It’s not what you think. Before you take your kids or loved ones into the water, read this article.

Some thoughts: First, they’re going with their onerous 65% sales commission, which is understandable, I guess, since they’re paying the owner of the IP as well as themselves. Don’t forget that’s based on the net revenue. Quote: As with all titles from Amazon Publishing, Kindle Worlds will base net revenue off of customer sales price

Still, it’s good to see that they’re going to be paying monthly, which is the first of the five big changes Tobias Buckell hopes to see in publishing as a whole.

Second, the books will not be commissioned by Amazon. It’s all spec submissions. You can check out their rough guidelines for the program as a whole and see that they will not be accepting anything with graphic sex[1] or offensive language[2].

They also won’t accept crossover works, or works that contain a whole bunch of brand names (presumably because they think the writer is getting paid to do so[3])

Third, they reserve the right to reject work for things like bad ebook formatting and shitty covers.

Yeah, that’s right. The authors are expected to create their own covers for work being published with the consent of Warner Bros. I can’t help but wonder if they’ll turn a blind eye to using actors’ publicity shots.

Fourth, I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming.

So… okay. The way it works is simple: You write (or more likely “have written”) fanfic within a licensed setting out of love for the show. Amazon opens its doors to Kindle Worlds. You create a cover and format an ebook file, then submit it.

At that point, someone at Amazon actually reads it–when they’re explaining that poor customer experience will get a book rejected, they say: “We reserve the right to determine whether content provides a poor customer experience.” I’m going to assume that means they have a reader on staff vetting projects before they’re published, not that they publish everything and take it down later based on reader complaints. Frankly, it’s what I would expect if I were Warner Bros.

If it’s approved, it goes on sale and you start getting the ka-ching (they set the price).

One thing I’m not clear about is whether they acquire all rights to your work on publication or submission. It’s not as though you can sell your GOSSIP GIRL novella somewhere else, but you could certainly change the names around once it’s been rejected for the sexy, and Amazon could make trouble for you if they have your submission in a database somewhere.

As for how I feel about it, honestly I’m conflicted. Some years ago before I was published, I wrote and submitted a story for an open Star Trek anthology. It was a prison story starring that transporter-accident clone of Riker, after he’d been captured by the Dominion and, while I was proud of it at the time[4] and while my rejection was personalized (and quite nice) the damn thing was much too specific to file the serial numbers off.

I think it’s great to open up settings in this way for the fans, and I hope they take advantage. At the same time, writing tie-in novels used to be a way for writers to make a bit of money (and have a bit of fun) between their own projects. With luck, a successful HALO or Star Wars novel would draw in new fans to their original work.

So, does this signal the end of the pro tie-in novel? Probably not entirely, but there is going to be pressure on the market by people willing to write the books (and make their own covers!) on spec.

And for the people publishing their fanfic, it seems like playing small ball. Yes, there will undoubtedly be people who make good money through this program, but I can’t help but think they’d be better off in the long term by filing the serial numbers off and striking out on their own, as in 50 SHADES…

Personally, I don’t have any fanfiction I could even submit. (There was the SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN thing I did in 4th grade) because I’m not part of that community, but it does open up other ideas: will authors be allowed to list their own IP[5] with Kindle Worlds, allowing fanfic in their settings be sold online? Personally, I think that would be cool.

So we’re turning fanfic into media tie-in novels.

It’s an exciting time, isn’t it?

[1] Big surprise, right? Don’t bother pasting that mpreg into Caliber just yet.

[2] As my theater improv friends put it, the work will have to be “TV clean.”

[3] “I am Jack’s attempt to publish fanfic with an anti-consumerist message.”

[4] No way am I looking at it again.

[5] At the moment, the only IP I have available are my Twenty Palaces series. The first book is only $2.99.

2) If you’re going to deface a textbook, this is how to do it. (Although I’m dubious about the adverb “geniously”)

3) Funny, mean reviews of Dan Brown’s Inferno.

4) Banned SF/F novels.

5) Girl makes jacket out of Ziploc bags, wears sandwich and snacks where ever she goes.

6) Why Manhattan’s Green Roofs Don’t Work–and How to Fix Them

7) Theres a Question Mark Hanging Over the Apostrophes Future. (I see what you did there.)

This year will be even bigger. On June 8th there’s going to be a huge expo at the Seattle Center, and from the 6th to the 11th there will be events happening all over the Puget Sound area, from presentations on becoming a game creator at the Microsoft store to

Anyway, I’ve copy and pasted a note the festival organizers have asked me to share letting folks know briefly about what’s on the schedule and how you can get involved, if you feel so moved.

I would like to take this opportunity to invite you and your organization to the second annual Seattle Science Festival. This year, the region’s largest celebration of science will take place June 6-16, 2013 to celebrate the importance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to our community’s culture and to its continued growth and prosperity. The Seattle Science Festival will consist of the following components:

• Science EXPO Day, Saturday, June 8, will feature exciting, engaging events all day long throughout the grounds of Seattle Center. Over 15,000 students, parents, scientists, educators and other community members are anticipated to take part in this FREE event. Science EXPO Day will showcase over 150 hands-on activities and demonstrations; it will also feature live science performances on the EXPO Day Stage. FREE BUS PARKING IS AVAILABLE ON SCIENCE EXPO DAY! Contact Jordan Adams at jadams@pacsci.org for more details.

• Signature Programs, June 6-16, will provide events developed by our program collaborators specifically for the Seattle Science Festival. Signature Programs include behind-the-scenes tours, science adventures, field trip opportunities for classrooms, workshops, screenings of science-themed films, a Cool Jobs Series at the Seattle Public Library on June 9-Computer Science, June 12-Green & Clean Technology, and June 13-Biomedical Science, plus many other events held at venues all over the Puget Sound region.

• Opening Night at the Paramount Theatre, June 6, 8 – 10 PM Beyond Infinity? The Search for Understanding at the Limits of Space and Time. Featuring Brian Greene, Sean Carroll, Adam Frank and the West Coast premiere of Icarus at the Edge of Time, and music by Philip Glass, conducted by Marcus Tsutakawa and performed by the Garfield High School Orchestra. Avoid service charges by purchasing tickets IN PERSON at the Paramount Theatre Box Office at 911 Pine Street, Seattle, or for 10 or more tickets, contact their Group Sales Manager at (206) 315-8054.

• Closing Night at the Seattle Repertory Theatre, June 15, 7:30 – 9:30 PM Our 11th Hour: Straight Talk on Climate Change from People Who Know. Featuring Kevin E. Trenberth, Richard Alley, Andrew Revkin and a performance of Seattle Opera’s Heron and the Salmon Girl. Buy tickets at www.seattlesciencefestival.org.

These high profile events will present some of the greatest scientific and creative minds of our time and weave together science, music, art and philosophy for two inspiring, thought-provoking and engaging evenings.

How can you get involved?

• Sign up for the Seattle Science Festival E-Newsletter
• Coordinate a group of students to bring to a Seattle Science Festival event
• Become a Seattle Science Festival Ambassador and help spread the word
• Sign up to be a Seattle Science Festival volunteer by May 22

Visit www.seattlesciencefestival.org to learn more about how you can get involved and I hope to see you there!

Anyway, I saw this movie a great many times in the bong-fueled haze of post-college daytime cable and I loved it. Watching it again last week with my family reminded me how charming and fun it is.

It also brought back how completely fucked up this movie it. Seriously.

First, have this: How to be a fan of problematic things. It’s a good article written from the perspective of a person fighting for social justice who’s following GAME OF THRONES. Even if you’re not such a person, it’s worth reading.

And it applies to REMO in spades.

Let’s talk briefly about the setup: Fred Ward is a tough NYC street cop who is “killed” in the first few minutes of the movie. He wakes up in a hospital bed with a new face and identity; he’s been recruited by a secret government organization headed by Wilford Brimley. Why?

Brimley’s character sums it up like this: “This is a great country, my boy, but the justice system doesn’t work the way it should.” I know what you’re thinking, right? They’re going to reform the justice system!

Actually, no. They’re an assassination squad operating domestically under the direct control of the president. The only limits to their power is that they must never “embarrass the president.” That’s it. They investigate people and, if they have too much money/power to be prosecuted, they arrange a convincing “accident.”

Oh, 1980′s.

To effect this plan, Ward is to be trained in the ancient and mysterious martial art of sinanju, which will allow him to dodge bullets, run without touching the ground, and other goofiness.

If that were the end of it, REMO would be little different from other odd 80′s action movies about heroic vigilantes. Unfortunately, the elderly Korean master who teaches Ward is played by… Joel Gray.

Yeah. It’s a white guy in yellowface.

Here’s the thing. The yellowface makeup was nominated for an Oscar. Gray’s performance earned him a Golden Globe nomination. If he’d done a shitty job in the role this would be an utterly forgettable movie. Actually, until Gray appears onscreen, it IS a forgettable movie. Ward is charismatic. Kate Mulgrew is terrific as a major in the army trying to prove that the bad guys are breaking the law. But until Gray appears as Chiun, the movie feels rote. I watched this with my kid and I had to beg him to stick with it. By the end, he was laughing and giving it a thumbs up.

Gray and Ward have fantastic chemistry together; their scenes (which are mostly amusing training sequences of one kind or another) are pretty much the only heart the movie has.

So, you know, it’s complicated. It’s a terrible idea to cast a white dude in yellowface to play the part of a Korean man. It’s certainly possible that an Asian actor could have done just as good as job as the prickly, obnoxious, condescending Chiun. But we don’t live in that world; we live in the world where Joel Gray got the part and did a fantastic job with it.

Anyway, the movie’s on Netflix Streaming. It’s problemmatic, but I’m a fan of it anyway.

I emailed Smashwords about it the week before last and received a chirpy response that there was nothing they could do about it, and had forwarded the issue to Kobo. A followup email brought the same response. Cheerful nothing.

I know Kobo will let you set up your own account, so I assume they’re rejecting or delaying books submitted through Smashwords to drive people to them directly.

Because I don’t have enough to do.

When I finish this book and revise KEY/EGG, I may need to take a week off just for business stuff: find a new WP theme I like that’s similar to what I have, set up a functional store on my site, create accounts on all the book vendor sites to sell my stuff directly, and so on. Very annoying.

Added later: Fixed. I should learn to skip customer service and take my problems straight to Twitter through my blog. Timeline: Complain (late) on a Friday. Hear back from Smashwords on Wednesday. Still nothing by the Tuesday after that. Complain on my blog so company name is right in the automatic tweet. Fixed by the end of the day.

I reminded me of kicking back with my son to watch movies from the 80′s. When ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK starts, there’s nothing but a black screen, synth music and the credits, because it was made for a time when you bought the ticket and sat down in a theater. Nobody was holding a remote in their hand, thumb over the FF button.

When I pointed this out to my son, he asked to skip the credits but I wouldn’t. “This is the movie,” I told him.

Anyway, I understand the value people place on first pages, but sometimes they can be misleading. I really enjoyed THE NAME OF THE WIND but I only persevered past the “three kinds of silence” opening because people assured me the style would change.

For myself, I buy books mainly because of the author, the book is a classic of a genre, or a recent(ish) book is so widely lauded that it seems likely to become a classic. I read very slowly, so I can’t just be grabbing stuff willy-nilly.

Also, I get a fair amount of email but very little of it actually requires a response. Most of it I can skim and delete.

Yes, I did make a lot of headway on THE WAY INTO CHAOS but it’s not finished. Much more needs to be done. For right now, though, I’m going to post something stupid to Twitter.

Also, there’s a Kickstarter I’m involved with: the second volume of the WALK THE FIRE anthology. If it gets funded, I will be writing a story for them (and getting paid, which would be nice, too) but if it doesn’t, then no. It hasn’t been doing great in the way of pledges and I hope that changes.

Premise: there are certain people (Ferrymen) who can travel to anywhere in time and space. The far future on distant planets. The ancient past. Anywhere. What’s more, they can bring people with them.

The table of contents for the first anthology was all dudes, but I spoke to co-editor John Mierau about that and he said a number of authors begged off at the last minute, including the women they’d invited. Things would be different for volume 2, so I signed on. A quote:

The second Walk The Fire anthology will feature stories by two-time Campbell nominee Mur Lafferty, Hugo nominee Paul Levinson, Philippa Ballantine, Harry Connolly, JRD Skinner, Steve Umstead, Matt Iden, WJ Davies and more.

The interesting thing is that several of the authors in the first volume were Kindle bestsellers–basically, successful self-published writers. Me, I hadn’t heard of them before. It’s weird how many social groups can be like a parallel world.

Anyway, check out the Buckell post and consider a pledge, if you will. I’m writing this the day before the fast starts, so I can’t say how well it’s going. Hopefully, it’s so great that I can take a second week and really finish things up.

Massive spoilers behind the cut, but let me summarize things quickly up front in a spoiler-free fashion: Season one is even better than I remember, with a few small missteps. The arc-long mysteries (Who killed Lilly Kane? Who raped Veronica on the night she was drugged?) are complex enough for the TV format but not as in-depth as you’d find in a novel. They’re also handled with more sensitivity than I would have expected from TV. It works. The short, episode-long mysteries are well-handled, varied enough to stay interesting, and humane.

But the real strengths of the show are the performances, especially Bell’s and Colantoni’s, and the way the relationships between the characters are handled. If you haven’t watched the show yet, you really should. The discs are on Netflix and WB is hosting the episodes online (provided you live in the “correct” parts of the world”. The pilot is a little heavy on the flashbacks, but the complex setup is necessary. Stick with it.

Let’s do spoilers:

Some time ago I thought up a quick test to tell whether a book aspired to be straight genre or to be considered literary, as long as the book had a fist fight. The test: did the protagonist win the fight? If so, it’s going for genre protocols. If not, it has literary aspirations.

See: any Jack Reacher novel vs. The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

Anyway, VERONICA MARS is a genre show, in that the lead character is both competent and potent. She does the things that need doing and she does them well. There are no punches thrown, obviously, but she outthinks, outwits and outplans everyone around her and it is SO satisfying.

If that were the end of it, it would be an average show in the usual genre, but there are a number of things that make it stand out from the rest.

First is Bell’s performance in the lead. She’s fantastic from first to last, portrays a wide range of emotional states and does so with nuance. She’s not just good-looking and funny, she’s charismatic and complex.

To match with her is Enrico Colantoni as Keith Mars, her father. Like Veronica, he’s competent and potent but in an offbeat affecting way. What’s more, his relationship with his daughter is the heart of the show. I’m not sure there’s ever been a more appealing dad on TV. The two of them are great together.

Also, the show treats the characters humanely and with respect. Every private investigator story is about revealing people’s most closely held secrets, and it’s trivially easy to find examples where those secrets reveal the characters as hypocrites, creeps, or generally awful people. On VERONICA MARS, you still meet bad people (there are quite a few outright villains) but no one is mocked because they are different. Instead of being an invitation to judgement, the investigations on the show reveal complexity in a sympathetic way.

Let me tell you when I had signed on for real. In an early episode, a nerdy kid at Veronica’s school asks her to help him find his father. In fact, his father is dead, but he doesn’t mention that; he just wants an excuse to talk to a beautiful girl at school. When Veronica finds out he’s been playing her, she’s furious… at which point they get a ping back on their investigation. The nerd’s father, long thought to be dead, is actually alive.

The final scene of that episode (I know I warned about spoilers but you’ll just have to watch it) sold me on the show. I missed the pilot when it first aired, but that ep did it for me.

How can you tell a villain in the show? They’re the ones who dehumanize others or treat them as though they don’t deserve respect. The main recurring villain in the show is Sheriff Don Lamb, an insensitive prick and entirely mediocre cop who spends every scene he’s in vying for status and showing his contempt. He’s the one shitheel who lasts the whole season and remains unredeemed.

And then there’s Logan Echols.

He starts off in the pilot as a truly vicious asshole: he’s racist, obnoxious, and determined to spread as much misery as possible. Really, he’s a shitty human being and a regular foil for Veronica. The two of them had been friends once, but since the murder he’s treated her like shit.

Then, the show spends the rest of the season delving into his life, showing him in a sympathetic light here and there. We see his pain over Lilly’s murder, meet his horrendously fucked up family, and slowly, slowly see him as a more complex character who might seem to have it all but who really has nothing.

And then he and Veronica end up together.

This is one of the questionable choices for the first season, the others being the stunt-casting of Paris Hilton in episode 2 and the Keith/Felicia relationship which makes zero sense considering the first half of the season. Knowing how Veronica and Logan end up in the final episodes makes the first few especially painful. He’s such an abusive asshole it’s painful to see them together.

To it’s credit the show gets this, too. Veronica is rightfully wary with him and with his whole troubled bad-boy persona. Still… still, it gives me the creeps.

Anyway, there’s a lot of things this show gets right, from the viciousness of teenagers to the way slut-shaming works to the creepy school politics. Also, the solution to the murder was great.

So! Wonderful acting, humane choices, interesting season-long mystery, terrific episode-long ones, great writing. It’s really not a show you want to miss.

And I didn’t even talk about Wallace. Wallace is so important; there’s no show without him.