Bryan Thomas Schmidt, writer and blogger has posted a new interview with me at his blog, "Grasping at the Wind."

http://www.facebook.com/l/_AQH0aqqsAQF71TMv3oR-79Vy6pCmqyygl40jhNT-yAeeNQ/www.graspingforthewind.com/2012/05/17/sffwrtcht-a-chat-with-authoreditor-robin-wayne-bailey/

Tags: blogs, bryan thomas schmidt, fantasy, robin wayne bailey, science fiction, writing

SHADOWDANCE, my favorite and darkest novel, is now available in an ebook edition.

http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/item/9781617561252/Bailey-Robin-W.-Shadowdance/1.html

Paralyzed since birth, a young man named Innowen happens upon a sorceress along the road. She grants him the ability to walk, but there are two conditionsóhe can only walk between dusk and dawn and, to keep this ability to walk, he must dance each night. What at first seems harmless comes with a sinister price. Anyone who witnesses Innowenís dance is soon compelled to act out his or her darkest, most horrific desires. Eased of his physical affliction only to be burdened with a moral one, Innowen sets out on a quest to find the nameless with in order to lift the curse. What he finds instead are long-protected secrets that threaten to bring down an entire kingdom. Filled with twists and turns, this grim fantasy from author Robin Wayne Bailey will remind readers that the most powerful magic hides in the dark of night.

Tags: ebooks, fantasy, novel, shadowdance, writing

I'm happy to announce that my Lankhmar novel, SWORDS AGAINST THE SHADOWLAND, is finally available in ebook format.




The Legacy of Fritz Leiber Lives – Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are Back!

Lankhmar, an ancient and decadent city of magic, where witches and sorcerers scheme, where gods and ghosts walk the streets and shadow-haunted alleys, where violence and death dance together like lovers in the darkness. Lankhmar–a city of plague!

Years ago, two rogues bound together by friendship and a shared destiny neither understood met in Lankhmar. Living by their swords, their wits and their daring, they sought adventure and love. Adventure they found, but love–they lost. In despair, they left the city, vowing never to return.

Yet vows are made to be broken. Once again, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are drawn back to Lankhmar and quickly ensnared in its wizard-games as one jealous mage turns on his rivals and unleashes a black force not even he can control, a power that threatens the city itself.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, two of the greatest and most beloved characters in fantasy literature, return in this novel-length adventure by Nebula Award nominated author Robin Wayne Bailey. SWORDS AGAINST THE SHADOWLAND, authorized by series creator Fritz Leiber, is a direct sequel to Leiber’s famous story, “Ill-Met in Lankhmar!”

Tags: ebooks, fafhrd and the gray mouser, lankhmar, novels, writing

The blistering cover for my new story collection, THE FANTASTIKON: TALES OF WONDER, coming from Yard Dog Books officially in June. The book will launch at ConQuest Science Fiction Convention in Kansas City, MO on Memorial Weekend. Art by John Kauffman.

Tags: collection, conquest, fantasy, science fiction conventions, short stories, yard dog books

I'm wearing this hoodie today in memory of Travon Martin and all the Travon Martins in this country, all the victims of prejudice and injustice, all the victims of stupid laws like "Stand Your Ground" that are designed to pander expressly to our baser instincts. And I wear it in total scorn of the National R/i/f/l/e/ Murder Association and the policitians, democratic or republican, who continue to support them.

ROBIN WAYNE BAILEY'S PREDICTIONS FOR THE YEAR 2062

This is a follow-up to the previous post, in which I listed Robert Heinlein's predictions for the year 2000. As I mentioned there, in the February 1952 issue of GALAXY MAGAZINE, Heinlein looked forty-eight years into the future to share his view of that seemingly magical year. Look at them, if you like, and judge for yourself where he hit and where he missed.

I brought Heinlein's predictions up as part of a discussion during my New Year's celebrations. Part of that discussion followed on my Facebook page, also. But as the discussion evolved, I considered it a challenge to exercise my own futurist muscles. Like Heinlein, I've limited my predictions to basically fifty years to consider what I think the year 2062 might look like. I hope you'll enjoy and, if you like, discuss.

PREDICTION 1 -- We will continue to advance in the science of genetic manipulation. All fruits, vegetables and grains will be genetically manipulated to resist disease, insect infestation, and rot.

PREDICTION 2 -- Human cloning will be an established science. Most replacement organs and body parts will be produced by medical cloning technology. The first human clone will be revealed.

PREDICTION 3 -- A "sex tape" will be made by astronauts on a spaceship or a station and released on the internet.

PREDICTION 4 -- An international base will be established on the moon after a near-miss by an unpredicted surprise asteroid causes alarm and hysteria. The base's primary mission will be to prevent possible catastrophic impacts.

PREDICTION 5 -- In the growing Information and Tech economies, women will dominate the workforce. Traditional gender roles will flip. Traditional marriage will vanish to be replaced with a variety of arrangements, most based on short-term contracts that can be dissolved or renewed.

PREDICTION 6 -- Unmanned robot probes will have visited most of the planets and many of the moons in our solar system, but humans will still not have ventured beyond our own Earth-Luna system.

PREDICTION 7 -- Terrorism will increase in America. The attacks will not come from foreign enemies, but from home-grown Christian groups as religion is pushed farther and farther from the centers of power and to the fringes of society.

PREDICTION 8 -- An explosion of political parties combined with a rising tide of corporatism will bring an end to American democracy. America will continue to evolve into a two-class society. Hunger and poverty will become widespread as social safety nets collapse.

PREDICTION 9 -- As medical science continues to advance, most forms of cancer will become curable -- if you can afford it.

PREDICTION 10 -- As the "Cult of Youth and Beauty" continues its grip on popular culture, anabolic steroids will be refined, perfected and made legally available to an aging and longer-lived population.

PREDICTION 11 -- Eric Verlinde's theories of Entropic Gravity will be proven right, and the first simple experiments in functional anti-gravity will be underway.

PREDICTION 12 -- Neither communism or democracy will survive. The driving force and dominant political philosophy around the world will be unregulated radical capitalism.

PREDICTION 13 -- A third-world country will attack its neighbor with a nuclear device.

PREDICTION 14 -- As communication technology and social media continue to advance, face-to-face meetings will be considered vulgar and low-class.

PREDICTION 15 -- Large military forces will become so much symbolic saber-rattling. Real war will be fought cybernetically.

PREDICTION 16 -- Large, linked telescopic arrays on earth and in space will give us startling new views of our galaxy and fundamentally alter our understanding of the universe.

PREDICTION 17 -- Centralized computer systems will manage and regulate all traffic on roadways and highways during peak travel hours. Vehicles will operate on an increasingly diverse variety of fuels, including fossil fuels, electricity, solar power and grain-based fuels.

PREDICTION 18 -- Surveillance technology will continue to advance. Governments will know every move you make, every person you meet, every book or website you read.

PREDICTION 19 -- Public schools will collapse. Education will shift to the home and to "accredited" computer networks. Students will be safer, but they will not be smarter.

PREDICTION 20 -- Privacy will be considered an antiquated concept.

(Front-piece artwork by Charles Moll)

Tags: futurism, predictions, robert heinlein, science fiction

Recently, as part of the New Year festivities, I posted a link to Robert Heinlein's predictions for the year 2000. The link was to 109.com, but the predictions originally appeared in the February 1952 issue of GALAXY MAGAZINE. They were also reprinted and revisited by Heinlein at several points in his career. The link is here:

http://io9.com/5871053/robert-heinleins-predictions-for-the-year-2000-fro

But to save you the effort, I'm going to repost them here. Heinlein offered nineteen predictions with an eye to forty-eight years in the future. In a separate post, I'm then going to indulge my own futurist instincts and offer twenty of my own predictions for fifty years down the road. But first, here's Robert Heinlein.

Robert Heinlein’s predictions for the Year 2000 (from 1952)


In the February 1952 issue of Galaxy magazine, Robert Heinlein offered his verdict on the conclusion of the twentieth century. He would later revisit these predictions in the 1966 short story collection The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein and discuss the challenges of predicting the future. Here's what the author gathered, six decades ago:


So let's have a few free-swinging predictions about the future. Some will be wrong - but cautious predictions are sure to be wrong.

1. Interplanetary travel is waiting at your front door — C.O.D. It's yours when you pay for it.

2. Contraception and control of disease is revising relations between the sexes to an extent that will change our entire social and economic structure.

3. The most important military fact of this century is that there is no way to repel an attack from outer space.

4. It is utterly impossible that the United States will start a "preventive war." We will fight when attacked, either directly or in a territory we have guaranteed to defend.

5. In fifteen years the housing shortage will be solved by a "breakthrough" into new technologies which will make every house now standing as obsolete as privies.

6. We'll all be getting a little hungry by and by.

7. The cult of the phony in art will disappear. So-called "modern art" will be discussed only by psychiatrists.

8. Freud will be classed as a pre-scientific, intuitive pioneer and psychoanalysis will be replaced by a growing, changing "operational psychology" based on measurement and prediction.

9. Cancer, the common cold, and tooth decay will all be conquered; the revolutionary new problem in medical research will be to accomplish "regeneration," i.e., to enable a man to grow a new leg, rather than fit him with an artificial limb.

10. By the end of this century mankind will have explored this solar system, and the first ship intended to reach the nearest star will be a-building.

11. Your personal telephone will be small enough to carry in your handbag. Your house telephone will record messages, answer simple inquiries, and transmit vision.

12. Intelligent life will be found on Mars.

13. A thousand miles an hour at a cent a mile will be commonplace; short hauls will be made in evacuated subways at extreme speed.

14. A major objective of applied physics will be to control gravity.

15. We will not achieve a "World State" in the predictable future. Nevertheless, Communism will vanish from this planet.

16. Increasing mobility will disenfranchise a majority of the population. About 1990 a constitutional amendment will do away with state lines while retaining the semblance.

17. All aircraft will be controlled by a giant radar net run on a continent-wide basis by a multiple electronic "brain."

18. Fish and yeast will become our principal sources of proteins. Beef will be a luxury; lamb and mutton will disappear.

19. Mankind will not destroy itself, nor will "Civilization" be destroyed.

Here are things we won't get soon, if ever:

— Travel through time
— Travel faster than the speed of light
— "Radio" transmission of matter.
— Manlike robots with manlike reactions
— Laboratory creation of life
— Real understanding of what "thought" is and how it is related to matter.
— Scientific proof of personal survival after death.
— Nor a permanent end to war.

Tags: futurism, galaxy magazine, robert heinline, science fiction

A bit of SFWA History off to the Goodwill. Only a few SFWA members and fans will remember that the Science Fiction Writers of America once had a basketball team cleverly called "The SFWA Prose." We played other fans for charities and benefits. Team featured, John Kessel, Jim Kelly, Alan Dean Foster, Mark L. Van Name, myself, and a couple of others whom, embarrassingly, I've forgotten. Anyway, I've kept the shirt for years, even cut out the sleeves for weight-lifting. But it's time to say bye-bye. Bye-bye, SFWA Prose!

Tags: basketball, science fiction and fantasy writers of a, sfwa

Halloween is by far my favorite holiday. Thanksgiving is too laden with religiosity, and Christmas is just too damn crassly commercial. But Halloween is for imagination and fun. For quite a few years, we decorated the house in full-out Halloween style, usually turning our suburban front yard into a "Haunted Graveyard" with toomstones, ghosts, ghouls, bone parts, special lighting and sound effects, lots of fake spider webbing, live performers when we have friends who volunteer, etc. etc. But this year, we just didn't feel like we had the time or the energy to devote to that. Too many projects going on, some sick family members ... just real life stuff. After a bit of discussion, we decided we wouldnt' do it this year. "It's a tradition," I said. "Not an obligation."

But about a week ago, some neighbors caught us in the driveway as we were coming home from something. "Aren't you going to decorate this year?" they asked. We explained that we weren't. "But then, we won't have any trick-or-treaters!" they complained. And the next door neighbors also came over a day or so later to express the same complaint. Our displays really drew the kids, they said.

And that was kind of true. Drivers often circle the block to see what we've done. Still, we didn't plan to do it.

However, Halloween day came and found us picking up some medication at a nearby Walgreen. We couldn't help noticing that a lot of their halloween stuff was half off or less. We decided to pick up some of the cooler stuff "to use next year." Riiiiiggghhhttt.

With about an hour and a half to go before dusk, we started setting up. We'd bought a couple of small hay bales at Walgreen. We set those up first with some pumpkins on them. Then, once we got in the mood, out came the tombstones, the skulls and bones, the ghosts, the rats, the decrepit fake iron fencing, the lights and sounds ... It wasn't as elaborate as in the past, but it was pretty good. The neighbors came out to cheer and take photographs and swap old halloween stories. And the first trick-or-treaters arrived while Diana was still struggling into her fortune-teller's costume. "I see candy in your future!"

Here's a short video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6r0x4jWYZY

Tags: halloween

This past Saturday was officially National Museum Day, sponsored by the Smithsonian. Tickets to many museums across the country were made available for free, and Diana took advantage of the offer and downloaded tickets for us to the National World War I Museum. The museum is local, and we've been there before. Not recently, however, so we decided to make an afternoon of it. It's not my intention to write a commercial for the museum, however.

I've found over the years that I'm very affected by my surroundings, especially when I write. I've got a great office here at home, well-equipped with four computers and a fairly massive library, as home libraries go. No matter, every now and then it's imperative that I get out of the office and find someplace else to work. Sometimes that's a coffee shop; sometimes it's the public library; sometimes its poolside at Ron's home. I just need the change of scenery. It energizes me.

To my surprise, the National World War I Museum had that same effect. Very powerfully. I carry at least a netbook computer with me almost everywhere I go these days, and had one with me there. I didn't take time to write, though. I just drank in everything I could.

One particular "display," however, really inspired me. There are two isolation booths at the museum. Inside the booths, one can listen to a fairly extensive selection of poetry, music, broadcasts and other audio experiences, choosing what one wants to hear at the touch of a button. There's a moderately comfortable padded bench and low lighting. I sat on that bench listening to the poetry of World War One with my eyes closed. Then the music. Even one of the broadcasts. It's a cliche to say that I felt transported, yet that's exactly how I felt. The booth became a time machine.

Now, I'm fairly obsessed with the desire to take my computer, pay the full twelve buck entry fee, go into one of those booths, boot up and just see what pours out. At an appropriate time, of course, when traffic through the museum would be low. I've actually had a story on my netbook for some months that I hadn't finished. It might be the perfect story to work on there.

Tags: world war i, writing