Fangs, hipsters, and a drop through the Stratosphere Mario here:

It's one week to Mile Hi Con 44 and Biting-Edge will be there all weekend. Besides lots of fantastic panels, catch our Author Guest of Honor Cherie Priest and Toastmaster Stephen Graham Jones at the Friday night Hipster Reading...with Bongos. Get the details from this great flyer, courtesy of artist pal Eric Matelski.


Dog Fight! The 2012 Authors Invitational Photo Dog Fight organized by Casey Halloway. Monday, my family's Shiba Inu, Scout, goes muzzle-to-muzzle with the mutt from Em Petrova. Grrrr! Go to the DOG FIGHT and vote for your favorite pooch, which is Scout, of course.







I do some ghost-writing on the side and one book that I had a hand in was The Natanz Directive, (Thomas Dunne Books) by Fox News security analyst Wayne Simmons and local author Mark Graham (who hired me). The hero of this thriller, Jake Conlin, is called back to active duty and sent to Iran on a black ops assignment to stop nuclear Armageddon. The book is getting strong reviews and features Jake Conlin doing a very macho high-altitude parachute drop that would've done Felix Baumgartner proud.











You're invited. Bonnie Biafore will be reading from and signing copies of her hilarious, Tim Dorsey-esque dumb criminals novel, Fresh Squeezed. Wednesday, 6-8:30PM at Hanson's Grill and Tavern, Denver.









I found this amazing blog Comic Crits where John the blogger writes (or is it draws?)  reviews of books in comic panel form. Here's a sample of his amazing work:

Labels: Cherie Priest, Mark Graham, MileHiCon, Scout, Shiba Inu, Stephen Graham Jones, Wayne Simmons

  ¶ posted by Mario Acevedo @ 8:57 PM  2 comments

  The future, the past, and some naked flesh Mario here:





Spent the weekend at Starfest 2011.
Besides the usual costume zaniness and excuse to watch a lotta skin...






I put in time with my new pals at Comicfest...




and at Horrorfest presented alongside werewolf/YA/dragon author Carrie Vaughn...




and "I Love Horror" Stephen Graham Jones.









This year I noticed a dearth of pirate and Klingon costumes and an explosion of Steampunk. Three years ago at another con, several authors groaned about this thing called Steampunk and couldn't wait for it to die.
No one was sure what to make of Steampunk other than it gave costumers a chance to wear goggles and tiny hats and sew brass gears to their clothes. Here we are in 2011 and Steampunk keeps getting more omnipresent with ever more fanciful gadgets:



As an opportunity for a fantasy S&M twist:














And yet another occasion for a femme fatale, in this case Aimee Matheny of the Colorado Chrononauts, to lure the too-willing man to the shoals of self destruction. *guilty*


Catch Aimee in this 9News clip.


Steampunk has evolved into two sects, as it were: the English Victorian and the American Western, each embellished with tropes of the genre: corsets, electro-guns, robots, absinthe, and of course, airships:






While everyone seems to be in agreement about the aesthetics of Steampunk, the literature not so much. Most of the Steampunkers I talked with expressed disappointment in the state of steampunk prose--lots of gimmicks and bling but not enough substance. A few names topped our discussions as the exceptional writers in the genre: Cherie Priest, Scott Westergard, and China Mieville.

Labels: Carrie Vaughn, Starfest, Steampunk, Stephen Graham Jones

  ¶ posted by Mario Acevedo @ 3:39 PM  6 comments

  Whadda ya want unda the Xmas tree?

Labels: Christmas, Jessie Bullington, Juliet Blackwell, Stephen Graham Jones

  ¶ posted by Mario Acevedo @ 7:27 PM  7 comments