Meanwhile…

Have you gotten your subscription to the excellent KC’s serial novel yet? Well, why not? You can even get it at a discount, for now.

Incidentally, I finally got a smart phone (because that’s basically the only option you have any more), and Every Day Fiction just became exponentially more awesome. I can read these little stories on my phone via my email on my lunch break and it’s never been more convenient. And those are free. The other day there was a story by a 17-year-old girl woman that made me wonder why I still bother.

I have obtained (legally, natch) Louie CK’s new self-produced stand-up special. Hey, record labels? This is the sound of your obsolescence. And it is hilarious.

(Actually, the spawn makes it uncertain when I’ll actually get to watch said special, but that’s neither here nor there.)

I am reading China Miéville’s Embassytown, one of the several books I picked up at the Borders Estate sale. It’s great, you should read it. It’s about xenolinguistics. And smashing the state.

Buh. I am tired.

My traitorous wife went to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes without me. She reports satisfaction with the proceedings. I hear from other trusted sources that the new Conan fares not nearly so well, which, while not unexpected, makes me sad.

At the suggestion of a friend, I have read House of Suns, by Alistair Reynolds. It’s good. There are a lot of big, high-concept science fiction ideas going on there, rendered in a fun fashion. I loved the ending. I thought the narrative structure would be awkward at first, being told in first person from two different characters, but it worked out well. If I have a complaint, it’s that there are too many scenes of people sitting around hashing out every potential option, outcome, motivation, and course of action.

Yes, we are aware that if they wanted to they could have killed you already.

But I enjoyed it nonetheless.

I have now started in on one of Lois McMaster Bujold’s space opera books, and am chugging through it at break-neck speeds. Fantastic. Fun. Recommended. Though maybe you should research and see which one to start out with first. I picked one at random and for all I know I’m spoiling the rest for myself. Actually, a glance at the reviews there on Amazon suggests that this actually is a good place to start.

I am working on a couple of stories. I seem fascinated with compressing epics into something bite-sized. Epic flash. Epic burst? I dunno. I’ll see if it works. I still have a couple of stories out for consideration, and will report back their failures in due time.

So someone decided this was the official month of the Short Story. You should go read some!

But where to start, you ask? You can start here.

I just finished up Dawryn Cooke’s Richard Stark’s Parker: The Outfit. Crime fiction comics at its finest. This is volume two in the series, so I’d recommend picking up The Hunter first, though this was a stronger book, in my opinion. So, so good. I don’t always agree with Cooke’s views on the comics industry, but the man can draw and tell a story.

It also made excellent bedtime reading for the kid. At this rate she’ll be running grifts on me at age three.

You should also read friend Stephanie’s new story here.

Oh, I almost forgot: China Miéville is doing a webcomic of sorts over at his blog.

My flash piece about one of the many dangers of workplace romance is now available over at A Thousand Faces.

You’re going to need a hardhat.

Let me know what you think!

I have also written a Christmas story. If all goes well, you may be able to read it in a few weeks. If not, I’ll have to hang on to it and try to sell it next year, since I didn’t write it until yesterday. Christmas holiday themed things have a rather narrow window of only about half a year, you know.

I’ve finished reading Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart, and it is quite good. It’s like 1984, but with the past 20 years of pop culture, the internet, and pretty recent political hullabaloo thrown in. Hyped as a hilarious satire, I actually didn’t find it all that hilarious. Amusing, sure, but not laugh-out-loud funny. It’s an excellent read for other reasons, though, so I give it a hearty recommendation.

(And I don’t mean to put down Shteyngart’s comedic skills – I’ve heard him on NPR and he’s a brilliantly funny guy. I just didn’t think humor was Super Sad True Love Story‘s strength.)

The Sad is what’s most vital to the book, I think. In a way it’s overreacting to certain things – the belief that language is dying, for example, something you hear a lot but is largely nonsense. But other things are dead on, like how everyone is obsessed and addicted to their iPhone equivalent, and how the US economy is based pretty much entirely on us buying that useless crap. Maybe the book is funnier than I thought, and I couldn’t see it because that sort of thing annoys me so much.

Now I’m rereading Salman Rushdie’s Fury, which I read years ago and have thoroughly forgotten. It is very funny. Also funny – my wife and I spotted him in New York City on our honeymoon. My wife is so awesome at spotting celebrities she can pick Salman Rushdie out of a crowd at the Museum of Natural History. This is her super power. Even she doesn’t even know how she does it.

Unwritten, Vol. 2,  by Mike Carey and Peter Gross. Excellent stuff. Did I mention Unwritten before? It’s about this guy whose dad wrote a series of Harry Potter-style boy wizard books, and he’s living off his father’s fame. Then the lines between the books and the real world begin to blur, with some pretty horrendous consequences.

The Plain Janes, by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg, from DC’s now-defunct Minx line of comics. Nothing that will blow your mind, but I enjoyed it. There’s some cute art stuff going on. I’m seeing some reviews now complaining about one-dimensional characters and it’s hard to argue with them.

Old Man Logan, by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven. There are a couple of stories that the X-Men do really well, and bleak, horrible futures is one of them. Stories where the heroes failed and are now all dead or otherwise gone always bother me at a fundamental level, but they’re still fun. I guess it’s good to see why we need them. McNiven’s art is incredible.

Irredeemable, vol. 2, by Mark Waid and Peter Krause. Mark Waid has always been one of my favorite writers, and he’s still got it. This series about the world’s most powerful superhero gone bad, killing his former friends, enemies, and millions of innocent civilians keeps taking unexpected turns.

I finally got around to watching Fantastic Mr. Fox, which is, ahem, fantastic. It’s up there with Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, my favorite Wes Anderson movies. If you’ve been as negligent as I, you should check it out.

I thought this was pretty interesting, if not surprising in the least. I note a lot of people excusing it based on the time period. Don’t get me wrong, I have no trouble labeling past generations as being dirtbags, it’s just amazing to me that people could be complete assholes and not even realize it, regardless of the time frame. Today a woman can at least look forward to being sneered at from behind closed doors.

Finished up Little Brother and thought I was quite good. There are times where he perhaps goes into too much detail and history, turning some chapters into infomercials about cryptography or hacking. But overall it’s a successful book. Little Brother is the sort of art we should have seen more of during the Bush administration, and reminded me of a lot of my own anger and frustration during those post-9/11 years. Anger and frustration that, aside from a few attempts that were generally ignored or shouted down by either the right or a corrupted media that is more interested in keeping the country at its own throat than informed, went largely unexpressed.

Eh. I could go on, but I fear I haven’t the time at the moment. Also it’s too early for me to think this deeply. I do wish I could make it to this, though.

The Etched City started off strong, then I started to lose interest and swapped for Little Brother. I’ll give it another go.

Oh, I have an article out next Monday over at the Flash Fiction Chronicle. I will, of course, post here when it is live.

I’ve begun work on what could possibly be a very exciting webcomic project. More details when it is closer to reality. I’ve always wanted to write comics, but never found an artist who would stick with it long enough to make them a reality. I think that’s about to change!

And finally, I am occasionally poking at a collection of (what I’d consider) my best short fiction to date. I’ll include some extras, like a dose of my hint fiction and, if I can manage it, a few illustrations from some of my far more talented artsy friends. I would like to have that out by the end of the year.

And finally finally, in case you didn’t know, my wife and I are expecting our first child, who should be on bookshelves this December. Spoiler Alert: It’s a girl.

So yeah, lots going on.

I just read a couple of volume Is that I thought were pretty great.

First up was Four Eyes, by Joe Kelly and Max Fiumara. I’ve liked Joe Kelly’s stuff since the late ’90s, when he wrote a criminally overlooked run of Daredevil. More recently I’ve been reading his creator-owned stuff. (I can’t recall if I talked about I Kill Giants here, but if I didn’t you should check that out if you get a chance; it’s fantastic and touching piece of magical realism.)

Four Eyes is about a young man named Enrico, who lives in a 1930s New York where dragons are real and forced to fight in brutal, illegal dog-fight style matches while gamblers bet on them in a desperate attempt to alleviate their Depression woes.

If you need more than that I’m not sure why you’re even here. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and hope to see more. There’s a lot of potential in the setting, and the art is excellent. At the moment I think this is all there is, with the future of the series uncertain. But it works pretty well on its own, so if we never get any more I won’t feel like I’ve been left with a cliffhanger.

Next was Sweet Tooth, by Jeff Lemire. A post-apocalypse setting in which a plague has wiped out much of humanity, the story follows Gus, who is among a new breed of human-animal hybrids who are immune to the plague but hunted by surviving humans. This first volume hints at a lot more going on in the world than simple survival. Isolated for years from the harsh, shattered world, Gus is a voice of hope and innocence in a dark fairy tale.

Sweet Tooth is coming out regularly, so I’m looking forward to the next trade.

(but not the wasting kind…wait, they’re both sort of the wasting kind aren’t they?)

Watched Inception over the weekend. Amazing!

Also watched the first couple episodes of “Louie.” Greatness. And thus Louis CK gets added to the pile of people to whom my wife compares me (a distinguished list that also includes Ricky Gervais and Larry David). I just have more hair.

I’m like Serpentor, if his DNA had been culled from and hilariously awkward comedians.

Reading-wise, I just finished up Michael Moorcock’s A Nomad of the Time Streams trilogy. It was a quick read, and a lot of fun. The stories get increasingly darker as you progress through the three books, which are essentially Moorcock’s deconstruction of Imperialism. I highly recommend them.

I’m chugging through China Miéville’s The Scar now, and it is as usual incredible. I picked up another fantasy book, a new book by a new writer (I think) at the same time, purely on impulse, but didn’t make it far. I will itemize the following rules for prospective fantasy writers:

• I should be able to tell the difference between the name of a person and the name of a city, artifact, or creature.
• There should not be a made-up word in every single paragraph.
• I no longer care about royalty (did I ever, I wonder?) or who/whatever else rules the kingdom.

I finished a story over the weekend, worked at it to get it to an easily sell-able flash length, then realized it is only the end of a story, and probably needs a good thousand words prior to where I start. Such is the life of a fiction writer.

Erin has a new story up over at Every Day Fiction. It went up on the 4th, and is about the failings of democracy! Check it out.

And in honor of yesterday, happy birthday you poor, deluded, doomed nation.