Dwarves and doodads at Escapist Expo 2013

Posted on October 25, 2013 by J.L. Hilton

Escapist Expo is a 3-day convention in Durham, NC, thrown by The Escapist magazine, highlighting video games, tabletop games, card games, science fiction, fantasy, comics and music. This year’s event happened over the weekend of October 4-6 and I’m finally getting around to writing about it!

LOTR: Awesome crossplay. These are both women! Escapist Expo 2013. Photo courtesy of my minion Lilith.

Last year, I shared a table with Bull Spec, a regional fiction magazine, promoting my Stellarnet Series along with many other local authors. This year I had my own table and peddled my handmade jewelry beside my post-cyberpunk fiction and the non-fiction steampunk art books in which my design work is featured.

I wish I could tell you about all of the exciting and amazing things that happened at the expo — Totalbiscuit, Yahtzee Croshaw, live-action zombie Nerf games, cosplay contest, Geek Trivia, MTG tourney, Cards Against Humanity, D20 Girls, panels — but I suffered a screwed up shoulder and spent most of my time behind my table, when I wasn’t resting and loading up on ibuprofen. Many thanks to my minions and the sweet expo volunteer who helped me lug my junk to the ballroom.

The expo crowd was a good one, though. Young and young-at-heart, upbeat, savvy and entertaining. I enjoyed meeting the folks who stopped by to peruse my shiny trinkets and I gorged on a visual feast of cool costumes.

For part of the weekend, I also hosted an old Underwood manual typewriter, courtesy of Bull Spec, upon which participants were encouraged to experience the origins of the “shift” key or figure out how to type an exclamation point. “How do you go to the next line?” was asked several times. “I thought the @ symbol was invented for the Internet,” someone said. It’s kind of creepy living long enough to witness an entire generation of grown adults who’ve never even touched an item I grew up with.

More goodies from the Escapist Expo:

SKYRIM: Hagraven, Briarheart, Giant and bandits. Best costumes at the expo. Photo by Heather Barefoot (c) The Escapist

Official photos from the Escapist Expo

Official videos from the Escapist Expo

Pics of the crossplay dwarves on Facebook

Geek jewelry from Taramorphic

Author and video game writer Richard Dansky

Fantasy illustrator Cynthia Sheppard

Rumble and Roar Wandmakers

~ J.L. Hilton

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Dear romance authors

Posted on October 22, 2013 by J.L. Hilton

I enjoy a good romance novel. I’m especially fond of anything in a kilt. Yes, Highland Romance is a cheesy genre, peppered with “dinnas” and “aye, lassies.” It typically pairs a fiery heroine incongruous for her time period with a Muscles MacCoolguy hero who’s strong enough to survive death, disease, mortal wounds, time travel and an invading army, yet romantic and sensitive enough to make love like an enchanted elven gigolo on Viagra. And I enjoy every bit of it.

Tropes are tropes because we love them, and I have no quarrel with that. But some clichés bring my enjoyment of romance to a screeching halt.

1) “SLANTING.”

There are two very overused examples: “Sunlight slanted through the window…” and “His mouth slanted over hers…” The first appears so often in fiction of all genres that it should be a drinking game, and the second just doesn’t make any sense. Have you ever in your life said to a friend, “I loved the way my boyfriend slanted his mouth last night”? The author might as well write, “His mouth sloped over hers…” or “He angled his tongue…” There’s got to be a better way to explain what’s happening than to make it sound like a guy can’t properly aim his smootcher. 

2) “FISTING.”

As in… “His hand fisted her hair.” Really? Maybe this is a common expression somewhere in the world, but I’ve lived 40+ years all over the U.S. and the only use of “fisting” I’ve ever heard is the hardcore porn kind employed in the uncut version of Caligula. Which REALLY ruins my immersion when I’m reading a romance.

3) CRISIS INTROSPECTION.

“As the bullets whizzed by his head, he wondered how she felt about him. He recalled the way her eyes gazed at him from across the room during the dance and couldn’t remember anyone ever looking at him that way before…” There’s no human being, male or female, who would be “wondering if she could trust the promise in his kiss” or “averting his gaze from her voluptuous breasts and the half-lidded suggestion in her eyes” when they’re near death or in some terribly desperate situation. Desperate moments might evoke desperate declarations, but spare me the navel gazing and pages of pondering — and the sex scenes — until the immediate danger is passed.

4) DITHERING.

I can’t relate to adult characters who spend all their time worrying, speculating, doubting and daydreaming like 15-year-olds. There are certainly times for reflection and inner turmoil. But these work well if supported by actions and external events. If the entire “plot” of a romance novel is nothing but chapter after chapter of his unexpressed confusion, alternating with chapters of her endless mental waffling, no thanks.

5) STUPIDITY.

I once read a historic romance about a worldly knight who’d fought battles and wooed women all over Europe. But for the duration of the novel, he suddenly couldn’t understand body language, sexual attraction, emotion, politics, female anatomy, social status or the function of his own junk. He went on and on in the vein of “I just don’t know why she kissed me or why my body responded…” Dude, seriously?

Romance author Susanna Fraser shared one of her own pet peeves with me the other day.

“Small town romances that bash big cities. I’m fine with a small town setting on its own, but when all the characters can do is go on about how DANGEROUS the big city is, and how TERRIBLE the city schools are, I get angry. I love my big city home and my daughter’s school is excellent. And don’t even get me started on books where the heroine has been living a happy life in the big city, only to come back to her hometown, where she discovers her city life was empty and she belongs with her high school sweetheart.”

Are there any romance clichés, tropes and conventions that ruin your immersion in a story? As a romance reader, what advice would you like to give romance writers?

~ J.L. Hilton

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Do aliens have flags?

Posted on September 18, 2013 by J.L. Hilton

This is what I envisioned for the Glinnish flag invented by extraterrestrial ambassador Duin a week before arriving in the United States, in my second book, Stellarnet Prince.

Duin stepped onto the platform. Cheering spectators packed the South Lawn and waved little flags—some the U.S. flag and some the Glin flag that Duin made up a week ago. The flag featured a field of celadon with a simplified, cream-colored j’ni, its petals in the shape of raindrops.
(Excerpt from Stellarnet Prince)

I had a lot to consider when I brought my aliens to Earth. As envoys, they were welcomed with pomp and circumstance at every turn. But what does an alien diplomat do when his world has no centralized government, no official flag, no national anthem, no formal attire?

He fakes it.

A refrain of music alerted them to a call from J.T. and his face appeared in a window on the wall. Normally, they couldn’t chat because of the lag from Earth, but J.T. was already on Asteria for the wedding. “’Lo. Quick question: What’s the Glin anthem? The U.S. chief of protocol is asking.”

Duin sighed in exasperation. “We don’t have an anthem. We don’t have a flag, animal, color, or official seal. I already told him. We have a motto, awah na glem, and a sacred flower, the j’ni.”

“You’ll need to come up with a flag, then, and pick a song, or they’ll end up playing some asinine thing like the theme from Star Trek.”

Duin waved his hands in an elaborate shrug. “Belloc, what’s your favorite Glinnish song?”

“Plibbub Twishub.”

Duin gushed laughter.

Belloc didn’t know what was so funny. “My mother sang it to me.”

“They’ll play whatever the hell you tell ’em to play. But come up with something so they’ll stop crawling up my ass. Ciao.” J.T. disappeared.

“Plib means small, right?” J’ni asked Belloc. “What does it mean? Small raindrop…small splash…”

Duin sang. “Plibbub plibbub plibbub…Ahh twishub…Plibbub plibbub plibbub…Ahh twishub.” But the way he said them, the words were almost like sound effects, mimicking the sounds of water drops and splashing. “Ahh” was sung over several descending notes.

“It’s a lullaby,” J’ni said. Belloc didn’t know what that word meant, but she explained before he had to ask. “A song for children.”

“Yes.” Duin continued chuckling. “I think I’ve sung it to my descendants about four thousand times, at least.”

Duin ends up choosing a selection from Handel’s “Water Music” because it’s the first thing that comes up when he l’ups (future slang for “looks up”) “water music” on the Net. It’s also the first thing that came up when I Googled “water music” IRL. lol

~ J.L. Hilton

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Neil Gaiman on fun and nakedness (and art)

Posted on September 14, 2013 by J.L. Hilton

I know this has been around the Net for awhile, but I only watched it yesterday.

It’s what I needed to hear.

I, too, bypassed a writing degree in college (though I did eventually earn a degree in psychology), because I was impatient to get on with writing. By the age of 19, I’d already published stories in Dragon Magazine (fiction) and treasure hunting magazines (non-fiction).

I, too, became a journalist. It was a wonderful way to be paid to write, while learning to be succint, work on a deadline, and find out about the world.

Many years later, from 2009-2012, I wrote Stellarnet Rebel and Stellarnet Prince for love, not money. Which is good, because there’s not much money. Few bottles come back with dollars in them.

I don’t want to write for money. I want to write for love. In the midst of the blogs, contracts, conventions, panels and promotions, I started to forget that.

“There was a day when I looked up and realized that I had become someone who professionally replied to email — and who wrote as a hobby.”

When my “success” ceased to be fun, my heart wasn’t in it any more. I put out so many bottles — not just with stories in them, but with art, jewelry, charity work and more — and too many were coming back. So, I had to learn to say “no.” It hasn’t been easy.

I haven’t written much this year. Though book three of the Stellarnet Series and many other stories are always on my mind and in my heart, most days I’d rather be cleaning out a closet or going to the dentist than writing. I, too, have failed to enjoy the ride, and instead I’ve spent too much time worrying. I feel burned out and empty.

Neil is right about feeling naked and exposed, showing too much of myself to the world. I felt that feeling and I retreated, just at the moment when I might be, as he put it, starting to get it right.

“Make good art.”

Thank you, Neil, I’ll try.

~ J.L. Hilton

Neil Gaiman’s website

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One does not simply “get over” Firefly

Posted on August 13, 2013 by J.L. Hilton

From Zombie Orpheus Entertainment and Dead Gentlemen Productions, the folks responsible for the D&D classics The Gamers and The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, as well as two of my favorites Journeyquest and Glitch, comes this Firefly rant, a deleted scene from their upcoming movie, The Gamers: Hands of Fate. Can you relate?

~ J.L. Hilton

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Where art meets science: Steampunk dinosaurs?

Posted on August 12, 2013 by J.L. Hilton

The life-sized skeleton sculptures of Dinosaurs in Motion weren’t steam-powered. Some moved when touched, their heavy heads bobbing on spring-loaded necks. Others operated like giant marionettes, hanging on a system of cables and pulleys, moved by cranks. Electric motors powered others, connected to video game controllers.

All were inspired by actual fossils but made of metal, bolts, springs, gears and the occasional bit of mesh from repurposed screen doors. Quite an experience, walking through this metal menagerie made by John Payne, who merged mechanical science and artistic craftsmanship to create something that would not be out of place in a steampunk novel.

Speaking of steampunk dinosaurs, check out my friend Robert Appleton’s book Prehistoric Clock. It has real dinosaurs, not metal or robotic, because it’s a time travel tale. But maybe these pictures will inspire his next story…

Kinetic sculpture by John Payne, photo by Karen Swain, NCMNS

Kinetic sculpture by John Payne, photo by Karen Swain, NCMNS

Kinetic sculpture by John Payne, photo by Karen Swain, NCMNS

Kinetic sculpture by John Payne, photo by Karen Swain, NCMNS

~ J.L. Hilton

Posted in News, Steampunk | 1 Comment

Beauty and the bias

Posted on July 9, 2013 by J.L. Hilton

I’m an author. I also have a degree in psychology. When I write, I don’t just write a story, I create characters with feelings, living in a universe with other people, within societies that have problems and prejudices. One of those problems: If you don’t meet the accepted standards for beauty, you don’t get anyone’s attention.

This vid recently crossed my social media stream. Dustin Hoffman laments how many interesting women he’s overlooked because they were unattractive. And this exempifies exactly why I don’t like Hollywood, why I left Southern California, and why I prefer UK movies and TV programs — in which the actors aren’t all Playboy/Playgirl pinups with conventional good looks but actually have talent.

In Stellarnet Rebel, Genevieve O’Riordan is intelligent and hard-working, but let’s be honest. It’s her “genmod” tits and perfect teeth that bring a lot of followers to her blog (at least, initially). And the idea that many of those followers want to watch her have sex is just an accepted part of life on the Net, in the year 2061.

The fact that no one will listen to Duin, an alien from the planet Glin, is in part due to his unattractiveness. His race is derisively called “frogs” by humans, and in spite of his desperate pleas to save his people, he’s pretty much ignored until Genny looks past his webbed fingers and strange eyes, and starts taking him seriously.

Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world where we are not judged by the perfection of our skin, but by the content of our character?

- J.L. Hilton

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Cogs and Captains at Contemporal 2013

Posted on June 30, 2013 by J.L. Hilton

Not Voltaire, just a Scottish guy with a kickass costume

I had a great time this weekend at ConTemporal, the 2nd annual steampunk convention in North Carolina.

SO. MANY. COSTUMES.

And I love costumes, but the highlight for me was meeting musician, artist, author, Dr. Strange impersonator, and award-winning stop-action animator Aurelio Voltaire. I had the opportunity to chat with him a few times, attend his musical performance and see his stop-action animation presentation. Here are a few of his songs I heard Friday night:

Captains All
The Mechanical Girl
Death Death Devil Evil Song
When You’re Evil
Raised By Bats

As a panelist at the convention, I discussed the active NC SF/F community with fellow authors James Maxey, Tonia Brown Jeremy Whitley and Allen Wold. Then Mr. Maxey and I joined Steven S. Long, RPG author with Hero Games, to discuss nostalgia, futurists, visionaries, science, space opera, cyberpunk, steampunk and SF. Possibly one of the best panels I’ve ever been on, unfortunately we only had four audience members to witness the awesomeness.

As a moderator, I led a discussion about podcasting with Tee Morris, co-author of Podcasting for Dummies, and Philippa Ballantine — they are the married duo behind the Ministry of Peculiar Occurances — along with Dave Foland of the Nympho Bikini Cruise podcast and Pizzula comic book.

Then I joined Matthew Penick of Ribbons and Rivets (who made me a replica of the Skyrim apothecary satchel earlier this year) and Kirsten Vaughan to talk about costuming on a budget and tips for steampunk costuming. The room filled for this one, possibly the largest audience I’ve had for any convention panel in which I’ve participated.

ConTemporal featured a Mad Hatter tea room, Makers Expo hall of contraptions, and a Bizarre Bazaar. I spent some time with my friends in the Charlotte Geeks, who were there to promote their Geek Gala coming up in October, and my daughter got to do a Teen Writers Workshop with YA steampunk author Jean Claude Bemis.

Here are a few tintypes from the event…

Looking forward to next year!

- J.L. Hilton

SPECIAL BONUS UPDATED JULY 3, 2013: YOUTUBE VIDEO BY BEATDOWNBOOGIE!

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My schedule for ConTemporal

Posted on June 27, 2013 by J.L. Hilton

Fri 5 pm – Is There Something in the Water? (panelist) North Carolina, and especially the Triangle, seems to produce a high number of science fiction and fantasy writers. What ‘s special about this area that allows this speculative fiction community to thrive?

Fri 6pm – Nostalgia for the Future (panelist) – Why do the SF visions from past eras continue to hold such power on our imagination?

Sat 11 am – Podcasting Workshop (moderator) – Producing a podcast might be simple, but learning the tips and tricks of creating one that people will actually enjoy listening to might be more difficult. We’ll consider questions such as: What makes a good podcast? What’s the best format for your show? What equipment do you need? What are the practicalities of producing your show?

Sat 3 pm – Costuming on a Budget (moderator) – Cost is the most common obstacle for aspiring steampunks and cosplayers of all types. But you don’t have to break the bank to have a great costume – sometimes all it takes is some creativity. I’ve heard that this will include costuming artists from Ribbons and Rivets but I’m not sure who else.

Hope to see you there!

- J.L. Hilton

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SF Priestess and Techoprophet

Posted on June 20, 2013 by J.L. Hilton

Priestess of the oracle at Delphi, John Collier, 1891

OK, I’m getting kind of freaked out by the almost daily occurrence of “This is like something I wrote about in my books.” Seriously, it’s like I’m a goddamn oracle. And I stink like a shameless self-promoter every time I mention it. But, c’mon, how many times am I going to read about the latest gadgets, technology, theories or augmented reality games on Buzzfeed, ThinkGeek and The NY Times (1) (2), and be able to find an equivalent idea in my novels? Or hear about some social or political issue in the news, after it’s already affected my characters?

The latest to cross my laptop is “We’ll be uploading our entire MINDS to computers by 2045…”

In just over 30 years, humans will be able to upload their entire minds to computers and become digitally immortal – an event called singularity – according to a futurist from Google.

Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, also claims that the biological parts of our body will be replaced with mechanical parts and this could happen as early as 2100.

I don’t feature body parts replaced by machines but by digital “sims” — 3D holographic projections. In Stellarnet Rebel, there are sim copies of a living person — Hax — and they help him run the Tech Center in Asteria Colony. In Stellarnet Prince, one of the characters is a sim of a deceased person (I won’t say whom, so no spoilers), whose knowledge, memories, personality, voice and physical appearance are programmed into what is essentially a virtual ghost, linked to the Net.

I’m getting all kinds of worked up whenever these parallels occur, not because I think I’m original or special. Heck, no. SF authors have been predicting the future, extrapolating technology and incorporating social issues into their stories for decades. And a lot of these ideas have been around awhile. I got the idea for J’ni’s “bracer” from an article in Omni magazine about wearable computers — back in the 1980s.

Goddamn chick book

What riles me is the general notion that SF books written by female authors are short on science and research. Or that a character-driven story with romantic elements can’t also have a lot of technology and social commentary. Or this chucklehead who thinks that female authors of SFR “don’t get the details right” because they haven’t read Douglas Adams (I’ve not only read him, I met him before he died) or Ray Bradbury (I have) or Arthur C. Clarke (I have).

I’m right A LOT. Even with my boobs on.

I’ve been told “I don’t read chick books” by men who see the cover of Stellarnet Prince or find out that my publisher is an imprint of Harlequin. Nevermind that I was a finalist for the EPIC awards “Best SF ebook of the year.” Not SFR(omance), which is totally another category. SF, motherfuckers.

During the North Carolina Science Festival’s The Science of Science Fiction in April 2012, I sat on a panel with David Drake and read an excerpt from Stellarnet Prince in which Belloc plays a full-body controlled, entire-use of livingroom immersive video game. Afterward, an audience member approached me and said that the excerpt reminded him of the games he used to play in the Stanford virtual reality lab. (Though, actually, it was over a year ago, and so maybe I only remember him saying “Stanford” and it was really somewhere else, but you get the idea.) A similar game called Mysteria is featured in the first book in the series — which I began writing in May 2009, the same month that tech sites buzzed with rumors about Microsoft’s motion-controlled gaming technology for Xbox, now known as Kinect.

So, when I see things like the Jim Baen (founder of big SF publisher Baen Books) Memorial Writing Contest saying it wants “Moon bases, Mars colonies, orbital habitats, space elevators, asteroid mining, artificial intelligence, nano-technology, realistic spacecraft, heroics, sacrifice, adventure,” and Alex Steffen at Worldchanging and others writing about the failure of futurists and SF authors to imagine a plausible future rather than regurgitating galactic Disneylands or regressing into steampunk and alternate histories, and while SFWA refuses to acknowledge my publisher as a “qualifying market” and finds itself mired in charges of sexism, here’s me. Doing my thing. Check it out at StellarnetSeries.com.

And when Google builds a space station named Perspective, remember: I called it.

- J.L. Hilton

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