The Scotsman Abroad | Rise of the Franchise

I don't know what it is about these things, but every time the fine folks at SF Signal ask me to take part in a Mind Meld, I end up banging on about Batman.

I guess I've got a decent excuse this afternoon. Here's the question James Aquilone posed to the panel:

DC reportedly has at least seven movies in development. Marvel has movies planned out to 2028. Star Wars kicks off a new trilogy next year and has at least two spinoffs already in development. Then there are the upcoming TV shows—Gotham, The Flash, Agent Carter, Daredevil... 

Is this too much of a good thing? Or a dream come true? Do you ever get sick of the constant movie news updates? What are your thoughts about the recent influx of shows and movies from these big franchises?

I took this open-ended question as an opportunity to talk about original ideas as opposed to established IP... albeit by way of franchise fatigue, finance, the overabundance of quality entertainment available to us today, and the forthcoming police procedural featuring baby Bruce:

Ideas are easy. If all it took to make a movie or greenlight a TV series was an awesome concept, we’d all be multimedia moguls, made of money—money we could pour into more original intellectual property, perhaps. But banking on original characters and shiny new narratives is, in the industry today, a dodgy bet at best. Better by far, financially, to latch on to an established franchise, which comes with interest built in; with a fanbase gagging to evangelise a few of their favourite things.

As I mentioned in the last Mind Mind I was asked to be a part of, I’m a longstanding Batman fan, so I’ll be watching Gotham in the autumn—for long enough, at least, to see if it’s for me. Would I if it lacked those connections? It’s not likely, no.

I love new experiences, in theory. In practice, alas, I’m more prepared to spend my minutes and my and my monies if I can try before I buy. So if there’s a problem, and I think there is, then I’m a part of it. I imagine most of us are. But we haven’t done anything wrong, really... or else, that’s what I tell myself.

Read the rest of my ramble right here, along with answers from a selection of other irregulars, including Douglas Cohen, Abby Goldsmith, Deanna Knippling, Derek Johnson, Lisa McCurrach, Melanie R. Meadors and Paul Cornell.

The Scotsman Abroad | The Great Geeky Debates

Maybe you'll have spotted it, maybe not... but guess what? I was in this morning's Mind Meld!

In case you weren't aware, the Mind Meld is a regular feature on the Hugo award-winning SF Signal which asks a bunch of genre fiction's best and brightest to put their heads together to answer a certain question. 

Truth be told I don't know what the Irregulars were doing, inviting yours truly to participate, but I wasn't going to miss it. Didn't hurt that the question was such a fun one. Let me hand it over to James Aquilone:

What was the first or most memorable geeky pop-culture debate you ever had? Or what’s that one thing you can’t stop ranting about? What was the outcome? Are you still on speaking terms with your opponent? Why are you so passionate about this?

In response, I wrote about "the years a friend and I spent butting heads over a couple of comic books. He was a Marvel man; me, a DC devotee. He read The X-Men; I was an unabashed Batman fan. Matter of fact, I still am, and I’d bet my last penny he’s still got the hots for Emma Frost."

Be warned, though, that my piece, at least, takes a turn for the serious... because this friend is firmly former, unfortunately, and our different interests—up to and including the arguments we had about whether Batman and his entourage would be a match for Marvel’s supermutants—had a part to play in that:

As kids we were great mates, he and me. As adults, our friendship fell apart. So whether it’s Star Trek versus Star Wars or the merits of manga as opposed to anime, take heed, dear reader: at the end of the day these debates can be about the people as much as the particular properties.

Click on through, as you do, to read the rest of the Mind Meld in question, which also features Mur Lafferty, Maurice Broaddus, David Lomax and a whole load of other awesome authors. 

(I'm aware that I'm the only contributor without a short story or novel to my name, but I have no shame.)

The Scotsman Abroad | Summiting Mount Mind Meld

A little while ago, I received an email from the esteemed Paul Weimer, wondering whether I'd be interested in participating in the latest Mind Meld he was putting together. It was an absolute honour to be asked, so of course I agreed immediately.

But what with everything else that's been going on in my neck of the woods in recent weeks, this past weekend was the first opportunity I had to work on my response, and as it happens, I had just caught a cold from the wicked children I tutor when I'm not silly busy reviewing books.

Determined not to disappoint, I managed to put a piece together in any event, and though I hardly remember writing it, seeing it on the Hugo Award-winning SF Signal this morning — alongside responses from Cheryl Morgan, Ian Sales, Anne Lyle, Lou Anders and a goodly number of others — I'm really rather pleased with how my first contribution to the Mind Meld turned out. It's as much a reflection on how I approach Mount To-be-read today as it is an accounting of the books that are in my bedside cabinet at the moment:

I warrant we all have our own ways of describing the groups of books we mean to read. Mount To-be-read works for me, but mostly because it suggests something more; something I can’t help but correlate with all the climbing I did as a kid. 

Maybe climbing isn’t the right way to describe the year-round hobby my dad and I had. Hillwalking was what we were about. Come rain or shine, sun or snow, my Munro Bagger of a father always had some summit in mind. 

Many climbs I quite liked. But there were others. Bog-ridden slogs. Hills that went on and on and on, only to end in anti-climax: a beautiful view obscured by overcast clouds, or a chance meeting with other people — and up there in the middle of nowhere, that tended to cheapen the experience. 

Part of the problem was that my dad was far fitter than I. Matter of fact, he still is — as evidenced by the last hill we walked. That is to say, we climb together to this day, though rather less often now than then. Then, I hardly had a lot of choice in the matter... thus there were times when I hated the hills. I hated how hard they were, how fleeting the feeling of overcoming one when the next was only ever a weekend away. 

Sound familiar?

I may repost my response in full here on The Speculative Scotsman at a later date, but a large part of the pleasure of the Mind Mend, for me at least — and I've been following the feature for years — is seeing how differently every participant responds to the selfsame question; how one response reflects and refracts the others around it.

So please, head on over to SF Signal and read today's most excellent Mind Meld in its entirety.