Made a Review of Makers

"Perry though has the better sex scene in the book, with minor but well-rounded character Hilda." ... from my just posted review of Cory Doctorow's book Makers.

Steve Boyett on Copyfight and Writing

Author, DJ and general renaissance man Steven Boyett recently lead a couple sessions at the Southern California Writer's Association. Fortunately he posted the audio from these discussions and they're great for those of us who seem to spend a lot more time learning about writing than writing. Here Boyett talks about the changes happening in the publishing markets as driven by the ongoing digital revolution. He's walked this walk as a podcasting DJ in the musical realm and so is more prepared than most authors as similar issues hit the prose fiction and other written media. In the second part he talks about the debacle that copyright has become, and gives some great history. He echoes some things from Cory Doctorow but takes his own slant as well; plus he pays due reverence to Lawrence Lessig and Creative Commons. Thanks, Steve.

Running with Little Atoms

During today's lunch run across the end of Lady Anne Lake, in addition to passing within arm's length of a four foot tall great blue heron and a 4 foot long black rat snake, themselves only separated by a couple hundred feet, I listened to Cory Doctorow's April 3rd interview on ResonanceFM's Little Atoms show. Most of the topics I'd heard from Cory before, although they were freshly iterated here: privacy, copyrights, authorship. But near the end was a subject I don't remember having heard from him before and it was worth the hearing. He gave his take on patents in terms of property. How we have a legitimate interest in things; a stake in them; even though we don't own them. His first example was your child. You don't own a child, but they are "yours" nonetheless. If someone kidnaps them or kills them they haven't stolen from you, they've actually done something worse: kidnapping or murder. Your cell phone number is another example where you may not "own" it, but you have a vested interest in it since your friends all know it; your business cards have it printed on it, etc. Your phone company shouldn't just suddenly assign it to someone else. So patents. So maybe some things, like genome sequences, or similar, shouldn't be patented in the same way that more traditional inventions are. Patents exist to help inventors get capital and to allow inventors to share their inventions without fear of losing their profit potential. Society wants inventions, and we want the insights shared so that other inventors can move to the next idea beyond. But currently patents are all the same: the inventing company gets 90 years of exclusivity -- a bit long for something like software. A big wig at Microsoft told Cory that they probably wouldn't write any less new code if they only got exclusivity for 10 years -- so why grant the other 80 years? (My synopsis is inelegant; have a listen if you're interested.)
Cory did quote the Microsofter as saying they were already writing code in "all the hours God sends", an expression I wasn't familiar with, and after chasing it around the Internet a bit, I doubt that's an expression used by a Microsoft executive. Apparently it's quite a British turn of phrase.

Consuming Cory Doctorow Audio at Lunch

In addition to finishing listening to Cory Doctorow's new short story, Epoch, on my lunch run today, I also listened to his first public reading from his latest novel, Makers. Epoch is about a sentient Artificial Intelligence and the issues surrounding shutting it down. It's a good story, better told. I say a good story only because it's plot line is almost a genre in itself, from Colossus (D.F. Jones) to 2001: A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke), etc. and this is a short story. But it has novel aspects and great details of the life of modern day Sysadmins -- Systems Administrators. The lingo is perfect and very much fun.

I've only read the first dozen or so parts of Makers (out of eighty-some), about economic turmoil and the reuse of technological detritus. The part he read overlapped the part I twittered in when he asked for suggestions prior to his reading appearance -- my first verified participation in a crowd sourced event! Makers is fast-paced and fun so far.

In which I am Schmap'ped

The folks at Schmap are "delighted" to let me know that
my "submitted photo
has been selected for inclusion in the newly released ninth
edition of our Schmap Montreal Guide: Chinatown".

They spotted my photo on flickr and asked if they could include it in their guide. Sure, I said.

If you could look closely enough, you would see a group of WorldCon attendees walking up the sidewalk on the left side of the photo, including authors Cory Doctorow and Larry Hodges.

Stay Free Little Brother

I finally finished Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. Brief review here.

WorldCon Part IX - Gaiman Reads Doctorow

8/8/09
20:00 Saturday

I ditched the Masquerade after about 40 minutes. It was very well attended, more people than the other big room events: a thousand, maybe twice that many. The costumes were from good to excellent – like professional / movie quality. But I find the dual language deal tedious, though they prattled it well enough again. Mostly I left because I wanted to go to the “Gaiman Reads Doctorow” event.

Neil read one of Cory’s short stories, “The Right Book”. It was recorded live as part of a collection of short stories from Doctorow being read by various author / voice talents. This one’s about books into the future. The collection will be reprints except for one new story. The room was packed with a couple hundred people, probably more refugees from the Masquerade. Just after the recording started a baby started crying on the floor just to Neil’s right. The mother quickly exited with the child. Cory chuckled and said they’d fix it in the edits (which you can see they did, at about 21 seconds into the video). Neil rolled on and at the end the woman came back in and apologized and Mr. Gaiman was very gracious, saying that, since it was right at the beginning, that he really didn’t have any rhythm yet or anything anyway. Beforehand I saw Cory lingering in the hall, still wearing the NATTC pin from our walk that morning and he mentioned it when he saw me walking up. I told him he was welcome to take it off whenever it suited him – he said one day was what he wore things like that, so he had it on for the next session, too – not sure if it shows in the video at all.

They followed the reading with a Q&A; after that I hung in the room, listening to Neil and Cory chat with fans. Neil did a few autographs (although elsewhere he says he prefers not to after panels). I snapped a photo of his back as he said good-bye to Cory . Like a kid on a camping trip doesn’t want to go to bed, I didn’t want to leave. WorldCon is essentially over for me, tomorrow being a travel day, and a day to see a little more of Montreal as I quest for bagels. I got some bus directions from the Info Booth lady at the Palais on my way out.

WorldCon Part 6 -- Coraline to Cory

8/7/09 21:00
Friday (yes, it was a long day)

Melissa Auf der Maur joked, during her “Out of Our Minds” multimedia/rock show about being an opening act for Neil Gaiman’s presentation of Coraline, the movie. It was scheduled in the same room as OOOM, in the follow-on time slot. She was joking, but it was also clear that she, a genuine rock star, was being deferential to the literary genre rock star. Made her real.

Neil gave an informative and entertaining introduction to Coraline. He answered a handful of questions, with much more information than was queried for. Good stuff, although he did manage to, toward the end of a very long answer to a short question from a cute young girl, oh, probably 8 years old and I’m guessing she stopped paying attention to the answer by then, drop an F-bomb. Oh, yes, I do – couldn’t at first – remember the question: “Where’d you get the idea for Coraline?” And he told about Holly, his daughter, making up stories and him looking at the shops for Gothic horror for 5 year olds and having to write it himself. But he can’t remember about the buttons for eyes and would need a time/space machine for that and, long story not so long, spilled the beans to his earlier self to jot a note about the buttons idea, but “F----“, now it’s tainted.
They had technical difficulties with the blue-ray player and since I’d seen what I came for (Neil live), I exited.

8/8/2009
Saturday

9:00 AM “Stroll with the Stars” or “Promenade avec les étoiles”
A group met outside the convention center each morning to take a walk around part of Montreal , I only went to this on Saturday, in large part because Cory Doctorow was scheduled to walk. We met at the fountain at Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle on the west end of the center. A star of the table tennis world also happened to be at the walk, Larry Hodges. Larry is also a science fiction author; he’s had several short stories published and is nearing completion on his first novel. I mostly chatted with him on the walk. The weather was very pleasant and we mostly strolled through Montreal ’s Chinatown district. At the end I talked a bit with Cory and took his picture with Larry, and Larry took a picture of me and Cory and I took a picture of someone else and Cory and Larry did one of his party tricks with a ping pong ball, levitating the ball in a stream of his breath, although it was difficult in the outdoor breeze. I gave Cory and Larry each an NATTC club pin. Cory ended up wearing his all day. Cory gave Larry his “Strolling with the Stars” pin. I may send a photo in to the national table tennis magazine (for which Larry used to be the editor). I then walked with Cory to his next session: autograph signing.

10:00 AM Cory Doctorow Signing

(Alright Mr. Ben McT., Cory told me he’s not much into playing sports, but he might like to try his hands at house fly catching, so perhaps if there is such a league, and it seems like a sci-fi kind of thing, then he may have been signing with the premier fly catching league’s Jupiter United squad, I don’t know. Actually, it was autographing again). I walked into the signing area with him and got on the back of the short line that had already formed there, awaiting his appearance. He wore the NATTC pin while signing (he had a moderate line the whole hour, I checked back, and snapped a picture). I think he appreciated being asked to sign a printout of the first pages of Makers, his new novel currently being serialized pre-publication on tor.com. He also signed Little Brother for me.

Aside: “In what world is that considered dry?” I asked myself after washing my hands and being obliged to use the air dryer – no paper towels available. Even the “Blast” dryer with its high velocity air force (and 80 dB sound) after 20 seconds was still visibly, tactilely, if-not-quite-drippingly, wet. The “what world” part struck me as apropos, here at a sci-fi convention. Perhaps I’m easily amused at the moment.

WorldCon Diaries, Part 3

8/7/2009
9:50
Sitting outside a lecture room for the 10:00 am panel, reading Little Brother, when Cory Doctorow walks by – not a big coincidence, he’s on the 10 am panel, still he nods and says “hi” and it’s a little surreal.

The panel is “Intellectual Property and Creative Commons ”, not a whole lot here that I’m not already aware of, but it’s fresh to hear it straight from people who are pioneering it. Doctorow suggests googling “model creative commons license” for a sample, but I didn’t find anything better than just going to http://creativecommons.org/.

10:00
New Media Panel
Cory Doctorow mentioned mixing Skype (internet based telephone calling) with digital music such that while skyping with his wife, he can hear the music, but she can’t – and he can work and listen and chat, and she can work and chat – without the music, something they can do while he’s traveling but not while he’s home.

Cory Doctorow at both these first two panels, after 30 or 45 minutes, adjusted from a normal seated posture to a cross-legged, “Indian-style” (is that “Native American-style now, or just politically incorrect to attribute to any cultural designation?), still in a regular chair. Nice to have young joints.

Steven R. Boyett was also on the panel, he has a new book, I guess and one (Ariel) coming back into print; he’s also a podcast DJ for exercise music, etc. He’s kind of a “modern man”, as opposed to Neil’s more “renaissance man”, who was also on the panel, but seemed a little cranky – or maybe he was just being obstinately retro; he was still entertaining and the largest presence on the panel, the Con’s “rock star”. He looked dead tired even though this is only the second day of the convention. All the panelists held their own, though, even Melissa Auf der Maur, who apparently is a legitimate rock star. I’m not sure from what group(s), but one of the songs is in Rock Band (the videogame). Tobias Buckell, another panelist, is a NY Times best selling author and Ellen Kushner, from NPR and more, moderated. Melissa was clearly a bit out of her element, not knowing much about sci-fi literature, comics or the internet – but she knew music and film and was very open about it. She’s also a native of Montreal, and went to high school with one of the audience members, so provided some local “color” (including her long red hair).

14:30 (let’s see, that’s 2:30 PM)
Lebanese for lunch at the food court in the mall adjoining my hotel and between it and the Palais. Lebanese seemed like very unusual ethnic fare for a food court until I realized that it has a French heritage so is likely right at home in Montreal. I had falafel on pita bread, it was probably good but I don’t think chipsters like falafel. Had ham & egg croissant from another food court stand earlier for breakfast – it seemed French, too, rather than getting the English muffin version.

Winging to WorldCon

I plan to run a series of my notes from my trip to WorldCon / Anticipation – the big Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention winding up today in Montreal (yes, in Canada ). I had very limited access to the Internet while there, so I jotted notes in a Moleskine pad, so they are from a few days ago, maybe next time I’ll be set up to live blog it.

8/6/2009
11:30
Flying to the 67th WorldCon, Anticipation, in Montreal . Hopefully building some good karma – but did feel a bit like I was in a David Sedaris skit – was asked to switch my 6B aisle seat for a bulkhead seat up front, 1C, so that a couple could sit together. No problem for me, just want to arrive safe & close to on schedule (unlike these folks) -- lots to do and see this weekend. 15 minutes late boarding….

12:30
Finished the first “Part” of Cory Doctorow’s Makers novel serialization. Only printed 2 parts – already wish I’d printed more. Not so unsettling as Little Brother, more energizing/provoking like Dan Pink’s Free Agent Nation or Dave Winer’s ventures. Still on the plane. Need to pee.

16:55
First panel: John M. Ford (Apparently known as “Mike” in everyday life). A few folks lingered before the prior panel finished, but it really started filling about now. I guess it was to be expected; Neil Gaiman sheduled (I missed the “c” on purpose there, as one of the, I guess, locals, was saying it that way just now). Novels of interest: Final Reflection, a Star Trek book, from the Klingon POV; How Much for Just the Planet, another Star Trek story. Web of Angels, arguably the first cyberpunk book. The Final Tax wreckless Eric (My notes fail me here – get used to it). From the End of the Twentieth Century short stories; Heat of Fusion.

Pastiche: Green Eggs and Ham in Casa Blanca, apparently written in a comment on Patrick Neilsen Hayden’s Making Light blog.

They ended a bit early, some thought only an hour was scheduled but ‘twas 90 minutes so the after 60 part was Q&A and ad hoc, until an audience member stepped to the mic and told Ford’s bar joke: “Werner Heisenberg, Kurt Godel and Noam Chomsky walk into a bar…” The end of the joke was declared the final word.

Afterthought: the room was full, 200+ people and all the seats, okay 90%, were bad – because it was a flat room with crowded, orthogonal rows of connected chairs. More than one row back and there were heads in your way. The panel was in the same chairs as the audience. Either a dais or bar height chairs and tables would have cured it – or 180 fewer people.

Bunko Part Deux

I've resurrected my iPod after it languished for several months in my top bureau drawer. It's because the iTunes podcast interface is finally usable; that, and the "digital rights media" calamity seems to be abating somewhat, i.e. you can download and play mp3's from disparate sources like Amazon and Apple and use the same player.

Anyway, I had the good fortune to catch a Dan Pink / Cory Doctorow conversation coming off BookExpoCast wherein Dan plugs his new book "The Adventures of Johnny Bunko (the last career guide you'll ever need)". It's a good talk where Dan describes the difference between making career decisions for "instrumental" reasons versus "fundamental" ones. Instrumental reasons are practical reasons, fundamental reasons are more what you just want to do and then try to make it work out. I've never thought it responsible enough for me to just let go and follow some whim into the weeds. I've tried to strike something of a balance -- I enjoy computers and programming so I make my career with them -- I'm not that crazy about corporate America, but that's where the steady work is, benefits, etc.

Dan "I'm not self-actualizing fast enough so I'm quitting my job" Pink is working on convincing me otherwise (maybe by the time I'm 65; LOL). He says to look at anyone who is making a difference, doing something that matters, and ask them how they got to doing what they are doing. The answer is invariably, "Well, it's a long story." He says instrumental reasons don't work. Life and careers are too complex these days. I don't not believe him.

I still haven't read "Bunko", but the talk was fun enough to inspire me to buy my second copy, this one also sent directly to one of my nephews in another state. Maybe someday I'll get to read a copy.