Nick Mamatas's Blog, page 11
March 21, 2016
Monday Quick Notes
I went to ICFA this past weekend. I was definitively reminded of why my tolerance for conventions is so low these days, despite having nothing but a good time catching up with people, poking around Orlando, FL, and throwing John Chu to the ground a few times while showing him pushing-hands. Cons are like a live-action roleplaying game where people pretend to be adults with interesting opinions instead of wizards and vampires.
Finally, anti-fascist neofolk!
If you like books, but don't like actually reading them, The Last Weekend is now an audio book on audible.com. Click here: The Last Weekend.
Finally, anti-fascist neofolk!
If you like books, but don't like actually reading them, The Last Weekend is now an audio book on audible.com. Click here: The Last Weekend.
March 17, 2016
March 13, 2016
Where I'll be.
ICFA this week.
AWP at the end of the month.
AWP at the end of the month.
March 11, 2016
Friday Quick Notes
Here's a list of sixty-one books I recommended on Twitter the other day.
Obsessed with this song all day yesterday:
Dog's still alive; is eating canned hams and rotisserie chickens instead of dog food.
Buy my book.
I've adopted Intermittent Fasting as a full-time practice (noon to eight) and have lost a pound a week since New Year's. Recommended. Just remind yourself that you like feeling hungry.
Obsessed with this song all day yesterday:
Dog's still alive; is eating canned hams and rotisserie chickens instead of dog food.
Buy my book.
I've adopted Intermittent Fasting as a full-time practice (noon to eight) and have lost a pound a week since New Year's. Recommended. Just remind yourself that you like feeling hungry.
March 1, 2016
The Last Click
After three years, we launched the farewell issue of The Big Click, a Libby Cudmore special in celebration of her debut novel The Big Rewind.
We talk about why we are closing down the magazine a bit here, but there are other reasons. The main one is that there simply weren't enough stories of interest out there. We never opened to the slush pile, and instead preferred pitches and letters of introduction. Most people who wanted to write short crime fiction simply had no idea what that meant, and instead would just write letters reading "How do I submit a story?" or would just send a story (which of course I'd instantly delete).
Sometimes, with prodding, we would could get a pitch out of them, and frankly, a good half the stories were about dead whores. Of the remaining half, most were just ripping off recent TV shows (literally about "the man who knocks" for example), or were about police bringing someone to justice (pitching this sort of story means you simply didn't read the magazine) or about the author's series character. To be honest, most series characters, despite their quirky names and weird little habit—birding! steepling his fingers as he thinks! whatever!—they are largely utterly generic recording devices pushed around by the author to collect testimony until someone just randomly admits to doing the crime.
Had we opened the slush pile, would better stories have emerged? Perhaps, but at what cost? Dozens and dozens of murdered prostitutes and Sopranos characters beating up black people (see, white guys are still tough!) and cops drinking coffee and then getting a "perp off the streets." Oh, sometimes the whores were kids who still clutched teddy bears and wore stained little pink panties. This was supposed to be shocking instead of the first thing anyone who watched television in the 1970s thinks of when they think of awful crimes.
The only reason to start a small online magazine is for fun, unless one is looking to rip people off by abusing non-profit status. Even if a magazine becomes self-sustaining and profitable, the time and energy one puts into it could be spent literally doing anything else. When reading stories is no fun, burnout is inevitable.
Want more markets for your fiction? Write better, and inspire editors to found new markets to highlight what they love. If your main goal in writing is to regurgitate what you saw on TV once, just quit. You're ruining it for everyone else, writers and readers both.
We talk about why we are closing down the magazine a bit here, but there are other reasons. The main one is that there simply weren't enough stories of interest out there. We never opened to the slush pile, and instead preferred pitches and letters of introduction. Most people who wanted to write short crime fiction simply had no idea what that meant, and instead would just write letters reading "How do I submit a story?" or would just send a story (which of course I'd instantly delete).
Sometimes, with prodding, we would could get a pitch out of them, and frankly, a good half the stories were about dead whores. Of the remaining half, most were just ripping off recent TV shows (literally about "the man who knocks" for example), or were about police bringing someone to justice (pitching this sort of story means you simply didn't read the magazine) or about the author's series character. To be honest, most series characters, despite their quirky names and weird little habit—birding! steepling his fingers as he thinks! whatever!—they are largely utterly generic recording devices pushed around by the author to collect testimony until someone just randomly admits to doing the crime.
Had we opened the slush pile, would better stories have emerged? Perhaps, but at what cost? Dozens and dozens of murdered prostitutes and Sopranos characters beating up black people (see, white guys are still tough!) and cops drinking coffee and then getting a "perp off the streets." Oh, sometimes the whores were kids who still clutched teddy bears and wore stained little pink panties. This was supposed to be shocking instead of the first thing anyone who watched television in the 1970s thinks of when they think of awful crimes.
The only reason to start a small online magazine is for fun, unless one is looking to rip people off by abusing non-profit status. Even if a magazine becomes self-sustaining and profitable, the time and energy one puts into it could be spent literally doing anything else. When reading stories is no fun, burnout is inevitable.
Want more markets for your fiction? Write better, and inspire editors to found new markets to highlight what they love. If your main goal in writing is to regurgitate what you saw on TV once, just quit. You're ruining it for everyone else, writers and readers both.
February 29, 2016
Monday Quick Notes
Here's an interview with me over at the website Slush Pile Heroes: "A more autobiographical The Last Weekend would be about someone who eats a lot of cupcakes during the zombie apocalypse."
At the day job, we're on the verge of releasing the first volume of the space opera epic Legend of the Galactic Heroes. io9.com has an excerpt.
Supposedly, three things make a post, so here's something something millennials money.
At the day job, we're on the verge of releasing the first volume of the space opera epic Legend of the Galactic Heroes. io9.com has an excerpt.
Supposedly, three things make a post, so here's something something millennials money.
February 26, 2016
The LOL Weekend
Fresh Fiction, a heart-festooned and extremely busy-looking website has made The Last Weekend a "fresh pick", by which I guess they mean they have a link to it in the upper right-hand corner of every page of their site for the day and will tweet it and whatnot, and they made this little doo-dad, which will bring you to product page I suppose is automatically generated since it uses the UK edition cover.
And they reviewed the book. Unsurprisingly, they didn't like it despite naming it a Fresh Pick. The review reads, in part:
THE LAST WEEKEND is dark and bleak. A lot of dark and bleak novels have lessons in them. To me, the only lesson in this one came off as "It's okay to stop trying if life sucks," and that didn't work for me.
Next week, I hope to be on the cover of Nigerian Amish Quarterly. I'll fit right in!
And they reviewed the book. Unsurprisingly, they didn't like it despite naming it a Fresh Pick. The review reads, in part:
THE LAST WEEKEND is dark and bleak. A lot of dark and bleak novels have lessons in them. To me, the only lesson in this one came off as "It's okay to stop trying if life sucks," and that didn't work for me.
Next week, I hope to be on the cover of Nigerian Amish Quarterly. I'll fit right in!
February 22, 2016
New(ish) novelette
"On the Occasion of My Retirement" is now live on Apex Magazine.
The story originally appeared in my collection, The Nickronomicon. (ebook's less than five bucks, cheap!)
The story originally appeared in my collection, The Nickronomicon. (ebook's less than five bucks, cheap!)
February 20, 2016
Deadpool
Remember a couple of years ago when Guardians of the Galaxy came out and everyone was raving about how great and funny it was, and then when you finally saw it months later, on an airplane, it was just another dumb by-the-numbers movie that made little sense? Well, if you're me, you remember that. Well now Deadpool is out and everyone is raving about how great and funny it it and you've seen it thanks to a Friday matinee and actually it's okay.
Deadpool runs up against the hard limits of making fun of some genre while still hitting all the numbers. Loudly announcing, "Number three!" doesn't make plot point number three any less tedious. But it's still okay. The opening shot of a man named "Rob L." getting shot in the head (seriously, fuck him) was a good start. Ryan Reynolds playing Deadpool like the hyperactive lead in a romantic comedy was even better, though most of the fourth-wall-breaking stuff falls flat.
Anyway, since Deadpool has only been around since the 1990s, there needs to be an origin story, but since Deadpool has only been around since the 1990s, nobody cares what it is. The screenwriters ("the real heroes here") decide on a voiceover and flashbacks. There's bloody comedy action—Jackie Chan with slow-mo and blood squibs, and a bit too much wink-wink oh-ho we're R-RATED ain't we kids stuff, which leads into an extended stupid flashback about Deadpool meeting The Girl, who is of course a whore and who is also of course the made-for-TV-dead-weight-in-movies Morena Baccarin. Super-buff Deadpool has cancer for no reason—was there even something something depleted uranium from Iraq or is that too edgy for this edgy picture—but this being Marvel there's always room for an in-shape shitkicker to get some supertreatments and become a superhero!
But no. Baddy Francis tortures our hero into developing his latent mutant powers and tee-hee-hees in his British accent. (A British Villain call-out early on does not save us from this cretinous nobody.) Anyway, there's some stuff about how no he'll just be made a superslave and then Deadpool wises up and does some Houdini stuff. Finally there's more fighting and whatnot and then we're back in real-time and there is also more fighting.
And there's some allegedly funny stuff, like jerk-off jokes and stuff about Ikea. And there's some interesting stuff, like Deadpool's bartender friend, and Leslie Uggams who is just by far the best actor in the whole movie though she is given nothing to do, and also Deadpool takes it up the ass from his girlfriend. And a couple of the jokes are pretty funny, and there are a couple of second-string X-Men nobody cares about. Colossus has more in common with DC's goody-goody Captain Marvel than any X-Men character and Negasonic Teenage Warhead exists because Baccarin is thirty-six years old! She'll have to start playing social workers and grandmothers and breast cancer ladies soon!
Wank to this.
In the end, Deadpool is every superhero movie, with plenty of elbow nudges about superhero movies, but not enough cleverness to avoid tedious shit like Francis constantly demanding from Deadpool "What's my name?" (He doesn't like being called Francis, and tries "Ajax" rather than, say, "Frank.") But it's in color, and it's mostly in focus, and it's a talkie, and the stakes are low enough and the action centered enough on a simple tale of revenge that there are no horrific offenses to common sense except for those absolutely essential to the genre, and Ryan Reynolds can almost act and he even queens it up a bit here and there, so why not? Deadpool! Huzzah!
Deadpool runs up against the hard limits of making fun of some genre while still hitting all the numbers. Loudly announcing, "Number three!" doesn't make plot point number three any less tedious. But it's still okay. The opening shot of a man named "Rob L." getting shot in the head (seriously, fuck him) was a good start. Ryan Reynolds playing Deadpool like the hyperactive lead in a romantic comedy was even better, though most of the fourth-wall-breaking stuff falls flat.
Anyway, since Deadpool has only been around since the 1990s, there needs to be an origin story, but since Deadpool has only been around since the 1990s, nobody cares what it is. The screenwriters ("the real heroes here") decide on a voiceover and flashbacks. There's bloody comedy action—Jackie Chan with slow-mo and blood squibs, and a bit too much wink-wink oh-ho we're R-RATED ain't we kids stuff, which leads into an extended stupid flashback about Deadpool meeting The Girl, who is of course a whore and who is also of course the made-for-TV-dead-weight-in-movies Morena Baccarin. Super-buff Deadpool has cancer for no reason—was there even something something depleted uranium from Iraq or is that too edgy for this edgy picture—but this being Marvel there's always room for an in-shape shitkicker to get some supertreatments and become a superhero!
But no. Baddy Francis tortures our hero into developing his latent mutant powers and tee-hee-hees in his British accent. (A British Villain call-out early on does not save us from this cretinous nobody.) Anyway, there's some stuff about how no he'll just be made a superslave and then Deadpool wises up and does some Houdini stuff. Finally there's more fighting and whatnot and then we're back in real-time and there is also more fighting.
And there's some allegedly funny stuff, like jerk-off jokes and stuff about Ikea. And there's some interesting stuff, like Deadpool's bartender friend, and Leslie Uggams who is just by far the best actor in the whole movie though she is given nothing to do, and also Deadpool takes it up the ass from his girlfriend. And a couple of the jokes are pretty funny, and there are a couple of second-string X-Men nobody cares about. Colossus has more in common with DC's goody-goody Captain Marvel than any X-Men character and Negasonic Teenage Warhead exists because Baccarin is thirty-six years old! She'll have to start playing social workers and grandmothers and breast cancer ladies soon!
Wank to this.
In the end, Deadpool is every superhero movie, with plenty of elbow nudges about superhero movies, but not enough cleverness to avoid tedious shit like Francis constantly demanding from Deadpool "What's my name?" (He doesn't like being called Francis, and tries "Ajax" rather than, say, "Frank.") But it's in color, and it's mostly in focus, and it's a talkie, and the stakes are low enough and the action centered enough on a simple tale of revenge that there are no horrific offenses to common sense except for those absolutely essential to the genre, and Ryan Reynolds can almost act and he even queens it up a bit here and there, so why not? Deadpool! Huzzah!
February 16, 2016
Perhaps THIS review of THE LAST WEEKEND will convince you to buy a copy!
BuyZombie.com sez:
Some have detected a Salingeresque air in The Last Weekend. I can see it, but such recognition of incidentals isn’t necessary to appreciate and enjoy the story. It’s full of intelligence, wit, and more-than-canny observations on the foibles of humanity—how we never seem to learn from even our most awful mistakes, and expect life to go on as normal, no matter what. None of this is delivered from the proverbial soap box, but apparent in the characters’ dialogues and action.
Only nine copies left on amazon. Clear 'em out!
Some have detected a Salingeresque air in The Last Weekend. I can see it, but such recognition of incidentals isn’t necessary to appreciate and enjoy the story. It’s full of intelligence, wit, and more-than-canny observations on the foibles of humanity—how we never seem to learn from even our most awful mistakes, and expect life to go on as normal, no matter what. None of this is delivered from the proverbial soap box, but apparent in the characters’ dialogues and action.
Only nine copies left on amazon. Clear 'em out!
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