Super Stories of Heroes & Villains is out next month!

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SuperHeroes_BookpgeOur move from Vancouver had just started to build up a little momentum this spring when I sold Claude Lalumiere my story “Faces of Gemini” for the Super Stories of Heroes and Villains anthology, and even though I’ve been reposting Claude’s interviews and articles about the book, which contains stories by George R.R. Martin, Camille Alexa and Jonathan Lethem, among others, I’d entirely forgotten to let you all know.

“Faces of Gemini” initially appeared in Girls Who Bite Back: Witches, Mutants, Slayers and Freaks. It’s about being dumped, and picking up the pieces. Plus, also, super heroes and villains!

Here’s a snip:

Gemini nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The horde had thundered into Stanley Park at dawn, killing everyone they found. The barbarians’ weapons had been primitive, but pitted against a scattering of unarmed joggers, tourists and kids, they had done plenty of damage. Dozens of civilians had been murdered before Crucible had arrived to contain the threat.
“So…” Leela said. “Bad guys gone now?”

The book will be out in September.

The #BuffyRewatch is “Gone” on @tordotcom

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slayerThis week Buffy’s invisible and the Trio reveal themselves to the Scoobies in my rewatch of “Gone.” Also, Buffy’s hair is declared officially teh cute.

I will be appearing at FanExpo all week, starting Thursday. Look for me in “Author’s Alley” and at a panel on Friday at 6:15 p.m. on WorldBuilding and Epic Fantasy magic systems. I’m very excited about my first face-to-face collision with Toronto fandom, though very sad to be FanExpoing with my bestest con wingman, D.D. Barant of the Bloodhound Files novels.

Toronto Day 94 – Eavesdropping in Burgertown

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got the feverWhat I overheard: “Well, if we can’t find a Priest, we’ll have to go looking for a Hero.”

Sounds very Dungeons and Dragons, no? Real world adventurers, off to find a cleric to help them slay a dragon. And yet they didn’t look like the sort of people one should stalk with a camera, in case a mystic fight broke out.

What it means: Toronto seems very burger oriented. There are burger joints everydamnwhere, many of them the proud owners of patios–patio dining is huge here, too. There are burger chains upon burger chains, and I should note that I mean they’re pubs: they’re not selling rubber ninety-nine cent McNasties.

One such chain is The Burger’s Priest. And another is Hero Burgers.

Toronto, Day 91, Anniversary dreams of the dead

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I had a quick glimpse of Grandma Joan in a dream this morning.

I’m quite a lucid dreamer, so I realized pretty quickly what was up, and as a result she wasn’t around long. My dead tend to do that in dreams; they bugger off once the jig is up.

What was super-cool is that the dream itself was a seventies Cold War sort of thing, something straight out of John Le Carre, and so she was lurking in a photography shop, in a trenchcoat, with unfortunate early Eighties hair, and her vanishing had this quality of ‘spy going about her business’ than not.

And then it was off to the Kremlin, where a guy named Molinov was hatching a scheme, and then quickly to the hotel where Kelly and I were staying, for their continental breakfast. (It was shortly before six, so I was dreaming of breakfast. But spy breakfast! Because that young Continental Breakfast woman from the hotel was definitely trying to charm her way into our room.

And then, um, redcoats were marching on the lawn of the hotel. Because every dream needs a historical anachronism.

Simcoe Day, Fort York

It’s possible the sight of Grandma was triggered by my learning on Facebook of Andrew Brechin’s suden death. I used to play Champions with Breklor; I’ve been racking my brains to figure out just when we met, but it was a damn long time ago and I can’t believe he’s suddenly gone. I do remember the last time I saw him: it was at the Storm Crow Tavern (of course!) at a book launch, and we caught up and talked about his son.

In much happier news, it’s my legalversary!!! Kelly and I have been married for almost 25 years, but today is the tenth anniversary of our having gone legal, thanks to the Supreme Court and the hard work of marriage equality activists across the country.

This is us in 09:
Kamloops09

Wreckage on the @tordotcom #Buffyrewatch and Telewitterings

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slayerI’m up to “Wrecked” over at Tor. Willow’s deep in the throes of what looks awfully like drug addiction, and it’s all just a little depressing. Or a lot.

Other things I’ve been watching lately:
Doc Martin, which is about an uptight surgeon who moves to a charming village in Cornwall. Badger, if you and Fearless haven’t discovered this yet, you will squee.

The Big Year. Camille Alexa suggested I watch this. I no longer think of myself as a rabid birder.

The Killing: Season Two. The big reveal was a little obvious, but I liked this a lot, and the end certainly raised the stakes.

We have given up on Suits, which had become an endless round of people waving blue folders at each other and engaging in very silly power struggles. Not even Gina Torres can keep one engaged in that forever.