Show Review: Dollhouse (Final Comments)
I’ve officially tuned out on Dollhouse. I was initially incredibly excited about the show. I thought the concept was brilliant and that it had a lot of potential. Then the first episode came out. It was good, I thought, and at least established the characters, but nothing special. Then episode two failed to add anything new to the series, and shortly after than we were left with episodes three and four, which provided some interesting side plots, but stuck us with the mostly uninteresting Echo. And that’s when I tuned out. Granted, I am terribly picky about my TV shows. The problem with Dollhouse is that it fails to do what great shows like BSG have done: tell a good story. Dollhouse essentially doesn’t have a story. True, the subplots were building up to make it seem like there was a lot of interesting things ahead, but instead of focusing on those stories, Dollhouse focused on Echo, who, after one episode, is essentially the most uninteresting and useless character. If she’s become more interesting after episode four, wonderful, but I’m not going to waste any more time watching, because Dollhouse had the chance to get me interested and wasted it on four episodes where nothing happens. I simply don’t care about Echo. I really don’t. Her character is utterly pointless and not enough time is afforded to characters who deserve more. Someone said (possibly Whedon or a producer) that you should stick with the show until episode seven to give it a good chance, but quite honestly if you can’t keep me entertained past episode two, what point is there for me? I’m making an investment of my time (an hour each episode) and blowing seven hours on a show that I don’t find all that great to begin with seems relatively pointless to me. So, I suppose the question is: what do you all think of the show? Are any of you still watching? Do you think it should be canceled?
Meme: The Guardian List of Best SF/F
Peggy over at Biology in Science Fiction brought to my attention this meme of the Guardian’s list of 149 best science fiction and fantasy novels. Being the good little bookworm, I decided to join in on the fun: 1. Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979)2. Brian W Aldiss: Non-Stop (1958)3. Isaac Asimov: Foundation (1951)4. Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin (2000)5. Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)6. Paul Auster: In the Country of Last Things (1987)7. J.G. Ballard: The Drowned World (1962)8. J.G. Ballard: Crash (1973)9. J.G. Ballard: Millennium People (2003)10. Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory (1984)11. Iain M Banks: Consider Phlebas (1987)12. Clive Barker: Weaveworld (1987)13. Nicola Barker: Darkmans (2007)14. Stephen Baxter: The Time Ships (1995)15. Greg Bear: Darwin’s Radio (1999)16. William Beckford: Vathek (1786)17. Alfred Bester: The Stars My Destination (1956)18. Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 (1953)19. Poppy Z Brite: Lost Souls (1992)20. Charles Brockden Brown: Wieland (1798)21. Algis Budrys: Rogue Moon (1960)22. Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita (1966)23. Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Coming Race (1871)24. Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange (1960)25. Anthony Burgess: The End of the World News (1982)26. Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess of Mars (1912)27. William Burroughs: Naked Lunch (1959)28. Octavia Butler: Kindred (1979)29. Samuel Butler: Erewhon (1872)30. Italo Calvino: The Baron in the Trees (1957)31. Ramsey Campbell: The Influence (1988)32. Lewis Carroll: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)33. Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871)34. Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus (1984)35. Angela Carter: The Passion of New Eve (1977)36. Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000)37. Arthur C Clarke: Childhood’s End (1953)38. GK Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)39. Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (2004)40. Michael G Coney: Hello Summer, Goodbye (1975)41. Douglas Coupland: Girlfriend in a Coma (1998)42. Mark Danielewski: House of Leaves (2000)43. Marie Darrieussecq: Pig Tales (1996)44. Samuel R Delany: The Einstein Intersection (1967)45. Philip K Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)46. Philip K Dick: The Man in the High Castle (1962)47. Thomas M Disch: Camp Concentration (1968)48. Umberto Eco: Foucault’s Pendulum (1988)49. Michel Faber: Under the Skin (2000)50. John Fowles: The Magus (1966)51. Neil Gaiman: American Gods (2001)52. Alan Garner: Red Shift (1973)53. William Gibson: Neuromancer (1984)54. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Herland (1915)55. William Golding: Lord of the Flies (1954)56. Joe Haldeman: The Forever War (1974)57. M John Harrison: Light (2002)58. Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables (1851)59. Robert A Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)60. Frank Herbert: Dune (1965)61. Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game (1943)62. Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker (1980)63. James Hogg: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824)64. Michel Houellebecq: Atomised (1998)65. Aldous Huxley: Brave New World (1932)66. Kazuo Ishiguro: The Unconsoled (1995)67. Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House (1959)68. Henry James: The Turn of the Screw (1898)69. PD James: The Children of Men (1992)70. Richard Jefferies: After London; Or, Wild England (1885)71. Gwyneth Jones: Bold as Love (2001)72. Franz Kafka: The Trial (1925)73. Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon (1966)74. Stephen King: The Shining (1977)75. Marghanita Laski: The Victorian Chaise-longue (1953)76. CS Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-56) (not all of them)77. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Uncle Silas (1864)78. Stanislaw Lem: Solaris (1961)79. Ursula K Le Guin: The Earthsea series (1968-1990)80. Ursula K Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)81. Doris Lessing: Memoirs of a Survivor (1974)82. MG Lewis: The Monk (1796)83. David Lindsay: A Voyage to Arcturus (1920)84. Ken MacLeod: The Night Sessions (2008)85. Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black (2005)86. Michael Marshall Smith: Only Forward (1994)87. Richard Matheson: I Am Legend (1954)88. Charles Maturin: Melmoth the Wanderer (1820)89. Patrick McCabe: The Butcher Boy (1992)90. Cormac McCarthy: The Road (2006)91. Jed Mercurio: Ascent (2007)92. China Miéville: The Scar (2002)93. Andrew Miller: Ingenious Pain (1997)94. Walter M Miller Jr: A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960)95. David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas (2004)96. Michael Moorcock: Mother London (1988)97. William Morris: News From Nowhere (1890)98. Toni Morrison: Beloved (1987)99. Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1995)100. Vladimir Nabokov: Ada or Ardor (1969)101. Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler’s Wife (2003)102. Larry Niven: Ringworld (1970)103. Jeff Noon: Vurt (1993) (part of it)104. Flann O’Brien: The Third Policeman (1967)105. Ben Okri: The Famished Road (1991)106. George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-four (1949)107. Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club (1996)108. Thomas Love Peacock: Nightmare Abbey (1818)109. Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan (1946)110. Frederik Pohl & CM Kornbluth: The Space Merchants (1953)111. John Cowper Powys: A Glastonbury Romance (1932)112. Terry Pratchett: The Discworld series (1983- ) (A few of them)113. Christopher Priest: The Prestige (1995)114. Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials (1995-2000)115. François Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-34)116. Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)117. Alastair Reynolds: Revelation Space (2000)118. Kim Stanley Robinson: The Years of Rice and Salt (2002)119. JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997)120. Geoff Ryman: Air (2005)121. Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses (1988)122. Joanna Russ: The Female Man (1975)123. Antoine de Sainte-Exupéry: The Little Prince (1943)124. José Saramago: Blindness (1995)125. Will Self: How the Dead Live (2000)126. Mary Shelley: Frankenstein (1818)127. Dan Simmons: Hyperion (1989)128. Olaf Stapledon: Star Maker (1937)129. Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash (1992)130. Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)131. Bram Stoker: Dracula (1897)132. Rupert Thomson: The Insult (1996)133. JRR Tolkien: The Hobbit (1937)134. JRR Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings (1954-55)135. Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court (1889)136. Kurt Vonnegut: Sirens of Titan (1959)137. Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto (1764)138. Robert Walser: Institute Benjamenta (1909)139. Sylvia Townsend Warner: Lolly Willowes (1926)140. Sarah Waters: Affinity (1999)141. HG Wells: The Time Machine (1895)142. HG Wells: The War of the Worlds (1898)143. TH White: The Sword in the Stone (1938)144. Angus Wilson: The Old Men at the Zoo (1961)145. Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun (1980-83)146. Virginia Woolf: Orlando (1928)147. John Wyndham: Day of the Triffids (1951)148. John Wyndham: The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)149. Yevgeny Zamyatin: We (1924) And another list where I did poorly! Twenty novels from this list (well, twenty three if you count
SF/F Links: More April Goodies
Here are a few more lovely links for you all! LocusMag has an article on why science fiction fails to predict the future. Some interesting points made here. Here are some really pretty moleskine drawing things. Definitely worth a look if you like nifty fantasy artwork and moleskines. Speculative Fiction, Damaged Genre? I don’t know if I completely agree, but it’s and interesting point of view. This is not exactly the best or most accurate list of subgenres I have ever seen (and not just in science fiction, but in all genres). Actually, I can’t say this is a good list at all. It’s blaringly obvious the writer doesn’t really know what he or she is talking about… Jim C. Hines talks about writing rape scenes. Interesting stuff, if you’re curious about a writer’s perspective on the subject. Giveaways: Shhh I’m Reading has two copies of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane up for grabs. Jenn’s Bookshelf has a whole bunch of audiobooks up for grabs. And that’s it!
Sometimes Your Writing Just Sucks
And sometimes there’s nothing you can do to fix it. Mur Lafferty had a post some time ago about tough love and there was one thing she said that I have to disagree with: My point is that if you write a book, and you can’t get it published, it doesn’t mean the dream is over. It doesn’t mean that you as a writer suck. It means that book wasn’t attractive to agents/editors. It means that perhaps you need to improve as a writer, see your first book as an exercise to make yourself a better writer. Or it means that you actually suck. I have no problem with encouraging people to continue, to push on and never give up on their dreams, but sometimes some people really should give up on their dreams. This isn’t just to save all of us out there from having to deal with them; it’s also to save them from the humiliation of constant failure and ridicule. While writing this, I’m thinking about all those examples on American Idol where someone with a vision, with an immense dream comes up against Simon (and sometimes Paula and Randy) and has to face the reality that they are not good enough. Sometimes these failed people throw a fit, proclaiming that they are the greatest thing since sliced bread, and other times they break down entirely, feeling the immense pain of not rejection, but absolute and total internal destruction. And I’m also thinking of those folks in the writing world that you meet from time to time that truly believe their self-published novel is really amazing, when in actuality it’s one of the worst things ever put into print. These are the folks who cannot take constructive advice, who won’t change or get better either because they can’t or because they won’t. These are the folks that don’t need encouraging, because they get enough of it from friends and family that don’t have the heart to tell them that they are horrible. But how do writers know if they really do suck? How do we know when it’s time to throw in the towel and stop, because writing really isn’t our thing? I don’t know. I don’t think anyone can really know, but I still take issue with this idea that one shouldn’t re-evaluate themselves if they meet complete failure at the hands of publishers. I still feel like we should be careful to encourage people to self-publish, because often times the folks who do so don’t realize what they are getting themselves into. Sometimes your novel just isn’t good enough to get published. And that’s okay. Really. It’s okay for your novel to not be good enough. We call those trunk novels (or stories, for that matter). Sometimes your dream project can be let go. I’ve let projects go. I’ve had to. I got to a point where I had moved so far from something that it wasn’t worth keeping it alive just to feed that part of me that wanted it to succeed. I could find new things that could fill that void. Not everything you write will get published. That’s the honest truth. Sometimes your stories or novels can be put in the trunk and left there, maybe forever, or maybe long enough for you to get enough distance to see what was wrong with it in the first place. The reality is that sometimes your writing does suck. Sometimes your novel, story, etc. sucks beyond measure. In fact, this is true almost every time. If you get rejected from every editor and agent in the business, maybe you should really think twice before self-publishing, or podcasting, or whatever. Maybe your novel actually is horrible. It happens. A lot. And it’s okay. Write something else. Try again. When people talk about persistence being the key to success, this is what they mean. Don’t throw up your hands and say, “Well, I couldn’t get X, Y, and Z to take it, so I’ll just have to self-publish!” Write something else, submit, and keep trying if you honestly believe you have the talent. How many writers in history have trunked a novel only to have it published later after selling something else? Quite a few. If you really do have the talent, you can get published. You just have to keep going. This is why I have such a problem with self-publishing (podcasting included). It’s easy. Really easy. All one has to do is waltz on over to Lulu, format a document, and submit. Maybe that ease of access is a bad thing. And it’s not helping self-publishing gain any respect in the world when folks who didn’t give up when they should pay for a publishing package or go through Lulu. Sometimes you just suck. And nothing you do can fix that. Never assume that you will get lucky like the handful of self-pubbed people that have made it “big” (and not even that big, to be honest, since I have yet to hear of any self-pubbed author who has shattered records). There’s no such thing as luck in the writing world. There is only talent and persistence (and a few other things that I can’t remember right now). What does anyone else think about this? P.S.: Yes, I am fully aware that technically I have self-published WISB. The only difference is that I never intended to sell WISB. Not really. It was an experiment that I truly enjoyed and want to keep going not because I want it to make me famous or for it to get into print format, but because it brings me joy. It wasn’t rejected from publishers, nor would I send it to them. I have other work that I submit and I’m not giving up on that stuff so long as there is somewhere to send it!
Rejection: Artemis
The good news is that this was a good rejection. I know what you’re thinking: A good rejection? It’s one of those where the editors actually give you valuable feedback not because they have to, but because they think you either have potential, or at least got lucky enough to seem like you have potential. That’s what happened here. In any case, for now it’s off somewhere else.
Rejection (sort of): Nobody Gives a Crap About Compsagnathus
Okay, so technically this piece wasn’t rejected. Why? Because the press I sent it to is apparently closing their doors. No, it’s not my fault. I blame Bush, as should you all. In fact, any time you get rejected and don’t like it, blame Bush. Trust me, it will make you feel better inside. In any case, this piece is off to some other lovely place, which will hopefully remain open long enough for my story to actually be read! Anywho!