Howard Waldrop hospitalized

Howard Waldrop is in an Austin hospital. I spoke to him just five minutes ago. The last time he sent me a note, he said he had been having shortness of breath, and he wondered whether he was suffering from adult onset asthma. Turns out, he's having a quintuple bypass Monday.

He got sick last Monday and really couldn't catch his breath. He called 911 and they found out in the emergency room he was suffering from pulmonary edema because of the cardiac insufficiency. He was in the ICU two days, but now he's in a normal hospital room.

At the time they checked him in, he was suffering a urinary infection, so they had to lick that before scheduling him for the bypass. They also learned he has diabetes, and he's developing cataracts in his left eye.

Howard was in good spirits tonight, He said everybody in the sf community in Austin has visited him. I told him I got the bad news through a message posted by Paul DiFillipo.

I cracked a few jokes to give him a few laughs. He sounded very cheerful, and a good attitude will probably help him a lot pull through all this.

Farewell to a pro

I would remiss in not using this space to commemorate Algis Budrys, who passesd away Monday. All recollections I've read about the man say he was smart, courteous and a real pro. Here is the information culled from the SFWA web site:

"Algirdas Jonas Budrys, who wrote, reviewed and edited science fiction as Algis Budrys, passed away on Monday, June 9, 2008 following an extended illness. He was 77.

"He came to the United States from Lithuania at the age of 5 with his father, who was consul-general of the Lithuanian government.

"Known to countless fans and friends as AJ, his writing career began in 1952 with the sale of "The High Purpose" to Astounding Science Fiction. He went on to publish over 200 short stories and novels, including Who?, Rogue Moon, and Michaelmas. He used many pseudonyms, among them were David S. Hodgkins, Ivan Janvier, Paul Janvier, Albert Stroud, ans William Scarff.

"AJ's editorial career included stints at Gnome Press, Galaxy Science Fiction, Regency Books, and Playboy Press, as well as creating the magazine Tomorrow Speculative Fiction, which had 24 print editions prior to going online. For many years, he was Co-ordinating Judge of the L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of The Future and an advisor to the Illustrators of The Future Contest.

"He was a member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

"Visitation will be Friday 2 - 9PM at at Donnellan Family Funeral Home, 10045 Skokie Boulevard, Skokie. Illinois with the funeral Saturday at 10AM. Interment will be at Maryhill Cemetery in Niles, Illinois.

"Memorials may be made to the American Diabetes Association, 30 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 2015, Chicago, IL 60602 or the American Cancer Society, 820 Davis Street, Suite 400, Evanston, IL 60201."

I never met the man, but as I said, everyone says he was a gentleman in every sense of the word, and will be missed.

Holley with an E

Although I have been pre-occupied with finishing up "Dance with me, Henry", I also have finished a sequel to "The Witch of Waxahachie" and it's is in the slush pile at Baen's right now. Wish us luck.

Charlie Jade

I caught the first episode of a syndicated series picked up by the Sci-Fi channel tonight, "Charlie Jade". I was tipped off to its existence by the most recent issue of SFCrowsnet. Like most serious SF-type people, I would normally rather watch anything than the sci-Fi channel, but I gave "Jade" a shot. It was interesting. If you need some background, here's the page entry on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Jade

As someone who studied South African history in college (which knowledge later helped my when I wrote "The Amerikaan Way"), I find the setting in Cape Town (or Cape City, deending what universe you're talking about) fascinating.

It's a cyberpunk update of the hard-boiled private-eye story, which opens it up to fans of crime stories. My wife watched it with me.

Although the multi-verse switching gets confusing at times, I was hooked and I certainly will come back next Friday to see what happens next.

Preparing for DilloCon

I got my questionnaire for ArmadillonCon 30 in the email today. It will be held August 15-17 at the Doubletree Austin North. The guests will be (their descriptions, not mine):

Guest of Honor
John Scalzi the Fluffy

Artist Guest of Honor
David Lee Anderson the Silly

Fan Guest of Honor
Kelly Persons the Handy

Editor Guest of Honor
Sheila Williams the Liberating

Toastmaster
Bill Crider the Outrageous

Special Guests of Honor
Joe & Gay Haldeman the Accidentally Timely

This will be the first time I've attended as a panelist, and the first time I've been there since 2004. The other panelists will be:

Neal Barrett, Jr.
Paul Benjamin
Matthew Bey
Jayme Lynn Blaschke
Scott Bobo
Elizabeth Burton
Deborah Chester
Scott A. Cupp
Bradley Denton
Jennifer DiCamillo
Rose Dimond
Vincent Docherty
David Duggins
Rhonda Eudaly
Mark Finn
Melanie Miller Fletcher
Brad W. Foster
Kimberly Frost
Janice Gelb
John K. Gibbons
Mitchell Graham
Beverly Hale
Joan Upton Hall
Rory Harper
Samantha Henderson
M. K. Hobson
Kenneth Huey
Gorg Huff
Al Jackson
Rocky Kelley
Julie Kenner
Katharine Eliska Kimbriel
Rick Klaw
Kim Kofmel
Joe R. Lansdale
Alexis Glynn Latner
William Ledbetter
Stina Leicht
Tess Mallory
Eric T. Marin
A. Lee Martinez
J. M. McDermott
Maureen F. McHugh
Joe McKinney
Paul O. Miles
C. J. Mills
John Moore
Nancy Jane Moore
Chris Nakashima-Brown
Gloria Oliver
Lawrence Person
John Picacio
Alan J. Porter
Doug Potter
Lon Prater
James Reasoner
Jessica Reisman
Carrie Richerson
Chris Roberson
Paige Roberts
Rob Rogers
Selina Rosen
Josh Rountree
Tony Salvaggio
Patrice Sarath
Rie Sheridan
Willie Siros
Cynthia Leitich Smith
Debbie Lynn Smith
Caroline Spector
William Browning Spencer
S. Andrew Swann
Mikal Trimm
Melissa Tyler
Susan Wade
Thomas M. Wagner
Howard Waldrop
Lynn Ward
Don Webb
Martha Wells
Patty Wells
Wendy Wheeler
Mark L. Williams
Steve Wilson

Blahhh....

The June issue of IROSF (Internet Review of Science Fiction) has a buncha short fiction reviewd by Lois Tilton, including the April Baen's:

"It occurs to me that it takes only a couple really fine stories to make an entire issue of a zine memorable. This one, unfortunately, is lacking them. A couple of detective stories are entertaining, but they don't provide enough lift to get the entire issue off the ground."

Oh, well, after reading that for a start, I hardly had my hopes up. She went on when she came to my story:

"A sort of tall interdimensional tale that begins when the government cancels the superconducting supercollider project in Texas. It sits empty for a while until a mad scientist called (of course) Doc shows up with the notion of firing the collider up again to create a rift in the fourth dimension. This requires the collusion of several locals, including the newspaper editor, our narrator, a sheriff's deputy and his drug-sniffing dog, Sergeant Lucy.

"A bright blue glowing wave roiled like the apocalypse at us back up the injection tunnel.
I just had time to blurt "Oh, sh…!" before it hit us, and everything went black.

"The experimenters find themselves in an alternate universe that includes doubles of some of them, a universe where magic was developed and technology was not. Fortunately, the local sorceress uses a Truth spell to confirm their story and let them out of jail.

"The magic/technology premise is pretty hoary, but the local Texas color freshens up the entertainment value a tad."

Memories of Marcon

This past weekend saw local high school graduations both Friday and Saturday night. In my current position, I don't have to cover them, but the events made me remember four years ago, how I accepted an invite to be a panelist at Marcon in Columbus, Ohio, while forgetting that Friday was high school graduation night.
Gardner Dozois accepted my story "A Rocket for the Republic" in March 2004, and I realized it might behoove me to attend more cons (up to that point, I had attended a grand total of three).
I attended the graduation Friday night and then drove 14 hours (with my wife) to reach Columbus in time for my 2 p.m. Saturday panel with Ellen Datlow, Julie Czernada and Paul Stevens. The only reason I was on time was because I picked up an hour when I crossed into the Eastern Time Zone.
All in all, it was a very useful event, but -- bless their hearts -- I've never accepted another invite from them.
I was saddened to read that Robert Asprin, who was to be the GOH as Marcon this year, died just a couple of days beforehand. His "Cold Cash Wars" was one of my favorite books I read in the 1980s.
I met him at ConDFW in 2005. That was the last one I attended as a fan. During the closing I testified that, having attended my first con (Con DFW) two years before, I had learned so much and done so well that I had a story coming out in Asimov's that summer. (I've always been very grateful to ConDFW). Asprin professed to be suitably impressed.
He seemed to be a nice guy. I'm glad I had a chance to meet him.