Garrett W. Vance's Blog

I need to learn to be a more consistent blogger- coming soon will be a full report on my creative activities for 2011. Happy New Year!

Hail Friends,

When I started this blog I had the good intention of posting here often but perhaps you've heard what the road to Hell is paved with- at least I can one day take pleasure in a smooth ride knowing that I contributed so much. lol

So, now that more than a year has gone by I'll hit the highlights.

First up, my novelette Riders of the Three-Toed Horse was chosen for the 2009 Locus Recommended Reading List! Seeing my lil' ole name in a list with the likes of Peter S. Beagle, Tanith Lee, Lucius Shepard and other such literary heroes of mine sent me over the moon! I must have stared at the page for an hour after I found out about it just thinking "Oh my God that's ME!!". I'm really pleased people like that story so much, and yes, I am working on more- a lot more.

In more 'Riders' news, I was excited to have long time friend and fellow madman Birke Duncan adapt the novelette into a pulse pounding radio play! It has been aired on a variety of radio stations across the country and has gotten some great reviews! I designed the covers and the play features some amazing voice talents, including celebrated Northwest story tellers and actors Bob McAllister and Birke Duncan! Go get one, Now!


[image error] This year very sadly saw the final issue of Jim Baen's Universe, a pioneer in the world of web based magazines. Alas, alas, it was a wonderful thing but the fates were against it, despite a very dedicated staff's wishes to keep it going, JBU closed its doors April, 2010. I very much enjoyed writing for it, as well as illustrating- I did the cover art from October 2008 to the end and artwork for two stories, my own and Ben Bova's Moon Race. I was asked to fill in as Universe's art director for the last three issues, and did the artwork for all the stories in the final issue myself. I volunteered since there was no money to pay anybody else to do it and I am really a pretty nice guy (sucker) for all my outward ogre-ness! We have layers! It was all good, being art director for two magazines looks swell on the old artsy resume.

For the final issue's cover I portrayed the title being pulled down into a black hole-symbolizing how awful I felt to see the magazine end but also with a glimmer of hope for a rebirth in some other universe. To some extent that has happened!

The Other Magazine I serve as art director for, the Grantville Gazette has started publishing one Universe story per issue in the new Universe Annex! I'm loving this, as much as I enjoy trying to come up with fun mixes of 20th century and 17th century images every two months (if you haven't tried the Gazette yet go do so now, it's too hard to explain!) I now get to do at least one wild card piece of SF or fantasy art per issue that is not related to Eric Flint's unique 163X-verse, variety is the spice of life.

Here is my fave Annex art I've done so far, for Jason K. Chapman's exciting tale of life amongst the asteroids, The Long Fall. I've decided to make Universe Annex art look like book covers from this point forward with the hopes that Baen Books will one day wake up and realize that I can make them book covers, fast and cheap! lol

There were a couple of super bright spots this year in which I got to meet some of my SF and Fantasy novelist heroes in person. In August I had the very extreme pleasure of meeting Eric Flint in person at the The 10th Occasional North American Science Fiction Convention in Raleigh South Carolina, ReConStruction in which Eric Flint was Guest of Honor and we held a 1632 Minicon. It was fun to finally meet the guy who signs my checks! Eric is a very genial fellow and possibly the most intelligent being I have ever met, scary smart that one! I think he was impressed that I bothered to come all the way from Bangkok Thailand to be there, I wouldn't have missed it for the world! I was also overjoyed to finally get to meet the rest of the Grantville Gazette staff and many of our writers, what a great group! I followed our Editor Paula Goodlett around like a puppy dog for the whole con, she is pretty basically The Best Boss Ever and a heck of a lot of fun to hang out with! Everybody was very supportive, they knew I had huge butterflies about giving my first ever convention panel (on art for the Grantville Gazette) and were very much there for me- it turned out fine and I was glad my peers got to see some inside skinny on how I do (the often incredibly weird!) things I do to make art for the magazine. I hope to be able to fly across the big pond and do that again one day!

The other HUGE highlight of this year was getting to meet SF and fantasy goddess CJ Cherryh in person! She is wonderful!!!!! An incredibly talented and gracious person, she was kind enough to answer my (sweat soaked, scribbled) list of 'how to' questions, something I will treasure forever! I was also exceptionally fortunate to meet artist and novelist Jane Fancher, who in addition to doing amazing work is more fun than a barrel of monkeys and an open bar, what a hoot! CJ and the Shejidanites are among the nicest people on the planet, seldom have I felt so welcome by total strangers! It was like we had all known each other for years! Gush, gush, I don't care, feel the love!!!! :-D

The other big event in my professional life this year was finishing and selling my first novel! At first I didn't even realize I had done it, the thing started out as a short story but just kept growing and growing! It's set in the 163X-verse and revisits my characters who live there, Pam the birdwatcher and her stalwart companions Gerbald and Dore, who have left Grantville to sail around Africa to Mauritius on a mission to save the helpless dodo from extinction! It's being presented as a serial, so by all means please check out Second Chance Bird, Episode One in Volume 32 of the Grantville Gazette!

So, that about wraps up 2010. I'm working on the latest Gazette as well as a brand new 163x-verse story, something quite different from what I've done so far. I intend to have those finished well before Christmas, the twelve days of which I intend to spend pleasantly pickled under the Christmas tree with my wonderful wife Mochi. It will be time to relax and reflect on a year that was one of the craziest yet, some for ill, most for good. I am very much looking forward to 2011, I have set it as The Year in which I really take off, friends, you ain't seen nothing yet! Ideas, boy have I got ideas, and best of all I find myself landed in the perfect time and place to do them! I wish all of you who take the time to read this a a fantastic New Year- see you there!

Garrett W. Vance
Bangkok, Thailand
December 6th, 2010.

Greetings!

I've put off posting here for far too long so here I am! My only excuse is that I have been busy working! When I decided to get serious about my true callings I started this blog and I have done the work-a LOT of good things have happened since! So, here's a brief history of what Garrett W. Vance (Yup. that's me!) has been up to!

My wild and wooly sci-fi/horror adventure, Riders of the Three-Toed Horse was published in the February 2009 issue of Jim Baen's Universe science fiction and fantasy magazine. The story is my first published non-shared universe piece and I confess to being pretty proud of it. Lois Tilton of the Internet Review of Science Fiction gave the story a really nice review, which can be read in its entirety here. Here's the highlight:

"What Elias discovers is authentically scary and weird, and it is by no means obvious whether he will escape or not. The characters are genuine, and the setting is both strange and real, with the strange stuff made quite credible by the author." -Lois Tilton

That pretty much made my whole year!

I was also fortunate enough to be able to do my own art for the piece, I do indeed love getting two pay checks per one story! I spent long hours researching what the prehistoric proto-horse of the Miocene, merychippus, (my 'three-toed horse') might look like, based on a study of skeletal remains and wild 'living fossil' species such as Przewalski's Horse, untouched by domestication and still maintaining many ancient traits. This critter is textbook and museum quality, or so darn close you could spit there.

My long time friend and collaborator Birke Duncan is currently adapting Riders into a radio play, I can't wait to hear it!

2009 has seen art take more center stage in my career. I was very excited to be asked to do three book covers for author and Universe editor Mike Resnick. They will be companion pieces to the online presentation of the novels, as soon as the links are ready I will post them here, meanhwhile, here are the covers!

First up is the cover for Mike Resnick's The Widowmaker Reborn, an action packed science fiction thriller.























The next is for his humorous fantasy Stalking the Unicorn.























My third piece of the set is for Resnick's powerful and enigmatic Oracle.






















I've been continuing to do my little dream job, making the the cover art for Jim Baen's Universe magazine. This has been a real pleasure as well as a challenge. Here comes the thumbnail gallery.







































































Author and super nice guy Bud Sparhawk was kind enough to email me some very welcome praise on the cover I did featuring his story Winds of Mars. "I very much admire what you did with the image in my story WINDS OF MARS for the June cover... I've already framed the issue cover for my brag wall..." -Thanks again, Bud!















































I would say all that counts as staying busy. :-) I have some stories I'm working on, too, so fear not, 'Garrett the Artist' will make room for 'Garrett the Writer' again real soon! More good things to come, that's a promise.

A very Happy Halloween to you!

Hi Friends,

I'm feeling a bit introspective here on an October evening and so I'm going to engage in the guilty pleasure of pretending I'm being interviewed..

While skimming across the net I found the following interview, originally with Yves Saint Lauren. I like the questions, so here goes!

What is your chief characteristic?
Creativity.

What is your principal fault?
Moodiness.

What is your favourite quality in a man?
Kindness.

And in a woman?
Courage.

Who is your favourite historical figure?
Basho, the haiku poet.

Who are your living heroes?
People who dare to speak aloud thoughts, write stories and create art that might get them killed by the world's ignorant and greedy.

Who would you like to be, if you could?
J.R.R. Tolkien, my favorite author. He was a dreamer and a scholar, and quite successful at both.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?
Getting fan mail... and money for whatever I did that brought on the fan mail.

What is your idea of misery?
Settling for less- particularly from myself.

Where would you like to live?
Some interesting and beautiful places I haven't lived yet. Although here is good, too.

What talent would you like to have?
Being good at math.

For what fault do you have the most toleration?
Over-exuberance, especially in youth.

Who are your favourite painters? (I'll stick to the classics, as Yves did)
Da Vinci and Monet

Who are your favourite composers?
Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsokov , I love the moody romance of the Russians.

What is your favourite colour?
Purple.

Of all things, what do you most detest?
Rudeness.

Have you got a motto?
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right."
-Henry Ford

What would you like to do right now?
I would like to make a somewhat more than comfortable living from my creative endeavors, and so have plenty of extra money to help young artists and writers get started, causing me to be a widely celebrated and well loved old fart.

Well, that's me! I hardly believe it myself! It's astounding! It's fantastic! It's startling!

Here's December 2008's cover. I chose to feature legendary writer Ben Bova's Moon Race. I'll make a few more tweaks on it before publication, but this is the basic idea:


The piece is very much inspired by the works of the 1940's-50's sc-fi and fantasy pulp magazine artists. I was born too late to get the pulps off the newstands, but I am lucky to know them through second hand finds and printed collections. I spent many happy hours in my youth dreaming of the far away worlds those classic magazines provided such thrilling glimpses of. I still do. I have to pinch myself now that I am the guy doing the covers for an amazing magazine like Jim Baen's Universe! It's a childhood dream come true.

I'm now working on the cover for the upcoming October 2008 issue. The art will feature Mike Resnick's very moving story, Article of Faith. It looks like this will be a regular gig for for a while, I can hardly wait to see what future stories I will get to homage in cover art! I'm so freaking happy I'm going to dance the 'Eagle Rock' all up and down the docks! "Everyone in for the Eagle Rock!" (Dances the 'Eagle Rock' Be glad there is no video.)

It still boggles my mind. I get to make moon walkers and androids for the covers of a popular sci-fi and fantasy magazine that has all the magic of the wonderful pulps of yore, and more. What a lucky life.

Postscript: I neglected to thank my friend Dennis A. Martin for making a 3-D model of the walker based on my sketches. His version forms the base of the image you see here- I think it's time I learned how to use that 3-D stuff! Thank you, Dennis!

Hail Friends,

A while back Paula asked me if I could whip up a last minute ad for the Grantville Gazette to go in the Liberty Con booklet. Since our fearless leader Eric Flint was the guest of honor it would be a good idea to have something in there! I only had 48 hours to get it done but I came through, whew! After the dust settled I took another look at what I'd done and thought we could get some more mileage out of it. I made a few changes, added another Gustav fighter (my version of the premiere warplane of the 163x-verse) and sent it off to Paula who liked it. :-) My hope is it will soon be pointing the way to the Gazette from here and there around the web.


This is just too much fun.

Garrett W. Vance

Great googly moogly, I haven't made a post to my blog in almost a year! Here's my excuse: I've been busy WORKING on artistic stuff! Back in November of 2007 I became the Art Director of the Grantville Gazette. I think Editor Paula Goodlett may have put some kind of spell on me, she has Powers... All I did was whip up a jokey pic for her I made of myself dressed up in official swag from the 1632 Store and she realized I was a pretty fast hand with Photoshop.


The next thing I knew, I was hired! The best part was I got this job by clowning around! (something I excel in). I now do all the art for the magazine. I also know a LOT more about Photoshop than I did when I started. It's a big job, but I really enjoy it! (Shhh, don't tell Paula!) Check out Grantville Gazette Volume 15 and up for the pretty pictures; some are my original creations along with various public domain art to represent the historical elements of this alternate history series. My pride and joy are the title banners I design for each story. It's always a challenge, sometimes I find myself pondering questions like "How do I make a pig interesting?" I am working hard to bring a new (and hopefully interesting) look to this very eclectic magazine. For a few personal favorites look here, here, and here. This title banner was chosen by the 1632 Board for the Ring of Fire Club member's exclusive 2008 commemorative coffee cup!


Throughout all this I have still managed to get some writing in. I'm crossing my fingers that my sci-fi action with a touch of horror piece, Riders of the Three Toed Horse, gets picked up by the Gazette's big sister magazine Baen's Universe. I'll write more about that one in a later post (hopefully in less than a year's time, and ideally after it has sold!). Writing-wise I'm currently working on a new 163X-verse story titled Second Chance Bird, which features the continuing adventures of Grantville's 'Bird Lady' Pam Miller, who is off on a dangerous voyage around Africa to save the dodo! There's going to be more action than a summer blockbuster movie and maybe, just maybe, a little romance for Pam, our heroic (and no longer frumpy) divorce'.

Now I need to get Gazette 19's art going, I swear I am busier than a beer aficionado in Munich. Back to work!

Where does the time fly? Well, lately it's been through a burning ring of fire!

Just over two years ago I walked into Kinokuniya's excellent English language bookstore here in Bangkok thirsting for a good read. Scanning the science fiction section my eyes were caught by a novel titled simply 1632 by Eric Flint. The cover featured a group of seventeenth century musketmen taking on a pick-up truck of shotgun wielding hillbillies- wild and wonderful, I took it home. That night I read into the wee hours not wanting to put it down! I was hooked and went downtown again the very next day to grab 1633.

Premise in a nutshell: The sleepy West Virginia mining town of Grantville is caught up in a dimensional rift; a side effect of the solipsistic alien Assiti's latest quantum art project. In the flash of light and cosmic thunder that follow, dubbed the Ring of Fire (RoF) , a six mile circle of 1990's WV is transported to seventeenth century Germany. Finding themselves in the middle of the Thirty Years War the American townsfolk begin to change the course of world history with their advanced technology and notions of freedom.

I eventually learned that the novels rightfully enjoy an enormous fan following and that publisher Baen Books hosts a forum dedicated to Eric Flint's RoF sagas. I was very excited to discover that there is an online e-zine dedicated to expanding this shared universe: The Grantville Gazette !

Ever since reading the first novel I had a story of my own set in the RoF lurking in the back of my mind- now I knew there was a place where I might be able to share it, so I started writing Birdwatching; the quest of depressed divorcée and amateur birdwatcher Pam Miller to learn if her beloved eastern cardinals survived the trip through the RoF. Hiking all over hilly Grantville and the surrounding Thuringean forests with her bodyguard and guide the stoic ex-soldier Gerbald in search of transplanted American birds (particularly the cardinal) leads to the beginning of a better life in her new time and place.

I was incredibly pleased that the editorial staff and fellow writers liked my work and the next thing I knew I had made my first professional creative writing sale! To my further delight Editor Supreme (and wielder of fearsome supernatural powers!) Paula Goodlett encouraged me to write more! I now have a color copy of the check from Eric Flint for Birdwatching framed and hung in a place of honor over my writing desk.

Since then Ive written a mini-trilogy of 'Pam the Birdwatcher' stories. Birdwatching was published in The Grantville Gazette, issue 12 and now my second story, Protected Species is featured in the current Grantville Gazette, issue 13. The third, Bats in the Belfry is currently slated for issue 14. I'll be posting here in detail on those stories shortly.

Writing these stories and working with the wonderful folks at Baen's Bar is a lot of fun and a wonderful opportunity. I would especially like to thank Eric Flint for starting this phenomenon, Paula Goodlett for giving a new author a chance and Virginia Demarce, co-author of 1634: The Ram Rebellion, for sharing her knowledge and experience.

Right now I 'm struggling with, ahem, *cough* I mean working on a new set of stories that focus on Pam's young adult son Walt and his new bride Crystal. After I finish these (gracious gods help me!!!) I'll start another set of Pam stories that will feature some world travel, seventeenth century style! Here's the teaser: Mission to Mauritius!

More fun to come!

GWV

I will from time to time post reports of unusual things that have happened to me. When I say 'unusual' I mean paranormal or supernatural… things I can't explain. I swear these events are true and whether you believe me or not isn't important- I just hope you enjoy the story. GWV

The Dance Stake

A friend of mine became fascinated with tribal art from Papua New Guinea and started collecting it passionately. He decided to import it in larger quantities and sell some pieces as a side line in his aquarium hobby business, a most excellent and venerable establishment called The Seattle Fish Store. I became quite taken with it myself and over several years I amassed a sizable collection of my own- masks, fetishes, carved animals, and other odd items.

The tribal New Guinea people are master artisans and their work is by no means "primitive"; each piece embodies a history, a tradition and a purpose relating to their very complex cultures. All of their art embodies a spirit- direct ancestors, progenitors of clans (often thought to be animals, for example the crocodile clan and the bat clan), and various other gods and demons. All of these items are used variously in daily life, ceremonies and spiritual practices. It is a living art that performs specific tasks based on the tribe's customs and beliefs.

One of the pieces I purchased was a "Dance Stake", a wood carving about 14 inches long. The top is an oval carved and painted face- a scowling and very serious looking visage, its cowry shell eyes lending it a piercing gaze. From the chin the wood tapers down to a narrow and very sharply pointed wooden stake. The dance stakes are placed in the ground around the border of the sacred area where the tribe's most important ritual dances are held. They are placed facing away from the center of the dancing place and their job is to protect the dancers from harmful magics cast by the shamans of enemy tribes, or evil spirits wishing to harm the dancers. In New Guinea, there is no question about it- these things are real forces that must be reckoned with. In their world magic is real, it works and it can kill.

I was living in Seattle at the time I bought the piece. I leaned it up against the bricks beside the fireplace, where it remained for several years. When I moved permanently to Thailand I left my collection for a year with a helpful friend who also collected and he displayed my pieces along with his own. On my next visit back to the States I stopped by to take them off his hands and move the collection to temporary storage on family property, there to await eventual import to my new home overseas. We were finished packing up the many pieces when I noticed the dance stake seemed to be missing and queried my friend. He flashed me what in retrospect may be considered a rather odd look and said "Oh yeah, it's down here" pointing to a spot near the floor where it hung from a hook, its bottom tip touching the floor. He explained that "Since it's meant to be stuck in the ground I put it down low." He rather hurriedly removed it from its hook and put it in the box with the other pieces.

That evening I hung my collection in its next temporary home, my mother's recreation room in a side building near the main house. It would be a while before I would be able to have them all brought to Thailand and they keep better out of boxes. I hung the dance stake about seven feet off the ground, a couple feet from the door. I had put a small eye screw in the back of the dance hook and used some electrical wire to attach it to a nail. The wire was fairly strong and I made two knots so that there was a small loop and a large loop. I placed the bigger loop over the nail, which had a fairly large head on it and went back to the house. A while later I returned to the room to find the dance stake lying on its back on the floor. I thought someone must have carelessly slammed the door and caused it to bounce off the wall. This time I hung it by squeezing the smaller wire loop over the head of the nail, which was a tight fit and much more secure.

The next morning I entered the room to find the dance stake lying on it back on the floor again. I was rather surprised since I had secured it so firmly, and as I picked up the piece I jokingly spoke to it- "What, you don't like it up there? Fine you can trade spots with something else!" I took down a lightweight penis gourd from a spot 5 feet away from the door and only 4 feet off the ground and placed it in the dance stake's former position with the idea that slamming doors wouldn't cause it to fall, as it would just bounce in place harmlessly. I was in a hurry as I hung the dance stake in its new spot by the larger loop of the wire. This nail was driven in with its wide head at an upward angle to the wall so that gravity would prevent the piece from slipping off. Before I left I pulled on it to test it and found it very secure- it would take quite an earthquake to bounce the dance stake off the nail. I left the room and locked it.

That evening I returned to the rec room, this time with my brother, Norman, to show him something in the adjacent storage room. As we walked in I stopped in my tracks. The dance stake was lying face up on the floor below its nail for the third time. I laughed nervously and said "Norman, this is kind of weird" and related the story thus far to him. He said "That IS kind of weird...if something was to jar the whole wall, you would think that other pieces would have fallen off, too." I remarked that "I'm sure no one has been out here to slam the door and cause this to happen." We definitely had not had any earthquakes. My brother walked over and picked the piece up to hang it back on the wall. I told him to stick it on the nail by the smaller wire loop- a process which took him a while as he had to work the wire over the large nail head. He said "Well, there's no way it's going to just jump off the wall now!" and we went on about our business after which my brother returned to his home. As I shut the outer door and locked it I stole a last glimpse of the dance stake sternly glaring into the darkness.

I must admit that the next morning as I headed out to that room again it was with some real trepidation. I had a queasy feeling that the dance stake had indeed somehow worked itself off its nail and, impossibly, jumped down to the floor again. When I entered the room my hair stood on end- there was the dance stake lying face up on the floor for the FOURTH time, its cowry shell eyes staring sullenly at the ceiling.

At this point I stopped to collect my wits and think this macabre situation through. I found I had now become a true believer in the potency of New Guinea tribal magic and spirits. It occurred to me that the shamans of the tribe who had created this dance stake had made it with a specific task in mind: to be placed in the ground to protect an area. I kneeled over the dance stake and spoke to it quite seriously and respectfully-it felt like the right thing to do on an instinctual level, mad though it may seem.

I asked it "Are you trying to tell me that you don't want to be hanging up in the air? Do you want to be down on the ground?" I instantly sensed that this was the truth. I knew that I couldn't put the dance stake outside in the ground as the Pacific Northwest weather would destroy it so I came up with an alternative. I carefully placed a nail at exactly the right height above the floor so that the dance stake's bottom point would be touching the floor. I explained to it that this was the best I could do and asked it to "Please protect our family's grounds just as you would the grounds of the people who made you." I also told it that I had great respect for its spirit and wished it to be happy.

It occurred to me that this was the exact same position my friend in Seattle had placed it while it was in his keeping. I grilled him about it but to this day he denies any strange happening and chided me for not putting it near the ground in the first place! Still, I sensed that he wasn't telling me everything and his skeptical pride was making him keep any unusual activity from the dance stake to himself.

Over the next few days I periodically wandered by the room to check on my dance stake to find it serenely perched with its tip touching the floor. I sensed that its spirit was content doing its intended duty in its proper place. I soon after returned to Thailand and according to the family the dance stake remained in place another six months right where I left it. Since then my family has moved away from that property and the collection has been boxed and put in storage awaiting my return; I admit that I feel a bit uneasy about the dance stake being kept in such a state- it certainly won't be pleased!

On my next trip to America I plan to bring my entire New Guinea art collection back to Thailand with me, including the dance stake that possesses such a strong will of its own. I certainly don't plan to try hanging it on a wall again- it will be planted firmly in a gravel filled flower pot on my covered front porch where it can happily guard my home from evil spirits and hopefully solicitors as well.

Garrett W Vance