Nick Mamatas' Journal

Username:	Password:
Forgot your password?	Remember Me

Phew!
They say that relocating to a new state, starting a new type of job, and ending a relationship are three of the most stressful things one can go through (at least under First World political circumstances, for people with their health and only the genteel sort of literary poverty to which I have become accustomed), and doing all three at once over the course of a month is no picnic either.

But we can mark one stressor off -- I just got a call offering me a 2 bedroom apt in Berkeley for the same price I was paying for my 3 bedroom in Jersey City nine years ago. Not too bad, and if stuff gets rough I can always stick someone in that spare room.

Now I have a place to mail my stuff too as well!

oh, and...
Interested parties are directed to the text-based computer game Amnesia (1986) by Disch, which was ahead of its time they say.

I have no idea whether that download is legal or not, but if you are down for some crime, why not try it?

Secret Minds of Editors?
Ellen Datlow, Mort Castle, and I were interviewed by the online magazine Dark Scribe. It may be of interest to some people. Check it out, though it isn't quite a "roundtable" but really three distinct interviews using the same questions:

Genre Roundtable: Revealing the Secret Minds of Editors.

Showing the place
Always interesting what people ask about. One guy wanted to know:

if the bay windows were a southern exposure?
how much home heating oil will cost in December of this year?
whether I was taking my table? (The only good thing in the house)
whether I was taking my couch? (The weird orange bamboo thing with the flat pillows)
whether I was taking my bed? (ew)
whether the cable leading to the TV was the cable TV?
whether I was taking my computer printer?
if I had any "spare dishes and pots"?

Meanwhile, as

strangebint and

kest look for a place in the Bay for me, the questions I ask are, "Is the place on the same block as a crackhouse?" and "Well, does it look like a bad crackhouse?"

Lucky *BLAM* Star
Finally back home. I got on the bus at 3PM but we lost a tire and severed a line for coolant, so we spent two hours at a rest stop in Connecticut before a repair van was sent up from Chinatown.

Blech.

Hancock
The best thing about Hancock, which I saw out here on Long Island with my sister and cousin Tina, was that as we were walking in to the theater, Mick Foley was walking out! Oh boy, Mick Foley.

Hancock is a really awful movie. Actually, it is two movies, or really, two scripts. Due to some accident in a producer's office, the first sixty pages of one script and the last sixty pages of another ended up clipped together, and someone tied the extraneous bits of the single sentence marked (Con't) on p. 60 with whatever was on the first line of p. 61.

Hancock, the guy, is a drunken superhero of sorts who damages a lot of property while stopping crimes. This being Los Angeles, of course one's Mercedes is worth much more than some stranger's existence, so Hancock is universally reviled as an "asshole." In many films, extras are told to murmur "rhubarb rhubarb" or even "walla walla"; in Hancock they all just say "asshole asshole." Speaking of assholes, Hancock saves the life of as PR man named Ray who is unsuccessfully trying to sell big companies a little heart logo in exchange for radically increasing their corporate giving. They're not going for it, of course, because corporations are mean. ("Asshole asshole") The middle class is very nice of course. (Only one "asshole", he mutters.)

Ray convinces Hancock to surrender himself to the authorities. Or, actually, he tells Hancock to do it and Hancock inexplicably agrees. Indeed, despite his megapowers and bad attitude, Hancock pretty much does whatever anyone tells him to do, which is handy because he's in a movie and movies do have to keep on movin'. Then as crime spirals out of control, Ray works on getting H a supersuit, some etiquette lessons, etc. Oh, and Hancock keeps looking at the guy's wife, a woman named Mary. This is all presented by an interminable montage sequence that goes on for about seven minutes. Then Hancock is called to resolve a hostage crisis. YAY, it works and everyone loves Hancock. Now who's the asshole? YEAH, YOU ARE, MR AND MRS LOS ANGELINO! (But we knew that already.)

Then script two takes over -- Mary is also a superhuman and as it turns out she and Hancock are the last two members of a race of immortal superhumans. Hancock is an amnesiac and didn't know this, nor does he realize that when in close proximity to Mary he becomes mortal. He probably doesn't realize this because it isn't true -- indeed, there is a lengthy fight-and-flight scene between the pair. He does not weaken except when necessitated by the plot, of which there is only a very little. Back in the joint, a breakout happens off-screen and despite having no plan at all to deal with the superhuman Hancock, a "master criminal" and a couple of other guys rush to take him out. Hancock gets shot and is in the hospital and is very weak because Mary is nearby. Then Mary gets shot and is very weak because Hancock is nearby. Then Hancock gets some of his powers back, but then loses them again so that Ray can save the day. Then Mary dies but Hancock flies away so she lives ("asshole asshole"!).

And then Hancock -- no longer an asshole -- VANDALIZES THE MOON to please Ray by putting Ray's little heart trademark on it, irrevocably altering human history and aesthetics forever for the sake of branding, which makes perfect sense as anyone who is not a middle-class PR guy is just some kind of asshole. Why would we need the moon? It's there for Ray!

There are problems with Hancock other than the random script pages; it is shot mostly handheld for some reason, despite dealing with the fakest of fake characters in every sense. No realism or weight is added to the film; instead it feels even more rushed as if despite the zillion dollar budget they only had Will Smith for three days. Really, if you could find someone who had been living on a desert island and was only recently rescued, you could show him Hancock and say, "You know, Will Smith died a week into shooting this" and he'd believe you.

Several seconds of Hancock are funny, but many opportunities are missed. Hancock drinks and this impairs his flying, even though he can heal instantly and has superhuman speed and strength. Surely, he should be drinking a lot more. Have him guzzle down a distillery or something. Mary has no interaction with any other women, unlike, say, every other woman who has ever lived and grown to be an adult. How does she get along being super and hiding it so well? Ray is the biggest asshole in the movie, but we're supposed to be rooting for him, even when his friend DESTROYS THE APPEARANCE OF THE MOON BY TURNING IT INTO A FUCKING LOGO.

Anyway, what I really should have done is screamed like a twelve-year-old girl and put Mick Foley in a headlock while shouting, "I LOVE YOU CACTUS JACK I LOVE YOU BANG BANG!" and then when he picked me up, put me in an airplane spin and threw me through the plate glass doors to the lobby I could have gone to the hospital and then the county lockup on assault charges. I would have had a more entertaining experience.

Clarkesworld: Day late, sowwy!
I ran around so much yesterday, I forgot to tell you about the new Clarkesworld.

Proving that persistence pays, Sergey Gerasimov hit us with his ninth submission and wowed us into buying it. Do check out The Glory of the World.

Our non-fiction feature is all about the vintage paperback: check out Smart Broads and Tough Guys by Lisa Morton.

Two Little Tidbits For the World
I was the guest at Altered Fluid last night, which is an easy and fun gig. The workshop actually does time their responses instead of just insisting that they do so, and they do two stories a night. Everyone gets a sufficient dose of one another's work, and personalities, to remain friendly without poisoning one another. I got dog toys from

krisname, some dosh and chu-che salmon and a multiply inscribed card from the gang. My favorite was from

nkjemisin:

Thanks for ~~brutally~~ continually ~~rejecting~~ encouraging me on multiple occasions! :)

Anyway, here are two tips I shared with AF last night that the world must know.

1. If you find yourself in a workshop situation, you may find that workshop readers will not understand everything and will ask for a revision to resolve the ambiguous issue. Resolve these issues of unintended and distracting ambiguity (as opposed to well-tempered ambiguity, which is not something to be resolved but rather embraced) like one would resolve an offending eye, PLUCK IT OUT!! Don't just run around adding graf and graf of tedious nonsense to your story to "explain" everything.

2. If you find yourself writing the by now well-worn story in which Character B is a hallucination of Character A, here's how you can save the story in your second draft. Throw in some of that well-tempered ambiguity and then when Character B says in the climax, "As you know A, I am just a figment of your imagination" have A say, "Wrong, you cheeky fucker! I'm a figment of YOUR imagination" and have him do something fun and crazy to prove it.

First person to write that story wins, I guarantee.

Long Island quick things
Just got in to Long Island after long bus and train rides. Here for a few days. Thanks to all for the advice on moving services. I'll check them out when able to think. And now, some stuff:

Stoker voters/Jackson jury members would do well to go to a bookstore and find a copy of Farewell Navigator by Leni Zumas, read the story "Leopard Arms", and then act accordingly. By which I mean recommend the story and get it on the ballots of both awards. It's a little long, might be a novelette. Otherwise a novelino! But do check it out.

I'm attending a meeting of Altered Fluid tomorrow. Should be fun, even if the name of the group is the most disappointing thing since the pro-breastfeeding lj community

boob_nazis.

Big ups to

gordonzola for selling his memoir The Cheesemonger Weeps -- note that he gives a shout-out to my critique service as it existed back in the halcyon days when critiquing writing was just an autonomic response to seeing writing in my email inbox. Please help me monetize my neurotic compulsions.

UNCACS Continues!
Hey all,

In addition to the large tuition bill I had to pay — and most of it is paid now — I do now have to get across the country at the end of July. I have a fund of $3000 from my new employer, but that essentially involves me putting up the money to move stuff, and then being reimbursed. (I've already spent $380 of it on plane tickets for me and Kazzie.) So I would like to remind the curious that Uncle Nick's Crazy-Ass Critique Service still has bookings available for the next five weeks. I do novels, non-fiction, short fiction,and poetry. Rates are generally $2 a page for strangers, $1 a page for people I "know."

I do have a novel I'm working on now, another in the queue, a serial I'm working on as it is produced, a poetry collection which will likely be done in the next two days, and two other novels, but those last two will not be ready for me to look at until later in the summer. I certainly have room to do another book or three. For one's money one receives extensive marginal notes, a lengthy editorial letter — so far, I've been writing 1000-word responses to 3000-word short stories — and post-letter discussion about what to do with the material. Email me at firstnamedotlastnameatgoogle'semailsystemdotcom.

Also, has anyone had expeirence with those PODS or Door-To-Door container people. Let me know what you thought of your experience, or anything else you've done to get stuff from one coast to another. I actually don't have a lot of precious stuff; I'd dump some of it and buy new on the other side, but new purchases will not be reimbursed. I'd like to spend up to the limit of the relocation fee, and then just buy new for the rest of it. So I'm open to suggestions.

White Sun of the Desert
What a weird and fun movie. Everyone else in the audience was an old Russian lady. Check it out.

Greetings from West Bennington, Vermont
The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o'clock...

Happy 60th Annual Lottery Day. One of my favorite anecdotes about the story deals with the letters Jackson received after the story was first published:

Curiously, there are three main themes which dominate the letters of that first summer—three themes which might be identified as bewilderment, speculation and plain old-fashioned abuse. In the years since then, during which the story has been anthologized, dramatized, televised, and even—in one completely mystifying transformation—made into a ballet, the tenor of letters I receive has changed. I am addressed more politely, as a rule, and the letters largely confine themselves to questions like what does this story mean? The general tone of the early letters, however, was a kind of wide-eyed, shocked innocence. People at first were not so much concerned with what the story meant; what they wanted to know was where these lotteries were held, and whether they could go there and watch.

Next year at Readercon, we should hold a rock fight.

Clarkesworld: My Personal Guarantee
You know how to make sure you AREN'T going to be considered as my replacement at Clarkesworld?

Send in a letter of interest to Neil and/or Sean without CCing me on it.

Dear England people
If anyone in England runs into

erzebet can you pleeeeeeease tell her to check her email.

She has brown hair, and glasses.

AAAAAAH!
And then there's this:

One morning, after she was awakened by her bedside alarm, she sat up and, she recalled, “this fluid came down my face, this greenish liquid.” She pressed a square of gauze to her head and went to see her doctor again. M. showed the doctor the fluid on the dressing. The doctor looked closely at the wound. She shined a light on it and in M.’s eyes. Then she walked out of the room and called an ambulance. Only in the Emergency Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, after the doctors started swarming, and one told her she needed surgery now, did M. learn what had happened. She had scratched through her skull during the night—and all the way into her brain.

I showed this to a bunch of people yesterday and they were all like, "Ha ha, Clarkesworld slush sucks," and then I was all like, "No, it's a non-fiction feature from The New Yorker!"

I'm not a huge fan of New Yorker medical reportage, but this article is disgusting, yet engrossing, just as bodies should be. SCRATCH TILL YOU STRIKE GREEN BRAIN PUS!

Clarkesworld: The Sayanora Seven
I never do this, but as my involvement with the magazine is winding down, here are the final stories I've acquired (well, unless I find something awesome in the existing slush!):

July: Sergey Gerasimov, "The Glory of the World"
August: Meghan McCarron, "Tetris Dooms Itself"
September: Eric Witchey, "Can You See Me Now"
October: John McDermott, "Passwords"
November: Simon DeDeo, "Batch 39 and the Deadman's Switch"
December: Karen Hueler, "The Completely Rechargeable Man "
January: Don Webb, "Episode 72"