Spooky, Horror, and Halloweeny: I AM LEGEND

ACK! I'm so freaking excited about October! It's totally my favorite month of the year--not only does it contain my birthday, but the weather's finally decent, and there's Halloween, a holiday dedicated to candy.

...and horror, tricks, scary, and spooky.

So, all this week, we're celebrating the best of scary: scary stories, scary experiences, scary movies.

Today, I'm going to talk about I AM LEGEND. Now, let me say first that I liked the movie rather a lot. I don't want to ruin it for anyone who's not seen it yet, but a few points:

1. I cried at the dog scene. (I wept at the dog scene.)

2. The ending was beautiful.

3. Will Smith is a brilliant actor, even when acting with only himself and some mannequins.

4. This movie was wonderful, but the book was better.


And that's what's I'm really going to talk about today: the book. I AM LEGEND is by Richard Matheson, and is short enough to be dubbed a novella. It is vastly different from the movie.

The thing about I AM LEGEND the book (as opposed to the movie) is that it's scary in an entirely different way. The movie was brilliant in that edge-of-your-seat what-will-happen-next way--you worry incredibly about what will happen to Will Smith, what will happen to humanity, what will happen to the dog.

I AM LEGEND the book creates a whole different worry.

I don't want to ruin it for anyone--despite the movie's popularity, the book isn't as well read as it should be.

I'll just say this: the ending of this novel still haunts me, two years after I first read it.

Seriously.

It's not scary because you think a vampire is going to jump out and get you.

The scariest part is the end, when you find out what the title actually means, and you wonder if it's possible.

Where You Get Your Geek On

It's come to my attention that I am not nearly science geeky enough. Sure, I love Star Trek like the millions of other Trekkies (did I even spell that right?) out there. But I would never dress up and go to a convention or anything.

Sure, I've seen some movies, watched some TV (although I'm really into reality TV, not so much science fiction...), read some books. So. I need you to tell me: Where do you get your geek on? What movies should I be watching? What TV shows? What books should I be reading? Where should I be geeking out on the Internet?

Help me get my geek on!

The Turkey City Lexicon

Nope, it’s not a new Michael Chabon or Stephen King novel. Or a travel guide to the Near East.

The Turkey City Lexicon is a brilliant little primer put together in the ‘80s by an Austin writer’s group of the same name. I've run across the Lexicon in numerous workshops and classes. It provides a memorable shorthand language for discussing problems (mostly) typical to science fiction and fantasy stories.

So, for instance, you could quickly diagnose a work as suffering from a bad case of Dennis Hopper syndrome. Can you guess what that is?

Dennis Hopper in Waterworld

The list covers everything from word choice to plot structures to tropes. You can check out the entire Lexicon on the SFWA site, but here are a few of my favorite terms:

Gingerbread
Useless ornament in prose, such as fancy sesquipedalian Latinate words where short clear English ones will do. Novice authors sometimes use “gingerbread” in the hope of disguising faults and conveying an air of refinement. (Attr. Damon Knight)

The Cozy Catastrophe
Story in which horrific events are overwhelming the entirety of human civilization, but the action concentrates on a small group of tidy, middle-class, white Anglo- Saxon protagonists. The essence of the cozy catastrophe is that the hero should have a pretty good time (a girl, free suites at the Savoy, automobiles for the taking) while everyone else is dying off. (Attr. Brian Aldiss)

The Shaggy God Story
A piece which mechanically adopts a Biblical or other mythological tale and provides flat science-fictional “explanations.”

Mrs. Brown
The small, downtrodden, eminently common, everyday little person who nevertheless encapsulates something vital and important about the human condition. “Mrs. Brown” is a rare personage in the SF genre, being generally overshadowed by swaggering submyth types made of the finest gold-plated cardboard. In a famous essay, “Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown,” Ursula K. Le Guin decried Mrs. Brown’s absence from the SF field. (Attr: Virginia Woolf)

In a workshop setting, I was once told a story of mine had a lot of Eyeball Kick, which, as it turns out, is a good thing. What flaw (or desirable quality) have you been guilty of? Have you seen one of these lexical baddies in a story recently?

For your viewing pleasure, I've included a classic Shaggy God story:

Twilight Zone episode "Probe 7, Over and Out"
It's actually an Adam and Eve story, a subset of the Shaggy God Story.

Your Cake and Who You Bake it For

This is a great article in the NY Times by Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours. His main point is about the experience of having his book translated into another language and how ultimately all writing is an act of translation, since what we write is always an approximation of what he calls the "cathedral of fire" we initially construct in our heads. All very interesting and well worth a read, but there was one section in particular that grabbed me.

"I teach writing, and one of the first questions I ask my students every semester is, who are you writing for? The answer, 9 times out of 10, is that they write for themselves. I tell them that I understand — that I go home every night, make an elaborate cake and eat it all by myself. By which I mean that cakes, and books, are meant to be presented to others. And further, that books (unlike cakes) are deep, elaborate interactions between writers and readers, albeit separated by time and space."

Honestly, I think I would have answered that question he posed his students much like they did. I write for myself. Self expression is the driving force behind what I do. I think it's a popular answer to the question. And not an altogether bad one. The reality is that writing is tough and uncertain so if you're not ultimately writing for yourself, for your satisfaction, then it's going to be a heck of a hard road.

And yet that image of a cake you make to eat all by yourself kind of stops me in my tracks. If you acknowledge that you're making a cake to be enjoyed by others, you have to ask how that changes what kind of cake you make and how you make it.

More than maybe any other genre, YA authors know their audience. Teens and young adults. We know they're meant to be our readers, but I think it's important to step back regularly and ask ourselves how are we serving them? Why, in a world of TV and movies and video games and myriad online distractions, should they give us their time? How do we justify what we're doing?

Me? I guess I want to show kids that the imaginative act of reading is just as fun and, at it's best, a far more immersive entertainment experience than any other. For me that's the foundation. I want to entertain.

I'm also just foolish enough to hope that I can communicate something deeper than that as well. Maybe something that will lighten their load a little bit. Something about hope and how they're not alone along with an understanding of how hard the process of becoming who you're meant to be really is.

Anyway, this idea isn't groundbreaking or anything, but I think it's a good one to come back to regularly.

What do you guys think?

Who are you writing for and how does that change what you write? How do you balance your need for self expression with your audience's needs?

Jeff Hirsch
The Long Walk Home
Coming from Scholastic, Fall 2011


Find me at jeff-hirsch.com and @jeff_hirsch

Asimov, Sankai & RDJ

In 1950, Isaac Asimov published a collection of short stories in a book titled, I, Robot.

In 1968, Yoshiyuki Sankai was in the 3rd grade. He read Asimov's book, again and again.

Fast forward to 1998, where the now "Dr." Sankai has invented the Robot Suit 'HAL' (Hybrid Assistive Limb®)

Here's a youtube of 'HAL' in action.

How cool is that?

Aside from the obvious aid for people with physical disabilities - it's awesome!

See what reading Science/Speculative Fiction can do for you? Yeah!

Of course, when 'HAL' shows up at my house - I'm expecting him to look like this!

(As a little aside - I have a Hal in XVI. He's a robot. But, his Hal stands for Hall Access Limiter.)

Go forth & read more SF! 

Technology: Imagine the future

This blog post is being written on my phone.

Take a minute to imagine that.

I remember ten years ago getting my first cell phone. It was a tiny flip phone, and I was amazed at the ease of text messages, tapped out on the keypad before LOL was an abbreviation. Now I'm writing a whole blog post with Swype, a program that lets me just run my fingers over the keys and the words pop up.

When I taught world literature, one of the lessons I taught my students was how quickly time moves. I remember my first CD player (6th grade; first CD I bought: THE BODYGUARD soundtrack). Now, it's all about mp3s. My parents had 8-tracks (I've never seen one, come to think of it) and LPs.

Think about this: my father didn't have indoor plumbing in his home until he was 8 years old.

My grandmother was born two years after the Titanic sank.

My mother remembers seeing the first man on the moon; now we are almost at the point where we have a manned space station.

Technology moves so fast. One of my favorite novels growing up was THE DOOMSDAY BOOK by Connie Willis. When I re-read it recently, I noticed that people in this supposedly futuristic society that have the power of time travel were all at the mercy of pay-phones and land lines--no cell phones in sight. Before that, I'd never thought of how a futuristic science fiction novel could be...well, dated.


One of my fondest memories when I was young was seeing my grandmother's watch. She wore it every day, and when she died, it was passed down to me. I never wear it. I've not worn a watch in at least a decade. When I need to know the time, I look at my cell phone.

Technology changes--and it brings other changes with it. Will we one day have one electronic device the replaces our cell phone, our wallet, our books, our music players? The iPad is close to that. Will our children take class notes on a tablet screen, or pen and paper? Will our grandchildren mock our huge, bulky cell phones? Or will cell phones have been replaced by something else?

As dystopian sci fi writers, it's our job to try to imagine the future. Sometimes it's a dark future--but we have to write a book that will, hopefully, not be dated 100 years before it was set.

And me? I'm still waiting on my flying car.

So: what do you think the future will hold, technology-wise? What do you wish would be invented?

Banned Book Week: A Wrinkle In Time

Okay, I'll be the first to admit that I didn't read this book until last summer. I know, I know. Don't throw Coke cans. I had no idea it was one of the most challenged books from 1990 - 2000. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why.

So I did some research. Here's what I found:

“Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L’Engle, winner of a Newbery Award, was challenged at a Polk City, Florida elementary school (1985) by a parent who believed that the story “promotes witchcraft, crystal balls and demons.” It was challenged in the Anniston, Alabama schools (1990) because of the book’s listing the name of Jesus Christ together with the names of great artists, philosophers, scientists and religious leaders when referring to those who defend earth against evil. It has been challenged for “sending a mixed signal about good and evil.”

This fascinates me. I'll admit that I rarely read for more than pleasure, and I actually enjoy books that make me examine my own views about good and evil, right and wrong, etc. I believe books can provide a safe place for such exploratory thoughts to begin.

A few words about censorship of books. I do believe that parents have the right to shield their children from anything they believe their child isn't ready to see/read/hear/taste. I work with 800 different kids on a weekly basis. Some of them can handle what others cannot. Parents have the right to screen the entertainment their children are exposed to, including books.

That said, I do not believe those same parents should be able to tell me what my children can or cannot be exposed to. I should get to make that decision myself, using my own belief system, my own set of values.

And that's where the line blurs.

I read A Wrinkle in Time and loved it. The crystal balls that are supposed to signify witchcraft. The time travel. The mixing of the name of Jesus Christ in with artists. I didn't even give it a second thought.

It's a great story. I passed it along to my 12-year-old. He read it. I don't think it shook his religious foundation. I don't think it made him question the line between good and evil.

But if it did, wouldn't that be a great way for us to have a conversation about what we believe? About what we believe to be wrong and what we believe to be right?

And anything that can get kids talking to their parents is a win in my book. And to me, that's what banned book week is about: The courage to have hard, gut-wrenching conversations with your children. Or within yourself.

The great thing about using books to do this is the situation feels removed. It's not something that happened to you, or to them. It could. But it didn't. And that allows for conversation, reflection, and evaluation of one's life.

That's why I celebrate banned book week.

What about you? Have you read a book that opened up a conversation with someone? What book? Have you read something that made you stop and examine something in your life? A belief?

And aren't those good things?