Robot. Not disco.

So I was going to write up an entry about the connections between science fiction and hip hop. Sure, metal and prog own fantasy, but if you really want to get your scifi on, it's hip hop you're gonna be calling. From Del tha Funkee Homosapien to Kool Keith to Gorillaz to Madvillain to the Beastie Boys, scifi and hip hop go together like peanut butter and jelly. And that's leaving out all of Nerdcore.

Problem with that subject is it's not very kiwi. And this being NZ speculative fiction blogging week, that just wouldn't do.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present, coming straight outta Wellington, Tommy Ill. His debut album came out a couple of weeks ago. Grab it from iTunes, emusic, or even one of those record store things, if there's still one of those somewhere near you. He's touring NZ right now, so keep an eye out. Maybe buy him a pie or something.

Here's the video from his first single. And I don't care how much it messes up the layout of the blog. Because suddenly this whole post fits perfectly in NZ spec fic blogging week.

Therefore. A Robot.

Remembering Sunshine

My second post for New Zealand Speculative Fiction Blogging week (Sep 13-19).

I read a lot of books when I was a kid. Watched a lot of TV, too, and spent a surprising amount of time drawing maps of fantasy kingdoms. All of that was secondary though, to what I was obviously put on this earth to do.

Read comics.

It was obvious that reading comics was my destiny. I knew exactly how to whine when my mother took my brothers and I into the local newsagent. It paid off - they reserved a copy of Whizzer & Chips for my brother every week. I got Buster . They were OK, but really just kids stuff.

Then finally,  for 22 glorious issues, Starlord! Here was the good stuff - Strontium Dog, Ro-Jaws & Hammer-Stein (Ha! Only just now did I get that!), Planet of the Damned. These were the stories that set up residence in the empty and still-growing hall of ideas, the ones that would form the foundation that everything and everyone else - Marvel, DC, Stephen Donaldson, Stephen King, Dungeons & Dragons, would build on top of. It could be said that without Strontium Dog I wouldn't be the man I am today.

Later on I discovered the treasure house that was the Church Corner Book Exchange. Here was where I could stock up on my Marvel favorites - Thor, Captain America, Power Man and Iron First! Sure, some of them were torn, some were years out of date and there was no way to read them in order, but they were cheap enough that even with my meager pocket money I ended up with an impressive collection. No, I don't know where they are today. Probably hanging out with my Star Wars Lightspeeder and my D&D basic box set (come back guys).

Apart from the Fleetway funnies, comics were something my parents weren't that interested in. They certainly didn't buy many for me, nor the Christmas Annuals (although I do seem to remember having a Starsky & Hutch annual, even though I'd never seen the show).

Then one evening Dad came home from work with a brown paper bag under his arm. "You'll like this one," he said. "It's a New Zealand comic. And it comes with a watch!"

It was Captain Sunshine.

The watch? It was solar powered, I think. Had a sundial on it. I don't think I ever figured out how it worked. And it was a pretty good comic, from what I can remember. Certainly I remember waiting eagerly for the next issue. And waiting. And waiting.

And here's where Google can really mess with your childhood. I didn't know until I started researching this post that the sundial wasn't some small giveaway, the kind they'd have with 2000AD every six months or so. Actually, the comic was designed to sell the watch. Apparently 100,000 copies of issue one were printed, but funding ran out before issue two was completed.

There's a little more information at comics.org.nz, but not much. Bob Temuka's blog has a little more and his memories are eerily similar to mine. Even after all these years, I can still recall lying on the carpet, on a summer morning, reading New Zealand's first superhero comic.

The creator, Colin Wilson, went on to draw Judge Dredd for 200AD, along with many other things. Captain Sunshine, however, remains lost in time, like Captain America frozen in Alaskan ice. Hardly any images online, no scans of the pages - he's practically ungooglable.

But he was there. I remember. You do too.

Welcome to NZ Spec Fic Blogging Week

Tēnā koutou katoa.

It's time once again for NZ Spec Fic Blogging week, when that shiny new organisation SpecFicNZ makes a big noise at the bottom of the world.

Not sure what I'll be putting up here the rest of the week, but today's an easy one. Over at the World SF blog, you can read my interview with Ripley Patton about SpecFicNZ. If you live in New Zealand and you're writing anything speculative, you really need to check it out.

I'm in the cabinet!

Got news today that my micro story/entry/thing, "Kepler The Clock" was accepted for The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. I'm outrageously thrilled by this - it's a really cool project and I'll be sharing a book with some of my heroes. They're in first class and I'm way back in coach, but still. I've been smiling about it all day.

I wrote the story on my iPod, while Liz and I were taking a tram to the Melbourne museum. This isn't a writing technique I'll be using again - it's murder on the thumbs. When I handed it over to Liz, she complained about all the words that didn't fit. Thanks iTunes auto-correct.

The micro stories were submitted on Jeff's blog and they're still there. Worth checking out - there are some absolutely insane entries there. I'm looking at you, BEAR GUN.

Not the best Worldcon wrap up. But it's mine.

So this is supposed to be the big Worldcon wrap-up post. Except it's not something I can really encapsulate as simply as that. This was only the second con I'd ever been to. So. Very. Big.

Highlights? Too many. But if I attempt a list:

The live recording of Galactic Suburbia. GS is a truly excellent podcast and it was great to finally put faces to the voices I've been hearing.

The panels on mysteries and westerns. Unfortunately, I've ended up with an even larger list of books I need to read/ films I need to see.

The Steampunk panel. I started smiling every time Charlie Stross reached for the mic. Great entertainment, but Stross made some very good points. The surface of Steampunk may be all clockwork and parasols, but I'd really like to see more of it that addressed the underlying issues of Empire. Moorcock did it in The Warlord Of The Air, so did (IIRC) Gibson and Sterling. I'm all for fur coats and Zeppelins. But there's so much more to unpack there.

The Hugos. Yeah, the Hugos were freaking awesome. I knew I'd mess up an acceptance speech if I got called up, so I stuck with the plan of just reading it from my iPod. The whole thing's just a blur. Can't wait for someone to upload the video so I can see it all again.

At the after party, after a while I just gave up and watched everything happening around me. I was watching the contents of my bookshelf walking around talking to each other.

There's more. There's so much more. Mostly I just walked around with a big dumb smile on my face.

It really was a privilege to accept the Hugo for StarShipSofa. There were other benefits too. I might talk a good game on Twitter, but my true self is more like a frightened little mouse. So if I didn't talk to you, I wasn't being a snob. That was just my usual petrified self. But when I could introduce myself as being with the Sofa, that all went away. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Not the most complete review of Worldcon, or the most insightful. But there you go.

The Christchurch Quake

Christchurch is my home town. It's been completely surreal to see the pictures over the past week. Liz and I were in Melbourne when it hit. I was planning another day and Worldcon, turned on the TV over breakfast and there it was.

Far as I know most of my friends and family are shaken, but OK. My brother ended up needing a new water tank, but he's out in the country and apart from the mess, seems OK.

At the moment I'm most concerned about my friend and fellow author Ripley Patton. Her house deteriorated through successive aftershocks. According to her Livejournal they have found another place nearby, but I can only imagine how hard it must be to pack up a house that's falling apart around you. Thinking of you, Ripley.

Please consider donating to one of the earthquake appeals.

And also

Before I forget (and there's so much on at Worldcon that's a real possibility), two new me things:

My poem "Dead Air" is now available in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #46. Yep, a poem. Who knew?

My story "Wood" is now available in the September issue of Semaphore. It's kind of like Dawn of the Dead. But with puppets. I guess.

Worldcon: 1

Some quick notes from Thursday.

Worldcon is big. And I'm guessing most people hadn't arrived on Thursday. It's going to get bigger.

The Stephen King lecture didn't happen. After 15 minutes I wandered next door to the panel on balancing speculative fiction and comedy with Tee Morris, Richard Harland and Howard Tayler. I thought it would be a fairly lightweight panel, but there were some very intelligent things said about the nature of comedy that I'm still thinking about.

It was fantastic to finally meet Tehani Wessely and two thirds of the Galactic Suburbia team. Really looking forward to the live podcast recording this morning.

OMG Hugos! There's a whole table of Hugo awards from over the years in the dealers room. They're much larger than I expected.

Worldcon: 0

So here we are in Melbourne. Arrived yesterday morning. Air New Zealand's service was, as always, excellent, although I can't help thinking the seats are a little smaller every time I fly. They're shrinking the seats, right? It's not me getting wider. Ran into Kevin Maclean at Auckland airport who assured me that yes, the NZ Worldcon bid in 2020 is very much real. So this is me putting my hand up to volunteer for - well, whatever I can to make that happen. Worldcon in New Zealand would rock.

Because everything is bound to go wrong just before our first overseas trip in years, we don't have a camera. Liz turned it on a few days ago and something's broken inside. There's a big crack on the display but it's not a crack, it's a picture of a crack. I don't know. So we're reduced to using the cameras on our phones. They're better than the previous phones but still the photographic equivalent of paintings on a cave wall.

Oh but yesterday was long. I shouldn't complain - it's not like we've come all the way from the US, but Liz and I were both exhausted from getting the kids (and the house) ready before we left. Couldn't check in to the hotel until 2, so we went for a wander round the shops. Melbourne looks beautiful. I'm expecting it to be even nicer now the rain's stopped.


Internet access is, of course, ridiculously expensive in the hotel. But McDonald's has free Wifi that seems to work pretty well. I think we'll be having McDonald's for breakfast quite often. Seriously though - why doesn't McDonald's offer free Wifi in New Zealand? The restaurants are absolutely packed here and every single person has a laptop or smartphone. They're not there for the burgers, but they're still selling. Apparently Gloria Jeans and Starbucks also offer free wifi. Guess you have to pick your faceless foodcorp of choice. And I don't know what it's like here, but in New Zealand a McCafe coffee absolutely kills a Starbucks one every time.

Our mobile phones are working as advertised. Thanks Telecom. Calls are expensive, as is texting, but it's great to be in contact. We spoke to Emily while sitting at a restaurant last night and we've got a phonecard for cheap calls in the hotel. We're missing the kids terribly, but it shouldn't be too hard to keep in touch now. I have wondered about getting a prepay SIM for my phone and tethering it to the netbook. The hotel Internet is so expensive, I wouldn't be surprised if I could do it cheaper with a mobile solution. Might look into that today. If anyone's got any other communication advice, let me know.

So today's the start of Worldcon. I really have no idea what to expect, having only been to one tiny con before. Adfer our delicious McDonald's breakfast (Hm. Wonder how healthy I'm going to feel after a week of doing that) Liz and I will wander over the Yarra. I'll hopefully sign in, then we head to the art gallery. There's an exhibition of old masters. Don't know what sessions I'll be attending this afternoon, though after reading all 3700 pages of The Dark Tower this year, I will have to go to the Stephen King lecture.

We're at the Medina Grand, way up on the 17th floor. Small room, but a nice place to be. There's a pool and a gym and I think I'm going to have to take advantage of both, especially if I'm hitting the McDonald's so much.

If you want to get hold of me, my mobile is +64275373061. Texting seems to be the cheapest method at the moment.

And here we go!