Announcing: The Dark Tower Companion

Posted on November 9, 2012 by Bev Vincent

I’ve been a little coy about what I’m working on, but it’s time to announce my third book. The Dark Tower Companion will be published by New American Library (Penguin) in April. This massive companion is 50% longer than The Road to the Dark Tower. It covers not only the eight books of King’s series, but also the Marvel graphic novel adaptations. I interviewed King for the book, along with Robin Furth, Richard Isanove (colorist), Peter David (script), Jae Lee (artist) and most of the subsequent artists. I also, much to my great delight, got to talk with Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman about how they plan to adapt the series. Click on the image to see a full-sized version of the great cover by Spanish artist Nekro.

I’ll be turning the copy-edited manuscript in to my editor on Monday. After that it will be down to reviewing the proofreader’s comments. It’s going to be a hefty book. NAL is estimating it at 560 pages, including two maps that I drew myself. I’m not going to suddenly take up cartography as a sideline, but it was fun working on them. And the interviews? Fascinating stuff—at least to me.

Here’s the Amazon copy. Pre-orders are being accepted there for the trade paperback and e-book (links below). A number of people have purchased it already, even before I told anyone about it.

AN ALL-NEW COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY CONSTRUCTED WORLDS IN ALL OF FICTION

Stephen King’s bestselling multi-volume Dark Tower series is the author’s most inspired and imaginative creation. The story of Roland Deschain of Gilead, the last gunslinger, and his lifelong quest to reach the tower and save humanity across infinite parallel worlds is one that has consumed King throughout his career as characters and concepts crossed back and forth between the series and the rest of his fictional universe. The mythos continues to be chronicled and expanded in graphic novels overseen by King, interactive adventures on his website, a proposed film adaptation, and in a new Dark Tower novel.

The Dark Tower Companion is the ultimate compendium to King’s evolving magnum opus, presenting the mythology, history, and geography of this epic fantasy that has captivated generations of readers. Featuring interviews with Stephen King, Ron Howard, Dark Tower expert Robin Furth and others, Bev Vincent reveals The Dark Tower’s influential literary origins, examines its connections to the vast majority of King’s other novels, explores the expanded universe, catalogs the major characters, locations and concepts, and includes a travel guide to the story’s real-world locations, giving fans who have followed Roland’s journey—or those who are discovering it for the first time—a fascinating overview of the series and an inside look at the creative process of one of the world’s most popular authors.

  • Publisher: NAL Trade (April 2, 2013)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0451237994
  • ISBN-13: 978-0451237996
  • 560 pages | trade paperback | Kindle eBook
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Voted off the island

Posted on November 8, 2012 by Bev Vincent

I almost didn’t watch the election coverage on Tuesday night. I couldn’t imagine watching all the talking heads trying to come up with something interesting to say for hours on end whilst waiting for results to come in. I picked up my iPad, intending to read while my wife watched. But then I got caught up in it. Being on Twitter at the same time helped. It’s a little like Mystery Science Theater 3000, a peanut gallery making witty comments as things happen. Poking fun when people say things like “almost exactly similar,” comparing this year’s results with the 2008 results. I have a theory: the networks didn’t call some states because they knew that if they did, the outcome would be obvious and people would switch over to watch Law & Order reruns. Still, it was exciting, and I’m now one for one in presidential election votes. Didn’t fare so well on the state races, which was to be expected.

Even though the election was called on Obama’s behalf, and I had a lot of faith in Nate Silver’s predictions, just before I went to bed they updated Ohio and it was suddenly tied again. I knew intellectually that the unreported votes would heavily favor Obama in all the remaining states, but I didn’t sleep well worrying that some cataclysm would occur overnight. Finally, I got up at 4:30 a.m. to confirm that the outcome hadn’t changed. The right torch had been extinguished.

The cover here is for Chilling Tales 2, which contains my story “Road Rage.” Pretty nifty, huh? You can see the table of contents here. Nice blurb from David Morrell, too.

Speaking of covers, for those who like jigsaw puzzles, check out this little stealth announcement.

Last night’s Survivor was one of the most exciting in a long time. I can’t remember ever seeing so much scrambling leading up to tribal council. It looked like twelve alliances were forged in about ten minutes. Then both hidden immunity idols were exposed during tribal (what was Abi thinking?), and neither one was played. And baseball Jeff got majorly blindsided. It looked like half the tribe was blindsided. Can’t say I’m sorry to see him go. He seemed like a bit of a jerk. Even at Ponderosa, where he complained that no one else was playing the game. This after he got out-played. All of a sudden, this is a competition.

I remember the song “Dominique” by the Singing Nun playing on the radio a lot when I was a kid. Now it’s on American Horror Story, playing constantly in the background at the asylum. I wonder if the actors have to hear it as much as we do. It’s starting to get annoying! The idea of having someone claiming to be Anne Frank show up is interesting. The show is a joyful mishmash of violence, sex, and insanity.

Burn Notice is back with a two-hour episode. Should be fun. I expect things to explode.

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The final frontier

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Bev Vincent

When I close my eyes, all I see is tracked changes. Inserted and deleted commas. Titles changed to italics. Inconsistently capitalized words put straight.

I’m working on the copy-edited manuscript for my next book, which I received on Friday. Given that it’s 650 pages and about 180,000 words, it stands to reason that I made a few typos and mistakes. A copy-edited manuscript is a fearsome thing to behold. In the old days (as recently as when I worked on The Road to the Dark Tower), all changes from the copy-edit stage forward were done on the printed manuscript. That meant that myriad hands added, deleted, scratched out, stetted and otherwise contributed to the typescript. Some poor soul had the ultimate responsibility for figuring out all this jumble and creating a revised manuscript from it. Nowadays, all the hen-scratching is in Word’s track changes. It still looks like a fright, but at least at some point a brave soul can say “accept all changes” and there will be the clean MS. Or, at least, one hopes so.

I have until Monday to review the copy-editor’s comments and queries and deliver the Word document to my editor. Shouldn’t be a problem. I already handled the 4-500 direct comment queries. Now all I have to do is go through the uncommented changes and fix anything that got broken in the process.

I got two checks in the mail last night. One was for my contribution to Screem #25 and the other was the semi-annual royalties for On Writing Horror. The first pretty much covered my registration for World Horror next year. The other bought a gallon of gas! But it means the book is still selling, after all this time. Still earning.

For fans of TV science fiction shows, last night’s Castle was a blast. It was called “Final Frontier” and was directed by Jonathan Frakes, who you might recognize as Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The murder mystery takes place at a Comic Con like event, at an “experience” booth that allows fans of a short-lived series to dress up and act out a scene from the show. Nebula-9 lasted only 12 episodes but has a cult following. Sound familiar? The writers put an amusing spin on it by having Castle sneer at the show. “They were canceled over a decade ago. After 12 episodes, which was 12 episodes too many…I’m a fan of *good* sci fi. Star Trek. Battlestar. That Joss Whedon show,” he says.

However, it turns out that Beckett was a Nebula-9 fan, which leads to playful banter between the two and a strong Beckett scene near the end when she explains why the show meant so much to her. A working phaser (built by a character played by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine alum Armin Shimerman) plays a major part in the plot. At one point, Castle does his “Shatner as Kirk” impression and they use a snippet of one of Shatner’s recent songs at the end. And Beckett has the last laugh when she agrees to put on her costume from the show. Fun all around.

Whenever Anne Dudek appears in the credits, you know she’s going to be more than just someone’s wife or a casual witness. She played Amber (aka “Cut-throat Bitch”) on House, and Betty Draper’s friend on Mad Men. Last week she was psycho momma on Criminal Minds and this week she was the brains behind the crime on The Mentalist. Also, when  David Costabile (Gale Boetticher from Breaking Bad) is shown in passing as a janitor (on Elementary), you know he’s probably doing more than mopping up. Something I call “famous guest star syndrome.” I’m still hanging in with Elementary, by the way. Far better than I anticipated.

I’ve also been keeping up with the tense developments on Fringe (what on earth did Peter do to himself?) during its final season, and with the rather odd turn of events on Haven, where it turns out that Audrey is her own grandpa, or something like that. The Amazing Race is getting more interesting now that it’s down to a smaller number of teams. The “twinnies” should go so, I hope. You can’t blame them for taking advantage of the edge provided by picking up another team’s dropped money—there is a million dollars at stake, after all—but still. I did not think the team that lost the dough would be able to beg $100 in Bangladesh. That seemed like a fortune for that country.

I don’t know how much I’ll watch the election results as they come in tonight. I am interested—very interested, in fact—but I don’t know if I want to subject myself to the stress. I’m hopeful for the outcome, but I don’t need the stress!

Posted in Castle, Criminal Minds, Fringe, Haven, Mentalist | Comments Off on The final frontier

My weekend — spoken for

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Bev Vincent

The show goes on. My publisher has no power. My editor has no power and has had to relocate. But still they manage to get the copyedited manuscript for my next book to me. So, now I know what I’m going to be doing this weekend. I haven’t dared to open the document yet to see how much work will be involved. It’s a big manuscript, so there might be a lot. We’ll see.

We had a moderately quiet Hallowe’en. The first trick-or-treater showed up at about 6:45 and the last ones at around 8:30. In total, maybe 20 or 30 kids. Lots of Avengers.

Danel Olson and I went into Houston on Tuesday night for Justin Cronin’s block party. Cronin read from The Twelve at Brazos Bookstore, answered some questions, then moved up the block to Murder by the Book, where he read a different passage, answered some more questions, then moved across the street to Under the Volcano, where he signed in a back room. The bar concocted a special drink called “viral juice” for the event. It was red, of course, and was made from pomegranate juice, hibiscus tea and vodka. I don’t think a person would drink more than one, but it was tasty. Cronin surprised me by saying that he recognized my name from Twitter and Facebook. I have a few pictures from the event on Facebook.

My story “In a Country Churchyard,” which was first published at Horror World, is part of a new collection from the Tales to Terrify folk. Volume 1, edited by Larry Santoro and co., features some stories from their audio site, but it’s not a “best of” collection. Some of the stories (including mine) were never part of their podcast series. Among the contributors: Gene Wolfe, Joe R. Lansdale, Nancy Kilpatrick, Tim Lebbon, Christopher Fowler and Weston Ochse. It is available in hardcover, paperback and various e-book formats. Read more about it here.

A blogger liked my story “Harming Obsession” enough to record herself reading it as part of her lead-up to Hallowe’en. Of the story she wrote, “I really love this one. It was introduced to me by a fellow horror enthusiast when I asked for help filling out the last of my list, and as soon as I read the final line I knew I had to include it. I love the kind of short story that is only vaguely menacing throughout, the kind where you think, yeah, okay, this isn’t so bad, and then the last line just hits you.”

I wrote recently about narrative shortcuts and inconsistent storytelling. A prime example of that took place on this week’s Sons of Anarchy. It’s hard to believe that they allowed so many things to slip by. Gemma is stoned when she has a wreck, but there’s no blood test and no mention of the transport she almost ran into. One of the Sons is taken hostage to guarantee a miscreant’s escape, and no one seems the least bit perturbed. Despite the fact that the guy has just shot an innocent woman, the other bikers assume he’ll let their mate go once he’s gotten far enough away. And yet it seems like the dude hasn’t decided himself whether or not he’ll kill his hostage until the last minute. Did they even send someone out to look for the captive? I don’t think so.

It didn’t look like Penner was going to use his immunity idol on Survivor this week, but at the last minute he did—and a good thing, too. That should shake everything up in the new merged tribe. It’ll be interesting to see what new alliances develop in the wake. Leave it to Miss Goody (Lisa) to do the laundry while everyone’s setting up and accidentally find Malcolm’s idol. Guess what, Lisa—you’re now part of an alliance!

I liked the conceit of this week’s Castle. Kate and Rick are a new couple and all of a sudden she has to figure out how strong her faith in him is. Signs indicate that he was having an affair and that he killed his lover. She had a moment of despair but she stood by her man and her trust was validated. I don’t think anyone believes the psycho actually died in that shootout. He took an awful lot of bullets to the body, though. Why didn’t anyone aim for an arm or leg? Those last five minutes or so were intense. The look on Kate’s face when she got out of the car and just nailed the guy with bullet after bullet. Stand by your man, indeed.

I’m still on the border with the new season of American Horror Story. Sure, it has lots of creepy moments, but I don’t feel engaged with the characters the same way I did last year.

Posted in Castle, Sons of Anarchy, Survivor | Comments Off on My weekend — spoken for

Ninja voting

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Bev Vincent

Around here, they also call it “severe weather” if the mercury dips into the 30s and 40s. Thoughts with those on the east coast as Sandy advances. When Ike struck, we weathered the storm just fine. It wasn’t until 24 hours later that the power went out, and some time after that the phones followed suit. Cell phone coverage was spotty because the power supplying the towers was also cut. We learned that coverage was best near the interstate and around the shopping mall and hospital, presumably because the backup power was better. We also discovered that sending text messages was more reliable. Texts take a small fraction of the bandwidth of a call, and they are queued up to be delivered if they can’t get through right away.

We voted on Saturday morning, at around 8:30. The polling station had been open since 7:00. We went fully anticipating long lines, but the first good sign was that there was plenty of parking available in the community association lot. Also, no line coming out the door. A poll worker out front advertised “ninja voting”—in and out in a few minutes—which was exactly our experience. We went straight up to the table to have our registration cards scanned and then straight over to the polling station. The machine is sort of a glorified iPad with a spin wheel you use to move from field to field. Since it was my first time voting, I handled the machine with care until I got the hang of it. I was afraid I might accidentally vote Republican straight ticket. Easy peasey. The cups of tea we left in the car didn’t have time to cool.

I started Double Feature by Owen King this weekend. It’s about a young man whose sole ambition in life is to make a movie based on the script he’s been developing for a while. His father, with whom he has a bad relationship, is semi-famous for starring in a raft of B movies in the 70s and 80s. There is some tension between literary and genre here, especially when the father offers some criticism of the script. The section where he actually makes the movie is told in one long paragraph that goes on for pages. This might seem like a turn-off, but it isn’t. I have no idea where the book will go now that he’s editing the footage, but I suspect is somewhat psychotic “assistant director” (a guy he made stand outside for a few days so they would know the instant the rain stopped) will play a major part. I could be wrong.

Did we see Red John at the end of this week’s The Mentalist? Episode #100 was cleverly titled “Red Dawn,” which plays with the nemesis’s name but is also in line with the fact that this is an “origin” episode. The tale of how Patrick Jane first met up with the folks at the CBI. They did a decent job of creating a story that accounts for how he became a consultant. But the guy with the suspiciously soft voice in the limo at the end: zounds! Does that mean he’s FBI, too? Or someone with a lot of political influence. A politician, maybe. It makes sense that the killer has to have a “day job”—that he’s not just a nutcase. Otherwise, why would people cover for him? If he were an important guy who happened to go off and kill someone every now and then, that would explain things better. Aside: I heard the guy who plays Rigsby talk in his natural voice for the first time. He’s Welsh and he has a really thick accent. Who knew?

We watched Wanderlust this weekend. I like Jennifer Aniston, but the trailer didn’t exactly thrill me. However, my wife thought it looked funny, so I was willing to give it a shot. It had its funny moments. A couple of laugh-out-loud funny moments. It was great seeing Alan Alda in a different kind of role, and the payoff for his character was neat. However, I found a lot of it painfully awkward. The scene when Paul Rudd was on the toilet and people were talking to him, for example. Or the scene where he is trying to psych himself up in front of the mirror. Painful. The funny thing is that I thought it was Justin Theroux playing Aniston’s husband, but he was actually Seth, the leader of the commune. I was surprised to see that it scored nearly 60% among critics on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience only gave it a 42%, which is more in line with my opinion.

Posted in Mentalist | Comments Off on Ninja voting

The vote

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Bev Vincent

This weekend I’m going to do something I’ve never done before: Vote in an election in the US. I became a citizen earlier this year, so it’s my first opportunity. It’s been a long time since I voted anywhere in person. I used an absentee ballot in Canada for a good many years, until they finally decided I was no longer eligible because of the length of time I’d been out of the country.

When I did absentee vote in Canada, the ballot was simple. It was a little slip of paper about the size of a movie ticket with a blank space where you had to write in your choice for M.P. (member of parliament). In Canada, you never vote directly for the Prime Minister. You vote for your local M.P. and the party with the most winning candidates is declared the winner. The Prime Minister is also an M.P. and must win the local race in his own riding; otherwise, he can’t sit in the house of commons.

It may well be that the ballot when you vote in person is more complicated, but nothing like an American ballot. A couple of days ago, I downloaded a sample copy of the one I’ll use in early voting on Saturday. There are over 30 races in which votes may be cast, although in half of those a single candidate is running unopposed. I have no trouble deciding where my presidential vote will go, and I have a pretty good idea in a couple of the other major races (state senator and representative, for example), but what about the Railroad Commissioner. Or the County Commissioner. What does it even mean to be a republican or a democrat if you want to be a judge?

So I spent some time investigating the candidates. I had a few exclusionary criteria. If you claim to be a member of, or are substantially supported by, the Tea Party, you’re not getting my vote. If you are running for an education position and you want creationism to be taught alongside evolution in science classes, you won’t get my vote—even if you are running unopposed. I wonder. Can I give Charles Darwin a write-in vote in those cases?

Among my choices, there is an odd combination of Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and Green Party candidates. No straight ticket here. But, again, I’m not quite sure what it means to be a judge running on the Democratic ticket versus the Republican ticket. How does party affiliation enter into being a Sheriff? Maybe I’ll figure those things out one of these days.

On a different subject: I’m not above saying I’m wrong about something. I ignored the first episode of Elementary when it aired, based on skepticism inspired by the preview ads I saw. I was bored one night, so I watched the two episodes that have aired already and I have to say it doesn’t suck. At least not as bad as I thought it might. I don’t think the show depends on the strength or weakness of Jonny Lee Miller’s performance. Jeremy Brett will always be the classic Holmes to me, and there have been enough reboots to the character of late that he could be played by just about anyone. For me, it’s Lucy Liu who makes the show interesting. Not that they decided to make Watson female. That’s almost irrelevant. It’s like having a different companion for Doctor Who. She’s feisty and fascinating. Stronger and smarter than the Conan Doyle version by a country mile. The show takes modernization in smaller measure than Sherlock does. This Holmes isn’t a Twitter fiend, for example, but he is a thoroughly 21st century man. When something can’t be deduced, he’s not above Googling it. I’m going to stick with the series and see where it goes.

A show that’s had a surprisingly strong season is the lone surviving Law & Order franchise: SVU. It’s been mercifully short on preachiness this year. Last night was the 300th episode, and it was a well constructed story. The “obvious” suspect turned out to be just a nutcase, the sort-of-obvious suspects weren’t involved either, the old crimes were solved, but didn’t have happy endings, theories were proved and disproved, and it all came down to good cop work and some fancy dancing in the box. Plus there was more Munch than usual of late. All good.

This week’s Survivor could have gone down as the longest episode ever if not for the deal brokered in the mud next to a giant ball of string. Those guys could have been out there forever. Was it a good deal? I think it depends on whether there’s a merge next week, which the preview suggests. Either that or an invasion force. In general, when a small team gets absorbed into a bigger one, the new members are prime picking for eviction, but in this case, the remaining members of the purple tribe were the distilled essence of the tribe and both have been strong contributors to their new tribes. No one is going to get rid of Malcolm when he’s been so instrumental in winning challenges for the yellow team. Of course, that will all change when it becomes an individual game.

So what, exactly, is Jeanne Tripplehorn doing on Criminal Minds? Has she done anything significant in the few episodes she’s appeared in so far? I like the idea that Spencer has a secret phone-a-friend, but why are they hiding her from us like that?

I think I’ve said this before, but I consider Covert Affairs to be an underappreciated show. Unlike a lot of basic cable series, it plays the spy game with a straight face. There’s no joking around, the spycraft is solid, the stakes are high and credible, and the characters are well drawn and human.

This week’s Sons of Anarchy was sort of blah, up until the last, oh, 55 seconds. Then all hell broke loose. When in doubt, bring in a man with a gun, they say. Or throw people over an embankment.

Posted in Covert Affairs, Criminal Minds, CSI, NCIS, Sons of Anarchy, Survivor, SVU | Comments Off on The vote

Let’s all play Battleship

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Bev Vincent

I finished The Twelve by Justin Cronin this weekend and posted my review. It’s a decent book, but it has some problems, some of them attributable to “middle-of-the-trilogy”-itis and some by questionable story structure. My review is posted here. I also reviewed Revenge of the Vinyl Cafe by Stuart McLean, another collection of nostalgic and humorous anecdotes. My wife and I listened to a couple of his radio shows this weekend. That’s how I discovered him in the first place—I stumbled upon one of his Christmas-themed broadcasts when I was visiting northern New Brunswick a number of years ago. The story was so funny, I almost drove the car off the road.

I’m now reading Return of the Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett, which contains two never-before-published novellas featuring Nick & Nora Charles. These aren’t written strictly as prose but as a cross between a screenplay treatment and a story. The dialog and action is fully there, but there are, at times, asides and references that direct the scene.

We watched an interesting film called Ruby Sparks this weekend. It was written and produced by Zoe Kazan, granddaughter of famous director Elia Kazan, and stars her and her boyfriend Paul Dano. Dano plays a writer who had a hugely popular and critically acclaimed first novel when he was young, but has been blocked ever since. He sees a therapist (Elliot Gould) who gives him a one-page writing assignment. This assignment, which describes a dream girl, sets him on fire. He knows a lot about this girl, and he pours it all onto the page. This is all well and good until he wakes up one morning and finds her in the kitchen making him breakfast. He worries about his sanity until he realizes other people can see her, too. His brother thinks she might be some sort of con artist until they prove that, by adding sentences to his manuscript, Dano can make her do things. Speak in French, for example. The possibilities are endless. However, instead of going the Weird Science route, after the film plays around with this trope, it turns it on its head. Sure, we all know what he wants, but what does she want? She is, after all, a real person now. Left to her own devices (i.e. without the writer’s interference), she has goals and needs and desires. When these come into conflict with what he wants, the film takes a dark turn that the first half does not foreshadow. Then the question becomes: how do they get out of this downward spiral? It’s a clever film, and more serious than it might seem from the trailer.

So, Jeff Strand, does last week’s Survivor go down in history with Dawson’s full body kiss after Probst snuffed her torch? It’s amazing how quickly things can change. Three tribes become two—and I was happy that they didn’t juggle them, just doled out the two remaining blues—with equal numbers and, by the end of the episode, one tribe is suddenly down by two. With three immunity idols in play, things could get very interesting. Probst teases that there will be two things in this week’s episode that are Survivor firsts.

I watched the first season of Homeland this weekend. I knew very little about the show going into it, and I’m glad that’s the case. I was able to go back and forth with the shifting suspicions. “He’s a spy. No, we were wrong, he isn’t. Yes, he is. We don’t believe you because you’re crazy.” Making Danes’ character bi-polar was a clever touch. Even though her suspicions are almost always right, there comes a point when even the people who normally trust her think her obsessions have gotten the best of her. Damien Lewis is terrific, especially in the final episode of the season.  Morena (Firefly) Baccarin is impressive, too, for a variety of reasons! I know S2 is playing now, but I’m going to wait until it’s over to see it.

So, The Mentalist is going to do the “origin story” thing, leaping back in time to Jane’s first case with the CBI. Hmmm. Desperate for storylines? This week’s, about Rigsby’s father, was okay, but just.

Posted in Mentalist, movies, Survivor | Comments Off on Let’s all play Battleship

Narrative lapses and shortcuts

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Bev Vincent

We’ll see how long this lasts. I finally received a car magnet supporting my candidates of choice. As some of you may know, this is the first time I’ve been able to vote in a presidential election. I’ve even contributed to the campaign. Let’s just say that my choice isn’t the most popular one down here in Texas. I’m fully prepared to go out to my car one day soon and find the magnet gone. The biggest surprise, though, was the discovery that there’s enough metal in my car for the magnet to stick.

I couldn’t bring myself to watch the debate. Instead, I picked up a good book and checked out my Twitter feed every now and then. That was more entertaining.

This month’s Storyteller’s Unplugged essay is online: Once upon a time, but not happily ever after. I also posted my review of the forthcoming Archie Meets Nero Wolfe by Robert Goldsborough.

Bitten By Books is sponsoring a book launch and author/editor chat for Danse Macabre starting at noon tomorrow (October 18). If you RSVP in advance, your chances of winning a $50 Amazon gift certificate are vastly improved! Read more about the book and the event.

A cute episode of Castle this week: Murder He Wrote. Rick and Kate escape to his house mansion in the Hamptons for a romantic weekend, but are interrupted when a man staggers into the swimming pool and dies. The police seem to have things under control, but Rick can’t stop thinking about the case, to the detriment of their getaway. Then, the roles reverse and it’s Kate who can’t let sleeping corpses lie. Finally they solve the murder and bust up a huge meth ring in the process. Ryan learns that they are in the Hamptons together, but he keeps the secret to himself…for the time being at least.

For the first time in ages, my DVR cut off the end of a show, to wit, the last few minutes of Sons of Anarchy. Juice drops Clay off and asks him if everything’s all right. What happened after that? Even though his doctor told him he’s improving, Clay seems determined to milk sympathy by hanging onto the nasal cannula and downplaying his progress. Do we have any idea who’s responsible for the home invasions yet? Any fleeting shots of scratched up people that I might have missed? I often watch the show while exercising so I sometimes miss little details. And what’s Tara up to, lying about not seeing Otto in prison? Does she plan to take matters into her own hands on her next visit? The snow globe music provided an eerie soundtrack to Jax’s retribution. So now he and Tara are back to keeping secrets from each other. That can’t be good.

The inaugural season of Major Crimes is over and I have to say that I’m not completely on board yet. They spent a lot of energy on the Rusty plot, which is the weakest part of the show. And the last two episodes ended with the team being unable to uncover the true identity of someone important to their cases: the university prof/identity thief last week and the assassin this week. I hope they spend their hiatus retweaking the show before it returns next summer.

I finished the BBC series Luther, which I highly recommend. It stars Idris Elba, who was in Prometheus and played Stringer Bell on The Wire. There are only ten episodes at present, but they are intense. The second season could have used a little more Alice Morgan, too. Also, there were some narrative lapses and shortcuts that annoyed me. In the first episode, Luther somehow ends up with a card key, but it’s never shown or even hinted how he got it. The intern who used one went through the door, so it couldn’t have been from him. There was a nurse in the room, so presumably that’s where he got it, but how? Worse, at the end of the episode, two detectives are driving a witness home. The witness is in the back seat. One detective takes her into her Byzantine accommodations—an apartment that you have to go through a shop, down some narrow corridors and up some windy stairs. This is a nice bit of sleight-of-hand. The creepy situation, with suitably creepy music, and a few shocks and scares, make it seem like the killer is in the apartment. But, nope: he’s in the back seat of the car. What? How did he get there? He couldn’t have been there when the witness was in the car, and the other detective never left the vehicle. It was a nice scare, but it defied logic.

There was another instance of shaky logic later in the season. They’re listening to all 999 (British 911) calls looking for one that seems like it is connected to their serial killer. The tech picks out the one that just happens to be right, but the evidence for choosing that one was way too flimsy. Then, they decided on no information whatsoever, that the killer would go to a dead courier’s next delivery. How did they figure that out? For such an otherwise good show, these weak plotting choices stood out like jester’s noses.

I think I’ll try Homeland next. It’s been getting rave reviews and the first season is now available.

Posted in Castle, Sons of Anarchy, The Closer | Comments Off on Narrative lapses and shortcuts

The knowledge

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Bev Vincent

Watched Fearless Felix take his amazing leap into the history books yesterday. I can’t help but think there were moments when he had to ask himself what on earth he was thinking.

Finished The Wire this weekend. The “serial killer” plot of the final season was amazing. Something like that picking up speed until it has a life of its own. Cool idea. The newspaper storyline was a little murkier. The showrunner was apparently intending to show how the newspaper was missing or minimalizing all the really important stories (the ones important to viewers of the show), but it got so wrapped up in the fraudulent journalist that that point grew too subtle. I found it interesting that, for every character who evolved into something new, there was always someone ready to step up and fill that position, even when the position wasn’t necessarily something a person would aspire to. There was a new Omar, and a new “old” Bubbles. A new McNulty maybe, and a new Daniels. In the end, after all that went on over the course of five seasons, Baltimore was still Baltimore.

My buddy Michael Slade has been recommending a BBC series called Luther, about which I knew absolutely nothing, but I decided to give it a go. It’s only ten episodes in total, thus far, broken up into a season of six and one of four, though a third series has apparently been commissioned. In one of the best cold openings ever, DCI John Luther faces off against a pedophile in some sort of factory while the clock runs out for a young girl. What ensues puts him on “gardening leave,” the British term for paid leave while he recuperates, and the repercussions of that opening event lurk over much of the first season.

Luther is separated from his wife, has anger management issues, and a general neglect for the rules. Not necessarily all that different from the run-of-the-mill tormented cop, but the part is played by Idris Elba, who was Stringer Bell on The Wire, with intensity. And then there’s Alice Morgan, a sultry sociopath (or psychopath?) played by Ruth Wilson, who reminds me of Gretchen Lowell from Chelsea Cain’s novels. The dynamics between Alice and Luther fuel the first series, but what happens late in episode 5 changes the game and leads to one of the tensest hours of television I’ve watched recently: the season 1 finale. Can’t wait to watch the second series.

A funny observation. In the final season of The Wire, there’s a brief scene in which SVU detective John Munch (Richard Belzer) is seen holding court in a bar. “I used to run a bar,” he’s heard saying, which was true of the character in Homicide: Life on the Streets. In one episode of Luther, when American suspects come into play, Luther tells an aid to call Detective Munch in New York. Apparently the character has appeared on episodes of at least ten different TV shows, including The X-Files and 30 Rock.

When we watched 56 Up a couple of months ago, we heard mention of “the knowledge,” which I subsequently discovered is the test that people have to pass to drive a black cab in London. They have to memorize 320 routes, complete with 20,000 sites of interest along the way, and the names of 25,000 cross street en route. They aren’t allowed to consult maps. I think that was mentioned in the first episode of Sherlock, and it comes up again in Luther.

We watched Being Flynn on the weekend, a film starring Robert De Niro and Julianne Moore based on Nick Flynn’s memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. It’s the story of the younger Flynn meeting up with his homeless father and the hilarity (not!) that ensues. It’s not an easy film to watch, because of all the conflict, but it has its moments. Both Flynn’s are aspiring writers, though the elder Flynn claims to be one of the three greatest writers in America, though no one knows it yet. Encountering his father is not good for younger Flynn, who is working in a homeless shelter. He goes on a personal spiral and rebounds, no thanks to his father. As an odd little easter egg, the real Nick Flynn’s real wife has a bit part in the movie.

Posted in Fringe, Haven, movies, The Wire | Comments Off on The knowledge

I’m your Venus

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Bev Vincent

I’m halfway through the fifth and final season of The Wire. I like the way they change up the theme song each season. I just realized that Steve Earle, who sings the theme for the final season, also plays Bubbles’ AA sponsor. The evolution of the characters over the course of the five seasons has been a fascinating study. Carver turned out to be a good cop once he was free from Hauk, who was a screwup and remains a screwup. Lester stepped out of the background in the first several episodes to demonstrate that he was a great detective, but he’s infected by some of McNulty’s obsessiveness. McNulty was almost invisible in Season 4. Dry, back on the beat, in a good relationship. And then he gets summoned back to Major Crimes and he’s on a downward spiral again. Tragic to see the fates of some of the younger characters. And I thought Omar was toast when he walked into an ambush in Season 5. I’ll be curious to see how his story turns out. Can he really fly?

Has there ever been a tribe that has performed as poorly as Blue Team on this year’s Survivor? And, yes, Jeff Strand, I’m looking at you. I thought for sure they would summon up a victory but, no. It wasn’t to be. I’m surprised Russell lasted as long as he did. He seemed surprised when the final vote was revealed. I agree with his assessment: he and Survivor weren’t meant for each other.

Hard to imagine that the current structure will remain intact too much longer, but there was no hint of a merge in the preview. Instead it seemed to be all about a possible medical evac. Baseball player Jeff’s knee injury doesn’t seem to be holding him back. I thought it was clever of what’s-his-name to fan the ashes between Ms Brazil and RC by hiding the idol clue in RC’s bag. Poor RC has no idea what’s happening to her.

Law & Order: SVU has been surprisingly strong this season. No preachy plotlines or issue-based soliloquies. And it looks like they’re bringing back Eames for at least one episode next week. That’s a good sign. Goran and Eames were always my favorite part of all the L&O franchises.

As soon as they let the guy out of the storage locker on CSI this week, I said: suspect. Good intuition, though it was a much more complicated story than that.

When the statuesque lady walked through the door, I figured she was a transvestite. The moment she opened her mouth, I knew who the actor portraying her was, and you could have scraped my jaw up off the floor with a spatula. The scene where SAMCRO set up a town councilman on this week’s Sons of Anarchy has to be, hands down, one of the funniest and most astonishing things I’ve ever seen. He nailed it. And I like that he didn’t really soften his voice much but he was a woman in every other way. Even Tig couldn’t keep his eyes off her. The kiss with Jax was apparently an improv moment. Venus Van Damme may return later this season. Wow. Talk about taking risks as an actor.

Last weekend we watched a movie called People Like Us, starring Chris Pine, Olivia Wilde, Elizabeth Banks and Michelle Pfeiffer. A decent drama about a wheeler-dealer who returns home after his estranged father dies. He discovers something about his family and has to figure out what to do with a satchel full of money and this stunning information. Pfeiffer is his mother. Elizabeth Banks is really good as the single mom and I’ll never complain about Olivia Wilde, who has a small role but plays a strong woman. The plot relies on Pine’s character holding back a secret far longer than necessary, but other than that we liked the movie.

Fringe is beginning its end game. It’s a show that deserved a larger following, especially once it found its footing in Season 2 and got away from being a “creepy incident of the week” X-Files clone. It developed a mythos and ran with it. The acting (especially Anna Torv) became better, and it is responsible for one (or two or three) of the great TV characters in Walter Bishop. I didn’t know Lance Reddick before this show, where his character isn’t given a lot of range (except for one or two incidents), so it’s been fun to see him laughing and being expressive on The Wire. I’m not sure that he will be on the show any more since the final season is set a couple of decades in the future.

Posted in CSI, Fringe, Justified, movies, Sons of Anarchy, Survivor, SVU, The Wire | Comments Off on I’m your Venus