Ask me anything
Recent Responses
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On my bad days I just want to be remembered:)
On the other days...George Luz. George Luz was the comms guy for Easy Company during World War II. He was, and I'm going partially off my memories of the TV show and partially from the book based on interviews with Luz, a COLOSSAL gobshite. Just an endlessly snarky, funny, decent guy.
George, after the war, went home and worked as a handyman in his old neighbourhood. 5000 people attended his funeral.
Most days? THAT. I want to be remembered like that.
As to what I'd like to be remembered for? Oh Dave that's a complex and nuanced question;) My big professional concern at the moment is that I'm good enough to work for free but not quite good enough to work for pay with a lot of the places I've been trying for years to notice me. That's a difficult pill to swallow and it's one I'm working on. A lot:) But if you really want to nail me down?
I want to be remembered for being a good man, whose work helped people.
Like I say, arrogant as hell:) -
1-Pseudopod. Like all things that mean a lot to you it's something which snuck up on me. It's home and it always will be.
2-Doctor Who. Licensing work is frustrating as all hell because it always goes at the speed the licensee wants it to go which is never the speed you move at. But God Damn if it isn't worth it.
3-Travelling Man. When I got laid off by the comic shop seven years ago it was the start of a period of seismic change in my life that nearly broke me in two. I was very, very angry at them for a very, very long time because of the circumstances of being made redundant and because of the damage I took during the years that followed.
But, as things have a habit of doing, time heals. And a little while back I had the opportunity to cover a comic launch party from the store I used to work at. They were massively impressed and grateful and we got talking. I now review for their site, am paid in stock and feel...it's weird. It's not that I've come home, because make no mistake Valhalla for me is that comic store, it's that I've re opened a room in my life. It's a nice one too.
4-Bleeding Cool. I get to make dreadful, overly articulate jokes, write about things I love and occasionally poke the fan hornet's nest. What's not to love? Other than not being paid?;)
5-Defiance-I've been confirmed as SFX.CO.UK's reviewer for the new SyFy show and I'm really excited. I love working episode reviews (Go take a look at my ridiculous Age of Ultron ones there) and I'm really pleased to get the chance to do something longer than five episodes. -
Two things really, both sort of long-tailed. Firstly I'm an English teacher's kid so this stuff is at least partially genetic. I was able to figure out story structure from an early age, partially because of that and partially because I was of the generation that got largely raised by their TVs. Which isn't a slam on my parents, it's just how things were. So I watched a lot of stuff and read a lot of stuff and over time that instilled a basic understanding of three act structure and longer form arcs.
Engagement with it happened from the moment I saw Star Trek II and started crying at the end and had no idea why. That first time, and I think it was Star Trek II, was WEIRD. Someone else had reached into my head and triggered an emotional response and done so in a way which meant I reacted. That double header; intellectual and emotional response fascinated me and, even under the layers of raging hormones as a teenager, it started to work it's way into my brain.
I think if you had to point at a third thing, these days? It's arrogance:) Must critics suck at what they do and that makes audiences less informed and that hurts everyone. Almost every critic operates from a basic assumption that it's shit and they need to be proved wrong. I, because I'm a contrarian son of a bitch, operate in the other direction. Because someone has to:) -
Oh GOOD LORD I need to check this more, so sorry. I don't really deal with subs but we're running 6-8 weeks right now I think.
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At the moment? A playlist that takes in early LL Cool J, AC/DC, Cake and the Scott Pilgrim orchestral soundtrack:)
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I thought it was fascinating, intelligent, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Tom Hardy were amazing and it was..cold. Nolan is a magnificent director but there's a humanity missing from a lot of his work.
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Bit lae for this one, sorry.
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Certainly. Always interested in new perspectives:)
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It would involve unlimited time to write in a nice, probably seaside environment with easy access to my friends and culture and absolutely no worries at all. Oh and a world class podcasting studio:)
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This has actually varied a few times over the years but, basically, it comes down to Josh Lyman from West Wing. I'd pick Josh for five reasons;
-He has the sort of sense of humor I have, in my head.
-He's pathologically altruistic.
-He's a deeply nice guy.
-He's fiercely intelligent and uses that intelligence far more openly than I do.
-He has a really awful poker face, much like I do:)
Basically Josh is pretty close to the version of me I see in the mirror. -
Good question! Slightly rubbish answer: I've had five stories in Hub (Lenny and the Travel Ninja, Connected, Ivy and the Relative, Montgolfier Winter, The Slaughterman), had a piece up at Transmitter (SunDrops) and have had a bunch of twitfic come out through Thaumatrope, Tweet The Meat and, if I remember correctly PicFic.
Oh? Also? My short story 'Lorna' was published on Pseudopod about a year before I got the job there and my short story 'The Existential Lizard' was on Drabblecast a while back. I've also got a twitfic in Shine, because Jetse DeVries is a pathologically nice man. Good book too, well worth picking up. -
You found the answer to this, if I remember correctly:) If not, I'll see what I can rustle up.
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I see what you did there.
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I actually haven't. I shall investigate:)
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The Day The Earth Caught Fire, which is a spectacularly good English SF movie about the planet being knocked off its axis, all told from the point of view of a couple of journalists. Wonderful movie, very West Wing. With added burnt planet.
Catch 22's one I'm overdue a return to, if nothing else for the 'Give me eat. GIVE ALL THESE MEN EAT' scene which always makes me laugh:)
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Incredible movie, about a thief who accidentally nails an audition, goes to Hollywood to become an actor and ends up working as a PI with the studio investigator and his sort-of girlfriend from his past. Robert Downey Junior, Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan. ESSENTIAL viewing. -
Awesome:) Hopefully Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Slayer will follow:)
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Rome, stay in the best hotel in town, order room service and drink down the culture of the best city I've ever been to. Either that or do London really REALLY right.
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In an ideal world? A kind world? Where the male pattern baldness fairy did not visit the Stuart house? Ryan Reynolds or Henry Rollins. In a less kind world, Mitch Pileggi. Which would still be awesome.
(By the way that sound you can hear is everyone who has ever met me EVER laughing their asses off at the thought of any of those men playing me:)) -
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England. Or, somewhere on the Dublin/Berlin border for Brazil fans:)
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Alasdair Stuart’s Bio
I'm a writer, a podcaster and one of the scenario writers for the Doctor Who RPG. I host Pseudopod, edit Hub and fear mouse/spider hybrids.
