Author Archives: Bob Evans

Was The Cold War Just Over Tax Rates?

From the post-World War II period through to 1991 the United States of American and its allies engaged in a deadly game of brinksmanship utilizing nuclear bombers, middles, and artillery, with the Soviet Union and its allies for the fate of the world. We were assured that this was a war that pitted democracy, with the First World, the USA and its allies, against the tyranny Second World, the USSR and its allies with humanity’s future balanced on the knife’s edge. The USSR’s collapse ended the conflict and revealed a corrupt, monstrous system if lies, propaganda, and murder.

And the American Republican Party can’t let the war go.

In any two-party system each of the two major parties are a coalition of interests ideally with a few unifying themes or goals and for the second half of the 20th century what unified the GOP was a dedicated stance against the USSR and communism. Bereft of that binding force the GOP floundered for compelling arguments for its election and finally settled on culture war issues that satisfied its religious wing, energized it racist elements, and the business elements provided the control rods required to keep the entire pile from going super-critical and melting down. Beginning in 1994 more and more of those control rods were removed until 2016 provided the final crisis, sent the entire stack critical, and released the rampaging nuclear monstrosity that is Donald J. Trump.

And now we have reached a point where a majority of the GOP finds more than 170,000 pandemic deaths ‘acceptable,’ and in order to retain their minoritarian grip on power our votes are being undermined, the Post Office is sabotaged, and very concept of democracy is under assault. So, what was that Cold War victory for? Was it just to preserve low taxes for the wealthy? Was the entire conflict about biblical literalism?  It must have been because it seems the only charge the GOP knows to deploy is to point at their opponents and with mouths agape like the 70s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, scream ‘Communist!’ And like that movie it is an idea out of time and out of place with the moment.

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Classic Film Review: Black Sunday

To be clear I am speaking of the 1977 thriller directed by John Frankenheimer and not the 1960 horror movie directed by Mario Bava.

In a decade of growing terrorist attacks and twenty-four years before the terrible events of September 11th, Thomas Harris, whose fame as an author would be cemented with his creation of Hannibal Lector, penned his first novel Black Sunday about an attack on that most American of institutions, The Superbowl.

Robert Shaw plays David Kabakov an elite Israeli agent who when leading an assault on a terrorist cell in Lebanon uncovers a plot to attack the United States early in the year. With nothing more to go on that a glimpse of the face of the woman planning the attack David, his partner Robert, and the FBI face nearly insurmountable challenges in thwarting the murderous plans.

As the plot unwinds and mysteries are resolved David’s awareness grows that he has been part of the growing problem and he begins to doubt the righteousness of his prior actions.

Black Sunday seems today like a movie that simply could not be produced. Central to the terrorists’ plot is using the Goodyear Blimp as part of the attack and it is not a no name knock-off in the film but the actual blimp. It is inconceivable that a major public corporation would allow their most recognized symbol used as part of a plan to murder tens of thousands, and yet there it is. A quick bit of research showed that Frankenheimer had good relations with Goodyear and with a few restrictions, such making it clear that Bruce Dern’s deranged blimp pilot was a contractor and not a Goodyear employee, sweet talked the company into cooperating. The massive crowds of a Superbowl were achieved by again getting some unlikely cooperation, the NFL allowed the production to film at the 1976 Superbowl, which accounts for the bicentennial iconography in the movie, which was intercut with staged scenes of panic and chaos during the movie thrilling conclusion.

All in all, Black Sunday is a well-made, well-acted, and entertaining piece of cinema. It is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

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Missing My Shockwaves Podcast

When it came to my podcast listening Fridays used to be horror days. It was the day the new episode of Shockwaves would drop with its multiple hosts discussing the last films that they had watched, the film that they had produced, and interviewing some of the most interesting voices in horror. Then in Jun massive sexual scandal rocked the parent company and Shockwaves vanished from my feed.

I’ve been searching out some sort of suitable replacement but the search has been difficult. There are lots of horror podcast but finding one with the right mix of people with the right base of knowledge feels impossible. Shockwavesintroduced me to several interesting films and while my taste never matched exactly with any of the hosts there was an enough of an overlap that I could find new stuff to watch and even understand them enough to know why we didn’t agree on some.

They will be missed.

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Quick Hits Aug 20, 2020

Just a few quick thoughts and observations for today.

Democratic Convention: Despite being a former poli-sci major and minor political junkie I have not been watching the convention. However, from analysis and coverage from both the right and the left it seems that they’ve found a way to do their messaging in these strange terrible times. They are keeping their aim fixed on the prize, defeating Trump, and are showing a level of unity quite unusual for this party. I understand the frustration from progressive that Republicans have highly placed speaking slots at the convention but this election is unlike any other in our nation’s history and the first problem, removing Trump from office, takes priority over everything else at the moment. More than ever, policy must come after victory.

Agents of SHIELD: The series, with all its ups and down, completed its seventh and final season swinging for the fences and engaging in some seriously epic storylines. Overall, I really enjoyed the series and I have started a re-watch from season one. The hints and rumors of a tie-in with the next phase of the MCU are intriguing and we’ll see where they go.

Writing my Next Novel: I’m almost ready for the prose outline of the new and still untitled novel. I’m currently working on a bullet point outline, just the most critical points for each of the five acts but as I go each act has more bullet points than the previous indicating that the story is taking off on its own. For this murder mystery aboard a generations starship I plan to incorporate some of the story structure ideas advocated my screenplays writer and Chernobylseries creator Craig Mazin.

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Work in Process Nation

It’s a fuzzy line between patriotism and Jingoism but I think that divide lies along the capacity to admit error. A patriot can recognize that their beloved nation is in error, demand that the nation be better, and work to make it better, while the jingoist can only proclaim their nation is best and reject the recognition of any flaw. You might think of a jingoist as a narcissist whose narcissism is projected onto their country and not themselves.

While you are writing a book it is called a work in progress and it continue to be one until the final edits have been approved and the text goes to production. In a way the United States of America is a work in progress that never is submitted for publication and one where the revised text remains in the copy all the way through.

Our text started with some very good ideals that were executed terribly. It’s hard to be for freedom and equality when some are enslaved, some are disenfranchised, and some are nothing more than an occasional count. But with fits and starts and not a few bad chapters we’ve improved the work, gotten closer to the ideal and further from that terrible first drafting. There is more equality but not enough. There is more liberty but not enough. There is more justice, but not enough. The work continues and we are its authors.

Anyone who has been reading this blog knows that I am not shy about sharing my political views. it goes contrary to advise I have received that as an author trying to move product, convince more people to buy my books, I should avoid politics because I may offend some and lose those sales.

That’s true. It may cost me sales.

But I have a duty to ideals I believe hold to be true and to be derelict in that duty for mere money is something I simply can’t do. I have not always met my duty, my responsibilities, we all sometimes fall short but we have an obligation to try and my voice, however soft it might be, must still be raised for what I think is right and I must take my part in crafting this national work in progress.

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Series Review: Lovecraft Country

Sunday night saw HBO’s premier of the long anticipated series adaptation of Matt Ruff’s novel Lovecraft Country.

I have not read the novel so my impressions of the series and the only ‘aired’ episode so far is driven entirely by the onscreen material.

Episode one centered on Atticus ‘Tic’ Freeman (Jonathan Majors) an army veteran recently discharged following the Korean War’s armistice as he travels home to Chicago because his father has gone missing. Uniting with his Father’s brother George (Courtney B. Vance), who travels researching his guide to safe travels for Black people in Jim Crow America, and childhood friend Letitia (Jurnee Smollett), he travels to ‘Lovecraft country’, rural Massachusetts, following clues to his father’s disappearance and hints of an ancestral legacy.

Aside from a vivid dream sequence at the episode’s opening Lovecraft Countytakes its time revealing its cosmic horror nature instead rightly focusing on character, mood, and critically environment creating a believable and frightening world with terrors drawn from history as well as the imagination. Jonathan Majors is well cast as ‘Tic,’ the bookish young man with a love of pulp adventures now grown into a handsome muscular man but with those same doubts and self-image issues waiting just under the surface. Jurnee Smollett’s Letitia while seemingly a woman who appears primarily as a sensualist also possesses depths and intellect that in the first episode promise greater things for her character and Vance’s Uncle George brings a sense of wisdom and hard-earned experience to the trio.

The cinematography fills a night encounter rich saturated colors from blood red flares while daylight excursions have a washed out colorless and joyless oppression to them, reflecting well the dual nature of the story and the show, fantastical weird apparitions existing alongside with banal historical evil. The show’s soundtrack is a mix of period and modern music and that I found a little jarring but other viewers are less likely to have their suspension of disbelief bumped by the choices.

It is nigh on impossible to adequately judge a story by just 10 percent of its content other than to say that the characters and encounters are all laid out in a pleasing, engaging manner and if the entire series maintains this quality, we are in for one frightening ride.

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Streaming Review: Sputnik

With the pandemic closing exhibition theaters movie watching has transitioned to on-line model and experience and the selection of feature on-line is expanded from what would normally be available at the local megaplex showing mostly tent-poles movies with a very few scattered smaller films in the smaller auditoriums. This weekend a friend and I discovered a Russian science-fiction horror film that had been released August 14th for Video of Demand and not at the ‘theater at home’ price of $20 but a mere 7.

Sputnik is set in 1983 during a time when the Soviet Union still existed and competed with the Americans both globally and beyond. Dr Tatyana Klimova, (Oksana Akinshina) a brilliant but unconventional psychiatrist is summoned to a remote facility on the steppes of Soviet Kazakhstan to treat the sole survivor of a recent orbital mission, Konstantin (Fyodor Bondarchuk). Konstantin suffers from specific amnesia and can’t recall what happened during the mission, the return to earth, of is even aware that his fellow cosmonaut was killed. Convinced that she has not been given all the pertinent facts Tatyana forces the officer in charge Col Semiradov, to reveal what has been kept from her and the reason that everything has been located in this isolated facility, Konstantin did not return alone but now harbors an alien parasite but all attempts to separate the cosmonaut from the creature have failed and Semiradov fears that Konstantin is withholding something from them all.

When we rented Sputnik based on the strength of its trailer, we honestly expect nothing more than mediocre Alien clone but the film exceeded our expectations. While it is far from a perfect film Sputnik is competently written, acted, and directed taking its time to reveal the horrors both alien and human as secrets drip from the script like water from a leaky faucet. Akinshina is well cast as the troubled doctor and Bondarchuk manages both the ‘Hero of the Union’ aspect of his cosmonaut while slowly revealing the character’s more human and sometimes darker nature. The cinematography is atmospheric and moody with the visual effects of alien credible in every scene.

While I would seriously hesitate to recommend this as an expensive ‘theater at home’ rental, for a more usual video on demand rental fee I was quite satisfied and willing to suggest this to fans of moderately graphic SF horror.

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Trump is a Wounded, Rabid, and Cornered Animal

There is no doubt in my mind that with Trump and this election we are facing the most dangerous political moment in our nation’s history. Even when Lincoln won the 1860 election and the Southern States traitorously rebelled sparking a war that killed hundreds of thousands, they still respected the electoral process, Trump is very likely to not.

I chose my description of Trump with care not only top present an image of snarling, biting animal dangerous to approach but with each qualifier signifying a particular aspect that is challenging our electoral process.

Much of the analysis about Trump fighting to remain president seems centered on a very traditional model of political behavior that people who become president and want to remain president do so from political motivations and in his re-election for Trump this is a very minor factor.

Trump is wounded because his life of likely crimes has been dragged into the bright daylight and his vile bigoted personality makes it impossible to ignore. Should trump be removed from office he and his family will face a vast array of criminal investigations. There is already a mountain of testimony from former associates about his criminality and the office of president is the only thing shielding him. To lose the office is very likely to go to prison and so wounded in the manner you should expect that he will have absolutely no limits in what he will attempt to retain the presidency.

Trump is rapid because his own narcissism and idiocy make it impossible for him to manage is problems in a rational and effective manner. The pandemic which had it been managed with even the barest competency could have actually boosted his re-election chances, but because he has never actually solved a difficult challenge but always lied, blustered, and bought he way past them. His fumbling attempts, that may very well succeed, to hamper a free, fair, and open election are the clumsy machinations of someone without any skill, talent, or industry in political life. The sabotage of the Postal Service is blatant and exposes him to greater danger rather than reducing all because he is incapable of acting subtly. He always has to shout the quiet parts out loud.

Trump is cornered because the polls are against him. His popularity never crossed the fifty percent line and only the electoral college gives him a chance at actually winning re-election. What talent his team once possessed has been lost as he purged them for sycophants and co-conspirators. This makes him doubly dangerous because as legitimate victory slips out of his grasp the need for victory, to escape a possible looming lifetime in prison, he will absolutely employ more and more illegitimate methods of holding onto his power and his safety.

We have never confronted a president like this, never faced a man so lacking in decency and morals in our highest office and we must be ready for anything in our compelling needs to remove him from the Resolute Desk.

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Taika Waititi’s The Hunt for the Wilderpeople

2016, a year before his enormous popular and critical success of Thro: Ragnarök Kiwi writer/director Taika Waititi enjoyed praise for his more modest release The Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

Wilderpeople is the story of Ricky Baker a rootless boy in foster care bouncing from home to home until he winds up in the care of Bella and her gruff husband Herc. Bella manages to pierce Ricky’s defensive anti-social shell but Herc remains aloof, and distant to the troubled boy. The film’s central genre, mismatched odd couple, flowers when Herc and Ricky end up on the run from the authorities and are forced to survive for several months in New Zealand’s wild and mountainous bush country. While the premise and even the eventual mutual understanding the characters achieve are typical for the odd couple genre Taika’s unique and slightly absurdist style both visually and in the script elevates Wilderpeople to a charming emotional ride with the sort of unexpected gut punches that Taika would later deploy in films such as JoJo Rabbit.

The Hunt for the Wilderpeople is currently streaming on Hulu and should not be missed.

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Joy in Creation

I have started the process of working out the details for my next novel. Now I had previously worked out a novel and its synopsis before, submitted it to my editor and after a very friendly discussion about it themes and ending, we came to the conclusion that it was not a novel for that press. I could have moved on to writing it, it’s a dark cynical story that is kin of adjacent to cosmic horror without being a horror novel but I decided to follow a new idea that had recently arrived in my brain and would be a perfect fit for the press.

So yesterday I began the note process where I do the majority of my world building. This is sort of like explain on paper to myself how the world works and how the characters interact with the world and its social structures. It’s me telling myself the background of the story without getting into the plot details. I have a clear understanding of the sweeping outline of the plot, I know the story’s central mystery, the protagonist, and the resolution, but within those grand sweeps are nearly countless details and tones that I have to nail down before I can outline the actual story.

What’s a joy is that the worldbuilding solves plot problems before I even get to the outline. This new novel will take place on a ‘generation ship,’ one that travels slower than light and generations of people are born, live, and die on the ship before it reaches its colonization target. How do you organize people as a society that both meets the needs of a ship, with a rigid command and control structure and meets the needs of a free people living their lives in a vast spinning cylinder? How do you direct populations to prevent any sub-group from becoming a dead end genetically preserving both diversity in the gene pool and freedom for the population? Answering those question not only helped me make, at least in my mind, a more credible world but also gave concrete solutions to plot problem I had already seen but not yet answered.

This is the fun puzzle solving stage of creation. There will be more challenges to overcome and new puzzles to solve but right now it is mostly slotting the framing pieces into place.

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