A. Lee Martinez's Blog, page 51

Rocket Unknown

We are living in a world where getting published is easier than ever.  Being published is really nothing more than making a work available to the public.  Technically, this blog is a published work.  It’s just not one that anyone pays me to write.

That’s the trick about it.  If you have a computer and an internet connection, you can publish yourself all day long, but for aspiring writers, this isn’t quite enough.  Nor should it be.  As a guy who gets paid to write, I can tell you it’s a great gig if you can get it (and manage to earn enough to pay your bills in the process).  I’m all for writing for free, but nobody needs my advice on how to do that.  Writing for free is a hobby, and hobbies should be fun.  If someone wants to write and publish their own Yu-gi-oh fanfiction or their personal dissertation on why Godzilla versus the Sea Monster is probably the worst Godzilla movie ever, more power to them, I say.  But getting paid to write . . . that’s a trickier proposition.

The publishing dynamic is changing.  Possibly more than in most other forms of media and art because, honestly, writing is one of the easiest forms of media to get into.  It’s not easy to be a good writer, but it’s certainly easier to write than it is to become a skilled guitar player or learn to paint.

Let’s pause here to clarify.  I’m not saying writing is easy.  I’m only saying that if you’re going to pick a casual form of personal expression that doesn’t require a huge commitment, writing is the way to go.  I know this because at least half the people I meet in my daily life are aspiring writers in some form or another.  The internet is full of people expressing themselves, and most of that expressing is done in the form of Tweets, Facebook posts, and words.  Lots and lots of words.

As the dynamic changes, I find myself conflicted.  I like more people have the opportunity to publish themselves.  It has a downside, certainly, but I’ll go on record as saying it’s a good thing.  Most of it won’t amount to much in the long run, but that’s no more true than it ever was.  I’m a published novelologist, but I have no indication that my stories will stand the test of time.  Odds are pretty damn good they won’t.

Yet at the same time, in a world where everyone can get published, how do we know what’s worth our time?  The old system of traditional hard copy publishing might have been frustrating to an outsider.  It might not always be welcoming to new ideas, more eager to pump out more of the same old stuff.  It might seem like an exclusive house of elitists who decided what was worthy of reaching the general public.  These are all valid thoughts about the old model, and I don’t seek to diminish them.  But as a guy who makes a living writing stories, I’d be lying if what was coming didn’t concern me.

As I watch the brick and mortar stores closing and e-books continue their rise, I ponder just how will my books stand out among the crowd?  It was hard enough when all I had to do was compete with the books in the real world.  Though my tenth book is coming out this year, I still dwell in obscurity.  I haven’t had that breakout hit.  I’m not the guy who gets his books put face out on the shelf.  That’s nothing to complain about, but it is a hard fact that in an industry that keeps most aspiring writers out, I’m still nothing terribly special.  Just a writer with a few loyal fans, and lucky to have those.

When I picture a world where competition is more fierce, where the pieces of the pie are cut even smaller, I don’t always get an optimistic feeling about my future as a writer.  In my more cynical moments, I wonder if professional novelology has much of a future at all.  I’ve met hundreds of talented writers willing to do what I do for free.  So what happens if they start doing just that?

In my optimistic moments, I tell myself cream will rise to the top, and I convince myself that I have something worthwhile to offer that will set me apart.  But that’s not always easy to believe.  In a world with unlimited media, it seems the best way to catch people’s attention is to be outrageous, absurd, obnoxious.  (Insert obligatory Honey Boo Boo reference here.)  Is there going to be a place for a guy who just wants to write stories without necessarily becoming a celebrity himself?  And while I don’t doubt the vast majority of media in the future will be bad and come and go quickly, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a dynamic I’m not always confident I (or many other low to mid-level professionals) can compete with.

It’s a weird complaint because what I do is most certainly a skill, but the publishing industry is what makes it a commodity.  They take my word and bind it into beautiful books, see that those books are put on shelves, and transform a story into something real and physical.  Yet it’s obvious that this model is changing, and while some might argue that e-books are not as satisfying as hard copy books, I would say that the same arguments have been made against all new media.  In the end, old media is almost always replaced.  If not that, then reduced to a novelty, like vinyl records and VHS tapes.

Whatever the future holds, I hope to be doing this for a while longer.  For as long as I enjoy it and find it worth doing.  I don’t know what’s in store for tomorrow, how things will be when the transition finally occurs.  I can only hope that there’s a place in it for me and what I do.  I guess that makes me no different than anyone else.

We’re all just hanging onto this rocket barreling headlong into parts unknown.  We enjoy the ride as long as we can, trying to pretend we aren’t terrified out of our mind that a wall is just waiting for us over the horizon.

Hang in there, gang.  I’m rooting for you.  And if you should choose to return the favor, you won’t hear any complaints from me.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

A Shadow You Never See

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of this post, I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you that A. LEE MARTINEZ APPRECIATION DAY!! (Jan 12th) is on its way.  Not that you needed to be reminded, I’m sure.

Onto the less important stuff:

I’m not a horror guy.  I’ve written stories with horror elements, but for the most part, it’s not a genre I enjoy very much.  This isn’t because I think it’s a bad genre.  Fear, terror, dread, etc. are all important human emotions, and I’m all for indulging those emotions in media.  Especially fiction, where we are free to experience and explore our emotional hot buttons with little fear of repercussion.  While I might not care for horror films in general, I respect the genre.

Horror is a pretty big genre though.  Much as the fantasy genre can be anything from elves and dragons to robots and ray guns.  We could argue all day what constitutes “true” horror, but it’s mostly a matter of personal taste.  We are all, either through habit or predisposition or both, out to satisfy different emotional needs.  The first step is to acknowledge that.  That doesn’t mean we can’t be critical of fiction that doesn’t satisfy us.  It only means we should remember that if we find something unsatisfying, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad.  Heck, it might even be great.  Just not for us.

I’m the guy who enjoyed Peter Jackson’s LOTR trilogy, but don’t find it especially engaging.  It’s not something I’ve watched since first seeing it, which is kind of weird considering there’s some pretty cool fantasy action in the films.  But it’s just surrounded by stuff I don’t really care that much about.  Meanwhile, I absolutely love Real Steel, a movie about boxing robots.  Not just because of the boxing robots either, but because I find myself genuinely touched by the story itself.  The robots might seem superfluous but then again, without them, I wouldn’t really be into this movie.  But here’s the truth.  I freely admit that anything with cool robots gets a lot of bonus points for me.  Maybe robots don’t do the same thing for you.  In which case, The Mighty Robot King forgives you because he’s cool like that.

Back to horror.

Horror, to me, is one of the most personal and perplexing of genres.  Perhaps because horror is so difficult to quantify.  Fear and dread don’t fit in easy packages.  Is the horror of being torn apart by a saber-toothed tiger safer than the fear of being tortured?  Moving past the conventional horror, what about a story about a protagonist who wakes up one day, discovering that a child has vanished, completely erased from everyone else’s memory?  Yes, that’s the plot of The Forgotten, an underrated horror flick that has no gore, very little violence, and features villains who never appear on screen.

(ASIDE AND SPOILER ALERT: Some people say the bad guys are aliens, but there’s absolutely no indication this is true.  The bad guys in The Forgotten are supremely undefined, so absurdly beyond human ken that they could just as easily be rogue angels or Lovecraftian entities.  The Forgotten offers no  answers, which is one of the reasons I rather enjoy it.  Even after giving you this info, I think it’s worth watching as an example of fear of insignificance and the power of a greater malicious Unknown with a capital U.)

My own fears are less about being killed and tortured (though those are certainly unpleasant ideas and gruesome in their own right) than about a larger and more vast universe in which I am just an unimportant speck.  Funnily enough, I accepted this notion quite a while ago, and I don’t find it quite as terrifying as it could be.  That’s probably why my own take on cosmic horror Chasing the Moon has many of the hallmarks of this notion without being depressing about it.  It’s a bit of a paradox, but it doesn’t lessen the dread that occasionally comes from believing there’s every possibility human lives are meaningless in the grand scheme.

Wow.  When you type it out, it certainly sounds dreadful, doesn’t it?

For me, true horror is found in the unknown.  That sort of nameless dread is difficult to capture.  Even when people think of Lovecraftian horror, they tend to focus on the monsters and weirdness rather than the underlying concept.  Ironically, we took the symbols of dread, neutered them, and now we laugh about it.  Cthulhu is a plush toy that allows us to fear the dark without having to confront it.  We love horror.  We just can’t help but hide from it.

It’s the complaint I had with Prometheus.  Alien is at its most horrific when we have no idea where the xenomorph came from.  The xenomorph, like the mi-go, like so many terrifying alien things, have no origin.  They aren’t merely another creature in this universe.  They’re the stark and brutally indifferent unknown made manifest.  That they kill you isn’t what makes them horrific.  Tigers can kill you.  Humans can kill you.  Falling rocks can kill you.  That’s fear, and while it’s a potent survival mechanism, it’s not quite horrific to me.

We aren’t comfortable with fear, and who can blame us?  It’s hardwired in our brains to avoid it.  It’s why, given a chance, we’ll take the teeth out of any imaginary horror we construct.  It’s why vampires and werewolves became less monstrous, more misunderstood.  And why we’ll take something as terrifying as the xenomorphs and just make them extensions of ourselves.  In a way, it’s also a natural process.  For primitive man, a tiger or wolf was a terrifying monster.  Now we know they’re only dangerous animals.  Familiarity breeds contempt, and while we all know wild predators can be dangerous, we don’t fool ourselves into thinking there is malice in their actions.

This is why I love one-shot ideas.  Monsters lose their punch after a while.  Every monster becomes less of an unknown the more time we spend with them.  They stop being the terrifying embodiment of primal fear and just another lurking tiger.  Dangerous?  Certainly.  Dreadful?  Not really.  The most dreadful monster is the one that we only catch a fleeting glimpse of.

The catch though is that we don’t live in a society of one-shot ideas.  Everything is a series, a spinoff, a remake, a reimagining.  Those are easy to get made, easy to sell to the audience.  And while I think it’s lead to tremendous amount of stagnation across all medium (A&E has three shows about shipping locker auctions), horror is one that suffers perhaps most because after a while, nobody takes even Cthulhu seriously.  He’s just a bumper sticker.  And that’s just a shame, but there’s not a lot we can do about it.

Not that I know much about it.  After all, I’m not a horror guy.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

First Post of the New Year

If you write enough, it will eventually become a story.  It might not seem like it, but it basically comes down to writing as many words as it takes to get something worthwhile.  While there’s no doubt that practice makes it easier, and that good feedback helps speed up the process considerably, there’s nothing that circumvents this basic guideline.

Writing fiction isn’t some magical gift from above.  It’s not a divinely inspired blessing.  It’s mostly writing, and writing a lot.  And then, writing some more.  It’s writing and revising and writing and thinking about writing and thinking more about writing.  It’s about sitting down and doing it.

I say this because, if you put aside all the glamor, all the misconceptions about writing, it is, like most art, a question of devotion.  You have to devote yourself to it if you want to be decent at it.  I know there are talented people out there who have an easier time of it than others, but even those people, if they want to be great, have lots of time being lousy at something.

Nobody is born great at anything.  Heck, we appear on this planet incapable of walking or feeding ourselves.  Learning to walk is a major accomplishment, and while it’s true we almost all learn to do it relatively easily, it’s also true that we have to allow ourselves to fall down a lot while learning.

That’s novelology to me.  It’s about writing a lot of stuff, falling down, picking yourself up, and doing it some more.  It ain’t pretty sometimes.  It can be frustrating at times.  Other times, it can seem like everything falls into place without much of a struggle.  But those times are only illusion created by plenty of failures and mistakes.  The greatest fiction writer ever (and I’ll leave that for you to name) undoubtedly wrote a lot of terrible stuff that no one wants to read.

A lot of people want to know how I learned to write, and this is always what I tell them.  I learned to write by writing.  I allowed myself to stumble and fall.  Even now, as an accomplished novelologist (if I do say so myself), I still find the only time I can’t write is when I don’t give myself that permission.  Yes, even as brilliant as I am, I write a lot of stuff I don’t like.  I just don’t bother showing it to you.

So if you want to be good at anything, accept you’re going to fall on your face, and never forget that each fall might be embarrassing, but if you keep at it, you just might learn how to be decent at it.  Heck, you might even be great.

Also, just a reminder that A. LEE MARTINEZ APPRECIATION DAY!! (Jan 12th for all the new A.Leegion members out there) is just around the corner.  This year, it falls on a Saturday, so you might want to make a day of it.  Just a suggestion.

Oh, and yeah, I’ve started calling my fans the A.Leegion because you’re not truly a successful fantasy writer until your fans have a name for themselves.  Feel free to use it in casual conversation, if you so choose.   For example:

“Want to do something this weekend?”

“Can’t.  I’ve plans for A. LEE MARTINEZ APPRECIATION DAY!! with some of my fellow A.Leegionaires.”

“A. LEE MARTINEZ APPRECIATION DAY!!?  This is the first I’ve heard of this compelling new holiday!  Tell me more!”

See?  Pretty natural, isn’t it?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go write some more stuff.  It might be great.  It might be terrible.  But either way, it’s getting written.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Raging Hobbit

Confession time.

I am not going to see The Hobbit.  I very much doubt I ever will see it.  I am among those rare few sci fi / fantasy fans who didn’t love Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.  I enjoyed them okay.  I didn’t mind watching them.  I don’t own them.  I don’t watch them if they’re on TV.  I really just ultimately feel kind of blah about the whole affair.

Let me be clear before someone starts accusing me of dismissing the importance of either the original books or the films.  I would never suggest they aren’t important.  They are very important.  Probably some of the most important works in fantasy literature / film.  And good for them.  Good for Tolkein.  Good for Jackson.  Good for all the fans.  Good for everybody.

But I was not particularly impressed with them.

Believe me.  This isn’t an easy thing to admit.  Especially as a writer.  Especially as a sci fi / fantasy writer.  Even now, I can hear the clatter of angry fans as they begin writing their comments about how incredibly stupid I am, how uncultured, how the LOTR trilogy is an amazing, fundamental work of fantasy fiction and to say it isn’t the most fantastic thing ever created is to show my own ignorance.  Such comments are certainly welcome on this site, provided they remain civil.  But, please, at least read the rest of this post before deciding to eviscerate me for daring to not be in love with them.

Can we just have an honest difference of opinion here?  I get being a fan, and the fanaticism that comes with it.  I hope one day to have fans as devoted.  But it isn’t a personal insult to anyone to suggest that while they might love something, some of us might not.  And it isn’t automatically because we’re uncultured or too stupid to know better.  And it’s not just someone trying to get a rise out of you either or being too hip for the room.  Sometimes, folks just don’t like stuff as much as we do, and we have to be grown up about it.

This is what bothers me about fandom (in all its forms).  It’s one thing to be devoted.  It’s another to be so blinded by one’s devotion that any criticism is viewed as attack.  We need to stop doing that.  And, yet, in a world where anyone with a computer and an internet connection can share their opinions with the world, we still don’t seem to understand that people are going to have different opinions.

This is why I cringe every time I read a negative review for The Hobbit, scroll down to the comments section, and read all the nerd rage to come.  And that’s what it is.  I think the very notion of nerds is something of an antiquated concept.  We’re all nerds now.  Whether it’s our love of gritty crime shows like Breaking Bad or The Wire, our obsessiveness over My Little Pony, our joy over our fantasy football team roster, being nerds is just what we are.  And I actually like that quite a bit.

But then comes the dark side.  The people who have almost turned their fandom into a religion.  To question their preferred passion is to summon their wrath.  And while they might not declare holy war, they sure as hell will jump on your forum to tell you how stupid you are for daring to not feel the same way.

Get over it.

In the interest of defusing some of this (though the odds are slim), here are a few guidelines to writing a rebuttal to a negative review of your favorite THING, whatever that might be.

If a review gets some small detail wrong, it doesn’t automatically disqualify their opinion.  So what if they spell Smog the dragon instead of Smaug.  It might be glaringly obvious to you, but it doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

If a reviewer suggest that they were bored by some aspect of a film, you don’t need to write a comment about how wrong they are for being bored.  Boredom is an individual experience, and just because you can sit there for half an hour listening to dwarves sing about mountains, that doesn’t mean everyone else can.

If a reviewer thinks the film is good, but not great, they are not necessarily being “too hip” to enjoy the film.

MOST IMPORTANTLY:  When someone dislikes something you like, they are NOT automatically calling you dumb for liking it.  I pretty much despised Tron: Legacy but a lot of people seemed to like it.  Sure, they’re wrong for doing so, but they’re not dumb.  Disagreeing with me doesn’t make you stupid.  It just makes you a person with your own opinions, and, hey, that’s cool.  (And I was just kidding about being wrong.)

Remember, we all go to the movies/ read books/ play video games for different reasons.  Your needs are not my needs, and that’s just fine.  I couldn’t give a damn about folk songs and the geography of imaginary lands.  I’m more of a rocket punching giant monsters guy.  (Speaking of which, the newest trailer for Pacific Rim pleases me and The Mighty Robot King very much.  If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out.)  Even the original books had too many characters for my tastes, was too melodramatic, and paced too slow.  But that’s just my opinion.  I know that not everyone will agree.

So, hey, let’s have our spirited discussions.  Let’s share our thoughts and indulge our inner nerds.  But let’s do it without going over the edge.

Unless we’re talking about Skyfall.  Whoo boy, is that a stinker of a film.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Finding Pseudoscience

I’ve been watching a lot of Finding Bigfoot on Animal Planet lately.  It’s not because I’m expecting them to ever find a bigfoot.  It’s because no show on television illustrates the virtues of true skepticism or the powers of rationalization.  If you haven’t watched Finding Bigfoot, I recommend sitting down and watching at least a few minutes of an episode.  Any episode will do because the same sort of pseudoscientific investigations take place every show.

I want to be clear that I don’t watch this show to feel superior.  If anything, I finish every episode wondering at what unacknowledged biases shape my own world view.  It’s a scary thing to realize that, in the right circumstances, on the right topic, we are all capable of believing things unproven and ridiculous.  The reasons for doing so might vary, but if you don’t think this is true of you, then you’re fooling yourself as much as the poor folks running through the darkened woods, looking for a creature that they have no reason to believe exists.

Finding Bigfoot replaced Ghost Adventures as my favorite pseudoscience show because at least ghosts are supposed to be invisible and supernatural.  I still love Ghost Adventures because it has the highest ratio of “dude” and “bro” uttered on pretty much any show on television.  And their standards for evidence are so laughably low that in one episode, a ball NOT MOVING was offered as proof that there might be a ghost in the room.

But Finding Bigfoot is different because this is a show about intrepid investigators tromping through the woods looking for a giant hominid, finding nothing, and yet, utterly convinced that such a creature could exist.  Certainly, I could point out the obvious flaws in this assumption.  Points like that it is basically impossible for a breeding population of large animals to live on this planet without leaving any evidence behind.  I bet, for instance, that you could hire an expert bear tracker, and it wouldn’t be too hard for him to find some bears.  Yet bigfoot hunters, the so-called experts, can’t even offer us more than a grainy photo and a plaster footprint.

None of this matters though to the folks of Finding Bigfoot though because they know the creature exists.  They say so often.  It doesn’t seem to make a difference that they haven’t found one.  It’s just enough to know.

(I know a lot of folks will say the hunters don’t actually believe, but that they’re paid to look.  No doubt this is part of what encourages them, but these are people who have spent years, unpaid, looking for bigfoot.  There is a level of commitment that is worth acknowledging, even if it is a bit misplaced.)

I offer the patented A. Lee Martinez Leprechaun rebuttal.  If the evidence you offer is just as much proof for the existence of leprechauns as bigfoot, then you have to admit it’s not much good as evidence.

All the hallmarks of pseudoscience are present in Finding Bigfoot.  Eyewitness testimony (always unreliable even when dealing with things we’ve already proven to exist) is offered as compelling proof.  Unexplained noises are framed as intelligent responses.  Assumptions run rampant.  This is a show where not only was a wolf howl taken as proof that bigfoot was near, but the listener even somehow knew that what the wolves were thinking.  The blurriest footage is compelling.  And the investigators mistake sincerity for veracity, as if someone genuinely believing they saw a bigfoot is the same thing as actually seeing one.

Pseudoscience illustrates the importance of the scientific method when in comes to research.  It’s not enough to use science-tastic terms or to call yourself an investigator.  Without the proper methodology, you’re just walking through the woods, jumping at shadows.  It might feel exciting to do so, but it’s little more than well-meaning believers stumbling around blindly groping for something they have no reason to believe exists.

But darned if it isn’t compelling television for the skeptic in me.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

 

The Lesson

Hey, remember in my last post where I wondered what it would be like if the Boogieman were a good guy?  I wrote a little something starring the guy.  I don’t know if it’s the beginning of a novel, a short story, or just something I wanted to write, but I thought I’d share it here.  Hope you enjoy it.

It’s a bit creepy, I hope.  Or maybe not.  Either way, have a read.  And let me know what you think in the comments section.

 

The Boogieman slid across the room like a snake.  Low to the ground.  Slithering through the dark.  He could’ve been silent as death.  Although Death was actually a bit of a chatterbox, but silent as Ecstasy didn’t quite have the same ring to it.  But the Boogieman wasn’t silent.  He dragged his fingernails against the carpet, making a muted scraping sound.  He wheezed, ever-so-slightly.  And as he rose to his full height beside the child’s bed, the Boogieman chuckled, long and low.

The kid was not impressed.

It was usually around the age of ten that the kids stopped being frightened of him just because he was something they were supposed to fear.  Some kids learned earlier.  Some later.  But as the Boogieman stared into this kid’s eyes, he saw that familiar disdain, that dismissal of childhood fears of something lurking under the bed, in the back of the closet.

“I’m not afraid of you,” said the boy defiantly.

The Boogieman slouched.  The toothy snarl disappeared from his long, gray face.  He hated when they grew up.

Emboldened, the child sat up in his bed.  “Go away.”

The Boogieman reached out with a long, long slender arm and turned on the bedside lamp.  It flooded the room with a soft white light, and he covered his eyes for a moment, grumbling.

“Son of a bitch,” he said.  “Excuse my French, kid.”

The boy’s puzzled expression said it all.  The Boogieman had seen it before.

“Oh, yeah, you were expecting me to maybe dissolve away in the light.  Maybe something like this?”

He shrieked and writhed, melting into a blackened puddle that slurped its way under the bed.

The boy clutched his blanket tightly and sat their quietly on the bed.  He almost called his mom, but he was too big for that now.  He had to be brave.  He mustered up his courage and peered under the bed.

There was nothing there.

Then from above came that terrible wheeze.  The boy fell out of bed, peering up at the shadowy figure clinging to the ceiling.

“Doesn’t work that way, kid.  People think that fear is in the dark.  But fear is everywhere.  If you could banish it by just turning on the lights, this world would be a very different place.”

The Boogieman dripped from the ceiling like a figure made of dirty wax.  He reformed on the bed.

“Oh, yeah, and the blanket thing . . . “  His arm whipped out and snatched the covering from the child.  “That’s bullshit too.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” said the boy, sounding not entirely convinced.

“Why do you think I give a damn if you’re afraid of me?” asked the Boogieman.  “Fear of the Boogieman is not from whence the Boogieman spawned.  I’m not like your imaginary friend, kid.  I don’t want you to believe in me.  I don’t need you to believe in me.  I am.”

“But . . . . “

The Boogieman put one claw-like finger to his lips.

“Let me ask you a question.  If you were walking through the woods and a bear jumped out onto the path, would you tell the bear you didn’t believe in him?”

The boy shook his head.

“Exactly.  I get so sick of this I don’t believe crap.  A bear doesn’t give a shit what you believe.  The Black Plague didn’t give a shit.  The Spanish Inquisition, murderers, car accidents, war, falling rocks, earthquakes, those goddamn little Lego blocks that get everywhere that you step on and hurt like hell.  None of them give a shit.  What makes you think I do?”

He cleared his throat and for the first time, his body actually looked like a body, not just a gray blob.  He was long and thin.  He had no hair on his head, and his eyes were gone.  There was nothing where they should’ve been.  Not even sockets.  He touched his face where his nose wasn’t.

“Ah, damnit.  Do I not have a nose again?  Ever since those damn Harry Potter movies . . . “

He strode across the room on his long, spider-like legs and examined the pictures and toys scattered throughout.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Harry.”

The Boogieman paused, a teddy bear in his hands.  “You’re shittin’ me.”

The boy shook his head.  The Boogieman chuckled.

“Here’s a trick then, Harry.  I want you to close your eyes and think of something funny.  Something that makes you laugh.  Something that fills your heart with joy that could never hurt you.  And don’t think of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.  That never goes well.”

“Who?”

The Boogieman shook his head.  “Never mind.  Just do it.”

Harry did so.

“Now open your eyes,” commanded the Boogieman.

Harry did and found himself staring into the grinning maw of his nighttime visitor.

“Didn’t work, did it?  Didn’t make me go away.  Didn’t make you unafraid.”

He reached out, touched Harry’s nose with one ice cold finger.  “Maybe I should rip off your nose.”

Harry screamed.

The Boogieman screamed with him.

The bedroom door flew open, and Harry’s parents rushed in to find him soiling himself in the corner.  He tried to explain, but it all came out as gibberish, and while they tried to calm him down, the Boogieman, grinning his pointed smile, hovered silently behind them.

When he was assured enough fear had been sown, a suitable amount of terror distributed, he slithered out the door, down the stairs, and into the street.  He could still hear the boy crying, and the shouts of the parents no longer able to calm him down but awash in his hysteria.

It was easy to scare little kids, and it was even a bit fun to pretend like they could wish him away simply by being brave.  A fun little game that helped them sleep at night.  But his job wasn’t to make kids feel better about themselves.  His job, at the end of the day, was to remind them that fear wasn’t something you wished away.  That the light was no safer than the dark.  And that sometimes, too many times, simply being brave wasn’t enough.

It was why he hated when they grew up.

Sympathy for the Dark Side

It’s an old observation, but if you take a moment to consider language, you can see how it can stifle our perceptions.  The one I’ve noticed quite a bit lately is the use of “light” and “dark” as stand-ins for “good” and “evil”.  It is ever-present, and while there are a lot of logical reasons for that, it certainly makes a big assumption.

While watching Rise of the Guardians I was struck by the fact that our primary hero, Jack Frost, is pale and white.  As are all the heroic characters, who are bright and shiny.  Meanwhile, the Boogieman is gray and dark.  And his name is Pitch Black.  What makes this weird to me is that none of the other characters have alternate names.  The Sandman is just The Sandman.  As is the Tooth Fairy and Santa.  Meanwhile, it’s not enough for the Boogieman to be just the Boogieman.  He has to go that extra step and have a sinister name that is two synonyms for darkness.

Even visually, the only dark elements are that of evil forces.  When they are beaten, they miraculously lighten.  Which makes sense from a visual tradition, and I’m not criticizing the film for sticking to what works.  But we want to believe that there isn’t a predisposition toward distrusting dark things (and, let’s face it, people), yet it is a constant throughout most cultures.

I’m sure you can find some dark characters and traditions that are viewed in a more balanced light, but the bottom line is that if a character has dark elements, even visually, they are often at least tinged with sinister elements.  Even if it’s the hero-with-a-dark-side idea embodied by characters like Batman.

What’s most interesting to me about this perception is that it often trumps everything else.  Batman, for instance, is seen as deeper and more emotionally flawed than Superman.  The only reason to really believe this is because one guy flies around wearing bright blue and red while the other dresses in drab colors and stalks the shadows.  In essence, they share the exact same motivation: to protect their world against evil.  Both heroes save the day.  One just does it while dressed in black, thus making him edgier.

(Yes, I know he’s an orphan, but I’ve always felt that was overplayed.  Bruce Wayne took a tragic moment and redefined himself because of it.  While that might make many folks see him as emotionally damaged, I see a guy who made a pretty healthy choice because he lives in a superhero universe.  That’s something a lot of folks seem to miss.  Bruce Wayne didn’t grow up in the real world.  He grew up in an alternate universe where dressing up in a funny costume and beating up criminals isn’t a unique decision.  But let’s not get into that whole discussion again.)

While I liked Rise of the Guardians overall, I have to admit I think it would be awesome to see a film where The Boogieman is the good guy.  The closest I can think of in mainstream media is The Nightmare Before Christmas.  The actual Boogieman might be the bad guy in that film, but in a way Jack Skelington embodies the joy that can be found in darkness.  But that entire film is a bit of an exception because all the characters are dark and sinister, which is why, I’ll bet, the Boogieman is a bit bright and lives in neon.  He’s bright and shiny to distinguish him from the dark and gray good guys.

That’s not a complaint.  It’s an observation.  But it’s an observation worth making.

When I wrote A Nameless Witch, I very deliberately made the white knight a dark man.  I figured why not, but I think it’s important to do so more often.  Too often, we are fed dark is evil without even thinking about it.  And while I’d like to think we can mature and grow, there is probably some influence when, even from the youngest age, we are constantly exposed to the shorthand that being dark is code for being evil.  Or at least a little bit questionable.

When Smurfette was evil she had dark hair.  When she turned good, she went blonde.

Venom is evil Spider-Man, dressed all in black.

Darkseid, one of the most powerful villains in all of comic books, has dark right in his name.

Darth Vader is clad entirely in black to symbolize his fall to the dark side, only to become a glowing light spirit when he’s redeemed.

And, in a movie filled with fantasy characters like Rise of the Guardians, the only dark character is not just the bad guy, but the embodiment of fear.

I’m not going to criticize every such choice.  That wouldn’t be fair.  And Rise does go out of its way to make the Boogieman more than just a cardboard villain, instilling in him more depth and character than, say, Skyfall‘s villain, for instance.

But more heroic dark characters would be great.  This is why Heimdall from Thor is one of my favorite characters.  I am not a big fan of the film overall because, while it has its moments, it’s just a tad underwhelming when it comes to action (which is how I primarily measure superhero stories).  But Heimdall, as played by Idris Elba, is a badass guy who happens to be black.  Even then, (very stupid) people complained because . . . you know, I don’t even have the energy to argue with those types of idiots anymore.

I don’t know if I consider this a real problem or not, but it is worth mentioning.  And once you’ve seen how often the dark/ light, evil/ good expectation is played out in fiction, you can’t help but see a world where a little more balance couldn’t hurt things.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

My Skyfall Review (a cultural counterpoint)

Hey, folks.  I’m back.  Okay, I was never really gone, but I was busy with a move and my internet access was sketchy.  But now the move is finished (the big part anyway), and though I need to work on my new book (y’know, the stuff I actually get paid for) and I’m battling a bit of a cold, I’ve found time to pay you a visit and share a little wisdom.  Because I care, and I know you’re all hankering for a little of that A. Lee Martinez brand wisdom.  Or at least a few random thoughts.

The topic today for me is a bit of a tricky one.  I tend to avoid criticizing other media too much.  While I feel completely comfortable saying Tron: Legacy was a weak film or an occasional bash of the Star Wars prequels, these aren’t exactly venturing into dangerous waters.  People might disagree, but it’s not like I’m taking any chances saying these stories are weak or, at least, imperfect creations.

I will stand up for media I like that I feel gets wrongfully dismissed.  I believe Green Lantern is actually a damn fine superhero film and far better than any of the Spidey films, for example.

But today, I’m going to be a bit obnoxious, for lack of a better term.  Today, I’m going to tell you why Skyfall is not only NOT one of the best James Bond films ever, but why it is also a fairly bad film overall.  Especially in terms of story and story construction.  I know this won’t be a popular opinion.  I know a lot of people seem to love this film.  And I’m not telling them they’re wrong.  This is all opinion, after all.  Skyfall isn’t the first lauded film I’ve taken on.  It won’t be the last.

Let’s get to it.  For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to pick the top five reasons why I find the film to be a failure.

Oh and SPOILER ALERT.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

REASON ONE: EVERYONE IS INCOMPETENT

Everyone in this movie is really bad at what they do.  And I do mean everyone.

To begin with, there’s Bond himself.  The movie begins with his failure to stop a bad guy from escaping with top secret info.  That isn’t such a big deal because many a story starts with the hero failing to give him a motivation to carry on.  But we then see Bond attempt retirement, only to return after thinking his country needs him.  Upon his return, he is tested to see if he is ready for duty.  He fails the tests, but is still allowed, by M, to return to active duty.

This would be a pretty good beginning to a Bond proving himself still a badass superspy.  Instead, he walks through the whole film, failing at every turn.  He saves no one.  He accomplishes nothing.  When he “captures” the bad guy, we learn that this was all part of the bad guy’s master plan, so Bond didn’t really do anything.  He even fails to stop the bad guy from completing his goal and killing M.  Oh, sure, Bond does kill the bad guy before M dies, but she still dies.  And the villain didn’t even want to live, so it’s not like killing him is any sort of loss to him.

But while Bond is bad at his job, so is M, who continually blunders her way through the story.  She makes the call to “take the shot”, even though there’s no reason to believe taking a risky shot that could just as easily kill Bond is better than letting Bond continue his struggle with the escaping villain.  Her call not only allows the villain to escape, it is the entire reason Bond is supposed to be bad at his job now.

She also approves Bond for active duty, even though he fails the tests.  In a traditional story (i.e. logical one), she would prove her judgment superior to the tests by having Bond be awesome at his job.  He isn’t.  And even after he demonstrates this time and time again, she dies saying “at least I wasn’t wrong about one thing.”

You were wrong, M.  Unless she isn’t talking about Bond, but that time she found a place with really good chicken wings.

Finally, the mastermind himself is a bit of a doofus as well.  He’s creepy, sure, but he seems to have nothing beyond that.  When we’re introduced to him, we discover he “stole” an island by faking a chemical leak and scaring the people away.  So he lives on an abandoned, dirty, island that’s decaying around him.  I get that in the new more “realistic” James Bond universe, palatial island estates and shark tanks are “corny”, but what the hell is this guy doing?  He’s living in practical squalor because he’s smart enough to steal an island, but not smart enough to do anything cool with it.

He then has himself “captured” by Bond so that he can make a daring escape from Her Majesty’s Secret Service secret base.  Why?  He could have just as easily bought a plane ticket to England.  He already had operatives in position, all set up to help him carry out his plan.  I suppose he could’ve wanted to taunt M, but he could have just as easily done that via video conferencing.  His plan is needlessly complicated, which I can get behind when you’re trying to take over the world.  But when you’re trying to kill one old lady, you don’t have to try this hard.

On the other hand, if you are going to try this hard, go ahead and bring an army to your final battle.  Bond was nice enough to take her in the middle of nowhere where a few hundred thugs would have no trouble approaching the house from every side.  Game over.  You win.  Instead, he leads his men into an obvious ambush and then dies while taunting his target.  Because, for all his creepiness, this guy is just bad at being a bad guy.

Also, Q’s incompetence is what allows the villain to escape.

And the guards who are keeping an eye on him in a giant room where he’s secured in his own tiny cell also somehow manage to get killed too.

The only reasonably competent character is the one played by Ralph Fiennes who sees M and Bond are bad at their jobs.  He saves M when Bond would be too late.  But even this degree of competence falls to the side once the plot demands him to be as stupid as everyone else.  It is best captured in the final scene when Fiennes, as the new M, should dress down Bond for all his failures, including abducting the old M, taking her to an old house in the middle of nowhere, and getting her killed.

But, hey, everyone in this film ends up being bad at their job.  Guess he just gave into peer pressure.

REASON TWO: MELANCHOLY IS NOT MATURITY

I’ve talked about this before, but it’s worth addressing because Skyfall is the embodiment of taking something fun and ruining it for the sake of “maturity”.  I have nothing against maturity.  I just don’t think it’s found in sad characters, dull directions, and long talky scenes.

I get people not wanting laser watches and cars that turn into submarines.  I like those elements of fantasy spy adventure, but I don’t need them to enjoy a Bond movie.  But in avoiding the more unrealistic elements, the movie also abandons any sense of fun and adventure.  If Bond doesn’t throw out one liners and wrestle steel-toothed giants, I can still enjoy his adventures.  But if he comes across as a sad loser who doesn’t seem to care about his job (and honestly, who could blame this Bond for hating his job), why am I here?

My counterpoint to any claims of maturity by the removal of fun is found in such great films as Up, Toy Story, and Monsters Inc.  As well as a dozen other animated films.  But to keep things simple, we’ll go with Up.  You’d be hard-pressed to find a more emotional resonant film in modern film history than this story of an old man, a flying house, and an army of talking dogs.  Up is one of the most mature, thoughtful films you will come across, and yet, it is completely absurd.

I’m not suggesting that James Bond needs laser sharks.  But the absence of laser sharks doesn’t mean the story is more mature.  And a film where no one smiles isn’t the same as a mature film.  Not by a long shot.

REASON THREE: ABORTED STORY ARCS

From a technical point, Skyfall is an exercise in aborted story arcs.  I won’t get into my own belief that James Bond doesn’t need a personal story arc.  He’s James Bond.  His character is already established, and there’s really no reason for any kind of personal growth on his part.  But if you want to give him an arc, you should at least follow through.

The first aborted arc starts when he argues with M on pausing to save a wounded fellow spy.  He later confronts M on her order to abandon the spy.  There are a couple of ways to go with this arc.  We could follow Bond as he learns that you can’t save everyone in the name of the greater good.  Alternately, we could watch M learn that sometimes valuing human life is worth the risk.  Instead, neither arc happens.  Instead, it’s the last time it’s brought up.

The other story potential story arc is for either M or Bond to prove they are capable of their jobs despite a rough start in the first act.  Unfortunately, neither actually happens.  M never exercises any good judgment.  She delivers a rousing speech about the necessity of her department, but she doesn’t redeem her own poor performance.  Bond completely fails, as pointed out above, and never once shows himself to be capable beyond what his test numbers show.  He still remains a secret agent at the end because, well, I don’t know why other than he’s James Bond and we already know he’s a spy.

Finally, the big bad guy has a sort of story arc where he’s out to humiliate M publicly before finally killing her.  He fails on this too, but at least he makes a good (if needlessly complicated) effort.  And then he just tosses it all aside to willingly walk into an ambush.

REASON FOUR: WEAK ACTION

James Bond movies are supposed to be action adventure films.  This movie starts with a pretty solid beginning, but afterwards, it’s pretty bland.  We have a very short gunfight in a komodo dragon pit.  We have another short fight on the bad guy’s island fortress.  We have a short gunfight at M’s hearing.  And then we have a fairly long firefight at Bond’s ambush.  But it’s mostly just guys getting shot and dying.  It’s not terrible, but it lacks pizazz.

I don’t need a Jackie Chan style martial arts fest.  That’s never been what Bond is about.  But the action is largely anemic and underwhelming.

There’s more, but this has already gone on long enough.  My point isn’t to say this is a bad film.  It just isn’t a very good one.  And I think, if one were to remove the Bond label from it, I think a lot of folks would agree.  But Bond, like Star Wars, like Tron, like Spider-Man, is such a part of our culture, there’s no way to judge it honestly at this point.

And I’ll admit I’m just as vulnerable to this problem as anyone else.  While I doubt I’d like this film without the Bond label, I doubt I’d dislike it as much without that label either.  That’s the problem with Bond.  It carries baggage.

Anyway, I’ve made my arguments.  I’m sure many will disagree, but I’ve gotten it out of my system.

Catch you next time, gang.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Update

Hey, folks. Sorry I haven’t been around much. Been busy with a move, but things should be getting back on track soon. Until then, you will just have to carry on without me. But rest assured, I will be back.

LEE

Valued, part 2

A little while back, I mused on what exactly is valued and why do we value it?  Value is mostly a matter of perception.  Putting aside obvious things like food and shelter (though even those things can have disputable value once we get into specifics), value is found in valuing something.  This is such a broad and obvious definition that it isn’t very useful.

I’ve known people who hate using quarter-fed air machines because “air is free.”  Although, really, you’re not paying for the air itself, but the machine that pumps the air.  Trying to inflate a tire by pushing air by hand into it isn’t productive.

My recent return to my Skylanders passion is another perplexing conundrum of value.  To the outsider, it might appear patently ridiculous that I should spend hundreds of dollars on a single game.  The argument goes, not entirely unjustified, that the video game comes with all its goodies locked away and the only way to get them is to pay more money.  Intellectually, I see where that’s coming from, but when I tweak and analyze it, I find I don’t care.

I suppose it’s because from my own perspective, I’m not only buying the figures for their ability to unlock elements in the video game.  I’m also buying them because I like the figures very much.  Granted, I wouldn’t buy them on their own, but if you give me a little push like making them cool figures that are useful to a video game I also like then it becomes something I can totally get behind.  Skylanders give me license to collect toys that I would have no reason to ever buy.  Not because I didn’t like them, but because I’d have a hard time talking myself into buying figures just to display.

But people do buy things just to display them.  So from my perspective, the only difference is that my things to display actually are useful for a video game I also like.  Viewed from that angle, I find these toys completely worth buying, and as collectible hobbies go, it seems no more silly or indulgent than so many out there.

When I used to play Magic: The Gathering, I probably ended up spending hundreds of dollars over the year buying cards.  A lot of those cards were useless to me because I never used them.  I was never a big M:TG player.  Never played in any big tournaments.  Never did more than build my decks, play in small local events or with friends.  But I never felt as if that money and time were wasted.

As an avid tabletop game player, I have hundreds of board and card games.  I have some games I’ve barely played, not because they’re bad, but because there’s only so much time in the day.  I tend to give away games I don’t end up liking, but still, I have a lot of games, accumulated over the years, many with only a handful of plays.  In comparison, my Skylanders hobby is remarkably fiscally responsible.

I’m not saying it’s not an indulgence.  It is.  But it is one that is relatively cheap compared to so many hobbies, fills my free time with fun, and makes me happy.  I’m a grown man who pays his bills, and if I want to spend my money on little figures of funny characters that just happen to be useful for a video game too, well, I have a hard time seeing that as a negative.  Emotional trumps intellectual, and if something makes you happy (and you aren’t being irresponsible) who really cares?

That’s value.  It is a singular judgment, and I think that’s worth remembering.  I know people who want expensive cars and love eating at the “best” restaurants.  I know others who spend thousands on home entertainment systems or are very much into fashion.  Those aren’t my things.  Those don’t do much for me.  To buy them for me would be a waste of time, but we’re all different.  And above all, we should always remember that.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to level up Tree Rex.  Somebody’s gotta save the world, and I can’t think of anyone better than a giant tree monster that shoots lasers.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee