Posts Tagged ‘Eating Authors’

Our guest this week on EATING AUTHORS broke in to the field with his first story sale in 1980 at the tender age of 45. Two years later, his first novel won the Philip K. Dick Award. I’m talking about Jack McDevitt. He has been nominated for fifteen Nebula Awards, five Campbell Awards, and two Hugo Awards. He’s took home one of the Nebulas and one of the Campbells. And there’s no indication that he’s slowing down.

Jack’s probably best known for two series of novels, the Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins series (begining with The Engines of God), which in addition to boasting seven novels also has another half dozen short stories set in the same universe, and the Alex Benedict series (a mere six books, beginning with A Talent for War). He also has several stand alone novels and a vast and uncountable number of short stories.

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I first began this weekly blog feature in June of 2011. Since then, every summer I’ve set aside space here for the nominees of the Campbell Award for Best New Writer — or at least for any of them that choose to participate. Having been nominated myself I have a soft spot for the award, and yes, the 2013 nominees will start showing up here next month. But I mention it now because this week’s guest won the award in 2010.

I’m speaking of course about Seanan McGuire (as well as her alter-ego, Mira Grant). What can I tell you about her that you don’t already know? The woman is everywhere these days! In addition to her Campbell Award, she’s been nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award and won five Pegasus Awards for her work as a filker. Prior to this year she’d been nominated for four Hugo Awards (not counting winning the Hugo for Best Fancast in its debut year), and this year she’s nominated five times across four categories (yes, she’s in competition with herself!) on the Hugo ballot.

Many readers know Seanan for her October Daye series (including the novels Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, An Artificial Night, Late Eclipses, One Salt Sea, Ashes of Honor, as well as Chimes at Midnight, The Winter Long, A Red Rose Chain, and Once Broken Faith currently scheduled for publication in September of 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, respectively), and that’s only the novels, there are also shorter works in the same series. If that’s not enough for you, there’s also her InCryptid series (two novels published so far — Discount Armageddon and Midnight Blue-light — with three more slated), and under the name Mira Grant there’s her popular Newsflesh series (Feed, Deadline, and Blackout), as well as Parasite, the first book in her new Parasitology trilogy, coming in November. And please note: the first of these books appeared in September of 2009; this is one busy writer!

Fortunately for this blog, even the busiest of writers need to take time out to eat.

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Every now and then when I ask someone to participate in EATING AUTHORS something shows up in my email that blows me away. Today’s guest, Gregory Benford, managed just that, as you’ll see below. Meantime, on the off chance that you’ve been living under a rock — or simply don’t read hard SF — let’s go over the numbers.

First, on the moh’s hardness scale, his fiction comes in easily at corundum or better. Dr. Benford is a card-carrying astrophysicist and by day is a professor at the University of California, Irvine. He’s been Hugo Award nominee four times, a Nebula Award nominee thirteen times (two of which he won), and took home the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for Timescape. He’s probably best known for the seven books and one novella that make up his Galactic Center Saga, but he has many other novels and a seemingly endless list of short stories to his credit.

Outside of his fiction, I first crossed paths with Greg just last year, when we were both judges for the 2012 Endeavor Award. I had the good fortune to see him last month at the Nebula Awards, where I got to thank him in person for his answer to this blog’s weekly question.

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Here in the USA, it’s Memorial Day, a national day of recognition for the many men and women who died in service to this country. When I lived in Wyndmoor, PA, there would be a parade that passed right in front of my house, and members of the local chapter of the V.F.W. would drive by in old-style cars, waving and throwing candy to the kids lining the street. There would be cook-outs in the park, and a general feeling of joy and celebration because the day marked the “official” start of summer, which is fair enough, but I always feel that some of the true meaning of the holiday gets lost.

It’s a turbulent world we live in, and maybe it’s always been so and I just notice it more frequently as I move ever deeper into that “you-damn-kids-get-off-of-my-lawn” mindset that seems to come with growing older. I guess what I want to say here is that while it’s fine for you to smile and laugh and kick off the summer season today, to fire up the grill and overindulge in hot dogs and beer, before you start in that or other festivities, take a moment, a good, long moment, to appreciate what you have and express some thanks to the people whose sacrifice makes your life possible. Thanks.

Moving on now to the regular Monday feature, today’s guest, Merrie Haskell offers up a loving recollection that strikes me as very fitting for today. But before we get to that, a bit about Merrie herself. She recalls writing her first story at the tender age of seven, and somewhere around eleven a Langauge Arts teacher noted her ability and recommended to her mother that Merrie be encouraged to write. A very fortuitous moment for the rest of us. Merrie’s first book was a Junior Library Guild selection back in 2011, and her lastest, Handbook for Dragon Slayers comes out tomorrow morning.

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I’m preparing today’s installment of EATING AUTHORS more than a week in advance because I’ll be on my way back from California when it posts, returning first from a bit of vacation, which will have been followed by the 2013 edition of the Nebula Awards conference. That’s going to serve as a segue into today’s guest, Howard Andrew Jones, who I first met earlier this year at a different convention.

It happened the way it often does, a bunch of authors hanging about as part of a “meet the pros” event, gathered in an otherwise empty ballroom, drinks in hand, doing that combination of mingling and telling lies that you find at such events. Depending on the venue, you’re more apt to spend your time chatting with other authors than fans, and that was the case this time out, which led me to meeting Howard, so it all worked out.

While’s he’s toiled behind the scenes as the managing editor over at Black Gate since 2004, in more recent years he’s been coming on strong as a novelist. 2011 saw the release of his debut novel, The Desert of Souls, which he followed up with sequel The Bones of the Old Ones last December. More is surely coming.

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As has been mentioned here previously, long before I became a writer, I was a fan. And though I’m now a card-carrying member of SFWA and feel comfortable sending out email to assorted “Big Name Authors” and calling them by their first names at parties, there are still a few for whom I am a fan first and a colleague a distant second. One of these is Lois McMaster Bujold.

I’m going to assume you know who she is, because you should. Lois has won the Hugo Award five times (four for novels, and don’t be surprised if she picks up another one this year), the Nebula Award twice, plenty of assorted other awards, and a long long list of nominations. She is best known for her Vorkosigan series, and I don’t mind admitting that the last bit in Cryoburn brought me to tears.

Our paths rarely cross, which is why a few years back when she was a special guest at Boskone, I showed up in her autograph line. Small problem: as often happens with famous authors, the convention imposed a “three books only” policy for autographs. This was totally fair, since after getting your three books signed you could always get back in line again for another three. Except… I had brought a suitcase—yes, literally, a suitcase—of her books. And it was full. I was in that line, over and over, a very long time. And I wasn’t alone. And Lois, bless her, kept on signing long after her hour was up, determined to put her autograph on every book that had been brought in for that purpose. What else can I say, she’s a class act. Oh, and she writes a damn fine story too.

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For the last few years, I’ve had the task, pain-in-the-ass job, honor, pleasure of being responsible—though fortunately, not solely responsible—for the annual elections of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (what we call SFWA). The process involves strong-arming people to volunteer to run for one or another office, badgering them for platform statements, disseminating those statements to the membership at large, pissing off my letter carrier as the ballots all come to my house, and then opening, vetting, sorting, and counting the votes. When the dust finally settles, I inform the sitting president of the results.

That last bit happened at the end of April. Soon after, the word went out to the membership at large as to who won and who didn’t and by how much. So, I’m not giving away any secrets now by telling you that commencing July 1st, the new president of SFWA will be Steven Gould. And what better way to celebrate his coming reign than to have him here on Eating Authors?

Steven is probably best known for his 1992 novel, Jumper, which spawned two sequels, a movie, a novelization of the movie, and a sequel to the parallel universe story of the movie (I think I have that right). He’s been twice nominated for the Hugo Award, once for the Nebula Award, took home a Hal Clement Award for his second novel, Wildside, and has been recognized by no less an organization than the National Library Association for the quality of his young adult fiction.

I’ve been a fan of his work since 1992 when I picked up Jumper, and one of the high lights of the Reno worldcon for me was getting to hear Steven read from the then-still-unfinished third (or fifth, depending on how you count) book in the series, Impulse, which finally came out this past January.

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Welcome to another Monday. This week’s guest fascinates me, not only because of his fiction but the man himself. We’ve only met a few times, exchanged barely a handful of emails, and yet there’s just something about him that captures my imagination. And the same is true for his fiction. David Brin has won the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Campbell (the one they give for a specific book, not the other one, though he was nominated for that one). He’s carved out a legacy for himself in the genre with his Uplift series, and continues to break new ground. And don’t get me started about his short story collections, just follow the link below, trust me.

David has a PhD in physics, has seen his work adapted to the movie screen, and been the Guest of Honor at a Worldcon. After a career like that, what’s left but to talk to me about food?

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