Adam Bender is an award-winning journalist and author of speculative fiction that explores modern-day societal fears with a mix of action, romance and humor.
Bender's latest novel is Utopia PR, a speculative satire about a public-relations specialist who struggles to find work-life balance while managing crisis after crisis for a dystopian American president. It won the 2021 IndieReader Discovery Award for Humor.
Previously, Bender wrote The Wanderer and the New West, a near-future western about a rogue vigilante who seeks redemption in a lawless America that fully protects the rights of armed citizens to stand their ground. Named to Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2018, the novel also won gold for Dystopia in the 2018 Readers’ Favorite Awards and best Western Fiction in the 2018 National Indie Excellence Awards.
Bender authored We, The Watched and Divided We Fall in a dystopian series about an amnesiac who struggles to conform in a surveillance society where the government keeps a Watched list of its own citizens. Also, Bender has published several short stories.
In his day job as a journalist, Bender covers telecom and internet regulation for Communications Daily. He has won awards for his reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Specialized Information Publishers Association, and the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing.
Bender lives in Philadelphia with his wife Mallika and son Rishi. He’s usually a rather modest and amiable fellow.
Learn more about the author at WatchAdam.blog and join The Underground email newsletter for news and info on Adam Bender's latest projects. Follow him on Facebook (wethewatched) and @WatchAdam on Instagram.
Periodically, I like to highlight a few of my favorite new rock albums. In previous posts this year, I’ve exalted fresh discs by Glasvegas and The Rakes. Today I’d like to swoon (you’ll get the pun in a second) over the latest work by Silversun Pickups.
For those of you born in the ’80s, I have some news for you: alt rock ain’t dead.
After scoring a few years ago with hypnotic single “Lazy Eye,” Silversun Pickups come out guns-a-blazing on their second full-length, Swoon. The band missed a few times on their debut, but show on the followup they know how to go heavy with the rock while still maintaining a fine sense of melody and atmosphere.
It’s easy to draw comparisons to the acronym-sharing Smashing Pumpkins, a group which similarly spends a lot of time “working the layers” in distortion-heavy meloncholia. But whereas that band flourished in negativity, there’s something undeniably hopeful in the Pickups’ sound.
As good as Swoon is, not all tracks are created equal. Single “Panic Switch” is clearly the best of the bunch, incorporating a compelling mix of chords and instrumentation. Other highlights include the bouncy “Substitution,” the string-laden “The Royal We” and high-tension “Surrounded (Or Spiraling).” But a couple tracks, like the repetitive “It’s Nice to Know You Work Alone,” lack the same freshness. Still, it’s overall a solid CD that’s certain to reassure ’90s alternative rock fans there’s still some creativity left in the genre.
For some reason, good Wii games seem to come in spurts. Near the console’s launch there was a nice bunch, including Super Mario Galaxy, Zelda, Metroid and Paper Mario. Months later, Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart were released. And then it felt like there was nothing for a long while.
Ladies and gentleman, I’m happy to report that I think we may be entering another short-term Wii boom.
Yesterday, I got my hands on a surreal new racing game called ExciteBots. It truly is something else. In the game, you take transformer-like bots resembling various animals, including frogs, bats and grasshoppers. And you do off-road stunt racing with them. It’s super fast and you get lots of airtime, and that’s only the beginning. The developer included several extremely random-seeming mini games in the midst of each race. For example, you might have to kick a giant soccer ball into a net, hit a baseball, or even bowl over some pins. If you pull it off, you get points and an encouraging message. Some of the challenges are even more eccentric. My favorite is tapping out a rhythm on a tambourine. If you pull it off, the game rewards you with the message “Nice tambourine!”
Gooooaaal!!!!
Writing about ExciteBots doesn’t do the game justice, and in fact probably makes it sound like the most complicated racing game ever. On the contrary, the motion controls (yes, the Wii Wheel is supported) are great, and the game developers somehow made most of the diversions intuitive. It’s kind of like Mario Galaxy in that sense. What feels simple on the controller creates something totally fantastic on the screen.
OK, so I know what you’re saying. That’s just one game. How can I say this is the beginning of a spurt of fun Wii games?
First of all, it’s rude to interupt in the middle of an article. Shame on you. But the answer is that Wii gamers soon will have a new accessory on their hands, called the Motion Plus. The device hooks into the Wii controller, and makes the motion controls even more precise. Currently, the controller can register only turn movements — it doesn’t know when you’re raising or lowering the controller vertically, or sliding it side to side. Motion Plus changes all that. In July, Nintendo will release a sequel to Wii Sports, called Wii Sports Resort. The package includes a lot of cool new minigames that weren’t possible before, including frisbee throwing, jet skiing and sword fighting.
Better, Electronic Arts — famous for its sports games — is designing its new Tiger Woods golf game especially for the Motion Plus. The company also has a new tennis game called Grand Slam Tennis that may prove to be equally ace. Both hit stores in June, and Tiger Woods will come packaged with the Motion Plus.
You can probably tell I’m excited. But there is something about this whole situation that I must bitch about a little. Why does Nintendo insist upon releasing seemingly must-have accessories for its gaming systems every few months? The company has convinced everyone they have the least expensive console. But the reality is you’ve got to buy extra controllers ($40 per remote, $20 per nunchuck), a balance board ($90 with Wii fit), a “classic” controller or two ($20 each), a wheel for each controller ($10), and now multiple Motion Plus accessories. ($20). Those Nintendo guys are pretty sneaky!
Just picked up a cool new album from The Rakes, an underrated rock band from London. It’s hard to believe this band isn’t more well known in the states. I’ve thought of a few ways to describe their sound: Blur if they did punk exclusively, Bloc Party if they were smarmier, The Strokes if they hailed from London. But really I detest those descriptions, as they make The Rakes sound unoriginal.
On the contrary, this band sounds quite fresh on most of their tracks. For example, they do great social commentary, specializing in the topics “regrettable things that happened after several pints” and — somewhat surprisingly — fear of terrorism. Somehow, this all comes across as upbeat britpop.
But enough of my bubbling enthusiasm. Check out this video for their single “1989,” from the new album Klang. I think it’s import only at this point, but I found a great deal on cdwow.us. The album is less than 30 minutes, but it’s great fun. I also recommend their debut album, Capture/Release.
Singer Kele Okereke tells crowd to "Get involved!"
Bloc Party played to a sold-out show last Sunday at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC. The show was ace, as they say in England.
For those who don’t know, Bloc Party is a really innovative British band that mixes punk with some crazy dance beats. When they’re good, they’re good, and they played nearly all of my favorite songs at the show (including several I didn’t think they’d play, like Flux, Ares and Tulips). The band was also quite charismatic, cracking wry jokes the whole way through.
Bloc Party’s first album, Silent Alarm, won almost universal acclaim from critics, but their two followups (A Weekend in the City, Intimacy) have received more mixed reviews. The main issue with the band, in my opinion, is they write three kinds of songs: 1) Super Awesome 2) Pretty Good and 3) Boring.
Silent Alarm has more Super Awesome songs than the other two albums, however it also has its fair share of Boring songs. A Weekend in the City has only a couple Super Awesome songs, a handful of Pretty Good songs, and a lot of Boring songs. I like the new album, Intimacy, a lot better. It’s got a few Super Awesome, a lot of Pretty Good, and only one or two Boring tunes. I guess what I’m saying is that the best songs are on Silent Alarm, but Intimacy is the most solid album all the way through.
Also, Silent Alarm and Intimacy have way more loud/fast songs than Weekend. Believe me — loud/fast is where this band excels. That’s the kind of song they’ve been playing live lately, so go see them now! Before they go soft!
Reporting on telecom has kept me moderately busy lately. I’m getting more involved now in the broadband aspects of the economic stimulus, aka the American Recovery Act. In case you didn’t know, the U.S. government dedicated $7.2 billion to spur broadband deployment across the country. The U.S. is a pretty wired country in urban areas, but we’ve got a ways to go in the rural areas, where there’s less population and trickier geography. It will be interesting to see how successful this new grants and loans program will be.
Meanwhile, I’ve been making some solid progress on my latest creative endeavor. Yes, it’s a novel. If you liked We, The Watched, or at least liked the story concept, you’ll probably dig this. Not even a quarter way through writing, but I’m already proud of it. More details to come.
By the way, if you’re looking for some new music, check out Glasvegas. They’re from Scotland, and put out a fantastic debut CD earlier this year. I’d describe their sound as somewhere in between The Raveonettes and U2 (“Sunday Bloody Sunday” era). I’m planning to see them live in DC at the Black Cat later this month.
