All of my writing in 2019

It’s the end of the year, the end of the decade, so it’s time to look back and see what I wrote in 2019, as well as what happened with my two most recent books.

Cinemaps: An Atlas of 35 Great Movies was translated into German (and was reviewed here). This follows it winning “Best Illustrated Book on Film” at the Frankfurter Buchmesse Film Awards, as well as its being translated into Japanese and Spanish. But whatever language you choose, Cinemaps makes a lovely gift! (Thanks to Andrew DeGraff‘s amazing art.)

My most recent book, I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing: Star Wars and the Triumph of Geek Culture, also makes a lovely gift, being more timely than ever! (There’s a new Star Wars movie out, in case you’ve not heard.)

I also published a short story with Conjunctions: “Sandy Szymanski,” which is about a young woman who’s worried that she’s turning into a duck (and that nobody cares). This follows two other stories I’ve published with that magazine: “You’ll Be Sorry” and “Days of Heaven.” And I’m pleased to announce that Conjunctions just accepted another of my stories: “Thirteen Short Tales about Monsters,” which will appear in issue #74, “Grendel’s Kin” (now available for pre-order).

Beyond that, I devoted a lot of the year to working on two new books—a novel, and another critical book. More about which soon, I hope…

As for this blog: first, I added two pages to make it easier to find both my fiction and my non-fiction. (You can access these pages through the tabs at the top of the site.)

I also published a bunch of new stuff:

• “Why the Past 20 Years Have Witnessed the Triumph of Geek Culture”: When I told people I was writing a book about Star Wars and geek culture, they kept asking me “why is geek culture everywhere these days?” The book explains why, but if you want the shorter version, this post is for you.
• “The Death and Rebirth of Star Wars: Part 1 and Part 2”: Another reason why I wrote the book about Star Wars and geek culture was that I wanted to understand why the Star Wars franchise had disappeared in the mid-1980s, only to come back in the 1990s. These posts explain why that happened. (The short answer is that geeks emerged as a market.)
• “The Evolution of Wolverine, Part 1”: This is the first in a series of three posts where I document how Wolverine developed as a character. Part 2 is in the works!
• “Defining the superhero genre”: I argue that superhero stories are in fact their own genre, and explain how the genre works.
• “‘Return I will / To old Brazil’: The use of recurring space in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil”: I point out something cool about the ending of Brazil that I’d never seen anyone else point out.
• “What Was Twin Peaks? Part 1 and Part 2”: After watching the third season of Twin Peaks (which included rewatching the first two seasons), I got to thinking about how the show changed over the years. Part 3 is slowly in the works!

Beyond that, two older posts have been receiving a lot of traffic:

• “Disney should remake the Star Wars prequels. Here’s how.“ (11 Dec 2017)
• “An open letter to Cedric Phillips, Gerry Thompson, and the Pro Magic community at large” (4 Dec 2018)

If you haven’t read them yet, why not check them out? And remember, you can find all my fiction here, and all my non-fiction here.

In conclusion, I hope you had a terrific 2019. If you want to share any of your own writing or other work, please do so in the comments!

Happy Holidays, and see you in 2020!

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Why the Past 20 Years Have Witnessed the Triumph of Geek Culture

When I started writing my most recent book, I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing: Star Wars and the Triumph of Geek Culture, I wanted to make an argument about aesthetics. Namely, I wanted to argue that when it comes to art, geeks tend to like works of realist fantasy, which puts the lie to the widespread belief that realism and fantasy are opposites. (They’re not: realism is a mode, or way of making art, while fantasy is a genre; any genre can be done in any mode.)

As I worked on the book, however, I realized that people were just as interested, if not more interested, in the history of geek culture. Whenever I told people what I was doing, they said that they hoped the book would explain why geeky stuff is everywhere these days—why it’s taken over the culture. Why are all the movies at the Cineplex superhero movies? Why is everyone talking about Game of Thrones? Why is it now considered OK, or mostly OK, for adults to read Harry Potter novels and comic books? So I knew I needed to write about that, too.

As it turned out, this wasn’t a problem, because the two topics are intimately intertwined. Indeed, you can’t understand the history of geek culture without also grasping its aesthetics.

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Defining the superhero genre

Some people say that Superman is boring because he’s too powerful. Who could beat him in a fight? No one. He’s stronger and faster than everybody else, on top of which he can fly, see through walls, hear people whisper from halfway around the world, fire laser beams from his eyes, freeze things with his breath—plus he’s nigh indestructible, to boot. There’s practically nothing he can’t do. He can survive direct hits from nukes, and bathe in the sun without breaking a sweat. And since no one can beat him, the thinking goes, Superman, the Man of Steel, is never really in any danger, which means his stories lack peril, tension, suspense. There aren’t any stakes. There’s no thrill.

But to think about Superman this way misunderstands not only the character, but the superhero genre as a whole—what makes it unique, and what type of stories it’s best suited to tell. Worse still, this misunderstanding obscures the genre’s historical limitations, as well as how artists might transcend those limitations in the future.

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