Not too long ago I posted a video some folks did where they turned Total Recall into a musical. Now the same folks have done the same thing with Conan the Barbarian, with Arnold singing about the lamentation of the women…Hilarious indeed. See for yourself (after the fold)
And another episode has hit the Internet-waves. This week features a guest host and discussions on sword and sorcery, the next big thing in science fiction and fantasy, and much more. Feel free to check out the episode here (stream and download), or search for the show on iTunes! We’d also appreciate reviews on iTunes if you have the time. Anywho!
I’ve had the pleasure to interview Darren Shan, whose newest book, The Procession of the Dead, came out on the 4th of June. You can find out more about Mr. Shan and his various books, including the Cirque du Freak and Demonata books, at his website. Now for the interview: First, thanks very much for doing this interview. Could you let folks know a bit about who you are? What first inspired you to try your hand at writing (for fun and professionally, if you can disentangle the two)? I’ve spent the last ten years writing books for older children and teenagers — Cirque Du Freak and The Demonata — but I actually started out writing for adults, and now I have returned to that field with Procession of the Dead, the first of a trilogy. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, ever since I was 5 or 6 years old. I just love telling stories! I began trying to write books when I was a teenager, completed my first full draft when I was 17, and powered on from there. I began writing full time when I was 23 and got my first cheque a couple of years or so later. I struggled to get off the mark with my adult books initially, but then Cirque Du Freak came along by accident — I didn’t plan to write children’s books for a living; I just wanted to try it for fun! Fifteen million book sales later, I’ve never looked back!Who are some of the books/writers who have most influenced you? Likewise, who are some of your favorite authors/books from the last ten years? Stephen King’s been my biggest single influence, but I like to read widely and have been directly inspired by all sorts of writers, from Mark Twain and Frances Hodgson Burnett, to Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut, to Jonathan Carroll and James Ellroy, and many, many more. From the last ten or so years, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman has impressed me the most. I also loved Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. Your bio indicates that you are a huge movie and comic fan. Which movies and comics do you find yourself going back to over and over and what draws you to them? With movies, all sorts, but some of the ones which I watch religiously every few years or so are everything by Sergio Leone, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Being There (the Peter Sellers film), The Chocolate War, Pulp Fiction, the Star Wars movies, the Godfather films, The Searchers… As for comics, The Watchmen is absolutely amazing and my favourite single work of any medium. V For Vendetta, Miracleman, The Killing Joke, The Dark Knight Returns, Love & Rockets, Cerebus, The Sandman, Bone. What does your writing space look like? Are you the messy desk type, or the old cushy chair with the patches type? Pen and paper, old typewriter, or computer? I write on a PC, and I like organised chaos! My office is fairly tidy, and my books are stacked meticulously on their shelves, but there are always bits of paper everywhere, books on the floor waiting to be sorted through and shelved (my books are published in almost 40 countries, so I get lots of foreign editions in the post every month!), CDs of photos waiting to be uploaded to my site, and so on. It’s all fine as long as nobody comes in to disturb it!Do you develop your novels, whether in The City Trilogy or your previous series, with the idea of a series in mind, or do they sort of take a life of their own after the first book? What for you is the most difficult aspect of writing a series of books? No, all of my three series to date started out as stand-alone story ideas. With Cirque Du Freak I knew there would be room to do some sequels if I felt like it, but I didn’t have a long series planned. With Lord Loss and Procession of the Dead I never dreamt that either would be the first book of a series. But after I’d written them, I came up with ideas for stories that tied in with them and took things from there.Procession of the Dead reminds me a lot of Gangs of New York and some of the work by Brian Evenson (along with other 1920s-30s-styled books/movies). What was the inspiration for this particular novel? How did it develop in your head? And why blind Incan priests who seem to be invisible to everyone else? It actually started life when I was watching Barton Fink! I wanted to write a quirky, funny book about an insurance agent and his wacky mentor. But as I played around with ideas it quickly became something more sinister and involved. I wrote the first draft back in the early 90s. Other influences would have been the Godfather movies, Once Upon A Time In America, the old gangster movies that I’ve always loved (the ones with Jimmy Cangey, George Raft, Bogie, etc), the books of Jonathan Carroll. The Incan angle came after I’d pieced together most of the main story. I was looking for a good title for the book, and I remembered reading an Incan calendar some months earlier. When I went back to it, I liked what I found and chose the names for the chapter headings. Then, as I worked on the book and subsequent drafts, the Incans just sort of grew and became more integral. Your books have a particularly dark fantasy slant to them, and Procession of the Dead certainly seems to play even more with the dark, odd, and bizarre. What draws you to the dark and the bizarre and what do you think it is that intrigues us, as readers, about such things? I think it has to do with our fear of death. We’re aware that we have limited time on this planet, and I think most
(Forgive the title. I couldn’t think of anything else to call this post.) A few days ago I had a kind of argument/altercation with another person on another blog. The story vaguely goes like this: I posted that I thought there was a problem something in the post, but that otherwise I didn’t disagree; the blogger proceeded to assume I was attacking him/her because of an -ism and denied doing what was in the post; I pointed out where it occurred, reiterated that I didn’t disagree and that it wasn’t an attack; the blogger went off on me for something I never was doing and implied I was an -ist. Note that I’m using -ism and -ist here, because you can basically shove any sort of ism into this situation and it would basically be the same thing. A friend of mine did join in on the conversation in an attempt to point out why the blogger had basically gone overboard (he/she had) and then got banned for apparently being a troll (my friend wasn’t, but apparently if you disagree with someone on the Internet, you’re a troll). So, the point of this post has more to do with my apprehension to post a more detailed discussion and critique of what happened. On the one hand, I think the situation is ridiculous and am tempted to post a scathing argument against the individual in question to point out that he or she has essentially gone off the deep end. On the other hand, I don’t know if I want to continue with the discussion or bring up that topic on this blog again (for the third or fourth time this year), partly because it might open up a shitstorm and partly because I’m not entirely sure I can get enough distance from it to speak calmly about it (though I’m rather surprised at how calm I am while writing this, so maybe that isn’t a real concern after all). The question is: At what point does one subject become too much for one blog when that subject isn’t the primary focus of the blog itself? At what point do we turn away and decide we’re fed up and have no interest in engaging with a certain part of the community any more, even if what that segment is fighting for is something you care about too? Is it possible to disengage and shut out such a group of people, and is that healthy to do, not just for yourself, but for the community at large (isn’t that the opposite of what should be happening)? I guess what I’m concerned with here is that if I don’t talk about it, then my only recourse is to stop paying attention to anything like it again, even when I agree with the discussions, because I am not the type of person who will not point out flaws when they exist. But maybe that’s a weird way of thinking about all of this, and it’s not like I’m giving specifics to make this make more sense. So, taking into account the vague-ness of this post, what do you think? Is there a point where you feel you can disengage, even if those you are disengaging from are still using your words against you and others or making arguments that perhaps damage the community they claim to be a part of by participating in the same discourse they are attempting to fight?
Just wanted to let you all know that there are only 2 days left in the giveaway of 3 copies of Procession of the Dead by Darren Shan. It’s open internationally, so enter before it’s too late. I also wanted to remind you about the poll I’m running about your favorite genre (science fiction, fantasy, horror, or other). Just pop on to the site; the poll is on the left hand side. So far fantasy is beating scifi something fierce, which is somewhat odd considering that this blog is largely scifi-based. Anywho!
Some more oldies! I bought this a while back when Tobias S. Buckell was offering up first edition, signed copies of his books. So, these are the last two from that group. Here’s the picture (after the fold): And the descriptions, from left to right (taken from Amazon): 1. Halo: The Cole Protocol by Tobias S. Buckell (signed) In the first, desperate days of the Human-Covenant War, the UNSC has enacted the Cole Protocol to safeguard Earth and its Inner Colonies from discovery by a merciless alien foe. Many are called upon to rid the universe of lingering navigation data that would reveal the location of Earth. Among them is Navy Lieutenant Jacob Keyes. Thrust back into action after being sidelined, Keyes is saddled with a top secret mission by ONI. One that will take him deep behind enemy lines, to a corner of the universe where nothing is as it seems. Out beyond the Outer Colonies lies the planet Hesiod, a gas giant surrounded by a vast asteroid belt. As the Covenant continues to glass the human occupied planets near Hesiod, many of the survivors, helped by a stronghold of human Insurrectionists, are fleeing to the asteroid belt for refuge. They have transformed the tumbling satellites into a tenuous, yet ingenious, settlement known as the Rubble–and have come face-to-face with a Covenant settlement of Kig-Yar . . . yet somehow survived. News of this unlikely treaty has spread to the warring sides. Luckily for the UNSC, this uneasy alliance is in the path of the Spartan Gray Team, a three-man renegade squad whose simple task is to wreak havoc from behind enemy lines in any way they see fit. But the Prophets have also sent their best—an ambitious and ruthless Elite, whose quest for nobility and rank is matched only by his brutality . . . and who will do anything to secure his Ascendancy and walk the Path. 2. Halo: Evolutions (Essential Tales of the Halo Universe) by Various (signed) When humanity expanded beyond the safety of Earth to new stars and horizons, they never dreamed what dangers they would encounter there. When the alien juggernaut known as the Covenant declared holy war upon the fragile human empire, millions of lives were lost—but, millions of heroes rose to the challenge. In such a far-reaching conflict, not many of the stories of these heroes, both human and alien, have a chance to become legend. This collection holds eleven stories that dive into the depths of the vast Halo universe, not only from the perspective of those who fought and died to save humanity, but also those who vowed to wipe humanity out of existence. I’ll admit that I’m not a Halo fan, but I love Buckell’s work, so I might read these at some point in the near future. If anyone can make that universe interesting to me, it would be him. Have you heard of these before? Have you read them? What did you think? Feel free to leave a comment!
