January 2008 – Page 7 – John Joseph Adams

Archive for January, 2008

Dying to Get Her Hands on Wastelands

In case you haven’t noticed it, Rose Fox, the new SF/Fantasy/Horror reviews editor at Publishers Weekly has started up a professional blog, where she’ll talk about what goes on behind the scenes at PW.

Today, she talked about a bit (more) about reviewing timelines, and in the course of which mentioned how she’s been dying to get her hands on Wastelands for months now. Yay!

But don’t go read it just for my ego gratification–check it out for the insider stuff. If you’re an author, a PW review is one of the most important factors in your book’s publicity/marketing campaign, so it would behoove you to know how the system works…and to make sure everyone at your publisher does as well. The blog’s just getting started, but there have already been some interesting posts, and I’m looking forward to seeing what else Rose sheds more light on.

Goodbye Sleep, Hello Carpal Tunnel

So I got a guitar for Xmas this year (an acoustic guitar). I have no idea how to play it as of yet, but my cousin Greg is a professional guitar player who has given lots of lessons (as well as having played lots of big shows, such as opening for Bruce Springsteen). I saw him today, and we talked about getting together for him to show me the ropes.

Meanwhile, for Xmas, my nephew got Guitar Hero for the PS2. He, my niece, and my sister were up visiting from North Carolina, so we all sat around playing it for a while. Before I go any farther with this commentary, let me say this to all the writers reading this: DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. Actually, I should amend that to DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME, because if you play it, I’m certain you would want to buy it afterward. That’s what happened to me.

As I was saying, we were playing Guitar Hero. It’s an immediately fun and addictive game, and the soundtrack is surprisingly good–probably, I suppose, because all the tracks are somewhat guitar-driven, and I think fancy guitar-work is the fastest way to my musical heart. Since I first heard of this game, I’d been saying "If it actually taught you to play guitar, I’d buy it in a second." Well, it doesn’t teach you to play guitar, not really at all, not even a little bit, I don’t think, but holy Moses, it’s so goddamn fun.

But, as the title of this post implies, it might just be a bit too addictive and may lure you away from the keyboard before you’ve finished your daily word count. Not to mention that the repetitive motion the game requires is sure to be the leading cause of carpal tunnel for an entire generation to come. When I sat down to write this post (just moments after finishing up with the game), my fingers were actually stiff. For righties, it’s much worse on your left hand, as that’s the one on the fret board doing all the button mashing.

I mentioned the soundtrack earlier. Much to my surprise, there was actually some metal songs on there, and I’m happy to say that I seem to be best at playing those. I’m certain if I keep at it, I can play "Iron Man" and "Symphony of Destruction" perfectly. As it is, I think I played "Iron Man" with only one mistake.

Admittedly, I’m talking about doing this on the Easy setting. Medium is another story entirely. On Easy, you only use three of the five fret buttons to play notes and chords. On Medium, you use four of the five. It’s really kind of amazing how much harder that makes it.

If you’re going to successfully avoid being ensnared by this insidious drug, beware the video game stores; the in store game displays will call out to you, and you’ll think "Oh, just one game won’t hurt." But it will. The in store display is what finally did me in.

Okay, that’s enough for now. I’ve got to go soak my hand in some ice water.

Noctem Aeternus Vol. 1

Charlie Finlay points out that the first issue of Noctem Aeternus is now available as a free PDF download. It features his story "The Rapeworm":

You can download the issue here, but you have to join the subscription list. (I think this is so they can pitch solid subscriber numbers to advertisers, who will underwrite the cost of the fiction, which would be a new model for internet fiction magazines similar to the free weekly newspapers you pick up in most cities. Their goal is 30,000 subscribers by the first of next year.) It’s worth signing up just to take a look at this issue. There are other stories in the issue by Cherie Priest, Michael Laimo, Tim Waggoner, and Ramsey Campbell, plus a Paula Guran column, interviews, and art by Kuang Hong.

Thanks

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who expressed their condolences for my grandfather’s passing. It’s appreciated.

The viewing is today, with the funeral mass and burial scheduled for tomorrow morning.

SF Signal on Wastelands: "More entertaining than the average ‘Best of’ annual anthology."

John over at the great SF Signal blog posted a glowing (four-out-of-five stars) review of Wastelands. Here’s a snippet:

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse offers a great selection of end-of-the-world stories proving that stories in a single setting (or a single subgenre of science fiction) need not be similar. While the prevailing theme, as would be expected, is one of hope, the stories are presented with unique focus and voice. But the mood is as dark as it should be with such serious subject matter. With rare exception (Neal Barrett, Jr.’s comical "Ginny Sweethips’ Flying Circus") these stories are gloomy indeed. But isn’t that the appeal of post-apocalyptic fiction after all?

John Joseph Adams has culled a great selection of stories here dating back to 1973, with more than half of those written in the last seven years. […] In then end, Wastelands proved to be more entertaining than the average yearly "Best of".

One of the thing I like so much about SF Signal’s reviews is the fact that when they cover an anthology, they review each and every story. That’s the case here as well–John provides mini-reviews of each tale, along with a star-rating for each. So go check out the full review, and add SF Signal to your RSS feed-reader.

SCI FI Wire | Bear And Monette Birthed Wolves

(tags: SCIFI)

Viable Scalzi

Over at The Whatever, John Scalzi points out that he’s teaching Viable Paradise this year. Apply now!

The Real Dr. Strangelove

The other day, I came across a link to a review in the New York Times in Google Reader, with the title "Sci-Fi Dream Turns World’s Worst Nightmare," and I initially thought it might be a review of Wastelands, so I hurried over to look. It was not, alas. Instead, it was a review of Doomsday Men by P.D. Smith, an historical account of "the gripping, untold story of the doomsday bomb—the ultimate weapon of mass destruction." The review is kind of down on the book, but it sounds interesting to me. Anyone read it yet?

Wastelands!

Wastelands has arrived! Isn’t it beautiful? Here it is in the box it arrived in.

And here’s a shot of the back cover, which until now I hadn’t seen. It is just me, or does the back cover image look like the cover image turned upside down? Think that’s supposed to suggest the "world being turned upside down" sort of effect of an apocalypse?

If any contributors are reading this, that means you’ll have yours soon too. Yay!

Fire Aftermath

Here’s a shot of the aftermath of that fire I posted about yesterday. Here’s a news article about it, along with another photo.

Apparently, a faulty furnace may have been the cause of the blaze. Which is kind of scary–I just had a similar incident with the furnace for the upstairs apartment of my house (it’s a two family house, divided into upstairs and downstairs apartments). The other day, something in the furnace blew, and it was overheating, and smoke was billowing out of the attic. I’m not sure what the actual cause of the smoke was, but it went up through the walls until it reached the attic, then came down into the house from there. The fire department came to inspect the problem; at the time when the smoke was first detected, I didn’t know what the cause of it was, so it could have been an actual fire for all I knew.

Luckily for me, it turned out to be not that big a deal (though it’ll be pricey to replace the furnace). Actually, it’s damn lucky. Obviously, losing your home to a fire is a big deal no matte what, but this happened a few days before my grandfather passed away. Well, if the house had burned down while he was still living, I might have lost everything. Why? The veteran’s home where he was staying had some claim on the house, but if I lived here and didn’t sell the house, it would remain in my possession–it’s some kind of caregiver provision (because I’d taken care of him for several years before he had to go to the home). So I’m not sure if I would have been screwed out of everything had the house burned down. There would be insurance money, but the vet’s home might have claimed it. I’m glad I don’t have to find out.

What you can’t tell from the photo below is that there were three whole businesses there. There was the pizza place, a Chinese restaurant, and a bodega (with an apartment upstairs). Truth be told, I don’t think the pizza place is any great loss (though I feel for the owners and employees), but I was rather fond of the Chinese place, even if they did frequently get my order wrong. (Schezuan Chicken not sweet & sour chicken!) I have no real opinion about the bodega, though the place seemed to be cursed even before this–it’s been a revolving door of owners for the past couple years, and I’d never even made it into this latest incarnation. (Last time I went in there, no one working there spoke English.)

You know what I find amazing, though? Look at that building on the left side of the photo. That house appears to be completely unscathed! Nice work, PAFD! The gas station, which I mentioned the other day, is further to the left of the house, so it looks like it was never in any real danger.

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