My intent here was to not focus on anything publishing and just instead on the cool stuff I digested over the last month. And yet, as I went to write this wonderful newsletter, I had an email from Written Word Media that their 2022 writer survey is out.
I tend to bash people over the head with the annual WWM surveys and for good reason: it shows the wild inequity of indie publishing and paints a realistic picture of how the industry works. The people with the most time and money will always be on top here.
There’s not much new in this, outside of them splitting up some of the lower tier income brackets. It also shows how many books are likely to be published in each bracket, and lemme tell you, that image tells a story.
That’s pretty wild, right? I’m publishing book 14 at the end of this month, and am solidly stage 3 on the verge of stage 4, depending on the month. That’s a lot of books it takes to make some mediocre money, isn’t it?
Yet the narrative remains that indie publishing is ~freedom~ and that there’s so much more money involved in it. Yeah, if you’re a one-person content farm. If I continue this grind or not next year is anybody’s guess.
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Consumption Index!
The Ember Knight Show
The Ember Knight Show is something I discovered ages ago, then have been patiently waiting for it to wrap up. Now that it has I feel pretty pumped to share it with everyone. There’s a surreal absurdity at the core of it, with the show presented in mellow children’s show fashion, but the host is so hilariously damaged that it turns into an ego deconstruction stretched out over five episodes.
Ember Knight - Cheryl
In conjunction with the above, I already knew Ember was doing most of the music for the show, but had no idea there were a few albums out. The 2020 release Cheryl is really something special. I really have no idea how to classify it other than it’s a concept album about a woman who forgets her favor color, is institutionalized and fed lasagna three times a day.
There’s some really killer ideas here, with some grand orchestration to contrast the mellow melodies. It’s a rock opera about a mom while dealing with genderfuckery.
On Cinema at the Cinema
There’s a real melancholy of an undercurrent in this season of On Cinema that’s obscured by the fact that it’s perhaps the funniest season yet. The actual seasons and the actual show tends to be the groundwork for the Oscar Specials, but since the inception of the HEI Network and On Cinema expanding out, things have come into focus more and the jokes flow freely instead of saving them up for some big cacophony of sadness.
It still serves as one of the most effective teardowns of modern media criticism and proves you can do this while building a whole world full of rich, oddball characters.
There are so many years of backstory, in-jokes and other things that it’s difficult to recommend this as a starting point for someone new. I went back and started a rewatch of the earlier seasons, which still resonate really well. You can do so for free by checking out the On Cinema Timeline.
Great British Bake Off/Baking Show
Yes, this season came to an end and it was entertaining. I can’t even remember who won, which is really something.
Midsomer Murders
This show is such an oddity. My wife and I have been watching this on-and-off for years whenever we can’t agree on anything else. It’s formulaic to the extreme, to the point in later seasons where they don’t even try to mess with the show at all. There’s a small village in Midsomer County, and they’re having a festival! Someone has been murdered, but surely, Detective Barnaby, the festival can go on? No, I’m actually sort of sad my spouse is dead, I’m not cheating on them!
We actually caught up last week. I sorta can’t believe it.
Desert Creatures by Kay Chronister
This was a cool book with a lot of interesting ideas. It’s post-apocalyptic, taking place in the desert where people are turning into fruit-bearing cacti or, worse, fruit-bearing cacti creatures. A new religion based on survivalism has sprang up and Magdala, our protagonist, is a disabled girl forced to adapt to survive to the harsh reality.
You can check out my review.
Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders
Saunders is one of the best writers around right now and I truly wish he would write another novel already. Still, I’ll take short fiction where I can. The title story is really something. A slow burn and on the longer side, it follows people who’ve signed themselves away to be props for the wealthy to do with as they please.
There are some really strong themes in here that echo reality, where a lot of “leftward” movements get co-opted by well meaning, but idealistic privileged kids who can’t fathom giving up what they have, even if they mean well. Or, the loud, violent types who just want the world to burn. At the end of the day, it’s the glad-handed liberal with the pat on the back that keeps everyone where they are. Ouch.
Not all of the stories can keep up the momentum, but there’s still plenty of good ones in there.
What Strange Paradise by Omar el Akkad
I wanted to really love this book, and while I did enjoy it, the final act fell apart for me. Powerful imagery and scenes of refugees and their hardships, the contrasts with the west and how unwelcoming the west really is got into a place where the characters started to feel two-dimensional.
There’s still a lot of good stuff in here! It’s well worth your time, but if you’ve read, for example, Exit West by Moshin Hamid, you’ll probably be a bit disappointed by this one.
Yakuza 4 Remastered
This is one of the games I missed on PS3 and didn’t get the Kiwami treatment, so I actively avoided. I’m glad I didn’t. While there were some definite tedium points with the boss battles compared to other games, the plot in this one, along with the four protagonists, really hammered things home for me.
There’s a radical goodness embedded in these games that’s hard to resist. I feel like near the end of every Yakuza game, when the protagonist(s) starts talking about the things that really matter to them, I start going on screenshotting frenzies.
Why? Because these games just get it.
Judgment
Going from Y4 to Judgment was a giant shock. It was essentially going from PS3 level “open world” to late stage PS4 open world. Still the same Kamurocho, but so much more capable. I can’t even remember if the more recent Yakuza games feel like this much of a leap. Judgment still had a different, branching development cycle from the mainline games.
I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m sorta just enjoying it for now. Doing lots of side quests and only getting mildly annoyed by the detective follow sequences.
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Until next time. Remember, Cracked Palace drops soon!