04-06-11:Patrick Rothfuss Reads at SF in SF on March 3, 2011
"The book itself has only been out a couple of days, and I myself have some very strong feelings about spoilers."
—Patrick Rothfuss
The Man of the Hour showed up in a Serenity t-shirt, ready to read from a book that had barely been released. As such, Patrick Rothfuss found himself in a quandary that made me admire him. How to read from a book so new that anything he might choose would contain spoilers?
And of course, there is the problem beyond the newness of the book. Rothfuss was in town to read from 'The Wise Man's Fear.' It's the second in the "Kingkiller Chronicles," which means that by definition anything in it is pretty much a spoiler for those who have not read or finished the first book, 'The Name of the Wind.' The audience chose for him; they wanted the longest passage he was willing to read.
Tor was quite happy to see 'The Wise Man's Fear' debut on the New York Times bestseller list. Given that my understanding is that these lists denote books shipped / "sold" to stores, they cannot have been too surprised, but nonetheless, there's a level of confidence in this author that is bracing. For all we are told that the end is near, apparently it is far enough away to justify sending out millions of copies of a 1,008 page novel that fully qualifies for the description of "tome."
'The Wise Man's Fear' is, after all, a classic fantasy novel, the second in a trilogy, full of the tropes we know and love, just incredibly well-written and involving in a way that makes it stand out beyond what are probably the millions of books that want to be like this one.
04-05-11:Gail Carriger Reads at SF in SF on March 3, 2011
"The first scene I'm going to read for you starts out with our hero, who is in a bit of a predicament."
—Gail Carriger
OK, yes, I had a lot going on for the SF in SF event on March 3rd. I was trying for the first time to set up a video camera so that audience members in the lounge could see what was going on in the theater. It was a bit too much, but I did manage to get some great readings, and of material that I think is very pertinent to my rant above. I mean, what could be better than Jane Austen with weird science and monsters? It's sort of like nirvana, right?
Gail Carriger is a purveyor of just such a series, which offers readers the adventures of what she calls The Parasol Protectorate. You can hear her interview about the work here. It will give you a great overview as to what she's about, and why she might be the next Big Thing. But she's already a big thing. You can just ask her audience.
Reading before a live audience, what makes Gail so good is that she doesn't just read; she performs, in all aspects, her work. My photography may be dodgy, but it gets close to capturing her impeccable taste in clothing, her sense of style that makes you think she might just be a character from her own novel.
The March 3rd event with Patrick Rothfuss and Gail Carriger was packed, and to my mind, live literary events are overdue for more of the same. They are generally free, and you can walk away with a signed book, which is a much better keepsake than a tattered movie ticket. Signed books have been known to accumulate value; movie tickets generally get thrown away. The significance of this should not be lost upon the reader. The charm of Gail Carriger will certainly not be lost on the listeners who follow this link to the MP3 audio file.
04-04-11:A 2011 Interview with Michio Kaku
You can always click on the image to reach the audio link
"We are emotionally, socially identical to the caveman of 100,000 years ago, except we have nuclear weapons."
—Michio Kaku
I suppose, that having just written my review of Kaku's latest book on a laptop that is not, after all, all that different from the first word processors I used some thirty years ago, the interview I did with Kaku was like something straight out of science fiction.
First there was the scheduling, with myself having to miss a phone interview with Kaku due to family matters, then with Kaku being so busy, so in-demand that it seems like they must have booked every minute of his stay in Northern California. The remarkable fact is that Kaku spent a fair amount of his time researching the book and filming material for his Discovery and Science Channel series here. But on tour, his publicists were understandably trying to fill in every space, every blank in his already-busy schedule.
When I met him, I could instantly see why. Even as we walked through the super-futuristic interiors at KQED — which really do look like sets for 2001, what with the huge curved atrium and the multi-screen satellite feed room — Kaku enthused that he wrote these books for the teenaged version of himself that had built a particle accelerator. I've met lots of writers and I know real enthusiasm when I see it. Kaku had me revved up even before we went in the studio.
When you hear this podcast, you're going to hear some bits I usually don’t include, some of my comments leading up to and after the reading. I was frankly thunderstruck by Kaku's verve. He was an absolute blast and a natural for TV. I think any major network with half a brain in its head (asking a lot, I know) would jump at the chance to give him a prime-time talk show. He is that good — he's better than that good. I wanted to talk not just about the substance of the book, but also about how he brought it into being. But no matter what Kaku talks about, he's having the time of his life, and I have to say that listeners will as well when they follow the link to this MP3 audio file.
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04-26-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Emmanuel Carrere 'The Adversary' : The Enemy Within
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04-16-12: Commentary : Richard Zacks Visits 'Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York' :The Wild, Wild East
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