Krystle: Are we having a good time?

Jana: Of course we are! We’re at the Drake! A place for artists and hipsters! A haven for the bohemian! A citadel for the urbanely-cool!

Random Guy: I am so gonna get some! Look at the ratio, bitches! 3- 1! I can’t lose!

Steph: This music is inducing a seizure in my person.

Krystle: Yeah what is this shit? And who’s this bitch beside me all up on my shit?

Jana: I think it’s trance. Or dance. Or trip-hop. Or….god I can’t do this. I can’t pretend anymore. Listen, just fucking smile and act like everything is normal. This place rocks. NOW Magazine says so. So keep going through the motions until we can finally get the fuck out and pretend we LOVED it. God I need another drink.

Comet? Meteor?

Watch the video here.

From the Wiki article:

Watchmen was a twelve-issue comic book series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. DC Comics originally published it as a montly limited series from 1986 to 1987 and it was later republished as a trade paperback, which popularized the graphic novel format. To date, Watchmen remains the only graphic novel to win a Hugo Award, and is also the only graphic novel to appear on Time Magazine’s 2005 list of “the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present.”

Watchmen is set in 1985, in an alternate history United States where costumed adventurers are real and the country is edging closer to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union (the Doomsday Clock is at five minutes to midnight). It tells the story of a group of past and present superheroes and the events surrounding the mysterious murder of one of their own. Watchmen depicts superheroes as real people who must confront ethical and personal issues, who struggle with neuroses and failings, and who—with one notable exception—lack anything recognizable as super powers. Watchmen’s deconstruction of the conventional superhero archetype, combined with its innovative adaptation of cinematic techniques and heavy use of symbolism, multi-layered dialogue, and metafiction, has influenced both comics and film.

The film:

The Watchmen film adaption, set for release sometime in March of 2009, is directed by Zack Snyder of 300 fame – so we already know that even if it does suck story-wise, it’s going to look really, really cool.

The film stars Patrick Wilson, Jackie Earle Haley, Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Matthew Goode, Stephen McHattie and Carla Gugino.

Set in 1985, Nixon is still president, and we’re on the verge of war between the U.S.A and the Soviet Union.

More news to come!

The government of an alien. Greek heteros, foreign, and arche, rule.

–Rev. John Boag, Imperial Lexicon (1850)

“Dorchester Publishing and Circle of Seven Productions have teamed up to present a contest offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for amateur and professional filmmakers who also love books. Participants will create book trailers based on their favorite novel in the SHOMI series of modern-day fantasy fiction. The best trailer—as selected by internationally bestselling author Stephen King—will be shown at a movie premiere in New York City as well as a theater in the winner’s home market.”

Holy crap, Batman!

That actually sounds really cool. I still hate book trailers and the whole idea behind them because they seem like a cheap marketing gimmick that will lose popularity in the same way other trends do. Generally they’re boring and cheesy and really, really badly made. But then again, I also tend to act like a crochety old woman afraid of progress and change at times. I actually do want to keep an open mind on this.

Deadline is December 30th. Contest is open to U.S residents only 18+. Read submission guidelines here.

The site features more free ebook and short story downloads, art, blog posts by well known science fiction and fantasy authors, and a community of fans, giving the whole project a real interactive feel.

It will be interesting to watch this grow and develop over the next year, and I think only good can come from this.

Recently Random House launched something similar with Suvudu, a word I had to google to learn it’s definition (I got bored, someone just tell me what it means, or like Lululemon does it mean nothing?) and it will focus on all things science fiction and fantasy related: books, movies, television, gaming, anime, etc.

What does this mean? Well for one, some really cool websites with some potentially awesome inside information brought to us by well-connected people; and for the other, major publishers are embracing the blogosphere in a major way.

Batman: The Dark Knight finally came out, and like every other Batman fanatic, I eagerly lined up at the movie theatre to see the long-anticipated release.

To sum up my feelings: Wow. OMFG. And just plain…wow.

In the weeks and days leading up to the release I tried very hard to be a good girl: I didn’t read any reviews. I didn’t watch any of the other trailers or the leaked first six minutes that was making it’s way around the net. I wanted to see the movie and not bring any other opinions in with me. I didn’t want to ruin it. Because as we all know; nothing ruins something good quite as much as too much hype and anticipation. I’m glad I did because I was blown away.

I’m not going to post some long, analytical, intellectual, wank here about The Dark Knight; other more qualified reviewers have taken care of that for me. But I do have a few things I want to talk about.

Heath Ledger

Heath Ledger is amazing as the Joker. Amazing. If like me you haven’t paid attention to all the hoopla surrounding his death, seeing him in this performance will blow you away. Yes I’m using that term alot. What makes it so incredible, is that he actually became the Joker on screen.

There is absolutely nothing of this man:

in this character:

Nothing.

I kept searching for some semblance of Ledger underneath that persona, and found none. He managed to create a true psychopath with none of the usual bullshit excuses for the behaviour; but somehow, he made him almost sympathetic at times and not through sob stories or redemption, but through something entirely else. Something you saw in his eyes. Something that’s difficult to pin-point because it’s so intangible. I think it’s that something that marks a truly great actor from a good actor, or a decent one, or a mediocre one. Whatever that is, Ledger had it.

Christopher Nolan

Thank you for taking over the Batman franchise and making it something worthy of cinema instead of the cartoonish garbage it had descended to, and indeed by comparison, had always been. You surpassed the bullshit, and you even surpassed yourself and Batman Begins with this latest offering that had my adrenaline pumping and my eyes glued to the screen in horror. Thank you for not taking (too many) cheap shots or short cuts or giving us a stereotypical villain. Thank you for setting the stage so perfectly for the next installment of the Batman saga.

I love you, man!

Just please don’t screw it up.

For example, by adding Robin into the fray.

Please for the love of god do not do that. Do not resurrect Robin.

I think it’s safe to trust you at this point, but delusions of grandeur and infallibility can creep into the most noble of intentions.

Soto sum up the preceding rambling/gushing: GO SEE THE DARK KNIGHT. Whether you’re a Batman fan or not, just go see it. You won’t regret it

Her second novel, Corvus, will be serialized this fall. Lee runs no ads on her site and has made no money off of this venture…yet, but it will be interesting to see where it goes. A few bloggers have been picked up for publication over the years, though the ones that seem to stand out in my mind are the more controversial ones (Girl with a one-track mind) or humourous (Stuff White People Like or The Phat Free.) I don’t believe this is the easiest road to publication, but I don’t think anyone actually starts up a blog and puts that kind of effort into it with the expectation of it being noticed by an editor or agent.

Nathan Bransford blogs about HarperStudio, in his Imprint of the Future series; which, much like Vanguard Press and Jonathan Karp’s Imprint 12, is another imprint to look closely at. I’m not qualified to say if these are sound business models or not. But they sure do sound that way, and more so, I respect them for actually doing something that seems in the best interest of publishing, their authors, and literature in general. These are not book mills, and this can only bode well for authors now and in the future as publishing slowly changes.

marked by quickness and agility; nimble; prepared; easily handled.

– From The Phrontistery Word List: Definitions of archaic words

Another prime example of someone with little to no experience reading science fiction or fantasy, speculating on whether “any good science fiction novels are still being written.”

I honestly have no further comment on this.

A new novel writing course for writers of fantasy and science fiction in the Yukon.

A couple years ago I looked into renting a remote cabin in a far flung region of the Yukon to “work on my writing” in that asshole isolationist way we sometimes do. For reasons I won’t bore you with, that never worked out, but this reminded me of that time and desire.

University of Warwick launches £50,000 writing prize, with science fiction author China Miéville (Perdido Street Station) named as chief judge.

Buzz Aldrin slams Sci-Fi.

I’m going to confess something here: I had kind of a crush on Spock when a child. I don’t know why. There’s just something about an emotionally unavailable, cold, logical man that excites the Catherine Earnshaw-Linton in me. I like Vulcans in general. With that said, I genuinely dislike Star Trek. It’s cheesy, lame, and the science is laughable. However, I would disagree with the following statement from Aldrin:

“But, if you start dealing with fantasy and beaming people up and down and traveling seven times the speed of light, you are doing damage. You’re not helping. You have young people who have got expectations that are far unrealistic, and you can’t possibly live up to the expectations you have created in young people. Why do they get bored with the space program? That’s why.”

I would think that if young people are bored with the space program, it’s because it can be quite boring for someone not fascinated by the minute steps humanity is making in exploring space. Finding water in moon rocks may be a startling discovery, but ultimately, it’s a bunch of freakin’ pebbles and general public interest can only ooh and ahh so much over that.

Whether Star Trek creates unrealistic expectations or not (and I don’t think people are that stupid but don’t quote me) is our imagination when it comes to space and space travel not as important as the hard facts and scientific data? Our imaginations made us want to go up there in the first place, so let us have our little fantasies.

And seriously, pebbles are boring.