Every so often it’s good to feed your creative soul. There’s no better way to do it than spending quality time with a community of readers and writers with whom you share a common history. I’m grateful to my pal Rick Wilber for convincing me to crash with him at Readercon in Boston this past weekend. I was lucky enough to remember my camera, so here’s a quick review in pics:

My pal Ricky with Locus photo-maven and good friend Amelia Beamer.

I had a terrific time with my editor Robert J. Sawyer. Here we are, two happy eggheads, followed by a shot of Rob with his editor from Tor, David Hartwell, snapped on David’s 62nd birthday. They’re holding a copy of Distant Early Warnings, the brand-spankin’ new anthology of Canadian science fiction from Robert J. Sawyer Books.

Long-time con pal, fine editor, and one of the great ladies of science fiction Ellen Datlow, captured and held hostage outside the hotel restaurant. (I released her eventually.)

That crazy Coyote Allen Steele. After several beers, we figured out that the last time we’d seen each other was the Final Rivercon (XXV) nine years ago! Which led to another beer. Sigh.

Yes, to confirm your suspicions, I’m taking all these closeups myself, with my trusty Kodak digi…left-handed!

Everybody loves James Patrick Kelly! Including me!

The guys from Tachyon Publications, Bernie (left) and Jacob. We had a terrific dinner together Thursday night, and then they couldn’t get rid of me. That’ll teach ‘em!

Samuel R. Delaney signing autographs in the Readercon Bookshop.

Scott Edelman published a couple of my stories years ago when he was editing the late-great SF Age. He’s still tall!

Definitely one of the highlights of the weekend for me was finally meeting my all-time short-story-writer-hero Howard Waldrop. After I made a complete fool of myself telling him how much I adore him, he kindly consented to this pic. Howard is one of the most weirdly original science fiction writers of our time, and he’s been a great inspiration to me. I love you, man!

Why does Daryl Gregory have that glazed look in his eyes? It’s not just because he’s standing next to Rob Sawyer. Daryl was also a nominee for the 2009 Shirley Jackson Award.

Robbing, Killing, Romancing: Those Were the Days!

Well, okay, what the heck, why not? Director Michael Mann does everything in his power to turn Public Enemies into a love story between John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) and Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard), while at the same time trying to keep within the ball park of historical accuracy. He gets high marks for coming pretty close, and for a good tight story, and for coaxing decent performances out of everyone, including the stoic Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis, Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover, and both Depp and Cotillard. Good solid work all the way around, but certainly nothing special, which I must say was a bit disappointing considering the talent.

In the end I thought that Mann was trying too hard to pretend that Dillinger wasn’t really a rotten, murdering bank robber. Does anyone really, seriously believe that Dillinger had a heart of gold and was a misunderstood product of a failed American judicial system? Mann also glosses over the fact that Dillinger was a fella who enjoyed his prostitutes (and in fact was in the company of one when he was finally gunned down on the street), which kind of throws a wet towel over the whole romance thing.

The bank robberies and the daring escapes didn’t seem very romantic either. Maybe I’m just tired of all the senseless killing these days, in real life and on the big screen. It was a long film at two hours and 23 minutes and it felt long. By the end of the movie I was yawning, and I didn’t quite buy into the tragic-hero climax that the director was hoping for and that we all knew was coming. A good rental maybe. Mildly recommended. 

Sci Fi Frey

Speaking of love stories, remember Oprah and James Frey? Frey, the controversial author of the memoir A Million Little Pieces (2003) fibbed his way into the literary limelight via Oprah’s Book Club. He has landed another book deal, as reported in the New York Times, this one with a movie attached to it. Frey’s continuing success proves the old adage that even bad press is good press. HarperCollins signed Frey and collaborator Michael Bay to write a YA series, and DreamWorks has already purchased the film rights. The story, a science fiction concept, is about a group of young alien teens hiding out on Earth after their own planet has been attacked. Any author these days who can make big bucks writing should be an inspiration to us all. Congratulations. But it does make you kind of wonder about the whole celebrity of writing and what it means to the rest of us, doesn’t it?

Of further interest…

James Frey “Bending the Truth“

The Smoking Gun exposé

One of my favorite actors is Giovanni Ribisi, who played a bit part in Public Enemies. If you’ve never seen Heaven, check it out. It’s a great little film. You won’t be disappointed.

Jess Walter’s post 9/11 novel The Zero is a crazy ride from beginning to end. In the opening of the novel, main character Brian Remy, a police officer, shoots himself in the head in an apparent suicide attempt after the attacks on the World Trade Center. The fact that he fails and lives to tell the tale of what happens to him over the next several months turns out to be a bizarre, absurd, mysterious, surreal, and unpredictable story of insanity and remorse, as Remy suffers chronic bouts of amnesia that no one seems to notice but him.

During these bouts, Remy, who might also be suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome as a result of 9/11, is another person altogether who is working as an undercover agent, torturing terrorist suspects, and cheating on his girlfriend, the one person in his life he truly loves. Add to that a broken marriage, a son who prefers to think of Remy as dead, and a serious drinking problem, and you have a main character who seems, more often than not, a dead man walking.

9/11 is not an easy subject to tackle in the realm of fiction, and neither is the emotional fallout from it, where a minefield of sentimentality and over-dramatization must be carefully avoided, and yet the elephant in the room has to be addressed. In lesser hands, such an ambitious work could have been a disjointed mess. But the novel is a treasure for fans of fractured narratives (and people), conspiracy theories, and dark satire, and for those who don’t mind being set adrift in a story that remains, in the end, as unresolved as the topic Jess has decided to take on. High scores for masterful writing as well: Highly recommended.

Of further interest…

The Zero was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award. You can learn more about the author at his website.

Oh, BTW, I picked up this book at the McNally Robinson in Winnipeg on my last visit there; they have some of the best remainders in the biz!

Citizen Vince was the winner of the 2005 Edgar Allan Poe Award for best novel. I’m definitely adding this one to my list of must-reads.

I recently had an opportunity to see Big Man Japan at the Dryden Theatre in my hometown of Rochester, NY, at the George Eastman House. The film, which can be added to the ever-growing genre of mockumentaries, was absolutely brilliant. Hitoshi Matsumoto, a popular Japanese comedian, co-wrote and directed the film and stars as the middle-aged and depressed Daisato, a sort of monster-anti-hero who dashes to the nearest power plant to transform himself via high voltages of electricity (through the nipples, ouch!) into the great, giant monster Big Man Japan.

It’s Big Man’s job to protect the people from the other towering monsters who roam the city randomly, for no apparent reason, just because they can, which is as good a reason as any if you are spoofing Japanese monster flicks. The film shadows Daisato, who struggles silently and painfully on screen with his dull, daily life; his low television ratings; the snarky remarks of his agent; and his doddering old grandfather who held the same job two generations ago in the glory days. These mundane but quietly funny scenes alternate with his moments of largess among the skyscrapers of Japan.

The film is saturated with angst and personality, and it is truly unique and hilarious in so many ways. The B-movie computer graphics work amazingly well and add to the strange quality of the monster scenes, and the monsters themselves are as inventive as you will ever see. The ending, which is as bizarre as it is ridiculous, can be stomached only if you are willing to embrace the true spirit of the film. This one is definitely worth at least a couple of viewings. Highly recommended.

Of further interest…

Check out the trailer.

I’m sure the last thing Robert J. Sawyer needs is another review of Wake. The book was published in May and has received plenty of well-deserved attention and quite a bit of praise already. But heck, Rob is my friend and the editor of my first two novels, and I’m just as excited for him, personally, as I am about his first book in his WWW trilogy, so I guess he’s getting another review whether he needs it or not.

In general, one of the reasons I always read Rob’s novels is because he has a knack for asking the interesting high-concept questions.

Rollback: What would we do with our lives if we could be young again?

Mindscan: Would you scan your mind into an android body if you could leave all your troubles behind?

Flashforward: What would happen if, for just a fleeting moment, people saw a flash of their own personal futures? (ABC is set to ask this very question with a new TV series based on Rob’s novel this fall.)

Wake: Is it possible for the Internet to gain consciousness?

I’m oversimplifying, certainly, but Rob gets an incredible amount of value out of turning high concepts into novels, and Wake is another prime example. The Internet has recently developed as many connections as the human brain; does this mean it’s capable of making the intellectual advances that humans needed to make to become self-aware? And if it is capable of doing so, how might it be done?

The answer to the first question is obvious in Wake, or there would be no book. Rob mainly concerns himself with the second question: How will the Internet come awake? As Rob has mentioned in several interviews, he compares the Internet’s journey toward consciousness to the road Helen Keller travelled when she eventually learned how to interact with the world. (Helen Keller lost her hearing and vision when she was barely more than a year old.)

But as with Helen Keller, it doesn’t just happen. To help the Internet along, it takes the right person, at the right time, with all the right qualities, and in Wake, the person who first becomes aware of the Internet’s presence and figures out how to literally “wake it up” is Caitlin, Rob’s fifteen-year-old blind, female protagonist. I don’t want to give away too much of the story because, as with all good novels, the discovery is a big part of the fun, but I will say that Caitlin’s search for vision mirrors that of the Internet’s awakening; there is a direct, technological connection between Caitlin and the Internet as well as an instinctual, human connection, both of which are necessary to make this novel work. Rob manages, with cleverness, wit, and drama, to not only lead the reader through several extraordinary plot twists, but to keep us turning the pages, wondering where the story will go next.

As with Rob’s other books, the moral and philosophical issues surrounding the concept, the issues that make science fiction fascinating for many readers, are also thoroughly explored. Rob is one of the best at this sort of thing, and SF fans will not be disappointed: Highly recommended.

To learn a bit more about this book, check out the totally cool video clip of an animated Rob chatting it up.

Curious about the book deal? You will find this article veeeeery interesting!

I’m very pleased to announce that Valley of Day-Glo, published under the Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint, has been named a finalist for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award — the principal juried award in the science fiction field, voted on by a blue-ribbon panel of American and British academics and critics. The award is considered the third of the big-three science fiction awards, after the Hugo and the Nebula. 

Man, I’m honored, humbled, and just plain thrilled!

Thanks to Rob and all the folks at Fitzhenry & Whiteside who worked so hard on this book.

Of further interest….

Here are this year’s Campbell finalists.

Rob’s official announcement.

Chadwick Ginther talks about the Campbell on the McNally Robinson site.

SF Signal announces the awards (and you can check out all the covers).

A Small and Remarkable Life, also published by RJS Books, was previously nominated for this award.

Me (left) and Rob Sawyer relaxing in Winnipeg at the home of fellow author Bev Geddes during the “totally unofficial” KeyCon barbecue, Saturday night May 16. Rob had just wrapped up a reading and book launch at McNally Robinson, Winnipeg’s finest bookstore, for his novel Wake, which I’ll be reviewing here shortly. Hint: Great book!

The new issue of Philosophy Now is available. The May-June 2009 issue is all about comic books and philosophy. Lots of fun and interesting as always. Included is my review of one of my favorite novels, Austin Grossman’s Soon I Will Be Invincible. The review follows, but PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! It’s a great magazine.

Nick DiChario finds out what it’s like to be the bad guy.

What is the nature of good and evil? This question has vexed philosophers throughout the ages. But philosophers aren’t the only ones to have grappled with it. Comic books have pitted good against evil since the 1930s, when they first appeared. In fact, the superhero form of this age-old battle seems more popular than ever, recently conquering the silver screen: The Dark Knight and all three Spider-Man movies are among the top 20 grossing films of all-time. Watchmen, one of the most anticipated films of 2009, based on Alan Moore’s comic book, pulled in 70 million dollars during its opening weekend. X-Men Origins: Wolverine just came out, with more planned. Some might argue that people are attracted to the special effects, or maybe just the spectacle; but being a writer myself I prefer to think that the story has something to do with it.

Enter Austin Grossman and his debut novel Soon I Will Be Invincible (2008). The plot is pretty standard comic book fare. Soon after the superteam the Champions breaks up, their big-time hero CoreFire unexpectedly disappears. The team decides to reform to find out what happened to him. Prime suspect in CoreFire’s disappearance? The team’s arch-nemesis, Dr Impossible, who has suddenly escaped from prison. The Champions will spend most of the novel searching for Dr Impossible while trying to learn what happened to CoreFire. Dr Impossible, who is actually innocent concerning CoreFire’s disappearance, will spend most of the novel evading capture while trying to find CoreFire so that he can kill him…

But Grossman, a video-game designer and a doctoral candidate in English literature at the University of California, Berkeley, is a clever writer. He approaches this work with a keen eye for human nature and a shrewd kind of playfulness. He takes the traditional comic book contest of good versus evil and turns it on its ear by telling most of the tale from the point of view of the uncompromisingly bad supervillain, Dr Impossible. There is a second voice in the novel, the superheroine, Fatale, a woman of steel with a digitized brain, and she is integral to the plot; but it’s Dr Impossible who drives the action, and he’s the character we long to hang out with, narratively speaking. Grossman succeeds in teasing the reader into first not hating the evil doctor, then sympathizing with him, and finally going so far as to actually cheer for the guy. The author seems to grasp that our fascination with the ancient battle of right and wrong is not so much with the good guys, with whom we naturally relate, as with the bad guys, whom we yearn to understand. What makes villains tick? Why are they so rotten? Must they be vanquished, or can they be saved? Grossman invites us to take our curiosity one step further. Be the evil character for a while, he seems to be saying. See what it feels like from the inside: isn’t it fun? And yes – as a matter of fact, it is.

Dr Impossible is not self-delusional. He knows that he’s a bad guy (as opposed to just misunderstood). In true existentialist fashion, he embraces who he is and takes responsibility for his actions. He reflects on his childhood, his university days and, with a refreshing clarity, the moments he chose evil over good. As the Roman poet Juvenal once said, “No one becomes depraved all at once.” Grossman writes these self-reflective passages with a healthy dose of dark humor, making Dr Impossible almost charming, even if he is rotten to the core. Although he sometimes feels sorry for himself, Dr Impossible mostly just wishes that he could have been better at being bad:

“How do you take over the world? I’ve tried everything. Doomsday devices of every kind, nuclear, thermonuclear, nanotechnological, gadgets that fit in a shoe box and that were visible from space. I’ve tried mass mind control; I’ve stolen the gold reserves in Fort Knox, only to lose them again. I’ve traveled backward in time to change history, forward in time to escape it; I’ve stopped time altogether to live in a world of statues. I’ve commanded robot armies, insect armies, and dinosaur armies… Each time, it ended the same way. I’ve been in jail twelve times.”

In the philosophical universe, the road to understanding good and evil is fraught with danger and complexity. Susan Neiman in her book Evil in Modern Thought (2002) writes, “One could easily spend a lifetime studying the problem of evil and be no better for it.” In fact, Neiman refuses to so much as attempt to define what evil is, instead laying out her case that it might just be the one philosophical concept from which all other philosophical concepts are born. The world of comic books is not quite so convoluted, and maybe this, ultimately, is what appeals to us. Sociologist Irving Sarnoff’s brilliantly simple definition is worth noting: “Evil,” he says, “is knowing better but doing worse.”

For better or worse, Soon I Will Be Invincible gives us a chance to live on the dark side for a while. We are the Joker, the Red Skull, Lex Luthor, Magneto, the Green Goblin. We are Dr Impossible. Whether you’re a fan of comics or literature, there is plenty here to enjoy. And there’s plenty for fans of philosophy, too. I highly recommend this book.

© Nick DiChario 2009

Nick DiChario was nominated for the Hugo and World Fantasy awards. His novels A Small and Remarkable Life (2006) and Valley of Day-Glo (2008) are published by Fitzhenry and Whiteside.

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman, Pantheon Books, 304 pgs, 2008, ISBN: 0718152913

US Cover

UK Cover

A terrific review of Valley of Day-Glo appeared in the July issue of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, reviewed by Paul Di Filippo.

“Once upon a future time, there was a brave and resourceful—albeit cripplingly asexual—Native American lad named Broadway Danny Rose, son of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? and The Outlaw Josey Wales. Confused? Let’s start again. Nick DiChario has written a new bonkers novel, Valley of Day-Glo, which channels the proud and seminal shades of Robert Sheckley and George Alec Effinger into a vivid and unique tale of some outrageous and bizarre post-apocalypse doings involving a handful of hapless survivors.”  READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE.

Of further interest…

Paul Di Filippo is a talented and prolific science fiction and fantasy author. Visit his website!

Throughout much of the 1970s, I was a Marvel comics fan. I read them all: The Avengers, F4, Spider-Man, X-Men, Conan, Iron Man, Cap America, and on and on. I couldn’t get enough. Back then, it was kind of a fringe activity. There were a few rabid fans around, but mostly it was a thing the strange kids did. It’s hard to believe that bringing these characters to life on-screen has become a gigantic, multi-billion-dollar industry. I don’t think any of us Marvel fans back in the 70s could have imagined it.

I say all of this in prelude to X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I’m not a purist when it comes to my treasured comic book heroes and the movies. I’m a realist. I understand that film is a certain kind of entertainment that has its own challenges. As far as superhero entertainment goes, this one is pretty good. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is terrific, and Liev Schreiber puts in a fantastic performance as Sabertooth (steals the show, in fact). Marvel fans know that at the heart of things, when you come right down to it, comics are about good versus evil, and there is plenty of that here, with the lines clearly drawn between the rotten guys and the good guys. (If life itself were only so simple; but that’s another story.) The film has some terrific CGI, great action and adventure, high drama, solid performances, and a decent script if you overlook a few idiot plot points. And there is a real attempt to tell the story of two brothers here. Not bad for what was once a nerd sport. Recommended.
Dir. Gavin Hood; screenwriters Skip Woods, David Benioff.

To Boldly Go…

This past Friday, I went with a bunch of friends to opening night of the new Star Trek film. Although I’ve written a couple of science fiction novels and have done a fair bit of sf reading over the years, it’s important to note that Star Trek is a culture (and industry) unto its own. I am mostly a casual viewer. I grew up watching the original TV show and have enough of a working knowledge to know the characters and history pretty well, but I’m not by any means an expert. I thought the movies from the original series that were eventually made, all of them, were not very good, due to various degrees of bad writing, bad acting, uninteresting and unoriginal ideas, a heavy reliance on nostalgia, and perhaps just too much pressure to produce an epic.

I don’t know how purists feel about the new film; probably not very good; it’s hard to please a purist. But this is one prequel that I thought worked pretty well. Like the Wolverine movie that debuted a week before it, this film knows what it needs to do to please a viewing audience and goes about the business of doing it well, with great action and adventure and drama and special effects. (I saw the digital version, which was visually stunning.) Dir. J.J. Abrams brings a lot of experience to this picture and has good instincts about when not to be too cute, too insider, or too serious. Every actor across the board does a terrific job. Much is asked (and expected) of young Chris Pine as James T. Kirk, and he does an admirable job of carrying the weight of the film. But you can’t do Star Trek and pretend the history doesn’t exist, and here is where it succeeds best. This movie not only embraces its history, it makes use of it, and smartly ties the young characters who are about to embody Star Trek inexorably with their futures, and it does so without trying too hard to be its predecessor. This was no easy balancing act. Ignore the time travel stuff (a lame plot device at best, and there would have been much better ways to work Leonard Nimoy into the film) and enjoy the rest of it. Recommended.