Today’s mission is as simple as reading this short update of some stuff I have going on across the web.  Couldn’t be simpler, could it?

Oh, and sorry these aren’t links.  I’ve been having trouble getting links to work but my webguy is working on it and the problem should be fixed soon.

First up, I relaunched my Kickstarter campaign a while back, and if you’re itching for a short story collection from yours truly, go ahead and check it out.  Spread the word’ if you’re so inclined:  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/669131589/an-a-lee-martinez-short-story-collection.

I have a Tumblr account, where I’m posting artwork for your amusement.  Mostly my own, but there’s a very cool logo for Magic Burger (from Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest) my wife designed as well.  http://a-lee-martinez.tumblr.com/

Also, I have a couple of podcast interviews up:

One is at SF Signal:http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2013/05/the-sf-signal-podcast-episode-190-interview-with-author-a-lee-martinez/

The other is with The Grumpyhawk Collective: http://grumpyhawk.com/nerdery/a-lee-martinez-interview/

So if you happen to have thirty minutes to kill and want to hear what a demi-famous person has to say about whatever random questions I’m asked, stop on by.

That’s about it, Action Force.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

More importantly, I never want to create a situation where my current or potential audience perceives a conflict between me and their favorite films and books.  It is simply not the case, and regardless of whether you love something I hate or vice versa, I am always glad to have anyone and everyone as a reader.

But, as I’ve talked about lately, I’ve been working on the A. Lee Martinez brand.  I’ve spent years limiting what I said and thinking carefully about everything I’ve posted on the internet, and while it has successfully kept me from making any enemies (at least as far as I’m aware) it has also prevented me from establishing my own identity, of becoming, for better or worse, a personality.  After much soul searching, I think it’s held me back.  As a writer in this modern era, I don’t have the luxury of hiding away.  By electing to avoid controversy, I’ve prevented my brand from growing.

Yes, I know I keep talking about this branding thing, and I dislike it as much as you do.  But it is just a cold, hard truth that in this media saturated world, brand is all-important.  Star Trek: Into Darkness is a prime example.  It exists because the Star Trek brand is too potent to be denied, and while I could probably argue, successfully, that the film wouldn’t succeed without the Trek brand attached, it is a moot point because the brand is the point.

Sounds kind of cynical when stated like that, doesn’t it?

It’s not meant to be.  It’s just the way it works, and in the end, Into Darkness isn’t a terrible film.  It’s just not a very good one.  While I didn’t like it, I didn’t dislike it as strongly as I did both Tron: Legacy or Skyfall.  So this review isn’t meant to suggest that this is a horrible film.

By the way, it should go without saying that you’re free to disagree.  This is only opinion here.  I do not think you’re dumb if you disagree.  I do not think you are stupid.  I don’t mind one bit if you loved the film.  I say this over and over again because it’s far too easy on the internet for passions to flare.  I mean this review not as a critique of those who loved it, nor of the people who made it, nor of anything else beyond my experience with this particular film.  Saying all that, I’m sure someone out there will be offended by my dislike of the film, and to them, I can only ask the following favor:

DON’T READ ANY FURTHER.

PLEASE.  JUST DON’T.

If you loved the film, then the following review will either annoy or anger you OR possibly change your mind about it.  I don’t want to do any of those things.  You can walk away now, and I will certainly not be offended by your rejection of my opinion.  Glad you enjoyed the film.  Agree to disagree.

There.  Are they gone?

Probably not.  So if you’re reading onward to quibble with my review, feel free to post a comment.  As long as it’s not filled with name-calling and insults, I’ll be happy to approve it.  I’m always up for a good discussion.

Also, it should go without saying but:

SPOILERS AHEAD!!

SPOILERS AHEAD!!

SPOILERS AHEAD!!

I wish I could find a way to make that flash and beep, but you’ve been warned.

Star Trek: Into Darkness isn’t a bad film.  It’s just not very good.

To start with, the Into Darkness part of the title makes not a lick of sense.  It’s just a cool sounding subtitle to throw onto it.  It’s a quibble, but it shows the problem at the heart of the film.  It’s more determined to look cool than to actually have much substance behind it.  And it works marvelously in that regard.

The actors are all fine.  The set design, the score, the dialogue, the action adventure pieces are all well-executed.  There is nothing wrong with the direction and the special effects are all top notch.  The adventure is bold and well-shot.  The humor is humorous.  Taken on all these levels, the movie works as a marvelous thrill ride / comfort food.

It’s only when we try to take it as more than that when we run into trouble.

This is why I can’t call Into Darkness a bad movie.  It is exactly what it aims to be, and I have a hard time being critical of that.  It’s nostalgia, repackaged, redesigned for a world where this is a practical business model.  People don’t generally want new.  They want the familiar in the guise of new, and this is what the Trek reboot has done so beautifully.

But, putting aside nostalgia and a fondness for Trek, the film has a lot of problems.

The story starts with Kirk and the Enterprise crew saving a primitive world from a deadly volcanic explosion.  In doing so, they accidentally reveal themselves to the inhabitants, thus violating the prime directive.  This is supposed to be a very bad thing to do though no good reason is given for it.  There’s no indication that Kirk did any damage to the world and, considering the alternative, he acted laudably.

The entire plot point hinges on two unexplained elements.  In the first place, Kirk is being chased by aliens because he ran off with their sacred scroll.  Why he would do this is never explained.  It’s just something he did.  The second is that the Enterprise is located underwater instead of in outer space.  There’s no clear reason for this either, other than to have an excuse for the aliens to see it rising from the ocean.

This pretty much sums up my primary complaint about Into Darkness.  Things happen just because they provide drama.  Not impossible things.  Not unbelievable things.  Perfectly plausible things that could be given perfectly plausible explanations.  But no explanations are given because the film doesn’t deem it worth the time to explain them.  Just being cool and dramatic is enough.

How you feel about this will probably determine your attitude toward the film.  And, indeed, I’m not a fan of needlessly complicated explanations when simple ones will do, but their complete absence here becomes infuriating after a while.

Why does young Spock call old Spock?  And if he can contact old Spock, can’t he simply inform Starfleet of the villain’s master plan, thus foiling it with a simple phone call?

Are there no other starships in orbit around Earth during the finale?  Or is Earth just unaware of a starship battle just outside its atmosphere?

If it’s possible for a starship to fire a torpedo from the neutral zone to strike an unsuspecting planet deep in enemy space, then what’s to prevent Starfleet’s enemies from doing the same?

If a person can transport himself across intergalactic distances with a device only a little larger than a boombox, why bother with starships at all?

And if it’s possible to synthesize a resurrection serum from Khan’s blood, why not just make tons of the stuff to carry around with you on missions?

Individually, I could overlook any of these questions.  Perhaps two or three.  But all together, they add up to elements that were hastily added as plot points without considering the ramifications beyond that.  This is the danger of writing science fiction.  Transporters were already a get out of jail free card that the writers often had to make malfunction to keep dramatic tension.  The reboot increased the power of transporters a thousandfold and then added immortality serum just for good measure.

Putting aside all these questions, the film really falls apart when it forgets its own rules.  Namely, this is a reboot.  Kirk and crew have only known each other a few years at this point.  Perhaps only one or two.  While they should have ties, those ties shouldn’t be the same as they have years later.  While there’s every reason to believe Spock would be upset with Kirk’s (extremely temporary) death, there’s no reason to think he would be utterly heartbroken by it.  Certainly not enough for him to break his cool Vulcan demeanor.

And, of course, he shouts “KHAAAAAAAAN!” because . . . well, Kirk did it in the previous Khan movie, so somebody had to.  It comes across as absurd and silly, but that’s only if you care about Spock’s character or the logic of the moment.  If you want to live in nostalgia, it’s just another bit of expected melodrama.

For me, the film falls apart as soon as old Spock appears.  He serves no purpose other than to tell young Spock (and we the audience) that Khan is dangerous.  It is, without a doubt, the clumsiest bit of writing you will probably see all year in any blockbuster.  To its credit, the film already established how dangerous Khan is, so there seems to be little point in old Spock coming back just to tell us.  Except it wouldn’t be an exercise in nostalgia if they didn’t throw us a bone in the shape of Leonard Nimoy, I suppose.  It can only be for that purpose because old Spock doesn’t contribute to the film in any way beyond it.

This is also why Kirk must die in the exact way that Spock died in the original Wrath of Khan.  True, Spock’s death was a defining moment for the film series.  True also, he did return from the dead.  The difference here is that at least Spock was still dead by the end of Wrath.  Here, death is little more than a slap on the wrist, barely lasting fifteen minutes.

Also, Spock’s resurrection was only possible via a one-in-a-million chance.  Kirk is resurrected via a magic blood transfusion.  Even the film itself doesn’t treat it as a big deal.  It’s as if even the Trek characters know he can’t stay dead long and only grieved for a few moments before remembering he was a protagonist.

But my final complaint is with Kirk himself.  The film opens with the notion that Kirk is arrogant and needs to learn humility.  Yet Kirk’s arrogance is backed up by everything he does.  He is an infallible character.  He breaks the (pointless) rules and even while he’s being lectured, you keep thinking he was right to do what he did and that Starfleet is wrong for berating him.

When the bad guy attacks the meeting of Starfleet officers, Kirk is the only one smart enough to suspect an ambush.

When he’s sent to go kill Khan and trigger a war with the Klingons, it’s Kirk who disobeys orders, makes the moral choice (with some prodding from Spock), and who prevents the bad guy from winning the day.  Kirk continually makes brash decisions, and they are ALWAYS the right decision to make.  It’s true that the Enterprise is almost destroyed by the bad guy, but this isn’t his fault.  He’s hopelessly outgunned, overmatched.  Even then, he didn’t make a foolish decision to stand and fight, but to wisely retreat.

In a way, Kirk’s forced character arc is the exact opposite of James Bond’s from Skyfall.  In Skyfall, Bond proves to be an incompetent buffoon who accomplishes nothing but who somehow gets to stay a spy.  Meanwhile, Kirk is supposed to learn the virtues of humility even though by the end of the film he has every right to believe himself nearly infallible.  He’s thoughtful, bold, willing to take chances, willing to stand up for what’s right, and always worthy of the captain’s chair.

So what exactly was that speech about humility for other than to pretend there was a character arc at work?  Like nearly all the elements of the film, it isn’t intended to pay off in any way.  It’s just another cool moment to throw in, to be forgotten as soon as it is no longer needed.

Into Darkness is an amusing diversion, a pleasant little experience.  It’s put together like a fine Swiss watch, designed to do exactly its job and not much more.  For all its ups and downs, Star Trek used to have ambition.  Now it looks like it’s finally abandoned that in favor of crowd-pleasing familiarity and a few thrills.  It’s not the end of the world.

But it is disappointing.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

It’s not just because it’s a giant monster (aka kaiju) movie.

It’s not because it’s an original story, not based on any established property.

And it’s not just because it’s a giant monster (aka kaiju) movie.  (Yes, I mentioned that twice because it is worth mentioning twice.)

It’s not JUST because of those things, though those things are a very important part of why I’m looking forward to this film.  But putting all that aside, there’s one essential reason why I’m looking forward to this movie.

It looks unapologetically awesome.

I’ve written before that what I dislike most about fantasy and sci fi is how often its creators and fans feel the need to apologize for it.  It’s assumed that unless fantasy is “serious”, it must be “kid’s stuff”.  It’s why something like A Game of Thrones achieves “maturity” by downplaying the fantasy elements, adding nudity and swearing.  I’m not against what HBO has done for fantasy.  By adding these elements, they’ve made the genre more acceptable for mainstream audiences, and good for them.  I’m not going to argue with success.

I’m not out to pick any fights.  I’m all for many brands of fantasy and sci fi, from hard science fiction to fantastic space opera to high fantasy and anything and everything in-between.  Humans come in many varieties, have many tastes, and I won’t put down anyone’s taste if they don’t put down mine.

But damnit, I do love bold, in-your-face adventure.  I love larger-than-life heroes, deadly villains, the End of the World, last-minute saves.  I love giant robots, dragons, space vampires, wizard duels, etc.  And while shades of gray can be interesting to explore, I don’t mind clear good guys / bad guys and inspiring heroics.

So many trailers for this Summer come across as a bummer to me.  Every one of them has a somber monologue that drains all my enthusiasm.  Star Trek: Into Darkness tells us that Captain Kirk needs to learn humility.  (Isn’t his brashness what we love about the guy?)  Man of Steel bemoans the loneliness and isolation of Superman.  (Also, saddles him with a dark blue costume to make him appear more relatable.)  We are constantly told that this is SERIOUS and DARK and certainly NOT KID’S STUFF.

But Pacific Rim goes the other way.  Every trailer that comes along says “This is adventure!”  This is a movie to cheer about.  Idris Elba’s monologue is the counterpoint to every dreary summary.  Pacific Rim is about hope, triumph, and heroism.  It’s about saving the world, and doing so in style.

It’s not just a kaiju film.  It’s a joyful, energetic celebration of everything I adore about “kid’s stuff” sci fi.

There’s no reason to assume that the movie will be dumb or underwritten.  I have every reason to believe that the characters will be interesting and the storyline will be involving.  But it will also be about giant robots punching megamonsters, and if the trailers are any indication, it’s not just one or two punches either.

In a world where, increasingly, we’re told that heroes are old-fashioned and adventure is a distraction from watching characters mope, Pacific Rim gives me hope.  Maybe there’s still a place for giant robots and sincere heroism even in mainstream fantasy.

I sure as heck hope so.

Also, ROCKET PUNCH!

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

While the ALM Action Force is still a work in progress, I’ve decided to make Monday the official Action Force Mission Update.  The great thing about being a part of the Action Force is that your participation is completely voluntary, and you can do as little or as much as you like.  But if you’d like to do more and just aren’t sure what to do, stop on by on Mondays and I’ll try to give you some guidance.

Today’s mission:  Post an Amazon review.

Reviews matter.  There’s little point in denying that.  Yet my first book Gil’s All Fright Diner still has less than 100 reviews after 9 years.  This ends up creating the appearance that I am a niche artist, which might be true but is something I would greatly love to change.  So if sometime this week you should find yourself with a few extra minutes to spare, I’d greatly appreciate dropping by Amazon and posting a review.  If you already have an Amazon account, this shouldn’t be hard at all.  If you don’t, it’s not hard to create one.

To be clear, I am not looking for glowing reviews.  I’m assuming if you’re visiting this site, you are something of a fan of mine, but that doesn’t mean I expect 5 stars “Martinez sets the world ablaze with his genius” style reviews.  Just take a moment to post your honest opinion about whichever story strikes you as worth reviewing.

That’s your assignment, Action Force.  If you choose to accept it.

Thanks again for all the support.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Here’s a question i’ve had bugging me forever.  What the f$%&^ is Steve Rogers’s (aka Captain America) motivation?

Liberty.

Seriously, that’s basically it.  The guy believes in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  So much so, he’s willing to undergo dangerous experimentation and then put on a flag and fight Nazis.  I could lie to you and suggest it’s more complicated than that, but it just isn’t.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.

I know that it’s unfashionable to suggest that a character is genuinely heroic and that his heroism stems from a sincere Good Guy cliche, but such characters don’t have to be bland or unbelievable.  It bothers me that we have become a culture that outright dismisses heroic characters as unrealistic or uninteresting.  Granted, this happened for a reason.  Many old fashioned heroic characters are unrealistic and uninteresting.  I love the John Carter of Mars stories, but the character himself is pretty much a heroic blank who fights Bad Guys because he is a Good Guy.

But I happen to enjoy sincere Good Guys who are here to help if they’re done right.  I don’t mind a character who is Admirable with a capital A.  Maybe it’s because I grew up in the era of The A-Team and MacGyver and a hundred action movies featuring brave souls who fight for justice.  Or maybe it’s because I also lived through the 90′s featuring overwrought anti-heroes like Spawn and Angry Batman.  Either way, I don’t find more conflicted characters to automatically be better.

This is why I am not looking forward to Man of Steel.  The question Superman faces isn’t WHETHER he’ll help people.  It’s HOW.  Clark Kent is a genuinely good person.  He likes people.  He wants to make their lives better.  And he knows he’s been blessed with tremendous power to do so.  The conflict at heart of a nuanced Superman story isn’t about fear or hesitancy.  It’s about deciding how Superman could best use his abilities to improve the world.

Such stories of power and responsibility speak to human nature because it is often only when we seek to view the world outside ourselves that we become worthy of the mantle of humanity in the first place.  Otherwise, we’re just a bunch of self-centered animals who happen to be smart enough to make machine guns and the internet.

This is also why I hate many modern comic book versions of Batman because in order to make Batman “interesting”, they transform him from a wounded man who has dedicated himself to helping others avoid the very pain he experienced to a crazed vengeance-seeking, emotionally-stunted man-child.  That is certainly part of human nature too, but it is a part that we glorify all too often even as dismissing genuinely thoughtful portrayals of the best of our natures.

Also, Cap likes to punch Nazis.  But then again, who doesn’t?

How many ideas do you have rolling around in your head for books?  What I mean is do you even worry about the next book while you’re on the current one?  Do you ever have that point of “oh crap what next?”

A very smart person once said, “Ideas are the most overrated part of writing fiction.”

That person was me, although I’m sure many other writers have said it as well.

I don’t have a running count of how many ideas I have at any one time because ideas are not discreet little packets of information that can be easily separated.  It’s not uncommon for two or three ideas to merge into one final idea or for one idea to split into smaller pieces.  That’s how the human brain works.  Or maybe that’s how my human brain works.  I haven’t tried using any others.

I never worry about the next book.  It’s hard enough to stay focused on the current one, and thinking too much about the next is only a distraction.  Part of me is convinced this novelology business is going to fall out from under me any day because writing fiction for a living is a sweet gig and someone is going to catch on that I enjoy it too much and should be made to work a job I dislike.  Guess that’s just the pessimist in me.

Near the end of a book, I’ll often start having new ideas for another story, but even these tend to be half-formed thoughts.  I believe in giving myself permission to write even without solid ideas because sometimes not knowing what you’re going to write is how you find new ideas.  I never worry about finding my next idea though.  Ideas are all over the place, and the real work of writing is just sitting my butt down and doing it.  So that’s what I do.

If you did it over again, would you still opt to not include Teri and Phil’s race in Divine Misfortune?

For those of you who might not know it, Teri and Phil from Divine Misfortune are the mortal protagonists of Divine Misfortune, my novel of modern gods and the lives they lead.  Think of it as Seinfeld meets The Odyssey.  If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend it.  But of course, you’ve read it.  It’s a modern American classic.

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned that Teri and Phil are African-Americans though this isn’t mentioned in the book itself.  My reasoning was that they are not very “black” as our culture tends to define it, and I feared the criticism that might come from that.  It is our nature to shove people into boxes and expect them to conform to the rules of those boxes.  So I didn’t include their ethnic origins in the story because, ultimately, I didn’t want to deal with the headache.

But, yes, thinking about it now, I would mentioned it.  Not only that, I would’ve used it as a springboard to discuss those expectations and how Teri and Phil dealt with the problems they often created.  It wouldn’t have been hard to link to the story itself because the gods themselves deal with expectations and stereotypes just as much as the humans do.  At the time, I guess I just wasn’t confident enough to explore the issue, and while I still stand by the book as an American classic, it could’ve benefited from opening the discussion a bit.

This is why Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest (my upcoming novel, out in July) does address those issues.  Helen is a minotaur.  (She’s actually Greek with a family curse of minotaurism, but the minotaurism is what everyone first notices about her.)  And Troy is a Japanese American.  Both characters struggle with their baggage.  Helen more than Troy.  And both characters are about the expectations placed on them, not just by their appearance, but by their reputations and abilities.  I wouldn’t say it’s the heart of the novel, but it certainly comes up, informs the characters’ actions and how they are often viewed by others.

Interestingly, I stumbled across a long post on another site where someone suggested that one of my recurring themes is that of “Identity independent of cultural origin” and considering how often I’m writing about vampires who aren’t cool, robots that are trying to be good people, and monster gods who seek NOT to eat the universe, it’s hard to argue against that.  Teri and Phil could’ve explored that issue as well as any other characters I’ve created, and sometimes, I wish I had.

But, hey, there’s always next book, right?

When are you going to write a kaju book?

It’s on the To Do List.

Although, given my druthers, I’d prefer to create a kaiju animated TV show or movie.  I have an original character I draw regularly that is a giant duck monster.  Think of him as living in that strange universe where Godzilla and Duck Tales intersect.  I have a lot of the framework in place, characters, stories, etc.  It’s just a matter of finding someone interested enough to pursue the project.

But I’m sure a book will be in the works some day soon.  Stay tuned.

So the A. Leegion was disbanded? but I was up to Major General in my head!

Rest assured, the A.Leegion remains.  The ALM Action Force isn’t a replacement for the A.Leegion.  It’s merely another name for it.  Officially (as decided by me just this moment, but it’s my idea so I get to decide what’s official or not), every member of the ALM Action Force is an A.Leegionaire.  So feel free to use this knowledge as you see fit.

That’s it for this week’s Q&A.  Hope you found it as enlightening as I did.

Catch you next time, Action Force.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

So yesterday, Emperor Mollusk versus the Sinister Brain was a featured daily deal on Amazon’s Kindle store, and it went swimmingly from what I can gather.  The book was in the top 100 of Kindle sales ranking, and last time I checked, it’s still there, even though it’s now regular price.  Might be a fluke with Amazon’s ranking updates and it’s hard to take these numbers too seriously not knowing how Amazon determines such things.  But it was there, and I can only assume we moved a lot of electrons.  So thanks to everyone who helped spread the word.

I’ve decided the ALM Action Force is an actual thing now.  I am working on an official logo and motto and will eventually have a Action Force kit of some sort.  Maybe a cool poster and a badge and an official registry of Action Force members.  Everything else on the internet has a fan club?  Why not me?

But if you’re worrying that this blog is going to degenerate into a series of self-promotional appeals, rest assured this will not be the case.  Let’s put aside the Action Force business, and talk about something really important.

Giant Monsters.

This summer, there are two movies I’m pretty jazzed about.  The first is Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 because I love the first one.  It succeeded in being a fun, energetic, and original film, a sort of weird science meets The Muppet Show adventure.  The sequel looks to have the same wonderful charm, and it does even have a few giant food monsters too.  But these are not the giant monsters I’m here to talk about.

The other film is, unsurprising if you know me or have read any of my books, Pacific Rim.  It’s been a while since we’ve had a big budget giant monster film in America, and it’s high time the genre got another shot.  Generally, giant monster cinema falls under the heading Kaiju Films, and it is a time honored tradition, going back to the original black and white epic King Kong and beyond.

Kaiju is a genre I dearly love, but like any genre, it has its ups and downs.  Today, I’d like to share with you my thoughts on the genre in general and hope that you’ll see the tradition Pacific Rim is coming from.  I’m not saying you should go watch all these movies, but it might help you appreciate the subtleties of enormous monsters smashing each other to pieces for the fate of the world.

The two most obvious classics are the original King Kong and Godzilla.  Both remain fine films and outstanding cinema in my opinion.

The B&W King Kong is still one of my favorite kaiju films.  While the 70′s remake has its moments, and the tepid Peter Jackson version has a cool fight where Kong battles three T-rexes at once, the original is just great fun.  The stop motion animation is still great, and the story is neat.  There are some unfortunate elements that haven’t aged well.  The natives couldn’t be more ridiculous, and there isn’t really an ounce of sympathy for Kong as he is stolen away from his home and forced to meet his tragic end through no fault of his own.  But that’s part of what makes it art, folks.  Not just dinosaur fights, but those elements of our past we tend to forget.

King Kong is more of an adventure film, but the original Godzilla is an obvious metaphor for the dangers of unfettered nuclear threat.  Not surprising, considering it was made by Japan after having dealt with the horrors of the atom bomb.  For the longest time, the American edit of the film removed or downplayed those elements in favor of a more traditional monster flick.  But a few years ago, the uncut original was released, and it is a great movie.  Though Godzilla is most renowned for fighting other monsters in increasingly absurd romps, the original is a somber piece about helplessness, destruction, and self-sacrifice.  Godzilla isn’t friendly here.  He’s just a force of nature who lives to destroy.  Many of the familiar elements of Godzilla weren’t yet in place.  By far, the least “fun” of the films I’m going to list, but also, a powerful piece of moviemaking.

I’m going to go ahead and mention the American Godzilla adaptation too.  It often gets a bad rap as a stupid film, and I can see why if you were expecting Godzilla you might be disappointed by it.  But for me, it is a part of the older tradition.  I much prefer to think of the American film as an adaptation of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, a film that came before the original Japanese Godzilla.  Taken as an adventure story about a monster versus the military, the American film is a lot of fun.  It still has some of my favorite kaiju action sequences, including one where Godzilla fights some submarines.  Yes, I know it’s default to say the movie is terrible, but far from it, it’s a great action adventure flick featuring a monster wreaking havoc on a city.  And because the monster is not invulnerable to conventional weaponry, there’s a real excitement to the action sequences.  I know I’m in the minority on this one, but a film I rather enjoy.

However, in the end, my favorite type of kaiju story is where monster fights monster.

The Godzilla films have along and varied history, and they are a decidedly mixed bag.  Rather than focus on the weaker films, I’d rather comment on the few that really stand out to me.

Godzilla 2000 was released in America shortly after the American version.  In this film, Godzilla faces Orga, an evil alien bent on assimilating the King of the Monsters and destroying the Earth.  The story is solid, and the FX are excellent.  The final showdown as Godzilla battles a flying saucer, then Orga himself, is full of creative moments and outstanding execution.  Really, just an amazing battle for the fate of the world with a jaw-dropping conclusion.

In the older films, a personal favorite remains The Terror of Mechagodzilla.  I’ve said before how I hate villains who are just an evil version of the good guy, but Mechagodzilla is more than just a robotic version of Godzilla.  Mechagodzilla shoots lasers, has finger rockets, and is just badass.  The film features a second antagonist monster, Titanasaurus.  Titanasaurus isn’t very powerful (and this is even stated in the film), but combined with Mechagodzilla, the King of the Monsters faces a serious threat.  At one point, Godzilla is buried alive only to (spoiler alert) burst from the ground and continue the fight.  This is just an outstanding kaiju adventure.  Highly recommended.

There’s also Godzilla versus Mechagodzilla.  This is actually the first appearance of Mechagodzilla, and Godzilla must team up with King Caesar, a legendary dog/lion kaiju to defeat the evil robot.  One of my favorites, even if King Caesar is a bit goofy looking.

Really, I would recommend nearly any Godzilla film.  They are almost all great, though they range in appeal from goofy to serious to thrilling.  I would avoid Godzilla versus the Sea Monster and Destroy All Monsters.  The sea monster is a disappointing antagonist, and Destroy All Monsters has a ton of Toho Studio monsters in it, but it also is just disappointing in terms of kaiju action.

Special recommendation to Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: All Out Monster Attack.  It might be a mouthful, but it is a heck of a cool film.  The twist is that in this particular film, Godzilla is the bad guy, and the other monsters are the prophesied monsters to save the day.  That’s right.  King Ghidorah is playing the good guy in this one, and while that threw me off at first, it has some great adventure and cool monster fights.

Also, Godzilla: Final Wars is a movie where Godzilla himself is transformed into an unstoppable juggernaut who smashes his way through the entire Toho Studios cast of kaiju.  It’s terrific, over-the-top sci fi adventure.

Outside of Godzilla, I must acknowledge that my favorite kaiju series doesn’t have the big guy in it.  No, as much as I adore the King of the Monsters, I find that the pinnacle of the art form was achieved in the Gamera series of films.  I’m not talking about the original six films, which are a lot of fun, but the reboot that happened in ’95.  These three films: Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, Gamera: Attack of Legion, and Gamera: Revenge of Iris are each a truly awesome spectacle.

While I think of Godzilla as the Schwartzenneger of kaiju, Gamera is akin to the Jackie Chan of the genre.  Endlessly inventive, and with spectacular and engaging kaiju battles.  If you don’t believe watching a jet-powered turtle have a mid-air battle with an evil alien isn’t high art, you will after seeing this series.  Gamera is cast as the good guy, a super weapon from Atlantis out to save the world from one of their failed experiments.  Each film of the trilogy explores a different element of the kaiju genre, and does so in surprising and clever ways.

In the first film, Gamera is psychically linked to a young girl.  In the second, the link has become broken and while he’s not a bad guy, he also is a lot more reckless in his mission to save the Earth.  There is a sequence in the third film that is truly mind-blowing in presenting the terror of having giant monsters battling in your city.  The third film casts Gamera as an overworked hero who will fight on no matter what.  And damnit if I don’t think of that level of determination in my own struggles.

I could go on with this all day.  While not technically kaiju films, both Aliens vs. Monsters and How to Train Your Dragon have some amazing giant robots / monster elements.  And there are plenty of lesser known kaiju flicks that might be worth your time.  Frankenstein Conquers the World is incredibly strange but fun, too.  Kaiju is a weird and wonderful genre, capable of intense goofiness, amazing adventure, and surprisingly relevant thoughts on what it means to be human.

Give it a shot, if you’re so inclined.  If you like my books then you just might discover something it’s not so easy to dismiss as you once thought.

Any genre that features rocket punches and aliens cyborg chickens with buzzsaws in their chess must have something to recommend it, right?

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Saying that, this is going to be a post thinking about why I’m not more popular, and what I should do to change that.  It’s also, more importantly, a call to action from you, my fans, to do your part, should you feel like it.  Of course, simply buying or talking about my books is more than enough, and I have no right to expect any more from you.  If you do that, we’re cool, and you have my undying gratitude.  But if you should decide to keep reading and feel like doing more, you’ll score a few more points and be even more beloved.

There.  Cards on the table.  Now let’s get to it.

The fact is, despite all appearances to the contrary, I am stuck, career-wise.  It’s easy to hear a writer has nine books out (with his tenth on the way) and think he must be doing all right.  And I am.  I’ve had good years and weak years, and like anyone else, there are ups and downs.  But as of late, I’ve hit a plateau I just can’t seem to get over.

I’ll own up to most of the responsibility on that.  I hate the notion that I might be too “creative” because it smacks of both self-indulgent egotism and dismissal of the taste of the general public.  But I do ask a lot of my fans.  Most writers, even if they don’t write series, will stick to a certain sub-genre.  Meanwhile, I’m jumping from traditional fantasy to urban fantasy to space adventure to cosmic horror to metaphysical exploration.

This weekend I was talking to a friend of mine about One of These Doomsdays, my current project, and after I described the book, he said he admired how I dared to bounce around so much on my settings and ideas.  It was a compliment, but I also realized just how counter such ideas can be to building an audience.  If someone loves pulp space adventure, there’s no reason to assume they like existential metaphysical stories about ghost dinosaurs and mole people.  It’s a lot to ask for someone to have enough faith in me that they’d be willing to pick up a book so different, especially if it didn’t hit their genre hot buttons.

Again, I have to stress that I don’t think what I do is more difficult than writing a series.  Series demand a lot from the writer.  But the thing about series that works most in their favor is that the odds are good if you like one wizard detective story, you will like another wizard detective story and if that wizard detective story features characters you’ve already grown to care for, so much the better.  It doesn’t make the story easier or harder.  But it makes it easier to sell, easier for the audience to get excited about.

The path I’m on is a lot bumpier.  Not meant as a slight to any other successful writer out there because we all have our choices to make, and every choice has an upside and a downside.  We try to stay true to ourselves while compromising where we must, and in the end, it’s just one day at a time.  I love that my books are different enough that they can be distinguished by merely describing the protagonist or the setting, but that is also probably their biggest weakness.

Putting that aside, still seems like I should be more popular than I am.  Not household name popular, but perhaps someone most sci fi / fantasy fans have heard of.  That is simply not the case.

To have a career in this business, you have to follow the numbers.  In order to make a living as a writer, I need to sell a lot of books.  Thousands of them.  Meanwhile, I can’t even get a Kickstarter project funded, and my Wattpad account offering free short stories to the public has only a few hundred hits.  While I try to maintain a positive attitude, that’s a bit discouraging.  I know I’m not Stephen King, Jim Butcher, or Tom Clancy, but I am a professional writer offering free fiction and still getting a very tepid response.

This leads me to only a few possible conclusions.  They might be wrong, but I’m going to share them anyway.

CONCLUSION ONE:

In the end, a writer, doing what I do, can’t compete in this market.  People will almost always play it safe when it comes to buying books, and who can blame them for that?  Books are expensive, and who wants to buy a book they’ll end up hating?  I don’t buy much fiction myself for exactly the same reason.  Perhaps the only way to really grow in popularity and maintain an expanding career is to write a series or, at least, stick to a narrowly defined sub-genre.

Yes, I know a lot of my fans out there love what I do and love the exploration of whole new worlds.  Their support means everything to me, but I also have to wonder if there are enough of them out there to make a consistent living by appealing to them.  I believe there is, which leads to me to . . .

CONCLUSION TWO:

My audience just isn’t finding me.  If this is true, it can hardly be surprising.  We are saturated with media in this day and age, and it’s all too easy for a lower tier writer such as myself to get lost in the shuffle.  My publisher does their part and more.  I’d be lost without the marketing people behind the scenes, and there’s no doubt in my mind that large parts of my success are due to their efforts.  Often, I think they deserve even more credit because, no matter how great my books are, no one is going to read them if they aren’t noticed.

This is the question that every artist has had to face since the first caveman painted the first buffalo on a cave wall.  How do you spread the word?  How do you get people excited?  (My first recommendation is don’t hid your art in caves, but it seemed to work out okay for those guys.)

Basically, there’s not much I can do about that.  I do what I can, and I could probably do more.  But I’m still only one guy.  I can’t compete with the established publicity machines out there.

So this is where you come in.

I know it’s unfair to put this burden on you, but artists live and die by the enthusiasm of their fans.  I know I have excited fans out there, but I need more.  I need you to spread the word in a way you might not have ever done before.  I need you to help me.  It’s not something I have any right to ask, and if you should find it presumptuous, I certainly won’t blame you.  If you feel like just buying my books and enjoying them, you have done more than enough.  No complaints from me.

But if you like me enough to want more of what I do, you could maybe help me out by spreading the word.  If you have a blog, post something about your favorite A. Lee Martinez book.  If you have a Twitter account, give me a shout out now and then.  (I’m @Aleemartinez, just FYI.)  Maybe between posting Facebook updates about your own life (which is undoubtedly more important than my little career) you could throw up your favorite A. Lee Martinez quote.  If you could go to Amazon.com and post a review or two, I certainly wouldn’t mind.

In real life, you could share books.  Pass them to friends.  If a stranger is in the fantasy section of the bookstore, and you happen to be walking past, perhaps take  a moment to point out the Martinez section of the shelf.  Though that is a lot to ask, so no pressure.

There are a thousand avenues to spread the word, and if you take a little time out of your day to do so, I would be forever indebted to you.  You are now deputized as part of the A. Lee Martinez Action Force.  (Official logo forthcoming.)  The extent of your duties is entirely your own decision, but every little bit helps.  I’ll keep doing my part in the meantime.

Here’s some helpful info to get you started:

@Aleemartinez (Twitter)

A. Lee Martinez (Facebook)

http://www.wattpad.com/user/ALeeMartinez (Wattpad)

Hipstercthulhu@hotmail.com (Official A. Lee Martinez e-mail)

Go forth, folks.  Spread the good word.  And, as always, thank you for all your support, past, present, and future.  It means a hell of a lot to me to have come this far.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Setting aside the political, social, and religious connotations of this notion (and there are plenty of those indeed but that’s way too complicated to get into), I see it whenever humans immediately thrust one expression of media into competition with some similar expression.  It basically seems to stem from a desire to keep things neat and tidy.

Two recent examples are the previews for the movies R.I.P.D and Pacific Rim.  Both have been immediately subject to dismissal by some as merely copycats of popular movies.  Drawing comparisons between R.I.P.D. and Men in Black isn’t very hard, and the trailer certainly doesn’t help in that.  But Pacific Rim has almost nothing in common with Transformers aside from featuring large robots prominently.  Yet I can already see the waves of comparisons coming.

I will say R.I.P.D. has a heck of a lot in common with M.I.B. Aesthetically, character-wise, and even thematically.  But if you look beyond the M.I.B. comparison, you’ll see that this is because Hollywood movies tend to follow formulas.  M.I.B. is a fantasy buddy cop movie, and it has a lot of the elements of the buddy cop genre.  R.I.P.D. does too.  I will say that the aesthetic choices for R.I.P.D. don’t really help it much, but then I think about how many action hero movies from the 80′s were pretty much the exact same film with different names and set pieces.  Nobody accused Tango and Cash of being a ripoff of Lethal Weapon.

As for Pacific Rim, aside from the unusually large robots, it has almost nothing in common with Transformers. Even the robots are a heck of a lot bigger, and the bad guys are kaiju beasts from another dimension.  But as I think of all the differences, I know the comparisons will roll forth and there’s not a damn thing to be done to stop them.

What’s interesting about human nature is that while we seem to have infinite room for certain genres, we tend to have room for only one “definitive” story in others.  We can watch a dozen Holocaust movies, enjoy romantic comedies individually, horror, action, etc, and see them all as worthy of our time, but many of us can only like one “robot” story, one “fantasy secret agent” story, one “epic fantasy”, and so on.

I deal with this a bit in my own profession.  Being labeled a “comedic fantasy writer” only really bothers me because it so often places me in one of those tiny categories.  As soon as many people hear the label, they seem to throw me into a gladiator pit with other writers of that sub-genre where many walk in, but only one can win.  It’s as if there’s an unspoken assumption that there can only be one definitive writer at a time, and everyone else is worthy of derision.  This sort of cut throat mental survival of the fittest psychology does disservice to everyone (but especially me and we can agree that’s a real crime against humanity).

We all like to compile lists and to rank and collate the world.  It can be fun to debate what is the best kung fu movie (Kung Fu Panda), superhero flick (The Incredibles), or kaiju adventure (Gamera: Revenge of Iris).  But these should be fun, and with so many great stories out there, it’s absurd to suggest that there can be only one winner and nothing else is worth our time.  That’s the danger of comparisons.

When you get right down to it, the world is complicated.  There’s nothing wrong with admitting that.  And a world where there’s room for only one awesome robot movie (or awesome fantasy novelologist) isn’t the world I live in.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

But sometimes people don’t die tragically.  Sometimes, people grow and learn.  Sometimes, even despite ourselves, we succeed and things work out.  That’s life too.

The paradox of The Realism Argument is that it’s always used to justify the negative, never the positive.  That’s a damn frightening notion, when you think about it.  It means that, underneath it all, nearly all human beings think the universe stinks, that it’s out to get them, and that all happiness is merely a temporary reprieve from the misery that’s just around the corner.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but there is a definite reflex, as we age, to start viewing good characters and positive stories as childish and foolish.  There’s even some justification for that because the super sunny, everyone can get along, let’s hold hands and sing about buying the world a Coke version of reality that we’re sold as children is certainly unrealistic.  Yet the response as we grow older isn’t to seek a more nuanced understanding of this world, but the wholesale rejection of positivity as “immature”.

I get it.  There certainly is no such thing as “happily ever after”.  In the end, we all grow old and die and most everything we accomplish will disappear into obscurity.  But while we’re here, good things do happen.  The world doesn’t always become a worse place.  And even if none of it might not matter in the cosmic scale, it might matter today.

This is why I tend to dislike anything deemed “mature” or “realistic” because, to me, it’s usually just as absurd as stories where everything works out for the best.  In the rejected Happy Ending Universe, everything works out for the best, despite the absurdity of it.  Meanwhile, in its more “realistic” Sad Ending Universe, everything always falls apart.  Neither universe strikes me as more believable.  They come across as caricatures of the more nuanced and complicated world we leave in.

I’ve never claimed to write realistic stories, but putting aside the space squids and the monster gods, I’ve never deemed my stories as childish escapism.  I’ve nothing against escapism, but even that label seems like a trap designed to reinforce the notion that reality is a horrible thing to flee and hide from.  My stories might be fun.  They might not feature horrible deaths, rapes, and pointless tragedy.  But neither does reality always bring these things down upon us all the time.

Some people have good lives.  Some people get into scrapes and make it through the other side without having become broken.  Sometimes, life works out.

That this is considered an immature perception never made any sense to me.  It’s like all humans hit a goth phase at some point, and while they might not wear the makeup or the black clothes, they have the same “Everything sucks” attitude that so classifies that cliched stereotype.

It’s why I hate when anything aimed at a younger ages is made “more mature.”  It’s why Batman, a guy designed to have weird adventures fighting crime while dressed like a bat, is now stuck fighting serial killers while brooding about how sad he is.  It’s why most every female character in fiction will eventually be raped (if she isn’t retconned into having being raped in the past at some point).  It’s why every writer in the world (as far as I can tell) can’t wait to write that story where Superman goes nuts and just starts killing everyone.

This is the problem with realism as we tend to see it defined.  It just isn’t very realistic.  It so often embraces the tragic, the sinister, the horrible without acknowledging the positive, the fortunate, the lucky.  Sure, if many people had the powers of Superman, they would immediately become super tyrants.  But some people wouldn’t.  If you don’t think that’s true then you’re suggesting that not one human being is capable of being a genuinely good person.  And if you honestly believe that then you’re living in a different world than I am because I know that terrible stuff happens every day, but not ONLY terrible stuff.

Ultimately, I don’t care if someone prefers more grimdark in their stories.  All those terrible things are definitely part of our world, but tragedy is no more realistic than triumph, joy is just as much a part of the human experience as pain, and the good guys do win sometimes.  Even in this world we live in.

That I like them to to win just a touch more often in my fiction than in reality is a preference.  It’s not immaturity.

There is a place in this world for Superman.  That’s not being childish.  That’s just seeing the world as bigger than most people are able to admit.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

The last game I enjoyed this much in terms of story was probably the Mass Effect series.  Still haven’t played the third game and have no plans to.  But the previous two remain among my favorite game experiences ever.  Not for the gameplay, which is fairly standard cover-based shooting, but for the feeling of entering a larger universe and taking part in an epic story.  Mass Effect is notable for its choice-based gameplay, where you design your character from scratch, choose a few particulars of their background, and get to actually shape the outcome of the story by how your character reacts throughout. 

Bioshock Infinite, on the other hand, doesn’t have many choices to make.  Your character is preset.  Your path is mostly predetermined, and there’s little you can do to change the course of the story.  Yet this doesn’t bother me at all, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why it would bother anyone.  Ninety-nine percent of all fiction is without choice.  It is an experience.  No matter how many time you read or reread Moby Dick, Ahab and the whale do not ever reconcile.

I get that video games are an “interactive” medium, but that just means that progressing through a video game requires more personal effort than other mediums.  I can’t progress through Bioshock Infinite without occasionally getting into a gunfight.  But at the end, it’s like a movie with a mostly preset course and I’m along for the ride.

And this is often how it should be.  I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books (and their lesser known competitors Twist-A-Plot).  The only epic fantasy series I’ve actually read was the Lone Wolf series of Choose Your Own Adventure style stories.  I wouldn’t want that with every story I was told.  Or even most.

The fact is that choice doesn’t really work for fiction.  The big reason I didn’t play the final Mass Effect game was that I had no interest in any of the endings they wanted to give me.  The dilemma is that, in the end, Mass Effect becomes like any other fiction.  The ending was never really decided by me.  I was only there to nudge it in a few directions.

In a game like Bioshock Infinite, there’s no such illusion.  You can’t make any major decisions.  Every so often, a minor choice will come along, and it will probably affect the end of the game, but it seems like a small concession to those players who want to feel as if they are in control.  I couldn’t care less about such moments in this game because I’m cool with the story the game wants to give me.

The question I ask myself is just how important is choice in an interactive medium like video games and how much does choice conflict with telling a good story?  Not being a game designer, but a professional novelologist, I can tell you that most people are pretty bad storytellers.  I tell stories well because I DON’T ASK what the audience wants.  But if I asked, I’d be obliged to give it to them, wouldn’t I?

This is why I’ve avoided Mass Effect 3 for fear of being reminded that I am not creating a story with the game.  I’m just along for the ride, and while there might have been a few detours along the way, it was all destined to go one way and my choices were largely meaningless.  It’s why, if Mass Effect is the magnum opus of Choose Your Own Adventure genre, then it ultimately displays the strengths and weaknesses of the genre.

Bioshock Infinite is more traditional interactive storytelling.  I push buttons to progress through the story, but it’s agreed from the start that the path is preset.  The ending might be awesome.  It might stink.  But my opinion won’t be shaped by the illusion that I shaped it beyond walking the hero through it.  In a way, that seems more satisfying.  I don’t want false choices.  I want a good story.  If it should have choices along the way, I guess I won’t complain, but if I agonize over a course of action and it ultimately means nothing, then why did I bother?

I still love the Mass Effect games, but Bioshock Infinite demonstrates a truth to me that fiction usually works best when the audience observes without participating.  Often even with interactive media.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee