Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Where I talk about books, movies, television, art, pro-wrestling and other forms of culture and pop-culture

Val Vega makes an epic debut 🚀

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It’s almost my birthday here in Australia—a birthday I share, give or take a few time-zones—with an incredible Brooklyn-based sci-fi writer named Ben Fransisco. 

I first met Ben at Clarion South back in 2007, where be blew me away with a series of delicate, nuanced short stories that found homes in magazines like the Realms of Fantasy, Shimmer, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.

Ben’s stories are extraordinary, even more so because they’re rare. Precious glimpses of an extraordinary talent which appear every couple of years, then disappear beneath the weight of Ben’s other life where he worked for high-profile non-profits advocating for LGBTQ rights and immigrant rights.

He’s legitimately one of those people who changes the world for the better, which makes it really hard to begrudge his job pulling him away from writing.

Hard, but not impossible. I’m an unreasonable man who always wishes his favourite writers would produce more work.

Which is why the recent release of this book made me extraordinarily happy.

Val Vega: Secret Ambassador of Earth is Ben’s debut novel, a YA adventure written by someone with an unmatched passion and love of science fiction who grew up without seeing themselves represented on the screen or in the books they loved. 

It’s an extraordinary book, and I’m not the only person to think so. Kirkus gave it a starred review, dubbing it “a captivating, heartfelt tale about family, diplomacy, and finding one’s place in the universe”.

It’s been out a little over a month now, and still flying with a five star rating on Amazon and Goodreads. 

I got to read part of the book while helping Ben sort through the publishing logistics of getting Val Vega out into the world, and I absolutely cannot wait for my copy of the finished thing to find its way to Brisbane.

Trust me, if you love sci-fi, you want a copy of this one. 

GRAB A COPY AT THESE FINE STORES

I’ll leave you with a final rave about the book from M. M. De Voe (A Flash of Darkness):

“If interstellar peace is your dream and you love a diverse cast of fabulously weird and brilliant aliens; if you believe in the power of one good human to survive personal hardship and save our planet, and if your dream is to discover that this human hero happens to be a humble, witty and smart-as-hell Latinx teenager, then this is the book for you! Everyone else should read this book for the absolutely fun ride through a universe that will become so real you’ll be quoting it.”

— M. M. De Voe, award-winning author

A Year of Reading: 2022

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Goodreads, as is their tradition, have curated a list of all the books I read across 2022. The total number runs to 72 books, give or take a couple of titles that didn’t log properly, with another 10 books that I started across the year still “in progress” at the end. That’s a big of a slow year for me, but more than I thought, especially given I worked full-time for the first time ever through the bulk of 2022. The learning curve—and figuring how to use my time judiciously—proved to be a challenge.

With that said, lets talk the highlights.

2022 was a year where the bulk of the new-to-me authors I picked up were romance-oriented, partially because Romance is my comfort reading and partially because Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and the Hot As F$ck Romance newsletter fed a continual supply of interesting reads my way. Big recommendations on this front are Penny Reid’s WINSTON BROTHERS books, Kris Ripper’s BOOK BOYFRIEND, Ruby Barrett’s THE ROMANCE RECIPE. The most oddly disappointing book of the year was Lucy Parker’s BATTLE ROYAL, but that’s mostly because it was good and her prior works I’ve encountered were outstanding, so it suffered in comparison.

My Spec Fic read of the year was definitely Gareth Powell’s ACK-ACK MACAQUE, a maximalist SF trilogy with a very odd premise that just hit all my buttons as a reader. Enjoyed Django Wexler’s HARD REBOOT a lot as well, and I’m mystified as to why Xiran Jay Zhao’s IRON WIDOW isn’t logged (it’s also great). Also missing from my Goodreads log: Travis Baldree’s LEGENDS & LATTES, which was a low-keys salve during some very stressful weeks.

Oliber Burkeman’s FOUR THOUSAND WEEKS and Giblin/Doctrow’s CHOKEPOINT CAPITALISM were the best of the non-fiction reading, although the Nohelty and Leonelle series on GET YOUR BOOK SELLING… captured a lot of conversations I wish indies had more often in a really accessible way. I don’t know that they needed to be eleventy billion different books, especially given the series wasn’t finished before it was kick-started for new editions, but books on Events, Selling on your Website, and Kickstarter are all good reading if you’re in the self-publishing or small press space.

And I *did* end up backing the Kickstarter, despite my reservations about their business model where all the books feel like lead magnets.

Mark Forster’s SECRETS OF PRODUCTIVE PEOPLE is probably my productivity book of the year. I didn’t expect it–I didn’t think it was that impactful–but it’s had the greatest impact on my day-to-day habits and tactics.

Finally, special mention goes out to the Chad Dundas edited THE TERRITORIES, which is such a niche book that it’s ridiculous that it actually exists. Short version: Dundas and his cohorts have created a shared world featuring a set of fictional 80s wrestling territories and the stars who move between them. There’s a very small group of people who see that and scream “goddammit, take my money,” but I’m definitely in that group. The anthology is hit-and-miss in terms of quality, but when it’s on fire, it’s really on fire. Worth it for the two outstanding novellas, and I have no regrets about buying it.

Reboot (Hulu/DisneyPlus)

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I’ve been a fan of Steven Levitan’s TV shows for years without really being aware of it. I devoured episodes Just Shoot Me as a kid, went out of my way to watch Stark Raving Mad during its brief tenure, and slowly wended my way around to an appreciation of Modern Family after writing the sitcom juggernaut off for the better part of a decade. The same three traits unified his creations: incredibly smart casting, an interesting concept, and a thin seam of genre subversion running through a solid understanding of the core tropes.

His most recent effort, Reboot, takes those traits and turns them up to eleven. The pitch is simple: an edgy young writer convinces Hulu to reboot an early 2000s family sitcom; as it comes together, we discover the original creator was her father, who walked out her mother and started a new family, then turned that new family into the core conceit of his hit sitcom. Rights issues mean father and daughter end up working together as co-showrunners, working out their issues as they create a new vision for the show. Meanwhile, the dysfunctional cast and crew of the original show come together to work out their issues.

It is, as they say, very meta, and in the wrong hands it would be terrible. In the right hands…well, you have Reboot. The writing isn’t immediately in-your face funny, but it’s incredibly deft and willing to spend an episode building a joke so it lands just right. It’s a show that trusts the audience to get it, rather than making the laughs obvious. It’s the closest I’ve come to the feeling the first seasons of How I Met Your Mother had, before it became a cultural juggernaut and lost all subtlety, shining a spotlight on every callback instead of just throwing them out there and trusting folks to follow along. It’s exactly the mood you want in a TV show about the making of a TV show, and it works. The show’s humor creeps up on you when you’re not looking, and by the time you’re laughing, you’re definitely in its thrall.

And then there’s the other strength of Levitan’s work: casting. Father and daughter are played by Paul Riesler and Rachel Bloom, both folks who have worked on their own incredibly smart sitcoms in the past. The core cast of the show-within-a-show are Keegan-Michael Keys, the criminally underrated Judy Greer, and Johnny Knoxville, who all know their business and deliver. The writers’ room—when it forms—is an unexpected pleasure of brilliant casting, pitching an old guard writing team comprised of veteran actors Fred Melamed, George Wyner, and Rose Abdoo against the younger, queerer, socially conscious young blood played by Dan Leahy, Korama Danquah, and Kimia Behpoornia.

We initially gave the show a try off the strength of the major cast, but the bit parts were a constant flow of “oh, I love that person”. And, in truth, there are certain shows I’ll give a chance on the strength of their IMDB list, especially when it includes secondary-character specialists like Abdoo (who played mechanic Gypsy on Gilmore Girls) and Behpoornia (who played Abby on Atypical) who I’ve rarely seen in anything awful.

If you’re in the mood for something funny and smart, Reboot is an unexpected pleasure.