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.

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