David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Kate says “if that’s another year-in-review post I’m cutting you off.” But it isn’t; it’s current affairs.

We saw a lot of movies this holiday season, in theatres and on DVD and on TiVo. It was almost like being sick, when I tend to curl up in my bathrobe on the couch in the parlor and just watch and watch. But more fun than that. Here are my thoughts on those films, in no particular order.

Tron: Legacy. What an irredeemable mess. The plot made no sense whatsoever; picking at plot holes is like shooting slats in a barrel (at least the fish move). Even the flashy action sequences, like the Tail Gunner / Star Wars crossover aerial battle, were boring. We knew going in that it wasn’t going to be good, but I still wanted to see it in 3-D because, you know, Tron! But it really failed to live up to expectations. The best thing about it was the quotes from the previous film.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. A delightful, surprisingly complex science fiction film, which went a lot farther than movies usually do into the implications of the posited technological change. Thoughtful and highly satisfying.

The King’s Speech. One of the best movies I’ve seen this year, combining high stakes with a very small and human story. Brilliant performances by the leads; sure to be an Oscar contender.

A Town Called Panic. This played at the Hollywood Theatre for several months this summer but we only just now saw it on DVD. A bizarre, surreal film in which tiny plastic toys are animated in a way that looks and feels childish but has an adult sensibility. The fact that it’s all in French pushes it completely over the top. Recommended.

The Lives of Others. A drama about a member of East Germany’s Stasi secret police who eavesdrops on a dissident playwright; a gimpse into a world that has vanished; a story of conscience and consequences. Thoughtful but not gripping.

The Empire Strikes Back. Comfort viewing. This is the first time I’d seen the special edition, and though some of the added special-effects shots entering Cloud City were brilliant the overall effect of the changes was just distracting and the new readings of Boba Fett’s lines were awful. Otherwise it held up pretty darn well.

Titan A.E. The first time I’d seen this Don Bluth animated film since its original theatrical release. The plot and characters are simplistic and kind of nonsensical, and the songs were eye-rollingly bad, but it handled zero gravity, vacuum, and truly alien aliens better than almost any SF movie I can think of. The destruction of the Earth, the fight in the hydrogen swamp, and the extended sequence in the ice rings are each worth the price of admission themselves. This stupid little film has been surprisingly (perhaps appallingly) influential on my own work.

The Emperor’s New Groove. This is what you’d get if Chuck Jones directed a Disney movie. I laughed out loud.

The Tempest. Generally a win, but Caliban (whose line readings I could barely understand) and the weird kaleidoscopic sequence in the middle were just baffling. I’m glad I saw it anyway.

I tend to take my new year’s resolutions pretty seriously. Some years they’ve been a little frivolous, like the year my resolution was to watch Casablanca, but even then I did make sure to do it. They’re usually pretty concrete, and measurable, and designed to be achievable though a bit of a stretch. A legacy of my years at Intel, I guess.

My resolution for 2010 was to read the Aubrey-Maturin books by Patrick O’Brien, in order. I knew up front I wouldn’t be able to read all twenty-and-a-bit of them in one year, but I intended to read as many of them as I could. Well, that’s what I did, and “as many as I could” turned out to be three: Master and Commander, Post Captain, and HMS Surprise, plus a little bit of the fourth (The Mauritius Command). Fairly pathetic, really, but I gave it my best shot. I intend to continue plugging away at them until I’m done, along with all the other reading I want to do.

In 2011 I need to get back on the writing horse in a big way, after the many Mars-related and travel-related disruptions of 2010. They were enjoyable and valuable disruptions, to be sure, but they did interfere with the word count. So my new year’s reosolution for 2011 is: finish and submit my current novel and make a good start on another novel.

To break down the elephant into smaller, more chewable chunks, I intend to attack this resolution as follows:

• Complete the first draft of the current novel by the end of the first quarter (March 31);
• Have the current novel critiqued, revise it, and submit it to at least one publisher by the end of the second quarter (June 30);
• Write at least 30,000 words on a second novel by the end of the third quarter (September 30);
• Have at least 60,000 words of draft on the second novel by the end of the year.

In support of these goals, I intend to write at least 500 words, preferably 1000, every day. Though I’m not going to get doctrinaire about it like I did in 2009; if I miss a day, that’s life.

I know these goals are laughably unambitious by the standards of some of my writer friends, but for me they are a stretch. However, I think I can achieve them, with good quality, and if I can do this it’ll be my best novel-writing year ever. Wish me luck!

A lovely morning opening presents under the tree, in front of the fire. I got Kate a Skadoosh, some rocks, and some Stones. She got me a lovely purple silk shirt and a copy of The Broken Kingdoms. Then we made breakfast: gingerbread waffles and sausages. Okay, one of the waffles came out a little scorched and one of the sausages fell on the floor, but it all averaged out. Later today we plan to see The King’s Speech with our friend Michael and go for our traditional Christmas dinner of Pepper-Salted Squid.

Hope your day is as happy!

It was on this date one year ago that I received an email from Artemis Westenberg of the Mars Society, inviting me to join crew 88 at the Mars Desert Research Station. On that day I was terrifically excited, of course, but I had no idea just how much my trip to “Mars” would change my life in the following year.

The two weeks I spent in Utah were amazing. I got to experience first-hand the isolation, self-reliance, interdependence, and improvisation that are always going to be part of life on the frontier, and I became fast friends with a wonderful bunch of people from all around the world. I also learned about the beauty of the desert and the joy of barreling across it on an ATV. You can read my blog entries for the whole story.

Once I got back, though, the real transformation started.

I learned habits of “protagonistiness” — taking action to change the plot — on Mars that I tried to hang onto in my day-to-day life. I think I’m still a lot more likely than before to stick my neck out, take risks, commit to uncertain plans.

The Young Adult fantasy novel I was working on in the latter part of 2009 was blown right out of my head. Instead I wrote a short story, “Citizen-Astronaut,” based on my experiences and submitted it to the Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest, where it took second prize. Later it was accepted for publication in Analog. I also started work on a YA science fiction novel about Mars, which currently stands at 28,000 words; I expect to finish and submit it early next year.

I had articles about my trip appear in Willamette Week and The Oregonian, and made appearances on KGW-TV and KATU-TV. I don’t know if this media exposure did my career any good, but it sure can’t hurt and I had a blast doing it.

I prepared a slide show about the trip and presented various versions of it at Radcon, Ignite Portland, Potlatch, Google, Powell’s, the Nebulas, Wiscon, Clarion West, the Washington Aerospace Scholars Program (twice), the Mars Society’s annual convention, Aussiecon, and OryCon. People really seem to like this presentation, but I don’t want to be “that guy who gives that Mars talk,” so I promised myself I wouldn’t keep doing it past the end of 2010. However, I won’t turn down requests; if people really want to see it, I’ll do it, but I won’t push for invitations the way I did this year.

I got to see a Space Shuttle launch (from the VIP viewing area no less!) and hang out with all kinds of extremely cool people at the Nebula Weekend. I presented to a packed house at the Bagdad Theatre as part of Ignite Portland. I got to visit the Museum of Flight after hours. I got to meet Robert Zubrin and the other Mars Society movers-and-shakers at their annual conference. I got to be on a couple of program items with GoH Kim Stanley Robinson at the Worldcon. None of these things would have happened if I hadn’t gone to “Mars.”

I collected together the blogs of all the members of the MDRS-88 crew in a trade paperback, The Mars Diaries — my first experience with self-publishing. Doing this was fun and educational, but I don’t think it’s any way to make a fortune, or even a living, from one’s writing.

I got a fabulous new author photo.

It’s been an amazing year, and my heart is full of love and wonder from all the things I’ve experienced and people I’ve spent time with that I would not have done otherwise.

I wonder what 2011 will bring?

Although I still hold out the vain hope that I may sell another story or two this year, I think my publications for 2010 are pretty much set. Here they are, and I must say I’m kind of astonished at the length of the list.

Click on a story title to read it or hear it online. Click on a publication name to buy it. Enjoy!

Original Fiction

• “Teaching the Pig to Sing” in Analog, May 2010
• “Pupa” in Analog, September 2010 (ebook)
• “A Passion For Art” in Interzone issue 228
• “Second Chance” in Alembical 2
• “Floaters” (audio) in The Drabblecast episode 177 (also available via iTunes)
• “A Little Song, A Little Dance” in Breaking Waves (ebook)
• “Family Matters” in Fangs for the Mammaries
• “Finding Joan” in Daily Science Fiction
• “Powers” in Wild Cards I

Non-Fiction

• “How the Future Predicts Science Fiction” in the final issue of The Internet Review of Science Fiction
• The Mars Diaries from Lulu.com

Reprints

• “Wind from a Dying Star” (audio) in Escape Pod episode 238 (also available via iTunes)
• “The Last McDougal’s” (audio) in Escape Pod episode 240 (also available via iTunes)
• “Nucleon” in Retro Spec: Tales of Fantasy and Nostalgia
• “L’histoire de l’Aigle Royal” (French translation of “The Tale of the Golden Eagle”) in Légendes

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve sold “Citizen-Astronaut,” the story that won Second Prize in the 2010 Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest, to Analog! I’m so happy this story will see print. It’s a classic “guy in space who has to solve a problem” puzzle story and is very much based on my experiences on “Mars.” But I feel I need to point out that, even though I named my hero Gary Shu (yes, Gary Shu), the interpersonal, political, and physical problems I threw at him are far worse than anything I faced in Utah.

This marks my third sale to Analog, which is significant because along with your third publication you get a Biolog (short biographical article) published in the same issue. I’ve already done the interview, with writer Rick Lovett, and seen a draft of the article. And, although there’s no official definition of what makes a writer a member of the Analog MAFIA (the gang of writers who appear frequently in that magazine, the name being a tortured acronym for Making A Frequent appearance In Analog), I figure three sales is a pretty good lower bound so I asked Jerry Oltion to send me an Analog MAFIA button, which I will wear with pride at my next convention.

This sale also means that I sold to Realms of Fantasy and Analog within a month of each other. Pretty chuffed about that too.

I’m also pleased to announce that my story “Written on the Wind” (from the sff.net anthology Beyond the Last Star) will be podcast on Escape Pod!

Most of my writing time this month has been spent on a short story for a theme anthology, which is due Real Soon. I hope to put it in the mail today. I think I may take a good chunk of this week off from writing, just to rest and recharge, before diving back into the Mars YA novel.

Both cars failed to start during last week’s freeze. Fixed.

Heated towel rack went cold. New one ordered.

Kate’s iPhone went black and refused to start up. Fixed by Genius Bar.

iPod nano nonresponsive. Brought back (for now) by fiddling with lock switch.

Mac mini refused to read or eject CD or even to acknowledge existence of drive. CD extracted by brute force, tape placed over slot to prevent problem from recurring (I very rarely use the optical drive on that machine).

That’s all in the last WEEK. Can we hold off for a while now, please?