Of Strains, Avatars, Silent Hills, and more

I thought to write a post regarding why I celebrate Christmas despite  a marked lack of Christian Faith, but decided that would be boring.  So instead, a smorgasboard of comments on various genre-related items...

• Currently reading the Guillermo Del Toro, Chuck Hogan book, The Strain.  It is a fun, page-turny read that reminds me of a lot of other vampire books.  Not an original, but well-executed.  I notice that the buildup of this sort of book is so much more rewarding than the eventual reveal, but it is compelling reading and --for my money-- I will take the evil monstrous vamps over the romantic rockstar variety any day of the week.
• I saw Avatar and find my opinion somewhere between the gushing reviews and the pretty harsh assessment such as that offered by some of the guys over at Aintitcoolnews.com.  Yes, this is pretty 2D character development to match the stunning 3D visual.  Disappointing but in keeping with standard genre fare.  So, I'd rate Avatar a perfectly fine SF entertainment.  I missed the similarity having not seen the cartoon, but apparently it has the same basic plot of Ferngully.  Add a sprinkle of Dances with Wolves, a dab of every other Cameron movie to date, and a dollop of Nausica, and... you have something that should be so much more terrible than it is.  Oh, and hokey and laughable as the scene is, there is only one thing more sexy than Michelle Rodriguez, and that's Michelle Rodriguez with warrior face paint.  In a helicopter.  With face paint on the helicopter, too.  Yeah.
  
• Silent Hill: Shattered Memories on the Wii is a great game.  It has flaws, in particular the exploration sequences and the 'run like hell from the scary monsters time' are separated in such a way that tension is very much relieved during the former.  That's too bad.  But I have to give credit for a Resident Evil 4-like attempt to redefine the genre.  And after getting over that disappointment, there remains a creepy narrative to experience that is structured around flashforwards to a therapy session where one's answers change some of the visuals in the game.  It makes for a surprisingly sophisticated entertainment, big-boobed policewoman aside.
• Despite some luke-warm reviews, I'm still interested in the new Final Fantasy game for Wii, Crystal Bearers.  When will Square-Enix release a proper FF game on this console?  Between FF6,7,9, & 10 you have the mechanics and visuals for a perfect FF experience that is workable on Nintendo's console.  The reason these other efforts sell so poorly is because they are half-hearted and watered down.  Targetted to an audience.  Give the Wii crowd a proper FF experience and they will come.  Crystal Bearers is the closest so far.
• Jeff Vandermeer's Finch is the most odd book to become so successful.  Deservedly so: it is a great read.  I am still reading through it (bad habit of reading multiple books), and it just struck me how crazy-strange that story is going to be to the average reader who picks it up based on the cover quotes from many fairly straight mystery or SF writers.  
• I read a lot of old SF&F in 2009, Vance, Lieber, LeGuin.  Read all the Vatta's War books from Elizabeth Moon, and a few of the higher-profile genre books (Mieville, Gaimen) and some out-of-genre NYTBSL-types such as The Alienist and The Descent.  I've developed a great appreciation for the fun and wonder of those old SF&F novels,  as well as that page-turni-ness that I mentioned earlier.  I suspect that those two elements could go a long way toward a writer finding success.  But there is another quality that might be necessary to see a writer's work live past a season on the book shelf, and it is simply a depth and sincerity that is lacking in by-the-numbers efforts.  I don't think page-turni-ness precludes that quality, but achieving both is probably a challenge.  And that's not to downplay good ol' sense of wonder.

No technology (or industry) lasts forever...

Image via Wikipedia

Slate has a post covering an interview (that originally appeared in Newsweek) with Amazon's Jeff Bezos, in which he says:

"...the physical book really has had a 500-year run. It's probably the most successful technology ever. It's hard to come up with things that have had a longer run. If Gutenberg were alive today, he would recognize the physical book and know how to operate it immediately. Given how much change there has been everywhere else, what's remarkable is how stable the book has been for so long. But no technology, not even one as elegant as the book, lasts forever."

I first saw reference to the article and quote over at Gizmodo where they snark in reference to the Kindle:

"A dedicated device for reading? Sounds like a shorter shelf life than books."

A related discussion started over on Ed Gorman's blog, where he honestly wonders about the whole eBook think, while some of the comments from his readers appear outright hostile toward Kindle, ebooks, and both the readers and writers/publishers who go that route.

While I agree with some of the gist of those comments, that a lot of crap gets 'published' to ebook formats (Kindle and otherwise) and POD, I don't think the answer is to shy away from these new technologies.  And Gizmodo has a great point regarding the Kindle-meme and its shelf life.

Hopefully nothing will replace the book in a meaningful way that is not as open as the book as a platform.  Which really means open formats.  Keep the formats open so everyone can offer up their version of the book-killer and we'll all be fine.  Give us ebooks and print on demand and let the old industry fall if it cannot adapt.  The Editorial process will continue as people who care and have the savvy strive to create the best fiction outlets in this evolving ecology.

I kind of like the idea that many of those efforts I mention at Gorman's blog (GUD, M-Brane SF, and so many more) might in some small way play the role of Adam Rieth to the Dirdur, Chasch, Pnume, and Wankh of the existing publishing world.

And not because I want an easy route for unknown writers such as myself. Many of the existing barriers to publication are artificial, which will go away.  Editorial acumen will assert itself and all will be well in that regard (though I'm sure Sturgeon's Law will continue to apply)... But the real reason to applaud the demise  of a monolithic publishing industry into a fragmented and varied network of smaller operations --in the music scene, that's been referred to as 'indie'-- is because the alternative is for the Bezos of the world to control an even more monolithic publishing industry.  And as technophilic as I am, and totally onboard with the whole ebook thang, I know that someone who wants their gadget to  REPLACE THE FREAKING B-O-O-K is not the guy, or even the species of dude (or gal) to pilot this one.

Ahem.

Keep the formats open, let the street-cred for the editorial-types who know their stuff run wild, and we'll all get through this togather.  Promise.  Unless you want to do things the old way.  And unless you want to turn your device into the One effing Ring.  Then, well, good luck.

Just in case...

Just in case anyone reading here isn't reading the Aether Age blog, there's a new post about Chameleon Chamber Group's official post re: their soundtrack for the anthology.  Check it out.

I don't read sport illustrated, but...

The video is pretty impressive.  My only fear is that text content gets more and more marginalized by other medias as the tablets kill off the ebook readers.

I LIKE the idea of a delivery mechanism that brings content to the consumer in all its glossy, high-color glory.  I don't like the idea of magazine morphing into, essentially, dynamic websites that cost me money to access.  And the content producers and their hardware counterparts who go that route will fail.

And... Apple, Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, Sony, Microsoft: Who is going to pony, get a clue, and bring in the cream of the genre zines into some central hub of sorts?  It is ready-made content for your device.  It is high-quality stuff... not only are the people making it now doing it simply for the love --because small press short fic just doesn't pay a whole lot--, but it goes through an editorial process ensuring that it is the good stuff.

No one reads any more?  Show me Brain Harvest on the Apple Tablet when it comes out, coupled with some slick cover graphics and maybe a quick audial blurb, and watch the new in thing begin.  Same for M-Brane or GUD,  Ideomancer or any of a number of other quality operations. 

And the truth is, if I had such a device, I --already a genre reader-- would read more.  My laptop is too bulky to carry with me for casual reading.  And my Pre, despite my affection for the device, is a poor reading device with the current software offered.

Or at the very least, make the road to publication on these devices a clear path, and such that a non-programmer could implement with relative ease.

Yeah... just some thoughts.

Gandhi's Plague Breaks Outs at Everyday Weirdness, Dec 14th

I've sold my short-short, Gandhi's Plague, to Everyday Weirdness.  This is my second story to appear over there, so very cool to get the repeat business.  :)

This story is set in the same universe as my story Things We Are Not...  from the M-Brane SF anthology of the same name.  My first attempt to write about this world came in a series of snippets I called 20 Invocations in homage to the Sterling Schismatrix story, 20 Evocations. 

Most of those stories remain grains of ideas without an emotional core of their own.  This was the one that seemed to work on more than a 'neat idea' level.  Let me know what you think.

It makes a sick kind of sense to me that this story would be published days after Peter Watts was beaten by US border guards.  Once again we see our civil servants assert their rightful role as civil masters.  Gandhi's Plague is just the sort of thing that might make sense to the jackbooted thugs who perpetrate this sort of violence and the speakers-of-common-wisdom who defend them.

Shut up, be still, and let us do what we will.  Welcome to the US of A.


That ain't my America.  I'm not sure who's America it IS.  Hope we can find the way, before it is found for us.


BB

have to get off computer before wife kills me

UPDATE:  I got concerned after I thought about it that my intended self-deprecating tone in this post might sound like lack-lustre enthusiasm for this audio recording.  Not so!  Please do yourself a favor and give this a listen and consider what your own work will sound like given Parmelee's assistance. 
 _____________
So just a quick post... If you feel like I'm slacking off on the nithska blog, I think you are correct!  But lots of awesomeness going on over at Aether Age, so check it out!

But here is a little tidbit re little ol' me and TC Parmelee: the audio version of Broken Vessels is up over at M-Brane SF.  Please give it a listen! ... it is weird to hear my own stuff read aloud, and I never realized how short and choppy the sentences are at the start.  TC does a great job despite the dificulty of those sentences.  I think the story works, but I can see that it may have been challenging to read that first section aloud.  Let me know what you think, of both the story and the audio.

Exciting news to come regard TC Parmelee's work!

B

Ergosphere

Check out this post regarding Rick Novy's guest edited issue of M-Brane SF, titled Ergosphere.  This represents a full year of monthly publication for M-Brane and a --possibly permanent-- format change.  Get ready to buy a print copy of this one: there are several reliably great writers in this issue alongside some interesting surprises I suspect.