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Heinlein, and Small Prophets

I don’t usually think about science fiction as a genre with predictive power. Sometimes technologies from science fiction appear on the battlefield or in my kitchen, but I rarely read old SF and think, “oh, yes, that’s exactly how that technological trend turned out.” This might have something to do with the fact that I read more New Wave SF, which tends to be interested in the human story rather than techie prognostication, but I’ve read a decent quantity of harder SF and cyberpunk too.

On Saturday, during a con lull, I read the first few pages of Heinlein’s novel Space Cadet. Our Hero arrives at Space Academy arrives, and gets a call from his father. He pulls his phone out of his pocket; they have a quick chat of the “Hi Dad, yes I got there okay, everything’s great, I can’t talk now I’m in a crowd but I’ll call you back” variety. Another new student looks over to Our Hero, smirks, and says “That’s why I pack my phone in my suitcase–so I can’t hear it ring.”

The exchange lasts for maybe three quarters of a small page. The phone’s not called anything but a phone; the conversation is spare and what I’d call ‘well observed’ if there had been any way for Heinlein to observe conversations like this one. There wasn’t, of course–Space Cadet was published in 1948.

Reading an accurate prophecy is a new kind of thrill for me. I wonder what would happen if I tried to write one…

I’d probably fall on my face, of course, but it would be an interesting fall.

Readercon Aftermath

Still reeling. A friend visited from out of town, which as Confucius reminds us, is a pleasure–“you peng zi yuanfang lai, bu yi le hu?” (Characters to follow once I figure out why Chinese support is broken on WordPress…) But, unfortunately, my friend’s visit coincided with Readercon, so rather than abandoning either him or the con, I had to squeeze a weekend’s worth of conning into a single crazy day. And what a day! Excellent times with my editors at Tor, and an evening of great drinks with John Crowley, Jim Morrow, and a host of other wonderful folks whose company always makes me feel like the dim bulb on the string.

And, of course, my annual visit to the dealer’s room. This must be what BotCon feels like for toy people. (That’s to say, people who care about toys, not people who are toys. BotCon for people who are toys must feel pretty… strange.)

Much more varied than my usual haul of Zelazny paperbacks. Of course, I now own most of Z.-‘s back catalog, so it’s time to branch out. I’m woefully under-read when it comes to Heinlein–I went through my Starship Troopers phase like so many young geeks (though it was the Shakespeare bit in “Have Spacesuit, Will Travel” that gave me the chills), but this’ll be my first time through either Moon or Space Cadet.

Very excited about the more modern books in the pile, too. I’ve heard cool things about all of them, and it’ll be great to see for myself.

Slow Motion Work

I’ve had one of those months where the harder you work, the more you break yourself to pieces. This has been true for my fencing as much as for my work: I’d see a valid opening, go for it with all possible speed, and then lose the touch.

The other day, Mark, my coach, recommended I try fencing in slow motion.

At first the idea sounded strange. What would be the point of slowing down my movement in a sport that involves split-second timing and victory by millimeters? But last night, I tried it for the first time, and I realized: when I’m trying to be fast, I end up not being able to choose my moment. Chasing tiny opportunities, I miss large ones. I double down on bad ideas, and then when that doesn’t work, I try harder.

Last night, I slowed down. And when I slowed down, I saw my moments, and I fenced a handful of very clean bouts. Slowness transformed the experience, gave me space to dissect actions, and calm to take advantage of defects in my opponents’ attacks, and even press my own when the opportunity presented itself.

I wonder how many of my little frustrations are the result of working too fast…

I’ve Sold Two More Books to Tor!

One roller-coaster of a year after I sold Three Parts Dead and its companion novel, Two Serpents Rise, I’m pleased to announce that I’ve sold two more books to Tor!

Publishers’ Marketplace has more information on the deal, but it’s behind a paywall, so permit me to repost:

…Max Gladstone’s A WALKER IN THE GYRE, a “science fantasy” in which an indifferent sci-fi writer must employ his gift — the ability to chart a course through the cauldron of the multiverse — to stop a family of necromancers set on remaking time in their image, to David Hartwell and Marco Palmieri at Tor, in a two-book deal, by Weronika Janczuk at Lynn Franklin Associates, in association with D4EO Literary (World English).

WALKER is by far the craziest thing I’ve ever written (except maybe for my current project). I described it once to a composer friend as a fugue; he asked what I meant by that, and I said, well, the main characters spend a lot of time running away from stuff. If you’ve ever wanted a book about gods, monsters, fractal war machines, wolves between worlds, Tantric supercomputers, sex, death, parenting, necromancy, time travel, Hamlet, blood magic, Oh Hell, destiny, responsibility, and love–this is it. If you’ve never wanted a book like that, I’m very confused by your priorities.

The second book will continue to expand on the universe I’ve built in Three Parts Dead. I’m still in the tapping-fingers-together-and-cackling phase for this one, so in lieu of details you’ll have to content yourself by imagining my maniacal laughter…. (I’m a tenor 2 if that helps.)

I can’t overstate how thrilled I am to be here, right now.

LibraryJournal Day of Dialog Panel Aftermath

Short version: the panel, everyone on it, the entire experience-wonderful!

The longest version would start to look like one of my dispatch emails from China and Cambodia, which could run for well over 10 pages, so advance warning: that one might not ever see print, and certainly won’t now, since I’m running to get out the door in 20 minutes for Stephanie’s birthday present to me: a trip for the two of us to Rockport (the one in Massachusetts) where I’ll be cranking away on the manuscript for Two Serpents Rise (book 2!) in style in a beach cabin, and maybe (depending on weather quality) swimming.

Medium-long version: the panel was in the gray-and-red upholstered McGraw Hill Auditorium, and I was a bit nervous, since this was my first time out of the gate. Public speaking isn’t new to me, but public speaking about something I’ve spent so much time stewing over, and thinking and more importantly caring about, is. The closer a subject gets to your heart, the harder it is to talk about it, especially to a stranger (or a roomful of strangers). I thought at first that I was the only one feeling a little shaky, but as we all walked up to the front of the auditorium, I could detect a little aura of nervous energy from all of us in our own ways, which made me a bit bolder. If everyone’s nervous, then there’s nothing weird about being nervous in a situation, and you can enjoy it. Fear gives an edge.

I wish I had a recording of the event, but in the Buster Keaton haze of my excuse for a usual morning ‘ritual,’ I’d forgotten my camera (and my business cards); maybe later when I have more time I’ll assemble some of the notes I made while preparing for the panel and post them here. The questions ranged all over, from the responsibility of the historical fiction writer (depending on how you cut it four out of the five of us were historical fiction folks) to write accurate history to the nature of writing voices. I talked about how Three Parts Dead grew out of uncertainty, out of a desperate scrambling attempt to understand an economy that, in the fall of 2008, tripped, stumbled, and fell into a meat grinder, and out of a sudden appreciation for the vast immortal and invisible systems that ran on faith and investment and dreams and, once in a while, died–and then, to stave off disaster, had to be resurrected by hardworking young men and women who wear suits and speak Latin. I talked about Bryn Terfel and how operatic voices mature and develop over time, and about the many uses of the wonderful household maintenance tool called a five-way, and about a lot of things really.

The laughs came in all the right places, but I could hear the silences too, between my words, which is always encouraging when working with an audience.

Afterward my editors took me to Tor’s amazing Manhattan offices, where, walking about, we ran into Cory Doctorow, John Scalzi, and Charles Stross, who were all as amazing class-act type guys as you might imagine from reading their books and their essays scattered through the web. They were in town to give a panel on DRM at BEA (Acronyms! Not just for the consulting world any more!), but if I ever learn that Tor offices aren’t constantly full of excellent writers in smoking jackets, I think my vision of the world will tilt from its axle and explode.

Now really running up against my time limit, so let’s make the longer story even shorter.

In the afternoon we returned to the LibraryJournal event to sign books, which means for the first time I got my hands on a real live ARC of Three Parts Dead! They’re beautiful. The cover art looks even more amazing in person. And we gave a *ton* of them away, often to people who walked up to me saying, “I don’t often read fantasy, but the way you talked about the book at the panel really intrigued me!” Which was maybe the best part of the day, outside of, you know, all the other parts of the day.

And time! Twenty-five minutes elapsed, now I need to run downstairs and catch the shuttle to Rockport. Best to everyone, and I promise I’ll share some more exciting news come Monday!

I’m on a panel at the LibraryJournal Day of Dialog!

This Monday I’ll be in NYC on the LibraryJournal Day of Dialog panel “WHO’S ON FIRST? DEBUT GENRE FICTION WITH BUZZ“! My co-panelists, Karen Engelmann, Eleanor Kuhns, Beatriz Williams, and Ariel S. Winter, look to have written some fascinating books. I’m excited to play standardbearer for the wizards-and-spaceships crowd.

Also, since there’ll be a signing after the panel, apparently there will be some ARCs of Three Parts Dead available! I’m excited to see what the book looks like in the flesh. Not that it’s made of flesh. At least, I suppose it isn’t. I’ll just stop talking now, shall I?

Here’s the event link, if you want to know more.

Also, I have some exciting news–which I’ll share when I return!

The Avengers and Mozart

Mozart came up in conversation the other day, as he does from time to time.

Me: Cosi is the only Mozart opera I’ve ever seen.

Dan: I love Cosi. It’s fantastic.

Me: It’s boring. So boring.

Dan: What do you mean?

Me: Nothing happens. For four hours.

Dan: What do you mean nothing happens? In each act, every part gets an aria, and then each pair of lovers gets an aria, and then each cross-pair of lovers gets an aria…

After some more argument in which I exaggerate Mozart’s already-straightforward plot (basically: “Two guys decide to dress up as Albanians and seduce one anothers’ girlfriends, and this goes about as well for all parties as can be expected, but things come out all right in the end and we reset to starting conditions”), Dan points out that if I come to Mozart opera looking for emotionally effective drama without thinking about the music, I’ll be disappointed. If I don’t get into the music as music, then of course I won’t appreciate the plot, because the music gives the plot its energy.

Which, of course, got us thinking about the Avengers, where combat works in much the same way music does in opera–to the point where you can imagine an operatic staging of the movie. (NB: I loved the Avengers, but I can see how someone like my mother-in-law, say, who isn’t a superhero movie kind of person, would be confused by why all these folks tend to duke it out first, and ask questions later.) Leaving Hawkeye aside for a second, since he’s only a “good guy” for the final fight scene, we’re introduced to five main characters, each of whom has a markedly different personality, power set, and screen presence–and each of whom falls neatly into a different operatic voice.

Character	Power	Voice
Tony Stark	Iron Man	Such a tenor
Thor	God of Thunder	Heldenbaritone
Captain America	Supersoldier	Heldentenor
Bruce Banner	Hulk	Banner: Countertenor? Hulk: Dramatic Bass
Natasha Romanov	Super-spy	Alto

(These are just my guesses-folks with more opera background should feel free to debate. I’m especially uncertain about Banner’s voice, but I do like the fact that the deep bass you’d need for the Hulk could drive a nice countertenor.)

We’re introduced to each of these characters alone, as the center of an action scene, or aria. Captain America vs. the Punching Bags, Thor’s stealing Loki from the hoverjet, Tony Stark’s building of Stark Tower, Black Widow owning three Russian mafiosi while tied to a chair–even Bruce Banner we first see alone, though he doesn’t become the focus of a scene until he Hulks Out in Act II (and when he does, even though Black Widow’s there, she’s just reacting to the Hulk for the first several minutes).

The battles throughout the movie never pit the same group of characters against one another twice, and are careful to pit all the characters against one another at least once, even when (as in the Iron Man-Thor fight scene) the fight makes little sense in context. We don’t care, watching, because we want to see these characters, with these specific styles, fight–in the same way that even if there’s no real reason for the bass and soprano to be singing together, we won’t frown at an excellently-composed duet. In fact, it’s these duets that show us the true quality of our characters, and illuminate the tensions between them–tensions which simmer under the surface when they’re in the same room and can’t use violence and action to communicate.

Once everyone has had the chance to duet with everyone else, we get the full-on finale, in which the Avengers reprise their earlier duets, harmonizing with one another this time rather than against one another (Black Widow and Cap vs. Chitauri, Hulk and Thor vs. flying snake thing, Iron Man & Thor vs. the airborne chariots, etc.). Meanwhile, two choruses throw down in the background (the Chitauri and the people of New York), and in the end Tony Stark takes center stage and spotlight for his death aria, only to have surprise support arrive from underneath in the form of the Hulk’s bass.

Thinking about the movie this way brings out something I hadn’t noticed before: the extent to which voice, the simple act of talking, is dangerous in this film. Words and dialogue hide traps and barbs. Some of the best comic moments also turn on the definitions of words and the moral weight we attach to them. (“He’s my brother!” “He killed 80 people.” “He’s adopted?”) When our heroes are talking to one another, they’re at odds, doomed to self-destruction. Black Widow’s turning-of-tables on Loki is really neat, and/but reinforces this fact: language is a trap, in which even the master trapper can be caught. Language provides openings for the bad guys–Loki’s spell provokes, and derives power from, argument. And (SPOILER) Agent Coulson’s fate, being struck from behind while chatting up the big bad (/SPOILER) just reinforces this theme. When our heroes talk, they squabble and are vulnerable; when they act, they become a team. Loki, when last we see him, is (SPOILER) bound, and more importantly, gagged (SPOILER). Fascinating angle, especially since Joss Whedon’s often thought of as a master of dialogue (or at least, of a certain kind of dialogue). I’ll have to puzzle over this some more.

But that all pales before the thought of HOW AWESOME AN AVENGERS OPERA WOULD BE. Any musicians out there want to help me take a crack at it?

State of Max

Right now:

Writing a comic script
Editing Novel 2
Typing Novel 3 (This is the one I wrote 40,000 words of longhand because I was having wrist trouble–which was great, but has come back to bite me)
Pressing forward on novel 3
Debating convention attendance for this year
Trying to get my act together enough to send off a short story.

Oh, and see the Avengers, if you haven’t already. Best version of the Hulk I’ve seen on cinema. Whedon and Ruffalo beautifully evoke the pain of being forced to build a violent self in order to survive a violent situation–and then trying to live with that violent self later. I’ve been pondering a post on this for the last couple days, but I’m still stewing over the idea. More later, I’m sure.

Legend of Korra First Impressions

So how do I feel about the sequel series to Avatar: The Last Airbender, one of the best American animated shows ever?

Yes, it’s that good. And the first episode is free, so you don’t have an excuse not to watch it.

Highlights: Korra, the new avatar, is brilliant. The series creators have maintained the moral center of the world, while updating it and deploying a whole new cast. World design: amazing! (As always with this team.) Sound: wonderful! Fight choreography: stunning!

A more subtle take, for those of you familiar with the first show: This series narrows the gap between the protagonist and the adult world. In the original Avatar series, the main characters were kids, and the gulf between them and the adult world was absolute. The adults were immutable forces: Iroh has a powerful history, but it’s hard to imagine him as a boy, or how he felt about his father. He doesn’t feel contingent, or unsettled, though he does have regrets. Ozai, Bumi, Jeong Jeong, Pakku, etc. have all similarly found their place in the world. Aang, Katara, and Sokka are trying to figure out what to do with the world they’ve inherited from this older generation.

At 17, Korra is (intentionally, I think) older than any of the main characters in A:TLA, and is as a result closer to the adult world from the beginning. She’s become strong, but she still has to learn how to be a part of society. Meanwhile Tenzin, her airbending trainer, and Lin, the chief of police in Republic City, are both in late middle age–Tenzin, despite being set up as the aged Kung Fu Master of the show, is younger by a decade than any of the members of the White Lotus sect in A:TLA. The first episode shows Korra discovering Republic City and trying to figure out how to be a part of this weird new world–everything she tries in the city turns out wrong somehow. Meanwhile, we see just enough of Tenzin to tell that he feels the same way: still striving after thirty years to build and uphold the world his father left him. They’re both uncertain, imperfect characters in moments of transition, and they’re both trying to do their best by the world with which they feel they’ve been entrusted. I get the sense that each of them will be growing a lot over the next two seasons, and that dynamic feels fresh and full of possibility. The first show passes down a powerful inheritance; this new setup stands to build upon that inheritance.

Anyone who falls in love with the 1920s gangsterland vibe of the series, by the way, should check out (the considerably bloodier) Baccano!, as well as Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop, which influenced A:TLA.

Looper

Brick, by Rian Johnson, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is one of my road-to-Damascus movies. My folks introduced me to it, with a “Max, you’ll like this.” I was skeptical (I’m often skeptical when people tell me I’m going to like something), but I fell in love. The high school that felt like a high school, the crime, the dialogue, the cinematography, the direction–I could write thousands of words on how cool this movie is. I’ve seen it around 10 times now, as a result of tracking down my friends who hadn’t seen it yet, cornering them, and forcing (err, that is, politely convincing) them to watch.

So now Johnson and Gordon-Levitt are teaming up again, with Bruce Willis, on a picture about time travel and assassination. The concept looks great, and I’m stunned by how much Gordon-Levitt and Willis look alike–a resemblance I never noticed before.

So you all know what I’m doing in September, now. Outside of writing, of course.

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