Views from Medina Road

The convention was pleasant, though somewhat abbreviated for me since I didn't arrive until Friday night, having missed the first day and a half of the con. Though I'm still not certain what the lure was of the Tempe location, the immediate area was pleasant enough, an off-campus area of shops and crowded restaurants, such as My Big Fat Greek Restaurant, where a group of us including Marina Fitch and Mark Budz and an ever-expanding group of friends and friends of friends, including Cecelia Holland and Isabel Glass, had dinner last night... And the weather was very nice, sunny and mild and almost warm. The hotel, the Mission Palms, was ideal, a four-storey rectangular building with a large central courtyard of paths and grassy areas, perfect for mingling and hanging out away from the lobby and bar. (On the other hand, it's under the flight path of planes landing at Sky Harbor International Airport, and they start landing about 7:30 each morning.)

I saw a couple three panels, including one on books that influenced one as a child, with Stephen R. Donaldson, Kij Johnson, Graham Joyce, Jay Lake, and Ruth Nestvold, in which the most fascinating examples were the books that they discovered didn't stand up upon adult rereading-- E.R. Eddison for Joyce; Oz and Narnia books for Donaldson. The topic drifted to a discussion of current YA books, and Sharyn November migrated from the audience to the panelists' table to cite favorites Philip Pullman, Tamora Pierce, Garth Nix, Philip Reeve, and Lloyd Alexander, and to express approval that the pendulum was beginning to swing away from the 'problem novel' trend of YA fiction the past few years.

Another panel on the spaces writers create for themselves in which to write, and the tricks they use to compel themselves to get their work done, only showed there are no rules; every writer discovers whatever works for them. Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Jane Lindskold, Patricia McKillip, Irene Radford. One works in bursts of creativity; another puts in a diligent four hours a day; another (Jane) cited Roger Zelazny's rule to write 3 or 4 sentences 3 or 4 times a day, as a minimum, every day.

This morning was the usual panel covering recommendations of *this* year's best fantasy books, with Charles Brown lording over the others with a draft of the Locus recommended reading list. He cited books by Straub, Pratchett, Stewart, Kay, and Hand in particular as among '04's best novels. Steven Saffel and Ginjer Buchanan offerred examples of books they were particularly proud to have published: Greg Keyes and John Birmingham; Jeffrey E. Barlough, James A. Hetley, and Caitlin Kiernan [Murder of Angels]. Miéville's Iron Council and Wolfe's The Wizard Knight (one novel in two volumes) got their share of discussion as well. Betty Ballantine was on the panel too, as decoration she claimed, though she did chime in to opine that Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (with no period in "Mr" Brown emphasized) was unreadably self-indulgent.

I also heard most of the post-banquet judges' panel, moderated by WFA admin John Douglas, with Michael Stackpole, Sherwood Smith, Alain Nevant, and Scott Wyatt discussing the processes by which they arrived at this year's winners (and nominees). John Clute, the fifth judge, did not attend the convention. There were no great battles among the judges, according to what they said, unlike what's been rumored in some years; the only difficulty resulted in the one tied category, for best artist. They discussed the difficulties in sorting out candidates for some categories -- e.g. the difference between the professional and non-professional special award categories -- and also expressed regret that some kinds of works do not really fit anywhere, such as YA novels or novels that are parts of series. Audience suggestions that additional categories might be added to the awards to cover such items, or even additional awards created for them that would be announced in conjunction with the WFAs, were met with grave doubts for the prospect of such changes by Douglas, who expressed the administrators' reluctance to contribute to the proliferation of awards or categories within awards. As an aside, it was mentioned that Clute recused himself from voting in the category for best collection, but was delighted that the other judges settled on the book by his friend Elizabeth Hand.

Cheryl Morgan, and perhaps others, had their laptops in the banquet hall to post the winners as they were announced; I didn't even consider the idea, the tables being cramped, though I did return to my room immediately after to post the results, and a photo, before returning downstairs for the judges' panel.

The dealers' room was not large, but had a good share of book dealers. Somehow I wasn't in the mood to do much buying; in addition to Shepard's Viator mentioned last time, I bought only one other book, the new James Tiptree Award anthology from Tachyon; both will duly be listed in the next Monitor-New Books page. Michael Walsh of Old Earth Books, in the lobby earlier this evening, reported that dealer sales were rather dismal this weekend, for reasons he could not explain; I hope it wasn't all my fault.

The art show was moderately sized, and had an impressive array of work by Janny Wurts and Don Maitz, as well as good stuff by John Picacio and many others, but nothing that motivated me to bid or to buy.

Today wound down with a nice dinner with Diana Gill and Charles Brown (whom I'd barely seen all weekend, aside from the year's best panel) and Liza Trombi (who since Jennifer Hall's departure has been CNB's right hand person at events like this) at Roy's, an asian fusion restaurant miles and miles from the hotel. Phoenix and its suburbs sprawl across the desert; we learned that "just past", as the hotel concierge described the restaurant's location relative to a major cross street, means more than 2 miles, in local parlance. And speaking of Jennifer Hall, she showed up at the con last night, having flown in from the Bay Area in the late afternoon, just to greet old friends and hang out at parties and the bar for the night, until a return flight at 7 a.m. this morning -- at least, that was her plan, and since I didn't see her today, I assume that's what she did.

Next year's con is in Madison, Wisconsin; David Hartwell announced that the con in 2006 will be in Austin, Texas.

Tomorrow morning I drive home, to return to the challenges of domestic life.

Arrived in Tempe as planned, following a 400 mile, 6 1/2 hour drive from LA -- the first half slogging through city freeway traffic, the second half cruise-controlling across the desert as the just-past-full moon rose ahead of me, listening to R.E.M., Peter Gabriel, and Elliott Smith -- checking into the hotel just past 8 p.m., and just as the traditional Friday evening mass-autograph signing session got underway. Hastily packing earlier in the day, I'd scanned the convention's participants list and chosen half a dozen authors to grab books by to get signed, and having arrived, foregoing dinner until a late-evening room service, I wandered the central courtyard of the hotel where the authors were situated, hauling in successive tote-bags of books, and did manage to get signed most of the books I brought, in the course of having nice chats with Gwyneth Jones and Jeffrey Ford and Joe Haldeman and Patrick O'Leary and, yes, even Lucius Shepard, whose new Viator I bought on the spot from a dealer sitting next to him. Then to my room, where the hotel's wireless internet connection works just fine, and where a dinner from the reduced late-night menu was delivered by a nice boy from room service. And so to email, and checking the critical websites one last time for the day, and a blog post, and to bed.

The news was good this morning at work. The company site received the highest possible rating against all four disciplines of the 'Capability Maturity Model Integration' (CMMI), which is a government sponsored method for assessing how well companies plan, manage, and optimize technical projects. The model is new enough (though there was an earlier software-specific model) that only a couple hundred companies worldwide have been assessed to it, and of those, only about 10 have gotten the highest, Level 5, rating in all areas of the model. (10 sites, to be more accurate, since the rating applies to only a specific site at best, and sometimes only to a specific program at a particular site. Our rating today was the second full-model Level 5 rating at a Boeing site, the first being the Boeing facility in Anaheim CA, the second, the site in Canoga Park CA where I work. A couple other Boeing sites have been rated Level 5, but only on a specific program, or to a limited version of the model. Even counting separate sites, there are still only 10, or so, full-model Level 5 ratings to date. Too much information, I know.)

That news being good, I'm taking Friday afternoon off (and probably Monday too) and will drive to Tempe for the World Fantasy Con. Since I'm driving I've packed a big box of books to get signed...

Whether I make it to World Fantasy this weekend depends largely on the outcome of a kind of audit procedure occurring at work this week, whose results will not be revealed until tomorrow morning. This is a CMMI appraisal, the preparation for which has been my primary reponsibility these past couple years. If the results are positive, I won't feel guilty about slipping out by noon or so, to come home and pack and drive to Tempe; if the results are not as we've hoped, I'll feel obliged to stay the day, and return to work promptly on Monday, to plan recovery actions.

Update Friday morning: Last night's configuration management issue has been, er, managed.

On Tuesday we had a big rainstorm here in LA, pounding through the night and lingering with thunderstorms the next afternoon, rare circumstances for southern California where rain, when it does happen, is more typically described as extended drizzles. I discovered leaks in the house I'd not previously known.

Monday a film crew worked all day at my neighbor's house. Film crews are a routine in SoCal; you can't avoid seeing them from time to time while driving past boulevard shops or private residences. This time, my neighbor, whose house has a sleek contemporary design, hosted a cable movie crew for a day. Big white diesel trucks full of filming equipment started pulling up about 6 a.m., amidst early morning rain. Later, when I got home from work, the film crews were all inside the house, though I could see some action through the windows at the back. A cable movie involving stars I had never heard of, according to my neighbor. By 8 p.m. or so they entirely and efficiently vanished. Good timing, before the Tuesday deluge.

Interesting Economist article by one of the Booker judges about the experience of reading 132 books in 147 days, and his conclusions about what it takes for a novel to stand out. (Emphasis added)

A great deal is made of the transforming power of literature, but what does it take to become a transformer? Writing a novel as fine as "The Line of Beauty" or "The Master" requires skill, but more than that it takes courage and immense clarity of vision. In some books, such as Gail Jones's "Sixty Lights", those attributes show through most obviously in the strength of a single character who lingers with you long after you have put the book down. In others, like "A Blade of Grass" by Lewis DeSoto or Justin Haythe's "The Honeymoon", it is the single moment in which the whole tension of the book is shattered, or in "Becoming Strangers", the only book to have been voted on to the longlist by all five judges, it is Louise Dean's astringency of language that makes you wince -- and then read on.

And then the author's vision must stay clear until the very end. All too many of this year's books began well, but then got lost. No book with a poor beginning ends up improving. By contrast, Nicholas Shakespeare's "Snowleg" and Ronan Bennett's "Havoc In Its Third Year" both started strongly and got better and better, and leaving them off the shortlist was particularly hard.

The third requirement, in addition to courage and vision, is about language. In order to capture a reader, an author must first duel with them and force them to submit to the writer's vision. Nowhere is a writer's guile and weaponry more finely honed than in their choice of words and metaphor. Here, more even than in the ability to draw a character, more even than in the skill needed to shape a plot, is where the difference between good and great can be seen. It sometimes took Gustave Flaubert a week to write a paragraph that pleased him, and with good reason. Mr Hollinghurst was one of the finest of wordsmiths this year, but there were others too whose work was lifted in particular by the quality of their writing, among them Shirley Hazzard and David Mitchell.

Despite the loss of the skiffy-associated favorite, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas -- which I haven't read -- I'm very pleased to hear that the Booker prize went to the novel by Alan Hollinghurst. I haven't yet read The Line of Beauty either, but I did just happen to read his first novel, The Swimming-Pool Library, a couple months ago, and was sufficiently impressed that I immediately ordered every other book of his I could find -- which numbers only two other novels, The Folding Star and The Spell, prior to this new one that came out in Britain a few months ago and in the US just this past month. I ordered the UK editions of them all.

He's a terrific writer, for reasons that have nothing to do with the current novel's Thatcher-era social criticism, or the gay-protagonist themes of all his books. I can only explain it by saying that he writes descriptions of characters and incidents that make you aware of things you've been witness to without actually having been conscious of. He shows you dimensions within the ordinary that you didn't suspect existed. It's exhilarating writing. Michael Dirda reviewed the US edition just 2 or 3 weeks ago -- though I can't seem to find the link just now. When I have more time I'll find a paragraph to quote.

And when it does, sometimes it pours. A series of tropical storms has blown through the area the past few days, beginning Saturday night, when, very uncharacteristically for socal rainstorms, the rain gusted in bursts of two or three minutes, loud enough to wake me from sleep in the wee hours several times during the night, before dying down to long intermittent inaudible drizzles. More rain on Tuesday, and Tuesday night.

Rain is good, especially this time of year, since it dampens the dry foliage in the hills that otherwise might erupt into firestorms, as happened almost a year ago, when I blogged about the glows of fires 50 miles east.

Busy week, with little time to post here, though I have several topics to write about that I'm reluctant to specify in much detail lest I defuse the latent impulse to discuss them in full detail--about R.E.M. and music, about Joe Haldeman and reading.

I will mention that the security certificate for locusmag.com has been installed, so those concerned about such things can go ahead and order or subscribe without worries. The general format is such that any page on the site, usually accessed as http://www.locusmag.whatever, will also work as https://secure.locusmag.whatever, where the latter format will make available the details of the secure certificate. (It pops up in some browsers; in others, go to view/properties.) Links from the homepage to the various order forms have been revised to the secure format, e.g. https://secure.locusmag.com/About/Subscribe.html.

I had a note on my calender to check the results of the German Phantastik awards, scheduled for October 9th, because locusmag.com was nominated in the 'International Internet Site' category. Alas, the site didn't win; it came in last, behind StephenKing.com, Lordoftherings.net, World-of-Fantasy.com (a German site), and Theonering.net.

Nothing substantial this evening. One (1) person responded about 'compleat'; thank you. Compiling notes on new books this evening; my ordered copy of Liz Williams' collection arrived today, and I saw new books by Hamilton and Koontz today at Borders. Hope to have page updates on the website, for the past two weeks' new books, by this weekend.

Also will have something to say about the new R.E.M. album... (hi, Jonathan!)... which I've listened to about twice now.

So, what is the significance of the spelling 'compleat' rather than 'complete'? I've wondered this occasionally over the past few decades (The Compleat Enchanter, etc.) and never figured it out. This link is no help. A review copy of a book of Tolkien essays sent me last week is belligerently nonhelpful: it asterisks the word to a footnote "look it up".

Behind on everything as usual; evenings have been rather nonproductive of late, domestic circumstances being more than typically unsupportive.

Several readers have advised Locus about the expired security certificate on the website, when accessing the subscription order page and other order pages. It was supposed to have renewed automatically, but somehow did not, and expired. I placed an order with the current hosting service, CI Host, for a new certificate a full week ago; they responded last Friday that a new certificate had been installed and that the appropriate access via https://secure.locusmag.com would be in effect within 24 hours. That was 5 days ago. I keep querying them.

Frankly, though, while our customers may always be right, my own paranoia does not extend to worrying about sending credit card numbers over a website, or via email. Is this really a common mode of identity theft? In point of fact, my own credit card number was stolen a couple months ago, and used fraudulently. I spotted it quickly because I'm in the habit of checking my bank and credit balances via websites every couple days. When a package of recovered mail arrived from the post office, I realized that someone had simply stolen a day's paper mail out of my mailbox. I installed a lock on the mailbox. I hand my credit card to restaurant waiters once a week or so. I worry more about that, than the remote chance that someone might intercept my email or web form submission with my card number on it. Other opinions invited.

I saw "Sky Captain [etc]" over the weekend, and was duly impressed by the visualization of a fantasy world. I'm nowhere near as expert on early comics and films as are Howard and Lawrence, who wrote the review I posted, but I can recognize the homage aspects of the film, and I can less agreeably accept the Hollywood fantasies of expert piloting (through the caverns of New York City) and the good guy/bad guy policy in which the heroes of the film are never killed or injured. What I wish for, seeing such a film, is some alternate project in which such sophisticated CGI effects are used to create a true alien or futuristic world that is believeable, in the way that the best literary SFnal fantasies are believable. Have I missed such a film? Will any one ever be made?

Similar reactions to the latest Myst game, Myst IV: Revelation, which I've 'played' (an inadequate word) for about 3 hours now. The Myst games are determinedly steampunk, imagining fantasy worlds with primitive, intuitively comprehensible technology (which details and settings you have to figure out to solve the puzzles). I keep wishing for an equivalent game that makes you figure out truly alien technology, understand alien worlds or an alien mode of comprehension. I may easily have missed such a game, since I determinedly have not pursued the gaming field beyond the Myst franchise; I might become sucked up and abandon books altogether. I enjoy Myst games every year or three, but that's enough; my heart belongs to print.

I hear tales, from my PC consultant friend who administers IT for a small company, about computer users who, no matter how many times they are told, ignore instructions about not opening unexpected attachments in emails. Viruses ensue; thus the world goes round.

I try not to be too harsh in my opinion of such people because, really, computers are incredibly complex devices that even technically savvy experts have trouble keeping in control. I myself have a mathematics degree and work for an engineering firm, and still get stumped by seemingly unexplainable problems.

Two cases just today. I installed some new software. (OK, it's the latest Myst game, Myst IV: Revelation.) Install went fine. Launching the game advised me that I needed to update my graphics card driver. OK, went to the Nvidia site, downloaded the appropriate file, executed the file, and halfway through the installation an alarming notice informed me that the driver had not been certified as safe for Windows XP, that I might compromise my operating system if I completed the installation; Microsoft advised me to cancel immediately. Well, OK, I clicked the option to cancel the install. Subsequently, the install program advised me that installation was successful and complete. So, did the new driver install or not? I don't know. Yes is no, or maybe no is yes.

Meanwhile, my laptop, currently the PC in the house that I manage my email from, was fine this morning but dysfunctional when I got home from work. Both Outlook and Internet Explorer said no connection available. Network Connections advised me that the wireless signal from the router downstairs was enabled and very good. I rebooted. I carried the laptop downstairs and connected it by cable to the router. Still nothing. After an hour of various trials and errors, powering the router off and back on solved the problem; the laptop abruptly found its connection and was fine. What happened? Why today? Who knows. Alice knows.