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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

My Opinion of Christopher Hitchens…

posted by on August 19 at 10:36 AM

…just dropped a little bit. Hitchens and a bunch of other writers, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, Y the Last Man writer Brian K. Vaughan, and Year of Living Biblically jackass A.J. Jacobs all star in a book trailer for a new mystery thriller called The Book of Lies, by Brad Meltzer. They’re all pretending that the titular book, which is somehow connected to Cain and Abel and the creation of Superman, is real. The trailer is really embarrassing to watch:

This is why writers are not actors. Also, Brad Meltzer is a huge-ass hack. He started out as a Grisham rip-off, but then he started writing superhero comic books (of course the superhero comics community embraced him as a real literary talent because the superhero comics community swoons whenever they get any positive attention from anyone who’s not a member of the superhero comics community). Now he’s combining his two areas of hackspertise into one, with a conspiracy novel about a superhero comic book.

I actually read Meltzer’s last book, The Book of Truth, when it came out a couple years back, and it was one of the worst thrillers I’ve ever read: cardboard characters, a ‘conspiracy’ that doesn’t work, and the vexing ability to somehow construct every sentence in the book around a cliche. His comic book popularity explains Whedon and Vaughan’s participation, and Galleycat seems to think that Hitchens was pushed into it by his literary agency, which—here’s your conspiracy—is also Meltzer’s literary agency. I’m going to go try to unwatch this thing now.

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1

(of course the superhero comics community embraced him as a real literary talent because the superhero comics community swoons whenever they get any positive attention from anyone who’s not a member of the superhero comics community).

To be fair, Meltzer only got the attention cause he was a "New York Times Bestselling Author!" If it weren't for that, he wouldn't have been so hyped praised.


Posted by Dave | August 19, 2008 10:58 AM
2

Christopher Hitchens is thoroughly overrated.

Posted by Eddy968 | August 19, 2008 11:04 AM
3

Christopher Hitchens is thoroughly overrated.

Posted by Eddy968 | August 19, 2008 11:11 AM
4

And a pompous ass.

Posted by Dave Coffman | August 19, 2008 11:20 AM
5

Brad Meltzer...doesn't he write for The Stranger?

I always figured that if I wrote for The Stranger, my Stranger name would be Ridley Seltzer.

Posted by Gabriel | August 19, 2008 11:25 AM
6

Hitchens can be fun if he's arguing in support of something I already agree with. But he's sloppy. On page 10 of God is not Great, he says that Marx and Freud weren't doctors.

Posted by Amelia | August 19, 2008 11:58 AM
7

Meltzer nearly single-handedly drove me from comics. His destruction of his corner of the DC Univers was excrutiating to work through and it eventually got me questioning the entire current state of the medium. Thanks for freeing up some of my cash for other things, Brad!

Posted by whatevernevermind | August 19, 2008 12:44 PM
8

Brad Meltzer's Identity Crisis is one of the shittiest comic books I've read. Fuck him.

Posted by Jordyn | August 20, 2008 3:12 PM

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