Thursday, September 18, 2003
Yesterday, I wrote 1,189 words and finished Chapter Nine of Murder of Angels. As of today, the novel stands at about 101,985 words, about 470 pp. I estimate the finished ms. will weigh in at roughly 112,000 words, shorter than Low Red Moon, but longer than Silk. Anyway, as you can see, this puts me very, very near The End. Yet, even at this proximity, some of my doubts about the book are enormous. The possibility of an eleventh chapter keeps creeping up on me, for example. And have I really done what I set out to do? What did set out to do? Yes, this is a sequel to Silk, in that it involves the primary characters who survived that novel (Niki and Daria, Spyder, Walter) and the long-term consequences of the book's events, but it's probably not what anyone would expect from a sequel to Silk. And we know what happens when a reader's expectations are thwarted. We have the Ja're's of the world to remind us, lest we forget. Actually, Murder of Angels is, more accurately, a novel about the long-term effects upon the human psyche of exposure to the paranormal, and a "falling farther in" (to borrow from October Project) as regards to original paranormal phenomena. Much, much farther in. Remember, in Ghostbusters, Egon Spengler's analogy with the TwinkieŽ? Well, if the weird in Silk were a normal-sized TwinkieŽ, then the weird in Murder of Angels would be a TwinkieŽ the size of any given neutron star. I think that just about says it all.
Today, Spooky and I will read chapters Seven, Eight, and Nine, as planned. Tonight, I hope to see a movie.
I didn't get around to reading George R. R. Martin's "A Song for Lya" last night, but we did watch From Hell on DVD. I bought it about a year ago and only just now got around to watching it. The DVD is great, if only for all the scenes that were deleted from the theatrical release. I think I actually liked the film better the second time, because I was not so weighed down by the baggage of what I expected it to be (a faithful adaptation of Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's graphic novel) and enjoyed it for what it is (a pretty good and beautifully-filmed take on Jack the Ripper).
I also watched Enterprise. I'd meant to see the season premiere last week, but forgot about it. It's easy to forget about Enterprise. But I will say that at least the new season, if last night's episode was any indication, is trying to be better that the series has been. Freed from Vulcan High Command, T'Pol adds a splash of colour to the overall drabness, even if that splash of colour is a rather intestinally disquieting salmon pink. The attack on the Earth has turned Captain Archer into a man possessed, which is a definite improvement over his former incarnation as a man asleep, but, when push comes to shove, he's still just Scott Bakula. The lighting's better. It looks like more money is going into SFX, a good thing, and someone's trying to bring a little style to the camera work. The rest of the cast seems as droll as ever, and it still appears as though most alien races differ from humans only in the structure of their foreheads. Mostly, it made me miss Farscape that much more. Maybe if the makers of Enterprise had ditched the gawdawful, frelling theme song, the series would have been improved by about 30% in one fell swoop. I mean, hey, they could get something cool to take its place, surely. Dave Matthews, maybe. After all, Dave Matthews was raised by apes in Africa, which is what makes him such a great artist.
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