Currently.

Spoiler: now available in ebook form!

And that could be about to change, because our current publisher Tor Books (who also have the extraordinary taste and discernation to be the future [...]]]> Yes, that could be construed as a plug for my solo Wild Cards novel of a suspiciously similar name. Except it’s not available except used.

Currently.

Spoiler: now available in ebook form!

And that could be about to change, because our current publisher Tor Books (who also have the extraordinary taste and discernation to be the future publishers of my own modest tome, The Dinosaur Lords) just made a suave announcement. To celebrate the pending release of Wild Cards: Aces High on December 20th, and in honor of the awesome news that we’ve gone Hollywood, four of our most recent Wild Cards volumes – all of course ably edited by George R. R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass – are now available in various ebook formats for three bucks!

They are the recent reissue of our premier anthology – now with value added in the form of three brand-new stories by David D. “Hugo Winner” Levine, Michael “Mr. Hollywood’ Cassutt, and Carrie “New York Times Best-Selling” Vaughn, as well as all the great original tales that launched the legend – and all three volumes of the Committee Triad: Inside Straight, Busted Flush, and Suicide Kings.

Please note the above links – including the image of our ultra-suave Book I cover up there – take you to the Kindle edition. Please note, also, that if you buy any of the Kindle books through the above links – to say nothing of buying the swell-looking new Kindle Fire right here, you are helping to support this website (and me!), inasmuch as Amazon will toss me a few cents’ commission.

And extra special thanks to ye few, ye happy few, ye band of brothers who have purchased fine items through my Amazon links in the past! I eagerly await the day your contributions will accrue to the point Ammie actually cuts me a check!

If you prefer another format, I’ll still happily take your money (though less directly, through the mighty power of the Wild Cards Consortium!) Here’s a link to the relevant search for your Barnes & Noble NOOK.

Those are the ones I’ve found – sadly, Tor omitted any links to the new $3 ebook releases, so I don’t know what other formats that even applies to. I suspect EPUB, although I couldn’t turn up any, ahem, legal downloads in that format.

Please, my beloved fans and friends, feel free to help a mammal out here and post links to other versions in the Comments as you find ‘em!

I will add that even if you have the dead-tree editions, these might still be worth consideration. For one thing, your original edition of Book I is likely falling apart at the seams (plus again: new content!). And if you are of a collecting frame of mind, what better way to keep your precious spines intact and the pages blissfully free of dirty, dirty eye-tracks than bagging your treasured hard copies and reading the delicious contents in electronic form? It’s like having your cake and eating it too!

You’re waiting for what? Go buy!

And as always – thanks for reading!

And the answer is yes. Yes, we will.

Would Wild Cards stoop to using sex to sell?

We – that’s all official Wild [...]]]> While linking to yet another rendition of my current favorite story on Facebook, my friend Aaron Birenboim asks the musical question, “Will the other Wild Card contributors be getting a piece of this pie?”

And the answer is yes. Yes, we will.

Would Wild Cards stoop to using sex to sell?

We – that’s all official Wild Carders – get paid for this according to our contribution to the project.

And that’s one major reason Wild Cards has hung on – against all odds – for a quarter of century.

I may be telling tales out of school, here, but I’m about to tell you how and why that works. After the jump….

I attribute Wild Cards surviving for twenty-five years – and not just surviving, but as of yesterday attaining palpably greater success than ever – to three main factors:

1. Awesome writers.
2. Love.
3. The Consortium.

Now I would call the first of those – the talent – the least significant reason. I mean, sure – it doesn’t hurt that the original members of your superhero team include perennial award-winners like George R. R. Martin or Ed Bryant, to say nothing of the late Roger Zelazny – arguably, with all regard to the multi-talented Rachel Bloom, the greatest SF writer ever. Nor is it bad to have onboard the likes of (then) young up-and-comers Melinda Snodgrass, Walter Jon Williams, Stephen Leigh, Lew Shiner, and, uh, me. (And, fair warning, you’re gonna hear way more from that there John Jos. Miller pup when he finishes his damn vampire novel.)

Then again, it’s not as if the other original science fiction and fantasy shared-world projects that surfaced in the Eighties – the likes of Thieves’ World, Heroes in Hell, or Merovingen Nights – were written by random schools of fish netted out of some harbor, either. They had their mighty sharks too. Yet we’ve pretty much out-swum the lot. (And … gratefully following the Catch and Release Metaphor Program here….)

The second factor – shared passion – is to me easily the most significant component in our success. It’s also the most straightforward: all of us, from the Original Mafiosi who played the game that spawned it all, to the confounded (and confoundingly capable, as well as good-looking) new kids George has asked in – like Danny Abraham, Carrie Vaughn, Cherie Priest, and David D. Levine, to name but a few – write for Wild Cards because we totally freakin’ love it. We love the world, love the conceits, love the characters. Love the stories that arise from same. And I believe there is no end of the stories we can spin from that Wild Cards stuff.

It originated with a shared obsession – namely, The George’s Superworld campaign. But it’s stayed a shared obsession. For all of us who have stuck with it, Wild Cards is a labor of love.

Which brings us, long last, to the answer to Aaron’s question that set this thing off: The Wild Cards Consortium. And yes, it’s a biggie too.

Speaking of Thieves’ World, I honestly don’t think we’ve ever approached that series’ sales at its peak of popularity. Yet it self-destructed, largely due to a conflict of egos in which writers competed to see what horrors and indignities they could visit upon one anothers’ characters short of actually killing them – which was forbidden.

And the reason we avoided that fate is largely thanks to the kind and generous advice of the very founders and proprietors of Thieves’ World, Bob Asprin and Lynn Abbey. During the formative stages, when Wild Cards was transitioning from a role-playing game we all spent way too much time and energy on to a shared-world series (i.e., something we could get paid to do) they sat down in the bar at some con with George and Melinda and shared with them all the mistakes they’d made as pioneers.

And GRRM and Weeds were wise enough to listen closely to the voice of experience. And drawing upon Melinda’s lawyerly training they created the Consortium.Which has basically kept going – and kept us going – ever since.

Here’s how it works: if you write for Wild Cards, or even just create a character in the Official Canon – we have several non-writer members – you become part of the Consortium. And for writing stories, and crucially, for permitting your important characters to be used in other peoples’ stories, you get Consortium shares. Which accrete over time.

And the income which the Consortium receives for Wild Cards properties is disbursed according to how many shares you have. Which finally answers poor Aaron’s question.

And here’s why it keeps us alive as a project: first off, to use a character in any significant way in your Wild Cards yarn, you must obtain the creator’s consent. Now, the first two factors play heavily here too: we have splendid writers, who know good story, and love the project. So we’re likely to sign off on anything up to and including killing a beloved character if it serves the story.

But also – you get paid for letting someone off your beloved character.

To be real: that’s a factor.

And that’s why and how the Wild Cards Consortium contributes to the unlikely survival of the series: it’s basically the mechanism by which everything runs. Well and smoothly for the most part.

Nothing’s perfect. But, oh, yeah – did I mention we just sold the freaking movie rights?

===

On a more personal (and, trust me, brief) note, to celebrate last night I took some good friends – Roslee Orndorff, Steve and Kathy Kubica, and Michelle Foley – out to dinner at India Palace, a favored haunt of ours. Then, after Michelle ditched us to pursue her heedless young-person social whirl, we repaired back to Casa Kubica to watch the Blu-Ray of X-Men: First Class, which I had not seen.

Or, as I put it – see how the competition’s doing. Heh, heh.

Darned well, I must admit. Unlike Kathy I don’t call it Iron Man good. But that’s one of my favorite movies, period – a pretty high standard. The newest X-Movie is very good indeed.

And it’s still sinking in that Universal Pictures now has its long-craved superhero franchise to compete with the likes of X-Men – and, HOLY SHIT, IT’S US!

So first thing I see on Facebook this morning is this tidbit Friend Martin Stankard threw onto my Wall.

Go check it out. I’ll wait. Believe me, you want to.

Now coming to a silver screen near you!

So I guess that cat’s out of the bag, huh?

Yep. Thanks to That American Tolkien [...]]]> Okay, now. This is big.

So first thing I see on Facebook this morning is this tidbit Friend Martin Stankard threw onto my Wall.

Go check it out. I’ll wait. Believe me, you want to.

Now coming to a silver screen near you!

So I guess that cat’s out of the bag, huh?

Yep. Thanks to That American Tolkien Guy, George RR Martin, and the indefatigable efforts (over freaking decades) of Melinda Snodgrass, Wild Cards is making the trip to Hollywood.

No sudden but inevitable betrayal here; this thing’s pretty nailed-down, meaning the contracts are signed. We Wild Carders’ve known about it since July. But for various reasons it could not be revealed.

Until now, I guess.

Oh, and – you can breathe now. You know the SyFy Channel, that we all love to hate? This is a different entity. It’s (I’m told) a new division devoted to big-screen productions – not your standard SyFy Original (to use the term loosely) fare.

The key words here are Universal Pictures. They’ve been the only one of the Big Three studios to lack a superhero franchise of their own, and have been looking on in jealousy as their rivals coined money from Marvel and DC properties.

(And no, I’m not gonna take the trouble to link to any of them. And if they’re unfamiliar to you, I hope you enjoy your recently-begun visit to our planet!)

Also key words: Melinda and George. They’re co-producing. And Weeds is writing the screenplay. They’re the people who originally turned our obsessive-compulsive Superworld RPG campaign (and yes, it’s mentioned in the linked Wikipedia article) into the longest-running shared-world franchise. They’ve edited every Wild Cards volume to hit print. Plus, oh, yeah, minor note, written some of the most beloved characters and stories in the wacky world of aces and jokers.

There aren’t better hands, friends. You know that. I know that.

Sure, lots can go awry. But – this is big.

Indeed, now that it’s out in the open I can let myself – OH HOLY GOD THEY’RE MAKING A WILD CARDS MOVIE!!1!

Yeah. It’s hard to process. Been so long. And this has been a few weeks for me, personally, of big news piled on big news. Fortunately, it’s good news.

(And yes, I shamelessly class being able to breathe with both The Dinosaur Lords and Wild Cards Goes to Hollywood at last becoming really real. Because – hel-lo, it’s breathing.)

So. Whoa. Got things to do today – writing, rewriting (yes, that), and finally getting a damn map done for DinoLords. So – breathe deep, concentrate. Go.

And – ho-lee shit! WE’RE GONNA BE A MOVIE!

Bubonicon 43, that is. August 26–28, 2011, at the Sheraton Albuquerque Airport Hotel.

And, of course, I will be there. You can’t have Bubonicon without me!

Well, yes. You totally can. But it wouldn’t be the same without me. Certainly not for me.

But Co-Chaircritters Craig [...]]]> Board up the kids and pets and hide the windows, because it’s coming!

Bubonicon 43, that is. August 26–28, 2011, at the Sheraton Albuquerque Airport Hotel.

And, of course, I will be there. You can’t have Bubonicon without me!

Well, yes. You totally can. But it wouldn’t be the same without me. Certainly not for me.

But Co-Chaircritters Craig Chrissinger and Kristen Dorland and the Con Committee keep asking me back, somehow, some way*. And also I seem to be MC for life of the senses-shattering Bubonicon Costume Contest. Which may have something to do with the fact I’m also perpetual Master of Ceremonies at the Archon Masquerade – which is bearing down on the Midwest in late September like a New New Madrid Quake (too soon?)

Our Author Co-Guests of Honor – two for the price of one! Such value! – this year are Stephen Leigh and his partner in crime S. L. Farrell (whom I’m reliably informed wouldn’t be anything at all except for Steve.) Toastmaster is my good friend (in hopes he remembers that come Opening Ceremonies time) and big booster and couldn’t-have-done-it-without-him help on The Dinosaur Lords, Ian Tregillis. Our Artist GoH is John Picacio, who among other things has done some covers and a calendar or two for an obscure little fantasy series by equally obscure NM author George RR Martin.

(And yes, kids, That American Tolkien Guy will be attending too. No way that adds up to any logistical nightmares!)

Included in the stellar guest cast will be many of our Usual NM Suspects. Including me. As you suspected! And our customary contingent of the world’s friendliest fans.

Plus we tend to attract a certain number of pros and SMOFs from other states – possibly more this year, with Worldcon happening just a bit West of here this last weekend. That usually perks up attendance.

Oh – and as for that attendance thing: this year we have an unbreakable fire-code capacity of 650. So if you’re Unlucky Number 651….

So if you find yourself at loose ends this weekend – if you don’t, drop that crap and get loose! – be there. Aloha.

*Just as I keep comin’ up with funky-ass shit ‘most every single day. Just, you know, FYI. It’s a living.

As I mentioned last time, this Saturday, July 9th, 2011, I’ll be signing the latest Wild Cards “mosaic novel” at Page One Bookstore, 11018 Montgomery Blvd NE, 87111 here in Albuquerque, commencing at 2:30 PM.

Also taking part will be Melinda Snodgrass (who co-edited as well as having a story in the book), [...]]]> Fort Freak, that is!

As I mentioned last time, this Saturday, July 9th, 2011, I’ll be signing the latest Wild Cards “mosaic novel” at Page One Bookstore, 11018 Montgomery Blvd NE, 87111 here in Albuquerque, commencing at 2:30 PM.

Also taking part will be Melinda Snodgrass (who co-edited as well as having a story in the book), John Jos. Miller, and Our Esteemed Editor, George R.R. Martin. (Probably.*)

It should, of course, be swell. You should make plans to attend, yes? Also attend.

Important Public Service Announcement: George WILL NOT be signing A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five at this session. He wants it to be about  Fort Freak. Thanks!

In other, yet related news … please check out the nice review of Fort Freak at SFRevu Review. Also read the exclusive interview with a mess of our fine, fine Fort Freak contributors (including me.)

And last, though far from least: you’ll notice in the review, my story is listed as “…And All the Sinners Saints” by Victor Milan and Ty Franck. Now, you may wonder why, for the very first time, I co-authored a Wild Cards yarn.

You may be aware I ran into a spot of unpleasantness last year.  The two facts are not unconnected.

I was going to write a post here telling the story behind the story. But Ty himself (whom you may recognize as a sometime commenter here on Sense of Adventure, and also as George’s invaluable assistant) beat me to it. So if you’re interested, go read “How I became a freak” over at fellow Wild Carder Danny Abraham’s blog. Ty does a great job. As he did as co-author of “Sinners/Saints.”

So now I need to wrap this up and see if I can actually get some sleep tonight. I need to be brisk and bright-eyed for Saturday, after all! (Plus I got a boatload of writing to do.)

See you at the signing, Fellow Freaks!

*Full disclosure:  last I heard there seemed to be some question as to whether That American Tolkien Guy will actually be showing up. But the Page One website says he is, so that’s what I’m going with. However, please adjust your expectations accordingly.

Wait! No worries – no bad thing. The fact is I don’t like standing. Never have. I don’t like to sit upright, either. Walking, reclining, lying down – fine with those.

Indeed I do almost all my writing, professional or online, sitting back in a recliner given me by none other than That American [...]]]> I don’t, actually.

Wait! No worries – no bad thing. The fact is I don’t like standing. Never have. I don’t like to sit upright, either. Walking, reclining, lying down – fine with those.

Indeed I do almost all my writing, professional or online, sitting back in a recliner given me by none other than That American Tolkien Guy.

‘S funny: I can walk two miles or more eagerly and happily. But if I stand for ten minutes I need to sit down. The latter development’s only about a year old. And no great hardship, since as mentioned, I don’t much care for standing anyway.

So .. wait, where was I? Checking in…

Last few months I’ve been battling a minor but draining health annoyance, in the lower gastrointestinal realm. Sometimes it’s cost me sleep, which has made it even harder to concentrate.

When I write, the one thing I can’t power through – with any amount of will or effort – is inability to focus mentally. When the mental-energy meter reads zero, I’m done, and there ain’t no use pretendin’ otherwise.

So … despite my stern intentions I fell behind on not one but two writing deadlines. And now times’re crunchy, and I’m crunchin’ hard.

The bad news – well, obviously, I’ve neglected the old online presence. That’s not all bad: I have yet to entirely break the habit of wasting too much life and line joylessly wandering the Net. But I also dislike falling out of touch with my beloved friends and fans. (I.e., you.)

The good news, excellent in fact, is that despite a lingering tendency to get fatigued earlier than I care for, I am sustaining a higher level of productivity than ever before in my life. (The key word: sustaining. Not like the time I wrote 2/3rds of an Adult Western – ~46K words – in two nights, and like to broke my damn self.)

Best of all, when the crunchin’s all a-crunched – meaning, the Glorious First of June – I can still maintain my highest sustained productivity of my life … by cycling back to half the speed I’m going now.

So: that’s how it goes. More anon. Fingers crossed I don’t burn nothin’ out…

And (of course) – thanks for reading! And also your patience.

First things first:  Saturday, April 9th, commencing at 2:30 PM, the ever-helpful Page One Bookstore in Albuquerque and Craig Chrissinger (also ever-helpful) will be hosting a book signing by a number of fine local writers.

Some days it just ain't worth [...]]]> Plus Lost (yes, that Lost) in Wild Cards (yes, that Wild Cards.) Or vice versa…

First things first:  Saturday, April 9th, commencing at 2:30 PM, the ever-helpful Page One Bookstore in Albuquerque and Craig Chrissinger (also ever-helpful) will be hosting a book signing by a number of fine local writers.

Some days it just ain't worth getting out of bed. These stories are about when that's every day.

That’s the book we’ll be autographing: A Career Guide To Your Job In Hell, an anthology of short stories edited by Scott Phillips and Bob Vardeman. Both contributed tales as well, along with such seasoned writers as Nathan Long, John Jos. Miller, and Scott Phillips (not a stutter; the guy who wrote The Ice Harvest), as well as newcomers Brandi Tarvin, Scott Denning, and Axel Howerton. Indie film director Don Adams wrote the Introduction, which is worth a read in itself.

Yes, I wrote one too.

Not all of us are gonna be there. But Bob, Scott Phillips (our Scott), Scott Denning, John, and I will be. And that’s ample coolness to draw anybody out – right?

And just in case it’s not – wait, there’s more! Albuquerque’s own Daniel Abraham will also be there signing his senses-shattering epic fantasy novel, The Dragon’s Path (The Dagger and the Coin), which, as of tomorrow, will be newly released. So, more chunky goodness!

Clearly, too much to resist – right? So, see you there.

Now, back to the cryptic note at the beginning of this post.  My friends at Westeros.org over on Twitter alerted me to this: ‘Game of Thrones’ author slams ‘Lost’: Damon Lindelof gives EW his response.

I didn’t only link it because of Lindelof’s magisterial slam about how long it’ll take GRRM to render his  “feud response.” It’s that he says, “The stuff of his [George's] that I grew up on was this series that he wrote/edited called Wild Cards.” Then the interviewer asks, “Was the Wild Cards series an influence on Lost?”

Go check out the answer. Seriously. I’ll wait.

Read it? How cool is that? I’ll tell you: it’s cool.

So now I’ll have to seriously consider going back and watching the damn show – since I may have had an influence on it, however minor.

In other news: you’ll have noticed, bright, perceptive person that you are, that it’s been a while since I posted here. Also you might reasonably expect the tidings above would provide pretext substance for a good two blog posts instead of just one. The reasons for both are allied.

The weather has been somewhat on top of me again. I’ve been running some lower-GI distress for a spell, now. Briefly last week and again a couple days ago it flared up into making me feel actively sick, plus interfering with my already sometimes sketchy sleep. Accordingly this somewhat slammed me; and has contributed to my falling a bit behind in my writing, here with deadlines bearing down.

And writing blog posts (especially since I, ahem, tend to spend way too much time on them) tends to burn up some of the same creative energies that goes into writing things I actually, you know, get paid for. And time, of course.

And with time pressing on the signing – and the Entertainment Weekly thing having, presumably, a short shelf life – I reckoned I ought hit ‘em both today.

Fear not: I shall return. I seem to be climbing back on top of the health annoyances (and I’ve started sleeping better: huge help.)

Indeed, you can shortly expect a spankin’-new installment of An Adventurer’s Guide to the Dinosaurs of Paradise. Plus the usual wackiness you’ve come to love and expect from Sense of Adventure.

And if you haven’t done so, please do yourself a favor and check out the free preview of my epic fantasy novel The Dinosaur Lords. And please, tell your friends about it.

And as always – thanks for reading!

This

… all things related to That American Tolkien Guy, aka George RR Martin, and his wildly best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels. The site is [...]]]> A tad belatedly, I’d like to give profuse thanks to Elio and Linda, the wonderful folks who run Westeros.org – the go-to site for …

This

… all things related to That American Tolkien Guy, aka George RR Martin, and his wildly best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels. The site is pretty, informative, and well run. It’s well worth a look – or a bookmark – if you have interest in any of those subjects (which of course sometimes include Wild Cards.)

It’s particularly a great resource to keep abreast of the progress of HBO’s upcoming Game of Thrones series. HBO itself runs a splendid site devoted to the project, as well as a Making Game of Thrones blog – from which the suave poster up there comes (and where other equally suave ones may be found.) The HoBO sites are, candidly, jaw-droppingly excellent. As the show itself looks to be.

I truly believe Game of Thrones will be the best filmed fantasy yet. And yes, I include the one they made in New Zealand, based on that novel by the Britlish GRRM – which I loved, as it happens. It seriously looks that good.

So anyway, the impetus behind this outpouring is that a week or so ago I posted a fresh link to my free preview of The Dinosaur Lords on Facebook and Twitter. And what to my wondering eyes did shortly appear but a ReTweet by the Westeros.org Twitter account – with the annotation that it “Looks fun,” and a #GRRM hashtag. Which that everybody following that tag on Twitter in search of info on any of the matters mentioned above saw the RT along with the endorsement. Think there might be a few of those, huh?

In fact I don’t need to guess, thanks to the miracle of (not even very) modern software. When the Westeros.org ReTweet hit, site visits spiked to unprecedented heights.  Further RTs by some of Westeros.org’s myriad Followers (you can be one too!) didn’t hurt either – thanks to everyone for those as well.

So, impertinent though it may be: along with my deep thanks, I hereby award the Victor’s Dinosaur Army Legion of Merit to Elio and Linda for services above and beyond.

Also, a huge thank-you to the dude all the fuss is (deservedly) about, my good friend George. And my other good friend, his blushing bride Parris. They have both been of tremendous help to me in many ways.

OK, kiddies- have you checked out the free preview of The Dinosaur Lords? If not, why not cruise over there now and run your eyes down some hot action involving dinosaurs and the knights who ride them? I’ll be here when you get back.

Promise.

If you like it, please let me know. If not, please let me know.

And please pass the word. Even if it’s not your cup of chocolatl (imported from the far, exotic realm of Tejas) sweetened with honey and cinnamon – if you know somebody who might be into, you know, fantasy, or dinosaurs, or high adventure and romance and epic and intrigue and all that kinda thing – please feel free to point them here.

One quick, convenient, and easy way to do that is to hit one or more of those funny little little icons below to add a notice of this post, or the free sample on the appropriate pages, to Digg, Reddit, Slashdot, StumbleUpon, and other fine aggregators. It’s the simple way to share the love!

Above all:  if you enjoy this and want to read more, encouraging others to do so as well is the absolute best way to ensure that you can. If you want to hold the whole (immense) book in your own hot little hands – or read it on your Kindle, iPad, Nook, or whatever electronic doodad of your choice – let others know.

It’s your chance to get in at the beginning of something big. Your chance to be part of the all-conquering Victor’s Dinosaur Army.

You’ll brag about it someday.

Thanks to everybody who’s already has read, commented, and spread the word (which, of course, is dinosaur.)

And as always – thanks for reading!