Super quick update. The new NEW book is ready to go out to publishers. It doesn’t need another edit. YAY! And that’s where it is right now. With them. So I’m just waiting, which is the hardest thing to do, when all you really want to do is refresh your email every 3 seconds. Thankfully I’m pretty busy with some other secret projects so I’m not dwelling. Well, not too much.
The Good
Justified. This is a non-genre show. It’s about Timothy Olyphant playing a US Marshall, and it’s based on a short story by Elmore Leonard. He’s kind of a modern day cowboy who is forced to go back to his home state of Kentucky and he starts rubbing shoulders with old friends, old enemies and members of his family he’d rather not reconnect with. It’s funny, dramatic, heartwarming, disturbing and just a lot of damn good fun. I’m still not sure why I didn’t watch it back in the day when it was on. I think in my mind it was more like The Shield and I wasn’t in the mood for something so brutal and dirty, so I avoided it. It’s also only 13 episodes a season, which I can do. I’d struggle these days with a 20+ commitment on a series. Great fun, awesome twisty worldbuilding, complex characters with fully fleshed out lives, friends, families and enemies and it’s all one weird incestuous tangle where everyone seems to know everyone else’s business in the small community of Harlan county. Great stuff and well worth a watch.
The Bad
Another Life. This is a new SF show on Netflix starring the excellent Katie Sackhoff. The cast has a few familiar faces and they are all pretty good. That’s about all I can say that’s positive about this show. The Nightflyer is basically, and in many ways, the same show. Aliens make contact. We send out a ship to find out what’s going on. Cue wacky adventures, weird dreams, murder and mayhem. That’s both shows. Only this time around there’s a lot more shouting, bitching and acting like horny teenagers rather than, I don’t know, qualified astronauts. Yes, conflict makes drama more interesting but this was so painful to watch I was embarrassed for the actors. If it gets a second season I won’t be watching.
The Comics
52 from DC comics. 52 is an important number at DC comics for a few reasons. At one point it was the number of titles they were putting out in a month when all titles reset to issue 1. I know, right? Anyway, there are also 52 worlds in their multiverse, Earth 1 to 52, with slightly different versions of their heroes and villains. However, on this occasion, 52 refers to the weekly comic book series they published in 2006. Four writers (Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid and Geoff Johns) worked together with a number of artists and editors, to put out one comic book a week for a whole year. That’s one big huge story, featuring lots of characters from across the DC universe, for 52 week straight. It was a massive undertaking that had not been done before and has not been tried since.
It was a nightmare of logistics, there were bumps and mistakes along the way, but ultimately they did it. I didn’t read it at the time because it was too expensive, but today, thanks to the joys of comics deals I picked up the whole thing for a great price. Also, as a digital version, storing the 52 weekly comics is a lot easier. I’m taking my time, soaking it all in, and I’m about halfway through at the moment. It’s a fascinating story and a remarkable experiment that explores some remote corners of the DC universe. They pull all sorts of obscure characters out of the cupboard that we’ve not seen for years and take other known characters in new directions. It’s a big love letter to DC comics and given that I was raised on DC comics and they were my first love, I’m in my happy place.
More news on the book stuff when I can share it. What have you been watching? Anything good?
Stephen Aryan 