So apparently I have been really remiss in talking about my travel schedule, because people were surprised yesterday to find out I was coming to WisCon. Uh, surprise?

So, quickly. YES, I am coming to WisCon! I get in tomorrow, leave Monday, and can’t wait to see everyone I possibly can in the meantime.

I’m also doing a group reading! It’s Saturday at 4pm in Conference Room 2, which I am hoping is one of the ones with the wing chairs that make you look like you’re introducing an Agatha Christie mystery on Masterpiece Theatre.

I will be reading alongside Gwenda Bond, Christopher Rowe, and Richard Butner. And because at least 75% of the group has a circus-themed project already out or in the works, it’s called “…And Other Circuses.” (Did I make a dorky flier for it? Of course I did. It narrowly beat out the one where we pose for a hipster-band album cover, mostly because Richard Butner couldn’t bring his theremin.)

Tonight, dental work (I still don’t think this was the best plan I ever made). Tomorrow, WisCon!

Between Steampunk World’s Fair last weekend (which was a blast!), and WisCon this weekend (blast anticipated!), I am falling a little behind on the media-consumed section.

This month in general has been a little thin on the ground, entertainment-wise. Usually over a weekend I can rack up half a dozen movies, easy. Since Thursday, my media consumption has been the first third of Conan the Destroyer I had TiVoed and watched as I packed for World’s Fair, an episode of Extreme Couponing that gave me the vapors, and about five seconds of an episode of The Office that someone next to me was watching on the subway this morning. Then I fell asleep. (It’s been that sort of week.)

Tomorrow, a dentist’s appointment (THAT was well-planned!), and then packing for Thursday’s flight out to Madison, where I might eventually cave and just sit in the bar watching the SyFy channel just to get a bad-movie fix. (I have some actual con-type things planned, though – more on this tomorrow, I hope!)

If I’m lucky, they’ll be showing High Plains Invaders! For half a second I thought they had just remade Copperhead (it’s one of THOSE Westerns), but I was mistaken!

The page for this 2009 movie explains that “The Old West won’t know what hit it when cowboys and aliens square off in the ultimate showdown.”

(As I was checking links I saw that High Plains Invaders is actually available to watch right now. Movies, why must you taunt me?!)

My body’s at the day job, my mind is on the new netbook sitting at home waiting to be set up for the trip tomorrow, and that means it’s time to catch up with writing news! (Or, it means that I should have brought my netbook into the office, but no one here needs to see the amount of costume reference pictures I’ll be transferring onto it. (They’re for research, I swear! STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT.)

RIP, little Fassbender Syndrome, Jr.; I shall never forget how many times I was able to drop you before you finally broke.

1. On the Mechanique front, Faren Miller had some lovely things to say about it in May’s issue of Locus. For the curious and pixel-minded, part of the article is also available online. [ETA: There are some minor spoilers, and also Little George, a young man, is pronouned as a young woman; it doesn't affect the review as a whole, but if you had read the book and were confused, no worries.]

(Fun fact: I did the Author Thing of signing stock in the Union Square Barnes and Noble. As a chronic introvert, I was a little unprepared to be smooth about it all, and so it ended up like every terrible 7th grade dance ever – “HI WOULD YOU LIKE TO DANCE WITH ME I MEAN IN A GROUP MAYBE OR YOU DON’T HAVE TO DANCE WITH ME I WAS ONLY ASKING NEVER MIND IT WAS A JOKE I’M MOVING TO ICELAND BYE” – but hey, signed stock!)

2. I have a story in the just-announced The New Adventures of John Carter of Mars, a John Joseph Adams YA anthology that takes you back to Barsoom (or, to Barsoom for the first time! Barsoom doesn’t judge.) The TOC is amazing, and I really enjoyed writing my story, “A Game of Mars,” which follows Deja Thoris and John Carter’s daughter as she goes AWOL from home to rescue her brother from the deadly living-chess game of Jetan.

3. I’ll also be appearing in Armored, which just got cover art and a partial list of contributors. “The Last Run of the Coppelia” is about backwater algae-harvesters, the slightly-dim AIs who love them, and the accidental incriminating evidence that makes them all assassination targets. Whoops!

4. And since Nora did it, I will, too: I’ll be in Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling’s After! Hop over to her journal for a partial list of contributors and a nice teaser for her story. My story is “The Segment,” about a boarding school that houses kids of all ages and takes the nightly news very, very seriously.

5. When I get home tonight, I’ll be packing my bags for the Steampunk World’s Fair! My reading is at 1pm Saturday, but I’ll be around most of Saturday and Sunday; if you’re inclined to say hi, please do! I have a tendency to think that when people tap me on the shoulder Something Gross is On My Face, but if you can get past that initial facial expression, we’re good! Also, if I tap YOU on the shoulder, it’s because I have a spiffy new camera and I want to take your picture; there is probably nothing on your face.

6. (So much for five things.) I am wonderful at knowing what I need to pack, how it will fit in my suitcase, and how to account for contingencies, until the day before departure, when I buy eight pairs of pants, fifteen shirts, and a jacket from a store, then get home and remembered that what I needed to buy was a pair of socks.

So, for those who are around this weekend and interested in fun times, I’ll be appearing at Steampunk World’s Fair in Somerset, NJ! I’m part of their Library of Lost Literature, which is showcasing some amazing books this year, and which I am thrilled to be part of.

I’ll be reading Saturday at 1pm, alongside Ekaterina Sedia, who will be giving a glimpse of her upcoming novel Heart of Iron, an alternate-history romp involving airships, railroad shenanigans, international politics, and Spring-Heeled Jack. Just saying.

We’ll be giving away some gift bags from Prime, with anthologies, novels, ARCs, and steampunk accessories! With any luck, there will also be more kettle corn, because I stamped so many of those bags I will be filling them with things for about two years (OverCraft-itis: it’s a process).

Hope to see some of you there!

I am a pretty big sucker when it comes to watching fairy tales. Ever since the days of Faerie Tale Theatre and The Storyteller back when I was knee-high to a goose, pretty much every time I hear about a TV show or movie based on a fairy tale, my reaction is, “Oof, that’s probably going to be awkward! Still, I’m there.”

My taste in this arena is even more questionable than in most others. (See also: the competing Snow White remakes, Hansel and Gretel: Demon Hunters – oh, it’s real, and it’s happening – and SyFy’s abysmal Beauty and the Beast, among a dozen others.) Your adaptation can be a wonderfully costumed games of Actor Bingo (Hallmark’s Arabian Nights), a hidden gem (The Polar Bear King), a cheeseball epic (The 10th Kingdom), your college video project, or an absolutely unbelievably terrible miniseries (Hallmark’s Snow Queen, YOU PUT THAT FAIRY TALE DOWN RIGHT NOW). I will still watch it.

It is a testament to how strong this instinct is that I intend to watch this show:

…for at least the two episodes they give it before TV audiences get sick of Jennifer Morrison’s non-acting and/or having to think about vaguely literary things for even a moment and/or a child and his endlessly prophetic and pithy advice, and ratings tank, and they yank it. (If it lasts longer than two episodes, I’ll renegotiate with the show based on the levels of non-acting delivered by Jennifer Morrison.)

If nothing else, it will drive me to finish the last leg of Faerie Tale Theatre Episodes I am Willing to Sit Through, so, still helpful!

P.S. Completely not this show’s fault, but it is an indelible byproduct of my early adolescence that the very idea of acting in a fairy tale adaptation immediately makes me want to write a love letter to Lucy Punch, because of her unforgettable Sally Peep in The 10th Kingdom.

The thing about a miniseries as sweeping as The 10th Kingdom is that you really do end up with a cast of hundreds. Some of those people are playing it straight, some of those people are just excited to be there getting paychecks and yoinking free food from the catering cart, and some of those people are in that miniseries purely to mess with you (“Does he KNOW the camera’s on?”). Besides the leads, these actors come and go.

It’s remarkable that in a miniseries where Scott Cohen logged more than half a dozen Ham-Off hours, and Daniel Lapaine tried to top it by being the literal Human Golden Retriever, Lucy Punch looked at her script and said, “So I have four scenes? Can I win the Ham-Off of a ten-hour miniseries in four scenes? LET’S FIND OUT.”

And then SHE DID.