Shock, But No Awe

Futureshocks Futureshocks by Lou Anders

My rating: 2 of 5 stars
The book fulfills part of its mission. The introductory essay is called “The Business of Lying,” and Anders quotes U.K. LeGuin who writes, “Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive….Prediction is the business of phophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist’s business is lying.”

The collection definitely succeeds in being descriptive. Each writer’s prose gives me a clear picture of the world of each story. I was disappointed that most of this clarity came by way of exposition and in more than one case, shameless infodumping–2-3 pages worth.

But that’s not its worst failing.

The central question, emblazoned at the top of the cover, is “What Terror Does Tomorrow Hold?” My question was “Terror for whom?” To be sure, I wouldn’t want to live in some of the tomorrows presented in this anthology. But when I ask myself what terror tomorrow holds for ME, with respect to this anthology, I’d answer: very little, provided I don’t make the mistakes or manage to avoid the situations in which a lot of the characters of these stories find themselves.

That is, with one exception. “Absalom’s Mother” by Louise Marley stands out head and shoulders above the rest of the stories! It’s the only story where I cared about the characters. I was afraid for them and afraid of their world. Their emotions connected me to that world in a way that I wasn’t to any of the other worlds presented. If the rest of the stories in the anthology did that, I might truly be afraid of tomorrow.

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“Too many voices in my head”

2009-09-19 Mix

I can see the mystery in your eyes
Your voodoo just may fool the other guys
You can write your destiny
But between the lines I read
It’s all in what your victims will believe

-Bill Champlin, “Tuggin’ On Your Sleeve”

All the energy we spend on motion
All the circuitry and time
Is there any way to feel a body
Through fiber optic lines

-Cassandra Wilson, “Right Here, Right Now”

Tough Love

…will return in two weeks. Because it’s been hellish at the dayjob and I think I deserve to enjoy the holiday weekend, such as it is–I don’t get a third day off.

So instead of busting my ass to get something done to get vivisected, I’m chilling out, watching US Open tennis, and a little later, I’m gonna drive out to a cookout with some friends to have, what Laura Nyro calls, a “Stoned Soul Picnic.”

Speaking of, Nyro’s a singer/songwriter I’m discovering again for the first time. Apparently, I’ve been listening to her songs for years, as covered by Blood, Sweat & Tears and other bands on rotation in my playlists. I kept seeing the name “Laura Nyro” come up as the composer–it’s a kind of name that jumps out at you. So I looked her up and now I’m binging on her music!

But I digress. You’ll have to excuse me. I got very little sleep last night and I’m finding myself struggling to gather the energy to get to the cookout that I’m blowing off crit group to go to.

[Edited to add] The day after I wrote this, I found out that I’ve been living in the same town as Nyro’s brother and have seen the group he conducts, Vitamin L, perform several times!

Kinda Dead Inside

X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl TPB X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl TPB by Peter Milligan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I didn’t get as much of a kick out of this as I did Milligan’s original X-Force/X-Statix run. Dead Girl didn’t stick to its premise, which was to take shots at the trope of comics characters dying and come back. Milligan took shots at every trope as it came up–Dr. Strange’s quirks, his servant’s, the supervillain getting repeatedly beaten, etc.–and even threw in some self-referential X-Statix stuff.

It’s good for a single read but in the end, it felt like I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice League by Giffen and DeMatteis, a phoned-in return to the good ol’ days.

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Tough Love

Finally finished the work in progress and brought the ending to the biweekly abatoir that is my critique group.

Remember the last few times when the Win list was longer than the Fail list? Not this time, but that’s okay. It’s called a “puke draft” for a reason. Not only that, I brought about 3 times as many words as I’d brought before–of course the Fail list was going to be longer!

For the Win

  • Folks liked my description of the painful way the protagonist “solved” his problem.
  • Those scenes had a “feeling of menace and chaos.”
  • Praise for how I cashed in on a couple of plot points from the beginning of the story. (It’s funny–I had no idea I was gonna do that.)
  • The usual praise about dialogue, prose, etc.

Fail!

  • Unresolved question #1: What are the stakes? (Yikes!)
  • Other unresolved questions:
    • What exactly is the protagonist’s motivation for getting involved in this “strange, new world” in the first place?
    • Why does he choose such a drastic solution to an unclear problem?
    • In fact, isn’t he making matters worse?
    • What’s his sister’s motivation, ‘cos the way she pushes the protagonist and where she pushes him to makes her look like more of a bad guy than the bad guy?
    • What did the bad guy want that was so bad?
  • I definitely strayed from the idea of “cultural tension” that I started out with in the beginning.

The entire puke draft clocked in at over 7300 words, so there’s a lot of tightening and rethinking to do. In a way, this piece is a victory because it’s been so long since I just cranked out a first draft of a “full-length” story with as little looking back as possible.

I’ve got a good feeling about this story though. I know all the pieces are there, even if they’re in a jumble.

Force of Will

Willful Creatures Willful Creatures by Aimee Bender

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I gave it the same rating as Bender’s previous collection The Girl in the Flammable Skirt even though I did like that one a little better. I seem to remember it being a little more playful than this collection.

This collection had its playful moments, but I sensed a little more pain in these characters. I’ll have to reread Flammable Skirt again to be sure. The characters are definitely the best part of each story. A lot of them were odd or fantastic, but still relatable, with more or less the same sorts of problems as mundane folk.

Aside from attempting to channel Lydia Davis at times (e.g. “The Meeting), the prose is really well-done, to boot.

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So You Think You Can Just Waltz Back In Here?

Looks like LoudTwitter came back yesterday and pumped yesterday’s tweets back out. Thing is, I kinda got used to not having it around. I was warming up to the idea of actually blogging, like now.

It’s like when an ex-girlfriend you know you’re better off without comes back around looking all hot. Now I’m torn. I want to hold her, even though my head is screaming, “You have some goddamn nerve coming back after the way you left!” 🙂

Anyway, LoudTwitter, I need time to think about it. So I’m going to turn it back off for now. But, I have your number.

“All Afternoon Those Birds Twitter Twit”

  • 08:17 Feeling sorry for all the suckers at the Diamond Mine retreat today! #
  • 08:18 Oh noes! I’ll miss Wednesday’s all-staff meeting. The important info I’ll miss!! Not. #
  • 08:42 RT @drmabuse Dave Eggers whistles on Aimee Mann’s new album… (What next? Vollmann firing his pistol on the next Kings of Leon album?) #
  • 10:10 Feeling stressed out as I realize just how thick my "in" pile has gotten. Where’s my shovel? #gtd #
  • 10:35 Easily the best roadtrip hack I’ve ever seen! bit.ly/4FBHpA #
  • 11:21 Inbox-sorting Playlist: @swingout sister mix. It’s like an archeological dig. Only have 1 layer done. 🙁 #gtd #
  • 12:23 Inbox processed! Now, I feel like I deserve to eat. 🙂 #
  • 14:51 "Oh it’s too hot/ Too hot, lady/ Gotta run for shelter/ Gotta run for shade." #lyrics ♫ blip.fm/~buxv5 #
  • 15:11 Done with organizing (read: procrastinating). Can’t put off errands or writing anymore, despite the heat. *sigh* #
  • 16:43 On page 127 of 224 of Willful Creatures. 5* for "I Will Pick Out Your Ribs (From My Teeth) tho it reminds me of my psycho-ex. #
  • 16:52 Errands 1/2 done. At the PM writing spot wh ich is almost crowded! Grr. Summer’s definitely winding down. #
  • 17:40 Got an outlet just as my battery was in the danger zone. I was actually starting to write stuff :). #
  • 18:10 Dammit, dammit, dammit. The last 100 words of the #wip have to go. Makes the protragonist look too passive. Dammit!! #
  • 18:12 Just realized it as I was listening to the chorus of the song "Without You" by @billchamplin: "How am I to find my way? Where am I to go?" #
  • 18:48 Frak me, I just figured out how the #wip needs to end!! I’ve even got the last line worked out. Just need a little more research. #
  • 18:49 S crew you, writer’s block! How ya like me, now? 🙂 #

Via LoudTwitter

Local

Local Local by Brian Wood

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book deserves all the hype it’s gotten. The total package, from start to finish, is an evolution in every sense of the word–the evolution of the character, the writing, the art, even the series concept. And I could tell that even before I read as much in the backmatter.

The main character, Megan, sums up her story and the point of the book (not just as a whole, but in each of the interconnected stories in each issue) thus:

You need to do what’s best for you, even if it means leaving some people behind, burning some bridges, severing some ties. You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t. You only get one shot. Take it when you can, and don’t blow it.

This sort of advice can only be given by someone who did just that, and who took shots and actually did blow them sometimes. Most writers fall back into the grosser antisocial behaviors–alcholism, drug use, and other Raymond Carver-type stuff–to illustrate dirty and gritty. Here, Wood & Kelly show that the pain of just making mistakes and learning from them can be just as dramatic.

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