Writing

I really enjoy writing. I guess my style would fall into science fiction pretty well, but I think I fall into more old school SF and not the contemporary stuff. Well, whatever right? The point is that this year I've completed some work and brushed it up a bit and I'm going to showcase it in a limited fashion this December.

I like writing a blog, but blogging is honking easy. You just write off the cuff and you really can't write anything wrong. Trousers! See, that declaration seems to fit into this mode pretty well, but can you just imagine if all of a sudden, during the council scene in Fellowship of the Rings, Gimli were to shout out "Trousers!" at Boromir? It just wouldn't fit. Agent Smith, I mean Elrond, would just shake his head and the Hobbits would start looking around for their scripts and Gandalf would just sit there and cry.

There's a challenge to writing a story, and it not being a whole bucket of suck. Who am I to say whether or not my writing is any good, I don't know, but I will say that it is at least unique. I don't rip off anyone else and call it a remake or a tribute (cough Hollywood), it's my stuff and I enjoy writing it, and I hope someone eventually enjoys reading it.

So here's the deal, every Friday in December, I'm going to post the first 500 words of one of my short stories. I won't be a jerk and cut it off in the middle of a sentence, but I'm not going to post any story in its entirety yet. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet with this stuff, whether it's submit it to short story contests, or maybe even approach a publisher. To be honest, I don't want to even think about publishing until I work out my literary muscles a bit more and have a bit more stuff finished. Still working on improving here.

Keep an eye out for my fiction coming soon. Oh, and please feel free to comment. I'm always looking for input.

White Day

In Japan, Valentine's day is separated into two separate holidays, or three depending on how you count it. It's like Valentine's day has been split between the genders and separated by a month, how very like Japan. Women buy men chocolate on Valentine's day and the men buy gifts for the women on White day. Of course, the gifts men buy are more expensive, but you have a month to decide if you really want to buy this person a gift at all or not, so it kinda works out.

Some things the Japanese do are really super classy, some are really super creepy. Vending machines containing the worn underwear of schoolgirls, creepy. White day, classy. Sure, some of the creepy stuff is so loathsome you want to wash your hands of everything Japanese, but then there is something redeeming that doesn't make you cringe that is cool, and Japanese holidays tend to be like this.

Incidentally, there is a third holiday for singles who didn't receive any gifts on either Valentines or White days. It's called Black Day, and it's a day where singles get together and eat noodles. You'd think that maybe it had something to do with maybe getting gifts the next year on one of those days, but as far as I can tell it's not meant to shed your singleness, just to celebrate being single, and if you're Japanese, that also probably means pathetic and miserable.

Hugh Laurie

Hugh Laurie is coming into his own on American TV, but I've been a Hugh Laurie fan way before House came out. One of the things that made me want to watch House was Hugh Laurie in a starring role. He's been all over British TV and movies before he scored that rad House gig, and he always cracks me up.

You've probably seen him as one of the bad guys on 101 Dalmations, he was the one who didn't play Ron Weasley's dad in the Harry Potter movies. He also got a cool roll in The Man in the Iron Mask. Leonardo DiCaprio had him beheaded; pity it wasn't the other way around.

The epitome of his career, at least in my humble opinion, comes in the episode of of Blackadder goes Forth called Major Star. In it he dresses in drag and plays Georgina, an act in a show for the soldiers. General Melchet falls in love with him and convinces him to marry him. "Chipmunk, I love you." This makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.

Sure, enjoy him on House, I will admit he's great in that show, shoot, I've already written about House, but House is just about the only thing Americans know about Hugh Laurie. I just think he's a great actor over all.

Trains

There is a mystique about trains that I am not immune to. Now, I've only taken one trip by train, and it was only a four hour trip, but it was one of the most enjoyable trips I've ever been on. Something about traveling by train makes a trip seem like traveling is part of the enjoyment instead of just being cramped inside a tiny car.

What did I do on our train trip to Toronto? I read a book. How novel is that (no pun intended)? Four hours there and four back, had an appropriate length book and the gentle sway of the train was not enough to give me a headache while reading. I think I slept some too. How cool is that? Almost all of the places I go I end up driving in a cramped little car, and have to take a day just to recover from the drive. The trip to Toronto was so much more comfortable that it turns me off of cars.

I've often thought I'd like to tool around Europe sipping espresso and riding trains from here to there. Sure, I live in the Metro Detroit area and to talk about trains this way is almost blasphemy, but I'd still like to do it. I kinda wish we had more places we could go by train around here, but sadly, that's not meant to be. Oh well, maybe one day there will at least be a good public transit system in Detroit. (Trying not to laugh too hard).

Manga

This is going to be one of my shot posts. I've been a fan of Manga since before it became mainstream. I was just at the bookstore the other day and saw a Star Trek TNG manga on the shelf as well as a CSI manga. I didn't take too long a look at them, but I'm thought is that someone out there was attempting to cash in on the demographic of people who want to see Sarah Sidle and Deanna Troi with big manga eyes. Who wouldn't?

Seriously though (I so wish the internet had a sarcasm tag) there's something about manga that is cool. It's the Japanese style of comic books, and who doesn't like comic books except pinko commies? The main difference are manga is normally black and white, its a longer story and you read it backwards. That's one of the coolest bits. I'm so used to reading left to right that reading right to left feels fresh and crisp!

I do enjoy reading manga. The stories are normally light and move along at a decent pace. I tend to pick up manga when I can get it cheap, but occasionally I might pay full price. It's a good way to spent an hour, and it is one of the more calming experiences that I enjoy.

Unfortunately I think that many mangas have just become porn for teens. Some of it is just smut or teasing and that does give it a bad name and bugs me, but I think the same thing about the SI swimsuit edition, just porn for teens. There is good manga out there that isn't all just innuendo or more. Some is actually really, really good. No sarcasm tag needed there.

Speculative Fiction

Alright, I'm not even sure how this post is going to unfold, but here goes. I've been a fan of science fiction for a very long time. However, I'm a picky fan, and not all SF is good SF. I've read some stink bombs in my life, and unfortunately some of what I hate everyone else seems to like. In the past SF used to be so distinct as a separate genre that in and of itself SF was counter culture and very much the red-headed stepchild of fiction. However, like anything else that has merit, eventually it becomes mainstream and to make it acceptable to the masses, it loses much of what made it special.

Now, I think that a lot of SF today is talentless crap that the masses eat up for some reason, and that SF which happens to be good is overlooked, doomed to languish in the annals of cult classic fame. I think that probably the best example of this is the SciFi network, or as they have re-imaged themselves, SyFy. 99% of what they broadcast is crap, and that 1% of what they broadcast that isn't, you never see more than once, however the crap is rerun in perpetuity.

However, as is often the case, there is a silver lining to this gray cloud. Thus I present to you speculative fiction. To me, what was once branded science fiction can now be divided into at least four distinct separate genres: Speculative Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, Science Fiction and Superhero Fiction. Granted there is a lot of overlap between these genres, but I think that just about any of this imaginative fiction can be categorized as one or more of these genres.

Fantasy Fiction is probably the easiest to classify. Tolkien definitely fits here and so does a great lot of what is classified Science Fiction. To me, SF and FF are clearly separate genres, but at the same time many authors have merged the genres very successfully. Anthony's Adept series is a good example of Science and Fantasy working together well. I think some Steampunk probably falls into this area of when SF and FF merge.

Superhero fiction is a new player in lineup. I'm a little bit inclusive when I talk about this genre. Sure Superman and Spiderman are definitely players here, but I would also include Laura Croft and Ultraviolet in this mix as well. Sure, it's not a perfect fit, but if you look at the genre as being about characters with above average abilities, you see what I'm going for.

Science Fiction is probably the least understood. I've already written about the big three of SF, but maybe what I neglected was just how much they were SF. SF was originally based on, wonder of wonder, science. It was the vision of what science and technology would lead us to. However, in my opinion, some of the best SF was just a setting for a good story to be placed in. An example of this is Asimov's Robot series. The books were detective stories set in a future where man had colonized fifty more planets. Sure, the setting altered how the plot played out, but in essence, the SF just added spice to the detective story.

Speculative fiction is something else. It is none of these other genres, but encompasses much of what they are. Speculative fiction asks only one question, what if? That is an awesome way to start a story. You make just one little change in history or you take what is possible to do today and extrapolate. There is so much fiction that falls into this category. Some of it is light in the speculation department. The Sum of All Fears is a good example of light speculation. What if there was a nuclear attack on the President of the United States? Granted, I wouldn't classify that story as completely speculative fiction, but there definitely is an element. Cyberpunk stories fit in here as well as the rest of Steampunk stories when you combine historical and speculative fiction. I think Gene Roddenbury's initial vision of Star Trek was speculative and not science fiction, though SF is where I would place it. Speculative fiction covers a ton of ground.

The main thing I like about speculative fiction is that it is like some of the old style SF in that the setting wasn't the story, it was just a setting. You speculate and then you tell the story that you wanted to tell, whether it be SF, detective, romance or whatever. Probably the best example of how this spices up a story is Watchmen. Watchmen is definitely a superhero story, but it is set in 1985 where Nixon is a fifth-term president because of an ever mounting threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and in which superheros helped win the Vietnam War. So Watchmen is set in a world that didn't happen, but is rich in detail that adds to the story without being the story itself. That's what I really like.

Bacon (Special 100th Post Edition)

Bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon! Sure, bacon might not be the solution to all of life's problems, but don't tell me life isn't better with a little bacon in it.

I chose bacon as my subject for my 100th post because it is the flip side of my first post, chicharrones. Both are deep fried pork products that are guaranteed to brighten up your life.

Bacon has become one of the most prevalent internet memes there has ever been. This meme comes bacon-wrapped and bacon flavored. Whether it's bacon salt, canned ration bacon, clothing that looks like bacon, clothing that smells like bacon, bacon scented perfume, bacon fried in amusing shapes, or bacon used as bowls, plates or as meat helmets, there's just so much about bacon to like. There are even some tools out there creating a religion based on worshiping bacon. Alright, that's too far, but still, it is bacon. Oh well.

Bacon, that is all.

Friday

I've really started to like Heinlein's writing since I discovered it. It wasn't until a couple years ago that I bought my first Heinlein book, and a little after that I actually got around to reading it. This is partially due to the fact I have at any one time about 75 books in my to-read pile, and I go through them as soon as I can. Friday was the first Heinlein book I actually read, and I wasn't so sure about it when I first picked it up, but I got into it soon thereafter.

One of the things that struck me about the book was the authors style. Not of how he wrote, but how he crafted his fiction. Clarke wrote about the technology. Asimov wrote through conversations. Heinlein was structured around social interaction and the evolution of mores in society. Some of what he writes about would have been called lewd by an earlier society, but it seems to me that his devices are just that, devices used to tell a story. He doesn't include a plural marriage in his story as an act of defiance, but instead as a tool to tell a different story than other people have before him. I almost want to reclassify some of what he wrote as speculative fiction rather than science fiction because it has so little to do with science in some cases. Then he talks about dimensional and time travel and many other things that are classic scifi, but still, I see the seed of speculative fiction being planted here for other authors to grasp onto and a generation later.

As I said earlier, this book left me with a "what's going on" feeling for the first couple of chapters. I couldn't get into the character's persona for quite a while as she was unlike any I had read before. Instead of trying to figure it out, I just let the story progress and I started getting into it. At first I thought this was like any other story I ever read with a strong female lead, but it was different that everything else I ever read. One thing that struck me was that the story seemed to restart every chapter or two, which lead me to believe that Heinlein wrote this story in stages, however I've not been able to verify that.

This story is unlike any I've ever encountered before, though it does bear resemblance to other stories Heinlein has written. It can be said that when writing science fiction, you are only limited by your imagination, and though Heinlein had a prolific wonderful imagination, you can tell that it was a product of his time. I wonder if his stories would be as good if he had been born thirty years later. I doubt it. His style is vintage without being dated and the way his stories unfold are unique.

Followed up Friday with Tunnel in the Sky, The Moon is a Hard Mistress and Stranger in a Strange Land. The Number of the Beast and Time Enough for Love are both sitting in my to-read pile, waiting.

Iron Man

I'm sure that you're thinking that this is a response to the recent Iron Man movie and the upcoming sequel, but it's really not. Most of Marvel's movies are just origin stories, let's talk Spiderman to make a point. Spiderman the movie, main plot lines, origin of Spiderman and origin of Green Goblin. Spiderman 2, origin of Doc. Ock. Spiderman 3, origin of Sandman, origin of Green Goblin 2, origin of Venom. Let's do another! Daredevil, origin of Daredevil, origin of Elektra. One more just for fun. Fantastic Four, origin of the Fantastic Four, origin of Dr. Doom. Fantastic Four 2, introduction of the Silver Surfer and introduction of Galactus. Iron Man the Movie was just an origin story of Iron Man and War Monger. I'm surprised that so many people forget that comic book heroes are great in the comic books that they originated from.

And here's the strange thing about those comic books, they aren't all origin stories. There are recurring villains and guest stars (see War Machine in the picture) and even though there are new villains all the time, there' s more going on. Comic books are awesome serial stories that would lend themselves much more to a well done TV show (cough, Smallville) than to the big screen. I'm not saying that there isn't a place for superhero movies, I do like them, but at the same time The animated series of Spiderman, Batman, Superman, Justice League and Justice League Unlimited were so much better than the movies that have been created, that it just isn't funny. I know you can do anything in an animated feature and it's difficult with live action, but if you can pull off the effects in a movie, you should be able to do something with a TV show. Sure, you might have to change some stuff and put a spin on things to fit your story into a live action series, but it can be done, and done well at that.

But I digress, back to comics. When I was a preteen, I used to walk the few blocks up to 7-Eleven, at least I would when I had saved up enough scratch to pick up a comic. Used to be easy at 75 cents a piece, but when they raised the price to a dollar or $1.25, my comic buying days were slowing down, though they've never stopped completely. When I was a kid, if I had the money, I'd buy a Transformers comic, if I already had it, or if they didn't have the new one yet, it'd be Green Lantern. Third on my list was Iron Man and I didn't normally make it very far past third without circling back to Transformers the next month.

The best part about going on trips was that at just about every gas stop, the parents would break down and buy me a comic or two for the next leg of the trip. I guess me not picking on my brother was worth an occasional 75 cents and sometimes I'd end up with around a dozen new comics on a road trip with the family. I picked up more Iron Man that way than any other way, and for some reason the places we'd go always have a few issues of Iron Man for me to pickup. Sure, I'd get some other books too like Daredevil, Fantasic Four and occasionally the Flash, or just something I'd never read before and I never bought again. I don't remember too many trips I didn't bring back one issue of Iron Man though.

I don't know how I never caught on to Tony Stark's philandering as a kid, maybe I was too young and still innocent, but I always thought he was cool. Still, it was the Iron Man persona that had always interested me. One thing that was cool about Iron Man was the revisions. His suit was always being upgraded, which lent an evolution to the character that others didn't have. He kept getting more powers, was better protected and technical glitches added to the story. Something made Iron Man feel more real too. There was no cosmic radiation, or extra-terrestrial origin. Instead a guy who had money created tech to create a hero. I guess it was always a little easier to put yourself in that kind of story than say the Beast.