So I’m in Houston, Texas right now for a big ol’ reunion of my wife’s family. Somewhere around 30 people in all whose political views span the spectrum between rabid leftists and rabid rightists. Actually, that’s incorrect. There really is no spanning of the spectrum; just a bunch of folks hanging out on each end of it firing dirty looks across the divide. I have little hope that there might be intelligent discussion about the coming 2008 presidential elections because, you know, they’re all still trying to hash out the Vietnam War.
This means I probably won’t be blogging again until the new year. So here are a few end-of-the-year tidbits to keep you occupied:
I am now the proud owner of a Blu-Ray player. Why Blu-Ray and not HD-DVD? It was a gift, and the gift-giver’s rationale went something like this: Dave loves Pixar movies. Pixar movies are currently only being released on Blu-Ray. Ergo, Dave would prefer a Blu-Ray player. Honestly, it’s not a bad bit of reasoning, and it resulted in me watching 2001 in high-def at blistering volumes on Tuesday night.
I’ve written a new introduction to Mervyn Peake’s Titus Alone. I was pleased to be asked to write an introduction for the new U.S. edition of Mervyn Peake’s last Gormenghast novel, Titus Alone. I’m quite honored to be associated with the late, great Peake in even this small capacity, and especially honored considering Tad Williams was the guy they asked to write the introduction for Peake’s second Gormenghast novel. Overlook Press told me I could post the introduction here on the blog when the book comes out — Amazon says March 25, 2008 — but in the meantime you can read my previous blog pieces about Peake’s Gormenghast novels here and here.
Reading at the Library of Congress. I’m scheduled to do a reading on February 21 at the U.S. Library of Congress in downtown Washington, D.C. in late February. This is part of their ongoing “What If… Fantasy and Science Fiction Forum,” co-chaired by the marvelous Colleen Cahill, with whom I’ve shared a number of con panels recently. Since Solaris Books’ anthology The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume 2 is scheduled to hit the streets right around that time, I’m going to be reading my short story from that book, “Mathralon.” And, time permitting, a chapter from MultiReal.
Buy The Kept Man by Jami Attenberg. A fellow student of the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars department, Jami Attenberg, has just released her debut novel, The Kept Man. Jami and I were in a number of writing classes together at Johns Hopkins, and since there’s a remote possibility she still has some of my horrible college stories buried in a trunk somewhere, I figure pimping her book is a good insurance policy. (You might also be inclined to buy it because it’s gotten excellent reviews from People, Interview, and Kirkus Reviews. Interview called it “a challenge to apathy”! That’s awesome.) (Go visit Jami’s website too while you’re at it.)
I’ve finished William Gibson’s Spook Country. If I get ambitious in the next few days, I might post a review of the book. All I can say is that Spook Country cements Gibson’s status as one of the greatest living English-language novelists — and he does that by, like, page 30.
My Return of the King piece has been seriously Stumbled. I’m not sure how in the heck these things happen. But after I just installed Google Analytics on my web server, I noticed that suddenly my blog piece “Revisiting Middle Earth: The Return of the King” has been getting thousands of visitors per day from StumbleUpon. I’m too lazy to link to all of my “Revisiting Middle Earth” pieces here, but you can find them pretty easily yourself by clicking in that search box in the top right and typing “Revisiting Middle Earth.”