I so wanted to love Interstellar. Just the pictures of the black hole alone made it a visually stunning movie. But, several things threw me out of the story.
The first being the use of the SLS to launch the crew to the orbiting ship. Not because the SLS is in anyway or shape bad, but because it set my level of expectation on the technological assumptions; no single stage to orbit rockets.
Then what so we see later? Single stage to orbit rockets. Not only that, designs that could never carry enough fuel for the Delta-V required to fulfill the mission.
After that the film might have well been Star Wars, which I love, but Interstellar had none of the joy or excitement of the former. As for the plot, again I had no problem with the MacGuffin, but what it wrapped around it was I felt utter trite sentimentality.
And don't get me wrong, I don't mind sentimentality, I do dislike trite story telling.
I'm now going to defend The Tomorrow War by dismantling the criticism I've seen on social media. Wish me luck.
Rule number of of time travel paradox movies is that it's a paradox.
As such the ending will always seem contradictory.
At the beginning of the story, travelers arrive from the future and announce they are the few remaining survivors and blah, blah, blah.
Notice that the story then skips forward by a year.
That's important.
Also remember that time continues to flow.
Therefore, any sensible response that you can think, of has happened.
For example. We now know that time travel is possible and we start researching how to make a machine, because why wouldn't you?
We also know in passing that the world's militaries rally the troops and send them forward to fight.
Yay!
A Year later the losses are horrendous.
Boo!
Thirty years of preparation go by, but guess what? The aliens don't land in a fancy spaceship, and have bred vast hordes in the faraway places, and before you know it countries start to fall.
Okay, that's a bit farfetched, but assuming no one goes nuclear, it's as plausible as World War Zombie.
The creature breed like rabbits, eat like locusts, and by the time the nuclear option is on the table it's too late.
But at least they have the time machine, and can go back and try again.
We have a hint that this has happened because the heroes daughter tells him how after he came back from his week long tour he was a changed man.
And there's the paradox.
Each time the machine is used you get a slightly different outcome until the time comes when you solve the problem.
Really, is it all that hard for people to see this?
I posted a link to my Facebook page about Outside the Wire with a short tag.
We
watched this last night. It has combat robots and drones and action and
stuff, but did I mention cool combat robots? Worth giving this a watch
if you like combat robots battling other combat robots.
A long thread followed. One friend commented he liked how the the robot was able to manipulate it's programming as being stupid scary. While another friend thought Leo started to display all the unfortunate traits of a Bond villain or Doctor Evil.
I
tend to agree with the former comment, because even though the end is not all it could be, I enjoyed it enough to give it a pass. And because the end was far better than I thought it would be.
But I disagree that Leo failed by becoming a Bond villain or Doctor Evil.
Why? Because I don't think his goal was what it appeared to be. But I would fully admit that I might be projecting the direction of the story on what I would've written. Let me unpack my understanding of what Outside the Wire was all about.
The plot of any story is basically a series of linked events driven by the sequence of outcomes (so called try/fail cycles), from the decisions the characters make when faced with problems they have to solve.
The theme of a story is what the story is actually about.
Harp's story starts by revealing he's a drone pilot. When faced with a problem his actions shows us who he is.
A character who eats Gummy bears and is super cool under pressure. Smart and emotionally cold, or able to distance himself from his emotions. So much so that he can to make a really hard choice; sacrifice the lives of two Marines to save the other 38 people in the platoon.
This is the core of his character. Someone who is capable of sacrificing lives for the greater good.
The aftermath of his actions results in him being court-martialed, because he broke the chain-of-command when he disobeyed his orders. He is punished by being sent to the front to learn from experience,
When Harp arrives he is assigned to a Captain Leo.
During their initial conversation Leo reveals himself to be an advanced AIandroid who can pass as fully human; tells Harp that he asked specifically for him;tells Harp what he thinks of him, not good; finishes their conversation by blatantly asking Harp whether or not he trusts him?
Through the story we learn that Leo is smart, warm and empathic, and a highly capable combatant. This is the core of his character.
By the time we get to the climax, we have also learnt that Leo is easily able to manipulate the humans around him to achieve his plans. During his showdown with Harp, Leo outlines his plan to launch a nuclear strike against America, sacrificing millions of lives for the greater good of mankind.
Harp stops the plan, even though Leo could've easily killed Harp during their climactic fight.
However, I believe that Leo's plan was a
charade, to highlight the danger of advanced generalized AI like him, and stop more of him from being deployed. Otherwise why would Leo go through all the trouble to set up this crazy complex plan to allow himself to be stopped?
I think the clue to answering this question is the opening of the movie.
Harp is shown to have made the right choice (for example, easily proved with a forensic examination for chemical traces of the launcher rockets fuel in the ruins of the van), but he is still court-martialed for not following the chain-of-command. In a more generic war movie it would have been medals and home in time for tea (or coffee, or in Harp's case, Gummy bears.
The importance of following the chain-of-command, and the consequences for not doing so is shown. My takeaway is that an advanced generalized AI not following the chain-of-command is the real threat. Leo is setting himself up as an example of what could happen if more like him are deployed.
But, how can Leo be sure to convince people this is his plan?
My take is that it is easier to convince people what you say is true when they believe what they're being told is true. Leo can easily convince Harp that he intends to sacrifice millions of American lives, because his actions reflect what Harp did; sacrificing lives for the greater good.
That is why Leo chose Harp to join him.
Harp's chain-of-command wants smart, cool and capable people, but they can't have them not follow orders. Even if everyone in the chain-of-command realized they were being played, Leo is their worst nightmare. Smart capable, cool and will break the chain-of-command and sacrifice lives for the greater good.
Whether Leo's plan succeeded or failed didn't matter. It was the threat Leo posed that mattered. And that is why I think Leo allowed Harp to beat him, because his end goal was not to have more like him appear on the battlefields.
A programmable AI that doesn't follow orders is a good reason to cancel making more.
Does this make Outside the Wire perfect? No, because the ending was not all it could be, because if it were then I wouldn't have to unpack it the way I did.
But as I said, "Worth giving this a watch
if you like combat robots battling other combat robots."
It has been a while since I've made a post about my writing.
I've been going through a slow period due to a combination of factors, some in my control, some not. My day job demands have been rising, a victim of my own success, but my manager has got that under control, and I feel a lot let stressed: not just from the work, but from the pressure of having to commit to more work than I can manage.
It's also that time of the year where the weather is miserable, it's dark, damp and cold. I've felt run down and even went off reading, which is a thing. I've only just managed to finish reading a second novel this year. The first was Eric Frank Russell's The Great Explosion, actually read so I could review it for Galactic Journey, see here.
After that I started Michael Z. Williamson's When Diplomacy Fails. I've only mentioned his work in passing back here, and it took me longer to read the third book in the Ripple Creek series as I kept putting it down. That says more about me than the book, but the author is better handling action than he is with interior dialogues of character beliefs: as in the action grips you by the seat of the pants that is hard to match when writing reflective thoughts that are well meaning, but ultimately don't really add anything i.e.: could be removed without detriment to the story.
Still, Williamson is one of those authors who I will buy his latest book when it's available in paperback because he delivers high octane action goodness. Inspirational too.
So, looking at my diary this year I've only managed to work on my second novel a total of four days out of a possible 16: with some caveats I might say eight days because writing for my blogs and other people's blogs take time, as in they don't write themselves and the Galactic Journey pieces take a lot of research time to do too. That's not a complaint, just an observation. But, assuming that I'm now only going to realistically write one day a week it has consequences on how long it's going to take me to finish the edits on my second novel.
Currently I'm at chapter 16 of Strike Dog out of 62; OK some of those are very short chapters. Words wise I've done 31,209 words out of 97,578 with 66,369 to go, which doesn't sound so bad: a third of the way through rather than just a quarter. However, this doesn't take into account any extra writing I will do to add sub-plots etc. There's a lot resting on this second novel, given that the first was rejected, because the publisher wants to see my second one. I really want to nail it so they'll want to publish my story, because it would make my life so much easier than having to self-publish, given the demands of my day job.
Finally, rewatched Predator over the weekend. Thirty years old and still eminently rewatchable. As the old saw goes, they don't make them like that anymore. And that's not sarcasm, this movie is a streamlined, pulse-pounding action flick that grabs one from the opening scene and keeps the roller-coaster ride going until the end. Neither of the sequels are as good even though both have merits, the third being better than the second because the second hasn't dated well.
I missed posting last week because we were away in Cambridge with friends and partying, and I felt rather unwell all weekend and most of this last week. Not quite coming down with something but fighting off whatever ailed me: coughing and stuff, including feeling really cold. Today the sun is shining and I feel a lot better.
This week there was the horrible event in Belgium, a place that has wonderful people, nice restaurants and great museums. I missed most of the reaction because I was at work and I don't have time during my clinics to be browsing the news. All I can say I will not let this action make me fearful, because fear leads to hate and anger, and these are strong emotions that should not be unleashed otherwise one is pulled along rather than being in control of how you behave.
So another week has passed by in a flash, and I have writing to do, including an article for a new editor who asked me if I'd like to write a non-fiction article for him, which I will tell you about closer to the time.
In the evenings we've been chilling by re-watching Elementary, the American Sherlock Holmes series with Lucy Liu, which we've really enjoyed. We've just received season three, hence the re-watch as it has been quite some time since we saw the series. Paul Cornell talked about working for the show but his episode is in season four, so it's going to be a while before we get around to seeing his episode.
We've also re-watched some old movies.
Dante's Peak, a favourite of mine because it has James Bond and Sarah Conner in it; sorry I mean Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton but more importantly, as far as Hollywood films goes, the science behind the story is not the usual egregious nonsense one has come to expect.
We then watched The Omen, mostly because I had fond memories of David Warner using a Nikon F2 with a photonic head and Patrick Troughton, the second Dr. Who, and still one of my favourite actors who played the role over the history of the show. The film has not aged well or perhaps I should say I've aged and my expectations of a movie are different now than when I first saw it back in the cinema circa 1976.
I also bought Contact, the Jodie Foster movie based on Carl Sagan's book as we both enjoyed it the last time we watched it. It has aged remarkably well considering what they could do with CGI.
Finally, we watched a new movie, The Last Witch Hunter starring Riddick, Ygritte and Frodo with someone called Michael Caine who may or may not be Alfred the butler or whoever. Vin Diesel played himself as did Michael Caine, so they were well matched. Rose Leslie held her own, and Elijah Wood proved again he could really act by playing a part against type. Though having seen him do that twice now in movies perhaps this is his new type? I have to say that though the film was a confection of fantasy tropes, Vin Diesel with a beard, waving a flaming sword, and slaying witches worked for me.
This weekend is going to be chock-a-block with archery, eating chocolate, drinking wine, and rewriting the article I mentioned, just to reassure the editor who I knows reads this blog that I am working on his commission. Have a good one whatever you choose to do. Catch you all again next week.
I bought a copy of Nail Your Novel by Roz Morris to read because of the promise on the cover to discuss why writers abandon books and how you can draft, fix and finish with confidence. This book does what it says, and not only that but it's a concise short read. I finished it in about two hours and was driven to go and put the advice on writing synopses into practice. As a result, I spent the rest of my Sunday working and ended up writing for about eight hours in fact.
Then Monday I rewrote my covering letter, tailoring it for another submission and then sent my novel off. So, highly recommended.
Other than the above my week has been taken up with my job, which I'm enjoying but the work demands quite a lot from me emotionally. Besides that it has been my birthday and my beloved bought me a new camera. I'm very excited with my new swish bit of kit. I'm so excited by getting it I plan to do a piece on photography for this blog too.
We watched season three of Defiance, its last, and again it managed to be better than it had any right to be. The show runners seem to have taken a leaf out of GRRMs book and the season started with the excess characters being killed off so they could concentrate on finishing the stories of the main protagonists. I even ended up liking Nolan who up to this point I felt a bit so, so about.
We also saw The Martian. I mentioned reading the book here. The film is very good, but the book has more details, which is usually the case and not meant as a criticism. It also breaks the Hollywood superstition that films with Mars in the title bomb at the box office; they seem incapable of realizing that films bomb because don't appeal for any number of different reasons, but titles are only one of them.
We've just started watching True Detective and I will comment more when I've finished. I will say it's intense, like watching The Wire or Generation Kill. Off to PicoCon tomorrow and I plan on taking my new camera with me to test out.
This is my third Xmas blog written on the day before Xmas and I've seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens. No spoilers from me. All I'll say is that I enjoyed the film for what it was and reveled in the nostalgia of seeing old friends having adventures again.
Work wise I've been distracted from working on Ghost Dog by Xmas, Beta reader feedback on Strike Dog, and editorial questions about Bad Dog. The latter being the quite discombobulating as my mind is currently focused on the necessary revisions to Strike Dog.
But as I said it's the Xmas thing that has taken most of my time.
That and reading up all the Star Wars: The Force Awakens threads on the internet. Called me Miss No Mates, I know that's sad. Currently Susan is slaving in the kitchen, I've helped by preparing the Brussels Sprouts, and I'm about to pop into the bath to soak away the pains from last minute Xmas shopping: Taylor's 10 year old Tawny port, and a bottle of Penfold's Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet, along with chestnuts and dried apricots for making stuffing.
So, all is right here at home as I listen to John Williams music from Star Wars. Tomorrow we'll unwrap our presents and watch the Dr Who Xmas special. That just leaves me to say thank you all for reading my blog, and I wish you all a Very Merry Xmas – and may the Port or drink of choice be with you.
Before and after loosing – fly free arrow and wiggle your feathers at me.
And the week has just flown by with us going to two Xmas parties, a barbecue, and a friend coming around for dinner which is my excuse for posting this so late. However, to my surprise, I managed to edit 8,938 words in between all the fun activities which includes my archery beginners course.
This week I was shooting at 30 yards and not hitting the target reliably. I therefore failed to score the required 200 points in 36 arrows to progress to 40 yards which is a relief. I'm doing this primarily for fun but the club obviously wants people to shoot at events and is therefore quite competitive. I have neither the inclination (will/strength of mind) nor the competitive spirit (winning is not important to me) to take my archery seriously enough to enter matches.
Still, as a learning experience it's great.
Also, it will encourage to work on my fitness (mostly flexibility and posture) and, arguably it's research for when I need to include archery in story, because it gives me a much more realistic understanding of the reality of loosing arrows and the kind of distances that one can realistically shoot at given the lead one needs to hit a moving target.
Since the last blog we've watched Terminator Genisys which I thought was probably the best sequel to the first two movies so far. However, it's not quite as good as the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. As usual, I'm perplexed by the inability of reviewers to cope with SF ideas like time travel which seems to confuse them (I speak of the mainstream news website in general).
After that we watched The Clone Wars: The Lost Missions. A series, along with the John Williams scores that I enjoy listening to, which in my mind largely redeems the prequel movies. Then we watched season one of Star Wars Rebels, I guess you're sensing a theme here (the force is strong with you) and last night Star Wars: A New Hope. I'm sure you can guess what we're watching this evening and tomorrow night.
Wednesday we're going to go and see Star Wars: The Force Awakens and have booked our tickets at our local Vue Cinema, so we're all set.
Finally, I finished reading the third of the Diana RowlandWhite Trash Zombie books – White Trash Zombie Apocalypse. While this series may not be hardcore zombie fare, I found the central protagonist engaging and the developments and themes within the story satisfying with good pacing and exciting plot reversals and try/fail cycles. In short well crafted stories.
So that's it for another week. I'll be posting a Xmas blog on Thursday, see you on the bounce.
We picked up a English trade paperback translation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka's novel being marketed under the title of the film Edge of Tomorrow.
I reviewed the film Edge of Tomorrow aka Live. Die. Repeat some time ago, and now that I've read the book I thought I'd take the time to muse about both, and their relationship to my novel Bad Dog.
As I said, the similarities between Bad Dog and the film Edge of Tomorrow are all surface level stuff, with the MacGuffin driving the plot being entirely different. Alien tachyon technology versus my idea of a holographic multiverse.
For the purposes of this review I shall refer to novel by its original title – All You Need is Kill.
The book is quite short, running in at around 50,000 words, and I managed to read it over the course of Sunday morning. While there are many small differences between the film and the book, which depending on one's tastes either adds or distracts from the story, in general the plot is the same.
I thought the translation was very well done, and I'm really nit-picking when I
say I noticed a couple of things that I would have used different words
for – namely clip for magazine, especially as the word magazine was used
a few line later for instance. The ending of the book is differs from the movie,
and this makes it worth reading if you want to
see how the author originally intended the story to end.
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed reading All You Need is Kill, it reminded me of science fiction that I read back in the
seventies and eighties. Plot driven action that runs with an idea.
So if you are into
military SF with power armour then this book should hit the spot.
This week I've finished the first out loud read through of Strike Dog and rewrite.
I feel a bit burned out after five days of solid work editing 100,314 words, with 1,072 words trimmed in the process. I've made some notes about things that I need to go back too. Mostly to do with duplication of background information. I plan to do another out loud read through next week, which hopefully will go a lot faster second time round.
So that's it for another week. See you all on the bounce.
I finished reading Fool Moon, the second book in the Dresden Files, a series that I have gotten into recently. I started reading it last weekend, and while I was enjoying it I put it down and only finished it this week. I think that the first half of the book sets out a lot of stuff that rounds out the world of the Dresden Files, but was mostly exposition, and while stuff got interesting the first half of the book didn't grab me. However, the second half of the story the shit starts to get serious, and things go down hill for our hero and his friends. What Butcher was then able to do was ramp the action up to eleven. From that point on the book became unputdownable.
So yes I finished it, and yes I plan to go out soon and get the next one in the series. I was really impressed with the writing. The first book is good, but this is even better. At this rate I'll be hooked, and a fully paid up member of the Jim Butcher fan club. If I were a member of this years Worldcon I'd seriously be thinking about voting for his Hugo nominated book Skin Game. And I tell you why. I'm a fairly hardcore hard SF fan who likes a bit of Space Opera, and Cthulhu, but urban fantasy has to be really good for me to want to read it. The fact that I want to go out and buy more books in this series is evidence that Jim Butcher can write interesting and engrossing stories that are outside of my usual taste. For me that says volumes about him as a writer.
We also rewatched Mad Max 2 aka The Road Warrior,
and Jurassic Park this week. I bought Blu-ray copies cheap off Amazon.
I thought with the new sequels/reboots we ought to watch the originals
first. Both films stood up remarkably well. Mad Max is thirty-four years old and still sets the benchmark for post apocalypse car mayhem. Some of the CGI is a little dated in Jurassic Park, but ickle pooh dinosaurs FTW. Then sharp teeth and claw action from less cute velociraptors, and of course the star – Tyrannosaurus Rex saving the day.
We have just finished watching season four of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. At times the stories crossed the line from silly into cringe inducingly bad, but somehow the show managed to stay true to its core values, which were the relationship between Lois and Clark. After a considerable break we have also restarted watching Xena Warrior Princess. Season three and the first three episode of season four were what I'd call hard work. However, as we move more into season four the stories have gone back to the basics that make the show work; the relationship and adventures of Xena and Gabrielle.
A lesson to be learnt. Stories are all about the characters.
Writing last week went well. I managed to edit 9,803 words of Strike Dog, which is five chapters further along to my goal of finishing it. At the same time I worked on radio call signs and other stuff, to make sure I'd used military phonetic shorthand correctly. So all-in-all not a bad week.
I've wanted to get around to talking about seeing Interstellar and Lucy, which we watched over the course of a weekend a little while back.
Let me start with Interstellar. I was so disappointed. I'd heard so much good stuff about the science behind the movies, and I would unequivocally agree that the scene with the spherical wormhole, and the rendering the of the giant rotating black hole were stupendous. However, with regards to the plot, acting, dialogue and story Interstellar just fell flat. I'm not going to go into the details of each, because I really don't like being so negative about something, but as Interstellar was being sold as the spiritual successor to 2001: A Space Odyssey I just want to say no, not really.
While I can see the themes that made people make the comparison the the technical execution of world was let down by a number of things that were quite frankly outrageous. The first example was the need to launch the Ranger, a single-stage-to-orbit shuttle, on top of a conventional booster to get into space. Please explain to me how the Ranger can complete the mission to explore the worlds on the other side of the wormhole if it can't get into Earth orbit by itself? (rhetorical question).
The second blooper is the spaceship Endurance waiting for them in orbit. Where are the heat radiators? I admit that Discovery One in 2001: A Space Odyssey omitted them, but here's the thing the Discovery looked like it could carry the reaction mass needed for its mission, whereas the Endurance appears to have some Star Trek style handwavium impulse drive, which in my books doesn't make it hard science. And then there is the problem of precession while accelerating with the grav ring rotating, which really is another don't get me started thing.
You know what, Avatar had a more realistic looking interstellar spaceship.
Next we watched Lucy. There were times during this movie when Morgan Freeman's character was talking about the potential of the brain, and how we only use five percent brain where I went oh really that hoary old chestnust again, but the plot, acting, dialogue and story swept me away. The special effects were slick, and Scarlett Johansson showed that she could lead a movie as well as any man.
So where's our Black Widow movie?
Last week started slow for me as my wrist was still playing me up, so I went and had coffee with a friend, and talked about writing and stuff. It made a change from sitting in front of my computer editing. Then the next day I found I needed to go and do a shop at our big Tesco, and by the time I got back I was sodden from the heat. So treated myself to a long soak in the bath.
However, despite such dalliances I managed to edit another 4,601 words of Strike Dog, added another 666 words bringing the running total up to 102,443 words, and managing to pass the halfway point of the novel in the process. I also wrote a new scene, and rewrote a segment that involved using phonetic shorthand over the radio. A big thank you to David Barrow for his input. In addition I wrote 910 words for words for my blogs. So it felt like a fairly productive week, even if at times I feel frustrated by the pace of the progress I'm making.
Just watched Jupiter Ascending this weekend, and had to comment, because really why all the negativity? The Wachowskis describe their film as being the Wizard of Oz in space. I would say while channeling Charles Fort and Cordwainer Smith (the former for the idea that we're property, the latter for the whole Gothic Lords of the Instrumentality, underpeople and stroon). Its also a rag to riches story, and therefore shares a lot of tropes with the Cinderella fairy tale.
So I'm finding it hard to understand how the reviewers were baffled by the story?
This is not to say that Jupiter Ascending is perfect. It has a number of flaws, especially for an old fogie like me: explosions too loud, action scenes too long, not enough witty dialogue. But it's a magnificent visual feast with eye poppingly gorgeous scenes of spaceships and underpeople. Yes it's Candy floss, but Candy floss turned up to eleven on the scale of awesome flavoured Candy floss.
It also seems to have been received better by women and non-Americans, and I have to wonder if the current zeitgeist in America is moving further away from the tastes of the rest of the world? If so what would that mean? I have no idea.
Moving on, my wrist has been hurting me. So on Sunday I took time off and sat and read all day. I had several good books to choose from, but my partner wanted me to read the latest Charlie Stross Laundry series novel The Rhesus Chart, so that we could discuss it. I really enjoyed the book, it kept me glued to my seat and turning pages. So on that front ten out of ten.
However, I feel the book could have done with another editing pass, because there were several repetitions of jokes that while funny, get rather tired when used repeated; namely the play on Deeply Scary Sorcerer as the real meaning for the job title of Detached Special Secretary. This is repeated in each book when Angleton is mentioned, and in the case of The Rhesus Chart more than once. The repetition was clunky.
In addition, I felt that one of the two main protagonists was given the idiot ball. I got the fact that there could only be one master vampire, but I didn't feel (given the history of the two vampire protagonists) that this come through. It might be because we were told, rather than really shown what drives vampires to be the only one. So I wasn't convinced that one of the protagonists would really feel the need to get his hands dirty, rather than use his resources to go underground and ride out the storm.
Also the events leading up to the ending felt rather forced. Some of the action is told in a rather detached style, as an add-on commentary to what has happened. It's a technique Stross uses quite often, but this time I found it broke the internal structure of the narrative by jumping back and forth in time within the same chapter.
However, The Rhesus Chart is well worth reading, and it's the best in the Laundry series as the story has consequences that I imagine will come home to roost in the next book.
Last week I managed to edit 6,684 words on Strike Dog, adding to the running total to bring it up to 101,777 words, which makes it now the longest of my three novels. This also means I'm just a tad sort of half way through editing the novel, having edited a total of 47,774 words so far. There has been a change in the tempo of my writing during this re-write, but I'm not sure that this is a good thing or bad. Perhaps neither, but it's a thing for sure.
So that's it for another week. See you all on the bounce.
Last Saturday my partner suggest that we attended Mini-Convention, which was a one day event run by The British Science Fiction Association, the Science Fiction Foundation, and the Imperial College Science Fiction Society. The attraction for Susan being the chance to hear Brian Aldiss speak. We'd seen him at LonCon 3 the world SF convention, but missed any of the panels he was on, and given that he's not getting any younger (none of us are) it seemed like an opportunity we should take.
He gave a set of rather charming answers to his interviewer's interesting questions. A genuine grand old man of SF. One thing I learned and liked was the fact that he keeps journals that he draws in. He has a shed load of them it seems, and we got to see some of his collages later on. It made me feel good about my own book of doodles, and my other blogging where I show off the models I make of things I'm thinking about. In particular my recent attempts to make models of the combat armour suits that appear in my first three novels.
We also got to hear Pat Cadigan talk, and as a result of listening to her we're buying a collection with her short stories in, which only goes to to show that authors talking about their work gets people interested in reading their works. Besides seeing the two authors talk there were other discussions too, and while Mini-Convention was very low key (they asked people not to mention it on social media during the day) it was an enjoyable day out that mostly avoided the Hugo controversy, which quite frankly I've had enough of.
We also got and have finished watching season one of 12 Monkeys, and I'm impressed. It's a very clever, retelling of the Terry Gilliam movie, because while the story still has all those elements of the original the style no longer treats them as a nightmare that comes over as totally bat shit crazy insane. Also, Barbara Sukowa is stunningly good as the slightly obsessed to the point of being crazy doctor, especially so when playing the younger version of herself. I can recommend the series if you've not yet seen it.
Also this week we finally caught up with Man of Steel and Kingsman: The Secret Service.
Starting with Superman first; the Man of Steel manages to reinvigorate the franchise, assuming that one doesn't mind the violence, which is the antithesis of the much loved versions starring Christopher Reeve. I would say that the fight scenes in Metropolis were on reflection a tad over long, but the whole ruins things worked for me, because it very much reminded me of the Alan MooreMiracleman fight – two god like beings slugging it out while mere mortals try not to be noticed.
However, it was Kingsman: The Secret Service that really impressed me. More violence than you could shake a big stick at, but it had a sensibility that just lifted it up beyond it's source material: James Bond, which is referenced within Kingsman. There are a couple of scenes between Colin Firth and Samuel L. Jackson that set up and deliver a punchline that was quite frankly breathtaking. I've just read that the director is working on a sequel, which is most unlike him, but he says if he can write a good script it will go ahead.
With regards to my writing this week I've been distracted, dismayed and distressed by a number of events throughout the week, which due to a wide range of other factors have rather derailed my progress. Still, I managed to finish another chapter, but I feel I really must do better. Words written 851, edited 1,760, running total 100,349.
Bright hope in darkness. Managed to deconstruct my seven book series arc, and plan out everything I want to do. I can add side stories and diversions to the series core, but I now have a much better handle on the themes, and overall structure of the series arc from the beginning, through to the middle and how it ends (five pages of penciled notes in the notebook I keep). So that's it for another week, see you all on the bounce.
Tanith Lee died last weekend after a long illness, which I understand was cancer. I was shocked by her passing. I had the pleasure of having a meal with her many years ago, and she was an interesting woman, quirky, and just a little bit strange. Like most creative authors I guess.
Very much a sad memento mori.
This week I've been struggling with a chapter in Strike Dog trying to knock it into shape. Up my game and all that jazz. The chapter has not been co-operating with me. So it's still not finished. It's also been another of those weeks where some days have negative numbers, and checking my diary I see that I wrote 1,402 new words and this brings the running total up to 100,282 words, which makes it the longest draft I've written so far.
Other than we've been on a Superman jag. Watched the first two Richard Donner movies with Christopher Reeve, which are really lightweight rom-coms when you boil the stories down to their basics. They've not dated well either, but Margot Kidder was impressive, because she looked like a normal woman. It's not what we've become accustomed to when watching Hollywood movies today, where the women are so beautiful it's hard to credit how good looking they are. We're now watching Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, which while it has also dated still manages to be rather charming.
Which is my way of paraphrasing "a long time ago in a galaxy far far away," and leading into our recent re-watching of all six Star Wars films. I still remember seeing the original black posters with the words Star Wars on railway billboards and wondering what it was all about? Then finding out more, and being enthralled by a display in a local record shop that had devoted an entire window to the John WilliamsStar Wars album with the tantalizing shots from the movie on the inside of the double album sleeve. Then watching the opening scene for the first time and I was blown away, and I remember going to see the film 21 times. I was obsessed.
Even back then, when I was a lot younger and certainly far more naive than I am now, I knew there were plot holes in the original movie that one can fly the Death Star through, but they weren't important in the bigger scheme of things, because Star Wars was an epic tale in the traditional story telling style; as discussed in the book The Seven Basic plots by Christopher Booker, which I cunningly reviewed in my last post here.
Lucas has been quoted as saying that the inspiration behind StarWars comes from reading Joseph Campbell'sHero With a Thousand Faces about the existence of a mono-myth that crosses all cultures. This book treats traditional story telling from the perspective of comparative mythology, but Campbell like Booker uses discredited Freudian & Jungian theories, which I find troubling. Also Campbell largely disregards the feminine in favour of the masculine narrative.
But enough of discussing that academic pontification, otherwise I'll drain all the fun out of one of my favourite movies.
We sat down and watched a movie a night and I found myself enjoying the prequels as much as the originals, which was slightly surprising given my previously held feelings on them. However, on reflection I think that back in 1999, when The Phantom Menace came out, the expectation and hype meant that the no matter how good the film was it wasn't going to meet people's expectations. Now time has passed it no longer feels disappointing to watch. Yes I agree Jar-Jar sucks, but he's there for much the same reason the Ewoks were in Return of the Jedi, and I'm reminded of what I say to old die-hard Dr Who fans who complain about New Who – it's not for you, it's for the youngsters who have never seen it before.
So I still like The Empire Strikes Back most of all, but without A New Hope we would never have had it, so the first is probably still the best. Then in order of enjoyment I think Revenge of the Sith, followed by Attack of the Clones, Return of the Jedi and then The Phantom Menace. However it has to be said that The Phantom Menace is totally lush, and the extended Pod Race and the death of Qui-Gon Jinn at the end of what was the first epic light sabre battle ever means that just because I've listed it last doesn't means it hasn't got its good points.
Now there is another... trilogy.
You bet I'm stoked about the new film coming at Xmas, which is also a long time and very far away as I write this. For me it's a fulfillment of the original promise made by Lucas that there would be nine films; a trilogy of trilogies. So excited that not only did we re-watch the movies, but we've been playing a great little games called Star Wars: X-Wing where you get to pilot the fighters around one's dining room table while listening to the music and quoting lines from the movies.
And of course Randall Munroe of XKCD makes a good point.
I finished, for some definitions of finished, the fifth draft of my current novel Bad Dog on Friday evening - in a spurt of creative enthusiasm that comes when the end is in sight. Of course I've now shot myself in the foot by getting Scrivener to produce a PDF, which I'm reading, and finding stuff I want to polish. Still, for definitions of finished it's something. This draft is structurally close to my original first draft, but a world away in terms of the writing, characterizations and setting.
Looking back at my files it took me 18 weeks to write the first working draft, which ended up being 93,075 words. The second draft took five weeks with a total of 90,970 words. I spent 20 weeks reworking the third draft, and ended up 87,999 words for my effort. The fourth draft only took three weeks, and ended with 88,908 words. My fifth draft took five weeks, and looking back at my records I cut about 8,000 words out, but ended writing extra scenes, which brought the total back up to 82,317 word, but this draft is still the best part of 10,000 words tighter than my original work.
I can only continue working to tighten up the text, reduce repetition and try to add more drama to the story. This is all uncharted territory for me, but that has been true from day one. I remind myself that being able to write a good story is 99% blood, sweat and tears, with the remaining 1% being a combination of talent and inspiration. Though it can be argued that the latter is what makes a good novel great, but at this point I'm aspiring to be just good – great can come later.
Things I've been watching, or have watched, but forgot to mention - Edge of Tomorrow, which is the film adaptation of the manga All You Need is Kill, and for the Blu-ray release has the title Live. Die. Repeat. added in front of the original title, because the film didn't do well at the box office.
I know that a lot of people have mixed feelings about Tom Cruise, but given the likelihood that I will ever hang with Tom, or any other Hollywood star is less than one, and I really don't pay much attention to the tabloid gossip, none of this matters to me. But that said I have been avoiding the film, because I knew that the plot is very close to that of Bad Dog, and it features power armoured troops fighting aliens. As they say there is no such thing as an original plot, but Bad Dog's similarities are all surface level stuff, and the MacGuffin driving the plot is different; as in mine is based in real science and Edge of Tomorrow is just pure Hollywood razzle-dazzle.
Besides that Emily Blunt is brilliant and Tom gets killed a lot, so all is right with the world
Other films we watched since last week were Iron Sky: Dictators Cut, which is a Finnish B-movie that people either love or hate. We loved it, because Space Nazis from the Moon invading Earth in flying saucers, what's not to like? There is a sequel being made, and the trailer features Adolf Hitler riding a dinosaur called The Coming Race. Finally, we also sat down and watched the Europa Report. A found footage movie telling the story of the first mission to Europa, I don't think I'm giving any spoilers away by saying it doesn't end well for the astronauts.
So that's it for another week of internet raging where the old adage of you reap what you sow has never been more true.
Singing Sunday, Sunday while the tune turns into writing Monday is Sunday this week. I'm a day late in posting
my usual weekly update on what I've been doing, watching, reading etc.
The reason for this is that yesterday we spent a day with friends having a lazy Sunday playing
games (Ticket to Ride), eating snacks (yummy finger food), and watching
movies (Source Code and the 47 Ronin). It doesn't get better than
that.
A big thanks to John and Rita for inviting us, and a shout out to
Hilary, Trevor, David and Charlotte, Mark and Gwen, and Stuart for
making us feel welcome. Hopefully get to do that again some time soon.
Today I finished reading Wireless by Charlie Stross. It's a collection of short stories ranging in length up to novella. It shows both his strengths and weaknesses as a story teller.
Charlie is very clever. Probably far too clever for his own good. This means that he writes himself into plots he can't get out of, because of the cleverness of his ideas. He is in my opinion a better story teller when he's constrained by the setting, which is why I prefer his Laundry and Trader series more than his space opera.
For me, once Charlie goes outside the box he is so far left field that blue sky thinking is left behind in a vacuum. This sucks the plot into a singularity it can't escape. In particular Palimpsest, which funnily enough has the same plot problem as Source Code had as a movie.
I had not seen Source Code when my novel was compared by one of the my writing group critiquers as Starship Troopers meets Source Code. So getting to watch it yesterday was good.
I liked the story, but, and the but is the important part of my statement; it tried to be too clever.
In the case of Source Code it has a moment of what my partner would call satori; a perfect moment to end the film. It would have been elegiac; a little sad, but perfect. The film then continued and presented a more upbeat ending, which in turn was twisted into a rug pulled out from under one's feet into a far too clever by half paradox.
Palimpsest reminds me of All You Zombies by Robert A, Heinlein.
The latter is a time loop story about gender identity, or fluidity if you prefer, whereas Palimpsest is about the fluidity of personal identity when there are multiple copies of oneself. I think that Palimpsest is perfect as it is and doesn't need to be made into a novel. However, if Charlie does go ahead and expand it I shall be drawn like a moth to the flames, and have to read it. I just hope that it doesn't lose the moment like Source Code.
On
the work front I've been working my way through act two, going back and
adding a couple of small scenes to act one of my first novel, which is now running at 91,800 words.
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