Sense of Adventure

Yes, dinosaurs. As in, I make toy dinosaurs fight.

How can you possibly resist?

If you should happen to find yourself at NASFiC/Archon on Thursday afternoon, August 2, at 4:00 PM, clearly you can’t.

I’ll be reading from my finally-nearing-completion-dammit high fantasy epic novel The Dinosaur Lords. The excerpts I read at the Albuquerque Science Fiction Society meeting last month got a pretty rockin’ reception from the audience. Of course, you could probably read from the phone book white pages and get a good reaction if you accompany it by having a molded-plastic Allosaurus bite a model Corythosaurus on the neck.

(Friendly tip: if you write to tell me Allosaurs weren’t, so far as we know, contemporary with Corythosaurs, I shall mock you. They are on my world, buddy boy. As I’m at pains to tell my audiences right off, it ain’t Earth. Please feel free to go back and review the definition for “high fantasy” if you need a refresher, here.)

So anyway, of course I have to schlep a pack of the things in my luggage to St. Louis. This will complicate my keeping my checked bag under the airline’s 50-pound limit. One is tempted to stuff ‘em in the backpack. One can, however, too readily imagine the grotesque melodrama that would educe from “security” screeners. That’s enough of a nightmare already, thank you kindly.

Oh - just struck me: I’ve actually made to-scale plasticine dudes, weapons, and even a howdah to help me visualize my action scenes. I’m sure the bitty figures would not survive the trip, so I thought about just taking a block of modeling clay and making them up when I get to the hotel.

Then I thought again. That’d go well, given the most recent phony terror scare. So, sadly, the fans’ll have to settle for dinosaurs sans riders.

Anyway … Dinosaur Lords is a smokin’-hot yarn, even without the visual aids. On the other hand, if you’ve never seen a middle-aged 230-pound guy with a ponytail thrash around onstage making model dinosaurs attack each other while making growling noises - and very, very few have - it’s not to be missed.

Really.

And if you have to miss it, there’ll be another performance at Bubonicon in August. Even if you have caught a prior reading, I should be reading different excerpts. And there’s no telling what’ll happen when I get rolling with the ’saurs!

And of course, Friday the 3rd is my birthday. Just to drop an unsubtle hint like a brick, there.

Hope to see you soon. The cons really will be fun. Both of ‘em. And so will my readings.

I just got off the phone with a pleasant young woman reporter for the Weekly Alibi, mentioned below. Her name was Marisa Demarco. In my currently slightly-fuzzed mental state (still battling a low grade infection, which has migrated to my lungs, hopefully on its way out) I’m afraid I got her name wrong.

I hope she’ll be kind enough not to do the same to me.

Anyway, it was all set in motion by Patricia Rogers, a wonderful friend of mine and most of the New Mexico SF community, fans and pros alike (I consider myself both, by the way.) She got the notion she wanted to promote us NM SF authors - a noble notion indeed - so she called up her friend Devin O’Leary, who’s the alibi’s movie columnist as well as a star in some of Scott Phillips’ demented masterpieces. What with Bubonicon on its way in another month (!) or so he talked his editors into doing interviews with some of New Mexico’s dang innumerable science fiction and fantasy authors.

So I got my call as scheduled, and had a nice and what I hope was at least near-coherent conversation with Ms. Demarco. She said the piece is due to come out in the next issue next Thursday. So we shall see.

I have to thank her - as well as for taking the time and trouble to talk to me - for reminding me how scandalously behind I am in updating my online bibliography. I’m, good Lord, five or six books back. Although since I have plenty of actual writing to do before I head out to St. Louis it’s an open question as to whether I’ll actually get the page updated before then. Maybe on the road when I find a wireless node.

Anyway, my thanks to Patricia for heroically taking the trouble to get this rolling, and Devin and Marisa and the alibi. Subject to revocation depending upon what they actually say about me, of course.

It’s not often you can use the words “fun” and “freedom” together in the context of net.commentary. Pro-freedom writing online can generally be described with words like embittered or despairing.

A guy named George Gould wrote a piece on LRC called The Classified NIE that’s both hilarious and incisive. So I emailed him and told him what I thought about it (“Brilliant.”)

So anyway he was kind enough to write back and thank me, and also mention he’s got a new blog. I checked and it’s pretty good. So he’s going on the blogroll.

OK, this is even more trivial than the last post and pretty ephemeral to boot. The home page for Meetup.com’s Urban Exploration Meetups headlined their snippets of news and views from the nation’s - and world’s, I guess - Meetup groups with my comment on the Discover Albuquerque group:

Victor Milán says: “I’m glad I joined! I hope we can get more expeditions into unusual and out of the way places going.”

OK. It’ll probably be gone by the time you click over should you happen to bother, which I certainly don’t expect (there won’t be a test … this time.) It’s not that big a deal; it’s not as if seeing myself quoted online is a total novelty. I just got a kick out of it.

I’ve been meaning to post about Meetup.com. A friend of mine told me about it at the 4th of July party. It’s a clearinghouse for people to meet other people with similar interests. Through it are organized various activities and get-togethers. A week ago I did the Old Town Ghost Tour through Discover Albuquerque, and it was a blast. The various Meetups offer everything from dances to coffees to concerts to political rallies (the Ron Paul people are really working it.) Group topics cover a wide range, and I suspect there’s a way to propose new ones if your particular fetish interest isn’t yet listed.

Not everybody’s in my situation: shy by nature (yes, I am) and self-employed. I’ve been way too reclusive, and hoping for a way to meet more people. This would appear to be a godsend for me.

Even if you’re not in danger of staying home alone all the time ’til you turn into a cheese, you might check it out. It seems to be a pretty cool idea. It will get better as more and more people become aware of it and sign on.

And, oh - I’m not the only registered Sense of Adventure member to belong to Meetup.com.

Perusing a website I’ve followed for years, the Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe - what you might call a “compendium of the odd” site - I came across a link to a piece entitled, Applied Ludology: Art games and game art. I was first struck by the discovery it came from the alibi, our local “alternative” giveaway.

Then I realized it was written by my neighbor. Guy named Kyle Silfer. I rescued his cat once. Bugs. That’s its name. Sweet cat

Now, there’s nothing cosmic about this; it’s not as if it was linked to in the New York Times or even got slashdotted. I’m just amused to discover (when I ought to be sleeping, if I had any sense, as clearly I don’t) it was written by a guy who lives less than a block from me.

But then, I’m easily amused. It’s part of my waifish charm. Beats the alternative, say I.

Tell me truthfully, now: who else really wants to see Harry Potter & the Mount of Venus? Show of hands. Everybody? Or is it just me?

(*crickets*)

Okay. It’s just me.

Again.

The embargo is busted.

The New York Times and the Baltimore Sun have posted reviews of the (allegedly) final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The Sun reviewer specifically disavows the presence of spoilers. You may consider the NYT review to contain them. Read the reviews at your own risk.

But then, ain’t it always that way with these here now Interwebs?

Ooh. Ooh. We gotta. Go. Now.

Or in an alarmingly short period of time.

Yes, I’ll soon be on public display at Archon 31, aka NASFiC, aka TuckerCon. It runs from August 2-5 at the Collinsville, IL Gateway Center. Big fun. If you can stand the heat. And the humidity.

I don’t have much choice - although I’d definitely choose to go, because I wasn’t being sarcastic about the big fun thing - nor, sadly, the heat or humidity things - since I’m Masquerade Emcee. The Archon Masquerade is basically the coolest thing in fandom, and this year will likely be the biggest and best ever.

My tentative schedule is available - click on the link, then search for Vic Milán. I was as perplexed by “Vic-tory on Stage” as you are, until my query email was promptly answered that it’s an MC’s view of what makes a winning Masquerade entry. Sounds fun; I’ll have to try to catch it. Especially since I suggested it in the first place.

Otherwise the double-booked signing on Thursday is a likely scratch, especially inasmuch as I’m scheduled for one Friday. Also I’ll be doing a library gig somewhere Wednesday evening with GoH Barbara Hambly. I’ll post more info when I get ’round to digging it out. (Hey. I don’t have to know where it is. It’s not like I’m driving.)

Anyway, Archon is a great con - I’ve been going for, whoa, over a quarter-century now, and always have a blast. Good people and good times.

Hope to see you there.

It’ll be an Adventure.

All best to all, especially my friends and fans.

I apologize for being offline a spell. Since the Fourth or so I’ve alternated writing with being too sick to write. I may or may not catch up with the backstory (I enjoyed Minor Annoyance Hell all day yesterday, for example) a bit here. No promises.

There’re some tidings. I will get to them at some point soon. Really.

Last evening John and Gail Miller were kind enough to let me ride up with them to Santa Fe. Wild Cards writer and all-around great guy Bud Simons was in town from Austin visiting his yoga instructor. Yeah, we thought that was strange, too. It turned out she had recently moved.

Anyway, George RR Martin, the Godfather of the Wild Cards Mafia, put together a dinner gathering at a Chinese restaurant called Chow’s. Due to a bit of a mix-up we went to George’s house instead of meeting at the restaurant. We caught GRRM on the verge of heading out to collect Bud. Both of which were fortunate, inasmuch as none of us had any idea how to get to the restaurant.

We followed George as he picked up Bud, then through a remarkably convoluted route, called a “shortcut,” through various apparently random parking lots of the College of Santa Fe. After much circling and backtracking, we actually arrived at the restaurant. To our surprise.

While many of the Usual NM WC Suspects were absent, plenty of us were there. We joined Melinda Snodgrass, Chip Wideman, and newcomer Ian Tregillis at a table in the back room. They must have known who they were dealing with and wisely chose to isolate us from the general population.

The food was good, the service quick and friendly, and the prices reasonable. We talked about the current WC project and caught up a bit with Bud. Then we adjourned to Melinda’s wonderful new house, which neither Bud nor John and Gail had seen before, to talk a while longer. We talked - as usual - about the state of modern publishing (deplorable. What else?) and Action Gal Melinda and I defended action movies against naysayer and romantic-comedy buff George. It turned out that of a recent list of the 25 allegedly best action movies of all times she read recently, Melinda had seen 24.

Then we headed back while George sought and ultimately found the way back to Bud’s yoga teacher’s house, then followed him back to his lair so the Millers could collect some of their effects that got left there. On the way back I urged John to blog about baseball (his knowledge is encyclopedic and he has plenty of good insights) and he expounded knowledgeably on the classic pulps such as The Shadow and Doc Savage, which I recently got interested in as a result of reading Paul Malmont’s excellent The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril.

It was great fun and great to see all the people, not just Bud. I don’t get out enough. It’s good to break out of my tendency to lead a hermitic existence, and I intend to do so more and more.