I recently ran across my all-time favorite piece of Midnighters fan art. Here are Bixby’s fab five as envisioned by Shira-chan:
What makes this so great is that all the characters have been transformed into manga-tastic superheroes. Dess is a mathy warrior goddess. Melissa and Rex are brooding goth magicians. Jonathan hovers a bit out of the group, a sly smirk on his face. And Jessica really looks very 11:59, from a different world than the rest of them. And yet she’s still totally cool—her flashlight like a rock star’s microphone in her hand.
Even the details are delicious:
Rex’s book is full of black post-its. (Where do you get those? I need them.)
Acariciandote sparkles on Jess’s wrist.
Jonathan’s t-shirt has a corporate-logo version of the acrobat sign on it.
Dess has pi on her t-shirt!
Go here to check out Shira-chan’s Deviant Art page, where many other fabulous pieces (and a slightly larger version of this one) can be found.
In Other News:
1) Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, as mentioned here, can be downloaded for free now. Cory does this with all his books, so you taste before you buy, or just read the whole thing for free.
I’ve been meaning to blog about Maureen Johnson’s new book, Suite Scarlett, which came out last week.
The book is set in a Manhattan hotel owned by a somewhat dysfunctional family. The hotel’s glory days are long over, so all the kids have to work there—including Scarlett, the 15-year-old protagonist.
The funny begins to roll when a wealthy (and strange) guest checks in for the whole summer and decides to make Scarlett her personal assistant. Then she decides to put on an off-Broadway show.
Now, those of you who’ve read Maureen will know that she is the master of many flavors of comedy. She can do dry-witted, surreal, and screwball in the same paragraph. Like this scene in which the wealthy guest, Mrs. Anderson, joins the family for dinner:
“I’m not late, am I?” Mrs. Amberson said with a smile. “I lose track of time when I’m meditating.”
Her face was tautly stretched into a smile that didn’t seem entirely sane to Scarlett. It wobbled just a bit at the corners. Also, she was carrying what appeared to be a dead ferret in her fist.
“No,” Scarlett’s dad said, obviously trying not to look at the dead animal. “Right on time. Please, sit down.”
The addition of Mrs. Amberson and her dead ferret to the mix was not something Scarlett had anticipated. She sat down quickly to steady herself, and Mrs. Amberson planted herself right next to her, slinging the ferret around the back of her neck in a swoop that grazed Scarlett’s ear.
“I hope you don’t mind this,” she said, flicking the thing with her finger. “It’s a vintage piece I converted into a bead cushion imbued with essential revitalizing oils. I call him Charlie.
So the ferret had a name. Even better.
That last line captures Scarlett’s dry fatalism perfectly. Life is just so weird. And the cool thing is, it turns out that Maureen’s life is weird too, as you can see in this post on John Scalzi’s blog. (Scalzi has been all about YA for several days now.)
There’s an interesting wave of discussions going on right now about YA sections of bookstores. Do adults read YA? Should they feel dorky for doing so? When shopping for YA, should they bring a teenager along to make them less conspicuous?
The discussion was started by Cory Doctorow, whose new book was mentioned in my previous post. He’s telling his adult science fiction fans where to find Little Brother, and about how many other awesome books there are in the “undiscovered” YA section.
Of course, as the folks watching Christopher Columbus sail in must have thought, being “undiscovered” is relative. And John Scalzi responds on that point, noting that YA (especially science fiction and fantasy) is actually much healthier than adult fiction in the sense of sales, cover designs, writing, and general vitality. YA has been well and truly discovered by readers, publishing houses, etc. It’s just that some adult fans of sf/fantasy don’t know that much about the new wave of awesomeness.
Here’s John’s post: “Why YA” (in which he says many appallingly nice things about me).
Mind you, the best part of these two posts are the comment threads, which consist largely of adults saying, “ZOMG, have you discovered this YA author yet?” to each other. Granted, they’re mostly talking about stuff that you guys already know about. But it’s always exciting to see new people getting enthused about the coolness of our world.
And for added amusement, you also get a few, “But I read adult books as a kid. Surely I am too mature to read teen books as an adult!” As if you guys don’t also read adult books. I mean, sheesh.*
A related amusing thread in these comments is how many adults are scared of going into the YA section. Like, they’ll be laughed at or arrested or something.
Anyway, it’s always interesting to see how others see us.
____________
*The “I’m too mature to read YA” assertion reminds me of a guy I met at a party a few years ago. Upon finding out that I write novels, he said, “Oh, I only read non-fiction. Because that way I’m learning something.”
Now, there are many ways to skewer this position, but I figured the simplest was to say, “So you must watch only documentaries, and never movies with a story.”
He sputtered a bit and said, “Well, no. I don’t just watch documentaries. But movies are entertainment.”
Even as he said this, his expression showed that he got my point. Saying that he read only non-fiction was meant to make him sound smarter. But what it really suggested was that he saw reading as work. Sort of like medicine, reading wasn’t supposed to be pleasant, but to improve him. And what did it say about him that reading was work and watching a movie wasn’t?
Now, obviously, lots of very smart people read mostly or only non-fiction. (This is a golden age of narrative non-fic and science writing, for one thing.) But the smart ones never declaim that it’s better for them, just that they like it more.
Not reading/watching/listening to whole genres on principle is rarely a good look.
Hey, all. Justine and I are fresh off the boat back from Europe. Our Atlantic crossing was wild and wonderful (force 11 winds! tuxedo wearing!), but I’m so far behind blogging-wise that tales of the sea will have to wait.
There are Zeppelin rides to blog, after all. And before I can get to that, a bunch of awesome new books are coming out that simply must be mentioned. The first of these hit the shelves yesterday, Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother . . .
As you can see from the blurb above, I called this book a “rousing tale of techno-geek rebellion.” It’s set about five minutes in the future, and follows a group of computer-savvy teens taking on Homeland Security after it seriously steps on their toes. (It’s Little Brother versus Big Brother, you see.)
But the maybe best way to describe it to you guys is this: It’s the closest thing imaginable to a rebellion like Uglies, if such a thing happened right now. That is, young people with the right combination of technology and courage and sheer cussedness pushing back against the Authorities-That-Be. And you know what? That’s a pretty cool thing to be written at this point in our nation’s history.
Plus, you’ll learn zillions of anti-surveillance tricks for use at home and school.
For more, Cory and John Scalzi (who has another cool YA novel coming in August), discuss their books here:
So here is my long-delayed post on the Leviathan-researching Zeppelin ride.
To ride a Zeppelin, one must travel to Friedrichshafen, Germany. That’s the very town where Count Ferdinand Zeppelin set up shop about 100 years ago, having decided to blow his retirement fund on building giant airships full of hydrogen. (Coincidentally, this is what I plan to do with my retirement fund.) As you saw from two posts ago, this town is Zeppelin-themed to the max. The museum there is amazing, and I took loads of photos for the artist I’m working with on Leviathan, but let’s skip that and go straight to the Zeppelin ride.
The day started with a wake-up call from Zeppelin HQ. The weather was crappy, so they’d canceled our flight (heart stops in chest) but were putting us on an earlier one (heart restarts).
We only had a few hours to have breakfast and attack the Zeppelin Museum before showing up at the airfield.
Of course, the moment our taxi came within sight of the hangar, I started geeking out, and thus many photos were taken:
This hangar is big, by the way. The Zeppelin itself is 75 meters (240 feet) long. That’s less than a third of old-school Zeps like the Hindenburg or Graf Zeppelin, but the hangar is still an impressive sight.
As we drew nearer, every little sign made me happy:
Zeppelin Fluge! I’m about to fluge in a frickin’ Zeppelin!
The place where you wait for your flight is a sort of tent-like temp building with a cafe inside:
It was far superior to the average airport lounge, I assure you. For one thing, the outside cafe had a view of the giant doors of the Zeppelin hangar:
Perhaps I will move ahead, skipping past the next roughly twelve hundred photos to the part where we see the actual ZEPPELIN.
But first: they gave us a quick wave of a metal-detecting wand for regulations’ sake. (You know, in case one of us were to hijack the Zeppelin with, say, our fingernail clippers and fly it—oh, so slowly—into a crowd of innocent people where its deadly load of the dreaded element helium would make them all talk funny . . . um, you get the idea.) Then we had a quick run-down on safety procedures; as the only English speakers, Justine and I had a private session.
Finally, we were taken out onto the airfield to await the return of the airship from its previous flight . . .
Wait! Look!
Yes, that’s it. Circling around to land straight into the wind. (And no, those cranes are not Zeppelin-related. They just made a nice composition.)
In this next shot you can see how small the gondola is compared to the rest of the ship. That’s the thing about Zeppelins: it takes lots of helium, or hydrogen, to lift one person. So, yes, those kids’ books in which handfuls of toy balloons lift people off their feet? Damnable lies!
This 75-meter Zep carries only 12 people—plus the flight gear, engines, and fuel, of course.
As it comes in quite close, check out the tilt rotors on the side. Those two engines (and two more at the rear) can angle in whatever direction the pilot wants.
Here, as you can see, they’re tilted up to slow the airship’s descent:
Then the airship “landed,” sort of. Being aerostatic (the same density as the air around it) a Zeppelin never really settles on the ground. It just bounces to a stop on its single wheel, balancing there and pirouetting with the wind like some graceful, ballet-loving whale.
To keep it steady, one guy holds a rope hanging from its front end.
(Yes, that’s a really short movie. But I’m in a hotel room where the internets are slow.)
At this point, they asked me to please put my camera away and maybe pay attention, because we were about to board. Switching out passengers is a bit tricky, because you have to keep the airship aerostatic. So the de-Zepping passengers can’t just walk off all at once. For every two people who get off, two have to get on, keeping the weight the same throughout the procedure.
So no more pictures for, like, sixty seconds, until we were aboard.
Here’s what it looks like from the inside:
I’m in the last row, so that’s about everyone: ten passengers and two flight crew. (The woman standing was both tour guide and co-pilot.) Every seat is an aisle and a window seat, and those windows are huge. Basically, you’re flying in a big wrap-around picture window, which bubbles out so you can look straight down if you want to:
By the way, we’re flying over Lake Constance, between Germany and Switzerland.
Here’s the Zeppelin’s flight control panel, covered with what are technically known as das blinken-lightz:
Love that little Zep silhouette at the bottom. This control panel would totally pass muster in a James Bond movie.
Okay, so I have to pause in the blogging now. I’ll be showing you more of this flight later, revealing the many wonders seen from the air (not to mention the cool landing protocols). But uploading all this stuff on hotel wi-fi is, like, a total waste of Paris-time.
So one more aerial vista, and I’m out of here:
Beautiful, yes? But rest assured, the best is yet to come . . .
More about my Zeppelin ride soon-ish. But in the meantime, I have an important announcement. Although there are no novels by me out this year (for the first time since 2002!) I will have many stories published in 2008. Yes, old-fashioned short stories, the backbone of literature!
This is weird for me, because when I was young, I could never write short stories. Just as some people can run marathons in record time but suck at sprinting, I thought I was designed only for the long haul of novels. And yet over the course of writing fifteen novels, I have somehow learned how to construct a decent story.
So 2008 is the Year of the Short Story, as far as I’m concerned.
The first of these stories is in an anthology called The Starry Rift, which just came out today. This book is mighty star-studded. It has stories by Garth Nix, Margo Lanagan, Cory Doctorow, Neil Gaiman, Gwyneth Jones, and many others. It’s such a vasty book that it has its own blog! You’ll find free samples and downloads aplenty there, along with interviews from several of the authors.
My story in this collection has the unlikely title “Ass-Hat Magic Spider.” I won’t tell you much about it except that the title makes perfect sense, and it’s a real tear-jerker.
Oh, there is much to write about Z-Day. (No, not z as in Zombies, z as in Zeppelin!)
I have many pix from the Zeppelin Museum, and from our flight today. But posting it all will take a while.
So let me take you back to yesterday, when we arrived in Friedrichshafen, the home of all things Zeppelin. As I’d hoped, it is a very themed town—they know what we Z-geek tourists want to see!
Like, here’s the big fountain in town . . .
Um, what is that cherub holding? Could it be a . . .
Yes! First Zeppelin sighting! But there were many more to come. A Zeppelin Hotel, a Zeppelin restaurant (very cool inside), and even “Graf Zeppelin” coffee. But my favorite Z-object was this awesome playground toy:
I wish I had the bandwidth to upload all my pictures from around town. But it is almost sleep-time here in Germany, and the hotel internets are slow. (Worst. Aspect. Of. Traveling.)
Next I’ll post some pictures from the Zeppelin Museum, and then many pictures and movies from our flight today.
But just to whet your appetites, here’s one of me in the rear window of the actual airship. Just click on the picture to see my terribly smug face in full size.
So my job for the last week has been to take pictures of places where Leviathan is set. Namely, towns in the old Austria-Hungarian Empire and glacial landscapes in the Alps.
Between this photo-taking and pitching my books at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, there hasn’t been much time to blog. Or even to think of what to blog. But here’s something to gnaw on. Here are my research photos for the illustrator of Leviathan (who shall remain nameless until the official announcement, which is soon).
I post them here for all to see, and to imagine what stories shall occur in these places.
Also, I would like to thank skiers everywhere for providing an economic incentive for the creation of low-level fly-overs of the Alps in relative safety. What did authors do before ski-lifts? Walk everywhere?
Hey, all. This is probably the longest I’ve gone without blogging, for which you have my abject apologies. Travel makes the internets hard.
As I’ve said, I’m on a research tour for Leviathan, checking out all the European locations for the novel and, of course, the Zeppelin hangars of Friedrichshafen, Germany. (We’re not there yet, but you’ll be seeing those in later posts.)
My first trick was seeing the Alps from above, straight from the plane on the way to Rome:
Awesome mountains. I’m so glad I set part of Leviathan here.
In Rome, I finished the Uglies Guide. (Look for that this fall.)
Then we flew to London for a mini-tour of England. Thanks to everyone who warmly welcomed us there, and asked such interesting questions. My favorite: “Did writing Uglies make you see people differently?” Still mulling that one.
Right now, Justine, Holly Black, Maureen Johnson, Cassandra Clare, and I are all ensconced in a 17th-century tower in Bologna, Italy. We’re attending the annual Children’s Book Fair here, where publishers from many lands come to sell and buy translation rights for teen and kid books.
So far I’ve met with publishers from France, Israel, Holland, Germany, Australia, and the UK, some by chance and some by design. Brazil and Thailand are tomorrow. It’s a great way to meet a lot of the far-flung publishing world, and to find out weird stuff about how teens in different places read. Here are a few factoids:
Germany loves fantasy. The magicker the better, so say the Germans.
Holland doesn’t like fantasy or science fiction, but Maureen Johnson rules there.
Manga is so huge in Italy that there’s a teen imprint named after a manga character. Ugies is a monster hit in France.
Another cool thing about Bologna is seeing all the art. One of my favorite traditions is the huge bulletin board where hopeful young illustrators pin up their work for publishers to look at:
This photo shows just a tiny fraction of the art here, of course. There are any huge aircraft-hangar sized spaces fool of books and art. It’s an awesome display of creativity.
Less uplifting is the vast Hall of Agents, where agents sit at tiny desks pitching books to possible buyers all day long. My hats off to those who toil in the mighty foreign rights mines:
Anyway, enough of the business end of things. On Friday, the research tour moves into the Tyrolean mountains, and a week later into the Zeppelin hangars of Friedrichshafen!
Here at Casa Larbfeld, we’ve been working hard on our upcoming tour of Europe. There are three main parts to the tour:
1) Leviathan research (Alps and airships)
2) The Bologna Children’s Book Fair (foreign sales and farfalla)
3) The launch of Extras in the United Kingdom! (at long last)
Obviously, I’ll be blogging as we travel. But here’s a heads up for those of you in the UK—next week I’ll be doing a couple of appearances in and around London:
Tuesday, 25 March
3PM Waterstone’s Harrods
Children’s Book Department
Harrods, 87 Brompton Road London SW1X 7XL
on the 4th floor
Further details: 0207 730 1234
Wednesday, March 26
5PM – 7PM
The Gloucester Room
Redbridge Central Library
Clements Road
Ilford
Essex IG1 1EA Tel: 0208 708 2423/4
Contact: Vivian Archer
T: 020 8552 9993
E: info@newhambooks.co.uk
Sponsored by Ilford Libraries in conjunction with Newham Bookshop
There may be one more, at Forbidden Planet in London. Let’s hope so.
