You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) but you can procrastinate there - a lot

I was just sitting here playing a game on Facebook in a time I'd specifically arranged to do some writing, and while the guilt gnawed me further into inaction so I continued to play and feel more guilty, so worse, so less likely to do something constructive I remembered one of the things I wanted to write about. That is Felicia Day's book You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost).

Felicia Day is an actress known for her roles in Buffy, Supernatural and others. I saw her in Buffy, but it was when I was belatedly introduced to Doctor Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog that I first really noticed her and learnt her name. Not long after that I was, also belatedly, introduced to The Guild, which is a web series (made before such things were things) that Felicia wrote and starred in. It's hilarious and well worth watching if you haven't.

From there I naturally discovered Felicia's online media company Geek and Sundry - this time just as it was launching, huzzah I was sort of current - and became a complete Felicia fan. Given I have spent several hours of my life watching her and her brother play retro video games I think that's fair to say - but it's very entertaining dammit! Don't knock it till you've watched at least one episode of Co-Optitude.

So, when she started promoting her book I was intrigued and pre-ordered it. Even so, it was likely to have sat on my to-read shelf for a long time since that's what I do, but for having just read Amanda Palmer's book and for a nudge from my wife, who'd also nudged me to read Amanda's book. Hmm, my wife has red hair, Amanda has red hair and Felicia has red hair and they have all recently (and ongoingly) inspired me. I'm noticing a trend.

Moving on. To be honest, initially I was slightly underwhelmed with the book. I was enjoying it, Felicia has a fun writing style with wit and a devilish self-deprecation I can truly relate to. But it wasn't until partway into it that I started to sense this was another important book for me to read at the moment.

It was the story of how she got The Guild from the worm of an idea in her head to an internet phenomenon that really inspired me. Mostly because it was a story of someone with a lot of doubt and confusion and similar mental habits/issues that I have. No mistake, we're very different with totally different backgrounds, but anxiety and depression are constants and the way Felicia describes her dealings with them rings very close to home for me.

And, just as I was a short while ago, Felicia played a lot of games - more than me, but at least not Facebook games, see I procrastinate around playing a decent game to procrastinate, it's another circle of not doing. She tells of how she kept putting off writing The Guild, and just generally not doing it for months and months. Then, with some encouragement and a large portion of guilt/why the hell am I doing not doing this-ness, she put a ridiculous constraint on how long she had to achieve her goal and she worked her butt off to achieve it. And so, The Guild was born.

Then no-one would produce it. So she did it herself, with friends of course not discounting them. But, the point is, she worked hard and she kept going and going until her dreams came to fruition and her story was told. She did what she loved because she got in there and did it.

She also learnt valuable lessons about not working too hard or being too much of a perfectionist, and I'll keep those in mind. For now, it's a matter of getting down and doing the things I love. This blog is a step in the right direction. Finishing some more of my writing goals will be more. I just have to keep working.

And of course - Keep dreaming too.

The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham

As Amanda's book led me to think of giant squids as a sort of personal emblem, it made sense that the next book I read be John Wyndham's The Kraken Wakes. Of course, at the time I thought there was an actual kraken in the story, there isn't.

This was my third Wyndham novel. The first was, unsurprisingly, The Day of the Triffids, which I read for English in Year 9. I loved it and I'd say it was an important novel in shaping my fictional tastes. Years later I read The Midwich Cuckoos, which I enjoyed but is a much slower story that relies heavily on a sense of wrongness and foreboding.

The Kraken Wakes falls somewhere between the two. It follows a couple and their adventures in a bizarre and world-changing alien invasion. This is probably the only alien invasion story I've read where no-one on Earth knows it's been invaded till over halfway through the book. The narration is made by the husband and starts with an introduction that establishes that the invasion is over but not all is right.

From there he goes back to what he believes is the beginning, a mysterious series of meteorites, then progresses through a number of other mysterious phenomena that baffle experts and the media - of which the narrator and his wife are a part. The state of the shipping market is discussed several times and the resultant increase in air transport around the world is also detailed. The pace picks up when the aliens make their first appearance.

It's an interesting take on the invasion theme, and uses the idea that because the aliens - who live in the deepest parts of our oceans - live in very different ways to us we weren't aware of them straightaway and couldn't understand their motives or actions. Nor, presumably, could they understand human reactions to them. The one thing that was clear was the Earth wasn't big enough for the two of us.

There's some debate in the Goodreads reviews about Brian Aldiss's description of Wyndham's novels as 'comfortable disasters'. As I read this one I definitely understood the term. There's undeniably a disaster unfolding, on a global scale, and there are scenes of very uncomfortable action and emotion. Huge numbers of people are killed. However, it unfolds gently, from the perspective of a remarkably cool-headed and rational Englishman and his wife (whom I'm glad to report more than holds her own, it's a real partnership). There are discussions on markets and how events affect such things.

So, while it is a disaster novel worthy of the name and equal to any more dramatically presented member of the genre, there is a certain calmness to the whole proceedings. Then there's the framing device of knowing the disaster is over and that the narrator is presenting his version of events for future generations to consider. We know who wins.

All in all, it's an enjoyable read with some interesting SF ideas and some classic Wyndham action scenes amidst his more thoughtful scientific mystery business. It probably has less appeal than Triffids, it's certainly not its equal in terms of writing or story, but worth a look for fans of the genre.

Keep dreaming!