I’m leaving town Sunday for some Mensa business in Chicago, but I’ll be in Atlanta from Tuesday for my first DragonCon! If you’re going to be there, and want to see me, I gather running into people is very difficult (and Fantastic Books will not have a dealer table). But below are the program items I’m on (so I know I’ll be in these places at these times).
Also, I’m still looking for a place to stay Tuesday and Wednesday nights in Atlanta, if anyone’s looking for a temporary roommate.
Thursday at 8:30pm in Embassy AB Hyatt: “Time and Science Fiction: Time Travel Through the Years” with Griffin Barber, Bill Ritch, M.A. Rothman, and S.M. Stirling.
Friday at 5:30pm in Embassy AB Hyatt: “Time and the Telepath Time Travel Without Mechanical Means” with H.Y. Gregor, Darin Kennedy, and Jeffrey Falcon Logue.
Friday at 10:00pm in Embassy AB Hyatt: “Eye of Argon — Part 2!” with Keith R.A. DeCandido, Esther Friesner, and Gail Z Martin.
Sunday at 2:30pm in Overlook Westin: “SF Literature Track Group Signing: Time Travel” (a group signing, my first!) with D.J. Butler, Van Allen Plexico, M.A. Rothman, S.M. Stirling, and David Weber.
Hope to see many of you there, so you can help me be a little less overwhelmed!
It’s another convention weekend for me, the fourth in a row . This weekend, I’ll be in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for Shore Leave. This is my first time attending Shore Leave, and it’s the convention’s first time in a new hotel in a new city on a new weekend, so it’ll be all new for all of us.
If you’re coming to Shore Leave, I’m looking for a little help at the dealers’ table (Friday between 3 and 5pm), and I also have a hotel reservation but no roommate, so I’m looking to share.
My schedule at the convention:
The dealers’ room will be open Friday from 2 to 7pm, Saturday from 10am to 7pm, and Sunday from 10am to 4pm, so I’ll be at the Fantastic Books table for those 20 hours.
If you’re looking for me on programming, I’ll be on:
“SF&F Magazines vs. Themed Anthologies” in Ballroom B, Friday at 3pm, with Michael Jan Friedman, David Gerrold, Joshua Palmatier, Hildy Silverman, and Amy Sisson.
“Juggling Multiple Projects” in Ballroom A, Friday at 4pm, with Christopher D. Abbott, Derek Tyler Attico, Kelli Fitzpatrick, Aaron Rosenberg, and Dayton Ward.
“Writing Brain vs. Editor Brain” in New Holland, Saturday at 9pm, with Derek Tyler Attico, Kathleen David, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Kelli Fitzpatrick, and Scott Pearson.
Again, please, help me save a bit on hotel costs, and consider filling in at the table for an hour or two. Thanks! Hope to see many of you there.
This weekend will be my third straight away from home. This time, I’m headed to Buffalo for NASFiC. And I’m still looking for a roommate on my hotel reservation, if someone out there needs a bed.
If you’re looking for me at the convention (other than when I’m asleep), I’ll be mostly at the Fantastic Books table in the dealers’ room (which is in the convention center; the rest of programming is in the hotel), which will be open Thursday 4–7pm; Friday 11am–6pm; Saturday 10am–5pm; and Sunday 10am–2pm.
I’m also on programming, heavily on Friday. Seek me out on the following panels:
Friday 10am: “Writing for Anthologies” in Grand Ballroom FG, with JF Garrard, Glenn Parris, and April Steenburgh.
Friday 11am: “The Folklore of Space” in Grand Ballroom ABC, with Gary Ehrlich, Herb Kauderer, and Geoffrey A. Landis.
Friday 1pm: “How Good Does the Science Have to Be?” in Regency BC, with Geoffrey A. Landis and three virtuals: David Dvorkin, Elizabeth Moon, and Martin L. Shoemaker.
Friday 3pm: not a panel, but a Kaffeeklatsch in Board Room.
Friday 10pm: “Improvisational Storytelling” in Grand Ballroom FG with B.A. Chepaitis, Bill Fawcett, Phil Getz, and Merav Hoffman.
Saturday 12n: “Truly Weird Aliens” with Jake Casella Brookins, Lawrence M. Schoen, Eli K.P. William, and Frank Wu.
Saturday 11pm “Eye of Argon Reading” in Regency A with Michael A. Ventrella (I’m not listed in the official program, but I’ll be there).
Hope to see many of you there! Also, I’ll be seeking out authentic Buffalo chicken wings, if you want to join me. Yummm!
Oh, and I also have a hotel reservation for Shore Leave next weekend, if someone is looking to share a room.
For those who haven’t heard: Donald Trump chose Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his vice-presidential running mate in this year’s election.
I’ve been listening to the talking heads as they keep coming back to Vance’s youth: his fortieth birthday will be August 2. I’m not talking about experience, but simply his age.
While the millennials they’ve interviewed are thrilled that one of their generation is on the ticket, the talking heads have several times compared his age to Theodore Roosevelt’s (who was 42 years 128 days old when he took office as vice president, but six months later, William McKinley was assassinated, and TR became the youngest-ever president). Interestingly—at least, to me—they’re not talking about Richard Nixon, who turned 40 two weeks before he was inaugurated as vice president in 1953 (he served two terms under Dwight Eisenhower, lost the presidential election of 1960 to John Kennedy, and then was elected president in 1968).
The record-holder in terms of being the youngest vice president is John C. Breckinridge, James Buchanan’s vice president. Breckinridge was 36 years 318 days old when he was inaugurated in 1857. He had served in the House of Representatives from 1851 to 1855, and after his vice presidency, served several months in the Senate, before siding with the Confederacy (the Senate branded him a traitor, and expelled him in December 1861). He later served as the CSA’s fifth and final Secretary of War, from February to May 1865.
[And yes, for those of you paying attention, I didn’t post for the fifth: it was all dealers’ room, no programming.]
It’s another science fiction convention weekend—the first of three in a row for me. This weekend, I’ll be in Quincy, Massachusetts, for Readercon. As always, seek me out in the dealers’ room at the Fantastic Books table, where we’ll be debuting two new books: In Memoriam by Fred Lerner, and Disturbing Stories by Ron Miller. They’re both great, in completely different ways.
I’ll also be on programming, a bit. You can find me at my kaffeeklatsch Friday at 4pm in Basalt, and on the panel “The Breakup of the United States in Speculative Fiction” on Sunday at 10am in Salon 4 with Randee Dawn, Tom Greene, James Morrow, and Sarena Straus. I’ll also be at the Meet the Pros(e) event Friday night in Salon 3.
Hope to see many of you there… or the following weekend in Buffalo, New York, or the weekend after that in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (details on those two after I get back from this one)
I’ve been mulling the current presidential election season. Specifically, I’ve been wondering if Joe Biden might have more easily opted to be a one-term president if he hadn’t had to announce his attentions so far in advance of the election. After all, if he’d said—in April 2023—that he wasn’t running for another term, he would have been a lame duck for 21 months, nearly half of his term.
So I’ve dug out the data from the primary era of presidential campaigns, to see if my assumption was correct. Here’s what I found.
Lyndon Johnson was in the race ten months before election day. On March 12, 1968, he won 49 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, barely beating Eugene McCarthy’s 42 percent. Four days later, Robert F. Kennedy got into the race. Johnson announced his withdrawal from the race March 31, 1968, 219 days before the election of 1968.
Richard Nixon authorized the formation of his re-election campaign committee on January 7, 1972, 305 days before the election of 1972. He won the election in one of the greatest landslides in presidential history.
Gerald Ford launched his presidential campaign July 8, 1975, one year and 117 days before the election of 1976. He lost a surprisingly close race to Jimmy Carter.
Jimmy Carter launched his re-election bid on December 4, 1979, 336 days before the election of 1980. He lost handily to Ronald Reagan.
Ronald Reagan announced his re-election campaign on January 29, 1984, 282 days before the election of 1984. His margin of victory was almost as large as Nixon’s.
George H.W. Bush announced his re-election campaign on February 12, 1992, 265 days before the election of 1992. He lost a three-way race to Bill Clinton.
Bill Clinton announced his re-election campaign on April 14, 1995, one year and 202 days before the election of 1996. He won in another three-way race, becoming the only president to win two terms without ever garnering a majority of the popular vote.
George W. Bush announced his re-election campaign on May 16, 2003, one year and 171 days before the election of 2004. He won in a less contentious election than his first.
Barack Obama announced his re-election campaign on April 4, 2011, one year and 213 days before the election of 2012. He won in a closer election than his first.
Donald Trump announced his re-election campaign on January 20, 2017—the day he was inaugurated—three years and 288 days before the election of 2020. He lost the election.
Joe Biden announced his re-election campaign on April 25, 2023, one year and 191 days before the election of 2024.
Conclusion: it wasn’t Donald Trump or the 24-hour-a-day give-us-an-election-so-we-don’t-have-to-report-actual-news news cycle that caused Joe Biden to have to announce so early. Rather, it was Bill Clinton who started this absurd trend, and Biden is just doing what his predecessors did. (I’m leaving out Ford because he was a special circumstance in so many ways.)
Also, how long before the election a president starts running for re-election doesn’t seem to have an effect on the outcome of the election.
Today is publication day for Fred Lerner’s moving novel of the Terran Diaspora, IN MEMORIAM.
In Memoriam is the story of David Bernstein, a 17-year-old member of the Remnant of Terra, who are the descendants of the 2,000 people who survived the Cataclysm that destroyed human life on Earth. For two centuries the Remnant has lived among the Wyneri, who rescued the few survivors and brought them to their world. Although the Wyneri are physically and psychologically very similar to Terrans, the two species interact only when they must. The Remnant earn their keep among their alien hosts, but otherwise remain apart, devoting themselves to preserving the cultural heritage of Terra.
David, however, is fascinated with the Wyneri and their culture, an interest shared by none of his contemporaries. Attending a Wyneri performance he meets a Wyneri girl his own age, and he and Harari strike up a taboo friendship.
While David learns about his Terran heritage, he feels very much alone in trying to also learn about the history of the Terran-Wyneri relationship. Violent Wyneri xenophobia drives David to intensify his studies, and to dig into the mysteries surrounding the Cataclysm, the rescue, and the ensuing two centuries of cover-ups. He begins to suspect a long-lived cabal that has spent the years working in secret, preparing for a return to Earth.
Harari’s murder crystallizes David’s need to explore the Terran-Wyneri history. Her posthumous message proving that the Cataclysm was caused by rogue Wyneri military personnel leads David to the Remnant’s leaders, who confirm it as genuine. Their conclusion? The time has come for Terrans to separate from the Wyneri. They enlist David’s help to persuade the Remnant to return to Earth, and to encourage the Wyneri to help them.
I’ve got a convention coming up, but I won’t have a dealer table, and I won’t be on any panels. American Mensa’s Annual Gathering will be in Kansas City, Missouri, July 3–7, and I’ll be there and busy.
Of course I’ll be at the AMC meeting all day Thursday, and the Annual Business Meeting Friday morning [in Sheraton Chicago A/B], as well as the Misster Mensa Pageant rooting for my sister Friday evening [Westin Century Ballroom], and smaller committee meetings and one-on-one sessions (this is where the governance of Mensa happens). And in my new guise as First Vice Chairman of the organization, I’ll be hosting the LocSecs Meet & Greet at noon on Saturday in Westin Pershing Place East.
But I’ll also be at various more enjoyable events, and I’m inviting everyone who’s going to join me. Events I’m planning to be at (subject, as always, to conversational stoppages in the halls, last-minute business meetings, and all the other vagaries that keep schedules from surviving contact with reality) include:
Wednesday: 1:30 pm, “L. Frank Baum: The Wizard Behind Oz” [in Sheraton New York B]. 4:30pm, “Gen X SIG Meet & Greet [Westin Pershing Place North/South]
Thursday: 6:00pm, the Joke-Off [Sheraton Atlanta]. 9:00pm, the Dance [Westin Century Ballroom]. I’ll probably step out of the dance for a while to watch the fireworks, too.
Friday: 12:00n, “Region 1 Meet & Greet” [Westin Liberty]. 1:30pm, “Editors Roundtable” [Westin Mission/Shawnee]. 3:00, “Come On Down” (game-show panel) [Sheraton Chicago A/B]. 4:30pm, either “Firehouse Meet & Greet” [Westin Pershing Place North/South] or “Presentation Karaoke” [Sheraton Chicago C].
Saturday: 9:00am, “Attracting Members” [Westin Mission/Shawnee]. 10:30am “Iran Hostage Barry Rosen” [Sheraton Atlanta]. 1:30pm “Mensa International Meet & Greet” [Westin Pershing Place East]. 4:30pm, “Webb Space Telescope” [Sheraton Atlanta].
Somewhere in there, I’m going to have to find time to get out of the hotels and cross the river into Kansas, probably for a meal, because I’ve never been in Kansas (it’s one of the last 15 states on my list to visit). Also, either Sunday or Monday morning, I’ll be going to the Harry S Truman Presidential Library and Museum, and trying to take it all in in the few hours I can spend there.
So in short, it’s going to be a busy week (leaving New York early Wednesday, coming home late Monday). And that’s just the wind-up for a month on the road: I’ll follow up the AG with three straight weekends of science fiction conventions (of which, more anon). Hope to see all you Mensans there!
What kind of siding do you need to protect your house from werewolves? Would you kill someone to prevent them from committing suicide? What would you say to him if you met Dr. Frankenstein? Imagine building a clockwork god… that truly is God. How many times can you execute a mass murderer? What is a goddess to do when her worshippers abandon her for another? Could you carry out a death sentence yourself? If you were the last person on Earth, would you know it? Forget “raised by wolves.” What about the boy raised by birds? It’s a hard life for the man who is always second. Imagine a world where nothing dies. Nothing. What would a zombie have to do to prove his status as undead?
In these Disturbing Stories, Ron Miller answers (or in some cases, asks) questions that will make you look at the world differently, and not necessarily from a position of comfort.
“Ron Miller has the rare gift of being a visionary in two ways: a superb imaginative artist who is also a fine storyteller. I’ve been an admirer of his paintings for many years; what a pleasure it is to discover that his short stories are just as wonderful. Disturbing Stories is a terrific collection; read this book, by all means.” —Allen Steele, three-time Hugo Award-winner
Disturbing Stories by Ron Miller $15.99, 268 pages, trade paperback, ISBN: 978-1-5154-5821-0
Fantastic Books is pleased to be publishing Disturbing Stories on June 11, 2024. Review copies are available upon request.
Donald Trump is a convicted felon, joining the ignominious ranks of Aaron Burr[1], John C. Breckenridge[2], and John Tyler[3]. Even though his conviction was on the least consequential of the four cases currently pending against him, we now live in a world where a former President of the United States is a convicted felon. But does it really mean anything? Those who support him so ardently will continue to support him. Those who do not support him don’t need new reasons to not support him. And the undecided voters—the key to most elections in this country—are a small and shrinking percentage this time around, since the major candidates are both completely known quantities.
The conviction itself is not the sad event. The sad event was when Donald Trump shamed the office by fomenting insurrection during the ballot counting. It was the entire year of 2020, when he spent so much effort making people mistrust the electoral system, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to win a fair election. It was when he urged others to help him cheat just to retain the office he could not legitimately claim. And those things will be adjudicated in the further trials… if they are ever allowed to proceed.
The current conviction is simply a confirmation of what we’ve known about Donald Trump all along: that he’s a liar, a grifter, a thief, who will do or say anything to protect himself, regardless of its legality or morality.
While the actual crime is fairly small potatoes, it is entirely in keeping with Trump’s character. What makes it so egregious is that it was committed by a presidential candidate. But even that is something we should (unfortunately) have come to expect from him. He keeps telling us who he is; we are the fools for constantly being surprised. He keeps begging us to pay attention only to the show that he is, to not look behind the curtain. And that’s what this case was about: the hidden back-story that is even less appealing. And that’s been his entire career. Keeping a porn star from saying he’s a sexual predator? That’s tiny. What I want to know is why is he still the only president in living memory to not release his tax returns? What is hiding in those documents that he so assiduously does not want people to know about him?
[1] Vice President Aaron Burr (1801–05) arguably committed treason by working with Mexico to overthrow Spanish rule in 1807, but was acquitted due to the paucity of evidence.
[2] Vice President John C. Breckinridge (1857–61) was representing Kentucky in the US Senate in 1861 when he declared that the Union no longer existed and that Kentucky should be free to choose her own course. He enlisted in the Confederate army, was indicted for treason in U.S. federal district court in Frankfort on November 6, 1861, and on December 2, 1861, the Senate declared him a traitor and expelled him.
[3] President John Tyler (1841–45) presided over the Washington Peace Conference in February 1861, which was an effort to prevent the Civil War. The convention sought a compromise, but Tyler voted against the conference’s resolutions. At the same time, he was elected to the Virginia Secession Convention, and presided over it as well. Tyler voted for secession, and negotiated the terms for Virginia’s entry into the Confederate States of America. On June 14, he signed the Ordinance of Secession, and then was elected to the Provisional Confederate Congress, where he served until just before his death in 1862. In November 1861, he was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives but he died of a stroke before the first session could open in February 1862. Because of his allegiance to the Confederacy, his was the only presidential death to go unrecognized in Washington.
Ian Randal Strock 