Readercon: Had A Great Time!

Okay, so it's been a while since I did my reading and yeah, I'm just now getting around to telling you about it. I've got an excuse, though--my day job sucked me into a black hole and only recently spit me out. No shit, either. I did more traveling in July than I've done in a lo-o-ong time. In a way, I don't mind all that much. I mean, being locked up in a hotel conference room all day with a bunch of tax nerds isn't exactly my idea of a good time, but the frequent flyer miles are a bonus. If this keeps up, I'll have enough miles by the end of the year to take a trip somewhere in the Lower 48. W00t, w00t!

Back to Readercon. I read Chapter 2 and it was great. People laughed at my jokes--cool! Nice to be around folks who get my sometimes decidedly odd sense of humor. There was one moment, though, that was a bit embarrassing. After the session was over, four people came up to me and wanted to know where they could buy my book. "Uh, well...uh, gee...it isn't published yet..." Nothing like having to put off potential buyers because you haven't anything to sell. It's enough to make you say screw New York and go POD.

Anyway, I was cleaning up my hard drive last night and came across a poem I'd written years ago. Mind you, I don't claim to be a poet. It was just something I did, and it was heartfelt when I did it.

Do you believe in love?

I’m not talking about love at first sight, love in hindsight, new love, or old love. I’m not talking about mad love, romantic love, abandoned love or puppy love.

I’m talking about love that spans millennia and lifetimes, patient love and abiding love. I’m talking about love that waits like a lone candle in the window of a lonely house on a dark road, on an even darker night. I’m talking about a love that has no name, a love that surpasses all understanding, a love that lasts for eternity...and beyond.

Do you believe in love?

I don’t either.

Going To Readercon This Weekend?

I'm giving a reading from The Alien Within, sponsored by Broad Universe, an online writer's organization to which I happen to belong. It's listed on the program as "Rapid Fire Reading," which showcases the works of as many authors who want to participate--subject to con time limits, of course. So at Readercon, I get five minutes, just enough to read Chapter 2 (where I introduce y'all to Melera, my alien warrior queen), not counting the introductory remarks.

Nervous about standing up before a serious bunch of strangers? Hell, yeah. But then, I've done it before--this is not much different than any other public speaking gig I've taken, except they don't feed me lunch. So I'm very much looking forward to it--never know who's in the audience, right?

Stuff like this always sends makes me want to take acting classes. I mean, if I can do a talk on the fly and it sounds intelligent and holds people's interest...well, if you're anything like me, it ain't much different from acting in a movie or on the stage. Doesn't mean that the butterflies aren't there, though. So, if you're coming to Readercon, the RFR is scheduled for 11 AM on Saturday, July 19th. Don't know exactly the line-up, unless they go in alphabetical order, which means I'll be one the first ones up.

Maybe I'll see one of you there...whoever you are.

Vampire Rule?

I did a reading back in January. A dismal night as I remember. Afterwards, I started chatting with one of the audience. Without having read the book, she told me she felt that in the zot hierarchy, vampires are at the top.

Yeah—they wish. Vampires don't rule in most U.S. cities. But Seattle’s a special case. Kurt is one of the city’s founders, which allowed him to do two things: persuade his human timber baron partners to turn a more or less blind eye to zot labor, and take complete control over the flow of zot immigration to the new city. That Seattle is one of the few places where zots can live in relative peace (with emphasis on the word relative) is Kurt’s doing. It’s the debt all zots in the city owe him. And Kurt is not shy about collecting his due.

So that’s why vampires are on top in Seattle. How Kurt managed to do what he did is a book in itself. But the result was give him an iron grip over Seattle’s zot population. You wanna live here? Gotta talk to Kurt first. Of course, getting Kurt's permission is not quite as literal as it used to be, what with the public university and all. After all, it's in Kurt's best interest that the school attract in and out-of-state zots to Seattle because they spend money. And Kurt's got lots of business interests in the city besides his Last Chance nightclub and Boeing. Restaurants, coffee shops, bookstores, you name it. But it's understood by all the university's zot students that they will leave after graduation. No exceptions. You want to stay in Seattle after graduating? Gotta talk to Kurt first...

Oh--you're wondering why a 600-odd year old vampire would have a major stake in an aircraft manufacturer? Well, Kurt is a Renaissance man...

Revolutionary Politics

So if preternatural power makes zots all that and a bag of chips, why don’t they just enslave humans and take over?

Actually they have, from time to time. But it’s always short lived. The sheer power of human numbers is part of it. Enslave a human population and eventually you’ll face an invasion force you can’t beat. Too damn many of them. Then there’s the animosity between the different zot races. It runs so deep it’s almost ingrained. Historically, zots would sell each other out before they’d cooperate with each other. Humans know this--their sheer numbers and zots’ racial hatreds are their most effective weapons against preternatural power and permanent zot rule.

(That’s the short answer, anyway. The long one is a 10 to 15-page paper.)

But something new is happening. All across America—and the world—zots are uniting. They don’t want to take over. They want something way bigger than that. They want to change the rules. Legal recognition. Equal rights. Humans would never go for it but they know that. Hence the revolution—what they can’t get by negotiation, they’ll take by force.

(That too is the short answer. The long one is an even longer paper.)

Of course not all zots are a part of it. That animosity thing again. So the revolutionaries’ numbers are small. But it’s growing. And they are determined to get what they want.

You might say that Garrett and the revolutionaries are after the same thing: the freedom to openly be what they are without harassment (an understatement, to be sure). Garrett’s method is magick. Way more effective than using armed force. But then each doesn’t know what the other is doing. If they did, would they work together? Interesting question. We’ll never know.

It's Con Season!

Went to Balticon this past weekend--and a good time was had by all. I always go to the RIF (Reading is Fundamental) benefit auction and this year my prize is a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Robot from Lost in Space. Loved that show when I was a kid. Maybe I can find Dr. Smith somewhere. Be great if I could, huh?

At cons, I tend to haunt the literary tracks (no surprise) to meet up with old friends, make some new ones, but most of all, to learn. Tracks on the ins and outs of publishing are always timely. For example, I found out some time ago that many in the industry consider blogs to be a form of publishing and anything that appeared in a blog first will most likely be viewed as a reprint. This is a problem if a publisher insists on first rights. I've already run into this--one of my Zot Musings I later developed into a short story and submitted to a couple of places. No takers--it's already published and they wanted first rights, of course. That's why I haven't posted chapters from my book.

Anyway, someone made the marvelous suggestion that I post chapters that were cut from the final manuscript. So I'm doing just that. This one was cut because over the course of writing the story, Parker, Garrett and Kurt's relationships with each other changed somewhat without me realizing it until later. It was a subtle change, but a change nonetheless and in the context of the entire book, this chapter no longer made sense. Sneaky devils.

Almost running along the hallway, Garrett somehow managed to stem her tears. She didn’t want to start crying. Not now—Kurt might hear and take it as a sign of weakness.

The mage burst through the door to the darkened alley, panting. Trying to calm down, she held it open a few moments before she quietly closed it shut. She put her hands up to her face. This can’t be happening, she thought. I’m so close. So motherdamned close. She leaned against the cold, unyielding door, no longer trying to hide her tears.

When her crying stopped, Garrett dried her eyes with her hands, shoved them into her pockets and started for her car. The freezing night and her aversion to cold weather made her feel even more dejected. At the end of the alley, she stepped out from between the buildings and ventured onto the sidewalk. She hesitated a moment, blinking rapidly in the sudden glare of the streetlights. After her eyes had adjusted, she walked to her car. Reaching it, she fished the keys from a pocket in her cape, opened the door and got in. Instead of leaving, she sat behind the steering wheel, staring at the crowds on the street. The bars were closing. Humans were everywhere, obviously on their way home from tonight’s impromptu citywide party. A few minutes later, she finally started the engine and drove off. Maneuvering her way around clumps of raucous revelers here and there, she soon left the Square behind.

Garrett allowed herself to think about Parker. Her lips formed a disapproving frown. “Effit, Park—why can’ ye jus’ accept what’s happened and deal wit’ it?” she said to an oncoming car. As she drove, her face slowly relaxed. She spoke with the werewolf in her imagination, telling him some truths he needed to hear. “Parker,” she murmured, “you know damned well I agreed to be your freyja only because the pack needed one. You needed all the help you could get to cope with the pack war and later, the werehunt. I was the only one you could turn to. My agreeing to be your freyja…” She shook her head. “I never promised I’d stay with you forever Park, and it was wrong of you to assume I would. Find another freyja, Park. Find another, and then maybe we can be friends again.”

By now Garrett was almost home. She lived in an older section of Seattle, about a mile southeast of where Parker lived. She pulled her Altima into a space on the street directly in front of her cozy little house, shut down the engine but didn’t get out of the car. If Kurt thinks I’m going to duet with him if Park doesn’t work out, he’s wrong. Duets were inherently unstable. They usually turned into factions and factions usually turned into wars. And if Kurt thought he could force her into a duet…well, he was wrong about that, too. Garrett’s hazel eyes turned hard. “Jus’ ye try, vampire—anna it’ll be t’ last t’ing ye ever do,” she whispered to the frigid night.

Then a tidal wave of tiredness crashed over her. Wearily, she slumped forward in the driver’s seat until her head rested on the steering wheel. The air inside the car grew steadily colder. Finally, she got out of her vehicle and secured it. Trudging to her house, Garrett climbed the stairs to the small porch and unlocked the front door. Sighing softly, she pushed it open and went inside.

Reality Check...

Reality. Such a dirty word.

My editor recently told me he would be retiring soon. As in, like now. I saw it coming, but...I don't know about you, but sometimes I just close my eyes and carry on, hoping that when I open them it will have all gone away. Never happens but I do it all the same. Maybe that kind of irrationality is the hallmark of being human. If it isn't, I know another--the ability to hold two diametrically opposed beliefs at the same time. That was amply demonstrated to me last week. It's embarassing, so I won't go into it except to say that the Lexus is a very nice car to drive aimlessly about while lost in the desert...

The Alien Within: Cast of Characters--Melera Redux

Wouldn't it be great if you could instantly morph into something or someone else whenever you wished? For you, nothing would be off limits. You could play pranks on your friends (or enemies), crash an A-list party, rob an exclusive jewelry store--whatever your little heart desires. And you'd get away with every bit of it. Of course, you'd have to be careful to morph back into your own form in private. No point in lifting a million-dollar diamond necklace looking like Dubya if someone sees you morphing back into Joe Schmuck in the alley.

But that kind of morphing, that's what Melera's cz'ado--shadow--can do, among other things like boosting her already formidable speed and strength. Hence Kurt's name for her, the Wonder Bitch. As for what Melera's shadow is, it's a separate entity that shares "space" in her mind. Sort of like a were, but not really. A were is a separate, self-aware consciousness that shares mind-space with its human counterpart and can physically manifest in its own form--a wolf, a tiger, a shark, whatever. A Xia'saan's shadow is separate and self-aware, but without form. That's why Melera can morph into whatever she wants to be while Parker can only morph into his wolf. There are other differences between a were and a shadow, too. Like the higher emotions, for example. A were can experience its own joy, love, rage, lust, etc., but feelings like these are beyond a shadow. For a were, if an emotion--say, rage--is strong enough, it can break its human's mental bonds and trigger a forced morph. That would never happen with a shadow. It might understand why a particular circumstance would enrage its Xia'saan but for itself, it would feel nothing. A shadow's only interest is in preserving the life of the person that enables it to live. And that, dear reader, is what makes it--and by extension, Melera--so very, very dangerous. During her time in Beloc's prison ship, many of his guards discovered this truth and in the hardest way. Too bad so few of them lived long enough to warn their fellows.

The point of all this explanation is to say that Melera's cz'ado is, like Parker's wolf, another secondary character in The Alien Within, though it doesn't play as large a role. We'll see more of it as the series progresses. But the thing I like best about Melera's shadow is that its fantastic ability is based on quantum theory. I credit David Lindley, author of Where Does The Weirdness Go? for the idea. Read his book sometime. It's fascinating.