Currently in Britain, Orangepunch is musing over the places that she wishes to visit.

"Naturally," she said, only partly joking, "I want to visit ALL of the places mentioned in your books."

She's about the sixth or seventh person to ask me to either take them to such locations. I've had plenty more ask for directions, so they could ninja in a visit for themselves. Aberystwyth Tourist Board alone owes me big time. If indeed such a body exists.

I got to thinking. Considering that Orangepunch is a kick-ass photographer, and we're going everywhere anyway, would there be any interest in us creating an actual It Matters Guide to Britain?

We'd format it as both an eBook and in hard copy. Each location would have one of Orangepunch's picture and my blarb, plus where to find it. (Not all of them are obvious. You'd search a long time in vain for Matt's flat in Southampton. It's half way across Britain in Wednesfield.)

Because we can't get a hard copy without going through a self-publishing place, there would be a cost. But we'd keep it to the absolute minimum allowed.  Ditto with the eBook, but I wouldn't be AT ALL surprised if that ended up on Pirate Bay. (My last book mysteriously made it there before even being published.)

There would be a fair bit of work involved doing this. Not just in the putting it together and writing it, but in listing all the places actually name-checked in the It Matters novels.  The alternative for us both is just to go on fun trips, and spend time on things actually earning us a living.

But we're both up for it, if there is an interest. Is there?

My first thought was 'Oh! Come on! It's so much more than that!', shortly followed by 'Mmm, ok, it's a fair cop.'  I don't even think that she was dismissing Death Note as being particularly crap. The very fact that it factored into her piece shows that it's worthy of comparison with a story that she obviously enjoys. Moreover, it sets Death Note up as the benchmark by which the rest of the genre is judged.

One of the reasons why Death Note so captured my imagination was the 'social thriller' aspect. The notion that power is usually seen as such a distant thing, particularly by teenage schoolboys, coupled with a sudden presentment of absolute power and what happens next, that's what drew me in. The fact that we weren't given a black and white notion of right and wrong was another biggie. So much was left for the reader to determine for themselves.

Those initial dilemmas faced by Light put me in mind of something that Mark Twain said. I haven't got the exact quotation at hand, but the paraphrase is - if we knew for certain that there were no consequences, which of us wouldn't kill? 

I like to think the answer is 'most of us', but then situations and circumstances float through your mind. And if you had a Death Note in your grasp, wouldn't you scribble down a name or two?  If you thought you could avert a war, or end abuse, or... suddenly the list extends into increasingly greyer areas.

That's the appeal of Death Note, to play out our darker fantasies against a what if and maybe world.

Then suddenly it's all about this:

But that's thrilling too!  The clash between Light and L (then Near/Mello/Matt and L) belongs in that category where we also find Sherlock and John Watson. It's about a meeting of minds, clues sought and found, red herrings thrown, geniuses trying to thwart each other at every turn.

Which isn't quite the same story as when it began, is it?

I'm not sure that we have the like of the Wammy kids in real life. At least, I hope we don't, because that institution looked like serious exploitation of vulnerable children to me.  In fact, now it's ALL about the power play! The thing that attracted me to this scenario - the Mark Twain stance on ethics by peer pressure - is no longer part of the plot.

There ARE consequences for Kira. They come in the shape of the Wammy kids with whomever else each side chooses to drag along. As pretty much everyone states time and time again, it's all about winning the competition and solving the puzzle. Matters of morality seem to slip away entirely by the close of the first arc.

So maybe Ms Ekens is right, along with whomever she's quoting. Death Note is a 'power fantasy in social thriller's clothing', and we can only assume that it was Tsugumi Ohba's fantasy, in which we all merely came along for the ride.

What do you think?

It seems that Drew Nelson has a thing for portraying characters named Matt.

The voice actor behind Matt Jeevas, in the Death Note anime English dub, is back on our screens in vampiric drama The Strain. He plays Matt Sayles there.

The Strain is an old school horror take on the vampire legend. No-one sparkles here. They don't even conform to the dark sexual stereotype, once described by Stephen King as, 'I will rape you with my mouth and you shall enjoy it'.

But what did you expect, when it's Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, The Orphanage, The Devil's Backbone, Hellboy) behind the show?

The Strain's vampires are brutal, vicious, bestial beings. Their coming is treated as a contagion destined to destroy the USA, worse than, say, the Black Death suddenly arriving.  The initiation emphasis is on containment, science, warring governmental and emergency departments, and autopsies. But this isn't merely ebola or AIDS erupting upon the population. This is something different, and these vampires have several centuries on everyone else when it comes to playing the game.

Like Matt in Death Note, Matt Sayles is an everyman character. He's there to support his family and friends, but not from a position in which to make many decisions. He's not the president, nor a high-flying medic; he's just a bloke who works in Sears. He's us - the ordinary individual caught up in a world gone mad.

The first time you see Matt, in episode one, he's being asked to look after a car.  Chaotic Neutral once again, that doesn't go quite as protagonist Dr Ephraim Goodweather might have hoped.  The second time we spot Matt, it's obvious that he's got the girl.

If you want more, there are a few interviews with Drew Nelson about playing Matt in The Strain:

• Shockya: Exclusive: Drew Nelson Discusses Upcoming FX Show, The Strain
• Fangoria: Q&A: Drew Nelson on “THE STRAIN”
• Science Fiction.com: Exclusive: Actor Drew Nelson Talks about The Strain

Here's wishing Drew Nelson all the luck in the world, with his role in another high profile show, from all the Death Note gang here. And thanks once again for our interview back in the day!

As promised, I'm slowly working through all of my novels and transforming them into eBooks to be downloaded.

Today it's the turn of the fourth in the series - Poisoned Rationality.  The free digital version(s) may be accessed from my MediaFire folder.  Currently I have ePub and PDF formats in there.

However, if it was merely a case of reformatting this story, as I have with all of the others so far, you would have been able to access it yesterday afternoon. I've gone a little bit further with this one.

Basically, I've remastered the whole thing. I began last night, then devoted the entire of today to it too. I didn't quite mean to do so, but things happen.  I've read the story from start to finish, then tinkered with the wording. Insofar as I could find them, all typos are now gone, and all of the flashbacks, letters and EHC forum chats are properly formatted.

Then I edited the novel.

Part of me is cringing slightly in guilt at this. I know that readers haven't reacted well in the past to me suggesting that certain It Matters novels could do with a rewrite. I understand that there are those of you who can quote whole sections back to me, and who have read and re-read every tale a humbling amount of times. You don't want me to alter a single syllable. You even love the spelling mistakes.

But well, perfection.

I'm not saying that Poisoned Rationality is now perfect. No novel can ever be that (unless it's Wuthering Heights obviously).  However, there are some chapters that have now been quite heavily reworded, and others which have received merely the lightest spit and polish.  The story itself hasn't fundamentally changed, but bits of the presentation gleam a little harder. An emphasis might have shifted here and there (quite a lot of there in some places), so it might read like a slightly different novel.

I suppose that I should have given you all a choice - made an eBook of the original before I started tatting with it. But I didn't know that I'd eventually end up with over twenty-four hours of rewritten material.  The original remains in the website library and on AFF too.

In addition, I've gone through the Poisoned Rationality section of the website. I've fixed all of the links; removed the dead ones; embedded new iframes where the originals had died; added in a store; and created a YouTube playlist to replace the old defunct one.

I hope you like the remastered version (and the die-hards aren't already writing my name in their black notebooks for doing it). Let me know what you think.

Old G&G crowd, remember when that thumbnail appeared in our old 'hood and the world went a little crazy?

Sorry for those who aren't in that particular loop, but let me bring you up to date. (And double apologies that the thumbnail is a nostalgic thing, with its offer now woefully out of date.)

Back in 2011, the denizens of MangaBullet Death Note forum Guns and Games had the opportunity to interview Drew Nelson - the voice actor who played Matt (Mail Jeevas) in the English anime dub version. 

Much fun and happiness ensued, with the results published there, on April 25th 2011. Unfortunately MangaBullet is no more, though you can still see the original interview via the Wayback Machine.

I've frequently been asked if I kept a copy of the interview with Drew Nelson, and could I arrange to have it put back somewhere on line. Of course, I did, but until now I've had nowhere appropriate to place it. After all, we're talking about a gentleman's professional name here. Lodging it alongside my dodgy fan-fiction wasn't quite in the spirit of things! Hence I never approached him about it.

Now there's Matti's Death Note News, where it's all kept reasonably clean. 

Yesterday, I contacted Drew Nelson to ask if that old MangaBullet interview could be reproduced here. His exact words were: 'Yes of course it's fine with me. Post away!'  Consider me posting away:

Meeting Matt: G&G Interviews Drew Nelson

In other news, I rehashed the Death Note Merchandise section yesterday too. I'd be grateful if you'd check it out in terms of formatting, navigation etc and feedback anything that occurs to you. Ta!

Sorry to have disappeared on you all like that. I went away for a few days and it turned into a week.

However, this did give me an opportunity to look at my latest Death Note fan-fiction novel.  Writing has actually occurred.

I mentioned before that I had several partially written chapters dotted amidst the completed ones. These became my focus. I finished off early chapters (including three new opening ones), then kept going through finishing anything half-written. It's all looking much more like a solid novel now.

The action takes place two years after WCTD. In essence, I've skipped a lot of recovery time and just taken us straight into establishing their lives with more stability. 

I won't give out spoilers here, but if anyone wants to ask about it, do feel free to do so.

I'm not going to lie. This is the most exciting up-date for me so far.

All of the Death Note manga have been officially digitalized and free previews placed online. We get to see the Jump Comic volumes in a choice of two formats: as published, or in full colour.

FULL COLOUR! That doesn't mean a few pages at the beginning and the end. That means every single solitary panel of each and every page.  Colourings just got canon.

Which further means that after nearly a decade of the entire Death Note fandom depicting Matt with red hair and green eyes, he's just officially become a brunette. With a red and black striped shirt.

As yet, the digital editions of the Death Note manga are only in Japanese. But that's never taken very long to sort out. Plus, let's face it, we've all got enough copies by now in our own languages, that the teams of scanlation angels hardly need to rush themselves on our account.

Anyone going to rush to get their cyber paws on these versions?  I'm counting myself as a yes there.

What scenes and/or characters are you most looking forward to seeing in colour?  And Matt fans (of which we are legion, expect us), will you be altering ten years of mental images to match his now canon black hair?

For the record, no, I am not going through ten fan-fiction novels to change his tresses. Feel free to copy them onto your own computers and run through with an editing program, if you really wish that to conform to canon. (We all ignored the anime sludge-green-brown hair colouring anyway.)

It's noon in Britain, which means that I've finally been able to see what that intriguing Death Note announcement will be.

Kira is being resurrected from the dead!
At least, that's what is implied.

In an on-going plot, running throughout March 3rd 2014, Matsuda has heard rumours concerning the fact that Light Yagami has returned from the grave. He's investigating it on behalf of the SPK. (Because, you know, Near probably has better things to do...)

The information seems to have originated with Hitoshi Demegawa, the anchorman from Sakura TV, who played such a large part in bringing Light and Misa together. As Kira's erstwhile spokesperson, Demegawa may also have been considered a great source of information.

I say 'have been', because I have a distinct recollection of this same nasty media man writing in fatal agony on the floor. Didn't Mikami kill him with a Death Note?

In the online Death Note 10th Anniversary extravaganza, actors are playing Matsuda and Demegawa. I've grabbed some screen-shots above, while the actual film can be found on Shueisha's website.

Updates will be made there, and on the simultaneously launched 10th Anniversary Death Note Facebook page.  Further information is being announced via an official Twitter stream @deathnote10th.

What do you make of it?   A publicity stunt, or the precursor to a whole new saga of the Death Note story?  There's certainly scope here. The original story finished with a strange cult meeting on a mountain top, performing some kind of ritual. It was certainly to venerate Kira, but could it have been much more than that?

Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about it.

The whole point of Death Note was that the stakes were very high. Those who touched the Death Note went to nothingness - to Mu - when they died.  Tsugami Ohba made it quite clear at the time that there was no coming back. If this is a promotional vehicle leading to a brand, new arc of the Death Note story, then it would seem to negate the principles of the previous ones.

On the other hand, these are new canon chapters for Death Note. What's not to love about that prospect?!

And, if Kira can be revived, then why not all of the others too?  Demegawa certainly seems to have made it back into the realm of the living.

Will we see a charred and steaming Mello arising from the ruins of a burnt-out barn? Perhaps Near looking startled as a giant Old English L fills his screen, and a familiar electronic voice thanks him for his custodianship of the title and code. 

Maybe a ghostly Camero running roughshod through Tokyo streets, with a bloody Matt lighting a cigarette at the wheel. Or the television screens suddenly coming alive with the half-naked figure of Kiyomi Takada, smiling mystically at the cameras.

Will we hear the creaky tones of Noami Misora, as she addresses her former FBI colleagues with a terrible rope burn etched into her neck?  And the approaching tingle of a sweets trolley, pushed by the gangling figure of Mr Wammy?

What do you think?

UPDATE:  It's been brought to my attention that a FAQ on the official site makes it clear that there will be NO new Death Note manga series.  Also Matsuda ISN'T the one we already know and love, but Matsuda MomoFutoshi, a new character created especially for the 10th Anniversary.

Why? I don't know. Matsuda Touta survived the original, so he could just as easily been used.

UPDATE TWO:  It's not at all what we thought it might be...