Sci-Fi, Thrillers, Contemporary
I’ve completed a new set of related images called Sensor Pattern, available as a gallery on Flickr. Sensor Pattern is a journey through a semi-artificial world, viewed through a lens, but is the lens magnifying or just otherwise distorting?
Flickr’s transitions work well so running the pieces as a slideshow works well – almost like a kind of screensaver.
My latest ambient excursion, and longest for a while, is now available for free download or streaming on theVenus Vulture page at Reverbnation. “Sand under my toes, Dust in my hair” goes through a number of changes. Really it’s an attempt at narrative through sound. The track begins with a walk along a beach at sunset, then the wind cools and picks up and we hurry along almost lost until finally descending into a cave in the cliff, just lit by the sliver of crescent moon. Well, that was the mood I was looking for. Perhaps you’ll hear something different.
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying Golden City, a series of graphic novels in French by Daniel Pecqueur. First admission – I don’t understand French, just the occasional word: certainly not enough to follow the dialogue or prompts. The art, however, is extraordinary and very sci-fi, so it’s suiting me and where I’m at. I’m finding that I’m doing a lot of science fiction world building in my writing of late and these kinds of illustrations of unusual planes and boats, of underwater suits and giant cities, are all stimulating my imagination. These are the kinds of pictures I’d love to do of the worlds I’m imagining, if only I could draw even fractionally as well. In some ways the pictures remind me of a cleaner, crisper version of Moebius from the eighties. Pecqueur’s action and sense of composition is wonderful – even understanding hardly a word of it, I’m thoroughly engrossed and entertained.
Two of my untitled “Fibs” have just come out. One [Childless Couple] in issue #6 of Muse Pie Press’s journal The Fib Review, and the other [Thin] on the Undead Poets site.
A Fibonacci poem is based on the Fibonacci sequence, with lines of 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 syllables. The main page of the Fib Review explains it much better than I can. The device makes for some neat poems, and some of the other wonderful poets in the current Fib Review are doing some mind-bending stuff with it – check out Horns by Mark Arvid White – extraordinary.
My offbeat, even humourous, flash horror story The Servants of Darkness go for Pizza appears in the May issue of Static Movement. There’s a good lineup of stories again this month, with some names familiar to readers of online flash – Oonah V. Joslin, Joshua Scribner and co. Chris Bartholemew, the editor, has put together another great issue.
My flash story Courtney, Reanimated has just been published on the MicroHorror site. Striving for a mix of atmosphere and action here, with a little bit of character as well. I hope it succeeds.
I went to see Iron Man 2 last night and I would say that it’s mixed and fragmented. Some moments are superb, others lackluster. The action didn’t live up to my expectations, there were too many baddies and the story seemed to drift around without real urgency (perhaps a bit too much set up for an Avengers movie?). I guess I like my action flicks simple – one big threat, escalating danger and lots of stuff blowing up. When I start noticing continuity glitches (the angle of the box of strawberries on the table) then I know I’m not fully engaged.
The highlights, however, were anytime Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow were on screen together – the dialogue is busy and natural, their characters so real and fluid: those scenes alone made the movie worth seeing.
Certainly some of the effects are extraordinary, but given that just about anything can be done digitally now I guess I’m getting harder to amaze. I went with a mate, who loved it, says it’s better than the first, so it’s all just opinion anyway.
No writing for reading post this week – my reading is just going way too slow and I’ve been hard at work on a 5000 word story with a deadline of tomorrow, and trying to do that review.
We thought about going to Date Night – should be a good date movie right? I think Steve Carrell and Tina Fey are both amazing. But then I read that it’s their performances that save mediocre material. Uh-oh. Then I saw that the director also directed Night at The Museum. Now that’s one of the few movies I’ve stopped watching, and fairly early on at that. Usually I can stand almost any old dross, but Night at The Museum just didn’t work for me at any level. I’m perhaps the only one, since it made a ton of money, enough apparently to justify a sequel. Anyhooo, I’ll save my $14.50 and maybe check out Date Night on DVD in six months.
My quirky flash story The Neuron Thieves has just been published in The New Flesh Magazine. This is an odd piece, in a world that takes a lot of filling in from the reader – I can see it in my head, but lots is still grey. I wonder what others will make of it. How big is the building, how long is the pipe, what’s the world like outside of the pipe? Anyway, I hope you enjoy.
I listened to The Sleeping Morning, a 21 minute ep, last night while I edited a new story. Two of the four tracks include vocals, which is a bit different to the usual stuff from 12k, and different to what I’d normally write to, but it works. The tracks are quite distinct, minimal and controlled. Ysatis and Deupree have worked together a lot over the last decade or so, with some long gaps – this came out after quite a long gap (many years), and they have worked again more recently on another piece – hourglass – which is available on vinyl, but also (as with Sleeping Morning) as a download through itunes. Definitely worth checking out.
Sean Monaghan - Writer 