paulmelko

I'm dilly-dallying in my hotel room for the moment, waiting to take a taxi to the airport through a Spring thunderstorm in Austin Texas. The hotel has a flat metal roof that tops the 20 story high atrium. The rain beating is a constant roar, and the thunder is a random counterpoint. Amazing. Laura and Bill are off to Chicago, and I hope the rain doesn't delay them.

It was a well-run Nebulas. Everything went smoothly, except for the missing projector and screen for my presentation. Everything that I was associated with at least. My presentation of GriefCom went well. It was attended by two dozen people, a good turn-out for 10am. Several people came up to me afterwards telling me that it had been very useful. And I got a volunteer to man an open spot on the committee. :)

Afterwards the new board met with the old president. By now everyone knows that Russell Davis is the new president. He has a bold initiative he wants complete by WorldCon. The new board will support him as much as we can! Aggressive but necessary.

Then was the SFWA business meeting, not too exciting, except when we debated the merits of membership for graphic novelists. I don't think anyone in the room had much knowledge of what graphic novelists did, what problems they faced, or even if they wanted to be members of SFWA. Didn't stop us arguing however.

I hung out in the bar afterwards until the Nebula Awards ceremony. I saw too many people to list them all. :)

The awards ceremony was well-run. Joe Lansdale is a funny man. I did my part with Nancy Jane Moore, reading the novelette nominees and winner. Afterwards I shook Chabon's hand and made sure Bill did too, the big sissy.

Well, the rain has slowed, so hopefully we'll get out of here on time. I have too much to do to be delayed. :)

Today is a day off from work to prepare for my trip to Austin for the Nebulas. I haven't had a day off to catch up in a while. With four kids, an MBA program, book promotion, book edits, and book writing, things just pile up. But today, I'm trying to get everything done. Or if not done, then out of my sight.

So, what am I up to at the Nebulas, you ask. Well, let me tell you. First, I am co-presenting the Novelette Award. This is apparently consolation for losing the Hugo, Nebula, and Sturgeon Awards last year. :) On Saturday at 10am, I am presenting on the workings on the Grievance Committee. I enjoyed putting this presentation together, and I think people will get a lot out of it. Friday night I'll be at the mass signing at the Omni. I will be signing any book you put in front of me. I will also sign body parts.

I'll also be hanging with friends and colleagues. I hope to see you there.

Paul

A follow-up to this review of Ten Sigmas and Other Unlikelihoods is this interview all about me.

Patrick also reports that Talebones #36 is in the mail. In that issue is my story "Cankerman's Shower." Cankerman's Twin is my current novel project and begins sometime after the end of "Cankerman's Shower." My big idea for these stories is that Cankerman is a misanthropic minor lord of a future galactic empire, making his way from place to place working cons and being a general ass. As you might expect, these are awful fun to write and, I hope, awful fun to read.

Chance and Toby both reviewed my book over the weekend. With friends like these, I could take over the world and parse out the best territories to them. Toby gets the Alps. Chance gets Tierra del Fuego.

Chance reviews it here.

Toby reviews it here.

Thanks, you two.

It is official. Ten Sigmas and Other Unlikelihoods is out today! You can order it from the Fairwood Press site or from Amazon. For those interested in the contents, I've included the story notes from the back of the collection here for your amusement.

( Story Notes Follow: )

Paul

Even before 3 inches had fallen, it was the dubbed The Blizzard of '08. Amazingly, my company let us have early dismissal. But not the schools for some bizarre reason. We woke up this morning to a foot of snow. Okay, fine. Blizzard, it is. Also, we woke up to out mailbox sheered off its perch by a plow. I propped it up in the snow bank. Maybe the postman can get to it. This is the third time since we've moved in here that the mailbox has been plowed.

The kids and I managed to get half the driveway shoveled. That is to say, the kids built snow igloos in the piles of snow I removed from the driveway. Poor Graham was shorter than the drifts. Claire stayed inside.

Clearly the gods are punishing Ohio for giving our electoral votes to the wrong person.

There are three releases from my associates at SFNovelists this week. SFNovelists is a group of writers who have banded together for mutual support and promotion.

First up is Sean Williams' paperback edition of The Changeling from Harper Collins Australia. This is the first in Sean's children's series The Broken Land. It looks scary!

Next up is Jim Hines' third book in his Goblin series: GOBLIN WAR! Check out this very funny series.

Fellow Tor author Mike Brotherton has new release SPIDER STAR out this week too. Mike is an astronomy professor, so you know this is some good solid SF. The plot involves alien artifacts and adventure.

Check 'em out!

The entire family is sick with the flu. Stacey got it on Thursday. The kids went under one-by-one, except for mutant baby Claire. We had to cancel her party however. By Sunday we were all sick, even me. Yesterday we had to call in re-enforcements from my mom and dad. I think I've kicked most of it, but it was a mistake I think coming into work today. I'll probably go home at noon, take a nap, and then work from home the rest of the day.

... I was at Boskone. That's okay. She has a party on Sunday.

But the kids made her some cupcakes:



which made her happy:



though the burning thing on her cake confused her:



Luckily, she figured out which part to eat:

There's a nice review of Singularity's Ring in this month's Locus, opposite a page ad that shows it as one of four books from Tor this month. Also shown in the ad is fellow BHer Sandra McDonald's The Outback Star, sequel to her Bloom'n Onion Nebula. Gary K Wolfe sums up with "While some of these devices reveal the somewhat overplanned and schematic flaws of a first novel, Melko's skill both in story and setting is undeniable -- the Amazon sequences are particularly convincing, even if the Goldilocks business with the bears isn't (bears discover telepathy?). There's more than enough invention and imaginative courage here to suggest that Melko may be at the beginning of an auspicious career."

Not bad. Also, I got a nice spike of sales from a mention on Instapundit. That little link bumped me to #17 on Amazon's SF best sellers. Another review of interest is here at Fantasy Book Critic.

Paul

Here I am at the airport on my way to Boston. It might be a good idea to post my Boskone schedule!

Come to my first ever signing of Singularity's Ring. That's right! You may be the first person ever to get a signed copy of my book. Well, I did practice signing on my ARC, but that doesn't count! Saturday @ 3pm!

Immediately thereafter, come see me read a story that isn't EVEN PUBLISHED YET! Yes, you heard me. Come hear me read the soon-to-be-lauded "Cankerman's War." Saturday @ 4pm.

Get up early to see me and Toby, as well as two other august persons, discuss the fabled 20 hour work week! Watch me whip out all my MBA knowledge. The panelists will be arriving via our jetpacks. 10am on Sunday.

Two hours later, I discuss a topic I embraced heartily for years: How Not to Get Published! Noon on Sunday!

With nary a break, I begin discussing why we need to fix the Hugos! I'll tell you why right now! I didn't win one last year! Sunday @ 1pm.

See ya at Boskone!

For those who still can't get enough Melko, and I think there may be two or three of you left, I'm the featured Big Idea over at Scalzi's site. In said Big Idea, I discuss the biology of the plurals that inhabit the universe of Singularity's Ring.

Who deserves it and why?

Current List of GrandMasters.

In case you didn't, yaknow, get enough Melko yesterday, here's a review by Paul Di Filippo at SciFi Weekly and an interview by John Joseph Adams at SciFi Wire.

It's quite all right if you don't read them, because by this point even I'm pretty sick of me.

Yes, that long-awaited day is here, the most important day in the career of a budding novelist: the release date of his or her first novel. Ah, yes, from the moment the novelist awakens, it is roses and strawberries, kudos and laud. Let's peek inside the world of a budding novelist, and share this most wonderful of days:

7:30 am - Awakened to gentle music
7:45 am - Forearm and knuckle massage
8:00 am - Write ten words on next opus - can't disappoint readers
8:05 am - Trans-Atlantic interview with British fans - bloody good time
8:30 am - Bath of scented water
9:00 am - Limo arrives for start of book tour
9:05 am - Body guards escort novelist to limo; one fan bloodied
9:30 am - Arrive first book store
9:35 am - Use mechanical book signing machine to sign ten books at a time
9:45 am - Mobbed by crowd of fans
10:00 am - Stop at the retirement home of ex-English teacher
10:05 am - Note that you can to split infinitives to Mrs. Graves, see page 124
10:30 am - Arrive second book store
10:35 am - Sign body part of adoring fan
10:36 am - Erase and sign again
10:37 am - Erase and sign again
11:00 am - Radio interview with Howard Stern
11:30 am - Lunch with Nobel Literature Prize committee
12:30 pm - Write ten more words on next opus
12:35 pm - Call agent, demanding Mongolian Rights be negotiated immediately
1:00 pm - Take Hollywood's call
...

That's right! Singularity's Ring is out today, and that is exactly how my day is going. :)

Also released today is fellow sfnovelist Stephen Leigh's new book A Magic of Twilight. I'm sure his day is going just like I described above.

Look what's the SciFi Essential Book of the Month. Go on, look.

When you have a new book coming out, you have lots and lots of spare time to obsess. So of course I wrote a script to pull and plot my Amazon sales rank as many times a day as I can click the little button. I've automated my obsession!



Look! I only pushed the button once today. I can't wait for my Bookscan data to start arriving.

My dad let it be known the other day that he wasn't happy with my Amazon Rank of #81,727. He better not get a Bookscan account.

Paul

Today I finished the backwards read-through and put the final touches on the novel version of The Walls of the Universe. It's off to the agent. Ahhhhh. It feels good to be done.

Now what?

Paul

SFWA member Ron Wolfe asked for a quote from me for this article on science fiction's current tone regarding the future. He was kind enough to plug Singularity's Ring as well. (Due out on February 5th!)

Paul