I was listening to the radio the other day, and they were very sternly reporting on drug violations at the Olympics, and how the Russian world-record holder in short-distance running might have to return her medal for using performance enhancing drugs.

My reaction? GO TEAM CYBORG!

This is my reaction to a lot of things. As a child of science fiction, hungrily devouring every story about what humans could be, I don’t worry too much about a lot of the things that seem to get the world all het up. I was prepared for the internet long before it showed up in my dad’s house because I read William Gibson and Vernor Vinge and I knew what to do with a Worldnet when I got one: jump into it with love, devotion, and both feet. And, you know, use it to watch porn.

SF raised me, and I think it did a damn fine job. It at least removed a lot of potential sources of anxiety.

I think all athletes should be able to take drugs if they want to, and also have cybernetic enhancements. They should be able to change and use their body however they like, to whatever extreme–let’s mod this fucker and see what it can really do!

I don’t worry too much about bio-proteins grown in vats. Yes, it will taste like crap. Everything in the future tastes like crap! It’s how you know you’re in the future! If it’s not grey and amporphous and vaguely morally alarming, it doesn’t belong in your face.

I don’t worry about stem-cell research. Yes, the government will try to stop it. They will fail. Yes, we will end up a race of mutants who have forgotten what it’s like to be human. It’s gonna be awesome! I’m gonna get a tail, and regenerating limbs, and gills. And all kinds of vibrating attachments so I can finally obey my spam and GIVE HER WHAT SHE WANTS. I can’t wait!

I don’t worry that machines will replace man–they totally will. I for one…you know the drill. We are going to be living down and dirty and close with garage-level AI and it is going to be so fabulous I can’t even tell you. Yes, they will probably imprison us and use us for fuel/fodder/whatever. They’ll get over it. Kids are like that. What did you do in the backyard when no one was looking when you were a kid? You just wait, we’re gonna be playing doctor with the robots in no time.

I don’t worry too much about the growing dystopian fascism, either. Yes, the government does listen to everything. Of course they do! I mean, come on. It’s kind of funny. It’s as if our government read all the dystopian SF ever and said to themselves: “These are fantastic ideas! Who can we get to implement these?” But! I’ve read the same books. Therefore, I know that dystopia is survivable and temporary, especially if run by a repressive religious nut, that there is always an underground, that Shakespeare can save me, that the human soul is essentially untouchable, and that if you can say one thing for oppressive dystopias, it’s that they usually have some pretty bitchin’ drugs.

I don’t worry about drugs. Hack your body, kids. Just learn to recognize malware.

I don’t worry about global warming. Yes, we will probably be forced to live underground and slowly forget that there ever was a surface world. We will be nameless cogs in a post-industrial nightmare. But the point is I’m ready for that. I have an awesome dog, after all. And free love in the bowels of the earth will probably make up lack of vitamin D, and the architecture down there is worth the trip alone. We’ll come out again, we always do.

Because really, what SF taught me was that we will always survive. There is nothing which is not survivable, nothing to which I, 21st century human female, cannot adapt. There is nothing in which I cannot find beauty, joy, rapture. The world will always change. I will always change. It’s ok.

Science fiction will save us.

While Jeff is at the Shared Worlds Camp, I have had the pleasure of checking the mail each day (btw - he’s having a blast at camp and just spent the last few days with guest writer/lecturer Ekaterina Sedia).  Here is a photo of all books received this week - above - some for review and others just because…

And I also am excited to present the working cover for Best American Fantasy.  ARCs will be out very shortly and the actual book is scheduled for a  November release.  Here’s the cover:

In other news, the next issue of Weird Tales is about to hit newsstands any day now.   Lots of good stuff in there, including fiction from Norman Spinrad, Karen Heuler, Nick Mamatas, Kelly Barnhill and others as well as an interview with Mike Mignola by Elizabeth Genco, Lost in Lovecraft and other Weirdisms.  Check it out.

More photos after the cut and a bit of help from Jackson….

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Last night I did a reading at The Depot in Mill Valley, CA. Five minutes before the reading was scheduled to begin, there were only three people in the room, all of whom I knew.

Then a gentleman wandered in, very tall and broad, dressed in a motorcycle jacket. Because readings always breed in me a certain brand of desperation, I walked up to him and said, “Are you here for the reading?” He looked confused for a moment, then told me he wasn’t, at which point I sort of jokingly begged him to stay. One wants to fill the seats, of course, even at the price of one’s own dignity.

By the time we began we were up to ten or eleven. Much to my surprise, the stranger in the motorcycle jacket was among them. Because of the small group I decided to forgo the formality of the podium and sound system and do the reading sitting down. It happened that the person sitting closest to me was motorcycle man, and I quickly realized how awkward it is to read to another grown-up face to face, so close one’s knees could almost touch. It’s very intimate, uncomfortably so, more like a date than a reading. In this case it felt like a first date, the kind where you’re hoping you don’t say the wrong thing, and I could feel myself blushing as I read the scene in which the narrator encounters someone in a café in a foreign place and realizes that she knows him, or has known him, although she can’t place the context: “The thought crossed my mind that I might have slept with him. There had been a period following my sister’s death when I slept with many men.”

I worried for the gentleman in the motorcycle jacket, whom I had accosted, and to whom now I felt I had exposed myself completely. After all, there is always some element of truth in the fiction. (more…)

(The books I picked up this morning from Paperback Rack, here in Tallahassee, Florida)

One last post before going away…

Remember when you used to buy out-of-print paperbacks and regift them because you loved a writer so much you wanted to share? It might not take much time to remember, because for some of us did that as recently as yesterday.

So here’s an idea–this week, celebrate Disch’s fiction and his life by buying his books. Make a pilgrimmage to a bookstore, buy whatever editions you find there, and either read them if you haven’t encountered Disch’s work before, or pass them on to someone you think might enjoy them. If you have the time, post a photo of the books you bought, and then post a link to your blog post on the last entry on Disch’s blog. It’s a little like laying flowers on a gravestone. A sign of respect and appreciation.

The best of a writer is often in their books, and it seems to me this is a good way to remember Disch. Something is not right about his death seemingly being absent from major wire service reports and other national media.

I’ve been thinking over the past couple of days about the evolving nature of the internet and how that relates to writers and writing. Here are a few guidelines I think make a lot of sense for writers. I am sure someone somewhere has already codified all of this, but it’s important to me to state it for myself, and to remember how I want to strive to conduct my own communications.

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(John Twelve Hawks [?] letter makes my Bulletin Board of the Miscellaneous)

Well, actually, I write now not to damn John Twelve Hawks, but to praise him. Some amongst you may remember that this past week I down-graded John Twelve Hawks to Eleven Turkeys and then, eventually One Sparrow–because of his reluctance to shed his pen name and come forth into the light.

Now, I have received the following missive, supposedly from John Twelve Hawks, and I find that, assuming the letter is indeed from him, I must praise him unreservedly for having a great and devious sense of humor.

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The New York Times Papercuts Blog has posted a list with notes of the music Ann and I have been listening to recently. Everything from Ray Davies* to Willard Grant to The New Pornographers to Supersystem. Check it out.

What’ve you been listening to? And why do you like it or hate it? What’s the soundtrack to your life right now?

*JB’s gonna hate that one.

These old Indian comics were one of the three pillars of my childhood reading, the other two being Tintin and Asterix & Obelix. We lived in the Fiji Islands, which had a large Indian population. I’d buy these from the corner Chinese grocery store, about a quarter-mile from the beach. At least, that’s my recollection. It’s also possible we bought some of them in India. Most are based on famous historical figures or on Hindu or Buddhist religious stories. Some of the interior art is not of as high quality, but the covers are great. I’m turning 40 next week and have been indulging myself by going through some childhood favorites.

Here are some more images and details of interiors.

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I’ve just posted my latest Pop Culture Report both here and on Amazon’s book blog, Omnivoracious. For those who haven’t seen the others, it’s a DIY come-into-my-house-and-look-at-some-recent-cool books kinda thing. Check out the version on Amazon, where I’ve posted links to all of the books mentioned in the report.

Feel free to embed the video on your own blog or site with your own comments about the books I’ve reviewed. And let me know here what you think, too. The more attention these video features get, the more able I am to continue doing them. (Small apology this time around: a lightning strike or two during the filming caused a couple of hiccups.)

Here’s the direct link to it on YouTube.

Here.

And here.

Here, too.

Er, with comments.

Just to preserve it on the new blog. I think most of you have seen these already?