I’m thinking of upcoming conventions and appearances. Thinking that there’s a real dearth at this time of year. After Philcon, a week and a half ago (which, as Philcons go, was average: a good time socially, a bad time commercially), I’ve got a one-day event in two weeks (The Steampunk Charity Bazaar in Boxborough, Massachusetts [see below for grumble on that town]). Then nothing until Arisia in mid-January in Boston (January 13-15). That’s followed by a gap of another month, before Gimmerdark (February 3-5 in Princeton, NJ), Boskone (February 17-19 in Boston, MA), Heliosphere (March 10-12 in Tarrytown, NY), Albacon (March 31-April 2 in Albany, NY), Lunacon (April 7-9 in Tarrytown, NY), and the Steampunk World’s Fair (May 5-7 in Piscataway, NJ). So I’m thinking of adding another one right in the middle, right in the same place: Dark Side of the Con, March 17-19, also in Piscataway, NJ.

With all of that work planned, I’ve also got Mensa events in Rhode Island in mid-January, and New Jersey at the beginning of March. But looking at this list, it tells me that I need to find conventions in other places: I’ve got three in eastern Massachusetts, two in Tarrytown, three in central New Jersey…

Oh, and that Boxborough grumble? We just found out that the town of Boxborough tries to charge a transient vendor license fee of $15. That’s in addition to requiring vendors to charge sales tax, and the money the vendors are paying to the convention/hotel for the space, and buying food in the town, and a hotel room in the town… This is the first time I’ve run into such naked financial opportunism on the backs of people doing business in the town and with town-based businesses. But since we were only told of the fee this weekend, and the show is in two weeks, we’ll be sucking it up and paying… this time. But I probably won’t be returning to Boxborough in the future.

This weekend, I’ll be in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, for the latest iteration of Philcon. As per usual, I’ll be spending the daylight hours tethered to the Fantastic Books table in the dealers’ room. But if you’ll be there, you’ll also be able to catch me on a few programming items: Friday at 11pm in Crystal Ballroom Two, it’s “Eye of Argon Interactive” with Michael A Ventrella, Peter Prellwitz, Hildy Silverman, and Bethlynne Prellwitz. Saturday at noon in Plaza Two is the panel “What To Do When Real Science Outpaces Your Current SF Project” with John Skylar, Phil Giunta, Mike McPhail, Jane Fancher, and David Walton. Saturday at 11pm in Crystal Ballroom Two (again) will be “Whose Line Is It, Anyway?” with Peter Prellwitz, Hildy Silverman, Tee Morris, and Michael A. Ventrella. Hope to see some of you there!

Here’s a post-election analysis that hasn’t yet been bruited about, in the wake of the louder commentary on the Presidential election:

What do you think of the job Congress has been doing? If you’re like four in five Americans, you were not happy with the legislative branch of our government. Polls from most polling organizations taken over the past two seasons report Congressional job approval ratings from eleven percent to a high of 18% (meaning more than 80% of Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing.

So what did we do about it? In the elections of 2016, we voted out 3% of our Representatives and 2% of our Senators. In other words, we decided to re-elect, keep in office, rehire, more than 97% of the people we said were doing such a poor job. That’s why we are perennially unhappy with our government, and why Congress doesn’t bother to change what they’re doing. We can keep saying we don’t like what they’re doing, but if we keep re-electing them, they have no reason to change what they do or how they do it.

The actual numbers:

There are 435 seats in the House of Representatives. In 2016, 43 Representatives chose not to seek re-election, 5 Representatives lost their bids for re-election in primary elections, and 8 Representatives were defeated in their bids for re-election in the general election. In other words, 87% of the members of the House of Representatives will be returning to their seats in the next Congress. And of those who wanted to return, 96.7% were re-elected.

There are 100 seats in the Senate. In 2016, 34 of those seats were up for re-election. 5 Senators chose not to seek re-election. 29 ran for re-election, and 27 of them won re-election.

Some Congressional approval ratings come from polls conducted by Gallup (18% approve, 79% disapprove; October 5-9, 2016); The Economist (11% approve, 67% disapprove; November 4-7, 2016); CBS News / The New York Times (15% approve, 76% disapprove; October 28-November 1, 2016); Associated Press (14% approve, 86% disapprove; October 20-24, 2016); Fox News (18% approve, 79% disapprove; September 27-29, 2016).

From the department of “The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same… and Sometimes Not So Much”:

Gray Rabbit Publications has just published a new edition William H. Crook’s memoir from a century ago, Through Five Administrations (with an introduction by me). Crook worked in the White House for half a century, and in this book, he reminisces about the administrations of Presidents Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur. Many of his comments and thoughts seemed oddly prescient, especially in light of the current election season, and our present view of the government in general.

From a road trip Crook took with Abraham Lincoln toward the end of the Civil War: “Correspondence had been held for Mr. Lincoln’s attention during the seventeen days of absence.” Sure sounds like what we’d do today, right?

But consider that, in 1865, after three-quarters of a century of Presidents, “Andrew Johnson was a hard-working and businesslike man. Except for an hour or so in the afternoon and at meal-times, he rarely left his desk until midnight. He immediately went to work to organize an executive office, which had never been done before. This was imperative, because of the mass of details caused by the end of the war.” And “for the first time in the history of the White House, records of the office were kept. There had never been anything before but lists of appointments.”

“Mr. Johnson had an unfortunate propensity for coining phrases which could be used to ridicule him.” That sort of thing would never happen today, would it?

Talking about the disagreements over Reconstruction after the Civil War: “There was one difficulty, growing out of the division between the President and Congress, which I believe no other chief executive has ever had to contend against. It was virtually impossible for Mr. Johnson to have his appointments to office confirmed, unless the men happened to be in high favor with Congress.” Need I say more?

Never before have the two leading candidates for the Presidency had such high negative poll numbers. But that doesn’t mean we were always wildly in favor of the people we elected. For instance, Crook was there for “the election of 1872, in which General Grant won rather by the weakness of his adversary than by his own strength.”

Following the election of 1880, Crook writes “There was nothing of the tragedy of disappointed hopes that sometimes makes the departure of a President hard to contemplate. For General Hayes did not believe in second terms, had not coveted one for himself, and was only too glad to retire into private life. The welcome given General and Mrs. Garfield by the retiring White House family was more than the conventional, decent exercise of courtesy. It was marked by real warmth, for the Garfield and the Hayes families were friends.” How often do we see that happening in modern times?

Talking about the appointed staff in the White House, Crook notes of the Garfield administration: “with one exception, there were no changes in the executive office. In fact, even when the spoils system has held unquestioned sway over other Government offices, Civil-Service Reform has usually been observed in the personnel of the President’s own office. And that in itself is an interesting point, since the chief appointing power has realized that efficiency can be obtained only where appointments and removals have been separated from party strife.” Sure sounds like today, doesn’t it?

This past weekend was Boston Mensa’s regional gathering, known as Wicked Good. As always, a good time with people I know and people I met. This time, I was also an invited speaker on the program. I presented “Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton: Calling Them Exceptional is Understatement” to a very full room (every seat was full, and there were people sitting on the floor). Considering that there were several other program items at the same time, and I was contending with the water park in the hotel which hosted the gathering, getting one-quarter of the attendees to come listen to me was a very gratifying turnout. (And as a reminder: I’m available to speak to your group, too.)

Sunday evening, after leaving the hotel, I visited a friend in Brookline who showed me my latest book, Ranking the Vice Presidents, which he’d borrowed from the library (photo attached). My own library here in Brooklyn has it available only as an ebook, so it was a neat surprise to see my physical book in library livery!

Here’s a new one to me: I just heard from my publisher that someone has requested access to my Amazon author page with the e-mail address irs@panix.com. What’s strange is that I used to own that account. I gave it up a bunch of years ago. Now, it seems, someone else has access to it, and is trying to use it. If you hear from that address, please know that it is not me using it.

On our way out to friends’ home on Long Island Wednesday, we made a quick stop at Sagamore Hill—Theodore Roosevelt’s home—which I’d never visited before. Unlike the Grover Cleveland museum in New Jersey (which is very informative, but very small), Sagamore Hill is a very large site/museum, and will require another trip to actually see it all. But a quick impression: gorgeous house in a wonderful setting, and the museum in TR Jr’s house (out behind the main house) is well laid out. We didn’t actually get a chance to get into the main house: tickets are required for guided tours, and we just didn’t have the time.

However, a quick stop in the gift shop presented me with a very pleasant surprise: The Presidential Book of Lists on the shelf, eagerly awaiting new homes (there were several copies there). I was excited when it first came out and I saw it for the first time on the shelves of a bookstore. Now I realize I’m still excited to find it on the shelves, especially at a Presidential home, where it really ought to be. Hurray!

#sagamorehill #theodoreroosevelt #tpbol

The fall convention season ramps up tomorrow, as I head to Gaithersburg, Maryland, for Capclave, which is always a nice convention. A little smaller than some, with a stronger focus on short fiction (my forte), it’s always a good time. And if  you’re looking for me, as usual, I’ll be tethered to the Fantastic Books table in the dealers’ room for most of the weekend. I’ll also be on four panels and another special program item:

• Friday at 9pm in the Bethesda room: “Small Press: Is It Still a Golden Age?” with Lezli Robyn, Hildy Silverman, Sean Wallace, and Steven H. Wilson.
• Friday at 10pm in the Bethesda room: “Where’s My Flying Car?” with Neil Clarke, Andrew Fox, and Christopher Weuve.
• Saturday at 12n in Salon A: “Putting Real Science in Science Fiction” with Michael Capobianco, Alan Smale, and Bud Sparhawk.
• Saturday at 4pm in the Rockville/Potomac room: “Politics in Science Fiction & Fantasy” with Anthony Dobranski, Larry Hodges, Karen Wester Newton, and David Walton.
• Saturday at 10pm in Suite 1209: “Eye of Argon Reading/Performance/Presentation” with Walter H. Hunt, Hildy Silverman, and Michael A. Ventrella, along with a special surprise cast. If you haven’t attended one of these performances before, you don’t know what you’re missing. And if you have, well, you know you want to come back.

I’ll also be at the WSFA Small Press Award ceremony Saturday at 9pm, rooting on Tanith Lee’s “Burn Her” (which I published in her collection Dancing Through the Fire).

Hope to see some of you there!

#capclave #tanithlee #fantasticbooks

A very nice (and lengthy) review of the anthology with my story in it at this link. Of my story “Shall Not Perish from the Earth,” the reviewer says “riveting” and “emotionally provocative.” Guess that means he likes it.

Tonight, ABC Television is debuting a new series called Designated Survivor, apparently about what happens when the President, Vice President, most of the Cabinet, and Congress die during a State of the Union address, and how the one Cabinet member who stayed home as the “designated survivor” becomes the President. I’ll be watching, because I’m fascinated by the White House and the Presidency, although I wonder what they can do to differentiate it from The West Wing beyond the first few episodes, if they’re planning to make it an open-ended series.

Tom Clancy explored a similar scenario in his Jack Ryan series (the book Executive Orders, published in 1996), and Irving Wallace looked into it from a racial point of view in The Man (published in 1964).

The Presidential order of succession—beyond the Vice President—has been frequently discussed, and several laws have been adopted, switching around the order over the decades, although none of them have ever had to be put into use. Nevertheless, it is an interesting topic for fiction to explore. And if you’re looking for more on the factual side (what is the designated survivor, how did it come to be, and who has been that person who was one terrorist attack from the Oval Office?), check out chapters 72-77 in my newest book Ranking the Vice Presidents (specifically, chapter 77 is titled “Designated Survivor”).

#designatedsurvivor