pennyarcaderss

http://feeds.penny-arcade.com/~r/pa-mainsite/~3/SByklMXaOsw/

overcomp

http://www.overcompensating.com/posts/20091209.html

dieselsweet

http://www.dieselsweeties.com/archive/2432

A hypothetical happy ending? I leave that to you to decide. I'm obsessed with fabricators and replicators this week. My brain does this to me when I'm doing a lot of less creative work like mailing stuff.

warrenelliscom

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8102

Oops, bit late with this, so I’m backdating it to before midnight, haha. Fuck the future.

I came across this book a few months back, and was reminded of it yesterday. CYCLONOPEDIA: Complicity with Anonymous Materials, by Reza Negarestani. So I did a little look, and found the website. And, if the author will forgive me, here’s the entire, mental description of the book:

The Middle East is a sentient entity – it is alive!’ concludes renegade Iranian archeologist Dr. Hamid Parsani, before disappearing under mysterious circumstances. The disordered notes he leaves behind testify to an increasingly deranged preoccupation with oil as the ’lubricant’ of historical and political narratives.

An American woman arrives in Istanbul to meet a pseudonymous online acquaintance who never arrives. Discovering a strange manuscript in her hotel room, she follows up its cryptic clues only to discover more plot-holes, and begins to wonder whether her friend was a fictional quantity all along. Meanwhile, as the War on Terror escalates, the US is dragged into an asymmetrical engagement with occultures whose principles are ancient, obscure, and saturated in oil. It is as if war itself is feeding upon the warmachines, leveling cities into the desert, seducing the aggressors into the dark heart of oil …

At once a horror fiction, a work of speculative theology, an atlas of demonology, a political samizdat and a philosophic grimoire, Cyclonopedia is work of theory-fiction on the Middle East, where horror is restlessly heaped upon horror. Reza Negarestani bridges the appalling vistas of contemporary world politics and the War on Terror with the archeologies of the Middle East and the natural history of the Earth itself. Cyclonopedia is a middle-eastern Odyssey, populated by archeologists, jihadis, oil smugglers, Delta Force officers, heresiarchs, corpses of ancient gods and other puppets. The journey to the Underworld begins with petroleum basins and the rotting Sun, continuing along the tentacled pipelines of oil, and at last unfolding in the desert, where monotheism meets the Earth’s tarry dreams of insurrection against the Sun.

After reading that, I decided that I needed a copy — I mean, christ, wouldn’t you? — and it arrived today. I intend to get into this over Xmas, with a bottle of wine and Xela playing through noise-cancelling earbuds while my family spend a day trying to kill each other over possession of the tv remote.

–

warrenelliswire

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8102

Oops, bit late with this, so I’m backdating it to before midnight, haha. Fuck the future.

I came across this book a few months back, and was reminded of it yesterday. CYCLONOPEDIA: Complicity with Anonymous Materials, by Reza Negarestani. So I did a little look, and found the website. And, if the author will forgive me, here’s the entire, mental description of the book:

The Middle East is a sentient entity – it is alive!’ concludes renegade Iranian archeologist Dr. Hamid Parsani, before disappearing under mysterious circumstances. The disordered notes he leaves behind testify to an increasingly deranged preoccupation with oil as the ’lubricant’ of historical and political narratives.

An American woman arrives in Istanbul to meet a pseudonymous online acquaintance who never arrives. Discovering a strange manuscript in her hotel room, she follows up its cryptic clues only to discover more plot-holes, and begins to wonder whether her friend was a fictional quantity all along. Meanwhile, as the War on Terror escalates, the US is dragged into an asymmetrical engagement with occultures whose principles are ancient, obscure, and saturated in oil. It is as if war itself is feeding upon the warmachines, leveling cities into the desert, seducing the aggressors into the dark heart of oil …

At once a horror fiction, a work of speculative theology, an atlas of demonology, a political samizdat and a philosophic grimoire, Cyclonopedia is work of theory-fiction on the Middle East, where horror is restlessly heaped upon horror. Reza Negarestani bridges the appalling vistas of contemporary world politics and the War on Terror with the archeologies of the Middle East and the natural history of the Earth itself. Cyclonopedia is a middle-eastern Odyssey, populated by archeologists, jihadis, oil smugglers, Delta Force officers, heresiarchs, corpses of ancient gods and other puppets. The journey to the Underworld begins with petroleum basins and the rotting Sun, continuing along the tentacled pipelines of oil, and at last unfolding in the desert, where monotheism meets the Earth’s tarry dreams of insurrection against the Sun.

After reading that, I decided that I needed a copy — I mean, christ, wouldn’t you? — and it arrived today. I intend to get into this over Xmas, with a bottle of wine and Xela playing through noise-cancelling earbuds while my family spend a day trying to kill each other over possession of the tv remote.

–

dorktowerfeed

http://www.dorktower.com/2009/12/08/4184/

http://www.dorktower.com/?p=4184

A few years ago, I read a few very good, very geeky books: “Achtung, Scweinhund,” by Harry Pearson; “The Elfish Gene” by Mark Barrowcliffe, and “Game Night,” by Jonny Nexus,

DorkTower.com is very happy to be presenting Chapter Four of Game Night. And also to be quizzing Jonny a little bit on this latest bit of madness of his…

___________

Q: The idea to promote Game Night via a “blog tour” – how did that come about? Is that an original idea, or has someone done it before?

It’s not an original idea. I don’t know where I first came across the idea, but I know that I was exposed to it when Shauna Reid, who does a blog called “What’s New, Pussycat?” did a blog tour to promote her book, “The Amazing Adventures of Diet Girl”. And I’ve read about it in various other places since then, typically in “How to market your book” type books.

Q: A lot of authors say the worst thing about book tours is either the travel, or the loneliness. What’s the worst thing about a Blog Tour?

I don’t know that there’s a worse thing. I suspect a real book tour has much more extremes either way: lows like travel, loneliness and the one you didn’t mention – having no-one turn up to a signing; highs like the buzz of seeing new people and places.

It’s probably a bit like comparing a night in front of the TV with going to the theatre to see a play; you might get rained on or mugged on the way to the theatre, and you might end up having paid a load of money to see something it turned out you hated – but you might see something that rocks your world.

Q: Three stops into the blog tour, what’s the reaction been like? As good as you’d have hoped? Any surprises?

Well I haven’t had any huge responses so far. I think one of the problems with this sort of on-line marketing is that you don’t get much of a reaction at all. You might get a few comments posted here and there, but in general people just read what you’re doing – and hopefully enjoy it – but that’s that. You instead measure success in page views.

That’s probably actually the answer to your above question: the worse thing about a blog tour is that you don’t get anything like as much feedback as you would with a real tour. You hope people are clicking on the link at the end and going on to (in this case) read the first part of the serialisation. But when all you’ve got to go on is a page view counter, it’s hard to know who’s coming from where. You basically just have to keep on doing all the stuff you’re doing and hope that some of it is working.

But the page view counter’s kept on going up, so hopefully that’s good. I’m sure the blog tour is getting the message out to people, but it’s very difficult to know by how much. (I guess Russ, the boss of EN World, could look in the server logs and find out where people are coming from, but it seems like a bit of a cheek to bother him, just to satisfy my curiosity.

Q: You’ve said that Terry Pratchett isn’t as much of an influence as people may think. Do you think that all humorous fantasy book these days get an immediate Pratchett comparison?

I think the honest answer is that humorous fantasy authors very want to be associated with someone who’s sold 55 million humorous fantasy books, as much as they might protest the opposite. Sure, they (and I include myself here) will claim that that they’re not influenced by him, but his success has been of such a huge, genre-defining type, that you secretly want to have a tiny little bit of his spotlight shine on you. So if reviewers don’t compare their books to Terry Pratchett, then the authors most like will.

It’s also a very easy and convenient shorthand to explain what genre you’re in, who might like them, and where they should be filed.

I’d like to think I’ve got my own style, but that hasn’t stopped me being very pleased whenever I’ve found a quote in which someone compares me to him, or deterred me from immediately splashing said quote all across my website. I’ve got a whole bunch of them up there in fact (the first of which is from yourself):

“A Pratchett-esque debut novel of gods, roleplaying, and game-night kerfuffles…”

“Game Night, the debut novel by Jonny Nexus, is a work of absolute genius, and is definitely ranked as one of the most fun and enjoyable books I’ve read in a long time, and in my opinion is at least as witty as the likes of Terry Pratchett. ”

“Reviews of this book have claimed that it has an air of Discworld about it. I’d agree with that, especially Pratchett’s early work; its plot is similarly chaotic and the comedic style is similar.”

“I issued more laughs from reading Game Night than I do from an average Pratchett novel… Clash of The Titans meets Discworld, neatly blended with a little Red Dwarfism.”

“Start with a generous helping of Terry Prachett, add a dash of Douglas Adams, a pinch of Christopher Moore and season heavily with Dead Gentlemen’s Gamers.”

“If you like the work of Pratchett, Foglio, Asprin, or DeChancie then this book is for you.”

So there’s no way I can claim to dislike it if people compare me to Terry. (Although as an aside, I hadn’t realised there were that many Pratchett mentioning quotes up there until I just went through and picked them out).

Q: Nice work, slipping those rave quotes in. Well played, sir. OK – next question: Are there any Gods in Game Night that are based directly on you, or your style of play? Any of the player characters?

None of the gods are directly based on particular people; but they are very much based on styles of play that I and others have exhibited. I always say that in my personal style of play, I tend to vary between being the Dealer (i.e. the method roleplayer) and the Jester (the guys who can’t resist making jokes), with a regrettable tendency to become the Sleeper when tired.

As to the mortals (the player characters), I’d probably say that Yann is the character I’d like to create, but Hill is the character I’d probably end up creating.

Q: Obviously, many BAD fantasy novels have been written about people’s Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. Game Night is very good. Did any episodes in it come directly from your gaming group?

No, nothing directly. I think I wrote in one of the earlier blog tours about the incident which was closest to a real incident (a character burning to death). But I think the idea that you could (or should) simply write up a campaign into a novel is bad one.

A roleplaying campaign is like real-life; sometimes interesting, often not, sometimes involving something that will turn out to be significant, and often involving something that will turn out to be irrelevant. In a sense, that’s part of what I like about roleplaying; it’s more real than any novel precisely because it’s raw and not edited.

A novel shouldn’t be like that. At each point, the thing that happens should be the funniest, most interesting thing that could have happened; the thing that is said should be the most apt and insightful thing that could have said. A novel deserves to have the novelist guiding it at every point to the best possible path, to instead write what simply happened to happen is (IMHO) an abdication of responsibility.

So the entire novel is inspired by things that have happened to me when I’ve roleplayed; but inspiration aside, it’s entirely fictional, with me attempting to come up with the most entertaining paths at each decision point that I could.

To read the first installment of Game Night, just click on this link (and remember to bookmark it!)

To reach Jonny, just drop him a line at gamenight (at) jonnynexus dot com. Or you can follow him on Twitter or Facebook. Or to just be kept informed of each chapter when it comes out, you can follow the @GameNightNovel twitter feed.

warrenelliswire

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8099

I’ve had a bunch of questions on the forthcoming movie version of mine and Cully Hamner’s graphic novel RED, which starts shooting next month (I think). Let me try to field a couple of them.

First off: RED, the book, is 66 pages long. If you were to film 66 pages of comics, you might, might just about get 40 minutes of film out of it. If you added a musical number. The comics-page to film-minute ratio is pretty bad. A straight adaptation of a 150-page graphic novel might, if you squint at it, get you a 100-minute film. But it’s unlikely, because comics and films use time so differently. One page with four lines of dialogue on it can be slowed to a crawl to the point where you have to spend several minutes digesting the information on it. In film, however, four lines of dialogue is four lines of dialogue, and you can’t just pronounce it very slowly for the same time consumption. Beyond filmic/dramatic effects like the pause or montage or whatever, film is timelocked.

So, yes, RED the film is very different. Not least because it needed to generate more material than the book itself actually constituted.

It is in fact best to consider RED as a short story being adapted into film.

Next, and related: RED-the-book is also something of a chamber piece. There are essentially only four characters. (And a lot of people who get killed.) Now, while you can perfectly well make a film with only four characters in — or even just one character — those films tend not to be massive commercial propositions. And Summit is in the business of making commercial films. Also, they needed to expand RED from a half-hour to an hour-and-a-half. So, yes, there are a lot of new characters.

The new characters are all in theme, all in the same line of work as (Paul in the book, Frank in the film) Moses. The theme being, in part (and also poked at in my other books GLOBAL FREQUENCY and RELOAD) the unexploded bombs of the 20th Century.

(This actually gave the Hoebers the excuse to have fun with old spy tropes like CIA Nutter Guy — there’s a lovely piece of business with him in the first half-hour that amused me no end.)

I don’t think any of them are bad. Also, did you see the goddamn cast list that’s signed on for those characters? Bruce Willis as Moses, yes. But also: Morgan Freeman, Mary-Louise Parker, John C Reilly, Helen Mirren, Julian McMahon, Brian Cox, Ernest Borgnine and Richard Dreyfus. It reminds me a bit of those 70s films like THE TOWERING INFERNO, that had in them everyone you wanted to see in a film, all at once. RED is a bit like that, only with more automatic weapons.

Bruce Willis: when you look back over his filmography, that man’s actually had an incredibly weird career. DIE HARD and all that, sure… but also FIFTH ELEMENT, TWELVE MONKEYS, PULP FICTION, an adaptation of a Harlan Ellison short story for TV and getting a film adaptation of a Kurt Vonnegut book made by sheer force of will. Not bad.

The tone: no, the film isn’t as grim as the book. The book is pretty grim. But it’s also pretty small. When I sell the rights to a book, they buy the right to adapt it in whatever way they see fit. I can accept that they wanted a lighter film, and, as I’ve said before, the script is very enjoyable and tight as a drum. They haven’t adapted it badly, by any means. People who’ve enjoyed the graphic novel will have to accept that it’s an adaptation and that by definition means that it’s going to be a different beast from the book. The film has the same DNA. It retains bits that are very clearly from the book, as well as, of course, the overall plotline. But it is, yes, lighter, and funnier. And if anyone has a real problem with that, I say to you once again:

Helen Mirren with a sniper rifle.

I mean, if you don’t want to see a film with Helen Mirren with a sniper rifle, I’m not sure I want to know you.

–

warrenelliswire

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8092

• Global Guerrillas: JOURNAL: Fighting an Automated Bureaucracy
  "When the Taliban arrive in a village, I discovered, it takes 96 hours for an Army commander to obtain necessary approvals to act."
  (tags:war )
• California gives green light to space solar power – space – 08 December 2009 – New Scientist
  "On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission gave its blessing to an agreement that would see the Pacific Gas and Electric Company buy 200 megawatts of power beamed down from solar-power satellites beginning in 2016. A start-up company called Solaren is designing the satellites, which it says will use radio waves to beam energy down to a receiving station on Earth."
  (tags:space )
• UK man fears cult leader release
  "Mehdi Zand, leader of the World of Yaad, a cult which claims to hold the secret to everlasting life, was jailed along with members Francesco Zand and Mohammed ?Javad? Kashefi for a total of 11 years, after attacking the restaurant owner and his business partner.[...] ?Mehdi Zand said to me, ?you have betrayed your god of 20 years?, then he ordered the others to kill me.?"
  (tags:cult crime )
• Raelian leader from Iran seeks asylum in Turkey
  "With their libertarian attitude to sex, and their belief that humans were created by extra-terrestrials, Raelians inevitably fall foul of the religious authorities in Iran. The crime of apostasy ? rejecting religious faith ? carries the death penalty there, and supporters of Negar Azizmoradi say that is what will happen to her if the Turkish government sends her back to Iran."
  (tags:cult )
• BBC News – Nasa tests Aberdeenshire find for life on Mars clues
  "Macaulayite is only believed to exist at a quarry at the foot of Bennachie in Aberdeenshire. Researchers think it could be the same mineral which gives the planet its red colour. "
  (tags:space geo )

warrenelliscom

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8099

I’ve had a bunch of questions on the forthcoming movie version of mine and Cully Hamner’s graphic novel RED, which starts shooting next month (I think). Let me try to field a couple of them.

First off: RED, the book, is 66 pages long. If you were to film 66 pages of comics, you might, might just about get 40 minutes of film out of it. If you added a musical number. The comics-page to film-minute ratio is pretty bad. A straight adaptation of a 150-page graphic novel might, if you squint at it, get you a 100-minute film. But it’s unlikely, because comics and films use time so differently. One page with four lines of dialogue on it can be slowed to a crawl to the point where you have to spend several minutes digesting the information on it. In film, however, four lines of dialogue is four lines of dialogue, and you can’t just pronounce it very slowly for the same time consumption. Beyond filmic/dramatic effects like the pause or montage or whatever, film is timelocked.

So, yes, RED the film is very different. Not least because it needed to generate more material than the book itself actually constituted.

It is in fact best to consider RED as a short story being adapted into film.

Next, and related: RED-the-book is also something of a chamber piece. There are essentially only four characters. (And a lot of people who get killed.) Now, while you can perfectly well make a film with only four characters in — or even just one character — those films tend not to be massive commercial propositions. And Summit is in the business of making commercial films. Also, they needed to expand RED from a half-hour to an hour-and-a-half. So, yes, there are a lot of new characters.

The new characters are all in theme, all in the same line of work as (Paul in the book, Frank in the film) Moses. The theme being, in part (and also poked at in my other books GLOBAL FREQUENCY and RELOAD) the unexploded bombs of the 20th Century.

(This actually gave the Hoebers the excuse to have fun with old spy tropes like CIA Nutter Guy — there’s a lovely piece of business with him in the first half-hour that amused me no end.)

I don’t think any of them are bad. Also, did you see the goddamn cast list that’s signed on for those characters? Bruce Willis as Moses, yes. But also: Morgan Freeman, Mary-Louise Parker, John C Reilly, Helen Mirren, Julian McMahon, Brian Cox, Ernest Borgnine and Richard Dreyfus. It reminds me a bit of those 70s films like THE TOWERING INFERNO, that had in them everyone you wanted to see in a film, all at once. RED is a bit like that, only with more automatic weapons.

Bruce Willis: when you look back over his filmography, that man’s actually had an incredibly weird career. DIE HARD and all that, sure… but also FIFTH ELEMENT, TWELVE MONKEYS, PULP FICTION, an adaptation of a Harlan Ellison short story for TV and getting a film adaptation of a Kurt Vonnegut book made by sheer force of will. Not bad.

The tone: no, the film isn’t as grim as the book. The book is pretty grim. But it’s also pretty small. When I sell the rights to a book, they buy the right to adapt it in whatever way they see fit. I can accept that they wanted a lighter film, and, as I’ve said before, the script is very enjoyable and tight as a drum. They haven’t adapted it badly, by any means. People who’ve enjoyed the graphic novel will have to accept that it’s an adaptation and that by definition means that it’s going to be a different beast from the book. The film has the same DNA. It retains bits that are very clearly from the book, as well as, of course, the overall plotline. But it is, yes, lighter, and funnier. And if anyone has a real problem with that, I say to you once again:

Helen Mirren with a sniper rifle.

I mean, if you don’t want to see a film with Helen Mirren with a sniper rifle, I’m not sure I want to know you.

–

warrenelliscom

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8092

• Global Guerrillas: JOURNAL: Fighting an Automated Bureaucracy
  "When the Taliban arrive in a village, I discovered, it takes 96 hours for an Army commander to obtain necessary approvals to act."
  (tags:war )
• California gives green light to space solar power – space – 08 December 2009 – New Scientist
  "On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission gave its blessing to an agreement that would see the Pacific Gas and Electric Company buy 200 megawatts of power beamed down from solar-power satellites beginning in 2016. A start-up company called Solaren is designing the satellites, which it says will use radio waves to beam energy down to a receiving station on Earth."
  (tags:space )
• UK man fears cult leader release
  "Mehdi Zand, leader of the World of Yaad, a cult which claims to hold the secret to everlasting life, was jailed along with members Francesco Zand and Mohammed ?Javad? Kashefi for a total of 11 years, after attacking the restaurant owner and his business partner.[...] ?Mehdi Zand said to me, ?you have betrayed your god of 20 years?, then he ordered the others to kill me.?"
  (tags:cult crime )
• Raelian leader from Iran seeks asylum in Turkey
  "With their libertarian attitude to sex, and their belief that humans were created by extra-terrestrials, Raelians inevitably fall foul of the religious authorities in Iran. The crime of apostasy ? rejecting religious faith ? carries the death penalty there, and supporters of Negar Azizmoradi say that is what will happen to her if the Turkish government sends her back to Iran."
  (tags:cult )
• BBC News – Nasa tests Aberdeenshire find for life on Mars clues
  "Macaulayite is only believed to exist at a quarry at the foot of Bennachie in Aberdeenshire. Researchers think it could be the same mineral which gives the planet its red colour. "
  (tags:space geo )

warrenelliscom

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8096

Emma Vieceli’s been up to something:

I…(was) asked to provide some images that would work in a sketchbook style artbook… The clever bit is that you get to browse the full range of images available and then pick and choose a customised art book!

Some of the images I chose are illustrations you’ll have seen prints of before, some are reproduced with special permission from publishers and would certainly not be available any other way (including in progress shots of Much Ado and my Phonogram back-up story) and some are brand new, never before seen! (if you go for a customisable option, there may also be one of my – erm – naughtier pictures in there, hahaha).

Emma’s Signature page is here.

warrenelliswire

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8096

Emma Vieceli’s been up to something:

I…(was) asked to provide some images that would work in a sketchbook style artbook… The clever bit is that you get to browse the full range of images available and then pick and choose a customised art book!

Some of the images I chose are illustrations you’ll have seen prints of before, some are reproduced with special permission from publishers and would certainly not be available any other way (including in progress shots of Much Ado and my Phonogram back-up story) and some are brand new, never before seen! (if you go for a customisable option, there may also be one of my – erm – naughtier pictures in there, hahaha).

Emma’s Signature page is here.

someposifeed

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp12032009.shtml

If there are any problems with the comic or website, or if you have any questions, comments, or complaints you would like to address directly to Randy, please email him at choochoobear@gmail.com.

warrenelliscom

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8093

I love the blog Merlin In Rags, not just for the obscure and ancient music it digs up, but also for the wonderful record covers it finds. Here’s a selection of images posted there over just the last few days:

(more legible larger size)

warrenelliswire

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8093

I love the blog Merlin In Rags, not just for the obscure and ancient music it digs up, but also for the wonderful record covers it finds. Here’s a selection of images posted there over just the last few days:

(more legible larger size)