Reviews Needed!

In my history as a professional writer the toughest thing for me has been to get written reviews posted on Amazon and other online booksellers. These are important for the sales of a novel. Some of my past books did okay and I didn't have to push too much to get reviews.

But lately it has been exceptionally difficult finding people who have the time and inclination to create reviews for my work.

Thus, I am offering a free autographed paperback copy of my new novel THE EMISSARY to ten people who would like the book and would agree to post a review at Amazon if you enjoy the book. (If you don't enjoy the book, don't wreck my carrer and just keep the copy or sell it---Heck, I don't care!)

At any rate, review copies will be in hand here at the Smith House tomorrow and I can send them out as requests come in. Just email me at jamesrobertsmith at yahoo.com with your mailing address and I'll send you a copy (with autograph). Please be sure to put REVIEW COPY in the subject heading of the email so I'll know it's not spam.

Thanks!

THE EMISSARY, from James Robert Smith, author of THE FLOCK.

Review: The Boys.

Before I get back to posting about hiking, wildlife, photography, camping, and (less and less, these days) writing, I want to pause to review the Amazon television series The Boys.

Based on a series published by Wildstorm/Dynamite, The Boys features a storyline in which a group of normal humans set about to try to kill and/or socially neutralize the superheroes who have appeared in the midst of US civilization. The small group who band together to do their utmost to take down the "supers" are various guys whose lives have been negatively influenced by their interactions with the hyper-powered people who exist like gods and actors/rock stars amidst all of us who are just normal people.

But how does one go about destroying that which is invulnerable? Therein lies the brilliance in the comic book and the TV series.

I have to admit that I have never read the comic. I only became aware of it some time after the publication of my superhero novel, WORKING CLASS HERO. The comic was conceived and written by long-time writer Garth Ennis. My previous exposure to his work was based solely on PREACHER which I found to be rather more nihilistic than I like, but oddly funny for all of the gross shit he tossed about in that particular book. The guy is very talented and is a skilled storyteller. Now that I have seen (and enjoyed) the TV series I will have to seek out the collected comic book series and give it a go.

Thus, all of my comments here concern themselves with the TV series and only that.

Okay, first of all it is based on the now-silly premise of what the world would be like if superheroes were real. As if no superhero comic that appeared between 1938 and today was about that same thing. As with titles like Miller's Dark Knight and Moore's Watchmen, we deal with the minute details of how the presence of god-like humans walking around lowly mortals might play out. I can dig it, and the theme has been used to decent effect in some past attempts.

The supes in The Boys are treated as extreme celebrities, generally based on the level and importance of their abilities. At the top of the heap is a super-powered team called "The Seven" who work out of a vast skyscraper in an urban area (New York? I can't recall that it's ever mentioned where the story takes place.). The Seven act kind of like the Justice League or The Avengers in that way. They scan the city looking for crime to bust, and do so on a pretty much daily basis.

If you're looking for a model for these seven heroes, I would assume that they're based on DC Comics JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA. At the top of the pyramid is a particularly scary fellow called Homelander. He is, for all practical purposes, Superman. He can fly at supersonic speed, is invulnerable, strong beyond all reason, and has laser-vision eyes, can see through walls (except for zinc), has super-hearing, etc. He's Superman. Next is Queen Maeve who has all of the basic powers of Wonder Woman. Then The Deep who can breathe underwater and talk to fish--yeah, Aquaman. There is A-Train who acts as The Flash, able to run at speeds exceeding 1,000 mph. Translucent is a man who can become invisible and, while in that state, is invulnerable. A character called Black Noir (yeah, I know) who never speaks, wears an all-encompassing suit of solid black and whose powers are never spelled out (but we do see super-strength and blinding agility). And Starlighter, a young woman who is nearly invulnerable (she is hit with high-caliber bullets and is merely knocked to the ground), heightened strength (she can punch through brick walls) and can generate extremely powerful beams of light accompanied by shock waves. So there is some minor originality with the supers who don't actually correspond to familiar comic book super characters.

The series opens with a young couple in love whose lives intersect briefly with that of A-Train who, moving at better than 1,000 mph, runs into the young woman, reducing her to errant bits of scattered flesh and bits of bone and gallons of blood. He paused to briefly acknowledge what he has done, and then speeds on his way. Left psychically scarred is Hughie Campbell, her surviving boyfriend who has to deal with the fact that A-Train's killing of his love is considered mere "collateral damage".

After that, we soon discover that the supers--especially those who are members of The Seven--are immune to prosecution and don't even have to deal with  negative press. Everyone is supposed to adore them and anyone who is terminally caught in their wake are just supposed to take it in stride and go away to let the superheroes do their jobs.

Hughie Campbell is soon approached by a man named Billy Butcher who has an insane hatred of superheroes and who talks Campbell into helping him place a spy device inside the hq of The Seven. And thus the adventure begins.

There are a number of things that I quite liked about The Boys. First and foremost, I enjoy fiction that is socially and politically subversive. The Boys is certainly that. Superficially, the supers seem to be just  more silly damned comic book superheroes. But Ennis and/or the show writers have used them to stand in as foils for police officers and soldiers. Both police and soldiers routinely get away with mass murder and, as we are shown vividly, so do the superheroes. If you accidentally get killed by them, or even if they intentionally kill you, that's just part of the price we pay to bask in their glory. Each time I watched a super slaughter a human being I thought of the innocent people murdered by police officers, or shot and napalmed by our brave soldier boys. Just as with the cops and the soldiers, superheroes never have to face the music for their war crimes and brutality.

So there was that.

I also liked the commentary on the slavish devotion to the supers by the public at large. For every Billy Butcher or Hughie Campbell who hates superheroes, there are tens of millions of people who adore them and absolutely refuse to hear anything negative about them. Kind of like supporting the police or honoring the troops and fuck you if you don't.

From what I have gathered, the TV writers have pared down the comic book series considerably and hacked away quite a bit of extraneous plot and have focused on a more narrow storyline. There are actually things that you can get away with in a comic book that you just can't do on a screen, even the TV screen. But the writers here seem to have made excellent choices (from plot differences that I've read) to create an exceptional story based on the original yarn.

The writing is, frankly, excellent. Even the dialogue is wonderful. So my hat's off to the writers, even if I don't know who any of them are (other than Ennis). Additionally, the direction is very good, the cinematography exceptional, and the special effects are pretty much the equal to what I would expect in a theatrical film.

But the best thing about the series are the acting performances. Everyone seems perfectly cast and I cannot complain--at all--about the jobs any of the actors have done in creating the various personas. This is some major-league great acting. Especially considering that it's all just a silly superhero movie.

Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Elizabeth Shue, Colby Minifie, Chace Crawford, Simon Pegg...damn...everyone does it right. But to me, two of the actors stand out. First, there's Laz Alonzo, who is a man named Mother's Milk, one of The Boys. He just has a great presence and I appreciate good timing when it comes to delivering lines--and he's really good at that. The other performance that rises above most of the others is by Anthony Starr who plays Homelander. He is Superman as he probably would be if such a person existed--completely fucking insane and drunk with unlimited power. The guy can do anything he wants to do, and almost everyone else on Earth is just a flimsy bag of blood to him. I always thought of Superman that way, and it's what we get with Starr.

"Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Homelander! (Oh, please, God. Don't let him notice us!! PLEASE!!!)

Anyway, it's really good. If you're too sick of superhero shit to watch it, I understand and that's cool. But if you're not sick to death of superhero crap, give it a look. It's really cool.

Oh. And the last scene in the final episode of the first season (yes, there's going to be a second season): it's freaking great. I did not see that one coming.

 

Two in a Row!

I watched two films this week and liked both of them. Yeah. I know. Completely unheard of.

My son came over last Sunday and we looked through a host of trailers trying to pick out a film that we thought would be fun. We settled on COLOSSAL. It stars Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis. Now, I have to say I have never been too keen on Hathaway. I tried to watch a couple of her chick flicks with my wife but I just couldn't handle them--ephemeral and cheesy.

However, this movie was really good. She turned in what I can only say was an excellent performance, and frankly I've never found her so attractive. Yeah. We dug this one.

The film has a really superficially silly plot of a giant monster appearing in Seoul (a "kaiju" for the geekier among us). As the film progresses the heroine realizes that the monster's movements correspond to her own. Interesting.

Then another monster--a giant robot--appears and its movements correspond to those of Jason Sudekis who plays a bar owner who is obsessed with Hathaway.

From there, the film remains an interesting read of Hathaway's character and her interactions with the various male players (there aren't really any other females in the film). There turns out to be a reason and a cause for the monsters and their connections to the two leads, but it's of course silly, but you know what? Giant monsters are silly.

The underlying themes of the film are deeper than that, of course, dealing with relationships, obsessions, addictions, and--more or less--feminism and independence.

We both enjoyed it.

The other movie I watched was THE ARRIVAL. It stars Amy Adams (who i rather fancy) and is about aliens suddenly appearing on Earth in vast ships that have stationed themselves at twelve spots around the planet. Adams plays one of the world's leading linguists who is recruited by the military to try to communicate with the aliens, which she finally does.

Jeremy Renner--another actor I admire who seems to be somehow stuck in action and superhero flicks--portrays a physicist also recruited to try to break the code that will allow humans and aliens (eventually called 'hexapods') to talk to one another.

Over all this hovers the threat of military violence from several of the other nations who have found themselves as parking spots for alien craft. The two scientists have to figure out how to talk to the aliens before it is too late and before anxious military types start shooting.

Woven into all of this is the recurring back-story of Adams' daughter who died of some type of rare disease years before the events with the aliens.

I found the film to be entertaining, and it has a decent--and appropriately subdued--moral message. And of course there is a rather sweet twist that takes place at the end of the film which had a good romantic, and hopeful, development.

I rather liked it.

Not only didn't these movies piss me off, I had a good time watching both of them.

I think I'm going to run out and buy a lottery ticket before my luck runs out.

Reviews

If you ask just about any writer--but especially small press and self-published authors--they will tell you that positive reviews are important for generating sales.

Normally I don't pay much attention to reviews, but this one for my latest novel, WORKING CLASS HERO just appeared on Amazon.com and it's probably the most flattering and forthright review I've had on any of my books.

So I thought I'd point it out (because the author understood the book and what I wanted to do in writing it). Just follow THIS LINK to the review.

WORKING CLASS HERO: The Autobiography of Billy B., A Hyper Human.

In addition, Bill B has set up his own blog (posted irregularly) at Facebook. You can follow it here.