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Robin Hobb's Infrequent and Off Topic Blog

A Chat with Brian McClellan

Page Break with Brian McClellan

Recently I enjoyed a chat with Brian McClellan for his podcast Page Break.  If you'd like to listen in, visit Page Break

 

Click around when you get there.  You will find he has lots of interesting conversations with writers in our genre.

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Megan Lindholm to Receive World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award

A full moon frames a tree bare of leaves.
Award designed by Vincent Villafranca.  Image from Wikipedia

Since 1994, I have shared a computer keyboard and office space with Megan Lindholm.  Or perhaps it's more correct to say she has shared those with me, as her existence predates mine by over a score of years.  

 

As announced in Locus Magazine , this coming November Megan will be honored with the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award.  Alongside her, Howard Waldrop will likewise be honored for many years of astonishing and wonderful short stories in our genre.  

 

Megan was totally gobsmacked when she received advance notice of this via a phone call from Gordon Van Gelder.  I think she is still processing it, as she hasn't said too much about it.  After all, this award has been previously given to luminaries such as Fritz Leiber and Robert Bloch, Stephen King and Terry Brooks, Jack Vance, Theodore Sturgeon, and well, the list seems to match the backs of the books on my shelves.  These are people who have shaped fantasy into what it is today.  It's a bit shocking to think of adding Megan's name to that list. Although I do have her books on my shelves.

 

The award has been around since 1975.  All the World Fantasy Awards are voted on by members of the current and  the two year's previous World Fantasy Convention membership. The Lifetime Achievement award is the only one announced in advance.  For all the others, the suspense and the voting will continue util the convention in November.  

 

This year's World Fantasy Convention will be held in Montreal, Canada, the first weekend in November.  It's not too late to buy a membership and voting privileges.  You can register as an attending or supporting member. Some notable Honored Guests this year include Owl Goingback and Nisi Shawl. and John Picacio as Artist Guest of Honor.  I know that Megan is hoping to attend as well.  If she does, I will accompany her.  We will hope to see you there. 

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The Animal is tired

The animal is aging. Not surprising; I knew it would happen eventually, but I didn't make any provisions to deal with that eventuality.  Somehow the reality crept up on me. And now it must be dealt with, day after day. 

 

It is restless in the night, moaning about aches, unable to find a comfortable position for sleep.  It awakes me too early, muscles stiff and reluctant to move but unable to return to sleep. And if I let it sit still, it dozes off in the middle of the day.  Finding foods it can eat without upsetting its digestion has become a task as it rejects more and more foods but balks at the monotonous diet it can manage.  And despite restricting its food, it is putting on pounds, its middle thickening as the creature loses strength, loses flexibility.  

 

When it was young, I drove it hard.  I fed it whatever was to hand, or didn't feed it at all.  It slept only when I no longer needed its labor at the end of a long day. Day after day of steady work, night sleep sacrificed for more work; It didn't seem to mind.  It could run, it could climb, it could carry heavy loads.  It was never the loveliest of its kind, but it had endurance and strength beyond what some others  possessed.  It still does, but it pays more dearly when what I demand exceeds what I should expect of it.  It never had fast reflexes, and now it's even slower to react.  

 

The animal remembers every harsh thing I've done to it. I kept it too long in the cold, frostbiting its feet, and now every cold floor reminds it of what I did.   I have degenerated its joints to keep to a schedule.  Now its grip is fading.  I risked its eyesight by staring endlessly at a screen, and now the colors are fading out of its day. 

  

As our time together is winding slowy to a close, I wish I'd taken better care of it.  Better food, more exercise, more relaxation . . . but I also wonder if it would have made any difference.  I tell myself it still has useful years ahead of it, even if it can't do some of the things it once accomplished with ease.  I reflect, sheepishly, that it is the only animal I have ever treated this way.  Would I have fed a beloved dog stimulants to keep it working when it needed sleep? Never.  Would I have dosed a cat with a mild poisoning of alcohol to relax it among strangers?  Of course not. 

 

But this one animal received no mercy from me. And I regret that now.

 

And so we enter our 70th year together.  Me, and the animal I live inside. 

 

Be kind to animals. It's never too late to start. 

 

 

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