Quill Awards Finalist

Big awards news--my story collection, Getting to Know You, was named yesterday as a finalist for the 2007 Quill Book Awards in SF/Fantasy! In case you haven't heard about the Quills, this is only their third year, and they seem to be an attempt to put some glitz into literary awards. The award ceremony is the only nationally televised book award ceremony in the US and will originate from Jazz at Lincoln Center and include celebs, a red carpet, and a gala celebration. Looks like I may need to buy a tux.

Getting Caught Up with Things

Folks have asked for an update on the second novel. I'm so bad about posting, I should be punished. Here's some recent and upcoming items:

Writer Con in the Banana Belt
Next month I'm going to be an instructor at Kachemak Bay Writers Conference in sunny Homer, Alaska. It's a great extended weekend of workshops, readings, and panels in one of the most beautiful places on Earth. And during summer solstice! I'm going to give a workshop about the wonders of science fiction and another on how to plot the popular short story. In other words, I'm going to get my genre on.

Philoctetes vs the Alien
Last month I was invited to join a roundtable discussion on Extraterrestrial Life at the Philoctetes Center in NYC. The Philoctetes Center is an organization dedicated to the multi-disciplinary exploration of human imagination. In other words, they get scientists, artists, and experts of all sorts together around a table and let them talk about interesting stuff. You can watch a streaming video of the hour-and-a-half discussion. I, myself, don't hold forth till about an hour into it.

Novel #2 Update
I took advantage of my trip to NYC to visit my editor at Tor, David Hartwell. I had finished the first draft of Mind Over Oship in January, but since then I've changed the book a lot, and I'm happy with the direction I'm taking. For those of you who read Counting Heads, I guess I can tell you that MOO picks up right where CH leaves off. Originally I followed the same three threads, but in the second draft I've cut out pretty much the whole Kodiak thread. Bogdan and crew were just taking up too much space to tell their story. It'll have to be a separate book someday. So, now I'm following the Starke thread, with Meewee and the Oships, and the Mary and Fred thread. M and F, in fact, get about half of the book.

The book was originally due to Tor by mid-September 2007, but I couldn't see how it would be finished and polished by then, and after I gave Hartwell my progress report, I asked if I could have another six months. He agreed, and so I intend to have it in by next March. That means I should be polishing it all winter. Sorry to make everyone wait to see what happens, but these things take time. At least they take me time.

The photo above shows a building under construction wrapping near the Tor offices. Rather SFnal.

Launching my story collection

This week I launch my debut short story collection, Getting to Know You. I'll be at the Fairbanks Barnes & Noble on Friday, May 11, 7-9 pm and then on Thursday May 17, I'll be at the Fairbanks Gulliver's Bookstore from 6-8 pm.

The only story I seem to have of just the right length for a public reading is "Yurek Rutz, Yurek Rutz, Yurek Rutz." But I've read that one a number of times locally and won't subject the public to it again. Instead, I think I'll give a sampler of openings. I'll read the first seven minutes of three separate stories.

Hope to see you there.

Osama Phone Home

I have a new story in this issue (March/April) of MIT Technology Review. It's called "Osama Phone Home," and is about the most political and contemporary piece I've ever done. It's also the first science fiction the TR has published in its century of reporting on emergent tech. Here's what editor/publisher Jason Pontin writes in the same issue:

In this, I believe, I am an entirely conventional technologist. Most of us came to technology through science fiction; our imaginations remain secretly moved by ­science-fictional ideas. Only the very exalted are honest about their debt. In his collection of lectures on the future of technology, Imagined Worlds, the great theoretical ­physicist Freeman Dyson writes, "Science is my territory, but science fiction is the landscape of my dreams."

As to the photo at the top of this entry, I think it's a dead alien. I found it lying on the snow on the trail to my shed. It was already dead when I found it. A powerful build, hairy legs, a horse-like head. I didn't move it, and I think the foxes got it.

Getting to Know You--First Review!

My story collection got a starred review in Publishers Weekly today. Very cool and a good way to start out. The title above is linked to the review, but you need to be a subscriber.

* Getting to Know You
David Marusek. Subterranean (www.subterraneanpress.com), $25 (297p) ISBN 978-1-59606-088-3

Marusek, in a blurb for this superb collection of 10 stories (all the shorter SF he's published to date), gives fair warning when he says he lays his stories "like traps and bait[s] them with shiny ideas." Since the author lives in Alaska, it's no surprise to find that his characters inhabit extreme environments, both physical and psychological. "The Earth Is on the Mend" and "Yurek Rutz, Yurek Rutz, Yurek Rutz" are set in the Arctic, with characters made pragmatic by cold circumstance. Similarly stark is the world of "Cabbages and Kale or How We Downsized North America" (one of several entries that are sketches for his 2006 novel, Counting Heads), where characters fight to stay ahead of change, and one bad decision can topple a world. Marusek's "shiny ideas"—cloned laborers, electronic "proxies," the "boutique economy"—sparkle, but these assured stories also draw on core SF themes: in the face of change, what does it mean to be human, and where do we draw the line between helping ourselves and hurting others? (Apr.)

Sharron--A True Hero of the Arts

When I received the first galleys of my story collection to proof, I was compelled to read all eleven stories again, looking for typos and errors. When you write a story (or novel), you have to read and reread the piece many times, from first glimmerings, through many drafts, and much polishing to the final typeset galleys. Generally, you don't read the story when it comes out in print because by then you're sick of it and would feel satisfied if you never saw the story again in this life.

In addition, I updated "We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy" for inclusion in the novel, so I must have read that one well over 50 times. It's truly hard to read something so many times.

After the first read-through, I returned the galley. Then I realized that the manuscripts I had supplied Subterranean Press had never been reconciled to the published version of the stories. And there are always subtle edits done in the final copyediting. So I was faced with going through the eleven stories yet another time, this time comparing them word for word against the published versions.

My heart was not up to the task. I knew it would crush me, so I sent out a plea for help to the Borough Library SF reading group I belong to. And this young woman answered the call and volunteered to do the final read through for me. She may have saved my sanity; therefore, I pronounce Sharron Albert a True Hero of the Arts!

Thank you.

Neb Prelim Ballot!

Good news for my first novel, Counting Heads. It's made the preliminary ballot for the Nebula Award.

The photo above is my brother, Mark, dressed up at Holloween as the KFC Colonel. Looks like he's counting hands.

Story collection is coming along

Subterranean Press is putting the finishing touches on my collection to be released in April. Here's what the cover is looking like at this stage. Illustrator is Mark A. Nelson. You can pre-order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and quality bookstores everywhere.

Read Czech?

A Czech anthology has been published that includes my story "The Wedding Album." Looks like a winner. Here's the lineup:

PAOLO BACIGALUPI: THE PASHO (Asimov's SF September 2004)
LAIRD BARRON: BULLDOZER (Sci Fiction 2004)
CHRISTOPHER BARZAK: THE LANGUAGE OF MOTHS (Realms of Fantasy 2005)
ALAN DENIRO: SALTING THE MAP (Fortean Bureau 2003)
CORY DOCTOROW: ANDA'S GAME (Salon 2004)
JEFFREY FORD: IN THE HOUSE OF FOUR SEASONS (Fantasy Magazine 2005)
GREGORY FROST: MADONNA OF THE MAQUILADORA (Asimov´s SF May 2002)
THEODORA GOSS: PIP AND THE FAIRIES (Strange Horizons 2005)
EILEEN GUNN: COMING TO TERMS (Stable Strategies 2004)
KIJ JOHNSON: AT THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER OF BEES (Sci Fiction website 2003)
CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN: RIDING THE WHITE BULL (Argosy Jan/Feb 2004)
ELLEN KLAGES: TIME GYPSY (Bending the Landscape: Science Fiction 1998)
JAY LAKE: INTO THE GARDENS OF SWEET NIGHT (L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume XIX 2003)
DAVID MARUSEK: THE WEDDING ALBUM (Asimov's SF June 1999)
PAUL MELKO: FALLOW EARTH (Asimov's SF June 2004)
Sarah Monette: Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 2002)
TIM PRATT: LITTLE GODS (Strange Horizons 2002)
Bruce Holland Rogers: Thirteen Ways to Water (Black Cats and Broken Mirrors, eds. Martin H. Greenberg & John Helfers 1998)
BENJAMIN ROSENBAUM: EMBRACING-THE-NEW (Asimov's SF January 2004)
KEN WHARTON: ALOHA (Analog June 2003)

Special guest:
HAL DUNCAN: THE TOWER OF MORNING'S BONES (not yet published)

Story Collection Pre-Order

Subterranean Press has just made my upcoming short story collection available for pre-order. The book is due for release in April 07, but you can reserve a copy today.

The photo at the top is blown fireweed from before our first snowfall a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure why I'm into posting nature snapshots here lately, but I am, so deal with it.