Locus, July 2014

by Locus Publications

  JAY by J.A. Pitts

  Jay Lake was family. He was one of the very few individuals that I can honestly say I’d walk through fire for. Everyone will tell you how witty he was, how funny, and definitely how extroverted. All of those things are true. But Jay was also introspective and vulnerable in ways that his clown persona was built to hide.

  From the first moment I met Jay, he was ‘‘on stage.’’ I’ve never known a more extroverted individual in my entire life. He was so outgoing and gregarious that he helped drag introverts like me along for the crazy. I remember just watching him at conventions, the daring and fearless way he approached every aspect of his life. He was intimidating and inspiring. But when you got to know him, really sit down with him and experience his true self, there was a level of compassion and need that could fill an ocean. That was the first real spark that solidified our friendship – that moment of vulnerability and heartfelt caring that he shared with me.

  Don’t get me wrong. His outgoing personality was also him, truth be told he was a complex individual who burned bright for too short a time. Jay loved deeply. There was so much passion inside him that he struggled to contain it. As anyone who ever read his blog can attest, he shared his opinions and his insight for all the world so see, whether they liked it or not.

  But he had his moments of doubt. He was always striving to be a better writer, a better friend and above all else, a better parent.

  Jay and I have daughters of the same age. ‘‘The Child’’ has been friends of my family for many years. Jay and I would trade stories, share advice, and commiserate about perceived options and mistakes, all in a hope to do the best we could for our daughters.

  Family was critical to Jay. And for Jay, family was those you invited in, not just those you were born with. Don’t get me wrong, his blood family was vital to Jay, but he invited some of us in to that inner circle, and for that I will always be grateful.

  Jay was a trailblazer and a pathfinder in many ways. He struggled with others perceptions and especially felt wounded on several occasions by others’ misperceptions and assumptions. Jay grew up well outside the perceived normality of American life. His first language wasn’t even English. He was an advocate for individual rights and fair and equitable treatment as human beings. He practiced his belief in diversity and championed the human experience in all its glory and horror. Jay had his flaws, as do we all, but I am honored to have called him brother.

  The one thing I know Jay would want to be remembered for beyond his storytelling, was his compassion and his firm belief in the potential for our species.

  –J.A. Pitts

  JAY by Frank Wu

  Jay Lake was a presence, a force of nature, a tornado of words and ideas and love. His passing tears a hole in my heart and in so many others. He was my friend, though I hadn’t seen him in several years.

  In a lot of ways, we grew up together. We worked the semi-pro markets together. We shared the Hugo/Campbell stage together at Noreascon. We did hair wars. We screamed so loud at World Fantasy that famous writers we hadn’t met yet told us to stop acting like children because they were trying to do business. We did Greetings from Lake Wu together and Jay asked Deb Layne (our publisher) why she picked him to do this, his first story collection. He said he wasn’t famous or important. ‘‘Yes, but you will be,’’ she said. ‘‘You will be.’’

  Jay Lake (1997)

  We played the radio game. We were co-guests-of-honor at more conventions than I can remember. Together we created ‘‘Zombie Lincoln on the Moon’’. We did storywords, wherein I would feed Jay a random word or phrase like ‘‘Ship full of monkeys’’ and then he would make up a story about that. And they were great stories, too. He encouraged me to go into writing, because he said my sensibility was ‘‘gonzo,’’ an encouragement I will never forget. Jay was like that with a lot of people – he had the ‘‘big bus’’ theory. While other writers were possessive of power or fame, he would always say, ‘‘There’s plenty more room on the bus.’’ And so he would encourage new authors, new artists, fledglings trying to break into the genre, not because he would benefit, but because they would.

  My favorite memory of Jay, though, was when we did ‘‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’’ in karaoke. He sang all the complicated words, ‘‘In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby, don’t you know that I love you, ina-gadda-da-vida, baby, don’t you know that I’ll aaaaaaalways be truuuuuuuue…’’ while I sang the funny ones, ‘‘Dah Dah dahdah Da-Dumm Dah Dah Dah,’’ over and over and over. We were so awesome that a bunch of drunk girls asked us to help them sing their songs. That was Jay, helping other people, especially random strangers. I miss him so much. And even though Locus asked for 500 words and this is only 350, I am going to stop writing before I start crying.

  –Frank Wu

  JAY LAKE by Kevin J. Anderson

  Jay told me to my face that he didn’t expect he would last beyond June. When his friend and coauthor Ken Scholes worked with me to get their book METAtropolis: The Wings We Dare Aspire rushed through publication at WordFire Press, he was sure we didn’t have much time.

  Jay died this morning, June 1, after a very long and very public battle with cancer. I am pleased that we were able to get his book out in time, a book that we suspected – but hoped otherwise – would be Jay’s last published in his lifetime. We got a final copy to him in his hospital less than two weeks before he passed away.

  I presented Jay with his Writers of the Future Award in 2003, handing him his trophy in the Beverly Hills Hotel. It was a black-tie affair, in a ballroom crowded with such science fiction luminaries as Robert Silverberg, Anne McCaffrey, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and many others. Jay stood up to receive his award – and gave one of the most moving acceptance speeches I have ever heard.

  Author Services was able to track down the speech from their archives, and I have transcribed a part of it here. This was how Jay Lake said Hello to the professional science fiction field. We all have to say Goodbye in our own way.

  –Kevin J. Anderson

  JAY LAKE’S WRITERS OF THE FUTURE ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

  Story is mother to us all. When Gilgamesh first wrestled Inkidu in Uruk’s dusty streets, someone told that story. When Achilles donned his golden armor and stormed from his tent, someone told that story. When Pontius Pilate nailed a Jewish carpenter to a tree, someone told that story.

  Story is who we are, the grain of sand lodged in the imagination of all human culture. Today we tell tales through the written word. The need to read is an itch in the mind of everyone in this room. Sometimes that irritant becomes a pearl of the imagination, the need to write. Like a pharoah’s cursed jewel, that pearl has a great price, wondrous and complex. This week I have been shown new ways to tell a story, shown different visions of things I thought I already knew, shown things I had never known. My pearl shines all the brighter for it.

  –Jay Lake, Writers of the Future ceremony, Beverly Hills 2003

  Return to In This Issue listing.

  OTHER OBITUARIES

  Australian SF writer PHILIPPA MADDERN, 62, died June 16, 2014 of cancer. Her story ‘‘The Ins and Outs of the Hadhya City State’’ won a Ditmar committee award in 1977. Other stories include ‘‘Ignorant of Magic’’ (1977), ‘‘The Pastseer’’ (1981), and ‘‘Things Fall Apart’’ (1988).

  Philippa Catherine ‘‘Pip’’ Maddern was born in Albury, New South Wales, Australia in 1952. She attended a writing workshop in 1975 taught by Ursula K. Le Guin. She studied the University of Melbourne, where she earned a BA and MA, and took a doctorate at Oxford. Her thesis was published as Violence and Social Order: East Anglia 1422-1442 (1992). She was a renowned scholar of late medieval English history and of Australian medieval and early modern history. She taught at the University of Western Australia, chairing the history department and serving as head of the School of Humanities.

  Return to In This Issue listing.

  EDITORIAL MATTERS

  The last week has
been loaded with drama, large and small. The least of which was my computer dying completely and my struggle to purchase the right hard-drive reader for it so I can save those last few days of work, which I hadn’t backed up. Grr. Still getting there. The week capped off yesterday, the day before deadline, when there was a four-alarm brush fire in the Oakland hills about two miles down the hill from Locus headquarters. We could smell the smoke and hear the helicopters flying overhead, and visions of the 1991 firestorm swept wildly through my head. I wandered through the office, depleting my adrenalin stores by worrying, prioritizing pieces of SF art and signed books in my head, and all the while knowing that if the fire really started to move, it would just be about making sure the staff made it out safely. The top of the hill is a lovely place to work, but like all places, comes with its own dangers, and fire is a big one for us. Not because it is frequent, but because it can be devastating. The fire department contained it relatively quickly, but I still felt nervous leaving the office for the night. This morning when I was parking in the carport I caught myself thinking, ‘‘Hey, Locus is still here!’’ Makes the computer dying seem easier to deal with, certainly.

  Adam Rakunas, John Klima, Barry Goldblatt

  JAY LAKE

  Jay Lake was one of the most vibrant people I’ve ever known, a fact that I am having a very hard time reconciling with his recent death. Our friendship’s native habitat was at conventions, and as a result it will probably not fully sink in for a long time that I won’t have any more long conversations with him, full of sundry details about his life or his plans for his next book or stories about his daughter, of whom he was so proud. That I won’t hear his voice or his laugh at a party and turn around to look for him and give him a hug.

  Liza Groen Trombi, Jay Lake

  He was colorful in all the ways that can describe a person, his personality, his appearance, his writing, his experiences…. He befriended people easily, and made clear efforts to balance his day job with his incredibly prolific writing and raising his daughter well. He tried to find wisdom in the world around him and that made him a kind friend and counsel. He would talk late into the night and had no inhibitions about telling the private and entertaining details of his life. He lived his life fully. Vale, Jay. You were a friend to the field, and a friend to me. We are less without you.

  THIS ISSUE/NEXT ISSUE

  Helping us out this month with the magazine is our annual Orion Academy intern; this year it is Richard Remley. He’s hardworking and clever, well suited for our kind of work. We are still looking for year-round help, if anyone is interested in volunteering at the office in Oakland, on a part-time or temporary basis. We specifically are looking for folks to help with scanning photos and back issues of the magazine, and administrative or marketing work; we are happy to train willing and able volunteers. Contact us at if you are interested.

  Jeff VanderMeer came by the office on his Southern Reach book tour and we recorded the interview we’re running now, and Francesca Myman interviewed K.W. Jeter in Brighton last year during World Fantasy. They seemed a good interview pairing, and we hope you enjoy it! VanderMeer’s third in the Southern Reach trilogy will be out in September of this year; he promised it will all come together in the third book. Promised.

  We’ve also got the results from the Locus Awards in this issue, and because of the date of the awards, had to tell the printer to mail out the issues two days later than normal so we didn’t give the winners away too soon. There is still a rumor around that we tell all the winners in advance, which is a constant source of confusion for the finalists. We stopped telling the winners automatically about seven years ago– really. The next issue will have all the photos and the weekend report. Hope we had fun! We also have planned interviews with Ian McDonald and Ann Leckie for the August issue, and all of our usual news and reviews.

  And because I can, I am including a photo from my trip to Psycho Donuts in San Jose during the Nebula Awards Weekend with Adam Rakunas, John Klima, and Barry Goldblatt (Jenn Reese and I not pictured), the nearby foodie spot du jour for the attendees. I know a few people hit that place at least once a day… You know who you are.

  One last thing, as sad as losing Daniel Keyes is, that photo of Gary Wolfe and Dede Weil’s wedding party at ICFA is particularly joyful, and I’m very happy to have it in the magazine again. Charles loved to talk about that day. Tuxedos with shorts! And Brian Aldiss is wearing a t-shirt that says, ‘‘Hey, I’m giving Dede away!’’ Oh, ICFA.

  Next up is Readercon in Burlington MA. See you there!

  –Liza Groen Trombi

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  Return to In This Issue listing.

  CORRECTIONS

  In our June obituary for William H. Patterson, Jr., we stated that he had worked on the ‘‘failed 1978 Phoenix Worldcon bid.’’. This was in error. The 1978 Phoenix Worldcon bid was a success. It was the 1978 Westercon bid which was unsuccessful.

  Return to In This Issue listing.

  PHOTO LIST

  Jeff VanderMeer (FM)

  K.W. Jeter (FM)

  Jay Lake (F/BL)

  Daniel Keyes (F/JMT)

  Francesca Myman, Jay Lake, Liza Groen Trombi, Tim Pratt & Heather Shaw, Nancy Schaadt (FM)Paul Park (LT)

  Sheila Finch (F/SR)

  William H. Patterson (F/GR)

  Anne Bishop (F/MLD)

  Daniel Keyes, 1997 (BG)

  Joan Gordon, Judith Clute, Brian Aldiss, Veronica Hollinger, Charles N. Brown, Rusty Hevelin, Joe & Gay Haldeman, Stephen R. Donaldson, Dede Weil, Daniel Keyes, Gary K. Wolfe, John Clute, David G. Hartwell (BG)

  Jeff VanderMeer (FM)

  Tobias Buckell (LT)

  Hilary Mantel (F/JH)

  Seanan McGuire (FM)

  Robert J. Sawyer (F/SP)

  Greg Bear (FM)

  John Clute (AB)

  Sarah Pinsker (F/CJH)

  David Pomerico (SE)

  Marcel Theroux (F/CJH)

  Cory Doctorow (F/JI)

  Joe & Gay Haldeman, José Carlos Somoza (GH)

  Joe Haldeman, Armando S. Salinas, Francisco G. Haghenbeck, Jose Luis Zárate, Gerardo H. Porcayo (GH)

  Marina Taibo (GH)

  Luis Britto García (GH)

  Francisco G. Haghenbeck, Armando S. Salinas (GH)

  Alberto Chimal, José Luis Zárate (GH)

  Paloma Saiz Tejera, Paco Ignacio Taibo II (GH)

  Joshua Bilmes (LT)

  Ginger Clark (F/LR)

  Eileen Gunn, Andrea Hairston, L. Timmel Duchamp (F/KOH)

  N.K. Jemisin (F/MAM)

  Hiromi Goto (F/TDP)

  David Edison, Emily Jiang, Lisa Lou, Marco Palmieri (F/MP)

  Lara Donnelly, Ruby Katigbak (F/MP)

  Valya Lupescu, Nancy Hightower (F/VL)

  Meghan McCarron, Liz Gorinsky (F/KM)

  Haddayr Copley-Woods, Karen Meisner (F/HCW)

  Mikki Kendall, N.K. Jemisin, Chesya Burke (F/CAB)

  Eleanor Arnason, Sarah Tolmie, L. Timmel Duchamp, Jenn Brissett, Nancy Jane Moore (F/AHS)

  K. Tempest Bradford, Benjamin Rosenbaum (F/EK)

  Nene Ormes, Mary Ann Mohanraj (F/NO)

  Steven H Silver, Ellen Klages (FM)

  Vivian Perry, Gregory Benford, Cynthia Geno (FM)

  Diana Paxson & Jon
DeCles (FM)

  Connie Willis, Tad Williams (FM)

  Samuel R. Delany (LT)

  Nicola Griffith & Kelley Eskridge (FM)

  Nancy Kress & Jack Skillingstead (FM)

  Linda & Ron Nagata (FM)

  Kate Baker, Liza Groen Trombi (FM)

  Salem Evans, Alan Beatts & Jude Feldman, Chris Hsiang, Carl Ueber (FM)

  Andrew Trembly & Kevin Roche (FM)

  Sarah Pinsker, Sylvia Spruck Wrigley, Laurel Amberdine, Bennett Madison (FM)

  Christie Yant & John Joseph Adams (FM)

  David Findlay & Nalo Hopkinson (FM)

  Valerie Green Schoen & Lawrence M. Schoen (FM)

  Kyle Alsteach, Deborah J. Ross, Ron Davis, Robin Wayne Bailey (FM)

  Shahid Mahmud, Andrea Stewart, Jerimiah Honer (FM)

  Sandy Swirsky, Rachel Swirsky, Lyle Merithew, Johanna Hoyt, Ken Liu (FM)

  Francesca Myman, David Edison (FM)

  Adam Rakunas, Heather Shaw, Jenn Reese (FM)

  Sofia Samatar, Lynne M. Thomas (FM)

  K. Dawn Plaskon, Cindy Scott (FM)

  Rina Weisman, Terry Bisson, Daryl Gregory, Samuel R. Delany (LT)

  Jed Hartman, Liza Groen Trombi (FM)

  Cat Rambo, Ann Leckie (FM)

  Anne Leonard, Emily Jiang (FM)

  Carl Engle-Laird, Trevor Quachri (FM)

  Paul Goodman, Erin Cashier (FM)

  Jennifer Hsyu, Gregory Norman Bossert (FM)

  Pat Diggs, Ysabeau Wilce (FM)

  John Klima, Jaym Gates, Jim Minz (FM)

  Steven Gould, Scott Edelman, Stanley Schmidt (FM)

  Vylar Kaftan & Shannon Prickett (FM)

  Helen Pilinovsky, Veronica Schanoes, David G. Hartwell (ED)

  Larry Niven, Bud Sparhawk, Charles E. Gannon (FM)

  Andy Duncan, Jennifer Brehl (ED)

  Rudy Rucker, Daniel Marcus (FM)

  Sheila Williams, Jill Roberts (FM)

  Andrew Penn Romine, Sunil Patel, Caroline Ratajski, Jaym Gates, Barry Goldblatt (FM)

  Carrie Sessarego, Helene Wecker (FM)

  Michael A. Armstrong, Vincent Jorgensen, Tom LeFevre (FM)