Generally I’m a mild-mannered fella and not given to moments of rebellion; I’m closer to J. Alfred Prufrock than Randall Patrick McMurphy, if you know what I’m sayin’. But that doesn’t mean I don’t long to stick it to The Man when I have the chance. In this case, I have denied him my dollars.
Until recently, we had one of those bundle deals where you get high speed Internet(s), phone, and cable TV all on the same bill. The bill, I noticed, kept getting bigger. So a couple days ago I called the company and cancelled both my TV and my phone. I’m keepin’ the Internet so I can blog n’ stuff. :) Now my family will read more and get called less by people we don’t know. Already I am snuggly in my quiet bliss. My daughter is reading a book RIGHT NOW instead of having her brain liquefied by the Disney channel. And The Man will be denied about a thousand dollars of my money this year. Purrrrrrr.
BUT THEN, in a CRUEL TWIST o’ FATE, The Man got me back. “Ha!” he sneered. “You like to read, do ya? Then I’m going to force Borders into bankruptcy and they’ll CLOSE A BUNCH OF STORES! Try to read now, you elitist fancy pants!”
In sooth I am sad. I know Borders was a hot mess (and may remain so), but damn I loved going into their stores. They smelled good. Paper and glue and ink and coffee from the cafe…heaven. Even if it was a disorganized heaven where I had a minor snit one time because I couldn’t find one of Kelly Meding’s books, it’s still about the only kind of store I like visiting.
The very idea of fewer bookstores drives me to melancholia. There are lots of things we could do without instead. How about fewer gun shops, or fewer payday loan centers?
I raise my cuppa hot chocolate with marshmallows n’ schnapps in a toast: To bookstores! And to sticking it to The Man.
The Renaissance Festival comes to town every year around my daughter’s birthday, and it has become a family tradition to attend and let her enjoy the glories of being a fairy princess. I enjoy many other glories: the stunning impracticality and ineffable beauty of the costumes, the smell of leather and paper in the journal shop, a beer in my hand, and random role-players seeking to recruit us to a Horde of Evil Minions Who Will Overthrow the King. I like to buy a frozen chocolate-covered banana and then just walk past the role-players while holding it. They can’t resist commenting on it; I’m like a walking straight line given to them by the gods of comedy.
Throughout the fairgrounds there are stages with a rotating schedule of entertainments. Of these, there are only two we make sure to see every year: The Wylde Men and the Birds of Prey show. The Wylde Men are a couple of goofy dudes who wind up rolling around in a mud pit; they do “slow motion” fight choreography and pepper their dialogue with bad puns, and for me it’s a guaranteed laugh.
The Wylde Men at the beginning of their 2011 show. After this they get mostly naked and covered in mud. Fun for the whole family!
The Birds of Prey show lets me see raptors up close that I’d never see otherwise. They had a red-tailed hawk, a Harris hawk, an augur buzzard (BEAUTIFUL, don’t let the name fool you), an eagle owl, and a King vulture, among others. Loved it.
Renaissance Dude and an augur buzzard, which looks kind of like an osprey. They steal stuff from other birds in flight—they're acrobats in the air.
Their eagle owl had been stung by bees and lost his right eye. He was still beautiful in flight and healthy otherwise. All the birds in their care were either injured and couldn’t return to the wild, or else were mal-imprints, meaning they’d imprinted on humans instead of their own kind. Either way, they wouldn’t make it on their own anymore, so these fellas take care of them for educational purposes.
Poor eagle owl missing his right eye. He's a gorgeous fella though, isn't he?
I ran across a woman who offered to do a one-card Tarot reading for me. That was fun. Based on the card I picked, she said I’d have something fairly big happening in 8 weeks regarding a contract. Well, um, yeah, I have this publishing contract and I’ll be debuting in April! I know it’s fairly safe and easy to say “something will happen in 8 weeks” but I was mildly impressed that she had the stones to add the contract thing in there and be on target.
Caught the show of Dextre Tripp for the first time—dude is CRAZY. He juggled a torch, a running chainsaw and an apple. He can do some impressive stuff on unicycles. But then he drenched this rope in gas, lit it on FIRE, and walked up it for our entertainment. He’s been doing it for 14 years.
Dextre Tripp will walk through fire for me. Plus all those other people.
Much of the attraction of the Renaissance Festival is a nostalgia for a past that never really existed the way we romanticize it now. One of my absolute favorite comic issues of all time—yes, I’m going to say it’s my favorite, period—is issue #73 of The Sandman, a story called “Sunday Mourning.” There’s no action, no asskicking, just beautiful writing and beautiful art by Michael Zulli. Hob Gadling goes to the Renaissance Festival with his new girlfriend and meets Death. Death points out to Hob that the Festival should be appreciated for its current emphasis on enjoying life and not criticized for its lack of historical accuracy. I embrace that sentiment wholeheartedly. But one thing I’d like to see is a return to drinking out of flagons. Conan the Barbarian (again returning to comics), when not slaying soldiers or wizards or monsters, was always drinking out of flagons and wenching. The verb “to wench” has fallen out of favor in modern parlance—and rightly so—but I really think we should make a concerted effort to bring back the flagon. It is the drinking vessel of choice for badasses.
Yes, my friends, do not settle anymore for the polite pint! (And most “pint” glasses are not actual pints, did you know? They hold a single 12-oz. bottle o’ beer, but a pint is 16 oz. The bars are bamboozling us!) Demand a flagon of their finest ale and then plot your campaign of plunder along the coast of Nova Scotia! It’s ripe for pillaging, I tell you, and if my dragon ship weren’t in dry dock right now they’d be toast!
And what if the pub you frequent doesn’t HAVE flagons, you ask? Well then, you must bring your own! Give it to your server and have ’em fill it up. When they bring it back to your table, there WILL be envy among the rest of the patrons. They will ask for their own flagons. Thus you will create demand for flagons, and soon enough, the drinking establishments of the world will supply it. Flagons will enjoy their own renaissance if you help me!
To begin this campaign in earnest, I purchased my own flagon at the Ren Fest. They had wooden ones and pewter ones and some very pretty pottery, but I chose a glass one with a pewter lid and a neato-schmeato wolf running through the trees. The glass, I decided, was necessary to clearly (so to speak) demonstrate to people that YOU CAN DRINK BEER OUT OF FLAGONS, and you SHOULD do so if you wish to recall the halcyon days of Conan and feel turbo manly about it. Here is my flagon full o’ beer—gaze upon its glory and curse the fates that you don’t have one (yet):
All hail my flagon! Cheers, you dogs!
I will be the first to admit, however, that flagons aren’t appropriate for all social situations where you wish to get your drink on. Sometimes you need a flask. So I got one of those too, made of a very stable pewter and adorned with a Celtic triskelle in copper and gold:
Still Life with Flask and Trollbloods
You will notice that my flask is being guarded by some fearsome trolls. They know treasure when they see it. To give credit where it’s due, my friend Alan painted those trolls—I’m not that good. If you Click to Embiggen you’ll see that he even painted runes on the swords! *boggle* You will probably want to download that picture and make it your wallpaper. It’s a one-shot called “Still Life with Flask and Trollbloods.” I also had an opportunity to purchase a drinking horn at the festival, but I let it pass me by; when one has a flagon and a flask, there is no need for additional vessels!
If you’ve never been to a Renaissance Festival before, I highly recommend the experience. They’re friendlier than carnivals, for one thing. People wear bodices and codpieces and call you lord, and you see more wonderful things than you’d expect (and I’m not talking about the bodices and codpieces). Guys in kilts playing drums and bagpipes—eh, I’ve seen that before. But I’ve never seen a woman bellydance to it until yesterday. That’s a delicious cultural gumbo right there. And I got to watch a smith make a stiletto, plus I played around with a war hammer and threw some axes at an extremely terrified wooden target. It was simply fabulous—and my daughter had a wonderful birthday, too. :)
1. I have a new page called Events and Appearances! There are TWO (2) whole things on it. Hopefully I’ll add more stuff once people discover my existence!
2. My publisher (Del Rey) is giving away 25 copies of HOUNDEDon Goodreads.com. You click “Enter to Win” and that’s it! Um, at least, that’s it if you’re a member of Goodreads. And if you’re not…why not? It’s cool! Rating books you liked/didn’t like is a good time, and you can bring justice to the universe by giving everything Charles Dickens wrote ONE STAR like I did, then sending the review to your English teacher with a mature message like “SO THERE! MUAH-HA-HA-HA!”
3. I’m very pleased to be participating in this massive blog shindig called Paranormal Spring Break. You know it’s massive because they have a badge thingie with attractive winged silhouettes and a mushroom on it, and minor shindigs just don’t have those:
I’m going to be posting there on a famous Irish holiday in March. Fairly certain they will be having a giveaway of my book to go with it, but they will ALSO have many more giveaways of other authors’ books, most likely stuff you’d really enjoy if you dig urban fantasy, so you owe it to yourself to visit there every honkin’ day in March. Bookmark it, I say!
4. I have just discovered maple & brown sugar frosted mini wheats. That clinches it: Somewhere in Battle Creek, Michigan, there is a cereal killer who wants me dead.
Like everyone else in the world who cares a whit for fantasy, I’m waiting for the release of The Wise Man’s Fear. And by waiting, I mean pestering my local bookstore employees with constant calls to see if they have it in yet so I can offer them a bribe to sell it to me early. But until then, I need somethin’ to keep me occupied. So here’s what I’m devouring until Rothfuss drops his bomb on March 1:
Still Life with Fantasy and Fruit #10
Truth Seeker by C.E. Murphy, Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch, Game of Cages by Harry Connolly, Perdido Street Station by China Miéville, and Double Cross by Carolyn Crane. Plus: Arizona oranges, with occasional sprouts of bonus stem material.
Do you know which one of these books hasn’t been released yet? No fair asking Google! If you guessed Midnight Riot, then you are allowed to feel smug and I think you should reward yourself with the debauchery of your choice (in case you need an excuse for debauchery). The reason I have this book ahead of its release—indeed, the reason I have these books at all right now—is because my editors are simply cool like that.
“Wauggh!” I cried. “I have nothing to read!”
“Fear not, intrepid writer!” my editor replied. “There is balm in Gilead; I will send thee succor.”
Okay, I know, you can’t suspend your disbelief for that line, and it’s true she doesn’t really talk to me like that. But sometimes I kind of wish she would, because you can DO that with nerds and they will smile beatifically, like you just asked them to roll for initiative on attacking an undead hamburger with +2 pickles.
“Brave editor, what succor canst thou send to stave off the soul-destroying ravages of Kvothe Impatience Syndrome?”
“I will send you books enough for a +5 distraction and a +2 patience boost. And…A SHRUBBERY!”
I have read both Murphy and Connolly before and already know that I’m going to enjoy their books. Looking forward to Aaronovitch because he’s shiny and new, Crane because she’s in The League of Reluctant Adults with me and is completely swell, and Miéville because my assistant editor has a literary crush on him. So how are you spending the time until The Wise Man’s Fear?
Huge, gonzo thanks to everyone who entered my ARC contest! It was lovely to see such interest and I do hope you’ll keep on coming back and commenting—I love the back-and-forth. And there will be MORE giveawayssoon; I’ve been reliably informed by my editor that Del Rey Spectra is going to be giving away a few of my ARC’s on their Facebook page. (Search for Del Rey Spectra on Facebook and like ’em—why not, you like books, right? I hope you win!) I was also told that there would be some giveaways on Goodreads and Library Thing; I’m on both of those sites, by the way, and you’re welcome to friend me there, etc.
So here’s how I chose the winner: I went to Random.org and used their sequence generator. I told it to randomize a sequence from 1-68 (since there were 68 comments) and whatever number came out on top would be the winner. If the winning number corresponded to one of my comments then I was going to do it again, but luckily that didn’t happen. Here’s the screen shot of the drawing, timestamped at the bottom, winning number at the top left:
In the immortal words of Rothfuss, click to embiggen
So the winning comment is #16, and that belongs to Becky B! Congratulations, Becky! You have won an advance copy of HOUNDED! It’s been maltreated, but we’re going to look at that from the sunny side and say instead that it is now infused with a sense of adventure! Email me your address (kevin@kevinhearne.com) and whatever you’d like me to sign in the book, and I will send it to you via the fabulously slow Media Mail!
And in case you didn’t hear via Twitter or Facebook and you missed this, check out this postI did with my editor, Tricia Pasternak, on the making of the cover of HOUNDED.
Tomorrow I will post my next Still Life with Fantasy and Fruit…it’s a big one, number 10. :)
Until this year, I’d never walked into a Waffle House. Inexplicably, they decided to build one in the midst of a fairly suburban neighborhood; I don’t know what sort of nightlife they thought they’d be catering to, but there it was. Open 24 hours. I went in there to get some papers graded one night, and discovered that I didn’t mind their coffee at all. I was also mildly entertained by the employees yelling at each other and complaining about their lot in life. It reminded me of my years as a waiter; when you’re in food service, complaining about customers and schedules and other people not doing their side work is de rigueur.
Next time I went in, I enjoyed not only the coffee and the employee side show, but the other customers as well. There was an intense young professional talking to his Bluetooth the whole time he was shoveling eggs into his mouth; he was trying to track a shipment of something to Ohio. A couple chairs down from him was a massive individual covered in tattoos and wearing sunglasses. He didn’t move for fifteen minutes; he might have been asleep, or he might have been practicing Zen meditation. Or perhaps he was trying to stay very still so that the two cops in the joint wouldn’t notice him. Three emo kids with hoodies and sullen expressions commiserated in a booth about how stupid everybody was in the whole world. “If only they weren’t so effing stupid,” one of them said. “Yeah, man,” his friend agreed. “I feel ya, bro,” the last one assured him. If only! In another booth, two geeks were taking a break from playing World of Warcraft by talking incessantly about World of Warcraft. A retired couple sat some distance away, saying nothing to each other, but occasionally chuckling at the same time I was smiling to myself at something I overheard. They were people watching, like me.
It’s actually somewhat frightening to see how many musical tributes there are to Waffle House. Not sure why somebody thought it would be a good idea to take ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man” and turn it into “Southern Classic Cooking”—that doesn’t even scan—but here’s the result:
I’m cheating a little bit with this one and including some science fiction. This is a good thing; ’tis not often anymore that I’m able to find science fiction that grabs me. But here goes, stuff I’ve recently read or will be reading shortly:
Still Life with Fantasy and Fruit #9
Amongst the grapefruit, apples, grapes and bananas you will find: The Human Blend by Alan Dean Foster, The Native Star by M.K. Hobson, Zero History by William Gibson, The Mage in Black by Jaye Wells, and Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler.
Foster’s near-future world where the icecaps have melted and Miami is gone doesn’t seem all that far-fetched right now. I enjoyed this first installment of a three-book series, but since I’m a Foster fanboy, what else would you expect? I’m always entertained by his writing.
I haven’t read The Native Star yet—and I have to say that normally I wouldn’t pick up a book that has a romance-looking cover—but the old-west-steampunk-magic premise grabbed me. I’m looking forward to reading it…but probably not in public. There’s always that one guy in Starbucks who will check out what you’re reading and raise an eyebrow. I hate that guy. He’s usually reading an economics textbook.
Gibson’s Zero History was full of his delightful sentences. I wrote a post about them here. I mourn a little bit for the death of cyberpunk; its spawn are thriving (steampunk, et. al) but grandpa punk is either dead or gasping away in an iron lung. This novel, like the other Bigend novels, are set in the modern day.
I’ve just begun The Mage in Black (which inspired the apples here), and I’m digging it so far. I tried to find Jaye’s first book (Red-Headed Stepchild), but it wasn’t in stock at the store I visited, so I had to start with book two of her Sabina Kane series. Action! Explosions! Apples! And some funny bits, too! I’m not lost at all, so don’t be afraid to start here if you can’t find book one either.
Hunger was extremely moving and not. Fair. At all. Maybe I was in a vulnerable state of mind because of that guy at Starbucks—sure, let’s blame it on him, he’s a dick—but I got all weepy at the end and it took me by surprise. Highly recommended. I’ve already pre-ordered the second book, Rage, and a box of tissues.
I realize I’m extremely late to this particular party, but somehow this movie flew under my radar when it came out last year. My friends Alan and Alissa just made me aware of its existence and I’m still laughing over it. It’s a buffet of absurdity served with a side of cheese, and if you’re a writer or in the writing biz, or just a fan of absurdity and awkward social situations, this is a good time.
The opening titles alone are priceless—they’re old sci-fi covers with painfully bad art. But the story young Benjamin Purvis writes—YEAST LORDS—that’s truly hilarious stuff. Battle stags, surveillance does, backup nads—ha! Oh, man—I’m going to watch it again!
Hello everyone! Whether you followed me before on Blogger or are new here, I’m happy you stopped by! I hope you’ll take time to explore the site and come back here to the blog often!
Commenting is super easy. Go to the permalink for the post (if you’re not already there) by either clicking on the post title or on the link at the bottom of the post. The comment field will appear. Type in your name, do a basic math problem to prevent spam, and you’re good to go. You don’t have to register or fill in those fields with your email address and website. If someone gets ridiculous I may have to tighten up the rules, but right now the optimist in me prefers to believe that people are inherently good and I’ll never have to do that.
The blog will continue to be tweaked/expanded; I need to put in some links to my compatriots in The League of Reluctant Adults on the sidebar, and of course I’m going to play around with fonts and colors and so on, but at least right now we’re functional.
I gotta give a shout-out to my site designer, Sean Akers. He’s done a stunning job here and he’s been tremendously helpful. Here’s what it’s like to work with Sean:
Me: Can we do that one thing with the doohickey to make it cool and then do (incoherent babble) with the other page?
Sean: Yes.
See? He’s awesome! If you want/need a spiffy website, head over to check out his portfolio and tell him I sent you.
The Goodies page will be expanded in the coming weeks and months because I like providing free goodies. One thing that will show up there for sure is a free short story. That will come out prior to the release of Hounded. There will be more reviews on the Reviews page as we get closer to publication; you can laugh at the picture of five-year old me on the About Kevin page (and wish YOU had a vintage Spider-Man shirt like that); and there are a couple of new email addresses you can use on the Contact page if you’d like to shoot me a message. Again, welcome! Hope to hear from you soon!
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but I finally scored a beer I’ve been looking for and I had to write it up. My writing/blogging friend Hillary Jacques told me about it and claimed it was to die for; I have taken her at her word because she’s from Alaska, and people have died for stranger things than beer in the land of salmon and short summers.
The beer is Alaskan Smoked Porter, and it comes in big ol’ dated bottles. For such an august brew I broke out the seminal autumn cuisine and a very serious dwarf to guard it.
That’s a grilled brat with sauerkraut and mustard, accompanied by some kettle chips. The Alaskan Smoked Porter stands majestically to one side. And on duty today from the dwarf kingdom is Einar Ericksson, high atop the seeded bun, shining a light in the dark cave of tasteless beers and leading us to liquid gold.
Einar’s motto (“I seek treasure and beer and often don’t know the difference”) is an example for us all. And in truth, he’s something of an archetypal character, guiding us through menus of tasteless swill to find a brew with gustatory substance. Do you doubt his archetypal muscle? Behold:
See, they’re really the same guy. The hermit is a bit longer in the femur, that’s all. And maybe he could use a Snickers bar. But Einar is carryin’ a freakin’ GUN, son! That’s because he can lead you through the mines past the Balrog to the legendary casks of Shaft-Aged Scrumptious Shit, brewed by the celebrated hopmaster Steinar Thorvaldsson. And if any demons from the old world show up to try to mooch a pint, Einar will pop the bastard between the eyes with a black powder ball! Ain’t nobody gonna snake my Smoked Porter with Einar on the job.
Speaking of which: I can see why so many Alaskans have died for this noble brew. Jerry Hoffman of Fairbanks lost his life when he attacked a Kodiak bear trying to break into his cooler of Smoked Porter; he was armed with nothing but a pair of BBQ tongs. Fisherman John O’Bryan of Anchorage accidentally dropped an unopened bottle in the sea, dove after it, and got eaten by an orca that mistook him for wayward chum. (“Carry On, My Wayward Chum” is the unofficial anthem of Alaskan fishermen.) If you get a chance to snag a bottle, do—you can always age it in your silver mine for a few years if you don’t have occasion to drink it right away. It’s awesome.
Author of The Iron Druid Chronicles, Ink & Sigil, the Seven Kennings trilogy, and co‑author of the Tales of Pell
