Books
A Game of Casting
Game of Thrones hemorrhages more characters in a single episode than most other series do in multiple seasons. No one is safe from George R.R. Martin’s bloodlust – the best most characters can hope for is a quick beheading or short trip out of the Moon Door. Without all those deaths, however, the number of new characters introduced in each book would quickly bloat the series, resulting in Martin’s publishing schedule going from “once every decade, maybe” to “when the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, when the seas go dry and mountains blow in the
Queen Without a Throne
Yes, Cersei’s decisions are usually ill-conceived and ineffective. Yes, she is selfish and prideful and vindictive. Yes, she is consistently depicted as one of the show’s main antagonists. That doesn’t change the realities of the political landscape Cersei occupies, or the misogyny that consistently tries to disempower her.
Mindways
Two things I dread: decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio and being dishonest about how complex the world is. Both of these are pretty paralyzing to a writer. Writing is violent. To write about something you have to cut away all the things that can’t be written down, rip it away from all the things you don’t notice and all the things you don’t know how to capture. Then, if you’ve managed to get your hands on anything, if there’s anything left, you begin to pick it apart. Editors, how-tos, the voice inside your head, everyone tells you to find the essence,
Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?
In 1938, Raymond Chandler published a short detective story called “The King in Yellow.” It takes its name from the victim, a musician named King Leopardi. When the hotel dick, Steve Grayce, finds the man shot to death in his bed, clothed in yellow silk pajamas, he remarks, “The King in Yellow. I read a book with that title once.”
Dune: Can There Ever Be A Good Adaption?
As a kid I was always fascinated by weird things. Like a lot of the children of the 80s, I was exposed to a wide variety of cinema at a young age, thanks to the proliferation of video stores. Most of this stuff we probably shouldn’t have been watching but we did anyway, often because it was a science fiction and/or fantasy film, or even a horror film if we managed to get an older kid to rent it (although the guy behind the counter usually didn’t care who was renting what).
