Recently, we asked people through Twitter and Facebook about their favorite bars in the realms of science fiction and fantasy. Notably, while eight of the ten watering holes picked by the Tor.com reading public were fictional, two were real! So, pull up a stool, settle into a glass of Romulan Ale, down a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, and chase the whole mess down with a Butter Beer. SFF bars are open for business.

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Just a quick shout-out to everybody for helping to make the first annual Tor.com Holiday Meetup an unqualified success. Thanks so much to everyone who came out for drinks last night: it was really great to see all the new faces as well as the old friends, and we hope everyone enjoyed themselves as much as we all did! For those of you who require photographic evidence of what a swingin’ good time it was, you can check out Irene Gallo’s pictures here and Patrick Nielsen Hayden’s pics here...see? Fun! Thanks again, happy holidays, and remember to keep an eye on the Events Calendar for more happy-fun-time activities throughout the new year...

Feliz Navidad! Mele Kalikimaka! Klaatu barada eggnog! Whatever...

Fellow New Yorkers, it’s almost time for holiday drinking with the Tor.com team! We’re getting together for Happy Hour upstairs at Revival, 129 East 15th Street, tomorrow night from 6 p.m. until the sexy, proverbial Question Mark...aw, yeah. We’re just going to be hanging out, probably toasting to Misfit Toys, wing-less angels, freaky deaky Red-Nosed Reindeers, scraggly-ass Charlie Brown-style Christmas trees, and other holly-covered rejects, because that’s what the holidays are all about according to TV, and who are we to mess with time-honored televised traditions? You can check out all the details on our shiny new Events Calendar (which you can reach by clicking on the new “Events” link up on the top navigation bar). If you're in the area, please come on by and join us for fun and booze and possibly free stuff, including books, buttons, shirts, and the Terrifying Predictions of The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Well, not so much that last one, but it will be a good time nonetheless...

Also, for Tor.com fans in the Montreal area, the fabulous Jo Walton and friends will be throwing a simultaneous soirée at Les Gateries, 3443, rue St-Denis, Montreal, around the corner from Sherbrooke metro (more info available on the Events Calendar). That’s right: we’re making the party international (if not interplanetary) this year! Because we’re awesome.

As not everybody lives in New York, let’s hold a simultaneous Tor.com holiday meetup in Montreal!

So continue to save Thursday December 18th from 18h00 onwards, but let’s meet up for drinks and delicious snacks in Les Gateries, 3443, rue St-Denis, Montreal, just around the corner from Sherbrooke metro. Come and join our conversations about Anticipation, the rapidly approaching Montreal Worldcon,  books,  publishing, editors, more books,  fandom, Canadian SF, world SF, Candas Jane Dorsay,  Tolkien, H.Beam Piper, American fantasy, books, writing, and what the heck the title of my book should be.¹

We can also raise our glasses across the miles.²

¹ Random sample of recent conversation between actual Montreal resident Tor.com readers. Actual conversation may vary. Contents may settle in shipping. Fnord. Objects in mirror may be later than they appear.

² You can't actually see New York from Montreal even with your glasses on. But it's a friendly thing to do.

Tis’ the season for awesome SciFi-themed drinking with your favorite blogger-types!

Whether you’re gearing up for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Wookiee Life Day, or just attempting to ignore all of the above, if you’re going to be in or around lower Manhattan on December 18th, come on out and join our super-fun geeky debates over the true Greatest Incarnation of The Batman, who would really win the epic battle between Santa Claus and those pesky Martians, and weigh in on the all-important “Heatmeiser versus Snowmeiser” question, all of which will hopefully lead to armwrestling, legwrestling, off-key caroling and other assorted tomfoolery. We’re going to be getting together for drinks at Revival, 129 East 15th Street, from 6 p.m. onward, so stop by and join us for happy hour (and stay for the scintillating conversation—it’ll be just like Twitter, but with real people...fun!) More details to come, but don’t forget to save the date, or you might get stuck at home watching this...

Last Friday night found most of the Tor.com staff piling into cabs in search of a semi-mythical place called Red Hook, where author (and occasional Tor.com blogger) Brian Francis Slattery was throwing a release party for his excellent second novel, Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America.

Red Hook is an odd place: it’s close to Manhattan, but somehow impossible to get to. It’s a secret little pocket of Brooklyn, jutting out into the East River, away from its more thoroughly gentrified neighbors. It’s also the only piece of land in New York that directly faces the Statue of Liberty (since the statue is positioned so that she’s always looking back toward France, her place of origin). Which means that if you want to look Lady Liberty square in the eye, you go to Red Hook—a fact which should seem immediately relevant to anyone familiar with Slattery’s previous novel, Spaceman Blues: A Love Song, or Liberation, both of which can be considered complex, quasi-apocalyptic, multilayered love songs to New York City and to the vast expanse of the America beyond.

[Below the fold, video of Slattery’s performance—sans mullet wigs.]