Stephen Graham Jones's Blog, page 270

The Wheelman Cometh

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Man, went into Drive fully prepared for Steve McQueen to be powershifting through the city, fully psyched for that chase scene from Ronin to get dilated out to ninety minutes, was ready for some Gone in 60 Seconds (the remake) fun, so long as it didn't get as goofy as The Fast and the Furious(es) or xXx. To Drive's credit, too, it never even approaches that level of stunt-ridiculousness. But still, it's called "Drive," right? An imperative sentence, not just a description. I mean, Drive Angry, say—in that, Nicholas Cage really does drive angry, doesn't he? And in Crash, there's a crash. And, yes, in Drive, there is some cool driving, but it's not the centerpiece, it isn't what the story's shaping itself around. As it should be. No, what Drive is arranging itself around is Ryan Gosling's nameless character, a carburetor priest of a stuntman who moonlights as getaway driver for whoever's got the money, and, though the movie opens with his voice, it's minutes before we hear it again. So, yeah, that's some easy to remember dialogue, I guess—at least to this non-actor that's what it seems like—but, too, that's not to say Gosling's not communicating the whole time, with grins, lookaways, his toothpick, his posture, all of it. It's that kind of meaningful silence you always get from the gunfighter who just wondered into town, is now having to set things right. Which is pretty much the case here (thumbnail: this driver's got a crush on his neighbor, signs onto a bad  . . . → → →

Pics from the wild

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first is a bookstore window here in Boulder (Innisfree), second a friend shot to me from Virginia, I think.

Ones That Got Away: e-vailable

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at Amazon, B&N, maybe other places I don't know to look.

The Floating Dead

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A while back I was part of the cattle call for what became this article, and just found myself looking this email up as a student was coming to my office to talk about ghosts. So I figured it'd be good if I could see again what I think about them (I know nothing until I write it down, and then, because it's written down, I don't need to try to remember it). Anyway, couple of friends — Laird Barron, Paul Tremblay — got in the article, so all's good and well. Except of course that there are ghosts. And this is how I talk about them: If you write ghost fiction, why do you do so? Yeah, I write them sometimes. Because they make the world magic. The premise under every ghost story is that there's more to this world than we think we know. We're not as alone as what we thought. Sure, after an encounter with this or that ghost, we might wish we were alone, but the thing to remember is that if there's terrifying immaterial things like ghosts, then that's wedging the door open, allowing all kinds of other stuff through as well. And some of it's bound to be good. Maybe there's a unicorn over there as well. What appeals to you about the form? I like the rational resistance characters — as our avatars — always initially have towards ghosts, and then their slow acceptance. That little arc of realization is inherently dramatic, is tailored for fiction. And  . . . → → →

Couple of Anthologies

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I've got stuff showing up in: Amazing Stories of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and And IDW's Zombies vs. Robots. And Creatures! is already orderable.

Fantasy Matters

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My "I Was Genre When Genre Wasn't Cool" (another Barbara Mandrell ode) is up at the very cool Fantasy Matters. also, I'm reading on the Hill here in Boulder tonight, at Innisfree.

Bibliobabes

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A cool write-up of The Ones That Got Away over at Bibliobabes.

Ding-Dong, You're Dead

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So what if the rats of NIMH got a taste for human flesh? Or, not flesh, exactly, but I don't want to give anything away. In the way of hints, though, how about: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark doesn't not have something to do with Darkness Falls. Where it separates itself, though, is quality. No, this isn't quite The Orphanage, and it's a different genre than Pan's Labyrinth, and we've all seen the 1973 original, know that The Gate might have borrowed a thing or two from it (in the best possible way, of course—The Gate rocks), but still, as far as a pretty solid haunted house story, Dark's got what it takes: Stupid people, driven by greed A house you could tell was haunted just by using Google Earth A kid with issues Really, drop those three in a bag, shake well, and what you pour out, it'll be a haunted house story. And of course Dark returns to all the stock characters you have to have to properly iterate through a haunted house story: The disbeliever (Micah, anyone?) The caretaker (they're always knowledgeable about this house, and make the right obeisances in order to keep surviving, even unto generations. Think Burgess Meredith in Burnt Offerings) A completely ineffective 'medium' (they take all forms, aren't always like in Poltergeist) That kid from the above list, to, like Jackson's Eleanor, like King's Torrance, 'commune' with the dead (check The Messengers out, say: nowadays, kids are the ones who can 'see' the haunting stuff. But  . . . → → →

The Back of Beyond

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Finished CJ Box's very Hillerman-ey Back of Beyond. Like everything else of his so far, I really dug it, though this one's a lot more straight-ahead thriller than mystery, which is where he usually writes. I'd say it's a (Crais) Hostage, just rural instead of urban. Just as well-paced, though, and very well-written this time, too. Glad he's branching out from the Joe Pickett stuff more and more. I mean, I love Joe, but like Box says at his readings, there's only so much that can believably happen to a guy in one county, right? Or in one lifetime, anyway. It's hard to make Jack Bauer real on the page, I mean. Anyway, if I could be any writer — not just cash their checks, but write where and how they write — I'd be either Box or Joe R. Lansdale, for sure. Though, as Lansdale plays across all the genres and mediums, I'd probably sidle his way a bit more. Or, with Box, it's got to feel a little constrictive, I suspect, writing for a mystery audience demographic that you can so well guess the politics of (I'm not generalizing about all mystery readers, of which I'm one, but about his mystery readers (of which I'm also a rabid one)). And, if you want to keep those book buyers, you agree with them rather than challenging them, yes? You have to appear to have the same values, anyway — just small stuff, like, in this novel, how the old cowpoke is the obvious good guy,  . . . → → →

Lazy Fascist and Zombie Bake-Off

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remember in It's Alive when that monster baby's born and just chews his way through the delivery room? or when Victor von shouts to the heavens that It's alive! It's alive! thinking something like that for this. been waiting a long time for Zombie Bake-Off to become the kind of real people can see on a shelf, swallow into their heads. so, like the monkey said when its tail got caught in the lawnmower: Won't be long now. Click here for the announcement. And this is my original post about ZBO, back in 2007. There used to be images in that post, too, I think, but the hack killed them, looks like. Something like this, though: