I have so far done a pretty decent job of avoiding blogging about blogging. But I felt like I should put a cap on this thing and give whatever casual visitors happen by a historical marker describing what happened here.

I set up Feedback purely as a vehicle to promote RADIO FREEFALL, and I made no bones about that from the very start. In fact the name Feedback comes from the music the band plays in the book. The blog eventually became something else, a sounding board for my fascination with all things science and science fiction, a place to dump pictures of my dog, and a way to entertain a few dozen friends.

But now that I have no more power to influence the sales of RF than I do to influence the fiscal policy of the US government, Feedback has lost its primary reason for being. Yeah, sure, it could still be my sounding board, but I've probably lost most of my usual readers by now and frankly I can't think of much to say these days.

I've recently suffered a massive spam attack on the blog so I went ahead and disabled the comments for the whole thing. I'm still reachable by e-mail but I'll make you hunt for the address in case you think I want to buy cheap phenteramine. Otherwise, enjoy the 200 plus blog posts. They'll stay up until October, when I have to shell out another 35 bucks to keep it active. If I get back to writing in the future I might start up a similar thing in whatever medium gets invented. I'll see you then.

        

In just one week the geek social event of the eastern seaboard occurs just a few miles from my house. Boskone is my favorite con: huge dealer's room, lots of science, great people. Here is my schedule for the weekend:

Saturday1pm        The Pharmacy of the Future
        Tom Easton     (profeaston@adelphia.net easton@thomas.edu)
        Muriel Hykes
        Matthew Jarpe     (m.jarpe@comcast.net)
        Robert I. Katz     (rikatz@aol.com)   (M)
    What will the drugs of the future be? Where will they come from? How
    will they be produced? Tested? Will we have a cure (or, treatment)
    for *everything* -- OK, why _not_?

[I think I did this very same panel at Boskone last year. I remember talking about the future of medicine with Tom Easton, anyway. I'm sure we'll think of completely different things to say this time.]


 Saturday2pm        Literary Beer
        Matthew Jarpe     (m.jarpe@comcast.net)
        Dani Kollin
        Eytan Kollin

[The way they set up these literary beers the two scheduled authors are supposed to lead separate discussion groups. Hell with that. Dani and Eytan are among the top guys I would like to hoist a pint with.]

 Sunday  11am       Superheroes
        Michael A. Burstein     (michael@mabfan.com)
        Yvonne Carts-Powell
        Daniel P. Dern     (dern@pair.com)   (M)
        Matthew Jarpe     (m.jarpe@comcast.net)
        Alisa Kwitney Sheckley
    Are there any superpowers left that we haven't seen? That we'd
    rather not see? Participants will explore these themes, and more.

[Sam and I have this conversation at least once a week, so I should be well prepared. I suggested this panel.]

 Sunday  1pm        Disease and Pestilence and Population
        Debra Doyle     (doyledebra@earthlink.net doylemacdonald@sff.net)
        Matthew Jarpe     (m.jarpe@comcast.net)   (M)
        Robert I. Katz     (rikatz@aol.com)
        Teresa Nielsen Hayden     (tnh@panix.com)
        Jon Singer
    Most people are familiar with Thomas Malthus' depressing theories:
    as population increases, food and other resources decrease, and the
    likelihood of disease increases, resulting in a population crash.
    How true are his theories today? Is population increase inevitable?
    What about disease, in this age of medicine?

[A cheery topic to end up on. I promise not to let the power of the moderator go to my head. Hell with that. I'll have this panel dancing to my mad merry tune!]

I'm thinking of having Sam join me on Saturday. He can stay in the Dragon's Lair most of the day and hang out with me the rest of the time. He's excited to see a panel. I remember when I was excited by panels. Now whenever I see five people sitting along one side of a table I scream and run the other way. Heh. Kidding.

        

You know, I am so over RADIO FREEFALL that I sometimes forget some people are still reading it. Tim Goyette at Quantum Muse interviewed me for their February issue. Time was I'd be really excited to have an interview with me hit the web, but now I'm all like RF? Whatever. That book is dead to me.

Aw, who am I kidding? I can't stay mad at RF. I love that book. It's my baby. Tim also has a review up here. If you can figure out how to put your comments in you can join in the discussion. I'm guessing the absence of audience participation is due to the notorious lack of web savvy among science fiction fans.

I still find little pockets of readers reacting to the book now and then while ego surfing. I got a kick out of this exchange on Library Thing:

FicusFan: I have to read Radio Freefall by Matthew Jarpe for a RL book group this month. He is a new author. It says its like Moon is a Harsh Mistress only set on earth, updated, and with Rock & Roll and maybe Cyber Punk ?

[Oy, don't say you have to read it. I want people to want to read it. My worst nightmare is to have my book turn into the Johnny Tremain of post cyberpunk.]

bobmcconnaughey: i made the mistake of buying radio freefall, in hardcover. Badly written w/ Jethro Tull evidently being the major "rock" influence. Gave up after 70 pages. As Heinlein was used as a positive comparison, i should've known better.

["rock"? Don't let the flute fool you. Jethro Tull will rock the socks of any rocker with socks. Or without.]

FicusFan: I almost never buy books in HC, even if they are discounted. So my copy is a PB. The author is a friend of the group leader, hence the choice. Jarpe may also be attending the meeting if it works with his schedule.I am not surprised to hear its dodgy, it seemed like it would be.

[It turns out it didn't work with my schedule. Oh, well. And yes, I do live on the dodgy end of science fiction.]

FicusFan: I have started Radio Freefall by Matthew Jarpe. Not a long way in, but seems better than I expected, so far.

[That's how you're going to beat them, Butch. They keep underestimating you.]

bobmcconnaughey: i was probably far too negative about radio freefall earlier on. but i still don't think i'll finish it.

[That's entirely within your rights as a reader. Just as it's entirely within my rights as an author to say "I already got your money! Cha-ching!" But I won't say that. Even though I do have the right.]

FicusFan: I just finished Radio Freefall and I quite liked it.

[Happy ending!]

And then this 4 star review appears:

I read this book for RL book group. I didn't expect much, the description turned me off, and the idea of comparing it to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (MIHM) also annoyed me.

The book delivered though. It had many story layers, that all worked together. Good characters, and writing, and the story was interesting. It dealt with music, and computers, and cyber culture and other more basic and enduring human traits and emotions. It also brought in the Moon colony and a space station, so it had the 'feel' of MIHM, without trying to copy or one up it.

I found it that rare book that I enjoyed, but don't feel the need for another book, or more story (series). That is not to say that I wouldn't read this author again, because I would.

Very good, satisfying first effort.

FicusFan

Hooray! Ficuses for everyone. Or is it Fici?

        

As promised, here is the companion piece to the 5 Funniest list I put up before.

1.  When I was in fourth grade I had a bit of trouble with math. One day the teacher, a big bearded guy named Mr. Ross, gave the class a fraction problem. I figured the best way to solve it would be to draw a pie chart. So there I am, drawing my little chart, when the notebooks gets ripped off my desk and thrown against the wall. Mr. Ross, towering over me, yells "You're failing this class. You do not have time to sit there and draw pictures during class. Get out!" I'm sure if I'd been able to speak I could have explained about the pie chart I would have been allowed to stay in the advanced math class and possibly went on to a career in the sciences... Oh, yeah. Never mind.

2.  I used to have a '58 Thunderbird, a really cool car. I had just taken it to Santa Fe for new tires and I was driving back to Los Alamos with my co-worker Greg (who was legally blind). On the way into Los Alamos there is a very steep climb with a guard rail on one side and a sheer rock wall on the other. Just as we topped that climb the right front wheel of the car decided to separate from the rest of the vehicle. It bounced off the windshield and down into the canyon. Greg, of course, had no idea what was happening. All he knew is that the car was slewing around and a horrible grinding noise was coming from the front. He was screaming "What's happening? What's happening?" And I was just screaming. I managed to pull over and we had to walk back into town, about three miles. I had to peel my fingers off the steering wheel first, though.

3.  Michelle and I once took a backpacking trip into the Indian Peak wilderness outside of Boulder, Colorado. It was late spring and there was still a lot of snow on the ground. We hiked for most of the day until we came to a part where the train disappeared under the snow. We decided to try crossing the snowfield, figuring that if we didn't like what we saw over the next rise we could just turn around and follow our footprints back to the trail. After an hour of exhausting postholing we had not come to the other side of the snowfield, so we turned around. And saw a whole lot of footprints, leading in all directions. We picked the most likely set and tried to find our way back to the trail, but we walked a lot farther than we thought we should and didn't find it. With dark coming on we struck off sideways to try and find it, bushwacking through low scrub. Looking at the map we could see that one misjudgement would put us in the middle of nowhere. We finally did find the trail, but for an hour or so there it looked pretty grim.

4.  I took a telemark skiing lesson in Colorado once. I figured I know how to cross country ski, so telemark should be easier for me than regular downhill. It turns out that (a) telemark is nothing at all like cross country skiing; (b) I didn't really know how to cross country ski at all; and (c) when the teacher asks the class if there is anyone there who hasn't used a chairlift and you raise your hand, and the teacher doesn't see it, you should jump up and down and make sure the teacher sees it. I was in line for the chairlift and I had reached the front. From out of nowhere a guy jumped on me and wrestled me to the ground. I can't hardly move with the stupid boots and skis and poles and all, and I have no idea why this guy is attacking me. He dragged me off to the side and helped me up, and explained that I had been standing forward of the red line when I shouldn't have been. With that all cleared up, I took off my skis, turned them in, and went back to my car. I haven't been on a chairlift on skis since.

5.  Every parent has done it once. I lost Sam. The first time is the scariest one. I had taken him to the Boston Children's Museum (which is not, as you might guess, a collection of displays about children throughout the ages) and put him in the toddler area. They got kids crawling all over everything in those places, and everybody buys the same clothes for them, so it's easy to lose track. I probably only lost sight of him for five minutes or so, but it seemed like hours at the time. You have to go through it once, but then it gets easier when it happens (that's right, I said when, not if) again.

        

It seems the unhappy state of my writing career has touched off yet another discussion about the death of science fiction. Excuse me while I go press a pillow into my face and scream... OK, done. Does anyone know how to get spit stains out of velour? I'll just flip it over onto the other side.

First off I'm glad the original poster liked the book. Yea me. But then the discussion falls off the rails, careens into the bottom of the canyon, crashes into a stream containing a rare subspecies of salmon, and leaks environmental poisons into the entire watershed.

Where to begin? 2,500 copies of a hardcover novel sold, that's not epic fail. That's about half of the ideal number. The full details are found here. Those figures are for a literary novel, but it turns out science fiction as a genre is about the same size as literary fiction.

And then there's this: "people DO judge books by the cover. That book has a pretty poor cover. Looks like some bad late 80's sci fi stuff from my primary-school library.  Even if the book is good, the cover would put a lot of people off."

Oh, you DIDN'T just disrespect my cover. My cover will kick the ass of any piece of cardboard anyone has ever slapped on a stack of paper. My cover grabbed me more sales than any other single cause, I'm sure. John Harris and Irene Gallo have my eternal gratitude.

Next we get "Maybe he should look at pushing it out onto the internet to try and gather some sales that way.  Even if it ends up being illegally copied he'll be no worse off and the potential of viral marketing might do wonders for his next book... "

It's always the internet with you people. I'm looking for a job: "INTERNET." I'm trying to sell my piece of shit '72 Dodge: "INTERNET." Book publishing is falling into the crapper: "INTERNET." Is there any problem for which the internet is not a solution? Self publishing is good for one thing and one thing only, IMHO: showing people how crazy you are. I don't need that.

And finally: "Hey, if I had a published first book, I'd expect that if I did some serious pushing each weekend out of my car boot, I'd wanna sell 5,000 at least over a few months..." Where? Have you ever bought a book from a guy selling them out of his car? Watches, sure, but books?

Ah, according to my new Roll-Ex it's time to take my son to cub scouts. Before I go, let me just say     SCIENCE FICTION IS NOT DYING.

        

It's time for a bit of levity around here. I realize most of these funny moments are the sort of "had to be there" thing, but at least they'll give you an idea of what kind of thing I find funny.

1.  When my brother Andrew got married in Las Cruces, my other brother Geoff hosted a brunch at his house in El Paso. My grandmother, a dog breeder, and my aunt, a dog groomer, were going to be there, so I told Geoff he had to get his dog groomed. Max was an American Eskimo who had gradually turned into a walking dishmop, and my grandmother and aunt would have just about plotzed if they'd seen the state of him. So Geoff dropped him off at the groomers. They called him during the day and asked if he wanted them to brush out the tangles for $50 or shave them off for $25. Being a Jarpe, my brother opted for the lower priced option. I happened to be over at his house when the dog came home. He bounded out of the car and ran around the driveway, shaved to the skin. He only had hair left on his face, and there just enough so they could tie blue ribbons into his fur on top of his head. Geoff and I laughed so hard our legs gave out and we fell on the driveway.

2.  I went camping with some friends of mine in college. We didn't have a lot of camping gear, so to cook our dinner we got a nice bed of coals going and put some flat rocks on top to fry hamburgers. It worked, sort of. One of the guys, Tony, was a geologist. As we were sitting around the fire waiting for our burgers to take on a color just this side of disgusting, he said "Hey, if we're lucky we might get to see some thermal spalling." "What's thermal spalling, Uncle Tony?" we asked. "It's when heat causes fluid inclusions in the rock to expand and it breaks a piece off the rock." SNAP! Whirrrrrrrrrrrr! Tony dives for the dirt as a piece of basalt flies right at his head. We eventually retrieved our burgers from the shooting gallery after we finished alternately cowering for our lives and laughing.

3.  At a birthday party for one of Sam's friends our friend Brenda had decided to have a pinata. The kids line up, take up clubs, take their whacks at the paper mache Dora The Explorer. Finally, against all odds, one of them gets in a lucky shot and does some damage to the nearly indestructible shell. (They should make jetliners out of pinata material. Nothing can destroy it.) The kids all dive for the ... nothing. Brenda grabbed the pinata and ripped it open and shook it. Nothing. She looked at me with horror on her face and said "They don't come with candy inside?" "No," I told her. "You're supposed to fill them yourself." She ran upstairs, grabbed a bag of random treats, and ran back down to scatter it among the puzzled youngsters, shouting "Yippee!" I think Sam managed to get a coupon for Campbell's soup.

4.  When I was doing my post doc at National Jewish we had a visiting "scientist." I use the scare quotes bec.ause this guy was worse than useless. We called him a dominant negative scientist, which is only funny to a biochemist. One Friday this guy Bob decided to have a little celebration in the lab on account of some sporting contest that had an outcome he liked. He brought in a case, a full case, of Miller. Now, we did enjoy a beer in the lab on the occasional Friday, but we didn't drink Miller. We were (and I still am) beer snobs. So, nobody wants to have this party, and one by one, all the lab members slipped away. Except me, and this mook. I had an experiment I had to finish and I couldn't go. so I'm stuck there up to my elbows in radioisotope with a case of Miller and Bob waiting for me when I finished. Then I hear a crash behind me, and there's Bob standing over a broken beaker, liquid splashed all over the floor, with a stupid look on his face. "What was in the beaker?" I asked. "Acetone." "Get out of there," I said. I spread a bunch of charcoal over the spill (it's not terribly toxic but you don't want to spill a liter of it and just stand over it - it will knock you out and it will ignite if there is an open flame nearby). So now the lab floor is covered in black dust, which might have been radioactive (we used the acetone to wash [32-P] off of filter papers). I have to call Safety. I called, and I got the hell out of there, because I didn't want to be around when they walked in and found a spill next to a case of cold Miller. But as I left another lab member, who'd been hiding in the back room, happened by. He saw the black dust, looked at me, and said one word: "Bob?"

5.  This is another one about Geoff. I doubt he'll mind being on this list twice. Once we were camping when we were kids and Geoff, who could never sit still, was jumping up and trying to grab something on top of the shelter that the picnic table was under. When he finally grabbed the mystery object he looked at it in his hand and found a moldy bar of bath soap. He said "Eeeeew, soap!" and threw it into the woods.

Next I'll come up with my 5 scariest moments.

        

Back last August I hinted at some writing career troubles, but I couldn't give any details then because I didn't have them. Well, I got all the details I needed today. I found out that Tor will not be picking up my second novel MACHINE INTELLIGENCE. Not because they didn't like it, but because RADIO FREEFALL didn't sell as many copies as they'd hoped.

I had my first inkling that all was not well in RADIO FREEFALL land when I ran into my editor David Hartwell at Denvention. When your editor goes from inviting you to dinner every time he meets you at a con to avoiding eye contact with you while he talks to other people, that's a pretty good indication that the publisher won't be requiring any more material from you to fill out their catalog.

Now here comes the inevitable disclaimer. Tor is a business, they make their decisions based on sound business principles. They did their best to market a weird book from a relatively unknown author. I bear them no ill will. Some day I hope to publish with them again. So there's that.

I promise that the world has not see the last of me. There are other publishing houses. While the sales figures for RF may have been "dreadful" by Tor's standards, some publishers would not sneeze at whatever numbers I posted. (I'm probably the only person involved who doesn't know those numbers, but the last statement I saw had the hardcover selling around 2500 copies, with returns, as always, pending.) I'm confident that MI will see print. I might have to spend some time in writer jail, or wait until the economy improves, or until a new form of entertainment distribution grows out of the rotting corpse of publishing. I can wait. I still have the day job.

And why am I telling you all this? Two reasons: I get a lot of people asking me (begging, really) when my next book will come out. Now I can give the answer "Don't hold your breath."

The other reason is for the aspring writers out there. I don't want to crush your spirits, but I would like you all to understand that publishing your first book is not the hard part, it's just the first hard part. This is another data point for a data hungry mob. I hope your first book does better, but this is what happens when it doesn't.

And finally, I want to thank everyone who did go out and buy a copy of RF. This was a lot of fun. We should do this again some time.

        

Yeah, this is about the least fashionable post I've done in a long time. Believe me, I'm happy we're getting a new guy in charge. (Although I doubt his pick for Transportation secretary is going to be bringing much needed super trams to our cities.) But tomorrow is the day to celebrate Obama. I'd like to take today to pick out five things I like about the man who has been our leader for the past 8 years. Surely I can find five things? (I'd have to do better than Mother Jones.)

1.  He increased aid for Africa. He didn't make a big deal out of it, which you could either view as a gesture of humility or a lost opportunity. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt on this one and call it humble. I'm sure Africa appreciates the humanitarian aid and the increased awareness of the AIDS epedemic.

2.  He introduced a lot of diversity into the executive branch. As I've said before, I have no use for diversity for its own sake. But the president's cabinet is sitting right up there, front and center, as much symbolic as functional. Condi Rice, Colin Powel, yes, even Alberto Gonzales, all inspire minorities to achieve more. His selection of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney also show white guys that life doesn't have to end just because you've become old and creepy.

3.  No Child Left Behind. Yeah, I know, a lot of children got left behind. Certainly more than none. But it's a start, and an important one. Bush had to wear the black hat with the teacher's unions, sort of his "only Nixon could go to China" moment, But now the next steps should be easier for a pro-union administration to push through.

4.  He said a lot of funny things. He single handedly kept a lot of comedians in business in tough times. Supporting the arts. That's got to be worth something, right?

5.  He brought Laura to the White House. OK, this one is a bit self serving. I'm a writer, I depend on a steady supply of readers to keep me in work. Laura Bush's support of reading programs ensures that this country will keep me and my colleagues supplied with book buyers well in the future.

        

Jennifer Fallon had a conversation with her agent recently that led her to believe that epic fantasy is dying. It's about frigging time, I say. Science fiction has been dying for the last 40 years. It's getting old, this dying. No one here to keep us company except westerns, and let me tell you, westerns are getting a bit ripe. Whew!

I have a bit of advice for epic fantasy, a little something to help out with the transition from vibrant life to the state of dying. First, you'll want to familiarize yourself with the five stages of grief. It's sort of like a program you buy at the baseball game. You can't tell the players without a program.

Now, if epic fantasy were dead, you'd get to work your way through all five stages. But it isn't dead, it's dying. Dying genres only get to step 4 and then swing back around to denial in an endless loop. Fans will find it easier if they keep in synch through these stages. Nothing is worse than bumping into a denier when you're on to bargaining. One of you wants to find a way to convince bookstores to put science fiction on the tables at the front just to see if they sell and the other is saying "All my friends read science fiction so therefore everyone in the world reads science fiction." You just end up in a flame war which leads right to anger while all the specatators are in depression.

It helps to have a champion who remains in denial all the time. He's like a goalpost you can return to whenever you fall out the bottom of depression. For science fiction we use Gardner Dozios. I'm not sure who would fit the role for fantasy. Maybe L.E. Modesitt?

So, good luck with the dying, high fantasy. With hard work and dedication you can keep it going for decades.

P.S. What the hell is a vegetarian vampire, anyway? Do they suck the juice out of beets or something?

        

1. Think up at least one blog post for the year. Well, that was easy.

2. Get into the Guinness Book Of World Records. I plan to become the world's tallest man. I know this is a stretch (pun so intented) but here's how I figure: I'm only 12% of my way to being the world's heaviest man, but I'm already 63% of the way to being the world's tallest. So, a more achievable goal. That's the key to a good resolution, right there.

3. Prove Lamarckianism once and for all. I plan to bundle this with resolution #2. See, I'm going to move all of the objects of my desire to high shelves, so I'll have to grow taller to reach them. Genius, no?

4. Wait, wait. Clear off all the lower shelves. Hah! Three resolutions at once. Brilliant!

5. Make my lists here on Feedback reach all the way to 10. Well, I have to have one that's not achievable, don't I? Otherwise how do I know I'm improving?