Yesterday you would have been one year old. Happy birthday, Spartacus, I miss you so much, and am so grateful our lives intersected for the time they did.
(Comments closed on this post. I really appreciate everybody’s thoughts on the earlier post, but this one is just for the Beast.)
Okay, so we got some cool links/news:
—Top SF Twitter feeds worth checking out. UPDATE: btw, my own Twitter feed is here.
—Fellow SFNovelist Kelly McCullough’s new book MythOS is out; as the title implies, you’re looking at a world where the line between programming and magick is getting (very) blurred. Very cool stuff, and worth checking out.
—At the invitation of military science-fiction colleague and general bad-ass Andy Remic, I’m now a member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Ethics, which has the “aim of celebrating all that is positive in genre fiction.” How this translates into day-to-day implementation is by definition a work in progress, but Andy assures me it doesn’t mean I have to stop my tales of mayhem and mass-slaughter. Hopefully he won’t either. This is a really cool initiative, and I’ll be posting more on it shortly.
—In the wake of Terminator Salvation, it’s worth revisiting this James Cameron interview on why Sam Worthington is going to kick Avatar’s ass
—And if you’re living in D.C., then keep in mind that Artomatic is the only game in town for the next month. Be there or miss out . . .and I’ll be doing a reading there on July 2nd!
Meanwhile, BURNING SKIES can be found on Amazon and in bookstores everywhere!
You guys have got to check out the size of this thing (er, this isn’t what it sounds like).
I love how the ratcatcher is identified only as “Mr. Xian.” And no, I’ve no intention of showing this to Spartacus the Cat. His world is complex enough as is.
Money quote: “Mr Xian is believed to still be in possession of the animal, after stuffing it into a bag and departing the scene.”
Spartacus the Cat here! I’m back while Dave frantically works on the proofs for BURNING SKIES. He took a day out for ComicCon in NYC on Saturday, leaving at 7 in the morning and getting back well after midnight. I found this annoying, so I had a little “accident” on the rug. Harharharhar. Now he’s afraid to leave the house. 
Anyway, he did all sorts of things up there, like signing copies of MIRRORED HEAVENS and meeting cool people; I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it, but he also brought me back a new friend! I’d like you to meet Rex the Lion. Rex is from www.squishable.com, which is run by a guy who used to row alongside Dave back in the corporate slave galley. I know Rex looks so realistic he’s probably fooled you into thinking he’s a real lion, but I have a very acute sense of smell so I know he isn’t. But he’s still fun to have around. We spent the morning talking about how to get down the fire escape and meet some of the female alley cats. Meantime, I think I might have an accident on his head to show him who’s boss.
Ok, the mass-market of MIRRORED HEAVENS gets released tomorrow, and that means it’s Shameless Self-Promotion/mega-pimpage time. Events are going to be going down all week, so watch this space. . .
And I’m going to start off by introducing my partner in this marketing endeavor, Spartacus the Wonderbeast. 
He may be only five months old, but he is a marketing expert, and has been signed on at Chez Williams specifically to help me sell this paperback. In fact, his continuing to be supplied with unlimited amounts of chicken and turkey directly depends on Bantam moving thousands of copies of this book. But he’s not worried in the slightest, and is right now investigating a certain mouse-like toy that has rolled under the desk. Stay tuned for further updates. . .
Los Angeles was great, but jeez are those folks spoiled. If it gets below sixty at night everyone’s ranting about how #$# cold it is. Highlights of trip include:
-Getting an old-fashioned shave at a retro barbershop—my closest shave EVAH. I tried to re-enact the barbershop scene in Chinatown with the guy in the chair next to me, but I’m not sure he’d seen the movie.
-Getting an In and Out Burger and eating it while stuck in traffic.
-Realizing somewhere over the midwest that I’d locked the deadbolt lock on my apartment door, and that I’d failed to give the catsitter that key. A frantic visit to a FedEx in the LAX vicinity prevented The Cat from experiencing a sudden interruption in his supply of dead meat.
-Rewatching Serenity and realizing that it’s not the piece of crap I thought it was the first time I saw it.
-Not working on anything related to Autumn Rain for a period of 96 hours. Christ, I’m going soft in my old age.
