Harry Connolly's Blog, page 34

RIP Jeff Rice, a month late

It’s strange for me to sit here and type out a short post about Jeff Rice and the effect he had on me. You see, I have never read one of his books.

However, his unpublished novel became one of the best horror TV movies of all time, THE NIGHT STALKER. If the sequel and the TV series never quite reached the heights of that first movie, it still set a precedent that horror TV shows follow today. We wouldn’t have The X-Files without Carl Kolchak, and although Richard Matheson wrote the script, Jeff Rice created the story.

From reports, he had a troubled life, and that successful movie and show never translated into other kinds of success. He died just over a month ago, and few covered it.

Still, he created a character I love.

If you’ve never seen any Kolchak–or you’ve only seen the TV series–get your hands on the original movie. It’s beautifully structured and incredibly effective, considering the constraints it was made under.

Rest in Peace, Jeff Rice. thanks.

Okay, voice. How do you do that?

Someone asked me a followup question about last Friday’s post called What I learned reading debut novels, in which I talked about an exercise Miss Snark gave us: spend a year (or a few months, I guess) reading recent debut novels.

I did that, and the only thing they had in common (as far as I could tell) was a strong voice.

There’s more about it at the far end of that link above.

Anyway, someone asked me the question in the subject header, and I surprised myself by having a ready answer. This has been on my mind a lot lately, but I only just then realized what I’d learned. And it’s pretty simple:

Ask yourself how the point of view character and/or the narrator feels about the events of the book, and reflect that in the text in an interesting way.

That’s how I do it, anyway.

I used to work at Amazon, too

A lot about this NYTimes article, Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace, seemed familiar to me. I worked at Amazon.com for a little while, in the late nineties when the Seattle fulfillment center was their only one.

I was temp-to-hire, which meant I was a temporary employee packing books into boxes or whatever, and if they liked my work they would offer me a permanent position. They did like my work. They did make that offer. I turned them down.

Here’s the thing: it was October, and the supervisors running our section were all gung-ho about the company. Real cheerleaders, and I just assumed it was an act. We were all standing in front of a terribly-inefficient packing machine, and they kept talking about giving our all. For a bullshit warehouse job.

Then one day in October, one of the supervisors stands on a box or something and gives us this lecture about the upcoming holidays. I guess it was supposed to be a coach’s halftime talk or something, but she was telling us that Christmas was going to be hugely busy, and it was “going to be like a war in here,” and that we should be ready to put our personal lives on hold.

My first thought was Fuck you.

My second thought was that she was joking.

When I realized my second thought was wrong, I knew I wasn’t going to stay.

At that point, I’d been with my then-girlfriend, now-wife for a few years, and one thing I’d learned was that she had no intention of being a career widow. If I was planning to ignore her over the Christmas holidays, she would never stay.

And besides, fuck that. Amazon.com wasn’t my company. I just worked there. I had people in my life, and my writing, and was I really supposed to put all that on hold so Jeff Bezos could create his dream company?

Eventually, one of the supervisors pulled me aside to offer me a job (because let’s face it, I’m a good worker) and I told him I wasn’t going to accept because I could never be part of Amazon’s culture. I could never be yay-gung-ho over a day job.

He instantly deflated, going from upbeat to morose, and we talked for a while about not really knowing where we belong and not knowing where we could make a future for ourselves.

I think about that guy sometimes. I hope he’s happy.

Anyway, Amazon is one of the reasons that Seattle has such a thriving economy, but I’d never want to work there myself. Check out this quote from the article:

A woman who had thyroid cancer was given a low performance rating after she returned from treatment. She says her manager explained that while she was out, her peers were accomplishing a great deal. Another employee who miscarried twins left for a business trip the day after she had surgery. “I’m sorry, the work is still going to need to get done,” she said her boss told her. “From where you are in life, trying to start a family, I don’t know if this is the right place for you.”

A woman who had breast cancer was told that she was put on a “performance improvement plan” — Amazon code for “you’re in danger of being fired” — because “difficulties” in her “personal life” had interfered with fulfilling her work goals. Their accounts echoed others from workers who had suffered health crises and felt they had also been judged harshly instead of being given time to recover.

A former human resources executive said she was required to put a woman who had recently returned after undergoing serious surgery, and another who had just had a stillborn child, on performance improvement plans, accounts that were corroborated by a co-worker still at Amazon.

“Put your personal life on hold.”

“Put your personal life on hold.”

My personal life IS my life, and it’s the only one I get. I’m not wasting it to make some obnoxious super-libertarian richer than he already is.

Randomness for 8/15

1) How One Misunderstanding in the 1870s Created an Entire Sci-Fi Subgenre

2) Every state flag is wrong, and here is why.

3) Someone is setting hipster traps in New York.

4) An “accomplished writer” takes James Patterson’s “Masterclass.”

5) What if Werner Hertzog directed Ant-Man?

6) Architects crowdfund to build £1.85 billion Minas Tirith in England.

7) I read NPR’s 100 best sff novels and they were shockingly offensive. Nothing to argue with here.

What I learned reading debut novels

Ten years ago when I was trying to write publishable books, I did what Miss Snark suggested: I read a bunch of debut novels.

— Dark Userpic (@byharryconnolly) August 14, 2015

Remember Miss Snark? So much great advice.

— Dark Userpic (@byharryconnolly) August 14, 2015

Anyway, she suggested that we read a bunch of recent debut novels and work out what they all had in common. So I did. It was voice.

— Dark Userpic (@byharryconnolly) August 14, 2015

Sometimes the characters were thin or changeable. Sometimes the plot was predictable or the setting made no sense.

— Dark Userpic (@byharryconnolly) August 14, 2015

But there was always a strong voice.

Write with a strong distinctive voice, and let the rest follow.

— Dark Userpic (@byharryconnolly) August 14, 2015

Not that any particular voice is going to have universal appeal. I’m a big fan of Richard Stark’s novels, although I can understand why many people wouldn’t be, and A Clockwork Orange is an amazing exercise in voice, probably one of the most outre examples. Then again, I stopped reading Kushiel’s Dart at the word “fustian” because I wanted to read a certain voice and that so wasn’t it.

Voice. It matters.

What I learned from reading debut novels

Ten years ago when I was trying to write publishable books, I did what Miss Snark suggested: I read a bunch of debut novels.

— Dark Userpic (@byharryconnolly) August 14, 2015

Remember Miss Snark? So much great advice.

— Dark Userpic (@byharryconnolly) August 14, 2015

Anyway, she suggested that we read a bunch of recent debut novels and work out what they all had in common. So I did. It was voice.

— Dark Userpic (@byharryconnolly) August 14, 2015

Sometimes the characters were thin or changeable. Sometimes the plot was predictable or the setting made no sense.

— Dark Userpic (@byharryconnolly) August 14, 2015

But there was always a strong voice.

Write with a strong distinctive voice, and let the rest follow.

— Dark Userpic (@byharryconnolly) August 14, 2015

Not that any particular voice is going to have universal appeal. I’m a big fan of Richard Stark’s novels, although I can understand why many people wouldn’t be, and A Clockwork Orange is an amazing exercise in voice, probably one of the most outre examples. Then again, I stopped reading Kushiel’s Dart at the word “fustian” because I wanted to read a certain voice and that so wasn’t it.

Voice. It matters.

Zombies Beat Orcs: Persistent Racism in Fandom

I’m about to run out the door and do some writing, but first let me drop this link from Toby Buckell: Yes, Virginia, people of color do fucking read SF/F

First of all, why write a post asking “Where Are All The People of Color in Sci-Fi/Fantasy?” in this day and age? They’re out there, and easily found for anyone willing to make the extreme effort of searching with google.

But the post I’m linking addresses a particular comment, which is emblematic of a number of shitty zombie arguments that continue to be made. At this point in history, we ought to be addressing the institutional and subconscious aspects of racism. We ought to be long past this sort of white supremacy. But we’re not. These beliefs just won’t stay dead, no matter how many times they’re buried in evidence that refutes it.

And every time I think “I should get more involved with sf/f fandom” I read something like this and just go back to my writing.

The Kid Curates His Own Homeschool Reading List (thx to reddit)

A couple of days ago, I tweeted this:

My son discovered “reddit’s favorite books” and wants me to buy some for him. One hand: YAY reading! Other hand: #100 is Mein Kampf.

— Dark Userpic (@byharryconnolly) August 8, 2015

That’s very reddit of you, reddit. Anyway, he’s only curious about books Hitler didn’t write.

— Dark Userpic (@byharryconnolly) August 8, 2015

Here’s the list of reddit’s 100 favorite books. There’s some good mixed in with a lot of not so good, just like reddit, but he wanted to know which of those books we had in our apartment. That, naturally, led me to search through my bookshelves, which lead to this:

I'm the king of buying books I already own.

— Dark Userpic (@byharryconnolly) August 10, 2015

My wife is an enthusiast. When she sees something exciting, she commits, and the idea that our son would return to reading in a big way had her tearing through our shelves looking for books on the list to give him. And if there we didn’t have a particular book but did have something else by the author, that got tossed into the mix, too.

It’s dangerous. As much as I love her passion, I know it can over run someone else’s tentative interest in a thing in the same way a hurricane will blow out a camp fire. So we don’t have The Unbearable Lightness of Being but that doesn’t mean you can toss The Last Temptation of Christ on the pile. And you don’t just add some Marshall McLuhan because you think it’s worthy and he ought to be interested. And I’m sorry, but you can’t substitute Dhalgren for Dune.

Anyway, while she’s at work, I’ve gone through the stacks she’s put together and set aside the books that aren’t on the list. Books not on the list by authors who are have been placed nearby, but except when they aren’t. And LOTR… well, I’m not going to bother.

For a few years, he’s hated the idea of reading anything, and did so only for homeschool assignment. Resentfully. Recently, he’s been reading ebooks of Japanese “light novels.” Then he found the list, realized we had the #1 book on the shelf, and grabbed it.

When I gave that book to him a couple years ago, he rolled his eyes, read a few pages, then pushed it away. When reddit recommends it, he’s in love.

And that’s fine. I knew he would turn around at some point. Now we just have to nurture this interest instead of vomiting a reading list on him.

Guest post for Jim C. Hines, re: replacing willpower and discipline with apps

Just a quick note that I wrote up a blog post for Jim C. Hines’s space, about apps people use to block the internet while they work.

Jim is leaving his day job soon, and a few of us are writing about living the life without other employment. Like a lot of writers, I produced less when I first went “full time” (not that I was ever full time) until I worked out a new system that replaced my rigidly structured days. Check it out.

“He is a man with a metal face”

I haven’t seen the new FF movie and I’m not going to–at least, not until it turns up on Netflix Instant or as a dvd on my library shelves–so I’m not going to comment on the film itself. There’s been some commentary on the film that’s more than fair game, though, because they’re making general statements about storytelling.

For example, this: The ‘Fantastic Four’ Reboot Proves There’s No Way to Make a Good ‘Fantastic Four’ Movie from Screencrush.

I’m going to state right up front that I think this premise is stupid. First, just because something hasn’t been done doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Second, if a film sucks, it’s not because you can’t make a good film with those characters. It’s the people who create the stories who have failed. You can make a great (or at least a solid) story from pretty much any character; it’s all in the execution.

There’s currently an ongoing discussion about a Christian inspirational romance set during a concentration camp during the Holocaust, with many people saying the book is deeply, deeply terrible. But does that mean there’s no way to tell a story about a relationship between a woman in a concentration camp and a high-ranking Nazi officer? Absolutely not. It could be done, but you’d probably not want the “Jewess” converting to Christianity at the end.

Execution is important.

Let me quote briefly from that FF review:

He is a man with a metal face obscuring his mouth and rendering him incapable of facial expressions — particularly unfortunate given Toby Kebbell’s incredible acting range. But this is Doctor Doom’s costume, and reimagined or no, his face will always be covered with metal.

Would covering it with plastic have been better? Because Darth Vader was a perfectly excellent villain. Indeed, his mask has become iconic. Lord Humungous from The Road Warrior was as successful, but it would anyone really say he wasn’t an effective villain? I’m sure everyone will be shocked to hear that The Phantom of the Opera sucks, too.

Frankly, yes, the best and cheapest special effect a movie can have is an actor’s face, but masks have been an effective part of performance for centuries. Asserting otherwise is just ignorant.

Next:

Similarly, the powers of the Four are inherently silly — Reed Richards becomes Mr. Fantastic, with Stretch Armstrong-like abilities; Sue Storm becomes the Invisible Woman, able to render herself and other objects invisible and create force fields; Johnny Storm becomes the Human Torch, capable of flaming on and off at will and using his ability to fly very fast; Ben Grimm becomes the Thing, a hulking pile of rocks.

Each of the Fantastic Four films have been unable to avoid how utterly comical these powers are.

First of all, the FF’s powers are based on the four elements: stone, fire, air, water. Sue’s “invisible force fields” are basically barriers made from solid air, and Reed’s body is like a very thick fluid. Compared to most comic book characters, that’s almost thematically coherent.

Second of all, FF is no more absurd than a space viking with a magic hammer or a billionaire who dresses like Dracula and throws sharp pieces of metal at mentally ill people.

Still, there are people who do not respond well to fantasy elements in a story; it’s fairly common and I’m not sure why I should care about their opinions. Yes, a man made out of rocks is absurd. Dog fights in outer space are absurd. Killer ghosts are absurd. Kung fu fighting in a virtual reality world are absurd. All these elements can still be effective cinema.

The real problem here is that the author of the piece can’t think of a way to do it well, therefore she assumes it can’t be done.

Anyway, I’m not even sure why I’m weighing in on this: I’ve never really liked the Fantastic Four. They’re okay, but they’re not the sort of characters I like simply because of the characters. They need a great creative team behind them or the whole thing feels sort of dull and/or annoying.

And you didn’t ask for my advice, but: Set it in the 60’s, skip the origin story, make Dr. Doom a tyrant with his own country, and make them fight a giant monster/Doombot army at the end, to avoid the whole four-against-one thing in the final fight.