And I can’t stop. :)

Indigo Meadow by The Black Angels

The Black Angels are an Austin, TX band, and they are part of the modern psychedelic movement that probably owes it existence to The Brian Jonestown Massacre‘s burst of creativity in the mid 1990s. It’s a genre that loosely includes bands like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Warlocks, the above-mentioned BJM, and newer bands like The Spyrals and my former band, The Atomic Love Bombs.

Indigo Meadow is the fourth studio album from The Black Angels (not counting EPs). It very much builds on the sound of those earlier albums (2006′s Passover, 2008′s Directions to See a Ghost, and 2010′s Phosphene Dream), but it also shows that the band is not afraid to grow, to let that sound expand in new directions.

The biggest difference is that Indigo Meadow is an album of melodies. Beautiful melodies, poppy melodies, drony melodies, interesting melodies, fun melodies. Great melodies.

The band’s first two albums were built around drone and fuzz. The vocals tended to soar along above the music, even while hiding amidst the instruments and allowing the drone and fuzz to reign supreme. The vocals were often distant.

Phosphene Dream saw the introduction of more melodic and pop elements in the music, but the vocals were still distant, still getting lost among the instruments.

That’s not criticism, mind you. I love those first three albums. A lot. It’s just that Indigo Meadow is better still.

With Indigo Meadow, the vocal melodies lead. They’re front and center. They’re married to the music, but the vocals are wearing the pants in the relationship. The drone and the fuzz are still there, and sounding better than ever, but it’s the vocal melodies (and harmonies) that make this album so wonderful.

Take “Your Mine.” This is one of the most infectious tunes I have ever heard, and it was the first song on Indigo Meadow that I couldn’t get out of my head. It’s like this song is my friend. It’s there and it wants me to be happy, and to make me happy, it plays itself.

Yeah, I know that sounds crazy. I’m OK with that.

The title track is also haunting. “Put your hands on my chest, girl.” It’s a refrain that lead vocalist Alex Mass repeats in various forms throughout the song. The same with “Be strong. I wish that you were.” There’s something about that line I just love hearing.

There’s also this moment in the song that stands out starting at the 1:28 mark. The music gets stripped down to bass, keyboards, and drums. The vocals feel close, intimate.

This is a different thing for The Black Angels, where there has always been an omnipresent noisy element to the songs and that distant thing I mentioned above. Indigo Meadow has only a couple of these quiet and close moments, and they are the more enjoyable for their rarity.

“Don’t Play With Guns” is the song I currently can’t exorcise from my brain. It has a very catchy chorus built around the words in the title. The thing that I keep thinking about is the bridge, especially at 1:30 when the vocals take on a sing-song quality that I keep finding myself chanting. That sing-song melody is repeated again in the outro where it pairs especially well with the chorus. Good stuff.

Here’s the band’s post to YouTube for this song.

“Don’t Play With Guns”

There’s a 70s feel about “Holland” in the bass and keyboard intro, but the tune slips firmly back into the 60s once the rest of the instruments and vocals kick in. This was an early standout tune for me.

The band taps into the fundamentals of groovy with “Always Maybe.” This song is just groovy. Baby. It also has this killer fuzz guitar line starting in the second verse. The song is gorgeous and lustrous.

The album ends with “Black Isn’t Black,” and it is such an awesome song. It has this cool bass and vocal intro with some delayed guitar effects that sometimes play in the distance. It’s hypnotic and cool. It’s hummable. It’s great. It reminds me of some mid-period Love & Rockets, or maybe some of Daniel Ash’s solo work, even though it sounds entirely like The Black Angels.

And then at the midpoint the fuzz bass kicks in. The drone kicks in. The thumping drums kick in. That distant, above-it-all vocal that is the band’s origin kicks in, and it’s totally awesome.

Indigo Meadow is 13 songs, and every one of them is memorable, interesting, and they sound great. As of this writing, I have all those songs rated at 5 of 5 stars in iTunes. Few albums are great start to finish, but this is one of them.

Buy It:

Indigo Meadow on Amazon – $8.99

Indigo Meadow on iTunes – $9.99

Indigo Meadow on the band’s site – $9.99 (with CD and LP options, too)

There are spoilers ahead, but I designed my writeups not to reveal more than you might learn in the opening minutes of each show.

Orphan Black

This is a new show from the BBC; it airs on BBC America here in the States. The show stars Tatiana Maslany as Sarah, a young ne’er do well trying to sell a big brick of stolen cocaine so she can use the money to get her daughter back, run away, and start life anew somewhere else.

Tatiana Maslany x3 (Sarah is on the left)

There’s a problem, of course—I mean, aside from the fact that her big plans in life revolve around selling a big brick of stolen cocaine. Things are going swimmingly when she watches a woman who looks just like her slowly walk her way into an oncoming subway.

Ooops.

When Sarah goes digging into the woman’s life, she finds out she was a police detective. One things leads to another, and there Sarah is impersonating this cop trying to figure out how they could look alike. But wait, it turns out that there are more of these Sarah-copies, and some of them are being killed.

What a clone to do?!?

I really like this show so far. Tonight the 4th episode airs, and I’ve found it very interesting. The production value is high. The acting is solid (though not always great), and the script really sells the very improbable-sounding plot.

In particular, Tatiana Maslany does a wonderful job of portraying the ne’er do well trying to fake her way through being a detective. An untrained detective, at that. She messes up, she’s scared, she doesn’t know how to wear her gun, let alone fire it, and she has no clue about standard police procedures beyond what you or I might glean from police shows.

Yet she stumbles her way through in her efforts to understand what is happening to her, who she is, and what’s going on around her. It works.

I like her foster brother Felix, played by
Jordan Gavaris, too, and Kevin Hanchard as her clone’s partner cop Art is also terrific.

Doctor Who

OK, I admit it, I’m new to Doctor Who. I’ve never gotten into it, though I am almost as old as the series itself. I’ve been aware of it, of course, and I tried to watch it in years gone by, but amateur production value, cheesy dialog, and not-so-awesome acting were always a big turnoff.

And the Daleks? Please. I just couldn’t take them seriously as bad guys when it was obvious all the good guys had to do was tip them over or hang a toilet off those idiotic plungers they wield like drunken batons.

Ah, but that was then. I’ve been vaguely interested in watching the reboot of the series begun in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston, and the trailers I had seen with David Tennant looked good, but I never bothered watching it.

The current Doctor, Matt Smith, didn’t catch my fancy until I saw the trailer for the current season where he mutters, “I am the Doctor, and I am afraid.”

There’s something about that shot that is extraordinarily compelling, and I found myself wanting to check it out. Then I tuned in to BBC America to watch the above-mentioned Orphan Black and caught a rerun of Doctor Who with Matt Smith and the stunningly beautiful Karen Gillan and I was hooked.

Matt Smith & Karen Gillan

The BBC has come a long way in terms of production value. Yes, you could still tip the Daleks over, but the reboot has enjoyed much higher budgets than the series did in the past, and David Tennant and Matt Smith are particularly fine Doctors.

I enjoy both of them in the role and have eagerly devoured reruns of both Doctors in the last three weeks. I’ve really warmed to Matt Smith after seeing several full episodes, and the new Companion, Jenna-Louise Coleman, has a smile that melt the coldest heart.

Jenna-Louise Coleman & Matt Smith

Hannibal

I didn’t see the prequels or postquels to The Silence of the Lamb, and I haven’t read any of the books. I was, however, curious about Hannibal, the TV series based on the book Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. Like the movie Red Dragon, Hannibal is set at a time when Hannibal Lecter was a practicing psychiatrist.

The protagonist of the show is Special Agent Will Graham, played by Hugh Dancy. He’s an empath profiler who works with Special Agent Agent Jack Crawford (Lawrence Fishburne) to find serial killers.

Hugh Dancy as Will Graham

In the very first episode, Agent Graham is asked to work with Hannibal Lecter, played by Mads Mikkelsen, who I first encountered as the villain Le Chiffre in the James Bond reboot, Casino Royale. As you might imagine, Something Goes Wrong™.

Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal Lecter

The dynamic between Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter is fantastic. You get the feeling that Will is barely holding onto reality, while Dr. Lecter’s ability to control those around him, especially Agent Graham, is subtle, yet powerful, and oh-so-creepy.

And the dinner scenes? They are horrific for their very lack of horror.

This is a dark and violent show.

Revolution

I love love love love love love love love love love love love Revolution. I am an absolute sucker for anything and everything post-apocalyptic (PA). I have been since the 1970s when I read all sorts of depressing, yet exhilarating PA SciFi. Them were dark times, and the fiction reflected it.

Anyway, Revolution is a particularly fine PA work for TV. I have no doubt that it was green lighted solely because of the success of The Hunger Games (both in movie and book form), but I couldn’t care less. It was created by Eric Kripke (creator of the excellent Supernatural) and includes Jon Favreau as a producer/backer, and I trust both of them when it comes to making great TV.

J.J. Abrams is also involved, but thankfully he just has his name on it. It’s Mr. Kripke’s show. I like J.J.’s movies, but his TV shows always get lost, no pun intended.

Speaking of which, the premise of the show—that something knocked out all electricity and prevents it from being generated “today” (the show is set in 2027)—made a lot of folks cranky. As witnessed by my ongoing grudge against The Game of Thrones, I know from cranky, but I was ready to suspend disbelief on this issue.

That’s because I read that Eric Kripke had run his reason for the lack of juice past a noted physicist and received a thumbs up. When you add that to Mr. Kripke’s track record for making great TV, I was ready to wait for the show to reveal that reason.

The problem with shows like Revolution is that they always get canceled. The networks are always looking for a SciFi hit and then cancel it when it doesn’t immediately go gangbusters. And they always make it harder by shifting schedules, or in the case of Revolution, putting the show on a four month hiatus before returning with the second half of the season in March.

The L.A. Times reported that ratings are OK, but not stellar, since its return, but chances seem strong that it will come back for a 2nd season.

Which means that you should catch up on it and enjoy it if you aren’t already. I like the characters, and I love the world building. A lot. The acting is solid, and the sets are terrific. I’ve enjoyed the unfolding of characters past and present, and I love the dark, depressing air.

Tracy Spiridakos plays the lead, Charlie, a crossbow toting heroine who makes Hunger Games fans get all defensive. Billy Burke as Miles Matheson is amazing, and Giancarlo Esposito as Captain Tom Neville is even better. What a wonderful, troubled, complex, and awful man Captain Neville is. Just amazing. He steals quite a few scenes.

Revolution

Defiance

Here we have a brand new show from SyFy. Surprisingly enough, this is actually a science fiction show, and the pilot was great.

Wait, I have to whine about the opening 90 seconds, where we’re told that aliens come to Earth and “terraform” it. I know I’m a pedant, but this was just beyond the pale for me in terms of science stupid.

“Terraforming” is the process of making a planet or environment like Earth, our planet. The last time I checked, Earth is already fairly Earth-like. So if aliens come and make Earth more like their planet, it is the opposite of terraforming.

“Terraforming” is a staple of science fiction, and it infuriates me that the folks in charge of the show either didn’t run the opening narration past a science fiction nerd or didn’t listen to them.

Heck, when I ran my complaint past friends who aren’t science fiction fans or scientists they said, “Well, I know what ‘terra’ means, and I know what ‘form’ means.”

Exactly! It required some willful efforts to get this little tidbit so wrong.

Anyway, the rest of the two hour pilot was more than enough for me to get past this faux pas. Who am I kidding? I won’t get past it, but I will definitely keep watching the show.

For one thing, it’s sort of PA. Earth has been overrun by several alien races, but there was some kind of problem that kept them from setting up a stable alien-run government. Instead, there appear to be regional governments and shifting alliances between the alien groups and humans around the globe.

Defiance itself is the name of St. Louis, or the city that used to be St. Louis. There’s also a companion game set in the same world, but in San Francisco. I don’t know much about it. It’s not available for Mac, so they can go fuck themselves.

The town of Defiance

The TV show stars Grant Bowler as
Chief Lawkeeper Jeb Nolan and Stephanie Leonidas as his adopted (alien) daughter Irisa. The wonderful Julie Benze (Darla in Buffy and Angel) plays Amanda Rosewater, the mayor of Defiance. It’s a very large cast, and I thought the characters were well formed for a pilot.

There are also wonderful alien/earth landscapes, Defiance itself, all the aliens, badlands, weapons, falling spaceships to be looted (“arkfall”), alien weaponry, interspecies politics, and human intrigue.

What’s not to like?!

This band is comprised of serious professional studio and live musicians who formed Dragonfly as an “Internet experiment” under Corey Tamas, singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the band.

Aaron Ferrera (drums) is a composer in addition to his work as a drummer, while Olga Zoubkova (backing vocals) has a successful solo career in Europe. Andrew Tokuda (bass) is better known as Digital Droo, and Anward Khurshid played Sitar on the Life of Pi soundtrack. MJ Cyr (backing vocals) is touring North American in support of her own solo album, Canopy.

Corey Tamas – Dragonfly

Dragonfly bills itself as metal, but I think it would be more fair to call the band hard rock, if that even means anything these days. There is plenty of distortion and the metal influence is clear, but the wonderful Middle Eastern, North African, and Subcontinent influences are just as, if not more, prevalent the the metal influences.

There are also a lot of melodic guitar guitar parts, and when you throw some sitar in there…well, I don’t hear “metal,” I hear interesting music. In fact, this is where I should add that Dragonfly’s site mentions “interesting metal.”

“Break It In Two” is the first song on the album, and I very much enjoy the way it slowly unfolds its way into the music. Perhaps not coincidentally, it also starts off with backwards guitar. I hadn’t realized the connection until I started writing this review, but this is an technique that Corey uses to great effect. Despite getting mentioned twice by me, it’s sparing in this album, so don’t get scared.

The percussion in this song is also wonderful, at least in the beginning where a tabla drum part adds to the Indian feel. This is where I have to mention my one beef with this album. The drummer, Aaron Ferrera, is a great drummer and percussionist, but I hate the sound of his drums on two of the songs.

The snare on “Break It In Two” puts me on massive tilt. It has a tinny pop to it that takes me back to the 90s, and not in a good way. I’m persnickety about such things, and in this case the snare and toms stress me out.

The same goes for the toms in “All The Anger In The World,” another song I otherwise very much enjoy. The toms stand out and they are disruptive. It’s like they’re screaming, “Hey, listen to me, I’m playing the drums. You can tell, because I’m hitting these toms.”

Fortunately, those two examples are the exception, rather than the rule, and I still like both songs. For the rest of the album, Aaron lays down beats that work and support the music well.

“Push” is my favorite song on the album. It starts off with some backwards guitar by Corey Tamas that evokes that Turkish air mentioned above. When Andrew Tokuda’s bass pounds in a minute into the song, you realize this is going to be a song with some drive. Interestingly, it achieves this without a heavy drum line. This song is also a showcase for Corey’s vocals and lets him stretch from quiet to powerful.

“The In-Between” is one of the more “metal-ish” tunes on the album, musically reminding me of Alice In Chains. “Signals” has some great Indian guitar lines that flit along in the background, playing hide and seek with the other instruments. I totally love that. It’s so well-produced and engineered, and it works. It lends an ethereal air to the song that I really enjoy.

“Infidel” is a great marriage of metal and Turkish influences. Sitars mix with guitars, and a heavy drum line (I like the drums in this song) is paired with a driving bass line from Andrew. This combination of sounds and influences works really well.

I mentioned industrial at the top of this review, and that element is strongest in a song called “Very Bad,” which rounds out my top three favorites on the album (with “Push” and “Break It In Two”). It starts off with a heavily distorted and effected drum beat that is very Reznor-esque. That line drives throughout the entire song, forming a backbone for Corey to scream over and rip his chainsaw guitar through. Good stuff.

Two women contributed backing vocals to the project, Olga Zoubkova and MJ Cyr. Both women have wonderful voices. MJ’s best track is “I Guess This Means We’re Through” (I love the outro to that song). Olga’s voice blends very well with Corey’s lead vocal on “The In-Between” and “My Father’s Face.”

The latter is a deeply personal song that sometimes leaves me feeling like I am an intruder in Corey’s life. “Graciana” also feels like it’s personal, but in this case it’s the music that makes me feel that way. I don’t know how else to put it, either. The instrumentation and music just feels personal. Listen and let me know what you think. One of the quieter tunes on the album, it features a haunting chorus with great harmonies from Olga.

Overall, this is great independent album by fantastic musicians. It was engineered by Jeff Scott of Nu Vintage Studios and produced by Corey Tamas, and both of them did an amazing job. The sound on this album is superb.

One very interesting aspect of this band is that they rarely get to play together in a live setting. None of them are local to singer, guitarist, and songwriter Corey Tamas, who lives in Ottawa. Drummer Aaron Ferrera, singer MJ Cyr, and Sitarist Anward Khurshid live in Toronto, where many of the tracks were recorded in Jeff Scott’s studio. Olga Zoubkova lives in works in Germany, and bassist Andrew Tokuda is in California.

But they sometimes play together in Second Life, that alternate-virtual world where bands and live performances have become a major part of virtual living. You can read an explanation by Corey Tamas at TechHive if you’re curious about it. It’s definitely George Jetson stuff, and it’s super cool.

What’s even more remarkable is that Dragonfly raised US$9,000 through indiegogo (phase 1, phase 2) to record the album. That’s a remarkable feat for a first album. Just remarkable. And it speaks to the following that Corey has built over the years from prior bands and intermittent solo work.

It’s also a testament to the changing landscape of the music industry, where bands like Dragonfly can reach out directly to their fans for the financing to record an album.

Amplification is CN$12 (or more) on Bandcamp, which I love because you can get it in Apple Lossless, as well as FLAC. It’s on iTunes for $9.99. You can download six remixes for free on Andrew’s Digital Droo site.

Courtesy of My New Dry Erase Board

Something Goes Wrong! Of course! That’s just what I needed. It seems so obvious now, but the truth is it took my friend and fellow writer Dmitri Del Castillo to help ferret it out. He’s great at that sort of thing.

So this concept—Something Goes Wrong—has sent me in a productive direction. Hopefully I’ll have something specific to report in the near future.

This year marked the 10th Cirque du Mac event, earning it the moniker Cirque du Mac X. See what we did there?

Anyway, I really look forward to it. Not only is it the biggest party of the week, it’s not a schmooze event like most trade show parties. People aren’t there to network, they’re there to have a great time. In recent years, we’ve had a trapeze artist doing an aerial silk act. For many years, we’ve had a face painter and henna tattoo artist who dresses up in the most amazingly awesome costumes.

How Cool Is That?
Photo courtesy of Amanda Pearson

Fun fact: The first two or three years we had the henna tattoo artist, we had a sort of game the next day on the show floor. We’d look for the people who thought that they could just wash the henna off when they got back to their hotel. They were the ones working the booth with henna tattoos on their face.

Folks have learned since then. The henna goes on arms and hands, while lots of faces get painted in paint that washes off. It’s really cool. Here’s another photo of her at work.

Photo Courtesy of Sphynge Photography

We had a stilt-walker again this year, and this wonderful woman who tools around on roller-skates with a hoola hoop. There was a photographer taking posed pics, and we had chair massages, too!

The Stilt Walker with Her Hoola Hoop
Photo courtesy of Paul “The Chocolatier” Shadwell

And did I mention the open bar? It’s possible that’s a big reason we’ll get 500-700 people through the door…

The Stilt Walker Is Awesomely Tall
Photo Courtesy of Sphynge Photography

The thing I personally enjoy most, however, is the Macworld All Star Band (also called the Macworld All Stars). This is a band that gets together just for Macworld. We joke that we practice once a year, whether or not we need it, and then we play the party.

For those keeping score at home, the band is comprised of Chris Breen, Chuck La Tournous, Paul Kent, Dave Hamilton, Duane Straub, Bob LeVitus, and yours truly. Most of those other guys are all but pro musicians, so we’re able to get away with it. Plus, we’ve played 15 or so parties (counting the pre-Cirque events) over the years, so with 30 or so times to play together, we’re getting the hang of it.

The Macworld All-Stars
Photo courtesy of @KatieFloyd

The party is amazing fun, and playing with the band is a treat and an honor. But after everyone else has gone home, the band still has to pack up its gear. At the end of a long day in the middle of a busy tradeshow week, this can leave a fellow tuckered out.

Which is what this post is really supposed to be about, because after lugging a very heavy amp, a heavy pedal board, some guitar stands, and a couple of guitars down two flights of stairs, Dave and I got back to our hotel to find the street in front of it blocked off for a serious construction project of some sort. There was no place to unload our stuff.

Chuck, Duane, Paul, and Me—Dave’s Behind Paul Singing His Butt Off
Photo Courtesy of Sphynge Photography

This hotel didn’t offer parking, either, and that meant I had to park in a public lot. The idea of dragging all this gear through the streets of San Francisco—and realize that Dave had a gig bag of his own with him—was just too much.

I decided to leave the amp and pedal board in the car. It was a risk, but it was only one day, and you couldn’t really see them in the vehicle. It’s only one day, right? What could happen?

The reality is that this question weighed on me throughout that one day. I had to check out of the hotel in the morning and finish the trade show, so getting the amp still didn’t make sense. At the same time, I didn’t want to check on it or the board. Not only would doing so potentially expose them unnecessarily, it wouldn’t really help. Either the amp was there or it wasn’t.

Instead, I started thinking of it as a surprise awaiting me. When I got there, I’d either find that everything was OK, or I’d find my car broken into and my amp gone.

When I mentioned this to Dave that day, he said, “Yeah, it’s Schrödinger’s Amp. Until you observer it, you’re amp is both in your car and gone.”

Ha! Nerd humor is awesome, and I thought that was pretty damned funny. That Dave fellow is one smart cookie.

What Would I Find?

Still, the fate of my gear sat in the back of my mind. As the time to depart finally arrived, I approached the garage with some trepidation. Would the amp be safe and sound? Had it been stolen?

I walked through the garage, my steps echoing like some some cheesy black and white detective film. Finally, I spot my car. Oh, sure, the windows look intact, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. As I closed the final distance, I clicked the remote and my car winked in response. Nervously, I opened the rear hatch and surveyed the interior.

Then I closed the door and pulled out my iPhone to send Dave a text message: “The amp lives.”

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the Cirque du Mac sponsors this year included ProjectWizards, Movie Tracker, Lantronix, Garmin, Squarespace, and Smile. In addition, IDG and OWC helped us out this year, as well.

The Stones

OK, how did I miss this? When did Dobby sign with The Stones? To refresh your memory, here he is in one of the Potter films:

Dobby

And here is is playing guitar with Mick Jagger in the 12-12-12 Concert for Sandy Relief.

Mick’s on the left, Dobby’s on the right.

It’s great to see that even a house elf can get a leg up in the world.

Speaking of the Concert for Sandy Relief, it was very cool. The Stones sounded awesome. In fact, Mick Jagger not only sang wonderfully, he was dancing his non-existent butt off! That man is amazing. Dobby and Ron Wood looked like they were just happy to be able to stand up for their set, but Mick was prancing and dancing as only Mick Jagger can. It was totally awesome.

And really, how does he still have a great voice?

The Who

Speaking of 6-pack abs and Ageless Male, Roger Daltrey got it going on! Check the insanity out:

6-Pack Abs

Sorry about the banner. Roger legally has to have it there when he’s displaying so much awesome.

Roger has always taken care of himself, but man oh man did he look good. We know this because, as you can see, he undid his shirt in the middle of December to make sure we knew it.

He also sounded really good. I last saw The Who in 2004, and he sounded way better in the 12-12-12 performance than he did eight years ago. Maybe that’s Ageless Male, too?

Pete, of course, continues to be as amazing as ever. He sounded fantastic. He is such an unsung guitar hero.

Roger Waters

Oh, did you catch the news? Danny Trejo is going to play the role of Roger Waters in Pink Floyd: Apocalypse. Here’s a promo pic:

Danny Trejo as Roger Waters

Boy, it looks great. The tagline is, “You’d Better Run, Because Your Money’s No Good…”

Badass!

Unfortunately, I missed Roger Waters’s actual performance during YouTube’s broadcast of the event. I will be watching it when it’s available later this month. There were several performances I missed, and I’m looking forward to it.

Instagram

A friend of mine finally talked me into signing up for an Instagram account. She’s an awesome photographer with lots of cool photos posted. I, on the other hand, am a middling photographer, but I’ve been meaning to sign up for a long time, so hoorah!

You can look me up as “geektells.”

Update on Mason Truman

Lastly, I have been working quite hard on my novel since my last post about it. Nothing to report yet, but I’ve made some progress and am pleased with the results.

I finished the book early last spring, and I’ve been working on refining it off an on since , while I also worked on the second book in the series. I started shopping it out in June, resulting in another raft of fine editing.

I’ve had a fantastic group of beta readers. I’m lucky enough to know lots of very smart folks, and it turns out my mother thinks my book is the bee’s knees. Thanks, Mom!

I’ve also been fortunate to meet some fellow writers, and between the betas and my writer friends, I came to a realization a few weeks ago: I’ve written the book I want to read, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the book I can sell.

There were two problems, the beginning and the ending. OK, those are two huge problems, but let me explain. The beginning of my book is what I think of as a slow burner. The story unfolds organically in a deliberate way while Mason figures out how to get started on the case that gets him entangled with all this messy end-of-the-world stuff that interrupts his coffee time.

I love books like that. I love context, and some of my favorite books are those that show me the context of the characters and their world in a way that makes it feel alive. In writing my own story, I’ve tried to do the same thing.

Most of my beta readers enjoyed it, or at least they said they did. Friends and family are usually great sources of support, but I was always a little worried that the first three chapters would be perceived as unfolding too slowly. A minority of my betas commented to that effect in various ways.

For writers who are reading this, that includes:

• It took me a little while to get into it, but once I did…
• I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it, but once you got into A Hollow World…
• I really liked A Hollow World…

There’s a theme there, but I didn’t much worry about it. It was, after all, the story I wanted to read.

Now, let’s cut to the end. The Mason Truman Project ends on a cliffhanger. It’s roughly halfway through the story, and it seemed like a great place to end the first book to me.

It turns out, however, that I got much more pushback from my betas on this front. Some said it was great and they couldn’t wait to find out what happens. Others told me the cliffhanger pissed them off. One woman I respect immensely effectively told me that if she didn’t like me so much, she’d burn my in effigy, curse my name, shred the book, and rue the day she read it. Not because it wasn’t good—she was among the most supportive—but because of the cliffhanger. She hates ‘em.

It was about 50/50 among those who thought the ending was exciting and those who were critical of it or put off by it. This contrasts with the 15:1 ratio of those who said they liked it as a whole. That’s a significant difference.

I let it go, though. I figured I’d let it stay until and if an agent or publisher requested or suggested a change. My feeling on my book is that it’s not great, but it’s way better than most of the stuff I’ve read, especially if I’m just counting first-time authors. That’s an honest assessment, FWIW.

Then I got some crucial feedback from four people. A friend’s partner who is interning for a literary agency (that doesn’t rep SciFi, unfortunately) read the prologue and the first two chapters. She told me that if she was making notes for her bosses, she would tell them, “It’s well written, but nothing’s happened yet.”

At the same time, a couple of new betas (who I respect immensely) offered me some great critiques (mostly positive) that included criticism of the cliffhanger.

Lastly, one of my writing friends—Dmitri—finally finished the manuscript and took a sneak peak at the beginning of book two. He took me to the woodshed, and said two things that put things in perspective for me:

1. My ending point didn’t give the reader any payoff for reading the first book.
2. I didn’t properly escalate the stakes to make the reader want to move on to book two.

I was fortunate that he respected me enough to give it to me straight, but I was even more fortunate in that he is a gifted story teller. He has a great sense of pacing. I suspect it’s all that D&D he played when he was a kid.

In any event, that’s when it came together for me. I decided to move the ending of the first book one chapter out, to what was going to be the first chapter of book two.

If I’m going to do that, however, I need to make room for it, as the manuscript was already at the maximum word count a new author can get signed. The obvious place to do that was the beginning, and that’s when I finally let go of my organic build.

As a new author, I need to hook the reader from the beginning. Slow, organic builds are fine when the author already has a dandy reputation, but I don’t have a fiction following (yet!), so I need to reach out, grab you, and reel you in.

By doing so, I can take the book I want to read and turn it into the book I can sell, but more importantly, I think it’s going to be a better, more interesting story for the doing.

This isn’t selling out (Editor: “How about instead of a tinker, you make Peanut a sexy princess…”), it’s learning more about the craft of writing. It turns out that I needed to write those first three chapters, but I needed them for my own background. I’ve written them, I know more about my character because of them, and the rest of the book is more compelling for that process.

Having done so, I can now pull those chapters out and start my book at a different point in the story.

And that was a huge lesson for me.

Snail courtesy of Shutterstock. Turtle image made with help from Shutterstock.

As I understand it, the rules are simple:

• Answer the ten questions (see below) about your current W.I.P. (Work In Progress) on your blog.

• Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.

Accordingly, here I go:

What is the working title of your book?

The Mason Truman Project

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Many years ago, I set out to write my first short story. I finished the story, but it stuck with me and I started thinking about the back story, the broader world, and just what the heck was on that data cube?!

What genre does your book fall under?

Science Fiction (with a gentle touch of what I think of a functional dystopia)

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Mason Truman – Clive Owen
Peanut – Adam Ferrara or Adam Busch
Commander Andrew Bowers – Ben Browder
Voice of Sam – Tricia Helfer
Miranda – Shailene Woodley or Dakota Fanning

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Mason Truman is a PI whose easy missing persons case puts him in the path of dangerous AIs, a gluttonous corporate monstrosity, and Miranda, a new kind of AI who believes she can see the future; worse yet, she thinks he’s the lynchpin to saving humanity.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I am seeking agency representation even now.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Nine months.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Like all writers, I’m trying to clamber atop the shoulders of giants. I’ve been trying to answer this question for more than four months (when I started querying), and the two books that spring to mind most frquently are Larrry Niven’s Ringworld and Dan Simmons’s Hyperion books (if they starred James Rockford of The Rockford Files).

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

Poker’s Black Friday coupled with simultaneous burnout for World of Warcraft got me in the right frame of mind to finally write this book. On a broader level, I’ve wanted to write fiction for much of my life because I’ve been so inspired by the works of people like George R.R. Martin, Dan Simmons, Frank Herbert, Larry Niven, J.K. Rowling, Katherine Kurtz, and a vast host of other writers. If I can write something on the order of two percent as good as the works that have inspired me, I’ll be a happy camper.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

The thing I enjoy most about this story is exploring the role of artificial intelligence in our not-too-distant future. Will they be partners? Slaves? Masters? Would they live lives that are completely independent of what we consider reality? Will they have their own agenda? Their own personalities? How might political power evolve around the emergence of such beings? What would their goals be? Their hobbies? What happens if they aren’t all on the same page? This forms the backdrop to my tale, and it’s the practical effects of these ideas that confront my main character (who is human).

Now It’s Your Turn!

Have a W.I.P? Answer the questions above, post it on the Interwebs, and send me a link. I’ll add you to the list below.

Other Members of the W.I.P. Blog Hop:

Diane Carlisle – Precinct 9
Lanise Brown – The Timekeeper’s Journal
Shane Jeffery – The Park
Kay Proctor – Jasper City
Nadine Ducca – Serving Time
Gregg E. Breckman - Imperfect Daddy

In case you’re not familiar with the franchise(s), Top Gear is a show about cars. Three men do mostly manly things with, to, and in cars. They race them, they destroy them, and they test them. They praise the good and lament the bad, they marvel at the new technologies and reminisce about the way things used to be.

In the UK version, they frequently look for new and creative ways to destroy caravans (campers to us Yanks), and they test celebrities by having them do laps in a “reasonably priced car” that is far more entertaining than it might sound. Hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are also given brutal or hilarious—sometimes both—challenges by the producers. Endurance tests, or tests with ridiculous limitations, speed tests, that sort of thing.

In the U.S., hosts Tanner Foust, Adam Ferrara, and Rutledge Wood also host celebrities in a segment called “Big Star, Small Car.” It’s a little less entertaining for some reason, but it’s still fun. They also undergo similar adventures in the form of producer challenges, though more of those challenges appear to involve modifying their cars in some way. Whatever, it’s a lot of fun.

The BBC version of the show is a very big deal in the UK, and they routinely get to drive around in and test some very expensive cars. So far, the History Channel’s show has less expensive cars, but again, it’s still a ton of fun.

Part of the key to both shows is the interaction of the hosts. All six of these men clearly like each other (or are great actors), and more importantly, they clearly love cars. They tease each other, they play jokes on each other, and they all have great timing when interacting with one another—the editing is also terrific for both series.

But one thing I’ve noticed is that Tanner, Rutledge, and Adam cheat. Frequently and casually. I’m talking about the producer challenges—the set up being that whoever wins the challenge gets to do something cool, fun, or otherwise awesome. In the course of undertaking these challenges, one or more of these three men cheat.

For instance, in “One Tank” (season 3), the three hosts are challenged to drive from Portland, OR, to San Francisco, CA, on only one tank of gas, no filling up. In that episode, Adam Ferrara shows up with a huge truck. It gets terrible mileage, but it has a huge gas tank. It also has an auxiliary tank in the bed. Some might consider that creative thinking, or maybe stretching the letter of the challenge, but that’s just for starters.

In “First Cars,” Adam and Tanner put 40 pounds of cat litter in the trunk of Rutledge’s car when he goes into a store to lower his mileage. In “Police Cars,” the boys are testing next generation police cars and one of the tests includes having to drive an obstacle course while eating donuts. Tanner cheats by throwing his donut out the window rather than eating it.

In another episode, they’re testing older cars by seeing how straight they drive without steering. They had to get up to a certain speed and take their hands off the wheel and drive between a bunch stuff. Rutledge cheats by steering with his knee.

In “Covered Wagons,” the boys are challenged to transport livestock, and Adam shows up without his pig and claims he just let it go on the side of the road because he couldn’t stand the smell. Now, it’s possible the production crew took care of the pig off camera, but since they didn’t even show him doing the deed, I fear that wasn’t the case. That’s not only cheating, he was demonstrating a remarkable degree of callousness about the life of a beast being used as a prop.

I’ve also watched them routinely cheat by starting races before one or the other is ready.

And what makes this all the worse is that they’re cheating about stuff that doesn’t matter. These challenges are nothing more than entertainment, but they find it necessary to cheat. Their actions make it clear that integrity is immaterial and that cheating is no big deal. I despise that message, and I lament the character qualities it reveals.

My assumption is that the cheating is intended to be funny—and perhaps to many people it is. To me, it’s a big turnoff.

This isn’t enough to keep me from watching the show. I really do enjoy both versions of the show, but I wish that Tanner, Adam, and Rutledge would lose the cheating. They’re three funny men, and they are great in front of the camera, and in my opinion, a good dose of integrity goes a long way.

Image and image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Talk about accidental poignancy! Two unrelated blog posts listed in reverse order, and they say, “Life Is…Getting Older.”

Boy, truer words were ne’er spake.

Then last night, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine. During that chat, she asked me if I thought it was true that we undergo major transformations every ten years, or so.

She added, “Do you think you are a different person today than you were in your 30s [and then again in] your 20s?”

Oh, hell yeah. I can’t speak to what it’s like for people in the 50s, 60s, 70s, or older, but I definitely feel like I am a different person than I was 10 and 20 years ago.

For instance, in my 20s, I was an idiot. Today, I’m still an idiot, but I’ve gotten smart enough to know that I’m an idiot. In my 20s, I didn’t know that. I thought I was awesome.

Another friend of mine in my age bracket was recently telling me about how he’s involved in a musical project with a mixed group of people, some of whom are in their 20s. He wrote one of these younger ones a message on Facebook complimenting them on something particularly well done in their music project.

This person wrote him back asking if he was being sarcastic. When he protested to the contrary, this young person commented that they weren’t used to people saying what they actually meant.

I’d brush that off as an outlier, but my friend said it’s happened a couple of different times, and I confess I’ve encountered similar reactions myself.

Still another friend—and isn’t it fascinating how these things can bunch up sometimes?—was telling me today about a bunch of 20-something Internet poker wiz kids who were commenting over at Two Plus Two about this old Abbott & Costello gag wasn’t funny.

From Buck Privates – 1941

The punch line of the gag is up front:

ABBOTT: Do me a favour, loan me 50 dollars.

COSTELLO: I can’t, I can’t lend you 50 dollars.

ABBOTT: Yes, you can.

COSTELLO: No, I can’t. All I’ve got is 40 dollars.

ABBOTT: All right, give me the 40 dollars, and you owe me 10.

Come on! That’s hysterical stuff, and I was born 25 years after that movie was released. My buddy is a few years younger than me, and he thinks it’s hilarious, but those 20-something Internet poker wiz kids think it’s idiotic.

I suspect that when they’re in their 40s, they’ll look back and realize they were the idiots, which is extra amusing to me considering how smart so many of them really are.

Perhaps this just goes to show that those changes that we seem to undergo every ten years are true for culture as a whole, like some sort of generational fractal.

This reminds me of a guest editorial on NPR. It was maybe 8-10 years ago, and this woman was going on about how the rap music was worthless. It was all misogamy and sexism and violence and no values, and it was just crap.

I was rolling my eyes at this point, with a sneer of contempt warping my face into convulsions, but then she actually had the myopia to say, and I quote:

“Oh sure, my parents said the same thing about my music when I was a kid, but that was different because my music was good.”

That sent me into a frothing, apoplectic rage that some of my friends can still hear echoing in their ears today. I mean, seriously. If it had been a piece of cultural satire, it would have been hysterical, but it wasn’t. It was just one woman too blind to see that she had become her parents.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried my best to remember this woman and to understand that things change, that values and interests are neither static nor objective.

Clearly I don’t always succeed—I don’t see how anyone could—but I try.

Yep, life is…getting older. Thanks for pointing it out to me, Mr. Martin.

Related: Get off my lawn.