Book Club Finn Fancy Fun!

I’m having a blast visiting book clubs to discuss the Finn Fancy series.  Here’s a couple of photos (more to come):

Tacoma SFF Book Club

Greater Tacoma Scifi/ Fantasy Book Club

 

Bellingham SFF Bookclub

Bellingham Scifi/Fantasy Concern Bookclub

 

Seattle Book Club

Other Realms Book Group, Seattle

 

If you are in a book club, might I humbly suggest this is a great time for you to pick Finn Fancy to read? Here’s why:

* Reviews describe it as a fast paced and fun read full of laughs, laughs and more laughs — a great way to stave off those post-holiday winter blues!

* It came out in paperback January 5th!  Or you can get the Hardback for nearly the same price with all the deep discounts — WHAT A DEAL!  But wait, there’s more … 😉

* The sequel, BIGFOOTLOOSE AND FINN FANCY FREE, comes out February 16th!  So no long wait to see what happens next!

* If your book club is within reasonable driving distance, I’ll happily come join your discussion of the book if you’d like, and answer any questions you have!

* If your book club is in distant lands, or is online, I will happily participate in any online Ask Me Anything-style discussion you set up (e.g. via Skype, Google Hangouts, or invite me to your Meetup group or email thread, etc).

So when you all go to vote for what to read in next month, might I humbly suggest that Finn Fancy Necromancy (or Bigfootloose) is, if not the best choice, then the even besterest choice!

Finn Fancy Necromancy

Finn Fancy Tor US Cover

 

Bigfootloose Cover


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On “City on Fire” and Mocking Bad Writing

In my social media feed, a lot of people were sharing this post about City on Fire, a book with sentences so bad they are funny (much like entries into the Bulwer-Lytton “Dark and Stormy Night” contest but not intentionally so).

I laughed.  Then I learned about the author, and the history of the book.

I think we can learn a lot from this example, but not just about bad sentences.

City on Fire

WHEN I FIRST READ THE HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE SENTENCES:

First, yes, these sentences are pretty bad.  As in, this is a master class in bad sentences. I think an annotated version of this list that breaks down just why each is so bad would be very helpful for writers.

The examples range from pretty common writer errors like:

“But that was where the drawing ended. Below was just white space.” The problem here is stating something so redundant and obvious that it becomes ridiculous. So we can take this, and learn from it to make sure, for example, you don’t write something like “His heart beat in his chest,” because if you are human, where else would it be beating?

To a wide range of other issues as in these examples:

“Just then, a horripilating Scaramouche appeared at her elbow.”

Or

“Breasts like bronzed mangoes.”

In fact, there appears to be a lot of bad breast descriptions in the book.

 

 

HOWEVER:

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Some Finn Fancy Love Time

“So, this is your apartment?  Nice.  Where can I slip into something more comfortable?”

“Right over there, in the door past that copy of Finn Fancy Necromancy.  Oh my gosh, have you read it?  It’s REALLY exciting and funny an — uh, like you.  I’ll get the wine.”

 

Why do I give this fine example of Finn Fancy love?  Well, let’s play a quick Choose Your Own Finnventure:

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The Benefits of a Con Where Few People Came

Rustycon 2016 lights out

When the lights went out in the room due to the lack of bodies, we had to laugh.

 

I was a panelist at Rustycon this weekend, a lovely small local con run by very dedicated and passionate volunteers.   Unfortunately, several factors led to smaller than expected turnout — horrible Friday weather and traffic, every other person in the State apparently having the flu, and a Seahawks game on Sunday among them.  As a result, my panels all had two to five attendees.  The Guest of Honor’s had maybe fifteen.   I was lucky enough to have a handful of people at my reading, but several writers had nobody show.

I’m glad I went.

Like a lot of people, I’ve been crazy busy of late, essentially three-full-time-jobs level busy.  So there are those who might question whether a con where only a handful of people attended my panels might be seen as a “waste of time.”

But here’s why I don’t feel it was:

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The Fate of Grimdark the Grimdarian and the Rise of Shiny Fantasy

Like most people I think, I read by both taste and mood.  Sort of like how I eat.  Or make lo — uh, make the food I eat.

 

While I enjoy dark fantasy and so-called “grimdark” (official term and sponsor of the 2000’s Stuff Nobody Agrees What the Official Term Should Be For-athon), it feels like heavy lifting to me, as it is often filled with a sense of hopelessness, of fear, of pain, etc. that, even when cut with the occasional moment of joy, can still feel draining to read (at least for me).   I have to take my dark in small doses, like absinthe, or Carrot Top, or the awareness of my inevitable death.

Grimdark Hamlet

Swallow My Darkness!!!

 

Don’t get me wrong.  I think that Shakespeare guy has a real future with those crazy dark tragedies of his.  And when done well, “grimdark” can be satisfying reading in the sense that you feel these complex and sometimes uncomfortable emotions evoked by the work, and feel rewarded for that heavy lifting.  It also is able to explore deep and difficult themes and subjects in a more focused way than other fantasy, topics such as the darker side of human nature, moral ambiguity, torture, the origins of cruelty, etc.

 

In the words of that wise bard Trent Reznor, “I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel.”

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Con Jobs January Edition

I’ll be teaching a 90 minute workshop at Radcon in February, and before that on a number of panels at Rustycon at the end of January!  Come hang out with me and exchange thoughts on the joys and challenges of writing.  There are limited seats for the workshop, but both the workshop and of course the panels are free if you’re registered for the relevant convention.

goonies

The Goonies look on in amazement as Randy reads from his novel

 

FOOLSCAP WRITING WORKSHOP – LEVEL UP AS A WRITER

Friday, February 5, 2016, 1:30 pm

This “kitchen sink” presentation will cover everything from beginning writer mistakes to advanced plotting techniques, and the common evolutionary stages many writers go through from aspiring writer to published pro. Whatever stage you are at, you will hopefully learn something to help you level up as a writer. With handouts! And exercises! But not the sweaty kind of exercises.

Note that this is just one part of an all day writing workshop with additional classes by Cory Skerry (Writing In and About a Diverse World) and Jennifer Brozek (Planning a Book Series).

To Register: http://www.foolscap.org/workshops/

 

RUSTYCON PANELS – JAN 15-17, 2016

What I Would Have Liked to Know? (Fri Jan 15 4:00 PM)

Tips from pros. What we really would have liked to know when we started out. Things that we would have liked to have someone tell us 30 years that would have made a world of difference to where we are now.

Elizabeth Guizzetti Jeremy Zimmerman Kelli Stasi, Randy Henderson

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Setting Your Goals for 2016

Happy New Year!

Rather than simply share events from my past year, I thought I’d again offer a bit of encouragement and advice to help with the coming year.  While this is aimed primarily at my fellow writers, the same advice can also, I think, be applied to most any goal or creative pursuit, and to life in general.

This weekend, I encourage you to sit down and do three things:

1) Create a calendar/schedule for your goals and tasks.

2) Create, or update, your list of goals and tasks.

3) BELIEVE, and do what makes you happy.

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Finn Fancy Trade in the Wild!

TODAY IS TRADE PAPERBACK DAY!  Finn Fancy Necromancy is being released in Trade Paperback today, January 5th!

So if you’re in your local bookstore and spot Finn Fancy Necromancy (US paperback version) on the shelf, do me a huge favor and snap a photo and post it to Facebook or Twitter and tag me, or send me an email and let me know?  Or if you want to be fancy, you can post it in the comments below using a basic IMG tag: <img src=”url of your image here“>

I’ll send an Advanced Reader Copy of book 2: Bigfootloose and Finn Fancy Free, to the first two people to post pics of FFN trade edition in the wild. 🙂

Bigfootloose comes out officially on February 16th 🙂

Finn Fancy Tor Cover

Here are just some of the bookstores where you might spot it:

University Bookstore

Powell’s

Borderlands

Mysterious Galaxy

Liberty Bay Bookstore

Barnes & Noble

 


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Real or Not Real: Horrible Santa Movies

Santa Claus has starred in a lot of movies. I can only assume he uses the money from his acting gigs to upgrade his workshop, what with technology always advancing. Hard to build iPods with chisels, ya know?

But, sadly, not all of his movies are good.

Happy He-Man Holidays!

Here are some examples of the not-so-great ones. Some I made up. Some are real movies. And some I made up, and then found out they were real movies. How sad.

See if you can guess which are real, and which are bogus (answers are at the end). And just so the existence of hyperlinks does not give away which are the real ones, the false movies are linked to random Christmas-related material as well. If you are reading this at work, be aware that the YouTube videos will auto-start.

Enjoy.


1. SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (1964)

Let’s just get this one right out of the way. A highly underrated classic that is often (unfairly) cited as the worst Christmas movie ever. But like all of the best science fiction, it was prophetic, with the Martian society reflecting our own future society. Children are treated as adults in small bodies, and medicated with sleep spray when they get too precocious. The concerns of the anti-hero, Voldar, predicted modern issues around the impacts that mass production of frivolous goods have had on our society. If the deep philosophical themes of this film had been taken to heart, it may well have helped us to avoid our current financial crises as caused by credit consumerism.

Indeed, I believe that history will mark this as one of the most important films of the 20th century.

Okay, sure, they have a robot made of a cardboard box and duct tubing. But come on, who’s to say someday we won’t build disposable robots exactly like that, huh? Again, just further proof that this move was revolutionary in its visionizing.

Speaking of Santa battling aliens …

2. SVP (SANTA VS. PREDATOR) (2004)

Santa’s elves, while searching for frozen cookie dough in the tundra of the North Pole, discover a space ship buried in the ice. They are soon plunged into Jingle Hell as a newly awakened Predator begins stalking Santa’s workshop and killing off its inhabitants one by one. But the Predator may have met its match, because Santa is no ordinary prey. If you liked the toy battle scenes from “Toys” or “Small Soldiers,” the body count of every Rambo movie combined, and the taste of Play-Doh, you’ll love this film. For those who are considering watching this with their children, be warned: the final scene, in which the Predator is lured into a giant Hungry Hungry Hippo pit and ripped apart by massive lunging Hippo heads, is particularly terrifying and bloody. Starring Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson as Santa Claus.

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New Scifi Christmas Classics!

Due to cutbacks, the PsyPhy Network’s Holiday Classics Crappy Remake Department and their Scifi Classics Cheesy Remake Department have been merged. Here are some of the resulting projects that are now in various stages of production.

A Charlie Brown War of the Worldsmas

Good grief! Aliens invade the earth, and not even Linus’s nuclear-blue slanket can stop them. Charlie Brown tries to escape his new alien masters, but is caught, and Woodstock is roasted as punishment. Charlie is admonished by Lucy (“Charlie, you bonehead! You’ll get us all killed!”), and then is sent out by his masters to fetch biological samples for preservation.

worldsmasCharlie wanders the wasteland that is the invasion’s aftermath, where he discovers his old bioengineered smartpet Snoopy decorating a bomb shelter, and mutant children with abnormally large heads try to capture falling ashes on their tongues for the meager nutrients. At last he stumbles across a group of children huddled in a school auditorium where they sing Christmas carols in the hopes that Santa Claus will save them from the aliens. Inspired to teach the aliens the spirit of Christmas, Charlie takes one of the last surviving pine trees back to the mothership. The aliens quickly succumb to Pine Needle Scale (Chionaspis pinifoliae) and all die, whereupon everyone cheers Charlie Brown as a hero.

Original Classics: A Charlie Brown Christmas & War of the Worlds

The Year that Santa Claus Stood Still

Nobody believes in Santa, so Santa refuses to go anywhere on Christmas Eve. Klatu the elf goes into town with his little reindeer, Gortzen, to give humans one last chance to prove themselves worthy of Christmas. When Klatu is shot and Gortzen is captured by local scientists, it is up to Missus Claus to seek the aid of the Heat Miser, Snow Miser, and Mother Earth to convince the nations of the world to unite in a promise of Christmas cheer, or else die beneath the floods of melted polar ice. In the end, children and grownups everywhere are shouting, “We believe in you Santa! Please, for the love of egg nog, we believe in you!”

Original Classics: The Year without a Santa Claus & The Day the Earth Stood Still

Frosty the Snow Blob

Astrophysicist Professor Hinkle is laughed out of a scientific convention when he claims that his crystal Mayan helmet is really an alien communications device. Frustrated, he throws it away. A group of children find it, and put it on a snowman they made. The snowman promptly comes to life, proclaiming, “Happy birthday! Resistance is futile!” Frosty immediately rolls over the children, absorbing them and growing in size faster than a snowball rolling downhill. Soon, the entire town is threatened, as the snowblob picks up everything in its path like a Christmas Katamari Dam-Icy. Only Santa, a saintly alien who had been guarding against the return of the Frostarians, can stop the snowblob. But can even his vaunted powers succeed?

Original Classics: Frosty the Snow Man & The Blob

Rudolph and This Island Earth of Misfit Toys 2

Rudolph is gifted a bizarre Build a Radio kit. After using his nose to power it he receives a message to fly to the mysterious Island of Misfit Toys, where he finds his old pal Hermey the Elf already there. Rudolph and Hermey are beamed onto a saucer sled by the winged lion Exeter and flown to the planet Northpolia, where they learn that the Northpolians are in danger from the evil Toytakerons.

The Northpolians hope to develop a new weapon to defend their planet before it is destroyed entirely – and the mysterious energy source of Rudolph’s nose is their best hope. But the Toytakerons begin a final assault, bombarding the planet with cheap plastic crap from Christmases past. Rudolf and Hermey battle the abominable snowbrain — a hideous creature made of white fur and a giant exposed brain – and then escape back to earth where they support an entire new merchandising line of toys and Christmas ornaments happily ever after.

Although originally scripted for a 90 minute movie, the actual planned film has been shortened to 17 minutes to allow for more commercial breaks.

Original Classics: Rudolph and the Island of Misfit Toys & This Island Earth

How the Grinch Snatched Bodies

The Grinch, fed up with Whys in Whysville and their constant laughing and singing and playing games during the holidays, sneaks into everyone’s homes and plants grinchpods in their basements. The pods open in the night and send forth creatures that take over the Whys’ sleeping bodies.

grinchsnatcher

Soon, the Grinchified are stripping all personal joy and meaning out of the season, proposing white elephant exchanges of practical household goods even for personal family gatherings, jetting between holiday parties like club hopping celebrities, declaring themselves sick of holiday songs due to mall music inundation, and taking this year to really focus on themselves since they go all out on others every other year. But one Why, Mindy Ly Why, wakes in the night and realizes what is happening, and attempts to stop it. Will she find others who have not been Grinchified and avoid getting caught? Can she succeed in restoring true holiday spirit? Or will she end up as roast beast?

Original Classics: How the Grinch Stole Christmas & Invasion of the Body Snatchers

When Nestor’s Worlds Collide

Nestor the long eared donkey is horrified when his mother (and several national monuments) are smote by falling meteors. He is taken in by a kind pregnant woman, who is a message courier and needs a reliable method of transportation. She delivers messages between three wise scientists and learns that they have spotted a star in the sky – a star that is rapidly getting closer and is destined to consume the earth in fire. They manage to build a spacecraft, an ark of sorts, to carry a select group of humans to the new planet that is orbiting the coming star of doom.

Oh no! The ship is all full, with no seats for the pregnant woman! But wait — the kind-hearted pilot allows the woman and Nestor to stay in the cargo hold with the livestock and supplies. A child is born as the ship lands on the new planet. The child is named Hope, and seen as a symbol of a fresh start – but will she truly be a herald of hope, or will she only help to carry the bigotries, fears, and superstitions of the human race into the new world?

Only the sequel will tell.

Original Classics: Nestor the Long Eared Donkey & When Worlds Collide

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I originally published this on Fantasy Magazine


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