Because At Least One of You Demanded It!

Because I asked for questions and the wonderful Chad Nevett responded!

Ever a fan of Babylon 5? If not, why not? If so, ever read any of THOSE novels? (Peter David wrote a pretty great trilogy…)

I’ve never even seen one episode. If I remember correctly, it’s because it was on at a strange time in the U.K. – Maybe Sunday lunchtimes on Channel 4, but I might be misremembering? – and then, by the time it was a “thing,” it seemed almost impenetrable, all years-long mythology and the kind of tight, labyrinthine continuity that I find really off-putting when considering trying out new sci-fi or similar stuff. Weirdly, I now find myself wondering whether I could read the David novels without having seen the show…

Why didn’t they ever make Star Trek: New Frontier into a TV series? Or adapt novels for movies? Pride? Ego? Idiocy? EXPLAIN IT TO ME, GRAEME!

Boring answer: Because Bad Robot controls all things Trek these days, and doesn’t want any competing product for the movies. Plus, Enterprise killed the franchise stone dead for years, let’s be honest… Although Voyager had kind of done a lot of that work already, hadn’t it? I’m not sure New Frontier would’ve really worked in any medium other than prose, for some reason – Certainly, when it’s had comic incarnations, it’s never quite gelled.

How much time do you spending reading books in a day? You seem to go through them at an insane rate — in addition to watching things and reading other stuff like comics and online writing…

It varies? I tend to try to get at least an hour’s prose reading a day, but that doesn’t always work out. I also read very quickly, and if I’m into something, I’ll just sit there and read it until it’s done. I read Mike Skinner’s The Story of The Streets in what was essentially a couple of sittings this past weekend, for example (It’s not as good as you want it to be, and that’s assuming you know who the Streets are/is to begin with, but it’s very readable despite the horrible formatting).

Looking at the past few posts you did about books you read, you seem to be mostly a non-fiction reader aside from genre stuff. Any interest in ‘literary’ fiction? Any Joyce or Dostoevsky on the horizon?

God, no. I am actually a terrible literary fiction reader; I tend to get bogged down in it, overthinking it and feeling restless as if I’m not understanding it properly or getting the most out of it. My last attempt at Joyce was particularly frustrating, but ultimately abandoned because it wasn’t any fun whatsoever and that’s why I read, if that makes sense.
…Actually, the more I think about it, that’s only really true about classic literary fiction. Contemporary literary fiction, I tend to have an easier time with, but also tend to keep back unless (a) I find something that I have to read or (b) I’m on vacation. There’s something about non-fiction that I find much easier to digest and unpick and enjoy – Although, right now, I am struggling through The End of Men in a way that I normally only struggle through fiction – and genre fiction is very intentionally there for me to switch my brain off and drift before sleep.

What do you think about Chuck Klosterman’s writing?

I find that I like the idea of it more than the reality. Or, maybe, that I like it in short bursts, but get irritated by it long form. It’s possibly some kind of self-loathing thing, because the things that annoy me about his writing – His digressions, his vanity, his spontaneity – are things that I find myself wishing I could do better in my writing. Perhaps I’m not that comfortable with him because I want to be him…?
Internet: You too can be like Chad and send me questions that I’ll reply to post-work one day when my brain is a rapidly unwinding mess! Just send questions to gamcm[at]outlook[dot]com and, well, I’ll try to get to it sometime.

Keep Bustin’

Batman hands in wanted manFrom the Guardian’s Photo Blog:

Batman to the rescue: a man dressed as the caped crusader walked into Trafalgar House police station in Bradford and handed over a wanted man. The suspect had been sought by police in connection with a number of alleged offences and a member of the public dressed in a full Batman outfit took him to the station on 25 February. Photograph: West Yorkshire Police/PA

Sometimes, real life likes to offer something like this up to just to check that you’re paying attention.

 

Recently Read, Prose (3/2/13)

books

Yeah, I’m not quite sure what happened to my reading habits this month; I have the feeling that there are books that I’ve read and entirely forgotten in there, for some reason – I normally read more than this, even with the amount of work/stress and everything that’s been going on [UPDATE: I did, indeed, forget something: Sasha Issenberg’s Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns, which was more dry than I’d been looking for]. Admittedly, there’s the book I still haven’t finished yet – Hana Rosin’s wonderful The End of Men – that could kinda/sorta be counted, I guess? Otherwise, though, as you can tell, I’ve been leaning heavily on the “Decompression Pulp” this month – El Sombra by Al Ewing being some kind of genius example of the idea, and a ridiculously fun, intentionally trashy story of one man who has barely escaped certain death out for revenge against, essentially steampunk Nazis; it’s really rather great – and trying out Star Wars novels for the first time ever because the high concept of Scoundrels (Pretty much “Hey, it’s Ocean’s Eleven, but Han Solo is George Clooney!”) is somewhat irresistible (The novel is slightly more resistible, it has to be said; it’s not bad, but it’s also nowhere near as fun as it should be).

Supergods was a re-read for work, but also spun out of reading an ARC of Glen Weldon’s really great Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, which I loved when I read and find myself appreciating even more the more I think about it afterwards. It’s the tone, I think; it’s just so very right for something like this. The End of The Line book was a light read because I was in the mood for some good punchy political writing, which this… isn’t, really. It’s another “almost, but not quite” entry. Basically, I find it difficult to wait for the inevitable “Definitive Book of The 2012 Election” to come along. I mean, we’re due one soon, right…?

Reports of My Demise Were Only Slightly Exaggerated

It’s been a week, people.

I don’t mean that in the literal sense – Well, I do, I guess; I am talking about the last five days of work, which is technically a week in the work sense if you want to be technical and all. But what I really mean is, it’s been a rough week; I got sick last weekend through what was nothing more than just overwork and overstress and exhaustion, and then that just didn’t really have a chance to go away, because I had the kinds of deadlines and workloads in front of me that I had to break my “No Work On The Weekend At All” rule in order to just keep my head above water… which meant that, robbed of the chance to destress for a couple of days, I was just under-powered and increasingly overwhelmed all the time this week.

That happened at the time when I had to go a couple of bigger-than-usual stories – interviews, really – for Wired (One about streaming video and the growth of the audience on tablet devices, and another about MonkeyBrain Comics and their new print titles) that had particular hand-in deadlines that couldn’t be switched or changed, as well as an increased workload for Newsarama because of the death of Batman’s sidekick (Instead of the one front page news story for them per week, in addition to my daily blogging duties, I had two and a half: here, here and here) and my regular Time essay, which was also connected with the deceased Boy Wonder. In almost every case, the work-as-handed-in and the work-as-published were considerably different, due to the editing process that’s almost always a good thing but also means that there’s a bunch of stuff that was written and didn’t see print this week, moreso than usual.

(For those curious about my workload: There’re also daily blog posts for Digital Trends, another handful of Wired pieces – including some that still have to run, and I think are showing up this weekend? – and the final Food or Comics for Robot 6 from this week, too. I also had to do the Comix Experience store catalog from scratch last weekend, which was a bear this month for some reason, and the Wait, What? podcast, which remains the highpoint of my work week.)

All of which is to say: I know, I know; I’ve been very quiet here lately, but it’s not by choice, I promise. Just as I owe people emails (Sorry, Adam, David and Lauren – Soon, I promise!), I owe this blog all kinds of attention. Hopefully, things will be less crazy this upcoming week, and we’ll get back to something resembling normal service. We can but hope, right…?

There Was You on Time and Waggin’ Your Tail

Dachsund UNFrom the Guardian’s Photo Blog:

If dogs ruled the world. Dachshunds sit in their positions for the performance installation Dachshund UN, where the dogs were used to mimic a United Nations Commission on Human Rights meeting in Toronto. Australian artist Bennett Miller created the show to question humanity’s potential for creating a universal justice system. Photograph: Michelle Siu/AP

Oh, man. Look at Sengal. Who’sa cutest widdel political figures? Who is? You are! Yes you are!

Hangin’ Around, Bangin’ Around

gymFrom the Guardian’s Photo Blog:

Little gymnasts stretch themselves on wooden bars during an exercise session in the gymnastics hall of a sports school in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province in China. They have been in professional sports training since the age of two and their daily schedule involves four hours of athletic training a day. Photograph: William Hong/Reuters

Part of me wanted to make a “Look at them torturing those poor children!” joke, but the truth of the matter is, this is weirdly nostalgic for me; I remember that my own school had a gym with those bars lining the walls, and that we’d have to climb up and down them all the time, with teachers searching desperately for “exercises” that little six year olds could actually manage to do without complaint.

Calling Occupants

From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:

Buddhist monks hold candles as they walk around a Pagoda on Makha Bhucha Day at the Dhammakaya Temple in Pathumthani,Thailand. Makha Bhucha day is observed on the full moon of the third lunar month and commemorates the day when 1,250 monks gathered to be ordained by the Buddha. Photograph: Porchnai Kittiwogsakul/AFP/Getty Images

This looks like the world’s grooviest alien invasion movie ever, with the pagoda looking the way it does…