James Pyles's Blog, page 62

DVD Film Review: Black Panther

Originally posted on Powered by Robots:
Promotional poster for the 2018 film “Black Panther” Okay, so last night, I watched Black Panther (2018) and loved it. Actually, for me, picking up the main themes wasn’t difficult at all, and yes it is more than just another superhero story. It’s both the epic tale of a…

Work in Progress Excerpt 8-28-2020

Finally got some mojo back and am doing a bit of writing, but I’d better hurry, because the deadline for this one is just a week away and I’m still halfway through my first draft. Here’s an excerpt. Tell me what you think of it. “A wise man once said, it ain’t over til it’s […]

The Trouble with “The Trouble with Being Born”

In 2017, I wrote a short story on my blog called The Girl from Svay Pak. It leveraged what I had read about a Japanese company that manufactured AI-driven sex dolls of little girls. I also added narrative details about the outrageous amount of children being sold for sex in Cambodia. The tale was fiction […]

My Short Story “The Tenth Second” Has Been Accepted for Publication in the “Tick Tock” Anthology

My short story “The Tenth Second” has been accepted for the Black Hare Press time travel anthology Tick Tock. The tales were to be 500 words long, which isn’t a lot of room to tell a full story, and they accepted multiple submissions. My other submission “The Weapon” wasn’t accepted, but you can’t win them […]

Netflix’s “Cuties:” The Sexual Exploitation of Children for Profit

By now, you’ve probably heard at least something about the new Netflix series Cuties. Netflix describes the show as: Eleven-year-old Amy starts to rebel against her conservative family’s traditions when she becomes fascinated with a free-spirited dance crew. I, like a lot of people, became aware of the show based on the promotional poster I’ve […]

The Thirteenth Sign

“This is most unusual.” The ferryman, standing at the head of his riverboat, guided it steadily, pull by pull, across waters darker than pitch. “It is allowed. I have Persephone’s blessing.” The voice from beneath the ashen robes and hood was deep, husky, even coarse, but still unmistakably female. It was the only sign of […]

The “Mars” Anthology Featuring “The Three Billion Year Love” is Available Now!

I just saw the announcement on Richard Paolinelli’s blog that the Tuscany Bay Books “Planetary Anthology Series: Mars” is now available for purchase on Amazon! It features my short story “The Three Billion Year Love”. This is a huge thrill for me, not only because it’s one of my older stories and near and dear […]

Warrior’s Prize

The amber sands of the Elysian beach and the expanse of the ocean beyond called to the triumphant Erik Reeves, but not as much as she did. Leona, as young, as brilliantly beautiful as she had been before the war, stood waiting, the sea at her back. She had shed the ruffled skirt and cotton […]

Lovecraft Country, Tarzan of the Apes, and What is and isn’t Racism?

Every once in a while, I visit Mike Glyer’s File 770 SciFi fanzine. I used to follow them and get email updates of new posts, but either due to an accidental technical glitch or me being deliberately booted off for being an “undesirable,” those notices stopped. Anyway, I was scrolling through Pixel Scroll 8/15/20 To […]

Retro Hugos, Dragons, and Why I Don’t Care (for the most part) About the Private Lives of Authors

Just when I thought I was done with the Hugo Awards and with all this year’s drama and trauma, I ended up reading Looking Forward on Looking Backwards at the Hugo Book Club Blog co-authored by Amanda Wakaruk and Olav Rokne. I don’t know which one of them I talk to on twitter, but they […]