I would scream if I had the time

[jpskewedthrone]

Sorry I haven't been all that entertaining lately here on the ole LJ. It's the end of the semester and I'm currently hip deep in finals. In other words, I'm spending all of my time ruining students' lives grading students' papers. This will all be over in another week, at which I hope to be back to normal, with some time to spare. Or as normal as I ever get anyway.

In the meantime, squeezing in an hour here or there, I managed to finish off chapter 19 of the work in progress, aptly titled "Well of Sorrows". I'll post a word count meter at the end of the post, so you can see how out of control this sucker has gotten.

And in other news, an interview with me has been posted at R. Schuyler Devin's blog. I met Mr. Devin at Norwescon, where he asked if I'd be willing to participate in his 6-sided interview at his blog. Of course I said yes. So go check it out. You can mock all of my answers to the question about what books/movies/etc I feel are modern classics. (I hate those types of questions; you'll see why at the interview.) Since I suck at that type of question, I figured I'd throw it out to all of you: What books/movies/TV shows in the SF and Fantasy genre do you consider "modern classics"? And by modern, let's say that had to have been released or on TV within the last 10 years. I'd be interested in what everyone has to say (since we recently had the "must haves" of 80s moviedom discussion here). I'm sure I missed something important and completely obvious in my answer.

And now, here's the word meter for the current update on the writing project from hell. Hopefully, I'll be back to more regular posts in another week.

156,250 / 100,000 (156.2%)

Well of Sorrows

Comments

[mindseas.livejournal.com]

How many chapters still to go? I hope they aren't too strict about the ms. length.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

Firefly?

That's actually about all I'm getting here, because 10 years isn't all that long...

Boy, I feel old.

[misunderstruck.livejournal.com]

Last 10 years? Here are a couple ideas. (This is a collaborative effort by the way by my wife and I.)

Comic/graphic novel wise -- Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's Transmetropolitain, which began in 1997 and ran until 2002 or so.

Novels:
Richard Morgan - Altered Carbon

George R. R. Martin - A Storm of Swords if you want one novel, the entire Song of Ice and Fire series (which actually began in 1996) if you want a larger work.

Tim Powers - Declare

Possibly River of Gods by Ian McDonald.

Guy Gavriel Kay's The Lions of Al-Rassan falls just outside the 10 year limit, but will likely endure.

TV:
At least the first season and a half of Battlestar Galactica.

Buffy.

If we move outside the 10 year limit, the books I will always put right up are Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny and A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, Jr.

Modern classics

[treize64.livejournal.com]

River of Gods - Ian MacDonald

The Matrix (first one) - Wachowski Bros.

[vcmorris.livejournal.com]

Reading the various progress of other writers here in LJ has really helped me not feel so bad when I simply don't have the time to sit down and write myself. I'm quite happy if I am able to crank out a chapter once a week, two chapters in a week is unreal! Hope you are soon able to tip-tap away at the keyboard and get things rolling along again.

The summer always makes me wish I had a laptop so I could work on stuff outside. I hate sitting in the den writing on a lovely summer morning. I'd be so much more productive out there on the porch with a laptop.

[milbrcrsan.livejournal.com]

*to above convo* I'd love to have a laptop so I could do just that. Would be much easier for writing on a plane and such. I dread writing with pen and paper. :p

And I can understand being really busy. I am too, but not school. An overactive kitten is my reason. LOL It seems lately that he's taken an interest in trying to chew on wires. *sigh* He's like a baby, can't take your eyes off him for a moment. :p Oh yeah, and my desk is covered with stuff. lol

So, how's that short story contest going? You have a chance to read mine yet? *bats eyelashes* :p

[rosinavs.livejournal.com]

Total sympathy on the finals. I give mine late next week, but I have piles of homework and projects to grade. I plan on skimming the projects, grading mostly on grammar, spelling and punctuation and whether they remember to put a proof in it. I'll be glad exactly a week from now when my grades are turned in.

Classics!

[vespican.livejournal.com]

My vote for classic books of today would have to go to Naomi Novik's TEMERAIRE series. Why? Probably because my first love in reading is "Naval Adventure," stories such as the HORNBLOWER series by C. S. Forester, or the MASTER AND COMMANDER series by Patrick O'Brian. Ms. Novik convincingly combines (quasi) historical (sometimes Naval) Adventure with Fantasy. I also believe that her books come closest to what I'm trying to write myself. While I see hers as fantasy set against a semi-historical, naval adventure background, mine are Naval Adventure with certain elements of Fantasy or Science Fiction.

But don't worry, JP, I have your books on my list for the next run to the book store! Now that I've finished reading (and editing, and revising) my second book while at lunch at work, it's time to get back to reading other folks real published works.

I've watched various episodes of the new Battlestar Gallactica, and quite frankly I don't like it as well as the original. True, that was a bit campy. I would have hoped that a new series would have stayed a little truer to the original. The new version, in my opinion is too detailed, too deep, and too dark, for me. Special effects are a lot better, but there's more to a series than that. I suppose that's why I believe the original Star Trek to be the best of them all. With the limited budgets they were produced on, the story and the acting had to prevail. Sometimes watching the original series is like watching a filmed stage play. As an audience we have to use our imagination a lot more. That helps draw us into the story.

Dave

[wbm.livejournal.com]

I don't have the same sense of time that a lot of people seem to have. Being 37yo, I consider anything made during my adulthood to be modern. I also have a broader definition of *fantasy*; technically, anything fictional should fall under that title, but I know you mean *fantastic*.

Films I consider modern fantasy classics are Primer, Audition, Unbreakable, American Beauty, Starship Troopers, Punch-Drunk Love, Minority Report, The Lion King, Kill Bill, Storytelling, Zoolander, The Machinist, Waking Life, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Novels (I am not widely read, & tend to read older books that are easier to find used previously enjoyed): Barker's The Great & Secret Show, Weaveworld, Walker's Black Box.

TV: Harvey Birdman, Brak, Spongebob, the last two seasons of Enterprise, Boston Legal.

Comics: Sin City, Marvel's Civil War event, Superman For All Seasons, The Walking Dead, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volumes I & II (PLEASE do not mistake the travesty that was the LXG film as being remotely related to the books - completely different stories), the 2004-5 series of She-Hulk.

I've left off works other's recommended, like 1st The Matrix & the Potter books, etc.

And I must disagree with the LOTR films - despite being excellently written/cast/acted/filmed, I was as bored by them as I was by the brilliant prose that Barker put into the incredibly imaginative but exhausting Imagica. Heh - do I need to duck & run, too?