Flashback Blog: Politics of The Pius Trilogy

This came up many, MANY moons ago. Now that I find myself hip-deep in politics all the time, I figure it's time to have this conversation again.




Irony sucks.

In my life, I have written nearly two dozen novels. Science fiction. Hostage novels. Comedy thrillers. Plain old, simple, straightforward shoot-em-up thrillers. One vampire novel. Murder mysteries set at a high school summer camp (title: Summer Death Camp -- now, also coming soon from Damnation Books).

And then there's A Pius Man. It was strange for a number of reasons. It basically took every single character I ever created and threw them together in a sprawling, two-pound, eight hundred page epic. There was theology, philosophy, liberty, love, marriage, death, and a fairly large war somewhere in the middle.

It was also the most political novel I had written.

Seriously, this book was all over the place with political topics. Racism, homosexuality, globalization, secularization, warfare, a just peace, when peace is just another word for surrender, torture, the International Community, terrorism, abortion … you name it, it was in the book.

Here's the irony: I hate politics. Hate 'em to death with a fiery passion. I think it's narrow-minded, more dogmatic than the Vatican, and more hypocritical than Voltaire saying “destroy the Church” on one hand, while taking daily communion in his private chapel.

Look at the list above: racism and homosexuality are political topics? It should be simple: racism bad; who cares who you have sex with, have a nice day. But, no, they must be politicized.

Like I said, I hate politics, and what it does to normal, sane people the moment someone brings it up.

So, of course, when I finally come close to having something published, it's A Pius Man.

Like I said, irony sucks.

Unfortunately, politics are unavoidable when looking at the discussion of Pope Pius XII during the holocaust. [For those of you just tuning in, the “discussion” is summarized here]

No matter what side of the Pius discussion one finds themselves on, politics follows. While not perfectly uniform, the discussion breaks down along political lines.

Leftists take the anti-Pius side, right wingers take the pro-Pius side.

Leftists use it to bash a centralized church with a strong hierarchical structure, with a goal of making the Catholic church like, say, the Unitarians (only a slight exaggeration, depending on which Leftist one is talking about).

On the right, you have a lot of conservative folks who make a case for Pius XII's sainthood.

I know what you're thinking: if this breaks down along political lines, you can tell exactly how the book will end depending on what my personal politics are. What are my politics?

That depends on where the jury is sitting.

Anatomy of a Breakup, 2: Emotional Fall out, and (Bruce) Banner moments

Happy Valentine's day.  If you are having a good Valentine's day, with a great date all planned (or already done, if you're smart and did it on the weekend), then you might want to read today's earlier article, and this one, so you can be happy you're not me. Trust me, if you want to appreciate what you have, it's good to know what happens when you lose it.

Now, the earlier article was all about an example of a relationship / friendship falling to pieces.  In this cases, it fell apart over the course of months with one party not even being aware of it.

That ignorant buffoon I speak of is, of course, myself.

So, how should a character react to having a relationship suddenly and expectantly go south on him? Well, in A Pius Man, when relationships go south, guns are pulled out.  Earlier, I mentioned CS Lewis' book On Grief, and my reaction was much the same as the traditional stages of grief ... well, partially.

Denial: I didn't cry, mainly because my body has forgotten how to cry in full-out sobbing format. There were tears, but not all that much. I was quite, quite numb. I don't know if it counts as denial, but I couldn't think very clearly.  This woman was my best friend for years.  She brought out every good instinct in me.  My friends could see it, I could see it.  I was a better person because she was in my life.  She defined all of my best qualities, and made me want her good qualities. There had to be a mistake here.  Just because she didn't "love" love me, didn't mean the friendship was over, did it? That didn't make sense. Could it? I had to be wrong. I had to have misread it. I had to have been illiterate. This was my best friend. I told her everything. And I mean everything.  She would have told me to my face if she believed what I read -- at least on the phone.

Bargaining: My next thought was to make certain I understood everything involved, included that this was the end of the friendship as well. I asked her if I should cancel my ticket to California -- a plan we had been working on for 8 months now -- and she said yes.  Not only was she not in love with me -- which I could live with -- but she didn't even want to hang out. She couldn't care about me as a friend. That nail gun sound is sealing the coffin on our friendship.

Anger: Oh, I have that part down.  As I write this (the week of the 5th), I am quite a powder keg.  I have had to de-friend people on Facebook whom I normally tolerate because I am ready to tear them a few new orifices.  I am generally not a "nice" person, though I shoot for merely "good".  This week, I want to hurt something.  On the bright side, my cardio class and punching bag routines went over like a dream. Lift weights? No problem. Roll out the punching bags and beat them across the floor? Hell yes.

The strange thing is that I'm not angry at anyone in particular. Everything, yes, but no one person. I'm not even angry at the one who initiated this.  Could I do things to hurt her, even though she's 3,000 miles away? Sure, that's easy. I could write to her father to tell him about the whole relationship from start to finish, and he's a bastard, and no mistake; there is Facebook, and the internet, and all the various and sundry ways you can hurt someone that way -- it's not rocket science, any internet troll can do that.

Would I do anything to hurt her, though? No.  That has no interest for me, and it makes me physically ill to even contemplate doing it.

It's possible that I took my confusion to be anger -- it's possible, since I'm quite confused. This came out of nowhere, even though she said she'd been writing the letter for months. Her telling me to redeem my ticket implies that she was jerking me around about the California trip as recently as three weeks before the letter. So, was she lying to me the whole time? Did something happen since then?

There is a lot of adrenaline flowing in me.  I have redhead genes (redheads do have surges of adrenaline, more than the average person), but my heart will sometimes race, and I feel all the fear and excitement of a particularly dangerous roller coaster ride, only without any of the enjoyment such a ride should entail.  It is the fear and excitement more akin to my being strangled in Krav Maga, back to when I had no idea what I was doing, and the training partner was really trying to kill me. Only this time, there is no endorphin chaser once the choke is broken, but my body feels like it's constantly under attack.
[More below the break.]

Anatomy of a breakup, part 1: "Dear John"

[I think at the end of the day that this is a writing resource. For those of you who have never had a bad breakup, enjoy -- because this is what you'll never have to go through, and you will never need to. I am recording it all for you right now.]

This is just some of how I do chivalry in my novels

When CS Lewis, the author of the Chronicles of Narnia, lost his wife, he went out and wrote a book about it.  It was simply called On Grief.

Last week, as you may have noticed, a very dear friend, in fact, someone I was in love with, sent me a Dear John letter.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept, a breakup letter. At least, it usually is.

In this case, it was kind of confusing on multiple levels, and not that simple. I was in love with her; her, not so much. I didn't make it a secret, nor did I force the issue. But "breakup" is the way to summarize what happened.

Anyway, why am I writing this? Well, I thought last week that I would simply go into hibernation and leave the blog alone. My mood is not healthy. I was usually an inch away from biting someone's head off. Several "friends" of mine whose disrespectful views I usually tolerate got on my last nerve, and it was either cut off all contact, or eviscerate them in a public forum online.  And I even partially failed at that, too.

However, this is Valentine's day. And, ironically, the Dear John letter arrived almost a year to the day after one of my last blogs on the subject of romance in writing. So, this is sort of perfect timing.

So, in the tradition of CS Lewis, more or less, I am going to give you the anatomy of a breakup.

[As a disclaimer, I know what you're thinking -- is he using his blog to take subtle shots at this ex-friend of his? No. That would presume she reads the blog. As I noted last time, it was a 50/50 chance she read that blog, and it's a sure thing that the odds are even less this time, don't you think?  Also: I am not reading the letter, I am not quoting it, I am reconstructing it as best as I can from memory.]

[More below the break.]

Author Review: John Ringo, Part 1 (Free Books, and Princess of Wands)

When Jim Baen was still alive and running Baen books, he had several principles.
1) He hated agents
2) It didn't matter what your political philosophy was, as long as you stated it well, you could be published by his company.
3) He  figured that giving away the books was the best way for people to get into them.

I'm quite serious about #3.  However, this was before the rise of the e-readers, and Mr. Baen died before that.  The company hasn't changed that stance, however....

So, you want a book for free?

Today, I'm looking at author John Ringo .... who, by the way, has no relationship to outlaw Johnny Ringo, of the old west.  If you look at his novels, you can see he's somewhere around libertarian / right-wing ... however, he actually has reasons for what he believes in, and when it's relevant, he'll explain. When it's not relevant, politics won't enter into it -- usually because too many people are busy shooting at our protagonists.

John Ringo, who was never a member of the Beatles, started his career with the Posleen War series, which has spun out of control into about a dozen books by now. The first four are self-contained, however-- a battle against cannibalistic Mongol hordes from space. He's former 82nd airborne, so the battles work.

And, you can download most of the books he's written for free, here.   And it's 100% legal.

Now, Ringo has only been an author for about ten years now.  He's published 35 novels. Thirty-five.  I've been writing on my own for fifteen years, and I only have about twenty-four.  So, professionally, I hate his guts. Personally, I have enjoyed everything he's ever written.  However, due to the sheer quantity of what he has published, I'm going to have to break him up into several series in order to get this into a readable format.

I should note now that this list of Ringo books is more or less written in order of series that I highly recommend, and that I think you will enjoy the most, in the order than I think you will enjoy them. Promise.

Since this blog post was originally written, I have since gotten an article on Examiner.com, so you can read the rest of the review there.  Or, here, as the case may be. 

Books to Enjoy: The World of Jim Butcher.

Jim Butcher wrote the books which loosely inspired the short lived sci-fi channel series "The Dresden Files" ... let's just say that he was so thrilled with the way the tv series turned out, when the SciFi channel became the Syfy channel, he referred to it as "the syphylus channel."

And, when asked at the DragonCon Panel about when the rights revert back to him, he rattled off a number down to the days and the hours left.

Not that he's bitter or anything ... though he might have a countdown app.

The premise of the Dresden File novels: think of one parts Philip Marlow and one part Gandalf on meth; Wizard as Private Eye.



The series starts with a serial killer in Chicago who kills people by magic ... and lightning.


So, of course, the title has to be Storm Front.

To be honest, I wasn't very thrilled.  It was fun, that was certain, but it seemed a little ... lacking.  It may have just been me.  However, I got a 3-in-1 volume, so I figured I would give it until the end of the volume and see exactly where Butcher thought he was going with the entire series.

It turns out that I chose wisely.

The next book in the series is Fool Moon.

If book one was the evil, magic-using serial killer that uses the lightning as a weapon, the sequel must have werewolves, right? Logical progression.

Anyway, this one was definitely more interesting, with a suspect pool that relies on knowing several varieties of werewolf, and ends with a three-way shootout.

And Butcher does a nice job of recreating parts of the Terminator in a police station, only with a werewolf.

Now, if book two has werewolves, book three must have vampires ... okay, that is a logical progression.  This one develops an interesting little world war with vampires.  Over the books to come, Butcher slowly builds every single aspect of his little world, and he develops a good, solid story arc that fits together surprisingly well.  The character of Harry Dresden has developed from a magical Jim Rockford who gets beat up a lot, to a strong leader who can unify various and sundry hostile groups against a common enemy .... and Dresden still gets beaten up a lot.


Apparently, Dresden is building up to an “apocalyptic trilogy” for a finale that will probably involve wizards, vampires, the fae, skinwalkers, werewolves, demons, advanced assault weapons, aikido, and Excalibur-level swords.

And his most recent novel is called Ghost Story, out now.

Jim Butcher's second series is The Codex Alera—fantasy, Lord of the Rings style. The hero is the only person in the world who can't use magic, but he can use his mind to do more damage than any spellbook. It starts with political intrigue and espionage, and turns into a sweeping epic against, well, your standard end-of-the-world types. It's the second time I have seen a novel use magic as a well thought out tactical weapon. There is no “massive fireball inflicts +100 damage, kills everyone” versions of magic.

It's some nice, solid tactics and strategy, and good character too.  If you don't believe me, ask my friend Jason.

Who, by the way, will not shut up about Ghost Story.  :)

Anyway, that's all for the day.  Enjoy

Influential Author: Jeffery "Devious" Deaver

Jeffery Deaver has a wonderful way of messing with one's mind.

In my household, “to Deaver” something means to put a backspin on a storyline so hard that the audience gets whiplash. When I mean thriller, I mean it doesn't slow down-- at least not for long.

In my house, the man is so well known for screwing with his readers in surprise twists that whenever we see a writer radically twist everything we thought we knew about the plot, and do it fifty pages away from the ending of the book, we say that he "Deavered" the plot, or "pulled a Deaver."

The man likes to play games. Then again, he's a Fordham law school graduate, so that may have something to do with it.

Authors I Am Thankful For

Thanksgiving and Black Friday are over. Everyone, welcome back.

This is probably something that should have been posted on Thursday, but everyone was probably busy this weekend.

In my life, few authors have affected me in any way, shape or form. Most of it affected me in a professional manner. From Joseph Garber's Verticle Run, I learned how to start a thriller that didn't stop from start to finish, and while he was recently trumped by Matthew Reilly and James Rollins, Garber is where to start.

Few authors have ever actually had an impact on my life in general. And by few, I mean three. And, technically, I wasn't even the one who really felt the impact for two of the authors … it's a long story.


Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Once upon a time, I had considered getting a friend of mine a gift for his birthday. The novel was Good Omens, which was essentially Murphy's law as applied to the apocalypse— losing the antichrist, for example. It was fun. Strange as all hell, but fun. Neil Gaiman still insists that he wrote some of the funny parts. I thought my friend would like it.

Meanwhile, in another part of the internet, a woman was trying to remember the title of a novel she had read once upon a time. She signed into her dating website of choice, and came across the novel in my friend's profile. The book was Good Omens.

That relationship culminated in the marriage from two months ago.....

J. Michael Straczynski.

Way back in the 1990s, there was a television show called Babylon 5. It was a science fiction program that was less about special effects, latex masks and tight body suits, and more an epic about character. It was essentially a filmed novel. Like War and Peace, with one-tenth the cast. It was interesting enough that I would spend time with my family pondering what would happen next.

Along the way, when I was sixteen, I started writing what is unfortunately known as fan fiction. I had written stories based off of throwaway one-liners in the series. And while I touched nothing of the actual series storyline, I had a few concepts that the show didn't expand on, and spun that off into little corners of the universe, and aside from the first two books, it basically became its own series. I started rewriting what was a fan fiction quartet of over two thousand pages, and I'm now on book 6 of a possible 13 that I've outlined...

One of the artifacts I had picked up because of Babylon 5 is a leather bomber jacket. It had a great big gold embroidered 5 on the back, in the style of the show, and the show logo on the front. I have worn it every winter when the temperature dropped below forty, and there was no precipitation. This includes my days in college, when it was just too cold to wear a suit jacket.

One day, in 2001, I walked out of a class called the History of Terrorism, and one classmate had noticed the jacket. We walked and talked across the university's great lawn, past the library, an administrative building, and to the other side of the campus, until my ride literally started the car, pulled up behind me, and flashed his brights at us.

A month ago, I was a groomsman at his wedding.

A few years afterward, during my abortive attempt at a PhD in history, I drove down to a social in Manhattan, wearing the same jacket. Someone behind me said, “Cool jacket, I know that show.” He hasn't stopped talking to me since. Two months ago, I was the best man at his wedding... the one made possible by Terry Pratchett

I've heard people tell me that reading is an anti-social activity. Obviously, they've been reading the wrong books.

DragonCon, 2010, Day 1-3

DragonCon, 2010, Day 1-3

The Politics of A Pius Man.

Irony sucks.

In my life, I have written nearly two dozen novels. Science fiction. Hostage novels. Comedy thrillers. Plain old, simple, straightforward shoot-em-up thrillers. One vampire novel. Murder mysteries set at a high school summer camp (title: Summer Death Camp).

And then there's A Pius Man. It was strange for a number of reasons. It basically took every single character I ever created and threw them together in a sprawling, two-pound, eight hundred page epic. There was theology, philosophy, liberty, love, marriage, death, and a fairly large war somewhere in the middle.

It was also the most political novel I had written.

Seriously, this book was all over the place with political topics. Racism, homosexuality, globalization, secularization, warfare, a just peace, when peace is just another word for surrender, torture, the International Community, terrorism, abortion … you name it, it was in the book.

Here's the irony: I hate politics. Hate 'em to death with a fiery passion. I think it's narrow-minded, more dogmatic than the Vatican, and more hypocritical than Voltaire saying “destroy the Church” on one hand, while taking daily communion in his private chapel. Look at the list above: racism and homosexuality are political topics. It should be simple: racism bad; who cares who you have sex with, have a nice day. But, no, they must be politicized.

Like I said, I hate politics, and what it does to normal, sane people the moment someone brings it up.

So, of course, when I finally come close to having something published, it's A Pius Man.

Like I said, irony sucks.

Unfortunately, politics are unavoidable when looking at the discussion of Pope Pius XII during the holocaust. [For those of you just tuning in, the “discussion” is summarized here]

No matter what side of the Pius discussion one finds themselves on, politics follows. While not perfectly uniform, the discussion breaks down along political lines.

Leftists take the anti-Pius side, right wingers take the pro-Pius side. Leftists use it to bash a centralized church with a strong hierarchical structure, with a goal of making the Catholic church like, say, the Unitarians (only a slight exaggeration, depending on which Leftist one is talking about).

On the right, you have a lot of conservative folks who make a case for Pius XII's sainthood.

I know what you're thinking: if this breaks down along political lines, you can tell exactly how the book will end depending on what my personal politics are. What are my politics?

That depends on where the jury is sitting.



In New York I'm a right-wing, blood-thirsty maniac because ... I think a blanket gay marriage license is a bad idea. Mainly because, in the first wave issued in the Northeast, there were a large segment that took the newly issued licenses, and went to their local church and demanded to be married –whether or not the church in question allowed gay marriage.

In the South, I'm a blood-thirsty left wing psychotic because … I think “marriage” is a religious term. Atheists go to a justice of the peace and enter into civil unions, NOT marriages. A civil union is a state function. Issue licenses for civil unions to BOTH atheists and gays, then the latter group can take it to a church that allows gay marriage, and they can all live happily every after and leave my church the hell alone. I'm not interested in burning gays at the stake, and I don't care if one is gay, straight or “flaming,” have a nice day.



In New York, I'm an evil righty because … I supported G.W. Bush going into Iraq and Afghanistan, and the war on terror in general.

In REALLY red states I'm an evil Leftist because … I would have supported Clinton going into Iraq. And I wanted someone to go into the Sudan before Darfur became a buzz word. And I hated almost everything else President Bush ever did.



In New York, I am conservative because … I think abortion and contraceptives are generally a Bad Idea.

In Pat Robertson's district, I am a bleeding heart Liberal …. because I'm not going to say “You had an abortion, therefore you are immediately going to Hell! MUAHAHAHA”


In New York, I am a psychotic Conservative … because I think the government should get the hell outta my life. Just protect my stuff, my neighbor's stuff, and leave me the hell alone.

In the more bleeding red states, I am an evil Liberal … because I'd want a Republican government to get the hell outta my life. Just protect my stuff, my neighbor's stuff, and leave me the hell alone.



My politics boils down to, “There are things I don't like, wouldn't recommend, but I'm not issuing automatic condemnations.”  Politically, I'm somewhere in the middle. Which, in politics, means I'm in the middle of the crossfire.

So, what does this mean about A Pius Man? Don't be mistaken, I do take a side. I believe my conclusions are obvious basic on the facts I have researched. However, the political portions of the book are discussions, not rants. And the politics are driven more by the characters than by me.

And the politics of the characters in A Pius Man?



Sean A.P. Ryan. Mercenary. Believes in the free market system, heavy weaponry, and grew up in Hollywood. When queried on his political affiliations, he would say, “I believe people should be able to own marijuana and machine guns. I will laugh at the marijuana crowd, but if I have my guns, I'm happy.”

Scott “Mossad” Murphy. He works for Israel, usually among Palestinians. Moved from America to join the Mossad after 9-11. His politics: “I believe in the power of waterboarding. But I'd sooner talk terrorists to death. It's more painful in the long run. When you can talk them into revealing everything they know, kill them, move up the chain of command. Repeat until they're willing to be peaceful, or they are peacefully dead.”

Giovanni Figlia. His father was blown up by a Red Army faction in the 1980s, so he has a grudge against extreme, gun-toting Leftists. Aside from that, his politics are: “I have to protect the most powerful religious leader on the planet, and he insists on pissing off nearly one-third of the world's population. Leave me alone and let me do my job.”

Pope Pius XIII (Born: Joshua Kutjok): Hard right-wing. Has all but declared war on the Sudan. Thoroughly dislikes tyrannies, which means North Korea and China dislike him right back. “I am against abortion, gays being married in my church, and contraceptives are against the religion. Then again, you should only have sex with the person you marry, so abortion and contraceptives shouldn't be needed. However, my homeland of Sudan is going through thirty years of religious and ethnic warfare, I have better things to do than deal with whining hedonists!”

Father Francis Williams, S.J.: “I'm a Jesuit who is trying to transfer into the Opus Dei. I speak six languages and I can kill people with my rosary beads … what was your question?”

Maureen McGrail. Interpol. “I'm too busy being shot at to have a political opinion. Leave me alone.”

Secret Service Agent Wilhelmina Goldberg: As a special adviser to anyone who wants the Secret Service to audit their security, she has been all over, and her political opinion is simple. “At the end of the day, America looks good by comparison.”

Hashim Abasi: Oxford Educated in global politics. Egyptian police officer. His name translates into “Stern Crusher of Evil.” His father died while tinkering with a vest for a suicide bomber. He mentions having a wife, but it sounds like she was stoned to death. No one asks what his politics are.



The above characters have more influence over how the political discussions go than I do. So, the topics will be... interesting.

DragonCon Report, Day 3: All Butcher, All Day

DragonCon: the world's largest science fiction and fantasy convention. Ever. Period. Official numbers: over 35,000. But that's what we tell the fire marshal.

The following will be a series of reports made about my visit to DragonCon, mostly broken down panel by panel. I will not spend time complaining about the scheduling, the presentation thereof, the audio equipment, etc. Each panel will be taken down and put together in transcript fashion. There will be some inaccuracies, since I lacked recording equipment... even if I had recorded it, there is a chance that any and all videos of DragonCon posted online may be taken down without warning. This way is safer.

However, there will be some lines that are unattributed, and there may be inaccuracies scattered throughout. Most of what is written down is what was said, accurately quoted and attributed.

Day 3

Panel 1: Spotlight on Jim Butcher

“It turns out there really is a ten in the morning... who knew.”

“I initially started writing because there weren't enough books out there that I wanted to read. I started writing my first book at nineteen. It was awful. Then I wrote my second. It was awful. My third and forth books were hideous. I rewrote the first one, and it was a different kind of awful. I went to get a degree at the State University of Oklahoma, and got a bachelors degree in English literature. And one writing class... they told me some ridiculous things about writing. They must have set me back about two or three years. I mean, I had a bachelors in English lit, and the professor had only published about forty books. And I looked at this stuff, and I was going to prove her wrong. I was going to be a good little writing monkey, and show her that it would turn out the same exactly kind of cookie cutter crap. I handed it in and she said 'It's good.' 'Wazzat?' 'I think you can sell this down the line.' And that was the first book of the Dresden files. So, I showed her.”



Q: Tell us about Codex Alera.
Butcher: Alera started out as a bet on an online writers workshop forum. One side had the premise of the “Holy Idea.” That a book can be a successful novel no matter how bad the writing was, as long as the idea behind it was good. Just look at Jurassic Park.

On the other side were the people who focused on craft. That no matter how old the idea, it could still form something cool and fun. Just look at how many times they've redone Romeo and Juliet. And, basically, at the end of the day, it came down to one mouthy guy on my side and one mouthy guy on the other. Obviously, I was one of the the mouthy guys.

And one day the other guy says “Okay, pal, show us. I'll give you an idea and you write something about it.”

And of course, I said, “No, give me two ideas.”

He said, “Fine. One: Lost roman legions. I'm sick of hearing about them. It's been two thousand years, all of the legions should be found by now.” For those of you who don't know, the lost legion marched off one day into a thunderstorm and was never seen or heard from again.

I said, “Okay, fine, what's the next one?”

“Pokemon.”

… For those of you who don't know Pokemon very well, it started out of two concepts. One was the Shinto religion's believe that everything in nature has a divine spirit, or a Kami. And you don't mess with the Kami of a mountain because it will crush you, and you do the same with a pebble... actually you can step on it all you like, it's a pebble, what's it going to do to you? And the other side to Pokemon was pro wrestling.

So, I basically had the Roman Legion lost in the land of the Pokemon, had it ferment for two thousand years, and you get Alera. When I started writing it, I thought “Wow, this is good,” and I posted that “I think this is too good to post here, I'm actually going to try and get it published.”

Their guy said “You you admit I'm right.” Yeah, whatever, the best revenge is living well.



Q: What do you think about the role playing games for Dresden?
Butcher: I think they're great, like a Dresden Wiki. I don't need to go hunting for information anymore... you have to realize, for every Dresden book, I have rewrites, beta readers, editors, line editors, and a final copy. By the time I'm done, I've gone through seven to nine variations on the book, and fans only get the one final version. So you probably know some of this stuff better than I do. In fact, the guy who made the RPG actually found some stuff I had planted in book one, and I asked him not to write it down, otherwise it would give stuff away in the later novels... he was creepy good about finding those details.


Q: What's your next project now that Alera is done?
Butcher: When I sold Alera, I was halfway through a science fiction series. My protagonist had ejected, falling through a planets atmosphere during a solar flare, and he's been there for three years.



[Time for audience Q+A.... the line backs up.] Butcher: “It looks like we should just give you guys a belt and a coupla knives so you can sort yourselves out.”


Q: What loose threads are left in Dresden Files?
Butcher: I can't really tell you, mainly because there are no loose threads in my head. But I put stuff in Storm Front [his first book] that will come out in the last trilogy. Because my teacher told me I had to.



Q: I have a defective copy of Changes, it doesn't seem to have an ending
SPOILER ALERT.
Butcher: Okay, I can do that right now. Harry says he will die to protect his daughter, he does, the end.
SPOILER ENDS.
“There was one cartoon that said, Oh, well, everything looks likes it's turning out all right. I just want to read the last few pages of changes. And it ended with 'I heard the voices of thousands of nerds crying out, and were silenced.' …. By the way, there are some people who are bothered by the phrase nerd. I own my nerdom.”



“When I started working on the Dresden files, I went down to the bookstore and grabbed books on magic and forensics, for background, and because it's cool. I recommend the writer's guides. There was one called Deadly Doses, on poisons. That was neat. It was during research like that where I discovered that there were so many kinds of werewolves, none of which looks like the wolfman. If you ever have to do research on that sort of thing, go to the children's section of the library, they'll tell you the stories. If you go into the adult's, all of the books you find there won't go three pages without mentioning Jung or Feud. Or you can do on location research.”



Q: You ever going to explain how Nicodemus and Tessa got together?
Butcher: The romance between the two of them covers thousands of years, murder, chaos, and cities abandoned. It'll take someone with a stronger constitution than me to do it.



SPOILER ALERT.
Q: Would you like to talk about Ghost Story?
Butcher: Harry is dead. And he has to solve his own murder, as a ghost. I can't tell you too much, but he will have the line “I always wondered why ghosts were always moaning and screaming when they went through floors and walls. That stuff hurts.”
SPOILER ENDS.



Q: What did you think of the Scifi channel Dresden? Sorry, I guess I should say Syfy [pronounced "Siffy"].
Butcher: You mean the syphilis channel? It coulda been worse. They only started making them like the books after Howe's kid took some swag home from the press briefing, and told his father, the owner of the channel “Why couldn't this be more like the books?”



Q: Some stories are not in Side Jobs?
Butcher: There are some contract problems. The contracts expire sometime next year, so I'm going to have to write more so I can fill out the anthology.



Q; Where did Bob the Skull come from?
Butcher: It was actually an inside joke with my writing professor. After the first few chapters, she asked me what I was going to do next with Harry. I said I was going to bring him back to his lab, and he'll talk with his personal assistant, who was like a cross between a lab tech and a PC. She told me “Okay, but don't make him a talking head.” A talking head, if you ever saw those old black and white movies, was the science guy who would come on and say “As you know, Jack,” dispenses info, and disappears. And I always wondered “If Jack knows this already, why's he explaining it.” So when she told me not to make Bob a talking head, I made him a literal talking head.

She got to that part of the story, looked at me, and said “You think you're funny, don't you?”

But, yeah, Bob is my inner fourteen year old.



Q: Are there people in your life you used for Dresden characters?
Butcher: Yes. Shiro was actually based on my dojo instructor. He actually grew up being taught martial arts by monks, while he was in hiding during the war. When he was growing up, he had some problems with the Yakuza. They tried to kill him about five times, and he kept killing their guys. After a while, they said “Hey, you want to work for us?” He said, “No, I want you guys off of my street.” It was cheaper in the long run to leave him alone. So they did. And he's more like Mr. Miagi than he has any right to be.

Anna, in White Night, was someone who won a charity auction to earn a horrible death in one of my books.

Most of my female characters I base off of my wife. [Audience “Awwwww”]. Do you people remember how many women are villains in my books?



Q: Is there going to be another attempt at the Dresden files as a movie or tv show?
Butcher: Not yet. As of now, Lionsgate still has the rights for a year, nine months, and twenty some-odd days.



“I'm going to have a final apocalyptic trilogy to end the series. They'll be titled Hells Bells, Stars and Stones, and Empty Night. Despite that Harry just keeps saying them as phrases, they actually mean something.”



Q: Why does Harry have a hat on the covers?
Butcher: Because the artist thinks that a staff and a fedora says “Wizard PI.” I'm actually thinking of giving him a hat later on, just so he can destroy it. Either that, or I'm going to have someone ask him why he doesn't wear a hat. “Because once your hat gets knocked off, you're out of fate points.”



“Lily, the Archive, is like a grown up version of Bob, with better bandwidth.”



“I just tell the characters that You Work For Me. If they don't agree with what I want, then I'll go back and make them. And then I have a rush of power as a godlike creator. MUAHAHAHAHAHA. Next question?”



Q: Why do you have magic screw up electronics? Won't that screw them up as technology becomes more and more prevalent?
Butcher: Magic has always had side effects, and every three hundred years, the effect changes. It used to make cream go sour, or make flames turn color. Harry will eventually say that “Maybe in another hundred years, using magic will make the user attractive and popular with the opposite sex, though I'm not holding my breath.”



“2012 will either be a bumper year for Harry, or it's a time he's going to want to be on another planet.”



“I gave up on my old college when the Dean invited me to give my opinion of the school. And I thought he meant it.”



“I was initially interested in the martial arts because I was not only the smart nerdy kid, but I had a tendency to mouth off in school-- go figure, right? My dad said no. But one day, I was on my bike, and someone pulled a knife on me. So I picked up my bike and hit him with it. Of course I was the crazy kid who beat someone with a bike. I don't my dad about it, it was awful. He said that now I could go train.

“When I was heading off to college, my instructor told me: 'No spar. Other student want to spar with you. You no spar with them.' I told you he sounded like Mr. Miagi. After a while, I finally sparred with someone just to get them off my case. I caged up, blocked everything, until I had one good mid-line punch. And I think I got him on an inhale, he was doubled over and vomiting. I didn't mean to hit him that hard. When I came back and told my instructor he said, 'You make incorrect punch. Correct punch would have killed him. I show you how to make proper punch.'”

NYTimes Bestselling Authors

Panel: Laurell K. Hamilton (Anita Blake seris); Sherrilyn Kenyon (Dark Hunters); Jim Butcher (Dresden Files); Kevin J. Anderson (Misc Star Wars); Jonathan Maberry (Co author: Marvel Zombies Return.)




Laurell K. Hamilton: Wow, this is my fourth year at DragonCon, and it's the first time I've actually seen it. It looks like fun. My tenth book, Narcisscus in Chains, was the first one to make it to the bestsellers list. I've had decades of fan buildup... and going whole hog into sex might've had something to do with it.

Kevin J. Anderson: My first three bestsellers were within a month of each other. MY first Star Wars trilogy, with the Jedi Academy books. Before that, I had published nine books in eight years.

Jonathan Maberry: My first bestseller was the novelization of the movie The Wolfman. Before that I had written books on judo. When they gave me the screenplay, it had virtually no details, so I had to add a lot of my own. When the reviews came out, they said “Read the book.” Which proves if you sacrifice goats, God will listen.

Sherrilyn Kenyon: Goats work. As do chickens.



Laurell K. Hamilton: I got in at a good time, right after the Buffy television series kicked off.

Kevin J. Anderson: Sometimes you get lucky, when you ride the wave of a trend's popularity. Da Vinci Code was the last gasp for Dan Brown. His previous novel, Angels and Demons, didn't sell. And suddenly, people are buying books that the industry didn't know the public wanted.



Q: What is your favorite book, what you've written and what you read?
Jim Butcher: My favorite book that I've written, Dead Beat, because you can't beat the zombie dinosaur marching down Chicago. Or, the last five pages of Changes. And I like Lois Bujold's Mirror Dance.



Q: What is your most embarrassing experience as an author?

Kevin J. Anderson: Sherrilyn, you can answer this one.
Sherrilyn Kenyon: Laurel?
Laurell K. Hamilton: Thanks Kevin. Well, there was the first time someone asked me to sign their penis.
Jim Butcher: The first time?
Laurell K. Hamilton: Yes. Now, never feed the crazies. I simply told him that it was illegal to expose himself in public in that state, and that he'd go to prison. And that there were children in the store, did he really want to do that? I sometimes have some really over excited fans, who take the sex in my books way too seriously. I can only assume that he didn't really think it through. I mean, I'm using a ballpoint, did you really think it was a good idea.?
Jim Butcher: And you have a really long name.
Laurell K. Hamilton: That sometimes doesn't help.
Kevin J. Anderson: Crap, now I have to top that.
Laurell K. Hamilton: You wanted me to go first.

Jonathan Maberry: My best moment was at a convention. Someone in an elevator looked at my nametag and said “Oh, you're a guest. And I never heard of you. You must be a writer.”

Kevin J. Anderson: I had one time written an X-Files novel. I went to a bookstore for a signing, and security told me that a guy in a tinfoil hat was waiting for me. Never a good sign. This guy in the tinfoil hat came up to me and said that he really needed my home number, because he knew what was going on, and what the government was covering up. When I told him I couldn't, he said, “I understand the need for a secret bunker. I'll give you my number.” If I were a different person, I would call him up at two in the morning and say “You've been talking to people, haven't you?”

Jim Butcher: As for me, to be embarrassed, you have to have a minimum amount of dignity. I generally don't have that problem. However, one time during an interview with me and Shannon, my kid wanted into the living room. The interviewer asked him if he thought it was impressive that his parents were both authors. My son said “Eh, if these two can pull it off, how hard can it be.” My wife gave him a look that promised death for the boy later.

Jonathan Maberry: I had the problem once that I was jealous of myself. When I was asked to do a novel, I used a penname to write it, because I had written technical books before that. When I decided to write under my real name, I was told that I was ripping off Shane McDougal. But I was Shane Mcdougal. I twas actually an acrimonious relationship after a while. Finally, I killed the bastard. I showed up to a Halloween party dressed as a dead author. I went as Shane McDougal. He's officially dead.
Jim Butcher: I now have to nominate you for the funniest use of the word acrimonious.

Sherrilyn Kenyon: One time my brother was at one of my signings. And he was impatient, and I owed him twenty dollars, and he wanted to go to dinner. After a while, he started telling the line that “She sucks, go home.” “She owes me money.” “What are you people bothering with her for?” We finally got out of there. Later that evening, he called me up at home at two in the morning and said, “Guess what I did.” It was two in the morning, I didn't want to think about what he was doing. He told me “I just finished one of your books. It's pretty good.” “Oh good, you can read, mama had doubts for a while there.”



Q: What is the best advice you ever got from an author?
Kevin J. Anderson: Dean Koontz told me that the first million words you write are just practice.
Jim Butcher: Roger Zelazny told me “Write a bit each day. It adds up. Eventually, you get a book.”
Jonathan Maberry: David Morrell told me that “Writing is an art, but publishing is a business. Just remember that you can't ignore the business end.”
Sherrilyn Kenyon: Harlan Ellison told me “You want to be a writer?  Go home and write.”

What's going on with the book? A Pius Man, Doubleday, and the Market

We interrupt this series of DragonCon reports for a news update.......

Ahem....

So, what's going on with A Pius Man and Doubleday, you ask?

Some time ago, I mentioned that A Pius Man was under review with one of the larger distributors of books in America; these are the people who put Dan Brown on the map with a little book about art history and word puzzles. After I mentioned that it was under review, most of you probably noticed that it was never mentioned Ever Again.

I figured that some of you may be wondering what the heck is going on.

The very short version. I had a strong advocate in one editor, who fully supported the book. He liked it, despite some admittedly stupid copy-editing errors on my part (which have since been tended to). Basically, he would support the book no matter what superficial things were wrong with it. This was THE book for him. He would back it all the way....

Then he was fired....

No, there isn't a cause and effect relationship.

Here's the problem...

To start with, the publishing industry is, in essence, owned by about five people. One company is owned by another, and another.

In this case, Doubleday is owned by Random House.

For those of you who don't keep track of economic news as obsessively as I do, a little review.

Around November of 2008, Random House had a minor bloodbath. Employees were slashed in the ten-thousand range. Some blamed the economy, some blamed the rise of electronic media (e-books, Kindles, Nooks, Crannies, etc) and traditional media's “failure” to compensate. Some blamed Random House itself for “wild expansion” during a five year period where the price of hardcovers (their bread and butter) went up as cheap e-books came out by the bushel. (Footnote: NY Times, November, 2008... look it up if you don't believe me)

And it's NOT just Random House that has been hit upside the head by this economy. Books are wounded in general: look at how Barnes & Noble is fairing if you want a good example. Last year, it looked like the clock had started to run out on Star Trek novels; “to be continued” and multi-book series were frozen, because the publisher wasn't going to lay money on how things were going to look three years down the road. Not only that, but in the 2008-2009 year, they had gone through five editors on the Star Trek novels alone. When you consider that Star Trek novels used to come out once a month, and sometimes more, it says something that they questioned the profitability of a long standing franchise. (Footnote, DragonCon, 2009.)

And there are solutions, of course. The Random House Slaughter was followed by massive hiring. Publishers have to cut costs while, AT THE SAME TIME, keep up their output. In the larger houses, this means they still have to put out a hundred books a month. So they have to hire people to replace everyone they had just let go. Personnel who can be hired at lower cost who can do the same job.


However, in a bad economy, personnel hired because they were less expensive can always be replaced by personnel who are even cheaper. (I dislike referring to people as "cheap," but my mental thesaurus isn't firing on full thrusters right now, and “even less expensive” didn't seem right).

My supporter was one of the “cheaper” employees. However, in the current atmosphere (10% or 17% unemployment, depending on how you jostle the numbers), there is no shortage of warm bodies to hire, and it's possible to find employees who are even cheaper still.  And since the rule right now is “Last in, first out,” my supporter wanted a trump card. A property that he could bring into the company, and would guarantee his position... Guess what book he wanted to use.
 
However, if you have ever played a card game that use trump cards, there is only one major rule. You have to have a sense of timing about when you use the trump cards, otherwise, you don't get anything by using them.

And, of course, speaking of timing, my own timing was also perfect. I finally landed an agent five months into this particular situation (word to the wise: if you have a choice between trying for a Post-Graduation degree in liberal arts, or shooting at your true goal IN the arts, ditch the degree).

Right now, the status of A Pius Man is simple: we're back at square one. I'm going to copy-edit the entire manuscript, again, and then, we start anew.

Novels to films, a brief history

I have received the question, at times, about who should play characters in a film of A Pius Man.  This got me thinking about adaptations. Given the last decade of novel-to-film movies, the question becomes more interesting.

Looking at the slew of Harry Potter films, filmed comic books, etc, I find that Hollywood has obviously hired people who can read.

Why do I express surprise? I can answer that with another question.

Does anyone REMEMBER the 1990s?

Let's look at a few authors who had their work turned into films.

Michael Chrichton:

Author of such noted works as Jurassic Park, Congo, and Rising Sun, he probably had the most good fortune of any author short of Stephen King in having his books translated by Hollywood. And that's the sad part.

Anyone who's read Chrichton's work will appreciate a book I saw while shopping in London. Star Trek as Written By Other Authors—the short story as “written” by Chrichton had five charts and graphs over three pages. While no one missed those in the film versions, I'm sure they missed a few other things.

In Jurassic Park, the novel, the differences were numerous and frequent. There were dozens of Velociraptors, and part of the problem was that raptors had been escaping to the mainland. The park staff was more than the seven people we saw over the course of the film, and security was so well armed, there were moments when it looked like it was Park security versus the dinosaurs in an all out war that included missiles.

Back then, there were few complaints because, despite all the differences, it was still a fun movie, and to create a full adaptation would have required a miniseries. Elements from the first novel would be scattered throughout the next two films.

The Lost World: The sequel to Jurassic Park, the novel, was... better than the filmed version. While the novel followed up on the original enemy from the first one (the problems of Jurassic Park were caused by industrial espionage), the movie decided to make the primary adversary was the stereotyped “Evil Businessman #1.” Someone decided that the movie needed to be made into an endangered species riff, complete with an action lead played by.... Matthew Vaughn, playing an ecoterrorist? And we're going to throw in a cute kid, just because Spielberg likes cute kids. There's a reason that the third film consisted of little plot, less character, and mostly running.

Rising Sun: Someone must have been asleep on the job when looking up their cultural research. I can only conclude that Hollywood wasn't paying attention the day that the Japanese Emperor declared that both blacks and women were “inferior”... why else would they change make one of the lead policemen of this murder mystery into Wesley Snipes?



Tom Clancy: The major problem here lies in one book, one that I'm sure everyone remembers as a film.

The Sum of All Fears: The premise of the novel was simple. Middle Eastern terrorists nuke the Superbowl in order to prompt the United States and the Soviet Union into World War III. It's up the National Security Adviser Jack Ryan to talk everyone down.

I will usually grant a lot of leeway to people who adapt a screenplay. A lot. The previous film had been several years before, and Harrison Ford had moved on to other things. It would have been reasonable to have gone onto later novels, changed actors, and move on. Alec Baldwin had played Jack Ryan in the first film, The Hunt for Red October, I would not have objected to bringing him back. And they had already skipped one novel—The Cardinal of the Kremlin—due to the fact that there wasn't a Kremlin anymore. Taking the character of Jack Ryan from his post as CIA director (from the previous film, Clear and Present Danger) and making him NSA director (in Debt of Honor, the first post-Cold War novel), would have been nice and easy.

Instead, the film for Sum of All Fears was a series reboot about shiny new CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Ben Affleck), going up against.... wait for it... Neo-Nazis. Most of whom were taken out in an ending sequence reminiscent of a Godfather film.

So, wait, the movie comes out after 9-11-01, and for some reason, terrorists from the Middle East are inferior villains? Hollywood's racism is astonishing; somehow, European bad guys are superior to any other flavor of bad guy, especially if the Europeans are evil Nazis.



Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

The Relic: The first book in their series about mysterious FBI Agent Prendergast, who seems to specialize in X-Files quality strange, without the space-alien level stupidity. The Relic was a thrilling tale about a monster in the New York Museum of Natural History. When the book was first written, the museum in real life looked like a great setting for a horror film. Part of this team consisted of a graduate student Margo Green, her wheelchair bound mentor Dr. Frock, and, of course, Special Agent Prendergast. The mystery starts with what, exactly, could have killed a museum security guard in two blows—one to rip open the chest, and one to smash the back of the head clean off.

The adversary of the novel was a genetic mutation that was about eight feet long, like a cross between a panther and bug... it had an exoskeleton like an insect's chiton, only bulletproof. It survives an encounter with a SWAT team with full assault rifles and a grenade launcher.

The film... eliminated multiple key characters (one being Prendergast, goodbye series), killed off several who were necessary for any possible sequel, replaced everyone remaining with pure cliches, and made the creature a thirty to sixty foot monstrosity. This extra large beastie is supposed to have slipped into a small employee restroom to kill a guard, when it couldn't even fit into the hallway leading to the restroom. It manages to kill an entire SWAT team because they all run like scared rabbits—possibly frightened by the horrid graphics—and it starts bleeding because it took a few rounds from a .9mm handgun (to quote the governor of California, if it bleeds, you can kill it). But, no, in this film, they had to try blowing it up with bad CGI fire.



I'm going to cheat for the next few books. They are not the nineties, but they are film adaptations that went horribly sideways.



F. Paul Wilson—The Keep.

This one is interesting. F. Paul Wilson, Fordham graduate, agnostic, and all around interesting person, who even created a character with a rabid following—one so rabid Stephen King is President of the fan club.

One of his earlier books was called The Keep. It opens in 1943, with the German High Command getting a communication from an outpost in Transylvania: “Something is killing my men.” In another area of Europe, a man awakes, and knows he has to get to The Keep before everything ends. It essentially starts out as Dracula and ends as Lord of the Rings.

Enter: the movie. The author himself has concluded that the set of The Keep had a lot of white powder going up a lot of noses. Frequently. Not even Ian McKellen could save this train wreck. The synopsis of the film is as follows: creature kills Germans in WW2; a professor in the Keep makes deal with creature. Professor's daughter sleeps with guy who comes out of nowhere. Creature kills everyone in the Keep. Guy who comes from nowhere has an entrance with lots of light, creature goes away. Credits roll. Audience goes “huh?”


Clive Cussler—Raise the Titanic!

Before there was Indiana Jones, there was Clive Cussler. His main character is Dirk Pitt, one part old fashioned swashbuckler, one part nautical engineer. You may have seen the movie Sahara, made from another of his books—not a great film, but a decent popcorn movie. Better than this one.

Premise: there is an element that might be able to power a sonic-missile shield for the United States (this is the 70s). The only known sample was on board the Titanic, so, we—guess what—RAISE THE TITANIC! (this was before anyone knew how badly the ship had been totaled, so go with it). The book had everyone sail away on the resurrected vessel after a tense shootout with Soviet agents who had found out about the plan and tried to steal the precious material.

The movie, of course, had to have the Soviet bad guys come on board, and our hero scuttles the ship to make sure they don't get it. No victory, just a draw.

Movies of the day suffered from the Hollywood's idea of detente—there are no victories, only draws. If that was the only problem Raise the Titanic suffered from, it might have been salvageable. Instead, Hollywood took a fast paced, tightly written book, and turned it into a slow, ponderous mess. To tell you how bad it was, Clive Cussler saw Raiders of the Lost Ark and cried—mainly because it captured everything that he put into his own writing.


Today, I look at several adaptations—if you have major kvetches, I suggest holding off of them until my conclusions.

Lord of the Rings: Scenes lifted directly from the pages, dialogue from the novel, subplots taken from the appendix. You don't get much better than this. The major quibble I can conjure up is the buildup to the climax of the second film, The Two Towers—and I can blame that on the director's fondness for the buildup in the film Zulu, which felt like nothing but screaming “WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE.” Aside from that part of one film, I couldn't complain even if I wanted to.



Harry Potter: I read the books. They weren't bad for YA novels, and a nice parody of the English school system. The more you know about British culture, the funnier they were. Frankly, I thought the films improved on some things. Granted, some of what was left out of the films confused me... in movie three, there's no explanation for a major device of the film, or how another character knows of it. In #4, our protagonist asks why something went odd with his wand, and no answer is given. I say its odd because both “problems” could have been corrected with about three lines of dialog each. And, while confusing, no big deal. The end.



Comic books.

These are clumped together, and easy.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine: For a film that was studio mandated, it wasn't bad. Originally wanting to make Frank Miller's storyline about the mutant with anger management / memory / family issues, the people who did the film were ordered to make an origin story. Considering that the details of everyone involved in Wolverine's past were essentially turned into memory goulash, it was possibly the most comprehensible version they could come up with. I'm still confused about complaints that “Deadpool wasn't done well. He was just Ryan Renolds.” Considering that Deadpool wasn't the main character, and had, maybe, five minutes on screen, I don't think you can do anyone well in that amount of time.



The Spider-Man Films: The comic book career of Peter Parker looks like a rubric to diagnose bipolar disorder. Check. The whole Goblin family drama—mostly. Check. Parker puts on the black suit and turns from nerd to.... evil nerd. Big check. Though he could have taken tips from Neil Patrick Harris on being an evil nerd.

The biggest complaint has been about Spider Man 3, particularly on the character of Venom... well, as Sam Raimi said, “I had never read Venom in the comic books, since they came after my time. Because of that, I didn't have a natural inclination toward him. And when I read those comics, at [producer] Avi Arad's urging, I didn't understand where Venom's humanity was. I know that kids think he looks cool, and they think he's a good villain for Spider-Man. I actually didn't. What was it about Peter's own makeup that this villain represented some weaker or darker side to? Just looking like a dark version of him is not enough for me. The more I read [Venom stories], the less interested I became.” So, I get that. Though I wonder why he bothered putting Venom in a film if he didn't really like him.

Aside from that, there could be aesthetic quibbles—why they felt they had to make the Green Goblin look like a power Rangers, I don't know.


Batman Begins: I've had some people complain about the opening of the film, and how Bruce Wayne had been trained to become Batman. My usual response is that, if you read the comic books, the way it was done in the film contained the simplest, least convoluted explanation, as well as introducing the primary villain. And if there are any complaints about The Dark Knight, the best I can come up with is that the movie should have left off with catching the Joker, leaving Harvey Dent / Two-Face to be an ominous thread to be expanded into another movie. The last fifteen minutes felt odd, but having one of your key actors die in the middle of shooting can mess up a schedule a bit.



Now, aside from the above example, I will not say that modern day Hollywood adaptations are all perfect. That would be impossible. However, without lingering on minor quibbles, I can point you to several movies made recently that were based on books and made into something... different.


Shooter, based off of Stephen Hunter's novels about a marine sniper who had been framed for murder, turned into the usual conspiracy theory film about evil government employees messing around in Africa for one natural resource or another. That it starred Castro fan Danny Glover was a hint that the book would be rewritten.


[NOVEL SPOILER ALERT] The Bourne Identity was based off of Robert Ludlum's novel of the same name. A tv miniseries was made in the 1980s, starring Alan Chamberlain. The CIA had sent operative David Webb, war veteran, after assassin Carlos the Jackal, seeming to be another assassin and competitor named Jason Bourne. During the operation, he is shot in the head while fleeing a ship at sea, and awakes with amnesia. In piecing together the story of his life, he believes that he really is an assassin, the CIA thinks he has gone rogue, and the assassin he's hunting is returning the favor, and a civilian he saves from being gunned down in the crossfire is a female accountant who grows attached to him.

The movie: Boat, amnesia, perfect operative, check. Carlos the Jackal is replaced by African Dictator #1 from the nearest cliché yard, and the CIA isn't interested in listening to what happened to him, they all just want him dead. Period. Everyone involved on the CIA end dies, except for Julia Styles, using her amazing blonde powers. Bourne hooks up with a backpacking, gypsy-like female with no discernible education, intellect, or personality.

The Bourne Supremacy – The novel: elements in the government want to use David Webb to flush out another assassin, only this one has taken over the name of Jason Bourne. So, they kidnap his wife, the accountant he saved in the first novel, leaving clues that end him after this new Bourne. The CIA isn't the bad guy, but they are manipulative, which pretty much goes with the trade. Webb's other friends within the Agency lend him aide as he tries to find his wife.

The film: Still on the run as Jason Bourne, his girlfriend gets her head blown off by a Russian assassin on orders from a CIA administrator left over from an X-Men film .... Start your average revenge plot. Kill more CIA agents. Throw in some Russians, because they are obviously still the massive, intimidating threat that they were when they had a working government, now that they're taking orders from us, somehow.... huh? Julia Styles still manages to survive.

The Bourne Ultimatum—the novel is simple: Revenge of Carlos the Jackal. The film: obviously not, because they didn't have Carlos in the first film anyway.


In short, Hollywood has apparently become literate since the 90s—or, at the very least, is CAPABLE of adhering to source material such as novels and comic books. I'm certain that part of it has to do with a director appreciating the source material (Lord of the Rings), or a horde of slavering child fans who will tear them apart if they screw up the movie (the whole Harry Potter / Twilight franchise), or having the Intellectual Property owners run the studio (Marvel / WB). When you consider what has come in the past, things have improved.

Though, apparently, all bets are off when a film include Matt Damon or his clone (Mark Wahlberg). Still, even those films at least resemble the books they were based on to some degree. So, whenever you have a quibble about your favorite character in a novel / comic that's been adapted to film, or that elements had been changed, shifted or modified, always remember one very important lesson that I have learned over the years.....


It can ALWAYS be worse.

And if you don't believe me, ask the hordes of video game fans who have ever gone to see a Uwe Boll film of their favorite game.

How A Pius Man Came to be: An essay in five parts

How A Pius Man came to be: Part 1

I read a book once....

Anyone who knows me is aware that this isn't new.

However, it was written by an author who I had just gotten into. I was a history major, it was a history book written by someone who taught philosophy and wrote novels on occasion. It was on Pope Pius XII and his history during the holocaust—essentially: what did he do, what did he know, and when did he know it.

The interesting thing is that it was less of a researched book and more like a composite collection of primary documents. The major source was from a book written in the 1960s from an Israeli Diplomat to the Vatican, who had also fought in World War II with the British. The second collection of sources were from contemporary newspapers. Most specifically, the New York Times.

Okay. Interesting book.

Two months later, I started a graduate course called the History of Total War. The term paper was supposed to be about the events of a major conflict.... Hmm, let's work on Pius XII. I read one book, time to work on another.

And it was insane.

The primary material all pointed to one, glaring and obvious conclusion. Everything written from the 1940s-1960s pointed in one direction. Testimony from Jews in the camps, in Rome, in positions of power within the global community, the newspapers, the books by journalists, the books by diplomats in Rome, even statements and documents from the Nazi hierarchy pointed one way and one way only.

Then we hit the 1960s, and everything from the previous twenty years was chucked down the memory hole so fast, you would have thought Rod Serling had put it as a twist to a Twilight Zone episode.

Since then, we've had a “debate.” One side believes that Pope Pius XII either: did nothing about the Holocaust; said nothing about the Holocaust; or was actively responsible for the Holocaust. On the other side, you have folks who think Pius XII was a saint, spoke out against the Holocaust, acted against it, was a grand spymaster. In the middle—and there are few in the middle—refer to him as “cautious and prudent.”

Along the way, I came across authors who were not historians. I've come across people who had used proven forgeries from criminals convicted for the forgeries used as “evidence” in this debate. I've even come across historians who had done jail time for publishing their lies. And I've come across some deliberate liars: for example, one idiot said that “X person should have done Y thing”... but cited articles where it was STATED that X did Y, making the author either brain dead or a liar.

One of the most interesting things about this is why I refer to it as a “debate,” in quotes. One side of this conflict doesn't acknowledge the other. One side will take the opposition's statements and theories, vivisect them with a scalpel, the end result looking like shredded wheat, and the second side acts as though there are no alternate theories, interpretations or evidence.

And some of these people are hilarious. Both sides have biases. Cynthia Ozick, for example, is an eighty year old Jew who thought that nuns would kidnap and convert her when she was young, and her opinion hasn't changed much. St. Margherita Marcchione is a Catholic nun. John Cornwell hates his father, his seminary, his country, jumped over the wall of the priesthood in Britain (for which he has my sympathy), and more or less hates Church theology, the entire hierarchy, and possibly every Catholic. James Carroll wants the Catholic church to become the Unitarians. Though there is one lawyer from Missouri with a degree in history—I'm not sure where his bias comes in.

Anyway, by the time I was finished reading both sides, I thought it was fairly clear who was right. Hell, I had enough primary documents to work on that alone. I left motivations alone, because I wasn't going to break out my Ouija board and try to have a séance with a dead pope to ask him what he was feeling or thinking at the time. These are the actual events; to the best of our knowledge, this is what happened, and this is how the people reacted to it AT THE TIME.

For example, Mit Brennender Sorge, a papal encyclical condemning Fascism, released by Pope Pius XI, was unequivocally pointed at the Nazis. How do we know this? Well, check the title. Most encyclicals are written in Latin. This was written in German, not Italian, not Spanish. No one was going to mess with the translation when it hit Germany's borders. It had to be smuggled into the country after it had been banned from the press. When the Hitler Youth beat up parishioners coming out of church, attacked priests, went after Catholic groups, and banned the encyclical all together, one can possibly conclude that the Nazis took it personally.

The average reader is probably looking at the above paragraph and thinking “this guy needed a masters degree for that sort of thing? Duh.” The average reader would be right. No, I wasn't going for high intellectual value. Much of the paper was a plain, simple, narrative telling of events, and many of the conclusions were as “duh” worthy as the above paragraph.

Anyway....

I won't tell you the name of the book that started this whole mess. But after I finished the paper, it was good night and good luck. End of Fall semester.

Then came some of the other books. Novels where the history was so bad, it was painful to read. “What sort of idiot thinks Churchill was a Catholic?”

Or “An entire convent of nuns commit mass murder, and can keep their mouths shut with that secret for sixty years? What?”

And there was The Da Vinci Code. Yes, you know I had to get there. That anyone was getting their history from it was... interesting.

It had been a theory of my family for years that we are better informed by our fiction reading than by our news media.

Tom Clancy had airplanes running into buildings in the early 1990s.

David Hagberg sent his protagonist assassin after Osama bin Laden before anyone considered bombing him.

Dale Brown, in 1990, came up with unmanned aerial drones armed with missiles—twelve years before predator drones armed with Hellfire missiles started wiping out terrorists.

But people were getting their history from fiction? And they were getting it from a man who wanted to be a songwriter when he grew up, took one art history course, and whose major was in literature. Huh.

Did that inspire me on a rampaging crusade? Sadly, no. Didn't care. It was an odd little book, and even ignoring the “history,” I didn't find it entertaining. In fact, I prefer James Rollins as far as historical puzzles go—he gives me some grounding in why he's saying what he's saying. Simply, Dan Brown just wasn't fun for me. My problem, no one else's.

Then I read a completely different novel, also using historical events as a background to the primary action. Premise... nothing new, really. Evil Nazi Catholic church, blah blah, snore. Okay, so what? Big deal.... But, hmm, wait, I know that character's name. It's historical. I know that name too. Hmm....

Skip to the back of the book to read the author's note, which collected the works used to create that novel. I had normally assumed that this author had read one side of the argument, and wrote another evil Catholic church story based on that. But, no, I had read these books. All of them. He had done his homework, and had completely and utterly come to the wrong conclusion, directly contradicting details that both sides agreed on, then saying it was true. I could take it if he had just said “I'm writing fiction, not commenting on a historical debate.” But he took a side and lied about facts that everyone agreed on.

Dominoes fell in my brain. People not only read this crap, they believed this crap. Most readers would have almost no intellectual background to separate the wheat from the chaff (seriously, how many people have history degrees focusing on the religious and cultural activities of Europe in World War II?)

My reaction was somewhere akin to the quote of the eminent physician and research scientist, Doctor Bruce Banner. Hulk smash.

Fine. Simple. Easy. Two could play at this game. If people got their history from entertainment, I would take up the strangest project ever imagined. I would write a thriller that was (a) thrilling, (b) factually accurate about the Catholic Church in the Holocaust.

Now how the HELL was I going to do that?

That's covered in part two.