This is a job for RoboChuck

Vladimir Putin continues to distinguish himself as an 80’s Action Movie Bad Guy. Let me count the ways:

First, he gets his ninth degree black belt in Taekwondo, outranking Chuck Norris’s eighth dan. Anyone who challenges Chuck Norris is almost by definition an 80’s Action Movie Bad Guy.

Still not convinced? Consider this: Putin uses the same Soviet supersoldier stretching techniques as Ivan Drago from Rocky IV.

When the BBC and CNN finally get onto this story, just remember, you heard it here first.

Second, Putin decides he wants the Crimea, even though he can only hurt his own cause by taking it. He’s not a dumb guy; he has to know he stands almost nothing to gain, and he was certain to suffer personally and politically just for attempting the annex. Sort of like the execs at Omni Consumer Products deciding to manufacture RoboCops even though all of their other activities are illegal.

Yesterday Putin sank from evil to almost comical. In a move worthy of a Naked Gun bad guy, he conscripted dolphins into his army so he could train them to kill human beings. I swear to you this is not a joke. Get his: he took them from disabled children to remilitarize them.

And today Putin called a meeting with (I am not making this up) Steven Seagal, to talk about (I am not making this up) reinstating Joseph Stalin’s favorite nationwide fitness program. In Uncle Joe’s day it involved throwing fake grenades. Today, presumably, it will include what passes for aikido when taught by an action star not aging well enough to show up in an Expendables movie. Says Seagal (and I’m not making this up either): “I know him well enough to know that he is one of the greatest world leaders, if not the greatest world leader alive.”

So here’s the movie I want to see: Chuck Norris, blown half to bits by a brainwashed, bomb-toting Russian dolphin, gets fitted with an invincible armored exoskeleton and goes to challenge an Evil Russian Dictator to hand-to-hand combat. But he fights bodyguard Steven Seagal first. Soundtrack by Harold Faltermeyer, of course. Hollywood, call me. You know this will kick ass.

A book of firsts

Happy Pub Day! Yes, I know St. Patrick’s Day was yesterday, but I’m talking about a different kind of pub. The US release of The Time Traveler’s Almanac drops today, and Yours Truly has a story in there. This book is a first for me in many ways:

• My first reprint sale. My story in this volume, “The Most Important Thing in the World,” first appeared in Asimov’s, and the VanderMeers liked it well enough to bring it back. (From the past. Into the present. Like a traveler through... well, you get it.)

• My first OMG TOC. This table of contents is amazing. It’s the 1927 Yankees of science fiction: H.G. Wells, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, George R.R. Martin, William Gibson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ted Sturgeon, Tanith Lee... well, the list goes on. And I’m on the list. Crazy.
• My first book trailer. Not my trailer, really, since it’s not my book. But I’m in there, dammit, and it has a trailer. You can watch it by clicking the link

• My first book heavy enough to use for home self defense. Burglars beware: this thing packs a wallop like Jean Claude Van Damme.
• My first book of required reading. If you know anyone who likes sci-fi and fantasy, this is on their birthday wish list. For reals.

• The first book I’d actually prefer to read on an e-reader. I’m a huge fan of my Kindle, but I’ve never lost that nostalgic love for the feeling of paper in my hands. This book is hefty enough to become the first exception. I’ll still keep it on the nightstand, but it’s to beat up intruders.

Here she is again!

Okay, so I just got this photo from Chris McGrath, who does the cover art for the Fated Blades. The beautiful woman with the mischievous grin is Sayuri Oyamada, a model and actress from Niigata, Japan, who is the cover model for Year of the Demon. Isn’t she great?

Here she is!

I have been sitting on this for months! It feels like forever ago that I got a sneak peek at the cover art for Disciple of the Wind. I loved it. Not long after that, I got my signed print from Chris McGrath, which I loved even more. (I have a growing collection of art associated with my work. Chris is the most illustrious* contributor. He and I exchange autographs, his on prints, mine on novels.)

Anyway, ever since I saw it, I’ve been holding my breath, waiting for the green light from Penguin so I could share the cover art with you. And here it is! Shoot me a reply on Facebook and let me know what you think!

* See what I did there?

Sweet Home Chicago Comic Con

I am confirmed for 2014’s Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, aka C2E2, aka Chicago Comic Con. This is hands down my favorite public event. I enjoyed New York Comic Con, but 100,000+ people in three days was a little much. Chicago is a much more manageable 35,000+ over three days -- still a madhouse, but it doesn’t make you want to start screaming and throwing elbows.

My dates aren’t confirmed yet but I’ll post ‘em when I have ‘em. In the meantime, you can visit C2E2’s web site to see who else is coming. There are already some big names on the docket, including the man who meant more to my childhood than Santa Claus. That’s right, Stan Lee. Creator of Spider Man and his Amazing Friends, perhaps the most important children’s literature of the 2oth century. Definitely the most important children’s literature on Saturday mornings in 1982.

Free cookies! And a drug bust.

This Monday (12/9) marks a first for me: I’m doing a reading and signing at the State University of New York-Geneseo. It’s not the first event for Year of the Demon. It’s certainly not my first speaking event on a university campus; in fact, it’s not even my first event on Geneseo’s campus. But up until now, every time I’ve spoken in an academic setting, it’s always been about my academic work. This will be the first time I’ll speak on a college campus about my fiction.

I must say this is an event worth attending. Milne Library’s cookie platters are to die for. I’ll talk a bit about my writing process, and about how Year of the Demon is the book I never thought I’d write. Then I’ll do a reading (this is where the drug bust comes in) and some Q&A.

If you can make it, I’d love to see you on Monday afternoon, December 9th, from 3:30-5:30 on the main floor of Milne Library. You don’t have to be affiliated with Geneseo to attend. (In fact if you’re not a Genesean, you get the best parking spots. That’s how courteous we are toward our guests around here. Plus we have cookies.)

Edited to add: My heartfelt thanks to everyone who came out to the library yesterday! I think the event was a big success -- and Milne stepped up its game on the dessert platter. Mini-cheesecake-cupcakes!

Word of the year: Selfie

The Oxford dictionary word of 2013 is “selfie.” I just want to point out that while the word may be new, the self-snapped self-portrait goes way, way back:

Top five!

This week’s issue of Library Journal lists their picks for the best novels of the year. I was thrilled to see their top five in sci-fi and fantasy includes Year of the Demon! Here’s what they had to say in their starred review:

Bein’s sequel to Daughter of the Sword adds new complications to Mariko’s story and opens a window onto modern Japanese culture as seen through the eyes of its crime fighters.... Vibrant and unforgettable characters combine with Japanese history and fast-paced action to create an urban fantasy for fans of Asian culture. (LJ 10/15/13)



Reading the rest of the list, I see I’m in honored company. Surely the most notable is Stephen R. Donaldson, whose The Last Dark is the tenth and final volume of the Thomas Covenant series. Those books have been making best-of-the-year lists since 1977. And I’m very pleased to see The Golden City on the list too! It’s the debut novel from my friend J. Kathleen Cheney. Go J!

Free books!

Fantasy Book Critic is giving away not one but two free books: Daughter of the Sword AND Year of the Demon. Visit their web site here to enter. The contest closes on December 6th.

Diana Rowland says she's "utterly addicted!"

The latest review of Year of the Demon comes from someone who knows a thing or two about demons: Diana Rowland. Here’s what she had to say:

I am utterly addicted to this series! Steve Bein avoids sophomore slump with brilliant ease in this sequel to Daughter of the Sword, and continues to surprise and captivate with exquisite tension and terrific characters in an amazingly well-crafted mystery. I can’t wait for the next one!

Thanks, Diana! And to everyone else, if you don’t know Diana’s work, you should. Click here to visit her web site, where you will find she has many more “of the Demon” books than I have. The heroine of that series, Kara Gillian, is a cop who’s also a demon summoner. If that’s not a good enough reason to pick up one of her books, I don’t know what is.

Rocky IV Part II?

Okay, so Vladimir Putin -- as in Russian President Vladimir Putin -- has just been awarded a ninth-degree black belt in taekwondo. That means Grand Master Putin now outranks Chuck Norris. I swear I am not making this up; here’s the article from the BBC.

Obviously Chuck can’t take this lying down. I can’t help but think of Rocky IV, where Rocky Balboa goes to fight the pride of the Soviet Union, Ivan Drago. And like Drago, Putin has considerable combat training, including a black belt in judo. (Here’s a video clip from the DVD with the best title ever, Let’s Learn Judo with Vladimir Putin.)

Unlike Drago, Vladimir Putin is not a roid monster and has never beaten Carl Weathers to death. But as you can see in these images, both men employ the same Soviet supersoldier stretching techniques.

I can only hope that Chuck Norris is in a barn in Siberia right now, doing Pilates or running through the snow with a tree trunk on his back. Preferably with Survivor singing some kind of training montage song. That’s what it will take for an aging underdog fighter with a lowly eighth dan to defeat one of the most powerful men in the world. After that, maybe Putin can be the bad guy in The Expendables 3.

Happy Pub Day!

Only A Shadow comes out in audiobook format today! I’m excited to listen to it; this one has a new narrator I haven’t heard before.

By the way, thanks to everyone who came out to Barnes & Noble about a week ago. I’ve just scheduled the next public event of Year of the Demon. I’ll be doing a reading at 3:30 on December 9th in Milne Library, which is located on the campus of SUNY-Geneseo. The event is not limited to Geneseo students only, and in fact if you’re not a student, staff member, or faculty member at Geneseo, you get really good parking spots. So if you’re in that neck of the woods on the afternoon of the 9th, please do stop by.

Milne is also hosting a Celebrate Geneseo Authors event on November 20th. Guests of honor are all those Geneseo scholars who have published academic work in the last year. (Some 50 faculty and more than 30 students!) I’ll be there because of Compassion and Moral Guidance, not for the Fated Blades.

I highly recommend the event to everyone who likes university life and to everyone who likes dessert. Last year’s cookie tray was to die for.

Year of the Demon's first public event!

I’m happy to announce the first public event celebrating the release of Year of the Demon. I’m doing a reading and signing in Rochester, Minnesota, at the Barnes & Noble in Apache Mall. If you’re in the area, it would be great to see you. Last year I autographed someone’s baby. I don’t know how we’re going to top that this year, but let’s give it a shot!

Come on down to Barnes & Noble on Saturday, November 2, starting at 3:00. I’ll sign your book, your offspring, or... well, we’ll see, won’t we?

Samurai vs. Knight?

Historians, medieval re-enactors, and D&D players have been wondering about this one for a long time: who would win in a one-on-one fight, the samurai or the knight in shining armor? At long last, someone with credibility as a swordsman and historian of sword combat has dared to speculate. Here is John Clement’s take on the subject.

And while you’re at it, click here check out his analysis of the katana compared to the fencing sword.

Gravity

So far I’ve been unimpressed with Hollywood’s movement toward 3D movies. The 3D effects spoil my suspense of disbelief much more often than they suck me in to the story. Thor throws his hammer at a giant and all of a sudden it’s coming at me, knocking me right out of the world of the film and back into my seat in the theater. Illusion shattered. Magic dispelled.

Don’t get me wrong. I liked Thor. I just didn’t like it in 3D. As near as I can tell, there are only two directors who understand what the 3D tech is for: Werner Herzog and Alfonso Cuarón.

Cuarón’s Gravity opens with a 17-minute single take, panning from the Earth to a space station to the astronauts space-walking around it, a shot that The Onion’s A.V. Club calls “one of the great feats of modern special effects.” That’s a bold claim if ever there was one, but I’ve got to say it’s the most memorable single take since the iconic opening shot of Star Wars.

I adore this movie. Not everyone will. A certain cynic who is very close to me summed up the plot as, “Bad things keep happening to Sandra Bullock.” That’s not altogether wrong (though I’d point out that it’s pretty hard to tell a good story if nothing bad happens to your protagonist). But in the case of Gravity, it’s not just bad things; it’s jaw-dropping special effects that -- because Cuarón actually understands what 3D is for -- feel completely real.

And that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? To draw us in so deeply that we forget we’re sitting in a theater? Gravity will do that for you. See this one on the biggest screen you can get to.

Happy Pub Day!

Happy Pub Day! Year of the Demon hits shelves today, and I’m pleased to say it has been meeting with some very nice reviews. All Things Urban Fantasy called it “excellent” and likened my work to that of James Clavell -- the highest of high praise, in my opinion, because Clavell is one of my all-time favorites. (The reviewer’s too. Good taste, ATUF!)

This reviewer made one comment that I found especially flattering, despite the fact that technically it’s a warning against reading my novels:

Since I’m writing this review for All Things Urban Fantasy I almost feel as if I should warn folks that this is very much not your typical urban fantasy. The magic in this world is ancient and subtle and very much not front and center like most novels of the genre. I hope that doesn’t scare off curious readers because that is very much a good thing. In a field that lends itself so often to copycat rehash novels of whatever trope is currently popular it is fantastic to find a novel that doesn’t use any of them.

So yeah, no fireball spells illuminating the streets of Tokyo. You’ll have to live with LEDs and neon. But I think there’s enough action front and center to keep you turning pages while that ancient, subtle magic does its thing.

More Fated Blades!

I’m very happy to report that I’ve closed a deal with Roc for the third book in the Fated Blades series. Also, it’s official that Year of the Demon will be released in mass market paperback in the fall of 2014 -- timed to herald the release of the third book in the series, no doubt. More swordplay for all!

So I kinda forgot what country I'm in...

This weekend I decided to re-read Neal Stephenson’s REAMDE. The first time I read this book, I decided that if I ever teach a fiction writing class, this will be the textbook on rising stakes. I’ve never read anything quite like it. It starts off nice and slow -- almost boring. You meet some interesting characters. They draw you in. Then things get swiftly worse for them. It becomes a study in what Donald Maass calls “microtension”: line by line, page by page, you’re drawn along. And since you’re so caught up in it, you figure you know what the book is about.

Then, in one line -- my Kindle tells me 27% of the way through -- everything changes. Personal stakes become global. Every character you thought was embroiled in an unholy shitstorm turns out to be in the eye of that storm. As bad as things have been getting -- and they’ve been getting worse from one page to the next -- they all look easy compared to what happens next. By 30% everything is much, much worse, and the tension keeps mounting from there.

But here’s what really got me today. I’m flying to from Rochester Minnesota to Rochester, New York -- small airports, so small planes, much like the planes Stephenson’s characters have been flying around in. Some of these characters have flown to Xiamen, a tiny island off the coast of Taiwan. Stephenson goes in to loving detail describing the urban sprawl, so much so that when I got off my plane, and got onto the highway, I was surprised to see all the signs and billboards and license plates in English. Some part of my brain expected to see them in Chinese.

A great book can make me forget where I am for a while, but that doesn’t take me into the book itself; it just makes me forget that I’m in my hammock, that I’m thirsty, that I’ve been cultivating a kink in my neck for a few hours. I’m transported, but I’m transported to nowhere -- outside of my body, away from everything other than reading. I don’t know that a book has ever transported me so completely that I forgot what continent I’m on.

So yeah, read REAMDE.

This just in

I had two big boxes waiting for me on my doorstep today. I knew what they were the instant I saw them: my copies of Year of the Demon, hot off the press. They look spectacular -- and of course you can have yours the day it comes out if you pre-order it now.

Daughter is back, with a Demon on her heels!

Daughter of the Sword hits shelves today, this time in mass market paperback. Especially exciting for me -- and maybe for you, too -- is the fact that your first glimpse of Year of the Demon hits the shelves at the same time. Look at the very end of the new Daughter and you’ll find the first chapter of Year of the Demon.