Dave's Fiction Warehouse

Starting today, I'm putting all new posts (and there aren't that many of them) on my new Wordpress site, also known as Dave's Fiction Warehouse . I hope the five or six people who look in here periodically will also start looking in over there. Comment early and often. Thanks.

I finally saw Avatar . My short review: Fabulous effects, pedestrian story. James Cameron has certainly set the bar at a great new height for all future action movies, but he hasn't broken much new ground when it comes to sophisticated writing. Not that it matters. This is not a boring movie, and you won't rue the price of your ticket. It's the first 3D film I've ever seen, and I'm glad I waited this long. For the first few minutes, the 3D effect seems a distracting gimmick, but as the movie unfolds it becomes much more natural. I considered only one scene gratuitous: a machine gun barrel protruding out of the screen. Elsewhere Cameron showed admirable restraint. In the Pandoran jungle, the judicious and subtle use of 3D makes the alien flora and fauna seem vividly real. My only problem with Avatar is that every character is a stereotype drawn from other films. Remember Vasquez in Aliens ? She's back, as Trudy Chacon. Wind in His Hair from Dances With Wolv...

You know, I don't even blame Richard Heene any more. He's just a terrible human being, and sometimes you have throw up your hands and accept that a person's shortcomings are so comprehensive that he just can't help himself. Heene, of course, is the guy who lied about his son taking flight in a homemade balloon, finally plead guilty to perpetrating the hoax, and then on "Larry King Live" lied again, saying his earlier lie was not really a lie, and ... well, you get the idea. Heene evidently hopes his awfulness will at last reach critical mass, and, like Rob Blagojevich , earn him the coveted spot on "Celebrity Apprentice" that is his by birthright. I'd say his chances are good. Awful people show up on "Larry King" all the time, don't they? Somehow they are multiplying. I guess if we want to blame anybody for that, Larry himself is a good place to start.  Larry doesn't discourage venal, self-serving bullshit, nor does he draw...

One of my Christmas gifts this year was P.D. James' Talking About Detective Fiction. At less than 200 pages, it might be the shortest thing she's ever written. But for anybody who enjoys crime-writing in general and British crime-writing in particular, it's a fun, illuminating look at the evolution of the craft over the last 150 years. The title doesn't exactly grab you by the throat, does it? But it's accurate. It's like having tea with Ms. James as she warms to her subject -- which, as she puts it, "was one of the few on which I felt competent to pontificate." She talks about Arthur Conan Doyle, and Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie, but also discusses her own work and those of the modern masters like Ian Rankin. I gather she's not a big fan of Christie, and her view of the Golden Age writers on this side of the pond -- Hammett, Chandler and MacDonald, say -- may be something short of unalloyed admiration. Which is another reason I like thi...

 Because nothing is ever good enough, I've decided to migrate Dave's Fiction Warehouse from good old Blogger to my own domain and Wordpress. The domain is davesfiction.com. Why? That's an excellent question, since I've burned numerous hours learning the intricacies of the new system, and will probably burn a lot more before I know what I'm doing. In the meantime, I'll keep posting here and use the new one as a lab site. I'll experiment and fiddle incessantly there, then put the word out when I feel it's ready for my seven or so regular readers to have a look at it. Just so you know. One of the best things about Wordpress (I hope) is this theme called Thesis, which allows for a huge amount of customization without the need for learning a lot of code. That's also one of the worst things about it, since the sheer number of choices and non-intuitive menus make for a steep learning curve.