http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zWNJHS9PBE

While they are debating whether lightsaber beats sonic screwdriver I'll be having sex.*

(disclaimer. may not actually be getting any)

Me thinks it is illistrative of Sayre's law "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake."

He's dressed as an RAF Group Captain John

Dr Who fans would win, easily. How do I know? Easy, our 2nd stab at glory hasn't involved mitachlorians or jar jar fucking binks and therefore doesn't suck.

Star Wars has fans?

1 or 2 Damian

I nearly said Star Wars fans, but then I realised it was a trick question.

Neither are winners.

Maybe you can get the same guy who did the Felafel graphic novel adaptation to take a stab at the Disappearance.

Respects,

Murph

On the Outer Marches

I have a couple of people in mind. But each artist has their own very particular style, and I have a very particular style I want. Unfortunately Joe's already locked up that artist.

You could take on an intern from the bit of Southbank Griffith that used to be Seven Hills. Didn't you always want to sculpt a neophyte artist in your image?

Transmetropolitan. When will you read Transmetropolitan? Barnes and I have been on you about that forever.

I've bought all of King's Dark Tower graphic novel's. Some are retellings of the novels and some fit extra stories into the timelines. They do put the graphic into the story, of my does the blood splatter.

Indeed Transmetrololitan is good, perhaps if ComiXology,offer it as a free comix day intro.

Transmet issue 1 is 99 cents on Comixology (each of the other 60 issues is 2 dollars)

Too rich for Birmo's blood

It sucked me right in. He just seemed pathetic and her needy, but OMG by the end, what a psychopath she was. The weird thing is that I could really relate to both of them and I think that's why it worked.

The plot device of the physical diary entries as a primary tool to drive the narrative in Gone Girl means, like Koji Suzuki’s staple of J-Horror Ringu , Gone Girl is a story that must be set in a specific cultural timeframe which is quite narrow. It relies on a period of time which has been present only in the last few decades. I am thinking of the reality/ true-crime nationwide TV talk shows and a time where using a hard copy diary is believable and not immediately grounds for suspicion of a pathology in itself.

Amy, one of the two protagonists uses written diary entries to construct an alternative history. It’s obvious such a device is becoming less common these days, however there is no way she could retrospectively construct a blog to reveal such information without more computer skills than she possessed in the story. Although given Amy’s preternatural focus it would be within the possibilities of the character to develop such skills during the story.

As both protagonists Amy, and Nick, “that was the fifth time I have lied to the officers this evening” ( I worked out 3 of them) are both unreliable narrators how reliable can we consider the 3rd person viewpoint constructed by the author for us the reader to work from in the novel. This is of course true for any novel we read, just no novels prior to this one had made me give as much consideration that thought as Gone Girl?

Like so much contemporary American fiction Gone Girl is a very moral story. A Jacobean morality play for the 21st century. Both of these flawed characters will suffer disproportionally for their deficiencies. When Amy gets robbed in the trailer park I felt an initial sense that such treatment was deserved, as if the universe is meant to provide punishment and recompense on some absurd karmic balance sheet, but after my initial schadenfreude I realised that would only mean the story’s see-saw arc would oscillate back to Amy suffering.

I found the idea articulated by Nic towards the end of the story, how he was trapped into be Amy’s expectations of being a good husband and would play the role so well that he would be by any standard a good husband is tied up with the strong protestant ethic that solely defines a person by their deeds and not by any other aspect of themselves. It of course demands one consider is anyone really themselves or only what they have allowed their persona to be? How long before the persona is you? I think 76 days. The French essayist Marguerite Yourcenar opined “the mask, given time, comes to be the face itself."

I am terrified of what sort of nightmare a child growing up in the poisonous environment of such a couple will be forged.

Won’t someone think of the children

Audiobook has dual narrators. http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_2?asin=B0084EM066&qid=1368784241&sr=1-2

It's certainly a bit of a ride (audiobooks can get to you in a way that consuming a text visually cannot - perhaps because you're usually distracted by another activity at the same time as you're listening to the book).

If no one else shows up I an nicking all the Tim Tams.

Two narcissistic solipsistic sociopaths meet and fall in love, what are the chances.

But not being that at the beginning and the onion like revealing of their bitter cores in some ways-for me overshadowed the bleak setting.

And sexuality as weapon left me quite uncomfortable.

Nice write up John but I think you've under done it because of the spoiler bit.

The ending didn't bother you?

You didn't find it pretenious? I did. The ending that is.

At the half way point I thought that Nick was a cock. at the the end of the story I still thought he was a cock but for different reasons. With Amy at the half way point, I was just a bit sus on the diary, I mean both stories were so different. Nick I got, but Amy? nah, didn't seen real, and I was vindicated.

At the end of the book I thought that Amy could give lessons to Hannibal Lector. My god! What a monster!! Someone that smart who is a raving socialpath is so dangerous its not funny and Nick, to fold in on her I thought was pathetic but given what she is I guess he didn't have much choice.

Now, the ending. I was ok with it up until she started to get away with it. A lie system such as her's is always a house of cards particularly when she had to wing it in the end. For me the plot hole was the other guy she killed (I cant remember his name) Why didn't they do an autopsy? They would have instantly seen that he was too drugged to have done Amy's version of the story. Also, If the female cop was really interested in nailing her, they would have been able to build up an alabi for the dude through the servants!!

No sorry, I found it hard to read and it pissed me off when she got away with it. I would have liked it if Nick had done an Amy on her and killed the bitch, that would have been a nice twist and I guess I was waiting for it. For me that would have made a great story.

Wow a lot of the reviews on Amazon !11000 and a lot of those reviewers hated how the book concluded, and really hated the unreliable narration (every book you read has an unreliable narration to one degree or another) and a lot of people really, really hated that the characters were so nasty.

Also what does

“a book that pretends to be cleverer than it is” mean?

One reviewer’s problem was “How could Amy get pregnant so fast with invitro insemination treatments especially at her age -- these treatments do not have such good outcomes”

“With Gone Girl, however, I felt she tried a bit too hard”. What the fuck does that mean? Has it achieved everything possible and shouldn’t have? Do they mean the author shouldn’t have tried so hard, should hse have taken more coffee breaks, left a few more spelling errors,..what?

And this reviewer’s comments made me wonder if they would be posting tonight “My biggest problem with the book was that I disliked the characters so much that I did not care what happened to them. If it was not my book club book, I would never have finished it”

Another claimed “Lots of negative reviews have focused on the ending of the novel, which I never got through, so I can't comment on it”, but you did anyway.

“I have no doubt that there are plenty of bored, obtuse people that will find Gone Girl absolutely thrilling” well we’ve been told.

I can not discern any influences from the 1978 Johnny Cash album of the same name as the title of the book.

Given the story can the title be considered eponymous

Hmm I actually agree with a lot of that Barnsey.

And yeah, Its almost impossible to get pregnet the way she did, it was all a bit tooooo neat.

You don't agree?

Just wrangling some kids into bed and then I'll be back with my next two cents worth,

Hello? Mr Barnes? Are you going to participate? :)

Anyone getting a Reese Witherspoon vibe off Amy, like the Reese Witherspoon in Election

I am one of those bored, obtuse people. I just read to be entertained because I don't much like television and because most of my reading is work-related and not necessarily entertaining. I love reading rubbish. This was compelling rubbish that allowed escapism and I'd argue that that's OK.

I was kind of on the backfoot for this one, my partner had read it a few months back and we'd discussed the plot enough that i knew which way the twist was going to go but the way it was delivered brought a big ol' "daaaaaaaamn".

I thought the first half was pretty depressing - i was kind of going through some work shit at the time, and the book was not proving a clean escape. That said the financial gloom didn't hit me so much, i kind of glazed over that like it was the cardboard cutout backdrop in a stage play - but it did sort of make me wonder -

Is it really that bad in the US? Have we missed the worst of it here in oz? Will society look back on this as comprable to the 'the great depression'?

Not that I wasn't affected by the financial collapse stuff at all - but all the emotion was through the eyes of Nick and Amy. Her ability to craft two completely believable characters and have me wincing at every relationship screw up that Nick made, trying to understand the female reasoning in diary Amy - and even knowing how the twist would go - believing the diary and trying to work out how these two stories were going to collide?

I was a little dissapointed she spent so much time building Amy up as someone who took her revenge seriously (reminds me of a friend of mine),but then left her robbed and thinking of survival before brutal revenge.

I think i'm a bit of a sucker for a novelty narrative device - The whole double narrator thing is hardly new - even old James Patterson's used that one - with a similar twist. Although the device did get me thinking that there were elements of Ben Elton at his best in here - with reference to the same device in 'Inconceivable' used with the same intent - to show two very different sides of the same story. But also his ability to weave current events / thematic soap boxing into a narrative that is fundamentally about people. Flynn's charecters have more depth than any of Elton's i remember, though there was none of the humour in what amounts to being a pretty dark book.

Pace too i thought was masterfully done - it was quite metered up to the half-way point, tick - tock, Amy - Nick. Then BAM! it had all the pace of a pulpy action novel, and yet lost none of the characterisation and somehow avoided the trap of an abrupt pace change that seems to plague the longer action books.

I wasn't a huge fan of the ending, possibly i needed to hate the creepy guy more or feel some kind revulsion for Nick's indiscrecions. Maybe it's the reaction to it not really being predicable or classifiable? My senses of Justice, Rebellion or Drama are all dissapointed - it is neither the end of "Empire Strikes Back" or "Return of the Jedi" - isn't Literature supposed to be relatable?

I'm not sure that it matters, overall it was a great read.

I bought it. Mostly. I bought the characters. I bought the premise. I bought the crazy-arsed psycho bitch from hell sociopath genius. I admit the pregnancy thing may have been far-fetched, but I was prepared to accept it. I was disappointed that Nick caved (see what i did there?) but you know what? It was also so right. I think the premise that they were the best they could be with each other is true and somehow poetic justice. It's the perfect dysfunction. The ultimate co-dependency. How could they *not* be together? I loved it.

I've found myself wondering, though... one of the last times that Nick's Dad escaped from the nursing home and was at the house and was muttering about 'that bitch', to whom was he referring? I felt for some reason that something had happened 'off-screen' (I'm sure there's a literary term for that) that made him fall out of love with Amy too.

Something nobody has really touched on yet, and I should have in the review essay, is how well Flynn does at creating the imagined thoughts of a male character. NIck struck me as completely believable, especially when he was at his worst.

Flynn's said she wanted to write this book as an examination of when things turn bad in a long term relationship, and I guess it's her book so she can foreground that if she wants. (Although I'm still reading it as a sort of modern Dickensian socio-economic critique). But damn, yes. She gets male psychology. The way she made me understand and empathise if not sympathise with the reasons for Nick's affairs was almost unsettling.

It's possible, actually, that she did a better job on the male lead than the female.

Just got home - haven't really had time to think through a response to this book. In short - I liked it. I acknowledge all the issues Mick and others mention are valid. I would admit not a single character was likable. But I think that was sort of the point, and it maybe that it's because there's some recognisable part of all of us in both Nick and Amy that rubs some people up the wrong way. When we fuck up, it's almost never for entirely innocent reasons. There's an all-too-familiar edge of guilty desperation Nick seems to spend the first half of the novel walking along, one that in real life most people only live with ultimately through unreliable memory and self deception. It's not necessarily as bad as some of Nick's behaviour, but we're all sometimes not quite who we'd like to be. When we succeed overwhelmingly, there's always that perspective where you seem to have stepped to one side of the flow of events and can manipulate it. It might manifest as cynicism, it usually leads the unwary to a sense of the righteousness of their enterprise. Being rewarded for one's actions has that effect, anyway, it's what's at the heart of the Protestant Work Ethic as Barnes suggests above. It all leads to the idea that whatever the fuck we want is in itself virtuous, if we can achieve it... by the intrinsically circular logic of the ethic basically because we can. I think people whose success is in the business world are a lot more monstrous than Amy, yet generally regarded as normal. So we're all pathetic creeps and psychopathic monsters. But just a bit, and both have a redemptive side too (not explored in the novel).

I always find myself questioning the accuracy of an author who chooses to write in the voice of the opposite sex - maybe more so with female lead's because i have no real frame of reference for that psyche.

With GG i think i kept checking back to confirm the author was a she. Even just now i had second thoughts when JB had "he" as a typo in a post above - "Could Gillian be a male name?"

To me Nick's emotional disconnect doesn't neccesary yell "sociopath", Particularily given how disconnected he'd been from her and life in general - it would seem not a completley uncommon (male?) trait

Yeah, Blake he didn't seem that bad to me, except he was a cheater and that makes him a cock. But from what I've read and seen, that seems to be a fairly common trait amongst some men. Amy on the other hand was Hannibal Lector's love child.

Blake didn't seem that bad to me either, and I am not a bloke. Just typical of someone who wants more attention than they're getting in their relationship. I think most blokes once they've mentally disengaged from a relationship start shopping around. Better keep eye on hubby happily watching Eurovision :-) while wife ignores him....

I was going to toss it--a third of the way through--but your glowing review forces me to push on with Gone Girl, John. I'll give it to halfway through to engage me.

i haven't read the comments here yet--spoilers, no doubt. So far I'm hating Amy and her parents are cartoons. Nick does nothing for me. Simple writing. I wouldn't call it a literary work. Can't understand why it's an international bestseller. It probably appeals to the mass of common plebs. Boring and trivial.

Anyway, I'll force myself to read on and see if my mind can be changed, seeing as you're frothing at the bit over it, John. A beautiful review of Gone Girl by the way, JB. I'm guessing most liked it. I just haven't warmed to the book.

JG

One thing I ment to touch on was Amy and "Being Amy" There was quite a bit of parallel irony going on there which i quite injoyed. In the end Amy was the perfect being Amy which means 'Being Amy' (the character) was a pychopath all along!

Thanks for the insights JB - I found this on the interwebs the other day which seems rather relevant - Joseph Heller's structure for Catch 22

http://biblioklept.org/2013/05/15/joseph-hellers-handwritten-outline-for-catch-22/

I never really thought about this, but it's interesting. I know now why I don't write for a living-too damn much work!

My Warhammer stablemate Bill King talked about this in a blog post, and I liked his take on the balance point between the two approaches. He compared it to planning a trip. Some people plan a trip literally down to the number of minutes it will take to stop for petrol, some just throw some stuff in a bag and set off down any road that looks interesting. Most people will do something in the middle: plan their main movements, stops, expenses, what they want to see and do in each place and so on.

But once you're on the road, you find things change. The town you thought you were set to spend a week in is deathly dull but that tiny village twenty klicks further on looks pretty cool, so you switch up a couple of nights. One museum eats the entire time you had planned for one city, but then you find that the thing you were going to two stops along has been closed and so you redistribute the time. Your original itinerary is still there, it's just... evolving.

I notice Chuck Wendig uses the same analogy, albeit (of course) with more swearing, less pants, and flinch-inducing references to baboon porn: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/05/14/25-things-you-should-know-about-outlining/

Thanks for the insights, JB. Been thinking about this a lot. I started my current project as a "gardener", and ran into all sorts of problems for a different reason - at the moment I have to put down and pick it up a lot, and it became impossible to hang on to all the threads. With enough time in between, the story changes while youre writing it - I think maybe because, as a friend of mine pointed out, you keep changing yourself. Course it probably boils down to a personality thing too. But the best thing about the planning thing for me is it's left me willing to rip things out and chnage things with abandon, and probably let me learn more things more quickly than I would have otherwise. As to whether one of the characters will pull a handbrake turn halfway through my careful little world, or if it will all feel played out by the time I get there, well, I dunno. But I'm looking forward to finding out.

Appropriately, given my nickname, I am much more of a 'pantser' than a 'plotter'. And definitely much more of a gardener - something I enjoy outside writing as well! But meandering through a story leads me to wander right out of the story and into a completely different one, which is why I have a box full of unfinished stories, but barely any finished ones. One day I'll figure out how to stay on track (or find someone willing to get the whip out) and get these damnable endings out of my head and onto paper. Getting to the middle is no problem - it's the wrapping up that seems to be the hardest part!

When is Cairo coming out?

I tip my hat to anyone who can write more than 3,000 words. I recently went to a talk with Graeme Simsion, where he explained his writing process. He said that he never gets writer's block because he always knows exactly what he is going to write, every time her writes - because he always plans it all out. So I guess plotting can be useful. But I don't even know where you author people get the imagination from to actually write a novel!

If its your first time in the bull ring.

PLOT!

Plot plot plot! Its the only way you'll end up with a finished MS.

But JB has a point with gardening and its something i find myself doing with my new projects particularly the short stories.

I (and with lots of help from YankeeDog) plotted out Q7S in detail. First I did a coarse story board, sort of a general description for each chapter. Nailed that down them went to a fine story board on each chapter using points. All up it came to about 30 pages and a couple of weeks of part time work.

With this I was able to fill in the gaps where and when i felt like it. I was able to faff about sometimes and even added and deleted bits but I essentually stayed within the story board.

I would use that method again.

A down side for me was you got all the story imagining done early and thats the bit I like and keeps me motivated. I found it became a bit of a drudgery after that just filling in lines. Well, it wasn't just filling in lines, the characters came alive at this point so it wasn't that bad.

I think Mr Martin could do with a bit more architecture. I've enjoyed the GoT books, but with the last one, in particular, I started to think he was making it all up as he went along, because he literally seemed to have lost the plot.

About the only thing that makes me immediately stop reading a book is when a character does something that seems dumb and out of character so the author, IMHO, can advance the plot. I guess that's most likely to happen when the author is following an outline. I need my hero in this box so he can be accidentally loaded onto the bad guys space ship. How about I just get him to walk over and climb into it even though he has no justifiable reason to do so and no reason being anywhere near it.

In many cases I stop reading the author altogether.

Pratchett said to never shout the question "how do you keep your balance?" to the guy on the high wire.

I think the Internet and technology changes our nature of expectations about an author keeping control of their manuscript. That in a digital form, a manuscript should be "more malleable" than if it was pages coming out of a typewriter.

There are certainly tools today that can keep track of even the most fractal of narratives (mindmapping being a good start, but any diagramming application on a tablet is going to allow you to drag stuff around in a way that would be bloody difficult on butcher paper or a whiteboard).

I suspect that today's reader has greater expectations in terms of narrative complexity and coherence than a reader of a couple of decades ago. You can see the same thing in TV and Movies - I was watching the "writers room" special feature on the Season 3 Blu-Ray of Trek (which includes Ron D Moore talking about his first job (interestingly a lot of the Next Gen writing team at about Season 3 were on their first gig)) and they mention that TNG would have problems surviving today because the expectations around a show's narrative complexity are a lot higher than they were back in the late 80's.

I'm curious as to how much pre-planning goes into people 's characters before they start writing (as distinct from plotting events). Are people making notes of what they look like, what they eat for breakfast, etc? Or are the psychological drivers of character more critical for youse all?

The cunning plotters amongst you will probably like alistair Reynolds' whiteboarding technique shown here: http://voxish.tripod.com/id19.html . May have spoilers, his whiteboards often do.

Thanks JB,

Timely advice as it's happening to me right now as I write my 'best selling novel', which just happens to be my first. Onto chapter 4 (16 000 words so far) and having to keep hand written notes to tie up lose ends or unfinished threads. The unfinished threads 'just feel right' and will hopefully allow for more development down the track. I am a gardener of sorts. I have written a brief outline with a couple of incidences in each chapter to 'steer' the book into a direction. A seed or two in each chapter if you like.

I can see the need for storymapping as the work becomes more complex and/or memory fails to retain the ideas/arcs. It is bloody complicated! I feel I could never be a professional writer because I can't reliably write on demand and want/have to write when I usually have to do something else! Why can't life just wait a few months until I finish this FKN Book?

It took me nearly 3 years to write the first draft of Queen of the Seven Seas, 90k odd words and mostly written on the train to work.

No further comments required. The Shat said it all.

J J Abrams must get this A LOT.

Star Wars Episode VII: Makin' Wookie

FKN ROLFLMAO at FKN WORK!!....

Lando has aged well hasn't he? And would probably mumble less that Harrison Ford thats for sure.

Americans love to debate BBQ.

As we all know, Texas BBQ is just one of many styles of BBQ, and it is far from the best. Sure, Texans love it, but they are the most jingoistic bunch you'll ever meet - if the word "Texas" is associated with it, then they will fight to the death to defend its excellence. If the word "Texas" was associated with child molestation, Texans would argue vehemently that Texas style molestation is the biggest and best there is. Senator, back me up on this.

That said, Texas BBQ is fine, but, for my taste, Kansas City style is the best. Murph, back me up on this.

Everything in Texas is bigger than anywhere else. And Better. If you got it then we got it too and we got it bigger. That's the Texas way and anyone who thinks different can be killed by any mob that assembles around anyone who says anything bad about Texas. Thats legal in Texas. And Montana. But it is more legal in Texas.

I'd say that Texas Bob has it down pretty well and the effete Californicator is letting his state-envy issues get the better of him, which is entirely understandable and something that Texans expect and are ok with. And besides, Texas style pedophilia involves young goats and such and is therefore perfectly normal and natural.

As for the actual article, which is written in English and has polysyllables and whatnot and therefore may be confusing to those not-from-the-Great-State-of-Texas, I've eaten at Opie's in Spicewood and, even though it is IN Texas, it is not so much of a much. Luling City Market is the best I've had.

Given the popularity of and fascination with all things Texan and the world-wide envy of all non-Texans, maybe JB should post more often on this timely and eternal topic.

Well, if it was elderly goats, that would be sort of icky, wouldn't it?

I feel I should have declared my conflict of interest. I am a certified KC BBQ judge. But I only got my certification because I thought it would be my ticket to free food.

Deserve's Got Nothing To Do With It!

Jeebus I just heard the news about the tornadoes that tore through Texas. I hope all you BBQ enthusiasts and your loved ones are OK.

Aunty Q.

Word is that the tornaode was actually a djenie or malevolant spirit conjured by an ex-marine who learnt some of the dark ancient arts while stationed in Southern Iraq. He allegedly "crossed the streams" of a Middle East lamb marinade with a Texan dry rub. The resulting taste explosion was described as a tornado, but only as a result of the local paucity of vocabulary and the unwillingness to step outside the strict Judeo-Christian gestalt.

Complete and utter heresy. BBQ started in the southern delta. It's home is, and always has been, Memphis. This weekend the International BBQ Cooking Contest is being held in Memphis, as it has been for my entire life (37 years), bringing in competitors across the globe in a drunken orgy of BBQ and beer on the bluffs of the Mississippi.

If you haven't had Memphis BBQ, you haven't had BBQ. Everything else is just regional variations.

Matter over mind?

Or matter with mind?

It will resonate with a lot of people I figure.

Why are they doing this when they could be bringing back the Six Million Dollar Man?.

Oh, they mention the Six Million Dollar Man.
I could whip this bloke's butt, once I put on my Google Glass.

w, The killjoys said Six Million Dollar Man couldn't possibly work cause of the muscular/skeletal problems. OH and S came down on him with a ton of bricks for not bending his knees when he rolled cars over etc. Sad but true. i had a thang for 6milliond Woman Lindsay Wagner grrrrrr ChickyBabe!

I will watch it - Marg Helgenberger is my 2nd crush after Dana Delaney

And here I was hoping that the excellent Canadian series "Intelligence" had finally been given a new lease on life. I knew it was too much to hope for. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend tracking it down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_(TV_series)

Didn't they do something like this with Chuck or some show like that?

Is this different because he is Spec Ops?

Not grabbing me, which means it will probably last ten seasons.

Respects,

Murph

On the Outer Marches

Sounds like a clone of Continuum without the time travel backstory since Kira's CMR implant does the same kind of things. Talk about tomorrow's technology today.

I think we'll be seeing more stories/shows that use these ideas as "chip in the head" becomes mainstream rather than /SFtechno fringe.

Still, I will be checking out the series.

Speaking of gnarly biffo, if you've not already tried Strike Back it's rollicking good fun (at least, from the rebooted season 2 when it started taking itself not so srsly)

About sums it up really. Whole lot of men with mummy issues running around patting eachother on the back.

I can imagine nothing more wondderful. Thank you.

Goddamnit my thoughtful comment on the motivations for chinese society adopting western cultural markers got eaten FML

Aaargh but to answer your question the USA equivalent is a Kung Fu Dojo

The Chinese version of Sturgis!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgis_Motorcycle_Rally