Zombies are on the move, and Kevin and Mara face some rather unusual “couple stuff” in this installment of ‘Someone Liche You’.

If I were to invest more time in getting this novel into shape for a book being published in the conventional way, I’d probably re-write the story to start from Chapter 1.9. This is where the action rises. Yeah, there was some scary stuff in the park, but it’s in Chapter 1.9 and 1.10 that we are treated to the start of the end of days for the New City.

He shook his head, feeling a hard stone of disappointment feeling in his gut, let down in himself for allowing the data walls to trick him. They were clearly the same as the local media and of the intranets– the information they displayed was capable of deception– just like anything else. He should have known better.

If our windows can lie to us, what can you trust, he wondered, stepping over the shells of the dead scupperers, still lifeless on the floor where they’d been smashed.

Poor Sugar Island. It was too good to last.

A few notes: Sugar Island Wisconsin is a real, unincorporated community in Wisconsin. But in this story’s timeline, it’s the largest, biggest and most technologically advanced megapolis on the North Continent.

The North Continent is what they call North America in this novel. Because America has given way to a hogemenistic planet-wide government controlled mostly by the secret world order. I can’t remember if this fact is included in the story or not. Consider this a DVD Bonus.

As always, the whole novel is being posted at indy book publisher Red Lemona.de and will eventually be packaged up as a single downloadable. But even now, you can start from the beginning of the novel, if you’re just catching up.

Today’s Chapters:

1.9

1.10

I have posted Chapter 1.8 of Someone Liche You.

Something is amiss in Sugar Island. All the details of last night's brown out have gone unreported. And exhaustion overwhelms our heroes as they finally get tucked in for a night's sleep. It's not a sleepover if it begins with the rising sun, is it?

That was before he’d been even curious about whether she’d been “listed.” Now that he was reasonably sure she was, Kevin wondered if she had been trying to warn him, or maybe hide from him. He felt the warm, freshly replicated alert fob in his hands now in his kitchen. He turned it over, bent the clip over backwards and snapped it off so that it would lay flat in his pocket, just like Mara had showed him. “I’m only paranoid if I’m wrong,” he said out loud to himself with an exhausted sigh. Sleep. Time for sleep.

When he went back to the living room, Mara was out of the shower and had helped herself to some of his clothing.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “This is a great shirt, though.” She’d pulled on his “I blogged your mom” shirt, which was a throwback that an old girlfriend had purchased for him. It fit her nicely, as opposed to how it fit him, which was about a half-a-size too small.

“No. It’s a good fit. You can keep it.” Kevin found himself silently amused that, after all these years, the clothing that he hung on to for no good reason other than that he couldn’t bring himself to take it for reprocessing had finally found a use.

As always, full manuscript at Alternative Publisher Red Lemona.de.

Three more chapters up on Red Lemonade of Somenoe Liche You.. This part of the story gets us through the Kevin's first brown-out, the terror of the unseen, and subsequent clean up.

Also, Kevin lies in the mud and cries while his girlfriend takes care of him.

Kevin pulled his Padd out of his pocket and poked at it a few times. On the third punch, the screen lit up, and the Padd went into boot recovery mode. Without speaking, he pointed the Pad’s newfound life out to Mara, who rolled her eyes and kept walking toward the tubes.

Kevin watched the boot data roll across the Padd’s surface and felt the lighting flow into his eyes like a warm, comfortable bath. As he and Mara approached Home Plate Station, he felt the same warm comfort from the data screens on the tube station, which flicked back on as they approached.

Today's Chapters:

• 1.5
• 1.6
• 1.7

On Jan. 24th, I started the Year of the Dragon by publishing the first four chapters of my long-promised, but oft-delayed and ignored novel Someone Liche You.

Here’s the TV-Guide synopsis. “Hot-shot technical writer Kevin Adderly discovers that the utopian sci-fi future he’s living in is a lie. And the only way he can escape alive is to become his dead girlfriend’s mother. Sort of.”

Someone Liche You is story of the the future fall of a totalitarian government built on technological break troughs brought about by biotronic revolution, where living organisms have become our machines and tools. It is about a young man who falls in love with a woman form the wrong side of the tracks and the extent of the things he has to go through to save her from becoming a mindless drone. There are zombies in it. There are strange cricket-like cleaning robots. There is a subway made of the digestive tract of huge worms. But all is not as it seems. Its like Freaky Friday meets the Matrix meets My Boyfriend’s Back. It’s terrific.

And you can make it better.

Let me explain: I had considered scrapping the novel, pushing it under a drawer and letting it sit forever unread by anyone. It’s not that I’m not proud of it, or that I think it’s bad. It’s just not, you know, perfect.

And the more I sat on it, thinking about how when I finish up Someone Liche You I’d finally be in a place to get serious about the two other novels I’ve been kicking around for the past 2 years, the more I realized that no novels were getting written, and even fewer were getting read.

The reading part, I think, is the important part. For me, the act of writing ideas and telling stories is part of celebrating life. Part of the great thing that makes our people better and smarter and all the more wonderful. Everybody contributes to this, I think. Creative works create better people when the writer is writing those writings, the dancer is dancing those dances, the singer is singing those songs, and the painter is painting those paintings. Whether the fruits of such are published or not, acting on a creative impulse adds fuel to the magic that is this life on earth.

I want you to read my story. Whether you slog through or delight in each new chapter. Enjoy it. Or hate it. Or steal a few good ideas and make them your own. I want you to see something about yourself in my characters. I want you to learn something about me when you read my stories. I want you to learn something about yourself when you react to the plot, or the tricksy grammar. Or whatever.

But none of that can happen until the work is published. And so here we are.

On Jan. 24th, I put up the first four chapters of Someone Liche You on Red Lemonade, the alternative publisher. It has a great commenting system, a fantastic community, and a really nice and modern approach to publishing.

But what’s really great about Red Lemonade is the commenting and annotation system. It lets you add comments, flag areas of text and suggest copy revisions right on the page. Just like you were holding a manuscript in your hands. I want you to read it. While you’re reading it, if you spot something you love, share! If you spot something you hate! Share! If you spot something misspelled (you will) share!

Over the coming weeks, I’m planning on posting the chapters in chronological order until the whole story is up. Head over the Red Lemonade and enjoy Someone Liche You. And thank you.

Finished Neal Stephenson's "Reamde" earlier this week. Here's my review from GoodReads.

I don't think it's possible to get through a less-than-four-star Neal Stephenson book, but this one pushed it.

Which is not to say it's not an excellent thriller. And it does the usual Neal Stephenson tricks of being several stories intertwined into one, employing healthy doses of genere hopping along the way. It's a great read, and like most of Stephenson's books, an even better listen.

That being said, there is a -lot- of suspension of disbelief required to enjoy this book-- like any thriller, I suppose. But the logical leaps and the connections made by the heroes tend to be made if only to support the overall momentum of the plot, and there is a good deal of convenient magical thinking employed to keep the ball rolling in the plot's transitional stages.

Good story. Great characters. Exciting times. Strange intertwined plot lines. Throwaway pop-tech references. Must be Neal Stephenson.

Hay Neal: if ur readin' this: Moar Scifi, plz!

Gaia and I watched The Last Unicorn on Saturday. While watching it, I chirped along on Facebook. (Twitter wasn’t working, or something. You know how it goes.)

Presented here, with director’s commentary are the 18 status updates that followed.

1. “The Last Unicorn” in three… Two…. One… … We have America. We have Mia Farrow. “I’m alive! I’m aaaaaaliiiiiaaaaaive!”
   For my money, this film doesn’t really start until the song “I”m alive” kicks in. This is because the copy I grew up watching was taped off Showtime and didn’t start until after the butterfly song.

2. “It’s my fault for even asking. All butterflies know are songs and poetry and anything else they hear.”
   This is quoted directly because it is a fact.

3. You must never run from anything immortal. It attracts their attention.
   This is quoted directly because it is also a fact.

4. Oh, thats only Molly Grue’s way. Deep down inside she’s got a great heart.
   I never understood what this “Malliegroo” thing was they characters kept talking about. In fact, it wasn’t until many, many years later I figured out that it was the woman’s name.

5. Robin Hood is a myth. Magic is magic, but the truth is us. We’ll both be gentlemen of leisure in a months time!
   This is one of those weird meta-moments that happen in film. I’m watching this film as a child, and I recognize that that Captain Cully is a Robin Hood rip off, but then he and his band starts wanting to hear Robin Hood stories. And my little mind was blown. I was 12. It happened a lot.

6. I can’t tell you how disturbing this scene is to watch with your daughter.
   I am amazed at how much of this scene is included in the official trailer.

7. “It would be the last unicorn in the world if it appeared to Molly Grue.” Here I am on man’s road.
   I don’t get Molly Grue. She’s humble, hardworking and all around likable, and yet she floats these self-effacing turds by Schmedrick the time. I mean, seriously, Molly Grue… try enjoying life for a while. You might like it.

8. “What can I do? Do you think the Red Bull likes card tricks?” “You have all the power you need, if you dare look for it!”
   A snipping of a conversation between Schmendrick and Molly Grue that reminds me that I need to start teaching myself some card tricks.

9. “What have you done to me? I am a unicorn. I feel this body dying all around me.”
   Oh, for God’s sake, Unicorn. Get over yourself.

10. Once, I can’t remember, I was long ago someone strange. I was innocent and wise and full of pain. Now that I’m a woman everything is strange.
    These lyrics are taken from Mia Farrow’s one-and-only singing number from the film. With lyrics like this could the singing be any worse? It turns out yes. and it gets worse.

11. Wait. Has there always been a talking pirate cat in this movie?
    I am ashamed that I had forgotten this. What a bunch of missed Halloween costume opportunities that is.

12. Prince Lear abides. “I’ve the time to write about the way you act and look, but I haven’t got a paragraph. Anyway I love you.”
    I was dying to make this Big Labowski joke, and I wasn’t going to let Jeff Bridges’ horrific falsetto performance take it away from me.

13. Holy crap! That talking skull just blushed. How the hell did he do that?
    Turns out Rene Auberjonois also voiced Chef Louie in the Little Mermaid . WORLDS ARE COLLIDING, JERRY!

14. “A quest may not simply be abandoned. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story.” “There are no happy endings, because nothing ends.”
    Suddenly, the story gets all weird. It’s like they walked through a clock and everybody got all preachy.

15. “What is the use of wizardry if it cannot even save a unicorn?” What is the use of Molly Grue?
    I am not sure why Molly Grue grates on me so. I should read the book and see if she’s any more likable there.

16. “That is what heroes are for.” Prince Lear abides.
    Yeah, I totally should have saved that Big Labowski joke for this moment.

17. “Of all unicorns she is the only one that knows what regret is.” Psychopaths.
    Jenifer and I have a standing conversation that centers on this idea. If Psychopaths are people who don’t have remorse, and all unicorns (except one) don’t know what regret is, then are all unicorns psychopaths?

18. “I’m alive! I’m alllllliiiiiiaaaaaaaiiiiiiive.”. The end. This has been “The Last Unicorn” in 17 statuses. *throws mike down and walks out.

Here's a list of movies that are not about Time Travel, but have some element of time travel in them, and tell stories about something other than Time Travel.

1. Time Bandits.
   This movie is not about time-travel, really. It's about a parent's role in the fulfillment of their child's desires. And about parents with bad listening skills. This film still holds the high-water mark in my book for an otherwise acceptable film with an inexcusably terrible ending.
2. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
   Not really _about_ time travel, so much as about personal accountability. The one thing that this film has going for it is that it has a rock solid understanding of the impact time travel has on cause and effect. Pay particular attention to Detective Logan's missing keys. They managed to screw this up something horrible in the otherwise superior sequel "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey."
3. 12 Monkeys.
   Its another Terry Gilliam. What I like about this one is that it doesn't presuppose that "Time Travelers" aren't just "crazy people." What if it's not you who am crazy, it is you who am mad?
4. Dude, where's my Butterfly Effect.
   This isn't about time travel at all. This is about regret and dispair. It's a dumb movie with a dumb hollywood ending that makes us all dumber that it was ever made.
5. Minority Report
   There is actually no time travel in this movie. This movie is about precognition, not time travel. And, come to think of it, it's actually about the media and about the danger of drawing conclusions from datasets. DOUBLE GABE FAIL!!

Space Drama

Its been a long journey.
Seems strange to travel so far on such little thrust ...
knowing that, no matter what happens, we can never go home again.

Image Credit: Alpha Centauri: The Closest Star System | 1-Meter Schmidt Telescope, ESO

Thank you, Judge John Hodgman, for your reminder of what is truly important in life: Looking Good.

Seriously. This episode saved my entire workweek.

Down on Down

Yesterday, I saw a baby crane.
She stood between her mother and her father
in a creek that runs down the highway.

All three were tall, and proud,
The youngster's fluff not yet worn down by the persistent din of the interstate.

I should have taken their picture.
I should have gone home happy.

June 07, 2011 \ Photo attribution