Scifi Watch » creative

The Turkey City Lexicon (Part 6 – Character and Viewpoint)

David Halpert — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:29:34 +0000

Alas we come to the final section of the Turkey City Lexicon, character, viewpoint and other miscellaneous things. Sufficed to say if these are your only problems with the story after managing to accomplish every else in the other five parts of the turkey city lexicon then fixing these mistakes should be a cakewalk. On the other hand, a good, well-rounded, or even flawed character is the solid foundation of any good story. Take these suggestions to heart and with any luck you’ll be published soon enough too.

Click Here to view the Turkey City Lexicon in its entirety

• Funny-hat characterization
A character distinguished by a single identifying tag, such as odd headgear, a limp, a lisp, a parrot on his shoulder, etc.

• Mrs. Brown
The small, downtrodden, eminently common, everyday little person who nevertheless encapsulates something vital and important about the human condition. “Mrs. Brown” is a rare personage in the SF genre, being generally overshadowed by swaggering submyth types made of the finest gold-plated cardboard. In a famous essay, “Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown,” Ursula K. Le Guin decried Mrs. Brown’s absence from the SF field. (Attr: Virginia Woolf)

• Submyth
Classic character-types in SF which aspire to the condition of archetype but don’t quite make it, such as the mad scientist, the crazed supercomputer, the emotionless super-rational alien, the vindictive mutant child, etc. (Attr. Ursula K. Le Guin).

• Viewpoint glitch
The author loses track of point-of-view, switches point-of-view for no good reason, or relates something that the viewpoint character could not possibly know.

Part Seven: Miscellaneous
• AM/FM
Engineer’s term distinguishing the inevitable clunky real-world faultiness of “Actual Machines” from the power-fantasy technodreams of “Fucking Magic.”

• Consensus Reality
Useful term for the purported world in which the majority of modern sane people generally agree that they live — as opposed to the worlds of, say, Forteans, semioticians or quantum physicists.

• Intellectual sexiness
The intoxicating glamor of a novel scientific idea, as distinguished from any actual intellectual merit that it may someday prove to possess.

• The Ol’ Baloney Factory
“Science Fiction” as a publishing and promotional entity in the world of commerce.

The Turkey City Lexicon (Part 3, Common Workshop Story Types)

David Halpert — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:51:18 +0000

Despite the common belief, editors do a lot more than simply correct spelling and grammar (which is more suited for a copy editor). In truth the editor works in the best interests of a writer to ensure that their work is the best piece of fiction it can be before it is manufactured and placed on the shelf.

Many aspiring writers can’t handle criticism well and as a result are resistant to editors opinions, corrections, and suggestions when it comes to editing their work. However, if there is any frustration on the editor’s part rest assured it’s simply because many have experienced the same clichéd plotlines, characters, and storylines to the point where they can read a page and immediately see where a story is going.

Be sure to avoid this as best you can with your writing and take notice of some of the most common workshop story types listed below.

Adam and Eve Story
Nauseatingly common subset of the “Shaggy God Story” in which a terrible apocalypse, spaceship crash, etc., leaves two survivors, man and woman, who turn out to be Adam and Eve, parents of the human race.

The Cozy Catastrophe
Story in which horrific events are overwhelming the entirety of human civilization, but the action concentrates on a small group of tidy, middle-class, white Anglo-Saxon protagonists. The essence of the cozy catastrophe is that the hero should have a pretty good time (a girl, free suites at the Savoy, automobiles for the taking) while everyone else is dying off. (Attr. Brian Aldiss)

Dennis Hopper Syndrome
A story based on some arcane bit of science or folklore, which noodles around producing random weirdness. Then a loony character- actor (usually best played by Dennis Hopper) barges into the story and baldly tells the protagonist what’s going on by explaining the underlying mystery in a long bug-eyed rant. (Attr. Howard Waldrop)

Deus ex Machina or “God in the Box”
Story featuring a miraculous solution to the story’s conflict, which comes out of nowhere and renders the plot struggles irrelevant. H.G. Wells warned against SF’s love for the deus ex machina when he coined the famous dictum that “If anything is possible, then nothing is interesting.” Science fiction, which specializes in making the impossible seem plausible, is always deeply intrigued by godlike powers in the handy pocket size. Artificial Intelligence, virtual realities and nanotechnology are three contemporary SF MacGuffins that are cheap portable sources of limitless miracle.

The Grubby Apartment Story
Similar to the “poor me” story, this autobiographical effort features a miserably quasi-bohemian writer, living in urban angst in a grubby apartment. The story commonly stars the author’s friends in thin disguises — friends who may also be the author’s workshop companions, to their considerable alarm.

The Jar of Tang
“For you see, we are all living in a jar of Tang!” or “For you see, I am a dog!” A story contrived so that the author can spring a silly surprise about its setting. Mainstay of the old Twilight Zone TV show. An entire pointless story contrived so the author can cry “Fooled you!” For instance, the story takes place in a desert of coarse orange sand surrounded by an impenetrable vitrine barrier; surprise! our heroes are microbes in a jar of Tang powdered orange drink.

This is a classic case of the difference between a conceit and an idea. “What if we all lived in a jar of Tang?” is an example of the former; “What if the revolutionaries from the sixties had been allowed to set up their own society?” is an example of the latter. Good SF requires ideas, not conceits. (Attr. Stephen P. Brown)

When done with serious intent rather than as a passing conceit, this type of story can be dignified by the term “Concealed Environment.” (Attr. Christopher Priest)

Just-Like Fallacy
SF story which thinly adapts the trappings of a standard pulp adventure setting. The spaceship is “just like” an Atlantic steamer, down to the Scottish engineer in the hold. A colony planet is “just like” Arizona except for two moons in the sky. “Space Westerns” and futuristic hard-boiled detective stories have been especially common versions.

The Kitchen-Sink Story
A story overwhelmed by the inclusion of any and every new idea that occurs to the author in the process of writing it. (Attr. Damon Knight)

The Motherhood Statement
SF story which posits some profoundly unsettling threat to the human condition, explores the implications briefly, then hastily retreats to affirm the conventional social and humanistic pieties, i.e. apple pie and motherhood. Greg Egan once stated that the secret of truly effective SF was to deliberately “burn the motherhood statement.” (Attr. Greg Egan).

The “Poor Me” Story
Autobiographical piece in which the male viewpoint character complains that he is ugly and can’t get laid. (Attr. Kate Wilhelm)

Re-Inventing the Wheel
A novice author goes to enormous lengths to create a science fictional situation already tiresomely familiar to the experienced reader. Reinventing the Wheel was traditionally typical of mainstream writers venturing into SF. It is now often seen in writers who lack experience in genre history because they were attracted to written SF via SF movies, SF television series, SF role-playing games, SF comics or SF computer gaming.

The Rembrandt Comic Book
A story in which incredible craftsmanship has been lavished on a theme or idea which is basically trivial or subliterary, and which simply cannot bear the weight of such deadly-serious artistic portent.

The Shaggy God Story
A piece which mechanically adopts a Biblical or other mythological tale and provides flat science-fictional “explanations” for the theological events. (Attr. Michael Moorcock)

The Slipstream Story
Non-SF story which is so ontologically distorted or related in such a bizarrely non-realist fashion that it cannot pass muster as commercial mainstream fiction and therefore seeks shelter in the SF or fantasy genre. Postmodern critique and technique are particularly fruitful in creating slipstream stories.

The Steam-Grommet Factory
Didactic SF story which consists entirely of a guided tour of a large and elaborate gimmick. A common technique of SF utopias and dystopias. (Attr. Gardner Dozois)

The Tabloid Weird
Story produced by a confusion of SF and Fantasy tropes — or rather, by a confusion of basic world-views. Tabloid Weird is usually produced by the author’s own inability to distinguish between a rational, Newtonian-Einsteinian, cause-and- effect universe and an irrational, supernatural, fantastic universe. Either the FBI is hunting the escaped mutant from the genetics lab, or the drill-bit has bored straight into Hell — but not both at once in the very same piece of fiction. Even fantasy worlds need an internal consistency of sorts, so that a Sasquatch Deal-with-the-Devil story is also “Tabloid Weird.” Sasquatch crypto-zoology and Christian folk superstition simply don’t mix well, even for comic effect. (Attr. Howard Waldrop)

The Whistling Dog
A story related in such an elaborate, arcane, or convoluted manner that it impresses by its sheer narrative ingenuity, but which, as a story, is basically not worth the candle. Like the whistling dog, it’s astonishing that the thing can whistle — but it doesn’t actually whistle very well. (Attr. Harlan Ellison)

The Turkey City Lexicon (Part 2 – Words & Sentences, Cont’d)

David Halpert — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 23:40:16 +0000

Here is the second part of my six-part series entitled the Turkey City Lexicon. Click Here for the first part.

While many aspiring writers have no problem writing short stories, most seem to have a problem with reading short stories, a feature evident upon reading their works. Many aspiring writers assume that writing short stories is easier than writing a novel but in fact its opposite is true, since a short story condenses the breadth and depth of a novel into a few short pages. Without prattling on for too long here are some more common mistake that many a first-time writers fall into.

Bathos
A sudden, alarming change in the level of diction. “There will be bloody riots and savage insurrections leading to a violent popular uprising unless the regime starts being lots nicer about stuff.”

Countersinking
A form of expositional redundancy in which the action clearly implied in dialogue is made explicit. “‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said, “urging her to leave.”

Dischism
The unwitting intrusion of the author’s physical surroundings, or the author’s own mental state, into the text of the story. Authors who smoke or drink while writing often drown or choke their characters with an endless supply of booze and cigs. In subtler forms of the Dischism, the characters complain of their confusion and indecision — when this is actually the author’s condition at the moment of writing, not theirs within the story. “Dischism” is named after the critic who diagnosed this syndrome. (Attr. Thomas M. Disch)

False Humanity
An ailment endemic to genre writing, in which soap-opera elements of purported human interest are stuffed into the story willy-nilly, whether or not they advance the plot or contribute to the point of the story. The actions of such characters convey an itchy sense of irrelevance, for the author has invented their problems out of whole cloth, so as to have something to emote about.

False Interiorization
A cheap labor-saving technique in which the author, too lazy to describe the surroundings, afflicts the viewpoint-character with a blindfold, an attack of space-sickness, the urge to play marathon whist-games in the smoking-room, etc.

Fuzz
An element of motivation the author was too lazy to supply. The word “somehow” is a useful tip-off to fuzzy areas of a story. “Somehow she had forgotten to bring her gun.”

Hand Waving
An attempt to distract the reader with dazzling prose or other verbal fireworks, so as to divert attention from a severe logical flaw. (Attr. Stewart Brand)

Laughtrack
Characters grandstand and tug the reader’s sleeve in an effort to force a specific emotional reaction. They laugh wildly at their own jokes, cry loudly at their own pain, and rob the reader of any real chance of attaining genuine emotion.

Show, not Tell
A cardinal principle of effective writing. The reader should be allowed to react naturally to the evidence presented in the story, not instructed in how to react by the author. Specific incidents and carefully observed details will render auctorial lectures unnecessary. For instance, instead of telling the reader “She had a bad childhood, an unhappy childhood,” a specific incident — involving, say, a locked closet and two jars of honey — should be shown. Rigid adherence to show-don’t-tell can become absurd. Minor matters are sometimes best gotten out of the way in a swift, straightforward fashion.

Signal from Fred
A comic form of the “Dischism” in which the author’s subconscious, alarmed by the poor quality of the work, makes unwitting critical comments: “This doesn’t make sense.” “This is really boring.” “This sounds like a bad movie.” (Attr. Damon Knight)

Squid in the Mouth
The failure of an author to realize that his/her own weird assumptions and personal in-jokes are simply not shared by the world-atlarge. Instead of applauding the wit or insight of the author’s remarks, the world-at-large will stare in vague shock and alarm at such a writer, as if he or she had a live squid in the mouth. Since SF writers as a breed are generally quite loony, and in fact make this a stock in trade, “squid in the mouth” doubles as a term of grudging praise, describing the essential, irreducible, divinely unpredictable lunacy of the true SF writer. (Attr. James P Blaylock)

Squid on the Mantelpiece
Chekhov said that if there are dueling pistols over the mantelpiece in the first act, they should be fired in the third. In other words, a plot element should be deployed in a timely fashion and with proper dramatic emphasis. However, in SF plotting the MacGuffins are often so overwhelming that they cause conventional plot structures to collapse. It’s hard to properly dramatize, say, the domestic effects of Dad’s bank overdraft when a giant writhing kraken is levelling the city. This mismatch between the conventional dramatic proprieties and SF’s extreme, grotesque, or visionary thematics is known as the “squid on the mantelpiece.”

White Room Syndrome
A clear and common sign of the failure of the author’s imagination, most often seen at the beginning of a story, before the setting, background, or characters have gelled. “She awoke in a white room.” The ‘white room’ is a featureless set for which details have yet to be invented — a failure of invention by the author. The character ‘wakes’ in order to begin a fresh train of thought — again, just like the author. This ‘white room’ opening is generally followed by much earnest pondering of circumstances and useless exposition; all of which can be cut, painlessly. It remains to be seen whether the “white room” cliche’ will fade from use now that most authors confront glowing screens rather than blank white paper.

Wiring Diagram Fiction
A genre ailment related to “False Humanity,” “Wiring Diagram Fiction” involves “characters” who show no convincing emotional reactions at all, since they are overwhelmed by the author’s fascination with gadgetry or didactic lectures.

You Can’t Fire Me, I Quit
An attempt to diffuse the reader’s incredulity with a pre-emptive strike — as if by anticipating the reader’s objections, the author had somehow answered them. “I would never have believed it, if I hadn’t seen it myself!” “It was one of those amazing coincidences that can only take place in real life!” “It’s a one-in-a-million chance, but it’s so crazy it just might work!” Surprisingly common, especially in SF. (Attr. John Kessel)

Five Ways SF/F Publishers Can Increase Sales, Save Money and Promote Publicity III

David Halpert — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 17:08:39 +0000

This is the third part of my four part series entitled “Five Ways Publishers Can Increase Sales, Save Money, and Promote Publicity”. For those interested in viewing Part I (Click Here) and Part II (Click Here).

Offer More Contest / Giveaways!

It’s true, people like free stuff, especially books, and readers tend to take note of a publishing house or book being promoted that would otherwise go unnoticed. I myself enter 100 contests a day, and while I keep up-to-date with a lot of things related to books, authors, events, and the publishing industry at large, much of the general public does not.

It’s very easy to stand out even among other contests. How? Offer a Kindle, or if you’re dealing with Canada, a Sony Reader (still don’t know why we can’t get them here) in lieu of books. What’s the advantage here? Let’s say you hold a contest and your prize is a fantasy novel, it’s very likely that the only people that will enter the contest are devout fantasy readers. This pigeonholing will ultimately lead to a loss of publicity, however, appeal to every reader and you’re in like Flint. It’s also a good idea to offer free ebooks on sites like Suvudu as well.

Start a Newsletter

With sounding as if I’m favouring one particular author, one of the reasons why I’m such a huge fan of Robert J. Sawyer is the way he markets himself. He’s a perfect balance between fantastic storytelling and author branding (but his books are fantastic nonetheless). One of the ways he does this is with a quarterly newsletter and I got to tell you, getting a newsletter every couple of months automatically sent to my inbox outlining some of the author’s accomplishment, events, and musings saves me the time of having to go online to search for it myself.

Now obviously a lot of publishers have done this already, and some might be rolling their eyes at this post saying stuff like, “Well, we have an RSS feed” or “We have Twitter account”. But those of us too lazy to subscribe or prefer our information given to us clumped together at successive intervals only makes sense. If you’re sending newsletter to agents, publicists, and media outlets already, why not make some of that information available to the public as well. Email is not dead. It’s a solid medium to get the word out and provides another metric for analyzing your consumer base.

Offer Books for Free Under a Creative Commons License

Okay, I can already tell that a lot of you are cringing at this suggestion. You probably think I’m one of those Gen-Yers with a “Let’s Give Everything for Free” mentality. And maybe I am, but there are some sound reasons for doing so. Cory Doctorow and Peter Watts (both Canadian!) are just two authors that have claimed that offering their books online for free has only increased their sales counts.

Now as a publisher whose ultimate goal is to make money, I completely sympathize with your position. I understand most will probably not want to put a link towards a free downloadable PDF. But at the very least (for the love of God!) place a creative commons symbol notifying if your authors works are under a creative commons license and let the readers judge whether or not they want to download their works. The fact is if people like what they see online many will in fact go out and purchase the hard copy at the bookstore. It’s easy word-of-mouth advertising and will likely do more good than harm.

Branch into Other Subgenres

As near as I can tell there are approximately 10-12 different subgenres within science fiction. Cyberpunk, hard science fiction, alternate history, apocalyptic – these are what make up the genre. Fantasy does this as well — epic fantasy, high fantasy, erotic fantasy, urban fantasy. Yet sometimes I find that some big name imprint publishers are very rigid and uncompromising when it comes to the subject matter across their entire line of books.

The last thing a publisher wants is to be pigeonholed into one subgenre by its audience or readers. Science fiction has always been a genre of inclusivity, not the other way around. If you feel that your imprint branding is seen as rigid it might be time to consider taking on one or two new authors whose works tend to drift along the edges as to what you consider ‘normal’.

Use Twitter (if you’re not doing so already)

By now this strategy is sort of self-expanatory and being utilized across many markets but there will always be some publishers that want to clinch to the traditional avenues for publicity and media rather than get on board with the latest social media. However, in this instance if you want to not only spread your network, increase your audience, and reach anyone between the ages of 10-35 then having an account on Twitter is absolutely crucial in today’s publishing market. More people are reading ebooks, less people are reading period. It takes literally five minutes to set up and best of all it’s free.

2009 Mythopoeic Awards Finalists

David Halpert — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:10:00 +0000

Now a lot of people are probably going to give me a hard time with this post considering it has nothing to do with science fiction and more to do with fantasy than anything else. Nevertheless, since there are many commonalities between the two genres and both are inclusive to all readers I thought people would be genuinely interested.

The Mythopoeic Awards for literature and literary studies are given by the Mythopoeic Society to authors of outstanding works in the fields of myth, fantasy, and the scholarly study of these areas. The winners of this year’s awards will be announced during Mythcon XL to be held from July 17-20, 2009 in Los Angeles, California.

Nevertheless, it looks like an impressive list for each award. It seems there’s no shortage of good fantasy out there to read, this award only confirms that. Here are the nominees for your viewing pleasure.

ADULT LITERATURE
• Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone, Carol Berg (Roc)
• Pandemonium, Daryl Gregory (Del Rey)
• Lavinia, Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt)
• The Bell at Sealey Head, Patricia A. McKillip (Ace)
• An Evil Guest, Gene Wolfe (Tor)

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
• Graceling, Kristin Cashore (Harcourt Children’s)
• The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins)
• House of Many Ways, Diana Wynne Jones (HarperCollins)
• Savvy, Ingrid Law (Dial)
• Nation, Terry Pratchett (HarperCollins)

INKLINGS STUDIES
• Charles Williams: Alchemy and Imagination, Gavin Ashenden (Kent State, 2008)
• Tolkien on Fairy-stories: Expanded Edition, with Commentary and Notes, Veryln Flieger and Douglas A. Anderson, eds. (HarperCollins, 2008)
• The History of the Hobbit, Part One: Mr. Baggins; Part Two: Return to Bag-end, John Rateliff (Houghton Mifflin, 2007)
• Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis, Michael Ward (Oxford, 2008)
• The Evolution of Tolkien’s Mythology: A Study of the History of Middle-earth, Elizabeth A. Whittingham (McFarland, 2008)

MYTH AND FANTASY STUDIES
• Four British Fantasists: Place and Culture in the Children’s Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper, Charles Butler (Children’s Literature Association & Scarecrow, 2006)
• Folklore and the Fantastic in Nineteenth-Century British Fiction, Jason Marc Harris (Ashgate, 2008)
• Rhetorics of Fantasy, Farah Mendlesohn (Wesleyan University Press, 2008)
• One Earth, One People: The Mythopoeic Fantasy Series of Ursula K. Le Guin, Madeleine L’Engle and Orson Scott Card, Marek Oziewicz (McFarland, 2008)
• Oz in Perspective: Magic and Myth in the Frank L. Baum Books, Richard Carl Tuerk (McFarland, 2007)

Wentworth Miller to Possibly Star in Bioshock Film

David Halpert — Sat, 30 May 2009 16:39:19 +0000

Little is known about Bioshock, a film adaptation of the popular 2007 video game released by 2K Studios, other than half-baked rumours at the mention of the film’s astronomical budget of $120 million. Talks of the budget alone have left many to question whether or not the film project will go forward at all (especially among the high-ranking officers at Universal Studios).

Here’s what we do know. A script either has or will be written by John Logan, screenwriter for such films as The Aviator, Gladiator, and Star Trek: Nemesis and will set to be directed by Gore Verbinski, director of such films as the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy and The Ring.

However, according to a recent article in ScifiWire, Wentworth Miller, star of the four-season show Prison Break, has cited that he is in talks with the studio on playing the lead in the film. The rumors started from a tweet left from Wentworth’s personal Twitter account a few days ago. Personally, I think Miller is one of the most underestimated actors today and wouldn’t mind seeing him in an epic film like Bioshock. On the flip side, rumors have been circulating that because of budget problems, Universal Studios is banking on a less-notable actor like Miller to offset some of the costs of the film. Either way, a Bioshock film would be legendary.

For those who have never played Bioshock yet for the Xbox or PS3 do yourself a favour and buy yourself a copy. Honestly, it’s one of the most games ever made.

Sturgeon Award Finalists Announced

David Halpert — Fri, 29 May 2009 00:00:13 +0000

While I don’t keep up to date with the latest in short fiction by science fiction/fantasy authors I realize that a lot of my readers do. I also know the painstakingly arduous task that comes with writing short fiction, so when the annual Sturgeon Award Finalists are announced, you can be sure I’ll write a post on it. Here are the finalists for the 2009 Sturgeon Award below:

“The Gambler”, Paolo Bacigalupi (Fast Forward 2)
“The Political Prisoner”, Charles Coleman Finlay (F&SF 8/08)
“True Names”, Cory Doctorow & Benjamin Rosenbaum (Fast Forward 2)
“The Ray Gun: A Love Story”, James Alan Gardner (Asimov’s 2/08)
“Memory Dog”, Kathleen Ann Goonan (Asimov’s 4-5/08)
“The Tear”, Ian McDonald (Galactic Empires)
“Special Economics”, Maureen McHugh (The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy)
“His Master’s Voice”, Hannu Rajaniemi (Interzone #218)
“From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled”, Michael Swanwick (Asimov’s 2/08).

Kij Johnson’s “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” (Asimov’s 7/08) was a finalist, but Johnson removed it from consideration because she is a juror. The awards will be presented at a banquet July 10, 2009, held during the Campbell Conference in Lawrence KS, from July 9-12.

Sherlock Holmes Trailer Released

David Halpert — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:08:03 +0000

Click Here to View the Works of Guy Ritchie at Amazon
Click Here to View the Works of Guy Ritchie on Ebay

Now I’m divided on this trailer for a couple of reasons. On the one hand this film is a complete over-sexualized, action-driven bastardization of the origin texts that make up the Sherlock Holmes series. But I suppose I can sleep easier at night after seeing Rachel McAdams in a corset (after all we went to the same school, York University, Toronto, whoo!). However, wasn’t Sherlock Holmes a kind of Jack-of-all-Trades characters that had very little to do with the real-life detectives of the late 19th century. Is Sherlock Holmes any more realistic than the CSIs portrayed on television today?

One thing is for certain. After Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. has now risen to the ranks of complete bad ass. And with talks of an Iron Man sequel already under way, his career is only going to go up. And with Jude Law playing Watson, and Rachel Adams also cast, one must ask themselves, “What could go wrong?”

Now what’s also interesting is the fact that this movie was directed by Guy Ritchie, director of such films as Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, and Revolver, which explains much of the macho over-the-top fighting scenes in the preview. Nonetheless, the film is set to be released on Christmas of this year and looks awesome.

And while I may object to the some of the things in the trailer, the film actually looks pretty cool. Don’t take my word for it. Judge for yourself.

High Rise Poster Revealed

David Halpert — Wed, 27 May 2009 23:58:42 +0000

Click Here to View the Works of J.G. Ballard at Amazon
Click Here to View the Works of J.G. Ballard on Ebay

The untimely death of J.G. Ballard left a whole in many people’s hearts. I know it certainly did mine. However, fans of the author will be pleased to learn that his 1975 novel High Rise will definitely be getting the big screen treatment.

Little is known at this point, in fact the last I heard about this project was two years when they first announced it. But we do know some things. Firstly, the film will be directed by Canadian filmmaker Vincenzo Natali, best known for his 1997 cult classic Cube.

With the release of the teaser poster we’ve actually been able to uncover some of the more pressing details with regards to plot and setting. While Ballard’s novel was more of a critique on modern English society and how if left to our own devises technology would ultimately lead us to barbarism, the film version of High Rise will actually be set on an island in the middle of the ocean. The tower, known as the Elysium Tower according to the synopsis, “is a self contained world. A world of commerce, cuisine and entertainment, featuring restaurants, swimming pools, libraries, cinemas, even a research hospital. It is not just the tallest and most technologically advanced work of modern architecture, but one that embodies the world’s highest aspirations.” However, soon after Dr. Robert Laing’s arrival onto the island breakouts begin amongst the residents of the building and it isn’t long before the entire tower descends into unimaginable chaos.

This was actually a refreshing surprise for me to hear that this project was still going forward. The plot seems plausible. When I read this novel three years ago I couldn’t help but ask myself “Well, if things are so bad there, couldn’t they just leave.” With the invention of cell phones and the internet, many would’ve easily seen this as a plothole to say the least. Nevertheless, I look forward to hearing more news on this film in the near future.

Viral T-Shirts: Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt

David Halpert — Wed, 27 May 2009 00:03:39 +0000

No, I’m not talking about the clothing of those infected with swine flu. This was actually recommended by a friend of mine about a week ago and since I’m into all things viral I figured what the hell. It seems the number one selling clothing item is a black T-shirt depicting a full moon and three wolves. This phenomenon has become known as the “Three Wolf Moon T-Shit” (Click Here to View). According to Amazon’s product rank this item is currently the #1 selling product (yes, first) in the clothing/apparel section of the website.

Now a T-shirt sold on Amazon is nothing special, and I’ll never know what makes this such a popular design (maybe it’s something to do with the Twilight series) but people have been overloading this product’s review section with tales of this T-shirt’s mystical powers and I’m starting to get suspicious.

Take this example from Loveguitar (Georgia, Altanta):

“I bought this shirt on a whim for my husband. I stupidly failed to read any of the reviews and we both abruptly learned of it’s other-dimensional qualities. I don’t know, it’s so weird……it’s like it came from a parallel universe and was accidentally left over here. Anyway, even before it was ripped from the box our household animals were going nutz. My spitz paced madly back and forth frothing from her mouth and howling so very uncharacteristically. It was like she was hearing ancient wolf-cries awaking her in-bred genetic code dating back to the earliest wild dog…..my God, for the first time in my life I feared her! We searched the entire house for the cats. They finally came out hours later after I walked around loudly shaking the cat food sack. I guess I should have done that to begin with.”

Anything that involves community-based storytelling is okay in my book. Honestly, the more you read the reviews the more hilarious they get. Last I checked there were over 900 reviews on the site. Honestly, the more you actually want to buy one of these T-shirts. I’ve already placed my order. Click Here to purchase yours.