Tomorrow is a big day for Dark Tower fans: Issue #1 of Gunslinger Born comes out from Marvel at a comic shop near you. Tonight, actually, in many places. Nearly 150 comic stores are opening at midnight to launch the series. Artist Jae Lee and scripter Peter David are signing at midnight at Times Square. The first series consists of seven issues, one each of the next seven months. The total story arc will go from young Roland’s adventures in Mejis to the end of his first ka-tet at Jericho Hill, in an estimated 30 issues. I’m thinking this might mean I need to revise The Road to the Dark Tower some day. See more about the series at News From the Dead Zone.
I’m still editing the current short story, and probably will be doing so for the rest of the week. It’s long enough that I can’t do a complete read-through/edit in a single sitting, though not so long that I can’t have the entire story in detail in my mind all at once, which helps greatly in painting in foreshadowing elements and tying continuing threads through the tale. Still a few plotting issues to handle, but they’re all in the last three or four pages, so I won’t hit that part again until tomorrow morning, probably.
LOST is back tomorrow. Yippee!
When discussing books I’ve read, I often neglect to mention non-fiction used as research for short stories or novels, but why should it? I’m almost finished Stack and Sway: The New Science of Jury Consulting, which has a lot to say about selecting juries and running mock trials. It’s fairly critical of “scientific” jury selection, opining that lawyers who use consultants to select (or, more correctly, de-select) jury members are probably gaining no advantage over using their own gut feelings. Where jury consulting pays for itself is when mock trials reveal elements of the trial narrative that don’t work the way the lawyers intend, or by revealing witnesses who are not effective because of some behavior quirk. Interesting stuff. They discuss the OJ trial, of course, but treat it as sui generis because it contained so many elements that make it unique and not at all a cautionary tale.
My buddy Lilja has a terrific new interview with Frank Darabont on his web site. Check it out.
