Harry Connolly's Blog, page 11

Annual Post: The Best Ever Version of A Christmas Carol

Beautiful and haunting. I love it.

Randomness for 12/8

1. Domestic abuse: Killers ‘follow eight-stage pattern’, study says.

2. The real reason hearing your own voice can make you cringe.

3. Water isn’t the most hydrating beverage according to new scientific study

4. Twenty Years Later and the Women of ANGEL Deserve More.

5. The Trajectory of Fear – or How to Use Horror Tropes Effectively in your [TTRPG]

6. What happens when you eat like the Queen of England for a week?

7. People Are Confused About the Usefulness of Buying Fancy Things

One Man at One Week

Publication day for One Man was Tuesday, November 26th, which means that yesterday marked the end of the first week of sales. Honestly, it’s the most important week.

So how has it gone?

Honestly, not all that great!

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“But Harry,” you say, “that’s eight days.”

Yes, but I’m on Pacific time, and the pre-orders ship out on midnight of publication day, so people in New York, for example, were getting their pre-orders while it was only 9pm on my time. Therefore, 211 pre-orders out of 249 were delivered (and registered) on the day before.

My usual practice when posting these sales graphs is to cut off the Y-axis to obscure the actual numbers. That’s because I usually talk about trends. But let’s talk numbers

Ebook sales through Amazon for the first week: 492

Paperback sales through Amazon: 4

Ebook sales through B&N: 19

Ebook sales through Kobo: 24

Ebook sales through Smashwords: 14 (higher than expected, honestly)

Paperbacks shipped from Ingram Spark: 26

Those Ingram Spark paperbacks are heavily discounted and fully returnable, so they should also be available to anyone who walks into a bookstore and asks the clerk to check for it on their computer. I’ve also added Powell’s, Mysterious Galaxy, and Indiebound to the bottom scroll of online vendors to give paperback buyers a few options other than Amazon.

What does this mean? Well, my newsletter, which is designed specifically for people who want to know about my new releases w/o following me on social media, went to 1349 addresses, announcing the pre-order. These are the people who presumably want to buy my new work, and I was hoping to turn at least half into sales.

One Man is, I believe, the best work I’ve ever done. The thought that it might reach a portion of my existing readers and only a scant few beyond that is, frankly, disheartening.

On the upside, that graph slopes down and then up again. The upsurge in sales corresponds with the appearance of early reviews.

I don’t have a big marketing budget here. The book is out for reviews at a few places, but the only way it’s going to reach new readers is through word of mouth. Reviews, recommendations to friends, a thumbs up on social media… that’s what drives sales.

So, if you have bought the book, please read it. Then please give it a review. I think this is the best book I’ve ever written, and I hope it reaches the widest circle of readers possible.

I think that’s called “burying the lede” but there you go.

Thanks.

Welp, It’s Black Friday

Today is Black Friday, and if you’re planning to visit a bookstore to do any of your holiday shopping, I just want to make note that you ought to be able to order One Man through Ingram.

I hope so, at least. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

Thanks very much to everyone who bought the book and everyone who has written an online review. Right now, the book is selling to people who already know and like my work, but spreading the word will help this book (and my backlist) reach a larger audience.

At which point I should just say: Happy Leftovers Day. As soon as I finish this, I’m having a turkey sandwich and a slice of apple pie for breakfast, then I’m heading out to work on The Iron Gate.

The One Man Post

“One Man is a superbly realised story set in a rich and fascinating world. The horror grips, the fantasy delights and the characters remain vivid and real to the end.” — Justina Robson

It’s been four years since I released a new novel.

Four plus, actually, and I’m a little embarrassed that it’s been that long. There was the Twenty Palaces novella, The Twisted Path, of course, but still. Four years.

This book is the reason.

I spent two years writing One Man. It’s is a big book, over 150,000 words. It’s complicated, with lots of POV characters and locations. The setting is limited–almost every chapter takes place in a single city–but it’s complex.

Which is another way of saying that a lot of time and sweat went into this novel, and I’m proud of the result.

Here’s the back cover description:

———–

One Cursed City. Two Dead Gods. Ten Thousand Murderers and Thieves. One Orphaned Girl.

As a child, Kyrioc was groomed to be the head of one of the most powerful noble families in Koh-Salash, a city built inside the skeletons of two murdered gods. Kyrioc himself dreamed of becoming head of the High Watch, the highest political position in the land.

Those dreams have turned to dust.

Presumed dead after a disastrous overseas quest, Kyrioc now lives in a downcity slum under a false name, hiding behind the bars of a pawnshop window. Riliska, a nine-year-old pickpocket who sells stolen trinkets to his shop, is the closest thing he has to a friend.

When a criminal gang kills Riliska’s mother and kidnaps the little girl, Kyrioc goes hunting for her.

He doesn’t care about the forbidden magic the gangs are fighting over—the severed ear of a glitterkind, a creature whose flesh contains astonishing healing powers. He doesn’t care about the bloody, escalating gang violence. He doesn’t care about the schemes of power-hungry nobles.

In a raging city on the verge of civil war, Kyrioc only wants to save his friend. He will risk anything for her, even awakening the powers that murdered the gods so long ago.

———–

See, I wanted to try an experiment. Most fantasy novels have huge stakes: A Dark Lord trying to conquer all. A usurper seizing the throne, pushing a kingdom toward civil war. A world-shattering magical cataclysm. Invasion of monsters. Return of monsters. Whatever.

But what if I wanted to create a fantasy story about a quest for something small. Something important, but not world-shattering. For instance: the life of a single little girl. Not even his own, just someone he knows.

I wanted to see if I could make a story like that as compelling as one where millions of lives were at stake. The consequences of the protagonist’s actions were wide-ranging. They had ripple effects. The other POV characters have their own quests, and as the status quo of the city crumbles, the dangers escalate.

But for the protagonist? He just wants to save one life.

If I’m being honest with myself, I felt sure that NY publishers would really respond to this novel. I expected the mix of genres, characters, and setting to hit the bullseye. Probably, you could say that I was being ambitious.

I was wrong. One Man was on submission for over a year and a half and, while it earned me the nicest rejection I have ever seen (or even heard about) no one wanted to publish it.

It’s probably a mistake to admit that, but fuck it. I think it’s a good book. A thriller with strange magic, desperation, betrayal, and murder. But it’s an odd book, too, with bourgeois hobbit vampires, and sleeping giants whose flesh can heal you, and a sprawling city built inside the skeletons of two gods who were murdered while fucking.

What I’m hoping, if you’ve read this far down the page, is that you’re interested in a big, odd, ambitious book about crime and magic and a screwed-up guy who has one last chance to do something decent in this world.

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The trade paperback should be available to order from Ingram, if you want to buy from your local bookstore, but obviously you could also buy from one of the online vendors below.

Sample chapters here.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble ebook Barnes & Noble print | iBooks | Kobo | Smashwords

Mysteries, Ghosts, and Doubled Narratives: Why the New Nancy Drew Series Doesn’t Work

Every whodunnit mystery has two narratives. The first is the crime at the center of the story. How the murder was planned and carried out. The history between killer and victim. The red herring clues that point to innocent parties, and the backstory that makes those parties credible suspects. And so on. All of that comprises a complex narrative that, at the beginning of the book, is hidden from the reader and the protagonist.

The second narrative is the one the reader reads, in which the protagonist investigates and uncovers the first narrative.

Many ghost stories have a similar structure. There’s a hidden narrative of a terrible crime or crimes that created the ghost(s) and the specific details of the haunting itself. The story of the people who experience the haunting often depends on the revelation of that hidden crime for its resolution.

You might think that similarity in the two structures would mean they’d combine well, but the new CW series NANCY DREW shows how difficult that can be.

A lot of folks think that the main pleasure of a whodunnit (or any kind of mystery, really) is that things are be set right at the end. Something awful happens. Someone uncovers the culprit. They’re arrested or killed. Order is restored.

I dunno. I’ve never experienced them that way. For me, the main pleasures of a mystery are the characters, because you need a lot of contrast to tell all those suspects apart, and the hard work.

Me, I wasn’t much of a Nancy Drew fan until after VERONICA MARS showed me that the whole teen detective thing could have real bite to it. Then Emma Roberts appeared in the 2007 NANCY DREW, and I thought that movie was delightful. Much lighter than VM, but it still portrayed the protagonist as intelligent and hard-working, someone who kept digging for clues long after I would have given up.

But ghosts take all that away. Characters don’t have to act on their own initiative because they are terrorized by the supernatural elements of the story to take action. Ghosts push them toward clues. Visions of the past reveal the hidden narrative.

In other words, what would be revealed through the brilliance and diligence of the main character in a whodunnit is now forced upon them.

For example, in the most recent episode, a ghost keeps breaking screens in Nancy’s house. Only after the third one, on her laptop, does Nancy realize they’re all breaking in the same pattern. Nancy, being brilliant, recognizes her small town in the edges of the pattern, calls up Google Maps, and realizes the breaks are pointing toward a specific place: her high school.

Cut to a scene where she’s breaking into the school, complete with black knit cap and flashlight. A ghostly glow directs her to the trophy case/memorial/(?) where she finds a photo tucked away that proves another character lied to her in Act 2 of the episode.

So, sure, it’s smart to recognize the pattern and it shows initiative to break out the lock picks (by my count, Nancy has done a B&E in three out of four episodes this season and she really ought to be better at it) but it still feels like the mystery is being handed to her. Check out the school. Look in the case. In the first episode, a medium tells her to look in the attic, where she finds a bloody dress locked away in a trunk. It’s just another example of “Go here. Find clue.”

Not only is this sort of plot easier on the main character, it’s easier for the show’s writers. You don’t have to brainstorm a reason for Nancy to hunt for that photo at the school. You just have to brainstorm a way for the ghost to point the way in a spoooooky manner.

See also, the movie ODD THOMAS, which is a reasonably effective thriller as long as you don’t think too hard about the way Odd’s magic powers lead him by the nose from one plot point to the next.

See also, redux, this quote: (Source)

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I don’t object to the way the Force is used in STAR WARS any more than I object to Eleven’s powers in STRANGER THINGS. It keeps things moving and doesn’t take away from the story. But then, the heroes in those stories aren’t detectives. I’m not watching because I’m hoping to see brilliance.

Honestly, I think I’d like NANCY DREW a lot more if the main character wasn’t named Nancy Drew. I wouldn’t have come to it hoping to see a bright, energetic young person doing the work that the older generations couldn’t.

The ghosts are fun, though. Maybe in the back half of this first season or in season two, they’ll have ghosts who mislead or interfere rather than help. I hope so.

If you’ve read this far down, you should hear a few facts: Progress on THE IRON GATE continues, although not as quickly as I’d have hoped. In fact, I was all set to take part in NaNoWriMo this year for the first time ever, but then I took a close look at the actual numbers and chickened out. Still, even if I’m digging a ditch with a shovel instead of a backhoe, that ditch is going to get dug.

ONE MAN continues to be delayed. Maybe I should set a definite release date to stop myself from fussing with this and that and just releasing it.

Randomness for 8/16

1. The Low-Frills Genre Fiction of 1981. What amazing covers

2. What It’s Like To Own an Electric Car.

3. Almost Every Bob Ross Painting in Existence Lives in a Virginia Office Park.

4. Brewery unveils six-pack ring that will feed sea turtles instead of killing them.

5) My son followed this recipe for making NY style pizza at home, and whaddayano? Video

6) Shipping firm automatically dispatches truck to haul freight, successfully pricing, tendering, booking, then picking up and delivering the shipment without any human interaction at all.

7) Trying to rebuild civilization? This dude is trying to open-source the blueprints for 50 essential machines.

 

13 hours left to back this:

Cover for The Iron Gate

It occurs to me that I have shared this all around but not here, which is dumb.

On the first morning of the campaign, Fred Hicks sent me a mockup he’d done of the cover and I liked it so much that I’m going with it. Here we go:

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And that’s why Ray Lilly will be wearing a tie in the new book.

The campaign is winding down, obviously, but it’s already met its goals. What’s the opposite of “stressing about it”? Hmm, it seems like there should be a word for phrase that means the opposite of stressed but gosh, I haven’t had a use for it in so long…

Anyway, the lack of stress is thanks to everyone who backed the campaign and shared it with their friends.

Other updates: Writing on The Iron Gate continues at a decent clip, and the copy editor is hard at work on One Man. Later today I hope to work on the cover for OM with my son. Work continues.

Here’s the latest status on the campaign:

Some Quick Reviews of S3 Stranger Things, S3 Jessica Jones, and other stuff I guess

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while so I’m just going to throw these out there:

Stranger Things Season 3

I’ve been a vocal fan of this show (Not as strong a fan as *some*, because I don’t want to be scary, but still) since I first watched it, but season three started off very badly. Characters I’d liked and who should have grown together were now snickering and making fun of each other. Hopper had become a complete mess. He’d gone from real life hero to obnoxious buffoon.

It took me a while to realize what they were doing. Season three had become an homage to romcoms, so we get clips of Sam and Diane, and we get endless bickering between characters who are attracted to each other but can’t admit it. And a show so used to leaning on homages ought to understand that homages of old jokes is just recycling an old joke. It’s not actually funny.

So yeah, that part wasn’t fun.

Everything else about the show? Loved it.

As the kids are getting older, the horror is getting scarier, more action-oriented, and gorier, too. And being Stranger Things, they nail it.

So, yeah. Not my favorite season, except for the parts that very much are.

Jessica Jones Season 3

One of the least interesting story lines a superhero show can tell is the “What does it mean to be a hero?” thing. Usually, it involves getting up off the ground after a round of grueling physical punishment.

I’m looking at you, Spider-Man, into the Spider-verse.

Of course, in superhero stories, the consequences of most fights are to make people feel a lot of pain, and also to make them incredibly tired. That’s why it’s such a struggle to get off the ground. To prove themselves to be heroes, protagonists need to stand up despite the pain and punch-induced exhaustion to return immediately to their pre-fight levels of physical capability, and finally make the bad guy super tired. Through punching.

Jessica Jones (the show, I mean, although the character, too) flips this on its head. When this show asks the question “What does it mean to be a hero?” they don’t mean putting on a mask and beating up “bad people.” It means finding evidence, getting confessions, capturing the criminal, and turning them over to the courts.

Based on her performance in this show, Rachel Taylor really ought to be getting a lot of high profile stuff. If you were annoyed by the way the writers portrayed Queen Whatshername’s descent into murder and darkness, check out the long, slow, tragic journey that Trish Walker makes from Beloved Celebrity Who Pulled Her Live Together into a Villain Who Thinks She’s Doing Right. Trish is all the worst instincts of the superhero genre, and because it all comes from her, and from the depths of her character, it never feels like a cheap commentary.

What I’m saying is, the last season of Jessica Jones might not have been the MCU/Netflix signoff/victory lap/low-budget Endgame remix that people expected, but it’s excellent in its own right.

C.B. Strike Series 1-3

I liked the books (I like private eye novels) and I liked the shows. Things are shortened and simplified, obviously, but these are solid PI stories.

What puts them above (and warrants mention here) is Robin’s subplot throughout. She has always wanted to be an investigator of some kind, and has everything stacked against her. But she is determined.

And I loved it. Everyone who has ever worked really hard for a dream that seemed unreachable ought to feel that pull. It’s a small part of the series, but it’s what put that show over the top.

Tolkien

Two terrific scenes, a bunch of great performances, and an otherwise dull movie.

Doctor Who Season 11

I’d given up on this show years ago, but thought I’d give it another shot with a new show runner and actress in the lead role. Verdict: I liked it. Very little frantic nonsense, a fair amount of actual drama and tension. We’ll be watching more of this.

Us

Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Wow. Loved it. I guessed the twist pretty early, but I loved it.

The Boys Season 1

I didn’t like the comic so I was planning to skip the show, but enough people liked it that I gave it a chance, and I’m glad I did. Like the comic, it was dark but not in a childish way. The characters felt real, and so did their problems. If you don’t mind stories about violence, murder, and sexual assault, The Boys was effective.

Hannah Season 1

Based on the movie, which was decidedly more ruthless and brutal than the show. It’s one of the rare spy shows where the characters did things that were better than what I’d expected. Solid stuff.

Boom.

Done.

The Kickstarter campaign for additional Twenty Palaces novels is still ongoing, but it ends Friday. You have until then to secure two books for a minimum of $4.

Til Happiness Do Us Part: Healthy Relationships and Dramatic Tension

This post contains minor spoilers for Jessica Jones S3 and Stranger Things S3 along with huge, misery-making spoilers for Veronica Mars S4. The stuff I want to talk about in JJ or ST happen in the first episode, but with VM I’m going to talk about the Big Important Ending.

Spoiler space.

A little more spoiler space.

And a jump:

When I did my recent post running odds on the possible plot twists in the third season of Stranger Things, I got one thing wrong. No, wait. I got everything wrong. But I got one thing really really wrong. I thought there was no way the Duffers would split up Mike and El after keeping them apart for so long. I thought their relationship would hold throughout the season.

And, yeah. That didn’t happen. At all. They start off as a couple but are broken up by the end of the first episode. It’s a smart choice, not just because they use the split as a source of conflict, but because it puts the characters (especially El) in new situations that let them grow. Splitting the Big Couple on the show: wise decision.

With Jessica Jones, the choice is less interesting. She ends S2 with Oscar, the hot single dad upstairs, enjoying a dinner and “connecting with people”, which is a thing she’s had trouble doing. It’s what you call “character growth”. At the start of S3, hot single dad’s adorable kid is still around, but in the first episode (or is it the second?) Oscar puts their relationship out of its misery.

Why? Oscar breaks up with Jessica because the show needs to reset her to her default. She needs to be alone, unhappy, occasionally hooking up with guys in bars, and basically alienated from the world around her. That’s the Jessica the show is about, and while Stranger Things is letting its characters grow and change (not that they could hold those kids back), Jessica Jones is like its comic book inspiration. It wants to reset the character for each season.

Which means, naturally, that all the trauma she went through during the 13 episodes of season two–and all of the change she earned–had to be wiped away.

And then you get to the end of the fourth season of Veronica Mars, where Veronica and Logan finally get married. Rob Thomas gives them a small but happy wedding, then he takes it away by straight up killing Logan with a bomb before the honeymoon.

Why is Logan, one of the most interesting characters on the show, killed off? According to Rob Thomas, it’s to transition from… well, I’ll let him explain.

“And if we kept doing a show that was half teenage soap and half mystery show, the fear is it would start feeling like nostalgia.” — Rob Thomas

So, in order to move away from soap opera aspects of the show, he… murdered the star’s husband on their honeymoon?

Yeah. Okay.

Look, I’m not what you’d call a huge fan of the Veronica/Logan relationship. Logan was introduced as a villain in the first couple of episodes. After he smashed Veronica’s headlights in the second episode, he was supposed to be written out. But Jason Dohring was so good–and there was so much energy between him and Kristin Bell–that they kept bring him back. He beat people up. He said racist shit. He was a complete asshole.

But as I’ve said before, it’s the job of a TV show, long term, to change the characters. The sweet and virtuous make dark choices. The evil pricks get a tragic backstory and a shot at redemption. Logan was one of those pricks, and I thought his character needed a lot more time to rehabilitate himself before he became the romantic lead. Their first kiss gave me a Buffy and Spike vibe, because it felt like a self-destructive mistake. And the third season was absolutely a headache of soap opera love triangles, with way too much angst given to the relationship.

Boyfriends are conflict machines, right? Well, maybe.

“The happy pairing off of the leads of the show usually marks the end of the show” — Rob Thomas

I think Thomas has over-learned the lesson of shows like Moonlighting. If the central question of a show is “Will they or won’t they?” as it was in Moonlighting and Cheers, then the writers know there’s a limited time that you can sustain the tension in that. Eventually, fans tire of it, so it has to be answered. And usually, it’s answered in the positive because that’s what the fans want. After that, you need a new question to sustain the show.

Apparently, there are lots of Stranger Things fans who have hoped that Joyce Byers and Jim Hopper will get together, and the Duffers played with that expectation all through season three, sometimes in ways that made me really uncomfortable. Those two have a “Will they/Won’t they” dynamic, but it’s a small subplot on a very busy show.

But “Will they or won’t they?” has never been the question behind the Veronica/Logan relationship. Their conflict has always been about trust. Veronica could never trust anyone because she’d seen so much betrayal in her personal and professional life. Logan was a “TV Bad Boy”(tm) who did shit he shouldn’t, like skipping class to go lift, or bagging out on a date to hit a casino. That was their drama. That evaporated by the time we got to the movie, which ended with the “happy” circumstance of 1) Veronica back to work at Mars Investigations and 2) Veronica back together with an older, more mature version of Logan. If there’d never been any more Veronica Mars after that, (not counting the inevitable failed remakes) we would have gotten a fitting end for the character.

Now that Hulu ordered season four and might go for more:

“I think there’s a reason that shows are over once the two romantic leads get together happily. That’s because there’s very little to mine there. Fans don’t like it if I break apart a marriage, but where’s the stuff of drama?” [Rob] Thomas says. “And if I’m going to send out Veronica on these cases, what am I doing with Logan in these episodes? Unless you’re playing a soap, what do I have to do with the husband or boyfriend of my detective? Even in these eight episodes, I had to work pretty hard to get Logan even tangentially involved in the case. I think if I keep trying to do that in future installments, it would feel phony.”

First of all, I’m not tremendously sympathetic to “It was hard” arguments. Yes, it is. It always is.

Here’s a quick list of all the things that Jason Dohring does that’s great fun in the show and that I would have been happy to see for several more seasons:

* beating up assholes

* obscure quotes

* hiding his pain

* appearing in uniform (my wife suggested that one)

* being onscreen with Kristin Bell, b/c chemistry

* questioning the risks Veronica takes

* convincing a white nationalist to confess to a crime

Oh wait, that last one establishes that Logan has some investigative skills. Naval Intelligence, you say? Maybe they shouldn’t have to work so hard to involve him in cases after all.

Second, Veronica manages to have plenty of relationships that are “happy” but also produce some (or a lot of) drama. She gets along with her dad, doesn’t she? She gets along with Wallace and Mac. All of those relationships create conflict, but nobody thinks they should cut those characters because the relationship is healthy. It’s only the romance that is supposed to be a misery-factory. Because reasons.

I guess you could make an argument that Conflict-Logan is one of the engines that drive the drama in the show, but Supportive-Logan is redundant with Keith, Wallace, and (hopefully) Mac around. But I’m not buying it.

Look, if you want Logan to be part of the show, be in a happy relationship, and still provide conflict, then why don’t you make the main mystery in season five (assuming there is one) involve the military in some way. Logan can access information that Veronica needs, but he risks a court martial if he does it. Boom. You have conflict and drama, and you have a stable loving relationship, too.

Anyway, it’s sort of weird to talk about this, especially since I thought the romantic relationship between the two characters felt wrong until the film. But the idea that the main character becomes boring (or the show is over) once they enter a happy, stable relationship seems fundamentally wrong.

In novels, for example, the expectation is completely different. Readers want the main drama to be full of conflict and tension and whatever, but you need scenes where the protagonist gets to have quiet, comforting moments the people that care about them.

There’s no reason a marriage can’t be that. Shows like this live and die based on the relationships between the characters. There was no good reason to throw one away.

I liked that the show makes Veronica the one with the problems in this season. She’s self-destructive and repressed and she loves Logan but she’s driving him away with her bullshit. At the end, she moves past that, got over her hangups, and made a way forward that would have let her be a new character.

Except that the show, in trying to shed the “teen soap” elements, changed the format of the show but forced the main character back to what she was before. Like Jessica Jones, they hit reset.

Seems like a weird choice.

Also, people should cast Jason Dohring in things. Percy Daggs III, too, and the rest of the supporting cast. Put them in stuff. They’re great.