Saturday Waffling (April 23rd, 2016)
First of all, we hit the Game of Thrones reviews threshold on Patreon, so I’ll be back tomorrow night for “The Red Woman.”
I also just cut a podcast with David Gerard, who probably very few of you have any idea who is, but has been an online friend for literally over a decade, starting in the Wikipedia trenches and evolving to… the Tumblr trenches. He ended up being the beta tester for Neoreaction a Basilisk by dint of being mad enough to volunteer, and kept me confident that this fifty-thousand word piece of madness was actually working despite all common sense that this was a very bad way to write a book. Anyway, that’ll be out in a few weeks, along with some other people who’ve gotten preview copies of it.
Also finally wrapped the backmatter of the “Fearful Symmetry” chapter, and am about to make a tilt at not having to take a break before “The Abyss Gazes Also.” Which brings me to my question, which is really just “so who’s being obsessive enough to track my structural gimmicks there?” To be clear, literally no problem at all if you aren’t; if the chapter doesn’t work for non-obsessive readers the chapter fails. I, who complain regularly when I can’t follow monthly superhero comics, have no right to whine if I can’t make a Watchmen pastiche work. But those posts get low comments, which is totally understandable – they don’t lend themselves to comments. So I don’t really have a sense of how that aspect of it is landing at all. Or any questions people want to throw out about that project.
Actually, since the Neoreaction a Basilisk excerpts aren’t necessarily comment friendly either, I should explicitly solicit Eruditorum Press reader questions on that book as well.
Obvious answers to questions on both topics, then.
1. Last War in Albion Volume 1 will be out in late summer.
2. The Neoreaction a Basilisk Kickstarter will start in May.
3. I don’t know for sure whether the specific work you’re wondering about will be covered in Last War in Albion, as I’m only just starting to have my first serious “actually write things down” thoughts about the structure of Book Three in the last few weeks, but broadly speaking it’s probably got a pretty good chance of at least coming up.
4. Monday’s Super Nintendo Project post is a hoot.
That last one’s not really an answer to a question. It’s just true.
April 23, 2016 @ 10:28 am
Personally, I find it a bit hard to look for structural tricks based on weekly chunks of the whole thing, so I’m waiting for the whole chapter to be made available to Patreon backers (if that’s something that still happens). I’m certainly very interested to see how precisely the hinge works – based on the analysis of the structure of “Fearful Symmetry”, I thought the text would go from Moore to Morrison to Moore again, and I did not anticipate an extended piece on Blake at all.
Question about LWiA, inspired by the appearance of Blake (and possibly already answered by your post): are you planning callbacks to other previous wars in Albion?
Question about Neoreaction, since I started reading your blog after all your previous Kickstarters: will Patreon backers of the appropriate tiers receive electronic/paper copies of the book as well, or should they back the Kickstarter for that?
April 23, 2016 @ 5:00 pm
Was I doing the chapters to Patreon backers? No reason not to, I suppose.
There will be callbacks to at least some previous wars. Most obviously, eventually Crowley will get his due.
The Neoreaction Kickstarter is going to be all Kickstarter-exclusive editions, but the end result of the Kickstarter will be a traditional-style Eruditorum Press book (that won’t be out until 2017). Patreon backers will get that, but not any of the Kickstarter-exclusive editions.
April 25, 2016 @ 6:40 am
Thanks for your replies!
I may, of course, be wrong, but I’m fairly sure I’ve read one of the first chapters of Book 2 in an e-reader format made avilable on Patreon.
April 23, 2016 @ 1:23 pm
I think I can see a fair amount of what’s going on in Fearful Symmetry (i’m 50/50 on whether or not you’ve done something immaculately cheeky with the images at the end of the most recent post) but i’ll have to wait until the whole thing is posted before anyone could track the specific parallels. I’ve also not read the second half of Book One yet, so i’m missing some context.
LWiA: So if Moore is Urizen and Morrison Los, do the other combatants get Blakean parallels?
Neoreaction: Do you think it’s plausible Nick Land might actually be joking? I’m not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt – and you’ve mentioned the non-difference between pretending to be a racist and just being a racist – but i’m interested in a case for the defense, if there is one.
April 23, 2016 @ 5:10 pm
LWiA: I wouldn’t count on those parallels remaining stable.
Neoreaction: I wouldn’t say joking, but I think he’s very careful about the precise terms on which he does and does not endorse neoreaction, and that the ambiguities this precision creates are deliberate.
April 23, 2016 @ 1:38 pm
I’m just sitting here waiting for the next volume of TARDIS Eruditirum. Any word when that might appear?
April 23, 2016 @ 4:57 pm
Hoping end of the year, but it could end up being early 2017.
April 23, 2016 @ 5:11 pm
I’m also waiting for the Fearful Symmetry section to wrap before even attempting to look at and fuly enjoy the structural shennanigans.
Meanwhile there’s http://bbc.in/1VItaSI
Let the speculation begin.
April 23, 2016 @ 5:26 pm
So, Pearl Mackie as Bill…
April 23, 2016 @ 5:46 pm
Well… I for one liked it.
April 23, 2016 @ 9:23 pm
She looks fun. Phil suggested there’s a bit of Courtney Woods in the brief clip of her on his tumblr, which I can see, but I’d be amazed if Moffat wasn’t writing her with Shona in mind after seeing all the calls for her to come back. Her questioning the logic of the Daleks reminded me of the way Shona tried to question the logic Santa in “Last Christmas”.
And it’s about time we had a main companion who isn’t white again, so that’s nice. A newcomer too, but that’s a good thing, seeing as she’s appearing alongside a hugely experienced actor who was well known before appearing on Doctor Who. And I trust the casting crew – Andy Pryor’s been doing this for years, and hasn’t cast a bad lead yet.
And I suspect her experience on “Curious Incident” will be useful, too. It’s one heck of an experimental production, so good experience for an actor facing the challenges Doctor Who presents.
April 23, 2016 @ 11:34 pm
She’s the third Af-Brit companion, counting Mickey, and the second “main” companion so described. This is cool. Hopefully more diversity lies in the future.
What’s really interesting is that she seems to be the least known actor to play a companion in the revived series. Her imdb profile has a bit movie part and one episode of Doctors. So she’ll be coming in with a clean slate.
April 24, 2016 @ 9:59 am
I’m almost obsessive enough to track the structural gimmicks. Which is to say, I thought “I can see he’s doing something with symmetry here; Hmm, it’s not simple enough for me to just see how it works straight off; okay, my head’s spinning now, leave it.”
April 24, 2016 @ 4:43 pm
When will you react to the news of the new companion? Also, could you react to the clip?
April 25, 2016 @ 3:23 am
Probably when he creates a new Patreon threshold.
May 3, 2016 @ 8:43 am
“But those posts get low comments, which is totally understandable – they don’t lend themselves to comments. So I don’t really have a sense of how that aspect of it is landing at all. Or any questions people want to throw out about that project.”
I am still reading an loving the LWIA posts, but am commenting less than I did before. I think that has happened for me since the site change which does look great, but I think I comment less often on the site overall now as there is not a way to ‘follow’ comment threads or to track replies – which I find useful as I am pretty busy work-wise and quickly can forget which threads I have commented in.