Back in Sydney

The postings have been slim here. Justine and I have done our bisummeral relocation to Sydney, where the weather is rather better than it is in New York.

I haz proof:

rainbow

Yes, this is the view from where I work. Neener-neener.

Check this out. It is TOTALLY FAKE, but cool.


JarredSpekter of Deviant Art.

And it comes with this awesome FAKE poster, also by Jarred:

leviathan_movie_poster_by_jarredspekter-d34kz5m

I quite like the fake movie trailer/poster art form.

But yes, this is me just being lazy, posting random stuff. I GET TO BE LAZY. I’ve been traveling all over the world the last few months, after all. And I’ve spent the last week working on a s3krit project, which I can’t even tell you about. (Yes, so why tell you that I can’t tell you? I dunno. Just to sound cool, I guess.)

Oh, also! Those of you who are e-book readers (or who know one) here’s a cool new thing:

ugliesquartetebook

It’s the Uglies Quartet all together in e-book form! Check it out here. And here’s a list of the many reading devices supported.

Anyway, I will get back to more regular postings in the new year. In the meantime, happy holidays to everyone.

65 thoughts on “Back in Sydney

  1. ohmygoodness! not gonna lie, but i just posted that comment because i wanted to be second… hehe

    i just ACTUALLY read the post and that trailer/movie is AWESOME/hilarious. hehehe i love whoever that is!

    -Lizzy-wa OUT! :blush:

  2. gasp! oh no! this is not good! its been years since i’ve not ended a post with a smiley! and LOOK!!!!! i couldv sworn that was a legitimate smiley! but its not! its : oops : !!! not blush!!! what the heck was i thinking?!

    -Lizzy-wa OUT! 😯

  3. That trailer is SICK! I can’t believe someone made that in their free time, just for kicks and giggles. So pro!

    Also, thanks for using the word “haz” in a legitimate sentence. It’s nice to know I’m not the only author who sometimes finds herself reduced to lolcat-speak. Sometimes the forming of proper English sentences is simply too much to handle. It’s cool, I understand.

  4. Oh my gosh! I’m subscribed to the person who made that trailer on youtube, it’s actually the reason why I found out about the book Leviathan and am probably getting it for Christmas!!!!! Awesome!

  5. LOL I love this commercial. This would be awesome if it was an actual movie…..**sigh**Leviathan movie….why not?

  6. Oh, I totally hate you at the moment. You get to bask in the 81 degree weather and I’m chattering my teeth in the FRIGID Midwestern temperatures. We’re talking 9-10 degrees Fahrenheit with windchill (17 without). I’m in THREE layers and I’m still cold.

    The trailer was epic though. Did you recognize that the bridge at 0:52 is from the Sherlock Holmes, the one building at 0:19 from the Golden Compass and the typography is from the Golden Compass? There’s a few flashes of scenes from Atonement as well but I can’t pinpoint their times in the commercial. All of those scenes are from movies, but those are the only ones I’m recognizing the titles to at the moment. Grrrr, it’s so annoying when I recognize more than that but I don’t know where!

  7. I don’t get why a director doesn’t want to make leviathan into a movie. They’re way more exiting than some of the movies that have come out (which will remian nameless for now) the technology exists to make the fabricated animals, a good art crew can get a “stormwalker” running. Or there is anime which would be epic too. P.S. Not too cold (I geuss I haven’t gotten frostbite yet…)

  8. Just relized I am # 13 my lucky number yes. And I am jelous you get to go to australia, It’s a foriegn country for crying out loud!! That might be a good location for a novel since your right there! Grrr I hate being uderaged and having to be somewhere… man do I want to be famous. Being an invisable person is good and bad. I don’t have to worry about people missing me but nobody really looks at what you do!!! akk why can’t you do both? (that would be a good character delima) bye!

  9. Hem, hope that in a real film Alek won’t have such a sangoku-like haircut and that Deryn will be less feminine.

  10. Because, seriously, I rather see Alek as a nerdy-but-brave 15yo and Deryn as a total tomboy… This poster makes me think of “Fast & Furious steampunk edition” and definitely not of the Leviathan I like.

  11. That was basically the best movie trailer ever. Some awesome Hollywood director should totally make Leviathan a movie.
    And was that the conductor from The Polar Express around 0:55?

  12. awesome trailer! and NO FAIR about the weather! i wish it was all sunny and rainbowy here. sigh. summer…

  13. awesome trailer! and NO FAIR about the weather! i wish it was all sunny and rainbowy here. *sigh*. summer…

  14. My grandmum’s second husband is an Australian and they do the same thing you and Justine do! They are in Sydney now. Otherwise, from like may or june until thankagiving, they are in New Jersey (til Thanksgiving so they spend it with her family, like me)

  15. @Kate & Zena some of the scenes are from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow as well, it’s one of my favourite movies.

  16. That trailer is amazing, hopefully some director will see it, read Leviathan and then realize its potential for an EPIC movie! Of course, they would have to do it right… they CANNOT repeat what happened to Avatar: The Last Airbender, or the Lightning Theif. The moveis were good, but depressed me because the butchered the original stories! If any one ever makes a Leviathan movie, and as a note for the pontential Uglies movie; THE HAVE TO DO IT RIGHT! THEY CAN’T BUTCHER IT! If the guy who made that trailer were to direct a Leviathan, that would probably be okay……

  17. I totally agree with Jessi, I was super excited about seeing the Lightning Theif movie and throughout the whole thing I was like “That never happened!” and “This is all wrong!!!!” It makes me mad when movie directors butcher books that were really amazing.

  18. Jessi has a good idea there. Maybe a group of fans can scout out loyal, non-butcher, acsessible directors and e-mail the fake trailer to them with notes on the story. And a moment of silence for those butchered movies………………………………Okay moving on if they did make a movie every writer, editor, costume diesiner, make-up artist, and actor should have read the book and keep a copy around for refrence, if they don’t and butcher the movie I sue someone

  19. i love both of those fake movie promotionals
    but does anybody think that Deryn (supposing this IS Deryn) looks too much like a girl? but maybe thats just me.

    -R

    ps i am currently in south carolina and its like 70 degrees i am perfectly fine with the weather here thank you very much 😉

  20. i totally think deryn looks too girly. that’s one problem with movies where girls pretend to be boys; they have to look feminine enough for the audience to remember they’re girls, but if they look too feminine, all the other characters seem stupid for not noticing. i once spent half an hour watching a movie before i realized that a character i thought all the other characters knew was a girl was actually pretending to be a boy.

    the thing about making a book out of a movie is, it’s impossible to stay entirely true to the book. your average book is too long and nuanced to make into a movie that any sane person could watch in one sitting. some stuff has to be cut from the plot, or altered to fit. the true test of merit for a movie based on a book is it’s ability to stand alone as a story in it’s own right. if you have to have read the book to understand the movie, the movie wasn’t done right.

  21. You know, I really could see James Cameron doing a good job with that movie (if he were to pick it up). I mean his CGI stuff is amazing. I think he’d probably have fun playing with the alternate world. I mean, he’d really probably up the romance, but the effects would soooooo be worth it. Anyone else think he should do this, or am I just insane? 😀 Plus considering how long his movies are, he might stay true to the book. (But i doubt that. look what happened to Percy Jackson!)

    ~HMF

  22. The trailer was amazing – very precise cuts from many good movies. I didn’t recognize the music but it was very effective.
    Glad you & Justine are resting from your world travels & hopefully WRITING!
    I can’t complain about temperature (our “cold” snap here in the South means low 50s F.), but I can envy your view.
    Just finished Midnighters series & loved the math! Don’t normally think of myself as a math person but as a geography major, was facinated. And “tridecalogisms”! Recently a Facebook friend asked for sci fi or fantasy suggestions. Gave her a few titles but said “anything by Scott Westerfeld”. I hate to sound ‘fan girly’, but thank you for the mutiple facinating worlds you’ve created.

  23. Haha the trailer was pretty epic. I don’t like the poster though because they picked a girl that wouldn’t pass very well for boy. Too feminine I guess? But just the thought of Leviathan as a movie is awesome, and I think it has enough war and guns and stuff that my boyfriend would probably enjoy watching it (much more than Twilight anyways).

    Apparently I’m getting an e-book for Christmas so I will definitely be getting the Uglies series put onto it =]]

    Hope you enjoy being in sunny, warm Sydney!

  24. I just red leviathan in 10 days (mostly 2) and i’m reading behemoth right now. I got to say that you are right now one of my favorites righters. I red the uglies series last year and since then i search for your books all the time (wich is tought because in Brazil we just have peeps, so yesterday and the uglies are coming out almost now) so i end up buying on amazon and reading in english. Anyways, i alredy looking forward to the third book of leviathan or any other new book =D

  25. me so jelly at weather in Sydney )x

    I loved the movie trailer, it was barking awesome. The poster, however….
    Alek looks too brawny, too Edward Cullen-like to be the Clanker genius child-prince we all love. Deryn looks far too feminine and too emo-goth.
    AND THEY BOTH LOOK TOO OLD. AND THEY BOTH LOOK LIKE MARY-SUES.

    But the trailer was perfect. Brilliant choice of music, brilliant screenshots, perfect for Leviathan. Hats off to you, JarredSpekter

  26. @flarglepuf No, that is definitely not the conductor from the Polar Express.

    @Kayla Thank you! I noticed after I posted that the ship being pulled under by the octopus is from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (aka Pirates: 2). I actually cheated because I was getting so frustrated and looked for a comment from him on the YT video for a comment on all the videos he used. Sky Captain was used, but not World of Tomorrow. It kinda stinks when you have this list of movies that you swear you see in the fake trailers (Star Wars was on my list) and then you find that it’s not used.

    I can see James Cameron doing Leviathan. However, I can see Chris Columbus doing Leviathan more successfully. He’s just more experienced with successfully adapting books to film, in my opinion. He did the first two Harry Potter films (which were beyond successful). He also directed the not-so-successful steampunk film The Golden Compass which I think was a beautiful adaption of the book; it failed financially to the controversy that surrounds the books. The books are on the most frequently banned books of the decade due to the religion aspect. Yes, he did Lighting Thief, but I think that was a case of a veeeeeeeeeery bad screenwriter. Sometimes directors pick awful screenwriters (ahem, ERAGON. There are not enough words to describe how much I want to punch and throttle that one. Just *shudder*).

    Columbus is also well-versed in filming stunts and gags. He did, after all, do Home Alone and Home Alone: Lost in New York (my two favorite full-length Christmas films).

    I’m arguing for directors and we don’t even know if there’s going to be a film made. Good golly I need a life.

  27. Grrr, I hate my computer! For some reason it only decides to download certain videos, and usually those are the not-so-important ones. I so wish I can see that trailer! 🙁

  28. the trailer was AWESOME! i hope they make an actual leviathan movie!!!!!!!!! I <3 leviathan(and behemoth, and goliath/ziz)

    *HETALIA!!!!!! muahahahahahahahaha*

  29. Poster Deryn and Alek do look a little… out of character. I guess I’m a hater for saying that. Also, is it bad that I noticed the “The Golden Compass” footage by the font?

  30. @jasmine Nope, I don’t think so anyway. I noticed it by font (aka typography) too. It’s a very distinctive font.

  31. I think the most important thing when converting a book into a movie is capturing the spirit of the book. the lord of the rings did so well even though they changed alot (and completely messed up farimere) you still got that same feeling you get after you hear a really great story.

  32. Oh wow. An author is actually in SYDNEY!

    Can I knock on your door so you can sign my book? (books in Australia are too expensive for an unemployed bum like me :P) Looking from that photo, I think I know where you are. (heh kidding..)

  33. Scott-la, that was the most epic movie trailer I have ever seen…
    but you know what would be even epic-er!!!????
    AN UGLIES (REAL) MOVIE TRAILER!!!
    PLEASE!
    UGLIES UPDATE???

  34. Anyone got the link to the trailer? My computer occasionally goes all screwy and puts a big white box where the video should be… help a sister out and post it below. Sorry about that… I can’t talk ghetto to save my life. Link, anyone?

  35. OMG I love the Trailer!!! I watched it 4 times in a row! lol My younger cousin actually said “Cool! I wanna see that movie” He was disappointed that it wasnt a real move lmao! Great job Jarred Spekter 😀

    I totally would agree to a Leviathan movie, but I’m scared to go for it, for the very real fear that it would be butchered…

    Its very hard to take one art form (ie, book) and turn it into another (ie movie) without compromising the spirit of the original. Especially since the perception of the audience would invariably different than the re-creator. But, I have watched The Lightning Thief without reading the book, and I thought it was very cliche. I hope to get the book for Christmas, however 😀

  36. I read anything I can get my hands on. Rarely, do I ever stumble across a book I want to see made into a movie. Leviathan would be an amazing film. Like with most other comments about making Leviathan into a movie, it would need to be done right. I’m not a producer, or director, but I think too often, producers and directors that choose to make books into films forget that they’re potentially playing with fire from an extremely loyal fan base of the written word. All too often, books that are turned into movies are ruined. Adding events, taking events away, changing plots…it all gets ruined, leaving a lover of the book, a hater of the movie. I don’t know if there is such a thing as a “lets make it a movie” petition, but if there is, I’d sign it. And, if there’s not, how do we start one and who do we give it to?

  37. Who cares about the film at this current moment, all I want is to read Goliath!! Ahhhh it’s killing me, and please do walk on by into Melbourne for signings 🙂 You are an alternate universe star!

  38. I agree with muahahahahaness!!!

    OMG LEVIATHAN/HETALIA FAN-CROSSOVER!!!!
    WITH BARKING PASTAAA~!!

    …thinking of Italy’s reaction to the Leviathan airship…

  39. three things to say:
    1. yes Australian weather is pretty damn amazing
    2. That is one freaking epic trailer and i think im gonna watch it again and again
    3. and i cant wait for Goliath (seriously its killing me)

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