What the heck is a Bearalope? Where the heck is Prosperity?
That’s why we call it a teaser.
Alex Rains knows all about killing vampires. Too bad it’s not vampires this time. If Alex survives his trip to Prosperity, he’s going to need to update his resume.
Author’s note: I wrote this a few months ago about the Brexit vote, then I never published it. It’s a rambling, disjointed, ill-informed opinion piece that somehow manages to begin with the Brexit vote and end with the holocaust. I felt like it was rather silly and hyperbolic, even by my own shamefully low standards. But then Donald Trump won the election here in America. I was trying to make up my mind what to say about that, and I had the idea to take about the last quarter of this piece and fold it into another article. But when I read this over again, I felt like it held up. It’s message is more applicable in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory. So, here it is.
Oh, and all you Brits out there who voted for Brexit: Did you really think you were going to out-stupid America?
First of all, I have to say that I’m not an expert on the European Union. I don’t live there. I know there are systemic issues within the EU that need to be addressed. I know it’s not a perfect system; nothing ever is. This is just my take as a whole, as a barely informed spectator from across the pond.
In my opinion, the European Union is one of the greatest accomplishments of the twentieth century. I’d always looked at the EU, at what Europe had managed to accomplish, and thought that I was actually witnessing a turning point in the history of civilization: Human beings actually learning something from history, and then doing something about it.
I mean, think about that. We finally learned. We finally learned. After tens of thousands of years of tribalism, feuds, invasions and counter-invasions, nearly constant war throughout the entire blood-soaked history of the continent, hatreds that go back to the beginning of time, climaxing with the horrors of the world wars, the pogroms, the holocausts, the genocides, the dictators. National Socialism. Fascism. Hitler, Mussolini, Franco. Thousands of years of bloodshed and horror culminating in an orgy of bloodshed and horror.
And then, it stopped. It actually stopped.
It was as if Europe, after centuries of blood-rage, was finally shocked into sobriety by what they’d done. They finally took a look around and realized that it just wasn’t worth it. In all that time, what had this fighting ever accomplished? From Hastings to Normandy, European countries had been sending its young men into the meat grinder, often for the stupidest of reasons. Then, they finally realized that they are all brothers and sisters.
And then they stopped. They finally stopped.
Less than ten years after the second world war ended, the early framework for the EU had been created. One by one, countries joined together, uniting politically and economically, opening their borders to each other. No more armed border crossings. No more papers, please. No more invading neighbors. No more young men sacrificing their lives to the whims of Royal family feuds.
And the result? Seventy years of peace on the European continent. Seventy years. Countries that just decades before had been ruled by dictators and monarchies and despots, now solidly democratic. Quality of life that is the envy of the world and keeps getting better. Economic prosperity. Human rights. Civil rights. Universal healthcare. Education. Say what you will about the immigration crisis, (and I do agree that it’s a crisis, and must be intelligently and reasonably and compassionately managed) you have to acknowledge the fact that these people want so badly to come to the EU because it is so much better than other places.
All of this is why the Brexit vote, and the politics accompanying it, is so discouraging. I may be conflating correlation with causation, but it seems as though, in the long term, we’ve learned nothing. I can’t help but observe that the generation that built this institution is the same generation that witnessed first hand the slaughter and misery of the world wars. And I also can’t help notice that at almost the exact moment this generation fades away, at the exact moment that the horrors of the early twentieth century pass out of living memory, we start going back to our old ways. Nationalism and isolationism. Xenophobia and paranoia. Closing borders. Listening to bigoted, hateful demagogues, lining up with pitchforks in hand to deal with those people, because the angry man up on the podium is feeding off of our fear and our uncertainty, using the rhetorical alchemy of would-be dictators to transform that fear into hatred, and then feeding it right back into our hearts.
We’ve learned nothing. We’re still monkeys flinging our own shit at each other.
Maybe I’m exaggerating, but then again maybe I’m not. Maybe this is how it starts. Maybe we should really know better by now.
And, as an American, I realize that I have no room to talk in regards to idiotic politics. The reason I’m so disappointed by all this is that I thought you guys were doing better than us.
At the risk of hyperbole, I’m going to make one final point. I’ve known many Germans. They’ve all been wonderful, friendly, gracious human beings. I’ve never been to Germany myself, but I know many who have, and they all say the same thing. It’s a wonderful place, full of wonderful people. Intelligent, progressive politics. A high standard of living. Great beer. A great place to visit, and a great place to live. Before the Nazis took over, Berlin was one of the most liberal, cosmopolitan cities in the world. Pre-war Germany was a highly educated, thoroughly modern population. There is no secret black heart of the German people. They’re just people.
If the German people were capable of being duped, of being complicit, willingly or unwillingly, in the holocaust and the rise of the third reich and all of the horrors that followed, then we are all capable as well.
The Holocaust was not made possible by a flaw in the German character.
It was made possible by a flaw in the human character.
If it could happen in Germany, it could happen anywhere. Britain, America, anywhere. And it starts with the smallest things. It always starts with the smallest things. A forest fire can start with just the tiniest ember. We, as human beings, have a responsibility to be forever aware of the horrors of which our own darkest nature makes us capable. And we must always be vigilant.
We can do better. We can be better.
Did you ever have one of those friends?
You know the one. You were so close. Maybe you worked together. Maybe you were roommates or neighbors. You hung out all the time. You texted each other constantly. You were completely at ease together. You could practically read each other’s minds. They were as much as part of your life as that comfy old sofa in your living room.
But then, one day, something changed.
Maybe you moved, or you got a new job, or you started dating someone, or maybe they did. You promised yourself you’d keep in touch. You really meant to. But the sad fact is that most friendships are based on convenience and proximity. And so, what used to be a daily thing became a weekly thing, then an occasional thing. The texts dropped off. You kept up with them on Facebook, but otherwise kind of went on with your life.
You didn’t mean for it to happen like that, but it did. Pretty soon, the situation becomes self perpetuating. You don’t call because you didn’t call. You’re embarrassed that you let it go so long. You avoid making that call. Even if you have a perfectly reasonable excuse, you’re afraid that at this point you’ll be seen as self serving, only coming back into their life when it’s convenient for you. You’re sure they must just hate you by now. Surely they’ve written you off as another false, fair-weather friend. What’s the use in bothering them, forcing that awkwardness on them? Forcing them to pretend that they’re still your friend? That they still care? It’s better for everyone if you just them go on with their lives.
Slowly, inevitably, the friendship fades away. Until one day you run into your old friend in the grocery store, and neither one of you has much to say. You feel terrible about it, that you’ve let things go so badly. Like that houseplant you forgot to water until it withered and died. You’ve become two different people. Strangers. There’s some awkward, stilted chitchat, promises to catch up. How’s your sister? Did you ever … weren’t we going to …
And then you’re faced with a choice. Do you fess up and admit your mistake? Do you swallow your pride and make an effort to keep the friendship alive, to make sure you keep a place in your life for this person? Or do you just let go, just relax and let the last cords of that relationship slip through your fingers and drift out to sea?
So, on a completely unrelated topic, I haven’t posted on my blog in a while.
Here’s a picture of my cat.
Okay, so this guy, Loki Lokash, did a great review of my book, The Devil’s Mouth, on YouTube. It’s quite entertaining and really very flattering, so you should probably watch it and all his other book reviews. But he brought up a great point. Namely, how can action heroes manage to stay so pretty when they’re getting beaten up all the time? As sometimes happens in my brain, this question inspired an odd little short story.
So, yeah. Watch the review. Read the story. Buy the book.
“Oh, no.”
Jeeves, loyal butler and manservant to the caped crimefighter Captain Stalwart, peered out the window of the limousine at the abandoned quad cane standing on the sidewalk. He pulled the car to the curb and got out.
The sound of angry yelling attracted his attention, coming from a nearby deli.
Jeeves picked up the cane and entered the deli.
Inside, in front of the cold case, an old man stood on wobbly legs and swung his fist at the hapless deli clerk. The clerk fended his attacker off with a chair. He looked over at Jeeves when the bell on the door rang. “Hey man, help!” he cried. “Get this old lunatic off me!”
“Take that, Doctor Nefarious!” yelled the old man, windmilling his fists wildly. “I’ll not rest until you’re back in Stonegate Prison!”
“Master Jason,” said Jeeves sternly, taking hold of the old man’s arm, “stop this! He isn’t Doctor Nefarious! Doctor Nefarious is a senator now. You know this. Come along, let’s get you back to the mansion. You need to take your medication.”
“Eh?” said the old man. “But he—”
“Captain, no,” Jeeves said, sternly. “We need to go home right now. I’ve brought the car.”
The deli clerk said, “Thanks, man. That old lunatic thinks he’s Captain Stalwart.”
“Well actually,” responded Jeeves, “he is Captain Stalwart. Was, rather.”
The clerk’s face showed disbelief. “No way, dude. Captain Stalwart is… well he’s not ugly. Or old. This guy’s face looks like a bowl of mashed potatoes. And he’s like sixty.”
“Hrah!” Said Captain Stalwart, taking another half-hearted swing at the clerk.
Jeeves looked over his boss’s face: The massed scar tissue, the misshapen, flattened nose, the cauliflower ears, the split lips and the missing teeth. “Sad to say, he’s only 43. I’m afraid he’s gone downhill rather quickly. As it turns out, when one goes out and gets in bare-knuckle brawls with Doctor Nefarious’ henchmen every night for years, the damage tends to add up.” He handed Stalwart the cane. The superhero grasped the handle with trembling hands that barely flexed. Jeeves looked down at the swollen knuckles “Not to mention arthritis from all of the broken knuckles.”
The clerk scratched his head. “And, like, isn’t Captain Stalwart some kind of genius detective? This guy doesn’t even know what day of the week it is.”
“Yes, well,” Jeeves nodded sadly, “again, he’s gone downhill lately. As it turns out, despite what the comic books say, when one gets hit in the face with a pipe-wrench, it’s not the sort of thing one just shakes off. In fact, one spends two weeks in a coma. After ten years of being concussed, beaten with bats, and knocked out with lead saps on a weekly basis, it all starts to have an effect. Our Captain here is suffering from a nasty combination of dementia pugilistica, Parkinson’s, and the after-effects of a few dozen traumatic brain injuries.”
“Doctor Nefarious!” Stalwart screamed. He abandoned the cane and lunged towards the clerk, then promptly fell on his face when his knees gave way.
“And of course his knees are shot,” said Jeeves, helping his boss to his feet. “One can only jump off of a second-story rooftop so many times. We could get the joints replaced, if only he hadn’t squandered his family fortune on crime-fighting toys. I told him to save something for his retirement, but oh no, he had to have a fighter jet. To chase purse-snatchers.”
“Jeeze, the poor guy.” The clerk made a sympathetic face.
“Yes, well I warned him. Repeatedly, and at length.” Jeeves held Stalwart’s shoulder. He turned to the clerk. “Sir, I apologize for all of this hassle. I take my eyes off him for one second, and he wanders right out the front gates of Stalwart Manor.” To Stalwart, he said, “Come along, master Jason. We’ve got to get you home and change your colostomy bag.”
“Colostomy bag? Aw, man. That’s rough.”
Jeeves nodded sadly. “Yes, I’m afraid that was about the end of Captain Stalwart’s crime-fighting career. The surgeons had to remove twelve feet of his lower intestines, after he ran afoul of the Doctor’s secret weapon.”
“Holy shit,” said the clerk. “What was the secret weapon? Some kind of death ray? A diabolical trap?”
Jeeves replied, “Actually, it was a shotgun.”
You take them for granted.
Somehow, since they’ve always been there, you think they’ll be there forever. They’re your best friend. Your advisor, your entertainer, your refuge. Your comfort. Your used book store.
And then one day you see the sign. Going out of Business. Clearance Sale. And then they’re gone.
So goodnight, sweet prince. Goodbye, Almost Perfect Bookstore. You were my happy place. You reeked of books. Your aisles were a glorious mess, shelves overfull and bowed, books stacked waist high on either side, with just barely enough room to sneak between the piles. So many books. SO MANY BOOKS. A wonderful, jumbled up, car-bomb explosion of books.
It wasn’t glamorous. There were no stained walnut shelves, no smooth jazz, no deep carpet. No coffee bar, no cafe with upholstered leather easy chairs. No front tables with tastefully arranged displays of New York Times bestsellers.
But there were books. Good Lord were there books. Piles, mountains, heaps of books. It wasn’t the equal of Powell’s or Strand, but by God it was close. It was a solitary bright star of culture in the banal corporate landscape of the Sacramento suburbs.
Honestly, you deserved better. You were better than glaring fluorescents and a linoleum floor in a bland suburban strip mall. You deserved stone and brick, some quirky old two-story building with a creaky staircase, on a quiet side street, shelves of ancient wood polished by the touch of a thousand hands, nooks and crannies and dark corners full of books. A friendly but aloof cat that would sleep on the counter. A mysterious basement, long disused, filled with magical books, lit by torches and guarded by a dragon that asks riddles before allowing you to pass.
Oh, the joy. The joy of wandering through your labyrinth of yellow shelves. Just wandering. From Asimov to Zahn, Fiction, non-fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, gardening, astronomy, geology, metaphysics.
How many authors, how many wonderful authors, would I never have known about, if not for serendipitously stumbling upon them, or taking a suggestion from the encyclopedic knowledge of the staff? William Gibson. Bruce Stirling. Lawrence Block. John Steakley. Joe Haldeman. Lee Child. Greg Bear. David Morrell. Garth Nix. These names, these friends whose worlds I’ve explored and loved, I know them because of The Almost Perfect Bookstore.
You fed my habit. Your store credit was the lifeblood of my paperback addiction. I tried to give you good stuff back, I really did. I often found myself filling up a paper bag to trade in, and thinking to myself, “Oh come on Matt, do they really need another copy of From a Buick 8? Why don’t you throw in an Alastair Reynolds to make up for it.”
Yeah, sometimes I had to wait for service. But that was okay, because I’m a human being and you’re a human being and sometimes things take time. And once you got to my question, you always, always knew what I was talking about and where the damned book was. You guys knew the inventory of that place like Smaug knew his treasure.
And now it’s all gone, and it breaks my god-damned heart. When you love something, don’t take it for granted.
So, Scott, Kelly, and the rest of the gang. Thanks. Thanks for everything. I’m sorry I didn’t buy more books, if that would have helped anything. Thanks for the memories.
Once upon a time, there was a crazy kid with a crazy dream. A dream to write a book about a one-liner quipping, fast-car-driving, katana-wielding, cowboy-hat-wearing, rockabilly vampire hunter. If that isn’t a crazy dream, I don’t know what is.
And then that crazy kid, he went and wrote that book.
And then he had another crazy dream. He dreamed that someday somebody other than his two best friends might read it.
He thought for a while about traditional publishing. He made some inquiries. It went like this:
Author: I have this book…
Publisher: Does it have an orphaned child wizard?
Author: No, but it…
Publisher: Is there a female teenage protagonist, forced to fight to the death for entertainment in a future dystopia?
Author: Not exactly.
Publisher: Are there dragons?
Author: No. But there are vampires.
Publisher: Okay, now we’re talking! Are they broody, sparkly, harmless good vampires that romance teenage girls?
Author: No. They just kill people.
Publisher: Get the hell out of my office.
Okay, my lawyer wants me to mention that this conversation only took place in my imagination, but it was extremely vivid.
So, after that, the crazy kid looked into online self-publishing, the craziest dream of all.
So, he found a crazy little website called Reedsy.com where he found an editor and a cover designer, and spent a kind of a crazy frightening amount of money getting this crazy manuscript polished up. Then he spent more crazy amounts of money on formatting and advertising, and he released his crazy rockabilly vampire hunter novel out into the world.
And to his utter shock and amazement, it didn’t do half bad.
Plot twist. I’m that crazy writer. The Devil’s Mouth has been out on the Kindle store for a little more than a month. I’ve sold significantly more copies than I have sympathetic friends and relatives, and I’m actually getting mostly good reviews. People seem to enjoy the book, and it’s the most rewarding, encouraging, validating thing I can possibly imagine.
I am overwhelmed with joy and gratitude.
I would like to extend a big giant heartfelt thank you to everyone involved.
First and foremost, my readers. I know that buying a book on the kindle store from an unknown author is a risk, to say the least. So thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking a chance on me. I cannot thank you enough. I am so completely serious that I am literally tearing up as I write this. And a double thank you for those of you who went to the trouble to leave a review. Self published authors live and die by those reviews, so I cannot express my gratitude enough. Even those of you who left meh reviews, I truly appreciate the feedback, and again, I appreciate you taking the chance on me. Except that one guy who left a one-star review. You obviously didn’t even read the book, and you can eat a bag of dicks.
Thank you to the reviewers who also took a chance on my book. Invested Ivana, Patrick Dorn, Derek Edgington, Barb Taub, Jess Haines, Bob Williams, and anyone else who I forgot, or whose review escaped my notice. Those early, positive reviews from professional readers and writers who had no vested interest in sparing my feelings meant more to me than you’ll ever know. Thanks.
Thank yous go next to my friends and family, you know who you are. All those of you who read my early drafts and gave me feedback, or listened to me as I talked out some plot issue or another, or just refrained from rolling your eyes when I mentioned the book I was writing, thank you. Thank you. You guys, you are the wind beneath my wings.
Next up, thank you to the professionals who helped me make the book everything it could be.
J. Caleb Design, you saw my vision, and you brought it to life. Thanks for putting up with my nit picking, and thank you for that awesome cover. Everyone loves it. Except that guy that left the one star review, but fuck him.
Angela Brown, thank you for cleaning up my atrocious grammar, hammering the dents out of my story, and bringing my manuscript up to a professional standard. I’m sure it was a Augean task, but you got it done with style. I’m afraid I added in a few more typos after you got done with it, but I want everyone to know that those were all my fault, so blame me, and not this wonderful editor.
Polgarus Studios, You guys just rock. Thank you for making my book look like a book. If anyone reading this is considering self publishing, talk to these guys. They’ll format your ebook better and faster than you could do it yourself. It’s a bargain. It’s worth it. Believe me.
Reedsy.com Thank you for your website, which allowed me to browse dozens and dozens of vetted industry professionals, and receive quotes from those same professionals. Without you guys I’d still be browsing fiverr and craigslist for an editor. There’s no getting around the fact that real professionals cost real money, but reedsy.com absolutely made the whole process easier and far less risky for both parties.
Again, thank you everyone. I’m aglow. This is the beginning of an amazing adventure.
-Matt Kincade
As you probably know, I recently published a book on the kindle store about a vampire hunter. What you probably didn’t know is that it’s autobiographical. Well, semi-autobiographical. Well, maybe not autobiographical exactly. But inspired by real life events. Sort of. I mean, did I have a handgun or a katana? No. But, being in the fourth grade, I really wanted one. Did I slay supernatural creatures of the night? No. Well… sort of. But young Matt Kincade’s prey wasn’t a vampire.
It was a werewolf.
It all started on a warm Saturday in late October, the day of the elementary school Halloween carnival. On that day, every year, the blacktop playground of the school was transformed into a carnival midway, littered with pumpkins and hay bales and scarecrows, orange and black crepe-paper bunting, rows of games and attractions, food and drinks and entertainment.
What I mostly remember about the Halloween carnival was being hot. As the days got shorter and the nights crew crisp and cool, as the trees turned to orange and yellow and the scent of woods-stove smoke drifted in the air, naturally thoughts would turn to wintertime, to sweaters and hot chocolate. And then, every damned year, there’d be a last minute heatwave in late October, and the halloween carnival would be a bunch of little kids crammed into elaborate, semi-functional, sweat-soaked costumes, wandering around on heat-shimmering asphalt and bordering on heatstroke.
Aside from that, the carnival was actually a lot of fun. After buying a fistful of tickets, kids could wander around and play games of skill to win prizes, knocking over milk bottle pyramids with baseballs, throwing darts at balloons, or lobbing ping-pong balls into mason jars in order to win short-lived goldfish in plastic bags, goldfish that the children would then bring to their unenthusiastic parents. There’s a whole other story behind my goldfish acquisition, and I’ll get to that some other time. But the prizes are important here.
See, little fourth-grader me, dressed up like a pirate, was wandering around with a bag of loot. Pirate loot. It was just a plastic bag filled with all the stupid little crap I’d won playing the carnival games. Hard candy. A rubber snake. One of those little plastic whistles shaped like a bird that you fill with water. A few novelty pencil erasers. The kind of junk you order from Oriental Trading Company when you need prizes for an elementary school carnival. But a significant amount of stuff. Hard and heavy, you might say. This factors in later.
So anyway, the main event of the Halloween Carnival was the haunted house. The rest of the year, it was the school library. But, thanks to the efforts of an army of volunteers and a few hundred yards of black plastic sheet, every year it was transformed into a labyrinth of macabre horror, just scary enough to terrify a young, sensitive child like myself. But this year, I decided, I was going to be a man. I was going to go through the haunted house. By myself. No parents holding my hand. So I paid my fistful of tickets and went inside.
Spooky music. Rattling chains. The screams of the damned. It was all there as our tour guide, dressed as a green-skinned witch with a hooked nose, beckoned us with one finger into her chamber of horrors. I and the rest of my tour group (a bunch of other terrified elementary school kids) huddled close as we shuffled around the corner.
Oh no! There was a mad scientist! Eyeballs in jars! A serial killer! Guts made out of spaghetti! Horror piled upon horror!
In retrospect, this was an amateur production, but as a nine year old it seemed pretty real and it absolutely scared the piss out of me.
Which is why I plead self-defense.
Following behind my tour group, we rounded one more corner. And the lights went out. In the utter darkness for a span of heartbeats, my imagination ran wild.
Then the strobe light kicked on. And there, advancing in slow-motion through the smoke-machine fog, was a god-damned fucking werewolf.
Flash. There he was. Flash. Closer now. Flash. Bloody red fangs. Flash. Claws outstretched. Flash. Even closer. Flash. Reaching for me.
My survival instincts kicked in.
Honestly, even today I’m pretty proud of my reaction. You know those crisis moments where your body just takes over, and you do things without conscious thought? It’s like your brain just shoves you out of the driver’s seat and gets it done. Like, for example, when a boat falls off of a trailer on the freeway in front of you. (Again, a story for another time.)
So. As this terrible, slavering werewolf advanced, illuminated by strobe-light bursts, I sprang into action.
The bag of candy in my hand. The heavy bag full of plastic toys and hard candy. I swung it.
But oh, I didn’t just swing it. I swung it. I swung the bag forward, upwards in a circle, then pulled it sideways over my head, building up a terrific head of steam, yanking it around in a hard, flat arc, all in the stuttering slow motion of the strobe light.
Right into the side of that werewolf’s face.
It was a sublime hit. I couldn’t possibly have done it better. Through the handle of the plastic bag, I felt it connect. I heard the hard, solid Thwok as plastic struck werewolf flesh. Stunned, the werewolf stumbled sideways a few steps. It shook its head.
Then the creature spoke to me: “You little shit!”
The werewolf tore off his mask, revealing a very angry high-school drama student with a red mark on his cheek.
High-schoolers were scarier than werewolves.
He grabbed my by the arm and dragged me away, down into the bowels of the haunted house. Which, oddly enough, looked like the periodicals section of the school library. He hauled me in front of the grown-up in charge and said, “This little asshole hit me in the face with a bag of candy!”
“What did you do that for?” asked the grownup.
“I was scared,” I answered.
I think I saw her suppress a smile. “What’s your name?”
I made up a name. Ralphie or something.
“Are your parents here?”
“No,” I said. In reality, my mom worked for the school and was volunteering in another section of the carnival.
“How did you get here?” she asked. I said I’d walked, which was plausible in this particular tiny foothill town. She asked me where I lived, and I lied an address.
Finally, realizing she had nothing on me, my interrogator said, “Okay, get out of here. You’re banned from the haunted house.” Fine by me, lady. I scuttled away, into the light and the late October heat.
Did that encounter whet my appetite for supernatural justice, planting the seeds that would lead me, years later, to write a story about a cowboy vampire hunter? yeah… probably not. But it’s good to know that if I’m ever attacked by a werewolf, and I happen to have a bag of candy in my hand, I know exactly what to do.
Warning: Those of you who have never read or heard of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, in any of its several forms, will likely have no idea what I’m talking about.
So Idris Elba is the Gunslinger. It’s official. The cameras are rolling. After years and years of false starts, rejected scripts, departing directors, and Hollywood production hell, it’s happening. I’m…cautiously optimistic. Hollywood has broken my heart too many times for me to work up anything approaching outright enthusiasm, but I’m hopeful. But it took me a little while to come around to that. Let me explain.
I have to admit, Idris Elba, at first glance, is an odd choice. Let’s address the elephant in the room right off the bat, shall we? Idris Elba is an excellent actor. He’s a bad-ass. I have no doubt he can carry the role of Roland of Gilead, and truly make it come alive. The thought of him spouting some of Roland’s lines in his low, gravelly voice gives me shivers.
But he’s black, and Roland is white. Let me say right upfront, that doesn’t matter. Does it? I don’t think so, but it took me a couple of weeks to make up my mind. Let’s discuss.
There are some movies where the casting is almost supernaturally good. The Lord of the Rings, for example. It felt like the casting director just peeled my brain open and scooped the characters out onto the screen. It was eerily perfect. Not so Idris Elba. In fact, Elba is jarringly different than what Roland of Gilead looks like in my brain. That’s a fact, for me, and for millions of Dark Tower fans. It’s disingenuous and deeply unfair to call Dark Tower fans racist if they’re having a problem with it. After thirty years of the main character of the series looking one way, in the novel’s descriptions, in Michael Whelan’s wonderful cover art and illustrations, in the dozens of graphic novels, now, without warning, Roland is someone completely different. There is nothing wrong with anybody having a knee-jerk reaction to that.
What if they remade Blade with a white guy? What if they remade Kill Bill with a man? What if they remade Ghostbusters with a bunch of women…oh, wait. Ugh, nevermind.
But anyway, it gets to the heart of the question, how much ownership do fans have over the fantasy worlds they love? We’ve seen, most of all with Star Wars, that owners of an intellectual property are free to make sweeping, unilateral changes to their respective universes, and the fans don’t have a say. I mean, thirty years worth of Star Wars extended universe canon was obliterated with the stroke of a pen. Millions of voices crying out in agony, and then silenced… And I understand why they did it, I do. But it’s a blow when you have such emotional investment in something, and then someone comes and nukes it. It’s rather like renting a home. You get comfortable there, you think you have some say over what happens to it, then one day you find out that you really don’t at all. It can sting.
But it’s not just that, there are story issues as well. Perhaps the most obvious issue with Elba’s casting is that it indicates significant plot revisions. Detta Walker, The racist, wheelchair-bound black woman who features prominently in most of the books, just ain’t going to work if Roland is also black.
But the more I think about it, the more I realize that the Detta you see in the books would never make it to the big screen anyway. Let’s be real. A crazy, violent, racist black woman, spouting vile epithets while she tries to kill the protagonist by virtue of his skin color? This was a character created by Stephen King 30 years ago, likely at the height of his substance abuse problems. The world has come a long way since then. I don’t care who is playing the Gunslinger, if you think the original Detta Walker would make it into a major motion picture in 2016, you’re crazy. You’d likely be hard-pressed to find a self-respecting black woman who’d even agree to play the part.
Detta’s character is an ugly, hurtful stereotype that needs to die. I mean, let’s play the switcheroo game here for a second. What if (due to the casting of Idris Elba as Roland) they made Detta Walker into an ignorant white-trash wheelchair bound racist with Aryan Nation tattoos, screaming “n*gger” at Roland? Her character, of course, still wouldn’t fly. Mark my words: No matter who plays Roland, that entire subplot and character arc is going to be severely revised or axed altogether. And that’s not a bad thing. So, get used to it. And if Detta’s character doesn’t have that particular arc, then Roland’s race truly doesn’t matter to the story. Gilead seems to be a pretty progressive place, after all.
So, the only thing left to worry about is whether the movie is going to suck. Like I said earlier, I’ve been burned too many times to get my hopes up. But I think I can safely say that if this movie does suck, it’s not going to be because of Idris Elba, and certainly not because of the color of his skin.
Those of you who’ve been following my blog, or those of you who got here by following the link in my ebook, will know that I’ve recently published a book that I’ve been working on for quite a while. It’s called The Devil’s Mouth, and it’s on the the Kindle store.
Having begun this post with a quote about art, I have to stipulate that I think it’s a stretch to call a book about a katana-wielding rockabilly cowboy vampire hunter “art.” But the sentiment still applies. Is anybody ever really finished with anything creative? Or do you just get sick of it, or run out of time? If Leonardo da Vinci were here today and he took a look at the Mona Lisa, he’d probably have to go get his paint brushes and touch up her eyebrows or something. Fun fact, da Vinci worked on the Mona Lisa for over ten years. Because it’s never perfect. And if (like me) you’re working on your own schedule, the only deadlines you have are the ones you impose on yourself. So it’s almost impossible to draw a line and say that something is done. But eventually you have to.
And damn does it feel good when you finally do.
It’s been a long road. From a rough outline, a crazy idea and a few scribbles in a notebook, to a finished, polished final product, something I can look at and say, “I did that.”
After reams of paper, printer cartridges, notebooks, pens, drafts and drafts and drafts, revisions, proofreading, beta reads, feedback, revisions. . . it’s done. It’s done.
While it’s incredibly validating to see the finished product, to hold your book in your hand and see people enjoying it, a large part of the satisfaction is just having the damned thing finished. To know that the product has shipped. The bird has flown. I can’t change it now it I wanted to, thank God. Even though I can’t read a sentence of it without wanting to shuffle words around, I can’t anymore. It’s out of my hands. It’s done.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the process, or I wouldn’t be doing it. I love creating. I love watching these characters developing, seemingly of their own accord, the plot twists that surprise even me. I love the lightbulb moment while I’m washing dishes or taking a shower. I love getting dialed into an editing trance and realizing that it got dark while I wasn’t paying attention.
For me, there’s always a part of my brain chewing on stories. I’ve probably got five or six going now. They come and go as they please, plot elements bouncing around in my head like bingo balls, searching for the right configuration, waiting for the tumblers to line up. They were there even before I started writing. Hell, that’s probably why I started writing. Because the only way to get rid of them is to write them down and finish them.
Still, The Devil’s Mouth has taken up the majority of my imagination RAM for quite a while. There’s a peculiar feeling of lostness, like my brain doesn’t quite know what to do now. My imagination is like that old guy in The Shawshank Redemption who got out of prison and didn’t know what the hell to do with himself.
It’s not a bad thing. It’s a good thing. But it’s a strange feeling all the same. It’s done.
Welp, time to get to work on the next one.
Aw, heck yes. After a whole lot of time and effort, I am kicking this little baby bird out of the nest. The Devil’s Mouth is available on the Kindle store, and for a limited time it’s only .99 cents.
I’d just like to give a great big thank you to all of you out there in blog land, you’ve all been so supportive and just all around awesome.
Matt Kincade 