John C. Wright ([info]johncwright) wrote,
@ 2008-02-29 13:15:00
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Kirkus Gives Outstanding Review to NULL-A CONTINUUM
The March 1st issue of Kirkus Reviews gives Null-A Continuum a starred review! The full review follows.

A star is assigned to books of unusual merit, determined by the editors of Kirkus Reviews.

The books of Golden Age great A.E. van Vogt (1912-2000) inspired Wright (Fugitives of Chaos, 2006, etc.) to pen this authorized sequel to The World of Null-A and The Players of Null-A.

The background will be familiar to all van Vogt fans. Gilbert Gosseyn is serially immortal-if killed, he wakes, memories intact, in a duplicate body. Not only does Gosseyn not know his origins, but he's being manipulated by an unseen cosmic "Chessplayer" for purposes unknown. And he has two brains: the second can control energy and teleport him vast
distances. While attempting to find out who he is and why he's being manipulated, Gosseyn defends Earth and Venus against an interstellar plot, then halts the invasion plans of precognitive, clairvoyant dictator Enro the Red's galactic empire. Among Wright's contributions:

ROSEBUD IS A SLED! A SLED! DARTH VADER IS LUKE'S FATHER! BRUCE WILLIS IS A GHOST! SOYLENT GREEN IS MADE OF PEOPLE!
[I am kidding, sort of. The reviewer, somewhat clumsily, next lists my carefully constructed plot surprises, one after another, in a fashion meant to spoil them. More in sorrow than in anger, I wield the scissors of Righteousness to censor the offending comments, that the virgin purity of my reader's ears might be preserved. The review concludes with these words:]
 Van Vogt would have reveled in such dialogue as: "Does he know that an extra-dimensional superbeing called the Ydd is using him to destroy the continuum?" The enterprise culminates in such preposterously magnificent intricacy and density that even the elucidations of the explications require explanations.

Must have been as much fun to write as it is to read.


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[info]dirigibletrance
2008-02-29 06:59 pm UTC (link)
"Does he know that an extra-dimensional superbeing called the Ydd is using him to destroy the continuum?"

I wish people in real life talked that way.

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[info]mentalguy
2008-02-29 08:08 pm UTC (link)
Would that more occasions call for it. :)

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[info]randallsquared
2008-02-29 08:31 pm UTC (link)
Continuum destruction? More often? No, thanks.

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[info]dirigibletrance
2008-02-29 08:48 pm UTC (link)
Psh. Folk like you are the reason life is boring.

Not all of us see "May you live in interesting times." as a curse, you know. ^_^

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[info]deiseach
2008-03-01 02:12 am UTC (link)
You remind me of a reaction I had to the Big Revelation of the Great Secret Plan of the villain in the pilot of the TV series "Brimstone": "Don't tell me that idiot is trying to immanetize the eschaton!"

Swiftly followed by: "Should we be worried that there is actually a term for this?" :-)

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The mission is 'no go'.
[info]johncwright
2008-03-01 04:08 am UTC (link)
You remind me of a comment made by one of my players to another in an Amber Diceless role playing game I ran. The second player was stubbornly trying to accomplish some side-mission of his own rather than handle the problem the moderator set before him, which was to prevent the destruction of the universe. The player, a son of Random, was lazily sipping wine with his boots on the desk while the raging debate when on with the stubborn player, who kept insisting he do his "mission" first. Finally this player opens one eye and remarks to the stubborn player.

"You don't get it, do you? Universe destroyed? Mission no go!"

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[info]shadowhog
2008-03-02 12:03 am UTC (link)
I wish people in real life talked that way.

Well, some of us do. :)

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[info]westmarked
2008-02-29 08:19 pm UTC (link)
BRUCE WILLIS IS A GHOST!

My mom actually spoiled this for me. I've forgiven her. Mostly.

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[info]arhyalon
2008-02-29 11:55 pm UTC (link)
The TV Guide spoiled it for me. Listed it, along with Rosebud, in an article about surprise endings -- only I hadn't seen the movie yet.

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[info]fractallaw
2008-03-04 12:13 am UTC (link)
Admittedly, I knew about Rosebud before seeing Citizen Kane so I've never seen it without knowing, but it never really seemed quite on the same level as some of the other spoilers listed. It's almost a MacGuffin in comparison to some of the others in that the question of what it is serves as the background to the story, but the story itself has very little to do with it.

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[info]kokorognosis
2008-03-01 05:58 am UTC (link)
I have never, ever managed to see a M. Night Shyamalan movie without someone spoiling the ending for me.

...I have big mouthed friends.

"When you recruit Magus into your party..."

And Big mouthed sisters of friends.

"I wonder why Luna didn't know she was the goddess Althena?"
"It was sad when Aeris died."

Er. Yeah. Wow, ancient spoiler alert!

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Impersonate Oscar
[info]johncwright
2008-03-01 05:33 pm UTC (link)
The worst spoiler that was ever done, in my life, was done by me to a player in a role playing game. I was the moderator.

I run games with strict information control. If your character does not know it, the player does not know it. When a player does something outside of the range of your eyesight, I step into another room with the player, so there is no possibility of out-of-character information.

The player was impersonating Oscar the Witchhunter, and had a disguise roll. When the PC was introduced to the players, the players did not know that she was not Oscar, but Oscars dead wife in drag (is it called drag when a girl is dressed as a guy?)

In any case, the impersonation lasted about one second thanks to the bone headed moderator. Someone did a spot hidden on Oscar, looking for hidden weapons or something, and your friendly moderator passed the dice to the PC, saying aloud (where all the other players could hear) "Make your Impersonate Oscar roll."

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Re: Impersonate Oscar
[info]arhyalon
2008-03-01 08:08 pm UTC (link)
Ah yes...Roll to impersonate Oscar.

Took me a long time to forgive him, too. He wasn't all shiny from me being in love with him back in those days. He was just this arrogant, slightly scary moderator who had just betrayed me to the party.

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Re: Impersonate Oscar
[info]shadowhog
2008-03-02 12:05 am UTC (link)
The worst spoiler ever done to me, was by a friend, when he heard that I was about to pick up Neon Genesis Evangelion for the first time. What he said to me was essentially: "Oh, Evangelion's great! All humanity gets melted down and merged into one consummate organism at the end, destroying their individuality! It's so depressing!"

Well, thanks, man! It's always nice when people give away the ending of a work of fiction, especially when you actually start getting into it and can't but help view all the events you are witnessing in light of how the entire thing ends! It can rather be likened to way in which Snape kills Dumbledore in front of Harry who is the last Horcrux who dies and comes back to life like Neo from the Matrix but unlike Spike at the end of Cowboy Bebop who stays properly dead much like Captain Ahab and disco.

Did you know that the original Japanese trailer for Seven Samurai starts off with the phrase: "Four samurai died here . . . " and a clip of their four graves (a clip taken, might I add, from the immortal final shot of the film)? Sheesh. It's because of things like this that I never look at the backs of books until I'm done reading them. The nefarious Spoil-Lord (master of revealed secrets) lurks around every corner! You never know when someone might give something big Severian goes back in time and becomes the Conciliator much like how Commander Sinclair goes back in time and becomes Valen away.

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Re: Impersonate Oscar
[info]saintjoi
2008-03-02 04:49 pm UTC (link)
WARNING: Babylon 5 spoiler below, if you haven't seen through season 3 or 4, skip this.

Heh. I love Babylon 5, and was getting my friend/roommate to watch it. She'd gotten through Season 2, and into Season 3, and was really enjoying it. Her favorite character was Kosh. Another roommate's boyfriend came over, and the three of us geeks were talking about B5 (and he had been informed of where Liz was in the show storyline). Liz commented about how much she liked Kosh, and Julius, unthinkingly, said, "Yes! Kosh is so cool, I was so upset when he died!"

A pause.

Liz: "Kosh DIES???? NOOOOOOOO!!!"

(We did try to explain that it wasn't quite that simple, but she didn't buy it)

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: Impersonate Oscar
[info]arhyalon
2008-03-02 10:39 pm UTC (link)
Man, consider yourself lucky!

We did NOT get a warning for Neon Genesis Evangelion. We spent WEEKS hunting it down, two episodes at a time, at those illegal anime places that used to pop up from time to time before anime became a more regulated thing.

Then, for Christmas, I found a new one and they had -- da da da dum! -- the last four episodes. The last episodes in this series we had watched, poured over, thought about, tried to figure out the mysteries to for months now...

...and the ending sucked! It made no sense. The was no resolution of the mysteries...no solution to the puzzles we'd put our blood, sweat, and tears into trying to figure out...it was one of the biggest betrayals any of us had ever suffered!

We still -- eleven years later -- have not fully recovered. When someone hands one of our group a new anime, we are inclined to ask carefully before accepting: "Does it Eva?"

Edited at 2008-03-02 10:42 pm UTC

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Re: Impersonate Oscar
[info]saintjoi
2008-03-02 11:29 pm UTC (link)
Augh, that's so irritating! A similar thing happens in my favorite dramatic anime (Trinity Blood), but only because the author of the manga DIED, so no-one knows how it was supposed to end. SIGH.

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Re: Impersonate Oscar
[info]shadowhog
2008-03-03 01:25 am UTC (link)
Well, when the last two episodes of the TV series were produced Gainax (the production company) was on the verge of bankruptcy, so the original scripts for those episodes had to be tossed out in favour of hastily put-together slideshows/radioplays that would be very cheap to produce. And while I do find some parts of those episodes to be emotionally affective, they were certainly narratively and intellectually unsatisfying. But when it comes to those there is really not much to spoil. But my friend also went ahead and spoiled the end to the movies as well: Death/Rebirth and The End of Evangelion, which were based off the original, discarded scripts for episodes 25 & 26 (made with money Gainax got after the series became so wildly popular), and which certainly provided a vastly more satisfying ending, elegantly answering most questions and resolving most loose plot threads. And that ending was spoiled! For me! By a friend of all people! The poignant, beautiful visual storytelling -- wherein we see all our beloved characters meet their dooms, as the tangled web of relationships they've woven about themselves constricts, and crushes them -- would have been unmarred, save for the fact that I already knew how it was going to end going in, and how I could not help but view everything I saw in light of that knowledge!

Now, the fact that I knew how The End of Evangelion was going to end didn't stop it from from becoming one of my all-time favourite films, but it certainly didn't help matters any, either.

(Though by the way you express your disappointment with how Evangelion ended I would almost guess that you haven't seen the films. I certainly can see why episodes 25 & 26 would be disappointing, but I can't imagine that anyone who enjoyed episodes 1-24 of Eva would be at all disappointed with The End of Evangelion.)

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Re: Impersonate Oscar
[info]arhyalon
2008-03-04 12:08 am UTC (link)
I have seen the filmes, but..

A) I saw them years later

B) Many of the mysteries I was interested in never got resolved.

The movies definitely redeam a lot, but...

Our friend Bill feels like you, he still loves the series. John and I feel gypped, it really didn't live up to our investment of time and love.

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Re: Impersonate Oscar
[info]mrmandias
2008-03-03 06:07 pm UTC (link)
I had some idea that all 7 died, so when I saw the movie the ending was an enormous surprise.

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[info]sce2aux
2008-02-29 08:59 pm UTC (link)
Current amazon sales rankings...

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #96,308

JCW... you can only go higher.

Have you sent a copy to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit? That press will push your rank up a few magnitures.

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[info]juliet_winters
2008-02-29 10:35 pm UTC (link)
Good news on Kirkus is that it's a libraryland publication and libraries buy LOTS O COPIES! Most of them do not know squat about science fiction and will buy whatever has a starred review.
Congratulations, even with the spoiler.

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Go Us!
[info]carbonelle
2008-02-29 11:23 pm UTC (link)
Except ours! Two out of the three top book selector positions are big skiffy fans (Also charming, beautiful and good, but I digres). And we're either the third or second biggest library system (circulation-wise) in the U.S.

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Re: Go Us!
[info]arhyalon
2008-02-29 11:57 pm UTC (link)
I'm so delighted by the image of the charming, beautiful, and good librarians.

It reminds me of the 'elves and angels' who worked at my son's first school. Everyone who was involved with evaluating him -- except for one wonderful older woman -- was young, slender, blond and either elf-like or angelic. I am still grateful to all of them and wish that mothers elsewhere had as wonderful support as we do here!

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Re: Go Us!
[info]juliet_winters
2008-03-01 02:52 am UTC (link)
Yourself excepted, Mdm.
Of course....

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Re: Go Us!
[info]carbonelle
2008-03-02 06:15 am UTC (link)
Yourself excepted, Mm

???

Eh, it's just team spirit: I think the library system for which I work is pretty swell. But it's all true about the head book selector and the teen materials selector...

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Re: Go Us!
[info]juliet_winters
2008-03-02 09:39 am UTC (link)
Right...but I don't think that holds true for all systems.
For some of them, sure--particularly on the more free-wheeling West Coast. I met your friends and they seem to be exactly the sort of people one would hope to find at a con.
But there's a reason why sessions on choosing science fiction are always packed with people at our state convention...and why there's no national group devoted to the genre at ALA.
Aside from the librarians who are giving the presentation at state, most of them know nothing about the beast and realize that they don't and should thus the standing-room-only crowd. So they take notes. Extensive notes on what the other librarians recommend and you can believe they act on those notes when they get back to the office. Which brings me back to my point.

Now if you were to poll the congregation on recommended mysteries, it would be another story.
Our system has -maybe- one librarian who has an interest in science fiction per branch, but the others are into true crime, history, mystery, and (shhh!) romance.

Hope you and the family are well this spring and are looking forward to a joyous Easter,
Thistle

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Re: Go Us!
[info]carbonelle
2008-03-02 07:49 pm UTC (link)
...and why there's no national group devoted to the genre at ALA

I've been away from ALA for too long it seems... So neither the SFWA or any of the other big writers groups send a rep anymore?

The family has all finally shaken that coughing-sneezing-wassname.. crud, so our spring is really looking up now. And I've got only two documents left to put together before my dossier is complete.

Hope you and yours have a happy Easter, too.

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Re: Go Us!
[info]juliet_winters
2008-03-02 10:39 pm UTC (link)
Your dossier? Where are you going? Or what are you doing..?

I've got a history book w/ a deadline of May 1 myself and my biggest headache has been coming up w/ 40 images at no charge.

Cough and sneezing wasn't the norm on this coast. It was more of congestion, fever, and body aches.

Never really got into ALA, but I noticed they don't seem to have any forums for science fiction enthusiasts. Though I did enjoy the show at PLA a couple of springs ago.

Steve donned the Santa suit at Christmas for church and in a couple of weeks he's running the Easter Egg hunt. So things are well.

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Re: Go Us!
[info]carbonelle
2008-03-03 03:43 am UTC (link)
We're adopting a little girl from China!

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Go Us!
[info]juliet_winters
2008-03-03 10:13 am UTC (link)
Hooray! That makes the 3rd friend I have who has done/will be doing that.
I'll keep you in my prayers.

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Re: Go Us!
[info]arhyalon
2008-03-02 10:44 pm UTC (link)
>I've got only two documents left to put together before my dossier is complete.

Woohoo!!!

CCAA has just reached 1/4/06!!!

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Re: Go Us!
[info]carbonelle
2008-03-03 03:43 am UTC (link)
Huzzah!

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Re: Go Us!
[info]saintjoi
2008-03-01 12:48 am UTC (link)
Heh. My dad was a librarian for most of my life, and though he's not a huge sci-fi fan, he introduced me to Ray Bradbury AND Star Wars.

God bless librarians!

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Re: Go Us!
[info]juliet_winters
2008-03-01 02:54 am UTC (link)
Thank you, thank you...

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[info]jackofallgeeks
2008-02-29 11:26 pm UTC (link)
"...that the virgin purity of my reader's ears might be preserved."

...you mean eyes...?

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Given the evidence of our discussions on here to date
[info]deiseach
2008-03-01 02:15 am UTC (link)
Would you be terribly surprised if some of Mr Wright's minions in the growing Space Princess Movement *did* read with our ears?

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Maybe the book is being read to them?
[info]johncwright
2008-03-01 04:12 am UTC (link)
No, I mean that, in grief and anger, the readers might go out immediately after having the surprise spoiled and engage in (wait for it)... aural sex.


Sorry. You're right. An audience has ears; readers have eyes.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Thanks for not revealing the spoilers!
[info]saintjoi
2008-03-01 12:50 am UTC (link)
I had all of the major Star Wars twists spoiled for me, and have never listened to a spoiler (willingly) since! I'm still ticked that the AFI Top 100 Thrills tv show gave away the ending of Psycho before I'd seen it. Grrrr....

So anyway, yeah, THANK YOU for cutting the spoilers!

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[info]mrmandias
2008-03-04 04:19 pm UTC (link)
For some reason I first read that

ROSEBUD IS A SLAN!

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[info]arhyalon
2008-03-06 03:33 am UTC (link)
That explains a great deal!

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Kirkus Reviews
[info]mark_stackpole
2008-03-04 05:32 pm UTC (link)
The reviewer, like an oaf, next lists my carefully constructed plot surprises, one after another, in a fashion meant to spoil them.

No, the reviewer is not an oaf. The entier reason to be of Kirkus is to spoil books. Kirkus is a review service for bookstores, libraries, TV producers, and movie studios. Giving away the ending is part of the service.

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Re: Kirkus Reviews
[info]johncwright
2008-03-04 08:53 pm UTC (link)
Don't be so critical of Kirkus. I am grateful to be reviewed at all, much less to get a starred review.

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Re: Kirkus Reviews
[info]arhyalon
2008-03-06 03:32 am UTC (link)
I agree. John should never have called the fellow an oaf! It shows a lack of gratitude. I understand the frustration John felt at having the plot twists listed, but it's no excuse to be rude.

For one thing the reviewer, to whom John and I are quite grateful, might come upon the comment and be insulted, which would be a really shoddy way to treat a good review!

(Reply to this) (Parent)

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