“I’m Michael Swanwick, and with the possible exception of Gene Wolfe, I’m the best writer present today.” This introduction at Readercon 1 (at the Wolfe appreciation panel!) drew big laughs for its nerve (and apparent self-delusion), but in retrospect it seems to be merely precognitive (Nabokov observes that “there is no more pure love in the world than the love a young writer has for the old writer he will someday become”). Swanwick now maintains that “modesty and a reasonable awareness of [one’s] limitations have no place in a writing career.”

Friday, July 10 at 2:00 PM
Hacks Anonymous vs. The Art Police
with Elizabeth Hand, Kit Reed, David G. Shaw, and John Shirley
Admitted ‘hacks’ (okay, ‘commercial writers’) tell us of their lives while those who can’t conceive of doing that gawk and gape and ask questions that would be rude if they weren’t so naive.

Sunday, July 12 at 10:00 AM
After the Cover’s Closed
with Lev Grossman, Karen Heuler, Walter H. Hunt, Luc Reid, and Michaela Roessner
The amount of closure that any story can have varies widely; there are endings that clap shut like a trap and endings (like “The Lady and the Tiger”) that force the reader to decide what happened next. Presumably the writer has a sense of how much closure the ending should provide, and thus how much they want the reader to think about the characters afterwards (and even what those thoughts might be). And yet there’s no question that the reader brings as much or more to the ending of a story than the writer. Different readers not only have different tastes in degree of closure, they have different propensities to wonder what happens next (from the reader who doesn’t care whether the lady or tiger gets chosen, to the reader who can’t help wondering what happens after the end of On the Beach.) When the closure a reader experiences matches the writer’s intention, the result can be very powerful. But it may be the mismatches that tell us more about the nature of fiction.

I’m trying to track down a short story that I read long ago and far away, and since I can’t remember the title or author, I turn to you. I’m sure that asking for help with this ID will lead to public humiliation, because I have a feeling it might be a well-known Asimov story that was perhaps published in Analog, and you’ll all just chime right in with the title, but since my feeble brain can’t remember or find it, I thought I’d bring it up here.

The story, as I recall it, is almost a scientific paper about how certain worms, able to navigate a maze, are ground up to feed other smart worms, which then are even better able to navigate the maze. The scientist keeps repeating the process, winnowing out the dummies, and the worms get smarter and smarter from feasting on only the smartest worms. The scientist is thrilled by the discovery that this is possible, and so writes a paper on how certain animals can assume traits from ingesting others.

The scientist then gets on a plane with other top scientists, heading off to present his findings at a scientific conference, and his flight crashes in a part of Africa where cannibalism was purported to be practiced. The implication in the final few paragraphs of the story, based on rumblings the author is hearing coming out of Africa, is that a group of cannibals have become super-geniuses, and are about to change the world.

I seem to recall reading this in an SF fiction magazine of the ’60s or early ’70s.

Any idea as to the title or author of this story?

And please try not to slap me around too hard when you pop up to tell me how famous it is, and how I should have known!

A couple of years ago I signed up for a service which would send me a New Yorker cartoon every few days. Each cartoon would be accompanied by advertising, of course, but still, I love New Yorker cartoons, and was willing to put up with that in exchange for ones showing up serendipitously in my in-box.

Here’s the cartoon which was waiting for me when I woke this morning:

Which is one reason I try not to write about writers.

Who wants to appear as pathetic as that guy?

I woke up one week ago today and immediately started writing a new short story. Forty hours later, at 10:00 p.m. Sunday night, I had a completed first draft of 5,000 words.

That’s never happened to me before. Based on my usual speed of writing, words accruing like a coral reef, a story of that length would usually take from a week to 10 days to achieve finished first draft stage. (What can I say? I’m no Jay Lake.

Perhaps the reason the story poured out of me so quickly was that I’d been carrying the basic concept around for years, and my attendance at the Stokers a few weeks ago acted as a catalyst.

Would you like to read it? Good!

Because there it is.

Hope you enjoyed it! (more…)