Apple-Obsessed Author Fella
Yammerings and Babblings
Last week: Urban Fantasy.
This week: Paranormal Romance.
Your job: go to the comments. Pop in and list your top three favorite (read: “essential”) paranormal romance novels. Go go go! Do it now! I’ll wait here behind this two-way mirror, taking weird sciencey-flavored notes. *scribble scribble*
(And I’ll tally the urban fantasy ones later in the week when I have time.)
(HA HA HA HA have time.)
(That’s a good one, me.)
(High-five)
I just saw Pacific Rim.
I will now commence neural bridge with you.
We have drift.
(warning: mild spoilers detected)
• This is the most fun I’ve had at the movies in a long, long time.
• It made me want to go play with toys. Big smash-em-up anime robots and giant monsters.
• The movie understands what it wants to be and never deviates from that. That said, it never precisely surpasses it, either. We are left with a model robots versus monsters film, though perhaps not exactly a transcendent one, either.
• This is not a big dumb action movie. It’s smarter and savvier than you think. Also: no gaping plotholes! It didn’t feel rushed or half-baked (unlike nearly all Hollywood tentpole releases these days). Del Toro knows his stuff here.
• The action is top-of-the-pops. Generally clear; not shaky. Heartpounding stuff. Some sequences could’ve used a better sense of danger and consequence but for the most part: aces.
• A lot of the action is also repeated in the movie trailers. Like, the scene with the “Boatsball Bat?” (i.e. whack kaiju in the face with a giant ship)? Yeah, that would’ve played so much more bad-ass if I hadn’t seen it in like, three of the 17 trailers for the movie. As it stood, most of the really cool action beats are robbed of their fist-pumping woo-hoo-ery by their repetition in all the commercials and trailers.
• Thankfully, the action isn’t necessarily what carries the movie. It’s awesome. It’s important. But trust me when I say you’re not just waiting impatiently for the next action sequence to commence — there’s some compelling character drama stuff and worldbuilding going on in the middle. Never drags.
• Okay, fine, Charlie Hunnam’s Raleigh character is a bit generic. I really wanted him to whoop it up — I mean, if you’re gonna write in the classic “unpredictable hero who wins the day unpredictably,” then you should really strive to write him as a loose, popping wire. Han Solo is a guy that could swing either way — and further, he appears to be having fun in the story (and the actor in the role). That’s not really true here.
• But it doesn’t matter because the real bad-ass is Rinko Kikuchi’s Mako Mori character. So awesome. Actually, there’s a flashback scene of her as a little girl in the midst of some bad shit going down, and that little girl actress needs to win a big bucket of Oscars, stat. Those scenes are the best in the movie. Emotionally affecting, exciting, scary, and at the end, triumphant. The kind of scene a Hollywood executive might dismiss as a drag on the film but that really, really anchors the character and the story.
• Idris Elba, of course, is rad as fuck.
• Although, Idris Elba is given one speech (again seen in trailers) that is so bland and so library paste it feels like you could’ve copy/pasted it from a hundred other cheesy action movies. “WE ARE MANKIND AND WE WILL BE VICTORIOUS” is a pretty boring thrust. Any writer worth his salt could’ve put some better rah-rah-rah blood-pumping speechifying in his mouth.
• The monsters are a little samey-samey by the end. Like, a few really stand-out, but part of the problem is, monsters have no actual persona. They’re intelligent, but they’re not characters. To anchor an otherworldly, unknowable enemy like that you need to find some kind of human evil. That’s why in zombie stories you tend to have some sinister human component to actually bring drama — otherwise, the enemy is basically the equivalent of a hurricane or a earthquake. A little of that in this film (opposing government? it’s set up in the beginning but never goes anywhere) would’ve gone a long way. Human evil is more interesting than alien agendas.
• Oh, and can I just say: Charlie Day and Ron Perlman, everybody. *round of applause that goes on long enough to be uncomfortable*
• This is the rare action movie where I could’ve used another half-hour added to it.
• The climactic showdown / end game is honestly a little too easy, too pat.
• Despite that, I was still thrilled by it, so. Yeah.
Anyway. There we go.
It’s epic fun.
You should see it.
And tell your friends to see it.
And then go see it again.
Because we need to support films that aren’t reboots or rehashes or sequels or prequels.
Last week’s challenge: “The Last Line Of A Story”
Holy crap, people. Over three-hundred entries in last week’s challenge.
This is going to be a hard one.
Some of you are out of the running — if you enter multiple times, I mostly discount your entries because you put me into a kind of choice paralysis. Plus, you get lots of the dead bodies, bullets, revenge variety — some of this stuff starts to feel very samey-samey. (Oh, and more than a few of you have a very liberal interpretation of a “last line” of a story.)
That being said, still, so many good options.
So, this is the five I’ve picked:
m3nace: “If it wasn’t for the inflation the devil could have bribed them.”
Lani Gerbi: “And then, being mindful not to spill my tea, I eased into the tartan embrace of Endolyn Muirden’s least offensive armchair, and settled back to watch him die.”
Ben Dodge: “The old man lying in the hold died three minutes later.”
Marlanesque: “She closed the book and watched as it turned to dust.”
Ryan Viergutz: “Cristobal climbed the ladder of arteries to the first universe that looked like it held more wonders and mysteries than the last.”
Squishy: “That plan didn’t fly, superhero, and now we’re short a bazooka.”
Josh Roby: “Once upon a time, there was a story so short, it was only a single line.”
lverawrites: “Life was easier before killing all the rabbits.”
David: “They never did find the orangutan.”
Damien Kelly: “Truth be told, I’m not sure any of them are actually dead.”
You’ll note that I’ve chosen ten there.
If you’re one of the lines picked, email me at: terribleminds at gmail dot com.
You will receive some manner of digital goodies.
NOW, for this week’s challenge —
You think it’s going to be, “Pick one of these last lines and using it as a last line in your story.”
BZZT.
Nope.
I want you to pick one of these last lines and use it as the first opening line in your story.
You’ve got up to 1000 words.
Write your tale. Post at your online space. Link back here.
Due by next Friday. July 19th. Noon EST.
I don’t normally do press releases, but I like LJ Cohen and definitely like what this anthology supports, so, please read, consider checking it out.
Newton, MA – Interrobang Books is pleased to announce the publication of “Pen Ultimate: A Speculative Fiction Anthology.” The anthology, edited by LJ Cohen and Talib S. Hussain, is comprised of eleven short stories written by up-and-coming writers in fantasy and science fiction and includes a foreword by Craig Shaw Gardner and an afterword by Jeffrey A. Carver.
All proceeds will be donated to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) Emergency Medical Fund. The fund offers interest-free loans to members facing unexpected medical expenses. Active SFWA members are eligible to request assistance from the fund. More information about the fund and how to directly donate to it can be found at
http://www.sfwa.org/about/benevolent-funds/emergency-medical-fund/.
The anthology will be unveiled at ReaderCon 24, an annual convention devoted to “imaginative literature” (www.readercon.com). The book is available in trade paperback edition through Amazon and CreateSpace, and e-Book editions through major online venues.
To purchase:
CreateSpace (print)
Blood and Feathers is routinely shouted out as one of those modern urban fantasy classics — I’ve not yet heard a bad word said about the book. The follow-up is here already, and author Lou Morgan would like to tell you about it:
Lou Morgan: epic procrastinator, medievalist, goody two-shoes. Also writer. Solaris published my first book, “Blood and Feathers” last summer, and they’ve just released the sequel, “Blood and Feathers: Rebellion”.
My short stories have turned up in anthologies alongside pieces by Joe Hill and Audrey Niffenegger, and I’m part of the team for this year’s World Fantasy Convention in the UK.
The war between the angels and the Fallen has spread – and for Alice and angels Mallory & Vin, the stakes just got a hell of a lot higher.
All over the place. Obviously, it’s a follow-up to “Blood and Feathers”, so it’s grown out of that book and the characters in it, but given that I’m British there’s also echoes of the London riots which I watched with a mixture of horror and a feeling of crushing inevitability, and the sense of global unrest that we’re all aware of.
Like the first book, it’s heavily influenced by medieval art and the portrayal of angels: more often than not, when you see them in paintings or carvings in cathedrals they’re in armour and I wondered how that would translate to our world, right now.
It’s about the things that interest me; the things I keep coming back to. Things like loss and grief and despair and revenge, and hope and faith and friendship and family: what it means to have someone come along who doesn’t pick you up when you fall down, but makes you realise that you can get up again all by yourself.
Besides that, it’s full of the kind of things that fall out of my slightly magpie-mind: riots, battles, sarcastic Archangels, churches and a funeral parlour run by Death. And maybe even redemption. But to get there, you have to go through hell.
I was pretty daunted by the idea of writing a sequel. It scared me. Would I be able to remember what the characters sounded like? Would I push them in directions they shouldn’t necessarily go? Would I even be able to finish it at all – or did I just get lucky with the whole “finishing a book” thing the first time around? And that was just the existential mess I got myself in before I’d even started.
Balancing the real and the unreal was also tricky. I use an incredibly famous location as the Archangel Michael’s stronghold: Mont Saint Michel, on the French coast. It’s one of the most photographed locations in the world, visited by millions every year and of real significance to a lot of people… and I mess with it. I’d realised I wanted to use it when I visited a couple of years ago – but I also knew that to get the best out of it for the story I wanted to tell, I was going to need to tinker with it slightly. I didn’t want to do too much, though, or what would be the point in using it in the first place? In the end, I had a discussion with my editor Jon about whether it should be The Real Place or I should use it as a jumping-off point and invent something totally new – and eventually settled on inserting a few deliberate mistakes in some of the descriptions. They don’t change anything exactly, but they’re also an acknowledgement that you’re looking at a fictionalised version of the Mont – one where the angels are in charge (because if my angels being in charge of it wasn’t fiction, frankly, I’d be getting nervous).
That the quickest way to find out whether or not something works is to do it! Worrying about whether X should happen in a story, or Y, or Z doesn’t solve anything: you just have to get on with it. I guess you can apply that slightly trite idea to life in general.
I also learned to have a lot more faith in myself as a writer. All that “second album syndrome” baggage doesn’t help – because it’s not about you. It’s about the story you’re trying to tell. That’s what matters, and it’ll find its way out when it’s good and ready. Your job is just to sit there, shut up and listen so you can pass it on.
I loved being able to go back to the same characters and give them more history; giving them real pasts which have consequences and getting the chance to add more light and shade to them. But then I also loved bringing new characters in – ones like the Archangel Zadkiel, who was mentioned in the first book but never turned up in person, and who I’d been itching to write. I think more than anything, it’s just the general mayhem I love: the kind you get when there are angels with swords and guns and people can catch fire and all of them have something they’re fighting for… whether it’s good or bad.
Next time, there’ll be a list of forbidden phrases stuck to the wall above where I write. There were two or three that I kept finding over and over again when we were editing, and good grief was I sick of deleting them by the end of the process. And I’ll make some kind of sensible index for my research: now having several notebooks full of completely, utterly randomised notes, I’m on the verge of losing my mind. And my research.
(After an exhausting fight against the Fallen, Alice – tired and thoroughly pissed off – decides to school an Archangel in manners)
“Now you listen to me,” Zadkiel dropped his voice to a low hiss. “This is a war. The war. There is no stopping; no getting out. You’re in this – just like the rest of us – to the end. So, frankly, I don’t give a shit if you do it because you’re following orders, or because you want to make it through the day alive, or because you like the look of my fucking haircut. Just get it done.”
Alice stared at him and felt a flush creeping up her cheeks, but was determined to stand her ground. “You didn’t say please.”
“Excuse me?”
“You didn’t say please.”
“I didn’t say please?”
“No.”
“Fine. Alice: would you please take care of this?”
“Seeing as you asked nicely…” She shrugged; out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Castor giving her a thumbs-up and Vin trying to hide a smile behind his hand. Even Mallory seemed to have succumbed to a mysterious coughing fit.
I have a couple of short stories which are knocking about and should see the light of day sometime this year, and at the moment I’m working on a YA book which is still in its very early stages. There’s a few other ideas I’d like to spend some time on which have been stewing for a while – now it’s just a case of waiting to see which one shouts the loudest for my attention.
Lou Morgan: Website / @LouMorgan
Blood And Feathers: Rebellion: Amazon US / Amazon UK / B&N / Waterstones / Hive
Jon McGoran, man. I’m one of his cohorts in the Philly Liars’ Club and we both share the same agent — lemme tell you, this guy has talent and smarts in spades. Here he talks about his newest, Drift, which is (to me) the adult thriller cousin to my upcoming young adult book, Under the Empyrean Sky — hell, his book could be a prequel to mine. Food and pharmaceuticals crash together in a high-test paranoid thriller. You’re gonna wanna read it, but just in case — here’s Jon to talk about the book:
I write mysteries, crime, thrillers, the occasional science fiction story, and even a zombie story here and there. I have a series of forensic thrillers I wrote as D.H. Dublin, but Drift is my first novel as Jon McGoran. I also write about food and sustainability, formerly at Weavers Way Co-op, and now as the editor of Grid Magazine. Since I eat food as well as write about it, I’ve become a bit of an advocate, working to support urban agriculture and labeling of genetically modified foods. I live outside Philadelphia with my son Will and my lovely bride, Elizabeth, a children’s librarian.
Cop drinking off a suspension out in the country discovers a plot involving drugs, GMOs & the blurring line between food and pharmaceuticals
For a long time, my food writing and my fiction were pretty separate, but as our food systems have gotten more and more out of whack, my nonfiction was getting crazier than the fiction. I figured our corrupt and dysfunctional food system was the perfect backdrop for a thriller, and when I had the idea for Drift, I realized it was time to bring the two parts of my writing life together, to write a thriller about the frightening things that were being done to the food we eat. Most of the obvious ideas for where a thriller would go had already happened in real life. (Corrupt and mysterious forces keeping the public in the dark while releasing untested new life forms into the environment? Been there, done that!) but the GMO issue has a lot of layers and angles. Some of the most powerful and promising GMO endeavors — like plants being engineered to produce pharmaceuticals — become very unsettling when you think about those plants escaping into the environment or cross pollinating with other plants. I was also intrigued by the way big corporations are trying to create situations where society is dependent on them in a very unhealthy way, like an addiction. Those are some of the ideas I explore in Drift.
Drift is unusual in a lot of ways, I hope. It’s written in first person, which makes it tricky to do some of the things thrillers are supposed to do, but lets you write with intimacy and immediacy, and a lot of voice. Hopefully, my voice is unique, so in that sense, I’m the only person who could have written this story. But, considering the urgency and importance of the topic, I am kind of surprised there aren’t more books out there about GMOs, and specifically more thrillers. (And obviously, a YA cornpunk trilogy about GMOs is going to be insanely successful, so I’ll definitely be looking for that!) The story of what has already happened with GMOs — the actual provable, demonstrable, acknowledged facts — already reads like a thriller. It’s a great and terrible back story that could go in a lot of directions.
There are so many compelling concepts involved in the GMO issue, it was hard leaving some of them out. Things like the impact of GMOs on insects and animals, and the interaction between the big chemical companies and the government. Luckily, I am working on a sequel.
I already knew a lot about what was going on with GMOs, but in researching the topic, I learned a lot more, like how GMO manufacturers are using patent protection to thwart efforts to conduct meaningful research on the long-term health and environmental impact of GMOs.
I think the ideas behind the book are important, and I’m a bit of a plot guy, so I really like some of the twists, but, probably like most writers, I love my characters. Doyle especially, because that’s the point of view I am writing from, but really all of them — his new friend Moose and his romantic interest Nola, all the bad guys and minor characters, too. I love the relationship between Doyle and his partner, Danny, and with Stan Bowers, his friend at DEA. There are also characters who aren’t even in the book, who exist off stage, and I find them fascinating, too. WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME?
Since writing Drift I have learned a lot more about heirloom seeds, and I would have included more of that. There are farmers out there using seed-saving and growing techniques that have been around for thousands of years, and suddenly that is subversive or even illegal. Some of them are being aggressively litigated against by companies like Monsanto. I would have included more about that. But I’ll look forward to exploring that in a future book. I might also try to cut back on the coffee.
As the phone fell away from my face, I thought: My mom is going to die while this fuck- head tries to get his days straight. I don’t remember thinking much after that. I got out of the van, a cardinal sin in the middle of surveillance, and I walked around the corner, straight up to where Danny and Rowan were standing.
Danny’s eyes widened, then his face fell back into the same heavy lidded suspicious gaze as Rowan’s. We’d been working pretty hard the past few days, so I looked rough enough to pass for someone making a buy. As Rowan looked over at me, ready to take my order, Danny flashed me one last glare to remind me how much time and energy he’d invested in his cover.
The first thing I did when I came up to them, I planted a left in Danny’s face. I didn’t pull it, either— I popped him and dropped him. If I was going to pull something, it had to look real.
Rowan yelped like I’d stepped on his tail. He tugged a gun from the back of his pants, but he couldn’t seem to get a grip on it, bobbling it like some half- assed juggler until I snatched it out of the air between his hands and pressed it against his temple.
“When’s the re- up?”
I am hard at work finishing up Deadout, the sequel to Drift. It deals with possible links between GMOs and colony collapse disorder, the mysterious syndrome that is causing billions of bees to vanish without a trace.
Jon McGoran: Website / @JonMcGoran
Drift: Amazon / B&N / Indiebound
