More Cat Blogging

Because Bayliss has got to represent.

Cat Blogging

It must be Friday somewhere. Remo certainly thinks so.

Yeah, But What Is It?

Much has been made of the Gliese 581c, a potential "Super-Earth" which I'm told by the Internets orbits a red dwarf star named Gliese 581. It's some 20 light-years from what will no doubt soon be called "Regular-Earth" in all of our textbooks and, indeed, in our hearts. And since we have safe light-speed travel in our popular fiction and entertainment, it's safe to say we'll soon build such technology to travel to Gliese 581C to explore this strange new world and figure out how to spread freedom there. By then, the planet will probably be called something like "New Earth," "Arbusto," or (with any luck) "Ceti Alpha VI."

This last begs the question: Isn't that name taken? Perhaps it is. Clearly we have a responsibility to first ascertain whether we already know plenty about this so-called Gliese 581c. And that means determining whether this planet has actually already been depicted in science fiction. Specifically science fiction movies or television. Even more specifically, science fiction movies or television I've watched. And maybe some comic-book planets. Perhaps planets from a video game or two. But that's it, okay? This is science, damn it.

The Gliese 581 system is in our galaxy, so that rules out any extragalactic planets--that means for the sake of argument I'm ruling out Star Wars worlds that are by definition situated in a galaxy rather far away. Besides, that's SPACE FANTASY! or so Marvel Comics always told me.

For that matter, there's no way I'm going through all supplemental materials to figure out where these places I'm talking about are supposed to be. I just don't have that kind of time. I've narrowed it down to a few possibilities. Most of those links go to spoilers, by the way, so if you don't know who won the epic contest between Mork and the Fonz, beware. Speaking of which, first up is....

Ork
A distinct possibility. Orkans were, if memory serves, physically superior to humans (had Mork not fought against the indefinable mystic power of Fonzie's thumb, and simply slugged the Earth champion, he might well have conquered the planet back in the '50s). If Gliese 581c is egg-shaped, I say this is a slam-dunk.

Romulus
Ah, but if this is Romulus, where's Remus? Eh? Eeeeeh?

The Algae Planet
Certainly the most likely contender on the list. I have a feeling that a place orbiting such a crappy star (no offense to Gliese 581, but she's probably seen better eons) would have an equally crappy environment suitable really only for stuff like algae. And perhaps delicious candy.

A Really Fat Budong
Heh. "Budong."

Reach
It's certainly close enough to be Reach. Note that all I know about Reach is gleaned from a half-remembered Halo novel, and not The Fall of Reach. But if it was Reach, then Reach-ians would all have the strength of TWO men! Certainly such specimens would not be overrun by alien religious fantatics. Unless those alien religious fanatics used that old rocket-jumping trick.

Klendathu
Maybe. But if it is, why haven't they already flattened Earth with beetle-butt bombs? Think about it. Yeah.

The Genesis Planet
Don't be ridiculous. The Genesis Planet doesn't even exist yet. Barring some sort of temporal slingshot effect, that crappy shower-curtain guy from the future on Enterprise, a temporal rift, the Xindi, Q, or unauthorized or unintended use of the Guardian of Forever, the Orb of Time, a time-travel pod, a timeship, a temporal transmitter, chroniton particles in general, or the Nexus, it's just not possible.

LV-426
Totally could be this. Will we learn in time? And if not, does that mean Paul Reiser can finally be incarcerated for his role in this future debacle?

Kobol
Seems awfully close to Earth to be Kobol, but if we find pyramids or an abandoned opera house, it could well be.

Vogsphere
A truly terrifying possibility, and one that we would be wise not to overlook. Is the coming of the hyperspace bypass inevitable? I say we can't take the chance.

Caladan
If we find oceans on Gliese 581, this one cannot be discounted. Indeed, we should begin settlement immediately. Property values on Caladan are going to be astronomical, what with all those cool gothic-y castles and waterfront property.

Oa
Not a chance. Everyone knows Oa is at the center of the galaxy. Yeesh.

Arnessk
Man, I hope not. Eidelons give me the screamin' willies.

The Ball Homeworld
If we do not fight the Balls there, they will bounce all the way back here, take all of our jobs and all of the good places to live...in short, they'd roll all over us. The Balls must be thoroughly licked, and we must begin work on the anti-Ball technology immediately.

Terra
Why not? Randy Mantooth has to have gone somewhere. I haven't seen him in ages, but you can't swing a dead daggit without hitting Kevin Tighe.

Bajor
Just doesn't feel right. I'm pretty sure I saw Bajor's sun a few times, and it didn't look anything like a red dwarf. Then again, it's worth keeping an eye out for wormholes. A shortcut to the Gamma Quadrant would be worth it.

New Caprica
What are you, crazy? If this was New Caprica, wouldn't it be surrounded by a nebula that completely screws up Cylon DRADIS? Now don't you feel stupid?

Akir
You know, from Battle Beyond the Stars? Hello? This thing on?

Rimmerworld
Entirely possible, should the psi-moon that became Rimmerworld were to fall into some kind of encounter with a white hole.

Krypton
Oh, come on. Krypton blew up years ago. Even at 20 light-years distant, we would have seen it kerplode.

The Draconian Homeworld
Though I don't believe it was ever visited or depicted on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, the Draconians had to live someplace, right? Someplace with lots of Tigermen, presumably. We already know these Draconians will attempt to destroy us some 500 years hence--what are we waiting for? Make peace with the bird people, give the mutants some public housing, and get on the horn to Doc Huer already!

Krankor
I'll let Phantom of Krankor make his own case. Only a fool stands in the way of Krankor.

Lorwyn Book I Cover

Amazon has a cover image up for book 1 in the Lorwyn cyle, the first entry in the new set Scott McGough and I are writing (currently we're hard at work on the book 2). Note that the image on Amazon is an early version. I expect it's not the final version, especially the byline.

Here's a home-made corrected version I made for kicks. My apologies to the cover artist, I could not find a name to credit.

The Ravnica Trailer

Facing a Lorwyn deadline, so it must be time for a delicious and (for me) ego-boosting video post lest the sheer awesome of S.P. Miskowski's Daughters of Catastrophe completely overwhelm the blog, if not the world.

I wrote the narration and scene descriptions for this trailer Wizards used to help introduce the Ravnica cycle a year or so back. It's narrated by Michael Dorn, meaning I've pretty much peaked and am coasting from here on out.

No idea how it got onto YouTube.

S.P. Miskowski Writes Plays Full of Yelling Women

What can I say, I'm a fan.

S.P. also posts excerpts from her fiction on her blog, Daughters of Catastrophe (that's the title of her upcoming play) and links to some of her short stories online.

She's been posting sequential pieces from a new, scary (and scary-good) story about a woman named Darcy who encounters trouble on a lonely forest road. Go read 'em.

Picked the Wrong Week to Stop...

So I went to the doctor the other day and learned:

A) My coat weighs about 12 pounds and my ego would appreciate if I did not wear it the next time I stepped onto a fancy doctor scale.

B) They have to shave your chest to get an EKG.

C) If it feels like a heart attack, it might just mean your stomach has decided to move on up, Jeffersons-like, into a deluxe apartment above the sternum, where your esophagus rightly claims precedence.

D) Said condition can lead to a disease that I had previously thought invented by a cabal of pharmaceutical companies, acid reflux.

E) After one last Willie Nelson's Peach Cobbler vs. Stephen Colbert's American Dream throwdown (already "in the can," as it were) I'm going to cut back on the iced cream reviews.

But the worst, the absolute worst, is that I have to cut back on my coffee intake. Coffee and the demon that walks like Camel (Light) are the two crutches that leave my hands free to type. I have a long-term plan to deal with the smoking (that is, I'll quit...in the long term. When I hit the next deadline, with any luck.) But the coffee is something I can theoretically get by without, not being quite as addictive, or so I'd always assumed. And even though caffeine is apparently also A Thing I Have To Do Without, screw that noise. There is caffeine in less acidic beverages--green tea, for example. And really, a pot and a half is just silly, and the fancy Cuban coffee joint down the street is a bit pricey.

But it just ain't the same. I reckon I'll cut back a bit, maybe get that pot and a half down to a cup and a half, with maybe another half or three as needed. Slow and steady wins the race. And thanks to the fact I live in the good ol' U.S. of A., I have roughly 73,000 different heartburn medications to choose from.

Daisey, Meet Crazy.

S.P. just sent me this article at the Gothamist containing a YouTube video from a recent Mike Daisey monologue at the American Rep. Mike's...well, not really a friend, I don't know him that well and doubt he'd be able to pick me out of a line-up. But we have mutual friends (like Cory Nealy, the Evil Cory) and used to work in the same theatrical circles. I was on Mike's mailing list back in September 2001, and got back in touch with him for a while when he was emailing folks in real time about his experiences in NYC the day the towers fell. The guy's a brilliant monologist (monologuist? monologian?) and his shows are like watching a really energetic Spalding Gray who's, you know, my age. He got a lot of press for his one-man show based on his experiences working at Amazon.com, 21 Dog Years.

This is all preamble to yet another video link. Mike was recently performing his new show Invincible Summer when a strange, bizarre, and freaky event occured. Seems some self-proclaimed Christians (denominational loyalties as yet unknown--yes, I'm know there are Christians who aren't intolerant idiots, but the intolerant idiots happen to be awfully loud these days) bought up a grundle of tickets for the sole purpose of walking out en masse in the middle of the performance, and in the process destroyed Mike's original notes for his show (he works off of those notes instead of a script, as he points out). And rather than show the courage of their convictions, they appear to have all squirreled their way out of the theatre after bravely storming a lone, seated man onstage and physically attacking his work. What would Jesus do? According to these courageous souls, Jesus would pour water on your notes without even the common courtesy of turning it into wine.

Those alleged Christians are quite lucky, I think, that Mike Daisey is such a class act. Just watch (and be aware some of the monologue leading into the March of the Living Idiots contains language that's probably NSFW, unless you work for Paris Hilton).

Drive

I like it, while your mileage may vary. (Ha! Get it? Get it?!) It's half Amazing Race, half Lost, half 100 Bullets, half Cannonball Run, and half The Prisoner. That's a lot of halves.

Any show that features Charles Martin Smith as the mysterious "Smoking Man" type guy is worth a few hours of your time. Just beware the soundtrack, which alternates between decent cover songs and some seriously emo whine-rock. I even like how Fox is handling the premiere (which isn't something you'll hear me say too often) by stretching it over two nights. Check it out.

(For the record, clearly we're all meant to be rooting for the space cowboy to win the race, but if I were a betting man my money would be on the potentially homicidal Minivan Mom. Never let her walk behind you.)

God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut

So it goes.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

1922-2007

Photo by Peter Yang

PEEEEEPS!

Peeps. Is there anything that they can't do, except be food?

Back to the Grindstone

Would that it were the Grindhouse, but nope. I'm talking about words what need the smithing.

Scott McGough and I have a deadline rapidly approaching that's coinciding with one at the day job, so my furious spate of blogging is likely to slow for a bit. We're deep into Book 2 of the Lorwyn block and things are cooking right along -- things I can't talk about, naturally, but Things all the same.

I can talk a little more about Pirates of the Burning Sea, however. We're hitting that -- and pardon the starry-eyed nature of the following -- magical point at which the game is becoming a Game. I get to play it every day, and the changes that have been wrought on things that I fortunately have nothing to do with are nothing short of beautiful. Little things that didn't quite work right when I came on a year ago are not smooth and functional, big things that could have been improved a bit were instead overhauled, redesigned, and made spectacular. I've never worked with a harder-working group of people. And yet we still can spend lunch arguing the strategies for zombie warfare, concocting gastronomic military euphemisms involving General Tso/Tsao/Gau and his infamous Safeway chicken recipe, pasting a convention photo of the community guy's head onto any unlucky meme that hits the office email (and FLS has no shortage of meme-mail, most of it both funny and disturbing), and the usual debates concerning the Sopranos, Star Wars, Deadwood, Rome, Trek, BSG or Street Fighter.


Seriously, only lunch. We're busy there in ConCo.

Back to Lorwyn Book 2. This is both the most exhilerating and terrifying stage of co-writing, I'm finding. The ideas are coming fast and furious, but when you have two people writing simultaneously, the seams really show in that first draft. Fortunately, it's just the first draft. At the same time, we finished our final edits on book 1 and sent it off to the editors at Wizards. If all goes according to plan, you will see Lorwyn Book 1 at the end of August 2007. It helped a bit to go over book 1 one more time, especially to see how smooth the transitions from my writing to Scott's writing turned out. And really, but the end all of the text is the result of combined efforts since we edit and revise each other's stuff quite a bit. I had trouble remembering who had written exactly what, and I figure that must be a good thing.


Until Lorwyn Book 1 hits the shelves, may I recommend Scott McGough's Time Spiral cycle? They're some great reads. And the more of his books you buy, the less Scott has to sleep on my doorstep. I know the nights are getting warmer, but he lost three toes over the winter. Have a heart. It's Easter.

I Saw Hot Fuzz and Bullitt

On April 2nd, S.P. and I were able to get into the Varsity Theater in the U-District to catch a double feature of Hot Fuzz and Bullitt. Not necessarily in that order. And before I go any further, yes go see it and no don't watch any of the trailers or they're ruin some of the best jokes. True of any trailer, but this being only the second major motion movie (to my knowledge) from Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, you serve yourself well by waiting until you can enjoy the entire thing.

The Proto-Mitchell
Bullitt was actually the warm-up picture, as one might imagine. Now I know this movie's a classic, but as someone who'd only seen the rightfully famous car chase scene before (and I may have had it confused with something from The Thomas Crown Affair) I'm here to tell you (whether it's blasphemy or not) that the pacing of action films has come a long way in the three-plus decades since this movie was released. When stuff is happening, it's engrossing. McQueen is fascinating to watch when he's just standing there, but golly does he stand there a lot. Which brings me to the unsung brilliance of Bullitt: The Telecopier scene. Or maybe it's sung, and I just never heard of it. But man alive, is that some gripping filmmaking. For what seems like hours, but is probably closer to days, Steve McQueen and company stare at a late 60's fax machine, which slowly, slowly, ever-so-dear-god-hurry-up slowly receives...a fax.



Fortunately for you, no one on YouTube has posted the Telecopier scene, or if they have I couldn't find it. Just imagine a half-dozen guys standing around staring at an object that oddly resembled Bender's dismembered and decapitated torso.


Post-Game Show
Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright, who is the coolest hobbit on Earth (dude's just tiny, and I'm only 5'5" myself, understand) introduced Bullitt, but for the main event he brought out Simon Pegg and Nick Frost to welcome the audience in a strangely MST-like silhouette (house lights didn't come up until the movie was finished). They'd just been to a Mariners game--Opening Day, actually--and the Mariners had won. The audience reaction was strangely muted, but probably because many of us had been in line for much of the afternoon. And we'd believed a Steve McQueen could fax. Perhaps sensing the Mariners line of attack was not tracking with the proudly nerd-tacular audience (present company very much included, of course) they introduced the film without further ado (that I remember).

I suppose the following is very mild spoilers, but nothing really specific.

In Which Your Host Bloviates and Opinionates
Hot Fuzz is a brilliant, multi-level parody that scores direct hits 95% of the time, and even the rare weak gags provide foundations for better material later in the film. The primary target is the kick-ass cop action movie--which is exactly the type of movie Edgar Wright is born to direct. As in SotD it all seems to come from deep love of the movies that inspired this one, from Supercop to Bad Boys II to, well, Shaun of the Dead in an hilarious little bit that's been spoiled, unfortunately, since the first trailer. But just as SotD was a great zombie movie, so is this a great action movie, even as it makes with the really damned funny.


A second level of parody might be entirely my imagination, but I don't think I'm too far off the mark. The small village setting is a dead ringer for Midsomer Murders, a long-running BBC series based on the Inspector Barnaby novels. It's kind of like Law & Order crossed with Murder, She Wrote by way of Agatha Christie, and seems to be on a course to run at least as long as both of those series. The village murder mystery is not new, and Wright is, for all I know, drawing on everything from Poirot to Sherlock Holmes, but the locations in Hot Fuzz have also appeared as Badger's Drift, or I'm Nico Bentley.


Unfortunately, I got brain freeze during the after-show Q&A, so I didn't get a chance to ask.

So here's the thing--I'm not going to say much more about it specifics-wise, except to urge you to avoid watching any movie trailers for Hot Fuzz. Just wait, and go see it on opening day. Make it the biggest moneymaker of the year, because it deserves it and its hilarious and wonderful and everything movies should be. This movie, more than any I've seen in a long time, demands to be viewed sight-unseen for maximum impact.

And oh yes, it is violent. A lot more violent than you'd expect, until you remember the whole thing with the zombies and the cricket bats and the flesh-eating and so forth in their last movie. Gloriously over-the-toply violent--and that's just the murders. (I'm not really giving anything away to say there's murders, plural. Really.)

A last note from the Q&A: Someone asked when Spaced would be appearing on DVD in the States, and unfortunately it's tied up due to music copyright issues, Wright said. He couldn't say when they'd appear. And that is why true fanboys purchase, rent, or make good friends with owners of region-free DVD players. Which, now that I look at it, have gotten irritatingly affordable. Thanks a lot, Scarecrow.

Closer?!
Since I'm morally opposed to showing you any trailers for Hot Fuzz on the grounds it may lessen your enjoyment of its brilliance, I humbly offer two more videos: One, another take on the Bullitt car chase...

And the other, a collage of gripping (and perhaps not entirely safe for work if you have noisy speakers) scenes from a remake of another film that I place here on the thin justification that Edward Woodward was in both Hot Fuzz and the original Wicker Man.

Please note that this establishment does not necessarily endorse remakes, bees, armed bicycle theft, or Nicolas Cage beating up on the ladies. We do most certainly endorse actually going in to an asteroid field.

World War Z: Not to be Confused with the Child Doctor of the Same Name

S.P. convinced me to try out the Blogger upgrade deal, and I went a little nuts with the automatic news article generator. On the other hand, Corythosaurus is now number 24,328 in news concerning Bigfoot, Godzilla, ninjas, pirates, robots, zombies, and of course all the news that's fit to shat with the dramatic return of Shatnews featuring popular recording artist and Emmy Award-winning actor William Shatner, not pictured here.



Speaking of zombies, I just finished Max Brooks's World War Z and can't recommend it highly enough. It's an after-the-fact oral history of a worldwide battle (natch) against the zombie hordes. And since the book is written Studs Terkel-style, it's clear the humans win the war--but it's the How that's really interesting. Brooks--Son of Mel--is quite good at leaving lingering questions about the How and keeping you turning the pages until it's 7 in the morning and you have to go to work but you just have to get to the end of the chapter and maybe your boss will believe you really do have the flu this time and--



I digress. Some reviews I've read claim "nothing unusual" happens, or that it's just a "typical zombie story" told from multiple perspectives. And that's just silly. Mind you, it does seem like one of those things that immediately makes you wish you'd thought of it, one of those things you'll kick yourself for not thinking of before Brooks did. And sure, there are some awkward bits of dialogue--though they are surprisingly few. And at times the way Brooks describes real people in his book without ever naming names (including, but not limited to: Howard Dean, Colin Powell, Paris Hilton, and either Nelson Mandela or Desmond Tutu, if I'm guessing right) gets a little overdone. Especially odd considering that at one point a veteran soldier of Brooks's zombie war recollects finding himself in the line of battle beside Michael Stipe. But those are minor annoyances in what's probably the most comprehensively considered analysis of a "real-world" zombie apocalypse I've ever read. This isn't just a band of people holed up in a mall, house, or even a tower. There are individual stories that hit upon those old chestnuts in creative new ways, but what emerges is a lot more than that. It's got a little Ender's Game going on--the war planning and strategy, the threat of certain annihilation--and at times the apocalyptic angle really called to mind Battlestar Galactica as well. If you haven't read it, pick up a copy. In hardback. If you don't, you won't be able to be a big, fat know-it-all when the movie comes out. So many things no one in the movies ever thinks about: how do you retake a place the size of the U.S. away from millions upon millions of zombies? Can islands or water really protect you from things that don't need to breathe? Whither toilet paper and donuts? How long does it take a zombie to walk from China to Japan across the ocean floor?

The audiobook is also a wonder: the cast includes Mark Hamill, Henry Rollins, Alan Alda, both of the Reiners, and the proverbial "a lot more." Unfortunately, it covers maybe half of the actual printed book, so I say get 'em both. You don't want to miss Rollins as the private security contractor at home of the Last Celebrities On Earth, but you don't want to miss Siberian zombie wars or fighting the armies of undead in the foul sewers of Paris.

Finally, while I haven't dug into it just yet, it's worth nothing that World War Z is a sequel of sorts to the Zombie Survival Guide, which is played very straight as a non-fiction "civilian safety manual." Personally, I'd read Z first and the manual second--more surprises that way.

Thanks, Max Brooks, you magnificent bastard. As a writer I do wish I'd thought of it first, but as a reader I'm much happier that you did.