Balticon 43, Comin' Atcha in 4-D!

Balticon is always held over Memorial Day weekend, starting Friday night and continuing until Memorial Day--24 hours of food, festivities and fun! I love the RIF (Reading is Fundamental) auction. I always make sure to buy something. Not only is it for a good cause, but a very good friend of mine runs it, and has done so for donkey's years. Folks donate stuff, and it gets auctioned off. Simple. Do you remember the TV series Lost in Space? Last year I bought a life-sized cardboard Robot. Coolishness!

Can't believe Balticon's so soon, though. Made my hotel reservations today, skidding under the wire less than 72 hours before the room block closes. I live only 20 miles or so from Hunt Valley, MD but when you're up half the night partying, it's hard to get up the next morn to make your 8 AM session. It's worth the bucks to stay at the hotel.

So anyway, I think there'll be a Rapid Fire Reading this year (check my Readercon post if you don't know what that is) and if so (and if I'm not too late to sign up) I'm going to read a little something from the sequel to The Alien Within. What's that you say? Of course there's a sequel. Jahannan's Children is the working title. Here's a snippet from Chapter 2:

From the corner of her eye, [Garrett] studied the alien sitting inches away and wondered for the umpteenth time why in the Mother’s name would Parker want to follow her. She understood his attraction—Melera was six-foot two and built like a superhero. But there was something reptilian about her, from her slit-pupiled, disco-ball eyes to the way she moved, with the lethal grace of a python stalking its prey. That she had all the charm of a crocodile didn’t help. Garrett was sure Melera would just as soon slit somebody’s throat as say hello.

See you at Balticon 43!

The Rest of the Prologue is History, Too

As promised, here's the rest of the Prologue. I was going to divide it into three or more pieces, but then said what the hell. Maybe I'll turn it into a short.

Frank was too young to have total control over his panther. His rage and terror at being hunted had triggered only a partial change. Frank had no claws to help him climb trees or fangs to slash and tear through exposed flesh. His only advantages lay in his speed and human intelligence, which was why the dogs had repeatedly lost his scent.

God, I wish Park were here!

He might be able to outsmart the dogs, but Frank’s human pursuers had far more experience at hunting than Frank did at being hunted. The men chasing him usually figured out his tactics before he’d fully understood them in his own mind.

He was also getting tired. They’d been tracking him for almost three hours now.

Frank hadn’t gone twenty feet further before he heard the violent whoosh of steel jaws cleaving the night air. He wasn’t fast enough to avoid the bear trap. With a snap, the cruel teeth bit into his leg, ripping through sinew and crushing his fibia into shards.

Howling in pain, he fell to the earth and tried to pull the trap’s jaws apart. When he touched it, fresh agony tore through his hands and burned its way deep into his arms. Frank understood. The thing that had caught him wasn’t a bear trap. It was a were trap, forged from a steel and copper alloy specially designed for snaring werepanthers. Copper to a panther was like silver to a werewolf—a poisonous, lethal metal.

The dogs found him first. They dashed around, baying and nipping at his legs, forearms and shoulders, and tearing at what was left of his clothes.

“Cleo! Herk! Junior! Back off!” a man’s rough voice shouted.

By now Frank was nearly unconscious, unaware of the dogs being pulled away and the coarse hands fondling his furry body. Anonymous voices floated faintly around him.

“Well, well. Looks like we caught us a big ol’ kitty,” a second voice said.

A third voice sniggered. “Looks more like a big pussy to me.”

“What we do now?” the second voice said. “Take ‘im to the Judge?”

“Naw,” the first voice snapped, the one who’d called off the hounds. “Judge ‘ont wanna see dis piece a’ shit.”

“Mebbe, but he’s gonna want proof,” the third voice said.

“I’ll give ‘im proof,” dog-man muttered.

Frank felt himself being lifted from the ground until he was nearly sitting up. A bottle of acrid, foul smelling something was shoved under his nose. It brought him back from wherever he’d been. He fought against it but its pull was inexorable, hauling him to wakefulness like a marlin snagged from the depths of the sea. Someone tipped his head back and poured liquid fire down his throat. Gagging and thrashing, Frank’s pain finished the job started by the moonshine.

“Thassa boy, wake up, now—thassa a good pussy boy. Git the trap off him Jake,” dog-man ordered.

Frank screamed when the steel teeth were pulled apart. Fresh blood pumped from his wounds.

“Shaddup, pussy boy. Cain’t nobody hear you, anyways,” dog-man said. A heavy weight settled across Frank’s thighs. Then a hard slap stung his fur-covered face, followed immediately by a second and then a third. “Look a’ me,” dog-man shouted and grabbed him by the throat.

Frank’s eyes popped open. Staring back at him was the ugliest man he’d ever seen. Starting at his scalp, a whitish, mangled scar ran along the left side of the man’s face, bisecting his eye and ending just below his lip. His grin showed numerous broken teeth, and his breath smelled fouler than the moonshine he’d been forced to drink.

Frank knew the man grinning down at him. Everybody in the county knew Pitt Jackson.

“Wantcha ta see how I’ma git Judge his proof,” Pitt said while reaching behind his back. Frank’s eyes widened when he saw the Bowie knife’s huge, heavy blade glinting wickedly in the moonlight. He struggled to escape, but it was no use. He was too weak.

“Hold still, boy,” Pitt chuckled. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Frank screamed a second time when he felt the knife slice into his upper chest. No ordinary metal blade, it was made from the same steel and copper alloy as the trap that had snared him.

The skinning seemed to go on forever.

Then he was losing consciousness again. The copper poison was doing its work, relentlessly slowing the young boy’s heart.

“Good job, Pitt,” Frank barely heard the second voice.

“Why thankee, Jake,” he heard Pitt reply. “Judge got his proof, an’ I got me a new rug.”

Three voices sniggered. “What now?” the third man’s voice came faintly to Frank’s ears.

“Dogs’re hungry,” Pitt said.

The Prologue Is History

The past might be prologue, but that doesn't mean a prologue has to stay in the past. Sometimes it gets booted into the future. But not this time.

So why am I deleting TAW's prologue? Let's just say four or five readers have expressed their opinions on whether it belongs in the story and from what I've heard, it's time for me to buy a saddle (old joke).

Anyway, it's here for your reading pleasure and I hope you'll like it. It's a bit on the long side, so for the next couple of days I'll be posting excerpts.

P R O L O G U E

Frank Suggs ran for his life.

The night was oppressively hot and thick, typical for Arkansas in mid-summer. Frank fought his way through the heavy moist air, its stickiness coating the insides of his nose and mouth like glue. Gasping, the fifteen year-old werepanther stumbled over roots, scrambled over rocks and waded through shallow streams. Stones and twigs littering the ground bit into his feet. Low-lying brush constantly snagged his already tattered clothes, while branches from their taller tree cousins whipped across his face. From the forest floor, the full moon’s cold light flickered through the canopy like silent laughter.

Frank hardly noticed any of it—the laughing moon, the slashing foliage or his pain.

As he ran, he wished Parker Berenson, his friend and blood brother since they’d been eight years old, was here to tell him what to do. Park would know how to deal with the fuckers chasing him. Frank had seen his best friend talk his way out of more shit than anybody he knew. And if that didn’t work, his buddy had a mean left hook that would take care of the rest.
A dog’s barking yanked him out of his thoughts. It sounded a lot closer than it’d been before. The yelping of two other dogs joining the first one nearly froze him in his tracks.

No! he thought. Frank tried not to panic, but the hounds had picked up his scent again and were in full cry. He put on a burst of speed. A thorn bush branch ripped off a patch of his greyish-tan fur in passing.

Caution: Genre Crossing

Every book has only a limited amount of real estate. --Mary Jo Putney, best-selling author of historical and fantasy romance novels on cross-genre writing

As an exercise, I wrote down all the genres that make up The Alien Within, starting from that with the strongest presence to the weakest:

Urban/contemporary fantasy

Romance

Erotica

Science fiction

Action/Adventure

You'd think that's a lot of genres to fit into one piece of real estate. Well, I guess it would be if that's what I did. But I didn't. If you asked me The Alien Within's genre, I'd say urban fantasy. Only certain elements of the other genres are represented. I've been selling TAW as a cross-genre urban fantasy/science fiction novel, but look where sf is on the list. From what I understand, TAW is sf because it's got an alien in it. Melera, the book's one alien who spends 2/3 of it hanging out with Parker, her werewolf lover, and the rest of Seattle's preternatural gang. The other third is spent either holed up in her island fortress in the South Pacific or her temporary base in Seattle's Underground. Science fiction? Whatever you say, boss...

The romance is pretty obvious, I'd think. When Parker and Melera first meet, she promptly kicks his ass. When they meet again, they fall in love. Then Melera leaves for her own galaxy without Parker, but returns for him. The whole "boy meets girl" thing. Not entirely romance for other reasons, but enough so it comes in at No. 2 in the queue.

And then there's the erotica. I suppose that's because the sex descriptions are graphic--as in parental discretion advised. But except for the big scene between Parker and Melera, the sex is not meant to arouse erotic feelings in my readers. The descriptions of Garrett's role in a sex-magick rite with Seattle's mayor in the first third of the book are pretty clinical. In that scene, sex is merely the vehicle. The scene's focus is on the magick being wrought, not to mention Garrett and the Mayor's near death experience when something goes wrong. You could say this scene, as well as those leading up to it, is pretty much a how-to guide for casting the Saperet spell.

Action/adventure? Got a little of that too. Not true a/a because there's more than one hero (though one of them is a likeable male) and no clear cut villain trying to thwart the hero's quest. Instead, we have villainous characters operating independently, whose nefarious doings eventually force the heroes' collective hand. The heroes are placed in extreme physical danger. And the stakes are pretty high--if the heroes don't act, Seattle burns to the ground.

So. The point of all this is to say that I don't think TAW is cross-genre. Not in the sense in which it's usually meant. A shipboard romance that takes place in deep space, for example. TAW is an urban fantasy with several elements of other genres, to greater or lesser degrees. But IMO, that doesn't make it cross-genre.

What do you think? Is TAW cross-genre or not?

One more thing. Assuming for the moment that TAW is cross-genre, the reason I wrote it this way is because we don't live in a single-genre world. Everyone's life has elements of comedy, tragedy, romance, horror--you name it. In my view, if a fictional world is populated by werewolves, vampires, witches, etc., it is more realistic to show them interacting with one another, just as we interact with all kinds of people in our own lives. Check Laurell K. Hamilton's books, or Lilith Saintcrow. Anyway, I wasn't particularly conscious of mingling the different threads. To me, TAW simply a reflection of the real world I inhabit. But IMHO, my world is far more interesting.

What If?

What if we couldn't ask "what if?" What would our world be like?

The answer, IMHO, is:







(grins)

Unity of Opposites

I imagine about half the world has seen that Britain's Got Talent youtube video of Susan Boyle's debut performance. If you haven't, here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

I love it. A shining illustration of the principle of duality, the defining characteristic of all that is.

The idea of duality, that nothing is as it seems, has fascinated me since I was a kid. Geodes started it. I remember my astonishment at seeing this homely, lumpy gray rock hiding an ethereal, crystal wonderland. The other night I was astonished by a woman with a singing voice so rich and powerful, I can't think how I ever could have thought her unattractive.

The Alien Within is about duality, in as many of its aspects as I could cram in there. Motive--Garrett manipulates Parker ruthlessly for sake of the noblest of causes. Visual--Parker's eight-foot wolf cradling Melera against its pelt like a sick child. Behavior--by the book's end, maybe that sonofabitch Kurt isn't so bad after all.

For me, the oddest thing about duality is that I know intuitively that it exists, that it is all around me and even a part of me, yet I'm always gobsmacked (love that one) when I see it in action. You'd think I'd know better, right? I'd think so, too. Then again, if I always knew better life probably wouldn't be so interesting.

Sometime in the next few posts I want to ask you a question about the title The Alien Within.

Now...Where Was I?

Black holes are a bitch. I should know. There I was, content in my cozy little writer's world, agonizing over query letter rewrites, plotting with my editor, wondering if my credit card can handle the next con, and then...

ZOOP!

The Mundane Black Hole sucks me into its maw. My little writer's world shatters. I struggle to escape. But the Mundane--every dreamer's nightmare--is merciless. My soul will be crushed flat like an armadillo on a Texas two-lane highway. The Hole will not get me without a fight, though. I scheme, snatching sick days here and there to "go see my shrink," Dr. H.P. Compaq. But it's not enough. I feel myself drawn closer and closer to oblivion.

Just when it seems the Hole has won, that I've been lobotomized into one more Mundanian zombie drone...

BLOORP!

The Hole hocks me out like a loogie.

Dazed, I blink stupidly, watching as the shards of my writer's world piece themselves back together. Then it's complete, and the fog blanketing my brain lifts. I look around. Everything's as I left it, but I know nothing's the same. Slowly and painfully, I rise from my office chair and then stagger towards my Muse's corner. I collapse into Her seat, then reach down and turn on Dr. Compaq. After its grunting and groaning has faded into mere gurgles, I begin opening file after file, not surprised that my cozy little world has moved on in my absence. Clicking the mouse, I feel as if I were someone from a half a year ago suddenly propelled into today. I open yet another email and read the short message. It's another rejection note for The Alien Within.

I smile for the first time in months. It's good to be back.