Matt Ruff's Blog, page 38

At the L.A. Times Festival of Books this weekend

Tomorrow I fly to Los Angeles for the L.A. Times Festival of Books. Hope to see some of you there.

My current schedule:

Friday, 6:30-9:00 PM, at Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Ave. — Attending a party hosted by the Mystery Writers of America.

Saturday, 11:00 AM, in the Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL 101) — Panel discussion, “Seeing the Light,” moderated by Mary Otis and with fellow panelists Alex Shakar and James Wallenstein Janet Fitch, to be followed immediately by a book signing.

Saturday, 8:30 PM-midnight, at the L.A. Central Library — Attending the Young Literati’s Book Drop Bash. This one’s invitation only, but if you’re there, come say hi.

Sunday, 11:00 AM, at booth #372 (Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore) in Founder’s Park — Book signing.

And for those of you who are staying in Seattle while I jet down to SoCal, Saturday night at Key Arena is the Season 8 playoffs for the Rat City Rollergirls roller derby league. Doors open at 4:30 PM, first bout starts at 5:30. Don’t miss it!

My South American cousins will be proud

Last Saturday, the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio ran a piece on alternate histories—”ucronías”—featuring an interview with yours truly. The article is behind a paywall, but here’s a grab from the PDF the reporter sent me:

The other books mentioned in the article are Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, Robert Harris’s Fatherland, Keith Roberts’s Pavane, Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Years of Rice and Salt, Robert Silverberg’s Roma Eterna, and Jorge Baradit’s Synco.

My schedule for the LA Times Festival of Books

A programming note for fans in L.A., I will be attending this year's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which is being held at the USC campus on April 21 and 22.

I have two scheduled events:

Saturday, April 21, 11:00 AM, in the Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL 101) — Panel discussion, "Seeing the Light," moderated by Mary Otis and with fellow panelists Alex Shakar and James Wallenstein, to be followed immediately by a book signing.

Sunday, April 22, 11:00 AM, at booth #372 (Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore) in Founder's Park — Book signing.

I've also been invited to the Young Literati's Book Drop Bash at the L.A. Central Library (Saturday night starting at 8:30), and I'll probably be there for at least the first hour or two.

Two—no, three!—new Mirage reviews

Over the weekend, the New York Times finally weighed in on The Mirage. It's not the rave I was hoping for, and my secret wish that they'd tap Salman Rushdie to write it didn't come true either, but they did give it three-quarters of a page. Be warned that the review contains significant SPOILERS. (Link here.)

Then this morning, I found out that the Rain Taxi online quarterly has given The Mirage the rare honor of a double review (both positive!):

The Rain Taxi reviews are here.

One other note, I've consolidated the links to all the previous Mirage reviews here, and created a second page for interview links here. An excerpt of the novel is available online here.

The Devil’s Double

The Devil’s Double is an independent film loosely based on the autobiography of Latif Yahia, an Iraqi soldier conscripted to serve as the body double of Uday Hussein, subbing for him at public events where the risk of assassination was deemed too high for the real Uday to attend. British actor Dominic Cooper does a phenomenal job in the dual role of Uday/Latif. Because the two characters spend much of the film on screen together, many scenes had to be shot twice, with Cooper using a concealed earpiece to listen to the playback of his alter ego’s dialogue. It’s technically seamless, and Cooper plays Uday and Latif in such a way that you’re never confused about who’s who.

It’s a fascinating film. A lot of reviews compare it to Scarface, and it’s true that the movie borrows heavily from the gangster genre, but the plot reminded me more of the Caligula arc of I, Claudius. The story’s not about the rise and fall of a bad guy, it’s about a good guy trapped in the orbit of a psychopath.

The Devil’s Double is also similar to I, Claudius in its depiction of violence. There’s very little gore, and one of the most disturbing sequences—a scene near the beginning where Latif is shown grainy video of Uday torturing members of the losing Iraqi Olympic team—is completely bloodless. Likewise, the film (accurately) depicts Uday as a particularly depraved serial rapist, but the act of rape is never shown, only the stalking and intimidation leading up to it and the devastating results. Nudity, what there is of it, is used to emphasize vulnerability, rather than for purposes of titillation. The result of all this restraint is to make the violence feel much more intense, because your imagination keeps filling in the blanks on the really nasty stuff you don’t see.

Although it’s “based on a true story,” the filmmakers are upfront about the fact that much of the movie is pure fiction. I’m cool with that, so long as the fiction is plausible, which most of it is. The one part that did trip my suspension of disbelief was the last act, where in order to give the story a sense of closure, the filmmakers contrive to make Latif part of the 1996 assassination attempt that left Uday crippled. Besides being too neat to be true, this goes against the real Latif’s stated wishes: In an interview included as a DVD extra, he says he was furious when he heard that U.S. forces had killed Uday in 2003. He didn’t want Uday dead. He wanted him arrested and put on trial.

You can watch a trailer of the film here. The DVD is definitely worth checking out, if you can handle the violence. And don’t miss the special features.

The Devil's Double

The Devil's Double is an independent film loosely based on the autobiography of Latif Yahia, an Iraqi soldier conscripted to serve as the body double of Uday Hussein, subbing for him at public events where the risk of assassination was deemed too high for the real Uday to attend. British actor Dominic Cooper does a phenomenal job in the dual role of Uday/Latif. Because the two characters spend much of the film on screen together, many scenes had to be shot twice, with Cooper using a concealed earpiece to listen to the playback of his alter ego's dialogue. It's technically seamless, and Cooper plays Uday and Latif in such a way that you're never confused about who's who.

It's a fascinating film. A lot of reviews compare it to Scarface, and it's true that the movie borrows heavily from the gangster genre, but the plot reminded me more of the Caligula arc of I, Claudius. The story's not about the rise and fall of a bad guy, it's about a good guy trapped in the orbit of a psychopath.

The Devil's Double is also similar to I, Claudius in its depiction of violence. There's very little gore, and one of the most disturbing sequences—a scene near the beginning where Latif is shown grainy video of Uday torturing members of the losing Iraqi Olympic team—is completely bloodless. Likewise, the film (accurately) depicts Uday as a particularly depraved serial rapist, but the act of rape is never shown, only the stalking and intimidation leading up to it and the devastating results. Nudity, what there is of it, is used to emphasize vulnerability, rather than for purposes of titillation. The result of all this restraint is to make the violence feel much more intense, because your imagination keeps filling in the blanks on the really nasty stuff you don't see.

Although it's "based on a true story," the filmmakers are upfront about the fact that much of the movie is pure fiction. I'm cool with that, so long as the fiction is plausible, which most of it is. The one part that did trip my suspension of disbelief was the last act, where in order to give the story a sense of closure, the filmmakers contrive to make Latif part of the 1996 assassination attempt that left Uday crippled. Besides being too neat to be true, this goes against the real Latif's stated wishes: In an interview included as a DVD extra, he says he was furious when he heard that U.S. forces had killed Uday in 2003. He didn't want Uday dead. He wanted him arrested and put on trial.

You can watch a trailer of the film here. The DVD is definitely worth checking out, if you can handle the violence. And don't miss the special features.

Bookslut reviews The Mirage

Over at Bookslut, the ever-so-kind Colleen Mondor shares her thoughts about The Mirage:

With his latest novel, Matt Ruff shows yet again that he is a master of crafting intricate, complex plots that read as effortless dreams. The Mirage is a book that should not be able to exist — it should just be too damn hard to pull off — and yet in it Ruff gives readers a modern day thriller with real characters who pick everything apart, solve the mystery, and face a new day in the most satisfying ending I have read in, well, forever. Ruff is phenomenal, he is like no one else, and he should be at the top of the award and bestseller lists because he writes for everyone and he does it very well…

He does something with The Mirage that is compelling and elegant. Older teens who have only known the post-9/11 world should read it as an echo of earlier satires on war and politics but also for the great gripping story it provides. And anyone who looks at our world and wonders what we have gotten into will find The Mirage illuminating. I remain deeply impressed by what Matt Ruff has accomplished here and hope he receives all of the attention for it that he deserves. I am, in a word, amazed.

Nice way to start the week! The full article—which also looks at Dianna Wynn Jones's Fire and Hemlock, Elizabeth Hand's Radiant Days, Kelley Eskridge's Solitaire, and Delia Sherman's The Freedom Maze—can be found here.

Thoughts about The Hunger Games

I'd been resisting reading The Hunger Games, because the last time I tried a novel with this much hype behind it, an albino monk left my suspension of disbelief hemorrhaging uncontrollably. But with the movie coming out, Lisa and I decided to break down and buy a copy. She read it first, gave it a big thumbs up, and then after two chapters I was hooked, too.

So, short verdict: It's a great read, deserving of the praise it's gotten, and if you've been on the fence about trying it you should go ahead and take the leap.

Longer verdict: SPOILER ALERT!

I love the protagonist. Tough and competent without being superwoman, and refreshingly unsentimental. Katniss just feels right, psychologically. I especially liked the way the "love story" was handled, and the fact that even at the end, rather than do the predictable thing and fall for Peeta for real, Katniss remains, believably, in emotional limbo: "Dude, I've been way too busy keeping us both alive to even begin to sort out how I really feel about you. By the way, we're not safe yet."

The pacing was spot-on. There were no wasted scenes, and the pregame chapters were genuinely engaging, rather than just something to get through before the real fun could begin. The games themselves are an excellent addition to the dystopian future blood-sport subgenre.

I do feel that Collins ducked the nastier dilemmas afforded by her premise. For all the talk about what a "dark" story The Hunger Games is, it's notable that the people Katniss kills are all Career Tributes—trained gladiators who chose to be in the games, and who are portrayed completely unsympathetically. Meanwhile, the innocent tributes all conveniently manage to die at the hands of third parties, or in accidents, sparing Katniss the need to take matters into her own hands.

Rue in particular felt like a wasted opportunity. She's described, basically, as a dark-skinned version of Katniss's little sister, and when Katniss proposed an alliance with her—kidding herself that she'd be able to maintain emotional distance—I assumed that was a set-up for a really, really agonizing choice somewhere around the novel's climax. When Rue got killed not long afterwards, I was briefly relieved—I knew she had to die, and was glad that Katniss didn't have to do anything truly despicable to make that happen—but of course my next thought was, Wait a minute, if you aren't willing to follow that road to the end, why start down it at all? It was at that point I began to suspect that Katniss might escape the games without murdering anyone I cared about, which is comforting but also violates the storytelling principle that the most interesting drama is hiding in the part of the forest where you don't want to go.

I was also mildly annoyed by the use of the Magical Medical Reset Button to cure Katniss's deafness and other wounds when she finally got back to the Capitol. Again, there's this question—If you don't want your protagonist to have to deal with a permanent injury, why give her one in the first place?—but beyond that, it just felt wrong for her to come out of the games with no permanent physical scars. (Though I did like the creepy line about how the Gamemakers had been thinking about "altering" her.)

My desire for a more ruthless fictional universe aside, though, I really did enjoy the read, and I'm looking forward to getting into book two this weekend.

Rat City

Re-AnimateHer © 2012 Frank Blau Photography

So, I have a new favorite sport.

In January, my friend Frank Blau got me a trackside seat for the season-opening bout of the Rat City Rollergirls roller derby league. I had a great time and have been raving about it ever since, so last Saturday night I went back with Lisa and a bunch of our friends, and now they're all raving about it too.

For those of you who missed Whip It, roller derby is a contact sport that combines elements of speed skating and rugby with a biker bar/Rocky Horror Picture Show aesthetic. It's played on an oval track that can be flat or banked. Each team fields five players at a time: a jammer (easy to spot because of the big star on her helmet), who scores points by lapping the other team's skaters, and a pivot and three blockers, who collectively form a pack that tries to stop the opposing jammer. In blocking, contact is supposed to be limited to the hips, torso, and upper arms, but fouls are common, and it's not unusual for both teams to have one or more players in the penalty box. Part of the strategy is knowing how to play shorthanded—or press the advantage when you've got the other team outnumbered.

And yes, there is strategy. It would certainly be possible to run derby as a staged spectacle like professional wrestling, and the Rat City league does have elements of that, like the costumes and the player names—"Anya Heels," "Betty Ford Galaxy," "Foxy Throwdown," "Tempura Tantrum"—but out on the track they play for real.

Anya Heels (2nd from left) gets missile lock on jammer Skate Pauli Girl © 2012 Frank Blau Photography

Saturday night's second match-up, between league champs Grave Danger and the Derby Liberation Front, was particularly amazing. With less than fifteen minutes to go, the DLF were down by 35 points. Then Grave Danger's jammer got sent to the penalty box and the DLF went on a 29-point scoring rampage, after which the two teams were neck-and-neck to the end, with Grave Danger just managing to stay ahead for a 122-117 win. One of my friends who'd initially been a little skeptical about derby pronounced this the most exciting game he'd ever seen.

Nehi Nightmare (right) tries to pass Kamikaze Kim while Avihater looks on © 2012 Frank Blau Photography

If you'd like to check it out, Rat City's next bout is on April 21st at Seattle's Key Arena. The league championships are on May 19th. General admission for adults is $14 in advance, or if you want to splurge, you can get a trackside seat for $37. If you really want to get close to the action, the league is holding player tryouts this Saturday, March 31st, and a referee clinic on April 1st. And if you'd like to see more game photos, visit Frank Blau's website (thanks, Frank!).

Update: Via @TheAuthorGuy, the International Rollergirls' Master Roster—apparently, every player's derby name must be unique. Hours of punning entertainment here.

Update #2: As Josh notes in comments, tickets are cheaper if you buy them from the Key Arena box office or from Fast Girl Skates in Wallingford, and adult general admission tickets from those outlets are buy four, get a fifth one free.

Talking to Rick Kleffel about The Mirage

Rick Kleffel, who interviewed me in San Francisco for KQED radio, has posted his review of The Mirage and an extended podcast version of our interview on The Agony Column website.

Thanks to Rick, and to Cory Doctorow for this morning's signal boost on Boing Boing.