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January 29, 2009

The Next Day #2

You can read all sorts of stuff about LOST all over the Internet, so I'm going to talk about just one little bit from last night's episode. Honestly, I'll probably end up rambling. But, man, LOST is a great show, huh?

It's hard to talk to noobs about what's going on; I can't believe ABC thinks it's a disappointment that "only" 20 million people showed up for the midseason premiere. If you ask me, 20 million people following either the mythology or the pretty people in jeopardy or both is a pretty good-sized audience on Year Five of a show that one of the main characters has summarized the up-to-now as: "Okay. See, we did crash, but it was on this crazy island. And we waited for rescue, and there wasn't any rescue. And there was a smoke monster, and then there were other people on the island. We called them the Others, and they started attacking us. And we found some hatches, and there was a button you had to push every 108 minutes or... well, I was never really clear on that. But... the Others didn't have anything to do with the hatches. That was the DHARMA Initiative. The Others killed them, and now they're trying to kill us. And then we teamed up with the Others because some worse people were coming on a freighter. Desmond's girlfriend's father sent them to kill us. So we stole their helicopter and we flew it to their freighter, but it blew up. And we couldn't go back to the island because it disappeared, so then we crashed into the ocean, and we floated there for a while until a boat came and picked us up. And by then, there were six of us. That part was true. But the re... But the rest of the people... who were on the plane? They're still on that island."

I'm telling you, if you just tuned in to catch a glimpse of that Wolverine-looking guy traipsing around with his shirt off, that little precis isn't gonna make any sense to you whatsoever. But for those of us watching our DVDs like Oliver Stone with his pause button the Zapruder film, ol' Hurley was right on. Honestly, he summarized his last four years more cogently than I could do mine.

Anyway, surely you've heard of the cosmic reset theory? How this whole thing is happening to get 815 safely to Los Angeles? And how the opening-on-the-eye motif signals a cosmic reset? The String Theory, too? How Faraday says time is a stream that you can move along? I think this explains things like Charlie's magical re- and dis- appearing sleeves on a shirt he swapped back and forth all the time:

and things like the regular Dharma logo:

and Ben's Orchid logo trigrams all being swapped around:

...seem to prove not that there's in attention being paid in the prop department, but extreme attention to detail otherwise ignored.

I don't know which world we're going to end up with, but I do know the LOST team is crafting a very rich entertainment for us. I can't believe they make one of these every eight days.

04:47 PM

January 28, 2009

05:15 PM

January 26, 2009

A quick chat with David J. Williams

One of RBN's favorite debut's last year was "The Mirrored Heavens". Debuting in mass market paperback tomorrow, author David J. Williams drops in for a few minutes to catch us up on what he's been up to and gives a tease for his next "The Burning Skies".

RBN: Looking back a bit as the mass market paperback of "The Mirrored Heavens" is about to hit stores, how has this ride been as a first time author?

DW: It's been quite a ride, and it's an incredible experience to have people you've never met reading your stuff and emailing you out of the blue. But you can't lose sight of the larger picture. Two years ago the goal was Getting Published; now the goal is Taking This To the Next Level. The Autumn Rain trilogy was always aimed at world domination, and these days all my efforts are focused on ensuring that all the cool kids succumb. : )

RBN: For readers not already familiar with your first book can you set the stage a bit?

DW: No problem: 22nd century espionage; no one trusts anybody; agents have their memories rewritten on a routine basis. Think Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind meets James Bond with spaceplanes and powered armor.

RBN: I'm not sure many people know the difference between something like a trade paperback which is how The Mirrored Heavens was originally released and a mass market paperback. How do the versions differ?

DW: Not by much. Trade paperback is just a larger, glossier type of paperback; mass-market is the type one tends to see the most of--and in airports/drug stores/etc., that's all you're gonna see. Trade paperbacks have been around for a long while, but increasingly, they're being seen as the "new hardbacks"; publishers often release a limited run in trade paperback and then a more extensive run in mass-market. So it's yet another fiendish plan to sell more books . .. .

RBN: There are some extras in the mass market paperback. What are they?

DW: Well, you've got a map and a glossary, but the really cool stuff is the agent dossiers. I've hacked into the Praetorian files to bring readers actual data on the book's characters. Hopefully it'll help in keeping everybody straight, but there's some clues and unresolved issues buried here and there as well for folks who *thought* they knew what was going on.

RBN: We are still a short while off from your sequel "The Burning Skies". What can you whet our appetites with?

DW: My personal guarantee: Burning Skies will feature the most insane space battle ever seen in science fiction. George Lucas and the rest of those punks are going to be wondering what hit them.

RBN: I hear you may be attending NYComicon. Are you looking forward to that?

DW: Absolutely, but my five-month old kitten, Spartacus, is chafing with frustration that he will be left behind, which is proving to be the source of no little tension round here. So if you see anything on my blog while I'm up in NYC that reads something like lkjaklsjdfklafjklafjklaskldf jakfjklasjklfakjljk3jrFUCKALLHUMANS, you know who to blame.

Thanks as always to Dave for giving us some of his time. For those of you yet to experience Dave's book which I tell potential fans is sort of like "Jason Bourne meets Iron Man" here's a chance to grab the paperback from Amazon.

08:58 PM

January 22, 2009

The Next Day

You can read all sorts of stuff about LOST all over the Internet, so I'm going to talk about just one little bit from last night's episode...

You can read all sorts of stuff about LOST all over the Internet, so I'm going to talk about just one little bit from last night's episode. Honestly, I'll probably end up rambling. I promise not to talk about obvious English-major stuff like Alpert giving Locke a compass ("What's it do?" "It points north, John.") and how that's a chronological narrative call-back to when Alpert met Young Locke in the past and arrayed out the baseball glove, the book of laws, a vial of sand, a compass, a comic book, and a knife, and how Young Locke willfully chose the knife as he wanted to be a man of action and not the compass as he should/would/could have chosen, in order to lead the way for the Others.

LOST is full of that sort of thing, so I'm going to talk about the weird stuff. Weird even for LOST, like the characters with the changing eye colors and shirts with dis-and re-appearing sleeves and whatnot.

(Here's some links to some massively large photos which show Jack's eyes two different colors, and then a later version which shows him with two same-colored eyes, but now Locke's are two different colors:)

http://www.lostisagame.com/Pictures/S3_poster_large.jpe

http://www.lostisagame.com/pictures/S3_feb07_large.jpg

Last night, though, I was happy to see Ana Lucia again. When she stopped Hurley, she pointed out something that's been out right in front of us for a while, but no one seems to consider.

Not only do the dead appear to the living, but the dead are self-aware of their own non-living circumstances. That's kinda weird, isn't it? Hurley sees Dave, Kate sees her horse, Jack can't stop seeing his father. Locke is told by the mathematician that he knows he's not making sense because he's been dead for twelve years. Of course, Hurley seems to be a nexus of this sort of thing, what with Dead Charlie hanging out with him, and Mister Eko playing chess with him. And of course Ana Lucia asking him "What if I were real?"

I'm not sure anyone in the show has an answer for that one, as reality seems quite fluid around them. Not just time, as shown last night, but reality itself. Which may explain the characters with the changing eye colors and shirts with dis-and re-appearing sleeves and whatnot.

But I'm glad the show is really letting its freak flag fly. There's no denying it now; this thing is as hard-core science fiction as BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, thanks to all the embracing of time travel. Sure, we've had Desmond bouncing around since the end of Season Two, and some suspicious things here and there. Like the time-travelling bunny experiments and all... but with last night's Faraday-in-the-Seventies, Sawyer's "Son of a*FLASH* ...bitch!", all the quantum physics and machinations and all. Honestly, if Kier Dullea shows up in a red spacesuit at some point I would not be surprised.

Here's some fun stuff:

• Frogurt: dead! Also, he was wearing a red shirt. Classic!

• Faraday introducing String Theory to middle America via expository dialogue.

• Doctor Chang Candle/Halliwax/Wick is wearing a Swan logo even though he's shooting the training film for the Arrow.

• After all the WE HAVE TO GO BACK emphasized in the last few episodes, what's up with Walt? Why doesn't Walt have to go back, too? I mean, I see why Des or Frank don't have to... but Walt was on 815 like everyone else.

08:00 PM

And we're back...

To the one or two of you who might still occasionally pop by here to see if we have posted something new (Hi Mom!)I can happily report that at least two of the Nerds are planning on semi-regular pieces.

We'll be starting slow and seeing where this goes. Hope to see some of you folks back here with us...

07:54 PM