Nobody, darnit

While going through old mail today, I discovered I can nominate for next year's World Fantasy Awards. This is why I need to keep better track of what I read. Most everything I can think of is either from 2008 or 2010. (Damn you, Hundred Thousand Kingdoms! Why can't you have come out two months earlier?) At least there's some novels I can think of. Collections is going to be the tough one. I read a whole bunch this year, and I'll bet most of them are from 2008.

Last night, I went to see Sherman Alexie with a couple of (new) friends. (Many thanks to pussinboots, btw, for pushing me into going. Sän was saying how I'm more inclined to go out and do things with people, and I was all, "yeah, I say that, but for instance, there's this Sherman Alexie thing I really want to go to, but the big inertia part of me is all, "yeah, but I could stay at home and write..." And Sän said, "hey, I want to go! And I could bring these cool new people I just met!"
Alexie was awesome, if a little too old for his own good. He was ranting about the Kindle, and even though in the end, he said he was more anti-Amazon than anti-digital, he spent most the talk glorifying the physical book and the joys of impractical old stuff, like giant stereo speakers and standing in line for hours to get a new music album. And while I appreciate that joy can be found in such things (and indeed, I stood in line for two hours to get tickets to The Phantom Menace, just because I happened to be at the mall when I saw the line, and thought, "hey, this is history, I should join in") I've also got better things to do with my time and space. And while yes, it's nice being able to judge a person and bond with them based on the book you can see them reading, especially if it's obscure and geeky...I hate it when people do that to me. People come up and ask, "what are you reading?" when they can very clearly see. They just want to talk. Does he really think nosy folks will stop asking just because they genuinely don't know what you're reading?
And yes, he talked about sex a lot. At question time, a fourteen-year-old boy asked him why he chose to start a particular chapter of his sorta-biography with masturbation, which resulted in much praise for the boy and his mother. (It was at this point that he told everyone to call their parents right away to thank them for having sex. The relationship between a man and woman in front of us then became clear because after he said something to her, she patted him on the shoulder and said, "It was worth it.")
Anyway, he is pro teaching kids that masturbation is good until you're emotionally mature enough for sex.
[EDIT, copyed from the comments to clarify my point:
I appreciate the value--both practical and personal--of old stuff, it was just that with that particular thing, his emotions overrode the effectiveness of his argument. If I were any younger, I probably wouldn't be able to relate to a lot of the things he got excited about, and he'd come across as being out of touch. As it is, he accused members of the iPod generation of stuff I've never known anyone to do (like only listen to the first 45 seconds of songs. Who does that? Maybe I'm the one who's out of touch.)
But I'm also a bit of a Vulcan, and it's hard for emotion to sway me. I loved watching him get all passionate about the past, but it didn't make me want to hate the Kindle. If he did want me to hate the Kindle, then he would have been better off focusing on the anti-Amazon argument, an attitude I definitely share.]

lisamantchev writes about the Neil Gaiman reading in Seattle.

Why, is that me being quoted in there? Thanks, Lisa!

If you were to buy a copy of the current Locus magazine (May 2008), you'd see a lovely if grainy picture of Keffy Kehrli (not R.M. Kehrli) and C0r1n Inman (not Sän Inman, who's a much more bizarre individual).

I fell victim to cheap books again. This time, from the library used book sale, I got Dream Makers, Vol II, by Charles Platt. It's a bunch of interviews of science fiction writers. The interviews are done in the authors homes, and are all very fascinating. Platt is great at making each of the authors seems absolutely batty in their own way. Then again, I did intentionally start out with the batty ones. (William Burroughs was living in a former locker room. It was bare and full of concrete and there was a table with a lone typewriter on it. I am terrified of that typewriter. One of the most memorable, disturbing movie scenes for me was the "rub it on my lips, Bill," scene from The Naked Lunch movie. Talking cockroach typewriter.)

I don't know what to think of Platt, though. He has this huge introduction where he justifies his lack of female and minority writers, since apparently people yelled at him for that in volume 1. If he hadn't said anything, I never would have said anything, but he points out that most science fiction writers are men, and most of the women are either newcomers or tend towards fantasy. He then proceeds to trash the shit out of the fantasy genre. (First he says the science fiction authors who can actually write are the true oppressed minority, buried under a glut of crap, then goes on to say that all fantasy is crap. Well fuck you too, man. (Of course, the word, "anti-rational" automatically sets me off) )

Anyway, I decided I want to read the authors' work before I read their interview. So here's the list:

Harry Harrison
Donald Wollheim
Theodore Sturgeon
Christopher Priest
James Tiptree, Jr.
The first one I read. The interview was done in 1982, and is creepy. I really want to get that biography of her.
William S Burroughs (see above)
Jerry Pournelle
Arthur C Clarke
Edward Ferman
Joanna Russ
Fritz Leiber
Janet Morris
Keith Roberts
John Sladek
DM Thomas
Larry Niven
Stephen King (who gives the impression he was full of coke at the time)
Joan D Vinge
Keith Laumer
Alvin Toffler
Joe Haldeman
L. Ron Hubbard Okay, I haven't read his stuff, but I see his creepy seventies-era portrait through the window of the Scientologists every evening.
Kit Reed
Poul Anderson
Piers Anthony
Andre Norton
Jack Vance
Robert Anton Wilson





Holy Crap, it's snowing! That was unexpected.