Time for the Next Novel

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Well, the query letter has been composed, the synopsis written and once they have survived the sweetie-wife’s sharp eye for error I will climb back into the query trenches and The Wolves of Wallace Point will begin seeking representation and a home.

The best thing to do once a writing project is done is move on to the next project. My next novel, also a horror, will combine the sentiments of a 70s disaster flick, large cast, dispersed storylines, not plot armor for anyone, with my favorite style of horror, the ghost story.

I have no working title for this piece, but I have discovered one important thing about it. I cannot write this one by the ‘pants,’ as I did with Wolves. It’s going to end up too intricate, with multiple points of view and interweaving narratives. There are authors who could writ that without an outline, but I am not one. So, for this next novel I return to my usual process and will begin with a 5-act structure outline, but in this case one that breaks down the five acts among the five plots.

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Partial Series Review: The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin

Apple+

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With the crushing news that Our Flag Means Death is not renewed for a third season many in fandom had their moods depressed as the loss of the irreverent, gloriously queer, ahistorical pirate series. They may find some so solace in Apple+’s original program The Completely Made-up Adventures of Dick Turpin.

Like Taika Waititi’s pirate series Dick Turpin is inspired by an actual historical persona, a highwayman whose status and legend are more products of vivid exaggeration that his actual crimes and exploits.

Starring comedian/actor Noel Fielding as Dick Turpin. An imaginative man desperate to be something other than a butcher’s son Dick leaves home and becomes a highwayman and member of the Essex Gang, the nearly worst rated gang of highway thieves in the area. Together with the oddball members of the gang, Turpin engages in hijinks as a highwayman while dodging a local Lord and the godfather of organized crime Lord Wilde (Hugh Bonneville.)

While not as flamboyantly queer as Our Flag Means Death, Dick Turpin manages a modern sensibility and pacing in its humor. Despite its 18th century setting the characters and tone are decidedly 21st century. Produced in the United Kingdom, the series is populated with familiar actors and comedians if you are a bit of an Anglophile. The crime and violence are played for laughs, and it is not the sort of program that will leave you with deep questions about the nature of life and humanity but rather help you spend half an hour not thinking about such deep subjects. It is escapism but there are times when that is your highest duty to yourself and your sanity.

The first two of six episodes are already available to stream with the remaining four being delivered on a weekly basis as is the standard practice for Apple+ programing. If you have access and need to forget the terrible mess that is our current world you could do far worse than engrossing yourself in The Completely Made-up Adventures of Dick Turpin.

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Writing the Book was Easy.

 Writing the Book was Easy.

Beta reader feedback is coming in on The Wolves of Wallace point and the signs are good. There aren’t any major issues that people have a consensus on and as such no major rewrites or revision required at this stage.

I have drafted a query letter to use in the search for an agent to represent me and my horror writings but before I can start that process, I must tackle the toughest part of the writing, the synopsis.

I recall an interview with the master Japanese director Kurosawa when the interviewer asked him what the message in his latest film Ran was. Kurosawa replied, through a translator, that if the message was simple enough to be an answer to a question, he wouldn’t have made the film he would have just stood on a corner with a sign.

It took 97,000 words to tell the story of The Wolves of Wallace point and now I must retell it in something like 1000 words and still make it compelling, interesting, and engaging.

This is way I would rather just jump into the next book.

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Movie Review: Dune Part 2

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This weekend the long-anticipated completion of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s landmark Science-Fiction novel, Dune, hit wide theatrical release with Dune Part 2.

Dune Part 1 released in 2021 after a delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic introduced audiences to the Atreides family, one of the Great Houses of a far future galactic Empire, an Empire riven with feuds and competing power-centers. Following betrayal and a surprise attack that destroys House Atreides that film’s protagonist, young Paul Atreides, and his mother flee into the deep desert of the planet Dune seeking sanctuary with the planet’s indigenous inhabitants, the Fremen.

This film, Dune Part 2, completes the adaptation as it follows Paul and his mother as they attempt to integrate themselves the Fremen’s culture and deliver justice or revenge upon their enemies while avoiding a cataclysmic galactic war that Paul’s precognitive powers foresee.

For those familiar with the source material this will be a fairly faithful adaptation of that story, though there are major elements that have been omitted, fans of Alia of the Knife are sure to be disappointed, and the timescale of the second half of the novel has been greatly compressed rather than sped through as with the earlier theatrical adaptation by iconoclast director David Lynch. The essential beats of the story are there, and the final resolution remains generally unchanged. Villeneuve and screenwriter Jon Spaihts have brought forward some of Herbert’s thematic elements that were made clear only in sequel novels, yet not so much as to spoil another entry in the franchise as Villeneuve has stated he would like to conclude this adaptation as a trilogy.

Hans Zimmer, himself a fan of the original novels, returns to score this film with a soundtrack that tonal matches his work in Dune Part 1. The cast is enhanced with Austin Butler, Christopher Walken, Florence Pugh, Lea Seydoux, and an uncredited Anya Taylor-Joy providing a glimpse of what a third film might include. Greig Fraser’s cinematography continues to the outstanding and he and Villeneuve’s experimental work with infrared photography adds an alien ‘otherness’ to some scenes.

All in all, those who consider themselves fans of Dune Part 1 are likely to be fans of this conclusion with anticipation for the next installment from this quite talented filmmaker.

Dune Part 2 is currently playing in theaters worldwide.

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Ellison’s Cynicism & The City On The Edge of Forever

Paramount Studios/CBS Home Video

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The City on the Edge of Forever the 28th episode of season one from Star Trek (The Original Series) is a celebrated and award-winning episode of classic television collecting both the Hugo for short form Dramatic Presentation and the Writers Guild Of American award for Best Episodic Drama on Television.

After suffering a mishap while the Enterprise investigates disturbances in time from a long dead world, Doctor McCoy to hurled into the past where his presence changes history erasing the United Federation of Planets’ existence, forcing Kirk and Spock to follow McCoy to set right the course of the universe.

The original script was penned by famed and mercurial author Harlan Ellison but for production the screenplay had been rewritten, by uncredited story editor D.C. Fontana, at the producers request. The rewrite dissatisfied Ellison producing a rift between him and the producers that lasted decades. Ellison eventually would publish his own account of the production in book form that included his original script.

I have watched the original episodes many many times since the 1970s and I have read Ellison’s original script. Both are wonderfully written but Fontana’s is decidedly more in the tone of Star Trek.

Spoilers follow.

The crucial element of history that McCoy upset is saving the life of a pacifist, Edith Keeler, which delayed America’s entry into the Second World War allowing Germany to emerge victorious. Kirk, having fallen in love with Edith, is torn between his duty to preserve history and prevent a NAZI future and his emotional need to save the woman he has come to love.

In Ellison’s version, Spock, the inhuman, coldly logical alien holds both men. Kirk and McCoy, back, preventing them from saving her and reestablishing the proper shape of time.

In Fontana’s script Kirk seizes McCoy, stopping him from saving Edith, but is emotionally devastated by his course of action.

Dramatically speaking I have held and continue to hold that Fontana’s ending is simply better. It costs Spock nothing to do the right thing. Alien and detached from the pull of emotion, Spock’s action has no more dramatic weight that a piece of automated machinery performing a programmed function. Kirk, forced at great emotional pain and trauma, stopping McCoy is the sort of event that forever changes a character and change lives at the heart of drama.

None of this is new thinking on my part. It’s been my conclusion for nearly 30 years since I read the original script. That said thinking further upon the story and Ellison’s ending I do think that there is another aspect to this that is fascinating.

What is the thematic core of Ellison’s ending? Why was he drawn to that particular resolution?

It is possible that the answer is that Ellison held a very dark and cynical view of humanity.

While I have not read all of Ellison’s work, I have read a number of his well-crafted short stories and dark is common element. Rarely if ever did Ellison descend in joy over terror and crushing failure.

It’s possible, either by authorial intent or predilection, that Ellison’s ending reflects a deep sense that humanity, that people, are incapable of overcoming their selfish needs and desires for a greater good. That flawed and weak humanity will always fail to destroy the One Ring and choose themselves over others.

If that’s the reason Ellison went with his ending it makes even more clear that deep and unbridgeable divide between himself and Roddenberry. Roddenberry believed in humanity’s perfectibility. That a future without the irrational failings of racism and selfness was possible and Ellison’s ending reject all of that. It is an ending that asserts people will choose their own happiness even at the cost of uncounted millions.

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GOP, Look in the Mirror.

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At the end of the 1970s Conservatives criticized President Carter for his lackluster response to Russian aggression with the invasion of its neighbor, Afghanistan.

During the 1980s a common critique of the Democratic party by the GOP was that the liberal of the party were too favorably inclined to our geo-political rivals the Russians.

By the 1990s and the collapse of the Soviets GOP found new failing to launch at their political opponents. President Clinton they charged was a guilty of financial fraud, despite a massive investigation that yielded no proof of this, and a sexual predator, lacking the moral standing to be president. When Clinton foolishly committed perjury over his sexual dalliances the battle cry became ‘rule of law.’ Impeachment they insisted was required for a president that held the law in such contempt.

With the new century the GOP once again shifted in which traits made their political foes utterly unacceptable. President Obama, in addition to being a narcissist, was at times a ruthless Chicago politician and a naive neophyte easily manipulated by the forces around him. A fool easily manipulated by enemies of America when they stroked his over inflated ego.

And where is the GOP today? Slavishly devoted to a man that shows utter deference to the Russian regime, who praised the slaughter of people peacefully demonstrating for freedom as ‘strength.’ Who defrauds small businesses and individuals. A man so egotistical that everything must be about himself. A man who tried to overthrow a free, fair, and legitimate election in order to illegally retain power and who has been found accountable in court for sexual assault.

All the major criticisms the conservatives have hurled with disdain and hate at their opponents that have embraced in their strong man. Everything that said mattered was nothing more than a lie.

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Series Review: Monsieur Spade

AMC and Studio Canal

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Set some twenty-odd years after the events of The Maltese Falcon Monsieur Space follows famed private detective Sam Spade (Clive Owen) as a retired man of luxury in the South of France. Originally drawn to the small village of Bozouls fulfilling a task for a former flame Sam has settled into a comfortable life but dogged by loss. When brutal murders at as local orphanage, a missing child, and the teenage daughter of his former love becomes intertwined Sam is forced to once again practice his profession in a town bursting with secrets worth killing over.

Co-created by Scott Frank (The Queen’s Gambit) and Tom Fontana (Oz) this series has the writing pedigree to be peak television but sadly stumbles right at the finish line.

Clive Owen does a quite good job in his portrayal of Spade, a man who has suffered too much emotional trauma and wants nothing more than to swim in his pool, alone. The cast, a collection of French and British actors for the most part, are well suited for their roles and inhabit their diverse, complex, and secretive lives quite well. The problem with the series really lives in the final episode.

It is said that every story begins with a promise. A contract between the teller and audience about what sort of story is being shared and violating that contract loses the audience. Genre often cements the nature of that promise. With detective fiction an element of that promise is that the detective will by reason, logic, and pure skill, untangle to the web of lies revealing the truth. Holmes will explain it all to Watson and justice arrives with our satisfaction.

Monsieur Spade breaks this inherent promise of mystery stories. The final episode, seemingly in a mad rush to wrap up all story and plotline before the hour has ended, resolves by nearly a Deus ex machina sidelining the protagonist with Spade no more essential to the resolution that the police detectives lectured by the private detective. Frank and Fontana are talented writers with enormous gifts for character and story, so this collapse of basic writing seems far out of character. Television and film are complex mediums for telling stories and all sorts of events can intrude on a production forcing last minute changes that degrade the final product. Perhaps that is what happened here. Whatever the cause Monsieur Spade after flying true for several episodes untimely missed the target entirely.

Monsieur Spade streams on AMC+.

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Stay-Cation is Over

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I have been absent from most online activities because I took a week and a half off from my day job and just used the time to do mostly nothing. I wrote nothing. The past weekend was the Southern California Writers Conference here in San Diego and I did attend that for the first time since the damnable pandemic. Because I was and still to some degree was inflicted with a barking hacking cough, I did not stay late into the morning hours taking part in the rouge read-and-critique session, something I truly adore, but I still had a good time and enjoyed myself.

Thursday, amid threats of rain, my sweetie-wife took the day off to share with me and we did our usual Sunday Trip to the zoo on that morning. Then a second on Monday, President’s day. Both days saw pretty high attendance.

Feedback from my WIP, The Wolves of Wallace Point, have been trickling in and, so far, nothing is indicating that I should kill the book. Soon query letters will be heading out to prospective agents. My next project combined the structure of a 70s disaster movie with a story filled with ghosts. I actually started that one but now realized it’s on the wrong first foot and I need to rethink a bit.

I had hoped to go out and see a few films during the at home vacation, but the persistent cough made that a non-starter as I refuse to be that inconsiderate to my fellow cinephiles.

My vacation ended yesterday with a trip to the dentist for the next steps in the long procedure of getting some implants to replace a couple of teeth. I was in the chair for about 2 hours, and I am ever thankful for both the skill and consideration of the team as well as for the podcasts that kept me from losing my mind to boredom.

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The Multi-Factor Hypocrisy of the GOP

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Back in the 1980s I can clearly recall several of my conservative/libertarian friends asserting with utter confidence that the people who voted for liberal parties only did so out of self-interest. That the goodies distributed by the liberal essentially ‘bought’ the votes of their supporter while the conservative electorate were motivated by principals and devotion to constitutional order.

As Luke Skywalker has said, ‘Every word of that is wrong.’

The GOP has been exposed as hypocrites on every vector of their supposed principals.

As the party lines up behind a candidate that scoffs at the law and the constitution it is clear that the only thing that motivates them is the desire to get what they personally want. Principals are for suckers.

Tax cuts for the wealthy.

Deregulation of the industrialists.

Oppression of minorities for the authoritarians.

And guns for the enthusiasts.

All other considerations secondary. Constitution expendable.

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Ready For Beta Readers

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My first horror novel, tentatively titled The Wolves of Wallace Point is ready for beta readers.

Beta readers, for those who do not know, are the test audiences of the book world. People invited to read a manuscript, provide feedback about what they liked or did not like about the work and then the author may revise, edit, rewrite, or junk the entire project. I have certainly had novels that did not survive the beta read stage, where I hadn’t quite achieved what I wanted to, and it was easier and simpler to set the manuscript aside until I was more confident that I would tackle it properly.

This is an open call. If you are interested in reading this book and providing me with your honest opinion and feedback either use the contact me link on my blog or drop me a direct message in Facebook and I’ll put you on the list.

The novel is about 100,000 words, so that much like most SF books but a little thinner that most fantasy novels, and I would appreciate a turnaround time of about two weeks.

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