Serdar | Genji Press

I spent last Saturday at WickedFaire Labyrinth, where I had a nice time selling my book and getting to know the folks in the adjoining booths.  I ought to be back next year (come February) if my budget can manage it -- we'll see how that goes!

At the end of the month I'll be taking a quick jaunt into Jersey to be at Jeff Mach's Labyrinth (he and I are, like, tight from way back), and will be at the Author's Alcove with copies of Summerworld for all and sundry.  (If you don't have the book yet, quit stalling and go get a copy!)  I'll be signing copies of the book, talking about The New Golden Age, offering giveaways, and generally making a creative nuisance of myself.

What a joy it is to see the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex mythology capped off so exuberantly and intelligently—at least, for now. Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society (which has easily the longest title of any release this year) is a fitting culmination for what was created by the two seasons of the Stand Alone Complex TV shows. It has enough plot to fill a whole season of TV, skillfully and efficiently condensed into a single two-hour movie, but it never loses sight of the pole stars in the GITS cosmology of ideas: the tension between the individual and society; the way our lives and worlds are technologized with unforeseen consequences; the way this technologization gives rise to new orders of existence within and without us. And it’s also a great movie, period: fast-moving, gorgeous to watch, loaded with things that improve on repeat viewings. I also couldn’t ignore multiple parallels—thematic and visual—between SSS and the very first Ghost in the Shell film, right down to the images in the final shot and Kusanagi’s prescient closing lines.

Solid State Society opens some time after the end of the second season of Stand Alone Complex, and features many of the same characters. Togusa, the family man and former greenhorn, is now the mature and determined field commander of Section 9, leading Bateau, Ishikawa, Boma, Pazu, and all the other members of that elite outfit while himself taking orders from “the old goat”, Aramaki (himself a right-hand man to Prime Minister Kayabuki as per the 2nd GiG plotline). As for Motoko Kusanagi herself, she resigned four years ago and has “gone off the grid” for reasons unknown, much to the chagrin of the rest of the crew. “Her talents were as rare as ESP,” Aramaki laments, although apparently just as difficult to predict. We also find out that Bateau was offered Togusa’s post and explicitly declined it, and as much as Bateau admires his former teammate’s prowess it’s also clear he’s biting back a great deal of jealousy for what could have been.

The Mystery of Rampo is a rare creature: a truly original movie, blessed with a fearless imagination and a delirious visual style. It helps somewhat to know from where the film has mined its imagery and inspirations, but I don’t think it’s crucial: the spell Rampo casts all by itself is powerful enough to bewitch most any receptive audience.

I’m lucky enough, I guess, to have been a fan of the film’s core inspiration: the life and works of Edogawa Rampo, the man who was to 20th-century Japan what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and (to a fair degree) Stephen King were and are to modern English-speaking audiences. One of his chief inspirations was Edgar Allan Poe, from whom he (rather cheekily) derived not only his pen name but also the other man’s nose for human frailty and foibles, and he wrote voluminously in Japan for decades without his work ever receiving much attention elsewhere. I devoured the only two editions of his work currently available in English (Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination and Black Lizard), along with other films that drew on his work for inspiration (Rampo Noir), and wanted more. And now I can add Mystery of Rampo to that list, which adds wonderfully to the man’s legacy without being redundant or insulting (as was the case, sadly, with the lamentable Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf).

Terms like genius and renaissance man get thrown around so casually these days, it’s a bit of a shock to run into the real thing. I’m hard-pressed to think of a better example offhand than Takeshi Kitano, the Japanese multi-hyphenate—writer, director, author, TV personality, social commentator and stand-up funnyman—introduced most broadly to the West through his quirky remake of the Zatôichi movie franchise. But he’s been around a lot longer than that, and for a long time I lamented the only things we were getting to see of his creative prowess were his films, and sometimes not even that. (Many of his movies are not even in print on DVD in the USA anymore, and many that are exist only in wholly uncomplimentary editions.)

I'm back from AnimeFest, which was wonderful (here's the full rundown), and sold quite a few of the copies of Summerworld I got in stock before I left!

To that end, we've got about half left of what I originally ordered, so you can go ahead and order signed copies directly from me if you want them that way, or you can continue to order them directly from my printer (cheaper!).  Either way, you get to see me at my finest.

A big thank you to everyone who dropped by my booth in person or attended by storytelling / writing workshops w/Daniel Sanchez.  Your attention and company were all most welcome!