Kevin J. Anderson's Passion For Storytelling

What I'm Reading Wednesday

I’ve always admired Kevin J. Anderson for his business acumen.  I’ve always been grateful to him for helping expand important Science Fiction universes, such as Star Wars and Frank Herbert’s Dune novels.  Meeting him at conventions and book signings has always proven a great pleasure.  Yet, while I’ve enjoyed his novels, I’ve always felt as if I had missed something crucial in his storytelling.  His novels--filled with exciting plots, richly portrayed worlds, and interesting characters—told me everything I needed to know about that particular story...and nothing about him. 

Some people say that a pastor or priest only has one sermon, and that he repeats that sermon, in infinite variation, every time he stands behind the lectern.  That sermon, and the passion and thought behind it, drove him to enter the ministry.  I suspect the same can be said of authors, as each day’s effort involves sitting down before a blank page, and imbuing it with meaning.  Writing is demanding work, and while a lucky few reside atop the bestseller charts year in and year out, most toil in obscurity, and would make far greater incomes if they devoted their energies and creativity to other pursuits.  In a career spanning a quarter-century, Kevin J. Anderson has written, co-written, or edited well over 100 books.  I wondered what ignited his passion for storytelling, and what fire still burned inside him, fueling his literary efforts.

In Resurrection, Inc., his first published novel, I found the answers I sought.  In the near future, blue collar workers are rapidly being displaced.  Servants, reanimated corpses driven by computer chips and synthetic organs, are filling all jobs involving repetitive tasks.  Francois Nathans, the head of Resurrection, Inc., conceived of reanimating the dead as way to free the living from drudgery.  Now he watches as displaced workers choke streets and welfare offices.  Where is the drive, the enthusiasm for reinvention, the fervor for forging greater futures individually and elevating mankind? 

When he decides that something else must be holding mankind back, his attention turns to religion.  And why not?  It’s been argued that, all too often, when seeking value and meaning for their lives, people choose comfortable beliefs over uncomfortable truths.  So Nathans wonders: might religion be inhibiting humanity from achieving the social progress he desires?  With the aid of Vincent Van Ryman, the son of a business partner, he forges a new religion: neo-Satanism.  He intends to create no more than an elaborate sham.  He wants converts to later see through the religion, and in so doing help them see beyond the falsehood he believes underlie all religions.  Yet people—even those he views as smart and intelligent—keep finding value and meaning in the rituals, services, and scriptures he and Vincent create.    

As usual, Kevin J. Anderson provides readers with a compelling future world, a fast-moving plot, interesting characters, and dramatic situations.  With Resurrection, Inc., he offers us a book that's difficult to put down.  But it’s the ideas behind the story, and the questions they raise, that I'll take away from this novel.  For example: What is the proper role of Faith and Belief?  Is Truth something that exists outside us, that we either accept or reject?  Or is Truth something we create for ourselves, and sometimes even knowingly construct from the most outrageous lies.  For some of the biggest, and perhaps the most compelling lies of all, are not Religions, but Fictions.  Some stories and characters grow so important to us that they become a part of us, and guide us through life in crucial ways. 

In Resurrection, Inc., Francois Nathans learns that what drives others, and what they perceive as truth, is at odds with the passion that drove him to create his company, and fueled his efforts to elevate mankind.  I wonder: in his first published novel, did Kevin J. Anderson share a part of his soul?  Did he hint at the passion that caused him to start writing stories, and still fuels his creative engine?  The novel suggests not only why he writes his stories, but perhaps also why I keep on reading him.  It suggests the reason he’s become one of my favorite authors.  For there must be a greater, better, and more elevated reason than that I simply like the guy.  

At least, that's what I believe.

Dragon Dave 

Brian Michael Bendis & Spider-Man

The “Castle” Season Three DVD set includes a twenty-minute extra called “Murder They Wrote.”  This roundtable discussion features Andrew Marlowe (who created the TV show), Rob Bowman (who alongside Marlowe, serves as Executive Producer), Michael Connelly (Best-selling mystery writer who has appeared on the show), Nathan Fillion (who plays writer Richard Castle on the show), and Brian Michael Bendis, a comic book writer and artist.  What is Bendis’ connection to “Castle,” you ask?  Well, along with Kelly Sue DeConnick, Lan Medina, and Tom Raney, he created “Richard Castle’s Deadly Storm,” a graphic novel based on the novel written by the fictional Richard Castle.

From Richard Castle's descriptions, I imagined Derek Storm as your typical private investigator.  Bendis envisioned him as a more exciting character, akin to James Bond.  He regarded “Deadly Storm” as a unique challenge: to adapt a novel that doesn’t exist, written by an author who doesn’t exist, and featuring a character that…well, you get the idea. 

"So Michael, tell us about yourself," Nathan asks.

What interested me more was how Bendis became a comic book author and artist.  When he was a child, his mother bought him comic books to read.  By age six, he had decided that he wanted to create his own comic books.  He particularly wanted to write stories about Spider-Man, his favorite superhero.  That dream guided him throughout his life, until he finally ended up at Marvel Comics, where for the past dozen years he’s been creating his own comic books about his favorite characters, including Spider-Man.

"I'm proud to say that I'm a comic book writer,
and I love Spider-Man."

Brian Michael Bendis is a prolific comic book writer and artist.  His numerous awards attest to the quality of his work.  But how did he get there?  He trusted his own judgment, even at the tender age of six.  He never listened to the naysayers who suggested a more reasonable or respectable career.  He never gave in to the fear of failure, or the allure of an easier, more achievable future. He knew what he wanted to do with his life, and worked hard to acquire the skills and abilities to fulfill his dreams.  

He didn't start off as a superhero, but he became one.  Just like his beloved Spider-Man.

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

Brian Michael Bendis’ Wikipedia page

Jinxworld: Bendis’ official website

A Sense of Mission

J. Michael Straczynski had established himself in Hollywood.  Everyday, he contributed to different TV shows in a number of ways, including that of a scriptwriter.  One day, the idea of a “novel for television,” of a five-year saga concerning a space station, struck him.  Suddenly, his former success wasn’t enough for him.  So, even though a Sci-fi series on this level had never been attempted on American television, he sketched out the broad strokes of his idea, and embarked on the long and difficult process of trying to sell it to the major studios.  After he finally sold the series to Warner Brothers, and won the right to serve as its executive producer, this was only the beginning of his work on Babylon 5.  Throughout the entire series run, he would oversee every aspect of the show’s production, including writing most of the scripts, to ensure that the vision he had conceived reached its fullest potential on our screens.  He even spent time regularly traveling to Science Fiction conventions, personally answering fan mail, and interacting with fans though the burgeoning power of the Internet.

A woman at my mother’s church, let’s call her Ms. Milton, felt so affected by the shooting at Newtown, Connecticut, that she could not dispel the conflicting emotions and questions raised by the incident.  She wondered how and why the event took place, but came up with no satisfactory answers.   Finally, she started writing a poem, and by the time she finished it, found she had brokered a partial peace in her heart between the event's physical reality and its spiritual implications.  This last Sunday, she shared the poem with her congregation, in the hopes that it would help others similarly affected by the tragedy.

Another couple at the church, let’s call them Mr. and Mrs. Credit, once served as missionaries.  To celebrate his ninetieth birthday, they sold an old trailer they no longer used, and visited a church in South Africa they had once ministered in.  Mrs. Credit shared with the congregation that, while in college, their denomination rejected them as candidates for their missionary program.  So the couple opened themselves to any organizations that would send them to the mission field.  They sacrificed in every area of their lives, always scrambling to fund their endeavors.  But because they operated as independent, “Faith Missionaries,” they visited more countries and ministered to more disparate groups than they could have, had they been enjoyed the more secure funding from one denomination.  They may be retired now, but the couple donated the proceeds from the sale to the South African church’s building program, in the hopes that the congregation could more effectively serve their community.

A gift from the Credits, to remind us of Africa,
and the importance of following our calling
with A Sense of Mission.

Mrs. Credit offered this advice: pursue your passion today, where you live.  Don’t wait on fate or circumstance, or an invitation from anyone.  Whether your calling leads you, like the Credits, to missionary service, like J. Michael Straczynski, to helm a TV program, or like Ms. Milton, to tackle smaller (but no less important) tasks such as writing the occasional poem, follow your calling.  What is your passion in life?  Do you feel a sense of mission: that what you wish to accomplish is not only important to you, but to others as well?  Whatever it is, I wish you all the success in the world, as you determine, and then pursue your project with the sense of mission that it deserves.

Starting today.

Dragon Dave

Mike Bocianowski’s Passion

"Where in the world is Mike Bocianowski?"

The first thing I realized about Mike Bocianowski was that he loved to draw.  He simply couldn’t sit still and talk.  From the moment he began his guest-of-honor presentation at this year’s Condor, he was fidgeting with his marker.  Soon he had risen and moved to his easel.  Then he was drawing creatures that looked like dragons (but he insisted they’re called Yets), and others characters from his stories.  After a while, he was teaching us how to draw.

Mike Bocianowski doesn’t delineate between the arts.  His motto is that one type of art can influence another.  If you’re a writer, for example, and you get stuck in your story, he suggests that you shift to drawing or painting.  Instead of awaiting inspiration at his easel, he’ll sometimes move to his notepad, where he’ll brainstorm on his characters’ history, mythology, and culture.  Fleshing out his characters in this way gives him new ideas.  But writing isn’t his only fallback position: painting and photography also help get him back on track.  He’s even taken classes in particular styles of dancing when he feels his creative well running dry.  Dance, he says, is art in motion, and moving the body in such practiced, yet artful ways, spurs his mind into looking at his subjects from a new perspective.  That, in turn, gets him back to his easel.

While he’s received numerous job offers over the years, he’s declined to become an employee of the giant corporations that dominate the comic book industry.  Going it alone may limit his success, and cost him in terms of income and lifestyle, but it’s more important to him to follow his muse, rather than pursue subjects and projects selected for him by others.  Being his own man means he can draw and write his books according to his tastes.  As he dislikes the current emphasis on antiheroes and violence, he’s able to craft lighter fare, and has found an audience who appreciates the types of stories he creates.

While the Disney animators and Jim Henson have inspired his drawing, he takes story cues from “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “The Lord of the Rings.”  What he admires most about C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien is how their beliefs informed their stories without hammering specific messages into their readers.  While his books may be vastly different from theirs, he aims to create similarly compelling stories.

Portrait of a compulsive artist.

It’s been several months now since I saw Mike at Condor.  I’ve held off in writing this entry because I wanted to be able to report that I’ve taken up Mike’s challenge and started to draw regularly.  Unfortunately, I’ve yet to draw a single sketch.  Still, his assertion that anyone can draw, if he or she wants to, is something I hold onto, in the hopes that sometime soon I will take up a pencil and start drawing.  But whether I start tomorrow, or a year from now, his assurance that anyone can pursue any type of art empowers my daily writing.  Whatever you do, he says, whether you’re interested in writing, drawing, photography, or anything else, pursue it.  If you have a dream, follow your heart.  For in doing so, you’ll do it differently from anyone else.  And if you do it regularly, and always seek to improve your efforts, you can achieve the success you desire.

I don’t know about you, but Mike Bocianowski’s passion for drawing inspires me to keep pursuing my own dreams.

Grateful for the encouragement,

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

Mike Bocianowski’s blog