Nick Bryan

Nick Bryan

NickNoWriQuart – One K, Once A Day

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I stopped blogging regularly about my writing a while ago, felt I was running out of new/readable ways to say the same things – certainly, nothing I couldn’t say on Twitter more concisely. However, I’m embarking on a Big Writing Exercise shortly, so I’m throwing it a post.

Because, yes, it’s autumn, the end of the year is poking its head over the door, leaves are brown and it’s cold in a Winter-Preview kinda way, all that can only mean one thing – Writers Doing Calendar-Based Word Count Challenges!

Obviously, I’m a little ahead of everyone else here – most are waiting for November to embark upon the epic NaNoWriMo quest. But I’m doing something a little different and I’ll now attempt to explain it…

Own Goals?

If you read my 2014 writing retrospective post (and why wouldn’t you?), you’ll see I listed my third goal for last year as writing the first draft of my new fun-adventure post-H&C post-devil novel. Well, nine months on, I wrote about twenty thousand words of that in Spring before deciding it wasn’t working, then sidetracking for ages writing H&C4 and editing H&C3 (out soon!).

Basically – writing the first draft of an entirely new Thing has been on my to-do list for literal years at this stage, and I’d like to have one last aggressive punt at it before 2015 dissolves into memory.

So I’ve decided to do a word-count challenge, but not NaNoWriMo, because

  1. The daily targets on NaNo are slightly too tough for me to produce work I’m happy with, even by first draft standards – not that I can’t produce 1.6k of tolerable first draft on a day when I’m not busy, but catching up after days when I am busy soon turns it into a miserable chore and flushes the quality down the toilet.
  2. The overall target of NaNo is too short for me to finish a book – and not even just because I ramble. The NaNo standard 50k is shorter than almost all adult novels and many (most?) YA ones too. Even my H&C books, which aren’t exactly epic tomes, are longer.

So, what am I doing instead?

Quarter Master?

Don’t worry, I’ll probably still tweet.

Well, I spent a lot of August trying to hammer out my new ideas for an adult fantasy novel (not the one from earlier this year) into shape, and I decided I was ready to at least give a first draft a go. I also noticed there are ninety-one days in the months of September, October and November. So if I write 1000 words a day for the entire of that quarter-year, I get something around the length of an adult novel.

Plus I’d finish at the same time as everyone doing NaNo and piggy-back on their party! It’s a win win! I could feel bad, but I’ve been “rebelling” at NaNo – working on projects outside the normal parameters – every year for ages now. Would be more rebellious to not rebel, at this point.

Hardcore calendar users might note it’s nearly halfway through September, so I’ve not told you about the challenge until it is one-sixth over. This is because I have an ego, so decided I’d put off blogging about it until I’d met the quota for a while. If I trailed off in the first week, no-one need ever know.

Numbers Up?

The existence of this blog post suggests that it’s going okay. I’m writing this at 11PM on the 13th Sept with word count currently at 15k. I could have padded it out to 16k maybe by drastically overwriting the description in recent scenes, but the whole goal here is to produce a first draft that isn’t a smear of shit. So let’s try and slow down, pace properly, otherwise I’ll get to my 90k and be nowhere near the end.

In fairness, the one remaining risk in the plan is that this might happen anyway. Realistically, I probably need to get 100k (or slightly more) to finish a book, but if I can make 90 by the end of November, I might conceivably be able to squeeze the last tiny bit out in December around all that Christmas stuff.

The biggest threat to this enterprise is myself, as I’m releasing H&C3 on 6th October (EXCLUSIVE ANNOUNCEMENT), smack in the middle of this challenge. Fortunately, I’ve already done most of the formatting and tech prep, so I’m hoping I can keep it clattering along. We shall see. I do have a very busy week coming up approximately right now, so maybe the plan will fall straight off the rails after doing the blog post.

And now my ego is considering putting the post on hold for a few days to make sure that doesn’t happen, but I’ll power on through. I’m going to refrain from banging on about this endlessly, but at least one or two updates will follow if the project continues. Good luck with anyone else out there doing pre-NaNo writing challenges, let me know if you want to form a support group.

ADMINARAMA – H&C on Wattpad! Competition answer! BOOK THREE LOOMS!

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Sundry bits and bobs on the blog today – might try for a full-length post in a few days, but for now, sundry newsbursts from Nick-land…

The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf on WHAT pad?

If you want to read The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf, the first book in my darkly-comic crime Hobson & Choi series, without shelling out cash, I’m currently serialising it on Wattpad, the popular story-sharing site. Plus you can read H&C old-school, serialised with cliffhangers, a format I still have a huge amount of affection for.

Chapters are going up every other day (next one tomorrow) and there’s only fifteen of them, so it should be all there fairly soon.

Check it out and if you have a Wattpad account and feel like throwing in a vote or comment, go for it.

Phantom of the Space Opera – Competition ongoing!

Remember my competition from last week? The one where you had to guess which chapter I wrote in the team-written book from Nine Worlds? Well, no winners yet, so because I feel like it, rather than tell you the answer, I’m going to just leave it hanging.

Once one human being (not one of the ones who has told me they got the answer in a way other than reading it) emails the correct answer to nick@nickbryan.com, I’ll send them a copy of The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf, signed or unsigned as per their will. Maybe some other gift as well, I’ve got a few spare comics and stuff hanging around.

Once that happens, I’ll post the right answer here. Check the original blog post for the full details of what that’s all about.

Trapped In The Bargain Basement soon to be released!

Last and definitely not least, the third Hobson & Choi book Trapped In The Bargain Basement is finally more or less ready to be released into the community! It’s taken some work – specifically, a set of rewrites so massive that I’ve had to remove the original webseries version from the internet because it embarrasses me.

But we have a final text, nearly a final cover, it’s all very close. I’m not going to say anything specific like a date yet, but Trapped should be with you by this time next month, let’s put it that way. So even sooner than that, there might be a cover reveal. Gosh.

However, if you have a blog and would like a review copy so you can post something near the release date, do email me or something and I can probably get it to you reasonably soon. If you definitely have a blog/other outlet for reviews and desperately want to cover the whole series, I may even be able to supply all three.

Veronica Mars seasons 1 & 2 – Belated TV review time!

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Veronica Mars is a US TV high school crime show from the mid-2000s, in which a teenage girl in the crime-ridden town of Neptune solves a load of mysteries – both smaller ones to help out her classmates and big-time criminal incidents involving gangs, murders and the like. Helpfully, she’s the daughter of a local private investigator, so she knows the business. I’ve long been aware that this is a very well-regarded show, and as a fan of Buffy, I’d probably like it, but only just got round to watching properly.

I’ve now seen the first two seasons – the third will follow, along with the recent Kickstartered film continuation, but considering this are mammoth 22-episode American network TV seasons, I figured I can probably find enough to say about the first 44 eps to fill up a blog post.

So, let’s investigate this detective.

CRIME CRIME EVERYWHERE (ho ho I referenced a poem)

You can practically smell the mid-2000s.

Make no mistake, this is a strange show to get thrown into. The weird combined aesthetic of standard high-school drama and noir crime show leads to some weird disconnects. No, you’re not hallucinating, there really is a random motorcycle gang hanging around, their leader goes to school with Veronica and this is absolutely normal.

Still, the show commits to its dual aesthetic, giving Veronica a wry narration that doubles as a teen-drama diary-style monologue and the grim neo-noir internal thoughts of a PI. After the first ep, the crime keeps bubbling beneath the surface, so much so that you might wonder if there was constant gang activity at your secondary school as well and you were just too wrapped up in yourself to notice.

The dialogue is very much Buffy-esque super-clever-teenager style, with all of them (especially the main character) jabbering at high speed and referencing more pop culture than many TV shows’ entire Wikipedia pages. This conversational style has been used in TV and film for enough years by now that you know if you find it annoying. I love it, and Kristen Bell delivers the shit out of the quicksmart wisecracks.

It’s true that some of the case-of-the-week mysteries get a little formulaic. You can guess whodunnit a lot of the time simply because the regular cast is so large, there’s only room for one or two thinly sketched suspects. Still, they come up with a great range of high-school-based mysteries for Veronica to investigate, all while regular plots jog along in the backdrop.

They also spend a lot of time on the handling of race/class, more than many “adult” shows I’ve seen. Although they do it in a slightly standard high school drama boxing-people-off-into-tribes way, it’s interesting to see. Maybe more so nowadays, considering a lot of the annoyance around pop culture right now that shows and films won’t address these topics to even this degree.

And, yes, although there are a lot of clever tricks and crime show storylines, it’s still a teen drama which means love triangles, kissing, angst, but they usually punctuate it with shock crime twists and killings. Plus there’s some amazing mid-2000s fashion to admire – it’s like a younger Coupling. (In this way and no other.)

If you (like me) have not seen Veronica Mars and think you might like it, you probably will. It really is great for the most part, juggling loads of characters and plot points with aplomb. Very serialised, very ambitious, and I can confirm that the season-long arc storylines pay off well.

That completes the general review. I’m now going to talk about the actual plots and characters a bit more. This will feature spoilers (though I’ll refrain from revealing the major season-long whodunnits). Still, if you are considering watching the show and want to remain surprised, best stop now.

Season One – “Soap monster!”

She does this expression a lot.

The series dives straight into the heavy, soapy mythology, building confident, comprehensive, detailed montages in the very first episode. A lot of shows might’ve found a less personal mega-arc to lead off with and kept this story, which really unravels a lot of the major characters, until the second year.

But Veronica Mars dives right in and I think it pays off, getting us right on the character’s side with the terrifying rape/murder combined mystery and flashbacks to happier times.

I felt like Duncan never came into his own as a major character as a result of this structure, though. We started when he was already estranged from Veronica and the attempts to dive into his personality often felt shallow.

Again, this is a show with a massive cast and you can’t win them all – Logan’s rich-boy-angst was competing for space with Duncan’s and seemed to always win out. But yeah, I never ‘felt’ Duncan. To be truly honest: for some early eps, I struggled to tell him apart from brief love interest Troy.

The first season of Veronica Mars also hit the unavoidable problem of stripping a murder mystery across loads of episodes: seeming big reveals in the mid-to-late-mid-point of the season end up being obvious red herrings due to their placement in the running order, meaning we never cared as much as the characters. The Killing had a similar problem with ‘That can’t be it, there’s still eight episodes left!’ syndrome.

Still, the eventual ending was great and had a lot of impact, even if I did guess a major chunk of it one episode before the end. A lot of drama and charm, and Veronica’s relationship with her dad Keith was always so damn warm and likable.

Season Two – “Political animals!”

Sorry Duncan, but it’s not me, it’s you.

Perhaps to avoid ‘That can’t be it! pacing issues, season 2 attempted a bigger mystery than a mere murder. This was an epic conspiracy, layers upon layers, meaning they could unveil an individual character’s whereabouts or motivations and it could play into the ultimate storyline in a meaningful way rather than always needing to be a lie.

This worked a lot better at keeping the dramatic tension up, although it never felt quite as personal to Veronica. Also, due to the high level of the conspiracy, a lot of the story arc stuff had to be performed by dad Keith while Veronica focused on the high school mystery of the week. Sometimes seemed weird considering she’s meant to be the hero.

Nonetheless, it was a clever story with enough layers and moving parts to fill the space. I also always enjoy a show that obviously likes playing around in the world it’s created, giving bigger roles to pre-existing characters and bringing back old guest stars.

Yes, my lack of connection with Duncan made the chunk of the season when he was main boyfriend uninvolving at times. Still, this is dramatic television and misery/angst/love triangles are inevitable. I just waited it out.

And then the ending came along. They did a good job of selling it, even though I’d kinda spotted the main baddie reveal coming thanks to a number of hints along the way about that character’s true evil nature. Still, I wasn’t prepared for quite how evil they went with him, not to mention how carefully it was planned and woven into the pre-existing mythology. Gave the finale a real kick.

If I were told to pick my favourite out of the first two seasons, I think I’d struggle. The stakes felt higher in s1, the big conspiracy in s2 wasn’t as personal, but I thought they executed the second storyline better. Your mileage may vary. Feel free to vote for your favourite in the comments below.

And that seems a good note to end a blog post on. More on this very topic in… a month or two, probably, once I’ve seen the final season and movie.

OUT NOW: Phantom Of The Space Opera – a novel team-written in 75 minutes at Nine Worlds! Guess my chapter and WIN STUFF!

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As mentioned during last week’s Nine Worlds 2015 round-up, a highlight of the convention was NaNoSessionMo, in which myself and twenty-eight adventurous co-authors wrote a book in only seventy-five minutes! Not as catchy as an hour, but we needed every second we could get.

After compilation by the excellent people responsible, the resultant masterwork has now been released onto the internet! Along with a photo showing me apparently drawing inspiration from my forearm! And a lovely cover by Sally Jane Thompson which you can see to the right! It’s called Phantom of the Space Opera!

Yes, there’s a play on words in the title. I approve. Keep reading for a few more words about the experience and a once-in-a-lifetime chance to guess my chapter and win stuff!

How to write a novel in 75 minutes

Just in case anyone is curious how you plan a novel in around half an hour (followed by another thirty-ish minutes of frenzied typing), the basic framework was to start off yelling out ideas, and then hammer them into this story-circle structure outlined by Community creator Dan Harmon.

The genre? Space opera. The main character? A cyborg. The motivation? Love. And I’ll refrain from spoiling any more, but everyone really got into it, strong, fun and surprisingly serious ideas started emerging and, yes, the more literal opera is eventually involved, because the titular wordplay demands satisfaction.

Inevitably, nearly thirty people shouting risks dissolving into chaos and ringmaster Chris needed to steer us back onto topic a few times. Still, when the dust settled on the plotting half of the session, it was impressive how much the resultant list resembled a novel outline.

How to read a novel written in 75 minutes

And also how much the final product kinda resembles a story! Yes, a sometimes inconsistent one – inevitably, many transitions between chapters don’t quite join up. Still, perhaps because it’s the product of a group of likeminded people in the same room following a half hour chat and with a fairly detailed scene-by-scene plan, there actually is a good sense of tone.

And it’s fun, too. Having structure without strict rules allows for moments of weirdness that are entertaining without dissolving into the incomprehensible.

So yeah, as a fun convention experiment, I can’t say enough good things about this. Special kudos to Chris Farnell and Megan Bettinson running the event, who did a great job keeping us both on schedule and in good spirits. I haven’t said much about my specific segment, because it would ruin…

THE CHAPTER-GUESSING COMPETITION

Look what you could win!

The PDF of Phantom of the Space Opera doesn’t specify exactly who wrote which part, so I’m gonna take this opportunity to do a nice straight-forward competition. Go forth to this link here, download the file and give it a read, then try and guess which part I wrote.

They’re all clearly numbered and a different human being produced each one. Email your guess to me at nick@nickbryan.com and every correct entry can have the first two Hobson & Choi books in the ebook format of their choice. I’ll also do a draw (in the event that I get more than one correct entry) and that one person can have a physical copy of the first volume too. I’ll sign it as well, unless you don’t like that sort of thing.

This is a fairly loose competition, but you gotta have some rules and here they are:

  • The closing date is the end of August 2015 – 23:59:59 BST on the 31st if you’re a big specificity fan. The correct answer won’t be disclosed until after that.
  • You can have up to three guesses per person. Email them to nick@nickbryan.com all in one go. Use them wisely.
  • Yes, anyone can enter. Even though it might end up with me posting a book to Australia.
  • No, I won’t tell you who wrote any chapter other than my own. It’s not my place and, for the most part, I wouldn’t know anyway.

Go on. It’s only 13,000 words of homework, you know it’s worth it. It’ll be fun.

Nine Worlds 2015 – Ten Highlights, One Bookpile

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Nine Worlds! It came! I went! Did that sound weird?Anyway. This weekend just gone was the third annual Nine Worlds convention at Heathrow, an event that is such a geekfest, it is called that on Twitter. This is a single con attempting to devote at least some programming to as many difference aspects of geek-beloved media as possible, all the while remaining as diverse, inclusive and people-friendly as possible.

If you think that’s a huge and challenging remit, you’d be right. I went to the con last year as well, how did the 2015 effort stack up? What were the best panels this year? Did I manage to take a photo of anything other than the view from my hotel? Well, as you can see on the right, I’ve certainly equalled that, at least.

Ten Most Paneltastic Panels in Panel-Town

KNIGHTMARE MADE SOME VALID POINTS

Firstly, yes, Nine Worlds remains an impressive, sprawling convention. I definitely came away feeling pretty inspired by a lot of the discussion, especially on the Books track. (Sorry, ‘All of the Books’.) They managed to improve on an already-strong 2014 – I could have sat on Books events for the entire con and not had a bad time.

However, seemed lazy not to sample the range available. I also went to a few panels on the Creative Writing track, who didn’t get my attention much last year, but put on quite a few hard-to-resist items this time. Also a shout-out to the Young Adult track – only went to one of their’s in the end, but there were definitely a couple I wish I could’ve made. So much good stuff, I didn’t make it to a single Comics event. And I really like comics.

I was at the con all the way, from Thursday evening until Sunday evening. If I listed every event I attended like last year, this blog post would be novel-length and a bit dull. So here are Ten Highlights:

  • Cheese & Cheese – Readings of cheesy books with a supply of IRL non-metaphorical cheese to eat. The only event I attended on Thursday night and a great way to get into the con spirit of affectionate laughter. Might have overindulged in cheese, though, as I tried some cheddar today and was repelled. Whoops.
  • “Waiter, you spilt some sci-fi in my fantasy!” – Despite the silly name, this was an excellent panel on different genre-bending books and how to deal with the heave-ho between the different kinds of story as you bash them together with a hammer. Very funny (especially the gravity-rage of James Smythe) and relevant to my personal creative interests.
  • Knightmare Live – Yes, Knightmare, the classic CITV gameshow in which a child walks through a CGI maze with a bucket on their head, guided only by their friends talking in their ear and a few actors pretending to be fantasy characters. Here’s a video if you want an idea of the style/tone/level of camp. The stage show is a well-judged mix of affectionate homage and gleeful panto and I laughed myself silly. I believe they’re still touring around, so if you have any fond memories of the TV series, find a tour stop. It’s hilarious. Even better, as seen nearby, I got a photo of myself wearing the Helmet Of Justice. Also pictured: my Rachel & Miles X-Plain The X-Men t-shirt featuring fellow bucket-head Magneto.
  • The End Of Author Mystique – A discussion of social media (especially Twitter, inevitably) and how it has changed the author/reader relationship. Great combination of fun chat and genuinely potent questions, especially around the issue of responding to criticism. (Probably best not to.)
  • NaNoSessMo – At this event, so intriguing it was covered in The Guardian, we tried to write a novel in 75 minutes. Due to only having 29 people and taking around half that time to plan the book, will likely be more of a novella. Still, the creativity flowed like blood at a vampire party. Nice to exercise the active part of my brain after two days of mostly listening. I believe the resultant epic will be published for free online, and I may write more about it when that happens.
  • Death In Genre – A fun panel talking about both genre fiction’s use of death and its occasional personification of the concept as skeleton in cloak, perky goth girl or gigantic crushing hammer. It’s a strong topic, all the panelists were on form and it was a con highlight for me. Even though I discovered seemingly-charming author Paul Cornell killed off Dr Spiller in Casualty, which moved me to tears as a teenager.
  • The F-Word: Sex in Fantasy – From one universal constant to another, another excellent panel combining serious discussion of handling sex in your writing with thoroughly amusing/disturbing recounting of, um, specific occurrences. You can never have too many mentions of the penis-dunking beaker, it seems. May sound like a joke, but I bought Snorri Kristjansson’s book after he reminded me of that beaker.
  • TV vs Books vs Comics vs Games: FIGHT! – Another panel which sells itself on concept alone, but all the combatants turned up with serious points and brutal trash talk to elevate the pitch. Peter Newman deservedly won the day for books, though. Or maybe his argument that books are awesome because they work through our imaginations and we’re obviously amazing just tickled my ego.
  • Writing Support Groups – A panel about writing groups, and I like writing groups. Chat with Claire, Kirsty and Lizzie of the Big Green Bookshop group (of which I am a member), as well as representatives from the T Party and Super-Relaxed Fantasy Club (which I also sometimes attend). Talked about why writing groups are awesome and looked into the practicalities too.
  • Critiquing Critique – Last panel of my weekend, almost didn’t go due to exhaustion, but I’m glad I did. Partly because Val Nolan and Roz Kaveney gave an extremely accessible yet thoughtful talk about the art of reviewing, which will always be close to my heart. Also because listening to them dissect someone else’s story helped me make some big realisations about one of my own. Lovely end to the weekend.

And that was the #content of Nine Worlds 2015! But we’re not quite finished yet.

Free Books and The Bar

Not posed, I swear, the lanyard fell there naturally.

The main appeal of Nine Worlds for me is the focus on interesting discussion over signings and/or advertising, more so than other London-based conventions. So the above panel-chat is my main reason for going but it isn’t the only aspect.I also got some free stuff! To the right is a picture of the books I obtained over the weekend and I’m looking forward to every single one of them! Also smeared coffee and chocolate cake over my new copy of Nunslinger at the Super-Relaxed Fantasy Club panel, but never mind. Sometimes life happens.

And beyond that, yes, the social aspect. I am a shy, shy human, but managed to catch up with a few people, from my regular supporting cast and beyond. I live in hope of one day being better at that sort of thing – maybe trying to do it more than once a year might be a start? Might attend a few more London-based events, even see if any other conventions look fun.

As many have already said on Twitter, the hotel bar was frustrating at times due to mega-queues. When you’ve got hundreds and hundreds of people in for an event, only one or two bar staff at peak times seems silly. See also: the coffee outlet, which took so long that I found I could get my steamy brown caffeine quicker by walking two hotels over to Starbucks.

Also, a few occasions where events featuring bigger names were in comparatively small rooms, leading to a tight restrictions on access. I get that there are a lot of events on, but if the con continues to grow and attracts more A-listers across different track areas, maybe it needs a bigger venue? With a better bar?

In short, no room for complacency and we can always improve, but I’ll almost certainly be going to Nine Worlds 2016. Despite a few growing pains, it was another really fun year, with a friendly, relaxed atmosphere and a lot of really good discussions. Finally, I’d like to thank my bag of ten preservative-ridden stodgy mini-croissants from Lidl for saving me from buying breakfast.

Nick returns from the digital wilderness to find… – Hobson & Choi update! Sandman! Spectre! Comics on eBay! OTHER!

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As threatened in my last blog post with that podcast appended, it’s been a very quiet month in Content terms, as I have been moving house from Walthamstow to Lewisham, into a charming fourth floor flat where myself and my self-publishing empire will hopefully be very happy together.

As traditionally happens whenever anyone moves house in the modern world, this was accompanied by an annoying gap in internet access. We only got online yesterday, and I must admit, I’d forgotten how amazing the world wide web can be.

So, here are a few things I have seen, experienced and planned during my month away. Some have already been mentioned on Twitter, but most I couldn’t be bothered to tweet because my only Twitter access was my four-year old phone and loading the app is a chore.

H&C3 – Read aloud in only 1.5 days! Record!

H&C3 is coming! Time to read H&C2!

Hobson & Choi III continues to crawl its way towards the outside world, like a mole with motivation issues. I’ve got a draft I’m happy with, it’s just going through final proofreading. Meanwhile, I’ve booked a slot with the always-excellent Design For Writers to work their cover-makin’ magic once more.

Projected release date: probably October. Plenty more to come on that in the next couple of months.

Pale Riders of the Post-Marvel Apocalypse

Huge blood-bloated Spectre. Now that’s horror.

I haven’t read any Marvel superhero comics for a month, which is new. I basically rely on Marvel Unlimited for them, and that, unfortunately, relies on the internet. So for whatever reason, I’ve opted to fill my comics reading time mostly with pale-faced DC characters, specifically:

  • The Sandman! Yes, the Neil Gaiman-written many-artist-drawn legend of the medium. I last read it as a teenager and a lot of it went over my head. Reading it again now and it’s very whimsical, magical stuff, the sort of thing Gaiman’s long done best. I’m about 40 issues in. Great comic. Be sorry when it’s over. Might go and read that Lucifer spin-off series by Mike Carey/Peter Gross that everyone talks about.
  • The Spectre! The incarnate wrath of God, wearing a Grim Reaper cloak and green swimming trunks. Specifically, the 90s run by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake. I don’t know exactly why this sprang to mind as a thing to read, but it’s a strange comic. Zips between horror (Tom Mandrake does a good extreme grotesque image, see nearby example), magic-bolts-zappy mystic superhero action and sudden diversions into genuine questions of theology. Interesting counterpoint to the metaphorical approach of Sandman, in that it’s like being smashed in the theological brain with a brick. In tiny green pants.
  • Not a DC comic but they do have quite pale faces – Transformers! I bought a huge chunk of the two current ongoings – Robots In Disguise and More Than Meets The Eye – in a Humble Bundle at the recommendation of writer friend Chris Brosnahan, not to mention I’d seen rave reviews for More Than Meets The Eye online. Aaand… it’s a very odd read for me as I’m not a Transformers person at all. I vaguely knew Optimus Prime was the main goodie.
    All of which leaves me enjoying the vibe – MTMTE in particular is a really well-paced, exciting, funny comic – but kinda struggling to get into the mythology. My specific problem: they all look so similar. I kept expecting to develop the ability to tell them apart, but with a few glaring exceptions, I am struggling. I don’t think the art is bad – in fact, it’s very clean and attractive – but I still keep needing reminders in the dialogue to tell me which one this is. Still, I’ll persist. Once I’ve caught up on the last month of Marvel Unlimited updates.

Ultimate Spider-Man lives, physical comics die

Nick Bryan once touched these comics!

The news about the upcoming Marvel relaunch came out, and to no-one’s surprise, my eulogy for Ultimate Spider-Man did turn out to be pre-emptive – Miles Morales lives on in the regular Marvel universe, in a new book simply called Spider-Man. I’ll still miss the series taking place in the Ultimate universe though. Elsewhere in the Marvel relaunch, there’s disappointingly few interesting new books that aren’t just continuations of existing ones. Well, except Warren Ellis doing a Karnak series, that sounds amazingly weird.

And while I’m talking comics – you can now buy some late-90s/early 2000s Daredevil and Captain America comics from me on eBay if you want. Mostly these are pretty good stuff, but I really have lost interest in the single-issue physical comic as a thing to store or read. I’ve held on to the teenage collection for a while in case my interest regrew, but no sign yet. And yes, I’m choosing those starting prices pretty optimistically. I’ll relist them cheaper if they don’t sell.

Literary Fiction and Other Plantlife (featuring Scarlett Thomas)

So new, the receipt is still tucked inside.

Went to see Scarlett Thomas read from and speak about her new book The Seed Collectors at the always-excellent Big Green Bookshop. She spoke very entertainingly about her process, the struggles of both writing and teaching and why likable characters are over-rated. (She is very right, they are.)

Thomas has always been one of my favourite novelists who isn’t generally seen as genre, even though there is some pretty extreme weirdness in many of her books. The Seed Collectors plays down the odd concepts a bit, but the fragmented structure, witty narration and, yes, the fact almost everyone is a fun bastard very much appeals to me. Enjoying it a lot, only 70 pages to go.

Nine Worlds, one request for presents

Next weekend, I am at the Nine Worlds convention. If you think that’s likely to be the topic of an upcoming blog post on this website, you’d be correct. I had a great time last year, and hopefully this will be a worthy sequel. The books and creative writing events in particular look great. May even try and take more than one photo this time.

No sign of any friends holding weddings on any of the days yet, so I shall be ambling around the entire event. I should have a few copies of The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf on me, which I could be persuaded to offload at a reduced price, or in exchange for… I don’t know, booze or comics or your own book or something. Make me an offer. Or if there’s a take-one-leave-one bookswap table again, go and see if I’ve left one there.

NO VERONICA MARS PARAGRAPH FOR YOU

Yeah, that’s it. Was gonna do a chunk on the fact I’ve finally finished Veronica Mars season 1 thanks to having no streaming TV to distract me, but that would push this post to a ludicrous length. Will probably get its own post in the coming month.

For now, though, I’m off to watch backlogged Last Week Tonight episodes on my new Now TV subscription on my newly working internet. Farewell!