Outro S5 E11 – Books and Mugwumps
Huddle close survivors. Stare into the dying embers of the bunker fire and listen as the old man spins a harrowing tale of the death of the world.
Welcome back! For those of you suffering from temporal displacement, this episode will drop for ad free and early listen subscribers on the 31st of January 2025. Or, I guess, I should say has dropped because if you are listening to this you are in the future.
It’s been a weird and busy couple weeks for me. I published the novelization of the first season, finally, and I’m really happy about it. I’m also at the end of a marathon training cycle which means I’m putting in some really long, and hard, workouts in preparation for my race in Arizona on Feb 8th. And I also chose this week to upgrade my Microsoft Surface – which is the device where all the magic happens – and I had to leave it at the store so they could transfer the data to the new device – so I’m working off a dusty old Dell Tower desktop that I bought 10 years ago!
So – Lots of things up in the air and busy – which is great.
Sales of the first book seem to be going swimmingly. As far as I know. All the sales go through the publisher so there’s a 2-4 month lag between when someone buys something on Amazon and when I see it in the sales report.
Remember the best place for you to buy is BookLocker.com, just search for me, Chris Russell, or Apocalypse and you’ll find it.
And my easy ask this week is to go out and get a copy, then write a review on whatever site you acquired it from. And forward the link to your contacts. Everything in the bunker is word-of-mouth – so if you tell your friends that’s the greatest gift you can give me.
I just finished listening to Haruki Murakami’s book Novelist as a Vocation, which is a bunch of essays where he talks about his writing process and complains about Japanese critics.
If you’ve never read Murakami, his novels are different and challenging – but that’s their power – they are unique. And if you want to make an impact create unique art. Don’t be in a hurry to conform to what the experts say. Do what your special gifts compel you to do. Be unapologetically unique – it requires courage – but it delivers strength.
Another point he makes is that he’d much rather connect with readers than please the critics. He says the true form of success is when people read your work. And since only about 5% of the general population are readers – that’s your market.
So, my 5-percenters – go buy the book, read it, leave a review and tell your friends.
Things are starting to coalesce in our Season 5 storyline and that’s great for me. It makes it easier for me to keep all the characters and plotlines in my head, sort of like running a race, no matter how bad you feel you always perk up when you can see the finish line!
I had written a review of Hemmingway’s ‘Across the River and into the Trees’, which I read over the holidays, but it’s too long to stick in here so maybe I’ll post it as a bonus episode.
I write every day, so I have all these odds and ends stuffed in my digital pockets that you people never see or hear. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing!
I am watching my way through Star Trek Discovery – which much to my surprise has 65 episodes! What? How did I get so far behind! I don’t have that much time in my life! The first season starts a bit slow and if I had to compare it to other series, I’d say it’s most influenced by the Next Generation oeuvre., but then it goes dark and gets better.
The Klingons look like the Mugwumps from the Naked Lunch movie.
Wait! Hold on! I took a turn on your gentle listeners. If you have never seen it go watch the 1991 rendition of Naked Lunch starring Peter Heller (yes the original Robocop) directed by David Kronenberg, and based on the William S. Burroughs novel that caused quite the kerfuffle when it was published in 1959.
(Spoiler alert, it’s an allegory for heroin addiction and the proto-gay lifestyle, and the artist’s journey and it’s super weird.)
Burroughs was an outstanding creator of prose – amazingly powerful writer.
But that’s enough about that particularly wonderful deviant art.
I also watched a movie on Tubi last night called Eradication. Which is a pretty good apocalyptic movie. Apparently they made this movie on less than $2M, which is amazing and just goes to show you that you can make your art if you really want to.
You don’t need permission or approval.
Especially in the current reversion to fundamentalism and dogma.
We need your art. Good art is what comes out when you squeeze the weirdos too hard!
So grab your jackknives and a hunk of old wood from the fire pit and carve your vision of the future with freedom and joy as we huddle in the bunker peering over the window ledge desperately wishing for Springtime to appear.
And Keep Surviving…
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