Choose My Adventure

You know those choose your own adventure books?  There are days when my life feels like that.  My plans only go so far into the future and then I hit the page where I have to decide whether I'm going to walk over the gorge on a tightrope or go rafting down it.  But what do you do when both options are awesome and you don't have any parameters limiting which one you pick?  You ask random people on the internet, that's what you do.  (Or the not-so-random people who visit this blog.  Hello, not-so-random readers!)

So what should I do with my life?  Choose my adventure!  Tell me who I should be when I grow up!  Or just tell me what you think I should do this fall.  Do I:

A) Hole up somewhere (like Alaska! or Florida! or somewhere else!) in a hermitage and write my fingers to the bone.  (Pros: Productivity & Frugality. Look how responsible I am!  Cons: Potential of going stir crazy since I start to twitch if I don't stamp my passport at regular intervals.)

B) Take a cruise from Alaska to Beijing, meet up with my buddy in China and do some more Asian travel whilst (whilst! best word ever!) my buddy in China is still living in China.  (Pros: Asia! Whilst my friend is still in Asia. Cons: Somewhat less on the productivity and frugality.)

C) Fly to Europe and meet up with my parents for a transatlantic cruise.  (Pros: I haven't been on a cruise with my parents in ages! How fun would that be?  And Europe! Yay! And transatlantic cruises are hellagood deals. Cons: I have just been to Europe and the productivity would be less awesome.)

D) Go to South America and see Machu Pichu, Chile, various jungles and mountains and Amazonian basins.  (Pros: I've never been to South America! Wheeeee!  Cons: Not so much with the frugal and productive...)

E) Something else!  Do I wait for some heretofore unconsidered option of awesomeness to appear before me?

Which adventure should I choose, boys and girls? 

Get Your Romance On

I'm off to the Romance Writers of America National Conference in Anaheim this week. If you're going to be in the area and you love romance, the Readers for Life Literacy Signing is a FABULOUS way to grab some books and meet your favorite authors face to face.  Come to the Anaheim Marriott & Convention Center Wednesday from 5-8pm to score some books and chat up your authors of choice.

And if you're coming to the conference, look for me!  Here are some of the places where you can catch up with me (and some other Rubies) this week at Nationals.  Go forth and romance-ify the world, minions!

Run For Your Life!

You guys!  I totally want to do this!  It's a 5K.  With Zombies.  ZOMBIES.  http://runforyourlives.com/  The Missouri one is on my birthday.  Most awesome birthday ever, amirite? 

LXD

Since I've been talking about superheroes, how about some superheroes of the dance variety? (Just ignore the snark about Iron Man and Spider-man.)

Talking to Your Kids About Star Wars

An urgent PSA.

Report from Comic Con: Day Four

The final day of Comic Con was a light one for me... mostly because after three solid days of All Comic Con All The Time, we're all ready to pass out where we stand... in line... waiting... forever... like the most colorful production of Godot ever performed...

I attended a few book panels in the morning, including a YA panel featuring my personal deity Scott Westerfeld (Uglies!  Leviathon!).  He, like Joss Wheadon, Orson Scott Card and Bryan Fuller, was everything I imagined a genius of his caliber to be.  He talked a bit about specificity in YA - how the characters are extraordinary in some unique way, and that shiny-snowflakeness appeals to us, at any age.  The idea that there will be a moment (a fairy godmother moment, as another panelist put it) when it is revealed that you really are more awesome than all those other people out there in the world.  When a Hagrid, or an Edward, or an Effie Trinket will pull your name out of a hat and you will be put on the path to the greatness you may never have suspected lurked inside your normalcy.  Then they went on to speak about the importance of setting - how many books are defined by the phrase "on a a world where" making the uniqueness and specificity of setting a defining element in YA.  In a genre that is broad and wild in its possibilities, it was a fabulous panel.

After that I grabbed some lunch to eat while waiting in line for the Buffy 20th Reunion (since the movie) Panel.  The actors playing Jeffrey from the original movie, Glory, Xander and Spike from the show and writer Jane Espensen and two Dark Horse Comic artists/writers filled out the panel.  They talked about the legacy of Buffy - which I think is powerful, no denying that, but when they laid the success of the "entire paranormal romance genre" at the feet of Buffy, I started to twitch.  Yes, I'm sure there is a symbiotic relationship between the popularity of the series and the growth of the genre, but it isn't so simple as to say Buffy spawned paranormal romance any more than you can say Running Man spawned Hunger Games.  (And speaking of Running Man, when is someone going to remake that movie without all the slapsticky one-liners?)  Yes, Buffy was awesome and kickass and I'm sure she did a lot for the genre of paranormal romance, but art is an evolution that is too complicated to be originated by any one show.  The fact that such a sweeping generalization was just accepted and run with by the panel made me a bit twitchy.  Luckily we moved on to favorite lines, favorite plot points, and then... after that panel ended... the traditional end-of-Con screening of Once More With Feeling, the Buffy Musical.  As a sing-a-long.  With heckling.  It was amazing.  Especially the shouting of "you aren't even a real person!" every time Dawn showed up to screw things up and get into trouble.  As a nerd who knows every word, I was in heaven.

It was a brilliant farewell to Comic Con.  I walked away with a big ole grin on my face.  Until next year...

Report from Comic Con: Day Three

DAY THREE:
With my shiny new sunburn on the side of my neck (why the side? why?) I elected not to wake up at the crack of dawn to wait in line all day in hopes of seeing sneak peeks at Iron Man 3 or Family Guy.  Instead, today was my day to throw myself into smaller panels (some of which still had over a thousand people in them, but whatever, it's Comic Con, crowds are a given).

It all began with an Urban Fantasy panel, which was interesting, but turned out to be pretty much a "this is what my book/series is about" chorus rather than any in depth discussion of the genre or where it is heading.  Then I hung out for a preview of the tiny little indie movie Save the Date... which looks sort of Woodie-Allen-esque but the Woodie Allen of thirty years ago.  It was interesting to hear about the distribution of the film in particular because it will be available from IFC video-on-demand before it releases in theatres.  I know, right?  Curious.

Then it was time for the stuff I'd been giddy all day for.  Three Panels.   Three Amazing Talents.  (One ring to rule them all, one ring to... oh wait, no, that was going on in Hall H at the same time and I hadn't camped out so there was no way I was getting in to see it.)  No, my BIG THREE OF DAY THREE were Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies!!!), Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game!!!) and William Shatner (Khaaaaaaan!!!).  

It started with Bryan Fuller, talking about his two new reboots - a reworked darker, dramatic Munsters (which looks kinda AMAZING, y'all - Eddie Izzard as Grandpa? Dude.) called Mockingbird Lane (which is just a pilot now, but I seriously hope they make it to the series stage) and a new TV series prequel to Red Dragon called Hannibal - starting when no one knew that Hannibal the Cannibal was a serial killer.  (No clips of that one, but with Bryan Fuller's dark sense of humor, I'm psyched to see where it goes.  And I now have a shiny new "Eat the Rude" T-shirt that cracks me up.)  One audience member did ask how poor Mr. Fuller stays optimistic (he was a seriously chipper guy) considering how many of his shows get killed off (har) mid-season (Pushing Daisies, Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me) when he plans them out for years (he mentioned having plans for the first seven seasons of Hannibal).  He said he'll always find ways work the ideas he loves into the next show and joked about not seeing death as a final thing (his "bag of trick"). 

Then it was off to the Wrinkle In Time panel, which a host of AMAZING speculative and sci-fi authors including the incomparable Orson Scott Card and David Brin - the two of whom GOT INTO IT.  It was kinda awesome watching them grow testier and testier as they verbally bitch-slapped each other as the panel went on.  It started out civil.  When talking about speculative fiction and predicting the future it became quickly evident that Orson Scott Card was on the "human nature doesn't change" side of the spectrum while Brin was on the "we're entering an age of enlightenment" side.  Card cited the Arab Spring (in what I felt were somewhat oversimplified terms) and referring to it as an unpredictable event followed by the very predictable patterns of human nature.  Brin countered by calling that cynicism and holding up the Turkish revolution for comparison (which, having recently visited Egypt & Turkey, I would like to state is so far from being comparable as to be laughable).  Card replied (correctly, I would say) that there was no comparison between the two and to claim there was only revealed ignorance of the situation... and then things really got going.  It was Brin citing racial and sexual equality as the great advancements of our age (which aren't new concepts to humanity, just recent in our cultural corner of it) while Card was talking about the fascination of watching Empires fall (though it is probably less fun to be watching from the inside as they outlive their grandeur).  The moderator intervened at one point... and then, after some questions from the audience, one guy got up to the mic and said he'd missed the beginning so he was sorry if this had already been discussed, but did the authors think we were entering a dark age or an enlightenment?  The reaction from the room was priceless.  Deborah Harkness answered it best, I think.  Even the Dark Ages weren't the Dark Ages.  "Be careful of big, baggy historical epoch markers."

There were other moments I loved, beyond the Card/Brin throwdown.  (Team OSC!)  When asked to predict the future (as an author of speculative fiction) Peter Hamilton said, "Sci-fi isn't a template. I'm setting out ideas."  It's up to the reader to be inspired to make them come true.

Earlier Brin also referenced an LA Times article about the rising popularity of TV over movies and how the TV writers were treated like rockstars at Comic Con because the fans recognized where the ideas were coming from.  Which was something I noticed also - the TV shows were the ones people were most excited about, I think in part because they weren't all reboots and sequels as most of the movies coming out these days seem to be.  And in part because watching a TV show becomes a longer term relationship and you already know you love it, you're looking forward to the next installment of awesomeness rather than wondering whether you will like the unknown quantity of the movie that isn't coming out until next year or the year after.  It was interesting to see.  But the idea kind of got eclipsed by the OSC/Brin ruckus. 

After that I rushed over to try to get into the Shatner panel.  I didn't think I had a prayer, but luck was with me and I made it in.  William Shatner, cult favorite director/producer Roger Corman, moderated by Kevin Smith.  It was casual and conversational and deeply awesome listening to these industry greats talking about their beginnings as they discussed their new films - for Shatner a documentary called Get a Life about Star Trek fans and what he learned when he set out to study them and for Corman a 3D campy fabulous pic entitled The Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader.  And, as I'm sure happens every time he speaks, a fan asked Mr. Shatner to shout "Khan!" and this time he suggested we all do it instead.  So, en masse, the entire audience bellowed, "Khaaaaaaan!"  And it was just as badass as you might imagine. 

Then I dropped in on a panel on World Building in Graphic Novels which was seriously fascinating.  World building for artists is something so different than it is for those of us who spin worlds out of words.  They would research architecture and make models - either by hand or with 3D computer mapping.  They talked about visual vs. dialogue exposition and hearsay vs. fact as the world is revealed to the reader.  Then they talked a bit about the struggle for continuity when you've grown as an artist and want to make them better but are inhibited by what you made them in the first book of the series.  It was so interesting to me to see artists who attack their stories so differently than I do, but who are still related to novelists in that we are all in the same storytelling family.  Loved it.

Next up was the Harper Voyager and Harper Teen sneak peeks (where I scored an advanced copy of Jocelyn Drake's Angel's Ink - about a tattoo artists who can imbue his tattoos with magical powers, how cool is that?).  And then finally it was time for the Comic Con Masquerade - which was campy and ridiculous and, yeah, kinda awesome.  You get a feel for the tone of the evening when the audience is allowed to announce the numbers of the contestants and they bellow en masse "One, ah ah ah" like the Count.  Yeah, baby, we know our Sesame Street.  And it just goes downhill (or up, depending on your perspective) from there.  With dancing and goodies in the Sails Pavillion, it's Comic Con's wild rumpus until the small hours.  And it isn't quite over yet...

Report from Comic Con: Day Two

First off, an apology for not getting these up sooner.  Turns out an eight to midnight conference schedule doesn't leave a whole lot of time for blogging.  Who knew?  Mea culpa and on to the report for Days Two!

DAY TWO:
Day Two started out with a line.  Of course.  I lined up at 9am, which I stupidly thought would be early enough for the 2:45pm panel on Game of Thrones. No such luck.  (Even the folks in front of me in full on Khal Drogo & Daenerys outfits were denied.)  Having already waited it out for six hours, I stuck with it until I made it into Hall H after GoT for the rest of the evening's panels and then hied myself on over to the playback (which they had to move to a bigger ballroom because there were so many people who'd missed out on seeing their preferred panels like me).  So, in the end, I got to see what I wanted (just not all of it in person), but what bothered me the most was that even as there were hundreds and even thousands of people waiting outside in line, there were empty seats in Hall H.  Never once while I was in there (finally!) was anyone asked to scoot down to make room for the people waiting outside.  In the smaller panels, it is common practice to fill every single seat and have standing room in the back until the fire marshal cuts them off.  But Hall H never felt full when I was in there - I saw dozens and dozens of empties just near me - which, when you consider how long people had to wait to get in there, kinda pissed me off and soured me on the idea of waiting in line to get in there again. 

But enough bitching.  Let's talk movies!

The first panel for me that day was Resident Evil: Retribution in 3D.  Director Paul Anderson, his wife/leading lady Mila Jovovich, and a deeply kickass supporting cast - two of whom are my FAVORITE actors who were killed off in previous films in the franchise!  Back from the dead and still kicking ass, it's Michelle Rodriguez (love love love love) and Oded Fehr!  Can I get a woohoo for resurrecting a dude who blew himself up and a chick who got shot in the head?  Bonus!  The footage they showed looked pretty sweet - very classic Resident Evil badassery -and then there was talk of the series drawing to a close after the next film (or at least Alice's part of it).  And I learned that Michelle Rodriguez will come back from the dead in the Fast & Furious franchise also (squee!) and that if you are a creepy stalker in her backyard, you should be warned that she will call the cops while holding a sword and the gun Samuel L. Jackson gave her, so... you know... perhaps not the best idea to bug her.

Continuing the trend of directors married to their ass-kicking leading ladies, next up was the new Total Recall, helmed by Kate Beckinsale's significant other, Len Wiseman. It looks well worth seeing - without any of the annoyingly cute Ahnold one liners and without the trip to Mars (but with the chick with three breasts as a nod to the original).  Much more actiony and who-am-I mystery-ish with some nice grit to the design.  And Kate Beckinsale kicking Colin Farrel's teeth in?  I'll watch that. 

But then... oh then... it was time for the ORIGINAL coolness.  Looper.  Time travel.  Joseph Gordon Levitt (in a part that was actually written for him) wearing a light facial mask to play a young Bruce Willis in an assassin vs. the older version of himself badass time-travel ride.  I gotta say, I really wanna see that one.  It's a major picture but with a more indie sensibility - focused on the ideas and characters rather than the special effects tricks - with an insanely awesome cast.

And the fun was just beginning folks.  Up next was footage from Elysium, the second film by Neil Blomquist who was the mind behind District 9.  I'd never heard anything about this one - just that it had Matt Damon and Jodie Foster in it (along with the star of District 9 & A Team, Sharlto Copley).  I wasn't sure what to expect, but when they showed us the footage, I actually got chills.  By the time it was over I just said Damn as several people near me muttered "Whoa" and "Wow" aloud.  The premise of the story is that the uber-rich have built a paradise in space called Elysium where they have the cures to all diseases and everything is perfect and utopian - but they've abandoned the rest of humanity to live in squalor on the heavily polluted planet Earth.  Matt Damon is our earthbound hero with a questionable past, who finds himself with only a few days to live unless he can hijack his way up to Elysium and get the cure.  A man with his life on the line, nothing to lose... you can imagine how it escalates in a hurry.  And from the sounds of things, the filming was flat out intense - on location in the second largest dump in the world at one point, with helicopters spraying a mist of you do not want to know what that is all over the place.  Crazy.  But it looks incredible.  It's out next March.  Go, you guys.  You will want to see this one.

After that, I made my way out to the Penguin Books panel where they flashed new covers for dozens of upcoming urban fantasy, sci-fi, and young adult books.  I really want to check out Matched by Ally Condie.  I'm intrigued by the idea of rebelling against a genetically perfect match.  Have any of you read that series yet?  Then I won an ARC of a new sci-fi book by Jean Johnson!  (And then felt guilty for winning, even though they were giving away tons of books... I don't know why I have this weird guilt when people give me stuff.  I need a couch and a few hours with Freud to figure it out.)

By then it was night, but Comic Con was still going strong, with playback of the earlier panels that we, the huddled masses, hadn't been able to get into.  Firefly, Game of Thrones, The Big Bang Theory and The Walking Dead (though I admitted defeat at midnight and missed the Zombie-ness). 

The Firefly 10-year reunion panel was flat out amazing.  Nathan Fillion and Joss Wheadon were in rare form (and both teared up in very manly ways as they talked about what the short-lived series had meant to them).  Adam Baldwin gave away a replica of the hat he'd worn as Jayne, but to me the best part was learning that Baldwin had gone down to say hello to the fans camped out on the sidewalk for the Firefly panel around midnight and Joss Wheadon himself had woken them up at three a.m.  How kickass is that?  If I am ever lucky enough to write something that develops such a devoted fanbase that they will actually camp out (and I'm in the same city and I know about it) I am here and now vowing that I will visit the campers.  And bring donuts.  Because how amazing are they, to love something so much, and what better way to honor them than to show up for them when they are showing up for you?  I love that.  Love love love.

The Game of Thrones panel was, by comparison, somewhat less than awesome.  They introduced new cast members, which was cool, but my main takeaway was that George R. R. Martin, for all his brilliance as a writer, should probably avoid moderating panels as his talents apparently lie elsewhere.  The tone was... I dunno, awkward.  He asked the actors portraying Theon Greyjoy and Rob Stark about their sex scenes and questioned the actress playing Daenerys why the traditional dresses of Qarth were not the breast-baring ones in the books (though if I'm being accurate the word "boobies" may actually have come out of his mouth).  I know he's a genius, but a moderator needs to put the panelists at ease and make them feel comfortable talking and there was just no comfort there.  Overall, it was peculiar - but I loved hearing the actor playing Rob Stark (who was wearing a wolf T-shirt under his suit jacket) say he'd pick a wolf as his sigil in real life, and Emilia Clark got a big cheer when she said she would definitely keep her dragons as a sigil.

And last, but certainly not least, was the Big Bang Theory.  The panel was hosted by Adam from Mythbusters (amazing) and featured two of the writer/producers as well as Mayim Byalik (Amy), Jim Parsons by Skype from New York (Sheldon), Kaley Cuoco (Penny), Kunal Nayyar (Rajesh), Simon Helberg (Howard) and Melissa Rauch (Bernadette - who does an amazing impression of Howard's mother).  The writers waved their uber-geek flags with pride when the Higgs Boson particle came up as the actors willingly admitted to not understanding a word of the science stuff coming out of their mouths on the show.  The panel was charming, funny, and overall a delight... and then the conversation turned to space.  In what was (I think?) a prearranged schtick, Simon Helberg was asked if he would want to go into space like his character had and when he said "who wouldn't?" they brought out an astronaut from XCOR Aerospace and offered him a trip into space.  Helberg then said he hadn't known they were serious and he had a "thing" about altitude and it was quickly changed to giving one of the audience members the space flight.  The fans who had asked questions (who were over eighteen - a stunning number of the questions were asked by little kids, prompting Kunal to repeatedly wondering what was going on here and where everyone's parents were) were all brought up on stage and given shiny envelopes.  When they tore them open simultaneously, one contained a golden ticket for a flight into space.  How badly do I wish I were that chick right now?  (Though I know I wouldn't have been even had I managed to get in, since I never have the gumption to ask questions.)  Lots of panels gave away swag, but how do you top a trip into space?  SPACE, you guys!  I don't care if it's only lower orbit or upper atmosphere or whatever.  It's SPACE.  I have to think that within my lifetime it will be a popular tourist jaunt.  And I'll be there.  I'll definitely be there.

What about you?  If someone offered you a chance to see the earth from space, would you take it?  Would you strap yourself to a rocket? When do you think it will be as common as taking a cruise?  Oooh, is that the next step?  Carnival Space Cruises?  Does make one a bit more nervous about events like the Costa Concordia, doesn't it?  But it makes me think of the Fifth Element.  Would you got to paradise in orbit?