My stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Fantasy, Escape Pod, Federations and more. I've blogged for Tor.com, Fantasy Magazine, and others. I sporadically update my Twitter, and have succumbed to Tumblr.

On this blog, I write about bad behavior, bad costumes, and bad movies. Check the "On This Blog" sidebar for the weirdest. (Seriously, people don't believe me when I tell them Il Fantasma dell'Opera is real.)

The first trailer for The Great Gatsby is out!



Full disclosure: I will forever not care about this book, for many reasons. Sure, if Kate Beaton can cut your book to the quick in five strips, that's pretty telling, but also because sophomore year of high school, it was the book my English teacher that year chose to suck all possible beauty out of, right down to mandatory dioramas.

My diorama was Gatsby's closet, which was a tiny table (round white pizza-box-support) stacked with Ken shirts, and then a "close up" of some of my beloved costume-fabric swatches folded nicely along the right-hand side. I included all the fabrics named in the book, the entire height of the diorama, and pasted the quote along the back of the diorama, and all the things one does when one is working on a diorama at the kitchen table at 2 in the morning. When asked why I chose this scene, I said, "Because it's the one where I laughed the hardest."

And man, Baz Luhrmann brought that scene to life! (Didn't you laugh? I did.)

For a book with such emphasis on imagery, The Great Gatsby is difficult to film. None of the characters are heroic; many of them are ciphers even to themselves. Nick is a hanger-on; Daisy is beautiful, but her attractiveness largely lies in a laconic charm and a vagueness that gets interpreted as deep feeling when it's not; Gatsby is driven, but as an American Dream Symbolism stand-in, he's too busy being symbolic to do more than dazzle and then disappoint others. The nuances of the prose disappear, and you're left with a bunch of rich people in a room talking about new money and sleeping around and throwing champagne.

However, Baz Luhrmann isn't afraid of nuance! He's going to make that nuance loud as shit! He's going to make his movie 3D and throw the malaise of the twentieth century RIGHT INTO YOUR EYEBALLS. THOSE SHIRTS WILL FUCKING RAIN ON YOU.

(Things that will also fucking rain on you include: Leonardo DiCaprio's Frown Acting, which he's going to deploy at varying decibels until he wins that Oscar, dammit! Meanwhile, Carey Mulligan probably has Daisy down; Tobey Maguire...is definitely your guy if you're looking for a vaguely-insufferable POV character; Elizabeth Debicki has promise; Joel Edgerton is amazeballs and I have high hopes for him here, except that many another good actor has fallen into the Luhrmann Spectacle Vortex before him. When the music is doing most of the emoting in your trailer, you have the John Carter of Mars trailer, is all I'm saying.)

And you know, I find the Twenties fascinating. I am always down for a huge symbolic flapper party with an air of desperation underneath it! We know Baz Luhrmann can put together a musical number (it's pretty much the only thing he can do well with any consistency). However, most of his musical numbers are at least fond, if not utterly sincere; if he plans to highlight the anxiety under the thrill in Gatsby, the trailer doesn't show it. I'm willing to wait on that one until there's more to go on, but something tells me that for Baz, the inside of his head is just this praise squad, all the time:



And I have my doubts.

I’m back from the Nebulas weekend! My presence there was limited (due to family obligations that were not entirely about weeding gardens but certainly included same!), but for the time I was at the official goings-on, I had a blast. The company was lovely, including the keynote speaker, Col. Mike Fincke, whose enthusiasm for SF writers confused many SF writers who weren't sure if he knew he was AN ASTRONAUT. The group signing was a blast, the Friday reception (to which I wore my "I Robbed Vegas for This" black velvet smoking jacket) was lovely, and I got to meet a lot of awesome people despite my sprinting in and out of rooms without warning.

A place I did not sprint out of was the Nebulas Banquet, to which I wore a dress! Here is the thought process behind this dress, whose specifics I knew I wanted the moment I realized I'd need a dress:

Me: So, I need a dress. Who has a boatneck sheath with sleeves that's made of 110% sequins? It needs to be minimum 110% sequins.

World: Well, given logic and math, that percentage seems like -

Me: YES OR NO, PLEASE.

And Alana of LoveAlanaDesigns on Etsy heard my call and said, "Sure thing! I have something about 135-proof. You want that custom-fitted?"

So, I got to go to the Nebulas in a bespoke sequin dress, which, if you're going to put a dress on, is a pretty fun way to go.

The clutch is the same clutch I took with me to ICFA (it holds so much I actually ran out of things to put in it); my earrings are some family keepsakes; the shoes are retired tango shoes, so I spent the evening tilting the shoes waaay in so you couldn't see the truly shabby instep where the suede was sanded down from nights out dancing.


(Left: The Fuzziest Picture, taken in the hotel room before I headed down to the cocktail hour. Right: Photo of myself with toastmaster Walter Jon Williams, all credit to Emily S. Whitten)

And, in a triumph of relaxation, I was seated at a dinner table between people I knew, and with more lovely people within shouting distance. Big social events always intimidate me, so seeing friendly faces walk up to the table reduces my blood pressure by about half. Plus, I had the good luck of watching it dawn on Delia that she'd just won the Norton, and got to be the obligatory person saying to a stunned winner, "Go up! Go up! YOU HAVE TO GO UP," which was fun.

From start to finish, it was a pretty great weekend. I'm so honored to have been a Nebula nominee; it means a lot, and I really loved being a part of it.

(I'm even more excited to see many friendly faces again so soon at WisCon, for which I leave in some terrifyingly-small number of hours!)

I'll be attending the Nebula Weekend in DC, starting in a number of hours that is much shorter than the number of hours actually required for me to prepare for it! Good times.

I'll be in and out (especially as I'm not staying on-site), but here's where you can find me for sure:

- Friday, 5:30-7:00pm: Book Signing. Does what it says on the tin, only more illegibly and with a pen that will probably run out of ink halfway through.

- Friday, 9:00-11:00pm: Reception! Jackets will be worn, Shirley Temples will be consumed.

- Saturday, 6:30pm-10:00pm: The Nebula Reception, Banquet, and Awards. (This will be an exciting evening, though right now it's looming largely as the cause of me cursing a blue streak at my carry-on, which can hold my regular clothing but is not prepared for a formal event and seems confused at what I'm asking it to carry.)

See you this weekend!

Well, The Raven happened! Three weeks ago, after which it promptly limped out of theatres while quietly muttering, "Sorry, everybody, my fault, sorry sorry." But what really happened to what happened?



Nutshell: Edgar Allan Poe is struggling to maintain his literary reputation, to make ends meet, and to somehow secure a wife who wasn't from his family tree. But he does still have fans – and one of them is determined to get rid of his writer's block by committing a string of murders inspired by his stories. With the help of the determined Detective Fields, Poe will have to discover the identity of the murderer before his fiancee dies, even as he writes up his investigation for the paper at the killer's behest, bringing him back into the public eye and giving him the story...OF A LIFETIME.

1. What could have happened: a gripping murder mystery that explores the dark side of the imagination, the responsibility of the artist for his work, tabloid culture, the quest for order against the creep of chaos, the power of love, the true nature of art, and the limits of obsession.

2. What actually happened: Awkward Choices Theatre, CGI fog, several hundred buckets of blood syrup, and a raccoon.


( Quoth the raven, Catchphrase about Spoilers! )

Another drive-by writing update! As you can tell by item #1, I have not exactly been on top of everything in this arena as of late, but having been reminded, I will try to catch up sooner rather than later.

1. In a move I somehow managed to miss entirely, the TOC has been posted for Queen Victoria's Book of Spells! My story, "From the Catalogue of the Pavilion of the Uncanny and Marvelous, Scheduled for Premiere at the Great Exhibition (Before the Fire)," does what it says on the tin, because it would pretty much have to. I'm really excited about this, and can't wait to talk a little more about it as the release date nears.

2. I have two reprints coming out in anthologies this month: my space-diplomayc "Carthago Delenda Est," which originally appeared in Federations, comes out this month in War and Space: Recent Combat. And "The Nearest Thing," about your corporate AI R&D and you, comes out this month in the Year's Best SF 17!

3. I'm also contributing a story to the hopeful first issue of Nightmare Magazine, a new John Joseph Adams venture currently Kickstarting. The first issue also promises stories from Sarah Langan, Laird Barron, and Jonathan Maberry, as various other subscriptiony goodies you can see by checking out the Kickstarter page! (My story will not be about a haunted house. Spoilers? Sure, spoilers.)

4. I will be at WisCon! I am taking a break from panels, however (I have serious stage fright, and this is my first year doing panels, and I have done enough of them to confirm that the nerves do not fade!). So, my schedule is just things like Saturday, 4PM: Ice Cream, and Sunday, 7AM: Walk to Lake, Make Side-Eye at Ducks. I look forward to seeing everyone (and side-eyeing ducks)!

Fashion meta-prom happened, you guys!



The Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute Gala is the magical event when the inner workings of the fashion world and the film world squeeze together tightly enough to make one night of glorious, spangly sausage.

This year a little scandalous to start with, given that the unspoken theme was apparently "Backhanded Compliment Retrospective":

The spring 2012 exhibition organized by The Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art is Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations. The exhibition, on view from May 10 through August 19, 2012 (preceded on May 7 by The Costume Institute Gala Benefit), explores the striking affinities between these two Italian designers from different eras.

With a sidebar exhibit of shade-throwing:

...Mrs. Prada confirmed that she admires the total curatorial independence of the museum to the extent that they almost did not take into consideration her vision.

[insert sassy/popcorn .gif of choice]

But shade or sun, the show must go on!

As the past has proved, the thing about the Met Gala that sets it apart from other red carpets is that its job is to stun. Other red carpets are easier to parse: at the Golden Globes and the Oscars, you're supposed to dress to some combination of Glam, Elegant, Sexy, Dramatic, Old Hollywood, and Fresh. The overall effect is, they hope, either Pretty or Gorgeous. Sure, you have your Tilda Swintons and your Cate Blanchetts, but the phalanxes of stylists who gird themselves all year for Red Carpet Season know how that battle is fought, and what weapons to deploy.

The Met Institute Costume Gala, however, is where all those warriors of fashion turn their weapons on each other. But wow, did people take the Impossible part seriously. In a realm of Daring, Fab, Moment, and a bunch of other words that start to lose meaning after too many seasons of Project Runway gathering dust in our collective subconscious, this year was off-kilter. The 2012 trend of Full Baffle is going strong, and we're going to have to wade through this together.

Let's start with Michelle Dockery, in Red Carpet Mode.



( Heavens, the pictures. )

Today at Defenestration, I have a column up! Crossover Concepts Hollywood Can Dust Off Because of The Avengers examines the potential for REAL crossover action, now that we've pooled several quarter-billion-dollar superhero movies into an unstoppable juggernaut (named after the villain who might appear in one of the Hulk's new six-movie franchise deal in which he and Hulk beat a city into the ground as everyone takes bets).

It tackles some of the Avengers' amazing crossover potential with other Marvel franchises like Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Other Hulks:

* Going Rogue: At a key moment in battle when two Avengers are down for the count, somebody realizes that the X-Men totally hosed them by having a mutant on staff who could absorb anybody’s powers, say, hypothetically, at a key moment in battle when two Avengers are down for the count. They send elaborate corporate gift baskets to Rogue for two hours.**

* The Incredible Hulks: Eric Bana, Edward Norton, and Mark Ruffalo go into a room to determine who has the right to be the best Hulk. That room is an auditorium where they sit quietly as a film professor gives a presentation on comic-book icons as a springboard for comparative criticism. At the end, she gives her determination as to the best man for the job; that decision having been made, all three applaud politely and depart.

And for those who haven't seen the film yet, it's spoiler-free (aside from one very minor character spoiler in the first movie setup), because I haven't seen the movie, either. (And honestly, I don't plan to, at least until I can rent it at home, so this blog will remain Avengers-spoiler-free for basically the duration!)

I am very curious as to the sheer volume of corporate synergy that will be at work going forward, not just with the 800 spinoffs this movie directly generated, but all the work being done to reboot things within the Avengers canon. (I heard a rumor that they're even redoing The Fantastic Four? I can't quite bring myself to confirm it, but I hope whoever does has the guts to cast Chris Evans again, and no one in the Marvel film universe will ever notice it, ever, at all.)

** Some of the Avengers don't know how they feel about adopting a mutant who can make them obsolete or comatose with a single touch, but are afraid to say anything for fear of seeming contrary; this will be the plot of the co-release spinoff-spinoff Avengers Dissemble.

It's time for another Many-Titled Strange Horizons Article!



Intertitles: "Do Not Wither/Look at Me": Feminist Identity as Supernatural in Orlando and I am Dina explores two movies that take very different approaches to a very singular focus - a heroine whose feminist identity overlaps with a supernatural trait.

I think both are strong examples of the speculative as metaphor rather than plot-driving premise (no one in Orlando tries to duplicate her gender-bending immortality, and absolutely zero people I am Dina would want Dina's ability to commune with the dying), and their different approaches to the supernatural element informing the protagonists' feminist identities are worth seeing.

In fact, many people reading this blog have probably seen Orlando, if for no other reason than Tilda Swinton Has A Face.

I am Dina also stars an actress who Has A Face, Maria Bonnevie:



I have been a fan of her face since The Polar Bear King, and loved seeing her in this, where she plays a mercurial, intelligent, and sometimes-unlikable protagonist who's fascinating to watch throughout a film in which she fights not to suffer. (There's no other way to explain the fierceness with which she strikes out at hardship, and the eerie calm we see when she reaches out to those who are about to shuffle off this mortal coil.)

There are some elements of the film less successful than others However, the movie spends quite a bit of time examining the ways in which the men in Dina's life try to exert an influence she often ignores, or openly battles with an lack of self-consciousness that said men often credit as a more supernatural "affliction" than her actual superhuman gift.


(Above: Dina, not buying what you're selling.)


There's also no shortage of haunting landscapes:



And pining farmhands!



Alongside Hans "Fire Your Agent" Matheson, the movie co-stars veteran brooders Mads Mikkelsen and Christopher Eccleston (yay!), as well as Gerard Depardieu (insert the sound that best expresses your personal feelings on him!).

This is one of those movies for which a studied yes-or-no recommendation doesn't work, because as much as I found the movie to be unflinching and often engaging, it also sometimes rolls right off the rails, and everyone's tolerance for that varies, including mine, often within the middle of a viewing. However, I would have watched much worse films for a cast like this (and have), and it has the sort of spec I love best, so, sold.

So, in an attempt to actually talk about London before the month in which I traveled to it is entirely over, here's a late-night photo recap of some miscellany from the trip!



From the Victoria Revealed exhibit at Kensington Palace); this was a display about the Great Exhibition, which has been the subject of a short story that I can hopefully announce in the near future. (The Great Exhibition was amazing, for certain values of "amazing" that are kind of creepy, and the story was a blast to write and research, and I can't wait to share the story with you!) While I wished there was a little more to this room as a whole, this installation was beautifully done, and nicely evoked the now-gone Crystal Palace.



From the King's Apartments (also at Kensington, which was one of the few non-research locations where I brought a camera, if you can't tell); the chandeliers in the Audience Hall were decorated with some very steampunky mannequins. They spun slowly to creepy music-box accompaniment. I dug.



Costume display! (I semi-appreciated the approach – while I would have been happy to hear every detail about these clothes that they could possibly tell me, the admonition made me smile. Hat carried, NOT WORN, ugh, gross, where are you even from with manners like that, Luxembourg? *Orlando Bloom Face*)



Semi-symmetrical Ceilings of England! (Confession: I went through my photos and honestly can't understand how I got one or two degrees off of symmetry so many times, but in this case there was an exhibit in the center of the room that obviously was not for climbing, which explains why this one looks slightly like an Alice in Wonderland ceiling.)

And last but not least, this pigeon:



It's hard to explain why I took this picture of the only form of avian wildlife I reliably see in my home city, except that in this lovely park, amid all its colorfully-plumed ducks and elegant cranes who were preening and posing for everyone with a camera, this pigeon landed six inches away from me and stared me right in the eye with this expression on until I took its picture. Self-Esteem Pigeon, I salute you.

While planning my trip to London, I was trying to tackle several facets of research for upcoming projects, and saw that the astounding Angels costume house was now open to the public for (very!) small-scale tours of their warehouse and workshops. The time it took me to apply was so small it cannot be measured by modern science. Also, the number of pictures I took while I was there can't be numbered by modern science. (Modern science is taking a rest day.)

But let's talk about a few of them, because of course!



Above, some embarrassed dress forms try to hide their shame. (They're ashamed because those costumes are being built for regular party rental, not for stage or screen use, so the back bodice seams on these Regency dresses lack the distinctive inward slope of more accurate dresses. It's okay, dress forms, we understand commercial needs!)


Thing I most lost my cool over:




Fans of Cate Blanchett and/or period film should recognize the Coronation Dress from Elizabeth. I certainly did! It had been pulled out as part of a background display for a news segment, and I'd like to think because they heard I was coming and wanted to do something special.

(P.S. One of the saddest/most hilarious things you can do to a costume nerd is to show them one of their favorite movie costumes of all time after making them promise not to touch anything. I now have approximately a billionty pictures of this dress, almost none of which address my construction questions because you can't see the back and I promised not to touch anything, like a fool. Like a FOOL!)

Below, from top left: the armory, the hatpin stand of great renown, an Elizabethan collar, and the fur room (which was a bit creeptown, but many of these furs date back close to a century, and if you're going to use fur, better to rent existing fur than buy new, so).






Sprinkled in with information about the history, organization, and operations of the company, there were some lovely asides, like the letter from a butthurt Charles Dickens, who liked to dress up as his characters for public appearances; he was very angry that the ship carrying his costumes had encountered a storm and was unable to deliver the goods, and the letter demands a refund. According to our priceless tour director, Dickens is still waiting. And to illustrate the relative value of the costumes to those who have built the place (hint: they're only as good as their next use and their decorative complexity), he described someone coming across a ratty monk's robe and wondering why on earth they'd bother saving something that cost so little to produce, and of which they already had surplus, and it was all set to go out in their occasional binpicker sale when someone saw that the inside label read Alec Guinness. They sent it to an auction house instead.

(Obviously, the tour is recommended to any movie-costume nerd. Thanks to Angels for a highlight of the trip!)

I still have some things from London I want to talk about (including some musical theatre that I saw,, live on purpose, who am I any more, I don't know), but in the meantime, some things have happened writing-wise and I wanted to round them up in one place!


First of all, I'm thrilled to announce that "Things to Know about Being Dead", published last year in the Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling anthology Teeth, is a Shirley Jackson Award nominee, in excellent company, including Nathan Ballingrud's story in Teeth! The whole ballot looks like a lot of fun, and I'll be at Readercon applauding the winners and nursing a huge cup of coffee to stay awake.


Also this weekend, The Toronto Star asked fifteen SF authors to brainstorm some solutions to climate change! I wasted no time ejecting humanity from the planet; many of the others had more feasible options, and all of them are interesting and thought-provoking. Check them out at Toronto.com!


And in reprint news this week, I got my contributor copies of ROBOTS: The Recent AI in the mail! "The Nearest Thing" is reprinted here, alongside some truly awesome AI stories.

---

And speaking of AI, I'm going to make a brief crossover from my Tumblr, where I have already made a picspam about how much I love this Weyland Industries ad for David 8:




Put aside the fact that Michael Fassbender does more acting in this three-minute spot than many actors do in an entire film. The framing of everything, the hilariously "human" activities, the pitch-perfect ad VO, the beautiful meta-branding in the final moments, is all just great; movie-wise, I am hoping for the best but steeling myself for the worst), but this makes me hopeful that the core antagonist of the Alien franchise is alive and well here.

Today's news is something I've been waiting to share for a while: Mechanique is now available as an audiobook, and today is its birthday!

The fine folks at Audible.com have put the book together and sent it out into the world, and I'm really excited about it; I even had a chance to chat with Scott Aiello prior to his recording, and got to take a new look at the book as a template for a performance. I can't wait to see how it turned out! (The day job does not allow for listening, unfortunately, so right now all I can do is look at the listing and try to listen via osmosis. It's not working.)

Of course, nothing is stopping YOU from having a listen!

It's been a rush of things since I got back from London, but there are still some touristy things to talk about!

My trip largely involved research, which means that I came back with photos that mean nothing to people who aren't me. However, I did make the time to take some photos of stuff that I thought was too good to pass up! First on that list: Kensington Palace.

Kensington Palace, childhood home of Queen Victoria, recently opened again after a major revamp and redesign of its exhibits. Nerds from far and near flocked to the opening week!



(To no one's surprise, I'm not an inspired photographer. At all. Most of the photos from my trip fall into one of three categories: Research Establishing Shot, Research Detail Work, and Symmetrical Doorways of England. Here, number 57 in that series.)

The exhibits themselves are slightly off from the norm, which is something people either loved or hated. I loved it, especially in the Queen's Apartments. Some people, especially the ladies behind me in the Queen's Apartments, were one artsy-fartsy display from burning the whole place to the ground in disgust. Sadly for those ladies, if they are reading this blog right now, this entry is about the Queen's Apartments at Kensington Palace!

NOTE: Another thing they seem to have revamped is the descriptions on the website. I'll be applying the room names at random to where I think they related in the tour, but there's no real telling, and also some of these room descriptions are priceless.



Above, the hall leading to the Queen's Apartments, and also probably some creeping, because that hallway is just prime creeper territory, look at it.

( To the displays! )

I'm back from over a week in London! I have a lot to talk about, a lot of which is fun and fluffy, but I'm going to talk about Eastercon first, because I have Some Feelings About It.

This was my first Eastercon (the UK's biggest SF con), and I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew going in that they were generous with scheduling, that some people I knew would be there who I wanted very much to meet, and that on a schedule full of meaty panel topics, I had a couple of really meaty panel topics: Multicultural Steampunk, and The Nature of Heroism.

Both of those topics are too big for one panel. (The Nature of Heroism is a topic so big that we've been discussing it ever since people began telling stories.) I was apprehensive about how much of those topics could really be discussed in one hour. As it turns out: enough to open a discussion, not enough to explore it. (I particularly regret that Tricia Sullivan's call to examine the heroes among those often rendered invisible by the traditional heroic narrative went unexamined, because damn, is that something I want to talk about at length. I wish I'd pushed harder for that topic when it was raised. I tried to talk about nuances of heroism throughout, but I still came away from that panel feeling as though I failed at that point in a way I shouldn't have, and I'm sorry for it.)

I do want to emphasize that most of my personal interactions at the con were with amazing, awesome people I was pleased to have met (some for the first time, some in person after Internetland). And, as I was balancing con stuff and family obligations throughout the weekend, I missed the Infamous Awards, and several of the other jaw-droppers that seem to have peppered the con; however, I did hear enough misinformed or oblivious things myself, or from others who had experienced them, that your side-eye muscles just got tired after a while.

I think this is not the prevailing mood of Eastercon - most of the audiences at the panels I was on or attended seemed very with it and often had excellent questions. But the Wrongness happened a few times directly to me or in front of me, and it took me aback every time. Once or twice I was able to challenge the opinion immediately (such as the person who mentioned Sullivan's "agenda" on the heroism panel and got an earful), but as we know, stuff like this is not always brought up in a way that's easy to challenge, or it passes so quickly you're still trying to parse it by the time the conversation has moved on and you're left wondering if it's too late, and a million other things that happen when you're in the position of having to challenge. So, while my Eastercon was enjoyable, it was also sometimes brought up short by someone saying something so wrong it was startling.

Would I attend Eastercon again? Yes. A lot of panels were smart and interesting, and so many of the people I met there were awesome that I'd probably go back just to say hello and eat at the Italian place in the strip mall (Heathrow has plenty of convenient hotels, but the restaurant scene there is a bit thin on the ground). If I do go back, I hope I'll be better at confronting Wrongness than I was this time.

This weekend, I will be attending Eastercon in London! It will be my first time at a British con, and I am very much looking forward to it, though slightly trepidatious as per usual. (Mmmm, stage fright!)

***
My schedule is as follows:

Saturday 10pm Royal B+C (Geo/Vic)
"Worst and best TV of the past year"

Sunday 5pm Commonwealth
"The nature of heroism"
What makes a hero? What is the effect of heroes on their world and the people they save? Do they disempower everyone else?

Sunday 9pm 38 (Edwardian)
"Multicultural steampunk"
The stereotype of steampunk is the colonialist Victorian adventure full of gears and goggles, but modern steampunk goes beyond this to address issues of race and class. What steampunk works deal with other cultures and other times? How do they address colonialism and other socio-political issues that arise from steampunk works? Can you write the stereotype but subvert it from within?

Sunday 10pm Royal B+C (Geo/Vic)
"Worst and best movies of the past year"

***

As it happens, I have Opinions about quite a few of these things, so that works out nicely! Even more nicely, all of these panels are at hours during which I am naturally awake. Though, as always, I wish they would rerelease Jonah Hex every year so that I could talk about it in Worst and Best of the Year panels all the time, as it is both worst and best in a way no other film truly could be. Still, that can't be helped, I suppose. (Though it could be if they just rereleased it every year. They do it with Star Wars, that's all I'm saying.)

(I hope to have a vaguely comprehensive post about my week in London up so, but it will have to wait until after I get back, because I have nothing with me but a borrowed iPad and a dream, and neither one of those things is really working out in my favor at the moment! More when I can manage.)

So, I'm in London this week, to get some research under my belt before I head for my first Eastercon. The city is as much fun as ever, but it means I'm even more absent from social media than usual. Tomorrow I'll try to post my schedule for Eastercon/Olympus, but that requires more mastery of my borrowed iPad than I have yet found, so to buy time, I have a story up this week!

"Aurum" is a steampunk story about commmerce, discovery, and dragons in space (no, really); it's up now at Abyss and Apex!

Pursuant to a chance meeting at ICFA, and also yesterday's Hunger Games review, I have a guest post up today at Fantasy Matters!

"The Girl on Fire: Costume in The Hunger Games" is technically an examination of costume as transformative and subversive presentation in The Hunger Games, particularly as it pertains to Katniss's public persona. From the hand-me-down blue dress she wears at the Reaping to the yellow interview dress, everything Katniss dons in the film Matters, but I talk specifically about three of her most pivotal getups.

However, if we're being honest, that article is secretly all about the hilarious tribute costumes that we barely saw, because they were GOLD.

(Sadly, there are no official production photos of the full-body fish costumes that made my whole night, but here we do get a glimpse of Marvel's suit and Foxface's 1996 prom dress, the stars of this movie. Also Katniss I guess.)

The Hunger Games came out last weekend! Its cultural saturation was so complete that you could hear the crowds lining up for fifty miles in every direction! And yet somehow I never got to see it until last night, when the superfans had all already gone, and all that was left was a crowd of easily-confused people, two frat guys who should probably have just cut their losses and left, and at least one racist! (We'll get there.)

(Note: I read the book in advance of seeing the film, which is actually not how I prefer to do it, because having read the book, it's impossible not to occasionally judge the film on its efficacy as an adaptation and not just as a film. However, the movie gives us plenty to talk about, and there are a few moments that actually hinge on book stuff, so it comes out in the wash.)

Much like the film, these points are all over the place; it had very effective moments and some moments I hope were not meant to be as funny as they ended up being. (If they were, that's even better? Sometimes. Maybe.)

If you're reading this, chances are you beat me to the draw on this one. All the same, let's talk over eight things you should know about The Hunger Games!

( Accidentally hilarious cutaway to Gale goes here. )

(Yikes!)

Late last night, I landed in NYC after five days in two states at two cons. It was a great time! Except for the aftereffects of travel, which means my body has lost its sense of time. (It now assumes that if I’m sitting down, I'm on a red-eye flight and should be sleeping. Today's commute was awkward.)

ICFA was honestly amazing. Talking with old friends and meeting awesome new people, missing all the alligator sightings because I refuse to go outside in Florida sun - what's not to like? It was my first time at this conference, but I couldn't have asked for a better welcome than I got; it was a pleasure from beginning to end, and I'll definitely be going back again.

This picture is me, moments before heading down to the cocktail hour preceding the banquet. The top is silkscreened with the interior of an antique dress, including slightly-ghostly hand stitching and pleating, and I love it immensely, and knew immediately it was what I wanted to wear for the Crawford.

Being awarded the Crawford was an honor; dressing for the Crawford was a prom-movie montage; accepting the Crawford made me so nervous I was worried I'd fall. (Spoiler: everything was fine. However, the Hostage Eyes in this photo were real. Similar terror happened just before my reading - being billed with China Miéville will do that to you - but he and the audience were so kind that it was hard to stay nervous, even for me.)

Then it was 6:40 Sunday morning, and I was flying out to Denver to partake of AnomalyCon! The setting was amazing (my camera photos all turned out like shots of the Loch Ness Monster, but trust me, the Tivoli brewery-turned-student-union is wonderful), the audiences very engaged in the panels, and it was a pleasure to chat with people one-on-one. (I even got to talk about Jonah Hex, which is a film that should maybe start paying me to do that, because seriously.)

Because travel is what it is, and because if you're flying United travel means never taking off on time, I got home late last night and am playing atch-up. Totally worth it for such a great weekend, but it means I have a lot to get done. (Number One on that list is The Hunger Games, which I tried three times to see and never managed, and the press coverage from which I've been trying hard to sequester myself. Review coming tomorrow, I desperately hope!)

Tomorrow I'll post my schedule for Eastercon, which I'll be attending next week! Before that, I feel I should probably unpack.

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And while I'm catching up on nearly a week of The Internet, I'm gathering some writing updates.



* As of today, the Armored anthology is out in the world! My story, "The Last Run of the Coppelia," follows the Coppelia's crew of backwater-planet algae harvesters, the handmade diver-mecha who love them, and a salvaged data drive that makes them question the feasibility of a non-interference policy.

* Dovetailing nicely with ICFA's theme of the Monstrous Fantastic, the Weird Fiction Review celebrated Twelve Days of Monsters in delightful fashion. I've only scratched the surface so far, but already there are several essays bookmarked. If you're in the mood for short fiction about a very particular sort of animal, my story "The Dire Wolf" (which originally appeared in Running with the Pack) has been made available as part of the festivities! You can read it here.

* And a cover has been released for Willful Impropriety! (To be Wilful where applicable.) It is pretty gorgeous. "The Dancing Master" is the story for which I overloaded on Victorian etiquette, so expect more of that as we go along, because those pears aren't going to cut themselves (and then offer themselves to the lady on their right presuming this is a private dinner and not a public ball, because these are pears with manners, not some pile of country gentry or something. Pears are jerks).

So, I am having a con-heavy weekend this weekend!


Thursday through Saturday I'll be at ICFA, hiding from the sun in Orlando, Florida!

On Friday, I have a reading at 2:45pm. At some point, if all goes well, I'll be skittering through patches of shade to see the Hunger Games, which I hope to write up before the banquet. (At the banquet, I will be accepting the Crawford and quietly freaking out.)


Sunday morning, I'm headed to Denver for AnomalyCon! I land less than an hour before my first panel, so my costume will be "person who is clothed," but I hope to charge into the Tivoli on time. My schedule for the day is more or less as follows:

10:00 AM Western Steampunk and the Weird West
2:00 PM Science of Steampunk
4: 00PM Strong Women in History and Steampunk

I might also have the chance to crash the 1:00pm fashion panel, depending on number of panelists and my blood-caffeine level. And I'll be hanging around all day - if you're in the city and at all steampunk-inclined, you should stop by and say hi!


More updates as events warrant! (Where "events" are "things I remember I should blog about long after the fact.")