I haven’t been posting much because I’ve been closing in on the end of a draft of a novel-in-progress. Everything else pretty much has to get out of the way for the moment. I have been kicking around different titles, however, and thought I’d ask what appeals. The working title has been The Best Lucifer Ever. Also in contention are Lucifer in Dreams and Lucky to Have Lucifer. If any of these sounds more enticing to you, please pass that information along.

You have to love a story like this. It seems a struggling creationist museum near Lubbock, Texas is strapped for cash in spite of its ideal location in God’s country, and is being forced to auction off its prize mastodon skull. The story from AP makes it sound like mastodons were dinosaurs.  Tut, tut.  Mastodons were mammals contemporary with early man. Imagine: Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone might’ve ridden astride this very beast!

Maybe all the sf writers who’ve gotten so much mileage out of the prehistoric over the years might pony up some cash to help save one of God’s roadside attractions. What do you say, Swanwick?

I have decidedly mixed feelings about Christmas. I’ve always loved the story, still do. Some of the spinoffs—Dickens, Seuss; Schulz and whoever committed that Drummer Boy, not so much. My dad used to work in advertising with the guy who wrote “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” as an ad assignment for Montgomery Ward’s, and the Capraesque story of how he wrested the rights from the company in a jury trial was part of our Christmas lore. I loved the decorating. My mom made stuff out of trash—pie pans, styrofoam from Alka-Seltzer bottles, the humbler the better. We sprayed white fluffy chemical snow all over the tree and the den. I loved it. I still like the decorations. Growing up in Texas, I didn’t know that colorful displays were “tacky”; it took Virginians to tell me that. They have a Tacky Christmas Light tour here with people riding around in limos gawking at the displays of the tasteless. The default Virginia decoration are these wimpy single candle lights in every window. I always thought of the lights as sort of electric Joy to the World, and if you’re in Hosanna to the highest territory seems to me a candle ain’t going to cut it. Which brings me to the songs, the carols. What I like about this is it’s the same set of songs every year, positively medieval, like those same stories about King Arthur and his pals. What I don’t like about it is it’s the same songs every year. Some of them, I insist, should never have made it into the canon. “Jingle Bell Rock.” Even typing the words cause me anguish. “O Holy Night!” on the other hand, has me all soft and squooshy. I believe Henry James covers squooshy in The Varieties of Religious Experience. No. What’s gone wrong with Christmas for me is that it’s become the great celebration of consumption, capitalism triumphant. The drama of the season has nothing to do with Jesus, Rudolph, even frigging Charlie Brown, but with you, you lard ass. Are you going to go out there and spend some serious dough or not? Do you care about the American Way of Life? Then you better go rack up those negative savings or there’s no telling what adjustments the market might make, and then where will you be? Kind of gives you a warm glow, don’t it? You can see what I mean by mixed feelings. Not that they weren’t always there. I remember hunting for and not finding a particularly desired gift and cursing my parents for failing me, only to get the damn thing on Christmas morning. It had been hidden in the trunk of my dad’s car, along with the boxes of drug samples that made it doubly off-limits to me. You got your train kid, it was riding around with the Dexedrine. Now how do you feel? Ho! Ho! Ho! Thankful? Ashamed? Like I said, mixed feelings. The part I like best, of course, is the peace on earth, good will toward humans, and the rest of the biosphere while we’re at it. So I hope you’re enjoying your holiday. Give everyone you love a hug.

Back when The Watch came out, Michael Cassutt, whom I’d never met, sent me a very nice email saying he’d nominated the book for a Nebula and that I should thank Don D’Ammassa’s rave review for leading him to the book in the first place. The review was in a publication not available to me in Richmond, so I emailed D’Ammassa (or thought I did; one can never be sure) telling him the story and asking if he’d send me a copy of the review, but never received a reply.

This morning, mousing around about something else, I came upon a link to D’Ammassa’s website, and there was the review. It couldn’t have come at a better time: With the current novel giving me some backtalk, and Sarah set to leave town this morning for three long weeks(!), I needed some cheering up.

So here ’tis:
A visitor from the very far future, a man who might not even be human as we know it, travels back to 1921 and tells Peter Kropotkin that he is about to die, but that he can have a new life with his youth restored, although the catch is that it will be in 1999 in America. So Kropotkin comes to Richmond, Virginia as a refugee, finds works and a few friends, and discovers that other people have traveled through time as well, although not voluntarily. He also must learn to function in a world where capitalism functions very differently than it did in his own time, and where computers, AIDS, and other developments have had profound impacts on society. This could have been the basis for a broad satire or a farce, and there are satirical and amusing moments in the book. But Danvers’ novel is much more serious and contemplative than that. An oddly enough, although there is little direct action or suspense, I found myself turning the pages compulsively until I reached the end. Kropotkin is a likeable, intelligent, compassionate character whose fate, troubles, self questioning, and curiosity awaken sympathetic bonds in the reader. This is one of the most quietly effective and deceptively skillful SF novels I’ve read recently. —Don D’Ammassa

Thanks Don.

I remember a conversation with my first agent to the effect that science fiction only sells to adolescent boys, that it was categorically impossible for an sf novel to break out of the ghetto and become a bestseller. I also recall The Sparrow which certainly got noticed outside the circle of adolescent boys. Then I recall a woman telling me that the reason sf wasn’t read was because it was too dark and depressing. Most recently a friend speaking of The Road claimed it wasn’t science fiction because it doesn’t concern itself with unpacking the science. Most sf novels don’t. Many aren’t that scientific. Lathe of Heaven comes to mind. This is a science fiction novel by any definition, and it’s a huge seller, and it’s depressing as hell. It’s good in the way that The Old Man and the Sea is good: McCarthy sets himself a small narrative task and executes it perfectly. I’m glad Cormac’s agent didn’t warn him off sf: Nobody reads that shit, you know.

Back when I was a student at Davy Crockett Jr. High School in Irving, Texas, my little preview of Hell, there was one thing and one thing only that made the place worthwhile (except for Miss Hull the history teacher with nice legs) and that was the bookshelf of science fiction in the library, seven or eight shelves of it. I read it all. My favorites were the Heinleins. I read and reread them until the politics started to sink in, and I quit. Teaching science fiction, I talk about Heinlein when we do the fifties, heaping praise and stressing his influence, but never teaching. I found Bradbury’s politics in F. 451 painful enough, but Heinlein? I couldn’t do it. But still. Then the used clothing store where I buy all my snappy wardrobe put all their books on sale. Paperbacks for 25 cents. There was a pristine Starship Troopers. I remember reading it when it was new, and it totally blew me away. There were scenes I could still remember. How many books do you remember for almost 50 years? What the Hell.

The first thing that struck me is that narratively he’s doing the same thing I’m doing now—a fictional memoir of an ambiguous protagonist—in his case, Johnnie Rico, and in mine, Lucifer. Even though I have no interest in “military science fiction,” it was the perfect book for me to read right now. The second thing that struck me, and I don’t say this about many sf writers of the 50s and 60s, is what a good writer he is. The voice, and the whole thing is Johnnie Rico’s voice, is pitch perfect. The rest of the world is all by-the-way suggestion. The ethical arguments so thoroughly grounded in the imaginary world Rico lives in, I defy you to find your way out. It’s quite the performance. I disagree with the creaky tooth and claw notions of evolution that form the foundation of his thought, but that shouldn’t matter. I don’t believe Yeats’ nonsense either but love the poems.
Like Heinlein, I probably sympathize with my ambiguous hero more than I ought to reveal to the reader, but in Heinlein’s capable hands, I found that part of the fun.  Many thanks to a master.

It occurs to me that Nettie Potts might make a good character name, but today I’m passing on medical advice. As one of those uninsured Americans, I’m always looking for cheap, effective alternatives to prescription drugs. After my doctor tried me on a couple of different nasal sprays to combat chronic congestion ($110+ for a tiny bottle with side effects), he suggested I try sinus irrigation based on the testimonials of a few of his patients. Basically, you pour water in one nostril, and it comes out the other. You can add salt and baking soda to the water to increase its efficacy. It works like a charm, costs almost nothing, and has no side effects that I’ve discovered. I bought a SinuCleanse pot from Walgreens which comes with measured packets of salt and soda. When those ran out, I mixed my own using a kitchen scale. If you find yourself snuffling or constantly clearing your throat, try a neti. I use one daily.

While it’s not my favorite Jack Black performance—like he’s making fun of the character he’s playing as he’s playing him—and the middle gets flabby falling in love with its own monsters, this is one of the best remakes ever done. This version is a bona fide love story, and you don’t get much more star-crossed than the pair pictured above. As long as he’s with Ann and Kong, Peter Jackson’s version has me captivated, and once Kong’s in a lovingly recreated New York this version delivers the best last act of the three. Kong’s death brings the big tears for me. One of the many things I like about the film is that Kong is made more sympathetic by making him more simian. Someone spent a long time watching gorillas. Ann and Kong’s relationship is deliciously complex and utterly persuasive, to me at least. (But then I do have a thing for beauty and the beast stories). I also like the way Jackson has used his predecessors, alluding to their best moments and making them his own. I’m a Kong slut. I love all three, though in future viewings of this one, I’ll pick and choose my way through the monster-muddled middle.

The first and only time I’d seen this version before was with my stepdaughter Ginger in 1976 when it came out. We saw it at the Campus Theater in Denton, Texas. I remember we both liked it and had a great time. More than thirty years later, I still love it. Pauline Kael gushed over it, and I pretty much agree with everything she said. The image of Kong in the bowels of an oil tanker (above) is simply terrific.

For the Kael review and lots of other cool stuff, I recommend Kingdom Kong, a swell site dedicated to the film.

That’s the original King Kong taking on a T-Rex who’s been hassling his girl, Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) in the classic 1933 film, King Kong. I’ve begun my own film festival here of Kong and his remakes because the narrator of the novel I’m working on, The Best Lucifer Ever, has a passion for the story. Both Lucifer and Kong take a big fall and have controversial relationships with women. As a Creature Feature aficianado in my youth, I must’ve seen this picture dozens of times, but it still works for me.