Parties are already preparing for a possible federal by-election in an Ontario riding after a defeated Liberal MP successfully challenged Elections Canada’s handling of local balloting during last year’s federal vote.

In a rare decision, an Ontario Superior Court judge on Friday threw out the results of the 2011 general election in the Toronto-area riding of Etobicoke-Centre after he found that officials failed to ensure 79 voters were properly registered or cleared to cast a ballot.

Steve’s Clock needs to visit the clockmaker for a cleaning and a refrib. We have a tutoring gig in the same direction, so we can — and shall — combine errands, expecting a late return to the Cat Farm.

In the meantime, I’m half-way through the Ghost Ship galleys, and expect to finish that up on the weekend.  I still hope to be able to do the final pass through “Emancipated Child” before we leave for ConQuesT (good ghod, that’s next week!), where we’re looking forward to seeing you, and you, and. . .you!

In other news, I’ve been using Thunderbird for many years with no trouble and minimum irritation, but this new upgrade (12.0.1) can’t seem to learn what’s spam.  I spend what at least feels like a lot of time daily cleaning sugar daddy solicitations, offers of loans, and certified cures for bedbugs (are your bedbugs feeling low? ) out of my inbox, and getting more and more annoyed.  Is the level of spam up that much, or is Thunderbird not as smart as it used to be?

Speaking of mail, the snailmail just came in.  With all the exciting things that are due in to the Confusion Factory by mail, you’d think the mailperson could do a little better than a catalog and an advertiser.  Please try harder, mailperson!

Fans of Silversocks will be pleased to know that he did receive his rabies shot yesterday, and that he has gained back the weight he lost while his teeth were bothering him so much.  The vet would like to see him pack on another two or three pounds, and to that end we’ll continue to feed him up on wet food in addition to the Crunchies Ordinaire.  He’s still sniffly, and has a new round of antibiotics to take, but in general is very much improved.

…I think that’s all the news that’s fit to print.  It’s a positively gorgeous day, tree assassins notwithstanding, and we anticipate a pleasant drive to our appointments.

Hope everyone is having as stress-free a day as possible.

Black said he was not pleased that the New Democrat called him a "British criminal" while speaking in the House of Commons.

"If he wants to divest himself of his parliamentary immunity, it would certainly be my pleasure to sue him for defamation," Black told Mansbridge.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comment(s); comment here or there.

All comments are, as usual, screened.  But let's do this, again, to entertain me on the road:

Tell me a secret.  Something you've been wanting to tell me, something you've been wanting to get off your chest, something you need to tell someone.  If you want me to respond to you personally, let me know and I will; otherwise, it will remain something between you and me.

So I’ll be leaving for the Nebulas today, and as such will be driving for eight hours in what is sure to be a cataclysmally boring car ride.  So I’ll comment-whore and ask y’all some questions to stir discussion:

This first one’s courtesy of fellow nominee Rachel Swirsky, who asked:

What illegal thing would you do if you could get away with it? (No violent crimes, please.  That’s icky.)

I like that one, because it encourages you to both get creative, and the “no violence” means that no idiot is caught making threats on the Internet.  Though I suspect the answers will be a depressing “I KIN SMOKES DRUGS.”  Which, you know, granted, but not exactly with the fun-making discussionwise.

Likewise, this second one’s courtesy of fellow nominee me, who asks:

If you could demand I do any one thing for myself, what would you have me do? 

The reason I say “for myself” is otherwise I’ll be spammed with a zillion “You should totally read my book/plug my CD/dance for my amusement!” comments, which aren’t nearly as interesting as you think.  But I’d be curious to see what, given the knowledge you have of me through my writings, what sorts of things you think I should do to make my life better.  Or worse.

Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.

The trees of Maine have initiated their annual assassination proceedings.  The good news is, if I manage to outlast them, as I have for the last twenty-three seasons, I’m safe from their nefarious attentions for another year.

Catching up yesterday, for those who don’t do Facebook:  Steve and I arose at an Unreasonably Early Hour, went to the lab and saw the echocardiogram done.  The promise from the tech was that the doctor would read the results that day, and if there was any problem, would call us immediately.  Otherwise, we should get the results in two to three days.  (Jumping ahead — there was no immediate call from the doctor, so — yay.)

That chore out of the way, we retired to Eric’s for breakfast, thence to the post office, where a royalty check for slightly less than the cost of breakfast awaited (my last such check from Fictionwise), and finally to the grocery store.  Arriving home, I found the galleys for the Ghost Ship mass market paperback my inbox, with a turnaround time of before we leave for Kansas City next week, so that’s what I’ve been putzing along at , with frequent breaks for naps.

In my spare time, I’ve been reading The Prestige by Christopher Priest.  I can’t recall the last time the structure of a novel has annoyed me so much.  Happily, Mr. Priest writes a clean hand, so I don’t doubt I’ll finish reading, but I suspect that this may be one of those very rare cases where I prefer the movie to the novel.

Tomorrow, we again arise before dawn, this time to take Socks to the vet for his post-dental-work check-up and, hopefully, his rabies shot. We’ll return to the Metropolis later in the day to get haircuts, which,  in my case at least, is about three weeks overdue.  Got a definite hedgehog look going…

In between those two necessary events, I’ll be right here, reading galleys.

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.

My Uncle Tommy’s blood didn’t clot very well, a disease known as hemophilia, so blood pooled up in his joints.  It ate away his cartilage.  Near the end of his life, when he moved his elbow, you could hear the bones rubbing against each other whisper-thin, like two dry crackers ground together.

So he walked slow.

So I walked slow.

To this day, Gini tells me I amble glacially – because I’m used to quietly keeping Tommy’s pace, not wanting to upset him.  Oh, I could have jogged on ahead; not that Tommy would have been devastated, as I was basically his son and he would have forgiven me the world.

But he had enough reminders that he was broken and frail.  He didn’t need another one from me.  So I crept at his pace, which only got slower as the years went by, and we passed the time as two humans.

This is what you do when you have a friend who’s disabled.

Let’s be blatantly honest and say that having disabled friends is often an inconvenience verging on annoyance.  They can’t get up stairs.  They cancel at the last minute because of unpredictable sicknesses.  There’s more planning to be find the right restaurant because of their diet.

If you think it’s an inconvenience to you, imagine how it feels to them.

Every day, the world wakes up and punches your pals in the fucking face, telling them “Hey, you know all those things you want to do?  You can’t.”

You can choose to be one of those blows.  Or you can be understanding and loving and help them to live a better life.

It’s that fucking simple.

They live in a smaller world because of something they don’t have control over.  I think a good friend will take that into account, and tread that fine line between “Yes, it’s an inconvenience and you may not always be able to come along” with a lot of love and understanding and bold attempts to make room for your friend because yes, they have a condition and it deserves to be accommodated whenever possible.

Because when you are that sick, you notice the way people cancel plans with you.  The way they quietly stop inviting you to parties.  The way you don’t defend them when other, healthier people, complain that they shouldn’t have to deal with your issues.

They’re sick, not stupid, and they feel their excision from your life as keenly as a cut.  One more cut in a life filled with them.

I’m not saying I was saccharine-sweet to Tommy.  I acknowledged the difficulty of his disabledness from time to time, because we were loving humans and that means being honest.  But I never made a big deal about the way we had to get to concerts half an hour early so he could get to his seat, or how we had to stay an hour late because the crowds might bump him too hard.

Instead, I used that extra time to talk to him, companionably walking at his cane-pace, as friends.  He must have noticed that his hyperactive teenaged nephew was walking slow.

But for a time, he had the ability to live his life as though nothing was wrong with him. And that was the greatest gift I could give him.

Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.

I’ve been thinking of a way to explain to straight white men how life works for them, without invoking the dreaded word “privilege,” to which they react like vampires being fed a garlic tart at high noon. It’s not that the word “privilege” is incorrect, it’s that it’s not their word. When confronted with “privilege,” they fiddle with the word itself, and haul out the dictionaries and find every possible way to talk about the word but not any of the things the word signifies.

Yesterday’s post garnered 800 comments before I put it to bed and I ended up deleting a record number of comments out of it, largely from presumably straight white men enraged at the idea their life doesn’t necessarily suck as much as other folks’ and/or because they ate lead paint chips as children and have impulse control issues (plus a couple from other, calmer folks following up on posts I later deleted, so theirs needed to be deleted too). Whatever the reason, I thought it would be fun to post a compendium of Malletings here for your enjoyment

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comment(s); comment here or there.

The surface of Mars is a tough place to survive, but researchers at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) found some lichens and cyanobacteria tough enough to handle those conditions.

After driving off Greeley Haven – where she stood patiently for 19 long weeks – Opportunity is now driving again. Not just turning, not just bumping, but driving. She’s driven away from Greeley Haven, heading a short distance downhill, towards a small patch of wind-blown dust which has caught the rover team’s eye.

... is there something about CJ Cherryh that precludes her from
nominations in these "grand master of SF" type awards? This isn't
the first time I've seen award lists discussed on your LJ where
names like COnnie WIllis and Elizabeth Moon pop up, and yet, no
hide nor hair of Cherryh. This seems quite odd to me... just
because I don't particularly like her writing /myself/ doesn't mean
she doesn't (a) have a huge following, (b) a very long and salutory
publishing history, and (c) a dedication to what people might
characterize as reasonably solid science-fiction-ey SF.

Joan Vinge is another name that pops to mind, although I tend to
think of her as "less SF and more fantasy in SF clothing" than
Cherryh... perhaps unwarrantedly.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comment(s); comment here or there.

Year Awarded        Winner(s)
2012                Stanley Schmidt
2011                Connie Willis
2009                Joe Haldeman
                    John Varley
2008                Ben Bova
                    Spider Robinson
2007                Elizabeth Moon
                    Anne McCaffrey
2006                Greg Bear
                    Jack Williamson
2005                Jerry Pournelle
                    Larry Niven
2004                Arthur C. Clarke
2003                Michael Flynn
                    Virginia Heinlein

T    M    F    F/T
15  11    4    .27  

Jay Kay Klein, who spent his final days in hospice care with terminal oesophegeal cancer, died May 13 reports John Hertz. Jay Kay was 80 years old.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comment(s); comment here or there.

Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I will be attending the Nebula Awards this weekend, where I will be the happiest loser in the world.  When they say it’s an honor just to be nominated… boy, they’re not kidding.

In any case, if you happen to be in Washington DC this weekend and would like to see a weasel, there are several places at which you can catch me:

I’ll be at the Mass Autograph Signing from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., signing copies of my latest book.  What’s that, Ferrett? you ask.  You don’t have a book yet, you exclaim.  Oh, but I do, thanks to fellow nominee Nancy Fulda, who has created the Awards Weekend Collector’s Edition, which features works by eleven authors who will be at the Nebula weekend.  I’ll have it, I can sign it, and if you’re quite lucky you can get a full run and have all eleven authors put their name on it.

(My story in there is “As Below, So Above,” my generational tale told from the perspective of the monsters in a mad scientist’s moat.  Read it in advance, and I’ll even draw a squid for you.)

(And while you’re at it, read Nancy’s Nebula- and Hugo-nominated story “Movement,” a tale of future autism that is a fascinating exercise in tone.  I nominated it, and am glad to see my tastes vindicated.)

(And while you’re extra at-it, note that I am currently in search of an agent for my book, so if you’re interested… call me!)

At 1:00 on Saturday, I’ll be on the “Watch That Step!” panel with Tom Crosshill, Nancy Fulda, Ellen Kushner, and Rachel Swirsky, where I’ll be discussing pacing in stories.  This oughtta be interesting, because my pacing is usually pretty reflexive – you kind of develop a sense of fast and slow after writing blog entries for, I dunno, a decade.  So discussions will be had.

And if you feel like hanging out and you’re a press type, I’ll be available for interviews at 3:00 on Friday.  I suspect strongly I’ll be hanging out in an empty room twiddling my thumbs, but should a reporter show up I will perk up nicely and answer all available questions on squids and space stations that I can.

Also, if we’ve met before, feel free to text me – or email me at theferrett@theferrett.com to get my phone number so we can coordinate drinks.  We shall see what happens.

Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.

It’s really rocky and there are several leaps, but that’s all fixable, now that the story’s out on paper where I can see it.

Progress on “Emancipated Child”
5,296/6000 DRAFT!

There's a new ALCATRAZ VERSUS THE EVIL LIBRARIANS annotation up. This one talks about chapter thirteen, when Alcatraz breaks out of the Librarians' holding cell.

This week's Writing Excuses episode is another one that was recorded at Life, the Universe & Everything in front of a live audience. It's about writing carthartic horror and features Michael R. Collings and Michaelbrent Collings.

Richard Allred sent me a recording of a Mistborn Adventure Game session that he did at Epic Puzzles & Games at the end of March. It's almost three hours long, but if you're curious about the gameplay, you might want to give some of it a listen.

That leads me to today's big announcement. You know that I play Magic: the Gathering with readers a lot, but have you ever wanted to play an RPG with me? At Gen Con in August, Crafty Games will host a special session of the Mistborn Adventure Game with me as a player. This is going to be a five-hour session, and six seats will be raffled off at the Crafty Games booth during the con. For more details, see the Crafty Games site. You can also find out more about the Mistborn Adventure Game there.

Scott Ashton has uploaded another of my creative writing class lectures. This one covers plotting, with a short introduction by my former student Peggy Eddleman talking about her experience getting a publishing deal. Her novel THROUGH THE BOMB'S BREATH will be published by Random House next year. (Part 3 of the video is currently not working, but I assume Scott will fix that soon.)

So, one doctor visit, numerous phone calls, and two reviews later! The insurance will graciously allow Steve to have a diagnostic echocardiogram. Damned big of the insurance company, says I, and we’re having that done tomorrow morning early, before the mail can deliver yet another form letter, this one saying that they’ve changed their mind.

In other news, it’s damp and chilly; the zombies in charge of the Maine state government are set to pass a budget that will defund Headstart, slash MediCare funding, and gut prescription drug assistance for the elderly. The zombies will of course be making massive donations from their own bank accounts to those private sector organizations that already serve these communities, so that those in need of education and health care will not unduly suffer.

*cue laugh track*

In the broader apocalypse, Yet Another Idiot Republican is sponsoring Yet Another Idiot Idea — this one an amendment to the United State’s Census Bureau’s budget, forbidding the agency from conducting the American Community Survey, calling it “an unconstitutional breach of privacy.” A link to the data generated by this same survey can be found on YAIR’s website, because the data generated by the American Community Survey is an important tool for businesses that are trying to determine if a particular community is a good match for their business.

The stupid — the meanness — it is too much, and I am weary.

*Deep breath*

*Another deep breath*

Pursuant to our conversation of a couple days ago, it turns out that what people read really does influence them in real life. Who knew, right? Here’s the article.

Also, Teh Intertubes, which has fostered in us all a fevered need for instant gratification, is forcing some writers to write more in order to maintain their standard of living. Here’s the article. I’m not sure exactly where the one novel a year measure comes from, myself. It was said to me when I first started publishing, ‘way back in the Paleolithic, that “one novel a year was a career, but three novels a year was a living.”

And, ending on a high note, here, the Maine Marriage Equality movement got a nice boost in funding.

That’s all I have, so I’m going to go brood, now.

No, wait — I’m not.

I’m going to go finish writing a short story.

KITCHENER — A Kitchener man, 18, faces a manslaughter charge after a fight near Cameron Heights Collegiate late Saturday evening.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comment(s); comment here or there.

I have a weekly date with Kara, which is a little weird, because we’ve never met.  Or even talked. Yet every Sunday, we watch Game of Thrones together and text snarky observations to each other, and this time is inviolable as my weekly date with Bec.  (It helps that I’m curled up on Gini’s lap, sharing the greatest hits.)

The weird thing about Game of Thrones is how some people stand out because of the actors.  Honestly, I never paid attention to Littlefinger in the book – which is a trick, because we see all of his plots and discussions, know who he talks to, and yet somehow I keep forgetting that he’s pulling most of the strings in Westeros.

Yet in the series, Baelish is such a screen force that they give him extra time to masturbate on-camera.  Thus are the delights of HBO.

That said, Jon Snow was one of the big guns in the book series, yet on screen he comes off as petulant and ignorant.  Part of that’s the age shift, where Jon Snow’s four years older and as such he’s having an on-schedule adolescent rebellion during his sophomore year in college.  But part of it is that the actor who plays him has a confused face and this unfortunate pube mustache, and so much of the inner dialogue that highlight’s Jon Snow’s maturity is lost.

Baelish: Win.  Jon Snow: Loss.

Likewise, Tywin Lannister is a strangely likeable figure in the series, not quite fatherly but rewarding intelligence and cunning… Which few do.  I could just watch “The Tywin and Arya show” all week, because I love the subtle interplay between the two of them.  And so what if Tywin should have recognized Arya by now?  Who’s to say he hasn’t, and is just playing it far better than his idiot grandson?

Whereas I barely remembered Theon Greyjoy from the book aside from him as a plot device, but the actor who’s portrayed him has made him wonderfully craven and snivelling.  Which is a wonderful talent, because you’d think Joffrey would have sewn up that particular avenue, but there’s something about Theon’s insecurity that just trumps Joffrey’s boiling arrogance.

Daenarys, however, is dropping for me.  She used to be strong, and now she’s just sort of whiny.  “Give me what I want, or I’ll…. pout!  And be poutier.  Say, did I mention I’m the Mother of Dragons?”  She had a nice moment of dry realization with whats-his-butt, but then was back to “Give me because I said!”

(This is a rare case of the books and the TV series intersecting, because I got fed up with her antics around [book X] and decided, dragons or no, I’d be happy if she got axed.)

It’s kind of fascinating.  I mean, Tyrion’s always been the star, but I suspect the fan base is different among the books-only fans and the series-only fans just because of the magnetic pull of the actors.  Some do better in translation, others do worse.

Meanwhile, I’m rooting for Stannis.  He’s a dry, humorless fuck, but he’s at least vaguely competent.  He might not fuck up the kingdom too badly if he wins.

Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.

From high atop the Coode Street Motel Six, deep in the Waldorf Room, Gary and I fired up the podcasting equipment to bring you episode 101 where, finally, we come to an appreciation of which convention we correspond to, while discussing the recently released Campbell Memorial Award ballot, the SF Hall of Fame, and other things. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

The book was published in 2010, and purported to be about the distant future.  And yet its opening chapter was based on a premise that wouldn’t have flown in 1995.

The book was about an antiques dealer, sitting at his desk, when a customer came in with some effects from a dead celebrity.  The antiques dealer had not heard of said celebrity, and as such told the woman that these items weren’t worth much.  As it turns out, the dealer “doesn’t get out much,” and the celebrity was in fact very big news in certain circles, and was later called upon the carpet by his boss.

Note what did not happen in this crazy future-world: not one fucking Google search.

Back when I was editing for StarCityGames, I’d get articles by people I’d never heard of.  And even as scattershot as SCG’s editorial focus was back then, I Yahoo-searched every name to make sure they hadn’t won a Pro Tour or something.  Sometimes they had, and that saved me much embarrassment.

So what we have is someone presented as a competent employee, who doesn’t think to type a name into a goddamned computer.  Which is a social failure on the part of the author, who also references a lot of old-school printouts and books hanging around in a future rife with AIs that can talk and evolve.  Won’t e-books and bookmarks have consumed those wholesale by then?

I don’t think that it’s that she’s bad at writing (the book’s quite fun otherwise!), but that she’s so busy envisioning a future where black holes and time travel matter that she’s accidentally skimming over the very changes to society that technology has wrought right now.

As a science fiction author, that vexes me.  I think it’s our job to look at how technology changes people, and part of that has to be looking at the society that we’re becoming.  Facebook is causing all sorts of havoc in the college field, because you have some sleazy hookup with someone, and wham!  Tomorrow, an embarrassing friends’ request.  That person’s now connected with you, a part of your life in a way you didn’t necessarily want but would now be a dick to refuse.

Things teenagers say are now amplified in weird ways.  Drama spirals out of control so much quicker when it’s all in the public arena, dogpiles of crazy waiting to happen.  Dumb photographs you took when you were fifteen now lurks in your Facebook archives, waiting to be revealed by employers at the worst possible moments.  And always, always there’s the possibility of your idiocy going viral, where in the blink of an eye your fun weekend project becomes the next Rebecca Black.

As people who are looking at the future, we need to examine that, and extrapolate, and figure out where all of this enmeshing of society goes.  Maybe that’s a part of my history, because at the age of 25 I started writing crazy sex stories that opened up my personal life, and twenty years later that’s such a part of my identity I can’t imagine what it would be like to not be a blogger.  But the choices I made when I was young, dumb, and full of cum are still influencing my life years later in massive ways I could not have anticipated…

…and that’s the future.  This having every word on the record.  This me, changing the details of the book so I’m not calling out another author in public, because I don’t want to start a flame war with someone whose book I think is otherwise quite good.

This is the new society we live in, where all information is just a touch away, and I think as authors we need to examine that warp and weft of our fabric more closely.  To figure out how our culture will either adjust to this craziness, or to figure out how we’ll start to bend the rules so that it becomes healthier for everyone.

Either’s okay.  My first pro-published story, Camera Obscured, is all about a boy trapped in the web of social media.  Sauerkraut Station is about a lonely girl who’s too far from the social networks, but note that there’s at least a nod to the expense of sending emails.  I’m not saying they’re works of genius, but they’re at least making concessions to the future that’s spinning off of today’s headlines.

I think the singularity is coming, but it’s not what you think.  I think it’s going to be a hideous snarl of concentration-shattering advertising and reptile-brain attention grabs and selfishness ego-shouting, and when it comes it’s going to shred us apart because the corporations will have learned how to pander to our worst desires out to three significant digits.

That’s my vision.  Yours will be different.  But please.  Apply a little thought to what’s going on now, and don’t just have the next generation of people be just like us.  They will have a lot of similarities.  But they’re growing up in science fiction now, so honor that by viewing it through a lens that is flexing and distorting as you read these words.

Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.

Night Shade Books and I have parted ways. They will not be publishing the third book in the Dirge for Prester John series, and rights for The Habitation of the Blessed and The Folded World have reverted to me.

[...]

As for the third and final book in the series, The Spindle of Necessity, I am committed to finding a way to make sure you get to see it. I owe you a finish. Oddly enough, Prester John is my longest series to date, and I want to bring it all to a close the way I planned to from the beginning. For those of you who have stuck with the story, don’t worry, I won’t leave you hanging. Given the market realities, the most likely avenue for this is a Kickstarter campaign to fund a self-published version. Because the real costs of producing an ebook/limited print edition of a quality that matches the rest of the series are actually quite high, I will be using this opportunity to illustrate those costs, hiring the content editor, copy editor, and cover artist who worked on the previous books and paying them their market rates. This is a hefty undertaking, but one I believe will be valuable as part of the ongoing discussion surrounding epublishing.

KITCHENER - Police are investigating a suspicious death that occurred overnight in downtown Kitchener.