Author: terribleminds (page 44 of 464)

WORDMONKEY

December 18, 2021 / 8 Comments

Wayward: Cover Reveal And Excerpt

And so it begins. Wayward, the sequel to Wanderers, is slowly born into the world. Beginning now, with a cover reveal and an excerpt you can find over at io9.

Cover here, and reveal there —

Cover design is by Carlos Beltrán and David Stevenson. Cover art is by Michael Bryan. Beautiful work and I’m lucky here. Makes a lovely companion and contrast to the first book’s cover, too, I think!

I’m editing the book now — I say this not to humble-brag overmuch, but my editor (the miraculous Tricia Narwani, at Del Rey) returned what was honestly a fairly kind edit, feeling like the book did what I set out to do with it. And I was so certain that I couldn’t have gotten it right! Because this was the first book I really wrote during the pandemic. I entered the Quarantimes and honestly could not for the life of me get my shit together to write anything new. A blog post, a tweet, those were about as much as I could cobble together. New words would not arrive.

But then, September of 2020, I started this, and it was a slow return to the process. A one-step-at-a-time approach. I liken it to learning how to move again after an injury. Physical therapy demands you not force it, but still, that you move — slow, methodical, and gentle. As such, I gained steam over the months and finished it, if I recall, in July of 2021. To my surprise, it ended up at the same word count as Wanderers, which is to say, a whopping 280,000 words.

I expected, when looking at it again, I would discover that what I turned into my editor was a tome of absolute gibberish. ALL COVID NO PLAY MAKES CHUCK A FRENZIED BADGER or something, over and over again.

But no! It was a book! And maybe a… good one? (That one is on you to decide, I suppose. But if my editor is happy, then I am happy.)

Still. Going back now is like reading a book written partly during a fugue state. I remember it, but only hazily. That’s strange. But I’ll take it, because it’s a book-shaped thing.

It’s weird too that I wrote a pandemic novel, then a pandemic happened, and then during that pandemic I’m writing a post-pandemic novel. Hopefully I’m predicting the end of this pandemic?

(Because it sucks. The pandemic super fucking sucks.)

Anyway! I edit this mammoth beast, and slowly usher it to its birth on August 2nd, 2022.

Book description:

Five years ago, ordinary Americans fell under the grip of a strange new malady that caused them to sleepwalk across the country to a destination only they knew. They were followed on their quest by the shepherds: friends and family who gave up everything to protect them.
Their secret destination: Ouray, a small town in Colorado that would become one of the last outposts of civilization. Because the sleepwalking epidemic was only the first in a chain of events that led to the end of the world—and the birth of a new one.
The survivors, sleepwalkers and shepherds alike, have a dream of rebuilding human society. Among them are Benji, the scientist struggling through grief to lead the town; Marcy, the former police officer who wants only to look after the people she loves; and Shana, the teenage girl who became the first shepherd—and an unlikely hero whose courage will be needed again.
Because the people of Ouray are not the only survivors, and the world they are building is fragile. The forces of cruelty and brutality are amassing under the leadership of self-proclaimed president Ed Creel. And in the very heart of Ouray, the most powerful survivor of all is plotting its own vision for the new world: Black Swan, the A.I. who imagined the apocalypse.
Against these threats, Benji, Marcy, Shana, and the rest have only one hope: one another. Because the only way to survive the end of the world is together.

You of course can absolutely pre-order the book now.

Pre-order through Del Rey / Penguin Random House here.

You can also go through Bookshop.org or Indiebound.

Though between you me and the wall, the coolest people will pre-order through a beloved indie bookstore, one that will almost certainly ship to them. If you want signed and personalized copies, you could do worse than ordering through my local, Doylestown Bookshop, who will facilitate that for you and get you your book upon its release.

My intent is to tour in person for this book, but I say that knowing full well that now there’s OMICRON and tomorrow there’s OMEGA and then there’s MEGATRON and by August it’s very possible we’ll all be pissed off because anti-vaxxers will be eating gunpowder and monkey shit to stave off COVID and the rest of us will be sad because our breakfast boosters stop working by dinner. But fingers crossed I’ll actually be able to escape into the world and do some in-person events for launch.

Time will tell.

Pre-orders help authors not to die.

Tell your friends and loved ones and random passersby.

Be safe. Find mirth. BYE.

December 8, 2021 / 27 Comments

Does Social Media Sell Books? A Vital Inquisition!

Your immediate reading homework is this, from the NYT: MILLIONS OF FOLLOWERS? FOR BOOK SALES, IT’S UNRELIABLE. It’s behind a paywall, of course, so be advised of that if you are the kind of person who is halted by them — but I’ll do some summary of the article in question in order to dissect and reassemble its salient bits. The summary is this: it has long been assumed that people with huge social media followings therefore also sell huge numbers of books, and given the apparently low sales numbers of some of the celebrity books in question — which is to say, celebrities with considerable herds of fans following their every online move — it might be safe to consider that assumption to be a grandly bullshit one.

Big social media followings do not become big book sales.

I’ve said it forever, and it appears to remain the case, here.

Now, it is worth noting up front, before we dig too deep a hole, that the article is flawed in that it’s using only BookScan numbers, and BookScan is wildly unreliable in that it only captures print sales from certain sales outlets. It does not track e-books. It does not track audiobooks. It does not track library sales. Again, it tracks print books sold through standard print book sales points like Amazon, B&N, Target, many (but not all) indie stores. Author Katherine Locke noted on Twitter that they found Bookscan caught only 12% of the sales of one of their books — which, uhhh, is a pretty notable deficit. So, the numbers in that article are probably lower than in reality, and further, it’s capturing only one real set of authors: celebrity authors. In this sense the article could just as easily be an indictment against giving celebrities giant fucking book deals, which, y’know, I happen to agree with.

That said, I still think there’s something here to talk about, and that’s the question of what social media brings to the table for authors, their books, and the sales of those books to an audience.

Way back in THE OLDEN DAYS, in the BEFORETIMES, at the outset of this current wave of social media (Twitter, FB, IG, eventually not Tumblr, eventually yes Tik-Tok), it was a common refrain that an author had to have a “platform,” which was something of a corruption of the notion that non-fiction authors had to have a platform. For non-fic authors, that platform meant they had to have a reliable reputation in the subject matter at hand and/or some kind of demonstrable expertise in it. But the dilution of that became simply, “As an author, you should have a social media following at one or several social media sites.” (At this time, blogs were still acceptable. Remember blogs? Yeah, me neither.) It was a little bit advice, a little bit mandate. What that social media following meant or needed to look like was a set of teleporting bullseyes, and though I’m sure some publishers had hard and fast numbers they hoped to see, they did not share them with any authors I know.

The purpose of this social media following was unclear, though it was usually sold as some combination of, hey, be funny, be informative, earn an audience, oh and don’t forget to SHILL YOUR BOOKS, BOOKMONSTER. Drop the links, use the graphics, do the hokey-pokey and shake it all about. You’re an author! Also a brand! Standing on a platform! Asking an audience to love you with money! You’re like the Wendy’s Twitter account — be funny, be individual, be the best version of yourself, get attention, but also get them to eat your goddamn wordburgers.

The question is, did it work then? Does it work now?

I have thoughts.

(I mean, obviously I have them, because here I am, with this blog post. Sorry, did I say “blog post?” I meant, uhhh, really long Twitter thread. Shut up.)

Note that these thoughts are artisanal data, by which I mean, my anecdotal experience and observations. I do not mean any of this as boot-in-the-ass fact. Take it as you will.

Answer Unclear, Ask Again Later

Moving copies of books via social media does and doesn’t work, and that is about as true and as useless an answer as I can give, so lemme try to give it some dimension.

First, yes, both now and before, you can sell books on social media, though the primary and best way to sell those books is to not be the author. Meaning, you can sell books, just not your books. Which is counter to this entire point, where publishers tell authors to promote their own books, but there it is. I’ve mentioned this before but it really bears repeating: when an author does a guest post on this very website (which is definitely not a blog, we hate those now, remember), they get X number of clicks through to their books. That number varies depending on the book and the post, to be clear. Now, let’s say in addition to promoting their own book, they also mention another book they liked or loved — the link to that book will get twice the number of clicks than X. It’ll double. Nearly every time. You get more clickthroughs to books you recommend from other authors than you do your own books.

Why is this? I dunno. I’m assuming because we naturally have a gentle, simmering suspicion for anyone hawking their own wares. We’d rather hear about a book you love than a book you wrote. We want to share and participate in that kind of love. And we tend to side-eye sales pitches. Which is good! We should. If someone has something to sell, we should be just a tiny bit wary of their wares, and as always, consider the source.

Then Versus Now

The other thing to consider is that social media now isn’t the same as social media then. It’s obvious that times change, and so does everything with it, and social media is no different. It is, in fact, an entirely divergent animal from five years ago, ten years ago, and beyond. Like the coronavirus, it just keeps fucking mutating, man, and like with a virus, so much of its mutation is unseen, on the inside, its effects cascading long before we’ve really even figured out there was any change at all.

In the BEFORETIMES, social media was smaller, more nimble, and I think it was easier to establish yourself there. It still didn’t move tons and tons of books, but I do think you could find easier reach. Now, that user base is considerably larger — which sounds good, right? You wanna reach more people, so it’s good that there are more people to reach. Except, do you?

Culturally, social media is a raging brushfire. It’s an apocalyptic stock ticker of news and rage and memes and condemnation and indignation and dunks, so many fucking dunks, dunks upon dunks upon dunks. (This is a harsh take on it, and I recognize there is a lot of vital work done there, too, and a necessary platform for social justice. But it’s also a platform for shit that masquerades as social justice, too, which is tricky. But that’s a whole other conversation.) We view social media — or, at least, publishers view social media — like it’s an audience-in-waiting. But it’s not. Everybody on social media is equal parts performer and product. We’re all on the platform, and the platform is a stage, and we’re dancing for the social media companies. So, it’s hard to get above all that and actually let people know about your books. This is an attention economy, and the way to get attention isn’t… y’know, a link to your book. I wish it was. But it’s not. And it’s not, in part because Twitter doesn’t want it to be. Which leads me to the next point:

Algorithmically, it’s also a brushfire. We know that certain things generate algorithmic attention — meaning, the unseen sentient elves pulling all the levers and yanking on all the ropes are interested in juggling tweets to the top that are attention-seeking, emotion-farming tweets. Will this make you angry? Will it make you laugh? THEN HERE, LOOK AT IT. Rage and memes and dunks and such. The platform rewards the brushfire. The algorithm says, “Fire is bright and colorful, people like bright and colorful and are likelier to look at it, so MORE FIRE FOR THE FIRE-LOVERS,” and then the elves splash around gasoline and lighter fluid while chewing through the electrical cords, cackling.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve mentioned, say, a book that is coming out or already out, and had more than one person on Twitter say, “Wow, I’ve never heard of this before.” Even though I’ve yelled about it. I’ve shrieked. I’ve done my ass-shaking buy-my-book dance. I’ll endlessly promote and then go to a bookstore event (or did, in the Beforetimes), will get done said event, will thank the bookstore on Twitter, and inevitably multiple people respond, “Oh I didn’t know you were in town! I would’ve gone!” (To quote Scott Lynch on Twitter: “Painful Coda: On top of this, social media algorithms are working dark sorcery behind the scenes to throttle the actual reach of anything fucking NORMAL that we try to talk about. You have 185k followers. Does that mean 185k people see your announcement of a new thing? Lol. No.” He’s right. They don’t. I suspect it’s closer to one percent, if I’m being honest. Ten percent at the optimistic level.)

Social media is stacked against you, now more than ever.

Think Of It This Way

You’re in a plane.

You have thousands of your books in boxes.

Below you, on the ground, are your readers. Somewhere. They’re down there. It’s fine!

You want to tell them about your book, so to do so, you throw thousands of copies of your book out of the plane, in the hopes that they get copies. They will not. The books will fall into lakes and rivers, they will smash car windows and oh god you just killed a schnauzer, you fucking monster.

Even if you tell your potential readers, hey, look for my plane, wait for my book drop, it won’t matter very much. You might slightly increase the number of people who find the books. But that’s it.

(Note: please do not do any of this, it’s a metaphor.)

(Though mayyyybe it could work. Anybody have a plane? I got books!)

What I Used To Say

I used to say this:

On social media, you can sell tens or hundreds of copies of your book, but publishers really want thousands to be sold. The true value of social media is connecting with other professionals in your creative space — you gather around the digital watercooler and get to talk to other writers, agents, editors, artists, booksellers, librarians. It makes you a part of a community, and you meet these people not to use as rungs on a ladder but as compatriots and cohorts and, in many cases, as friends who honestly understand what you do and get what you’re going through. Yes, of course, definitely promote your book because that’s what your audience is following you for, they want to know about your books. Just don’t bludgeon them over the head with it, and you’ll be fine. The goal is to talk about your books in an earnest, personal way, not to be manipulative or as a sales pitch but because it’s the best way to talk about your work. And the hope is that you create that essential background noise called “buzz” simply by making people aware, because awareness is the most difficult thing to achieve. Many of our books have died, smothered by the suffocating blanket of obscurity.

What I Say Now

What I say now is that the above is still true-ish, but it deserves an asterisk as big as a kaiju’s cartoon butthole — a monster caveat, an epic yeah, except.

Yeah, except social media is a fucking wood chipper. It is not necessarily a safe or sound place for an author to be. It can become as much a distraction as an asset, and it can give you some very good days, but also, some of your very worst days. Publishers asking writers to join social media — or other writers giving this as advice — are deficit if they are not making it very clear that social media is not always a safe space. It is not a place to casually muck about, or fail in public in any way, or any of that. The ground is unstable. Beneath it are sewer clowns, and they are very, very hungry. Social media rewards you for being noisy, but it eventually punishes you for the same. And god forbid you, like many authors, have some manner of anxiety or depression. Spoiler warning: social media isn’t there to help. Sometimes it will. Individuals will be there to help you, and that’s part of the good side. But there are just as many who want to do the opposite, who not only want to stick the knife in… but who really want to give it a twist. Especially, especially, as your platform — remember, the thing publishers wanted you to have and to grow! — gets bigger and bigger. A big social media following is open water. It is deep and it is dark and you are in over your head.

Publishers should’ve never viewed this as an extension of their marketing and advertising plans. Authors should’ve never been front-line warriors in this crusade. I understand why it was sold this way — it’s a mix of, “Hey, this is just like authors going out to events and talking to people” and “Hey, maybe we don’t have to spend all that marketing and advertising money now that there’s this giant free space where we can just shill books 24/7 with the help of our new unpaid salesfolks, authors.” (Note, this last point is also why there is current resistance to getting authors back out into the world. Some of it is, yes, because COVID is still scary and uncertain, but some of it is publishers seeing and saying, “Hey, we sold books just fine in the Quarantimes of 2020, why should we pay for authors to do in-person events ever again?” It will be necessary for authors and booksellers and other event-having staff to push back on this narrative, because it has been born, now squalling in its crib.)

The problem with publishers seeing this space as that value-add is that there are also considerable value deficits in place — put more colloquially, the juice ain’t always worth the squeeze.

And it can be a real fucking squeeze.

Beyond that, if you can navigate it, it’s not that social media cannot have value. And it’s not that you can’t still try to get blood from that rock. But to my mind it’s a place you go because you want to be there, not because it is a necessary or even useful channel to Sell Your Books. It maybe never was, but now in particular it’s just difficult to sell books in the middle of a brushfire. I’m there. I do it. I don’t know that it reaches many people at all anymore. I don’t know how much longer I’ll keep doing it. It’s not a fun place to be. I don’t enjoy it. It feels more like an obligation, one whose yield is minimal, like I’m plowing a mostly-fallow field.

I still like this space, of course, because I can engage with points and own the space and inject a little nuance. Not that this is a blog, of course. No no no those aren’t a thing anymore.

*stares shiftily at you*

Wait But Should I Get On Tik-Tok Immediately?

That’s the current advice I hear. YOU GOTTA GET ON TIK-TOK. BOOK-TOK IS THERE. YOU GOTTA BE THERE, MAN. YOU GOTTA DANCE AND SHIT. YOU GOTTA DO THAT THING WHERE THERE’S TEXT ON THE SCREEN AND YOU POINT TO IT AND MAYBE LIP-SYNC SOME STUFF AND PEOPLE ARE LIKE, WOW. YEAH. SHAKE YOUR BOOK. LICK IT. I DUNNO YOU GOTTA DO SOMETHING TO GET THOSE LIKES.

(Does Tik-Tok even have likes? Shit, I dunno.)

(I’m so old.)

I am not going there.

First, because I don’t want to.

Second, because nobody else wants me to, either. I mean, if you thought I was cringe before, just wait till I show up there and gallumph about like Jedi Kid, trying to hawk my bookish wares. Jesus. It’s horrifying just imagining it, and I suspect the real thing would be a thousand times worse.

Third, it’s not even the written word. At least Twitter requires me to exercise my writing skills (“skills”) in some capacity. Tik-Tok is just, oof. I’m an, uhh, behind the camera guy.

Finally, like with all social media, Book-Tok is powered more by readers than by writers, isn’t it? Same as it’s been elsewhere — it’s readers talking about and showing what they love, and that is what moves books. Word of mouth continues to be the primary driver for how books are sold.

The chain is this:

Publishers should make as much noise as they can about a book. Booksellers and librarians help carry that torch. And at the end of the day, it goes to readers. Readers who want to share their love of certain books, and whose love is (excuse the abject cheesiness here) the eternal flame that will keep burning for a story and for an author. That’s it. The author doesn’t need to be in that chain at all. And honestly, maybe we shouldn’t be. Except at the end, to sign it and answer your questions.

But, as with all things, YMMV. This is all pure opinion and conjecture. Others will have very different experiences, and that is as expected. You do you, pikachu.

Anyway hey uhhh buy my books or I die!

The Book of Accidents! Dust & Grim! Holidays! Books! Huzzah!

*immediately creates an OnlyFans account*

December 1, 2021 / 3 Comments

Gosh and Golly, This Sale Is No Accident!

I’m so sorry. That post title is terrible. Terrible. I should not be allowed to continue, I should flog myself here and now, and yet, onward I go, stubborn and spiteful.

What I’m trying to say is, hey, look, The Book of Accidents is, for today, $2.99 for your gently humming, quietly vibrating, reality-enhancing e-book machine. So, for a penny shy of three bucks, you can get your haunted house that isn’t a haunted house, your scary coal mine, your scary THING in the BOTTOM of the coal mine, your serial killer who disappeared decades ago, your cycles of trauma broken and unbroken, your pain passed down through generations, your art that comes alive, your boy that feels too much, your emotional seawall. It’s a book that is truly twenty years in the making, and it means quite a lot to me, so I hope if you haven’t checked it out, this might nudge you into giving it a go. (And if you have the physical copy, this isn’t a bad price to secure a digital backup.)

Please tell others! Chase them with this good news! And a machete! I mean, don’t do that last part. No chasing, no machetes, please. I beg of you. Forget I said anything at all.

Your buy links:

And if you are kind enough to review the book and vote for it in the final round of the Goodreads Choice Awards, I will love you even more than I do now. Which I didn’t even know was possible!

Have fun at Ramble Rocks! It’s a park! It’s a coal mine! It’s an amusement park! So ramble on down and ride the lightning, won’t you?

November 30, 2021 / 22 Comments

Batman, Beatles, And Billions: Many Words Make A Post

Once again I parachute into your life, carrying a box, and the box contains various words in the shape of a newsletter, and I dump them on your head. Also, ferrets. The box also contains ferrets. The ferrets are angry. The ferrets are hungry. Enjoy.

Saucy News Slatherings

The Goodreads Choice Awards has reached its final round, and somehow, by the grace of kind voters, The Book of Accidents is in! It remains there alongside some wonderful writers, so you have a veritable bounty of good books to pick from, should you so choose. Obviously, if you feel like clicking and voting for TBOA, I would be grateful, and would definitely owe you cupcakes, which are currently imaginary cupcakes but certainly that’s better than no cupcakes at all. But I also hold no illusions about the splendor of horror on display, and it I am honestly chuffed just to make it to the finals. Is chuffed a word? Is it a British word? I’m American, am I allowed to use it? It doesn’t mean ‘chafed,’ does it? Because I’m definitely not chafed. Well, you get the point. I’m a lucky human, is what I’m trying to say and that is in good part thanks to y’all.

Also, hey, look! The New York Public Library posted their top books of the year, and The Book of Accidents made that, too. How awesome is that? Again: very lucky human.

If you have not checked out The Book of Accidents, the library is a most excellent place to do so. Or you’re also able to nab a signed, personalized copy from Doylestown Bookshop, or Bookshop.org, or via Indiebound, or wherever books are sold. There’s also the audiobook at Audible or Libro.fm.

Also don’t forget, I’m chatting with the mysterious author duo known as “James S.A. Corey” this week at Brookline Booksmith (virtually) in support of Leviathan Falls, the final Expanse novel. Click here for deets.

And I got to do a cool chat with the fine folks behind the Tarkin’s Top Shelf podcast.

I may have a Wayward cover soon.

Finally, if you are a fan of mine and also a fan of awesome writer buds Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne, and you live in the Northeast, you might wanna keep an eye on this space — I’m not saying we’re definitely doing a short book tour together, but I’m just saying we might be trying very hard to do one. In person! Not virtual! Assuming Omicron doesn’t enter the chat…

Omicron

I remember in June, just as school was ending and my wife and I were vaccinated and doing more things, feeling like the pandemic was fading into the rearview, boom, Delta. And now, just as we’re boostered, and got our kid his second shot, boom, Omicron. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck off, virus. Fuck all the way off. Vaccine equity now. And get your ownselves vaxxed, willya?

The End of Nanowrimo

Many of you partook in the barely-controlled-chaos of National Novel Writing Month, and those who did, I salute you. If you finished, I salute you. If you didn’t finish, I salute you. If you wrote one word, I salute you. If you didn’t write a goddamn thing last month but wrote in October, or will write in December, or write on your own goddamn timeline, I salute you. Writing is hard. It’s hard to make the time, it’s hard to conjure the story, it’s hard to feel like the process makes any sense at all. Especially now, in these here Quarantimes. You’re good. Writers write. Real writers write. There is no one process that marks you as a True Writer versus False, Tricksy Writer. Keep on keeping on. That’s the whole of it, really. Just staying the course even when it seems like the absolutely most fuckshit thing to do is key. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt. And hang on even when the beast is desperately trying to fling you from its back.

This Charitable Day

It is Giving Tuesday, and these are some charities I like to give to: Sierra Club Foundation, Arbor Day Foundation, Southern Poverty Law Center, Girls Write Now, AbleGamers, Trevor Project, Audre Lorde Project, Trans Lifeline, Shanti Bhivan, RAICES. Certainly this is not an all-encompassing list, and if you have a charity you like to support or are connected with, please do drop a comment below.

I Have Batman Thoughts

That sounds weirdly sexual. I have Batman thoughts, wink wink.

I mean, it’s not, and I don’t mean it that way.

I just have regular thoughts. Normal, everyday thoughts about Batman.

… that’s not making it any better, is it? I’m protesting too much.

What I mean is, I’ve been enjoying various BATMAN OFFERINGS (still not better) lately across streaming services, and I also watched the new trailer, and it occurs to me I have strong feelings about Batman (nope, still sounding weird).

My feelings are this:

Tim Burton’s first Batman movie maybe captured the perfect balance of what I’d like to see in a Batman movie. Consider: the Batman of the 60s was a goddamn delight, but also just stupid as hell. Shark Repellent and Batlube (no, really) and Wham Biff Pow. Really fun. But way too campy for my own tastes. The Christian Bale Nolan-era Batman, however, went hard in the paint for a “realistic” Batman — he isn’t some goofball, he’s a real billionaire, damaged by the death of his parents, with access to a hidden R&D department in his own company, and he uses that to create a militarized version of the character. And his foils, the villains he meets, are arguably some form of “realistic” as well. The Joker is a homicidal chaos bomb. Two-Face is Harvey Dent, half his face burned off, and all of his sanity worn away. The first film is probably the silliest, what with there being a SECRET NINJA LEAGUE, and portraying a Gotham that is almost cartoonishly corrupt — though by the third movie, the city is cleaner, shinier, more Nolan-esque, and Bane, Catwoman and Talia are products (roughly) of the real world. There’s some reference to the League of Shadows, and their plan is still a little puzzling in its motivation and pace, but it still attempts to cobble something real-feeling out of all of it. A little sci-fi, maybe. But not comic-booky at all.

(I note here that Dark Knight Rises works better than I remembered it. Again, you have to look past the absurd villain plot — which is a failing of all three of the Nolan films. And you definitely need subtitles on because even still, Bane sometimes sounds like he’s saying WISH MUSH FRA WUSH BORN IN DARKNESSH, BATMANSH. But it was lot better than I had remembered it.)

The new Reeves trailer (The Batman), which looks great, also seems to continue this — splashing on even deeper layers of DARK DARKNESS, making it look like an heir to a Fincher film. The Batman version of Se7en or something.

(Here’s that trailer. Why, though, does it look so blurry? Is it me?)

That’s great and fine and I’m sure I’ll like it. I like most things Batman. Hell, I even liked Batfleck and wish we got more of ol’ Ben in the suit.

But I also kinda miss when a film leans into the absurd nature of the character.

Here’s the thing: one of the most common complaints about Batman as a character is that he’s a billionaire who could be saving the world with his money but instead he’s dressing like a giant bat and torturing people. Now, that’s a very reductive, mostly nonsense complaint, for three reasons:

a) It’s a comic book; if you start to dive into the ethical nature of any superhero, you get to a pretty fucked-up place pretty quickly, and that either results in some of the cynical retellings of the genre or it means you need to ignore it and race past it because, I dunno, superheroes are fun and not real?

b) Bruce Wayne is a damaged guy, and saying, “Why doesn’t he do the right thing” misunderstands that he’s a broken dude for whom the right thing involves the aforementioned weird bat costume

c) He often does spend his money to help the city, and most iterations of Bruce Wayne involve him helping the city that way, too, he just also likes to do the Batman thing because, well, see the last part

Now, the Nolan films actually complicate this even more, because as the films go on, they definitely lean into a sort of fascist police-state version of the character — the first film shows a police force that is clearly corrupt, but as the second and third films go on, they tend to lionize the police force and the law — there was an opportunity to do something interesting by hanging their hat on the corruptibility of Harvey Dent and laundering his reputation of his sudden monstrousness, but they whiffed it. And by the third film, the cops are straight-up heroes, no longer a lick of corruption to be found. Batman’s equipment becomes more militarized. He has equipment that is clearly way too powerful for one billionaire to have, but it’s viewed as Only A Good Thing.

Thing is, these criticisms have teeth specifically when you make Batman a figure in reality and not a comic book character. By cleaving to realism, it brings up questions we would ask in reality. But if you instead balance it out with the absurdity of Guy Dresses Like Bat To Punch Crime Clowns, you file down those teeth. It becomes less easy to ask the hard questions when his story clearly exists in something more resembling a comic book universe than, say, our own universe.

So, I’m looking forward to the Reeves film but… eenennnghhh, I’m getting a little tired of the DARK part of the DARK KNIGHT. And I think that first Burton film nailed the tone just right, even if it too is imperfect in many ways. (Don’t get me started on Batman Returns. I know that flick has a lot of fans, but my controversial assessment is that I absolutely can’t stand it. It bugs me on a number of levels that I’ll have to get into in a different post.)

Also, if I have to see the parents die in alley scene, gunshot, broken pearls bullshit one more time, I might batarang myself in the neck. While I am not the biggest fans of the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies (short capsule criticism: Holland is maybe the best Spidey we’ve had, but the writing gives him too little to do and leaves him mostly as a Boy Wonder to Iron Man, not a NYC kid with his own story), one thing I do like is that it doesn’t routinely fetishize the Uncle Ben death scene. Hanging too much of a story on that single traumatic event again and again and again over the years and decades starts to feel terribly reductive, and is suggestive of a view of characters (and, potentially, people) that are frozen in time, never able to change.

In comics, I’ll say too that the Tom King run nails the Batman tone, usually. It is somehow both homage to all the Batman that has ever happened, while also treading its own course. It’s not overtly funny, it’s not entirely silly, but it still has the trappings of absurdity — super-powered clown villains and the giant penny and fun banter with Superman. (And Kite Man. Hell Yeah.)

ANYWAY, those are my current Batman thoughts.

(Ooh, one more: he should be more of a detective than a brutal pugilist.)

(Okay, I’m done now.)

(Do as them as thou wilt.)

Beatles Opinions, Also??

Been watching the Peter Jackson Beatles docuseries, Get Back — really loving it, and adoring the view into the creative process between these four very different personalities. I love that Paul seems to be the reluctant leader, and John as the not-so-reluctant visionary, and to see the push-and-pull between those two polar forces. I think there’s something to that push-and-pull inside most of us, and writers definitely feel that — that urge to go deep visionary, but also to wrangle those visions into some kind of shape that makes sense.

I will say I wish that Jackson had also done the two-plus hour film version, just because the docuseries itself is a little leggy. Fascinating if you’re a Beatles fan or curious to witness that process, but if you wanted something that distilled it, seeing a two-hour cut wouldn’t be terrible, either. As it stands, the work is definitely for people who care very deeply about the Beatles.

Still, it’s fucking great. It’s like watching a fishbowl except, instead of having fish in it, you have the actual goddamn Beatles swimming around, being the Beatles. It’s a wild, raw glimpse at a band in transition and, ultimately, gentle self-destruction.

What else have I been watching? Arcane on Netflix remains one of the prettiest and most exciting animation projects I’ve seen. Don’t know the game very much, but damn, it’s good. Every scene, a painting. Reminds me of Spider-Verse that way. Also finally tried out Hulu’s The Great, and it is, well, as the name says. Content warning for a lot of animal death, though, oof. And some pretty grisly shit that is often unexpected. But it really is wonderful stuff. There’s a season two now, yeah?

Catching up on Billions, too, which I love, but has started to have the wheels come off it a little. (The Requiem for a Dream “smart drug” episode feels very jump the sharky.) Still, great performances and I’m fascinated to watch these ego-fed powerful people beat the shit out of each other. It’s weird that I can dig this show, but not Succession. I generally care a about the characters in Billions more, I think, which feels important.

Anyway! There’s probably more. But for now —

I’m out.

Hope your Thanksgiving was good.

Hope your holidays are continuing apace.

Stay safe. Get vaxxed. Wear a mask. Be good to each other.

*dissolves into ants*

Wait Hold On, Did I Tell You About The Pie?

I talked about this on THE SOCIALS, as the kids say (or don’t say, what the hell do I know) — but for Turkey Day, I made dinner, right? Roast chicken. Brussels sprouts. Mashed red potatoes. Cranberry-apple chutney. So, I chose to delegate dessert to a local place, which I won’t name here, because they’ve always been really, really good. We ordered an apple pie from them.

I did not realize, however, that their pastry chef had departed in March.

And had, I guess, been replaced by some kind, I dunno, sentient mass of brain-damaged chickadees.

Because this was the pie that we opened on our holiday:

Oh, what’s that? You wanted to get CLOSER? Done.

That is not modified in any way.

No filter. No Photoshop.

It is the pie we received.

In all its dog barf lasagna glory.

It is a pie that looks like green bean casserole. It looks like a tray of birdseed. It is covered in boogers and sadness. (AKA, pumpkin seeds and quinoa what the actual fucking fuck.) It contains not apples but rather, the restless, tormented ghosts of apples: wrathful fruit specters drained of life with acid as juice. It is a wet, gravemold pie, made of clay and broken teeth. And you might think, “Well, it looks bad, but how did it taste?” Ha ha, you fool, I thought the same thing, and then I put a bite in my mouth and my entire mouth rejected it. It was tart, but not at all sweet. It was somehow also dry. It was chewy, like in the bad way, in the way cardboard is chewy, or an old toe might be chewy. It’s like the crawling gray pudding in Better Off Dead. My family hated it. It was fucking bad.

I called the place, and the woman on the phone seemed surprised when I said, “pumpkin seeds and quinoa,” and she suggested we may have gotten some kind of gluten-free, vegan edition of their apple pie. So, eager and excited, we took it in and tried to get a replacement, but that time a different lady greeted us and, upon hearing our complaint, looked at us like we had just shat on the counter. Incredulous, she said, “Yeah, that’s our apple pie.” Like, she was proud of it! Proud! Why would you be proud of that! Why would you give that to people on a special holiday! Do you hate holidays? Do you hate apples? Do you hate people? They gave us our money back, thankfully, though I think they were reluctant to do so. I hope some very nice birds got to eat it. And did not die from it.

Otherwise, I fear this pie is still out there.

Watching.

Waiting.

Lurking about like some kind of pie goblin.

Beware.

Beware.

November 19, 2021 / 18 Comments

The Weekly Lowdown

Not a whole lot going on this week in the lead-up to the holidays, so I’ll keep this update brief —

Invasive is $1.99 for your ebookmachine today. Not sure how long it lasts. But if you want a novel where people are attacked by flesh-farming ants, boy howdy, do I have the book for you. The ants are a metaphor for anxiety! But also they’re actual ants, so.

Reminder that The Book of Accidents is up for Goodreads Choice in Horror.

Saw the first episode of Wheel of Time and liked it a bunch. The cast is great. It was gorier than I expected — lots of guts strewn about and exploding Trollocs. I read most of the series when I was a kid — high school into college. Met Robert Jordan at a signing one time (he had this magnificent goat staff which strongly suggests he is, or was, a wizard). I tapped out by… book nine, I think. The books seemed to get longer while the span of time the books encompassed got shorter, and it just felt like a slog-ass drag. I’ve heard Sanderson (unsurprisingly) stuck the landing, though. I’d like to go back and re-read but holy crap, where do you find the time? ANYWAY. First episode of the show was cool. Will keep trucking with it. I wish it didn’t look quite so… TV? A show like Game of Thrones looks filmic. The MCU shows, too. But this feels like TV. Which isn’t all bad — I found the Witcher show looked a little TV-ish, too. But for a show Amazon spent a buttload of cash on, it occasionally felt a little cheap-looking. Too glossy, too. Still. I’m in, for the moment.

Maya and the Three on Netflix was fuuuuucking great. I mean it’s a kid’s show so I guess I should say flippin’ great or something. Whatever. But it’s nine episodes, self-contained, one season. Funny and amazing battle scenes and a lot of heart and suspense.

Also caught Shang-Chi, which I liked a lot, too, but it’s hard not to feel a little burned out on the standard MCU origin-story plot arc. This did some new stuff, which I liked, and the first half of the movie is fucking electric, with some of the finest martial arts superhero fight scenes you could imagine. The second half gets a little boggy in CGI fantasyland shit, and the movie whiffs on some pretty big moments — moments that the MCU movies usually excel at articulating (meaning, those moments where everyone seems beaten, the hero/es rally, music swells, whoa, gosh, my feelings, whatever). And hard not to think, “Wow, I think I wanted Xialing to be the protagonist of this? Or at least an equal?” Still, it’s pretty great, and eminently rewatchable.

I want to care more about the new Spider-Man movie but don’t that much? I find that the Tom Holland movies are a blast but do a whole lot of work to make Spider-Man not about Spider-Man. The first two felt like they were really Iron Man handling shit, and then this one might be too much Doctor Strange. I love the multiverse collision idea, and I suspect when I see it, I’m going to pee my pants with joy, but right now I can’t quite summon the excitement or the nostalgia over trying to mash this stuff up in a way that feels cogent and not like a nostalgia grab.

What I did like a whole lot was Netflix’s The Harder They Fall, holy crap. That’s got style for miles, that movie, and the players are goddamn electric in it. It is a joy from start to finish. Great Western. Instant classic. Give Jonathan Majors more roles. More! More. MORE, I SAID. *shakes TV*

I read an excellent book — Alma Katsu’s The Fervor. Fucking terrifying. A ghoulish slice of historical horror. I am reminded how good a writer she is. Not out yet. April, I think. Would make a great limited series, ala Midnight Mass. And with that book, I think, I’m closed officially to blurbs for the moment. I need time to do some research work and also pleasure reading. (Not that blurbing isn’t pleasure reading. But it’s different than just being able to nab a book off the ol’ tbr and go to town.)

My kid just read Amira and Hamza: The War to Save the Worlds by Samira Ahmed, and before that, Ghost Squad, by Claribel Ortega. Loved both if you need good middle grade for your kidlets. Or yourself, I won’t judge.

Thanksgiving is coming up. Pumpkin pie is bullshit but I’m getting one anyway. (I make pie, but only at Christmas.) Apple pie is the true ruler of our house, and is the greatest pie that exists. Though I am willing to hear your opinions on your favored choice of pie. Also turkey is mostly bullshit. Gonna roast a chicken instead. Roasted chicken seems so hard, and then you do it, and it was simple and is amazing, and also isn’t a turkey.

Though the real game is rib roast, and that’s what I make for Christmas.

Did you see the terribleminds 2021 gift guide? WELL DID YOU. Gifts for writers and beyond.

I think that’s it for now.

See you next week. IN YOUR NIGHTMARES.

Moo hoo ha ha.

And now, photos.

November 18, 2021 / 1 Comment

Ajit George: The Beautiful Challenge of Bringing India to D&D’s Ravenloft

Writing for Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft was one of the most exhilarating and daunting game writing experiences of my life. I am the first writer of Indian origin to write Indian-inspired material for Dungeons & Dragons. I felt a huge pressure to get it right. Of course, there is no way to capture a country so large, old, and diverse. My solution was to narrow my focus and create something compelling that wasn’t a one-for-one analog of India but took inspiration from a wide range of source material.

The other big challenge was creating an atmosphere of horror. Ravenloft is D&D’s iconic horror setting, and I was tasked to write two new pieces for it. Yet, I was worried about depicting India or Indians poorly. I was very aware of the terrible and racist pop culture entries about India and horror, the most obvious being Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. All too often, that’s what people think of when they think of India and horror, and I wasn’t eager to add to those terrible representations.

My solution was to avoid creating cliched non-player characters (NPCs) that served chilled monkey brains for dinner or ripped out hearts while screaming “Kali Ma”. While the three key NPCs of Kalakeri (Ramya, Reeva and Arijani) are genuinely monstrous, I decided to focus the real horror through the customs of the land that were open to interpretation for good or ill. I had originally planned to design a system that governed these customs.

Due to space limitations, Wes Schneider (the project lead for Van Richten’s Guide) and I mutually agreed to use the existing renown system from the Dungeon Master’s Guide. It shortened the piece and allowed the players to interact easily with the two main factions vying for the Sapphire Throne. I am proud of how renown turned out in the book, and here is some context behind what shaped renown—the Favor system.

Favor was inspired by many elements of Indian culture, but the primary ones were the boons depicted in Hindu mythology and the caste system.

Boons always fascinated me. They act as a sort of ruleset that even the gods must obey—once given, the universe bends to them. The great rakshasa king Ravana won boons from the god Brahma (or one of the other gods depending on the telling) for doing penance. These boons make Ravana invulnerable to all the dangers of the world including the gods themselves, leaving only humans as his weakness. This sets the Ramayana in motion as the god Vishnu reincarnates himself as the mortal Rama to defeat Ravana. I found this incredibly intriguing—that the gods could give Ravana such power, even power that would cause them enormous difficulty, because of Ravana’s observation of proper ritual and penance. Indian literature and mythology is littered with examples of kings, heroes, sages, demons and gods changing the course of history through a boon or a curse.

The caste system has been baked into Indian society for centuries. In my work in India, I’ve seen firsthand how those of marginalized and “low caste” show deference for those from more privileged castes. This has translated to an informal system where the poor and marginalized are often forced to be exceedingly obsequious to the wealthy and powerful with hopes of patronage or reward.

Now that some time has passed, I’ve had an opportunity to put together some flavor text for those of you who are interested in engaging more deeply in the cultural elements of Kalakeri:

The ancient custom of Favor has been part of Kalakeri for centuries. It describes the expected proper conduct of all individuals in society. Originally detailed in a series of ancient religious and philosophical texts that helped shape Kalakeri, it has been attributed to seminal moments in the lives of various legendary monarchs and heroes throughout the centuries. The founding of the Vasavadan Dynasty is tied to the Favor won by Vihaan from the great dragon Sarthak. At the same time, many say that the ill fate of Kalakeri is a curse from the goddess Ghoravara, because of the unfavorable deeds of the Vasavadan scions.

Favor permeates every level of society, and it governs routine interactions. Good hospitality is expected by all denizens of Kalakeri and earns modest Favor. Favor is most impactful when gained with those of higher station. In the original religious texts, it is described as a way for even the lowliest to petition the powerful. One of Kalakeri’s most important foundational stories is about a beggar who completed many great deeds to gain Favor with the maharana to save the life of her son.

The higher the station, the more formalized the process of building Favor and the more critical the stakes. A hero of Kalakeri may undertake challenging quests to accumulate great Favor with the maharani. In some cases, the individual will know what will help them gain Favor with the person in advance. Alternately, they may directly ask in an audience, “Maharani Ramya, I wish to curry Favor with you. What would you have me do?”

While Favor is powerful, it won’t make NPCs take completely irrational actions. An NPC won’t commit suicide at the whim of a Favor. But it’s possible to have a lieutenant betray Ramya because of Favor. Favor is strong enough to make individuals do things they would otherwise not do, and this applies to all, good or evil, who are raised in Kalakeri.

Among Kalakeri’s most prized literature are the tragedies of mighty heroes and nobles undone by Favor. Favor with Ramya enabled Reeva to ask her sister to meet with Arijani, which led to Ramya’s death. Equally, there are stories about heroes and villains cunning enough to obey the letter of the Favor asked, but not the spirit. Kalakeri’s epic tales of love, loss and triumph have Favor at their core.

The renown system in the VanRichten’s Guide to Ravenloft does a great job in setting up complex political machinations, one well suited for grand campaigns of dark fantasy. You can deepen that mechanic with more cultural context from the Favor system or personalize it so it revolves around individuals rather than factions.

Because of the power of the three main antagonists, a campaign set in the dread domain isn’t likely to start off with the player characters facing off against Ramya, Reeva, or Arijani—it’s going to be too hard to do so. And even if they are successful in defeating one of them, is Kalakeri really any better off?

But players might mitigate the evil of the three if only they can accumulate enough Favor with them to force them into new courses of action, or to blunt some evil they are perpetrating. Of course, to gain Favor with such ruthless antagonists, what might they ask of the players? To accumulate more and more Favor, the players will have to become intimately tied to these NPCs and drawn ever deeper into their internecine struggles.

Perhaps even more intriguing, and horrifying, is that the PCs are encouraged to play the middle with this monstrous royalty. Surviving the court of Kalakeri is like juggling knives; you don’t want to just gain Favor with one faction, because you need to ensure it does not get too powerful. Inevitably you will betray it to gain Favor with another faction. The domain is unlikely to improve, but you’re hoping it does not get worse. Both sides will hate you and love you as you play the game of winning and losing Favor, betraying, and supporting each side. You are continually torn between the powerful orbits of Ramya, Arijani and Reeva, winning and losing Favor in this nightmare land.

And if you want to take it to the next level, Favor can be applied to any NPC in Kalakeri. Flesh out the rebel NPCs, or lieutenants to the three main antagonists—all of that’s possible.

The horror of Kalakeri is both personal and social. Who will the player characters suborn themselves to? What crimes will they be complicit in? And what will they lose in the process? This domain offers so much to explore.

If you’ve enjoyed the groundwork laid by Kalakeri, but want fully developed adventures set in the domain, check out Unearthed Aventures: Kalakeri by the Panic Not! D&D community based in India. They’ve done a splendid job taking the seeds I’ve laid out and creating something special.

* ed note: we tried sourcing the artist names to these pieces but could not find them, if you are aware of who the artists are to these pieces, please drop them in the comments below, thanks!

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Ajit George is the Director of Operations for the international non-profit the Shanti Bhavan Children’s Project, a leading non-profit in the field of education, and poverty alleviation. He is featured in the original Netflix Documentary Series, Daughters of Destiny. In the field of games, he has written for a variety of indie companies including Bully Pulpit, Thorny Games, and Monte Cook Games, and is a diversity consultant, speaker, and activist. He has most recently written for D&D’s Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft.

Ajit George: Website | Twitter