Ask Jeff Anything 8-11-10
Hola! Another video episode in my ongoing experiment, Ask Jeff Anything. This time, the question invites me to discuss my cats for two minutes. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Author Archive: jsomers
Jeff Somers (www.jeffreysomers.com) was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and regrets nothing. He is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series published by Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket Books. He sold his first novel at age 16 to a tiny publisher in California which quickly went out of business and has spent the last two decades assuring potential publishers that this was a coincidence. Jeff publishes a zine called The Inner Swine and has also published a few dozen short stories; his story “Sift, Almost Invisible, Through” appeared in the anthology Crimes by Moonlight, published by Berkley Hardcover and edited by Charlaine Harris. His guitar playing is a plague upon his household and his lovely wife The Duchess is convinced he would wither and die if left to his own devices.
Excerpts and Sad, Sad Songs
First of all, if you’re still wavering in your decision to purchase and/or steal a copy of The Terminal State, there’s an excerpt up at the fantabulous blog Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist. They’ve posted the entire prologue of the book, which I think will give long time Avery fans a glimpse of how the story’s going to go and newcomers a taste of what the series is like. Surf on over and check it out!
And also too, I’ve partaken in a really cool feature my fellow Orbit-author Philip Palmer cooked up: The SFF Song of the Week. Phil, with whom I’ve been working on something very cool that will hopefully see the light shortly, had the great idea of asking interesting people to nominate songs that have a SFF theme, providing a brief description of the song and the lyrics et al. A clever idea from a very talented writer (he’s got a book due out in October, BTW, which you ought to check out – I’ve read it, and it’s great). Somehow I got on Phil’s list of clever people, and I nominated Queen’s “’39”. Surf on over and see my pearls of ruddy wisdom on the subject.
And now, coffee.
Review of The Terminal State
Just in case you’ve been wondering if you should really buy #4 in the Cates series:
http://codecrackx15.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/the-terminal-state-jeff-somers-5-out-of-5-stars/
Cheers!
4 Reasons “Terminator Salvation” Made Jeff Angry
As happens more and more often these days, I did not see Terminator: Salvation in theaters. First of all, it didn’t last as long as I thought it would – it wasn’t as big a hit as I’d expected it to be – and second of all there was something in the trailers and advertisements that made it seem flat to me, lifeless. So I waited a year and recently caught it on pay per view, and man, am I glad I did. This movie was one of those odd films that isn’t exactly bad so much as it quite simply made me angry. Spoilers ho, but here are the 4 reasons this movie made me really mad:
ONE: THIS MOVIE SHAT ALL OVER ONE OF THE COOLEST SF MOVIES OF ALL TIME. Now, sure, Terminator 3: Rise of the Ridiculous shat all over it too, but for some reason that didn’t incense me. T3 was simply a bad movie – it was still kind of fun watching Arnie doing his Terminator schtick, and it tried to honor its heritage. Salvation treats the terminator mythos as a collection of props to blow up, a collection of one-liners to spray at the nerds in the audience for gut fist-pumps, and a vehicle for Christian Bale’s increasingly creepy Action Man Persona/Voice. There’s absolutely no attempt to match the previous movies for tone, atmosphere, or even vision of the future. They namecheck the famous lines, the occasional detail (You Could be Mine, e.g.) but the movie is a sterile, underconceived horror.
TWO: THE WHOLE PLOT IS JUST A COLLECTION OF SET PIECES. Seriously, the kind of ridiculous story takes up about four or five minutes of screen time; the rest is just a collection of action sequences stitched together. Every time there’s a quiet moment with people talking, Skynet robots show up in awesome scale to kill and hunt, and the next ten minutes is just running and screaming – the best part being the screamed exposition as characters flee the huge Terminators, spouting definitions and explanations. This is even lampshaded when they introduce a seemingly interesting old woman as a character; She appears to be at least partially leading a group of desperate human survivors who have made an old gas station their HQ, complete with fresh fucking vegetables stored in the basement. Sure, why not. Still, the old woman, and her apparent authority with these desperadoes, is at least interesting. Who is she? How come these well-armed people listen to her at all?
Guess what? You never find out! A damn thing about her! Moments after she’s introduced, she’s scooped up by a Terminator and a mindless action sequence ensues. You see her again, in a weird twist, but nothing is ever explained about her. I mean, shit, if the whole encounter was just an excuse to calm the audience down so they jump when the hella-huge Terminator shows up, why even bother with the interesting details? Just put your standard-issue Mad Max type in charge, and leave it at that.
The whole damn movie is like that. Thirty seconds of plot and then … HOLY CRAP, TERMINATORS! RUN RUN RUN!
THREE: WHAT PLOT THERE IS STANKS. Now, you might think a movie where the entire premise has been explained in detail in prior movies would be a snap to plot out. And you would be right. Somehow, they fucked this one up. The whole plot is basically a scheme by Skynet to lure John Connor to his doom in the most elaborate and insane way possible. Granted, the crux of all the Terminator films has been Skynet’s inability to defeat Connor and ultimately the whole human race, driving it to elaborate schemes. Sending a robot back in time to kill his mother is, in fact, a ridiculously elaborate scheme – but it does have a certain directness once you fudge the whole time-travel thing: Terminator goes back (in time) to murder Connor (remotely, by murdering his mother before she can birth him). This scheme involves time-travel in a much flimsier way, and yet is so indirect and convoluted it’s a wonder a machine with a brain the size of the universe thought it might work.
The one thing I think of that makes it even possible is that Skynet, with infinite resources and clock speeds to plot, simply launches every plan it conceives that has a 1% chance of working or better. This would explain a lot, actually – Skynet is launching hundreds, thousands of convoluted bullshit plots against humanity every second. We’re just watching the tiny percentage that worked for whatever reason.
Anyways, even if you’re willing to swallow the ridiculous premise and twist of the film, once Connor is, in fact, trapped by this plot, what does Skynet do? Send a thousand robots to kill him? Fill the whole complex with poison gas? Nuke its own complex simply to destroy its human nemesis? You’re watching a better movie. It instead allows him to run around free long enough to set all the human prisoners free and hook up with allies. Then, when Skynet says, oh yeah, him, I ought to kill him, it sends exactly one Terminator after him. Without a weapon. Sweet fucking lord.
4. The ending. Sweet god in heaven, the ending. A heart transplant. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE SHITTING ME.
I’ve read that the original ending had Connor die, and the cyborg Terminator Marcus being re-skinned with Connor’s visage to take over his legacy, and that there was outrage and horror and the filmmakers changed their minds. That other ending, if true, isn’t perfect, but it does have a certain appeal to me – the irony of humanity being saved, in the end, not by the screwup kid we met in Terminator 2, but by a Terminator, confirming that the Terminators were the heroes of the series all along. Kind of neat. Instead, we get an in the field heart transplant. Oh. My. God.
All right, after that, I ought to admit one thing I truly liked: Arnold’s cameo. Sure, the timeline is a bit muddled by now, and, yes, the whole idea of building bulky, slow humanoid robots to hunt down people is a little weird when you can build incredibly fast, deadly motorcycle terminators by the score, but seeing Arnie’s 1984 face and body going implacably after John Connor was pretty fricking cool.
Except … uh oh … that makes me think of …
5. THEY EVEN SCREW THAT UP, because there was absolutely no play on the fact that the man running for his life from Arnie in these scenes has seen this Terminator model before. That ought to be a fucking mind-screw – decades after you learned you mother wasn’t crazy to predict the end of the world, after Arnold shows up several times during your life to save you, after you bonded with the machine as a fucking father figure, then here he is again, perfect, new, and trying to murder you. There’s no implication whatsoever that Connor remembers a damn thing. It’s solely in there for the audience.
Whew. I’m exhausted. This movie made me want to destroy things. Thank you.
Holy Crap
Wow:
I mean: Wow. I dare everyone to buy my books and PROVE HIM WRONG! No, wait, I mean – damn, is this thing – what’s this button do –
Help a Zine Get Made
Josh Saitz of Negative Capability fame is working to get his latest issue out. If past issues are any indication, it’ll be a well-designed, beautiful work. It’s paper, so it’s expensive. Check out his Kick Starter page and throw him some cash if you feel the desire to support the arts. Or at least support the zines!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/negcap/print-negative-capability-5-a-great-paper-zine
Interview with Little Old Me
Eric over at Flames Rising has posted a neat little interview he conducted with me recently:
http://www.flamesrising.com/jeff-somers-interview/
The telltale influences question, the mark of every bad interviewer but here we go anyway: who are they for you and why?
A kid named Corey, who taught me to drink Blackberry brandy when I was about twelve. Ramon, who taught me who to hotwire – wait a sec, you mean literary influences, don’t you?
Check it out. Then buy 10 copies of The Terminal State. Go, do it. Now.
Ask Jeff Anything 8-3-10
Well, here’s the third question I’ve received for Ask Jeff Anything. This time we explore the exciting world of computer software, manual typewriters, and cat toys:
Review of “The Digital Plague”
Holy crap, they really, really liked The Digital Plague!
“The Digital Plague is a fast paced, obscenity filled, noir drenched piece of science fiction that never disappoints, and Jeff Somers is a writer of great skill and one of the best senses of black humor since Warren Ellis.”
HOT DAMN. These guys are great; I also did an interview with them recently (hasn’t been posted yet) and it was a lot of fun. Rawk.
A Pool of Sweat is Me
The reading last night at Paper Cone Stories at Jack’s in Manhattan was a blast. A sweaty blast. In typical smoove, classy authorial fashion I worked up a lather of sweat walking over to the place, and then continued to sweat for pretty much the rest of the evening. While actually reading under the lights up front I actually began to drip sweat onto my pages, making them blurry, and ended up my performance by toweling off and mopping my area, in consideration for the other authors. In truth, the reading was a smashing success, and I’m indebted to Sean Ferrell, author of the soon-to-be-released novel Numb, for inviting me to join him at his reading to celebrate the release of his book. We had a blast. A sweaty, sweaty blast.
Some folks from The Internet showed up (Patty Blount brought cookies! COOKIES, people. This is how to attend a reading. Booze works too.) and the place was packed tight with folks. I read first, and spent the first five minutes apologizing because I refused to explain anything about what I was reading despite the fact that it’s the fourth book in a science fiction series, meaning the audience would understand nothing. I made the bold decision to mystify everyone and hope I could get by on charm and charisma alone, which, as usual, failed. You can’t be charming when you’re sweating profusely.
Evan Mandery read second, and was hilarious. Evan also remembered to acknowledge Sean and thank him for the invite to read, as opposed to being a total jackass and leaping up there as if it was all about me. Like I did.
Sean ended the evening by reading part of chapter one of Numb, sitting on a stool that appeared to be slowly spinning away from the audience as he read. I was gratified to see that he was almost as sweaty as me by the end of it. For a moment I was wondering if my diet of bacon grease and booze was finally catching up to my cardiovascular system, but this assured me that I still have the constitution of an 18-year-old.
Afterwards, a group went out for a drink (my wife The Duchess bailed out, knowing full well how those evenings go: Me drunk as a skunk, everyone making obscure jokes about our agent, flat diet coke served up by the bartender) and the evening ended at one in the morning with a plate of freshly fried bacon on the table – nothing else, just bacon – which I eyed with appropriate unease and took as a sign that it was time to go home.
Photos! My lovely, talented, and tolerant wife took these with her iPhone before giving me permission to go out boozing with my agent, Ferrell, and others (After the break):