[Updated 8/26/13]

Ahoy-hoy!

For those of you descending upon the heat-vapor planes of San Antonio to visit the vaunted Worldcon by way of LoneStarCon, here is my schedule (which is subject to change):

Wednesday

In which I penetrate San Antonio’s defenses and destroy the shield generators so I may land my ship, abscond with the Helm of Gaiman, and hide under the river until the coast is clear. Or something. Translation: I ARRIVE, AND THE CITY TREMBLES.

Thursday

Right now, I got nuffin’.

Friday

10:00AM till 10:45AM, Abaddon Publisher Spotlight, whereupon I join my hellish overlords in the Solaris Abaddon crew and talk about, you know, books and stuff.

11:00AM till noon PM: Kaffeeklatsch with Me, Lee Harris, and Charles Radley. I think Kaffeeklatsch is a German word meaning “crowbar fight.” So, bring your own crowbar. Or if we want to play it nice we can instead just sit and have coffee and talk about Authorial Things.

2pm till Wuzza Wooza: “Meet Chuck Wendig” at the Reddit Fan Table where I’ll be doing what? A Pop-up AMA? A reading? AN INTERPRETIVE DANCE? Come find out!

Saturday

Noon till 1pm: Signing in Dealer’s Room at Crime & Space Books. This should be the island immediately on the left as you enter the dealer’s room, or so I’m told.

3:00PM till 4:00PM, Angry Robot Publisher Spotlight, whereupon my cranky clanking masters talk about their books and authors of past, present, and future.

4pm till ???: NINJA BOOK SIGNING WITH KEVIN HEARNE, whereupon Kevin and I will plant ourselves in the bar or lobby and we will talk to fans and sign books and we’ll twerk and Thunderdome and draw kittens and basically clown around in whatever way you so desire.

7PM till We Find Ourselves Vomiting In A Cow Pasture AM: Drinks With Authors, a party put forth by author Myke Cole and some of the Reddit folks with the goal of being inclusionary, not exclusionary — meaning, open to all, come by, hang out with a freakishly exhaustive author guest list, get books signed, drink booze, drink more booze, wrestle Sam Sykes, whatever. Come out. We’ll have a few laughs.

Sunday

3:00 till 4:00PM: YA Fantasy Panel, subtitled “We’ll Always Be Young At Heart,” featuring me, Martha Wells, Emily Jiang, and Aurora Celeste.

5:00 till 6:00PM: 40 Years Of Campbell Awards Panel, featuring me, Ben Bova, Mur Lafferty, Stina Leicht, and Max Gladstone.

7:30PM till It’s Over o’clock, The Hugo Awards, in which I am reportedly nominated for a Campbell? As I do not expect to win, I’ve no speech planned, but I will dress in a snazzy suit.

Monday

Having claimed the Helm of Gaiman and beaten back my foes, I take off in my Whipwheel Ornithopter and once more navigate hostile airspace to return to the comforts of Pennsyltucky.

Signings?

I’ve had folks ask me about signings. LoneStarCon gave me one but it was at the ass-end of Monday which is a) a horrible time for a signing because everyone will be gone and b) doesn’t matter anyway because I’ll be gone at that point. (They also had me on another panel that day.)

At present, I’m noodling ways to do a ninja signing and/or reading. WATCH THE SKIES.

I was also originally on a panel about fanzines transitioning to the Internet, which is a subject I have very little experience (or interest) in. Further, that panel had no women on it, so I asked for them to take me off that panel and put a woman on. Hopefully they complied!

So many great writers gonna be at this thing. Friends like Adam Christopher, John Hornor Jacobs, Emma Newman, Mur Lafferty, Myke Cole, Andrea Phillips. Folks I haven’t yet met but have long wanted to, like Kevin Hearne, Sam Sykes, Robert Bennett, Betsy Dornbusch. Plus some legends, too. Robin Hobb! Joe Lansdale! Authors who have been instrumental in inspiring me to do this writer thang.

Anyway!

Please come say “hi” if you’re gonna be there!

Do not be afraid.

I will not bite, at least as long as nobody slipped me bath salts (again).

And if I do, I will transmit the Wendigo virus to you.

Which is really harmless, except for the mad hunger you’ll have for other people’s hearts.

I’ll probably be at the bar.

Awesome human being Carol McKenzie has gone ahead and started to tally the books listed in the various Monday “crowdsourcing the essentials” posts (everyone please say, thanks, Carol!) — now it’s time to view some of the results. Starting with: Urban Fantasy.

So, the top ten are:

1. Jim Butcher: The Dresden Files series

2. Neil Gaiman: Neverwhere

3. Neil Gaiman: American Gods

4. Ilona Andrews: the Kate Daniels series

5. Richard Kadrey: the Sandman Slim series

6. Emma Bull: War for the Oaks

7. Seanan McGuire: the October Daye series

8. Patricia Briggs: the Mercy Thompson series

9. Kevin Hearne: the Iron Druid Chronicles

10. Rachel Caine: the Weather Warden series

Amongst the next top ten after that were authors like Lauren Beukes, Karen Marie Moning, Mike Carey, Sergei Lukyanenko, Ben Aaronovitch, Laurel K. Hamilton, C.E. Murphy, Kelley Armstrong, China Mieville and, totally entirely utterly unfairly, me.

(Remember, these are the ones chosen through compiling the comments on the urban fantasy post. If you want to check out this week’s, we’re asking about essential steampunk reads.)

Last time, we crowdsourced straight-up horror novels.

Now it’s time to dive back down into the niche a little bit and ask —

What are your essential steampunk reads?

Hell, just what is steampunk as you define it?

Drop into the comments and list your top three essential steampunk reads (doesn’t matter if it crosses over with what other people have said; that’s the point, as you’ll see when we tally ’em). Then, if you’re so inclined, talk about what steampunk even is to you as a subgenre.

The comment section awaits.

Last week’s challenge: “Random Story Generator”

This week’s challenge is a fun revisit to the idea of mashing up two different subgenres.

So, look at the list of 20 subgenres below.

Pick two randomly (d20 or random number generator).

Write a ~1500 word flash fiction piece based on that world.

(You’ll note I’ve upped the word count a little bit. FOR FUN WHEE.)

Post at your online space.

Link back here.

Due by Friday the 23rd, noon EST.

The list:

1. Dystopian Young Adult
2. Slasher Film
3. Weird West
4. Zombie Apocalypse
5. Paranormal Romance
6. Ancient Myth
7. Fairy Tale
8. Spy Thriller / Espionage
9. Haunted House
10. Erotic Horror
11. Low Fantasy (“Grimdark”)
12. Dieselpunk
13. Time Travel
14. Murder Mystery
15. Southern Gothic
16. Noir
17. Alternate WWII History
18. Kaiju
19. Comedic Fantasy
20. Psychological Horror

Miriam Black is back.

And once again, inked by the mad scientist known as Joey Hi-Fi.

Miriam Black, the poison pill psychic who can see how you’re going to die just by touching you, returns in a new high-stakes horror adventure that drags her from the hoarfrost hell of Philadelphia in winter to the bleachy bleary sand-brined Sunshine State of Florida.  In The Cormorant, someone has a score to settle with Miriam Black, and sends a message written in blood sent through the cruel channels of fate to spur her forward on a path twined with revenge and redemption. New loves, old family, broken relationships — all of it crashes together sure as the dark surf smashes into the bone-white seawall.

To catch up on the other two books in the series before Cormorant lands in December:

Miriam Black Book #1: Blackbirds.

Miriam Black Book #2: Mockingbird.

(Both are pretty cheap as e-books right now: under $5 a pop.)

So, women authors are sometimes asked a series of particular questions that are often sexist at best or misogynist at worst, and so for fun, WHACK! Magazine’s Lela Gwenn took some of those questions and asked them of two dude authors instead.

Those two dude authors being me and Stephen Blackmoore.

The results of that experiment are here.

(For the next iteration of this, I’d love to see Seanan McGuire’s suggestion of asking these questions of male authors who are ignorant of this phenomenon. Or, at the very least, spring these type of questions on male authors who think they’re getting a normal interview about their books — you know, and then suddenly someone’s asking them about how pretty they feel or about pregnancy or children. Like a prank. But socially relevant!)

(Though for the record, people ask me a lot about my toddler, but one assumes that’s because I talk a lot about the teacupped tempest known as “B-Dub.”)

EDIT:

Okay, additional thing:

Let’s crowdsource the worst, most offensive and outright dopiest questions posed to women authors. What other questions do women authors get asked that men never do? Let’s hear some examples. Pop ’em in the comments below.