Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Review of Underworld Awakening
My story “Restless” is now available in the newest issue of “Dark Eclipse.”
And now, here's my review of the recently-premiered vampire flick, Underworld: Awakening.
I had very low expectations for this movie. So low, in fact, that I already had a pithy title in mind for this article. But that pithy title will not make it to this page, because this movie kicked a surprising amount of ass.
Awakening is the fourth installment of the Underworld franchise, and it sort of picks up where the second movie, Evolution, left off (apparently, no one shall ever speak of the third movie, Rise of the Lycans, again). J. Michael Straczynski, who created the critically-acclaimed Babylon 5, helped out on Awakening’s screen play. I’ve never seen Babylon 5, but apparently his help was a good thing. Underworld: Awakening’s plot was more coherent than the franchise’s earlier installments (though next to Underworld: Evolution, this is saying very little).
Explaining the plot of Underworld: Awakening, however, still makes about as much sense as a detailed description of the stitching of a racy piece of clothing. Here’s what you need to know: In the eternal war between Vampires and Lycans (basically werewolves), Kate Beckinsale is the beautiful death-dealer Selene, a vampire trained to hunt lycans. To her great peril, Selene feels compelled to proctect a vampire/lycan hybrid from each side, and humans have nearly exterminated both species. If you feel like something’s left out, don’t worry. The characters, premise, and movement provide a framework for the action sequences, which do the trick with a bloody fervor. For further reference, here’s the trailer:
If you have trouble loading the video, go to this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUcrbUCWKQc
My low expectations evaporated because watching Selene fight her way through the movie was so much damn fun. Kate Beckinsale is not an actress of great range, but she does Selene very well. It’s her facial expressions that really do it for me. Go to the trailer. At about :36 she’s sliding across the floor after slicing her way down a hall filled with armed guards. Her eyes and mouth are wide, but it’s like she’s releasing a breath. Selene doesn’t enjoy killing humans, a big contrast to the look of exhilaration she gets after killing a lycan (1:02 in the trailer). Then there’s the scared-as-bejeezus look she gets at the 1:42 mark. This is more acting than a consummate action hero like Jason Statham do in most of his oeuvre.
In the final analysis, I will say that this is why I largely prefer female protagonists to male ones in my action movies. A lot of this has to do with our expectations of gender. Strong men aren’t supposed to be emotional yet all women are assumed to be more in touch with their feelings than men. On one level, this is gender-stereotype bullshit, but as a curious byproduct I find woman action heroes more relatable.
In a nutshell, I’m willing to forgive the makers of the Underworld series a lot because watching Selene kick ass reminds me of the thrill I get whenever Buffy Summers slays a vampire. For the same reason, I cheered when I saw this trailer:
If you're having trouble, click this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRmWLqrJkz4
Yep. That's Mila Jovavich killing zombies, just like she did in the first four Resident Evil movies.
Fight on, gals. Pretty Please.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
The Sanguine Diary: Writer’s Block Edition.
Hello and welcome to the newest entry in The Sanguine Diary. Good news! My story “Restless” is now available in the newest issue of “Dark Eclipse.” Not as good news: I am still writer’s blocked. So instead of reviewing a movie,TV show, or written work, this week I am going to chip at the block by talking about why I chose to write about vampires in the first place.
I’ve always like the genre. In addition to my aforementioned adolescent love of Fright Night and Near Dark, I was also an avid fan of the Bunnicula Books as a kid. So looking back, I’ve always had at least some affinity for blood-drinking things that go bump in the night. But I never really got into Anne Rice, and my interest in vampires was never an ongoing, singular obsession.
I’ve been taken with a lot of things in my life: guitar, movies, science fiction, history, and plenty more. For a long time, I believed my lack of a ‘singular obsession’, was a liability— as if I could never produce something worthwhile if I did not have an overwhelming ‘calling’ since my earliest days. An irrational part of me still believes that, but an equal part recognizes that such an idea is absurd. There is no teleological narrative of how I came to write about vampires, and that’s okay, though a few clear markers pop up in the rear view mirror.
Like many things, one source of inspiration came from that wonderful fount of culture, The Simpsons. In the episode where the school bus driver, Otto, moves into the Simpsons’ garage, he asks Marge if she has any books “from the vampire’s point of view.” This became a favorite quote of mine, and in hindsight, it resonated with me more than I realized.
It’s true, I do like things from the vampire’s point of view. In Near Dark, I wanted Caleb just to give in and start drinking people’s blood. It’s the same reason I was willing to sit through all three (and soon a fourth) wowzerly bad Underworld movies. But all that time, something still was missing and I couldn’t figure it out, until the summer of 2007, when I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I’d always thought vampires were cool. They’re outsiders with superior strength and piercing, yet detached, insight into the human condition.. Millions of kids who never felt like they fit into the boring social scene of their school have entertained similar fantasies. But before watching Buffy, vampires had never been relatable to me on a level deeper than wish-fulfillment.
And when it comes to carrying a good story, wish-fulfillment is a stubby pair of legs. There needs to be something more, and the Buffy episode “Lovers’ Walk” is a perfect example. Spike, a gleefully mean vampire who sports a leather jacket and wicked cockney drawl, goes on a bender after his lover of over one hundred years has left him. He passes out drunk, and is jolted awake because the rising sun has set his hand on fire. In that moment, I actually felt sorry for him, knowing full well that he was a literal monster. It was the most I had ever felt about a vampire, until later in the series, when Spike had a chip implanted in his head that prevented him from harming humans (long story).
I had no life-changing epiphany when I first saw “Lovers’ Walk,” but the scene comes to mind because it encapsulates what I want to do with vampire fiction. I have often waxed and wanked about how vampires are a metaphor for what we repress. While I believe this is true, and can cite many examples, it isn’t really what I want to do with the genre.
One one hand, I’ve never began a story by saying, “I want to say ‘X’ about the human condition.” But there are some common themes, mostly restlessness and disconnection (note the title of my newly-publsihed story). My characters tend to long to fit in somewhere, and are frustrated that they can’t. Even my more ‘herioc’, proverbially bad-ass characters are kind of bumbling or awkward somehow. There are a couple exceptions, but I think that’s just because these characters haven’t been fully explored.
Is this because I am restless? Unfulfilled? Unable to fit in? The answers are: sometimes, in some ways, and mostly not. But these are feelings I can easily connect to. I was socially impaired into my early thirties. As I get older, I am more aware of closed doors and the consequences of decisions. Like a lot of people, I sometimes wonder how things could be different. So I like to write about vampires who wrestle with these kinds of feelings.
Monsters are also a metaphor for the uglier things that lurk just under the surface of our civilized façades. I believe this one, too. But I want to delve the more common, less extreme gremlins that drive our behavior. So, yes, I write about blood-sucking monsters that can only reproduce through violent, generally forceful, acts but they still carry the baggage of their erstwhile humanity.
That’s really the best I can explain why I choose to write what I write. That said, I won’t claim that I ever hit this goal on the bull’s eye, but when I actually reach into my self and do honest writing, this is the place I come from.
I’ve always like the genre. In addition to my aforementioned adolescent love of Fright Night and Near Dark, I was also an avid fan of the Bunnicula Books as a kid. So looking back, I’ve always had at least some affinity for blood-drinking things that go bump in the night. But I never really got into Anne Rice, and my interest in vampires was never an ongoing, singular obsession.
I’ve been taken with a lot of things in my life: guitar, movies, science fiction, history, and plenty more. For a long time, I believed my lack of a ‘singular obsession’, was a liability— as if I could never produce something worthwhile if I did not have an overwhelming ‘calling’ since my earliest days. An irrational part of me still believes that, but an equal part recognizes that such an idea is absurd. There is no teleological narrative of how I came to write about vampires, and that’s okay, though a few clear markers pop up in the rear view mirror.
Like many things, one source of inspiration came from that wonderful fount of culture, The Simpsons. In the episode where the school bus driver, Otto, moves into the Simpsons’ garage, he asks Marge if she has any books “from the vampire’s point of view.” This became a favorite quote of mine, and in hindsight, it resonated with me more than I realized.
It’s true, I do like things from the vampire’s point of view. In Near Dark, I wanted Caleb just to give in and start drinking people’s blood. It’s the same reason I was willing to sit through all three (and soon a fourth) wowzerly bad Underworld movies. But all that time, something still was missing and I couldn’t figure it out, until the summer of 2007, when I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I’d always thought vampires were cool. They’re outsiders with superior strength and piercing, yet detached, insight into the human condition.. Millions of kids who never felt like they fit into the boring social scene of their school have entertained similar fantasies. But before watching Buffy, vampires had never been relatable to me on a level deeper than wish-fulfillment.
And when it comes to carrying a good story, wish-fulfillment is a stubby pair of legs. There needs to be something more, and the Buffy episode “Lovers’ Walk” is a perfect example. Spike, a gleefully mean vampire who sports a leather jacket and wicked cockney drawl, goes on a bender after his lover of over one hundred years has left him. He passes out drunk, and is jolted awake because the rising sun has set his hand on fire. In that moment, I actually felt sorry for him, knowing full well that he was a literal monster. It was the most I had ever felt about a vampire, until later in the series, when Spike had a chip implanted in his head that prevented him from harming humans (long story).
I had no life-changing epiphany when I first saw “Lovers’ Walk,” but the scene comes to mind because it encapsulates what I want to do with vampire fiction. I have often waxed and wanked about how vampires are a metaphor for what we repress. While I believe this is true, and can cite many examples, it isn’t really what I want to do with the genre.
One one hand, I’ve never began a story by saying, “I want to say ‘X’ about the human condition.” But there are some common themes, mostly restlessness and disconnection (note the title of my newly-publsihed story). My characters tend to long to fit in somewhere, and are frustrated that they can’t. Even my more ‘herioc’, proverbially bad-ass characters are kind of bumbling or awkward somehow. There are a couple exceptions, but I think that’s just because these characters haven’t been fully explored.
Is this because I am restless? Unfulfilled? Unable to fit in? The answers are: sometimes, in some ways, and mostly not. But these are feelings I can easily connect to. I was socially impaired into my early thirties. As I get older, I am more aware of closed doors and the consequences of decisions. Like a lot of people, I sometimes wonder how things could be different. So I like to write about vampires who wrestle with these kinds of feelings.
Monsters are also a metaphor for the uglier things that lurk just under the surface of our civilized façades. I believe this one, too. But I want to delve the more common, less extreme gremlins that drive our behavior. So, yes, I write about blood-sucking monsters that can only reproduce through violent, generally forceful, acts but they still carry the baggage of their erstwhile humanity.
That’s really the best I can explain why I choose to write what I write. That said, I won’t claim that I ever hit this goal on the bull’s eye, but when I actually reach into my self and do honest writing, this is the place I come from.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
My Top Five List of Non-Vampire Fiction
There have been better weeks over here at The Sanguine Diary. We had an escaped cat who has― Thank God ―safely returned. As I write this, I am home sick from work. And I’ve had a serious case of writer’s block for about a month now.
But the show must go on. Very soon, I will have another story published. The good people at Dark Moon Books are including my story, “The Restless Warrior”, in the upcoming issue of their monthly Horror e-Magazine, Dark Eclipse.
As always, my story “Survivor’s Guilt” is still available from the kind souls at Wicked East Press.
And since man can’t live on fangs and frilly capes alone, here is a Top-Five List of Non-Vampire Fiction:
5. Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections: Okay, so pretentious jerks name drop him at parties, he snubbed Oprah, and there are loud rumbles that he’s overrated. So, yeah, there’s some backlash against Jonathan Franzen. But he’s still good, really good. He has an incredible gift for description and surprising, incisive turns of phrase. He also wrings gripping drama from the mundane motions of life, which in other hands could easily sputter like a tempest in a tea kettle. When I try to describe The Corrections to people, I am surprised by how little justice I am able to do it. This is because it is not about just one thing. A single family ties the plot together, but Franzen explores each character’s lives with exhaustive detail. But to me, an aspiring writer, the most amazing thing about Franzen is the way he inverts a cardinal rule of the craft: show, don’t tell. Franzen “tells” practically every part of his stories with dense exposition and I can’t imagine him doing it any other way.
4. Stephen King, All-Around Awesome Guy: Technically, including Stephen King overlaps with the first list I published here, because of Salem’s Lot and his other vampire works. But his vampire stuff has not effected me as much as other things he’s done, on and off the page. My favorite King novel has to be Under the Dome, with 11/22/63 running a close second. The man was born with a talent for storytelling, and he has refined that gift beautifully over the past few decades. He is also, by all accounts, a remarkable human being. As told in On Writing, he is a recovering alcoholic and addict. He’s a devoted husband, loving father, and humble social commentator. He’s also funny in an unpretentious, self-effacing way. Oh yeah, and he’s also one of the most successful authors in history. The very existence of Stephen King inspires me as a writer.
3. Harry Turtledove, Great War, American Empire, and Settling Accounts series: Ten books in row is a lot of reading, and Turtledove’s sprawling alternate history of two world wars involving the Union and Confederacy are worth every word. At root, Turtledove is a historian and he thinks like one, weaving complex social and political corollaries into multiple personal narratives. You have to put up with some awkward scenarios, like Confederate slaves arguing about Marx in thick dialect (think: “Dey’s ain’t no such thing as no ghosts! Da histo’cal dialectic says so!”) But Turtledove successfully transplants the convulsions of Europe in the first half of the 20th century onto a divided America. Southern apologists may chafe at the fact that the Confederacy becomes a dictatorship led by a vulgar populist, but Turtledove is too nuanced to be strident and his portrayal of good and evil is too muddy to be polemic.If you don’t want to do all ten books, decide which period of history interests you most and go from there. Great War deals with World War I, American Empire is about the interwar period, and Settling Accounts is about World War II. My own writing deals with a lot of historical settings and these books are Alternate History 101.
2. Jim Butcher, The Dresden Files series: A friend in my writers’ group once complimented the way I described a character’s hair. My reply: “I nicked it from Jim Butcher.” While I do not directly steal phrases from other authors, I am heavily influenced by Jim Butcher’s precise, colorful, and often witty method of physical description. Not to mention that in Harry Dresden, Butcher has drawn a character so well-defined that he is at once familiar and surprising. Dresden is a wizard detective, and the laws of the magic he wields are as consistent as his cautiously optimistic view of human nature. Butcher’s blend of noir and urban fantasy is as dark as it is funny, and has taught me a lot about what makes for a good story.
1. Philip Caputo, Indian Country: Early on, I decided I wanted to write about a vampire who must deal with the trauma of her human past, and a friend’s sister, who works with veterans, recommended I read this novel. As it turns out, Indian Country is one of the best things I have ever read. Caputo deftly weaves back and forth in time to describe a Vietnam veteran’s struggle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the costs his trauma lays upon his family. Christian Starkmann’s internal torments, and the unhealed wounds that drive them, are vividly rendered, as are the efforts of his wife June, who tries to understand her husband’s illness while maintaining her own sanity. Both characters make difficult choices that some may find less-than-ideal― Caputo is not one for storybook endings― but the reader feels so close to them that their actions make perfect sense. Indian Country is also beautifully written. His characters' inner worlds teem with as much life as the novel's setting of Michigan's wild Upper Penninsula. I have made two false starts on a novel that is directly inspired by this work, and without it, one of my best stories, “Survivor’s Guilt”, would not have been possible.
But the show must go on. Very soon, I will have another story published. The good people at Dark Moon Books are including my story, “The Restless Warrior”, in the upcoming issue of their monthly Horror e-Magazine, Dark Eclipse.
As always, my story “Survivor’s Guilt” is still available from the kind souls at Wicked East Press.
And since man can’t live on fangs and frilly capes alone, here is a Top-Five List of Non-Vampire Fiction:
5. Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections: Okay, so pretentious jerks name drop him at parties, he snubbed Oprah, and there are loud rumbles that he’s overrated. So, yeah, there’s some backlash against Jonathan Franzen. But he’s still good, really good. He has an incredible gift for description and surprising, incisive turns of phrase. He also wrings gripping drama from the mundane motions of life, which in other hands could easily sputter like a tempest in a tea kettle. When I try to describe The Corrections to people, I am surprised by how little justice I am able to do it. This is because it is not about just one thing. A single family ties the plot together, but Franzen explores each character’s lives with exhaustive detail. But to me, an aspiring writer, the most amazing thing about Franzen is the way he inverts a cardinal rule of the craft: show, don’t tell. Franzen “tells” practically every part of his stories with dense exposition and I can’t imagine him doing it any other way.
4. Stephen King, All-Around Awesome Guy: Technically, including Stephen King overlaps with the first list I published here, because of Salem’s Lot and his other vampire works. But his vampire stuff has not effected me as much as other things he’s done, on and off the page. My favorite King novel has to be Under the Dome, with 11/22/63 running a close second. The man was born with a talent for storytelling, and he has refined that gift beautifully over the past few decades. He is also, by all accounts, a remarkable human being. As told in On Writing, he is a recovering alcoholic and addict. He’s a devoted husband, loving father, and humble social commentator. He’s also funny in an unpretentious, self-effacing way. Oh yeah, and he’s also one of the most successful authors in history. The very existence of Stephen King inspires me as a writer.
3. Harry Turtledove, Great War, American Empire, and Settling Accounts series: Ten books in row is a lot of reading, and Turtledove’s sprawling alternate history of two world wars involving the Union and Confederacy are worth every word. At root, Turtledove is a historian and he thinks like one, weaving complex social and political corollaries into multiple personal narratives. You have to put up with some awkward scenarios, like Confederate slaves arguing about Marx in thick dialect (think: “Dey’s ain’t no such thing as no ghosts! Da histo’cal dialectic says so!”) But Turtledove successfully transplants the convulsions of Europe in the first half of the 20th century onto a divided America. Southern apologists may chafe at the fact that the Confederacy becomes a dictatorship led by a vulgar populist, but Turtledove is too nuanced to be strident and his portrayal of good and evil is too muddy to be polemic.If you don’t want to do all ten books, decide which period of history interests you most and go from there. Great War deals with World War I, American Empire is about the interwar period, and Settling Accounts is about World War II. My own writing deals with a lot of historical settings and these books are Alternate History 101.
2. Jim Butcher, The Dresden Files series: A friend in my writers’ group once complimented the way I described a character’s hair. My reply: “I nicked it from Jim Butcher.” While I do not directly steal phrases from other authors, I am heavily influenced by Jim Butcher’s precise, colorful, and often witty method of physical description. Not to mention that in Harry Dresden, Butcher has drawn a character so well-defined that he is at once familiar and surprising. Dresden is a wizard detective, and the laws of the magic he wields are as consistent as his cautiously optimistic view of human nature. Butcher’s blend of noir and urban fantasy is as dark as it is funny, and has taught me a lot about what makes for a good story.
1. Philip Caputo, Indian Country: Early on, I decided I wanted to write about a vampire who must deal with the trauma of her human past, and a friend’s sister, who works with veterans, recommended I read this novel. As it turns out, Indian Country is one of the best things I have ever read. Caputo deftly weaves back and forth in time to describe a Vietnam veteran’s struggle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the costs his trauma lays upon his family. Christian Starkmann’s internal torments, and the unhealed wounds that drive them, are vividly rendered, as are the efforts of his wife June, who tries to understand her husband’s illness while maintaining her own sanity. Both characters make difficult choices that some may find less-than-ideal― Caputo is not one for storybook endings― but the reader feels so close to them that their actions make perfect sense. Indian Country is also beautifully written. His characters' inner worlds teem with as much life as the novel's setting of Michigan's wild Upper Penninsula. I have made two false starts on a novel that is directly inspired by this work, and without it, one of my best stories, “Survivor’s Guilt”, would not have been possible.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Rejection Letter
“Survivor’s Guilt” is still available from Wicked East Press. More will be coming soon.
For tonight’s entry in the Sanguine Diary, I was originally going to review another short story. That’s the basic plan for the blog: review short stories until I complete another novel, and then review that. But yesterday I went to my mailbox and found a letter from Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine. Here is what it said:
Here’s the sentence that sticks with me: “This story couldn’t hold my interest, I’m afraid.”
Hmmmm.
“Couldn't hold my interest, I’m afraid.” Let me meditate on that clause for a moment.
A variety of responses come to mind. So tonight’s topic will be my top 5 responses to the Assistant Editor of Fantasy & Science Fiction and his tart honesty.
For Number Five, there’s the classic: “Yeah, well fuck you, pal!”
And Number Four, the lewd riposte: “That’s what your wife says when you drop your pants.”
Then there’s Number Three,. the horror cliché: “Oh, be afraid. Be very afraid!”
Number Two is the obligatory Yakov Smirnoff: “In Soviet Union, interest hold you!”
My favorite, Number One, is something I call ‘The Tin-foil Hat’: “You’re just afraid of the truth, man!”
For the record, “The Horse is in the House” is a bad-ass story about a vampire who gets mixed up with Richard Nixon’s henchmen after he’s abandoned by his lover. I will submit it to a different publisher soon, so this will not be the last you hear of it.
For tonight’s entry in the Sanguine Diary, I was originally going to review another short story. That’s the basic plan for the blog: review short stories until I complete another novel, and then review that. But yesterday I went to my mailbox and found a letter from Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine. Here is what it said:
Dear Mr. Greer,
Thank you for submitting "The Horse is in the House," but I'm going to pass on it. This story couldn't hold my interest, I'm afraid. Good luck to you with this one, and thanks again for sending it our way.
Sincerely,
S------ M----
Assistant Editor
Here’s the sentence that sticks with me: “This story couldn’t hold my interest, I’m afraid.”
Hmmmm.
“Couldn't hold my interest, I’m afraid.” Let me meditate on that clause for a moment.
A variety of responses come to mind. So tonight’s topic will be my top 5 responses to the Assistant Editor of Fantasy & Science Fiction and his tart honesty.
For Number Five, there’s the classic: “Yeah, well fuck you, pal!”
And Number Four, the lewd riposte: “That’s what your wife says when you drop your pants.”
Then there’s Number Three,. the horror cliché: “Oh, be afraid. Be very afraid!”
Number Two is the obligatory Yakov Smirnoff: “In Soviet Union, interest hold you!”
My favorite, Number One, is something I call ‘The Tin-foil Hat’: “You’re just afraid of the truth, man!”
For the record, “The Horse is in the House” is a bad-ass story about a vampire who gets mixed up with Richard Nixon’s henchmen after he’s abandoned by his lover. I will submit it to a different publisher soon, so this will not be the last you hear of it.
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