Jochen -
I met George when I used to hang with some of the local (NM) SF
authors, I've since dropped out of that crowd.
I also hosted a series of events at LANL during the 1998 Nebula
awards... At that event I even met a woman (SF/F Author who claimed to
have accidentally started the Society for Creative Anachronism when she
invited all of her friends and aquaintences and colleagues to her house
in Berkeley to celebrate her recent Masters in Medieval Studies and they
all showed up in period costume and weaponry.... I can't remember her
name now and could not corroborate her story.
George is a lot like many of the SF/F authors I know... only a bit more
successful than most. I found George to be a self-important curmudgeon
long before he hit it bigtime (while he was producing the work that he
would hit it bigtime with!)... so I can't imagine that has decreased.
The Game of Thrones series (even before it got picked up by HBO) was
very powerful even though it is not my usual fare. George also
initiated and edited a series of collected/themed short stories known as
"the Wild Card" stories which in my opinion presaged (or inspired, or
informed) the "Heroes" HBO series. These are (I think he's still
cranking them out) very good examples of collaborative fiction as well...
We (NM) recently (2006) lost the legendary Jack Williamson at the ripe
young age of 98... he came to NM by way of covered wagon just around
1912/statehood (age 4). He was incredibly prolific right up until his
last few years, and managed to get credit for many neologisms from
Science Fiction as documented in the Oxford English Dictionary....
including my favorite "contra-terrene" (anti-matter). He also told a
great anecdote about being visited by the FBI during the Manhattan
project because of one of his stories' reference to "Atom Bombs"... he
got them off his back by referring them to a much older (1932?) story
with the same ideas... I recommend his first novel in the "Humanoid"
Series... I think it was called "With Folded Hands" (what goes awry when
you make the perfect robotic servants whose directives are roughly those
that Asimov is given credit for... "Allow no human to come to harm"...
taking this to the extreme they became a kindler, gentler version of the
Borg or the Berserkers.
We also lost the similarly legendary Roger Zelazny who was a long time
resident of Santa Fe and most famous for his series referred to as "The
Amber Chronicles" I think. Zelazny was also much loved for the writing
workshops he taught in the area.
Steve (S.M.) Stirling is another prolific Santa Fe author. He has
several collaborators who he publishes with, including the well known
name of Anne McCaffrey ("The Ship who Fought). Most of his works are
military SF, Post Apocalyptic and Alternate History. I enjoy the last
the most.
Stephen C. Gould and Laura Mixon are perhaps my favorite "writing
couple"... Stephen's work hit it "big time" when one of his juvenile
novels, "Jumper" was made into a movie (disappointing result as such
endeavors often are) a few years ago. They wrote a great collaborative
novel together for those here interested in collaborative efforts.
Laura is a very powerful Cyberpunk (my measure of the theme of her work)
Author in her own right and collaborator on an Interactive Storytelling
engine (Storytron). Laura and/or Stephen might even be members of this
or the SFX Discuss list. I hosted them at SFX for a "blender" on
interactive storytelling a few years ago.
Walter Jon Williamson is another of my favorites... His work touches
on Cyberpunk (HardWired in particular) but manages to be very highbrow
technically despite the lowbrow tropes such as "Space Opera". I
haven't seen anything from him lately, but I'm sure he's still working...
Other SF names from the immediate are that might also be recognized
include: Fred Saberhagen, Sage Walker, Patty Nagel, Sally Gwylan ...
And of course, there is the ever-famous annual SF Confention in
Albuquerque called the "Bubonicon" after the unfortunate disease,
"Bubonic Plague".
Oh, and then of course, we have Doug!
- Steve
A colleague came up today with a book from George R.R. Martin. They
say he is the American Tolkien, so I decided to read one of his books,
'Game of Thrones'. Has someone actually met him? He lives in Santa Fe
and seems to be cool.
-J.
Sent from Android
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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
