Philosophers throughout the ages have debated the question of what is the life. Well, I tell you my friends, I have just enjoyed a glorious summer's evening in New England. Brats on the grill in my backyard, a walk on the beach, and I have come to the unshakable conclusion that this is it.

On the other hand, this guy didn't like RADIO FREEFALL. A perfect day, a bad review. You know what, that seems like a fair trade off to me.

How is your summer shaping up so far?

        

What is the shortest word in the English language that contains all of the first six letters of the alphabet?

Winner gets a copy of one of this year's Prometheus Award nominee novels. Your choice, I've got 'em all.

        

Two quick things, because it's Father's Day and that means I have eaten too much smoked meat and most of my blood is working out that situation, and is thus unavailable for thinking.

First, speaking of blood, is this XKCD. The last panel is one of the rare LOL moments I've had in reading comic strips. And the really funny thing? I know how much blood there is in a churchmouse. About 700 microliters if you're not particularly trying to get every drop. You might be able to get a full milliliter if you work at it, but you really shouldn't.

Second, ever want to know what Writers Read when they're not writing? There's a web site for that. And here is my answer. So now you know.

        

Way back in November of last year I had a conversation with David Louis Edelman. Like many of our conversations over the years, this one consisted of Dave convincing me to do something stupid, and me agreeing as if this were the greatest idea anyone's ever had. Again, like many of the conversations I've had with Dave, alcohol may have been a factor. I can't remember.

Anyhoo, on this particular day Dave convinced me to have my picture taken with one of the many famous authors walking about the World Fantasy Convention. Then, he suggested that I photoshop said picture to make it look like I pasted myself in there, just for the cheap publicity. And here I hesitate to point you in the direction of the most hilarious example I know about because it will result in sending eyeballs towards a truly loathsome fellow, but you've got to see this.

So I set about procuring a picture of me with the most famous author at the con, George R. R. Martin. Oh, go on and argue with that. He's been on the NYT bestseller list, and he wrote television. Getting the picture posed no problem, even though I hadn't brought a camera. Kristen Janz, or Alchemist as her Brotherhood Without Banners pals call her, did the honors. (Check out her debut story at Futurismic. It's funny and smart and just a little too close to the truth.)

So the next step is the photoshoppery. Except, as the regular Feedback readers will have noticed, I no longer have time to spend clipping and pasting and shading and whatnot. I barely have time to pop in and write a top five list anymore. It's this new job, you see. (It has nothing to do with Sam's new Super Mario game. Nothing!)


And in any case, this picture doesn't need photoshopping. What could I do? I'm already carefully not touching George. He had that look about him that famous people get when they've been touched too many times that day. I couldn't have asked for a more unimpressed expression on my fellow photo subject. And how could I make my appearance any more creepy? I didn't have to shade my skin a demonic red or paste on a rapacious leer. I really look like that. All the time! So really photoshopping Kristen's picture would be like painting feet on snakes. She captured the perfect "Whoa, who is this guy about to exact vengeance for the murdered Starks?" moment. Thanks, Kristen. And thank you, George, for not belting me until after she snapped the pic.

        

Everyone's got their music. The jocks have their "Eye of the Tiger." The motorheads have their Foghat and AC/DC. The theater club kids have their Flock of Seagulls, and the band kids have their John Phillip Sousa. And yes the nerds have their music, too. We're not all about D&D and Star Trek. We had a soundtrack, and here, in my humble opinion, are the stars of that soundtrack.

1. Weird Al
Not only is Al Yankovic a nerd, not only do nerds know all of this music by heart, he sings of nerdly things. He makes an anthem of it. I think my White and Nerdy score is about 64%. Weird Al is mistakenly considered a novelty act, but listen sometime. He's really a fine musician. Think about how hard it would be to write witty songs in every different possible style to someone else's tune and make it sound good. And yet Al does it, year after year. He's the king of the nerds, and I'm proud to have him as a MySpace friend. Although he's not in my top 8 spaces. Sorry, Al, the competition is fierce.

2. They Might be Giants
From the very first listen (for me), the opening line of "Anna Ng," TMBG proclaimed themselves citizens of nerd nation by using the word "perpendicular" in a rock song. They sealed the deal with "Particle Man," and have proved beyond a doubt that smart lyrics are not the path to the top of the charts. Don't worry, guys. You may not dominate Billboard, but we nerds have got your back.

3. Devo
Come on, do I even need to justify this one? I'm not a fan of Devo myself, I prefer singing to chanting, but you can't leave them off a list of nerd bands.

4. Weezer
Their new song "Pork and Beans" prompted this blog entry. "One look in the mirror and I'm tickled pink, I don't give a hoot about you think." That's a shout out to nerd nation right there. Tell it, brother!

5. Nirvana
I'm expecting disagreement with this one, but hear me out. First off, Kurt was a nerd. Just look in his eyes and you know that he got his head dunked in a toilet or three growing up. He got tortured by the same jocks we did, but instead of pouring that shame and rage into an action figure collection he learned to play guitar to throw it all back in their faces. And it backfired. The guys who made his life miserable as a kid embraced him as a rock star. He fought back against their co-opting him. Listen to "In Bloom," and even better, watch the video. He's screaming "No! I'm not for you! I'm not cool!" But they didn't listen.

I wish nerd culture had the dominance then that it enjoys now. We could have held on to Nirvana. We could have told the jocks "You can have Hootie and the Blowfish. You like those guys, right? Keep your hands off this band, these are ours. Look, we'll even give you Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam. Just stay away from Kurt."

But we didn't have the juice back in the 90's. We had less cultural ammunition than the punks. Now, yeah, we've got Marvel comics making summer blockbusters and "Mythbusters" the top rated show on Discovery. (OK, I know "Deadliest Catch" beats it, but I have no idea why. It's crabs and splashing water.) Nerd culture rocks, now. Then, we couldn't even hold on to something that came from us.

At least they never took away Devo.

        

I have to admit, I've never counted myself a fan of Iron Man. While Marvel trumps DC in the originality department overall, Iron Man is pretty much a Superman ripoff. He's strong, he's invulnerable, he flies. Yawn.

Sam and I saw the movie this morning in a nearly empty theater, because who goes to a superhero movie on Sunday morning? Ah, the joys of atheism. And I didn't go because I like Iron Man so much as I like Robert Downey Jr. I can't think of another actor less suited to playing the boring industrialist (well, maybe Johnny Depp) but I likewise can't think of an actor better suited (no pun intended) to rescue what would otherwise have been another "Daredevil."

Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and John Favreau also held up their corners of the tarp admirably. I didn't feel a single false note in the 2 hours we sat there. I liked the way the mechanical gizmos worked. Unlike the Transformers movie you could see how the four different Iron Man suits worked. All the parts looked like they'd fit together with no CGI trickery involved. And you've got to wait for the end of the credits. It's worth the wait.

        

Back last summer, when I was getting ready for the launch of RADIO FREEFALL, I set myself a goal for the sales of the book. I calculated that Tor would print up about 7000 copies of the book, and I would do my best to help them sell half of those.

I got my first royalty statement yesterday and it looks like I fell a bit short of that goal. RF sold about 2500 copies so far. I suppose a few late sales might edge that number up, but I don't expect many more. I will give myself a B for this result, not bad for my first book.

This also means that I'm a bit shy of earning out my advance, but that's what the paperback is for. In order to earn the rest of the advance I have to sell a little over 5000 copies of the paperback. How am I going to do that? I have just three words for you: cheesy book trailer.

No, I know what you're going to say. "Matt, the web is saturated with cheesy book trailers. How will you get yours to stand out in the crowd?"

Ah, I'm glad you asked. This is where you come in. Yes, you. I'm going to piece together my cheesy book trailer with testimonials from the intrepid pioneers who sprung for the hardcover. Your testimonial could take the form of a voice over with visuals, a special effects laden clip where you act out your favorite scene from the book, or you could just do a puppet show. But your best bet is a video clip of you talking about the book. Just thirty seconds or so, and I'll probably use ten.

Now for your next question, "Matt, what's in this for me?"

Well I did say I had a new contest for you. This time I've got a real prize, not just a RADIO FREEFALL T-shirt or a copy of the book. After all, if you're qualified to make a testimonial about the book, you must have a copy already. No this time I'm giving away a free audiobook of your choice from Audible.com. It's about a $35 value, not chump change at all. You can pick from any of the books I can get for one credit with my account, which I think includes some magazines and newspapers as well as full length novels. (Right now I'm listening to A Distant Mirror by Babara Tuchman. It's going to take me forever to finish listening to it. A lot of stuff happened in the 14th century. Who knew?)

I'll keep the contest open for a month, and give away two audio books to the makers of the two clips I like the best. When you send me the clip you will be giving me permission to edit it and plaster it all over the internet. In turn I promise never to make any of you look foolish. I do reserve the right to leave you looking foolish if that's the way you want to come across.

There, you have your contest. Now bring on the cheese!

        

The inimitable John Scalzi, proprietor of Whatever (which around my house is pronounced What-evvvarrrr?) has challenged all writers to own their one star Amazon reviews. I'd love to do that, but my book hasn't been around long enough to engender any one star reviews. Everyone who's mustered the interest to plunk down $18.96 for RADIO FREEFALL has carefully considered the plot, the political tone, read the sample chapters and the quotes, and they are all quite comfortable not knowing for sure whether a singularity happens. (It doesn't, as I've said before.)

Which is not to say that I've written the first perfect book in history. It's just that the one star reviews, I would imagine, come from the casual buyer. The casual buyer doesn't pay $18.96 for the book, (or even $4.86 for a book that has quite likely been in the bathroom.) No, the one star reviews will come once the paperback comes out. Paperbacks are for impulse buyers. The kind of fellow who buys a laptop and then writes a one star Amazon review because "I couldn't even get the damned thing out the box!" is going to go for the paperback, not the hardcover. So give it time, and then I'll join in the one star review fest.

But in the meantime, I have pointed Feedback visitors to all of my reviews, even the ones that point you away from RADIO FREEFALL. And now here is another one. Some Fantastic reviewer (no, I'm not saying he's fantastic, that's the name of the magazine) Chris Elliot got hung up on the politics and the story didn't engage him. "...after reading Radio Freefall I felt less like I'd read a good novel than like I'd just sat through a long, albeit at times interesting, Power Point presentation detailing at a 10,000 foot level the broad story arcs that were going to go into politically inclined novel intent on engaging with current global politics." The words "at times interesting" are the only positive words I can quote out of the whole review, but the fact that I call them to your attention here speaks to my healthy serotonin levels. Go me.

        

I don't consider myself an expert on the Big Apple. Heck, I don't even know why they call it the Big Apple. True, it is big, but I've never considered it particularly apple-like, at least no more so than any other city. But I have noticed that people who have not yet a chance to visit the 5 boroughs have a rather skewed idea of what awaits them in the City that Doesn't Sleep. Here are 5 mistaken impressions that I've heard from others, or that I had before seeing the place for myself.

1.  New Yorkers are unfriendly. I've walked down Sixth Avenue (nobody calls it Avenue of the Americas except map makers and street sign painters) with an unfolded map, looking around lost, and had natives stop me to offer directions. I've had sandwich guys at the deli suggest condiments. A woman outside the Museum of Natural History once gave my son a beanie baby, because she had an extra one and he looked like he could use it. I will admit that anyone in the position of controlling access to a popular restaurant views that position as a license to act like a dick, but just about everyone else we've met in the city has been a mensche.

2. New York is dirty. I've never seen people more obsessed with keeping their sidewalks clean. No walk on the streets of Manhattan is complete without a need to sidestep the spray of a power washer or a garden hose. Give it a rest, people! That gum ain't going nowhere!

3. New York is expensive. Well, yes, you can spend a lot of money there, but you don't have to. A bagel and cup of coffee doesn't cost any more at H&H than it does at Einsten's. It's just a lot better. You can also get a cheap place to live if you don't insist on a doorman and a view of the park.

4. New York is a good place to get mugged, or worse. I was walking through Central Park with my aunt and uncle and Sam and his second cousins and my aunt said all she could think about was "Law and Order," how every show starts with a kid running through Central Park and finding a body. We never did find a body there, and believe me, we looked. The truth about Gotham City crime is the same as the truth about any big city crime, and probably rural crime, too. Most people who become victims of crime are themselves engaged in a crime. I'm not saying it's not a problem that kids are getting shot down on the city streets, but it doesn't happen as much as the news would like you to think, and the statistics don't tell the whole story.

5. New Yorkers hate each other. This last trip we rented an apartment in the Upper West Side. This could be one of the most racially diverse spots on the planet. Well, maybe the Village. I've said before that I don't particularly value diversity for its own sake. If it gets me in close proximity to ethnic food, I'm all for it. But it does have at least one other happy side effect. It's impossible to harbor xenophobia when everywhere you turn you see a person of a different ethnic background. How could you possibly pick one subset of humanity to despise when chances are a person of that very category is holding the door for you as you walk into the laundromat? I'm sure racial tensions reach the snapping point in the city like they do everywhere else, and the size of the place makes certain the news will show up in headlines all over the country. But every day, on every little street, it's just people going about their business and not thinking much about their own race or that of the guy they're passing on the sidewalk. To think otherwise would just be exhausting after five minutes.

I will say there are a few impressions of New York that have stayed with me through all the trips we've taken there. It is crowded. There is no place, no time, when you can be alone. There is no lunch counter where you can sit down and spread out your paper at noon. The parks are full, the streets are full, the subways, sidewalks, and stores are full.

Another true impression is that New Yorkers have terrible taste in baseball teams. How they could possibly maintain such devotion to what is otherwise the most hated team in the major leagues is one of the great mysteries of life.

        

I'm in New York City, menacing the Chrysler building (because the Empire State Building gets menaced enough, and the Chrysler building is much prettier, although a lot more pointy on top) and generally vacationing. In anticipation of my earning some money this year (hey, it could happen!) I took some time this morning to visit my publisher and my agent, which will cause this trip to appear on my 2008 tax return.

Visiting the Tor offices on the 14th floor of the Flatiron building is like diving into a giant slice of book pie. It's one whole floor of the building and filled, floor to ceiling, with books. As soon as you walk in you're surrounded by shelves of Tor books, and if you are a Tor author you are invited to take as many as you can carry. Since I had planned to walk all over Manhattan that afternoon before returning to our upper west side apartment, I couldn't carry very many. In fact, I only walked away with one book, Peter Watts's Starfish, a trade paper reissue of his fantastically successful marine biology debut.

I met Tom Doherty, who has the best office in the Universe. He can see Times Square, Empire State, Central Park, and, of course, the Chrysler Building. It's like he's sitting in the prow of a ship sailing up Fifth Avenue. And of course the office is filled with awards, because he can't stop winning them.

I next walked up Fifth Ave to meet with my agent, Russ Galen. He gave me a pep talk and we discussed where I should take my career. We agreed that as a follow up to Radio Freefall I should write a fantastically successful book, but other than that the subject matter is up for debate.

Then I met up with Michelle and Sam at the Nintendo store, where Sam would live out his natural life if that option were open to him. We finished out the day by frantically searching for restrooms in Central Park, playing Nintendo, and going out to New York's premier science fiction themed restaurant, Mars 2112. It's been a fun trip so far and we've got two and a half more action packed days to follow. I hope everyone out there in Feedback land is enjoying the return of spring.