Christopher Farnsworth's Blog, page 17

Sci-Fi Fix

If you haven't read Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis, you're in for a treat. If you have, then, like me, you're no doubt jonesing for the next chapter of an alternate history where Nazi supermen fight English warlocks. (Yes, you read that right.) Unfortunately, Tregillis is busy being a prolific author and scientist, so we don't get the next book, The Coldest War, until October.

But as a small fix, Tregillis and Tor.com are offering a electronic-only short story set in the same world on sale at Amazon today. That's right: for less than a third of the cost of a cappuccino, you can get an all-expenses-paid trip into another world where German scientists play God and English magicians consort with Devils.

Buy it now. You can thank me later.

On The Shelf

The Sheriff of Yrnameer by Michael Rubens – I've been looking for the heir to Douglas Adams for a long, long time. I thought I found him in Terry Pratchett, but then Pratchett had to go and be mortal, so I'm looking at the end of my beloved Discworld books soon. Jasper Fforde is pretty great, but not exactly sci-fi. While it doesn't have the same heart as Pratchett's books (who does?), I have to say that Michael Rubens is off to a good start with Yrnameer. The tone is very similar to Adams, with a lot of Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat thrown in for good measure.

The Sentry by Robert Crais — The latest Joe Pike novel. Pike is a machine, but Crais shows what happens when someone slips under the armor plating and pierces his heart. As always, a great blend of action and character.

The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly — Connelly brings two of his franchise characters together here. (Yes, I know I'm late to this one.) It's much more effective to see Harry Bosch from an outsider's perspective — in this case, through the eyes of Mickey Haller, a criminal-defense attorney introduced in The Lincoln Lawyer. (And soon to be played on the big screen by Matthew McConaughey.) Connelly can do these books in his sleep and still come up with surprises, but watching Bosch as a relentless, sometimes spooky avenger of the dead is worth the price of admission alone.

The Coffin by Phil Hester and Mike Huddleston — A remarkable twist on the super-hero and horror genres. The art, in black and white, is both surrealistic and stark, and the story manages to be compelling, plausible and freakish all at the same time. I missed this when it was first released 10 years ago. Very glad I got to see it in this lovely hardback edition.

The Glass Teat by Harlan Ellison — I first found this in paperback in a used bookstore for a buck at a time when a buck was a serious dent in my budget. I made the mistake of loaning it out, and the next edition I found — again in a used bookstore — cost me almost five dollars. I would have paid ten times that. Ellison is the first writer I read with the idea of actually making a living at this, and his words were like a zero-bullshit, how-to manual. I'm reading it again right now, and it holds up: surprisingly immune to nostalgia and other degrading effects of time. Ellison talks about TV to talk about the whole world spinning around him.

Ghost Country by Patrick Lee — The sequel to The Breach starts a bit slower than the first book — it would have to, since Breach opened with the cold-blooded murder of the First Lady of the United States — but soon dives into a plot to prevent a terrifying future from becoming reality. Lee has real skill at turning the action thriller upside-down, and makes the sci-fi accessible enough that it never slows the action. My only regret: now I have to wait for the next installment.

Happy Birthday, Neil Diamond

Skywriters over L.A.: Happy Birthday Neil Diamond!

The Comics Code Authority is dead. I expect kids to start jumping off roofs in capes, sticking needles in their eyes, and disrespecting authority any minute now.

In related news, Wizard magazine, which attempted to be the Time of the comics industry, is also dead.

My friend Bill Heisel continues his post-mortem on the autism/vaccine scare.

It's Friday! Time to Procrastinate.

Stuff you can read while still looking busy on the computer at work. You're welcome.

Someone takes Ferris Bueller's Day Off waaaaaaaaay too seriously. (Via TMN.)

Sometimes people surprise you: thousands of Egyptian Muslims act as human shields to protect Coptic Christians from terrorism.

A Koran written in Saddam Hussein's blood. I am totally figuring out a way to work that into one of my books.

Comics: the literature of outcasts.

The life of a working girl.

Pitchfork vs. Louis CK.

Make Me Laugh

It's hard to make people laugh.

Scratch that. It's easy to make people laugh, especially in America. I read once how Europeans tend to think we're brain-damaged because of our habit of adding a chuckle to every minor interaction, as if a cashier telling you, "Have a better one" is a hilarious bon mot worthy of Dorothy Parker or Oscar Wilde.

(I try to think this speaks well of us as a culture — we're always looking for a reason to smile at other people. Yes, the Zoloft is working, thanks for asking.)

But it's hard to make people laugh genuinely. Think of the last time you told a hilarious story at a family gathering, and just when you got to the punchline, your Uncle Bob turns and says, "Huh. How about that. Anyway…"

Or imagine the last time you tried to say something funny about politics and got blank stares. That sound? That was the sound of people not laughing. Not even to be polite.

So I have great respect for comedians. They stand unprotected in front of a crowd of drunks who paid money after a hard week and expect to laugh, goddammit.

The best comedians say stuff that challenges, unsettles, and provokes. They force you to face the truth, and only the fact that you're laughing keeps you from throwing your beer bottle at their heads, because you sure didn't pay your $20 cover at the Chuckle Hut to think.

Patton Oswalt does this, and he makes me laugh so hard I have trouble breathing. He's one of the best comedians working. And now he's written a book: Zombie Spaceship Wasteland.

This can be disastrous for a lot of comedians. Written down, most comedic routines are stripped of their timing and emphasis and gestures. They're reduced to a steaming pile of not funny, in other words. (Don't take my word for it. Take a look at a transcript of, say, one of Dane Cook's monologues.) I'm somewhat ashamed to admit I didn't realize this until I'd bought both of Dennis Miller's books of rants from his old HBO show.

Oswalt, God love him, jumps over that mineshaft. The essays inside the book offer memories and events that shaped the sensibility that Oswalt expresses on stage. From them, it's clear that he's a writer first. And this book is filled with incredibly good writing. Anyone who's seen or heard his routines knows he's got a gift for imagery and language, but here he puts it to work in prose that's often painful, funny, and heartbreaking within the space of a few sentences. From "Take a bow, you coke-soaked ogre" to "The coffee tasted like pants" to "If the victories we create in our heads were let loose on reality, the world we know would drown in blazing happiness."

Many reviews have talked about the moments in the book that are quite sad. There's a sense of surprise in these comments, as if comedians aren't people who are frighteningly tuned to the despair and pain of the world. There are only two options when you're smart enough to see some of the mundane tragedies that most of us ignore like cemeteries on the way to work — like the checkout girl who's teaching customers to use the self-serve grocery registers that will eliminate her job. Or the guy who puts his heart and soul into a fetish magazine that will only ever be taken out for a few furious and shameful moments, then crammed under a mattress or into a garbage can. Or the guy sitting alone on a Saturday night having dinner at the KFC.

You can either drown in the pain of that, or you can find a way to laugh.

With this book, Oswalt shows us how he learned to look for the funny parts — the joy — where there might be nothing but anger or contempt and sorrow. He has amazing sympathy for his subjects, if not always enough for himself. But he recognizes that everybody is trying to pry a little happiness from their lives, and he shows his respect for the effort, even when he cannot tolerate the methods.

And he throws in dick jokes, too. So you know. Something for everyone.

Conspiracy Theories

The first thing that popped into my head when I read the headline about the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords: "Go up and look your legislator in the face, because someday you may have to blow it off."

That's what a militia leader told his followers in Idaho back when I was freelancing for Boise Weekly. The paper's intern, a friend and former classmate of mine named Michael Carroll, had been sent to a militia meeting. They were a growing force in Idaho politics at the time, and both Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth and Superintendent of Public Instruction Anne Fox had their active and vocal support in the elections.

Mike came back with that quote. The paper ran it, and he was immediately the center of threats and accusations. The militia leader claimed he was misquoted. But there were plenty of people in the militia movement who agreed with the sentiment.

Less than a year later, Timothy McVeigh parked a bomb outside a federal building in Oklahoma City and murdered 168 people, including 19 children.

The militia movement didn't force McVeigh to do what he did. Nor was Jared Lee Loughner's killing spree caused by anything he read on the Internet or saw on TV. There are plenty of people capable of holding violent ideas without resorting to violent action. Most of those militia members back in Idaho, as angry as they were, never did more than talk a lot of shit.

And unlike McVeigh, Loughner hasn't yet proudly claimed credit for the horror he committed. Although I imagine that's not far off.

Still, Loughner's attack echoes of 1995 to me, and sure enough, there have been people denying his tactics, but not the sentiment. One asshat who runs a comic-book retailer was dumb enough to say it explicitly. Other people have been more careful in their language. And some have just been batshit crazy, like the folks who believe it was all part of some Satanic Illuminati ritual.

The novelist Walter Kirn said it best, just a few hours after Loughner's identity was revealed to the public:

All these assassins are self-anointed knights templar of the collective shadow realm, not secular political actors in extremis.

Over the past year, I've done some deep reading into conspiracy theories as part of the research for The President's Vampire. I've been fascinated by them since I was 12 years old, when I began to notice the intersection between the conspiracy theorist's shadowy realm and the all-bets-are-off universe of the paranormal.

Spoiler alert for anyone who thinks they're going to find out the real killer of JFK in this blog post: I don't buy a single one of them.

But all of the feverish speculation and bad logic inside those pages has come spilling out again in the past week.

Some of the people I know who believe in a New World Order, 9/11 as an inside job, or the Illuminati say this makes me naive; that I don't know just how far the government will go to carry out its vicious agenda.

Actually, I know exactly how far it will go. There's ample evidence that U.S. agencies helped deal drugs, funded terrorism, supplied arms to dictators, toppled democratically elected foreign leaders, spied on U.S. citizens, and even helped Nazis escape justice after World War II.

But I also know how government actually works. I've clocked far too many hours in government meetings and plowed through metric tons of government documents. Most conspiracy theorists talk like they've never sat through a county commission hearing. I have. When I worked in Boise, there were only three men on the county commission. That meant two of them talking in the hallway about county business was technically a violation of the open meetings law. All three were Republicans. You'd think they would have been able to do everything in secret, without a single leak.

Not so much. One of them hated the guts of the other two, and there wasn't a decision made — no matter how trivial — that didn't get a full and tedious debate.

If three people cannot get a decent cover-up together at the local level, where nobody cares, how likely is it that a group of a few thousand elites would be able to hide the secret history of the world?

It's also useful to consider Robert Anton Wilson's Strange Loop theory: any conspiracy powerful enough to commit global crimes and cover up all evidence is also powerful enough to have manufactured the evidence that led you to believe in it in the first place. In other words, if you know about the Illuminati, it's only because they want you to know about the Illuminati.

Loughner, by all available evidence, is one of those disturbed individuals like McVeigh who mistakes the structures on paper and in e-mails for reality. It's not as uncommon as you'd think. His online rants about grammar and the gold standard have a long history in American politics, stretching back almost to July 4, 1776. Conspiracy theory seems to be a part of our national DNA. People are always willing to accept the easy solution, to find the boogeyman under the bed.

Take a look at the anti-vaccine movement. For the most part, these are people dealing with a heartbreaking illness in the best way they know how, despite all the evidence that says they're wrong. But they say the evidence is manufactured by a worldwide conspiracy out to suppress the truth.

Is that likely? No. But it gives us someone to blame. And for some reason, in our politics and our lives, we need that. I am consistently amazed by the people who will not believe a word they read in the New York Times, but take an anonymous chain e-mail as gospel.

In my books, I chalk every bad thing in the world to an occult force called The Other Side, the ultimate, anti-human enemy with limitless hatred for us all. Unlike the conspiracists, I don't believe that's real. I don't believe I have all the answers. I don't know what causes autism. I don't know what made Loughner decide the world would be a better place if he killed a bunch of people.

But I wish I did. It would be comforting to know where the source of all evil was, so we could at least put a name and a face to it.

New Year, New Novel, New Site

2011 is here — yes, I know, it's actually been here for a while — and thanks to Richard Feliciano, I've got a brand-spanking-new website to go in with the new year.

For those of you I haven't already bombarded with the news, THE PRESIDENT'S VAMPIRE, the sequel to BLOOD OATH, will hit stands April 28, 2011. If you can't wait that long, there's a preview included in the paperback edition of BLOOD OATH, available March 1. Even more bloody mayhem included, I promise.

More features will be added to the site as we get closer to the launch date — including an original, untold tale of Nathaniel Cade, as well as previously classified files on his persistent enemies in the Shadow Company.

For everyone who's read the first book already, thanks so much. It's going to be a great year.

My Favorite Movies: Love, Actually

(A regift. Originally published December 22, 2009. Merry Christmas.)

As someone who was not really fond of the holiday season for years — long story with familiar elements: divorce, family tension, bills, et cetera — I'm sort of surprised how many of my favorite movies are Christmas-themed. It starts with Die Hard, which is still one of the great action flicks of all time, where John McClane hands out whupass from a seemingly bottomless Santa bag in some of the best set pieces leavened with humor ever done.

Then there's The Sure Thing, an underrated and underappreciated movie that was John Cusack's first starring role.

Cusack plays a desperate college freshman traveling to L.A. to get laid. Directed by Rob Reiner, this could have been just another 80s teenage sex comedy. But the brilliant script by Steve Bloom and Jonathan Roberts is filled with sharp dialogue and smart scenes, like this one, delivered with veteran timing by Cusack:

Then, when I met my endlessly wonderful wife, I discovered her Christmas tradition: watching The Ref, with Denis Leary, Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis. It's a deeply strange, unsentimental and still very funny look at how the holidays are almost always improved by an armed intruder.

When it comes to  more traditional Christmas movies, Scrooged is one of the only takes on the Dickens classic that I can stomach, even with all the souvenirs of another decade it includes, like Bobcat Goldthwait, "a top-of-the-line VCR," David Johansen, and such. It has Bill Murray, and his performance can outshine any number of trouble spots. His dry, matter-of-fact delivery grounds every moment, no matter how strange or maudlin, right down to the dirt floor of reality. And if you don't tear up at his closing monologue, well, you're dead inside.

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But my all-time favorite Christmas movie — and one of my all-time favorite movies — is Love Actually, which features a cast of mostly British actors being so ridiculously beautiful, smart and charming you wonder why all our lives can't be a Richard Curtis movie.

With a cast that includes Liam Neeson, Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Laura Linney and more, there are too many great scenes to list. Seriously, just go pick up the DVD. But here is my favorite:

Oh, and I'm also pretty fond of the line where the kid says, "All right, Dad. Let's go get the shit kicked out of us by love."

Merry Christmas and God bless us, every one.

Last Minute Christmas Gifts!

Sleepless by Charlie Huston — Maybe the best book of the year, despite a shocking lack of vampires. My original thoughts on it are here, and you'd be doing anyone a favor by getting it for them as a gift. If you want to wait for the paperback, you even have a built-in excuse for being late: "Dude, sorry, but the book didn't come out until Dec. 28th."
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn — A master class on pacing, character and place, all contained in a fantastic suspense story about the sole survivor of her brother's massacre of her family.
Peanut Butter Snickers — I missed these, and they're back. Man, now all I need is a McDLT and some Crystal Pepsi, and it is on.
Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods — Spend some time inside the head of one of comics' most intriguing writers.
PvPonline — One of the best daily comic strips anywhere. Scott Kurtz has near-perfect comic timing, and best of all, anything you buy from his store has a built-in excuse as well. However, it's well worth the wait. Also highly recommended: The Rack: Year One and Lydia.
Everything Wondermark — I wore a Wondermark T-shirt to Comic-Con, and even die-hard geeks stopped me to say, "That is awesome. Where can I get one?" (For those who don't know, a geek admitting that he does not have a T-shirt as awesome as yours is like eating his heart in more primal cultures.) So yes, check out Malki's books, but really, get the nerd you love superiority in soft cotton form.
Venture Bros. Season 4, Vol. 1 — Even better when paired with a Brock Sampson Action Figure. Hint, hint, hint.
If you can't manage any of the above, it's probably enough to show up at your family's place showered and reasonably attired, stay away from the spiked eggnog, and let your weird uncle talk about the UN troops occupying Topeka as much as he wants. And then you can say, "Merry Christmas, Mom," and really mean it.
If that's too much to ask, get everyone you know a BLOOD OATH coffee mug.
UPDATE: Oh, and if you want to help someone who really needs it instead of blowing cash on impulse buys in the long line at check-out, then I recommend a donation to Save The Children. Don't put it in someone else's name, though. Really, people hate that.

Required Reading

Today, the legendary Beau Smith has a nice little bundle of awesome hitting stores with his usual bone-powdering force, and just in time for the holidays.

Wynonna Earp: The Yeti Wars is a great thrill-ride. I'd even go so far as to say it's the finest graphic novel featuring a hot descendant of Wyatt Earp, a Southern-fried Dr. Moreau, man-eating Yetis and beer-drinking Bigfoots ever written.

And I'm not just talking smack here. I've also lent my dubious credibility to the book in an introduction that you can get absolutely free with your purchase of the rest of the graphic novel.

Putting aside my attempt to sound like a used-car salesman, what I loved about this book is how it explodes with a love of what makes comics great and insane. Beau crams enough high-concept craziness into a story to qualify as Grant Morrison with a Southern drawl.

Check it out while you're in your local comics shop today. It's absolutely perfect for the comics geek in your life.

And for those of you looking for words without pictures, I've got some other book recommendations up at the website of the great Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver. There were a couple I'd forgotten — hey, blame the NyQuil — but I'm listing them here:

* THE ARK — Boyd Morrison. I met Boyd while our tours overlapped this summer. Anyone who's a fan of high-adrenaline thrills and scary-close future science should check this out. He's been called the heir to James Rollins, and it's not just hype.

* MFA IN A BOX — John Rember. Technically, this one isn't out yet, but you can pre-order and beat the rush. With MFA programs in creative writing multiplying like tumors these days, my former teacher John decided there were plenty of people telling writers how to write. What's far more challenging — and far more dangerous — is figuring out why to write. There are dark things lurking at the bottom of all of our souls — worse than vampires, I promise — and if you sit in front of the blank screen long enough, they begin to swim for the surface. This book will tell you what to do when they break through.

And on that cheery note, have yourself a merry little Christmas and happy holidays. Now go buy some books.