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Fantasy Settings: How Much Do We Really Need to See?

May 18, 2020 / Kyle A. Massa

Everybody likes a good fantasy setting. Whether it’s Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, Jemisin’s Stillness, or Pratchett’s Discworld, there are some places we never want to leave. By that logic, there are some places we should see even more of, right? Well, not necessarily.

For us fantasy writers, it’s tempting to show every region of our worlds. That abandoned graveyard? Let’s send some characters there, just to see it. What about the ancient eagle’s nest atop the mountain? We need to show it, just because it’s awesome. And that village of singing trolls out in the west? There’s a chapter.

Before we do that, let’s take a step back and look at our world. Not the story world, but the world we actually live in. You know, Earth. It’s vast, isn’t it? And not only geographically—in terms of our knowledge, too. So many cultures, so much history. It’s practically limitless. Most people live their whole lives never seeing the entire thing.

To create an authentic fantasy world, I think we need to keep that same principle in mind. I believe every fictional world, fantasy or otherwise, should have parts on the periphery that we never discover.

A great example comes from The Lord of the Rings. Sure, you remember Mordor and Rivendell. But riddle me this: Do you remember Queen Beruthiel? She’s mentioned in an offhand comment from Aragorn:

“[Gandalf] is surer of finding the way home in a blind night than the cats of Queen Berúthiel.”

That’s it. She’s never mentioned again. At first glance, this might seem like laziness or even a mistake. But that reference is almost certainly intentional, and one of the many tricks Tolkien employed when building Middle-Earth. He created a rich, wholly believable world precisely because he didn’t show us everything.

Just like in the real world, there are limits to our knowledge as readers. If we directly experience every location and every person, the setting ends up feeling awfully small. But if there’s more beyond the borders of the page, we get a proper sense of scale.

Let’s stick with epic fantasy for our second talking point. A Song of Ice and Fire is one of the most immersive worlds out there. And it’s a big world—big enough that the story might not even conclude after seven volumes.

In books four and five, author George R.R. Martin shows us more of this expansive world. He adds several characters just to serve as vessels through which we can see the other areas of his setting. For example, bodyguard Areo Hotah exists only to show us what’s happening in the desert kingdom of Dorne.

Does it work? Well, that depends on whom you ask. For the most part, though, fans hate it.

Why? Because even Martin, who’s been a professional writer for decades, makes the mistake of showing too much of his setting. He has many chapters in which his characters do little except tell us what’s going on in this one place. Do we really need to see what’s going on in Dorne and the Iron Islands first-hand? You could debate it, but a lot of fans will tell you it distracts from the main plot. Furthermore, it makes his world feel smaller.

The more we see of a setting, the smaller it gets. Though we might want to visit that cool place we referenced way back in chapter five, it’s often best if we resist the urge.

Kyle A. Massa is a speculative fiction author living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife, their cats, and their dog. He has written two books and numerous short stories, both published and yet-to-be published. He enjoys unusual narrative structures, multiple POVs, and stories that make people laugh.

*Image credit: Mehmet Canli. Used under permission of CC BY-SA 2.0.

The 5 Most Underrated Fantasy Books I’ve Ever Read

May 11, 2020 / Kyle A. Massa

Some books don’t get their proper due. So today, we’re going to look at some of the most underrated fantasy books ever written. Let’s give them the credit they deserve!

1. Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie

(Image via Goodreads)

I believe Best Served Cold is Joe Abercrombie’s all-time best—and he’s got some amazing books in his catalog.

The setup is simple. Monza Murcatto, a charismatic mercenary captain with a bloody reputation, is betrayed by Grand Duke Orso, the man who’s employed her for years. Orso and six other conspirators help kill Monza’s brother and nearly kill her, too. Yet Monza survives, and swears vengeance on all seven of them.

I really dig this book’s structure. There are seven distinct sections, each taking place in a different city of Styria (the book’s principal setting), each chronicling Monza’s revenge upon a different man. She collects a diverse cast of dangerous people along the way, including Caul Shivers (a northman trying to reform his life), Castor Morveer (a poisoner with an inflated opinion of himself), Shylo Vitari (a former torturer and dedicated mother), and Nicomo Cosca (a drunk with a bad habit of betraying employers). Each provides their own value to the story.

Why is it underrated? The book made a minor splash during its initial release in 2009, yet hasn’t been discussed much since. I think we need to recognize this one for what it is: one of the best fantasy books of the 2000s!

Look, I know that’s a strong claim. I wouldn’t make it if I didn’t really feel that way. Best Served Cold has outstanding characters, a non-stop plot, high stakes, and a vivid setting. In addition, it’s the best blend of heist thriller and epic fantasy I’ve ever read. Please read this book. You’ll be glad you did.

2. The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

(Image via Goodreads)

I’ve written about this book before…but whatever. It deserves the buzz!

The Shining Girls is an innovative thriller with a strong element of contemporary fantasy (not to mention a very cool structure). Set in the modern day, the book tells the story of Kirby Mazrachi, a girl who was never supposed to have a future. She’s the sole survivor of an attack by Harper Curtis, a truly bad dude who kills women not just in his own era, but others. How does he do that, you ask? That’s the fantasy element. He discovers a house in depression-era Chicago that allows him to travel through time.

I first heard of this novel when its author, Lauren Beukes, did an interview on one of my favorite podcasts, The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy. One of the most striking things she said in that interview was that she was sick of stories where the serial killer got all the narrative attention. With The Shining Girls, she wanted to write a serial killer story about the victims. She succeeded.

Why is it underrated? Well, I love Goodreads—but when it comes to this book, they’ve got it all wrong! Out of over 35,000 votes, the book’s average rating is a 3.49 out of 5.

I’m appalled by that rating. Beukes’s approach to the subject matter is something we must continue to emulate. I think people are realizing that more and more now, yet she was onto it years ago. Plus it’s just a great book.

Please do yourself a favor and read it. Then rate it. And please, give it the rating it deserves (hint: it’s better than 3.5 stars).

3. The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

(Image via Goodreads)

Another novel with a daring narrative structure, David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks follows a woman named Holly Sykes throughout her life. The book is divided into six sections, the first beginning with a 15-year-old Holly in 1984 and ending with a 74-year-old Holly in 2043.

No matter what you’ve read, I promise this book is nothing like it. It’s about a war between two psychic factions, one that Holly ends up embroiled in. In fact, it’s almost a little misleading to call it a novel—perhaps a series of interconnected novellas would be closer to the mark.

One of my favorite parts of the reading experience is figuring out what happens between sections of the book. For example, we begin in 1984 with a young Holly. We then leap ahead seven years to 1991, where we meet a grifter named Hugo Lamb. Hugo meets a bar manager in Switzerland whom he’s immediately attracted to. We don’t know who she is at first, but soon we find out. She’s Holly Sykes!

Each section carries with it a little surprise like that. It’s amazing and fun to see how they all connect, how all the characters evolve and interact. Plus, there are some fantastic supernatural element scattered throughout, including telepathy and reanimated corpses. What’s more, Mitchell is a brilliant prose stylist.

Why is it underrated? Well, people recognize its awesomeness, yet it’s overshadowed by Mitchell’s magnum opus, Cloud Atlas. I agree, Cloud Atlas is amazing. It too is one of my favorite books. But let’s not allow that giant to distract from Mitchell’s other work. The Bone Clocks is an amazing book in and of itself, and I would be sad if people forgot that.

4. Three Moments of an Explosion by China Miéville

(Image via Goodreads)

Another book that released to initial praise, then seemed to fall into obscurity. Three Moments of an Explosion has a fantastic title. The stories within are even better.

To a certain extent, I understand why it’s been forgotten. After all, short story collections don’t have the longevity that novels do. Still, I think Miéville’s collection should get more love than it does. These stories range from odd to strange to bizarre to downright horrifying.

“The Dowager of Bees” is one of my favorites. (Being a Magic: The Gathering player, I really dig stories with copious shuffling.) It’s about a card shark who stumbles across a magical card which inexplicably appears within his deck. “In the Slopes” tells the bizarre tale of archeologists who uncover some sort of alien life form. Then there’s “Säcken,” which is quite frankly one of the most disturbing stories I’ve ever read.

This collection is fantastic. I encourage you to read it!

5: Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin

(Image via Goodreads)

Fire & Blood is a history of the Targaryen family. It takes us from the founding of the dynasty through its near breaking during the Dance of Dragons, then into the war’s aftermath. It’s not a complete chronicle of the line, so there should be a sequel to finish things. (Hopefully it doesn’t release before The Winds of Winter. Otherwise, there might be a riot.)

I love Martin’s work, both within A Song of Ice and Fire and outside it. So I was disappointed to see such a negative reaction to this book. Upon release, a lot of people said something to the effect of, “Whatever. Where’s book six?”

I get it. I want The Winds of Winter, too. But this one is still really good!

Fire & Blood is filled with fascinating characters, rich conflicts, and ample imagination. Though written as a history, it’s certainly not boring. What’s more, this book seems to drop hints here and there for what we might expect in the remaining stories of the main series.

Please don’t underrate this book. If you enjoy A Song of Ice and Fire, you’ll enjoy this, too.

Any I Missed?

That’s my list. These books are awesome and I wish they got more love. What are some that you’d like to see more of? Let me know in the comments!

Sideburns

May 4, 2020 / Kyle A. Massa

Ray Manzarek (and his sideburns)

A video version of this post is available here.

About the most rebellious thing I did in my teenage years was grow out my sideburns like Ray Manzarek.

You might know Ray Manzarek as the keyboardist for The Doors. You might know The Doors as the psychedelic rock group that did “Break on Through (To the Other Side),” or “Light My Fire,” or “The End,” or any number of other rock radio staples.

I discovered the man and the group because of the music they made. But on a purely cosmetic level, I really admired Ray Manzarek’s sideburns.

Refer to the picture above. Ray’s sideburns were long and thick and perfectly symmetrical. To me, they were an almost artistic continuation of hair down to the upper jawline. It’s easy to grow out a beard or a mustache, but sideburns are different; they require a certain finesse, a certain style to pull off.

Being a dopey 16-year-old, I went ahead and assumed I had the requisite finesse and style. So I let my sideburns grow. And grow. And grow some more. Actually, maybe “mutate” is a better word for what they did.

My Manzarek-inspired sideburns developed a texture similar to bristles on a brush. I feared that if I trimmed them I’d ruin them, so they exploded not only downward, but outward, to the point that they protruded from either side of my head, sort of like wings.

I’d show you a picture, only I feel like that would be like a horror director revealing the monster in the very first scene. What you come up with in your mind is always more frightening, anyway. Suffice it to say that my sideburns really didn’t look very good.

That fact, however, wasn’t especially important to me. What was important was that no one else at school looked like me, and I didn’t look like anyone else. I’d basically joined a party that had ended four decades prior, but whatever.

I think pretty much every American high school kid goes through this phase at some point in adolescence, this phase where we copy a behavior or a trend that seems unique, even though we’re making it less so by copying it. Only for my phase, I copied an anachronistic (and kind of gross) hairstyle.

I remember re-watching an old video of myself playing basketball during the Manzarek Sideburn Era, one that my dad had filmed. He’s talking with my cousin in the background, and my cousin asks where I am on the court. My dad says something like, “The floppy hair and the sideburns.” There’s a pause, and then my cousin says something like, “That’s an interesting look.” And then nobody says anything.

The sideburns died sometime during my junior year. My mom politely handed me an electric razor and encouraged me to at least trim the sideburns if I wanted to keep them.

Instead, I shaved them. The magic of the sideburns had dissipated. Besides, I’d been getting enough grief from my friends.

It’s funny how important those sideburns were for the short time I had them. The allure of facial hair to a teenage kid is something like tattoos to college students; it’s a form of self expression that goes beyond others because it’s right there on your skin, out where everyone can see it.

I still have sideburns, though now I trim them and they’re even with my eyes. I’ve attempted other hairstyles imitating other musicians; when I discovered Iron Maiden, for example, I very seriously wanted to grow my hair past my shoulders, a la Bruce Dickinson. It always grew outward but never downward, so eventually I gave up.

These days, I get a clean cut every few months. Sometimes I apply a little pomade to the front, but I’m afraid I’m getting too old for that look. That’s alright. A lesson I learned in high school: my hair is probably not my best medium of self expression. That’s what my crappy classic rock band t-shirts are for.

Maybe someday my Manzarek sideburns will return, perhaps if I’m forced into the witness protection program for some reason. But for now, I’ll stick with the hair I have. It’s a lot less itchy.

Kyle A. Massa is the author of the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks and the forthcoming short story collection Monsters at Dusk. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. He lives somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats.

Unusual Narrative Styles in Fiction

April 20, 2020 / Kyle A. Massa

Writer

Mark Twain once said, “I like a good story well told.”

We’re with you there, Mark. Whether that story comes in the form of a book, a news article, or over a drink with a friend after work, stories are pretty much universal. It’s the “well told” part of this statement that interests me most, though. What exactly does that mean? Regarding fiction, is there an optimal way to tell a story well? I think not.

Linear, cause-and-effect narratives are fine. Third-person omniscient narration is cool. And the Hero’s Journey works. But when you find a story told in a weird, out-there sort of way, it can really make things feel fresh.

What am I talking about here? I’m talking about present tense. I’m talking about all-dialogue. I’m talking about non-linear narratives. Let me give you a few examples.

The Shining Girls

I just got finished reading The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. It’s about a woman who survives a brutal attack by a time-traveling serial killer, and then devotes the rest of her life to stopping him. Not one for the kiddies.

It’s not the typical cut and dry, one-scene-into-the-next thriller. First thing: it’s written in the present tense, which is atypical for genre fiction. Present tense works perfectly with this story, though, because it gives everything a sense of immediacy. It’s as if the events of the novel are unfolding before us in real time, sort of like a news story (Beukes was a freelance reporter for a while, by the way).

Furthermore, present tense works best with quick sentences and short chapters, which we see much of in The Shining Girls. Beukes writes her chapters in quick hits, like jabs to the mouth. We zoom in on one character, end on a resounding note, then move on to the next. An economical yet powerful approach.

Could Beukes achieve the same effect using traditional narrative styles? Maybe, but I don’t think it would’ve been quite as effective. There’s no distance to the events with present tense—it’s happening instead of having already happened.

Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

Another weird narrative comes in David Eggers’s Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? The plot: an unremarkable man kidnaps an astronaut in order to ask said astronaut many existential questions.

…That probably already sounds weird. It gets weirder.

Eggers’s book is written entirely as dialogue. It’s sort of like a stage play in that sense, only without even so much as stage direction. Like in The Shining Girls, this makes things move quickly. Though it’s a roughly 200-page book (which isn’t super long to begin with), it reads as though it’s half that length.

The best part about this all-dialogue style is the way it puts the characters’ voices right in your ear. After a while, you can imagine distinct accents and inflections for each of them. Furthermore, the dialogue takes on a special weight, because without a description to back it up, every line must do more to advance the story. In addition, the dialogue must also perform such mundane actions as orienting the reader in the space, a function usually performed by description.

Slaughterhouse-Five

The last weird narrative style I’d like to discuss is that of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Perhaps the weirdest of the three, Slaughterhouse centers on the life of Billy Pilgrim, a WWII veteran who’s trying to adjust to postwar life. Which is tough when you’ve become “unstuck in time” and subsequently cycle through different moments of your life.

Billy jumps from moment to moment, from the war to troubled times at home to an alien planet, all of them years apart. The narrative cuts between all these times and settings in an unpredictable pattern—definitely not the style of most books.

But the genius here is that we become disoriented, just like Billy. If the story was told in a normal, linear manner, we’d know exactly when we are in time, i.e. the events on page 100 are happening after those on page 50. As written, though, we’re just as unstuck in time as Billy. It’s an effect that couldn’t be achieved otherwise.

So What’s the Best?

So what makes a good story well told? Like any good question, there’s no single answer. It might be a classic structure, or it might be something unusual. Whatever the structure, it’s not just what happens that makes a story great—it’s the way in which it happens.

Kyle A. Massa is a speculative fiction author living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats. He has written two books and numerous short stories, both published and yet-to-be published. He enjoys unusual narrative structures, multiple POVs, and stories about cats.

Two Pitchers

April 6, 2020 / Kyle A. Massa

Author’s Note: A video version of this post is also available here.

Nature’s Classroom is a sleepaway camp somewhere in New York State. As a fun excursion, sixth-grade students from Goff Middle School took an annual trip there to learn about conservation, wildlife, active living, and how to make convincing fart sounds while people were trying to sleep.

Nature’s Classroom was my first extended absence from home. I’d never spent an entire week without my parents, my sister, my dog Daisy, or my Game Boy Advance. It was a rough time for me. I remember being stressed and nervous and uncomfortable.

They had many rules at Nature’s Classroom. Don’t waste food, always consider your biological footprint, don’t jab each other in the stomach as a show of adolescent dominance (yes, we really did this before going to bed; we called it “Poke Wars”). Most often, we were lectured about proper nutritional habits. For example, the dangers of soda.

Now I’d be fine without soda. It’s not like I poured Fanta over my cereal or gargled with Moxie. I’m not Buddy the Elf or anything. But once in a while, soda was a special treat my parents allowed me to indulge. For instance, at a bowling alley birthday party one year, I remember informing them that my friends and I were “drunk on Sprite.” So yeah. I was a fan of soda.

That fandom didn’t go over well at Nature’s Classroom. One counselor, a dreadlocked, khaki shorts-sporting dude—we’ll call him Alfonso—preached the dangers of the beverage.

“Soda makes you fat,” he said, using the same grave tone Obi-Wan chose when describing how Anakin killed those younglings. “Soda gives you cavities. Soda hooks you with bright colors and carbonated fizz. But soda’s got zero nutritional value.”

Okay, I thought. Can I have some soda now?

The answer, tragically, was no. They did not serve soda at Nature’s Classroom, nor did they offer anything with even trace amounts of sugar in it. Our only options were water, milk, and some murky brown substance they claimed was unsweetened iced tea.

Yet on the last day of this week-long ordeal, Alfonso and his cohorts relented.

“You guys have been awesome,” he announced. “Like, a super group. So as a thank you, we wanted to give y’all something special…”

I gripped the lunch table. My eyes went wide. Soda, I thought. Say soda!

“Lemonade! We’ve got lemonade for everyone!”

Maybe not the gift I’d wished for, but I didn’t want to be rude. And as far as I was aware, the sugar content of the two beverages were pretty much the same. It would do.

“There’s a catch, though,” Alfonso added, lifting a soil-stained finger. “Your table has to finish your water pitcher before you get your lemonade, okay? Water, then lemonade.”

That was another Nature’s Classroom thing. You had to share a pitcher of water amongst the seven other poor saps at the table. I’m not sure what the lesson was there, except learning to hate the kids who poured too slowly.

Alright Alfonso, I thought as I downed my first glass. I’ll play your game, you sick bastard.

I felt a little like Gollum must’ve felt around the Ring. The only thing standing between me and my precious: This stupid pitcher of boring water.

Frustratingly, nobody at the table took more than a cup. They were busy reminiscing about all the fun times they shared the past few days, about how happy they were to see their families again.

Didn’t you people hear what Alfonso just said!? I wanted to scream at them. Lemonade! We can have lemonade! Look, I know it’s not root beer, but come on. Help me out, here!

Nobody did. So I put the team on my back. I felt like Jordan in the fourth quarter of the ‘98 Finals, Game Six. I must’ve slammed at least that many glasses of water, if not more.

Then came my reward. Alfonso nodded approvingly, then returned with a pitcher of golden lemonade. And I thought, You know what? I worked hard for this. No. I earned this. I deserve as much lemonade as I want.

I didn’t even bother sharing with my ungrateful tablemates. From that pitcher, I’d estimate I drank a good 75, 80 percent.

“Okay,” said Mr. B., my sixth grade science teacher. “Get on the bus, people. We’re going home.”

I think I made it 30 minutes before the pain set it.

You know that scene in Alien when the creature bursts out of John Hurt’s chest? That’s what my groin area felt like. I expressed my growing discomfort to my friends, Jimmy and Jeremy. They’re still two of my best friends to this day—though after recalling this story, I have to wonder why.

I was looking for some encouraging words from my pals, you know? Maybe a, “Hey, you’ll be alright!” or a, “Don’t worry, your bladder won’t be totally ruined.” Instead, they pointed out every rushing body of water we passed, whether real or imaginary.

“Did you see that garden hose over there?” Jimmy asked, tapping on the window. “I think it was trickling.”

“That’s not what I heard,” Jeremy countered from across the aisle. “I heard it was, like, gushing. Just spraying everywhere.”

This was not helping. With about two hours to go, I removed my seatbelt—despite what my parents would advise—to relieve the pressure on my abdomen. I also hunkered down in the seat and covered my face, and maybe cried a little.

At this point, one of the chaperones said, “You guys better lay off that kid. He looks like he’s gonna pee his pants.” An astute observation.

At about the halfway mark, I turned to Mr. B. and pleaded, “Mr. B. Can we please stop the bus? I really, really need to go to the bathroom.”

To which the merciless Mr. B. snapped, “Nope. We are not stopping.” Evidently, he hadn’t had as much fun at Nature’s Classroom as the kids.

So that left me with two options. Option A: Endure the pain and try my best to ignore Jim and Jer’s aquatic quips. Or, Option B: Release, and be forever known as that kid who peed his pants somewhere along I-90.

I wasn’t a stellar test taker, but even I knew the answer to that one. So I gritted my teeth, squeezed my crotch, and reminded myself, There’s no place like home. Or better yet, a bathroom.

Miraculously, I arrived at the Goff parking lot with mostly dry Levi’s (there might’ve been a few dribbles). There awaited everyone’s parents and siblings to greet us. They stood on the sidewalk, waving and smiling and pointing and waving some more. Finally, after so long apart, we could all go home together.

Not now, family.

Before the bus even stopped, I was ramming fellow classmates aside. I had no choice, really; I was near the back and I couldn’t afford to be polite. When I reached the front, I leapt off the steps and ran not toward, but away from my family. It hurt to do it, but it hurt more to hold in all that lemonade.

For the record, I did make it to the bathroom before the floodgates opened. I stood at the urinal for oh, 15 minutes, give or take. Still the most relieving bathroom break I’ve ever taken.

Announcing the Sequel to “Gerald Barkley Rocks”

April 1, 2020 / Kyle A. Massa

The Two Towers.

The Godfather: Part II.

The Dark Knight.

Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles.

These are some of the greatest sequels of all time. What makes them so great? They take risks. They build on their original premises in inventive and radical ways. They evolve established characters into new, more mature people. What they rarely do, however, is switch genre.

But I’m not even talking about story genre. Today, I’m talking about musical genre.

The first book I ever published is called Gerald Barkley Rocks. As the title implies, it’s a novel about rock music. Sex, drugs, guitars, cats—you get the idea. I collected all my observations about rock & roll, both the good and the bad, and synthesized them into this book.

So when I sat down to write the sequel, I didn’t have much material to draw from. I’d said all I wanted to say about rock music. Then, I made a breakthrough. I needed a new genre. So I came up with…

Cover originally designed by Nathan Rumsey, redesigned here by the author

Though written and set in 2018, Gerald Barkley Rocks is very much about the past. Gerald Barkley Raps is about the present (aside from all the coronavirus stuff). For those interested, here’s a brief synopsis:

After attending a rousing Kanye West concert in Orlando, Florida, retired L.A. homicide detective Gerald Barkley has an epiphany: He should become a rapper. Sure, he might be 70 years old, musically talentless, and roughly as charismatic as a bag of flour. None of that will stop Barkley from battling the haters on his journey to the top.

Thus begins an epic quest of self-discovery, autotuned choruses, and fresh beats. Old favorites from the previous book return, including bestselling author Carmen Fowler (now Barkley’s publicist), Detective Steven Nicks (now Barkley’s wardrobe stylist), and Barkley’s daughter Janine (a skeptic to her father’s transformation and therefore the sole voice of reason). A certain black cat even returns to help Barkley devise rhymes to tough words like “waterlogged.”

One part fantasy adventure, one part surrealistic romp, and one part cautionary tale, Gerald Barkley Raps might just change your perceptions of what’s possible—or even advisable. Rock might be dead, but rap is living it up.

Gerald Barkley Raps goes on sale soon in hardcover and audiobook. The latter version contains original recordings and performances of all songs, all made by the author. Hope you don’t mind songs produced on Windows Media Player!

My Pitch for an “X-Files” Episode

March 23, 2020 / Kyle A. Massa

Author’s Note: A video version of this post is also available here.

There was a time when random people could write X-Files episodes. There was also a time when The X-Files was still on the air. Neither of those times are now.

Okay, I’m kidding with the first claim. You at least had to write a spec script good enough to grab the attention of the people making the show. You then had to pitch it to them, endure some rewrites, and then maybe, just maybe, your script would appear on Fox on Friday evenings.

Anywho, I won’t write a spec script, even though The X-Files is my favorite show of all time. I abandoned screenwriting once I completed my college studies in it six years ago (plus, I’ve since lost the requisite software). Instead, I’ll pitch my X-Files story to you, kind reader, just for funzies.

I claim no ownership over Mulder, Scully, or the show itself. They’re the intellectual property of Chris Carter (the show’s creator), the Fox network, and whomever else. Consider this some harmless fan fiction.

An Overview of The X-Files

For those who’ve seen the show, feel free to skip ahead. For those who haven’t, The X-Files is a TV show that premiered on Fox on September 10, 1993. It’s a show about two FBI agents: Fox Mulder (played by real-life sex addict David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (played by secret British person Gillian Anderson). Each week, Mulder and Scully investigate cases with strong elements of the paranormal, ranging from alien abductions to flukeworm-human hybrids to murderous swarms of cats (I’m not making that last one up). Mulder believes in the paranormal ever since witnessing his sister’s abduction by aliens. Scully is a scientist, and she therefore applies logic and reason to their investigations. This conflict forms the foundation of most episodes.

Also, Mulder loves sunflower seeds. That’ll come up in this episode.

And Now, My Pitch

The name of my episode is “Bag of Peanuts.” The story goes like this…

Cold Open

Five guys (late 20s, early 30s) teeter down a deserted stretch of beach at night. A few carry beer bottles, one has a cooler, and one tosses a football to another. The subtitle tells us we’re in Secluded Glen, Massachusetts (though their accents should tell us that, too).

“I can’t believe he did this to us, Mahk,” says one guy. He’s wearing a number 12 New England Patriots jersey. “Twenty years in Fahxborough and now he’s leavin’ us for Flahrida. It’s a freakin’ disastah.”

Mark receives the pass, tosses it back to the guy in the jersey. “I know, bro, I know. It’s sad. There’s no more loyalty in sports, you know? Players just hop around from city to city. It’s like they’re—I dunno. Like they’re tourists.” Mark sniffs. “You guys smell that?”

“Yeah. You faht or somethin’?”

They share a chuckle. Mark goes deep for a pass, then trips over something on the shore. Something gooey.

“Think I found what smells,” he says.

There’s a huge mass of…something…washed up on the beach. Hard to guess, but it appears to be globs of random organic, aquatic mass that’s been squished together. Bits of an octopus here, part of a jellyfish there. One of our guys eloquently describes it as, “A whole hunka crap.”

Mark and the others lean closer to it. Too close.

Suddenly, a tentacle reaches out of the mass and snags Mark around the neck. There’s a momentary struggle, then the entire mass rolls back into the ocean and vanishes, like it was never there.

That leaves four guys on shore. “Mahk!” shouts the guy in the Pats jersey. “Mahk? Where are ya, Mahk!?”

Cut to…

Credits

(Even if you haven’t seen the show, you probably know the intro music.) Now for the episode.

Act One, Scene One

Special Agent Fox Mulder sits on a crowded beach wearing sunglasses, a waterproof pouch, and, for some reason, a red speedo. Unlike the other beachgoers, he’s not reading a book or going for a swim. He’s simply peering out at the horizon. Every once in a while, he pops a cashew into his mouth, then grimaces. A siren whines on the main road behind the beach.

Mulder’s phone rings. He wipes sand from the screen, then answers. “I’m already sunburned, Scully.”

“Well hello to you, too.” Special Agent Dana Scully is on the other end, calling from the FBI office. “Sounds like you’re having a fun vacation.”

Mulder sighs. “Hello Scully. About as much fun as one can have at a public beach.” A dog bounds out of the water with a frisbee in its mouth, then shakes itself dry—right next to Mulder. “I can barely contain my excitement.”

“Maybe you just need a few days to unwind.” Scully tries. “To get your mind off work.”

“My mind’s always on work.” A volleyball lands mere inches from Mulder’s beach chair, making him jump. “For instance, if I stood up and sang David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ loud enough, do you think aliens might come and take me away from all this?”

“Only one way to find out.”

Mulder grumbles. “They don’t even have sunflower seeds.”

“Who doesn’t? The aliens?”

“Secluded Glen. This town. The convenience store clerk said the tourists must’ve bought them all. So instead I got…” He gives the package an icy glare. “Cashews.”

“It could be worse, Mulder. You could be down here doing expense reports with me.”

Another siren whines on the road. “You know, Scully, my family used to come to this town every summer when I was a kid. Only took a couple hours to drive here from Martha’s Vineyard. Back then the beaches were empty and the roads were clear. The sunflower seeds were plentiful. My sister and I would bury each other in the sand. One time we even nursed a horseshoe crab back to health.”

“You what?”

“But now Secluded Glen’s been taken over by…” He glowers at the people around him.

“Tourists?” Scully finishes.

“Exactly.”

“Mulder.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re a tourist.”

“I am not a tourist. I’m a…” More sirens wail. Mulder turns, watches a cop car zip down the road. He sees siren lights flashing down the beach. “Can I call you back, Scully? I think I might’ve found a way to unwind.”

“Sure. Go get yourself some sunscreen.”

They hang up. Still gazing at the lights, Mulder reaches for his bag. He feels around on the sand, finds nothing. He looks down. No bag.

Mulder peers up at the sky and sings softly. “Ground control to Major Tom…”

Scene Two

Mulder trudges up the beach wearing his sunglasses, the waterproof pouch, some water shoes, and of course, the speedo. He’s also clutching his cashews.

An older woman wearing aviator shades and a sheriff’s badge frowns at him. “The nude beach is a couple towns over,” she says.

Mulder reaches into the waterproof pouch and shows her his ID. “Special Agent Fox Mulder. FBI.”

“Jean Sitwell, County Sheriff. Is it Dress Down Day at the Bureau today, Agent Mulder?”

“I’m on vacation,” Mulder counters. “And someone took my beach bag. Anyway, I thought I might lend a hand over here. Seems like you’re busy.”

Sitwell flips open a notepad. “Missing persons case. Mark Starr, age 30, Caucasian, brown eyes, brown hair, last seen with four friends on this beach. They were celebrating a bachelor party, and Mark was the best man. They get drunk, walk down to the beach, something pulls Mark in, his friends call us.”

“Wait.” We can see the excitement on Mulder’s face. “Something pulled him in?”

“Let me remind you, Agent Mulder, that this was a bachelor party. All four witnesses were—and probably still are—very drunk.”

“What exactly did they see?”

Sitwell sighs, then reads off her notepad. “They think they saw a large mass of dead fish…or octopuses, or jellyfish, or maybe all three. They said it smelled terrible and looked like a dead carcass.”

“A globster,” says Mulder.

“A what?”

“A globster. It’s the commonly accepted term for an abnormal phenomenon describing mysterious, unidentifiable carcasses that wash ashore from the ocean. The St. Augustine Monster, the Stronsay Beast, the Montauk Monster, the Chilean Blob. Scientists often dismiss them as misidentified corpses of basking sharks or manatees or other known marine life.”

“And your point is?”

“My point is, this is the first globster in history that’s attacked someone. You’d better close the beach, sheriff.”

Sitwell snorts a humorless laugh. “And what? Put out an APB for a lobster?”

“Globster.”

“All due respect Agent Mulder, but you’re sounding like a crazy person right now. Those boys were drunker than skunks last night. It’s a sad thing, but Mark probably fell in and the other four couldn’t save him. Now you wanna inspect the scene, that’s just fine. You wanna talk to them, go right ahead. The groom’s name is Norm Sherman—I’ll even give you his number. But close the beach and go hunting for a clump of seaweed? No sir. We’re not doing that.”

Mulder sighs. He peers down at the package in his hand. He offers it to Sheriff Sitwell. “Cashew?”

Scene Three

Scully clicks away at her computer, looking dreadfully bored. Her phone rings and she answers it. “That was fast.”

“I’ve got a piece of globster for you.” We switch back to Mulder and see him peering into his waterproof pouch. There’s a gooey, jelly-like substance inside, with bits of dead stuff floating in it.

“You got me a lobster?”

“Globster. Possibly a homicidal globster. I could use your help if you’re up for it.”

“Does this mean your vacation’s over?”

“Actually, this is turning into the best vacation I’ve ever had.”

Scully smiles. “I’ll be on the next flight to Boston.” She hangs up.

Scene Four

Mulder gets into his car and drives away. The cops have already gone. And yet we remain on the beach. The camera inspects the beachgoers: people playing volleyball, little kids building sandcastles, people tanning. We drift out to the water.

A woman floats on her back, whistling, having a grand old time. Then she jerks upright. “What was…?”

She looks down and sees a massive shape float beneath her. She screams and swims madly toward land.

This inspires other nearby swimmers to do the same. One of them, a young kid, sees the shape and draws his own conclusion.

“Shahk! Shahk!”

Now there’s complete chaos on the beach. People running and shrieking everywhere. Meanwhile, nobody seems to notice a big conglomerate mass of decomposing tissue wash up on the shore. No one except a dude wearing swim trunks, a “Secluded Glen, est. 1901” shirt , and a visor.

“It’s dead!” he shouts. “Yo, people! Calm down, alright? Whatever it is, it’s dead!” He notices something on the side of the mass and gasps.

It looks like a stretched out human face, oozing and juicy but still identifiable. Viewers will recognize it as Mark’s face. (Gross!)

The dude recoils, but too late. Tentacles reach out from within the glob and pull him in. Then the entire mass rolls back into the waves.

The dude’s visor sinks into the sand.

(Here’s where the commercials come in. Ads for Charmin or something.)

Act Two, Scene One

Mulder (now wearing a pastel Hawaiian shirt, khakis, and flip flops) meets Norm Sherman a hotel bar.

“You don’t look like an FBI agent,” Norm remarks.

“If I’d known I’d be working a case on my vacation, I would’ve brought a tie.”

“Oh. So you’re a tourist.”

“I’m not, I…” Mulder sighs. He turns his attention to the bartender. “Miss, do you have any sunflower seeds?”

“Nope. Almonds, though. Want those?”

Mulder eats a couple throughout the scene. He looks pained while doing it.

Norm recounts the encounter to Mulder, noting that the creature didn’t seem to care about any of the five guys except Mark.

“What do you think it wanted with him?” Mulder asks. “What made him different from everyone else?”

Norm throws out a few possibilities: Mark was the only one in grad school, the only one who spoke another language, the only one who’d been to Canada. Finally, with a great deal of uncertainty, he concludes, “Mahk was the only one who didn’t grow up in the Glen, I guess. The rest are from around heah.”

Mulder thanks Norm for his time, pays his tab, and departs. He does not take any almonds.

Scene Two

On his way back to his car, Mulder checks his phone, sees a missed call from a Massachusetts area code. He calls back, gets Sheriff Sitwell.

“Agent Mulder, I’ve been trying to reach you. You’d best get your ass back to the beach. There’s been another one.”

Scene Three

Meanwhile, Scully’s plane touches down in Boston. She gets a rental car, drives. Eventually, she passes a sign for Secluded Glen.

She arrives at the local lab, flashes her ID, enters. Now to inspect the substance Mulder collected at the scene.

Scully sets the specimen on a slab and starts a recording. Then she turns to grab some instruments. “Current time is 1:05 pm, eastern standard. Beginning initial examination of apparently dead tissue, what Agent Mulder has dubbed a…”

She turns back to the exam table. It’s empty.

“…Globster.”

Scully inspects the room. The specimen is inching across the floor, sort of like a worm. She goes to pick it up and it bites her finger. She then traps it beneath a container.

“Still better than expense reports,” she says to the glob.

Scene Four

Mulder arrives back at the now-vacant beach. Sheriff Sitwell awaits with some forensic investigators.

“Looks like a shark attack,” Sitwell announces. “Some kid screamed about it, some woman saw it come near the shore. Big one, must be, but ’tis the season.”

Mulder points out that a shark couldn’t have gotten this far ashore, especially during low tide, unless it beached itself.

Sitwell doesn’t look pleased. She hands Mulder the visor. “Still collecting evidence, but we’re pretty sure it belonged to the vic.”

Mulder stares at the hat. It reads “Secluded Glen” across the top. “Only one type of person would wear this thing. This man was a tourist.”

Sitwell gives him a look. “Probably. Most people in town right now are. They come in from wherever, take over the beach, then leave when it gets cold.”

“Hmm…” Mulder gets a call. He picks up and…

“Mulder, it’s me. You know that dead tissue sample you collected? It wasn’t quite dead after all.” She describes how it inched away, then bit her.

“Sounds like homicidal Flubber,” Mulder remarks.

Ignoring that quip, Scully continues. “They don’t have the most sophisticated equipment here, but I got enough to run some DNA tests. This sample contains traces of squid, turtle, crab, jellyfish, several types of fish, and…you’re gonna love this part.”

“If you say ‘alien’ I might faint.”

“Human, Mulder. This thing has human DNA.”

Here Mulder pauses. “Well, if it ate Mark Starr then that must be his DNA.”

“One step ahead of you. I cross checked the DNA with Starr’s and got a negative. Then I checked it with the FBI database, and this time I got a hit. One Ronald Preston Botley. He’s some sort of crack genius biologist who’s done contract work with the government on and off for the last decade. He owns a private biological startup called BioArt, headquartered right here in Secluded Glen.”

Mulder nods. “How soon can you meet me at BioArt HQ?”

Act Three, Scene One

Mulder and Scully arrive at Ronald P. Botley’s company headquarters. When Scully sees what Mulder’s wearing, she can’t suppress a laugh.

“What? Pastels are in right now.”

As they walk, Mulder asks, “Do you have any sunflower seeds? I’ve been craving them all week and I still can’t find any.”

Scully checks her pockets, finds a package of peanuts. “It’s all I’ve got.”

Mulder eats some, still not looking too happy.

BioArt’s offices are somewhere between startup and hippie commune. Long-haired twenty-somethings (mostly men, mostly white) ride by on skateboards. Several kinds of beer are on tap (Mulder jokes about having one, and Scully agrees she might need one after this case). Classical music plays over hidden speakers. There’s a library, a garden, and a chef waiting to take salad orders. Also, no cubicles—totally open floor plan.

They’re greeted by Botley himself, founder and CEO of BioArt. Picture Mark Zuckerberg cosplaying as a young Jerry Garcia.

Botley shows them around the space, even points out a few biological breakthroughs they’ve made, such as a species of fish bioengineered to breath out of water.

Mulder hits Botley with some questions:

“How secure are the subjects in this facility?”
“Where were you born?”
“Want a peanut?”

To which Botley answers:

“Very. We’ve got state-of-the-art miniature environments, each with its own security team. Nothing can escape.”
“Right here in Secluded Glen. Why do you ask?”
“No thank you, Agent Mulder. I’m extremely allergic to peanuts.”

Mulder shrugs. “Being a local, you must not like the tourists, huh?”

“Oh certainly. Tourists, no matter where they’re from, they’re all the same. They swarm the beaches, they take over the shops, they fill up the ferries. Do you realize how much longer my morning commute takes in the summer because of them? If they could all just leave and never come back, well…I’d be a happy camper.”

“How frustrating,” Scully says flatly. “Last question. Can you explain how your DNA appeared at the scene of a murder last night?”

Botley appears baffled, asks for the exact date and time. Botley immediately asserts that he was in the building working late. He cites a few employees who can verify it, plus some custodial workers. He even suggests checking the security footage of the building for additional verification.

“Thanks for your time,” says Scully.

Scene Two

As Mulder and Scully exit BioArt, Mulder proposes his patented whacko theory.

“Just bear with me for a second here, Scully. What if this facility is the globster’s birthplace? And what if Ronald Botley is its father? They said themselves they tinker with genetics on all sorts of marine life. What if they created a conglomerate species?”

Scully, as always, acts as the voice of reason. “We still can’t be sure this is anything but a shark, Mulder. The witnesses at the first attack were all traumatized and scared and inebriated—not necessarily in that order—and at least one witness at the second attack reported seeing a shark.”

“Then how do you explain the glob that attacked you? How do you explain Flubber?”

Scully doesn’t have an answer for that one, so Mulder continues.

“I think Ronald Botley imbued this creature with his DNA, maybe as some sort of experiment. And not only did it get that—the creature also inherited his disdain for tourists.”

“Mulder. Are you seriously proposing that our prime suspect is a rolling ball of goo that washes up on random beaches just to eat…tourists?”

“Think about it, Scully. It attacked Mark Starr, the only non-local among a group of four other perfectly viable targets. And then it devoured another tourist when it could’ve attacked anyone else on that beach. It even went after you in the lab, probably because you’re not from around here.”

“Let’s say you’re right, Mulder. Let’s say this thing is only going after tourists. How do we catch it? It’s July in a beach town. Thousands of tourists are rolling in here every day for the rest of the summer.”

“Like any good fisherman, Scully. With bait.”

Act Four, Scene One

With night descending, Mulder and Scully head for the beach. Mulder theorizes that so long as a non-local is in or near the water, they have a fair shot of being attacked.

“But you’re immune,” Scully reasons. “You’re from Martha’s Vineyard.”

“Hey. Martha’s Vineyard is not Secluded Glen. Totally different.” He removes his flip flops and steps into the water. Scully does the same.

“Scully, I’m not gonna ask you to risk your life for this case.”

“You don’t have to.”

So they stand there in the water up to their knees, waiting. To pass the time, Mulder asks, “Did you go on vacations as a kid?”

“A handful,” Scully says. “But my father’s military career made everything feel like a vacation. We’d stay in places months at a time, sometimes a couple years. Inevitably, though, he’d get the call and we’d be off to elsewhere.”

“Sounds difficult.”

“Actually, it was kind of fun.” Scully peers out at the sunset beyond. “We still had our family. Still had each other. Visiting new places every few months wasn’t so bad. Not when I liked who I was traveling with.”

“And now you’re stuck with me.”

“Mulder,” she says, “you’re my favorite tourist.”

“I’m not…” Mulder gazes at the horizon. “Likewise.”

Something splashes in the water. Both agents draw their guns and…

It’s just a seal. Maybe the bait idea isn’t right. Just then, Mulder gets a call from Sheriff Sitwell. She just got a call from someone who claims a giant carcass washed up on the beach.

“Don’t let anyone near it,” says Mulder. “We’re on our way.”

Scene Two

The agents arrive at the new location. They find Sheriff Sitwell, local law enforcement, and a bunch of people they don’t know. They’re all gathered around a bulky carcass. Everyone’s covering their noses.

“Stay back,” Scully warns. “Federal agents. Everybody keep your distance.”

“Look,” somebody says, “it’s got faces on it.”

Indeed, we see the tourist dude’s face plastered on the side, along with Mark’s deteriorating face elsewhere.

“By show of hands,” Mulder says, facing the crowd. “Who here lives in Secluded Glen?”

All but one person raises their hands. Mulder points at the odd one out. “You. Go home. In fact, I need everybody off this beach, pronto.”

One tourist steps forward. “Sheriff, why do we have to listen to this guy? He’s wearing socks with sandals, for God’s sake.”

“I can explain that,” Mulder says, but the Sheriff steps in first.

“Everybody stand back,” Sitwell commands. “Go on. The beach is closed. Get moving.” She escorts the people off the beach.

When they’re all gone, Mulder turns back to the globster. “Now how do we arrest this thing?”

“We need a cleanup crew out here,” Scully says. “Maybe the New England Region EPA office can get someone.” She calls. And the Globster stirs.

“I don’t think it wants that, Scully.”

The faces on the Globster stretch and twist. The entity seems to grow. A tentacle wiggles out from beneath the slime, then another.

“Run!” Mulder roars.

Together, he and Scully take off at a sprint. And not a moment too soon, because the globster starts rolling. Fast.

“We need to keep it away from the water!” Mulder calls. “We can’t lose it again!”

They veer left, now going the opposite direction of the water. However, that now points them toward the parking lot, and beyond that, the town.

“But we can’t lead it toward more people!” Scully calls back. She hooks another left, and now they’re running parallel to the water again. “How do we stop it?”

“I don’t know!” Mulder tries shooting it a couple times, but shooting while running is tough work. Even when he does finally hit, the glob keeps rolling, kicking up sand in its wake.

A pair of figures appear in the dark ahead of them: two teenagers making out on the beach. Scully screams at them to get the hell out of there, but they just stare dumbly. She and Mulder make a wide circle around them, and fortunately, the globster rolls right past.

“Was that a bouldah?” the girl asks.

“Mustah been,” the guy agrees.

The agents run on, the globster still following. It’s now leaving bits of itself along the beach as it goes, tips of tentacles, fish scales, jelly goo. They come to an outcropping of rocks and dash past a sign that reads Please do not climb the rocks. They climb the rocks.

“Mulder,” Scully pants, “if this thing has Botley’s DNA…”

“Yeah.”

“…And it hates tourists as much as he does…”

“Right.”

“…Then maybe it shares other traits with him as well.”

“Like what?” The agents haul themselves atop the rocks, and not a moment too soon: one of the globster’s tentacles reaches for them and nearly grabs hold. They sprint down the other side, the glob still pursuing them.

“Immunodeficiencies. Mulder, Botley’s allergic to peanuts.”

Mulder checks his pockets as they run. “I threw them out. Couldn’t stand the texture!”

Scully scans the beach, then points. “There!” We discern a faint outline in the darkening distance: a box-shaped little building with a sign reading “The Snack Shack.” The agents run to it.

Scully gets there first, tries the handle. Locked. “Keep it busy!” She slams her shoulder against the door, trying desperately to break it down.

As the globster draws near, Mulder waves his arms. “Hey! Where’s the nearest gas station? You have any dinner recommendations? I’m here with my wife and our seven kids—what’s a good family-friendly excursion?”

The globster takes the bait. It now comes at Mulder, and he runs. “I’m cramping up, Scully. Hurry!”

Scully finally busts down the door of the Snack Shack. She flips on a flashlight, rummages through endless supplies of junk food. Twizzlers, Doritos, Lays Chips, Skittles, Milky Ways…

“Where the hell are the damn peanuts!?”

She trips over something bulky, curses. Then she gets the light on it.

A bag of peanuts. Industrial sized.

Outside, Mulder’s now running in circles, trying to keep the creature in the same vicinity as the Snack Shack. He’s slowing, though, and we see the creature gaining on him. Finally, it whips a tentacle out and trips him. Mulder tries to crawl away, but the tentacle snares him around the ankle and drags him across the sand.

“Scully! Scully!”

She emerges from the shack lugging a massive bag of peanuts. As the globster draws Mulder closer, Scully sprints forward and dumps the peanuts all over it.

The globster freezes. We watch as the peanuts sink into its gooey flesh. The tentacle goes limp, and for a moment, there’s silence—or would be, if not for the lapping of the waves and the heavy breathing of the agents.

“Is it—?”

The globster explodes.

Bits of dead marine matter rain down from above. When the sand settles, we find Scully and Mulder standing there, covered in fish guts. Mulder wipes some from his face.

“I’ll have the seafood stew,” he says.

Dissolve cut to…

Scene Three

It’s sunrise, and a cleanup crew has arrived—though not from the EPA. Their hazmat suits have BioArt logos on them. Sure enough, Ronald P. Botley is among them, too. He stands in the parking lot on the edge of the beach, leaning on his sports car, watching from afar.

Scully and Mulder approach him. They’re both still covered in fish guts.

“You can’t hide the truth,” Mulder says to Botley. “This was a test, wasn’t it? Is this some new biological weapon, or did you just want to see what would happen when you crammed too many organisms together?”

Botley pats Mulder on the shoulder, which makes a squelching sound. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Agent Mulder.”

“Two men are dead because of you.”

Botley shrugs. “I heard it was a lone shark.”

“There were witnesses,” says Scully. “Many of them, here and at the other attacks. You can’t suppress their stories.”

Botley steps into his car, starts the engine. “They’re tourists. Who cares what they have to say, anyway?”

He drives away, leaving Mulder and Scully alone in the parking lot.

Scene Four

We watch a car zoom down the road. The agents. Scully drives, and Mulder rides in the passenger seat.

“Mulder,” says Scully, “I know this vacation didn’t work out quite as you wanted. So I got you something.”

“You shouldn’t have.” Mulder opens the gift. Inside, he finds a package of sunflower seeds.

Scully smiles at him. “They just restocked.”

Mulder thanks her, then tears open the bag and offers her some. Scully declines, so Mulder cracks a seed and eats it.

“Scully?”

“Yeah Mulder?”

“Can we come back again next year?”

They pass a sign reading Fresh Lobster! And they keep on driving.

Lessons From Cats

March 16, 2020 / Kyle A. Massa

Let’s talk about cats.

Cats are great. I didn’t fully understand this fact until my wife and I got cats of our own (pictured above), but it’s true. They’re fun, sometimes strange little animals, but we can learn a lot from them.

Let’s discuss the greatness and majesty of our feline friends, and how we might better emulate them.

Cats Are Forgiving

Our cats love to play, though I’ll admit, animal playing is more like wrestling, or sometimes fisticuffs. They beat each other up, they take naps, and when they wake up, they’re friends again. Until the next fight.

Takeaway: If you’ve got a problem with someone, let them know, and then get over it. No cat-style wrestling necessary. The nap is optional, but comes highly recommended.

Cats Are Friendly (Sometimes)

I used to think cats didn’t like people, but that’s not really true. Sure, some cats are like that. But most of the time they’re selective; they have people that they establish a rapport with over time, and then you’re buddies for life. You also get bonus points toward cat friendship if you happen to be the one supplying them with food every morning.

Takeaway: We don’t need to be selective, necessarily, but we should surround ourselves with people that make us happy. And if those people give us food, that’s cool, too.

Cats Find Joy in the Little Things

Soley, our orange cat, has a favorite toy. It’s a stick with a fuzzy bee on the end of it. That’s it. She doesn’t have a laptop computer and she doesn’t really care for cars. Aside from that app designed for cats, she doesn’t give a fig about my phone.

I’m not trying to be all “discard your earthly possessions, man.” I’m just saying we humans can take note. Sometimes it feels like we need big flashy things to be happy, but we really don’t. There are simple things in life, and we should cherish them, too.

Takeaway: Find your stick with a fuzzy bee on the end of it, and enjoy.

Cats Are Funny

Luna, our grey and black cat, likes to climb on my shoulders and purr in my ear. Soley enjoys walking up to us, meowing once, and then walking away. I’m not sure if they mean to be funny, but they are.

For humans, the lesson is clear: Let’s not forget the importance of laughter! There’s no better link between people (and animals) than a good loud laugh.

Takeaway: Laughter is universal, no matter what language you speak.

Cats Have Their Own International Holiday

Yes, there is such a thing as International Cat Day. Clearly, this day was established not by humans, but by cats themselves. There’s no International Human Day, which makes me think felines are a step ahead.

Takeaway: If you want to be more like a cat, establish your own international holiday. It can’t be that hard, right?

Hot Sauce and the Importance of Humor

March 3, 2020 / Kyle A. Massa

Hot Sauce

When I was in college, I made a movie for an introductory film course. It was not very good.

It was called 61 Days, and it was about a guy with a terminal illness. He’s been given the cliche timeline: just two months, sixty-one days, and then whappo. He croaks. So he decides to go on a cross-country adventure with his brother.

I must say, I packed an impressive amount of emo voiceover and sappy closeups into those five minutes. The best is the final shot: a slow-motion closeup on the main character’s Hallmark grin, one that seems to say, “It’s all gonna be alright.”

The final cut of 61 Days was screened in a theater in downtown Ithaca, New York, along with about forty others. Most were quite impressive. Most of us showed a lot of promise as filmmakers. But here’s what really struck me about those films: in terms of subject matter, the vast majority of them were like mine. They were depressing, melodramatic, insistently gloomy. Everyone’s movie depicted a bad breakup, substance abuse, mental illness, or, like my film, someone dying. If I had to sum up the afternoon in a single sentence, it would be this: “Look at me, I’m sad.”

Of the forty or so films screened that day, only one sticks in my mind as more than a generality. It was about a guy who travels back in time to feudal Japan in order to steal an ancient hot sauce recipe. The movie featured samurai sword fights, goofy one-liners, and intentionally-poor lip dubs.

Everyone laughed. Everyone thought it was hilarious. But secretly, I’m pretty sure everyone was thinking the same thing: Amusing, but certainly not an A+ film. The unspoken understanding, of course, was that humor is not art. It’s just funny.

But is it? When I watched that samurai movie, I felt a little lighter. I felt happy, at ease, even inspired. But when I watched my film and all those others, I quite frankly don’t even remember how I felt.

The samurai film made me realize something: we all take ourselves too seriously. I took myself too seriously when I made a film that was identical to forty others. I said to myself, “I’m a serious filmmaker, so I’m going to make a serious film.” And sure, I did that. But I also made a film that was pretty forgettable.

Out of everyone in that class, the guy who made the hot sauce film was the only one of us willing to set aside his own ego. And, for that reason, he made a film that was far more memorable than the others.

Does that mean that comedy is superior to drama? No, not necessarily. In truth, in the artistic world, the reverse is far more often true. Adam McKay directed Anchorman, but no one seemed to recognize him as a true artist until he directed The Big Short (and now this year’s Dick Cheney biopic, Vice). To paraphrase Ron Burgundy, that’s kind of a big deal.

Yet we can’t discount the value of humor. If everyone could stop taking themselves so seriously, if everyone learned to just laugh at disagreements rather than fight over them, I think we’d all have a much better time. We all deserve to laugh. And, at times, we all deserve to be laughed at. Good humor is just as valuable as good drama.

I never met the guy who made the samurai hot sauce film, but I wish I had. I imagine he’s a pretty cool dude. If I had asked him why he made his film, I imagine his response wouldn’t have started with, “My inspiration was born of my desire to explore the true nature of what it means to be a condiment…”

Instead, I think he would’ve said something like, “I made it because I wanted to make people laugh.” And that’s all the reason I would need.

Kyle A. Massa is a speculative fiction author living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. His debut novel, Gerald Barkley Rocks, is available now on Amazon Kindle.

Podcasts I’ll Never Make

February 25, 2020 / Kyle A. Massa

Podcast

I’ve had several ideas for podcasts I’ll never make.

For example, a show called Questions. As the title suggests, it would just be people asking each other questions. But you wouldn’t be able to make statements or exclamations or really anything without a question mark at the end. Some sample questions for Questions:

What is this show about?
Why did we make this show?
Is anyone listening?

Or what about a Magic: The Gathering podcast? These are plentiful. Most involve nerds discussing ways in which to improve at the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering. So, to differentiate mine from others, it would instead be a show about getting worse at Magic. I’d call it The Magic: The Crappening Podcast. For players who’ve done enough winning and now want to try losing for a change.

Another idea: The Cat Podcast. Cat news, cat fashion, hot new cat toys, that kind of stuff. My cats would be my co-hosts. I would cover the topics and they would periodically purr, meow, or maybe hiss if they happen to be fighting.

But what’s the point of doing a podcast if you’re not making money from it? The trick is duping advertisers into sponsoring your show. This would be a challenge since, as I’m sure you’ve already gathered, all my show ideas are terrible. Therefore, a few ploys come to mind.

First off, I might fib about the show’s subject. “Is this really a show about cats?” they’d ask. And I’d answer, “Well, ‘cat’ is actually an acronym for ‘Cabbage and Tomatoes.'” At which point I’d collect a sizeable novelty sponsorship check from Farmers of America. (They had a five-minute Super Bowl ad a while back, so they must have deep pockets.)

Then again, when the farmers listen to the show and hear nothing about cabbage or tomatoes, the jig would be up. I guess I’d be better off attracting sponsors honestly. I could see Meow Mix or the abominable 2019 film Cats sponsoring The Cat Podcast, for instance.

There’s also the matter of theme music. Full disclosure: I play music in a band, so I suppose I could ask my bandmates to do a song with me. However, another full disclosure: I am not a particularly skilled musician. The rest of the members of the band are, but I pretty much just play three-finger chords and occasionally sing like a karaoke drunkard.

That leaves us with two options: stock music or a hired rando. Stock music is boring and my parents always warned me about the danger of strangers, so we’re back to the drawing board.

Finally, for all you know, my voice could sound like Fozzie Bear’s. Not exactly podcast friendly.

So I think it’s safe to say I won’t be starting a podcast anytime soon. And since I won’t be using these podcast ideas, feel free to use them yourself.

Except the cat one. That one might actually work.

1. Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie

2. The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

3. The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

4. Three Moments of an Explosion by China Miéville

5: Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin

Any I Missed?

The Shining Girls

Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

Slaughterhouse-Five

So What’s the Best?

An Overview of The X-Files

And Now, My Pitch

Cold Open

Credits

Act One, Scene One

Scene Two

Scene Three

Scene Four

Act Two, Scene One

Scene Two

Scene Three

Scene Four

Act Three, Scene One

Scene Two

Act Four, Scene One

Scene Two

Scene Three

Scene Four

Cats Are Forgiving

Cats Are Friendly (Sometimes)

Cats Find Joy in the Little Things

Cats Are Funny

Cats Have Their Own International Holiday

Let’s Keep in Touch

Let’s Keep in Touch