I'm not much of a souvenir collector -- pictures and memories are usually enough -- but I did take home one physical artifact (well, twelve, if you count individual bottles) from my recent trip to Arizona: 8th Street Ale, the excellent English-style bitter from Four Peaks Brewery in Tempe.

I already had the glass, but there's been no 8th Street to put in it for almost two years now.

Don't they look happy together?

(I was also pleased that Jon Hansen became a fan of Four Peaks Kilt Lifter, served at our favorite bar in Flagstaff. I was a Kilt Lifter die-hard until the night I downed at least five of them, plus a burger and beer-battered fries. All delicious, but heavy stuff, that Kilt Lifter.)

From Random Pics

At the workshop last week, Deb Coates (charmingbillie) and I were talking about the differences between fantasy-refracted interior lives and more real-lifey real lives. I had no trouble describing my refracted life but found myself struggling for a concise way to describe my real life. Deb, however, pretty much nailed it: "You post pictures of coffee on the Internet."

From Flotsam Novel Progress

The problem with LiveJournal is that it's not Twitter, and Twitter is my current favorite toy. It's a pain to write in complete sentences, and Twitter doesn't demand that so much.

Anyway.

I spent last week up in the high, dry air of Flagstaff, Arizona, where I attended Starry Heaven, a novel writing workshop modeled after ccfinlay's Blue Heaven. Flagstaff has been one of my favorite getaways for years, and I enjoyed hanging out at some of my old haunts with eleven other writers. I figured we'd be using Beaver Street Brewery as our beer away from home, and even though we did end up there a few times, the watering hole of choice turned out to be the balcony of the Zane Grey Ballroom in the Weatherford Hotel, where we had a nice view of downtown Flagstaff and a solid selection of beer and bites.

The workshop portion of the week was great, too. I learned a lot about some of my deficiencies in plotting and character, and when I turn back to the novel-in-progress I brought, it'll be with an eye toward being less deficient, or possibly being deficient in new and exciting ways. In any case, it was a smart bunch with a lot of useful things to offer.

I didn't take many photos, but others did, and I shall link to them for your gawkage:

Mine:

Starry Heaven

Sarah Kelly's

Bill Shunn's

Jon Hansen's

ETA: Eugene Myers' pics

I've been getting a few emails lately asking where readers can find more of my stuff, so I wanted to point out that some of my stuff is stuffed into a convenient little chapbook, Show and Tell and Other Stories, published by Tim Pratt and Heather Shaw. The proceeds go to them, you get some stories (and doodles), everyone's happy. Unless you hate my stories and doodles. In which case you're maybe not the audience for this. But buy it anyway. Just because!

Contents:
In the Late December
Native Aliens
Anywhere There's a Game
Authorwerx
Show and Tell
Far As You Can Go

Plus the doodles.

Tim's also serializing a novella based on his Marla Mason novels. In his own words:

Bone Shop is a serialized, donation-funded urban fantasy novella, available for anyone to read for free. New chapters will go up every Monday. The Bone Shop website is here, though there's not a lot there at the moment. I'll post the first chapter on June 29.

Marla Mason is the chief sorcerer of Felport, a woman who's tangled with gods and monsters and come out on top (if a bit damaged in the process). But she wasn't always a formidable engine of brute force and pragmatism; she started out alone, in a strange city, without allies or any more power than the average teenage runaway on the street. Marla was always willing to do anything necessary to survive, and it didn't take long for her to stumble into a world of magic, danger... and even the occasional moment of grace.

Bone Shop tells the story of Marla's evolution from runaway to sorcerer's apprentice to mercenary magician and beyond. Fans of the urban fantasy series that began with Blood Engines will find surprising secrets revealed about Marla's past, and new readers can meet the character from the very beginning.

Tim's a close friend, but before he was a friend he was a writer I admired, and I admire him even more today. So, yeah, I think he's offering readers a great deal.

Oh, I'm in a rush, but I must say this:

The final volume in Charlie Finlay's Traitor to the Crown series, Demon Redcoat, is out today. Buy all three of CC Finlay's Traitor to the Crown series, be the first one to take a pic proving your possession of all three volumes, and I'll send you a free signed copy of Norse Code. I've read the first two and love them.

Details here.

Also, a book just released today that I have not read but that looks like really cool urban fantasy: The Mark of the Demon by Diana Rowland.

Cop and conjurer of demons, she's a woman in danger of losing control—to a power that could kill....

Why me? Why now? That’s what Beaulac, Louisiana, detective Kara Gillian was asking herself when an angelic creature named Rhyzkahl unexpectedly appeared during a routine summoning. Kara was hoping to use her occult skills to catch a serial killer, but never had she conjured anything like this unearthly beautiful and unspeakably powerful being whose very touch set off exquisite new dimensions of pleasure. But can she enlist his aid in helping her stop a killer who’s already claimed the lives—and souls—of thirteen people? And should she? The Symbol Man is a nightmare that the city thought had ended three years ago. Now he’s back for an encore and leaving every indication on the flesh of his victims that he, too, is well versed in demonic lore.

Kara may be the only cop on Beaulac’s small force able to stop the killer, but it is her first homicide case. Yet with Rhyzkahl haunting her dreams, and a handsome yet disapproving FBI agent dogging her waking footsteps, she may be in way over her head...

Hello. I'm up here in Flagstaff, Arizona for a novel writing workshop. Today was a non-workshopping kind of workshop day, involving lunch with most of my fellow workshoppers at the brew pub, checking in at the B&B, shopping for beer and vegetables, hanging out and drinking said beer, and then dinner.

Bill Shunn and I are sharing lodgings well equipped with various breakfast foods, including two different kinds of pancake mix. It's an embarrassment of comfort.

It's only 9:19 PM (in my own timezone, even), but the high altitude is sucking the wakefulness right from my pores, so the work I should be doing now is likely not to get done tonight. Maybe I'll get an early start tomorrow. Maybe I'll make two kinds of pancakes.

It's good to have options for places to buy books, and now there's a new one: The Tor.com Store. They're "publisher agnostic," meaning they're not only selling their own Tor books there, but stuff from other publishers, including mine. Full disclosure: My book is a featured title at the store (at least it was today), but I'd think it was an interesting idea and worth pointing out regardless. New ideas, new business models.

***

A reader reacts to Norse Code from a Christian perspective.

***

Heading out for Arizona tomorrow, because I miss it so much that I have to go back. No, of course that's not true! I'm going to a workshop in Flagstaff, and I've got some business in Phoenix to take care of first, by which I mean Four Peaks Brewery and Carlsbad Tavern. I used to get the nachos at Carlsbad on Friday nights after Kenpo class. And, yes, I actually do miss those nachos.

Life is all about taking chances. Or eating dinner at San Diego Chicken Pie Shop. Maybe I just said the same thing twice.

San Diego Chicken Pie Shop has been around for more than 70 years, but I think it went under modernization around 1974.

From San Diego - 2009

I like a place that's prepared to kill bugs.

From San Diego - 2009

In case the zappers don't get them, the gravy will. I like gravy. Drowning in gravy would be okay with me. In fact, this evening, it was. The difference between a chicken pot pie and a chicken pie is that the latter cannot be bothered with vegetables and potatoes. Fortunately, there was some of each among my fellow drowning victims.

From San Diego - 2009

And without segue, there were little flowers at yesterday's writing venue.

From Last

They've got this little widget thing on the Random House website that will let you read the first 32 pages of Norse Code, sort of. You get the front matter (that's blurbs and copyright page and acknowledgments), the prologue (which is different than the first chapter posted at Tor.com, and just as different from the second and third chapters posted at Suvudu), and then the first pages of several chapters.

I just wish the widget had blinking lights and beeped. Like a tricorder. That would have been really neat.

Frenetic day! Scattered! All over the place! Crazy!

But I did put in the very first words on a new project. Probably not the project I should be working on right now, so it might be a while before more words get added, but I wanted to file the pic here for future reference in case I get a Nobel prize or ribbon at the fair or think back someday and say, "Hey, that project I started once, what the hell was that?"

Also, a podcast of my story Will You Be an Astronaut is up at EscapePod.

From Last

I like weather. Southern California has no weather. I still love Southern California, but I'd love it more if there were weather. We actually did have some this morning, for a few minutes. There was sunshine and hail, all at the same time. Give me something wacky like that everyday, and I will love Southern California even more. (Give me wacky weather and a statutory end to discrimination against same-sex partnerships, and I'll respect California, too.)

Not happy with my writing write now. Right now. Homonym problem. Freudian slip, perhaps.

Jeremiah Tolbert was kind enough to interview me about Norse Code on his blog today. I speak of writing, coffee, and Los Angeles spooky houses.

Blog post at Tor.com, in which I review New Mutants #2.

colleenky has turned me into a Jonathan Coulton freak. All his stuff is available for free on the internet, yet I have spent money on it. Paul and Storm, too.

Has anyone here sold novel-in-translation rights to Scandinavian countries? (No, I haven't.) If so, can I ask which publisher(s)? Do you in general know who the good (book-length) SF publishers are? The bad ones?

Any responses here or to my email (gregvan@gmail.com) much appreciated.

Did you have a good weekend? I hope so. I had a good weekend, perhaps the highlight of which was the simple but tasty shrimp sandwich Lisa and I shared at the tiny little fish market/café in La Jolla whose name I can't remember now. And there was clam chowder as well, with those puffy little oyster crackers and hot sauce. And then a long walk around La Jolla, and seals. They want to get rid of the seals because the seals are occupying a strip of sand that's supposed to be set aside for children. If you saw all the tourists with their children enjoying the sight of the seals, you might wonder why anyone would want to get rid of this tourist and civic attraction in favor of another tiny patch of beach. There is no shortage of beach in San Diego. I say let the children swim with the seals. In fact, let the children be raised by seals. I have no real stake in any of this, but I enjoy sights worthy of gawking.

Here's a picture of the view from the sekrit park in Bird Rock. I post it in lieu of the pictures I did not take this weekend. I love that, from the end of nondescript street near the Starbucks, I can look out and, if it weren't for the curvature of the planet and atmosphere and myopia and a touch of astigmatism, I could see all the way to Japan.

From San Diego - 2009

In other news, I have no idea how Norse Code is selling. This is normal.

In still other yet related news, Norse Code was reviewed by Adrienne Martini in the June issue of Locus. It's a very nice review, I think. A few money quotes:

"Norse Code is a flat-out enjoyable adventure cloaked in a brief lesson on Norse mythology."

"Words tumble on the page with a lyric joy that is Pratchett-like in some passages."

And this one particular pleases me, because I was at times a little stressed about it when it would have been too late to save myself:

"And then there’s Mist, a female character who spends almost zero time talking about boys, romance or love. Instead, she can hold her own in a fight if forced while keeping her focus on the main goals of her quest. It’s refreshing that almost all of Mist’s scenes with other women would pass the Bechdel test, in that when two women are talking,they talk about something other than a man."

Not that there's not a little romance in Norse Code, and Mist and her sister do spend a little bit of time talking about boys, but I didn't want to leave the impression that, with the world literally crumbling to pieces around them, my female characters' main concerns were the men in their lives.

Finally, you know that thing people sometimes do on their blogs when they say they have a Big Sekrit and they can't tell you? Well, I'm not going to do that. Except that I do, and I can't, but I will, as soon as I can.

I'm a jerk.

There's this taco stand in LA at Sepulveda and Washington Place: Tito's. It's always been there. It always will be there. You stand in line on the sidewalk, banter with other sidewalk standers if that is your thing, order your order (which in my case is a beef and bean burrito with cheese, big bag of chips, medium cup of salsa), eat the goods while watching Pink Floyd's The Wall with your friends, and then possibly hallucinate a little bit.

That's one kind of Tito's experience.

Here's a flash piece at Escape Pod about a different kind of Tito's experience: Taco

No, really, I'm okay about not being at Wiscon. Seriously. I was thinking about talking Last Son of Krypton last year over breakfast in the Governer's Club with Christopher and Doselle and Ted and totally didn't get moony over it. Hallway conversations with hilarious friends? Who needs 'em? ::sniffle:: Darn these allergies.

Not that these "allergies" have completely stopped me from having a good weekend. Mysterious Galaxy were nice enough to invite me to do a signing and were gracious hosts, particularly manager Patrick. I had the pleasure of sharing the table with Kirsten Imani Kasai, author of Ice Song, and we both read some short selections, answered questions from the audience, and signed for friends, family, customers I assume neither one of us knew, and stock. My cousin Ellen bought about a bajillion copies of Norse Code, and one of Lisa's co-workers showed up, and Steven Klotz (MentatJack) came down by train from LA. (And, again, Steven, sorry I lost track of you as you were leaving; I should have at least offered you a ride to the station! Sorry!!!)

I feel lucky to have such a great bookstore in town. I already loved shopping there, and I couldn't have asked for a better place for my first signing. And then Lisa and I had meat for dinner and ice cream. Meat! Ice cream!

Here're a couple of pics. I cut off some people on the right, including store manager Patrick. Cameras should be better at knowing what I want to get a picture of. There should be a special Dumbass Prevention chip.

From Mysterious Galaxy Signing

And here I am, signing. Rather furiously, it looks like.

From Mysterious Galaxy Signing

And only tangentially related, Charles Tan sends me this picture of Norse Code in the Philippines. It's under E, which is correct (sometimes) from a filing standpoint, but I prefer V, since van Eekhout is my last name, and the "van" part deserves as much love as the harder-to-spell part. Of course, I've heard of one bookstore where they didn't know if I should be under E or V, so they put me under G. Outside-the-box thinking!

From Bookstore pics

I know everyone's going to conventions and such, but a reminder for anyone in the San Diego area, that I'll be signing at Mysterious Galaxy this weekend, along with Kirsten Imani Kasai, author of Ice Song.

Saturday, May 23, 2009 2:00 p.m.
Greg Van Eekhout signs Norse Code
Location: Mysterious Galaxy

Well, yesterday was very fun and exciting. From the bottom of my pitiless soul, thank you for the emails and Tweets and Facebook things and pics of my book and journal and blog entries and comments. I'm grateful I could share the day with the bunch of you.

Aside from the inordinate amount of time I spent on the internet yesterday, I also had a celebratory lunch with Lisa, and I also did some writing. Not very much of it, but that has as much to do with book-release headedness as it does with the fact that I reached the end of act one and realize I haven't sufficiently thought through act 2. Thinking's hard. Stupid thinking.

From Osteomancer's Son

Courtesy of good Mr. Jon Hansen, all the way over in Georgia, capitol of Sid and Marty Krofft and where the peaches are supposedly all that.

If anyone else happens to grab a pic, please do send 'em along. I love this sort of thing.

From Final Norse Code cover

The second volume in C.C. Finlay's Traitor to the Crown trilogy, A Spell for the Revolution hits the shelves today! But, wasn't it only a month ago that the first volume, The Patriot Witch, came out? It was. And the final volume will be out next month. I think the official industry term for that is "kick-ass release schedule."

Witches and magic in the Revolutionary War, starring young, magic-wielding patriots, pitted against the most powerful army in the world, plus warlocks.

It's really good stuff: fun, intriguing, with characters to root for or hiss at, and lots of pleasures for the history buff. I very strongly recommend them.