Year: 2011

An alert reader sends me this link to an article at Techdirt, in which the author of the article is lambasting The Authors Guild (the mandate of which is to protect the rights of its author-members; a mandate that it tries to fulfill, with mixed results)of being anti-education and anti-learning because it’s Being Mean to some university libraries who “got tired” of waiting for Congress to figure out copyright (yet again) and decided to take matters into their own hands.

These libraries decided that if a work was, in their sole judgement (using what methodology is unclear), “orphaned” then it belonged to no one, was thus free, and the library could therefore scan it and make it available.

Mind you, I’m a fan of libraries. I have some real issues with the rhetoric of certain professors, who, snug in their well-paying day-jobs like to talk about the Evils of Copyright! and Mean Intellectual Property Holders Keeping Information Hostage! and How an Author Never Made Money from Their Copyrights! …and a whole lot of other arrant nonsense that just makes me want to go lie down in a darkened room with a cool towel on my forehead.

There are a couple of issues regarding this article, and the comments to the article.

One: The whole Orphan Works Issue that we all hear so much about and which is the total justification put forth by universities and Google and proselytizing professors? Is a red herring. There are NOT millions or even hundreds of thousands of Brilliant! Works! Still! In! Copyright! just lying around the place whose authors-or-rights-holders have fallen off the face of the earth and cannot be found, that in-force copyright therefore Robbing! The! Ages! of those gems.

One-Ay: If a work appears to be “orphaned,” i.e. the author is dead, the last publisher of record knows nothing about who might be handling the literary estate? Still doesn’t mean there isn’t a rights-holder, somewhere, who is, either willfully or through ignorance, withholding the use of the work, and the universities, and Google and the proselytizing profs are still stealing from those rights-holders by taking matters into their own hands. “We don’t wanna look for them,” and “it’s too hard!” isn’t the same as “can’t be found.”

One-Bee: Just publishing everything you (see universities, Google and PP, above) can get your hands on and saying that, if a right-holder happens to notice that they’re being stolen from, they can file a DMCA notice is…oh, breathtakingly arrogant. For starters.

Two: Big Biz Education, Google, and Proselytizing Profs really need to get out into the real world, and talk to real writers — not! academic writers; real writers, by whom I mean exactly those Evil! Copyright! Holders! who, um, do and are making money, and sometimes their sole living from those copyrights; from the mouths of whom the universities, Google and the well-paid Proselytizing Professors are taking Actual Food.

Edited to add: Link to the Authors Guild side of the story

Edited again: Link to NYTimes story regarding Judge Chin’s rejection of Google’s Grand Plan to Digitize the Known Galaxy.

And!Judge Chin’s breakout quote, which I couldn’t find yesterday: “A copyright owner’s right to exclude others from using his property is fundamental and beyond dispute.” – Judge Chin, 2011

Yesterday morning was all about errands and knocking mundane tasks off the list (The List).

Steve and I went down to the gym in Fairfield and got the tour, and a 14-day free pass. It’s a nice gym, clean, well-lighted, quiet (i.e. no Fox News blaring on four dozen televisions hung at all angles), and with no Crazy Guys throwing weights bigger than their heads into the air and catching them one-handed, which offends and horrifies me. I’m not into competitive exercise to the death; I just want to go in, do my thing, and get on with the day.

If this works out, the plan (The Plan) is to go early to gym three days a week (if I don’t go First Thing, I find reasons to put it off until Tomorrow, experience shows), get it over with, then take The Leewit down to Selah Tea for a writing session before running whatever in-town errands need to be accomplished and going home.

This would make a radical change in my writing, and life, habits (I don’t think our gym guide quite believed me when I said, “No, really sedentary. Everything I like to do consists of standing or sitting still.”), and is worth a try for a couple reasons. We’ll see how the experiment goes.

In other news, one of the things that Steve and I intend to do realsoonnow is produce and publish to the Korval website a pronunciation guide to Liaden. We can do the recording here with Audacity, but we’ll need someone to help with the editing. Can anyone volunteer? I don’t know how much time it would take, being Vastly Ignorant on these topics; I imagine not weeks, since there really aren’t that many Liaden words*.

Today, is about bookkeeping, and laundry, con-prep, writing, and…there was something else. It’ll come to me.

For those who missed the announcements yesterday, there’s a new story up at Splinter Universe. Tell your friends who may not be within the sound of my voice.
_____________
*I will, after we’re back from the Steampunk Expo, put out a call for Words You’d Like to Hear Pronounced, so we can have that list more-or-less all in one place. Please don’t tell me now. Thanks.
 

 

Progress on the Book Presently known as George
47,802 words/100,000 OR 47.8% complete

Among the Bedel it was said that all gadje looked alike — a joke of the kompani. And even were it not a joke, Kezzi thought, she defied anyone to say that this gadje looked like anyone else.

“Guaranteed Delivery,” a Liaden Universe® short story dealing with love, leadership standings and insurance fraud, may now be read in its entirety, right here.

Have fun!

Thank you for all the birthday wishes!

Yesterday was a Perfect Ocean Day (for my values of Perfect Ocean Day, which include, cool, breezy, with splorts of fluffy white clouds here and there in an egyptian blue sky, and so clear I could see autopope’s house). The only mar on the day was the fact that the arcade was closed, so I didn’t get to play skeeball.

Today, it’s back to bidness as usual.

Which means I’d better post a story, realsoonnow.

Today’s to-do list is this:
1. Work on bookkeeping until lunch
2. Eat lunch
3. Do last editing pass through “Guaranteed Delivery”
4. Do dishes
5. Eat dinner
6. Read with Steve
7. Go to bed

Tomorrow — is my birthday, and I’m keeping away from anyplace that has a live television set, internet connection or anything else that will be broadcasting the Tenth Anniversary. Therefore, my plan:

1. Rise early, drive to Old Orchard Beach, with a selection of favorite CDs

2. Have breakfast at Michelle’s: no television; satellite rock ‘n roll station on the radio

3. Picnic lunch on the beach

4. Dinner at one of several possibilities, depending on where we happen to be when the bell sounds, none of which have television sets.

I hope that those who share my natal day will also be able to enjoy themselves as they wish, and good fortune to us all.

Everybody have a good weekend, ‘k? I’ll see you on Monday.

1. Coffee!
2. Take cats to vet Edited to add:  And survive!
3. Catch up bookkeeping through August 30 PRIORITY ONE
4. Second pass through “Guaranteed Delivery” PRIORITY, um, ONE-AND-A-HALF
5. File. Or not. If the pile becomes sentient, it can do the bookkeeping
6. George, oh George…

Progress on the Book Presently known as George
47,360 words/100,000 OR 47% complete

Clearly he had enemies, and until he knew them, he was vulnerable.

It’s raining here at the Confusion Factory, which it has been doing the last day or so. Very different from Reno, where I waked every morning in a room outfitted with Serious Sun-blocking curtains, to my first thought, “My, it’s dim! I wonder if it’s raining.”

Which brings me to the realization that, though I’ve written somewhat of the travails which afflicted our most recent journies, I haven’t written of WorldCon itself.

…which was lovely. Verily, the most relaxed and delightful WorldCon I’ve attended as a pro in years. We were lightly but respectfully scheduled, and had more time to catch up with people and Just Chat than I’ve had since I was SFWA ExecDir and it was part of my job to talk, at least, to SFWA members.

So, our con started — well, on the train, actually, when we met up with Jo Walton. The Lake Shore Limited, as reported elsewhere in this journal, was five hours late to Chicago; a theme that continued with the California Zephyr.

To digress for a moment, while it was unfortunate that the train was, at the end, six+ hours late (though on the return trip, I was to learn that this was a mere bagatelle), it was fortunate in that, for the very first time in numerous train crossings of Our Great Country(tm), I saw the Salt Lake Desert, which the Zephyr typically crosses at night, and I’m very grateful for that.

So, anyhow, being no stranger to trains running rather less-epically late, we usually plan on getting into far-flung places the day before the event starts. (We didn’t do this for last Chicago WorldCon, which was, after all, only an overnight trip. Our first event was at noon, the train was scheduled in at 8:45 — plenty of time to get to the hotel, shower, put on con clothes and get the heck down to the panel. See the train be three hours late. See Sharon and Steve throw the baggage into the hotel room and run over to the second tower to make the start of the panel.)

For the Reno trip, we made sure we arrived on Tuesday. But! The train gets into Reno at 8:30 in the morning. Even if it was late, we reasoned, we’d be in time for lunch. And so we arranged to meet Di Francis (Diana Pharaoh Francis) and her family for dinner at 6 p.m.

A date for which we were almost late.

When the train did eventually find Reno, we found Myles and Nancy O’Reilly waiting to whisk us to the Atlantis, while Jo entered into the capable care of Mem Morman for transport to the Peppermill.

Check-in was a little bit of a zoo — I don’t remember why at this point — and Shaii, on the desk, upgraded our room, to which we repaired, to unpack and shower and change.

We took a taxi to the Peppermill, located Di and her family patiently waiting, had a good visit and an…eclectic dinner at the Island Buffet. We wandered back to the Atlantis eventually, and, restless with too much ice tea (Man, I drank more ice tea on this trip than I have since I was a kid in Baltimore), walked around the place, as is our habit, locating Points of Interest.

I know some folks were disturbed by the fact that WorldCon was attached to a casino — that, in fact, the con hotels were casinos. I thought it was…interesting, and not as completely disorienting as it apparently was for others. Note that I speak here of the Atlantis; the Peppermill was a Whole Nother Story.

Anyhow, Steve and I pretty quickly found our path to the convention center, and patterned the casino floor so we had the various restaurants located.

Wednesday, after locating the Friends of Liad Fan Table, with Shawna and Angie already in attendance, I abandoned Steve and took a taxi to the Nevada Museum of Art, which is a wonderful little museum that you should all visit, if you’re ever in Reno. I went specifically for the mummy display, but the facility was small enough that I was able to tour the whole thing, eat lunch and get back to the Atlantis in time to join Steve for our presentation at the Sierra View Library, across the street from the convention center.

We arrived in time to see Steve Gould finish up his presentation, which was fun; then we read from Ghost Ship, answered questions, and said Hi to Carol Berg, who was up next.

May I just say? The library event was lovely, and I thank WorldCon, in the person of Patricia Parsons, for working with the Sierra View staff to make it happen. We were very glad to be a part of this outreach effort, and hope that future WorldCons can find a way to continue the tradition.

We finished out Wednesday by having dinner with Mem and Terry, then returned to the hotel to crash early.

Thursday started with a journey to the Peppermill (WorldCon hired real buses to shuttle between the hotels! Buses that knelt down to let passengers aboard. Camel buses in the desert. Was anything ever cooler? Ahem.). So, anyhow, to the Peppermill, where we speedily got lost on our way to the writing workshop, and enlisted the aid of a gentleman with a broom to set us on the proper path.

The workshop, despite being down one participant, went well, I thought; both of those remaining being serious about their reading and their writing. After, Steve and I had lunch in Biscotti’s, bused back over to the Convention Center to do our stint at the SFWA table, hosted a sold-out kaffeeklatsch, checked in at the FoL Fan Table, did a drawing for free! books!, signed books in the Dealer’s Room; met Judy Bemis for dinner; did Art Night (which was rather less…extravagant than other Art Nights I’ve attended), and hit the SFWA Suite, where I left Steve chatting with Dave Smeds when I went back to the room to nurse a altitude headache. (Note to self: In high, dry climates, drink water constantly! Really.)

Friday we were scheduled but lightly. I met up with Phyllis Irene Radford, whom I hadn’t seen in years — was it the Kansas City Nebulas? — and we did some Fast Catch Up(tm). Our reading was standing room only, followed by a signing, then the Baen Authors Dinner, and the FoL-only party, which I left early, being a poor thing and easily exhausted.

Saturday our dance card was full to overflowing. We started out with an 8 a.m. breakfast at Toucan Charlie’s with sixty! stalwart Friends of Liad. That? Was amazing. And gratifying. We had a good time and hope everyone who attended, did, as well. I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk to everyone — but, sixty? Who could have predicted?

So, after breakfast, we hit the first panel of the day — Collaboration, moderated by Steve. I do have a complaint here. I had checked in with Con Ops regarding the taping policy and had been told, definitively, that no taping of panels would be allowed. We arrived to find our co-panelists (the gentleman of the set is very avid podcaster; the lady apparently also, but he was doing the rigging) rigging up an Entire Podcasting System in order to tape the panel prior to being broadcast on his/their site. We explained about Ops, the gentleman allowed as how it was easier to get forgiveness than permission, and continued his set-up.

Now, this annoyed — and still annoys — me for a couple reasons. One, Ops. Two, he never asked us if we would mind providing free content for his site. Now, had he asked us, I might’ve said OK, sure, whatever, since I’m generally well-disposed toward himself. But he didn’t ask, he just assumed, and now we all have to put up with me being cranky with him about this, which is too bad.

So.

After Collaboration, Continuity, and a star-studded cast: Lois Bujold, Eric Flint, Dean Wesley Smith, Steve Miller; Sharon Lee moderating. This was played to a large room, full, as you might imagine from the list of panelists. We had a lively, and as people stopped to tell me later in the con, informative discussion about series/character/worldbuilding continuity. It was a pleasure to moderate; I had fun and I hope my co-panelists did, as well.

After that, we raced off to the SFWA meeting, then I went on to the Urban Fantasy panel with Tim Pratt, Larry Correia, Lisa Goldstein; ably moderated by Madeleine Robins. Another fun, well-attended panel.

Dinner with Myles and Nancy followed, then on to the Baen Paty, and thence to the Friends of Liad Party.

Sunday was about touring the Dealer’s Room, where we signed more books, talking to bunches of people, I bought the aforementioned corset, talked to more people, had dinner with Eve Ackerman, her lovely husband, Steve-whose-last-name-I-didn’t-get, Toni Weisskopf, eventually found our room again and crashed.

Monday, we had a good-bye breakfast with Shawna and Angie, and leisurely began our fraught journey back to Chicago.

The Friends of Liad came to this convention in droves; we were stunned — and gratified. Angie, Debbie, Shawna, and Thuy, who womaned the fan table, did all the party prep and acted as Message Center for Steve and me, were Beyond Awesome; it was in every sense a working con for them, and we’re very grateful for their efforts.

…and here ends the con report.

Announcements!

1. “Guaranteed Delivery,” a Liaden Universe® short story dealing with love, leadership ratings, and insurance fraud will be posted at Splinter Universe on Monday, September 12.

2. Steve and I will be Guests at the Great New England Steampunk Exposition in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, Friday, September 16 through Monday September 18. Other guests include Kaja and Phil Foglio, Abney Park, Jake von Slatt, Mademoiselle Veronique Chevalier, and too many more to type. Do plan on attending.

3. Steve is putting books up for auction at eBay. The vanguard is a signed trade paper edition of I Dare. Bidding closes on Monday, September 12.

To-Do

1. Get back with George

2. Make appointment at gym

3. Call eye doctor

4. Make appointment to have hair cut, curled and dyed magenta

5. Figure out how to make the television stream Netflix. Maybe I’m missing some wires? Argh.  Welp, I tried, and Mozart tried, too.  And you know if Mozart can’t figure it out, I might as well hang up my hat.  I think that the wireless signal may not be strong enough in the living room.  I note that I have a hard time getting The Leewit online in the living room, too.  A project for another day, obviously.  Or maybe I’ll buy a Zillion Feet of Cat5 and hardwire the tv to the router.

6. File before the pile becomes sentient

7. Continue hacking at backed-up bookkeeping

8. Finish folding brochures

9. Make appointment for Scrabble and Mozart to get their annual check-ups/shots

10. Get more coffee all gone, the coffee.  *is sad*

Elsewhere On the Intertubes, there’s a discussion about Urban Fantasy, and people are providing their favorite titles in-genre, which is very cool and useful, in an oh! I’ve-gotta-get-that-book kinda way.

One thing, though, is that, looking at the lists, and the titles I do know/have read, I’m finding myself parsing certain books not as “urban fantasy” but as “werewolf novel” or “vampire novel.” This is, I should state, based on the scientific process known as “gut feeling.”

I mean, the Sookie Stackhouse books are fun, but to me, they’re vampire novels, not urban fantasy. The Weather Warden books are super, but, nope, not urban fantasy. Wizard of Pigeons? Dead-on urban fantasy.

So, you’re wondering — as I am — what’s the difference? And, thinking about this. . .I think that, for a book to be urban fantasy, to me, the city/town/specific piece of land has to be a character. It’s not enough that the action is set in a certain place, the story has to be about that place to some degree; it has to be important to the story that these events are happening here, rather than over there, in Gotham.

So, yeah, the Sookie books take place now — making them Contemporary Fantasy/Vampire — but the towns and cities in which the various stories happen are. . .just settings. The life of A Specific Town isn’t threatened, or bound up tightly with the magic of the story.

In Wizard of Pigeons, the city depends for its existence on its magic-workers doing their magic correctly and consistently; in The War for the Oaks a piece of the city’s geography is under dispute by two factions of the fey. In Carousel Tides, the fate of an entire seacoast town depends upon the heroine dealing with the forces of magic appropriately.

The attraction for me, in what I call urban fantasy, is the juxtaposition of the weird with the everyday, and the degree to which each reflects and influences the other. A story about vampire or werewolf politics can be — has been — interesting to me, but — if the story can be moved to any city and told just as effectively, then the story isn’t urban fantasy.

Discuss.

“Guaranteed Delivery”
6,083 words DRAFT COMPLETE

A little bit shorter than I had predicted, but a draft well-completed. It gets to sit for a couple days now, then I’ll re-read, tighten, and post. Still shooting for September 12 for that last thing.

And now? The dishes!