RIP Frederik Pohl (1919-2013)

We lost another luminary of the Golden Age of science fiction. Frederik Pohl died today, and up until yesterday he was still writing.



For those who don’t know the name, Pohl was a contemporary of Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke -- you know, the people who made science fiction. Not to take anything away from guys like Jules Verne or H.G. Wells; they’re the giants whose shoulders we stand on. But it was the Golden Age writers who brought us flyer saucers and intelligent robots and guns that go pew pew pew!

I had the good fortune to be on a panel with Pohl -- my first panel as a sci fi/fantasy writer, in fact, and it was a humbling experience to say the least. I was sitting next to Nnedi Okorafor, who like me had recently won the Writers of the Future contest, and unlike me already had a novel to show for it. Next to her sat Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta, who at that point had published something like 100 novels between the two of them. And then, at the far end of the table, sat The Man Himself.

I worked up the courage to talk to him, but I was so nervous that now I can’t remember what we talked about. At the time I was thinking, “Why did they put me on this panel? What am I doing here?” Now I know: I was there so that ten years later I could look back and say to myself, “Dude, you were in the same room as Frederik Pohl.”

RT says it "excels wildest expectations!"

Year of the Demon just collected its second review, this time from RT Book Reviews. Their verdict:

What readers get in Bein’s second novel is not one, but three stories that alternate between different time periods. Bein excels beyond any history lover’s wildest imagination with exceptionally researched, vivid descriptions of ancient Japan. Japanese social norms, both past and present, are broken down in order to deliver memorable protagonists that push against the boundaries of their eras. (RT Book Reviews October 2013)

Thanks to Elisa Verna for such a flattering review, and for the short interview that followed it. (I’ll post a link to that when I can.)

Elysium: Best SF film of the year?

I saw Elysium last night, and I was totally blown away. Neill Blomkamp does not disappoint. I don’t use this comparison often, but this film is in the same vein as Blade Runner.

The last time I compared a movie to Blade Runner, it was Blomkamp’s District 9, which to my mind remains one of the best SF films of the modern era. So to say that Elysium isn’t quite as good as District 9 is no insult; movies that good only come around once every five or ten years. Like District 9, Children of Men, and Blade Runner, Elysium gives us a world so gritty that you almost feel you have to wash up. The CGI is seamless, but more than this, the visual effects are fully real because so much thought has been devoted to how technology has advanced in this bright-and-dark future.

So why are the critics panning this film? I just don’t get it. It’s true that Elysium is another expression of Blomkamp’s fascination with the interplay of the haves and have-nots, but who cares, so long as the interplay is engaging? Sharlto Copley’s character may be a reprisal of the rogue mercenary sociopath in District 9, but at least it’s Copley we get to see reprising the role. He’s brilliant. This isn’t a knock-off, it isn’t a brainless summer action flick, and it certainly isn’t “another X-Box allegory” as it was dubbed by The Onion’s AV Club (still my favorite source of movie reviews, though I think they got this one all wrong).

As a superhero movie guy, I had a great summer: Iron Man 3 was fun, The Wolverine was better, and Man of Steel knocked my socks off. People don’t seem to think of them this way, but all three of those are sci-fi films, and so it’s a big deal for Elysium to blow them out of the water. I haven’t seen Europa Report yet, and I’ve got high hopes for it, but at this point Elysium is my top sci-fi film of the year.

PW calls it a "gripping follow-up!"

Year of the Demon just collected its first review, and it’s a good one:

In this gripping follow-up to 2012’s Daughter of the Sword, Tokyo police officer Oshiro Mariko is now working in the Narcotics division. In the aftermath of a raid, an ancient mask is stolen, and its Yakuza owner demands that Mariko retrieve it. Her search for the mask leads her to a cult with a deadly agenda and a centuries-old mystery connected to the legendary sword she now possesses. Extensive flashbacks to the lives of two historical characters—Daigoro, a 16th-century lord who wielded Mariko’s sword, and Kaida, a 15th-century one-armed pearl diver forced to contend with ruthless mercenaries—further expand the story, essentially making it three books in one. Bein combines the best parts of police procedurals, buddy-cop films, historical fantasy, and intrigue-laden adventure, enhancing them with painstaking research and attention to atmosphere. Despite all the action, this middle volume feels incomplete, but all three stories promise to wrap up in gripping style.

Thanks, Publishers Weekly! (Click here for the original text.) And thanks also to my partner, Michele, for pointing out that this is probably the first time “painstaking research” and “buddy-cop films” have ever been used in the same sentence!

Ninja role model

I finally got out to see The Wolverine--and I say finally because this is the movie I had hoped for from the very beginning of Wolverine’s film career. I’m a huge Frank Miller fan, and for me the best Wolverine story ever told is the Frank Miller/Chris Claremont series set in Japan. Logan as fallen samurai is much more interesting than Logan as pissed-off guy killing stuff. So tonight I finally got to see the movie that I should have been first in line to see last Friday, and I finally got to see the movie I wanted to see the last time Wolverine was in theaters four years ago.

Now I’m wondering exactly how influential Frank Miller has been in my writing. Yes, Wolverine’s girlfriend’s name is Mariko, and yes, my Mariko is named Mariko. That much was a deliberate tribute; I named my Mariko after Frank’s. (Incidentally, I loved Tao Okamoto as Mariko Yashida, but if they were filming the Fated Blades books today, I’d cast Pacific Rim’s Rinko Kikuchi. For one thing, at 5’9” Okamoto is much too tall to play my Mariko, but more importantly, Kikuchi was a shoo-in as soon as she started whupping ass with a bo staff.)

Now that I think about it, I’m realizing that my favorite comics growing up weren’t my favorites because Frank Miller wrote them. Early on, I only followed the characters, not the people who wrote and drew them. Frank’s books were my favorites because they were the ninja and samurai stories. For example, here’s the cover from Daredevil issue 189:

Not many covers stick with me from way back when. I remember this one because I read this issue over and over. The plot was pretty straightforward: Daredevil, his ninja girlfriend, his ninja master, and their ninja buddies duke it out with a few hundred ninjas. Textbook Miller. (I’ll give you a spoiler about The Wolverine: Logan throws down with a few hundred ninjas.)

By the time I was in high school, I knew that if Frank Miller’s name was on it, it was going to be a good book. Today I can see that the young Frank Miller was deeply infatuated with Japanese culture--and let’s not kid ourselves: especially Japanese martial culture--and that this fascination informed a lot of his writing. But the other thing I’m seeing is that my own fascination with Japan was fueled at least in part by Miller’s. I love ninja and samurai stories, and I started reading them around fourth and fifth grade--right when I was also getting plenty of Batman and Wolverine and Daredevil, all of whom are at their best after they get samurized and ninjized by Frank Miller.

Probably the best thing about being a writer in the 21st century

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished I was one of those writers who could sit down in the local coffee shop, overhear a snippet of a conversation, and write a story about it. A cup of coffee is a whole lot cheaper than a flight to Japan. But no, I had to set my novels halfway across the planet.

Since I can’t afford to fly back to Tokyo every time I want to get a specific detail just right, every day I thank my lucky stars that I’m writing in the Silicon Age. Generally speaking, I’m a major technophobe, but I’ve got to admit there are a lot of handy sites out there if you want to find out what color the floor tiles are in a particular Yokohama subway station, or how many miles it is from Hakone to Kyoto on the Tokaido Road.

If you’re like the great majority of my readers, you haven’t been to Japan, you don’t know much about Japanese history, and your Japanese vocabulary goes about as far as Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto. Since I find Japanese culture utterly fascinating, and since maybe you do too, and since I spend a lot of time googling this sort of thing anyway, I thought I’d compile some of my favorite web pages on this site. You’ll find them on the new Links page.

Star Trek meets BisQuik

So it’s Sunday morning, and at my place that means pancakes. Truth to tell, I’ll take any excuse to eat pancakes. I could eat them at least seven times a week and never get sick of them. But I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed. Not by any stretch of the imagination, as a guy named Nathan Shields will soon prove to you.

Today is also May 12, and that means the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek film comes out this week. I’m not a Trekkie. Truth to tell, the only reason I know anything about Star Trek is that some of my best friends in college were Trekkies, and if you spend a lot of days hanging out with a Star Trek episode playing in the background, you sort of learn the stuff through osmosis. So I get all the Shatner jokes, but I’m not obsessed. Not like Mr. Shields.

At first glance, I thought these were poor line drawings, maybe with a leaky brown marker. Nope. They’re pancakes. My man Nathan Shields makes them for his kids for breakfast. And not just Star Trek. This was just a random one-off thing. He makes Leonardo da Vinci pancakes on Leonardo’s birthday, and Charles Darwin pancakes on Darwin’s birthday. He does Angry Birds pancakes and then flings them at his children. He does animals, animal footprints, even animal droppings. He even makes three-dimensional structures.

How can you not love this man? Check out the rest of his work here. I have only one complaint: his Dr. Seuss pancake (made for Dr. Seuss’s birthday, of course) does not come with a side order of green eggs and ham.

Time travel, anyone?

Very good news on the publishing front this week! I got an e-mail from Ann VanderMeer, who with her husband Jeff is editing a new anthology called The Time Traveler’s Almanac. Look up Jeff and Ann VanderMeer online and you will find that these two have produced one successful volume after another, with short stories from some of my very favorite writers in sci-fi and fantasy.

So that means the Ann VanderMeer e-mailed me the other day to tell me she’d like to include my short story, “The Most Important Thing in the World,” in The Time Traveler’s Almanac. This is a really big deal for me. For one thing, it’s my first reprint. But more importantly, it means I’ll share a table of contents with some of the biggest names in the field. We’re talking Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Ursula K. LeGuin, William Gibson, George R.R. Martin, people like that. People who have to worry about having pigeon poop on their shoulders, because, y’know, they’re monuments.

Prior to this, my only claim to membership in these circles was that in the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America member registry, I was on the same page as Arthur C. Clarke. This is a pretty big step up from that. The VanderMeers have described this anthology as “the ultimate treasury of time travel stories,” and lo and behold, one of my stories is going into the treasure chest. Woo hoo!

Why Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay are even cooler than we remember them

Today is the 60th anniversary of the first human footprints set on the summit of Mount Everest. Today so many people climb Everest that if you wanted to set a new record, you’d have to do something like the first naked snowboard descent on a Tuesday. Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating, but not by much: this year’s record was for climbing Everest twice in one week.

Reinhold Messner, who is The Man, said that all the advancements in climbing gear over the last few decades amounts to “the murder of the impossible.” I’m of two minds on this. Part of me cheers when we redefine the limits of what’s possible. I’ve done it in my own life. (I’m a skinny nerd with no innate athleticism. Finishing grad school was on the list of what’s possible for Steve to do. Earning a black belt wasn’t. Earning black belts in combative arts that involve a whole lot of full-contact fighting sure as hell wasn’t. And of course technology has redefined what’s possible many times over. My mom survived breast cancer because we can do what used to be impossible.

But I teach bioethics too, and so I read a lot about it, and much of what I read scares the bejeezus out of me. It’s not beyond our capabilities to design a baby to be a better martial artist. I’m serious. Read up on gene therapy. The debate for a lot of people -- maybe even the majority -- isn’t whether we should tinker with our babies’ DNA, but rather to what extent.

I have no answers to those questions, but a big part of me is sympathetic to Messner’s position. Maybe some impossibilities shouldn’t be killed off. In any case, on the 60th anniversary of their historic climb, I thought I’d share this narrated slideshow about why Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s accomplishment was a hell of a lot harder in their day than it is in mine. Today you’d be insane to climb with the kind of gear they were using then.

Do I finally get my jetpack?

It’s about damn time! Ever since kindergarten, people have been promising me a jetpack. Granted, those were cartoon people, but still. Marvin the Martian had some sweet rides, and Tex Avery’s “Cars of Tomorrow” made it pretty clear that by the time I was old enough to drive, I’d be able to fly. I mean, Elroy Jetson was a putz, and even he had a jetpack.

Well, at long last, they’re finally making progress on anti-grav technology. I don’t understand what took them this long, but I’m glad that engineering professors the world over are finally taking Mr. Avery a little more seriously. CERN’s lab seems to have a leg up, but might I suggest to the good people at Suzuki that while I enjoy my V-Strom very much, I’d be even happier on that kick-ass hoverbike in the beginning of Star Trek.

Props to artist Johnny Eaves for the cycle sketches, and to the Smithsonian, which takes jetpacks so seriously that they have a 24-part series on the Jetsons. At the Smithsonian.

C2E2 Debrief

Well, I’m back.

That was the first line of my last comic con debrief, and also the closing line of The Lord of the Rings, spoken by Sam Gamgee. I led with this line in my NYCC recap because while I was there, I got to be in the same room with Sean Astin, aka Sam Gamgee. This time around, I met a different Samwise. He’s a seeing eye dog for Danielle Lieber, a wonderful fan who came up and introduced herself at the autographing table. She told me the nicest thing a fan has ever told me: “Thank you so much for writing a blind character who isn’t totally helpless.”

She wanted to have her picture taken with me, and I said I’d like the same. So with Danielle’s permission, here we are at C2E2. Thanks again, Danielle!

Of course there were other highlights of the con. Lots of nerds in costumes, of course. The most impressive outfit might have been the cyborg Darth Maul (who, if you don’t know who he is, is basically the only good reason to sit through The Phantom Menace--and since he gets cut in half in the movie, there are no good reasons to see the next two prequels). This dude at the con wore Darth Maul makeup from the waist up, and from the waist down he wore a scratch-built, almost Hollywood-quality cybernetic body, including armor plating, flywheels, random wires and gears here and there, the works. I know, I know: hours and hours of attention to detail in his mother’s basement and all that. But it was still pretty damn impressive.

I saw legitimately famous people too. I sat next to the fifth doctor from Dr. Who, and saw Bruce Boxleitner, and was in the same building with Julie Newmar (which is titillating all by itself). The greatest actor of our time, Adam West, had to cancel at the last minute. I do hope he didn’t cancel for medical reasons; he is a national treasure. Please send him all well wishes, prayers, good juju, and whatever else you’ve got.

Chicago Comic Con coming right up

Just got my speaker’s badge in the mail for C2E2, aka the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition, aka Chicago Comic Con. I cannot wait to come back to home, sweet home to see friends, family and fans. And loads of nerds in costumes. And Adam West. And other famous people for me to geek out on. If you’re in the area, I’d love to see you there!

When mind over matter fails...

...does that mean it’s time to resort to microchip over matter? I mean, sure, diet and exercise could help you lose weight, but why bother with that old stuff when you could undergo brain surgery instead?

This is some seriously weird tech: a chip in your brain that will control your appetite. You can read the article here.

Speaking of robots...

Maybe the robots are watching me. Last night I posted on the possibility of silicon overlords, and lo and behold, this evening I happened to run across this old Discover article on AI.

Maybe you remember ELIZA, the world’s first e-therapist. She was a simple Java program that people could interact with in a proto-texting sort of way. As an attempt at passing the Turing test, her programming was pretty simple: you tell her something and she replies by turning your statement into a question. (E.g. “I had a bad day.” “Why did you have a bad day?”)

What was really fascinating for me -- as a sci fi writer, a philosopher, and a technophobe -- was that 50% of the people who interacted with ELIZA couldn’t tell she was a machine. (It doesn’t follow that she passed the Turing test; it only follows that 50% of people just like to hear themselves talk.) Now fast-forward to 2007, when chatbots like ELIZA had advanced so far that Discover magazine could publish a conversation between them.

Who could have guessed that even computer programs like talking philosophy? Check it out: I chat, therefore I am.

Robot overlords?

Are you worried that robots will take over the world and kill us all? If so, you may not be a total whackjob. Or even if you are a whackjob, you might still find a job at Cambridge. Yes, one of the top universities on the planet now maintains a Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, dedicated to keeping an eye on potentially dangerous technology.

Obviously the sci-fi fan in me is fascinated. The writer in me has a different fascination: namely, what decisions go into crafting headlines for a story like this? Some media outlets were pretty level-headed about it. Others were, well, not. Here’s how MSN describes three scholars opening an obscure think tank: “Robot overlords wiping out the human race may become reality.”

Happy Thanksgiving! Pass the Beans.

So I finally got the audiobook of Daughter of the Sword. Despite the fact that I own a Kindle, I’m not so good with technology, so I needed help getting the book onto my device. I got it just in time for Thanksgiving, so I could go home and show the fam.

I’ll start by saying that my experience working with Audible has been really great. When they contacted me to express their interest in Daughter, I said I felt very strongly that the reader should be able to correctly pronounce all the Japanese names in the book. Audible said sure, no problem, and they made good on their word, hiring actress Allison Hiroto. Seeing her last name is Japanese, I thought, okay, I’m in good hands. Even so, for weeks I’ve been looking forward to hearing her and confirming that she got all the Japanese right.

She did. She’s great. The only name they didn’t get right in the audiobook is mine. The first line: “Audible presents Daughter of the Sword, by Steve Bean.”

Well, that will happen. Everyone gets my family’s name wrong. (It’s “Bine,” not “Beene.”) I hasten to add that Audible has already fixed the problem, and that their ability to fix this in a matter of days speaks as much to their professionalism as their ability to have produced the thing in the first place. (No hating on Audible!)

The upshot of the error was that playing my audiobook got a lot of laughs from the family, and it was really a lot of fun. I’m no good in the kitchen, and since everyone else brings something delicious, at least this year I could bring something hilarious.

Thank you, Audible! For the error and for the swift correction!

I'm in the World's Biggest Bookstore

The World’s Biggest Bookstore in Toronto made me a featured author, and they were kind enough to send this picture of the endcap where they posted an interview with me.



If the typeface is a little too small in the photo, you can find the interview here too.

Daughter of the Sword goes mass market

Daughter of the Sword is going to appear in mass market paperback next September, and today my editor sent me the flap copy to review. One of the really cool things that happens when your book gets a second printing is that the publisher can include a few pages listing all the praise you’ve collected from reviewers. I’ve really enjoyed reading the reviews as they’ve come in, but seeing all of the highlights in one page blew my socks off.

Shameless, maybe, but I have to share:

“A noir modern Tokyo overwhelmed by the shadows of Japanese history…A compelling multifaceted vision of a remarkable culture, and a great page-turner.”—Stephen Baxter, author of Stone Spring

“Daughter of the Sword really captured my imagination. The interweaving of historical Japanese adventure and modern police procedural, Tokyo-style, caught me from two unexpected directions.”—Jay Lake, author of Endurance

“Effortlessly combines history and legend with a modern procedural…will have you staying up late to finish it.”—Diana Rowland, author of Sins of the Demon

“An authentic and riveting thrill ride through both ancient and modern Japan. Definitely a winner.”—Kylie Chan, author of Heaven to Wudang

“Bein’s gripping debut is a meticulously researched, highly detailed blend of urban and historical fantasy set in modern Tokyo…Bein’s scrupulous attention to verisimilitude helps bring all the settings to life, respectfully showcasing Japan’s distinctive cultures and attitudes.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A great police procedural urban fantasy that deftly rotates between Mariko in present day Japan and other warriors in past eras.”—Genre Go Round Reviews

“[O]ne of the best debuts I have ever read…an epic tale that heralds the emergence of a major talent.”—Fantasy Book Critic

“Daughter of the Sword reads like James Clavell’s Shogun would have if it had been crossed with high fantasy by way of a police procedural.”—Otherwhere Gazette

“Beautiful writing, a smart and resilient protagonist who meets her match in a coldly demented villain.”—All Things Urban Fantasy

“[An] impressive debut…Bein’s breadth of knowledge about Japanese culture and history makes this story believable and will satisfy anyone looking for a fast-paced mystery with a fantasy edge.”—RT Book Reviews

Wildlife Photographers of the Year

People who know me know I love photography. It’s one of the main reasons I travel, and since I’ve been able to travel a lot, I’ve been able to capture some really nice images -- but nothing like these. They are simply stunning.

And here is a rare photograph from Middle Earth: the One Ring burger at Denny’s, from their Hobbit-themed menu. One heart attack to rule them all....

Debrief from New York Comic Con

Well, I’m back.

So said Sam Gamgee in Lord of the Rings, and as luck would have it, this weekend I was in the room with Samwise himself! At NYCC this weekend, Sean Astin and I were signing autographs in the same area. (Though not in the same league; the line for his autograph was a wee bit longer than mine! On the other hand, I don’t know how many other people ever get asked to sign a baby, so maybe I’ve got a leg up on him there.)

I also saw the original Batmobile and Batcycle, plus Boba Fett playing the accordion, Stormtroopers in lingerie, and some epic Lego creations, including a life-size construction of the Incredible Hulk. I even got to shake hands with the real Incredible Hulk (i.e. Lou Ferrigno), as well as the undisputed King of the Four-rounder (i.e. Butterbean), and I passed within six feet of the greatest actor of our time (i.e. Adam West). All in all, a pretty great weekend!