Matt Ruff's Blog, page 46
October 12, 2011
Welcome to the new Matt Ruff blog
For a while now, I've been meaning to upgrade my website, and a WordPress installation seemed like the best way to go. I'm still tinkering with the look of the site, and there may be occasional glitches as I learn exactly what the software can and can't do, but I hope to have it all figured out in a month or two.
I'm also taking this opportunity to integrate my blog into the site. I'll be keeping my old LiveJournal account for archival purposes, and may still post announcements there from time to time, but all of my new blogging will be done here, so please adjust your RSS subscription accordingly.
Some other news:
* The final galley pass of The Mirage is now locked and on its way to production. Finished books are due back from the printers in early January, and they'll be in bookstores on February 7, 2012.
* The first round of advance review copies has already gone out. The early response has been very positive.
* The Mirage book tour is still in the planning stages, but confirmed reading and signing dates will be posted here.
* I am now on Twitter, Facebook, and GoodReads. I'm sure all this social networking will do wonders for my productivity.
September 12, 2011
Contagion
Cold, clinical, and smartly paced, Contagion feels less like a story and more like a dramatization of a (fictional) catastrophe. The attempt to show the global scope of the pandemic, the multiple plotlines, and the relatively short running time mean you never stay with any character long enough to really get to know or care about them. And the all-star cast only amplifies this distancing effect. Seeing a plague victim get autopsied ought to be harrowing, but all I could think, watching a doctor peel back the scalp of a certain A-list actress, was "Huh, first Glee, now this."
The film also raises all sorts of issues related to the pandemic without resolving or even exploring most of them, because, again, there just isn't time. Talking about it afterwards, Lisa and I noted any number of throwaway plot points that could have served as the basis for an entire movie. For example, Matt Damon, as Gwyneth Paltrow's husband, learns from a CDC investigator that in the course of bringing the plague back to Minnesota from Hong Kong, Gwyneth made a stopover in Chicago, where her (supposedly ex-)lover happens to live. So, a grieving widower, forced to deal with the discovery that his dead wife was cheating on him -- that could be a good story. Here, it just gets lost.
I don't want to be totally negative, because it was a diverting film -- we weren't bored, and we went to the matinee so it was cheap entertainment -- but we were both left wishing there'd been more to it. All that talent, you expect something more substantial.
September 11, 2011
matt_ruff @ 2011-09-11T07:15:00
Weird decade, eh? Next time, I may try the blue pill...
Stay safe and stay sane today, everyone.
September 9, 2011
FYI, Charlie Jade is on Hulu
If you're looking for an offbeat sci-fi series -- or just something non-9/11 related to watch over the weekend -- check out Charlie Jade on Hulu. It's a Canadian/South African production filmed in and around Cape Town. It concerns a private investigator from an alternate universe who gets blown into our world after rebels in a third universe sabotage a facility belonging to the evil Vexcor Corporation.
I first heard about this show when I was on a Norwescon panel with series creator Bob Wertheimer and lead actor Jeffrey Pierce. Unfortunately, it's never been released on DVD in the U.S., and its only U.S. broadcast was a one-shot run on the Sci Fi Channel that aired at the wrong time for me to catch it. I've only watched the pilot so far, but I like it -- it's got a gritty, TV-budget Blade Runner aesthetic going on, and the S.A. locale makes it feel different without trying too hard.
Also interesting: Complications Ensue, a screenwriting blog by Alex Epstein, who was lead writer for the show.
September 8, 2011
September 6, 2011
#11
Wikipedia now has an entry covering the phenomenon: "Salish Sea human foot discoveries."
August 25, 2011
Elsewhere in the Mirage world...
Among the many bizarre items uncovered as Libyan rebels ransacked Muammar Gaddafi's Tripoli compound: an album filled with photos of former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The discovery was perhaps not surprising given Gaddafi's much-professed admiration of the former U.S. Secretary of State, MSNBC is noting. "I support my darling black African woman," Gaddafi told al-Jazeera television in 2007, according to The Guardian. "I admire and am very proud of the way she leans back and gives orders to the Arab leaders...Leezza, Leezza, Leezza. I love her very much. I admire her and I'm proud of her because she's a black woman of African origin."
I'd love to have been a fly on the wall for this:
In 2008, Rice historically became the first U.S. Secretary of State to visit Tripoli since 1953. She and Gaddafi are reported to have enjoyed a private dinner, during which a State Department report indicates the Libyan leader also showered his visitor with an estimated $212,000 worth of gifts -- including a diamond ring in a wooden box, a lute and an accompanying DVD, and a locket with Qaddafi's own picture inside.
I wonder if the villa is owned by the Alighieri family
[I]n the epilogue, Mr. Cheney writes that after undergoing heart surgery in 2010, he was unconscious for weeks. During that period, he wrote, he had a prolonged, vivid dream that he was living in an Italian villa, pacing the stone paths to get coffee and newspapers.
