Jason Fry's Dorkery

Half a Future Is Better Than No Future at All

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 02:08:00 -0400

Half a Future Is Better Than No Future at All:

Matt Harvey won. Zack Wheeler won his big-league debut. Those two pitching prodigies are half of a bright future for the Mets. But where’s the other half?

You Might Miss Something

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:27:00 -0400

You Might Miss Something:

97% of Sunday’s Mets game was sublimely awful. But the other 3% was awfully sublime.

Now Send Down 16 More of Them « Faith and Fear in Flushing

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 23:30:52 -0400

Now Send Down 16 More of Them « Faith and Fear in Flushing:

Mets fans are at a breaking point — and Sandy Alderson’s out of time.

The Wilbur Huckle Appreciation Society

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 01:47:00 -0400

The Wilbur Huckle Appreciation Society:

On 2013 draftee Dominic Smith, 1960s cult hero Wilbur Huckle, irony and fandom. Sometimes the posts written for rainy evenings with no game are the ones that are the most fun.

Podcast With Tosche Station

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:17:48 -0400

Podcast With Tosche Station:

The rather awesome folks at Tosche Station invited me on their podcast to talk about the Clone Wars Episode Guide, the Star Wars Expanded Universe, the road from WSJ.com to freelancing, and more.

The Bounty Hunter Code

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 00:05:55 -0400

The Bounty Hunter Code:

Now it can be told!

Over the last nine months I’ve reminded myself again and again not to discuss this book, since it hadn’t been announced. But now it’s been previewed here and is up for pre-order at Amazon. (I was at Book Expo over the weekend and had no idea it was on display.)

Anyway, yes, this is a super-cool deluxe book in the same vein as Jedi Path and Book of Sith. I collaborated on it with Dan Wallace and Ryder Wyndham, two ace Star Wars writers and good friends. (Dan and I co-authored The Essential Atlas, while Ryder and I wrote a Transformers trilogy together.)

Bounty Hunter Code has got lots of bounty hunter goodness, some Mandalorian history, Death Watch propaganda, and an insert or two that will warm the hearts of West End Games fans. Just be careful opening the box — hunters have ways of safeguarding their secrets.

TheForce.net: Twitter Chat With TCW Episode Guide Author Jason Fry

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 09:11:37 -0400

TheForce.net: Twitter Chat With TCW Episode Guide Author Jason Fry:

TFN was quick on the Storify draw with this nicely put-together recap of yesterday’s DK TweetChat about the Clone Wars Episode Guide.

You can follow me on Twitter here. You’ll get Star Wars stuff, Mets stuff, bits on writing and digital journalism, and random bursts of irascibility. I’m really selling it, aren’t I?

My latest Star Wars book, The Clone Wars Episode Guide, hits...

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 09:36:00 -0400

My latest Star Wars book, The Clone Wars Episode Guide, hits stores today. It covers all five seasons and the Clone Wars movie — and the episodes are listed in chronological order.

You can get yours right here — and if you follow that link, part of the purchase price goes to support the Jason Fry Beer and Mortgage Fund. Either way, thank you!

If you’re a fan who’s familiar with the Season 1 Episode Guide that was released back in 2009 (or the UK-only Seasons 1 & 2 version), this is a rather different animal: think of it as the Clone Wars Character Encyclopedia, but for episodes. It’s a kids’ book, but older fans will also find it an entertaining, useful companion for the show. And as you’d expect from a DK book it’s beautifully designed and full of great art.

I’ll be doing a TweetChat today (June 3) at 3 pm ET about the book — my Twitter handle is jasoncfry, and you can join in by following the hashtag #DKChat. I’ll also be doing some podcasts later this week about the book and my other projects. Either way, see you soon!

Star Wars Weekends Recap

Fri, 31 May 2013 13:39:00 -0400

This was the third year I got to visit Star Wars Weekends as an author. This time out, we had DK’s new Clone Wars Episode Guide available a week before it hits bookstores (get yours here), lots of fans who came by Darth’s Mall and the Writer’s Stop to get books signed, talk Star Wars or just say hello, and for the time ever I was able to bring my wife and son along. (The Aerosmith rollercoaster was Joshua’s favorite. Good kid.)

If you’ve never been, Star Wars Weekends is awesome — besides Star Tours, there are a ton of people dressed as stormtroopers, Tuskens and other characters from a galaxy far, far away; interviews and shows and parades with Star Wars actors and behind-the-scenes folks; and of course fans bonding excitedly over the latest news, whether it’s Episode VII or those Clone Wars bonus episodes or comics or something else. And the Disney folks do a great job making sure everyone has a good time — it’s practically a cliche to say Disney are masters of customer service and fan experiences, but it shouldn’t be. That stuff’s amazingly important and they don’t lose sight of it, whether a guest is looking for an attraction or waiting in line or ordering from a menu or figuring out when to leave for the airport. The less you need to worry about those things, the more you can think about having fun — and that’s good for Disney but also for you. I really admire their commitment to getting those things right.

Anyway, some quick pictures from the weekend.

There it is — the new book. I’d never actually held one until I got handed the first one to sign, which was both fun and a little funny. As an author, you don’t really think about a book’s endpapers until you need to sign one. Are they glossy, meaning you have to tell people to hold the book open for a few seconds post-signing so the ink doesn’t smudge? Most importantly, what color are they? If they’re black and you don’t have a silver Sharpie, that’s a problem. And if you have a silver Sharpie, do you have another one for when the first one inevitably runs out of ink?

Also: love my sign. A cast member asked (perfectly nicely — she was curious) if I carried one around with me and I said no, Disney makes them. For three years now I’ve been tempted to steal mine at the end of each signing weekend, but have never done so, because I’m a huge wuss.

Author’s view of Darth’s Mall. That’s a giant Darth Vader made out of Lego.

One thing I’ve learned at Star Wars appearances with kids: You can’t compete with stormtroopers, and you really can’t compete with R2-D2. You’re some schlub with a pen who did something involved with a book, and that’s R2-D2 over there beeping and rolling around and being awesome. No contest.

It definitely keeps the ego in check, which is a good thing — honestly, some of our literary darlings could use this lesson. ”Yeah, you won the [whatever] prize, but get over yourself. It’s not like you’re R2-D2.”

And there I am. The shot’s by my pal Chris Wyman of Official Pix, who I hope won’t mind that I swiped it.

First the girl on the left gave me her autograph, which was awesome. Then they asked if I signed arms. Hmm … why the heck not?

A friend of mine joked that they’ll never wash those arms again. I suspect that instead they’ve washed them about 10,000 times since Star Wars Weekends, seeing how a Sharpie is basically a laundry marker. Sorry ladies.

And yeah, that really is my signature. I know it looks ridiculous.

Little Mets Sunshine

Thu, 30 May 2013 01:35:00 -0400

Little Mets Sunshine:

The Mets, somehow, have beaten the Yankees three straight, winning this year’s Subway Series and reminding their fans that sometimes the little black clouds hover over the other guys.

Jack Vance (1916 - 2013)

Wed, 29 May 2013 18:44:00 -0400

Jack Vance (1916 - 2013):

Sad news from Oakland: Jack Vance died on Sunday at 96.

I discovered Vance fairly late — his books were too baroque for my tastes as a young teen, but I was ready for him in my 30s, and was amazed at what I’d missed. There was The Dying Earth, and Lyonesse, and Araminta Station, and before I knew it I was hooked, scouring eBay and used book stores for Vance titles. (I eventually bought a good chunk of the Vance Integral Edition, one of the great efforts by any fanbase.)

I just linked to Carlo Rotella’s Vance appreciation the other day — if you didn’t read it then, give it a try now. Among other things, Rotella perfectly describes a key component of Vance’s style as “feral, angling politesse”. He also notes that while Vance made his living as a genre artist (that’s the title of Rotella’s piece) working in science fiction, fantasy and mystery, he transcended those genres. Vance was a writer’s writer, an artist whose breezy way with characters and plots masked a master’s command.

Vance had a gift for world-building, for constructing intriguing societies from odd starting points and making them work. He was a master of archly barbed, mock-lawyerly dialogue — but also of spare, enviably economical descriptions. (For example, he invented about a bazillion superb, evocative names for deadly creatures.) And while plotting wasn’t his strongest suit — his trilogies had a way of blazing through jaw-dropping beginnings, then wandering to mild (but still entertaining) conclusions — he came up with any number of intriguing engines for stories, inventing plots that were intriguingly original and had their own clockwork logic. And he was funny — variously deadpan and dry to the point of astringent — in genres that are often bereft of so much as a smile.

Vance is very, very hard to sum up — I look back on that last paragraph and cringe at how thoroughly it misses the mark. But I’ll give it one last try: His work could be simultaneously light and picaresque and shot through with darkness and terror. His writing had a fierce moral clarity, but he consciously refused to balance it with any assurance that justice was at work. Reading Vance, you never knew when a merry romp might turn deadly, a character might meet a pitiless end, or some bit player would offer a flash of insight that would change the way you think about something forever.

He’ll be missed — but we should all be so lucky to live to 96, lead an adventurous, marvelous, oft-self-invented life, and have our books live on to be appreciated and admired by so many readers and fans.

My style is too different from Vance’s for me to claim him as a writerly influence. But I enjoyed him immensely as a reader, and have paid homage to him as a craftsman: the Super Star Destroyer Whelm and the taking of Kuat in Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Warfare were both tips of the cap to him, and there’s a chapter in the second Jupiter Pirates book that’s consciously and lovingly Vancean.

If you’re a Vance fan, like me, go back and read him again. If you’re new to him, I envy you — there is so much great stuff ahead of you. Here’s a short list for starters: The Dying Earth books, Trullion: Alaster 2262, The Demon Princes series, Araminta Station, the Lyonesse trilogy. Or any of the strange and wonderful stories of the 50s and 60s. Dive in until you’ve read it all, and marveled at it all, and then start again.

Going Numb

Wed, 22 May 2013 23:30:00 -0400

Going Numb:

On Ike Davis, Matt Harvey, and a spectacular run of pitching by Dwight Gooden.

Battle of the Uniforms: Orioles win title - SportsNation - ESPN

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:52:25 -0400

Battle of the Uniforms: Orioles win title - SportsNation - ESPN:

You know what’s worse than mob rule? Digital mob rule. Proving that blind people can type, ESPN voters selecting the best uniforms picked the Pirates over the Giants, the Cubs over the Dodgers and the Orioles over the Tigers.

This is obviously and manifestly insane. I’d have taken the Dodgers over the Yankees after an elite eight of Yanks, Tigers, Red Sox and White Sox in the AL and Dodgers, Cardinals, Cubs and Giants in the NL. But then I’m fully sighted, have a vague sense of aesthetics and understand the difference between liking a franchise and liking its uniform.

More Like This

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:22:00 -0400

The Genre Artist

Fri, 17 May 2013 23:53:00 -0400

The Genre Artist:

Rediscovered this marvelous NYT portrait of Jack Vance, one of my favorite writers. Carlo Rotella captures a hard-to-capture writer perfectly by describing a key component of Vance’s style as “feral, angling politesse, the marriage of high-flown language to low motives”.

The Lethality of Loneliness

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:33:52 -0400

The Lethality of Loneliness:

For the first time in history, we understand how isolation can ravage the body and brain. Now, what should we do about it?

Heartbreaking and fascinating.

On the Engine of a Scene

Mon, 13 May 2013 14:38:00 -0400

Over the weekend I finished editing my first draft of the second Jupiter Pirates book, tentatively titled The Treasure of the Iris. It’s now in the hands of my wife, a careful reader and ace editor, and will then go to my kid, who’s both of those things plus a one-boy focus group.

I learned something new in struggling with some scenes in JP2, and getting through that struggle let me put a name to the issue. (I’m sure other writers have their own names for the problem, but since this was new to me I’ll stick with my own terminology.)

I did a pretty detailed outline for JP2, as I now do for everything. The pivotal scenes in the book came pretty quickly once I got to them — which was no surprise, since I’d had them in my head since before the outline existed, and had been sub- or semi-consciously working through them for months and months.

Where I got bogged down was in some of the smaller scenes — the quieter moments leading us from Point A to Point B (or from T to U). Several times, the writing slowed to a crawl and I alternated staring at the monitor with even less-productive fits of self-loathing. Sometimes I advanced by writing a couple of hundred or just a couple of dozen words a day until I escaped. Other times I’d tear the whole scene down and start over. Neither approached worked particularly well.

Until, finally, I realized what was wrong: Those scenes were missing an engine.

I knew why the scenes were there: They had to advance the plot, or introduce a character or concept. But that’s not the same as the engine.

The engine, as I came to think of it, was why the scene mattered — why it belonged there beyond reasons of simple exposition. The reader had to leave the scene not just further along in the plot but also more invested in the story. He or she had to think differently about one or more characters, or have a new perspective on one of the book’s themes, or be in possession of something that was both real and resisted easy definition.

Once I figured this out, I stopped scrapping and clawing for forward progress or resorting to sullen teardowns. When I got bogged down in a scene, I stopped and asked myself what the engine was.

Most of the time there was an answer, which was good news: It meant my instincts had been right when I included that particular bit of action in the outline. But my execution needed some work — I’d been buffing a hood with nothing underneath it, and it was no surprise that the car wouldn’t move.

Bad Mets! Bad!

Sat, 11 May 2013 00:17:00 -0400

Bad Mets! Bad!:

On Shaun Marcum, Jordany Valdespin, Mike Baxter and Angel Hernandez. Served with a side of sigh.

Translucence vs. Transparency

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:04:00 -0400

Translucence vs. Transparency:

An interesting essay by my friend and mentor Roy Peter Clark of Poynter on how transparency in storytelling (particularly journalism) can be an enemy of narrative. Roy’s solution: translucence. This is an intriguing read for reporters and editors alike to think about.

Sittin’ Around at Citi « Faith and Fear in Flushing

Thu, 09 May 2013 02:20:29 -0400

Sittin’ Around at Citi « Faith and Fear in Flushing:

Notes from an odd night spend wandering around a ballpark.