Off The Pink

at 12:00 PM

Nothing particularly profound, but I just created a Facebook profile. Just as with the blogging, I'm a little late to the scene, I guess after you hit 40 it just takes a lot more frigging effort to be hip.

If you want to find me, just look for Steven Swiniarski. (As my friend Maureen pointed out, there aren't many people named that.)

at 7:24 PM

For those interested and in the area, I will be appearing with fellow Hamster Geoff Landis this Saturday, June 28th at the Mayfield Public Library (6080 Wilson Mills Rd, Mayfield, OH) from 2:30 to 4:30. Limited space, but it's free and you can find registration info here. For those of you looking on my shiny new Wordpress blog, this is what that calendar in the upper right is all about, go ahead, click on the red date, I dare you.

at 6:48 PM

I just got my contributor copy of Future Americas, the latest anthology by John Helfers and Martin H. Greenberg. My story within, "Family Photos," which I mentioned before, is probably one of the darkest things I've ever written in any genre. Dark enough that I still half believe that I scared away most of my writer's workshop when I ran it through the Hamsters.

at 5:46 PM

My existential title crisis is over!

And and the winner is: *drumroll*

Lilly's Song

Now we just need to decide if it's "A Wolfbreed Novel" or "A Novel of the Wolfbreed"

at 8:16 PM

A couple of woo-hoos:

First off, Anne at Bantam has given the ok to the outline I submitted for Wolfbreed #2 (titles, I need titles.) which means that I can go ahead with it as soon as I get the next DAW book out of the way. Second off, we are retiring the Valentine's Night counter, since I've just wrapped up the first draft.

This is shaping up to be my most productive year writing since 1992, when I started doing this professionally. About exactly a year ago, I started writing Wolfbreed #1. I've since finished the novel, landed one helluva agent, found a new publisher, finished the first volume of the Apotheosis Trilogy for DAW, and now I've wrapped up the first draft of a third novel outside of any contractual commitments.

Busy as I seem to be, my goal of finishing volume 2 for both Wolfbreed and the Apotheosis Trilogy in the next 12 months doesn't seem particularly daunting. Yea me.

at 12:33 PM

For those interested, and who're in the area:

I'll be signing books at the Gray & Co. booth @ the Cleveland Home & Garden Show at the IX Center (directions) on 2/8/08 from 7:00pm to 8:00pm.

BOOTH LOCATION
Booth #379. Enter from the West Entrance. Head to the left
throgh the fountain area towards the Bella Italia Bistro (or follow
Aisle 300 to CBG Cleveland Magazine Feature booth). Head towards the
GardenArea, we will be the last booth on the left (after Cleveland
Magine, and WDOK; across from Petiti's Garden Stage) before you
enter the Garden Area -- Next to Garden G1 for Soeder Landscaping.

at 5:47 PM

You may have noticed, even before the whole Cassie Edwards flap, that I follow the blog, Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books. It is, as advertised, smart, bitchy, and chock full of the kind of humor I tend to appreciate. Well, on said blog they have a feature called GS vs. STA (aka Good Shit vs. Shit to Avoid) where their readership asks the massed genius that is the Smart Bitches for genre recommendations in a particular subset of romance. Today, they posted my query, since, as an accidental romance author, I need to brush up on the genre I find myself writing in. The comment thread so far may interest SF/F fans, since there's a heavy overlap. I even got one recommendation for Poul Anderson.

at 7:16 AM

Over at the SF Signal blog they have a cool feature called "Mind Meld" where they ask a bunch different SF-type people a question and post the answer. This week's post is the second half of a two-parter on the definition of SF. I've made the following contribution, which expands a little on my prior post on the topic:

Defining SF has always been problematic, since there's no definitive plot element (as in Romance, or Mystery) or mood (as in Horror, Comedy, and Suspense) or setting (all Historical Novels) that helps us in defining most other genres. To this is added SF's Siamese-twin, Fantasy, a separate genre that carries the same lack of definitive plot elements, mood, or setting.

In most popular discourse the definition of SF and Fantasy ends up being definition via trope. (It has a starship, it goes here. A dragon, over there. What? Pern? Head'splode.) The other popular method of separating the twins is by splitting things up along a possible/impossible axis. This has its own consequences, such as slotting time travel and FTL into the fantasy realm. It also excludes from the SF fold stories whose point is to logically extrapolate from some fiddling with natural law-- I mean a novel about a box that adjusts the gravitational constant should be shelved in fantasy?

My own definition of SF comes in two distinct parts. First, while the story's world is not the same as the author's, there is some explicit or implicit congruency between the story's universe and the author's. There is a map from here to there, even if it's to go back to 1908 Siberia and take a hard right at Tunguska.

Second, and more important, the story is written from the perspective that the universe runs by predictable and knowable laws, and those laws are the same as those in the author's universe. If they differ at all, the difference must be explained in such a way that the story doesn't loose its connection to the author's universe.

at 12:35 PM

John Ottinger has had some nice things to say about Fellowship Fantastic, the latest anthology by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes. He also had some very nice things to say about this humble author's contribution:

The best stories in this anthology were [Donald J. Bingle’s] "The Quest" and "The Enigma of the Serbian Scientist", which is odd, considering that neither is truly fantasy in the strictest sense. [...] "The Enigma of the Serbian Scientist" by S. Andrew Swann reintroduces the historical figures of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, in a murder mystery that can only be solved by an alternate Sherlock Holmes. The stories connection to fellowship is tenuous, as it builds on the readers’ prior knowledge of the relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, renamed Helms and Wilson in this story, but it is still interesting to read and is an unusual choice for this collection. Therefore, if nothing else, it stands out for its distinctiveness as well as its craft. Buy the book already

at 12:09 PM

At least that’s how it’s looking. With help from my kick-ass agent, Eleanor, I’ve sold Wolfbreed and a subsequent novel to Anne Groell at Bantam/Spectra for an advance a bit more than three times what DAW was giving me. Contracts are being written as we speak, and by this time next month, I will be the newest author at Bantam. Or, at least one of me will be. We haven’t talked bylines yet, though Eleanor thinks that Wolfbreed may be an S. A. Swiniarski book.

We will pause this blog post for an important message:
WAHOOO!!!!
We now return to your regularly scheduled blog.

We can add to this news the amusing wrinkle that will probably make a few friends of mine’s head ‘splode:

I’ve become a romance author.

Ok, it’s dark paranormal historical romance (and how deep can we subclass a genre?) but still. Now, from earlier posts you might have gathered that I was expecting this. I was. But I don’t think anyone else was. This includes Anne at Bantam who approached the subject of genre very gingerly; in her words “Some boys are scared by the label.” She obviously expected some resistance on my end. Frankly I am the last person to look down on anyone’s genre, and given the way SF has been treated historically, I think any SF writer that peers down his nose at romance writers is an arrogant twit.

at 9:46 PM

First off: I've added "The Heavens Fall" to my Pixel-Stained Technopeasantry. It originally appeared in the DAW 30th Anniversary Science Fiction Anthology, and was subsequently reprinted in Apex Online. It is a little sf/horror/crime drama.

Also, it may be my penchant for irony, but I've uploaded my two fictional trial balloons to Scribd, which you may or may not know as the epicenter of the last significant SFWA oops. In addition to throwing them out onto a larger venue than my lil blog here, it does a number of automatic conversions, as well as allowing me (and others) to do neat things like this:

at 9:58 PM

Well, I'm starting a little experiment here. I am going to start releasing some of my short stories under a creative commons license. I'm a little bit of a latecomer to this, and I'm not Cory Doctrow or Rudy Rucker, but let's see if throwing free stuff out there gets any buzz going for ye olde midlist writer. First up, my real short time travel tale, "The Long View" which appeared in Amazing Stories back in 1995. Links to the stories will appear to the right.

at 5:21 PM

Well, I am just about halfway done with the first draft of Apotheosis: Prophets. I have reached a point where I am willing to hazard a prediction. You know most books, in addition to the (usually badly written) back cover copy, there's almost always some edited snippet of the actual text inside the front cover. I strongly suspect that I've just written the scene that DAW's going to use for that snippet in Prophets.

Minor spoiler warning, as this is a big reveal midway into the book. But that doesn't change my opinion that they're going to use this bit as a teaser:

There wasn’t even a sound to mark the jump, just an abrupt shift in the star-field shown in the holo.

Another twenty light years, Nickolai thought. Here we are.

“We’re still nominal on all systems,” Parvi said. “Drives are cold.”

Wahid didn’t say anything. After a long pause, Mosasa said, “Navigation?”

“Hold on a minute.” Wahid shook his head, and for all the trouble Nickolai had in interpreting human expressions, even he could tell something was seriously wrong.

“What’s the problem?” Parvi asked. “Are we off-course?”

Nickolai knew that the Eclipse was fueled for multiple jumps at this distance, but even so, the thought of taching twenty light years in the wrong direction tightened something in his gut.

Could what I did have affected the engines? Nickolai began to realize that there was no particular motive for Mr. Antonio to keep him alive. Mr. Antonio wasn’t like Nickolai. He was a man, and had no honor to keep, even to himself.

“No. We’re right where we’re supposed to be.” Wahid said slowly. It almost sounded as if he didn’t believe it himself. “All the landmarks check out. . .”

“What’s wrong then?” Parvi asked.

“Look at the damn holo!” Wahid said, thrusting a hand at the display as if he wanted to bat it out of his face.

“What?” Parvi looked at the holo of stars between them, and her eyes widened, and she shook her head. “No. . .”

“Kugara?” Mosasa snapped.

“I’m ahead of you. Mass scans out to the full range of the sensors. No sign of anything bigger than an asteroid for 100 AU. We got background radiation consistent with interstellar media—”

One of the scientists, the female with yellow hair, spoke up. “What happened? Is there some sort of problem?”

“Bet your ass there’s a problem.” Wahid spun around on his chair and faced the spectators, pointing a finger at the holo display. “We’re missing a whole star.”

“What?”

“Xi Virginis is gone, Dr. Dörner.”

at 4:26 PM

. . .and provides an example of a point I was making over ten years ago. You may or may not have visited my home page, which predates this blog by about a dozen years or so, if you have, buried in the writing portion are a couple of essays I did on plot and world-building when I taught some classes on those subjects way too many years ago. While such writing advice, when it isn't market-specific, isn't prone to become dated (one of my favorites in my collection of writing books is a little compilation of essays entitled Of Worlds Beyond which was originally published in 1947. And Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses are as offensive today as when Mark Twain wrote about them in 1895.) it is true that specific examples used in such advice may date badly, especially if you are talking about SF and technological change.

Exhibit one from "Worldbuilding: Constructing a SF Universe" by your's truly:

Unintended consequences are especially rife when talking about technological change. Every piece of technology will eventually find niches other than what its developers intend. (Consider the identification of pagers with the drug culture.) [emphasis added] Making your world different can be as simple as locating it in that vast unknown territory, "The Future." But for every element of difference you introduce in a story, there will be a multitude of consequences rippling out from the point of difference. Consider one example: Once computer animation becomes cheap and detailed enough that a lone hacker can produce a feature film, what will this do to the major movie studios, television, advertising, intellectual property laws, politics, culture, and the nature of celebrity?Muppet re-mix of a Pulp Fiction trailer

at 11:24 AM

Working on Apotheosis (going well, thank you for asking) I've found myself digging in my old notes for Hostile Takeover. And I found a little sketch I made of the character Flower, when I was figuring out what the Volerans looked like.

Now I'm not a very good artist (I was a lot better before I decided to concentrate on writing some 20 years ago) but I thought it was a neat example of how sometimes a cover artist can actually tap into what the author was thinking. (Opposed to my prior post on book covers.)

Here's my little sketch:

And here's a detail of the cover of Profiteer, (one of my favorite book covers after the one for Dwarves) showing the same character:

The cool thing, Jim Burns never saw the sketch I made, he was going off of my description in the book. That was pretty cool.

I just wish he hadn't made Tetsami (a short Asian woman) look like a pissed of Sigourney Weaver.

at 9:48 AM

Wolfbreed is done, at least until someone buys it and asks for some sort of editorial revision. So I've returned to my long belated Hostile Takeover sequel. If you note the counters I've been keeping, I've removed Wolfbreed and added a counter for the sequel trilogy as a whole in addition to the book I'm working on at the moment.

The really observant might notice that the word count for book one actually dropped. No, I'm not backsliding. I just realized that one of the chapters I had already completed would work a lot better as a beginning for book two. That's why the trilogy counter is higher than the book one counter, even though I usually write things in sequence.

You might also notice that I'm vacillating about the overall title of the sequel trilogy. Current working title is the Apotheosis Trilogy, which is a little less of a mouthful.

Also, teaser for moreau fans: One of the main characters is named Nickolai Rajasthan.

at 8:29 PM

Due in January. Just got the cover:

This one contains my story, "The Enigma of the Serbian Scientist." Which is sort of a steampunk homage to Sherlock Holmes, wherein the murder victim is Thomas Edison.

Judging by the description of the other stories (and the cover) I bucked a trend, as it looks like the majority of the stories went more the childhood nostalgia route. . . It's somewhat interesting, as when I first heard the premise of the anthology, my first thought was "Hey, cool, and alternate history Holmes/Watson story." I actually asked Kerrie before tackling the story, in case anyone else was planning something similar. I guess I needn't have worried.

at 12:12 AM

I'm in yet another anthology, this time it's the heavy hardback The Best of Jim Baen's Universe, which, in addition to being a memorial to the late Mr. Baen, promises to be an annual event. You should also check out the web-zine that birthed this anthology.

Within you will find my mid-east terrorism alternate history time-traveling sniper story, "A Time to Kill."

at 8:36 PM

While I was gone I got my copy of Man vs. Machine, the latest Marty Greenberg/John Helfers anthology.

I mentioned my contribution, "The Historian’s Apprentice", earlier. I honestly think that it’s my best short-form work to date. Again, my story is singled out in a Harriet Klausner review. Unfortunately, her summary of my Gene Wolfe inspired, post-singularity, dying earth steampunkery makes little sense. . .

at 9:44 PM

I just sold another sort story, "Family Photos," to yet another Marty Greenberg / John Helfers anthology (The same people who put together Man vs. Machine it's out now, you should buy a copy) titled Future Americas. The story is a meditation on crime, victimization, art and celebrity— which has absolutely nothing to do with the recent events involving O.J. Simpson's pseudo-confession memoir, though that event dovetails sooooo weirdly with the theme of the story that I would blame no one who thought that I was inspired by it.

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