Kage Baker's In the Company of Thieves

In May 2001, I contacted Kage Baker via email about a collection of Company stories; at the time I was acquiring and editing for Golden Gryphon Press. Kage responded the very same day, stating that she was intrigued with my proposal and that she has forwarded my letter to her agent, Linn Prentis. On May 9 I received a response from Linn: the collection was a "go."

Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers premiered at the San Jose WorldCon on August 29, 2002. The book was even more successful than I had anticipated: Publishers Weekly gave the collection a starred review; the first printing of 3,000 copies sold out in only two months; there was a second hardcover printing, and the trade paperback edition was published in October 2004. In a blog post dated January 27, 2010 -- just four days before Kage Baker passed away -- I detailed how Kage and I worked together on this book, how it all came together.

And now, nearly to the day and twelve years later, I have the good fortune to be able to work on what will, unfortunately, be the last new collection of Company stories by Kage Baker: In the Company of Thieves, forthcoming from Tachyon Publications.

Working on these stories is like meeting up with old friends again, like the immortal cyborg Joseph (in "Hollywood Ikons," a new story original to the collection; more on this in a bit), Edward Bell Fairfax and Lady Beatrice, of the Gentlemen's Speculative Society and Ladies Auxiliary, respectively (in "The Women of Nell Gwynne's" and "The Unfortunate Gytt"), and the evil Labienus and his Plague Cabal (in "Mother Aegypt"). Note that I didn't say they were all "good" friends....

So many memories have come flooding back since I began work on this collection of stories: working on Black Projects, White Knights and then the limited edition chapbook story The Angel in the Darkness; meeting up with Kage at cons -- she was always with her sister Kathleen and I was usually with my wife Diane -- which typically entailed a long chat over lunch or dinner. Did you know Kage's favorite drink is (was) a mojito? Meeting niece "Emma Rose" (read the novel The Hotel Under the Sand, also from Tachyon Pubs) at Kage's appearance at SF in SF on July 25, 2009. And... I could go on, but you get the drift. We were friends, and I always looked forward to the next meeting/lunch/dinner at the next con.... And now we (Diane and I) get to continue that friendship with Kathleen, hopefully sharing a meal at BayCon over the Memorial Day weekend.

Only six stories make up In the Company of Thieves, but those six stories entail more than 100,000 words of very fine fiction. Three of the stories are novella length, at 25,000-plus words. Two additional stories clock in at around the 12,000-word mark. And one story ("The Carpet Beds of Sutro Park"), one of my very favorites, is a mere 3,700 words. I am constantly amazed at what Kage can accomplish in so few words.

Previously I mentioned a new story, "Hollywood Ikons" (one of the 12,000-word stories mentioned above), to be published in this collection for the first time. The story is a collaboration, as it were, between Kage and her sister Kathleen Bartholomew. From the draft copy of Kathleen's story notes:

Before Kage died in 2010, this was one of the stories she told me to look at first....Kage had already assigned Joseph as the hero of this one, so all I had to do was channel her and connect the gold-limned dots."

So I can only hope that Kage has left behind piles of notes and outlines and that Kathleen is able to continue channeling Kage into new stories of the Company, of Dr. Zeus Incorporated, of the Gentlemen's Speculative Society... Or, better yet, I can hope that Kathleen eventually graces us with her own unique tales of wonder.

Doin' Hard Time at Night Shade Books

How often, how many times, have you asked yourself, What have I done with my time? What have I really accomplished?

I've been asking myself this very question quite a bit of late; or, at least, more than I normally do....

I spent about nine years of my professional career working for Night Shade Books. If you are a genre writer and/or reader, then you probably have seen an online article, or blog post, about the publisher's demise. Essentially Night Shade Books is bankrupt, they just haven't declared it legally (yet), but are hoping to sell the assets of the company to a pair of publishing houses. I won't go into any of that here; you can just search for "Night Shade Books" and you'll find enough to read: posts from authors talking about the deal with the new buyers, posts from bloggers both objective and subjective about Night Shade, and so on.

But what I see is the demise of a publishing house that had the potential to make it into the "big leagues" as an independent. I recall an early telephone conversation with publisher/owner Jason Williams, in which he told me that he wanted Night Shade to be the next Baen Books. And they could have been, I honestly believe that, but they squandered it all away....

But six months from now, a year from now, will new readers even know who Night Shade Books is? And for those of us who know of them now, what will we think of them going forward? Will readers think of the books with positive memories: the great books like The Algebraist and The Windup Girl; the beautifully designed covers and interiors? Or will they remember the orders not fulfilled, the books promised and never published? Will former Night Shade authors remember Night Shade as the publisher who gave them their first break, bought and published their first book, bought and published the book that they were unable to sell to any New York publisher? Or will they remember that they were never paid their advance, never paid royalties, or if they did get paid, that they had to fight for every dollar, or that their book never even got published as promised?

But getting back to my original question: Just what have I accomplished in nearly nine years with this publisher? And what will I remember?

I sat down and reviewed all my invoices -- 190 of them -- dating back to 2004, and compiled a list of all the books I touched, so to speak. The first book was Adam Roberts's short fiction collection, Swiftly; the last book was Jonathan Strahan's anthology, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Seven, just this past January. And in between were a helluva lot of books.

Bradley P. Beaulieu's Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten

Artwork by Sang Han

Fate (if you believe in that sort of thing) has a way of, occasionally, flipping reality onto its head.

I have worked for Night Shade Books for these past nine years: the very first book I worked on was Adam Roberts's Swiftly, which I completed in May 2005; the last book I worked on, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Seven, edited by Jonathan Strahan, was completed in January of this year. In the course of these nine years, I edited, line edited, and/or copy edited content for approximately 190 books for Night Shade. 190. One of these days, I just may list all the titles. Unfortunately, I should have stopped working for Night Shade at least six months ago, but we'll leave that discussion possibly for another blog post.

About the same time I was wrestling with the decision whether or not to take on another Night Shade project (which I didn't, thankfully), another author was wrestling with a similar decision: Bradley P. Beaulieu (pronounced "Bowl-yer") was owed money by Night Shade Books (Aren't we all?) and the publisher had decided to push out volume three of his Lays of Anuskaya trilogy for at least another full year. Brad chose then to leave Night Shade, take volume three, The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, with him, and self-publish the book. He explained all this in a blog post entitled "A Slight Change of Plans," which he published on February 19, 2013.

Now, while all this was going on, Brad was also running a Kickstarter campaign for his short story collection, Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories. Funding ended for Brad's collection on January 11, with the primary goal reached, as well as all six of the stretch goals.

Which brings us to the present: Bradley P. Beaulieu was in need of an editor for Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten, and I was in need of a new editing gig -- and I am pleased to announce that I will be working with Brad on this project.

Initially I edited the three stories written exclusively for the collection as part of the Kickstarter stretch goals:

"To the Towers of Tulandan" is a prequel story to his Lays of Anuskaya trilogy (The Winds of Khalakovo, The Straits of Galahesh, and the forthcoming The Flames of Shadam Khoreh).

"Prima" is somewhat of a sequel story to the trilogy: the story takes place 25 years after the end of The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, but is not related to the main events in the trilogy.

"Unearthed" is a prequel story to the world of Bryndlholt, a new middle-grade series that Brad has recently begun writing.

Paul Williams 1948–2013

On March 27, we lost one of our own: Paul Williams passed away. In 1995, Paul suffered a traumatic brain injury in a bicycle accident, which is believed to have later caused his early-onset dementia. Paul's achievements are far too numerous to list here, but let me just touch upon a few: In January 1966, Paul launched Crawdaddy! the first magazine of rock music criticism, which paved the way for Rolling Stone and other such rags. In the '80s Paul founded the Philip K. Dick Society and published the society's newsletter. It was Paul's hard work that helped keep PKD's name -- and work -- alive, following the author's death in 1982. Paul also edited the 5-volume Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick and the 13-volume Complete Short Stories of Theodore Sturgeon.

Obits and tributes to Paul Williams have been posted across the 'net, including io9, the LA Times, and the New York Times.

All 19 issues of Crawdaddy! published between 1966 and 1968 are also available online for your reading pleasure in the Crawdaddy! Archives.

I briefly wrote about my involvement with the PKD Society in my "February Links & Things" post (third bullet point from the bottom) in 2010. I again mention Paul Williams in another blog post on PKD and Rudy Rucker, published on August 30, 2010: Paul had fact-checked an article I wrote on PKD in 1988 prior to its publication in the 'zine Paperback Parade.

My friend, author Eileen Gunn, shared some personal thoughts with me, and her Facebook readers, the day after Paul passed away:

Crawdaddy! was a stenciled fanzine, and I bought it for a quarter at Briggs & Briggs in Harvard Square in the spring of 1966. It made my head explode. And that was just the first time. The first issue looked like a term paper; the next looked like an SF fanzine. By the third issue, in less than six weeks, it looked like it belonged on a shelf with other magazines. Whatever the subject, Paul wrote always of exactly the moment he was in, and it was often exactly the moment that I was in. He expanded my view of my own world, of my own (counter)culture, whether it was music or philosophy or the strange internal politics of the Sixties. (Fort Hill, anyone?) I will miss him, but somehow it feels like he's still out there....

Aside from the 5-volume PKD story collection and the 13-volume Theodore Sturgeon collection, both of which hold special places (literally and figuratively) in my own personal library, I would also like to recommend Paul Williams's Bob Dylan: Performing Artist series -- assuming of course that you are a fan of Dylan's music. Unlike most books about rock music, which are typically biographical in nature, these three books focus on Dylan in concert, a critical look at the man's performances over a span of nearly 40 years: Volume 1, The Early Years 1960-1973; Volume 2, The Middle Years 1974-1986; and Volume 3, Mind Out of Time 1986 and Beyond.

My deepest sympathy to Paul's wife, Cindy Lee Berryhill, their son Alexander, and Paul's extended family and friends.

Keep on rockin', Paul....

---------------

Note: The Paul Williams photo that opens this post accompanied the New York Times article by Paul Vitello; the photo was taken by Raeanne Rubenstein, and features Paul Williams in 1971, after he had left Crawdaddy! Since I do not have the rights to reprint this photo, I have linked to the photo on the NYT website. It's one of my favorite photos of Paul: we were grunge before there was grunge. Thank you, Raeanne Rubenstein, for sharing this photograph with us.

"In my view a writer is..."

"You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway."

~Junot Diaz

This quote courtesy of Theodora Goss; see her Tumblr blog for more quotes.

A Day in the Life with Android (Part 6): CrossMe Color and Other Games

This is Part 6 (of what I originally thought would be only three parts) in my continuing series on how I use my Google/ASUS Nexus 7 tablet on a day-to-day basis. Part 1 covers my hardware accessories and business apps; Part 2 focuses on a variety of utilities; Part 3 deals with social media and related apps as well as ebook readers; in Part 4 I present additional utilities, news apps, and apps that didn't fit in the previous three posts, and Part 5 deals with media and radio apps, along with a few other odds 'n' ends. And here, in Part 6, I will cover a few Android games.

There are literally thousands (tens of thousands?) of Android games available. Who hasn't heard of Angry Birds. But did you know there are Angry Birds Seasons, Angry Birds Rio, Angry Birds Space, and, most recently, Angry Birds Star Wars? And should you purchase these or other games/apps, be sure to check first for an "HD" or "THD" version: this version will be optimized for the Android tablet (as opposed to a phone-sized screen). Unfortunately, these optimized versions usually cost a bit more.

Adventure games, puzzle games, physics games, single-person shooter games, construction games, defense games, sports games, word games, space shooter games. You name it, and there's a game or ten (or more) for it. If you are new to Android gaming, be aware that many paid apps have a free version of the game available for users to try before buying; these "lite" versions are typically limited in scope, but offer you the opportunity to try them out first.

Personally, I'm partial to puzzle games, especially those that have no time clock associated with the game play. Which is why, as I stated in a previous blog post, I am addicted to the game entitled CrossMe Color Premium. There's a free version of the game (CrossMe), but the squares are in black and gray, and the levels are limited. But if you are a puzzle freak, then pay the $4.95 and get the full-color premium version; you won't be disappointed.

CrossMe Color is a kind of Suvudu puzzle, but with colored squares; you have to match the color and number of squares both vertically and horizontally. Some of these puzzles have been very difficult and have taken probably hours (spaced out over time) to solve. There are no time limits on any puzzle, you can undo/redo squares whenever necessary, and -- check this -- the puzzle automatically saves your every move!

Here are a select few CrossMe Color before and after screen shots:

Puzzle 5.26 Chinese Wall

Puzzle 6.24 Cathedral

Puzzle 7.4 Halloween

Puzzle 7.8 Junk

Three of the CrossMe Color puzzles (3.13, 3.27, and 7.3) were so difficult that I couldn't find a starting point on the primary color. After hours -- and hours -- of frustrating attempts, I sought out the CrossMe Color Solutions Blog. Trust me, I didn't really want to snag a few starting lines from these puzzle solutions, and yet I didn't want to leave these three puzzles incomplete any longer. There were much harder puzzles that I have completed on my own, so why these three gave me such difficulty, I cannot say.

Selected Links & Things

Here are some links that you may find of interest from the past few weeks. My apologies that these haven't been posted in a more timely fashion, but other priorities blah, blah, blah.

Courtesy of Quote-Unquote Apps (@qapps), we have a new version of the Courier Prime font, IBM's classic public domain typeface, which has been redesigned to look good in print and on-screen. So if you still use Courier Prime (I'm a Times Roman kinda guy, myself) for your manuscripts, you'll want to check this out. Easy-to-install for both PCs and Macs; instructions included. (via BoingBoing.net)

Mary Doria Russell is the author of the well-known 1996 alien contact/Jesuits in space novel The Sparrow and its sequel Children of God, and most recently Doc, a novel of "Doc" Holliday and Wyatt Earp. On the Washington Post Book Blog, Mary shares her story with columnist Ron Charles (@RonCharles) on the "perils (and rewards) of being a midlist novelist": "Just as her new novel, Doc, was being released in 2011, she got word that her publisher [Random House] was not interested in any more books from her."

What if you could buy your way onto the New York Times bestseller list? Think it's impossible? Not if you have enough money, as detailed by one author's experience in Forbes.com's "Here's How You Buy Your Way Onto The New York Times Bestsellers List." ResultSource, a San Diego-based marketing consultancy, specializes in getting books onto bestseller lists, assuming you have $200,000-plus to invest. The author in question couldn't afford the NYT, so he settled for the Wall Street Journal's list. Life's tough, aint' it?

"How I made $2,000 in 7 days launching my ebook." Programmer Josh Earl, author of Sublime Productivity: Code Like a Pro with Today's Premier Text Editor ebook, writes: "The book is growing steadily, and with it, a sense of panic: What happens when I’m done? My entire promotional strategy consists of pushing the publish button! I’m a programmer, not a sales wizard. Marketing seems like black magic. The thought of my hard work going to waste makes me sick." (via Hacker News)

Digital Book World (@digibookworld) has an excerpt from a new book on publishing by former Apple guru Guy Kawasaki; the book is entitled APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book. The section "Appearance Is Everything" covers such topics as: Front Matter; Ebook Front Matter; Organization Name; Blurb Overload; Gaffes; and Crappy Interior Design. Authors, even those not self-publishing, would be wise to read this excerpt, if not the entire book, which includes manuscript and text formatting in the "Gaffes" section.

The Original Hacker's Dictionary: "Many years after the original book went out of print, Eric Raymond picked it up, updated it and republished it as the New Hacker's Dictionary. Unfortunately, in the process, he essentially destroyed what held it together, in various ways: first, by changing its emphasis from Lisp-based to UNIX-based (blithely ignoring the distinctly anti-UNIX aspects of the LISP culture celebrated in the original); second, by watering down what was otherwise the fairly undiluted record of a single cultural group through this kind of mixing; and third, by adding in all sorts of terms which are 'jargon' only in the sense that they're technical. This page, however, is pretty much the original, snarfed from MIT-AI around 1988." (via Hacker News)

"Aaron Hillel Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013) was an American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist." At least that's what Wikipedia opens with, when you search for "Aaron Swartz." But Aaron was so much more: as a teenager he helped develop the RSS feed, which has been in the tech news lately as Google prepares to shut down its Google Reader service. Aaron also helped develop the Creative Commons licensing, which many have used to publish their work openly on the internet. Facing years of incarceration from an overzealous prosecutor, Aaron committed suicide on January 11. I'll leave you to decide the rights and wrongs of the case (a quick Google search will yield plenty of results). Aaron Swartz's weblog, Raw Thought, has been preserved for free download as PDF, mobi, and epub files. (via Hacker News) Here's an excerpt:

I’m not such a nuisance to the world, and the kick I get out of living can, I suppose, justify the impositions I make on it. But when life isn’t so fun, well, then I start to wonder. What’s the point of going on if it’s just trouble for us both? My friends will miss me, I am told. . . . But even so, I feel reticent. Even among my closest friends, I still feel like something of an imposition, and the slightest shock, the slightest hint that I’m correct, sends me scurrying back into my hole. (2007)

From The National Security Archive: "The Zero Dark Thirty File -- Lifting the Government's Shroud Over the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden." Twenty-two files including photos, letters, and details on the mission that brought down bin Laden.

And lastly, in 1942 LIFE magazine sent Margaret Bourke-White, America’s first accredited woman photographer during WWII, to spend time with the now legendary VIII Bomber Command in England. During her assignment, she managed to snap a series of color photographs, many of which never actually made it to her feature article. Over 70 years later, LIFE has finally released these unpublished color photos. (via io9.com - @io9)

A Day in the Life with Android (Part 5)

This is Part 5 (albeit published much later than I had originally anticipated) in my continuing series in which I share how I use my Google/ASUS Nexus 7 tablet on a day-to-day basis. Part 1 covers my hardware accessories and business apps; Part 2 focuses on a variety of utilities; Part 3 deals with social media and related apps as well as ebook readers; and in Part 4 I review most of what is left -- a combination of utilities, news apps, and apps that didn't fit in the previous three posts, excluding audio-video and related apps, which I have reserved for this post.

As I mentioned in the previous entry in this series: "...what would an Android device be without at least a few games, some tunes, and a movie or two."

In Part 2 I talked about "cloud storage" services -- necessary because the Nexus 7's storage capacity is limited and the device has no card slot. [Note: If you read Part 2 previously, please read the update I posted on 02/26/2013 regarding a strong warning about Bitcasa cloud storage; and in place of Bitcasa, I have recommended Box cloud storage.]

But what do you do when you have no wireless access to those cloud storage services, and yet you need access to your documents and spreadsheets, as well as books, music, and movies, say, for that long plane ride, or the hotel stay where there is no free wireless?

You use the Nexus Media Importer app and a micro USB On-the-Go (OTG) cable. The Nexus Media Importer uses the N7's micro USB port, the same port used for charging the device. Just as the app says, this is for importing (and streaming) to the N7 only. You cannot move/save files from the N7 to the USB device.

The cable needed must be described as a "Micro USB OTG to USB 2.0 Adapter." The one I use (pictured here) is the T & S Electronics Micro USB OTG Cable, which cost $10.00 on Amazon. An online search, even on Amazon, will find cheaper cables, but I went with this one because of its design, the lifetime warranty, and because the company is located in the US (Los Angeles).

As with the Google Chrome browser, or all Google apps for that matter, Google Calendar syncs across all devices. If I set up a calendar appointment on my PC, it shows up on the N7, and vice versa. When I schedule an appointment, I always set up reminders to be sent to me via email and the Android notification bar.

If you keep up on tech news then you may have heard about the iPhone fiasco when Apple decided to do away with Google Maps and go with their own map app. (The fiasco cost a couple execs their jobs at Apple!) I recall reading an alert put out by the Australian travel bureau, I believe it was, warning tourists that an iPhone map error could be detrimental to travelers. With Google Maps, I can map out my destination, including driving directions, and then do a screenshot¹ of each so that I have access to the information on the N7 when there is no wifi available, like in the car.

ESPN's ScoreCenter for Android is ideal for tracking favorite sports and teams. I'm not much for sports, but I do follow a few college football teams, and local NFL and MLB teams. With ScoreCenter, you can track a multitude of sports, from Autoracing to MMA, and even Cricket! The app's "holo" design has recently been updated for the Nexus 7 and looks great. You can set up to receive notifications after each inning or quarter, for example, and receive news notifications for breaking sports stories.

The Soul of a Novella: Brandon Sanderson's The Emperor's Soul

The novella is a rather intriguing literary work: it is too long to be considered a "short story," and yet it is too short to be categorized as a novel. Many authors thrive at novella-length stories, but, alas, there are few markets for work of this length.

I've been quite fortunate to have worked on some extraordinary novellas, including: Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds, the first entry in Golden Gryphon Press's limited edition chapbook series, and later published by Ace Books as a hardcover double entitled Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days; Lucius Shepard's Louisiana Breakdown (out of print) won the 2004 International Horror Guild Award for best long fiction, and was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award that same year; "The Concrete Jungle," included in Charles Stross's The Atrocity Archives, won the 2005 Hugo Award for best novella; and After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress, currently a finalist for the Nebula Award.

Which brings me to the subject of this blog post: novella The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson, published by Tachyon Publications (as is the previously mentioned Nancy Kress novella).

When I read this year's Nebula Awards nominees, I was surprised -- and disappointed -- that The Emperor's Soul wasn't on the list. When I worked on this book last year, copy editing the manuscript and then proof reading the final layout -- I was awestruck by the story's premise (courtesy of TOR.com):

When Shai is caught replacing the [Emperor's] Moon Scepter with her nearly flawless forgery, she must bargain for her life. An assassin has left the Emperor Ashravan without consciousness, a circumstance concealed only by the death of his wife. If the emperor does not emerge after his hundred-day mourning period, the rule of the Heritage Faction will be forfeit and the empire will fall into chaos.

Shai is given an impossible task: to create--to Forge--a new soul for the emperor in less than one hundred days while trapped behind a door sealed in her own blood.

The Emperor's Soul is set in the same world as Sanderson's earlier novel Elantris, but the novella stands completely on its own. And the writing itself is brilliant.

Brandon Sanderson was the Author Guest of Honor at BayCon 2012, held annually here in Santa Clara, California. I participated on a panel with Brandon, entitled "The Top Ten Rookie Author Gaffes," at 10:00AM on Monday morning. I was impressed with Brandon's style and natural camaraderie with the audience. He possesses a great deal of knowledge and writing skill, and is quick to share this with the attendees. He is definitely "paying it forward," even meeting with attendees after the panel has ended in order to continue the discussion.

I realize it is too late for the Nebula Awards, but the Hugo Awards nominations are still open (at least for another 12 days), and voting for the World Fantasy Awards remains open until May 31, 2013. I ask that you consider Brandon Sanderson's The Emperor's Soul, in the novella category.

Tachyon Publications has reactions to the novella from Library Journal, TOR.com, and Fantasy Book Review, among others; and TOR.com has a review by Stefan Raets and an excerpt from the book itself: I will post the Prologue here, with a link at the bottom to the full excerpt on Tor.com.

But one more thing: If you have already purchased the book -- or plan to purchase the book -- the author will send you a free copy of the ebook. All you need to do is send him a scan or photograph of the receipt, or even a photograph of you holding the book to receive your free ebook. Details can be found on Brandon Sanderson's website.

This is not a still from Blade Runner....

"A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies! A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!"

On January 19 (now you see how far behind I am on blog posts!) I was reading through my blog and forum feeds when I came upon this photograph on the Philip K. Dick blog Total Dick-Head. Little was said about the photo, other than "that's not a still from Blade Runner" and it's "the smog in Beijing, and some crazy building." I shared this photo on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter, with what little information I had.

Aside from a couple "likes" and such on G+ and FB, nothing came of my posts on those two sites. But, Twitter was something else altogether....

I used the #PKD hashtag on my tweet, and that really got people's attention. Retweets and comments were coming in as fast as I could read them, over the course of days. Some of the retweets were in German, Spanish, and Russian, as well as character sets I didn't recognize.

I received a tweet from @spenap (Simón P.) informing me that the original source of the photo was the Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) blog. Simón also noted that the photo had been posted to Tumbler, and then picked up by Gizmodo. As he was kind enough to include a link to the WSJ blog in his tweet, I immediately checked it out.

This photo was among the "Photos of the Day" for January 14 on the WSJ blog, and is credited to ChinaFotoPress/Zuma Press. The caption under the photograph reads:

AIR OF MYSTERY: Haze obscured the Pangu Plaza Office Building in Beijing Saturday. Beijing on Sunday issued its first-ever 'orange' fog warning, an alert to the elderly, children and people suffering from respiratory disease to stay indoors and limit exposure to the pollution.

I later received a tweet from @nntd, stating "I took this pic." I replied, hoping to get clarification and/or confirmation, but received no response. But I will assume she/he is the photographer. The name associated with @nntd is in a foreign character set and thus only shows up in my twitter feed as three square symbols.

A brief search led me to the Gizmodo blog post. There are more than 40 comments, including one from "Settings" that includes a photo of this same building, from a different perspective, taken on a clear day:

According to this and other comments, these buildings are referred to as the dragon building, which, from the air, evidently looks like a dragon.

But back to my twitter feed: Just a few of the tweets I received in response:

Kyle Baker (@kbaker): That's the Beijing I remember while there. Eery resemblance. Beijing can be quite nice on clear days, though.

@mangochutney: it [the smog] only gets this bad when they power up the coal-fired power plants outside the 3rd ring of the city.

@mangochutney: the amount of soot that accumulated over the course of 2d on my closed balcony was scary.

Richard Lai (@richardlai): I'm in Beijing right now and I can confirm that the air is still very bad. Brought a couple of N95 masks along.

This whole twitter experience was really quite fascinating. To date my tweet has been retweeted 2,470 times, and that's not counting all the dozens of personal responses I received. I remain amazed....

I'll close with one last photo -- a cityscape -- and this is a still from Blade Runner, courtesy of Dan North's Spectacular Attractions blog:

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die."
~Roy Batty, Blade Runner

A warning to college profs from a high school teacher

Warnings from the Trenches

A high school teacher tells college educators what they can expect in the wake of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

By Kenneth Bernstein

You are a college professor.

I have just retired as a high school teacher.

I have some bad news for you. In case you do not already see what is happening, I want to warn you of what to expect from the students who will be arriving in your classroom, even if you teach in a highly selective institution.

No Child Left Behind went into effect for the 2002–03 academic year, which means that America’s public schools have been operating under the pressures and constrictions imposed by that law for a decade. Since the testing requirements were imposed beginning in third grade, the students arriving in your institution have been subject to the full extent of the law’s requirements. While it is true that the US Department of Education is now issuing waivers on some of the provisions of the law to certain states, those states must agree to other provisions that will have as deleterious an effect on real student learning as did No Child Left Behind—we have already seen that in public schools, most notably in high schools.

....

Let me end by offering my deepest apologies, not because I may have offended some of you by what I have written, but because even those of us who understood the problems that were being created were unable to do more to stop the damage to the education of our young people. Many of us tried. We entered teaching because we wanted to make a difference in the lives of the students who passed through our classrooms. Many of us are leaving sooner than we had planned because the policies already in effect and those now being implemented mean that we are increasingly restricted in how and what we teach.

Now you are seeing the results in the students arriving at your institutions. They may be very bright. But we have not been able to prepare them for the kind of intellectual work that you have every right to expect of them. It is for this that I apologize, even as I know in my heart that there was little more I could have done. Which is one reason I am no longer in the classroom.

This is one of the most devastating/condemning essays on the state of the contemporary American educational system that I have ever read. I am a credentialed teacher, by the way. I first leaned about this essay via Hacker News, pointing to a link on The Washington Post, from which I snagged this blog post's title: "A warning to college profs from a high school teacher." As of this posting, The WP column has more than 2,300 comments.

The essay's original publication was in the January-February 2013 issue of Academe, the journal of the American Association of University Professors. You will want to check out the dozen or so comments on this site as well.

Either link, this is a must read for all educators, parents, community workers, politicians -- hell, all Americans.

Thank you, Kenneth Bernstein, for your service to education.

A Day in the Life with Android (Part 4)

This is Part 4 in my continuing series in which I share how I use my Google/ASUS Nexus 7 tablet on a day-to-day basis. Part 1 covers my hardware accessories and business apps; Part 2 focuses on a variety of utilities; and Part 3 deals with social media and related apps as well as ebook readers.

This time around I will be covering most of the apps that are left -- a combination of utilities, news apps, and apps that didn't fit in the previous three posts, excluding games and audio-video apps. I'll delve into a few of the games I have, as well as my audio-video apps in Part 5, the last (hopefully) of this series. Really, though, what would an Android device be without at least a few games, some tunes, and a movie or two.

But before proceeding forward I need to go back a step, or two.

To quickly recap something from Part 1: I stated that I was using the Swype beta keyboard, which I was quite fond of. Then, Swype released a revision to the keyboard, and in the process broke a number of the keyboard's key (no pun intended) features. So, I switched to a competitor's keyboard, SwiftKey beta keyboard. Well, as is typical with Android apps, Swype released yet another revision to their keyboard that fixed all the issues and, in addition, included some new features. As of this writing, I have now switched back to the preferred Swype beta keyboard and, so far, all is well.

And in Part 2, I mentioned the four "cloud" services I am using. As of today, I can now add a fifth cloud service to the list: MediaFire. I learned about this service just this morning, but unfortunately the app was not compatible with the Nexus 7. Someone posted in an Android forum that they contacted the developer about this incompatibility, and a few hours later the problem was resolved. That's the kind of action Android users like to see from a developer (and it's a free app as well). MediaFire provides 50GB of free storage at signup; additional storage is available for a fee. I didn't mention this previously, but when using cloud services always be aware of their file size limitation on file transfers; typically it's between 100MB and 250MB per file, depending on the service, which means no movie streaming.

Speaking of cloud services, I use Cloud Print, which allows me to print from my N7 to my (new) wireless printer. (During Christmas week I installed a new Epson WorkForce WF-3540 Wireless All-in-One Printer; it replaces my tired HP deskjet, a true workhorse that has served me well for more than 15 years.) To use Cloud Print you must first configure your PC and wireless printer to work with Google Cloud Print.

I also have a new addition to my social media apps listed in Part 3: Until just this past week, Facebook Pages Manager was only available in Europe (I believe), but the app has now been released in the States. This app will allow me to manage my Alien Contact Anthology page on Facebook via my N7.

And just when I thought I was caught up, I learned of a new utility app just last night while reading posts on one of the Android forums. History Eraser is a multi-faceted app for deleting the cache on the N7. Just doing a quick delete of the cache on my N7 gained me 0.50 (and change) gigs, which is equivalent to more than 500+ megs. For the sake of comparison, the size of the History Eraser app is just under 2.50 megs.

Whether you are new to Android and the N7 or an experienced Android user, I recommend that you join the Nexus 7 Forum, a community devoted to helping each other and providing information (reviews, announcements, etc.). I added the forum to my Feedly app so I can scan the posts without having to actually visit the forum site. Of course, I also read Android Central, Android Police, and Droid Life, to name three others sites/communities.

"Curse whatever gods you believe in...."

"Curse whatever gods you believe in for taking George Alec Effinger from us far too soon. And curse them if you will for making him suffer for most of his life in pain far more severe than you want to even imagine. He deserved better, much better, as he was without doubt one of the most brilliant writers that ever graced our presence."

~ Cat Eldridge, The Green Man Review

Happy Birthday, George Alec Effinger (Part 3 of 3)

In memory of author George Alec Effinger (January 10, 1947 – April 27, 2002), who would have been 66 years old this month, I am reprinting a series of three blog posts I published in the first half of 2009. This third, and final, blog post, originally published on June 8, 2009, focuses on the book A Thousand Deaths, which contained George's personal favorite, the novel The Wolves of Memory -- and my favorite of his work as well.

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Since my blogs tend to be more essay rather than random comments, like blogging about my great cup of coffee this morning, they take longer to compose. If you enjoy reading what I write, then I thank you for your time and patience, and I ask that you just keep checking back -- and/or subscribe to this blog's RSS feed -- for my next entry.

At least for now, this will be my final blog post on author George Alec Effinger; one blog entry for each of the three collections of his work that I acquired and edited for Golden Gryphon Press between 2001 and 2007. Part One of this series focused on Budayeen Nights and Part Two pertained to collection Live! From Planet Earth. I have a couple ideas for possible future projects of Effinger's work, but only time -- and the economy -- will tell if these ever come to pass.

In late 2002, once I had completed Budayeen Nights, and the book was in the hands of the typesetter, and then the printer, I began thinking about the next Effinger collection. During my email communications with George between 2001 and 2002, I promised him that I would do my best to help him bring his work back into print -- and even though George was no longer alive at this point in time, I felt a personal responsibility to honor that promise.

Obviously the second collection published by Golden Gryphon Press was George Alec Effinger Live! From Planet Earth -- but this wasn't the book I had initially intended to publish next.

In the latter part of 2002, I had written Barbara Hambly, executrix of Effinger's literary estate, for a list of her favorite GAE stories. On December 2, 2002, Barb wrote: "I've sorted through George's story titles, cut out all the Maureen Birnbaum and Sandor Courane stories (which have or are getting anthologies of their own) and still have quite a few." Of course, I knew about the Birnbaum collection, but a collection of Sandor Courane stories? This was a complete surprise to me. So I inquired further of Barb about the Courane collection, and later that same day she responded: "There's a fellow in the Midwest who's doing Sandor Courane -- George was working on it with him at the time of his death." Unfortunately, Barb could not recall this fellow's name. Now I was intrigued: during my email communications with George before he passed away, when he spoke so personally about all of his work being long out-of-print, he made no mention whatsoever of another editor working on a collection of his short fiction.

And so my search began.

Eventually my net searching found a website for Wunzenzierohs Publishing Company¹, which noted a "forthcoming" GAE collection entitled A Thousand Deaths. But then the announcement went on to state that the collection was currently in limbo due to Effinger's passing. Using the "Email Us" link on the home page, I contacted the publisher on December 19, 2002. I expressed my interest in seeing GAE's short fiction back in print, and I asked if the publisher still planned to pursue this particular collection of Sandor Courane stories. I also requested a list of the proposed stories to be included in the book. I was thinking that if the publisher was willing to give up the rights to this collection so that it could be published by Golden Gryphon -- and if he had all the stories pretty much ready to go and was willing to share them with me -- then I could get this book into print more quickly than the other collection I was planning (Live! From Planet Earth), which I was having to start from scratch.

Gordie Meyer, Wunzenzierohs publisher, responded to my email the following day. Apparently, WunzPub (to use Gordie's abbreviation) was more of a hobby venture, and he had, in fact, been considering if he really had the time to do the Sandor Courane collection. Gordie wrote: "I've known George from his being online at Delphi long ago, and we'd occasionally touch base via email or meet in person at a con, but I didn't really know him all that well. Mike [Resnick], however, did, and when I mentioned that I thought it was a shame that all of George's work was OOP, he suggested that I consider a collection of...the Sandor Courane stories, as they were an identifiable group to collect and were some of Mike's favorite Effinger stories. So I ran the idea past George at a con, he and Barbara [Hambly] liked the idea..." Evidently this all occurred four years earlier, in 1998. Gordie went on to say: "If you'd be interested in taking over the publication of A Thousand Deaths ([the title of] which both George and I came up with independently -- cue Twilight Zone theme...), it'd make my decision a bit easier.... It was [always] about getting George's work back into print. So if I can make that happen, even without actually publishing it myself, I'd still feel good about the project.... Barbara has already approved having Mike Resnick do the introduction. And actually, Mike threatened physical violence if he didn't get to do the intro. {g}"

Happy Birthday, George Alec Effinger (Part 2 of 3)

In memory of author George Alec Effinger (January 10, 1947 – April 27, 2002), who would have been 66 years old this month, I am reprinting a series of three blog posts I published in the first half of 2009. This second blog post, originally published on May 12, 2009, focuses on the book George Alec Effinger Live! From Planet Earth, which I helped a wee bit through publication.

* * * * *

This is the second of three essays on author George Alec Effinger -- one for each of the three collections of his work that I acquired and edited for Golden Gryphon Press, between 2001 and 2007. Part One of this series focused on Budayeen Nights, a compilation of all of George's Marîd Audran and related stories.

Once Budayeen Nights was complete and in the hands of the typesetter, I began thinking about the next collection of Effinger's work. But now that George had passed away, I didn't have his input on this second book as I did for BN. All I had was my commitment to him to help bring his work back into print, and his email of August 30, 2001, in which he suggested a collection featuring "a hefty selection of my 200 stories, with introductions to each one, and calling it GAE: The White Album or GAE Live! At the Village Gate or...GAE: The Prairie Years." When George and I were communicating by email (albeit sporadically, due to his health and domicile issues) between 2001 and 2002, I had asked him to put together a list of the stories he would like to include in a "best of" collection, but time just wasn't on his side. And George wasn't kidding when he referred to his "200 stories" -- I know, as I've tried to track down a goodly portion of them! In fact, I probably have the largest "collection" of George Alec Effinger short fiction, only second to Barbara Hambly, who now has all of George's files and books in her possession.

The Concept
I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, considering it was six years ago [2003], but if ye olde memory still serves me, I came up with the basic idea for the second collection during a telephone conversation with author George Zebrowski. Unlike archived email, I'm not able to replay and quote six-year-old telephone conversations, so memory will have to do. (Maybe AT&T has the conversation archived in some illegal-wiretapping file? GeorgeZ and I may have mentioned the words "Budayeen" or "Islamic" or "Arab" in the course of our conversations about GAE!)

I had worked with GeorgeZ on his short story collection entitled Swift Thoughts (Golden Gryphon Press, 2002). During that project, and for some time afterward, we spoke quite often on the telephone. George had unlimited long distance at the time and enjoyed calling and chatting with his many author friends and editors. It was the "author friends and editors" that gave me the idea. Since GAE was no longer with us, to select the stories for his next collection, I decided that I would ask his peers -- his friends and fellow authors, and editors -- to select their favorite GAE story. And then, once they told me their favorite story, I would ask them -- as a tribute to GAE -- to write a mini introduction to the story. I wanted to first hook them on the story suggestion, and then seek their cooperation to write an intro. GeorgeZ wholeheartedly agreed to contribute, as did many others.