David G. Cookson's Blog, page 15
January 21, 2019
Boomer1
Boomer1 by Daniel TordayMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Mark Brumfeld is a fine example of Generation X: overeducated and underemployed. Living in New York and comfortable, he becomes less comfortable when his girlfriend rejects his marriage proposal and loses his job and is forced to move back in with his parents in Baltimore. Contrast his fortune with his girlfriend, Cassie Black, who becomes a very successful editor of viral videos at a New York magazine and falls in love with another woman.
And then there is Julia, Mark’s mother, an aging folk musician who doesn’t really know what to make of what has become of her son.
Then Mark begins to make videos in his parents’ basement, videos where he dons a David Crosby mask and begins to rail against the crimes of the generation before his, the baby boomers. He calls himself Boomer1 and his videos are a call to action. He wants the baby boomers to retire and make way for his generation. The movement quickly slips out of his control and becomes an entity all its own. Watching it happen is part of the fun of this entertaining novel.
The point of view shifts between the three main characters, a device that I usually don’t care for, but it works here.
It is somewhat similar to another book I’d read with a similar idea, Christopher Buckley’s Boomsday. But while Boomsday is broad and comedic, Boomer 1 is surgical and serious. There are real issues Torday brings up and anyone living in this present tine is painfully aware of how divided we are.
Boomer 1 is a bit of a downer, but ultimately it is a satisfying read that will cause me to seek out Torday’s other books. So there.
Boom. Boom.
View all my reviews
December 19, 2018
November Road
November Road by Lou BerneyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I was a huge fan of The Long and Faraway Gone, Berney’s noir psychological thriller set in Oklahoma. I loved it so much than when I learned of the existence of November Road, I went out of my way to get ahold of it.
Set in 1963 in the days after the Kennedy assassination, it follows the path of a man named Frank Guidry who has run afoul of a criminal enterprise who are in some way directly responsible for the assassination of JFK (because, after all, no one could have made that shot the way that they say Oswald made it. I know, I’ve seen the place. No way.). But there is a man coming after him, sent by the very people he used to work for. He finds himself trying to stay one step ahead of the bad guys.
On the way, Frank comes across a woman, Charlotte, and her two kids. Their car has broken down on the side of the road on their trip west, after fleeing from her emotionally abusive husband. Frank makes the decision to use her and her family as a cover as he makes his way across the country to see the one man who might be able to get him out his predicament.
They begin a journey together that changes them both…
I first have to say that this was very enjoyable with rich characterizations and it comes oh-so close to being believable. You have to suspend a little disbelief that these two would go so far together emotionally in such a short period of time. There is a bit of the air of “Titanic” in this (which is less problematic for one who really enjoyed that film). But if this is problematic, it is at least addressed at one point in the book. And anyway, the relationship IS the story, on this road they are on in November Road. There are numerous allusions to the Wizard of Oz, and surely the highway is a dangerous place and is leading them to an insane wizard who may or may not be able to help them.
Didn’t quite love this one like I did The Long and Faraway Gone, but it’s still a hell of a book. Berney is an excellent story teller, and November Road is quite a trip.
View all my reviews
December 6, 2018
Prologue to The Times of Clouds and Sun
I started re-reading my Nano Novel and felt like this intro turned out pretty well, so...here it is.
The Times of Clouds and Sun, the times of clouds and sun…well, it sure felt like it back then. We had a plan, we had an objective, and we had the will.
We knew the earth was overcrowded, and that we were steadily destroying our planet through the thoughtless actions of humanity.
And it was only getting worse the more people being born.
The home Planet was just getting smaller and smaller, but the worst part of it was necessarily the number of people…it was the type of people.
Just so many poor folks…undesirables…stupid people. People who didn’t matter, and probably never would. These people were destroying things little by little and I know we were not the first group with the idea that a voluntary extinction movement would help to heal the planet…but who would be around to notice? Who would be around to reap the benefits of an unmanned (And un- woman-ed) planet earth?
The idea had been proposed in that heady decade of the early 90’s when a group was formed by average people who lived by the simple tenet that if all of humanity just up and decided to stop reproducing, we could bring about a natural dying out of our species and that would help the planet. Without our carbon footprint and our pollution and our wars and frankly, our stupidity, the planet would be a lot better off.
Of course, it was a stupid idea. It is in the human DNA to want to reproduce, or at the very least to do the action that leads to that eventuality….
Boring. They would never get anywhere in their passive aims to bring about change. Passive change. No change ever comes about this way. But we had to give them credit. At least they were thinking. Give them the A for effort but an F in execution.
But our goal…well, we wanted to maybe take it all a step further.
The times of clouds and sun…that was our code for the project that was to supersede the work done in the early 90’s. For what we were aiming for was truly a time for clouds and sun, though it can be argued that virtually every day could be described this way, and it did lead to some unfortunate in-fighting that frankly, I don’t feel like getting into.
Because this really isn’t our story, as much as I’d like it to be. But what it is, is a story that begins in the near future at something that was to be called the Post Trump America. Trump was an American President who divided the nation and made our work possible. Not by any direct action. Like a lot of things during that era, it all started with the Russians…
No…our story is the story of a man who lived during those times, a man called Baxter. And like a lot of people, he was just a man trying to do his job and get out. But it would lead him on a path that would influence the future world and the path of the planet toward the times of clouds and sun….
The Times of Clouds and Sun, the times of clouds and sun…well, it sure felt like it back then. We had a plan, we had an objective, and we had the will.
We knew the earth was overcrowded, and that we were steadily destroying our planet through the thoughtless actions of humanity.
And it was only getting worse the more people being born.
The home Planet was just getting smaller and smaller, but the worst part of it was necessarily the number of people…it was the type of people.
Just so many poor folks…undesirables…stupid people. People who didn’t matter, and probably never would. These people were destroying things little by little and I know we were not the first group with the idea that a voluntary extinction movement would help to heal the planet…but who would be around to notice? Who would be around to reap the benefits of an unmanned (And un- woman-ed) planet earth?
The idea had been proposed in that heady decade of the early 90’s when a group was formed by average people who lived by the simple tenet that if all of humanity just up and decided to stop reproducing, we could bring about a natural dying out of our species and that would help the planet. Without our carbon footprint and our pollution and our wars and frankly, our stupidity, the planet would be a lot better off.
Of course, it was a stupid idea. It is in the human DNA to want to reproduce, or at the very least to do the action that leads to that eventuality….
Boring. They would never get anywhere in their passive aims to bring about change. Passive change. No change ever comes about this way. But we had to give them credit. At least they were thinking. Give them the A for effort but an F in execution.
But our goal…well, we wanted to maybe take it all a step further.
The times of clouds and sun…that was our code for the project that was to supersede the work done in the early 90’s. For what we were aiming for was truly a time for clouds and sun, though it can be argued that virtually every day could be described this way, and it did lead to some unfortunate in-fighting that frankly, I don’t feel like getting into.
Because this really isn’t our story, as much as I’d like it to be. But what it is, is a story that begins in the near future at something that was to be called the Post Trump America. Trump was an American President who divided the nation and made our work possible. Not by any direct action. Like a lot of things during that era, it all started with the Russians…
No…our story is the story of a man who lived during those times, a man called Baxter. And like a lot of people, he was just a man trying to do his job and get out. But it would lead him on a path that would influence the future world and the path of the planet toward the times of clouds and sun….
December 4, 2018
Thoughts on “winning” my 11th National Novel Writing Contest and thoughts on Twitter and internet culture.
I spent November of 2018 participating in the madcap adventure that is the National Novel Writing Month, where writers of all backgrounds each work to pound out their own original 50 thousand word novel in 30 days.
I have done this 11 times now, and I have finished every time (referred to as “winning”). While the novelty may have dimmed a little, I can’t say the joyous feeling of creation has ever left.
My novel is called “The Times of Clouds and Sun,” and it is about a guy who falls in love with a woman while working at a troll factory, as envisioned in the future when people are no longer able to access social media they way they are able to now. The two share an awkward slow moving relationship that involves watching bad TV together but only on Saturday night. (The rest of the time, she has to pretend to not know him.)
Together, they discover a secret that could affect the end of humanity.
In my recent books, I have tried to focus on something that I really liked, to frame a story around it. One year it was beer, one year it was coffee, last year it was naps (which unfortunately didn’t turn out so well.) This year I did something on “Twitter riffing” on Super Sci Fi Saturday Night, which is what I and a bunch of new Twitter friends do every weekend. It is both a tribute and an examination of the phenomenon of making friends on the internet and what would happen if the internet as we know it were to go away.
The thing is…the difference between the people I’ve met in real life and the people that I know from online has actually gotten way smaller than it ever used to be. With the exception of people that I work with and a few others, I pretty much only “see” most people I know these days, in this part of my life online.
I’m not sure that The Times of Clouds and Sun makes a lot of new points, but as far as a thirty day novel goes, I think I’ve come up with something I can work with.
This year I planned ahead. I took notes for the whole year, I printed out the notes and referenced them throughout the writing process. I assembled fake quotes for chapter headings which I made up myself (whereas in the past I would take them from public domain or from the Bible) I came up with plot points, and while I did not know where it would all end up, I had at least part of the road map to get me somewhere.
I think it is a pretty decent effort….And I have no idea when you might be able to read it, but if I can use my 2016 Nano novel “Pain Center” as a blueprint, I could theoretically get it done in 4 months, assuming it isn’t a complete piece of crap. (I haven’t read it back, yet.)
Ok. Here’s hoping my revising efforts also prove fruitful. Watch this space for updates!
My Nano effort from 2016 is available thru here! http://davecookson.tripod.com/PainCen...
I have done this 11 times now, and I have finished every time (referred to as “winning”). While the novelty may have dimmed a little, I can’t say the joyous feeling of creation has ever left.
My novel is called “The Times of Clouds and Sun,” and it is about a guy who falls in love with a woman while working at a troll factory, as envisioned in the future when people are no longer able to access social media they way they are able to now. The two share an awkward slow moving relationship that involves watching bad TV together but only on Saturday night. (The rest of the time, she has to pretend to not know him.)
Together, they discover a secret that could affect the end of humanity.
In my recent books, I have tried to focus on something that I really liked, to frame a story around it. One year it was beer, one year it was coffee, last year it was naps (which unfortunately didn’t turn out so well.) This year I did something on “Twitter riffing” on Super Sci Fi Saturday Night, which is what I and a bunch of new Twitter friends do every weekend. It is both a tribute and an examination of the phenomenon of making friends on the internet and what would happen if the internet as we know it were to go away.
The thing is…the difference between the people I’ve met in real life and the people that I know from online has actually gotten way smaller than it ever used to be. With the exception of people that I work with and a few others, I pretty much only “see” most people I know these days, in this part of my life online.
I’m not sure that The Times of Clouds and Sun makes a lot of new points, but as far as a thirty day novel goes, I think I’ve come up with something I can work with.
This year I planned ahead. I took notes for the whole year, I printed out the notes and referenced them throughout the writing process. I assembled fake quotes for chapter headings which I made up myself (whereas in the past I would take them from public domain or from the Bible) I came up with plot points, and while I did not know where it would all end up, I had at least part of the road map to get me somewhere.
I think it is a pretty decent effort….And I have no idea when you might be able to read it, but if I can use my 2016 Nano novel “Pain Center” as a blueprint, I could theoretically get it done in 4 months, assuming it isn’t a complete piece of crap. (I haven’t read it back, yet.)
Ok. Here’s hoping my revising efforts also prove fruitful. Watch this space for updates!
My Nano effort from 2016 is available thru here! http://davecookson.tripod.com/PainCen...
November 28, 2018
Closing Speech to my Nano Novel
I went deep and personal with this one.
“The mic is on, bro. He can hear you.
Anything you want to say?”
“He can hear me?”
“Yeah, Go ahead.”
Baxter paused to collect his thoughts. He’d been waiting for this moment for a long time, and he wanted to get it right. He quite literally would never get another shot at this.
“Mr. James Coffner, CEO and Founder of the evil Strategic Ever Choice Industries and everyone aboard that ship. Sirs,” He began, talking into the microphone, “You are the spineless core of corporate America. When things go down, you are never the ones to suffer. There is never a person you can’t point the finger at instead of yourselves. You have no respect for the people who toil in your service.
“If it’s convenient and will make you all a little bit richer, there is not a person in this world you wouldn’t fuck over. If you were losing money, your nice corporate cultures would go straight to shit. You are all the enemy of anything that is right in the world. You will fuck over human beings in the name of ‘restructuring.’ You take money from government and then claim that government is the problem. You exploit people who want nothing more than to provide for their families. If anything ever works out for the working class, or the people who work for you, it is an afterthought, or an accident. You claim that you care about your employees, yet I never believed a word that you said.
And now you are going down…
Enjoy the rest of your pathetic lives.”
“The mic is on, bro. He can hear you.
Anything you want to say?”
“He can hear me?”
“Yeah, Go ahead.”
Baxter paused to collect his thoughts. He’d been waiting for this moment for a long time, and he wanted to get it right. He quite literally would never get another shot at this.
“Mr. James Coffner, CEO and Founder of the evil Strategic Ever Choice Industries and everyone aboard that ship. Sirs,” He began, talking into the microphone, “You are the spineless core of corporate America. When things go down, you are never the ones to suffer. There is never a person you can’t point the finger at instead of yourselves. You have no respect for the people who toil in your service.
“If it’s convenient and will make you all a little bit richer, there is not a person in this world you wouldn’t fuck over. If you were losing money, your nice corporate cultures would go straight to shit. You are all the enemy of anything that is right in the world. You will fuck over human beings in the name of ‘restructuring.’ You take money from government and then claim that government is the problem. You exploit people who want nothing more than to provide for their families. If anything ever works out for the working class, or the people who work for you, it is an afterthought, or an accident. You claim that you care about your employees, yet I never believed a word that you said.
And now you are going down…
Enjoy the rest of your pathetic lives.”
November 26, 2018
Nano coming down the back stretch...an excerpt.
From my National Novel Writing Month Novel: The Times of Clouds and Sun
Baxter got out and closed the door and walked the rest of the way back to his apartment while she sped away, pondering the whirlwind of events that had taken place, and what they had seen in the field at the old coffee plant, out past Blowing Lodes Retirement Community, “The most unfortunately named facility in town!”
By the time he reached the door, he had made his decision.
He was going to quit his job.
*
He went inside and typed up the resignation letter, which felt really, really good. He thought of all the reasons for doing it…and each one of them made him wonder why he had stayed for so long.
*
“If you don’t like your job, quit!”
“IF you love your job, you’ll never work a day in your life!”
“DO what you love, love what you do!”
In all his years of his working life, he had only met like 2 people who were actually like this.
Baxter got out and closed the door and walked the rest of the way back to his apartment while she sped away, pondering the whirlwind of events that had taken place, and what they had seen in the field at the old coffee plant, out past Blowing Lodes Retirement Community, “The most unfortunately named facility in town!”
By the time he reached the door, he had made his decision.
He was going to quit his job.
*
He went inside and typed up the resignation letter, which felt really, really good. He thought of all the reasons for doing it…and each one of them made him wonder why he had stayed for so long.
*
“If you don’t like your job, quit!”
“IF you love your job, you’ll never work a day in your life!”
“DO what you love, love what you do!”
In all his years of his working life, he had only met like 2 people who were actually like this.
November 24, 2018
"I love you so much and I am so sorry."
from my Nanowrimo novel: my socially isolated hero faces his fears and gets up in front of an open mic and reads from his novel, The Gift of Proteus.
“Hi everyone. My name is Baxter, and I’ve never done this before…” His hands shook as he held the pages in front of him. “I wrote a book,” which wasn’t intended as an applause line, but this young and supportive audience applauded, interrupting him, “thank you….and only one person has ever read it…I was going to read a few pages of it…it’s called The Gift of Proteus…”
He began reading a random passage from the pages he held in front of him:
“We should just let the whole human race die out,” he read off the page. Oh, right. This is some fucked up conversation he’d inserted between Proteus and his friend, the homeless man he is trying to buy the gift for. “I think I’d be fine with that. I mean, I’m not going to hasten it or anything, or do anything that puts that plan into action or inaction…But I would support any action that would quietly allow the human race to expire with dignity. We’ve had a good run…I don’t see the point of it going on much longer…”
He continued and the crowd was enraptured, and Baxter wasn’t sure if that meant he was doing well or if he people were actually horrified by his words.
And then he reached the climax, when he looked up and said the words that his hero ends the speech with:
“I love you so much and I am so sorry.”
“Hi everyone. My name is Baxter, and I’ve never done this before…” His hands shook as he held the pages in front of him. “I wrote a book,” which wasn’t intended as an applause line, but this young and supportive audience applauded, interrupting him, “thank you….and only one person has ever read it…I was going to read a few pages of it…it’s called The Gift of Proteus…”
He began reading a random passage from the pages he held in front of him:
“We should just let the whole human race die out,” he read off the page. Oh, right. This is some fucked up conversation he’d inserted between Proteus and his friend, the homeless man he is trying to buy the gift for. “I think I’d be fine with that. I mean, I’m not going to hasten it or anything, or do anything that puts that plan into action or inaction…But I would support any action that would quietly allow the human race to expire with dignity. We’ve had a good run…I don’t see the point of it going on much longer…”
He continued and the crowd was enraptured, and Baxter wasn’t sure if that meant he was doing well or if he people were actually horrified by his words.
And then he reached the climax, when he looked up and said the words that his hero ends the speech with:
“I love you so much and I am so sorry.”
November 18, 2018
NanoWrimo excerpt from Times Of Clouds and Sun
At the End Humanity Project Headquarters…
...which cities across America fought for the right to house, only back then it was called "Amazon…"
Factory workers given assembly duty to devices they didn’t understand…a universal IKEA with the parts separated across different departments and reaching final assembled form witnessed by a very few, very small number…
Other team members were eliminated and thrown in a hole…all made easier by the castrated and euthanized media and the lack of social media outrage and social justice warriors who were long gone and a thing of the past, it just happened, and nobody cared…
...which cities across America fought for the right to house, only back then it was called "Amazon…"
Factory workers given assembly duty to devices they didn’t understand…a universal IKEA with the parts separated across different departments and reaching final assembled form witnessed by a very few, very small number…
Other team members were eliminated and thrown in a hole…all made easier by the castrated and euthanized media and the lack of social media outrage and social justice warriors who were long gone and a thing of the past, it just happened, and nobody cared…
November 16, 2018
Nano Excerpt from The Times of Clouds and Sun
This is extremely rough and unedited and all came out in a flow of words tonight, just now.
“Be excessively nice just to fuck with people.” From the End Humanity Project field manual.
The End Humanity Project Project brought Baxter to a lot of leads and avenues that he would have rather never knew existed. To bolster their case to each other that what they desired most in life was justified and true, they had a robust video library of the sins of humanity, some of which was very graphic and nauseating…watching it was Baxter’s personal Clockwork Orange…and then having to share these videos on to the news internet sites, which were the closest thing the future had to what used to exist during the age of social media, he fostered a fake public persona, “Fergusson Awesome”, a name so fake sounding that it almost passed unquestioned because outside of these types of covert businesses, trolling had no home and therefore could not possibly exist.
Wars, rapes, cruelty to animals, videos of people on Black Friday sales, emaciated people, flooded cities and drowned polar bears…it was crushing and to be honest, it almost made Baxter agree with their point of view. People were the worst. There was no saving them. Maybe these guys were right. And if they were really walking the walk, maybe this whole movement had a purpose.
“Be excessively nice just to fuck with people.” From the End Humanity Project field manual.
The End Humanity Project Project brought Baxter to a lot of leads and avenues that he would have rather never knew existed. To bolster their case to each other that what they desired most in life was justified and true, they had a robust video library of the sins of humanity, some of which was very graphic and nauseating…watching it was Baxter’s personal Clockwork Orange…and then having to share these videos on to the news internet sites, which were the closest thing the future had to what used to exist during the age of social media, he fostered a fake public persona, “Fergusson Awesome”, a name so fake sounding that it almost passed unquestioned because outside of these types of covert businesses, trolling had no home and therefore could not possibly exist.
Wars, rapes, cruelty to animals, videos of people on Black Friday sales, emaciated people, flooded cities and drowned polar bears…it was crushing and to be honest, it almost made Baxter agree with their point of view. People were the worst. There was no saving them. Maybe these guys were right. And if they were really walking the walk, maybe this whole movement had a purpose.
November 14, 2018
The New Assignment. A Nano update.
An excerpt from my new NanoWrimo novel, The Times of Clouds and Sun (22k words of an eventual 50k).
With the new assignment, Baxter finally understood the stress that Barry had been under. It wasn’t a day to day stress. Or a month to month stress. But it was a low burning literal pain in the neck stress to deal with people so misguided and awful and not tell them to fuck off because, well they were clients and because social media as we once knew it was dead and people couldn’t connect anymore.
These people were nuts.
Their whole screed, which accompanied the video that he’d been shown in the confidential and secure location that was the private conference room of CEO and Founder Jim Coffner…went further into the flat out insanity and paranoia of the people who wanted to hasten the end of humanity.
For starters, well, they wanted to end humanity. That should have been a red flag.
But in the “customer is always right” spirit of yesteryear (before customer service died) and with the current and perpetual soulless spirit of naked and aggressive and indifferent capitalism, everything was ok, as long as there was money to be made.
With the new assignment, Baxter finally understood the stress that Barry had been under. It wasn’t a day to day stress. Or a month to month stress. But it was a low burning literal pain in the neck stress to deal with people so misguided and awful and not tell them to fuck off because, well they were clients and because social media as we once knew it was dead and people couldn’t connect anymore.
These people were nuts.
Their whole screed, which accompanied the video that he’d been shown in the confidential and secure location that was the private conference room of CEO and Founder Jim Coffner…went further into the flat out insanity and paranoia of the people who wanted to hasten the end of humanity.
For starters, well, they wanted to end humanity. That should have been a red flag.
But in the “customer is always right” spirit of yesteryear (before customer service died) and with the current and perpetual soulless spirit of naked and aggressive and indifferent capitalism, everything was ok, as long as there was money to be made.
