Camera Obscura: High expectations Burned again

Intergalactic Medicine Show just published the latest installment of Camera Obscura. This time around, I review the DVD of Cigarette Burns (directed by John Carpenter), which is one of the first episodes of the Showtime Masters of Horror series to come out on DVD.

[Excerpt:] I initially loved the premise, but quickly realized that it’s quite derivative The Ring. It also reminded me a lot of Laird Barron’s excellent recent novella “The Imago Sequence” (which was far superior to any work mentioned in this review), though I don’t think the filmmakers could have read it pre-production, so the similarities are almost certainly a coincidence. Though these two factors diminished by admiration for the film somewhat, I still found it to be an enjoyable and laudable viewing experience…even if I did want to do a rewrite on the script so that I could see the film I wished this was.

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Interview with Nick Sagan

Science Fiction Weekly just published my interview with Nick Sagan. This one’s a full-length Q&A, not one of the short pieces I do for SCI FI Wire.

Here’s an excerpt:

Sagan: Without a drastic change to human nature, I think it’s reasonable to doubt that world peace will ever be anything more than a pipe dream. Thousands of years of recorded human history, and look at where we are today. Look at what we are. Genetically, we’re not so far from chimpanzees. Are chimps capable of cooperation, compassion, tolerance and compromise? Yes, but they’re far more likely to form tyrannical hierarchies and then persecute, rape and kill chimps from other groups. That’s deeply ingrained primate behavior. It goes back millions of years. A few thousand years of human culture and philosophy have a hard time standing up to “might makes right.” In the animal kingdom, might typically prevails, and our genes know this. They tell us to fight or flee, lead or obey, exploit or be exploited. We can talk about egalitarian utopias all we like, but the aggression lurks within us just the same.

Go read it, then come back and tell me how awesome it is.

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Plagiarism for Dummies

This looks interesting. This site is holding a contest inspired by the Kaavya Viswanathan plagiarism controversy:

Inspired by recent events, we wondered not “why does anyone plagiarize,” but “why aren’t more people better at plagiarizing?” And so we are launching a contest to see if there is a “writer” out there who can create a coherent and original piece of fiction completely made from the works of others.

(Which is about as coherent and original as modern fiction can get, right?)

The winner “will have his or her story published on The Morning News, and will also receive a TMN T-shirt and mug to remind them of this, the moment ethics in writing died.” You’ve got to enter by May 12, so get to work.

via Miss Snark

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Office Cat Evaluates Manuscripts

Since everyone seemed so interested in how the office cat operates, I thought I’d capture him in action. My new digital camera also functions as a video camera, so I was able to record this for posterity. So this is how he makes his editorial decisions; it’s unusual to be sure, but you can’t argue with the results.

(Sorry about the lack of light–it didn’t look so dark as I was filming it.)

Here’s a link to a slightly larger version at YouTube.com.

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