Ken Lizzi's Blog, page 69

Sherlock? At Least in Name.

I finished watching the last series of BBC’s Sherlock last night. And I have opinions. That’s right, opinions. Run now!

Still here? Okay. I might perhaps have been more charitable had I not recently finished re-reading the canon. The intent of the show seems reasonable: updating the classic characters and stories for contemporary audiences. Or, more precisely, crib some basic plot elements from the stories and throw in a few winks and nods to the Sherlockian cognoscenti while updating the classic characters for contemporary audiences. We can discuss adaptation and toss around subjective views on acceptability of such re-imaginings (e.g., Shakespeare in a high-school setting) but the producers are certainly well-intentioned.

The first couple series were enjoyable enough. The fact that it had been almost two decades since my last Conan Doyle read-through might have helped the pleasure. The third series commenced the downward spiral, bottoming out here in the fourth. I think that is partly because the characters grew more and more divorced from the originals. There are, I believe, at least three reasons for this.

One is that Victorian-era characters would not translate well to contemporary London. True-to-character attitudes and responses to events would feel off to viewers. Casual anti-semitism, for example, would give us moments of uncomfortable pause.

Second (and related to the first) is corporate issue BBC socio-political culture. BBC characters must advance the pieties of the progressive Londoner. As doing inevitably clashes with the worldview of a pair of Victorian gentlemen, the updated Sherlock Holmes and John Watson increasingly parted from their namesakes to the point where little connection remained.

Third, the writers appeared uncomfortable with retaining the core personalities over the course of the series, requiring ‘character growth.’ Sherlock must grow more human, more in touch with his emotions. His refusal to give into what he considered the weakness of love must be attacked. John Watson must find his status as Sherlock’s Boswell distasteful. He must not be so admiring and long-suffering of Sherlock’s abuse. There are other examples, but I’m not willing to sit through it all again to catalogue them.

So, as I said, I might have enjoyed it more had I not recently reacquainted myself with the inhabitants of 221B Baker Street. But that said, even those coming to Sherlock Holmes for the first time would probably find the last series objectionable. The stories became increasingly convoluted and incredible. The expanded role of Mary Watson (see point number two above) meant I pretty much knew what would happen at the end of the first episode of series four, so long as the producers wanted to pay at least lip service to canon. But frankly her character was rather silly and diminished Dr. Watson. The teasing of the resurrection of Moriarty continued to build unsustainably. The writers incurred so much narrative debt it is no surprise they were unable to pay it off in the end. But that absurd clunker of a finale is rather an embarrassment. And the motif of imagined interlocutors grew more unbelievable, to the point of the show taking on elements of magical realism quite at odds with a story about a rationalist detective.

A noble failure, I suppose. What do you think: could a more faithful adaptation succeed?

Tea With the Black Dragon. Add a Splash of Gin to Mine.

Yesterday I finished R.A. MacAvoy’s Tea With the Black Dragon. Serendipitous timing I think considering today is Mother’s Day. If you haven’t read the book, I suppose that comment requires some explanation.

Tea With the Black Dragon is a short novel, of a brevity we sadly don’t see much any longer. It features only a few characters, among whom Margaret Macnamara features prominently. She is a mother, searching for her adult daughter. She is of an age that in most novels would see her as a secondary character, relegated to caretaker or giver of sage advice. Instead here she is the prime mover and a fully realized and interesting character. And a mother. So, happy Mother’s Day Margaret Macnamara wherever you are.

I found the novel very refreshing. Some might consider it odd that I consider a book from the early 1980s to be refreshing instead of something contemporary and novel. Truth is that current books make up only a minuscule portion of my reading diet. Most of what I read is older stuff. Tea With the Black Dragon is far from epic door stopper fantasy. It isn’t vampire chicks on bikes urban fantasy. It isn’t even twee, cozy fantasy. Instead it is sui generis. It doesn’t deal in any tropes. If you rounded up the usual suspects and put them in a lineup, you’d come away disappointed — none of them feature in Tea. Yet the narrative (brief as it is) is entirely satisfying, meditative, funny, and — surprisingly to me — replete with action. Fight scenes? Check. Speeding cars? Check. Gunfire. Check and double check.

Tea will stand as a reminder to me of the absolute freedom fantasy allows a writer. And I am thankful for that.

May the Fifth

Let’s clear this up right away: Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico’s Independence Day. That falls on September 16. Instead, the fifth of May is a celebration of the Battle of Puebla and is not a national holiday. It commemorates the 1862 battle in which the Mexican army defeated a larger French army that was deployed in a convoluted affair involving a grab for Mexican silver and an attempt by the Austro-Hungarian Empire to place a supernumerary Hapsburg on a throne.

Me, I’m happy for any excuse to eat tacos and drink beer. But I like to be an informed glutton.

So I drove MBW and the HA to downtown Portland for the annual Cinco de Mayo celebration. MBW wants the HA to have an appreciation for one half of her heritage. And she also appreciates tacos nearly as much as her gringo husband.

Here are a few of my camera photos of the event. Salud!

Ahem! Announcements.

I played coy a bit ago, teasing some news. That’s because I don’t like to offer news only to later have to issue a retraction. Now it can be revealed. (Passive voice, ugh. But in context it does read better than “Now I can reveal it.”) Both parties signed the contract rendering this news legit. So, without further blather:

Thick As Thieves is scheduled for publication in September. This September, that is, that of 2017 vintage. My Elmore Leonard-esque novel of crime, fantasy, greed, stupidity, and other tasty things is brought to you by Rogue Star Press. Start saving your pennies.

I’m tickled about this. I’ve been working on it and pitching it for years. I hope you all dig it.

By the way, if you aren’t familiar with Elmore Leonard, well, first thing what’s wrong with you? Second, you have a few months to correct that deficiency in your literary diet before reading my oddball homage to the dean of American crime writers. Want suggestions as to where to begin? Drop me a message, I’ll point you in the right direction.

While I’m making announcements, here’s another. Boss is done. Now I can only wait for publisher’s reactions. Oh, and work on the sequel.

Oregon Coastal Standard

Mention a day at the beach and most people imagine blue skies, bright sun, white sands, and warm ocean waves. I live in Oregon. A typical day at the Oregon coast involves none of the above. I took MBW and the HA to Cannon Beach on Saturday where we enjoyed the Oregon Coastal standard. In between drenching squalls we wandered down the sand toward Haystack Rock braving wind gusts.

Glorious. A fine afternoon.

No, I’m not crazy. (Of course, I might be. How would I know?) Look, I appreciate cloudless skies, palm trees, hammocks, and bare feet as much as the next guy. But a sort of generic, homogenous ideal gets boring. Y’know, eventually. Driving over the mountains in the face of near-blinding horizontal rain in order to bundle up against the cold and comb the beach is most decidedly not boring.

Borderline perfection is nothing to turn your nose up at. But as a writer I have to consider it poor stuff. Who wants to read about an idyllic day frolicking in the sun? Where’s the drama there? No, you need to chase hats blown down the strand, you need to huddle beneath the overhang of a restroom, waiting for a lull in the tempest. You need a clueless driver in front of you to make a sharp left across traffic without a backward glance (good brakes help there.) This is fodder for tales. Sunny beaches make for anecdotes at best. The typical Oregon beach lends itself to stories.

Why the long face, Ken?

Life is Early Spring

Life is never unalloyed happiness. At least not in my experience. If it can be I wouldn’t mind taking it for a lengthy test drive, see how I like it. But the way I see it you never get particularly extended periods of happiness without something or other interrupting it. It’s like early Spring with stretches of blue sky and patches of rain-dumping black cloud intermingled. I’m building a metaphor here, so just hold on.

Yesterday — Saturday — was one of those beautiful Spring days. Temperatures hinting at warmer days to come. Mostly blue skies. And I woke to good news. I can’t get into details until it’s official. I’ll tell you later. The point is it was good news. The kind requires celebrating. So, I did. Good day. Suffice to say beer was involved.

But then there’s today, Easter Sunday. Cloudy, windy. Might sprinkle a bit, though I hope not before the Heir Apparent gets outside to track down and apprehend a band of fugitive ovoids. And then there’s the irritation. Not necessarily a pain, though it flirts with it. But definitely an aggravation. I’m not going to get into it. Nothing’s as boring as someone else’s maladies. But it has been nagging me for several months now, some days worse than others. Tends to make me a trifle irritable. The doctor has me on a temporary regimen of steroids, so beware — I may Hulk out at any moment. The thing is, it’s like the ‘downs’ in the up and downs of early Spring, damping my happiness, refusing to allow me unadulterated satisfaction.

So who is pissing in my Cheerios? Life, I suppose, same as it’s piddling in all your cereal bowls. I’m hardly special in that regard. It’s early Spring is all. The sun will peek out again.

Metaphor complete.

Don Pendleton’s Science Fiction?

You may have known it, but it came as a surprise to me: Don Pendleton wrote science fiction. Mind blown, right?

Wait, maybe I should back up a step. I’m proceeding under the assumption that you are all familiar with Don Pendleton. That could be a mistake, what with the assuming and all. Don Pendleton is known for writing the long-running men’s adventure series The Executioner. You may remember seeing these paperbacks in the checkout aisles at grocery stores back in the eighties, the covers featuring a dark haired man with a gun (that would Mack Bolan himself, the eponymous executioner), a hot chick in the mid-ground, and maybe some armed baddies in the background. The books were probably shelved next to others with such titles as Stony Man, or Phoenix Force.

I think I’ve read a couple of the Mack Bolan books. I vaguely remember reading one in a library in Hawaii. And I think I read at least one of the related titles. I seem to recall reading one back in high school, about the same time my friend up the street was running me through solo Top Secret adventures (though that may be trick of the memory creating false cross-references.)

So anyway. That Don Pendleton. He also wrote science fiction. I just finished The Guns of Terra 10, a 1970 paperback that almost reached 190 pages in length. How was it? Really, not as bad as you might think. Pendleton was actually playing with some interesting themes. Or perhaps he’d just finished reading A Brave New World while sitting through re-runs of Star Trek. But to give him credit, he did seem involved in the idea of human genetic engineering and its potential long term consequences. He also worked out his own baloney FTL concept instead of relying entirely upon handwavium engines. I particularly enjoyed his idea of twin guns, one firing matter, the other anti-matter, with the two meeting at the aiming point. Pretty cool.

I won’t go so far as to recommend it. But if you have the hankering for the sort of fiction in which fist-fights lead to friendship and understanding, or are in the mood for loving, extended descriptions of breasts, or want to enjoy a crew of uneducated, agricultural yokels essentially dropping into the bridge of the USS Enterprise and working the controls with no appreciable concern for the learning curve — then, hey, this might be the book you’re looking for.

Technical Difficulties

Ahh, automobiles. I don’t give mine much thought so long as they are operating properly. Keep them fueled, take them in for a regular oil change, and other than that simply expect comfortable transport from point A to point B.

Used to be easier to maintain these things yourself. I declined the oil-change franchise’s offer to replace the air filter in my wife’s Lexus. Why pay twice what the part is worth? But I’d forgotten what a pain it is to perform on a newer vehicle what used to be a simple operation. Twenty minutes later, a bolt lost in the depths of the engine compartment, much profanity, and a tool tossed in anger across the garage — job done.

Much easier in my old Durango. Two minutes from start to finish and much less swearing. Unfortunately the Durango is showing signs of age. A couple miles from home Friday evening the Durango lost the ability to reach more than twenty five or thirty miles per hour. As shifting down to low failed to produce any noticeable difference in RPMs, speed, or engine noise I fear the transmission is the culprit. I hope not. I’m woefully inexpert at all things mechanical, but I’m pretty sure anything to do with the transmission will be jaw-droppingly expensive. I’ll take it to a mechanic Monday for a diagnosis. And maybe an exorcism.

I’ve been putting off replacing the Durango. It’s been paid for since 2008. I’d really rather not acquire another car payment. One is enough. I suppose I need to sell more books. C’mon people, pick up the pace. Buy, buy, buy. Well, not those of you who’ve already bought my scribblings. Good on ya. You rock. Though it should be noted that books do make wonderful presents. Just saying.

Well, wish me luck. Here’s hoping the issue is something simple. Like replacing the sparkplugs. Or shaking the chicken bones and spitting over the left shoulder.

Fingers crossed.

NanoCon Mark IV Report

I’ve returned from NanoCon Mark IV and my stint as GOH. How about that?

It was a fun little con, held at the Longview Community College, just across the river from Rainier. I’d guess attendance came in at about two hundred. I’d consider it a success. I sold out of Under Strange Suns. I cut my inventory of Reunion in half. I met a number of intelligent and interesting people.

Among these I’d count James Wells, the great grandson of H.G. Wells (or the great man himself with a time machine and a convincing American accent.) We exchanged novels, so I have The Great Symmetry on my to-read pile now.

I had an engaging chat with James Omelina who runs several escape rooms in the southwest Washington area. I’m intrigued to check one out. I hear good things about the entertainment value of well-designed escape room, and James appears to have the design aspect dialed in.

I even managed lunch at the Ashtown brewery, a few blocks away from the convention. Well worth it.

The organizers were kind enough to invite me to return next year. I do hope my schedule allows it.

Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Once again I write from one of the dreary hardship stations where I toil in the phrase fields, reaping sentences and paragraphs for your entertainment. This particular gray, danksome locale is Playa del Carmen, Mexico. That’s right, I’m suffering the horrors of the Mexican Riviera on your behalf.

For example, just to the south is Tulum, where the Spanish first landed, assaulted the Mayan town, and were routed by that metropolis of 10,000 or so. Of course, a couple years later when the Spanish returned there were only 400 left alive in Tulum. So, whether the Mayan’s should count that a victory or not is certainly up to debate. The point is, I had to visit that nghtmarish scene of battle and disease, under the blue sky, against a backdrop of turqoise Caribbean waters. Excruciating.

And more ruins awaited. I was forced to scale the crumbling, hazardous steps of the pyramid in Coba, sight of ritual sacrifice. In this case, I sacrificed for you. I then further endangered myself, plunging into the bottomless depths of a cool, refreshing cenote, some fifty feet or more below ground. I could have drowned, assuming I suddenly forgot how to swim.

In between these labors I sit outside and write. That’s correct, I don’t even allow myself to sit indoors while working through the second draft of Boss. I mean, c’mon. I’m from Oregon. I’m not used to this sort of heat. I must resort to wading through the surf or plunging into the swimming pool to relieve the misery.

I even faced death herself in order to free bottles of tequila from their imprisonment. This I do for you!

And I haven’t yet completed writing the talk I’ll be giving next week at NanoCon Mark IV. That’s right. I proceed from one task to the next.

For you, dear reader. For you.

Well, back to the fields.