Breaking Bad

I heard so much buzz on the internet about the AMC show, "Breaking Bad" that I dove into season one this weekend.  Needless to say, I was back at Barnes & Noble on Labor Day buying seasons two and three on Blu-ray.  This show is absolutely riveting.

Breaking Bad follows the story of a brilliant chemist who, at the age of 50, doesn't have a whole lot going on in his life.  He chose to teach high school but many of his students are portrayed as ungrateful good-for-nothings who drive rich cars and just want to hook up with each other.  Meanwhile Walter White (the protagonist) at age 50 has got a younger wife who is pregnant, and a handicapped son that gets teased a lot in high school.  He has a second job working at the car wash where he scrubs tires on the sports cars that some of his students drive and they take demeaning pictures of him on their cell phones to talk about him with each other.

This is Aaron in the persona of the meth junkie Jesse
Pinkman.  They really do a number on his appearance.

So into all of this, Mr. White gets terminal lung cancer. The doctors tell him he only has nine months or so to live.  The chemotherapy that might save his life costs $90,000 and his insurance won't cover it. Plus he'll be leaving his wife and only son with a mountain of medical bills for fighting his cancer (not to mention) a newborn daughter.  So what does the brilliant Mr. White do?

Well he seizes a unique opportunity.  His friend works at the D.E.A. and takes him along to observe a drug bust on a meth lab and he notices one of his former students escape from just having banged a woman in the house next door.  He says nothing.  He follows the former student home and points out that his partner (the cook for the meth lab) has been arrested thereby destroying his livelihood.  He offers to cook meth for the kid if he'll make him a partner in the business.  The kid agrees...flabbergasted that the teacher that flunked him wants to "Break Bad".

This is Aaron in real life. Big
difference as you can tell.

So Mr. White ends up cooking the purest meth ever.  And the crap that these two go through in episode after episode as they deal with cartel enforcers, drug distributors, and hide from the D.E.A. is unbelievable. I can't pull my eyes away.  Also Mr. White's partner, played by Aaron Paul, is a really good-lookin' fella that they have to dirty up for the show.  It's interesting because in some scenes he looks completely strung out but in others (like when he tries to go clean and actually get a job) he looks good but his education makes it impossible for him to earn a living with any dignity.

Things I saw in the first season that surprised me:

1) Lots of meth manufacturing.

2) Nudity.

3) Drug dealers not only killed, but dissolved in hydrofluoric acid that eats through a bathtub and crashes through a floor in a house. They literally have to scoop up the bloody soup of human body with a dustpan and brushes.

4) Incredible cleverness on behalf of the protagonist (and resourcefulness).  Jesse gets almost beaten to death and Mr. White faces off with a huge drug distributor and demands $50,000 from Tuco and manages to get it. I won't spoil how but it is mind-blowing. On top of that, Mr. White gets a deal to sell four pounds of meth to this guy a week.

5) The sheer destruction of a good man like Mr. White as he descends into a world of absolute filth. Yet he is protective of Jesse (sometimes) and it's clear that he doesn't want the boy to come to harm but he certainly doesn't go easy on him at all.  Sometimes Mr. White pushes him to murder which he is growing more comfortable with as the series progresses (the first time he murdered someone was really really hard for him).  But the other aspect that is amazing about this show is Mr. White's intellect. He is far beyond the primitive minds of the drug dealers that he has to do business with and because he knows his life is almost over, the risks he is willing to take are incredible.  And of course his marriage is falling apart because the life he is choosing to lead to cushion his wife and children with money is a secret one...and the secrets are pushing all of his loved ones away.

6) The acting in this show is Academy Award level. It seriously is that good.

This isn't a show for the young adult, smurf-loving, middle-grade fiction crowd. It's a show for adults. I'm an adult...I write adult fiction...and this adult show is absolutely amazing.  If you think of yourself as having adult tastes...you need to watch!

First Campaign Challenge

If you are here following the bread crumbs from Rachael's post on her blog today, thank you for visiting and I appreciate the attention. I'm posting my flash fiction piece for the first challenge here and I hope that you guys do the same because Rachael has a lot of nice prizes.  I was really excited to get the opportunity to help her with the campaign and when she contacted me by email, I started work right away organizing the 300 or so people that signed up to judge (wow what a turnout).  Plus Rachael is an amazing organizer. She had a whole google docs thing setup (if you haven't used it, I recommend it highly because it's like a word processor & spreadsheet that you don't have to pay for that anyone with a password can use).

Basically, our process for notifying judges is just going to be to go down the list that Rachael and I created this weekend and shoot off an email every ten signups on Rachael's blog...so one judge per ten people for round one.  Each judge will be responsible for visiting each of these ten blogs and making a decision on the flash fiction piece.  Five of the ten that they deem worthy shall go on to round two. Think of this as a kind of "tournament" style competition.

At round two, new judges will be called upon to narrow the selection for round three (the semi-finals).  From the semi-finalists we hope to find ten finalists and one grand prize winner.  Basically every person that makes it to the finals will get a prize but the best will go to the grand prize winner.

MY FLASH FICTION ENTRY WITH ADDED DIFFICULTY ELEMENTS:

The door swung open and the UPS man entered. 

I set down my coffee cup; the side of it read “Piss me off and face the consequences.”

I asked, “How many today?”

“Just the one.” He passed me the signature capture pad and I signed using the stylus.

“Can you spell that out for me?” he asked.

“M-A-R-I-A  F-E-N-W-A-Y” I said, enunciating each letter.

He typed it out and then tucked the brown pad under one arm.  I stared at his ass when he walked out.  The UPS guys were always in such good shape.  My partner walked in and put a folder on my desk.  “Pictures from the crime scene.  You might want to take a look and see if we missed anything.”

I nodded and took a sip of coffee.  I turned my attention to the box sitting on my desk and grabbed a pair of scissors.  I cut the tape and popped the lid open. Inside, I found a cooler.  Who the hell sends a person a cooler?

“Go stop that UPS guy,” I told Bill.  “Go now!”

He ran for the door.  I opened the box and found a human head inside.

The door swung shut.

It is exactly 200 words, uses both "the door swung open" and "the door swung shut" elements of the flash fiction piece (upped for difficulty as I think challenges are fun).

Happy Labor Day!

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

I saw this trailer on the iTunes website yesterday. It's brilliant.  Oh and it's for "Mature" audiences.

1) It totally pokes fun at the kids camping meeting the psycho hillbillies.

2) It shows how bad things can get when people don't communicate.

3) It shows that you shouldn't judge a person by appearance alone.

4) The writing in this is fresh, exciting, and made of pure awesome.

Have a great weekend! See you Monday.

My Review of Witch Song by Amber Argyle

Well today is September 1st and it is Amber Argyle's release day for her debut young adult fantasy novel, Witch Song.  I finished reading this just last night as I was able to purchase a Kindle version of it almost four weeks ahead of the release. When I asked Amber why it got released early, she indicated that there was a problem with people pirating the file which really surprised me. It's a topic I'd love to talk to Amber about one of these days. Maybe I'll get a chance when she goes to a signing scheduled in Layton, Utah (about twenty minutes from where I live) this September.

As far as a debut fantasy novel goes, there are a few new things that I saw here which I thought refreshing.  Her magic system deals a lot with plants.  Witches rely on seeds and they use plants to do all kinds of crazy things. There's even a scene where she talks with a whale and I had flashbacks of the Superfriends and Aquaman telepathically controlling whales.

Anyway, the pacing and writing in the book is solid. Rhemelda Publishing did a bang up job with the formatting--it's excellent.  The swoon-worthy male in this book is Joshen and he's the apple of Senna's eye as it were.  My bone to pick here in their relationship is that there is a point almost in every chapter where Senna pushes Joshen melodramatically out of her life saying that it is too dangerous for him and that she could never live with herself if anything happened.  He of course counters with..."but I'm sworn to protect you...don't push me away...Senna!"  And pretty much that scene gets played over and over and over and over.

Then we have little characters like Pogg who really reminded me of Dobby the House Elf in the Harry Potter films.  He lives on this island and fishes and fetches things, etc.  I thought the character was entirely too cutesty, however, I'm not thirteen which is where I think this book's intended audience may lie.

The novel wraps up all plots cleanly. The climactic battle with the villain of the story and the protagonist was a speed bump as far as battles go...I was disappointed in that.  I guess smacking each other around with plants can't really be all that impressive.  And the way that Espen (the villain) got defeated kinda smacked of deus ex machina but really no more than Aslan going around and fixing everything.

All in all, I give this book four stars (out of five) because I'm not going to rate it with the eyes of a forty-year-old (which I am) who has read everything from Tolkien, to Eddings, to Martin, to Brooks, to Lewis, to Zelazny, to Gaiman, to Alexander, to Kurtz and blah blah blah.  If you are an adult and have kids, buy this book for your kid to read.  Or, buy it for yourself, if you are an adult that loves literature for teens.  That is my recommendation.

I'm Mad At Writers Who Kill Off Characters

I want to know what magnificent source...what God of Literature said that it is okay to kill off beloved characters.  Tell me this person's name because they're full of crap and I want them to know they are full of crap.  My post yesterday about Vincent Nigel-Murray being killed off in BONES I think is at the root of my recent feelings regarding this topic.  I LIKED that character and him being thrown down the tubes so that the bad guy that Booth has to face off against is even more evil is just plain stupid. People can argue, "Oh killing off a character makes it more realistic and is better because it shows the writer isn't willing to compromise to keep someone alive."

VINCENT'S DEATH--COMPLETY UNNECESSARY AND SAD

Oh yeah? How is it better?  Bones lost a viewer.  I'm not going to watch the seventh season. How's them apples?  Have I done this before?

You betcha.

DEEP SPACE NINE--STAR TREK.  The writers killed off Jadzia Dax and I was furious. FURIOUS. I stopped watching.  Rogue Mutt asked me in my Star Trek compilation why Deep Space Nine got no love.  The reason...the whole series got tainted in my eyes despite all the great stuff they did when they killed off Jadzia.

Amber a.k.a. Cutthroat Bitch

In HOUSE...the writers killed off Cutthroat Bitch.  Yeah that really was her name (done by House of course).  But my point is that she LOVED Wilson. She was a brilliant doctor. And they frickin' killed her off and I cried and the series hasn't been the same since.  I love Thirteen which is why I keep coming back to watch House but she's sick so the writers have probably got her death tacked up on a scorecard somewhere. Good thing that it's in season seven cause if I quit watching once they kill her off, then the series is over anyway.

I didn't like it when Robb Stark died in A Storm of Swords.  I think George R.R. Martin went way to frickin' far with that. And you know what? His first three books may have been masterpieces, but A Feast For Crows and A Dance With Dragons have been crap.  Some of this is (I think) because Robb Stark IS DEAD!  He wrote himself into that corner because with Robb alive, the Lannisters would still have someone to fight against and he wouldn't have had to go into the whole Greyjoy thing.

Now I admit, there are times when death is necessary.  Charlotte in Charlotte's Web needed to die because her species of spider dies every year. That's just nature.  Obi-Wan Kenobi needed to die so that he could lead Luke to Yoda and be with him in the cockpit to destroy the Death Star.  Dumbledore needed to die because J.K. Rowling wrote herself into a corner by making Dumbledore more powerful than Voldemort. With him around, NOTHING COULD HAPPEN.  But you writers out there who are rubbing your hands together saying, "I'm going to kill off this character because it will tug at the heartstrings of all my readers" followed by an evil cackle--THAT IS NOT A REASON TO KILL SOMEONE OFF.  Yes, you will get this reaction and then I WILL HATE YOU FOR IT.  You will lose a reader because I will get mad.  Think very carefully about who you axe in your books because I am not alone.  Make sure the death is necessary please.

Meaningless death is meaningless.  There is a reason I read fiction.  In everyday life, people for no reason at all end up dead over something as stupid as a fish bone in the throat.  When I read, I don't want real life.

Alphas

So I've been watching Alphas on SyFy and I really like this show. It has Ryan Cartwright in it (which was a big plus for me) because I loved him as Vincent Nigel-Murray in Bones and was really sad when he got killed in the last season of Bones. /sniff

Why did he have to die? Why couldn't it have been Wendell?

I love the way British guys talk.

I think that having him playing a character with severe autism brings out his true acting ability as he is obviously supressing his strong accent (a feat I'm sure that is difficult).

If you don't know what Alphas is...here's a summary:

Alphas is an action-packed thriller from writers Zak Penn (The Avengers, X-Men: The Last Stand) and Michael Karnow. In the series, five ordinary people are brought together to form one extraordinary team of Alphas -- people with the unique power to stretch the capabilities of the human mind giving them superhuman physical and mental abilities.

Operating within the Defense Criminal Investigation Service of the U.S. Department of Defense and led by preeminent neurologist and psychiatrist Dr. Lee Rosen (Emmy Award-winner and Academy Award-nominee David Strathairn), an expert in Alpha phenomena, the team investigates cases that point to others with Alpha abilities. As they work against the clock to solve this new brand of crime, they must prevent their own personality differences and disparate backgrounds from interfering with their ultimate mission to catch the enemy.

In addition to Academy Award nominee David Strathairn (Temple Grandin, Good Night, and Good Luck), the ensemble cast stars Malik Yoba (New York Undercover, Why Did I Get Married?), Warren Christie (October Road), Laura Mennell (Watchmen), Ryan Cartwright (Mad Men, Bones) and Azita Ghanizada (Castle).

It's on every Monday and you guys should watch it and be Alphas fans with me :))

The Miracle Exemption

I had a debate with my friend James by Skype this weekend about what really worked in the sci-fi movie, Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  He pointed out that the miracle examption is done really well and that it brings the story full circle by the end, making it a thoughtful, provoking film.  So that's where I got my blog post for today.

If your story is not grounded in reality, you really only get one miracle exemption (including more may ask too much of the reader but you never know--it is a risk though). This is the thing that the reader is expected to swallow as being completely plausible. Examples: The yellow sun in Superman...it's the source of all his powers. Or the spray aerosol can in Rise of the Planet of the Apes that essentially forces evolution on primates by increasing intelligence within the brain. 

There are rules to the miracle exemption. One of them is that you need to adhere to the miracle exemption completely. Your story needs to follow it and never deviate from it. That is one of the keys to the science-fiction and fantasy in stories that I've read and liked.  And seeing that I've read quite a few stories, my opinion may be worth noting. 

The second is that if you want your story to come full circle, it needs to come back to the miracle exemption and make it crucial to the story.  In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the aerosol spray ends up dooming the entire human race. So not only is it just a device to make apes smarter...it is the mortar upon which the entire franchise is based.  In a word...brilliant.

What is the miracle exemption for J.K. Rowling? You need a wand to do magic. Does she ever deviate from that? Nope.  Does it come back around to this? Yep in that wand that Voldy wanted to use so badly.

What happens when Superman doesn't get sun for a long time? His powers weaken. Does it come back to this? All the time in movies as he goes to absorb sunlight to do extra-powerful and strenuous stuff.

So if your story has a miracle exemption within it, stay true to it.  My sci-fi series has one miracle exemption and I stay true to it and revisit it often.  No it's not faster than light drive. My sci-fi series takes place entirely on earth.  However, FTL-drive is one commonly used miracle exemption that makes space opera work.  Another is instant communication across great distances. You have to have this in order to have a story work.

Do you use a miracle exemption in your story and how important is it?  Have a great Monday (I should be exempt from Mondays).