Letters From the Labyrinth 479
Good morning. I’m Brian Keene and this is Letters From the Labyrinth — a long-running weekly newsletter for fans, friends, and family that comes out every Sunday.
A reminder that if you are in or near Brooklyn, NY then I’ll be signing and speaking at Brooklyn Brewery next Tuesday night from 5pm to 8:30pm. You can buy books there or bring them from home to be signed. Also on hand will be Nat Cassidy, Clay McLeod Chapman, Christopher Golden, Nicky Gonzalez, Nicholas Kaufmann, John Langan, Victor LaValle, CJ Leede, Tanya Pell, Mary SanGiovanni, and Tony Tremblay. This event is sponsored n conjunction with The Twisted Spine.
And then in two weeks, July 30 - August 2 — I’ll be at GenCon in Indianapolis. My schedule for that is as follows:
Thursday 11am - Noon: Panel Discussion — How To Put Together An Anthology
Friday 11am - Noon: Panel Discussion — How To Build A Long Term Career
Saturday 10am - 11am — The Role of Nonfiction In Your Career
Saturday 1pm - 2pm — Signing
This week’s Women In Horror Year write-ups feature Ruby Jean Jensen, Sara Tantlinger, Jessica McHugh, Jennifer McMahon, and Mona Kabbani. You can read those, and all the other ones I’ve written so far, via the index for Women In Horror Year.
Thanks to all of you for a great first week of sales for the new audiobooks of AN OCCURRENCE IN CRAZY BEAR VALLEY, which is now available via Audible and Apple. It’s narrated by fan-favorite Chet Williamson.
It is also available as regular paperback from Amazon, and as an eBook for Kindle, Nook, Kobo and Apple.
Currently Watching: The Odyssey and The Last Ship (season 1)
Currently Reading: Advance reader copy of a forthcoming novel by Gemma Amor.
Currently Listening: Sirius/XM’s Classic Rewind, Ozzy’s boneyard, Rock the Bells, and Howard 101.
Really enjoying The Last Ship. Some of the military ops and procedures are a little silly and Hollywood-ized, but there is some excellent character-work and writing, and the sets are realistic and gorgeous. It’s a fine, formulaic action and human drama ensemble, and sometimes, that’s exactly what you want.
The Odyssey was, in my opinion, a masterpiece — an absolute triumph of filmmaking that will, twenty years from now, be looked back upon as an American classic. Of course, expressing that personal opinion on social media apparently angered people on both the Right and the Left, depending upon which platform they used. A few expressed dismay regarding my place in the “culture war”, and I suspect these people don’t understand — I’m not fighting a culture war. I think your online culture war is moronic. You want to enact real change in the world, go outside. Get off your couch. The only thing you’re fighting by posting to Twitter or Threads 500 times per day is your BMI and possibly diabetes.
The online culture warriors are so exhausting. All of them, on both sides. They’re like Pappagallo and Lord Humungus squabbling over the refinery and I feel like Mad Max just wanting to get enough gas so I can drive the f*ck away from all of them and enjoy things in peace.
For those of you who around back in the days of the feral cat updates, and have been missing them since that saga ended, allow me to introduce you to George.
He’s a baby bunny who showed up last week and has since earned his keep by alerting me to the fact that our water heater sprang a leak. You can read all about him on my daily Blog.
And that does it for this week. Thanks for reading. See all of you back here next Sunday.
Aww George is so stinking cute! At our old house while Chris was still alive, we had a bunch of bunnies we thought someone had dumped on our property as we were rural. We tried to keep them alive, feeding them, etc., but one by one, either hawks, coyotes, or even the feral cats in the neighborhood picked them off. They never let us close enough to trap/catch them. I hope George has a better run of luck. Thanks for the review of The Odyssey, it's on my watch list. Appreciated your thoughts on the "culture war." Haven't heard of the Last Ship, will have to check that out. Hope you and Mary enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a peaceful summer.
Far too many folks willing to criticize The Odyssey without having seen it.