Year: 2012

Shared Worlds Workshop

Posted on by scott

I recently contributed to a cool fundraising effort for Shared Worlds, a teen fantasy and science fiction writing camp in South Carolina.

Artist Jeremy Zerfoss created a tableaux of fanciful monsters, and each writer chose one to write a short description about.

Click here to see the full-size work, and click on any monster for its description. See if you can find mine!

From that page, you can donate to Shared Worlds or register if you think attending would be fun. It’s open to 8th through 12th Graders.

Here’s the press release from Shared Worlds:

Neil Gaiman, Lev Grossman, Scott Westerfeld, and thirty-seven more of the most imaginative writers from around the world have contributed to Shared Worlds’ “Critter Map,” a webpage of fantastical beasts. Their whimsical descriptions of imaginary creatures created by pop artist Jeremy Zerfoss are in support of the Shared Worlds registration and fund drive for 2012. Every summer up to 50 teen writers come to Shared Worlds SF/F Teen Writing Camp at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, from as far away Japan to participate in this unique camp. This year, registrants include teens from all parts of the United States as well as Germany and Indonesia. Wofford College provides a structured, supervised environment in which the students can excel and demonstrate their creativity.

At Shared Worlds, the students form teams in classrooms to build entire fantasy or science fictional worlds in the first week and then write stories in those worlds the second week. Top professional writers are on hand to provide feedback and to conduct workshops. The guest writers for the 2012 include New York Times bestsellers Julianna Baggott, Naomi Novik, and Tobias Buckell as well as Prix Award Winner Karin Lowachee and Hugo Award winner Ann VanderMeer. The teens also get to attend author readings, take fieldtrips to bookstores, and create videos about their imaginary worlds. Shared Worlds also publishes an annual book of the students’ writing.

“For many of our students, Shared Worlds is a transformational experience,” said the camp’s assistant director, fantasy writer Jeff VanderMeer. ”They not only learn more about writing, they also get to have fun solving problems in in the world-building groups, and they form what will probably turn out to be life-long friendships with like-minded teens.”

The “Critter Map” is the cornerstone of a donation drive intended to ensure that attending the Shared Worlds Teen Writing Camp can be a possibility for all registered students, no matter what their financial need.

Click here for more info about Shared Worlds.

Fan Art Friday (Actually on Friday Edition)

Posted on by scott

It’s Friday (in the US, anyway), which means it’s time for excuses about why I don’t have Fan Art Friday up yet. But this week I thought I’d do something different, and put up some fan art!

Let us start with this fantastic video by The10thDecision, which is a sort of greatest hits of Leviathan fan art—plus some I haven’t seen before.

I quite enjoyed that. It’s a lovely reminder of how talented and wonderful you all are!

This is a pretty cool picture from one of my favorite settings in the Leviathan series—the ratlines! It’s by leaffystar19.

It’s cool to see a super-dramatic event like this that’s non-canonical. Because, you know, Alek could have slipped and almost fallen at some point while he was first getting used to the ratlines, and it wasn’t even worth mentioning in the novels.

Here’s a very . . . interesting picture of Volger from aieeetheygotfrank, who explains:

I’m not really used to drawing Volger, and there’s something very off about this… I think it’s because of the hair, but that’s the whole point of this so I don’t really know, lol. So anyway, this is kind of if Volger like lost his hair in the war or I don’t know? Like he had his scalp blown off? And now he has to wear a duck to cover it up? I don’t know? Question mark?

So I give you, Duck-Head Volger!

Can Duck-Head Volger fan fiction be far behind? (Thanks to our own Tobu for suggesting this.)

For you Uglies fans, here’s a cool Tally-wa triptych from totalimmortal220akasean:

These are pretty cool, especially because they remind me of the German covers of the Uglies trilogy, which looked like this:

See what I mean? Kind of like dolls, in the scary-doll sense.

And finally, here’s the obligatory Goliath Bonus Chapter fan art of the week, “Lad in a Dress,” from Caroline:

Alek has a sort of “Does this bustle make my butt look big?” vibe here. (YES, ALEK, IT DOES.)

Okay, that’s it for FAF. See you next Friday!

In the middle of next week, I’ll be revealing Dr. Cable from Uglies: Shay’s Story, aka the Uglies manga. I’m sure you’ll be TERRIFIED of her.

In the meantime, keep the fan art coming.

David Revealed

Posted on by scott

The voting for the next character reveal has swayed back and forth for the last week. It’s been so tight between David and Dr. Cable that I’m not even going to count the votes. I shall declare David the winner, and reveal Dr. Cable next week.

So without further ado, here is David:

Wouldn’t you love to see that dialog box on the left side? WOULDN’T YOU? Well, you’re not going to, because that would be wrong.

Shay’s Story begins about six months before Uglies, back when Shay and Zane are pals in an ugly gang known as the Crims. And, as related in the novels, Shay and Zane were going to run away to the Smoke with David’s help, but they “chickened out.” At least that’s what they told Tally.

Of course, the stories we tell about uncomfortable events in the past are often oversimplified. So I decided to come up with a more interesting reason for them to bail, resulting in Zane becoming pretty and Shay moping around until she meets Tally.

I won’t reveal here what really happened, but I can say without spoilage that Shay and David do spend a certain amount of time arguing . . .

Of course, as we all know from the novels, they do get together later in the Smoke.

There’s also some cavorting on the roller coaster . . .

One thing I liked about writing Shay’s Story (with Devin Grayson) was revisiting key locales from the original novels, like the roller coaster. Especially since we get to SEE them now. I love the way that artist Steven Cummings has made the Rusty Ruins come alive. (Well, it’s kind of dead. But you know what I mean.) In fact, I think I’ll do a whole reveal just for the Ruins.

Anyway, that’s it for this reveal. Next week it’s the deliciously evil Dr. Cable!

You can pre-order Shay’s Story at Indie Bound, BarnesandNoble.com, or Amazon. Or buy it on March 6 at a proper bookstore.

Fan Art Friday (Actual Friday Edition!)

Posted on by scott

So David and Dr. Cable are pretty much tied in the voting for next week’s character reveal, and I’m missing some final images for them, so I thought I’d do an actual Fan Art Friday while the election continues!

Without further ado . . .

Here are three pieces from kikane on DeviantArt, showing Deryn and Alek in a semi-chibi mode:

They are so sweet! And I love all version of chibi-flying-whale.

From Savannah comes the unlikely genre of Legend Zelda/Goliath crossover!

I kind of like steampunk in its cute-comic form.

From Abigail, another in the new genre of Goliath Bonus Chapter art, aka Alek in a dress!

Of course, if they’re going up to Scotland to visit Deryn’s mom one day, we might get something like this scene from from Camille, featuring Deryn and Alek in kilts:

And here’s some cross-dressing cosplay from Lauren:

And from McKenna, a drawing of Deryn on a Huxley, looking down at the ground with a pensive expression:

From Ashley-wa, an entry into the classic put-yourself-in-the-ugies-cover genre:

And from Sophie, an Uglies cover collage:

I also got a huge PDF of Clanker and Darwinist designs from a class in Edwards, Colorado. Here’s one of them by “BBA”:

I’ll be featuring more of these works in future FAFs.

And finally, I don’t know who this is from. Identify yourself!

Okay, that’s it for today’s FAF.

Don’t forget to keep voting between David and Dr. Cable, and remember that Shay’s Story now comes out March 6. That’s in

Everything Is Late

Posted on by scott

Fan Art Friday is super late now, so I’m just waiting till . . . Friday. #isuck

But as you can see, I’ve made up for it below.

But first, shall we vote on the next character reveal? Here are your choices:

David
Astrix
Ho
Ryde
Dr. Cable
Random Special

Hmm. This one might be a bit easy. In any case, use this comments thread to vote, argue, and otherwise inveigle!

In the meantime, please enjoy this entire PAGE of art from Shay’s Story. It’s from early in the books, when Shay, Zane, and the other Crims are sneaking into New Pretty Town.

But what you really want to see is the BIGGER and ZOOMABLE version!
So click here for that.

And now to repeat the annoying news: The release date for Shay’s Story has been delayed a week due to paper shortages. (Because we decided to make it bigger, so you can see all the art better!) It now comes out March 6, 2012.

Pre-order Shay’s Story at Indie Bound, BarnesandNoble.com, or Amazon. Or buy it on March 6 at a proper bookstore.

Tally Revealed!

Posted on by scott

I was all ready to reveal the manga version of Tally this week, and then realized that I didn’t have the final versions of the right pages. Oops. Then there was a bit of miscommunication, but now at last I have them!

So we are delaying Fan Art Friday (often known as Fan Art Sunday) for the Tally character reveal.

Remember that Shay’s Story (AKA “The Uglies Manga”) is all from Shay’s POV, and therefore starts about six months before the events of Uglies, back when Shay and Zane are pals. So Tally doesn’t enter until Zane and Shay have planned to run away and then “chickened out.” (That’s what they told Tally in Pretties, but it’s more complicated than that in reality.)

But when Tally appears, we are fully into the same events as Uglies, so some of the scenes below will be familiar. It’s kind of interesting, duplicating some Uglies scenes almost exactly, but in an entirely new context and from a different point of view.

Of course, there are some times when Devin and I decided to skip over a lot of the scenes in Uglies, using the wonder of montage! You may recognize these flashes from the book, when Tally and Shay are getting to be friends.

Here’s a close-up of a familiar scene in Uglies that gets swept past in this montage:

This scene is also directly from the book, but here only lasts one frame. It’s quite illuminating to see Steven’s vision of it:

What’s interesting is, when you read the book, Tally is the protagonist and is therefore the center of attention in this scene. But in the version above, you can see that Shay is the featured character. She’s literally foregrounded.

And finally, here’s an argument between Tally and Shay at a certain key point in the story:

Click here for a bigger version of this one.

The dialog is directly from the book, but as you can see, Tally has her back to us and we see Shay’s expression.

I didn’t realize any of this (at least, the visual aspect of it) until I started to look for shots of Tally, and realized that there were very few of her. Most of the time, she’s in the background and Shay’s doing something. Because the comic is all about Shay.

But there is a great shot of Tally from near the end of the book, when they’re in the Smoke. So here’s frizzy-haired, not very confident, under-suspicion Tally:

Hope you like her.

Fan Art Friday (For Realz)

Posted on by scott

Okay, it’s time to get rid of our protest-y black boxes, and check out the real version of FAF. My apologies for making you wait!

Here’s CatieKay’s rendition of a CERTAIN SCENE from Goliath.

Super atmospheric, with lightning! For some reason, the katakana in the lower left is defeating me. Can anybody translate? (Ka-i-ri-so? My Japanese sucks these days.)

And from Unforgiven-Unloved, check out Alek’s expression. He is in LURVE.

And the last of the SOPA-edits is AvistheArtistGeek, with her Leviathan Xmas decorations. 3-D FAF!

Just imagine little wee Deryn climbing up a Christmas tree on the tinsel ratlines. SO MUCH KAWAII.

But wait. There’s more!

Here’s a cartoon from fellie220:

There’s just not enough marker in fan art! Love the lurid colors! (Love typing “lurid,” too.)

And here’s some bonus chapter fan art, from Melissa M:

Volger looks funnier in a lizard head than I imagined him. But of course, IT’S VOLGER IN A LIZARD HEAD. (Not to mention: TAZZA WITH A HALO!)

This one’s for all of you who want the Leviathan series updated to World War II. It’s also a fandom cross-over move, with Deryn and Alek in Hetalia mode. (Hetalia is a web-comic that anthropomorphizes the countries of WWII in comical and stereotypical fashion—and, as pointed out in the comics below, has been adapted into a manga and anime.)

Interestingly, it’s actually a collaboration between top-cap and magic-the-echidna, who did half each of the image. Click here for a larger version.

And from RakWel we have an Uglies cover redux!

Everything is very manga and Japanesque today, isn’t it?

And now for a vanishingly rare species: So Yesterday fan art!

Anybody remember the purple hand scene? ANYBODY? (Seriously, SO Yesterday is my book that the least people have read. GO FIX THAT.)

We’ve seen work from Art-Band Geek a few times here, but I thought this was a touching scene:

Dalek looks happy there. Happy Dalek is a good Dalek.

And finally here’s an alternate Clanker walker from Tyler:

It’s not from the books, but it totally has that clunky Clanker look.

That’s it! Don’t forget, there will be a reveal of Tally from Shay’s Story (aka the Uglies Manga) early next week. Like, Monday or Tuesday.

Also, some slightly annoying news: The release date for Shay’s Story has been delayed a week, due to paper shortages! But that’s only because the publisher wanted to make it bigger, so you can see all the lovely art.

It now comes out March 6, 2012.

Fan Art Friday (SOPA Edition)

Posted on by scott

In celebration of the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) currently being considered by the US Congress, this week’s Fan Art Friday will be 100% copyright compliant!

All SOPA-offending elements, such as the remixing and recasting of copyrighted characters and situations, have been censored for your viewing pleasure.

Let’s start with this lovely image by CatieKay:

Pretty sweet, huh? How about those two random people having a possibly intimate moment atop an entirely generic (and thus non-copyrightable) flying whale-beast! Sure, we can’t SEE what they’re doing as the lightning flashes, but at least no one’s interfering with my ability to generate income from this touching narrative moment.

And here’s a lovely piece of fan art from Unforgiven-Unloved:

This one’s very sweet, but of course it would be WRONG to let you see these characters drawn by anyone but Keith Thompson, the only registered and approved artist for the Leviathan series. The dialog is pretty cute too. But let’s face it, only I may legally put words into the mouths of Deryn and Alek.

And here’s some cool Xmas ornaments from AvistheArtistGeek:

Aww. Tiny Deryn and Alek getting ready to climb the ratlines of Avis’s Christmas tree! Too bad that these characters belong to me, and thus her entire Xmas is non-SOPA-compliant! I just hope she takes her decorations down before my lawyers get there.

Ahem.

Most of you have probably seen that Wikipedia is dark today, and that Google’s banner page is sad. In fact, a ton of sites on the interwebs are shrouded in various ways. This is, of course, to protest the SOPA and PIPA legislation being considered in the US Congress.

“But wait!” you may be asking. “Is SOPA really so evil?”

It’s supporters certainly don’t want you to think so. After all, the purpose of SOPA is to protect copyright laws, by which filmmakers, musicians, and novelists (and the corporations that publish them) make money from their work. And that’s me!

But as you may have noticed, the internet is a place in which copyright is treated in a rough-and-ready fashion. People gank photos without attribution, create fan fiction and art based on others’ work, and make lip-sync music videos without paying for the right to do so.

Gee, how horrible. All those babies dancing to “Single Ladies” FOR FREE.

The problem is that SOPA and PIPA are written only with us copyright owners in mind. The lobbyists who wrote these bills don’t care about the rest of you (us, actually, because we all re-mix culture).

Here’s one example: PIPA allows companies to sue websites for the crime of linking to other websites that infringe copyright. So if I link to Deviant Art, and someone on Deviant Art (say, jett-wolfe98) has ganked a photo and added Deryn and Alek to it, like so:

Then I can be sued! Not for the image of Alek and Deryn, but for the underlying photograph of the room, which is, after all, a copyrightable thing.

In other words, everyone on the web will become responsible for the behavior of all the sites they link to, always and forever. Deviant Art will be totally gone, as will everything else cool and interesting.

(By the way, if your fan art is here, don’t be sad! It will return in its non-censored glory on Friday. Sorry, guys, for using your lovely work to make a point!)

These bills are, of course, absurd at a legal level, and as a practical matter they are nothing less than an attack on the structure of the web, its complex web of links and connections, and upon the content of the web, with its rich culture of re-mixing and re-purposing copyrighted works, like the fan art and fan fiction that appears on this blog. For which, under SOPA, I could sue you guys and everyone who links to you IF I WERE A COLOSSAL ASS-HAT.

But in an effort to fight ass-hattery, I’m joining in this protest today. Not by blocking my site, but by offering you the above edition of Fan Art Friday that meets SOPA’s standards, with all the copyright-offending materials blacked out.*

Do you like this version of Fan Art Friday? Would you like everything on the internet to work this way? I think not.

Now, I will mention that President Obama has come out against SOPA/PIPA in its current form. That’s a good thing, but it never hurts to keep the pressure on. He will be president for, at most, five more years.

And throughout your lifetime, there will always be people who try to turn spaces of sharing and collaboration into places of buying, selling, and lawsuits. Stay ready to fight them, or you will leave your kids a world where most stuff sucks.

Click here to learn more about SOPA, or to contact your representatives in congress.

Non-SOPA/sucky Fan Art Friday will return on Friday, with the art above and more, uncensored. Like the internet should be.

*Yes, the legal status of fan art and fan fictions is complicated, but if SOPA passes, we’re heading toward a world where that status will probably become simpler, and not in a good way.

Alpha Taking Applications

Posted on by scott

Are you a young writer? Ever thought of going to writing boot camp?

If so, here’s quick word from my pals at the Alpha Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Worship for Young Writers:

“The Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers (ages 14-19) will be held July 18-27, 2012 in Pittsburgh, PA. At Alpha, students can meet others who share their interest in writing science fiction, fantasy, and horror. They can learn about writing and publishing from guest authors, including Tamora Pierce and Kij Johnson. Also, they will write and revise a short story during the workshop. Applications are due March 1, 2012.”

Click here to learn more and apply.

“Also, alumni of the workshop are raising money for the workshop’s scholarship fund, which assists Alpha students who need financial aid in order to attend. We have organized an auction, which begins today at noon, with items donated by authors and editors such as George R. R. Martin, Tamora Pierce, John Joseph Adams, Elizabeth Bear, Ellen Kushner, Theodora Goss, Karen Healey, and more. In addition, an anthology of flash fiction written and illustrated by Alpha alumni is available in return for donations of any amount. The auction will run January 13-20, with other donations welcome anytime.”

Click here for more on the auction.

Belated FAF

Posted on by scott

It’s Sunday afternoon here in Sydney, and late Saturday night in the US, which can only mean one thing:

Fan Art Friday!

Of course, I have an excuse for being slow, which is that I ended the week with a big reveal of Zane from Uglies: Shay’s Story, the graphic novel/manga version of how Shay met the original ugly Crims. (A lot of you thought Zane was insufficiently ugly. Of course, uglies in the Tally’s world aren’t really ugly, just normal. That is the point of the series, by the way!)

Ever since saying I was out of fan art, I’ve been deluged. So I won’t be posting it all here today. But don’t worry, if you’ve sent me something, it will show up one day soon.

Let us get started. Here are a couple of cool images from gorrin, who has a lovely pastelly style.

I love seeing the Leviathan in color, and roaring!

And here’s the rare pieces of fan art showing the steam-powered elephants of Istanbul! (Why aren’t more of you guys drawing them?)

I like these two Dalek drawings by Shirushi-sanbusaku. The first shows our pair looking a bit sozzled and having a dance:

And the other is, you know, what happens after the dance.

Note that Shirushi-sanbusaku also did Darwinist Rock on YouTube!

Here’s a piece that’s not really fan art. A fan of mine was at a show by his art teacher, John W. Bartlett, and found this drawing . . .

. . . and said, “Tazza!” and took a picture to send to me. Of course, it’s just your average thylacine, but we thought we’d show you it anyway. (With the permission of Mr. Bartlett, of course.) Tasmanian tigers are so distinctive, which is why so many of us wish they were still around.

Here’s a very cute cartoon from Levi, showing the airship/kappa/cruiser battle from Chapters 14-15 of Goliath:

I love the expression on the face of the Kaiserin Elizabeth, the Austrian cruiser. (That was a real ship, by the way.)

And here’s some more Dalek, by Carly, which shows Alek in some colorful clothes, for one. (Maybe once he’s no longer a prince, he can indulge his innate love of color!)

I quite like this Dalek pairing by TheLanguidClown:

And finally, for you My Little Pony fans, here’s a mix between Rainbow Dash and Deryn, by Agehachou. I’m not sure if this is a real reference to Deryn, or whether it’s just generic steampunk/My Little Pony crossover. (Because that happens all the time.)

Still, check it out:

Just noticed that this week’s FAF was all Leviathan. Does any Uglies fan art exist based on Steven Cumming’s drawings for Shay’s Story? If so, send it my way!

Okay, that’s it for the moment. There is more fan art in the shed, and it will be here in a week. (Less than that, really.)