Sunday, November 16, 2003
The latest on Farscape's return, courtesy Karlsweb, who passed along the following from the big Farscape con in Burbank this weekend:
"Rockne O'Bannon, the creator of Farscape, said this afternoon that he was sorry there was no news he could give us. However, he said, he really should be 'at home right now writing hour three.' He also said that tomorrow he and about 25 other people will be having a conference call. And that Brian Henson and David Kemper are in Australia at the moment working on something."
Stories cannot be left unfinished. And they won't be. The other evening, as the first rumours of the return began to surface, I questioned (for the thousandth time) my devotion to this series, the amount of attention and energy I've devoted to the campaign to at least see the conclusion of the story left unfinished by the last ep of Season Four. And Spooky said, "It's not silly. Farscape is good television and that's worth fighting for, if only because there's so little of it." And, gratefully, I couldn't argue with that logic. But I think there are larger issues here than television. Because stories should be finished, those stories that are worthy of our attention, those stories that deserved to be started in the first place. This is, of course, the vast minority of what's in the bookstores or the theatres or on television. Speaking as a storyteller, when we are given something precious - and Farscape is something very precious - we respect it and listen and, if necessary, fight for its survival. Else we get exactly what we deserve. More inane Friends sitcomery and "docudramas" and "reality" television and so on. Good fiction is almost extinct on television. The idiot box has never been an hospitable environment for good fiction, as it must (almost) always cater to the lowest of the low, the shortest of attention spans, the most fickle and indifferent of audiences. So, we fight for what is precious or we do not complain.
Tomorrow, I will go back to proofreading Murder of Angels. I'd do it today, but this afternoon and evening is D&D and I've promised to be there. But tomorrow, Spooky and I will do chapters Seven and Eight, before I forget Chapter Six. I wish I could say that, after reading the first six chapters and after my agent having read the book, that my earlier fears were alleviated, but I think they've only been given greater hold on me. It's a good book, but its a strange, strange book, and a grim book, and whether or not this particular tunnel has a light at the end is an unresolved issue. Each reader will have to decide that for him or herself. I am afraid I am growing to love this child and I doubt it will be accepted with open arms. It was built as receptacle for darknesses I needed to be free of, even though I didn't know that's what I was doing at the time. Of course, that's one of the things good art does - act as a purgative or rite of personal exorcism to the artist. But you don't say things like that to the people who are concerned with the busyness of writing. They may know that it's true, but that doesn't mean they want to hear it. The Market is a beast beyond our control and comprehension. It does as it pleases and we are merely chattel.
I know, for instance, that Low Red Moon is far and away the best novel I have ever written. But that matters little, because The Market will do as it pleases. I must try to be content with the knowledge (which is not true knowledge, but merely suspicion) that I have done the best job I could have done. The market takes a dim view of Grim and Strange. And an even dimmer view of Hard, and Murder of Angels is surely a hard book. People will break their teeth on this book, when I only meant them to break their hearts.
Later, kiddos.
|
|
