SEXY SMOKING MIRROR BLUES GUEST POST ALERT

I've got a guest post over at the Sleeping Hedgehog telling the inside story of how the tantric sex scene in the beginning of Smoking Mirror Blues scared away a cover artist. It's called “Curse of the Glittering Vagina, Or, How Tantric Yoga Cost Me a Cover.”

This was the first edition of Smoking Mirror Blues, a trade paperback that's still available from Wordcraft of Oregon.

I didn't think I was writing a “dirty” book, but it's amazing how many of the reviewers thought to warn potential readers about the sex:

There are touches of erotica here too, which might offend some longtime SF readers . . . James Palmer, Strange Horizons 

Hogan comes right at you with graphic depictions of sex . . . Jack Mangan, SF Reader.Com 

. . . really brings the diversity in terms of ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation of the characters. SciFiLatino.com

. . . full of sex of many kinds, including tantric . . . Green Man Review

So, consider yourself warned.

CHICANONAUTICA ANNOUNCES THE SMOKING MIRROR BLUES/DEAD DAZE DEAL

Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga, is announcing a special Dead Daze deal: From October 31^st to November 4^th you'll be able to get my novel Smoking Mirror Blues for free! It's chock full of Sex! Violence! Religion! Politics! Brain-zapping music! An Aztec god running amok in a futuristic Hollywood! Just the thing to read on your Halloween/Días de los Muertos weekend!

To get you in the mood here's some Dead Daze-y videos:

Here's the traditional Días:

And the Dead Daze interface:

Megaofrendas are growing into marco-ofrendas:

And going wild in the streets:

PREHISTORY OF SMOKING MIRROR BLUES

Smoking Mirror Blues has a long prehistory, and went through some bizarre transformations before it became the novel it is today. An earlier, shorter version of it was published back in the July 1993 issue of Science Fiction Age thanks to editor Scott Edelman.

Here's a closer view of the corner with my name:

“Cybergod in L.A.” is headlinese for the actual title of the story, “Tezcatlipoca Blues.” According to Jamie Todd Rubin, "This was the first and only Ernest Hogan story that I have ever read and at first I didn't think I was going to like it but in the end I did."

I was struggling to sell it as a novel with that title. After a few phone calls in which I got to hear New Yorkers struggle to pronounce Tezcatlipoca, I decided to translate the wizard/warrior's name into English.

“Tezcatlipoca Blues” has a wonderful illustration by Fred DeVita

Fred called the painting “Beto.” I have a framed copy of it in my house. His electronic teponaztle and Beto are pretty much dead on.

Fred has dropped off the interweb radar. Anybody know what happened to him? I can't seem to take a few steps without running into another mystery.

Maybe it's me. Maybe it's Tezcatlipoca.

CHICANONAUTICA MEETS THE RETURN OF SMOKING MIRROR BLUES

This time Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga, is devoted to the return of Smoking Mirror Blues as an ebook on Kindle Select. Click over there for all the exciting details.

Have a good look at the mask of Tezcalipoca, the novel's “hero.” Yes, it is made out of a real human skull:

And here's a musical tribute to the Mirror That Smokes, and a few other Aztec gods:

Since it's all about the collision of Halloween and Día de los Muertos, fusing into Dead Daze:

Did you know about megaofrendas?

Getting sci-fi futuristic, how about ofrenda art out of recycled materials?

SMOKING MIRROR BLUES ON KINDLE!

Tezcatlipoca is smiling. Smoking Mirror Blues is back via Kindle KDP Select, so you can not only buy it, but Amazon Prime members can borrow it through the Kindle Owner's Lending Library, and I'll be doing a special Dead Daze giveaway promotion during the Halloween/Día de los Muertos weekend.

Though if you can't wait, go ahead and buy it. Tezcatlipoca and I will both smile.

This is an experiment to see how the KDP Select thing works. Everything is experimental these days – especially if you're a writer. I'll report on how it works out.

Meanwhile, I'll be doing some serious self-promotion. Or is that book promotion? Or Tezcatlipoca promotion?

Let the games begin!

RIDING WILD DOWN HIGHWAY 60

“She was such a pretty corpse that I kept her around for a while.”

Em was talking about a praying mantis she once saved from a black widow. After that, the mantis would ride around on her shoulder when she worked in the garden.  Eventually she died, and Em kept her body until it disintegrated.

We were zooming down Highway 60.

We passed a place that was freshly painted white with huge, bright red letters that said JESUS SALVA. “Jesus Saves” in Spanish. Or was it somebody's name? A religious retreat? A cult headquarters? Or the location for a horror movie?

When we arrived at the Nature Conservancy's Hassayampa River Preserve, I noticed a head stone with MURDERED on it. It was the final resting place of the Barney Martin, his wife, and two sons who were killed in 1886. A bit of bloody Wild West history.

In the preserve's visitor's center Em said,“What a pretty tarantula!”

We had to wait for a pair of cows to move on before we hit the trails. “It'll be okay, as long as you stay out of their line of sight,” a volunteer said. It got me thinking about the mechanics of bullfighting, as we passed the RATTLESNAKE ALERT sign.

I wasn't expecting to find datura here, but it was all over. At one point, it was a jungle with the devil's trumpet as far as the eye cold see. This is what the plant does in its natural habitat. Some of the flowers were as big as four inches across. Black insects crawled on the white petals.

There was also a marijuana-like scent in the air. And spectacular fungal colonization of certain trees. And lots of large ants, black and red, scrambling around the trails where a lot of the footprints were non-human.

There was place full of giant, rust-covered dinosaurs as we entered Wickenburg.

“We better not stop there,” said Em.

“Yeah, we may find something we want,” I agreed.

We were also greeted by an abandoned motel with a RE-ELECT SHERIFF JOE ARPIO sign, and a tire place with an inflatable Bigfoot.

In town, we kept mistaking painted statues in of Old West characters for real people. One was chained to Wickenburg's Jail Tree, where outlaws were chained “for lack of a hoosegow” from 1863 to 1890. They say no one ever escaped.

After chicken-fried steak sandwiches at the Golden Nugget Restaurant, we got back on Highway 60, and discovered that a section of it was adopted by The Doom Family. Could it be the Doctor Doom? We looked carefully, but there was no sign of Doctor, the Missus, and the little Doomies picking up roadside litter.

We had trouble finding Vulture Mine Road, and Vulture Peak Road, but eventually found the trailhead near the volcanic neck, were we got our tramping-through-the-desert fix before zigzagging our way back to Phoenix.

It was a pretty day.

CHICANONAUTICA MEETS FEDERICO SCHAFFLER

The latest Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga, documents my meeting with Mexican science fiction writer Federico Schaffler, and how we're going to write a story that exploits the weirdness generating from the U.S. Mexico border, and Arizona. In celebration of our quixotic project, here's some variations on the theme:

Down in Mexico, the street does find it's own uses for technology, and art, and gets stark, raving sci-fi:

Up norte, Chicano mad scientists do the same:

And to a lot of gringos, Mexico is just a whole lot of monster movie stuff:

They also see Borderlandia as an expansion of a Brave New Third World:

Meanwhile, others are trying to cook up their own transborder utopias:

Yes, amigos, crossing borders is easy – and fun! You should try it sometime:

THE DAY I WAS A POLITICAL PROP

Back in the now mythic Nineteen-Seventies, after the Watergate scandal broke and they brought the troops back from Vietnam, America was in a peculiar kind of turmoil, and I was attending Mt. San Antonio College where the L.A. smog pools up against the San Gabriel Mountains. To quote one of my teachers: “I keep expecting to see people wearing crossed ammunition belts.” Still, they kept trying to get us involved with the community . . . and politics.

A history teacher recommended that we go to hear a political candidate at the Free Speech Area. I wasn't doing anything that afternoon, and had never been to a political event before, so I hung around, cruising for a place where I could quietly sneak off if it got boring.

The Candidate was a white man who glowed in the SoCal afternoon sun. He looked at me and leered like hungry predator. He zoomed over, grabbed my hand, and said, “Hello! Glad to meet you!”

Like a gang boss signaling his goons, he communicated with his People. Suddenly, I was surrounded. They grabbed me like I was a potted-plant, took me over, and smacked me down behind and a little to the right of the Candidate.

Guess they thought my Jimi Hendrix/Abbie Hoffman hair and golden brown skin would help sell the Candidate to the students.

This was all without a word to me. They didn't ask if I wanted to be there. I kept thinking that this would make an escape difficult.

The Candidate had brought his teenaged son and daughter. They were more clean-cut looking than your average Mt. SAC student in those days. They were passing out flyers for a Christian Rock Concert.

“You really ought to come,” she said.

“It's really great music,” he said.

“Christian rock sucks,” said a student.

This was in the early days of the genre. Most Christian Rock back then was made by Jesus Freaks – ex-hippies who found Jesus, as one explained to me:

“I was up in the mountains dropping acid when Jesus himself came down from the sky and ended my acid trip, and told me to go forth and devote my music to spreading his message.”

His songs were mostly popular tunes that he had reworded so that Jesus replaces the intended object of affection, like, “Jesus loves you – yeah, yeah, yeah!”

Most of their flyers ended up on the ground.

Then the Candidate started speaking. He was an early Christian conservative.

Most of the students were tangled up in the post-hippie/pre-punk counterculture of the times. They liked long hair, sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll that blasted the joys of that lifestyle. A lot of them didn't believe that there was going to be future, and acted accordingly.

The Candidate said that even though he was a conservative, he was willing to reach out to and represent them.

He didn't mention minorities, but then I was standing there making it look like he was popular in the local barrios and ghettos.

The audience wasn't impressed.

A few weeks earlier, from the same microphone, a young woman had warned: “Like, ya watch out, cuz, there's a lotta people around, like, you don't know them, and, like, they're gonna wanna smoke it with ya, but, y'know, they're narcs!”

If he wanted to win over this crowd, he should have said that he was willing to work his ass off to legalize marijuana. That would have chanted his name and carried him around campus on their shoulders.

Then, to show how honest he was, the Candidate said that he was against abortion.

He was booed.

And a predictable argument started.

I had seen enough. I wanted out of there. Unfortunately, I was standing right behind the Candidate.

I had also been treated like prop in this lame attempt at political drama. Somehow I didn't feel obliged to be polite. So I mimed a big, theatrical yawn, and walked away.

Later, the history teacher frowned with disapproval as he told me, “I saw your 'commentary' at the event!”

Since then, I've watched the people standing behind candidates when politicians speak. Most stand there looking like they are receiving a great honor. Others look bored. Others – the reluctant, rebellious ones commit acts of defiance like mine: funny faces, eye-scratching, nose-picking, and – the champ, in my opinion – a black man who juggled a Lifesaver on his tongue.

So, if a politician has his (or her) people grab you and put you into the dehumanizing role of a political prop, do something silly. These days it'll end up on YouTube – heh-heh!

It will also force them to act human . . . if they can.

And if they can't, well, we need to take that into consideration when we vote.

CHICANONAUTICA REVEALS MY WRITER'S LIFE

This tie-in to my latest Chicanonautica over at La Bloga is a problem. It's about what's going in my writing life. Unfortunately, there aren't any videos of that, and I don't have the time to make any. So instead, here's some advice from other writers.

I don't like to go around giving advice on how to become a writer. It's kind of like giving advice on how to become a drug addict. What if somebody actually succeeds?

Ray Bradbury is always good for getting you fired up:

Here's Kurt Vonnegut on the art of the short story:

Does anybody read short stories anymore?

As for attitude, here's Henry Miller:

And Hunter Thompson:

COPPERCON THOUGHTS AND VISIONS

The illustrations for this post were drawn at CopperCon.

It was a small convention. And it was the same weekend as WorldCon and DragonCon. The attendees were mostly local. I got to talk to writers, writer wannabes, and – lo and behold! – there were actual readers there.

Some of them were even the old-fashioned quirky individual fans rather than postmodern entertainment consumers who wear off-the-rack nerd identities and are delighted to see what their favorite multinational corporations have created for them.

I miss science fiction that was a hot rod for the imagination, created and customized by renegade mad scientist-types. These days, genre fiction tends to be like mass produced commuter vehicles that safely take you in and out of your dull life. I prefer mine to send my brain soaring off with the risk of crashing and burning.

Who needs a dull life anyway?

It was a lot like small conventions from thirty years ago, only smaller. And books are becoming a rare commodity. Sigh.

For long time at conventions, what the writers talked about was what new trend was hot and how you damned well better jump on it if “they” were going to publish your books and make you rich. The hottest books right now are Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequels, and there weren't any seminars on how to add sadomasochism to your genre stories as the way to bestsellerdom. No bandwagons to jump on, just advice on how to survive – or, bizarre as it seems, get started in the disintegrating world of publishing.

Writers who are experiencing success in traditional publishing – most of them admit to having day jobs – are still pushing the old ways. If I had a deal with some New York outfit, I'd probably be doing the same. Why not? The dream of being a bestselling, millionaire author is powerful, and it's not dying even though in reality bestselling authors work ten hour days, seven days a week churning out what the publishers tell them will sell.

Yeah, they get paid big bucks, but what good is it if you can't enjoy it? And if a job demanded those kind of hours – who in their right mind would take it?

Then there's the science crowd. Scientists are fans, writers, often both, and have interesting things to say. David Lee Summers writes, edits, and works as an astronomer at Kitt Peak Observatory – his presentation on the hunt for extrasolar planets was inspiring and mind-blowing.

I always hope to get my mind blown at a con.

So the New Media Bookacalypse has put us back into another hunter/gather era. Readers and writers are hunting each other. I hope we can establish the right kind of communication.

After all, there are so many worlds to explore.