All the Famous People I've Met...

Over the years, especially due to my work as a journalist, I've met a lot of famous people.  Here's a list of all of them I can recall, the circumstances we met, and the articles I wrote about them...

S.M. Stirling-DragonCon 2009.  Sci-fi/AH author.  Discussed Draka novels with him and found out Samothracians had beaten the Draka in a sleeper-ship-on-sleeper-ship fight (mentioned in Drakon) because their ship was better.  I also asked him some questions about his Emberverse novels.

http://accordingtoquinn.blogspot.com/2010/05/dragoncon-2009-sm-stirling-interview.html

John Ringo-DragonCon 2010.  Sci-fi author.  I think I inadvertently offended him with a comment I made about his book Ghost , but patched things up.

http://accordingtoquinn.blogspot.com/2010/09/john-ringo-and-deidre-knight-on-writing.html

Mike Huckabee-Presidential candidate.  He spoke at a church and I covered it for my old newspaper.  I got to ask him a couple of questions beforehand.

http://www.griffindailynews.com/view/full_story/7423192/article-Huckabee-delivers-pro-life-message?
http://www.griffindailynews.com/view/full_story/7407121/article-Huckabee-undecided-on-2012-presidential-bid?

Eric Johnson-Georgia gubernatorial candidate.  I voted for him in the primary, but he didn't make the runoff.

http://www.griffindailynews.com/view/full_story/7954169/article-Gubernatorial-hopeful-makes-stop-in-Griffin?

Ray McBerry-Georgia gubernatorial candidate.  Also spoke at a church and I covered it for my old newspaper.  He seemed nice enough, but then the scandal broke...

http://www.griffindailynews.com/view/full_story/5805357/article-Gubernatorial-candidate-McBerry-discusses-issues?

Margaret Weis-Fantasy author.  DragonCon, year unknown.  I think I was in high school at the time.  I'd guess probably 2000, since I think it was pre-9/11.

Sonny Perdue-Former Georgia governor.  Spoke to him at an "active adult" residential dedication and at the Georgia capital.  He kind of had a high-pitched voice and didn't want to talk--he shook my hand and found other places to go.

http://www.griffindailynews.com/view/full_story/3302512/article-Leaders-celebrate-Sun-City-opening-Ceremony-attracts-skydivers--governor?

Casey Cagle-Georgia Lieutenant Governor.  Spoke to him at a press function and asked about Sunday alcohol sales.

http://www.northfulton.com/Articles-c-2011-03-01-186090.114126-sub-Continuing-Sunday-alcohol-ban-bad-for-the-state.html

Mike Lee-Warhammer 40,000 novelization author.  He was really cool and funny.

http://accordingtoquinn.blogspot.com/2010/10/my-last-dragoncon-post-featuring-mike.html
http://accordingtoquinn.blogspot.com/2010/09/late-productivity-update.html

Hank Klibanoff-He wrote  The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation and spoke about investigative reporting at the press function I met Cagle at.  I've got a copy of his speech and some notes and I'll blog about it in the near future.  I'll also be sure to take a look at the book if the library's got it.

Chief Jay Strongbow-Retired professional wrestler.  I did a feature about him for my old newspaper.

http://www.griffindailynews.com/view/full_story/3312186/article-Wrestling-legend-to-be-inducted-into-Hall-of-Fame?

A Space Wolf Addendum

I realized I should have added this to my mini-review of Space Wolf Omnibus: Spacewolf / Ragnar's Claw / Grey Hunter, but I didn't.

One thing I liked about the book is the depiction of the Chaos Space Marine Madox, a member of the renegade Thousand Sons Legion.  Author William King does a good job of capturing the character's intellectualism, snarky atttiude, and desire for vengeance on the Space Wolves for the wrongs done to the Thousand Sons.

(For those less familiar with the Warhammer 40,000 universe, the Thousand Sons, when the Warmaster Horus rebelled, actually tried to warn the Emperor.  Unfortunately, the method they used was sorcery, which the Emperor had forbidden them to mess with, and the sorcerous warning caused some problems when it arrived on Earth.  Although my older Chaos codex depicts the Emperor as assuming the worst and unleashing the Space Wolves on the Thousand Sons, the more recent canon material has him ordered Space Wolf primarch Leman Russ to bring Thousand Sons primarch Magnus the Red to Earth for questioning and Horus, whose revolt was not yet apparent, changing the orders to attack the Thousand Sons in order to force them to join the rebellion.  The Space Wolves laid waste to the Thousand Sons' homeworld of Prospero and things got worse from there.)

I went to the library the other day to request The Second Omnibus (Space Wolf), since I had been unable to request it from home, but the librarian couldn't get it either.  It was at another library system and the copy might be lost or the home library simply might not want to send it out, as it's their only copy.

Darn.  In one of the books composing the omnibus, we see Madox again.  He was more interesting when he appeared in Space Wolf than his return appearance in Grey Hunter, but he might be back to cool form in the second omnibus.

I did find something cool yesterday.  At DragonCon 2010, Mike Lee said that characters from licensed fiction rarely make it into the actual games, but I googled "Ragnar Blackmane" (the protagonist of the Space Wolves novels) and I found a 40K figurine for him.  One can include him in one's army in the game.

I wonder if they'll make one for Madox?

My Last DragonCon Post, Featuring Mike Lee, Food, and Other Stuff

I've been busy working on Escape from the Wastelands and stuff that caught my attention, so I haven't yet put up everything from DragonCon.  This post won't be as long and detailed as my last one because in the "What Women Want" panel, I spent more time writing down ideas for Escape inspired by the panelists' discussion than writing down what they actually said.

At DragonCon, there was a panel on writing for gaming universes that featuring Warhammer 40,000 author Mike Lee (who is absolutely hilarious and fun to talk to) and a father and son, one of whom was a writer and the other a graphic designer.  Here are some things I learned...

Firstly, gaming companies consider the licensed novels a marketing tool primarily.  Novels are timed with product releases--a novel about the Black Templars Space Marine chapter would be released at the same time as a new Black Templar gaming codex.  Time is tight--Black Library often gives writers 90 days to put out a novel.  Around three tie-in books come out per year.

Secondly, established characters are products and gaming companies are very protective of them.  It is rare for book characters to enter the game-canon (i.e. appear in codices, become playable characters, etc.) 

This is something I was already somewhat aware of due to writing for the BattleTech universe--new writers are advised to avoid using "name characters" like Victor Steiner-Davion because what they've been up to is documented to the nth degree.  Good stories have been rejected because they feature established characters doing something when established canon has them somewhere else.

That's why, in "Skirmish at the Vale's Edge," I invented an entirely new Oberon Confederation MechWarrior named Arnold Hoefer to be my protagonist and his Clan Wolf antagonists were names from the Clan Wolf codex who didn't have any established back story.  I intend to write more stories about Hoefer and the Clan Wolf characters and I can't imagine them crossing paths with any canon characters with the possible exception of Phelan Kell (who served as bondsman to Ulric Kerensky, the ruler of Clan Wolf, and was inducted into the warrior caste for saving his life) and then it would be very brief.

A fun fact I learned about Games Workshop's headquarters in Nottingham, UK, is that it is locally known as "the Reichstag."  It's a huge black building with a giant Imperial eagle (symbol of the Warhammer 40,000 Imperium) on it.  One can ask a local cabbie to take you to "the Reichstag" and he'll take you to GW.

During the discussion of the Warhammer 40,000 universe and the different strength levels of the diffferent factions, Michael Coker said something that at the time was absolutely hilarious:

"Every time the Necrons show up, the Imperium gets its ass handed to them.  Because they're the goddamn Necrons."

But back to writing stuff.  Lee described having to rewrite part of his novel Warhammer: Reaper of Souls to feature a character being near a burning city in order to accomodate a poster that depicted one of the characters from the novel near a burning city.  I guess this was to ensure continuity between the novels, the gaming canon, and the promotional materials.

The "What Women Want" panel gave me lots of interesting ideas for Escape, including elaborating on one character to make her a "strong female character" and making the racial situation in one of the nations more diverse.  However, as I said earlier, I was too busy writing those down to get a whole lot of the general advice.  The one bit of advice I can remember is that a trait women like in male characters is fatherliness/being a father.  I think they said there were too many "boy-men" in fiction.

I also got into a brief argument with one of the panelists about whether Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox's character from the live-action Transformers films) could be considered a strong female character or not.  My contention was that she was, based on her combat capability (hotwiring a car to pull a wounded Bumblebee back into the fight in the first movie and crushing the Decepticon imposter-bot "Alice" in the second).  I probably should have planned what I was going to say more before stating my disagreement, since I neglected to mention her loyalty to her father to the point of getting criminally cited for not testifying against him and her ruthlessness in torturing the Decepticon spy in the second film.

The author, whose name I cannot recall, said in response to my kill-the-Fembot defense that anyone could have done that, that her intelligence/mechanical skill was not elaborated on enough, and that she ended up needing to be rescued.  I don't agree with any of those points--in fact, I could make the argument that Mikaela is even more hard-core than Sam himself.

(I distinctly recall her referring to Sam as a "little girl" at one point.)

Also, if you're ever at the Peachtree Center building in Atlanta, be sure to check out Cafe Momo.  It has a buffet there where you can buy food by the pound.  This means meals are a bit on the pricey side, but they're really good and you can get a balanced meal (fruits/vegetables), which is pretty unusual at a mall food court.  When I was at DragonCon, I had at least two meals there and they were good, with the exception of some marble cheesecake I had to pay extra for.

Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, I went to the Metro Cafe Diner.  The first time, I went with members of my Lawrenceville writing group and didn't eat anything.  The second time, I had a chicken-and-cheese quesadilla at the bar.  I now know that both salsa and honey mustard both make good sauces for the quesadilla, which was really good in and of itself.

A Late Productivity Update

I promised a productivity update on my personal writing the past couple of nights, but I had a church function one night and caught up with an old friend the other night, so I'm writing this now, before work.

I went to DragonCon with the goal of making contacts with Blizzard in regards to a proposed Starcraft novel entitled The Calm Before the Storm.  It would take place in the aftermath of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty and before Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, which is slated for release 18 months or so from now.  I figured it could be a good way of bridging the two games, much like how StarCraft #2: Shadow of the Xel'Naga filled the gap between the first game and Starcraft: Brood War and the Dark Templar trilogy filled the gap between Starcraft and Starcraft II.  If released just before Heart of the Swarm, it could build buzz for it, just like Starcraft II: Heaven's Devils did for Wings of Liberty.

Mike Lee, who writes Warhammer 40K fiction, told me how to get in touch with Andy Chambers, who used to work for Games Workshop but is now the creative development director at Blizzard.  However, he said that typically, publishers bring authors to the gaming company and not the other way around.  And Simon and Schuster, which has published all the Starcraft novelizations, only accepts agented submissions.

(Mr. Lee, by the way, is a really cool and funny guy.  He'll be in another blog post later.)

I have still not heard back from Mr. Chambers.  However, Matt Schafer went to the Blizzard web-site, found their Legal FAQ section, and informed me that Blizzard does not accept unsolicited ideas.

Looks like I'll need to find an agent, then.  Schafer suggested I find out who represented Heaven's Devils author William Dietz on that particular book and try to contact him.  Time is of the essence--it typically takes a year to publish a book.  I haven't had time to go to a bookstore and look in the acknowledgements section, where I could possibly find the agent.  I can also e-mail Dietz himself, since he does have a web-site and a contact e-mail.

As far as my original work is concerned, I just finished Chapter Eight of Escape from the Wastelands.  This is the chapter where Andrew finally gets out of Carroll Town, although we have not yet met Alonzo Merrill.  I had put Escape on the back burner while I worked on the Starcraft project and rushed to get this chapter ready for review by my Kennesaw writing group this coming Saturday.

I also had Chapter Seven reviewed by my Lawrenceville writing group last Sunday.  They gave some good advice, including finally explaining the show/tell distinction as applied to certain episodes in the chapter and pointing out that having two of Grendel's sons having names beginning with "Ha" could confuse the reader.

Revisions ahoy--once I've got time!

I finally added a new chapter to The Revenge of the Fallen Reboot, which I had let sit for three months without an update.  The human cast is now in North Africa for the final battle with the Decepticons.  It's almost done, and after that, no more fan fiction.

Well, maybe.  I had an idea for a one-shot Starcraft fan-fic that would basically be an alternate ending for Wings of Liberty.  However, I might post that later, perhaps in a thread entitled "Lead Us Not Into Temptation."