I Never Thought I’d Review a Keanu Reeves Novel
How I made two videos and some other highlights from the first half of this year
After my piece last week about swimming, a couple of people asked me what I’ve been up to this year because, when I write regularly, I update folks more incrementally. By the way my next sponsored charity swim, across the Hudson, is tomorrow (thanks to those who donated!) and my piece actually got cross-posted on my friend Keith’s Substack, “Swim Practice” — check it out.
Here are a few of the highlights of things I’ve done this year.
In the last couple of months three of my favourite SF writers released new books. One of them was co-written with Keanu Reeves — yes, the Matrix, Bill and Ted, John Wick and Johnny Mnemonic Keanu Reeves.
So, of course, I reviewed them all.
Annalee Newitz often writes novels, but this year they wrote about how psychological experiments, psyops, were invented, adapted by the military and are increasingly used in domestic politics. It ties into a number of my interests, including the PSA I produced, below. It’s crucial — and sobering — to understand how people are deploying so-called social media to influence domestic politics so I was gratified that SmartNews picked it up and it got a significant readership from the Forward.
The King Arthur myth is deeply pervasive so, though maybe it’s not really SF, I was excited to read the new Arthur epic novel by Lev Grossman (The Magicians). I was at Yale with him and at the (extremely ill-attended) launch of his first novel “Warp” — Star Trek fan fiction. We haven’t kept in touch but I was nevertheless worried about reviewing his book. Irrespective of the book’s merits, I think it turned out to be my favourite review since I reviewed Mark Yakich’s “Football” for the LA Review of Books.
Before I reviewed Keanu Reeves and China Miéville’s joint effort, I made a video with Jonathan Kesselman for Mark Oppenheimer’s Open Learning project at the American Jewish University about the surprisingly Jewish roots of British football anthems. I mainly provided a few thoughts to back up Jeremy Sassoon’s research and wonderful music. It was heartening, at a time of division, for a Leeds United and Manchester United fan to work together to discuss Liverpool, Man City, Celtic, and Sheffield Wednesday! Though, of course, the best bit of the video is Jeremy explaining how he couldn’t bring himself to play the Liverpool song.
The other thing to note about this video, although you can’t tell it from watching, is that YouTube took it down after a copyright claim. We were very careful about the length and source of the clips we used, but UEFA lodged a complaint and they took down the video. AJU, as an educational nonprofit, disputed the complaint using the automated response prompt and, though in the right, were amazed that it was reinstated.
Facebook (Meta, whatevs) has decided to double down on its antisocial hosting of racists as well as remaining deeply unrepentant about bringing together the insurrection coalition for Jan 6th 2020. So, though I haven’t worked so much with the Center for Countering Digital Hate this year, I did write and executive produce a Public Service Announcement about the dangers of social media to kids. I worked with Kesselman again, and the whole team at CCDH, and was super happy with how it turned out. We didn’t quite use the Salvador Dali / Luis Bunuel clip of the blade slicing the eyeball, but we came tastefully close to suggesting it.
Finally, this week Keanu Reeves and China Miéville released their “Book of Elsewhere.” It’s the 350pp novel version of the 20 part BRZRKR comic series that Reeves co-wrote in 2020/2021. You may have seen Reeves promoting it on television or other media. As far as I can tell that, along with the original idea about an 80,000 year old immortal warrior with ennui, are his contributions to the novel. It’s not a classic Miéville, but at least it has got him out of his unconstructive depression and into print again. Read my actual review here where I have a monthly SF review (next month Helen Philips’ “Hum”).
Hopefully I’ll post a little more regularly here going forward — I have a couple of ideas for posts. As always, though, only when I have something worth saying, and never at any cost!