Gibson on futurists.

Yes, if there is an interview with one word from William Gibson, I will link to it here, so get fucking used to it. Today, he talks about his role and futurists.

The slot in culture that I'm most closely associated with is one in which charlatans declare that they know the future. My job is to sit near that slot and when people approach me I say: "Only charlatans say they really know the future." I sit near the tent where they give out bullshit and offer people a different sort of dialogue. My role is to raise questions.

Gibson on Deadwood.

William Gibson is terrific. One of my five favorite writers, amongst whom I can assign no ranking. Some cool quotes from this article in the Washington Post:

Gibson puts a premium on making his details rich. He's always wanted his world to be "naturalistic -- where people used toilets. And dry cleaners. And things got rusty and things broke." He recently caught up with the HBO series "Deadwood," which, among its many achievements, once portrayed possibly the most convincing case of kidney stone suffering ever captured on film. Gibson thinks it's the greatest television America has ever produced. "This is like what I wanted to do" in his work, he says, "but they were doing it with westerns."

[Regarding "the death of the book"] "It's the oldest and the first mass medium. And it's the one that requires the most training to access. Novels, particularly, require serious cultural training. But it's still the same thing -- I make black marks on a white surface and someone else in another location looks at them and interprets them and sees a spaceship or whatever. It's magic. It's a magical thing. It's very old magic, but it's very thorough. The book is very well worked out, somewhat in the way that the wheel is very well worked out."

I don't think I mentioned this in the blogosphere, but we've finally gotten around to watching Deadwood on DVD and it's absolutely wonderful. Terrific television.

Cyberwar not as exciting as we thought.

A funny comparison of Gibson's classic Neuromancer "Operation Screaming Fist" and real life cyber attacks. One of my Shadowrun players kept wanting to know why we had to break into buildings in order to steal data. Looks like he was right all along. I rewrote a scene from one of our futuristic Wars TCG stories to include a wireless connection. I was so inculcated by Gibson's view of "the future" I forgot that wires are so twentieth century.

Neil's making a movie about Dee Dee.

For those of you excited about the pic of Neil Gaiman's Death I posted (well, Dani liked it), here's news that Neil is making his directorial debut in a movie about her!

If somebody made Death and they screwed it up, it would hurt. She's like my kid. If anyone's going to screw it up I'd rather it were me."

Yay!

Harry Potter a best-seller? Nah.

Why not? My wife and I each bought a Deathly Hallows. It's not gonna be a NYT Bestseller, though, because it's a "children's book."

The book that will probably set a single day and one week sales record, the book hundreds of thousands will line up for at midnight won't be the Number One book on The New York Times Bestseller list? That's right because Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a children's book and those books don't count.

Also mentioned in the article as screwed by this policy is His Dark Materials, a series I've heard good things about, but not much, because it couldn't be a bestseller either.

The article points out that if this ban had been in effect when the first Potter book was published, the series wouldn't be what it is today.

Not this time, Internet.

You can't spoil that book for me cause I already finished it!

What are stories about?

Is a story about what the writer thinks it's about? Or is it about what the reader thinks it's about? Ray Bradbury stated that his classic novel Fahrenheit 451 is not about what everyone thinks it's about.

Even Bradbury’s authorized biographer, Sam Weller, in The Bradbury Chronicles, refers to Fahrenheit 451 as a book about censorship.

Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.

Art is about expression. It's also about interpretation. The answer to the question is: The story is about both. That's something we can discuss and learn from. Sometimes questions can have more than one answer. (Just not in dictionaries.)

Comics to change your life.

This list is very exciting, because of the comics I recognize and the ones I don't recognize. Herewith I provide a wonderful pulled quote:

Back in the mid '60s, The Fantastic Four was a monthly guarantee that you could pay ten cents for twenty-some-odd pages and witness the most batshit insane spectacles imaginable. Outside of religious text and Greek epics, Four was the only place where you could see a building-sized, purple-crowned man descending from the sky and threatening to eat the planet, and where the only people who could stop him were invisible or on fire.

Of course I expected the Watchmen and Dark Knight here, which certainly changed my life, but the more recent options I haven't checked out yet get me revved up about a trip to a comics store.

Like all mediums, comics have a few exceptionally good examples and a lot of crap. The good stuff is as good as any other medium can deliver.

Stardust trailer. Can't wait!

Neil Gaiman's novel Stardust is becoming a movie.

It's got Claire Danes, Robert de Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer (au naturel in the trailer boys, that means nekkid).

Loved the book, can't wait for the film!

We're fine, thanks.

Yes, that was a ton of snow and it's still coming down... sideways. I worked from home today but Dr. Heimlich went for half a day, so the town is somewhat negotiable on the ground... or at least it was about 4 hours ago. Dunno what we'll do tomorrow. Could be two feet on the ground downtown.

UPDATE: Power was out for three hours this morning. We went back to sleep (after silencing a rowdy smoke detector) and thankfully it wasn't for long. There are four-foot drifts outside, should be fun digging out the cars.

As a special reward for those of you who read for content, go here. Download John Hodgson's new audiobook, all of it, for free. I don't know why. But hurry!

(I would never ever put up an iTunes Music Store link that wasn't free. I have conducted two transactions with that hellish institution, and they were both for zero dollars and zero cents.)

LibraryThing is a CoolThing.

From Neil Gaiman's blog, I found LibraryThing. It's amazingly easy to register and use. I'm not exactly sure what it's good for, but it's neato to enter your books and even pick the right covers for the editions you have.

I have a lot of books, and I don't recycle them. Which means I still own the books I bought in 1967 when I got to junior high school. (Yes, I know none of you are that old, so just bite me.) Here's my library-in-progress. I have a ton more books to enter! Whee!

Welcome to dystopia.

Cyberpunk writer William Gibson muses on Oceania, 1984 (the book and the year), and George Orwell.

It is becoming unprecedentedly difficult for anyone, anyone at all, to keep a secret.

In the age of the leak and the blog, of evidence extraction and link discovery, truths will either out or be outed, later if not sooner. This is something I would bring to the attention of every diplomat, politician and corporate leader: the future, eventually, will find you out. The future, wielding unimaginable tools of transparency, will have its way with you. In the end, you will be seen to have done that which you did.

I like what he says and how he says it.

He just knows that he is that good.

I've gushed about crime novelist James Ellroy before, and I found a rare interview with him. They say it's not trash talk if you can back it up. When James Ellroy says:

I am a master of fiction. I am also the greatest crime writer who ever lived. I am to the crime novel in specific what Tolstoy is to the Russian novel and what Beethoven is to music.

He's correct. I agree. I called them "epic crime novels," like GWTW or LOTR. (They're not all that great; Blood on the Moon was overblown and tedious.)

Ellroy also says he talks to women "not in the room," meaning in his head. He trashes Chandler and Hammett, which I can't agree with. Anyway, who cares if he's a nutcase as long as I can read his excellent work?

Review: L. A. Confidential.

Not the film, which I love and has a place in my Top 100 Favorite Movies. I'm talking about the novel by James Ellroy. Black Dahlia (from another Ellroy novel) is coming to theaters soon, and I wanted to read that book. LWC suggested I wait, using the logic of film first then book, always a good tip. So I found an Ellroy novel whose movie I'd already seen.

Having finished off Raymond Chandler and not even halfway through Elmore Leonard, I'm still searching for more crime novel writers. I don't know how I haven't read Ellroy before, but I am impressed and thrilled with the possibility of more excellent novels to devour.

I purchased L.A. Confidential in the Vintage large format that is highly overpriced and my only choice for a new copy. (I must make time to find a used book store.) It runs over 400 pages. I was certain this novel could not sustain the usual clipped dialogue and frenetic pace of the best crime novels. I was happily proved wrong.

This book is an epic crime novel. I didn't even know such a thing existed. Like Gone With the Wind or Lord of the Rings, it spans decades and tells the fascinating stories of many interesting characters. There is a lot more here than the story in the film (of course), and it's all excellent.

A few chapters labeled "Calendar" update the reader through the many years of the stories with excerpts from magazine and newspaper articles, all written flawlessly in the proper style and format.

I can't say enough good things about James Ellroy and L.A. Confidential. If it's not the best novel I've ever read, it's in the top three. Any fan of crime stories should read this book. I'm already on another one, and anxious to read more.

Review: Cell.

I listened to Cell, by Stephen King, on CD for the trip west. I've seen a few movies made from his books, and I read his detective story (which I hated) and a short story called The Raft. So I figured I'd give old Stevie a try.

This story started off with a bang. It had a terrific first chapter, exciting and genuinely terrifying in a modern tech fashion. From there, it went straight downhill. Intensely introspective, in a bad navel-gazing way.

For those who might have read Cell... is this a bad Stephen King story? Or a good one? Cause if this is a good one, I don't want to read any more. It was full of cliches and pop culture references that seemed to say, "This is where I stole this plot idea."

Reviewers loved these references, and there were many more to other books King had written. Many reviews were thrilled to see King come back from retirement, and seemed to cut him a lot of slack for his wooden characters and stilted dialog. I don't know how you can say, "It was a great book, despite the lousy characters." Great books don't have lousy characters.

A plot driven book with a lousy story poorly told and boring as hell. The protagonists did much more watching the plot happen than doing something. Characters were minimally developed, and I didn't care who survived and who didn't.

I said to LWC at the rest stop, "If I were one of the people in this story, I'd shoot myself in the head." When I got back to the CD, somebody did. Unfortunately, I hung on until the end. The book did its job I guess, it kept me interested (infuriated?) until we got to Colorado.

Maybe I don't like zombie stories. Maybe I'm spoiled by tight plotting and terrific dialogue with wonderful characters, like I'm finding in Gaiman, Gibson, Leonard, Chandler and my new favorite, James Ellroy. At any rate, I think it'll be a long time before I give King a tumble again.

Superman is a Tulpa.

Neil Gaiman co-wrote this article for Wired about "The Myth of Superman." It says Alvin Schwartz wrote a book about Superman, and how he transcends being a character in a comic book.

Schwartz writes that Superman is real. He is a tulpa, a Tibetan word for a being brought to life through thought and willpower.

I learned the word tulpa from the CCG On The Edge, from which I learned many unusual things. Tulpa was a hot, broken card that figured in many decks. It produced FAQs like these:

The card says the Tulpa is "a copy of the real Character." Can I play a Tulpa before a non-Tulpa version of the Character is in play?
Can I call a non-Tulpa version of a Unique Character after I have played a Tulpa of the same Character?

Of course, real Tulpas (!) are made from whole cloth and not copies.

It was said that Carlos Castaneda was able to materialize a living squirrel on the palm of Don Juan's hand based on the latter's instruction.

Elmore Leonard kicks ass.

He's a writer of "crime novels." They're not detective stories. They're about real people with real problems making real mistakes. In fact, the most consistently amazing thing to me about all of his characters is how real they are. Even more than Legolas or Luke Skywalker!

Since I finished with Raymond Chandler and he died, and Neil Gaiman hasn't written anything this month, I'm reading Leonard now. He's written dozens of books, and lots of them have been made into movies: Out of Sight, Rum Punch (Jackie Brown), Get Shorty, Mr. Majestyk, Joe Kidd, Hombre (I haven't read any of his westerns yet).

I read Killshot (soon to be a major motion picture), Bandits, Mr. Paradise, and now I'm reading Freaky Deaky. They have all been excellent, and enjoyable and speedy reads. I love this guy.

All-new blog post.

So many things in contemporary American society are reruns, repeats, and retreads that the phrase "all-new" is used to denote something which might actually have a spark of originality contained within. This goes for TV shows, cars, computers, TCGs, and movies. Sometimes it's even used against us, like The All New, All Purpose Joy of Cooking, which is their way of saying, "Look! It's not a reprint of the old book! It's all-new!" Which of course, it isn't, or it wouldn't have anything to do with The Joy of Cooking, which dates back to 1931. Marketing like this only works when new becomes unusual because derivative is the norm. Sad, ain't it?

Circular discussions of the variety circular.

Upon leaving Barnes & Noble with LWC, me feverishly clutching and fondling my copy of Neil's Anansi Boys* as if it were a newborn child, the following dialog ensued.

"Can we be this close to Target and not go there?"
"We're not going to Target?"
"That's what I said."
"Can we be this close and not go there?"

*I'm so happy I got this book that I want to take a picture of myself holding it, like I just won a trophy. I don't want to start reading it because I'm afraid that I'll be done reading it sometime soon.

The Potter book was ruined for me.

This is a story of spoilers and warnings, with too much of the former and not enough of the latter. Please, if you don't want the plot of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince spoiled, DO NOT read the comments to this post. I will be describing how it was ruined for me, and it WILL ruin it for you.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Which is more than I got.