Cora Buhlert's Blog, page 112

Built on Sand – and stuck in it

Next to my house, a double garage with a solar cell covered roof is being built. The actual construction will start on Monday, but laying the foundation started yesterday. Here is a photo, taken from my kitchen window:

Two workmen and a dredger beginning excavation work.

The workers continued dredging and excavating throughout today and poured sand onto the site of the future garage and driveway. Around four in afternoon, they ran out of sand and had to call in for more sand to be delivered.

The sand promptly arrived, delivered by a three-sided tipping truck with a crane:

A three-sided tipping truck with crane gets ready to deliver sand.

The crane attached to the rear of the truck, because it meant that the truck had to dump the sand to the side rather than to the rear. So the train dumped its load and promptly got stuck in the sand:

The truck has dumped its load and got stuck. What to do now?

The truck tried to get loose by moving its crane up and down, but it was to no avail. The truck was stuck. Several workmen stood around the truck, at a loss what to do now. So they dumped the entire load of sand, hoping that would help. It didn’t.

The truck has dumped its full load and is still stuck.

So they attacked the problem with shovels…

Shovelling the truck free. It was getting dark by this point and I didn’t want to use the flash, so the image is a bit dim.

…and the dredger:

Dredging the truck free.

But even digging out the wheels didn’t help, the truck was still truck. So they called in a tractor to tow it free:

A tractor tows the truck free.

And this time, it even worked. The truck was free. It still blocked the road, though, much to the annoyance of the lady who just had to drive past and wouldn’t turn her car around.

The whole episode took maybe 45 minutes and was extremely entertaining, at least when observed through the window from a warm kitchen.

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“Something to Read: The Omnibus Anthology” with two stories by Cora

You may remember that I have a story each in the anthologies Something for the Journey and Something to Take on the Trip.

Now an omnibus edition of all three anthologies in the Something series has come out, entitled simply Something to Read. The anthology was edited by Stella Wilkinson. It contains 100 stories in various genres by authors including Kevin J. Anderson, David Gerrold, Ron McLarty, Stacy Claflin, Vincent Trigili, Frank Zubek, Monica La Porta, V.A. Jeffrey, Paul Levinson, Cate Dean, Lindy Moone and many others. Oh yes, and it also includes two stories by me.

All stories were donated to raise funds for Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal, a charity to benefit a children’s hospital in Bristol, which receives 100% of the proceeds The cover was designed by the very talented Gayle Ramage. Copyediting was providing by Amy K. Maddox of the blue pencil.

There’s also a Facebook page for the anthology with teasers for some of the stories.

My contributions are “Refusal of the Call”, a humorous fantasy short, and “Bad Deal”, one of those hard to classify, semi-literary stories. So far, both stories are only available in the anthologies of the Something to Read series.

So what are you waiting for? Grab your copy now!

Something to Read: The Omnibus Anthology

Something To Read is exactly one hundred stories to entertain you whenever and wherever you feel the need. The majority of these stories are flash fiction of under 1000 words and contain themes as varied as the authors who wrote them. Stories were contributed for charity from nearly seventy different authors from at least four different continents, and contain comedy, tragedy, romance, science fiction, horror and everything in between. If you have several hours or just five minutes, there is something here for you.

Buy it for the low price of 6.99 USD or equivalent at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon France, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico and Smashwords.

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Cora takes part in an SF Signal Mind Meld

I’m busy putting the finishing touches on the next Helen Shepherd Mystery at the moment, so I’ve only got a signal boost to post today, because I’ve been asked to take part in an SF Signal Mind Meld about the best book openings in SFF.

You can see my answers as well as those of Beth Bernobich, Catherine Lundoff, Gillian Polack, Jennifer Brozek, Joe Sprunk, Fran Wilde, Jacey Bedford, Kaaron Warren, Maureen K. Speller, Evie Manieri, Tex Thompson, Jenn Brisset, Kathy F., Marissa Van Uden, Ilana C. Meyer, John C. Wright, Kay Kenyon, L. Jagi Lamplighter, Susan Voss, Rachel Cordasco and Sheila Williams (apologies if I’ve forgotten anyone) here, so check it out.

Lots of great and different suggestions there.

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Photos: Enchanted November Woodlands

We had a lovely sunny and mild late November weekend, so I took the opportunity to go hiking in my favourite local hiking spot, the Westermark forest near the town of Syke, which has been featured in these pages before.

And since I took my camera along, here are some photos:

The main path through the woods.

Another look down the main path with beautifully coloured foliage. Because the fall was mild, there are still a lot of leaves on the trees.

A golden-leaved beech tree stands among a bunch of firs.

This little rest hut stands in the middle of the woods.

A bench under a barren tree.

A look up at the canopies of the trees. Note the falling leaves, stirred up by a gust of wind.

A look into the woods. The ground is completely covered in dead leaves. Note the numbers sprayed onto some of the trunks as signs for the lumberjacks.

The lumberjacks have been busy of late and so the trunks of cut down trees lined many of the paths.

More lumber. Note the sprayed words: “E. Frei”, which I suppose is the name of the owner of these particular trunks.

An aged beech tree that almost looks like a sculpture.

The field at the center of the forest is lit by the afternoon sun.

A particularly beautiful example of a tree with autumn coloured leaves.

This path goes along the edge of the woods.

A mix of light – the gilded beech tree – and dark – the firs on the other side of the path.

Close-up of the clovers that cover parts of the ground in the forest.

A close-up of a fern leaf.

This photo was not taken in the Westermark woods, but in the nearby village of Steinforth. Note the stunning fall colours.

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New German spy story available – Neue Spionagegeschichte auf Deutsch erhältlich: Auf der anderen Seite des Vorhangs

I have a new release in German, namely the German language version of The Other Side of the Curtain.

I initially planned to announce the new release on November 9 to tie in with the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the inner German border. But then I got ill, several vendors were rather slow to update (I’m still missing a couple of smaller Tolino stores) and besides, the usual jerks decided to pollute what should’ve been a joyful anniversary with their personal political agenda.

So I decided to postpone the announcement until the book was actually available everywhere and instead celebrate on November 9 what I’ve always celebrated on that day, namely the 95th birthday of my late grandmother.

***

Ich habe mal wieder ein deutsches e-Book anzukündigen, nämlich die deutsche Fassung der Spionagegeschichte The Other Side of the Curtain.

Ursprünglich wollte ich die Geschichte am 9. November pünktlich zum 25jährigem Jubiläum des Mauerfalls ankündigen. Aber dann wurde ich krank und einige der Händler waren doch sehr langsam darin, das Buch hochzuladen und außerdem haben die üblichen Verdächtigen sich daran gemacht, ein eigentlich freudiges Jubiläum mit ihrer persönlichen politischen Agenda zu verpsten.

Also entschloss ich mich, die Ankündigung zurückzustellen, bis das Buch tatsächlich auch überall erhältlich ist (na ja, einiger der kleineren Tolino Partner fehlen noch), und stattdessen den 9. November als das zu feiern, was er in erster Linie immer für mich war, nämlich der 95. Geburtstag meiner leider inzwischen verstorbenen Oma.

Und jetzt das Buch:

Auf der anderen Seite des Vorhangs

Leipzig, 1966. Major Werner Gottwald hat sein Leben dem Dienst am Vaterland gewidmet und beobachtet als Stasi Agent westliche Besucher in der DDR. Sein neuester Auftrag ist der amerikanische Millionär Zane Smith und dessen Geliebte, die schöne Shoushan Kariyan.

Auf den ersten Blick scheint es ein Auftrag wie jeder andere zu sein. Aber an Zane Smith ist mehr dran, als es auf den ersten Blick scheint, und so steckt Gottwald bald schon bis zum Hals in Schwierigkeiten. Denn es stellt sich heraus, dass Gottwald die Verschlagenheit der kommunistischen Brüder vom KGB unterschätzt hat. Und er hat definitiv Shoushan Kariyan unterschätzt…

Mehr Informationen.

Länge: 9000 Worte

Preis: 2,99 EUR, USD oder GBP

Erhältlich bei Amazon Deutschland, Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Amazon Niederlande, Amazon Frankreich, Amazon Italien, Amazon Spanien, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australien, Amazon Brasilien, Amazon Mexico, Amazon Japan, Amazon Indien, Kobo, Apple iTunes, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Der Club, BOL, Otto-Media, Donauland, buecher.de, buch.de, eBook.de, Barnes & Noble, Scribd, txtr, Inktera, Smashwords, Casa del Libro, Flipkart, e-Sentral und XinXii.

Dieses Buch gibt es auch auf Englisch.

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Two posts on the German publishing world

I know that many of you are not regular readers of the Pegasus Pulp blog, which is more focussed on publishing related subjects. So I’d like to point you to two recent posts about the German publishing world over on the Pegasus Pulp blog.

The first post talks about the German e-book market and the recent news that the market share of Tolino, an e-reader developed and marketed by an alliance of several German booksellers, has surpassed that of Amazon’s Kindle.

The second post tackles the very German publishing phenomenon of the “Romanheft”, novella-length stories published in standalone digest-sized pulp magazines, and draws some parallels to e-book indie publishing. I’ve also included a couple of links discussing the digital strategies of “Romanheft” publishers.

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Flowers in the Attic and some surprising parallels to Game of Thrones

Tonight I chanced to watch the 2014 adaptation of V.C. Andrews’ cult classic Flowers in the Attic, starring Ellen Burstyn, Heather Graham and Kiernan Shipka (Sally Draper in Mad Men).

I was actually surprised how negative many of the reviews on IMDB were (and how many of them defended the 1987 adaptation, which I’ve only ever heard described as bad), since I felt that the 2014 Flowers in the Attic was a surprisingly good and accurate adaptation of a novel that is not exactly easy to adapt.

Spoilers for both book and movie in the following:

Now it’s been almost twenty-five years since I’ve read the books. Like most teen girls who devoured those books in the 1980s, I was given them (well, the first book at any rate) by another teen girl, in this case my cousin, and later bought – or rather persuaded my parents to buy – my own set. It’s quite fascinating how the V.C. Andrews books spread virally from teen girl to teen girl via word of mouth with zero promotion (at least, I never saw any promotion) and completely under the radar of adults. I did my part in spreading the word as well and recommended the books to several friends at school. Indeed, if you talk to women who were teens in the 1980s, most of them will have read either Flowers in the Attic and sequels or Clan of the Cave Bear and sequels or both, while men of the same age as well as people who are a few years older or younger usually have no idea what you’re talking about.

Coincidentally, I watched the film version with my Mom who had no knowledge of the story whatsoever and didn’t remember buying the books for me (because I’d asked for them for my birthday) either. She did like the movie, though. “How did you even find those books?”, she asked me. “Silke gave me the first one”, I said, “And then I got you to buy me the rest.”

Watching the movie, I was struck with how well I still remembered the details of the story some twenty-five years and hundreds of other books after I first read it. Flowers in the Attic may not have been a good book (and I’m not even tempted to reread it, because I know I’ll only be disappointed), but by hell, it sure was a memorable one.

The TV movie sticks very closely to the novel, though it seems rushed in places, which is probably due to the short run time of 86 minutes. The episode of Chris feeding the twins with his own blood, when the grandmother didn’t bring them food for a week, is missing altogether and the arsenic poisoning plot towards the end feels rushed. We only see the kids eating doughnuts once and Cory falls ill very rapidly rather than slowly wasting away. Chris and Cathy only look ill in the last few scenes, while Carrie never really looks sick at all.

On the other hand, it seems to me that there is more emphasis placed on the incest subplot than in the novel, but then I might be misremembering things, because unlike most other readers of the books, I never found the incest particularly thrilling. I merely viewed it as “the sort of thing that happens if kids grow up in such unnatural circumstances”. The actual incest happens off-screen – we only see the aftermath, probably because both Kiernan Shipka and Mason Dye, the actors who played Cathy and Chris, were underage when the film was made. The first sexual encounter between Chris and Cathy is also portrayed as consensual in the movie, whereas it was pretty much rape in the novel, but I’m not going to argue with that change, because I always found the rape distasteful and not really in character for Chris either. But then, the novel was published in the late 1970s, when sex scene often meant rape scene.

I like the decision to turn Flowers in the Attic into a period piece and keep the setting in the 1950s, because the story wouldn’t work in a contemporary setting at all. And while I don’t recall if the novel ever explicitly specifies when the story is set, it was always obvious to me that neither the Dollanganger series nor the Casteel series (Heaven and sequels) nor My Sweet Audrina were set in the present (i.e. the 1980s), because the stories just didn’t feel contemporary even back then.

Coincidentally, Kiernan Shipka seems stuck in period settings, since most of us associate the actress with the role of Sally Draper in Mad Men, which is set a little later. She also has the tendency to play the daughter of horrible mothers, though Corinne has even Betty Draper beat in the horribleness department.

Talking of which, I liked Kiernan Shipka’s performance as Cathy a lot, but then everybody who’s watched Mad Men knows she can act. I have never seen the 1987 version, so I cannot compare them. But Kristy Swanson, who played Cathy in the 1987 version, has never impressed me in anything. Plus, at 18 she was too old for the part, whereas Kiernan Shipka was just right at 14.

Mason Dye was okay as Chris. He nailed the protectiveness of Chris towards his younger siblings well, though he did seem a bit too naive. At any rate, I don’t recall Chris in the books being quite as naive as movie Chris. Mason Dye does seem a bit tall and muscular for Chris (well, the actor is on the cast of Teen Wolf), particularly for the early scenes, when he’s supposed to be fourteen. But then it is difficult to portray two years of physical development in a movie that’s shot in a few months. They could have messed his hair a bit more, though, since it’s unlikely Cathy would have cut it that well. The kids who plays the twins are physically spot on, though they don’t have very much to do.

Ellen Burstyn is fabulous as Olivia Foxworth, but then she is an Academy Award winner and was nominated for an Emmy for this role, though she lost to Kathy Bates. A lot of people praise Louise Fletcher’s performance in the 1987 movie and of course, Louise Fletcher is a fabulous actress, particularly in villainous roles. But I’ve never seen the 1987 movie and was very impressed with Ellen Burstyn’s performance. I particularly liked the rare glimpses of humanity in the harsh facade of Olivia, glimpses that readers of the books don’t get until Garden of Shadows which is narrated from Olivia’s POV.

Heather Graham, who is not normally an actress known for dramatic parts, got a lot of flak for her performance as Corinne Foxworth. She certainly does have the right look for the part and captures the superficiality and coldness of Corinne quite well. Nonetheless, she wouldn’t have been my first choice for the role. In fact, I kept comparing her to January Jones, the other Barbie-doll-pretty blonde actress who played Kiernan Shipka’s icily superficial mother (though Betty never served arsenic laced doughnuts to anyone). If given the choice, I would have preferred January Jones as Corinne, though Heather Graham was perfectly adequate.

So in short, I enjoyed the movie (so did my Mom, who never read the books) and am a bit baffled by the many negative reviews. I guess they’re partly due to the fact that the movie was broadcast on the Lifetime channel, which has a bad reputation in the US. Plus, I suspect that many of those who devoured the books already had an image of the Dollangangers and Foxworth Hall in their heads. The actors in the movie match my personal image quite well (though Foxworth Hall should have been grander), but that doesn’t necessarily mean they match other people’s image. I am a bit baffled by how many people claim to prefer the 1987 movie, since I’ve never heard anything good about it. But I guess it still holds a fond place in many people’s hearts, particularly since it came out at the height of the books’ popularity.

Finally, here is something disturbing I realised while watching the movie. The Dollangangers/Foxworths are a perfectly blonde family with dark secrets, a horrible head of the family, a case of brother/sister incest that begins during adolescence and continues into adulthood and a younger sibling with stunted growth. Now does that remind you of anybody?

Exactly, of everybody’s favourite dysfunctional blonde family, the Lannisters of Casterly Rock. Indeed, halfway through watching Flowers in the Attic it hit me: The Dollangangers are an alternate reality version of the Lannisters or vice versa.

Now I have no idea if George R.R. Martin ever read Flowers in the Attic or whether he was aware of it via cultural osmosis, but the parallels are striking. What is more, the infamous Red Wedding also bears striking parallels to the Moldavian wedding massacre on the 1980s soap Dynasty. Together, this makes me wonder whether A Song of Ice and Fire does not just liberally borrow from history (which it clearly does), but was also influenced by the melodramatic media of the 1980s.

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An interview, a new vendor and some awards geekery

First of all, I’ve been interviewed at Book Goodies, so check it out.

And if you’re a reader in the Netherlands, you can now buy my books at the newly established Amazon NL without having to pay Amazon’s international surcharge.

Last but not least, the 2014 World Fantasy Awards have been given out.

Sofia Samatar’s A Stranger in Olondria won in the best novel category, Wakulla Springs by Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages in the best novella category (this story was also my favourite novella on the Hugo shortlist, though it lost to Charles Stross), The Prayer of Ninety Cats by Caitlín R. Kiernan won in the best short story category (Kiernan also won best collection), the George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois edited anthology Dangerous Women won in the anthology category. Some very good choices all in all, though I haven’t read the Caitlín Kiernan story.

Sofia Samatar has shared the approximate contents of her acceptance speech at her blog. She also addressed the problem that the World Fantasy Award statuette is a bust of H.P. Lovecraft, who was not just a pioneering dark fantasy writer but also a vicious racist, which makes accepting the award awkward for writers of colour.

Plus, once again the majority of the prizes in the fiction categories went to women writers, including a woman of colour, while the best anthology, though edited by two men, focusses on stories with female protagonists. All in all, very encouraging.

Cheryl Morgan says it best in her post on the awards:

You know what this means, don’t you, folks?

OMG! The FemiNazis Have Destroyed Fantasy!!!

Eat cooties, dudebros.

Indeed, this year’s World Fantasy Award winners should annoy a certain fraction of SFF writers and fans quite a bit. But then, those people don’t usually care much about the World Fantasy Awards, probably because they’re juried and have always tended towards more literary fantasy.

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Familienkutsche featured at Kobo Next and other news

Familienkutsche, the German version of my crime short Family Car, is a featured selection at Kobo Next, Kobo’s own promo site, this week, along with a whole lot of other good books such as When the Music’s Over by German SF writer Myra Çakan.

If you’re waiting for more German language books, I have a new one in publishing right now and hope to announce it in time for the anniversary tomorrow, e-book vendor gods willing.

In the meantime, I’ve got a profile on the new social network tsu (where you can get a sneak peak at the new German book), so drop by, if you’re there. What is tsu? Here is an explanation.

Finally, Heidi Garrett, Jessica Rydill and myself keep posting all sorts of interesting content at the Speculative Fiction Showcase, so check it out, if you haven’t already.

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Constantine or when the imitators eclipse the original

We’re living in a strange age where every American comic you ever read, no matter how obscure, is probably going to be a movie or a TV show sooner or later. Want proof? Look at Marvel’s massive line-up of upcoming movies, including a bunch of characters I for one would never have expected to see on the big screen. But hey, we’re living in superhero comic movie utopia these days and I for one like it.

Regarding to Marvel’s competitor DC, I finally got around to watching the pilot episode of Constantine a few days late. Here is a recap from Tor.com and one from iO9.

Like Gotham, Constantine was a comic related TV show I was planning to skip. But then I saw the trailer and it looked pretty good. So I decided to give it a try.

So what is the verdict? Middling. I’ll probably give the show another try (after all, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. needed ten episodes or so to become really, really cracking good), but so far I’m not at all convinced. And I’m not sure if it’s the fault of the show itself or just bad timing.

Let’s start with the good: Welsh actor , who was previously best known for his role as the sniper dude in the forgettable Criminal Minds spin-off Suspect Behaviour, and also had a part in the Torchwood season 2 episode “Meat” (a.k.a. the one with people eating space whales a.k.a. the last Torchwood episode I ever watched, because I realised the show I had once enjoyed had turned to crap), really makes an excellent John Constantine. He looks as if he’d stepped right out of the comics (and talking of which, it’s bloody depressing that John Constantine of all characters is now played by a guy who’s younger than me). The dialogue is also perfect. Constantine sounds just as cynical and foul-mouthed as he did in the comics and still manages to be likeable. I also liked the fact that he was allowed to keep his accent, a rarity for US genre TV.

Unfortunately, the closest we come to seeing Constantine smoking in the TV show is seeing him playing with a lighter and sitting next to a smaking ashtray. Given that Constantine was one of those character famous for smoking, this is a bit disappointing, but that’s 21st century US morality for you. Besides, John Constantine is not the only comic book smoker who has been put on forced nicotine withdrawal. Wolverine hasn’t been seen smoking in the comics for a while nor is he seen smoking in the latter X-Men films, though we do see him with a cigar in the earlier ones. Nick Fury, another famous cigar chomper, hasn’t been seen smoking since he turned into Samuel L. Jackson. I haven’t seen the Thing smoking in a while either – not sure what’s up with Gambit these days.

So in short, nothing but kudos for Matt Ryan. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast and the pilot episode in general is not nearly as good. The female lead Liv, played by Lucy Griffith, is apparently supposed to be the audience identification character who is by now standard in many speculative TV show, usually portrayed as a young woman. Skye from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Gwen from Torchwood and every Doctor Who companion ever are other examples of this character. However, unlike the various Doctor Who companions or Skye or even Gwen, Liv didn’t work for me at all. Her hair and make-up were just too perfect, her reactions didn’t ring quite true and somehow she never convinced me that she was anything other than an actress playing a part. After having seen her in action, I’m not surprised that the production team wrote her out in favour of another female character who also has the advantage of being a character from the comics.

Harold Perrineau, best known for his role in Lost, plays an angel called Manny who tries to persuade Constantine to do his dirty work for him. Now I like Harold Perrineau, plus he adds a much needed shot of colour to what is otherwise a very white show in spite of being set in Atlanta (Why? Constantine works best when set in Britain. So why not London or Liverpool or Newcastle?). Nonetheless, his character – who doesn’t exist in the comics as far as I know – immediately rubbed me the wrong way. At first, I thought it was because Manny was too similar to Castiel from Supernatural (who was ironically modelled after John Constantine), another angel character I have never liked, even though he’s a fan favourite.

Then I thought the reason was that I don’t like angels, particularly of the macho sort, in general. Indeed, one thought I had throughout the pilot episode, whenever John Constantine or any of the other characters went on about angels and demons and heaven and hell and damned souls suffering for all eternity, was, “Damn! Was the comic always this religious and I just never noticed it?”

Now a few explanations are in order: First of all, I happily read the Hellblazer comics for several years during the Warren Ellis and Brian Azarello runs and even own a John Constantine action figure, who is sitting on my bookshelf, checking out the arse of Jakita Wagner from Planetary. However, even though I know I read the comic and can instantly recognise the cover art and even some interior art, I remember next to nothing of the plot. Which is unusual, since I can recount X-Men or Spider-Man plots (or Preacher or Transmetropolitan for other Vertigo series) from the same era in great detail. Hellblazer, however, is just one big blank.

Secondly, I’m not religious at all. I did manage to be religious long enough to go through my confirmation (and I was convinced at the time or I would never have gone through with the ceremony, because I was never the type to do it just for the money), but I gave up on religion not long thereafter. However, the brand of Christianity I grew up with was a very rational blend of Lutheranism. I was taught that hell was just a metaphor used to scare people rather than a place, that there was no such thing as eternal damnation, that demons didn’t exist and that angels were something only superstitious people believed in. And those people only believed in guardian angels – violent angels with the flaming swords just plain didn’t exist outside certain parts of the Bible (and those were metaphors as well).

Hence, my reaction to any sort of speculative fiction that draws heavily on hell, demons, damnation and angels is one of extreme alienation. If anything, the alienation is stronger than with speculative fiction that merely uses mythological tropes that are unfamiliar to me, because angels, demons, hell and eternal damnation are things I have been told from very early on are backwards and superstitious. I can tolerate demons for some reason – it’s angels that usually get me. I have no interest in reading about/watching macho jerk angels (and they’re always macho jerk angels). Ditto for eternal damnation, the religious apocalypse and all that jazz. Indeed, too much focus on Christian religious concepts that are superstitious or just plain weird to me is one of my biggest dealbreakers for supernatural/occult/dark fantasy properties. This is what killed Supernatural for me post season 4 and what killed Sleepy Hollow for me in spite of really liking the characters.

So watching a John Constantine pilot filled with a lot of stuff about angels and demons and hell and damnation triggered a reaction of “Crap, was the comic always this full of religious stuff?” reaction in me. Followed by, “But Hellblazer is a British comic, predominantly written by Brits. And Catholic or Anglican*, aren’t Brits supposed to be rational about Christianity?**” Though considering how much Christian religious content or outright grappling with religious issues there is in British SFF, I suspect I was wrong about that.

Of course, it’s quite possible that the Warren Ellis and Brian Azarello Hellblazer runs I read way back when were lower on the outright religious content than other issues of the comic, let alone a TV series made by Americans. On the other hand, I barely remember the plots, so maybe I just ignored the religious stuff. After all, I happily and eagerly read Preacher around the same time. I was a lot younger when I read those comics and more easily able to simply blank out stuff that annoyed me than today.

However, while watching the Constantine pilot and ranting that it was just like Supernatural, where those bloody angels ruined everything once they showed up, something else occurred to me. Even though I have very few memories of the Hellblazer comic, something about the show seemed painfully familiar to me, as if I were watching a story I had seen told a hundred times before. But how could that be, if other comic book movies and shows retelling the same old familiar story didn’t bother me in the slightest. Besides, I barely remembered the Hellblazer comic anyway.

But then it hit me: I had seen and read this story told a thousand times before. Every single element seemed familiar to me, because it was. Not necessarily from the Hellblazer comics themselves, but from the many urban fantasy novels and supernatural noir TV shows inspired by them.

As someone with an academic interest in the urban fantasy genre, I was always aware that comics in general and Hellblazer in particular had been an influence on the genre. But until I watched the Constantine pilot I hadn’t been consciously aware how massive that influence truly was. Because let’s face it, every male urban fantasy character, particularly if he is a mage or supernatural detective, is at least a little bit influenced by John Constantine.

The trenchcoat, the cynism, the bleached hair, the punk affinities, the bad childhood, the tough guy facade coupled with sheer panic inside, the tendency towards hanging out in dodgy bars, the hard-boiled/noir influenced narration, the substance abuse – these elements show up in varying degrees in every single urban fantasy or supernatural noir franchise with a male lead. Harry Dresden from Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series, John Taylor from Simon R. Green’s Nightside series, Jack Winter from Caitlin Kittredge’s Black London series (probably the most Constantine like of all the Constantine imitators), Atticus O’Sullivan from Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Chronicles, Connor Grey from Mark del Franco’s eponymous series, Simon Canderous from Anton Strout’s eponymous series, Sam and Dean Winchester from Supernatural, Cal and Niko Leandros from Rob Thurman’s Leandros Brothers series, all of these characters are the spiritual descendants of John Constantine.

As a result, watching Constantine felt like watching a mash-up of Supernatural and the abortive Dresden Files TV series as well as TV adaptations that never were of the Nightside series or the Black London series or the Leandros Brothers series. And while I was noticing the many parallels, I couldn’t help but thinking that I’d rather be watching/reading any of the series listed above than the show I was actually watching.

Now I haven’t read any Hellblazer comics in a decade or so. And like I said before, I barely remember those comics that I did read. It’s probably telling that the one Hellblazer plot I can remember with complete clarity isn’t a Hellblazer story at all, but Warren Ellis’ Hellblazer pastiche from Planetary (There is a reason my John Constantine action figure is checking out Jakita Wagner’s arse).

However, in the decade or so since I gave up on Hellblazer, I have been eagerly watching Supernatural (at least until those bloody angels showed up) and have been devouring the literary adventures of Harry Dresden and John Taylor and Jack Winter and the Leandros brothers and Atticus O’Sullivan and Simon Canderous and Connor Grey. And I find those characters a lot more interesting these days, because they have actual conflicts, relationships, families, romances, siblings, children (in some cases), while John Constantine is a British dude who smokes a lot, drinks a lot, curses a lot, used to be in a punk band and does magic. Compared to his more interesting successors, John Constantine simply comes across as bland, which is probably why I have completely erased his adventures from my memory, even though I know I read them for several years.

I’ll give Constantine another try to see if the show grows on me. After all, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. needed almost half a season to go from “decent, but nothing special” to “really good television” and from there into the stratosphere.

Nonetheless, I wonder whether the perfect time for a Constantine TV series (or a Constantine movie that actually remained faithful to the source material, unlike the travesty that we got) isn’t past by now. John Constantine has spread his wild oats around and by now his legacy is all over the airwaves and urban fantasy shelves. Which paradoxically makes the original stand out less, not more, and indeed seem like just another urban fantasy/supernatural noir series with a cynical male lead.

*Lutherans, at least the brand I grew up with, view Anglicans as a sort of spiritual brethren once removed. They are a tad wary, but tolerant about reformed/Calvanist influenced churches. Catholics are viewed as superstitious and any other Protestant denomination such as Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, etc… are viewed as “some kind of weird cult”. Sorry, but that’s how it is.

**And Alan Moore, creator of John Constantine, hasn’t been Christian in a while now, if he ever was in the first place.

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