David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Here’s a bunch of miscellaneous news, some of which I’ve been meaning to post for weeks…

• At the upcoming World Fantasy Convention in Toronto, I will be moderating a panel called “They Call Me the Wanderer” at noon on Friday in York B&C. Also on the panel: Rajan Khanna, Stefon Mears, Robert V. S. Redick, and Patrick Rothfuss. Assuming that Hurricane Sandy aka Frankenstorm does not prevent us from arriving in time…
• My story “Wavefronts of History and Memory” was accepted at Analog by new editor Trevor Quachri.
• My story “The White Raven’s Feather,” originally published in Daily Science Fiction, will be reprinted in e-anthology Spells: Ten Tales of Magic, coming soon to Kindle.
• My story “Moonlight on the Carpet,” originally published in Aeon Speculative Fiction,, will appear on Tina Connolly’s Toasted Cake podcast.
• I appeared on the Roundtable Podcast twice in September, first in an interview and then in a workshop in which the hosts and I helped a writer workshop a story idea. I had lots of fun doing it, and I hope you enjoy listening to them!

Kate woke up this morning and asked “why don’t we ever have dreams in which everything goes right? Mine were full of lost luggage and mutant goats.” And I had an insight I’m surprised I never had before.

Your brain did not evolve to make you happy. Brains evolved for the purpose of improving the organism’s chances to stay alive long enough to reproduce. This means that your brain’s job is worry, fear, and angst — the emotions that keep you away from stuff that might kill you. The positive emotions that drive you toward helpful stuff (e.g. food and sex) are less immediately vital to survival and therefore easily overridden by the negative ones.

No wonder we’re so miserable most of the time.

This is just a quick reminder that the SFWA Pacific Northwest Reading Series is having its next events in two weeks!

On Monday, in Portland, we’ll have New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire, accompanied by local favorites Jay Lake and M.K. Hobson. Wrigley-Cross Books will be on hand again selling books and all the authors will be available to sign.

When: Monday, October 15, 2012, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: McMenamins Kennedy School, 5736 N.E. 33rd Ave. Portland, OR 97211

On Tuesday, in the Seattle area, Seanan McGuire will be accompanied by artist/writers Phil and Kaja Foglio and writer/editor Jennifer Brozek. The University Bookstore will be selling books and all the authors will be available to sign.

When: Tuesday, October 16, 2012, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: Wild Rover Restaurant and Pub, 111 Central Way, Kirkland, WA 98033

Both events are free and open to the public.

I hope you can join us! It should be a lot of fun.

See http://www.sfwa.org/for-readers/sfwa-northwest-reading-series/ for more information and to RSVP (not required, but encouraged).

For the upcoming World Fantasy Convention, in Toronto on Halloween weekend, we’re considering flying to Buffalo, renting a car, and driving from there rather than flying direct to Toronto (it looks to be quite a bit cheaper). However, we’re somewhat concerned about the possibility of snow making the drive problematic. Anyone have any experience with this drive at this time of year?

I’ll be at Foolscap this weekend, though only for Friday and Saturday. You can see me on the following program items:

Cooperation vs. Competition: Gender-Driven Stories
Salon 3, Fri, 4:00-5:00 PM
Competition is seen as masculine; cooperation, as feminine. And yet, both genders engage in both behaviors. How does this conflict affect stories?
Manny Frishberg, David D. Levine(M), Kat Richardson, Amy Thomson

Respectful Disagreement
Salon 4, Sat, 10:30-Noon
Techniques for being open and inclusive without giving up your ability to hold strong opinions, and tactics for fostering multi-way discussions (like convention panels) when some of the participants are using abusive discussion tactics.
Marty Hale-Evans, Mary Kay Kare, David D. Levine(M), Kyle Woodlock

David Levine Reading
Strange Attractors, Sat, 4:00-5:00
David Levine

I’ll also be presenting the “Idea to Outline in an Hour” exercise (which I got from Pat Murphy at Clarion West) as part of the Writing Workshop on Friday afternoon. Sign-up is required; see the link for more details.

Here’s where you can find me at the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago this coming weekend:

THURSDAY

3:00 PM-4:30 PM, Wrigley
Daily Science Fiction Year One
A discussion of the first year of Daily Science Fiction, an innovative e-mail magazine, with authors who have appeared in it, as well as signing of the paper anthology.
Jonathan Laden, David D. Levine, Gra Linnaea

7:30 PM-9:00 PM, Columbus IJ-KL
Mars Desert Research Station
To date, over 100 crews have simulated over 1000 days of living on Mars. We’ll discuss what these bases do, adventures and misadventures, and how to participate in upcoming crews.
David D. Levine, Kent Nebergall, John Strickland

FRIDAY

1:30 PM-3:00 PM, Haymarket
Reading: John Joseph Adams
Editor John Joseph Adams has turned his reading slot over to writers who have stories in his current anthologies NIGHTMARE, ARMORED, EPIC, THE MAD SCIENTIST’S GUIDE TO WORLD DOMINATION and online magazine LIGHTSPEED. John Joseph Adams, Christopher Rowe, Christie Yant, Carrie Vaughn, David D. Levine

4:00 PM-4:30 PM, Fan Lounge
Writer Under Glass #25
This isn’t actually a panel, but a stunt. Writers volunteer to sit in a certain place for 30-40 minutes each and write serially on a collaborative story. Each takes up where the previous left off throughout the run of the convention. The resulting manuscript will be printed out only once, signed by all the writers, and entered into the charity auction as a contribution from all the writers. Con attendees can watch the writers at work–this has to be done in public like Harlan Ellison’s writing in shop windows–but may not harass them. The attendees can watch what’s being written in real time on a remote monitor. The story is complete at the end of the con and no other copies will be made without consent of all the writers who participated.
David D. Levine

SATURDAY

10:30 AM-12:00 PM, Columbian KK#3
Kaffeeklatsch: David D. Levine

12:00 PM-1:00 PM, Dealers’ Room, Tachyon Press table
DIGITAL RAPTURE anthology signing
James Patrick Kelly, John Kessel, Elizabeth Bear, Charlie Stross, Eileen Gunn, Robert Reed, David D. Levine
(I leave early and Jim Kelly, bless his heart, brings me a sandwich)

12:30 PM-2:30 PM
Writers Workshop K
Limited to writers who submitted manuscripts before the convention. David D. Levine, Walter Jon Williams

3:00 PM-4:30 PM, Columbus EF
Space, Spies and SuperGadgets: Adventure TV of the 60s
Shows like “The Avengers”, “Jonny Quest”, “Batman”, “Wild Wild West”, “Wonder Woman”, “Six Million Dollar Man”, “Thunderbirds” and more made the years from mid 60’s to the mid 70’s a golden era for SF and Adventure on TV
Cat Greenberg, R. J. Johnson, David D. Levine, Barry Lyn-Waitsman, David M Stein

5:30 PM-6:00 PM, Gold Coast
Reading: David D. Levine

SUNDAY

10:30 AM-12:00 PM, Buckingham
Firefly Reboot
What would life be like for the Firefly crew 10 years later? what changes would have happened? Would you prefer the show to pick up where it left off? Where would you like to see the show go, and what changes would you make? Come discuss your thoughts on what life would be like if Firefly came back.
Bob Devney, David D. Levine, Ann Morris, Brenda Sinclair Sutton

1:30 PM-3:00 PM, Haymarket
Grimm From a Portland Perspective
Portlanders, and others, talk about Grimm and the odd reach of Portland Police.
Jim Fiscus, David D. Levine, Jeanne Mealy, Lyda Morehouse

MONDAY

(nothing scheduled)

PDX GEAR Con, Portland’s “Gaslight Explorers, Adventurers, & Romantics Convention,” begins tomorrow at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Portland, Oregon. I’ll be appearing on the following program items:

Steampunk Spaceflight, Friday 4PM, Cambridge
GEAR Con Staff, David D. Levine

A discussion among writers and fans. How does an early Industrial-Age civilization climb out of the gravity well? What are your favourite steampunk space vehicles from fiction & film? In more imaginative settings, what do you change about the universe to make spaceflight possible (or more interesting/dangerous/fun)?

The Babbage Question, Friday 6pm, Cambridge
David D. Levine, Rhiannon Louve, Phyllis Irene Radford, & Professor DR Schreiber

In a paper presented to the Royal Astronomical Society in 1822, Charles Babbage proposes building a mechanical “difference engine” to compute astronomical and mathematical tables. Although it was never built, the idea of a mechanical calculator in the early 19th Century provides an interesting field of speculation.

Radio Theater Hour, Saturday 1PM, Bellmont A-B
Katrina Acaster, Camille Alexa, Tina Connolly, M.K. Hobson, David D. Levine, & Phyllis Radford

Theatre of the Mind invites you to sit back, relax and let our stories take you far away. Enjoy two new short plays by local authors! “How Frederika Cassowary-Jones Joined the Ladies’ Society of Benevolent Goings-on” by Tina Connolly and “Industrially Yours” by Camille Alexa. Will be performed as old-time radio plays… just like granddad used to listen to while he was repairing the airship.

David D. Levine Reading and Q&A, Saturday 2pm, Cambridge

Hugo-winning SF writer David D. Levine reads from his alternate-history steampowered power-armor story “The Last Days of the Kelly Gang” and answers your questions.

The Authors En Masse Panel, Saturday 5pm, Bellmont A-B

Authors have so much to say, they have to write it all down. Come see what they’ll say when packed together in a room without their word processors! For Science!

The floor guys arrived this morning at 8am. Carpets have been taken up and the revealed floors look great!

We will be spending much of this week out of the house, at a B&B nearby, due to noise and fumes.

Also, I will be working on Grimm today and tomorrow. I am a stand-in this time, not an extra, which will be a new experience for me. I probably will not wind up on television this time, but I bet I will spend a lot more time on-set than I ever did as an extra.

On Friday, PDX GEAR Con, Portland’s steampunk convention, begins. I will be on a bunch of programming Friday and Saturday, and I’ll post my schedule as soon as it’s finalized.

Somewhere in there I will try to get in at least 500 words of writing a day. It will not be easy…

Digital Rapture: The Singularity Anthology, which includes my story “Firewall,” is out! To celebrate, publisher Tachyon Press is having a contest: write a Singularity haiku and you could win a free lunch! http://tachyonpublications.blogspot.com/2012/08/come-singularity-there-will-be-such.html

Sunday’s episode of Leverage, “The First Contact Job,” was the first episode of this series that Kate and I worked as extras, and we both actually appeared on screen! We played “members of the science media” in the press conference at the end of the show. Kate’s in several shots, and I appear briefly walking in front of Timothy Hutton.

It was a very long day of shooting, with a lot of waiting and quite a bit of confusion. (“Why are you standing there?” “The other guy told me to.” “Well, go somewhere else!”) But the episode was directed by Jonathan Frakes and features a lot of science fiction movie references (including a character called Will Riker). I’m very pleased to be in this one.

Immediately after watching Leverage on Sunday night (we watched it as it aired, of course) we headed down to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry to watch Curiosity land on Mars. We had hoped to rendezvous there with Jay Lake, but as we were somewhat late they told us the planetarium was full (even though Jay was saving us seats) and we had to watch from the auditorium next door. A standing-room-only crowd of 900-1000 people gasped and cheered as each milestone was successfully passed… it was an awesome geekly experience. The only thing that could have been improved was that the simulation OMSI showed on a second screen, using NASA’s “Eyes on the Solar System” app, was about four minutes ahead of reality, so we saw simulated Curiosity touch down well before the actual moment. On the other hand, once that happened we could give our full attention to the real telemetry data and not be distracted by the shinier simulation.

The other major news at home is that we have decided, rather suddenly, that it is time to pull up our over-20-year-old wall-to-wall carpet and have the hardwood floors beneath refinished. This is a bit of a gamble, as we don’t know what shape they’re in (the carpet was there when we moved in). The refinishers arrive on Monday.

In order to make this happen, we have to pull every stick of furniture out of the living room, dining room, and parlor (guest and TV room), which means that we are spending this week boxing up all the books, CDs, DVDs, and other stuff from those three rooms. We’ll be renting a container, and all that stuff will be in it (on the street in front of the house) for a week. Also during that week we will have to move to a hotel for a few days because of fumes. It’s a big hassle, but I’m sure we’ll like the result.

This is also an opportunity to reconsider and get rid of Stuff. We’ve reduced our collection of LPs by about one-third, we’re getting rid of all our VHS tapes, and I’ve sold off my LaserDisc player and collection of disks. And we plan to take our CDs out of the jewel boxes and place them in sleeves (probably these), reducing the storage space requirements substantially. (Though most of our music is online, getting rid of the CDs completely is not under consideration.) A few books and papers are going away as well.

We’re also going to lose the LP, cassette, VHS, and DVD players and replace the existing tuner and speakers with a Blu-Ray surround sound setup (any recommendations?). The entertainment center we were given by the previous owners of the house will be replaced by something more suited to the flat-screen era. We’re keeping the TV, for now — it’s only a few years old — though with the new entertainment center we’ll now have room for a bigger one.

Finally, may I direct your attention to the Tome of Ideas for Writers and Roleplayers Kickstarter campaign. If funded, this will be a color illustrated book of writing and story prompts from over twenty professional authors including Elizabeth Bear, Seanan McGuire, Kevin J. Anderson, and me! If you’d like to see this happen, go over there and kick in a few bucks.