The New Sleekness RSS

I’ve managed to stir up some shit over on Tor.com.

In other news, next stop: San Diego Comic Con. Catch you onna flipside.

The not-so-super-seekrit project that’s been sucking down so much of everyone’s time over at Tor Books finally goes live today. Tor.com is a new science-fiction and fantasy themed community site, where a whole lot of luminaries from the SF/F fandom community will be contributing content about ‘Science Fiction. Fantasy. The Universe. And Related Subjects.’, as the tagline says.

Tor.com started as a glimmer in the eyes of Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Irene Gallo, and Fritz Foy, over a year ago. With the design direction of regular badass Jamie Stafford-Hill, they’ve been working tirelessly, quietly, and sometimes not-so-quietly on it since. Tor.com will feature original content from some of SF/F’s most talented voices, such as John Scalzi, Charles Stross, and Cory Doctorow; as well as blogging from both genre authors and genre fans (including yours truly). It also features a kickass gallery of SF/F artists, with work from cover artists, game designers, conceptual artists for film and TV, you name it. Additionally, the site is a social network, so you can create a profile and connect with artists, writers, and fellow fans.

As launch date loomed closer, and it came time to recruit bloggers and beta testers, pnh and Irene approached me to see if I would be interested in contributing, to which I replied “Yeah!”. Once they realized that launch date would be the same week as Comic Con San Diego, and that they’d need people there to cover what is probably one of the largest fandom events of the year, Irene popped into my office and asked me if I wanted to go to Comic Con, to which I replied “Fuck yeah!”.

So I’ll be going to and blogging from Comic Con San Diego this week. Don’t hate me too much.

Aside from reportage, I’ll also be posting about other SF/F-related stuff on Tor.com, including a regular column which was originally planned for this site. A while ago, the crew in the art department at Tor realized that there really was no SF/F-specific book cover review blog out there, and we felt there should be. After all, SF/F book design is a very particular thing: we are much more illustration heavy than other genres, we have a particular visual language and ideosyncracies that may be beyond (or beside) the scope of traditional book cover reviews. I shot off an email to my co-workers proposing to start something up, and it became incredibly obvious that the perfect home for a feature like that would be Tor.com. So there you go. Here’s a link to the initial post for that, outlining all the ins-and-outs of how it’s gonna work.

Irene Gallo has blogged and posted some pictures of yesterday’s Tor.com silkscreening session in the conference room at Tor. She says I worked my ass off, but really, I just had a blast. Having everyone bring in their shirts and other materials, showing them how to pull a print, and seeing the looks of surprise and glee once they lift up that screen and grok the results of their work was worth it, tenfold. We have to do it again sometime, and soon!

And by ‘live’, I mean ‘online, for your streaming pleasure’, of course. I’d embed it here, but the idea is for you to check out their site, and prove, via the power of your mighty and unique view, that this is a viable method of delivery for entertainment. That, and it’s on Hulu. They don’t allow you to embed video elsewhere. Bastards. But it’s also on iTunes, which is a promising step (except that, even after buying the Season Pass, priced at $3.99 for all three 15 minute episodes [see? I'll pay for something I support, it's not all piracy around here] the downloads won’t start. Double bastards).

Regardless of a few day-one hiccups (and despite the fact that it’s on Hulu, which I don’t like simply because they pulled Battlestar Galactica away from the iTunes store–yes it’s a grudge thing, so sue me), it’s funny, precious, witty, self-deprecating, and sing-along-y, just like the Whedon your mama used to make ya on the teevee. I’ll review in full once all three eps are up, probably on Tor.com (yes, we’re getting closer to that July 20 launch date…).

The senate passed that bloody FISA bill. Sonovabitch. Not unexpected, but still damn depressing. Of note, McCain was MIA (again), Obama voted ‘Yes’ (grrrrr.), Hillary voted ‘No’ (meh), after voting against a filibuster (huh?).

As an aside, please direct your attention to the stock image of the cellphone on the CNN.com news item I linked to (there’s a reason why I linked to a MSM site instead of to something like Talking Points Memo.). It’s a terrorist phone! It’s a terrorist phone! Way to be bigots, CNN.

Cory Doctorow alerted me to some pics he snapped at the University of Washington Bookstore of this badass cosplay costume based on the print I made, which was inspired by Cory’s latest Tor book, Little Brother. To paraphrase Irene Gallo, I’m digging the creativity that’s coming off of this book. This is so, so awesome. Click through for Cory’s photoset, wherein he plays the role of Marcus, complete with slinghshot!

Today the U.S. Senate votes on the amendment to the FISA bill, which, in essence, guts the fourth amendment to the Constitution, thus enabling the U.S. Government to eavesdrop on regular citizens without a warrant from a judge. Additionally, the bill grants retroactive immunity to telecom companies who have been aiding the Bush administration in their illegal wiretapping program. Let’s hope the Senate has a little more spine than the House, which passed the bill not too long ago.

Check out this interview by Tim Ferriss with Daniel Ellesberg, who released the Pentagon Papers back in the 1970s. In it, Ellesberg explains why the proposed legislation is so dangerous, and why it’s so important that the Senate votes this bill down.

What Every American Needs to Know (and Do) About FISA Before Wed., July 9th from Tim Ferriss on Vimeo.
EDIT: The Senate has decided to postpone the vote until tomorrow, because they want to honor some old, southern racist who croaked.

I arrived in San Juan on Friday afternoon after a punctual and wonderfully uneventful JetBlue flight, and spent some quality time with my ailing grandmother (yay grandma, boo senility and old age. Work faster, Aubrey DeGrey!).
On Saturday morning, my best friend Mariel and her boyfriend, Jaime, picked me up and we headed off to Bayamón, a section of the San Juan metropolitan area (although if you ask locals, they will insist that it is its own city. Given the state of urban sprawl, and the way San Juan has grown to gobble up its neighbors, I don’t really think this is the case any longer, other than on government maps. Certainly not in a practical sense. But I digress.). There is a patch of forest in Bayamón that has been preserved, and the local rock-climbing community has mapped out a few choice climbs on one of the many ‘mogotes’, (large, wooded, hill-like rocks limestone formations which dot the landscape of the island and feature sheer cliffs which are perfect for climbing.). The face we were working on featured a nice progression of climbs, from easy to ‘damn-how-the-hell-did-he-get-up-there’ routes. I mostly stayed on the beginner side, as I haven’t climbed in more than five months, and the feeble attempts I made to get on the rock resulted in blown-out forearms and a bruised ass. Nonetheless, I got to meet a cool group of hard-core climbers from the very thriving rock-climbing community here on the island. Good peoples, good times.
At around 3PM, we set out westward, towards the city of Arecibo town of Utuado. We veered off of the highway and into the roads surrounding the Camuy River Cave System Park (which, sadly, is closed due to an accident last year–the first in twelve years), and proceeded to negotiate the hairpin-curved, one-ish laned switchback roads that hug the hills on our approach further up into the mountains. At around 6PM we reached our destination: the Tanamá river valley. The Tanamá runs from its origins in the mountains out into the larger Río Grande de Arecibo. On its way it winds through lush karst forest valleys, light rapids, and cave tunnels. It’s a very popular river for eco-tourism, as there’s a little bit of everything for everyone: some climbing, some rafting, caving, hiking, and beautiful sightseeing. We parked our cars off the side of the road, and walked down a dirt road into the valley. We joked a bit about how much of a pain in the ass the hike back up would be after we were all tired from a weekend of camping, but reached the riverside campsite at the bottom of the valley quickly enough. We set up camp, and took a nighttime dip in the river, before having some dinner at the campsite and heading off to bed.
As it turns out, Jaime is a tour guide for Acampa, an outfit which runs an excellent outdoor sports store, as well as guided tours to various points of interest throughout the island. With Jaime–also a geologist–on board, I got what amounted to a scientific and social tour of the region, complete with backstories about the locals, stops at friends’ houses, peeks into organic and hydroponic farms (the traditional income for the area is agriculture, although the old-school farmers are mostly welcoming to the influx of eco-tourists who venture into the valley on a regular basis–just don’t go picking fruits off trees without permission!), and small expeditions into little-known corners of the river system.
On Sunday morning we set out on some inner tubes up the river (very light current in this area), making our way towards one of the large vaults through which the river flows. As we entered the large cave, we could see bats hanging from the ceiling, and hear the water dripping into the river proper. Making our way into the darkness, there was a moment where I thought we’d have to turn back, as there was no light and we hadn’t brought flashlights, but Jaime just said: “Keep going, you’ll see”. Lo and behold, after a bend in the river, you could start to make out a little bit of light at the far end of the vault. In all, we paddled up a mile and a half of underground river, and came out into a medium-sized pool surrounded on all sides by forested cliffs, where some small rapids fed into a relatively calm area. We hung out there for a bit, lounging on rocks and making fun of the dogs we’d brought along as they struggled to negotiate the slippery, lime-covered rocks. After a while we hopped back onto the inner tubes and let the current take us back the way we’d come, through the cave and out to where we’d left our supplies. We had some lunch and then hiked back towards camp.
After we made it back to camp, we rested for a bit and then started the long-ish, uphill hike to a friend of Jaime’s farm, where he grows bamboo for lumber, as well as assorted crops. He wasn’t there, but he’d told Jaime that we could help ourselves to the facilities, if we needed to. The house is a two-story affair, made of wood and built over the course of two years, while the owner lived in a tent on the property. It was homey, with creaky, wooden house sounds, Bob Marley posters, books on politics and agriculture, hammocks hanging from the beams, friendly cats, and an area for his children to play and learn in. It’s also clearly the first draft, as he’s building a concrete-framed structure next door, to house people who routinely come up to the farm for seminars on bread-baking (using a clay oven) and organic farming. The hillside next to the farmhouse is the origin point for one of Acampa’s zip-line trails, so we grabbed some pulleys, gloves and helmets from a storage area inside the house, and started down the valley via zip-line. Four zip-lines in total, each affording a unique view of the valley, from panoramic views of the river way down below, to overviews of arable land in the valley and up the side of hills. The last zip-line dropped us off at the far end of a one-person bridge which led almost directly back to our campsite.
By the time we got back to the campsite, it as nearly time to go, so we packed everything up and loaded our backpacks for the uphill trek back to where we’d left our cars. By this time it was around 6PM, and after a quick rinsing off with a garden hose generously offered by one of the people who live around where we parked our cars, we were off, back to San Juan.
Why no pictures, you ask? Well, because I’m an idiot. In my haste on Saturday morning, I forgot to pack the camera (and a towel. And flip flops. And dry clothes). Really, I know. Silly me. Fortunately, Jaime had his camera, and snapped off some shots, so I’ll ask him if I can post some of his here later on in the week.
I’ve spent most of today catching up on the internets (which I haven’t been able to do, really, since before the apartment move last week), running some errands, spending some more time with my grandma (at least until she had to go off for her thrice-weekly dialysis treatment), and making plans with friends for some city fun this week.
More to come, stay tuned.

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.
I can’t wait to see this. The fruits of extra-curricular (as in, not within the studio system) efforts from Joss Whedon during the writer’s strike, Dr. Horrible promises to be the beginning of a slew of independent productions from established old-media talent, taking their toys and playing elsewhere, away from the profit-crazed monolith that is Hollywood. The plan is to release three episodes for free streaming on July 15th, 17th, and 19th. They’ll keep them online for a short while, then take them down in order to sell downloads and an extra features-packed DVD. Sounds like a good idea to me. From the Dr. Horrible youtube site:

The story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to. Featuring Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer, Felicia Day as Penny and a cast of dozens.

Fillion. Whedon. The intertubez. Doogie Howser. Full of win. The cast and Whedon will be on a panel at Comic Con San Diego later this month, I’m going to try to catch that, and grill ‘em with questions. In the meantime, here’s a fansite which has been keeping everyone up to date on Dr. Horrible-related happenings.

All moved, but hardly settled. That probably won’t happen until August, anyway. I get the tubez for teh intarrwebz put in on Wednesday, so posting might still be rather light until then.