Nethermore

Maybe you’ve read both Scalzi’s account of the Scalzi Award and Brandon’s as well. But there’s a story behind the award—a story rife with yellow bricks and peril.

It began on Wednesday night. Bryce Moore and I trekked through Downtown Disney looking for souvinirs—he for his son. I was looking for something for myself. Nothing jumped out at me.

But then a large yellow store arose from the mists of night and the smoke from the Disneyland fireworks: the Lego store. It loomed like, well, a giant brick with large, red, Lego doors to welcome us.

As we entered, a nine-year old boy sat outside the red doors, Legos scattered all over the cobblestones in front of him. I imagined him coming out of the store in a panic, unable to contain the pressure fueling his Lego fix. Without being able to make it back to his hotel room, he fell to the ground, ripping apart the Lego box, bricks flying everywhere. And now, on the ground, he could breathe easily as he furiously built a Lego Star Wars Jedi spaceship.

Little did I know that the boy would be me on Saturday night right after the Hugo Awards banquet.

Of all the things in the Lego store, the thing that sparked my curiosity was the big bins of bricks in the back. For around seven bucks, one could take a plastic cup and fill it with Legos from any of the bins. I made up my mind. I wanted Legos as a souvinir. And since the Hugos were given out at WorldCon, I thought it would be cool to make a rocket to take home as a remembrance of the Convention.

As the convention unfolded, it became apparent that Scalzi was the forerunner for the Campbell Award, and as a result, my friend Brandon Sanderson adopted him as his evil nemesis. When things went even slightly awry, the curse “Scalzi!” would echo down the hallways in the same intonations of the famous line: “Khan!”

The joke grew, and then I found myself one afternoon with friends Dan Wells and Janci Patterson, who both had expressed interest in going to the Lego store. Since Lego rockets were already on my mind, I brought up the idea of making an award for Brandon. We all thought it would be a great idea, and we planned on giving him the award—so long as Scalzi won.

Off to the Lego Store, and directly to the bins of bricks we went. After an hour of fiddling with bricks, and a few false starts—Dan and Janci were incredibly patient with me—we had a rocket. It should be mentioned that Dan did a great job of decorating the rocket with round pieces, and vents, and a Lego bush to act as a pilot. We pulled the thing apart, crammed it into the little bucket, and added pieces around it to fill it up and get our money’s worth of bricks.

Torn apart in a bucket with a taped-on top, the Scalzi award waited until Saturday when Dan Wells and Steve Diamond borrowed a Sharpie from the “When Did You Join Fandom?” wall and approached John Scalzi.

“Can you sign this?” asked Dan. “It’s a Lego.”

“Sure,” said Scalzi. He signed the brick and handed it back. “What’s it for?”

“I can’t tell you,” said Dan.

Scalzi looked confused. “Well, can you tell me later?”

“No.” Dan took back the Sharpie. “But maybe you’ll find out.”

Fast forward to Saturday night. Scalzi wins the Campbell Award. Our friend Bob Defendi screams “Scalziiii!” into the silence before Scalzi’s acceptance speech. The Hugos end. The group of us are walking back to the hotel with Brandon.

Dan looks at me. “Have you built the award?”

I blink. “It’s still in the bucket with all the other bricks we shoved in there.”

“You’d better hurry then,” he says.

I ran to the hotel, reverting back to past tense. The elevators had quite the wait. I found a stairwell that appeared to be for employees only because it was so narrow. Up to the seventh floor, and into the rooms I flew.

On the floor was the bucket of Legos. I tore off the lid and began madly building the rocket, wondering if I could make it exactly the same way I had back in the store a few days earlier. Just as in the movies, I got it done just as Brandon and the rest of the group arrived. (Thanks to Kimball on this one.)

Then we presented the award to Brandon. My only regret: I wish we had built a holder on it for Scalzibane.

So, that’s the story of the Scalzi Award. And at 6.95, I bet it cost a whole lot less than that Campbell Awards plaque.

One of the coolest things at the convention this year was to see how Pyr Books is coming along. I first heard about Pyr about a year ago at the World Fantasy Convention in Madison, Wisconsin. At the time, Pyr was basically a newborn by publisher standards, having just emerged from Prometheus as their science fiction and fantasy imprint.

Now, a year later, Pyr has published over twenty books, has snagged some of the biggest names in the genre, and printed some of the most beautiful books I’ve seen in a long time. This is a publisher to watch. For over a decade, Tor books has been the biggest name in the field—and how I love the books that Tor releases! However, it’s nice to see other publishers catching up with the same quality of stories and packaging. I think we’re hitting another boom in the genre, similar to what we saw in the early 90s—only with more enthusiasm and more originality.

Books to watch for from Pyr, and which are now on my reading list:

Infoquake by David Louis Edelman
The Crooked Letter by Sean Williams
River of Gods by Ian McDonald
Fast Future 1 edited by Lou Anders

These are a few that caught my eye immediately, but I must say that Pyr has more books that sound interesting to me than I have time to read. Take a look at who else they’re publishing!

Fiona Avery, Michael Moorcock, Storm Constantine, Mike Resnick, Joel Shepherd, and Robert Silverberg. This is just to name a few!

In addition to all this, I had a chance to talk to Lou Anders—Pyr’s editorial director—for a few brief minutes during his kaffeklatsch and in the hall later. And I must say that he is a stellar individual with a keen eye for a good story. He’s definitely taking Pyr in a great direction. He even mentioned my maps in his blog.

John Scalzi, winner of this year’s Campbell Award for best new writer, mentioned the Lego Scalzi award that me and a few friends put together for Brandon. More on this when Scalzi gets his version of the story up. It’s a long post, so here’s the quote here:

Meeting Brandon Sanderson and his sneaky friends who got me to sign a piece of LEGO (the explanation for that will come at a later point, when I get pictures).

There was quite the buzz about several other books—from Pyr and other publisher—that have come out this year, many of which I expect to see on the Hugo and World Fantasy ballots for next year’s cons:

Infoquake by David Louis Edelman
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
(Scott’s blog can be found at this link.)
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

More about the convention later.

For meeting editors, agents, and authors, the big conventions are the places one should go, and the World Science Fiction Convention did not disappoint this year.

There were way too many panels and too little time to go to all of them. I was satisfied to make it to the “Upcoming Books” panels put on by the various publishers. I also sat in on a few writing panels, including the very helpful, “Revise, revise, revise!” which gave me some great insights into the writing and revision process.

The Hugo Awards were put together well this year, with Guest-of-Honor Connie Willis as master of ceremonies. She and Robert Silverberg had great dynamics together. A speech by Harlan Ellison was very . . . interesting and colorful. And a surprise visit from Morena Baccarin, accepting the Hugo for Jos Whedon’s Serenity, left the audience in awe of her beauty, poise, and delivery.

From listening to the panels and the editors and authors, the trends right now are in historical fantasy (Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norell, His Majesty’s Dragon, and more), vampires (too many to name—an absurd number), paranormal romance (again, too many to name), and good science fiction (anything Pyr books publishes).

I attended two kaffeklatches—a group of ten people making an appointment to speak with an author or editor—and talked with editors Jim Frenkel (Tor books) and Lou Anders (Pyr book’s one-man editing machine). Both sessions were good and informative. More about Pyr books tomorrow. They deserve a whole post.

Arrived from California around 2:00 am this morning. It’s been a crazy week and a great convention. California was a wonderful place to hold WorldCon, what with the temperate weather and cool attractions. Some of my favorite things weren’t even at the Convention. For example, Downtown Disney has the Lego Store that I went to twice. The second time, I spent an hour building rockets from their bins of Legos that you can buy. It was like being a kid again. I almost took off on Saturday to find the Legoland attraction that is somewhere around there.

The convention was fun too. There was a nice variety of people and panels. I’ll post more about the happenings of this when I’m actually able to unpack everything.

I’ll be gone to the World Science Fiction Convention this week and probably won’t get back to the computer to make any entries. But I’ll post on Monday (if not before) a report of the happenings.

You may have noticed that the progress bar hasn’t been moving for awhile. Well, it’s not because I haven’t been writing. This last week I’ve actually been getting back into the book. However, it’s all written on my NEC MobilePro, which I bought used several years ago for less than a hundred bucks.

MobilePros are great for getting things down quickly. It’s been a life saver at the doctor’s office or just about anywhere I’ve had to sit around waiting. The instant On feature is great since I don’t have to wait for the thing to boot up just to slap down a few sentences. And if you have another computer, you can transfer the files (in MS Pocket Word) over to your Laptop or Desktop for further editing. Pocket Word doesn’t have a word count feature. It’s basically just a text editor, which is really the only downside to the MobilePro, beside its small screen.

It’s an awesome little device, especially with the full keyboard. I’d never buy one of them new, but one can get these things used for a fairly good price (less than a hundred bucks) off eBay.

My friend Brandon Sanderson linked me on Friday through his “Annotations” section of the website. Whenever one of his books is released, he puts up a section that acts as the “Special Features” to the book, kind of like the sorts of things you would find on the special edition of a DVD. With the release of Mistborn: the Final Empire, he’s just barely started posting these annotations.

He says some nice things about the maps. And check out his website . . . it’s one of the better author websites that I’ve seen. I mean, how many authors give behind-the-scenes looks at their books?

As always, the maps are posted for you to view in my Mistborn Gallery #1. (There will be more to come, especially as I finish up the artwork and maps for book 2.)

Remember that movie, Old Yeller? When I was a kid, that show scared me to death because of the ending. It made me think that just because someone is your best friend, events out of your control can turn him into a monster. The worst part was that it was Travis, the boy who had grown so attached to Old Yeller, who had to put the old boy down.

Remember that one song by Cold Play—”Yellow?” You know, “Look at the stars, how they shine for you”? Well, it was just begging to get a parody made out of it. So, I put the movie and the song together, and voila! Enjoy. It’s a work in progress, so feel free to comment.

“Old Yeller”
lyrics by “Stewart!”
music by Cold Play

There was a dog
Of a golden hue
A friend to me and you
Yeah, he was Old Yeller

He won their hearts
Cuz his doggy drool
Could fill a swimming pool
He was Old Yeller

He plowed the fields
Man, he was really cool
He was Old Yeller

His mouth
And tongue started to foam
Din’t call the vet, we didn’t have a phone
I took that gun, I took that gun
And blew that dog away

He saved some kid
Who was attacked by pigs
But that dog rescued him
Way to go, Yeller

A rabid wolf
Came to tear our throats
Our dog, he took the blow
He was Old Yeller

His mouth
And tongue started to foam
Din’t call the vet, we didn’t have a phone
I took that gun, I took that gun
And blew that dog away

There was a dog
Of a golden hue
Of a golden hue
Of a golden hue
Of a golden hue
Of a golden
There was a dog
Of a golden hue

Recently I was looking for fonts for the Mistborn Llamas T-shirts (watch for them soon!) when one of the websites suggested I install their software in order to get free fonts. Well, I don’t install everything I find online—that would be the equivalent of putting everything I find on the ground in my mouth.

But I read their little end user agreement, and in the midst of it were these words:

Special Notice for Residents of the State of Alaska, USA:
Unfortunately, according to SB 140 (Alaska), persons who reside in the state of Alaska may not install the Licensed Software. Therefore, by installing or Using the Licensed Software you represent and warrant that your computer is not located in the state of Alaska.

My first thought after reading this was, if I were in Alaska and really wanted this spyware installed on my computer, then what’s stopping me from downloading and installing this stuff?

My second thought was that Alaska’s lawmakers came up with this law for some reason or another. I imagine that someone in government waved the proposed bill in the air and said, “We don’t want people downloading or installing ANYTHING but penguins!”

I don’t want to detract from the seriousness of this situation. I’m quite sure that this lawmaker was particularly well-meaning. I mean, doesn’t Alaska have quite the booming Penguin trade?

A little more research yielded this Computer Technology Law Report, which in essence says:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska–Gov. Frank Murkowski (R) Aug. 30 signed legislation that forbids the online distribution or installation of “adware” that causes Web browsers to display pop-up advertisements targeted to Alaska consumers.

Wow, talk about taking care of their citizens. But how in the world are they going to enforce this?

Ah ha! I think we’ve found a job for all those penguins!

Author’s Note:
Some observant readers may assert that there are no penguins in Alaska. According to Wikipedia, penguins are only found in the Southern Hemisphere. But where do you think Alaska is located? Besides I’ve seen penguins in zoos that are (as far as I know) outside of the Southern Hemisphere, so Wikipedia may not be entirely accurate.

My friend, and fellow Industrial Designer, Jason showed me a great website called Blurb for printing personal portfolios. He got his printed and shipped within a week and seems to be happy with the quality. For around thirty bucks, you can get a hardcover book of your designs or writings. They’re just in Beta right now, so expect bigger and better services in the future. I just may have to put together a Mistborn Maps book for the signings that I’ve been going to.

And as for Jason’s work, check it out over at TenaciousID.com.

Ctrl Zed is finally online with their very own mySpace page! They’ve even posted two of their newest songs, “Food!” and “Aliens Among Us.” I imagine that as they get the mixes back from the audio technician, that more songs will be posted and alternated.

Stay tuned in the future as their myspace page gets a facelift, photos and lyrics are added, tour dates announced, and t-shirts made available.