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

I have a simple rule.  If people start complaining about set design or CGI, they’re usually just expressing a strong hostility toward the film they’re watching.  It’s not that I think there isn’t such a thing as good and bad set design, subtle or sloppy CGI.  I just think that complaints about these elements come from a complete lack of cooperation from the audience.  I don’t care what story you’re telling or how well you tell it.  If the audience doesn’t want to like it, you can’t make them.  Conversely, the opposite is often true.  If someone is determined to enjoy something, they can usually dig out a positive nugget or two.

I’m not out to tackle all the elements of Green Lantern, but I will go ahead and talk about one complaint that always bugs me.  There’s a bunch of people who just can’t seem to accept the fact that CGI is here to stay.  And they also can’t seem to accept the fact that it won’t always be seamless.  These complaints seem so frivolous to me that I almost hate addressing them.  But it comes up again and again, so let’s just do this.

CGI isn’t going away.  It will remain a vital part of modern filmmaking and will only grow more important in the future.  An even more important observation is that CGI isn’t going to fool you into believing the unbelievable.  The job of FX is not to be invisible.  Most of the time, they can’t be.  If there’s a giant monster or a laser or a spaceship, you will know it is fake.  The job of an FX isn’t to convince us these things are real.  It’s to allow us to pretend (along with the film) that they are.

Some of my favorite movies have lousy FX.  The original King Kong, Clash of the Titans, and many others use extensive stop-motion animation.  These FX are actually astonishingly good, but they are “bad” if your definition is that they are clearly FX.  The Muppets are terrific, but they’re clearly puppets.  But what kind of asshole is going to poke a kid watching Sesame Street and constantly remind him of that?

So it is too in Green Lantern that there’s really just no way to make an utterly convincing alien planet populated by thousands of strange life forms and make it completely convincing.  And when Hal Jordan flies through space or fights a giant yellow fear monster, we know it’s mostly special FX.  If we didn’t, we’d be delusional.

Yeah, it’s fake.  We all get it.  The people that can play along aren’t being dumb.  They’re just allowing themselves to enjoy the experience.  And, no, it’s not dumb.  It’s fun and cool and completely ridiculous, but what part of magic green space cop made you think realism was the goal?

Which brings me to my final point.  I know that, even in the world of comic books, fun, outrageous adventure is looked down upon.  People will praise The Dark Knight and X-Men: First Class for being “intelligent” superhero flicks.  They’ll heap compliments on Kick-Ass and Watchmen fore being elaborate deconstructions, kind of.  (Although neither of those films really qualify as deconstructions because they’re very much traditional superhero films, just with more blood and swearing than usual.  But that’s a subject for another time.)  What people don’t seem to be able to do anymore is enjoy a good ol’ fashion fantasy adventure.

The superhero “genre”, however you want to define it, is pretty damn diverse by its very nature.  It’s impossible to compare characters like Batman and the Punisher to characters like Superman and Green Lantern.  Or Green Arrow.  Or Spider-Man.  Or just about any other character.  Not all superheroes are meant to be dark and gritty.  They’re not all meant to be brightness and hope, either.  They are all these things and more.  When I loved superhero comics (though it’s been a while), I loved their diversity most of all.  I could read about the Punisher fighting crime on the streets and the Silver Surfer flying through space.  It was a world where mole people could attack a city, or street thugs with colorful gimmicks could commit crimes.  In short, superheroes work best when they’re treated not as uniform category of fiction but as a sprawling category.

It’s unfair, even downright silly, to expect the same thing from Green Lantern as you would from Batman or X-Men.  Because Green Lantern isn’t that character.  His powers are completely outlandish.  His universe is utterly fantastic sci fi.  It’s not a lack of “sophistication” to write a Green Lantern movie where our hero gets his heroic mantle then saves the day by destroying a giant yellow fear monster.  It’s not “childish” for a film to have a good guy who is obviously good and a bad guy who is obviously bad.  And it’s perfectly fine for some stories to be about kicking ass in the name of justice.

Also, it’s okay to say that Green Lantern has some very strange powers that are goofy if taken at face value.  Sure, he makes catapults and race cars and swords out of pure willpower.  That’s what makes him unique and interesting as both a superhero.  It’s the kind of silly conceit that makes no apologies.  (Which is another thing that always irks me.  I hate apologetic fantasy, especially apologetic superheroes.  But again, another topic for another day.)

It occurs to me that I haven’t discussed the specifics of Green Lantern much.  Possibly because I was less annoyed by the critics of the film than by the flimsiness of these recurring criticisms.  So let’s talk about the film itself.

Green Lantern will no doubt have the same problem Thor has.  It crosses an invisible line that most superhero films avoid.  While Iron Man and Batman Begins are both about superheroes, they’re largely grounded in the real world.  And even characters like the Hulk and Superman, while incredibly powerful, are human and human-like.  They also live and work on Earth.

But Green Lantern (like Thor) is a very sci fi character.  While Hal Jordon lives on Earth and mostly hangs around there, he still has a link to a much grander universe.  But where Thor is built on established Norse mythology (admittedly loosely), Green Lantern is an entirely original mythology.  And it’s probably even a bit stranger than Thor’s.  After all, millions of years ago, immortal aliens created a bunch of magic rings that they hand out to worthy beings to act as cosmic law enforcement officers.  At least the Asgardians (and their foes) are human and human-like.

There’s a scene that encapsulates everything great about Green Lantern and everything wrong with Green Lantern, depending on your point of view.  It’s when Hal Jordan is on Oa, surrounded by countless other Green Lanterns.  The movie could’ve played it safe and avoided anything too weird.  Just slap a few rubber forehead aliens in the scene and keep it simple.  Instead, we see an incredibly diverse group of creatures.  There’s a giant bug lantern, a rock lantern, a robot lantern, and so on.  (Side note:  If DC decides to make the robot lantern an official character and is looking for someone to write the story, I happily volunteer.)

Your reaction to this scene will probably tell you everything you need to know about the movie.  If you think it’s “cheesy”, “silly”, or “dumb”, then you are not the kind of person who should go to see a movie about a magic green space cop.  If you (like me) think this is awesome, then you should go ahead and ignore the negative reviews.

Really.  That’s all you need to know.

The acting is good.  The story is fine.  The FX are more than solid.  There are thrills, fun, and at one point, a giant yellow fear monster gets punched in the face by a huge green energy fist.  And if that doesn’t convince you that this is everything a sci fi superhero spectacular should be, then save us all the trouble and don’t bother.  Some of us are here to have a good time, and we don’t need you harshing our mellow.

Oh, and one last thing.  The movie isn’t dumb just because it’s fun.  If being smart always has to equal depressing and dull, then it’s no wonder we take such a dim view of intelligence.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Enough of that.  Let’s move onto something more fun.

Hey, hey, I’m on a new podcast for SF Signal.  You should really check it out because I’m witty and urbane and I think you’re life will be enriched for it.  Check it out at: www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/08/the-sf-signal-podcast-episode-002-inteview-with-a-lee-martinez/  

I was having some mouth trouble at the time, and so you’ll excuse me if I mumble here and there (especially near the end when my anesthetic was wearing off), but never mind that.  You’ll still enjoy it and realize just how cool I am.

Death’s Excellent Vacation came out last Tuesday, and boy, howdy, am I amped to be part of that.  This is a great chance to reach out to a new audience, and I just hope, even though most people will be buying the anthology for other writers, that they’ll find something worthwhile about my own contribution.

The story is an original ode to Lovecraft called The Innsmouth Nook.  As usual, it doesn’t have anything to do with anything else I’ve written (other than my love of monsters).  I wondered, after I submitted it, if perhaps it might have been better to write something related to what I’d already written.  Maybe a short story with Monster or Lucky.  Probably would’ve been a smarter idea.  But it really isn’t in my nature apparently to revisit old characters and ideas.  Not yet anyway.

I’m sure that will change sooner or later.  Eventually, an idea will be so much like an idea I’ve already written that there will be no point in doing everything from scratch.  Even the pulpy story I’m working on now bears some passing resemblance to The Automatic Detective, but it doesn’t quite fit in the same framework.  Still, I’m not an endless pool of ideas and unless I start writing horror or romantic comedies, there’s only so many permutations of the sci fi / fantasy genre before I might as well just go back to the well.

Saw The Other Guys.  Funny movie.  I don’t know why exactly.  It’s completely ridiculous.  There’s no effort to have the story make sense.  The characters are absurd, the situations bizarre, and a big part of the humor is that you just don’t know what to expect other than weirdness.  It works though, and hats off to a cast of talented actors who manage to make the stupid brilliant.

Pimps Don’t Cry will play at my wedding, even if it’s a ridiculous and inappropriate song.  I just hope that Will Ferrell and his talented friends appreciate that.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

And A. Lee Martinez wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer…

So I’ve just heard through the grapevine that Dreamworks has optioned Monsterpocalypse.  By the Divine Energon of The Mighty Robot King, why am I just hearing about this now?  More importantly, why am I not involved in this project?  I have a decent relationship with Dreamworks.  I’ve written a few things here and there for them.  At the very least, I should be involved in the development.  Didn’t I just recently tweet about how I’d love to do a kaiju themed project with them?  And haven’t I mentioned how awesome I think Monsterpocalypse is?  Am I not the perfect guy for this?  Well, that’s fine.  I’m just happy that someone is going to make something out of the kaiju goodness that is Monsterpocalypse.

But if anyone options Heroscape . . . I better get a phone call.  Or it won’t be pretty.

Seriously.

Enough of that.  Let’s talk about television.

How about that most recent episode of House?  What was your favorite part?  It’s so hard for me to decide.  I liked that part where House was a jerk to everyone, but the part where they put the patient in the scanning machine and everyhing went kerflooey was pretty awesome too.  And could you believe that House said that?  What a character!  Of course, I think my favorite part had to be the ending montage where everyone looks thoughtful while an appropriately poppy song is playing in the background. 

Some people think CSI: Miami has the best Everyone Looks Thoughtful While Music Plays episode endings, but those people haven’t watched House.  Not since Baywatch has the art of the musical montage in place of character development been so expertly applied.

I like to end my week with my own personal music montage.  I’ll usually pick a random song found on Pandora.com, and just see where it goes.  It really helps put a cap on my experiences.  I’ll sit in a poorly lit room, perhaps furrowing my brow, perhaps frowning as I contemplate just life in general.  The key is to employ the correct subtext based on the song.

If the song is slow and sad, then I try to dwell on the disappointments of the week, but if it’s sweet and poppy, then I usually get up about halfway through the song, turn on the lights, and smile in that It’s gonna be all right way.  And if it’s punk rock, I throw over the furniture and jump around.  It’s hard to thrash meaningfully, but I think I’ve had enough practice to make it work.

In addition to musical montage moments, I like to make things explode.  But I do that cool guy thing where I don’t look at the explosions.  I just light the fuse, walk away, and don’t look back.  Because I’m cool like that.

I also like to pick fights with ambassadors because they have diplomatic immunity, and there’s nothing quite as satisfying as punching someone while shouting “It’s just been revoked!” 

I wouldn’t recommend you doing these things though.  Remember, I’m famous, and as such, I’m allowed to do stuff like this.  A lot of people think that’s because of The Bill of Rights, but it’s actually in the Magna Carta.  Look it up.

The Bill of Rights does give me dibs on jetpacks over the non-famous (or underfolks as the Founders like to say).  So when the jetpacks come along, and you have to wait for yours, just realize that it’s your own fault for not getting paid to make up stories.  Don’t blame me.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Frankly, that amazes me.

Why anyone would care what a humble novelologist has to say about . . . well . . . anything is beyond me.  I suppose my thoughts on writing are worth noting.  Although I think even that’s a stretch because there are plenty of popular books, movies, TV shows that I find absolutely dreadful and scads of maligned books, movies, TV shows that I think are genius.  If I was truly a master of storytelling, I could explain to you why people like Twilight or Caprica, and I could also tell you why Manimal and Automan are largely forgotten.  But I can’t.

I like to think of myself as a smart guy, but I’m just another Terran trying to figure things out.  My career has placed me in the spotlight.  True, it’s not a very large spotlight, but I am, nonetheless, a person of interest.  I hesitate to use the word celebrity, but it’s not entirely wrong.  And there’s some responsibility that comes with that.

Maybe the biggest burden is that I am not allowed a casual opinion.  If you’re a regular reader of these things (and I’ve been led to believe that there’s a few of you out there) then you’ll notice I rarely comment on books, movies, etc.  Oh, sure, I might mention a movie every now and then or a book I particularly enjoyed, but for the most part, I try to limit my comments.  The reasons are varied.  I don’t want to insult anyone.  These are, strangely, people I work with.  Or might work with.  If I said, The Dresden Files stink!, and it got back to Jim Butcher, that could be awkward.  Although that’s just an example.  For the record, I have nothing against The Dresden Files, and I’ve met Jim Butcher who is a heck of a nice guy.

That’s kind of weird too.  Before I was published, I was free to blog anything I wished.  Not that I blogged at all before I was published, but if I had, no one would’ve really cared what I had to say.  Even if I did slander a writer’s work, I wouldn’t run into them.  And even if I ran into them, they wouldn’t have known who I was.  I could’ve written Frank Miller is a horrible writer a million times, and why should he care?  Okay, he most likely doesn’t.  But if he does, there’s always the possibility, however slight, that we might meet at some future time, and that might be unpleasant.  He might even order his solid gold robot bodyguards to work me over while he watches, perched atop a pile of money, laughing his ass off.

The other thing is that to criticize another writer is to basically attack them in their pocketbook.  We don’t talk about this enough, but word of mouth is important.  Word of mouth can make or break you in this biz.  And to say something bad about another writer is to attack them in a very personal way.  I know because whenever I read a negative review or comment about anything I’ve written, I can’t help but wince.  It doesn’t matter if every website and magazine in the world declares my latest book to be the best thing since laser vision goggles, if one says something unflattering, then I’m going to lose a customer.  And I want people to buy my books.  Oodles and oodles of people.  I don’t mind being criticized.  I don’t mind if someone dislikes something I’ve written.  That comes with the territory.  We shouldn’t be afraid to share our opinions.  Still, it’s hard for me to hit another writer in the bank account.  And, yes, I’m aware that Frank Miller, Jim Butcher, and most other popular writers are not in need of my endorsement nor in danger of my criticism.  But still, I take it seriously.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee