Ta-DA!
Posted 14 July 09 by Scott AndrewsBoy, and I thought I was pissed by the Battlestar finale – Brad Templeton has written a frackin dissertation about it, with bullet points and everything, claiming, perfectly correctly, that it’s ‘the worst ending in the history of on-screen science fiction’. He even thought of some points I’d not considered, which, given how thoroughly I brooded over it, is damn impressive.
I kind of picture Ron Moore curled in a corner, fetal and weeping, moaning ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so very sorry’ over and over after reading Brad’s essay.
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Meanwhile, another sci-fi ending has been exercising the masses, namely the shocking finale of Torchwood: Children of Earth and its harrowing decent into the darkest corners of bleak storytelling. WARNING: BIG SPOILER – I watched the whole final episode in stunned, horrified silence, simultaneously marvelling at the brilliant, courageous writing and dying a little inside as good characters were driven to do the most awful things. Easily the best post-watershed sci-fi since Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass Conclusion 30 years ago, which (co-incidentally?) also ended with its lead character sacrificing his grandchild to save the world.
M’colleague Mr Moran has unwittingly become the focus of an astonishing amount of venal bile in the wake of the finale, and has responded as all writers eventually must – you really should check out the full post, but here’s an extract:
“I’m a professional writer. That’s my job. I write what I write, for whatever the project might be. I have the utmost respect for you, and honestly want you to like my work, but I can’t let that affect my story decisions. Everybody wants different things from a story, but this is not a democracy, you do not get to vote. You are free to say what you think of my work, even if you hate it, I honestly don’t mind. But the ONLY person I need to please is myself, and the ONLY thing I need to serve is the story. Not you.”
Go James!
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For my part, I have a short story to finish this week (Extract: Unconsciously, his hand rose to his throat as he contemplated Charles the First’s fate. Then he clenched as he recalled Edward the Second’s.)
Then I move on to a collaborative project in which, for the first time, I’m co-plotting a series of four stories with a fellow writer – a guy whose work I respect enormously and who I feel incredibly priviliged to be allowed to work with – of which we will then write two stories each. It’s incredibly exciting and I can’t wait to get stuck in to it. Details will be announced when I’m allowed.
Then, to round out the year, I’ve got the third Afterblight book to write. Although I’ve written an outline for Abbadon, on the basis of which I got the commission, there’s a world of difference between an outline and a finished book. I’m starting to get a sense of how I’m going to write this one, the kind of challenges I’m going to set myself to try and make it, and my writing, better and the sort of tone I’m going to strike. This sort of stuff bubbles away in my head for quite some time before I sit down to write an actual book, and it’s not plot stuff but more general than that – a sort of inchoate sense of how the book should feel to write and read. I’m starting to feel excited about it and confident that when my schedule clears and I sit down to start, I’ll attack it with enthusiasm.
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Picture the scene: house hunting, my wife in one empty bedroom, myself in another, and on the landing in between the two rooms, our three year old girl Kitty, sitting at the top of the stairs listening to me and wifey talk over her head about whether our furniture would fit in the space.
Kitty: Dad, ‘scoos me. What are you and mommy talking about?
Me: Oh, just, um… space, darling.
Pause for thought, then:
Kitty: Where Doctor Who lives?
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