Christopher Husberg's Blog, page 10

Thoughts on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reboot

I'm late to the party on this (I've been summer vacationing for most of the past two weeks--playing with bears in Alaska and then at the beach in SoCal), but news broke a few days ago that Joss Whedon is exec producing a reboot of  Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with
Hmmmm. Interesting.

I have...so many feelings about this. Like, very conflicted, convoluted feelings. Allow me to break those feelings down into something reasonably coherent, if you will, in an old-fashioned pro/con list.

PROS

More Buffy! BtVS is, of course, my favorite show of all time. While I'm hardcore side-eying the reboot concept, even the slightest chance that I could get more of what made the original series so great is, in a word, sublime.A black Buffy. I'm all for this! The original serious had a very white-washed cast, and it would be awesome to see it take a more diverse direction.Hitting metaphor hard. "High School is hell" is one of the concepts that made the show take off to begin with, and some of the best episodes succeed largely through their use of metaphor. Given our current socio-political climate, there are more issues and concepts than ever to tackle, either through a monster-of-the-week or with much grander plot strokes. I would love to see this done well in a contemporary supernatural television program.Joss Whedon's involvement. This is a tough one because my feelings about Joss Whedon have largely changed over the past year (look at what they once were, and while I've yet to publish anything specific on how I've been feeling about Whedon lately, it's safe to say I'm disillusioned at best), but a reboot of BtVS without his name attached in some capacity just...wouldn't seem right?Monica Owusu-Breen. She's tentatively in the pro column--in looking at CONS...more Buffy? (Seriously, ya'll, I'm conflicted.) The original television series (not the film, for the record) stands as one of the best television shows of all time, even now, twenty years later. Why change what is so incredible? Can you even change it without inevitably making the new product worse? I'm not sure you can. Joss said it himself:“I see a little bit of what I call monkey’s paw in these reboots. You bring something back, and even if it’s exactly as good as it was, the experience can’t be. You’ve already experienced it, and part of what was great was going through it for the first time.” And yet, here we are, I guess. Shrug.A reboot? Really? I'd be much more interested in a continuation--in which we follow a new slayer, oh, say, 20 years after the original series--of the story. New characters, new villains, new apocalypses. Sarah Michelle Gellar could even make a few (ideally rare) cameo appearances as an older, wiser, perhaps more jaded and/or grizzled (or, perhaps, retired and very happy? I don't know!) Buffy--and Alyson Hannigan could totally show up as a bad-ass witchy woman in her prime! That would be amazing. An adaptation of something else in-world would also work-- Frey  being a prime target (And Hannigan could still cameo! It would be so cool!). That would also be amazing. When you could do something like that, why reboot the already incredible, much lauded original series? (For the record, I know why, and it's money. But still.)How they're using the African American casting as a marketing ploy. Or at least it feels that way. As I mentioned above, I think a black Buffy would be very cool. I also think it's weird of the producers to offer that as one of the only bits of information they give us when they've only just barely announced the reboot in the first place. It sort of feels like they're really nervous about the response to the show (a reboot of an original that was notoriously popular, albeit with very mixed opinions, among minorities), and are trying to placate the potential audience with such an announcement. In short, I don't like how they're going about it. It feels condescending and poorly planned. That said, I still think it'd be a potentially awesome casting choice. We will see.Ugh. Joss Whedon. (Did I mention my feelings are conflicted and convoluted here?) This is tough because despite Joss Whedon's objective strengths as a writer and creator, he's kind of been an asshole to women (allegedly)--particularly his ex-wife--in spite of his feminist proclivities. There was once a day where I would have consumed anything Joss Whedon remotely had a hand in creating, but that day has long past. Instead, I basically ask myself "could I like this in spite of Joss Whedon's involvement?" So...yeah.But...Joss Whedon isn't showrunning. (I'M ALL OVER THE PLACE ABOUT THIS, OKAY?) The way Joss Whedon ran the original BtVS TV series revolutionized the way stories were told on the small screen. If he's only involved as EP, well...look at it this way: the 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer film is notoriously bad, precisely because the people involved didn't know how to handle the character and the premise. They twisted Whedon's original vision into a joke instead of playing it straight. There's a risk of that sort of thing occurring here, even with Owusu-Breen involved.Things Are Different Now. BtVS came about in a particular climate, with a particular message. Many particular messages, in fact, that were particular to the sociopolitical climate of the time--providing a strong, heroic, dynamic, profound, and multi-faceted central female character perhaps foremost among them. This was a revelation. The reboot, however, could not replicate this. It's attempting to following in the footsteps trailblazed--and subsequently etched, carved, and gilded--by it's own direct predecessor. The original series was both a product of and a reaction to its time, and while the reboot has some interesting ground to potentially cover (as I mentioned above about "metaphor"), the cultural moment simply doesn't exist. (Which is not to say that the reboot couldn't create a new cultural moment, but lightning doesn't strike twice, as they say--it could, technically, but I wouldn't hold my breath.)So. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts about this as the project develops, but I don't know, ya'll. Right now I'm worried. I'm very tentatively, very small-ly excited about the prospect, but mostly I'm worried. And I'm not alone. With response articles like "Is the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reboot Doomed to Fail?" and "Talent of Color Do Not Need White TV Show and Film Hand-Me-Downs," and Twitter in an outrage about it all, I'm clearly not alone.
I do have hope, don't get me wrong. But hope and fear go hand-in-hand.

Great Review of DUSKFALL

It's always cool to stumble across good reviews of my books!

r/fantasy Writer of the Day!

Hey alls!

I'm Fantasy Writer of the Day over at r/fantasy (the reddit subgroup), so that's neat. If you're curious about me, the Chaos Queen books, writing in general, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you should definitely head on over and chat/ask me questions/whatever!

Bears!

So last week my family and I went on adventure.
We took an airplane to the tiny town of King Salmon, AK, and from there a float plane to Katmai National Park.
While there, we camped in an electric fence enclosed compound, for reasons you'll understand later.
We hiked into the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, where the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century occurred.
My daughter was a straight up adventurer. She's also freaking adorable.

Like I said. Adorable.
Also, we saw bears. Because that's what you do at Katmai.
Lots of bears.
Lots and lots of bears.
We were very close to these bears.
Fortunately, they were distracted by other food. Also, there were pretty strict rules in place around the camp that helped. Bears have the right of way throughout the entire place, which means they're often wandering through the middle of camp (only the campground itself has the electric fence). It was crazy.
This cub was not happy with his sibling.
B was often oblivious to the bears.
But on occasion she thought they were pretty cool. DID I MENTION ADORABLE THO??
Seriously though. BEARS.Anyway, it was quite the adventure. If you want to get a taste of what we saw, check out this bear cam, set up in one of the major viewing areas at Brooks Camp (where we stayed) in Katmai.

Nice to have some time away. Now, back to book four!

Brandon Sanderson Reviews DARK IMMOLATION

In case you missed it, Brandon Sanderson recently reviewed Dark Immolation on Goodreads!

So, yeah, that's a thing.

For those who aren't aware, Brandon has been a mentor of mine for some years now. I took the class he offers at BYU (and which you can now see online, check it out if you're remotely interested in writing!), twice officially, and twice unofficially (audited). He taught me just about everything I needed to know to get an agent and eventually land a publishing deal, and his feedback on my work the first time I took his class (when I was writing the very first, very different version of Duskfall) was encouraging enough to motivate me to actually pursue a career in this crazy business.

So, anyway, it's cool that he's been able to read my books and has nice things to say.

Just a few highlights:

"...A series full of strong ideas, intriguing questions about morality, and solid writing--books I think will appeal to anyone who enjoys my epic fantasy."

"I think an aspiring writer can study these books as an excellent example of blending the familiar with the strange in a way that's different form my personal approach. Though magic plays into the books, it often takes a back seat to interpersonal relationships."

"...A thoughtful epic fantasy series that explores religion in an interesting way, and which has an impressive depth of characterization."

Hannah Gadsby: Nanette

After seeing several people on social media recommend it, last night Rachel and I watched Nanette, the stand-up piece by Hannah Gadsby on Netflix.

...honestly, I'm not sure what I could possibly say about it other than: go watch it, please. Through 'til the end. It is absolutely worth your time. It is truth.

I think, and hope, it has changed the way I view, and tell, stories.

The Five Building Blocks of Storytelling

At Salt Lake Comic Con last fall, a fellow was interviewing authors and pulled me aside. What follows is the result of THAT FATEFUL ENCOUNTER, and I completely forgot about it until I saw a link to it the other day.

A Tour Completed

The Witchy Winter/Blood Requiem Tour has come to an end!

When all was said and done, over nine days we did eight full events at independent bookstores and signed books at thirty-nine Barnes & Nobles throughout the west! Our days basically consisted of waking up, driving, stopping at every Barnes & Noble we could find along the way, driving some more, doing an event, sleeping, and then starting all over. (The one exception was Sunday, which we took as a writing day.)

Dave Butler, in addition to being a brilliant writer, is also a great traveling companion, and we had many an enlightening, productive, ridiculous, and hilarious conversation along the way.

It was awesome. Also, exhausting. But mostly awesome.

Here are the tweets about (most of, but not all!) the bookstores and events we hit up along the way. I'm not saying they're exciting (they get repetitive), but if you want to know about signed Chaos Queen/Witchy War books near you, you might find some here!

(Also, for any folks in the Las Vegas and St. George areas, we're planing a brief epilogue to our tour where we'll do some events in both of those locations, likely in mid September. Keep your eyes open for more info about that!)

Autographed copy of #Duskfall at @BNLayton—stop 1 of the #WWBRTour! pic.twitter.com/Xp2HYGWuT1— Christopher Husberg (@usbergo) June 15, 2018

Another signed copy of #Duskfall at @BNTwinFalls! Stop 2 on the #WWBRTour

Reading/Signing in Anchorage, Alaska!

Hey folks!

If you're in the Anchorage, Alaska area, I'll be doing an event at the Anchorage Barnes & Noble on 14 July, 6-8 PM! I'll do a reading, answer some questions, and of course sign books. It'll be fun.

HERE'S THE LINK TO THE FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE!

Also, turns out Duskfall is a staff pick at this particular B&N, so that's neat!

(I grew up in the Anchorage area, so none of this is particularly surprising, but all very cool nonetheless!)

BLOOD REQUIEM Audiobook on sale now!

It took a bit longer than anticipated, but the audio for Blood Requiem is finally available from Recorded Books! I haven't had the chance to listen to it yet, but if it's anything like the first two, Adam Verner has nailed it. Check it out on Amazon or on Audible!