The late poet

Graphic by James Hance

So last month -- about two months ago, actually -- I was asked by the fine folks at ChiZine to contribute a piece of bad genre poetry for their "Shitty Poetry Month." Since my total experience of poetry in the last five years has been what I read to Leo and Miles, I quickly came up with a travesty of a beloved children's classic and sent it off.

Well... today I realized that for whatever reason the poem never saw the light of day on the ChiZine site, so with all apologies to A.A. Milne, here is "Coruscant Palace."

They're changing the guard at Coruscant Palace
Leia Organa went down with Alice
Alice is marrying an Imperial Guard
"A stormtrooper's life is terrible hard,"
                    Says Alice

They're changing the guard at Coruscant Palace
Leia Organa went down with Alice
The stormtroopers chased off a crazy old hermit
"One of the sergeants looks after their helmets,"
                    Says Alice.

They're changing the guard at Coruscant Palace
Leia Organa went down with Alice
We looked for the Emperor but he never came
"Well, the Force be with him, all the same,"
                    Says Alice.

They're changing the guard at Coruscant Palace
Leia Organa went down with Alice
The Emperor says he's dissolving the Senate
"I wouldn't be Emperor for a thousand credits,"
                    Says Alice.

They're changing the guard at Coruscant Palace
Leia Organa went down with Alice
A face looked out, but it wasn't the Emperor's
"He's much too busy a-building the Death Star,"
                    Says Alice.

They're changing the guard at Coruscant Palace
Leia Organa went down with Alice
"Do you think Lord Vader knows about me?"
"Sure to, dear, but it's time for tea,"
                    Says Alice.

Ottawa, Ad Astra, Aurora

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin.

And so ends a month of pretending to be a real writer! First was my reading at the Toronto ChiSeries where I was proud to be part of a lineup including Peter Watts, Kari Maaren and Kate Story. I had a good time and for once I was able to stay late and hang out with people. Then came Ad Astra which started, for me, with a panel on The Walking Dead that led, somehow, to jokes about Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey and Venn Diagrams. (If there's a bad Venn Diagram joke, I haven't heard it.) Later the same night was my reading with Matt Moore. The room was nearly full and I got to read "Beyond the Fields You Know," a story from my upcoming collection which only one person in the room had seen before; Matt read his great story "Delta Pi".

About five seconds before I give up on my Kobo

The next morning I had panels on two different flavours of alternate history and then went to do my turn at the Bundoran table. This is the first time we've had a table at Ad Astra so it was as much about building awareness as selling books; fortunately we did sell more than a few books, and it was gratifying to have people come looking for my book after they'd seen me on panels. Saturday night was the launch of "The Salt and Iron Dialogues" as well as the e-book of "Blood and Water" so I got to read alongside Kate Heartfield, Derek Kunsken, Ryan McFadden and oh, yeah, Julie Czerneda!

Then with just a day to recover I got to help launch ChiSeries Ottawa. Matt Moore was once again to blame, though this time I wasn't reading with him but with Violette Malan and Charles de Lint. We couldn't have asked for a better turnout and the audience was great. (Thanks to Jonathan Crowe for taking the pictures you see here.)

Last up: There are three days left before Aurora nominations close. I haven't done any particular promotion of the two stories I have that are eligible, but on the off chance that you plan to nominate and haven't yet done so I'll just remind you about "The Last Islander" (Asimov's, September 2012) and "The Afflicted" (Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August 2012).

Now back to reality!

Back to the future

I thought I was done with Shi Jin.

Every now and then, in the years since Fall From Earth was published, people have asked me whether I was ever going to revisit its world and characters. (Whether that reflects a genuine interest in reading more about them or just an assumption that every SF/F novel is part of a series is an open question.) I've had the same question about a few of my short stories as well, and my answer has always been that I had told as much of that story as needed telling. I've also always been a believer in the "iceberg" theory of worldbuilding, which is that you only show the reader 10-20% of the setting details you've invented, and which might be undermined by going back to an established setting.

So why did I write "The Salt and Iron Dialogues"? Basically, it comes down to Shi Jin, the protagonist of Fall From Earth. When I first started work on that book, I wrote background pieces of varying lengths about the major characters. One these (Griffin's)wound up integrated mostly intact in the final text, while a few others had some bits included or referred to in dialogue. But Shi Jin's, which naturally was the longest, I wound up cutting because the only way to include it was as a prologue, and the conventional wisdom was that editors don't like manuscripts that start with prologues. So it survived only as a few elliptical references, and that was that...

Until about six months ago I was cleaning out my office and found an old computer that I thought had been thrown away several years ago, on which I found a version of Fall From Earth that still included the prologue. And it was a prologue, but when I re-read it I couldn't help feeling that there was more of Shi Jin's story that I wanted to tell: a story about a young woman learning to navigate between power, authority and heroism, which might be able to stand on its own for people who hadn't read Fall From Earth -- as well as providing an added dimension for those who had.When I finished (after junking and rewriting about 2/3 of the original text) I remembered just why it was that I had liked Shi Jin so much in the first place, and why I decided to write a novel about her.

"The Salt and Iron Dialogues" is launching Saturday night at Ad Astra and it'll be going up for sale on the Bundoran site shortly. If you've read Fall From Earth and liked it, I'm pretty sure you'll like this too: if you haven't, I think you'll enjoy meeting Shi Jin for the first time.

Ad Astra

Here's my schedule for this year's Ad Astra convention, which is being held April 5-7 at the Markham Holiday Inn & Suites in "Toronto":

Friday 7 pm Franklin Mainstream Zombies: the Walking Dead Panel with David Clink, Stephanie Bedwell-Grime, and Adam Blendick    

The television adaptation of The Walking Dead is arguably the most mainstream zombies have ever been – and they don’t even call them zombies! Whether the show measures up when compared to the classic image of the zombie, or even to its own source material, is the meat of the debate in this panel.  Also on the slab will be what makes zombies so popular, and just how original this story truly is.      

          

Friday 10pm Floor 2, Suite 2 - Reading: East Block Irregulars with Matt Moore. Matt's going to read his great story "Delta Pi" and I'll probably be reading an original story from my upcoming collection with CZP. 

Saturday 10 am Berczy A Alternate Canadian Histories with Neil Jamison-Williams and Eric Choi.

What if the Vikings had successfully settled Atlantic Canada? What if Louis XV had kept Quebec in the Treaty of Paris in 1763? What if the war of 1812 had a different outcome? Or if the Red River Rebellion had resulted in an independent republic of Assiniboia? What would our country look like today?  This panel examines the options.

                        

Saturday 11 am Ellsemere East Creating a Successful Alternate History with Derek Kunsken, Stephen Hunt, Neil Jamison-Williams and Ed Greenwood.

When we talk about alternate histories, Steampunk is an obvious standout, but there are countless ways of using the principles of alternate timelines in fantasy and science fiction. By combining thorough research with a few basic rules of thumb, we can re-examine our present by rewriting our past.

                                

Saturday 4 30 pm Berczy B - Autograph Session (to 6 pm)

Saturday 9 PM Suite 1410 Bundoran Press book launch! We'll be launching my new novella "The Salt and Iron Dialogues" along with new e-book editions of several other Bundoran books. I'm don't know yet how you do a launch for an e-book, but I'm sure Hayden has it all figured out!

Another reading, closer to home

More news! Just a month after I'm reading at the ChiSeries in Toronto, I'll be part of the very first Chiaroscuro readings here in Ottawa, alongside Violette Malan and Charles De Lint! I'm hugely honoured and proud to be part of launching this series, especially alongside two such amazing writers.

Because Violette and Charles will both be reading fantasy pieces, I've been asked to read some SF. Unfortunately my SF stories tend to be on the longer side and I've been asked to keep it to around twenty minutes. I'm leaning towards "The Coldest War" right now, but I've got two months to think about it.

You heard it here second

News! News! So much news I've been too busy actually doing stuff to talk about it. But here are a couple of cool things coming up in the next few months:

On March 13, I'll be reading at the Chiaroscuro Reading and Workshop series along with Peter Watts, Kate Story and Kari Maaren on the ukulele. As with all the readings in the series it'll begin at 8 PM at the Augusta House at 152 Augusta Ave., Toronto. I'm not sure what I'll be reading yet, but I'm leaning towards "Heroic Measures" since it's a good length and is going to be in Prime's Superheroes anthology coming out next month.

In April, Bundoran Press is going to be launching The Salt and Iron Dialogues, a novella-length prequel to Fall From Earth, as an e-book at Ad Astra in Toronto. I'll write a bit more about it closer to the event but for now I'll just say that this is a story that's been percolating for a long time -- since I started the first draft of Fall From Earth, in fact -- and I think works both as a further insight to the world and characters of that book and as a standalone work.

Catching up

After some weeks of not much news there's been a whole lot in just that last few days. First of all, Kazka Press has released At Year's End, a collection of holiday-themed flash fiction that includes my story "A Visit, A Gift." It's e-book only for the time being, but that means it's the perfect stocking stuffer if you haven't finished your Christmas shopping yet -- instant delivery! You can buy it online at a bunch of places.

Second, my story "Heroic Measures" is going to be included in Rich Horton's collection Superheroes from Prime. The full TOC hasn't been released yet but it's got stories by Peter S. Beagle and Kelly Link, so you know it'll be good.

Finally, Bundoran Press, publishers of my novel Fall From Earth, is changing hands, having been sold to Hayden Trenholm, author of the acclaimed Steele Chronicles series. I'm sorry to hear that Bundoran's founder/publisher/editor Virginia O'Dine is leaving: aside from having the obvious good taste to buy my book, she's been a terrific editor, advocate and promoter for my work and that of many other Canadian writers. It's in good hands with Hayden, though, plus we'll now have an SF publisher based right here in Ottawa.