On the road again: DragonCon, day 2

Unfortunately, I spent almost all of today's daylight hours in my room, again, working.  I did get out for a quick burger for lunch and a walk through the large art show.  While on that walk, I ran into and chatted with Dan Dos Santos, an artist whose work I very much like.  He did the cover for The Wild Side, and I liked it so much I bought the original painting.  In person, he was friendly and humble and altogether delightful.  I quite liked him.

I also spent a few minutes talking with Annie Stegg, an artist whose work I had never seen before.  Her paintings were lovely, pieces that frequently exhibited a strong Pre-Raphaelite influence.  I will certainly be on the lookout for her art in the future.

At 5:30, it was time to do my comedy show.  The audience numbered around 40, larger than I'd feared, smaller than I'd hoped, and big enough that the sound of their laughter carried into the hall and drew in more people.  As best I can tell, the show went quite well; I know the whole audience laughed for nearly the entire set.  (I'm dropping the bits where they didn't laugh.) 

After the show, I gave myself the reward I had mentioned yesterday:  a trip to the local Jeni's for some ice cream. Publisher Toni joined us, and we had a grand time talking and enjoying scrumptious ice cream sundaes.

Back at the hotel, work had piled up once again, so I spent a few hours catching up.  I then headed out to people-watch, first in the lobby of the Hyatt, and then in the Marriott's lobby.  The crowds tonight were way larger than last night's.

Click an image to see a larger version.

Downstairs, a small rave was in progress, the beat pounding upward, the dancers all having a grand time.

I stayed for a surprisingly long time, watching the people, listening to the music, and finding myself smiling and invigorated at the sheer energy of the crowd.  The enthusiasm here is contagious.

I routinely read and hear discussions of how SF/F is dead, but this con, like many other large cons, puts the lie to that statement.  SF/F has carried the day, moved into video games and other games of all sorts, into TV shows and movies, and into the culture at large.  Sales of paper books may be down, but overall book sales--ebooks do count--are up.  The people at this con are, by and large, young and engaged and passionate about their interests.  Those interests touch every aspect of the fantastic.  If you asked them if science fiction and fantasy were dead, they would wonder if you were insane.

Are they all reading SF/F novels?  Most assuredly no.  But some of them are, and they are numerous.

I have always been hopeful for our field, and I am even more hopeful now.

On the road again: Bouchercon, St. Louis, day 4

The con's big activity for today was the Anthony Awards brunch. Bouchercons run their award ceremonies with speed as the top priority, so the food was buffet-style, standard hotel breakfast fare, which is to say eggs and bacon and sausage and bacon and fruit and bacon and biscuits and bacon. Did I mention bacon?

Where SF Worldcons draw out awards with multiple presenters, Bouchercons have a single presenter announce them all. This year's Toastmaster, Ridley Pearson, did something unusual: He presented the awards in as random an order as he could manage. He wrote each category on a small piece of paper, crumpled those sheets into little balls, and put them in a small jar. The con chair chose the first one, and then winner of each category chose the next category. Nice idea.

You can easily find all of the winners online, but I was particularly happy to see Dana Cameron, one of my fellow contributors to The Wild Side, walk away with the Best Short Story award for "Swing Shift." The same story had earlier garnered Dana the Macavity award, so it was a great weekend for her. My congratulations to her.

Finding dinner tonight proved to take more time than I had expected, because this part of downtown St. Louis appears to roll up the sidewalks on Sunday. We finally ended up at Rosalita's Cantina, which served up far better TexMex food than we had feared we might get. Everything we tried was good, the server was very nice and attentive, and all in all, I'd recommend it to anyone in downtown St. Louis looking for a solid TexMex meal.

Tomorrow, I leave early for a day of taxis, airports, and traveling that will, I hope, result in me being home tomorrow night.

If you want to read my ramblings on The Wild Side

Check out this guest blog entry on Ed Gorman's blog. Ed invited me to contribute, so I supplied him with this short essay.

If you like mystery fiction and you don't know Ed, you should definitely check out his blog and his Web site. He's been working in the field a long time, created a lot of interesting characters and books, and knows a great deal about it.

Enjoy!

Forthcoming fiction from me

A few folks have asked me to run down the fiction I've got coming, so here's the scoop on the next year.

July - the paperback of Children No More. Buy the book, and I'll donate my royalties from it to Falling Whistles to help rehabilitate and reintegrate children affected by war. Pop for the hardback, and I'll donate even more money to help those kids.

August - The Wild Side! This trade paperback original anthology features ten cool tales, including one of mine that introduces a new character, Diego Chan. I think you'll find him interesting.

April, 2012 - A new, never-before-published Jon and Lobo short story will appear for free--that's right, for the low low price of absolutely nothing--on Baen.com. Publisher Toni has sent me the contracts--you may get it for free, but she's paying me--and I will shortly sign and return them. No, I won't tell you what the story is about, but I will say that it's going to fit into the chronology of the J&L stories and it's going to be awesome!

May, 2012 - After almost two years, the fifth Jon and Lobo book, No Going Back, will appear in hardback. As usual, I won't tell you much of anything about it, but I will share with you the promo copy that Baen will be using. Not tonight, of course, but soon. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe.

What I will say now is that in this book's case, the title is not an exaggeration. The events of this book rock Jon and Lobo's worlds.

The Wild Side eARC is now available!

Yes, if you simply cannot wait for the paperback or the final, edited version of this hot urban fantasy anthology, you can read the stories now and get the entire manuscript just as I handed it to Baen. It'll set you back fifteen bucks, but you'll be the first on your block to have read all these great stories, including my own contribution, "The Long Dark Night of Diego Chan." You can get the eARC (electronic Advance Reading Copy) here.

The Wild Side is an adult book, with multiple stories that contain sex scenes, so I don't recommend it for children.

I should also note that this ebook, like all of those from Baen, comes completely free of any DRM controls. We trust you to behave honorably.

If you're a Kindle user, click the "Using the Amazon Kindle with Webscriptions" button to the left of the book's cover, and you'll see instructions for buying the book and sending it to your Kindle.

I hope you enjoy it!

Meet Diego Chan

He's the protagonist of the original novelette of mine that will appear this summer in the anthology, The Wild Side, that I'm editing. Publisher Toni quite reasonably wants you all to have to buy the book to read his story--so do I!--but I'm confident she wouldn't mind me sharing with you a tiny, tiny taste of the first scene of the first story of a character with whom I hope to spend a lot of time over the next several years.

The Long Dark Night of Diego Chan

"Sam’s gone over,” the first line of the text message said.

“You said you’d help if it ever came to this,” the second continued.

“It has.”

“Barbara.”

Diego Chan kept running but reversed direction and headed back to the Super 8 that was passing for home this week. His legs carried him easily, his heart beat a steady rhythm, and his muscles moved smoothly and with power. He brushed the sweat from his eyes and thumbed a response, “Okay.” He sent it on its way through the three redirectors that would mask its origins before it reached her.

He pulled up the tracking display on his phone: five miles out, a hair over seven minutes a mile so far, over thirty-five minutes to make it back. Not good enough. He pushed harder but not so hard that anyone would notice. That wouldn’t buy him much time, but if she was right, the clock had started ticking a while ago.

The morning sun was still coming into its own when he reached the motel thirty-one minutes later.

I did say it was a tiny taste, right? For the more than twelve thousand remaining words in what I must immodestly say is a story I quite like, you will indeed have to buy the book.

Of course, when you do that, you'll get nine other urban fantasy stories you're sure to enjoy, an exclusive introduction to the collection, and afterwords to all the stories from the writers. Plus, a kick-ass Dan Dos Santos cover--and all for only $13 list, less online and at many bookstores.

You know you need to meet Diego. Give in and pre-order now.

Nifty post on how Dan Dos Santos created the cover for The Wild Side

Check it out here.

The source of the title, The Wild Side

(Warning: adult content in the video)

When Publisher Toni and I were first discussing this anthology, we both thought the title's source would be obvious. I've since learned that a great many people have never heard of the Lou Reed song from which we took the anthology's name.

If you're one of those folks, check out this video, which does a decent job of showing some of the song's background while playing a decent recording.


If the video worries you, relax; all we took from the song was the name. Each of the book's stories is its own thing set in its own world.

The cover for The Wild Side

A while back, I mentioned that I had seen the final cover art for my upcoming (August) anthology, The Wild Side, that it was amazing, that artist Dan Dos Santos had done a wonderful job of capturing the spirit of the book--and that I couldn't show it to you.

Now, thanks to the kind permission of Publisher Toni, I can. Check it out (click on it to see a much larger version).


Any bookstore that will turn this one face-out can be sure that a whole lot of potential buyers will notice it and check it out, which is exactly what a cover should accomplish.

I'm pleased as punch to have it on the book.

Some Jon and Lobo news

I've been working hard to stop myself from talking about works in progress, because I believe that doing so is one of the ways I create crazy noise in my head. (Many of my friends disagree with this decision, but so it goes.) Despite that inclination, I thought it might be nice to give you two fun facts about the next book, the fifth in the series.

First, it now seems fairly certain that it will appear in February, 2012. I know that's a long time--18 months--between books, but I got busy with some other stuff, including editing and writing an original story for The Wild Side. That anthology, with my contribution, "The Long Dark Night of Diego Chan," will appear this coming summer, as I've noted in earlier posts, so you'll at least have a nice chunk of new fiction from me in 2011.

Next, after more than than the usual amount of thought on the topic, I finally settled on a title for the novel, one that makes me happy because it works on multiple levels.

No, I won't tell you what those levels are; you'll just have to read the book.

So, in true James Bond style, I will close with this end-of-the-credits announcement:

Jon and Lobo will return in

No Going Back

The Wild Side

As some of you will remember, The Wild Side is an anthology of original urban fantasy stories with an erotic edge. I'm the editor, and I also have a story in the book. I've kept mum about it for quite some time, but now it's close enough to done that I can share with you a little bit about it.

First, here’s the Table of Contents:

* Introduction - Mark L. Van Name

* Songs Sung Red - Tanya Huff

* Careless of the Night - Gina Massel-Castater

* For a Good Time, Call - Toni L.P. Kelner

* Fine Print - Diana Rowland

* Unawares - Sarah A. Hoyt

* Of Sex and Zombies - Ticia Drake Isom

* Love Knot - Dana Cameron

* Beauty Is a Witch - John Lambshead

* The Long Dark Night of Diego Chan - Mark L. Van Name

* Born Under a Bad Sign - Caitlin Kittredge

For those who like their anthology trivia, I have some fun facts:

* Length: North of 90K words but south of 100K

* Old hand/newbie mix: 8 established writers, 2 first-timers

* Gender mix: 8 women, 2 men

* Country mix: 8 Americans, 1 Brit, 1 Canadian

* Topic range: all over the map, but most supernatural critters appear at least once

* Level of eroticism: nothing anywhere near porn, but definitely from mild to wild

All in all, it’s a volume I quite like and very much enjoyed reading. I think you'll have a good time with it as well.

The Wild Side is currently set to be an August, 2011 trade paperback, so put aside a few dollars in your August budget to cover it.

The cover art will be an original piece by Dan Dos Santos, one of the most acclaimed illustrators working in the urban fantasy area. For example, he won Chesley awards for both Best Paperback and Best Hardcover of 2009, and books with his covers have hit number one on The New York Times Best Seller list. When the art is done and I get to see it, I'll try to show it here.

If it isn't obvious, by the way, this is not a child-friendly book; it's definitely an adult volume. Sarah and Scott have already told me they don’t plan to read this one.

I hope, though, that all of you will!

On the road again: Balticon, day 5

Morning once again arrived far too early for my taste today, but it has a way of doing that. One of these days, I'm going on a "vacation" trip that is actually a vacation; maybe this year's beach trip will fit the bill.

After scraping the drool off my chin and showering, I headed out to do the 90-minute Baen News panel. It was, as always, big fun. We showed dozens of covers, talked about upcoming books, eARCs, DRM (= bad; Baen has no truck with it), my big announcement (leaking out at the con and soon to come here, as soon as I catch a breath), and so on. We also gave out a fairly hefty box full of goodies. All in all, a good time. My thanks to Publisher Toni for the slides and the great giveaways. My thanks also to the loyal Baen fans for turning out in good numbers (50 or more folks attended) to hear about upcoming books.

Lunch was at a local pizza-and-gelato lunch; our group partook of both house specialities. From there, I headed back to my room to work.

Random con activities, work, a bit of a rest, and dinner filled the remainder of the day, with dinner being a particular stand-out: a wide selection of lovely tapas dishes from the always reliable Pazo. Though the restaurant's menu has changed for the worse--fewer different tapas choices, more big plates--each dish we sampled was delicious, and I still heartily recommend it.

With the show behind me, I must now focus more intensely on various writing obligations, notably finishing up my story for The Wild Side and getting that book off to Publisher Toni. Fun stuff!

What am I doing now?

A few folks have asked me what I'm doing now that I've finished Children No More, so I thought I'd give a quick run-down of the various projects on my non-day-job plate.

Children No More: Yes, I finished writing it, but now I'm reviewing the proof pages. That does take time.

Wake Up Horny, Wake Up Angry: I'm doing the premiere of this spoken word/stand-up comedy show at one minute past midnight late on Saturday night/early on Sunday morning at Balticon. If you're in the area, you should definitely come to the con and see the show; the con is great, and the show should make you laugh. Right now, I'm still working on the show, and I'll probably be doing so until about three seconds before I step on stage. Maybe a little longer than that.

The Wild Side: I'm editing this anthology of erotic urban fantasy stories. Most of the stories are in, with one in rewrite and my own still to come. I'm also collecting the afterwords from the authors and their bios. I'll tell more about this one in a few weeks. I'm working on my story now.

Fatal Circle: This near-future thriller will be my next novel project. Because I already have about a third of it in first draft and have a huge (26K words) outline for it, I hope to finish it far more quickly than most of my books.

In addition to these projects, I have three interesting things in the works that I can't discuss quite yet. One is the surprise announcement I mentioned some time ago, and the other two are still not ready for me to discuss. It's all good, though.

Seeing such a short list makes me wonder why I'm feeling overwhelmed. I clearly have to work harder!

Those announcements I mentioned

Did you think I'd forgotten?

Neither of these is earth-shattering, but both will, I think, be fun for me and for other readers.

Announcement #1: I've signed the contracts for my first work in the urban fantasy area. I'm entering this realm cautiously: I'll be editing for Baen an original anthology, The Wild Side (think Lou Reed singing, "Hey, babe, take a walk on the wild side"), of urban fantasy stories with a racy edge. This book is likely to push Baen's boundaries a bit, and it will definitely be new ground for me. I will be writing a story for the book, and my goal is to make that piece serve as the starting point for a novel. That said, the story will, of course, stand alone as a complete work.

Announcement #2: David Drake and I will be editing a reprint anthology, The Baen Big Book of Pulp SF Adventures. Every noun and adjective in that working title is important:

* Baen, not only because it's the publisher but also because of the emphasis on story values the company represents

* Big, because we're aiming for 150K to 200K words

* Pulp, because that's where we're going for source materials (though for those truly into old magazines I should note we may stretch the definition a bit and include tales from digests and bedsheets)

* SF, because we're sticking to that category

* Adventures, because that's the emphasis of this volume

If the book does well--unlikely, but we can hope--then other collections could always follow.

I don't have dates for either of these books yet, but we have about eleven months to finish them, give or take. I'm looking forward to them!