They're still at it...

Ugh... I need a larger soapbox to complain about this...

The season finale of 'Criminal Minds' - while a serial murderer is running about Los Angeles doing unspeakably nasty things, the guest detective cries out, "Why is he doing this?"

I'll tell you why - because, like I argued in my first post, the writers are either too stupid to think up another way to ask about a killer's motive, or... there's a conspiracy afoot (and has been for a long time)... I tell you someone's getting paid royalties every time that phrase is uttered (and it's uttered a freakin' LOT). I lost track of all the times I've groaned hearing that in the past few months... Even brilliantly written shows sneak it in: (LOST - while Richard Alpert is chained in the Black Rock's cargo hold and all his fellow prisoners are being stabbed to death, he has to yell out, 'Why are you doing this?' Again, really? Would you say that at that point, knowing you were next? Maybe one day we'll hear... "Oh, you gave me a good answer. Great then, go ahead and kill me."

Eh. Whatever...

...and your mom said not to waste time with comics

Superman's debut comic book issue sells for $1M - Yahoo! News

A rare copy of the first comic book featuring Superman sold Monday for $1 million, smashing the previous record price for a comic book.

This excited the heck out of me because I had just published a story: 'The Wrong Basement' to Abyss&Apex, concerning a couple that finds a box of mint-condition Superman comics in their basement... If you'd like a read, it's here, free:

http://abyssandapex.com/200910-wrong.html

Finally starting a new project

It's been a month since I wrote "N.D.E" - my first teleplay!

Since then I've:

1) signed with a Hollywood Manager (to shop around my scripts)

2) edited an earlier script

3) proofed The Morpheus Initiative - Book 1 and Book 2 and sent them off to Variance Press

4) got a revised publication date for Morpheus (July, 2010)

5) had to change all my major characters' names after I learned I inadvertently chose the last name of a currently-still-living psychic and remote-viewer named Ingo Swann, one of the early pioneers in the field. Not wanting to be sued (after he remote-views my decision to use his name without permission) I changed my hereos to the swan's erstwhile cousin, 'Crowe'... which works better I think. Thank God for 'find and replace'.

5) Researched the heck out of Morpheus Book 3 and went through a hundred potential archaeological mysteries and ancient enigmas before settling on at least one that, remarkably, I had left myself unresolved clues to address in Books 1 and 2. Get ready for the Spear of Destiny, as well as exploration of more government coverups (UFOs, underground societies, Martian and Lunar bases, and of course... Nazis!)

So I can finally get back to writing, starting book 3...

Thoughts on 'The Strain', by Guillermo del Toro and Chris Hogan

With all the hype lately for the Stephanie Meyer books and the movie adaptations, it's heartening to see someone return to the good old fashioned blood-curdling, mind-numbing vampires of old.

When I picked up 'The Strain' by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, I was initially concerned, finding myself asking the dreaded question: "Why... are they doing this?" Based on the back cover blurbs, The Strain was geared up to be a mash-up/homage of Salem's Lot and I Am Legend. And I immediately thought - Why? Why do we need this, since those two are basic classics in the genre to begin with? And secondly - do we need this to be a three-part series (concluding in 2011)?

But I read it anyway, intrigued by the press, the reviews and the concept, and - if for nothing else I'd get a good Halloween read in, and have a chance to clear my mind of all the young-adult vampires flying around out there.

I'm glad to say it was worth it: the setup is Salem's Lot, except instead of King's typical small town horror, del Toro and Hogan have elevated the stakes, centering on New York City (where we'll end up having the implications of I Am Legend in terms of a more massive scale infestation of vampires).

It opens with a classic CSI kind of scene, with an airplane landing at JFK with everyone on board dead - of unknown causes (at first), until a team of CDC specialists move in, and Homeland Security gets invovled, suspecting a terrorist plot. Quickly we learn of the old vampire staples: a box of ancestral dirt in the cargo hold, passengers exsanguinated, with tiny scars on their necks, and... a few vicitms not quite dead. In a neat technique, we are treated to flashbacks of a Nazi concentration camp where The Master first makes his appearance, feasting on the blood of the dying Jews. And it's here where we see the Van Helsing character, a Jew who first attempts to slay the demon, unsuccessfully... but after his escape from the camp devotes his life to tracking this vampire - so it's he who first understands what's happening in New York - and its implications.

All this is great, well-written and suspenseful. And very disturbing. There are a few new twists on the vampires, the virus they represent, and their powers and limitations that make this all fun. And I am looking forward to the next two novels. But I do have some problems.

1) Why name the protagonist 'Abraham'? Come on. We get it already. He's Van Helsing, exactly, down to his East European background, his accent, his beliefs, everything. It was enough to have him as the wise man who has had run-ins with the vampires and will counsel the other heroes on how to kill these things. Give him another name for God's sakes.

2) I know Dan Simmons even gave a nice blurb on the back cover, but with all due respect, his Carrion Comfort was a much more original, epic vampire novel, one that I'd argue is the best vampire novel ever written - about a group of psychic vampires who use humans as cattle - and pawns in their own power struggles. This is a concept The Strain introduces late in the novel as we realize The Master has broken the vampire rules, and that the other vamp lords are pissed. So again, it's not original, and Simmons' work is a tremendous classic. And one that actually ends in one novel, albeit a long one that could have been likewise broken up into three if he were greedy.

So again, The Strain was a fun read, and I'm glad to see the monstrous vampires and their viral implications returning to the spotlight, but it just doesn't feel original to me anymore, but serves as more of a reminder that I should go back and reread the other classics from which it borrows its material: Carrion Comfort, Salem's Lot and I am Legend.

Why... part 2

This will be a short one because I'm just annoyed.

My new target: Criminal Minds. Two minutes into this week's episode and we've got a home invasion where the woman winds up shrieking "Why are you doing this!?" to the perps (right before they whack her with a crowbar). All right, forget everything I wrote in my first blog about why this line is the most overused, nonsensical and useless phrase writers love to force into every situation, but come on - just last year the very same scenario (and line) was uttered in the movie, The Strangers.

I could almost forgive this if last week's episode didn't also force the line - in an even more likely scenario. The agents had discovered an illegal betting ring, barged in and found themselves facing two-dozen guns trained on them. As they still tried to talk their way into an arrest, one of the perps with a machine guns yells out, "Why are you guys doing this?"

Ugh. Can't... take... any... more.

The Joy of Entering Writing Contests

Okay, contests are often a big pain, a black of hole of submissions that reward you with a different kind of anguish, a younger sibling to the numb disappointment of the more typical publisher rejections. You submit your work, pay your egregious entry fee (usually around $45) and wait... and wait... and basically forget about it until you get an email announcing... 'quarterfinalists'.

If you're lucky, you find your name on a huge list of hundreds, and you're at least mollified that you made the first cut and your work of art wasn't kicked to the curb prematurely along with a thousand others. Then... you wait and wait and wait some more for... the 'semifinalists'. You scan the shortened list, and if you don't find your name you go to your browser's 'find' feature and search for it, sure they've just created the list out of order. But alas, it's not there. You're done, thanks for playing.

But sometimes, you make it past that gatekeeper too. And then maybe with life being the hectic train wreck it sometimes is, you forget about it (and the other five contests you entered ages ago) and then on a rainy, dreary morning like this one, you get a succession of emails from different contests annoucing that, believe it or not, your screenplay is one of the top 10 finalists...
And that, regardless of whether the utlimate prize is a couple grand or just a mass mailing of your work to hundreds of professionals, is why you put yourself through this pain. Why you shell out the $ and sit around hitting your 'refresh' button waiting for email announcements.

So now, I've been notified that my latest screenplay, 'Roadside Assistance', has made it to the finals in the 2009 Expo Screenplay Contest and The Horror Screenplay Contest, with winners to be announced Thursday.

Alas... more waiting...

'Disastrous' Summer

Did we really need another 'Meteor'?

Didn't we see this movie a couple dozen times already? And, done a hell of a lot better than this one? Armageddon, anyone? A movie with an actual story, believable characters and at least some attempt at realism? How about Deep Impact? And if memory serves, there was even a little movie in 1979 entitled, you guessed it - Meteor, with Sean Connery (and Henry Fonda as the President).

But, NBC in its infinite wisdom, must have felt disaster movies are 'in'. And hey, let's go with a meteor, that never gets old. And if rehashing a meteor movie, and doing it with lackluster actors, a ridiculously low budget and inferior effects wasn't enough, they throw in an environmental disaster flick, The Storm. (I'd also argue their summer inclusion of 'Merlin' is a different sort of disaster, but we'll stick with catastrophe movies for now).

So, to follow on the trail of my previous post: "Why are they doing this?"

I'd like to suggest that 'they' are doing it - presenting these glimpses into potential worldwide destruction - because it's all part of a larger... conspiracy is too big a word. More like, propaganda. There's a popular theory among UFO buffs that all those UFO/alien movies in the 1950's and '60s were just some sort of government plot to desensitize the American public to the idea of extraterrestrial contact. To inure us to the fact that 'they' are or could very soon, be among us. Some even claimed that the government helped fund Spielberg's Close Encounters to get the public to feel all warm and fuzzy toward the invaders.

But whether or not there was any truth to that, the same concept might apply here: desensitization. Bombard us with disaster movies. Even bad ones, cheesy as they are, have their merit - especially when the public isn't watching anything else. But take heart - there are better ones coming - a slew of them. 2012, with John Cusak, is due out this fall. Knowing just came out on DVD, and at least had an original premise and a little twist. One of the new Fall shows is entitled Day One, about life enduring after most of civilization is wiped out.

Are they trying to tell us something? We saw a bunch of these kind of movies ten years ago, before the new millennium, feeding on our collective awe (and fear) of the momentous, if meaningless, date change. But what's the reasoning now?

Guess we'll have to wait and see - does it have anything to do with the Mayan Calendar, the 2012 end date? Does NASA have some information they're not sharing? Is it all just fear about the Swine Flu?

Whatever the case, I can only make this plea to NBC and others: at least try to make these movies different; original, and in a word - better.