Anyway, I’m still working on my top secret project I’m not allowed to talk about.  So why bring it up?  Because what’s the point of working on a top secret project if you can’t mention it?  This is probably why I’d be a lousy spy.  The details will remain undisclosed, but I’m optimistic at this stage that this could be awesome.  I could be wrong.  It’s happened once or twice before.

But while I have a free moment, I figured I’d drop by, confirm that I am still alive, and maybe share some random thoughts.  People do seem to like that sort of thing.  Maybe because as a sort of famous person, they’re under the illusion I have something interesting to say.  Or maybe we all have something interesting to say, and I just happen to be lucky enough to have an audience.

So I’ve been playing Skylanders on my Wii.  If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s a video game with a gimmick.  You get a wireless “portal” device that connects to your system and when you put the Skylander figures onto the portal, they appear in your game as characters for you to control.  Think of it as Pokemon, but without having to capture the damn things and instead just going out and buying them.  It is a gimmick, and psychologically, it should be annoying that you’re basically paying to unlock things that are already in the game.  But it’s a tremendously charming game with a lot going for it.

For one thing, the game is a bit old school and aimed at a younger audience.  It’s not tremendously difficult and most of the levels are straightforward, even if there is a bit of puzzles here and there.  For some reason, Skylanders reminds me a lot of that old classic Gauntlet.  Only instead of running around in a dungeon with four characters to choose from, there are 32 different Skylanders (if you should happen to buy them all).

What elevates this beyond a gimmick for me is that the game is genuinely fun to play.  And each character has their own unique style.  They aren’t just interchangeable with different special effects.  Trigger Happy carries a pair of pistols that shoot gold coins and can spray the screen with a deadly barrage.  Meanwhile, Terrafin is a landshark who can swim through rock and punch the enemy with tremendous force.  The more you play the game, the more you unlock on the characters.  It’s all a very elaborate system of enticement, but so cleverly done that it seems rewarding rather than manipulative.

It’s the difference between a game with a gimmick and a gimmicky game.  Skylanders is certainly designed to sell collectible figures, but they went above and beyond to create a fun experience that continues to reward me.  If I were less secure, I might feel weird admitting how much I’m enjoying a game aimed at kids, but I’m a professional novelologist.  And I fear the day I can’t see the beauty of playing a game where I can be anything from a rock dinosaur to a cyber dragon to a very angry tree who spits out giant spiked acorns that he rolls over the forces of evil.

Meanwhile, I’ve also been enjoying Castle Empire Online, a free online game that’s about managing a small kingdom.  It’s a different animal than Skylanders, but fun.  Worth checking out, if you’re so inclined.  I play under the name EmperorMollusk.  Send me a friend request.  Maybe I’ll trade you some fish for coal.  (I’m always short on coal.)

But what about the real world?  What’s going on there?

How quaint of you to ask.

Got that secret project thing.  Hush hush.  But it’s coming along.

Working on Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest, my next manuscript (prob out in 2013).

Oh, and that Mack Megaton story…it’s still coming.  I promise.

Finally, I’d like to offer my thoughts on the topic of skepticism.  The problem with your average person’s view of skepticism is that it seems to mean “Non-Believer”.  When I say I’m skeptical of ghosts, for instance, it’s often assumed I don’t believe ghosts exist.  In point of fact, I am a genuine skeptic when it comes to the paranormal.  I remain unconvinced but open to it.

And, yes, I understand there there is “evidence” for the paranormal.  It’s just not very good evidence.  And it certainly isn’t very convincing evidence for any particular claim.  This isn’t to say that those claims are wrong.  It’s just that they remain so ill-defined as to honestly admit they are specious at best.  The difficulty I have with “the paranormal” is that no one who believes it genuinely seems to be investigating it in an open way.  Instead, they have their pet theory that they are trying to prove.  That’s just bad research.

For example, perhaps electronic voice phenomenon is a real thing, and we are managing to record the voices of invisible beings around us.  This could mean a hundred things though.  Perhaps there are alien entities from another dimension trying to make contact with us.  Perhaps mischievous imps are playing tricks on us.  Or perhaps they are psychic imprints created by the will of the living investigators.  When it comes to the paranormal, none of these explanations seems unreasonable to me.  Or they could all be wrong.

This is why I am skeptical.  Even if you capture a genuine EVP, it could be something we haven’t even thought of yet.  There are so many possibilities, the only genuinely honest thing to do is to record the result and keep investigating.

Inevitably, someone will tell me I am being too closed minded.  But it’s actually the opposite.  I’m so open minded about what it COULD be that I have a hard time just declaring what it is as if I actually knew.  The believer is often the one who seems closed minded to me, willing to stretch any and all evidence toward their pet theory, ignoring any possibility outside of that.

As an experiment, I suggest watching different ghost hunting shows.  What’s most surprising about the shows isn’t that they find “evidence”, but the type of “evidence” they find.  Each show tends to find the kind of ghosts they’re looking for, regardless of their location.  The less dangerous spirits of Ghost Hunters never seem to cross paths with the more terrifying specters of Ghost Adventures.  And the outright malevolent forces of Paranormal State never seem to show up in any episodes of Fact or Faked.

Skeptically, it could be argued that perhaps that’s the way the supernatural works.  Perhaps different facets of the paranormal respond to different people.  Perhaps my very skepticism is what prevents me from seeing any evidence for myself.  Or perhaps it’s all just our primitive imagination responding to spooky sounds and unfamiliar locations.  Or perhaps we’re all just brains floating in a giant shared simulation and some people have their experience settings dialed to monster.

That’s skepticism.  Far too extreme to be practical, of course.  But just want to put it out there.

My general rule is that if the evidence could just as easily apply to leprechauns, then I remain unconvinced.  Lights in the skies could be alien spaceships.  Or the fey folk playing tricks on us.  Until we actually have a flying saucer or a faerie in our possession, we can’t know for sure.

Although I do still believe that Bigfoot is just Chupacapbra in a suit.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Naturally, when I did finally get published, it was assumed by many that I would immediately begin a series.  I even considered an expanding universe, turning Rockwood of Gil’s All Fright Diner into my own little playground with recurring characters and continuity.  But then my publisher kept buying other books, so I lost interest quickly.

And now, eight books published and my ninth manuscript just about done, I don’t see any reason to go back to what I started.  I could write a sequel to something, and I’m sure it would sell well.  If anything, by playing hard to get, I might have increased demand for it.  And, for the record, I’m not a big fan of sequels or series novels, but many are done well and have achieved a justifiable hardcore fan following.

The idea of a continuing universe or the further adventures of Character X works just fine for many.  But as an artist (if I might indulge my ego for a bit), the pitfalls are many.

Tron Legacy was the sequel fans have been waiting decades for.  And it wasn’t very good.  But perhaps it would be wrong to place the blame on those who made Legacy.  Maybe it’s just one of those stories that is perfect the way it is and no sequel could work.  Allow me to be charitable to the filmmakers for just a moment and suggest that the Tron setting really isn’t good for many stories.  The original is a neat film with cool ideas, but it doesn’t lend itself to much outside that.  The world of Tron wasn’t designed with sequels and series in mind.  Hence, the difficulty in creating any sort of continuing story about it.  This would explain why Legacy mostly meanders its way through a muddled plot, stealing bits and pieces from other fantasy films, in hopes that they can be cobbled together into something worthwhile.

Let’s call it The Highlander Dilemma.  What do you do with a story that was never intended to be expanded?  You can add a weird alien background, a strange futuristic setting, and contrive reasons to bring back characters, but you’re still basically trying to push a boulder uphill.

Actually, Tron Legacy and Highlander 2 seem to be poster children for this particular problem.  Or Men-in-Black 2.  Or Hangover 2.  Or Pirates of the Caribbean 2-who knows how many they’ll make. Heck, even the Star Wars prequels fall victim to this.  They aren’t necessary, don’t add anything new to the story, and exist mostly because popularity and financial success demand it.

That’s the dilemma.  Because whether or not I enjoyed any of those films listed above, they were all commercial successes.  And people enjoyed them.  I might think Legacy and Hangover 2 are dreadful, but my opinion is just one and hardly one that matters.  Box office is what counts, and it should.  A big, mainstream movie costs a lot of money to make, and who would bother if they didn’t think they’d get some return on their investment?

Another storytelling medium that continually suffers from this are comic book.  Specifically comic book superheroes.  I used to love comic books.  But superheroes are always struggling between the need to tell ongoing stories and a contrary need to keep things exactly the same.  No change in comic books is permanent.  All characters will return to their original form.  Given enough time, Barbara Gordon will get out of her wheelchair and walk again.  Hal Jordan will somehow return from the grave and become Green Lantern again.  Spider-Man will have his marriage magically undone, and everything will be exactly the way it started.

That doesn’t bother me.  Not exactly.  Although it is why any sort of ongoing continuity is always going to screw storytellers in the end.  Because if you don’t change the characters / worlds, the audience can get bored.  But if you do change the characters / worlds, the audience gets hostile.  You really are damned if you do, damned if you don’t.  Given a long enough timeline, every continuity becomes a yoke around the storyteller’s neck.

Comic book superheroes have struggled with this dilemma for at least 30 years.  Ever since comic book fans started reading compulsively and cross-referencing every bit of dialogue and display of power.  Comic books are going through a hard time now, and I don’t think it’s solely because they’ve taken stories about flying people in long underwear and turned them into violent, blood-soaked fantasies.  (Though that doesn’t help.)  It’s because there’s really nothing new being done in comics.  It’s the same characters, fighting the same villains, in the same way over and over and over again.  While it’s easy to be critical, it’s also true that there’s just no clear way out of the continuity trap.  Other than perhaps creating new characters and supporting them long enough that they might become a new generation of heroes and villains without decades of baggage already attached to them.  But that’s not going to happen.  Mostly because a new character would probably have to be supported for at least a decade before making headway against the much better established ones.

ASIDE: This is why I read and recommend Atomic Robo by Red 5 Comics.  He’s a new character in his own universe.  He doesn’t come with fifty years of backstory.  He isn’t going to get shanghaied into some silly epic crossover.  And while the comic does have continuity (and even uses it deftly and effectively), it’s also a great read without any of that.  Atomic Robo is the comic book that makes me want to be a better writer and is just plain awesome.  Pick up any of the collected graphic novels.  You won’t be disappointed. BACK ON TOPIC

If my livelihood depended on sequels, I’d write them.  I admit it.  But as a novelologist, I’m lucky enough to have choices.  I’d most probably be doing better at this stage if I was on book eight of an ongoing series, though I can’t say that for sure.  I don’t rule anything out, but I’m earning a living writing standalone books.  And I love the freedom it gives me in terms of storytelling.  And I like being able to offer an alternative in a world full of sequels.

I’m damn lucky to do what I do, and maybe I’ve just been slipping below the radar up to this point.  Maybe one day, the publishing police will bust down my door and smack me around until I relent.  But until that day, as long as people keep paying me for writing what I enjoy writing best, I won’t complain.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

By the way, I’ll be taking part in Borders.com’s Babel Clash, a two week blogging exchange thing.  I’m not really sure how it works or what I’ll be doing, but it’s flattering to be asked to participate.  So I’ll be doing it because any chance to meet new fans without forcing me to get up and leave my house is cool with me.  It’ll start next Wednesday.  I’ll keep you updated gang.

So I finally finished CATCHING THE MOON.  Still have work to do on it, but I felt comfortable enough to turn it over to my editor and see what they have to say.

And now I’m free to just relax and pursue a new manuscript.  I’ve started MOJO NEPTUNE, WARLORD OF EARTH.  It’s a story about a retired alien supervillain and the problems he gets into trying to save a world he previously conquered himself.  Mojo is the space squid equivalent of Doctor Doom, chaotic neutral (or possibly chaotic lawful), and he isn’t exactly a nice guy.  But he’s really not evil either.  He’s just super intelligent and bored and trying to figure out what to do with himself.

I tweeted the title and backstory of the story a few days ago, and two of my close friends told me they thought it was a joke.  For the life of me, I don’t know why.  This is a story with a space squid protagonists, Venusian warriors, Saturnite stone people, ray guns, time machines, and probably (though not certainly at this point) an Atlantean uprising.  Doesn’t it sound like something I’d write?  Heck, I’m not sure it’s even the weirdest thing I’ve written.

The other thing that came up was the funny writer label.  One or two people observed that if I didn’t want to be viewed as a funny writer, I probably should stop writing stuff like this.  And I can see where they’re coming from.   It has some funny stuff in it.  There’s humor.  There’s absurdity.  But, despite all that, I still wouldn’t call it a funny book.

But maybe it’s just a matter of perception.  I don’t like being called funny, but I do like being called fun.  I do like writing fun books that make you smile, that are enjoyable to read, that engage the reader with cool ideas and snappy dialogue and strange, memorable (hopefully) moments.  Fun is good.  Fun is a worthy goal.

Funny is just too much damn pressure.  It’s also just a touch one-dimensional.  The line between drama and comedy is mostly an illusion.  It seems as if anything makes you smile or doesn’t bring you down that it must automatically be silly or light.  But, as I’ve said before, I don’t buy that.

One of my favorite movies last year was CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS.  Yes, it’s an absurdist romp with plenty of jokes.  But I really did care about the characters, and there’s a satisfaction in the growth and resolution of their characters and conflicts.  KUNG FU PANDA isn’t just about cool super kung fu battles.  It’s also about Master Sifu’s struggles with his own guilt, Tai Lung’s ruthless (and tragic) pursuit of kung fu perfection, and Po’s evolution from jovial wannabe to jovial hero.  These films are funny, yes, and fun.  But that doesn’t make them less.

The recent JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRISIS ON TWO EARTHS is, in many ways, a dark story about a villain who seeks to destroy the universe for no other reason than his nihlistic obsession.  That’s pretty heavy stuff.  But it’s also about a guy in a batsuit and an alien in blue and red spandex who fight evil counterparts from an alternate dimension.  It’s fun.

Fun is not a bad thing.

So, yes, I’m funny.  And I don’t deny it.  But it has never been my goal to make the audience laugh, though if that hurts I’m not complaining.  Still, I’m striving to entertain, and if that makes me less of an artist, I’ll live with it.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

It’s time for our infrequent and irregular Ask A Smart Guy segment.  Let’s start with this comment someone recently posted on the site.

Hi.  Been a while.  Still working on finishing my current manuscript, but I can’t stay away.  It’s not fair to you, my adoring public.  You guys are my bread and butter, so I’m setting aside the manuscript for a second and posting something because I know how much you look forward to me enriching your lives with my wit, humor, and dinobot references.  Although in this post, I will endeavor to keep dinobot references to a minimum because “Me, Grimlock, love challenge!”

Damn.  So close.

Oh, well, onward and upward.  As a professional novelologist, I have a tendency not to talk about my work directly.  I feel a good book should stand on its own, and if I have to explain it to you, then I’ve failed.  And the first rule of Novelology Club is you do not talk about Novelology Club.  The second rule of Novelology Club is you do not talk about Novelology Club.  Oh, wait.  The second rule of Novelology Club is don’t use semi-colons.  Why?

We don’t talk about that.

Still I spend a lot of time working on these books, and while I realize that not all of them can be as beloved as others, I still want people to like them.  Or at least, pay me some money for them.  So I’ve decided to take a moment and talk about one of my previous novels.  But because Orbit, my current publisher, doesn’t really gain much from that, I’m also going to go ahead and talk about DIVINE MISFORTUNE, due out next month.

But first, let’s take a look at the ancient past.  Waaaay, waaay back to 2008.  (By the way, am I the only one who still gets annoyed that 2008 is “the past” and yet, when I look back on that time, I don’t think about the time the Martians blew up the moon or the armies of the mole people rose from the underrealm?)

Let’s talk about TOO MANY CURSES.

Too Many Curses might be my least successful novel.  Although I think A NAMELESS WITCH might ultimately be the winner (hooray?) on that front.  I’ll go on record saying that I think WITCH is probably my most subtle novel.  I say this because it seems to get the most varied interpretations and some of the strongest responses (both negative and positive).  Although it gets its fair share of Meh, too.  I really like Witch, and while I could discuss it at length, I think it holds up pretty well.  It did win a feminist fiction recognition (of which I am very proud), and since I actually love hearing the many interpretations, I’d rather not get too into that right now.

CURSES, on the other hand, gets shortchanged a lot.  It’s not that people don’t like it.  It’s got a solid rating on Amazon, just not many reviews.  But that’s par for the course when you’re an obscure li’l writer like yours truly.  Still, stylistically, Curses is a departure on many levels from my previous novels, and it breaks a lot of rules of what readers are trained to expect.

There’s no romance in Curses.  None.

There’s no edge.  Our heroine is not a your typical empowered woman warrior or mage in training.  She’s a housekeeper.  And she remains a housekeeper, more or less, throughout the novel.  While she does evolve over the course of the story, she doesn’t radically shift.  And that was kind of the point for me.

It has almost no world-building.  Not a single scene takes place outside of the castle walls.  And even the castle itself is left ill-defined and nebulous.  While Nessy knows how to navigate its many halls, I deliberately didn’t include a map or even bother to create one.  I couldn’t care less about those things.  They are completely unimportant to the story for me.

I wrote Curses because I wanted to write something with a lot of weird monsters in it, and a castle full of weird monsters seemed the perfect place for that.  But like any story, it evolved into something more interesting.  Curses is a story about individuals trapped in a rotten situation and just trying to make the best of it.  Even the villain of the story, The Door at the End of the Hall, is really all about growing and evolving as a person, trying to become better than you are.  But lest you think I take myself too seriously, let’s not forget some other reasons I wrote this story:

THE MONSTER THAT SHOULD NOT BE.  The Monster Under the Bed.  The Very Hungry Carpet.  The Sword in the Cabbage.  The Drowned Woman.  Olivia the Alliterative Owl.  The Toad Prince.  The Ragdoll Princess.  Decapitated Dan.  Mr. Bones.  The Vampire King.  The Hellhound.  Gnick the Gnome.  The Hanged Man.  Echo the Bodiless Poet.  Sir Thedeus the Fearless Bat Hero.  Dodger the thieving weasel.  The Jabberwock.  Fortune the black cat.  Wow.  Just writing it now, I could go on and on, and I have to say I love all these characters.  Some don’t get much more than a few pages of story time, but that’s what I love about the castle.  It feels alive, like a real place brimming with characters and life.  A small world in itself.

Also, there’s a really cool scene where a bunch of enchanted armors for fantastic creatures fight a witch who can kill you with her touch.  And the scene where Tiama the Scarred confronts THE MONSTER THAT SHOULD NOT BE is just awesomeriffic.

So if you haven’t read Curses yet, you really should.  At least I think so, and if you can’t trust my opinion, what is this world coming to?

Onto DIVINE MISFORTUNE…

This is my new novel, out this March.  It is going to be my breakout novel.  I call it here and now.  It’s going to make me rich and powerful and able to control the weather with my mind.

Plus…Laser vision!

But what’s it about?  It’s about gods.  Lazy, dumb, petty, easily confused, down-on-their-luck deities who spend most of their time watching television, playing board games, and trying to do as little as possible while gaining the most glory for themselves.

So, yeah, they’re pretty much like the rest of us.

That’s how gods used to be, y’know, and while I have nothing against the modern conceptions of divinity, they don’t really allow one to tell a great story.  Heck, once you make your protagonist all-knowing and all-powerful, it’s hard to have much conflict.  But Zeus and his ilk were that wonderful combo of all-powerful and dim-witted that allowed pretty much anything.

My gods are immortal.  Period.  They don’t die.  They can hurt each other physically (they are physical beings), but nothing leaves any permanent damage.  My gods aren’t powered by faith, which is far too nebulous a commodity.  They’re paid in tribute:  blood sacrifice, prayers, and ritual.  Or cash.  Yes, these guys take cash, too.  It’s a modern world.  The more tribute they collect, the more powerful they become.  The more powerful they become, the more tribute they collect.  Yes, even for gods, life is all a popularity contest.

The focus on the story isn’t on the celebrities of the divine, but on the working class gods.

First up, is Lucky, raccoon god of good fortune.  He’s a player, a schmoozer.  He’s not quite as charismatic as he thinks he is, but he gets by on equal parts charm, wit, and…well…luck.  That’s kind of his thing.

Then there’s Quick.  You know him better as Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec feathered serpent god.  Quick is definitely down on his luck.  He turns his back for one second and the next thing y’know, a handful of conquistadors have ruined everything.  Ain’t that always the way?

Siph the goddess of heartbreak is a former goddess of love who…well, can’t ruin everything, can I?

And let’s not forget Gorgoz, the chaos god who sulks in an unlit basement, watching Leave It to Beaver reruns and drinking beer.  Even for a god of death and destruction, he’s a real asshole.

Intrigued?  You should be because, as we’ve already covered, if you can’t trust me, who can you trust?

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

LEE

Haven’t been blogging lately because it’s not always easy to come up with interesting topics.  I know some folks are just happy blogging about any ol’ thing, but I am an important person.  This comes with important person responsibilities.  Like being interesting.  And fighting mummies.  Since I fought mummies just last night (FYI: I won), I guess I’ll try to be interesting today.

As my novelology career continues to grow, I ponder the perils and perks of fame and fortune.  On the plus side, I get to meet people who are nice to me just because I’m famous.  I also get a magic sword that makes fighting mummies a hell of a lot easier.  If you’ve ever tried fighting a mummy without a magic sword, you know what I’m talking about.  On the downside, I find increasingly a wall between me and the ordinary people that make up the bulk of our world’s population.

Granted, I am not really that famous and my fortune isn’t going to pay for that solid gold robot polish I need.  (Jeeves-3000 is looking a bit tarnished of late.)  But even in a cosmic scale, where I am but a speck of dust floating beneath the all-recording optical sensor of The Mighty Robot King, I still am more famous than most people who are reading this right now.  Probably.  Maybe.  Or maybe I’m just delusional.  Just play along in any case.

I’m in a delicate stage right now.  I am just successful enough that many people think of me as being something special, but I’m also obscure enough that most people haven’t heard of me.  On the one hand, this keeps me humble.  On the other, it elevates me in a way I don’t always like.  There are newer members of my writer’s group who never got a chance to meet Alex Martinez, the aspiring writer.  They only know A. Lee Martinez, world-renowned novelologist and mummy fighter.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve only been a published writer for a few years now.  I was an aspiring writer much longer.  And when I finally as accepted for publication, there was much rejoicing in my group because everyone knew what a long, hard road it had been.  Now it’s just assumed that I am going to make a living doing this.  When I present something at the DFWWW, it’s assumed that it is going to be published at some point.  This isn’t a bad assumption, but it changes the dynamic of the situation.

Assuming something of mine does eventually become a movie (a big assumption, but more and more possible each passing day) there will come a time when I leap from obscurity (“I’ve never heard of you”) to less obscurity (“You’re the guy who wrote the book that movie was based on?”).  While I do look forward to this possibility, I also realize that this will present a whole new dynamic to my relations with the little people.  It’s not a change I’m particularly looking forward to.

Fame and fortune come at a heavy price, gang.

Do me a favor and just remember that, underneath it all, I’m just a guy who gets paid to make up stories.  The only thing special about me is that I’ve got a talent for it, I didn’t give up, and an ungodly amount of luck.  And of those three things, I rank them (in order of importance) as Luck, Persistence, and Talent.  And I think I’m probably overestimating talent’s importance.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Recently, I read a pair of articles.  The first article was about how the writer didn’t like Doctor Who.  The second article suggested that people who don’t like Doctor Who should just not watch it and stop complaining about it.

But complaining is an important thing.  Complaining is what makes the exchange of ideas possible.  Bitching and moaning is what free speech is all about.

I don’t like Doctor Who either.  I find it highly overrated, dull, a rather clumsy mix of pretentiousness and humor.  And did I mention how unintentionally silly I find the “science” in this science fiction show?  It’s not a bad show.  Certainly not even in the top 10 of unexceptional sci fi shows.  But it’s just not that good, and if there were actually more good sci fi shows on television and if you subtract the nostalgia factor, I think it would’ve came and went and been quickly forgotten by now.  (I call this The Dollhouse Effect.)

Maybe you disagree.  Fair enough.  I don’t deny you your right to like (or even love) Doctor Who.  Just don’t deny me my right to disagree.

Of course, the question that so often comes up after that is “Why do you care?”  And I’m going to go ahead and tell you why I do care.

I care because a bad sci fi show leads to more bad sci fi shows.  And if everyone who disliked bad sci fi shows just sat down and kept quiet, then the trend will just continue.  Doctor Who is an unexceptional sci fi show, but Torchwood is absolutely dreadful.  And there would be no Torchwood without Doctor Who.  And I’m sure whatever spinoff Torchwood manages to spawn will be even worse.  (I call this The Stargate Effect.)

But perhaps “bad” is the wrong word to use.  “Bad” implies badness, and since all of this is a matter of opinion, I’m just suggesting that there are qualities to these shows that I do not enjoy or appreciate.  And if someone else does, good for them.   But this won’t stop me from speaking up every now and then, just to register a blip of disagreement, just to let someone out there know that if they don’t like Doctor Who either that they are not alone.  And to suggest that we don’t offer that opinion is just wrong.

To be sure, there is such a thing as expressing an opinion in an obnoxious and insulting way.  While I don’t like Doctor Who, to suggest that people who do are “stupid” or “foolish” or “morons” would be both over the top and ridiculous.  Such virulent opinions are worthy of derision.  But if someone expresses themselves thoughtfully then we should at least respect their right to do so.

Every bit of progress the terran species has ever made has come from a dissenting opinion.  If the people who disagreed with the majority were always silenced, then new ideas would never develop.  There’s no guarantee that a dissenting opinion will be worth hearing.  Most aren’t.  But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t let people voice them.

So in the interest of dissent, I offer the following opinons:

I don’t like Battlestar: Galactica.  I found it dull, preachy, and way too complicated for its own good.  And I’m pretty sure I’ll like Caprica even less because it looks like BSG if you removed the spaceships and added some Gossip Girl to the mix.  Someone once suggested to me that Syfy’s ultimate goal is to remove all the sci fi from itself, just as Cartoon Network is slowly cutting away all of its cartoons.  And Caprica is just another step in that direction.

I thought Firefly was okay.  But it wasn’t on very long, and it isn’t worthy of the cult of personality around it.

Dollhouse was just dumb.  Dumb from top to bottom.  A bad idea from its inception that just kept getting worse.

Warehouse 13 was kind of cool until it was forced to fit in the generic Syfy mold.

Sanctuary isn’t good.  Worse, it’ s not cool, and no matter how often they try to tell me it is, I’m waiting to be convinced.  And the virtual sets just succeed in making the show seem like something filmed in front of a blue screen.

I kind of like Eureka.  Not a big fan, but I can enjoy it sometimes.

I don’t read series fantasy books.  There are plenty of great series fantasy books, but I just can’t get into them.  It’s nothing personal, but I really like standalone fantasy novels and feel there should be more of them.

Up is the best movie of the year.  It’s also the best fantasy movie of the year.  Avatar was good (much better than I expected), but it can’t touch Up for sheer genius, beauty, and subtle characterization.  Although Avatar did have things fighting other things, and I do love when different things fight.  Still, gotta go with Up on this.

You might disagree with these opinions.  That’s just fine with me.  Am I the dissenting genius?  Or just a loonie?  Time will tell.  But I just wanted to put that out there.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Bottom Line:  I wasted way too much time writing this to just let it go.  So maybe if you’re really bored, you can read it.  Or not.  It’s your call.

I should be writing.  I’m behind in my latest manuscript, and I’d like to get it done soon.  But it’s late.  I’m tired.  And so in an effort to fool my brain into thinking I’m productive, I’m going to write a blog entry instead and then go to bed.

As any regular reader of these posts knows, I’m a skeptic.  In particular, I think ghosts and the paranormal are complete bunk.  Nonsense.  Balderdash.  Foofurall.  You get the idea.

Still, I find myself watching “reality” ghost hunting shows in whatever form they appear.  There’s the pseudoscientific approach of shows like Ghost Hunters & Ghost Lab.  There’s the supernatural evil approach of shows like Paranormal State & Extreme Paranormal.  There’s the scaredy cat, run from spooky noises style of Most Haunted & Ghost Adventures.  The style may differ a bit, but the message is always the same.  Ghosts are real, and these folks have proof.

Sort of.  It all depends on what you consider “proof”.  If a weird sound caught on garbled audio recordings or a shadow you can’t readily identify qualify as “proof”, then they’ve got you covered.  If you want bleeding walls, geniune apparitions, or even a single levitation or bent spoon, then you’re outta luck.

So let’s just assume for a second that there are no such things as ghosts and that the paranormal is just a figment of our collective imagination.  I know.  It’s a stretch, a leap of faith.  So many people believe in ghosts, have had unexplained encounters, have experienced the paranormal on a personal basis.  They can’t all be fooling themselves.  They can’t all be mistaken, can they?

But what if they are?  What if the spooky feeling we get in a darkened room is just a trick of our paranoid, reptillian brain?  What if cold spots are just cold spots?  What if EVP is just our fevered intellect trying to make sense of confusing sensory experience?  And what if every scary “true life” ghost story you’ve ever heard, seen, or read is either a lie or a mistake?

That, to me, is scarier than any ghost or goblin.

My theory on human behavior (which I assume is hardly original and has probably been thought up ages ago by people far smarter than me) is that most of us are incapable of accepting the possibilty of self-deception.  Not just in ourselves, but in everyone.  Especially anyone we trust or who seems trustworthy.  We believe people can lie.  We know people can lie.  Because we lie.  All of us.  All the time.  Most of these are harmless, and that’s no big deal.  But we do know that people can lie and do so regularly.

But the idea that someone might think they’re telling the truth and just be wrong is different.  It’s not something we like to think about.  On a primal level, I think it’s because we have to trust our senses because, for the most part, they keep us on track.  It’s my sense of sight that lets me see the words I write right now, and my fingers feel the keys as I type.  I don’t usually walk into walls.  I know if my milk has gone bad after a taste.  And while I have a lousy sense of smell, if something catches on fire, I’ll usually smell the smoke.  Without our senses, we’re just a lump of fat squished in a stumbling, bumbling cage of meat.

But let’s talk about something deeper than just a trust of our senses.  What we’re really worried about is trusting our judgment.  Because without judgment, how can we really trust anything.  A failing of judgment is what separates fears from phobias.  If you get put off by spiders, you’re normal.  If you huddle in the corner and shriek at the mere sight of one, then you’re not.  If you believe that Jesus loves you and going to church is good for you, you’re normal.  If you think Jesus loves you and wants you to kill French Canadians, you’re not.

We do understand crazy people because there are enough examples.  Extreme, bizarre, and unconventional behavior distinguishes itself in the looney category.  It’s weird, sometimes unsettling, but since it’s clearly looney, it’s no big deal.  If you’re best friend came to you and said he was King of Atlantis and was preparing to wage war on the USA with his magic spatula, you’d probably back away slowly.

But what if your friend told you they saw a ghost?  Not so easy, is it?  Because even if your friend is mistaken, they’re not really acting crazy.  Until they start blowing themselves up or drinking poison or wrestling bears for kicks.  Then they cross a clear line.  It says, “This person is unstable, confused, and dangerous”.  And it’s easy to identify.

But when I watch the ghost hunting shows, I find myself thinking more and more that these people are just a little looney.  They have convinced themselves of something that isn’t there.  Perhaps it’s because they place too much faith in their senses and the senses of others.

Rarely in these shows does the possibilty of self-deception ever come up.  The usual course of investigation is to ask yourself if someone or something you know caused the phenomena (I use the term loosely).  Then you ask if someone is faking it.  But hardly ever is the question asked, “Are we misinterpreting this data?”

Watch a ghost hunting show.  Really.  Do it.  Just once.  Even if you don’t believe in ghosts (and even if you do).  And notice how rarely the participants ever suggest this possibility.

Because to believe that is against our natures.  More importantly, to believe that is to question our judgment at its core.  If ghosts are not real and merely a shared self-deception of most of the terran species, even otherwise perfectly sane and functional human beings, then all bets are off when you think about it.

Most everyone on these ghost hunting shows seems normal.  They are normal.  In most everyday situations, they function fine.  The Ghost Hunters are plumbers with families and homes and ordinary lives outside of their ghost hunting activities.  The demon fighters of Paranormal State seem like nice, congenial kids.  The Ghost Adventures dudes are goofballs, but they aren’t dangerous goofballs.  And if they weren’t lucky enough to get paid to run around empty buildings, jumping at shadows, I’m sure they could be productive members of society.  Well, not willing to bet on it, but let’s just assume they could hold a job and manage not to walk into traffic.  The people who believe in ghosts, tarot, astrology, psychic powers, and holistic medicine are a varied lot, and in most situations, they are indistinguishable from people such as myself (aka The Skeptics).

But what if they’re wrong?  What if in this one area, they’re mistaken?

And just to play my own devil’s advocate, what if I’m wrong?  What if astrology works?  What if germ theory is incorrect?  What if evolution is just a big wrong track?

I don’t believe this to be true, but this belief is only as sound as my judgment.  And the one thing my judgment can never really judge is itself.  Whoa.  I think I just went zen there.

My point (and I do have one finally if you stuck with this long enough) is that a healthy questioning of our own perceptions is important, even necessary to be a functional person.  We must never take our assumptions for granted, always be ready to discard old ideas, no matter how sacred.

If you think about it, this is a constant process throughout our history.  The religions of today are not the religions of yesterday.  The science of old has been replaced with more up to date knowledge.  Theories of government, biology, human behavior, astronomy, etc., etc., etc. have all evolved.  This is undeniable, even if you don’t believe in evolution.  And this is a good thing, and the world is a better place (overall) for it.

Skepticism is important.  Skepticism works.  But it works best when we’re willing to admit that we have to even be skeptical of ourselves.  Unless you take it too far, I suppose and refuse to take anything for granted.  In which case, you’re a looney.  Or living in the matrix, although for that to make any sense your body would have to produce enough energy to power a giant robot and that would violate the laws of thermodynamics.  Personally, I find that harder to believe than ghosts.

But that’s just me.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

This post is just a test.  Nothing really important to say right now.  As if I have anything important to say most of the time.

Truthfully, this blogging takes time.  And it can be a distraction from my real job.  I do it because I’m supposed to, and because I know you all live for these nuggets of wisdom I offer.  But I gotta earn a living so you’ll excuse me if I cut back a little in the near future.  At least until I feel like my newest manuscript is back on track.

So The FInal Destination came out and was #1 at the box office.  I could say something about how depressing I find this.  Not because The Final Destination is necessarily a bad movie, but because there’s nothing new to be done with the final destination franchise.  And the trailers gave away all the deaths, so what’s the point in going to see it other than that’s what we do.  We go see things that are familiar and reliable and give us exactly what we want.

At this point, I’ll say something like “And there’s nothing really wrong with that”, but no, not this time.  This time, I’m just going to call it like I see it.

It think it sucks.

A while ago, I posted a blog about my own struggles with artistic integrity and financial success.  It was long and thoughtful and I think it did a good job of questioning whether I’m willing to “sell out” or if I even think “selling out” is a bad thing.  The internet faeries ate it.  I don’t know what that says, but I do know that I’m getting pretty tired of this balancing act.

When did we stop caring about being challenged, even in the most rudimentary fashion?  When did we decide that we needed 3 versions of Law and Order, 3 versions of CSI, 2 versions of NCIS, 4 Final Destination films, a direct-to-video sequel for any moderately successful movie (Van Wilder 3?  Really?), and Broadway musicals based on books based on films based on books?

It’s no wonder people are surprised I don’t write sequels yet.  Apparently, that’s the only goal of our society, to just wander around on automatic pilot and take what we’re given, not expecting anything but safety and repetition.  That thing I said about zombies a few posts ago?  Take that and apply it to 95 percent of everything around us.

95 percent of everything has always been crap.  I admit this.  But at least it was trying to be original crap.  At least it wasn’t just a rehash of something already done-to-death.  Or at least it tried to hide it.  Now, instead of being embarrassed to be the same old thing over and over again, it’s deliberately designed as such.

And that sucks.  Yeah, I’m repeating myself.  I don’t know what else to say.

I have a reputation for being contrary, for having unusual opinions.  But I can’t be the only one who sees this and finds it tremendously disappointing.  Disappointing in a soul-crushing kind of way.

Well, that’s that, I guess.  Kind of an obnoxious rant for my last post for a while.  Try not to hold it against me.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee