Contributing Nothing To the Conversation But A Turd

Posted on May 5th, 2015 by Adam-Troy Castro

Okay. Let me explain to you how somebody got blocked, just now, in a conversation about a TV show.

I talk about any number of things on my Facebook space. Politics. Current events. The writing life. The latest tempests in a teapot centering on fandom. Daily doings from my own life. My cats, for crying out loud. Flights of humorous fantasy. Books, both those I’ve read and those I’ve written. Movies. And occasionally, TV shows.

Not everything I talk about is of equal importance. Sometimes I trade in big ideas, or what pass as big ideas when I’m talking. Sometimes I’m just nattering.

In this particular case, I was talking about a TV show, not a very good one. Then Mr. Soon-To-Be-Ejected, who as far as I know I’ve never even seen before, wrote, “I can’t believe people are talking about a TV Show on one of the old networks! Talk about not having a life!”

* Deep Breath *

Look, this is an awful big cocktail party. There are literally hundreds of thousands of conversations going on at any one point. Some will interest you and some will not. Encountering a conversation about something that strikes you as unimportant doesn’t mean that that’s the all-consuming obsession of those involved; it means that is what they happen to be talking about at this particular, specific moment. Nobody asked you to decide whether any given conversation is worthy of their time; again, everybody talks about a number of things, some important, and some not.

It is always possible to enter a conversation and disagree with its premise. That prompts debate and debate is good.

In no conversation you have just entered is it proper to interject, “This doesn’t interest me at all! You people are talking about something unworthy!” If that’s how you feel, you either walk away or you hang about in silence, waiting for the subject to change. You do not take a dump on an exchange between strangers. You go find another conversation.

The most scintillating bon vivant in the entire world, which I’m not, will occasionally demonstrate an interest in something that bores you silly. He will hold forth on the differences between brands of toilet paper, or something that strikes you as equally inane. Unless you are paying him money he is under no obligation to entertain you with every instant. Unless he is paying you money to act as his editor you are under no obligation to police his conversations for constant brilliance. All you did, in that single post, was establish yourself as a scold. You contributed nothing to the conversation but a turd. Sorry. But you can go now.

Tags: Assholes, Facebook, TV | Category Blog Business, Books, Humor, Movies, Politics, Science Fiction

Joe R. Lansdale Can Do Anything He Wants, And None Of It Badly

Posted on May 1st, 2015 by Adam-Troy Castro

There’s no way I can review Joe R. Lansdale’s upcoming novel FENDER LIZARDS (Subterranean Press, November), in my SCI FI book column. It’s just not in any genre under my rubric. But I wanna tell you about it. I wanna tell you about it in the way one wants to tell everybody about any book that made him grin, that made him laugh, that made him deeply fall in love with fictional people. I want to have a crate filled with copies of this book and I want to give them to people as gifts.

I did not expect this book.

You see, Lansdale being Lansdale, I kept waiting for some kind of crime or horrific event, and none materialized; as the pages went on, I gradually realized that this was a wholly mainstream novel of character, and one that focused on the human capacity to grow beyond one’s boundaries.

It’s the story of one Dot Sherman, a 17-year-old high school dropout sharing a trailer with her mother, younger brother, and obese grandmother, whose prospects in life seem cruelly limited. She’s employed as a roller-skating diner waitress, sister to a woman in similar circumstances with an abusive layabout man on top of that, and grimly certain that she will never end up any differently than any other member of her family.

Then two things happen. First, they hear from Elbert, an uncle they’ve never heard of before, brother to the father who went out for cigarettes one day and never came back. And second, Dot beats the hell out of her sister’s abuser with a two-by-four.

Dot’s life starts to change. Or, rather, she starts to change. It is nothing especially dramatic, though the story takes a wonderful movie-ready direction in its last third – but mostly, what occurs after that happens in small increments and tiny victories. By book’s end, it’s clear: she’s not gonna drift into a life of hopelessness. She’s gonna be all right. Sooner or later, she’ll be out of that trailer.

The book isn’t saccharine with uplift. It has all the wise-ass, snarky humor you would expect from this author. It’s at times split-your-gut funny. Every epiphany in it, every victory in it, is earned. It’s lean and muscular and good-hearted and vivid.

I adored Dot, who sometimes has too big a mouth on her for her own good. I loved everybody in the book, down to the guy who runs the diner she works for, all her fellow waitresses, and the judge who presides in the criminal case over that walloping with the two-by-four. I thought Elbert was great. I thought Grandma was great. I thought this was a ROCKY story for seventeen-year-old girls, and I concluded, again, that on the page, Joe Lansdale can do anything he wants, and none of it badly.

Tags: Book Reviews, FENDER LIZARDS, Joe R. Lansdale | Category Books, Commentary

So Here’s One Nice Thing I’m Not Going To Do Anymore

Posted on April 28th, 2015 by Adam-Troy Castro

So here, people, is a fine example of how the greed of a few ruins it for everybody.

Pay attention.

I am a book reviewer.

I write for a glossy magazine called SCI FI. The money is not life-changing, but it’s a low-stress gig. Publishers send me their books. More than I could possibly read. I pick a few and write about them, put a very few others on the shelf, to be perused at my leisure, someday.

Because I live in finite space, the number of books I can keep is limited. I can only keep a relative few, usually those that I honestly hope I’ll have the time to read someday, or those that — even though I have read them — I adore so much I cannot bear ever parting with them. The threshold for that last category is very high. I have to get rid of most.

I give some away at meetings of my local SF club. But I have largely saturated those good people, and many now regard the monthly box of giveaways the way they would regard the latest huge mound of spaghetti at the local all-you-can-eat buffet. Besides, there are certain books that will never be snatched up by them. Certain sub-genres that none of them have any interest in. Books that, regardless of any expansive salesmanship by me, will still go unclaimed.

So from time to time I need to find other methods of disposal.

And until a couple of years ago, this was one of them.

When I went to science fiction conventions, I brought a box of books — new books, mint books, books only read once, books by major authors, important new books  — and arrayed them on one of the unused display tables alongside the fliers for room parties and upcoming conventions and whatnot, and left a sign reading: PLEASE TAKE.

I figured, these are science fiction conventions. People like to read. The most niche volume in my discards would find a taker. I was happy with this solution, delighted to pass on some enjoyable reading to folks who might be passing through the hallway, and spot a treasure made just for them.

It was a nice thing to do, too. I figured I was earning karma points. (Even the authors of those books would have little reason to complain, as giving away a single copy, and thus increasing word of mouth, is much more beneficial to them than doing what so many yutz-heads do nowadays, which is scan entire novels into pdf form and helpfully give them away to all takers, on the web.)

So I did this.

And then I discovered something that horrified me.

Booksellers were running out of the dealer’s room, taking every book I had offered as giveaway, bringing them all back to their tables…and selling them, as merchandise.

An act of generosity, of fellowship with my fellow lovers of the written word, was being perverted into commerce by people who saw it as a way to stock their respective inventories, by a few volumes.

The next year I amended the sign. BOOKS FOR FREE. NO DEALERS.

And watched.

Five minutes later, a dealer scurried out of the dealer’s room and took every single volume, as his to sell.

So I had to say that I’m not going to do this anymore.

I have a nice box of two dozen giveaways, good books, recent books, brand new books, that are not going with me to the local SF convention this weekend.  It’s a nice thing I can’t do anymore. It’s effort I won’t go to, so that somebody can claim all the largesse for himself.

| Category Books, Commentary, Humor, Science Fiction