Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 104
June 2, 2017
Movie Reviews #45…
Alien: Covenant. Ridley Scott, Dir. What! Another prequel to that great sci-fi movie Alien? This one “fits” in between Prometheus and that first movie. Whereas the first move featured a bunch of gruff, seasoned interstellar miners who didn’t pay much attention to Ripley—they all worked for an evil corporation—this tale is about a colony ship carrying hundreds of colonists in cryosleep and thousands of frozen human embryos. I liked that old mining ship better. And here there’s no evil corporat...
June 1, 2017
Esther Brookstone live!
[Sometimes my characters seem all too real. After I finished the book, I had a discussion with Scotland Yard’s Arts and Antiques Inspector Esther Brookstone, the protagonist of my new book Rembrandt’s Angel (Penmore Press). We’d just sat down in the living room of her flat near the grand piano with her 3D-printer copy of a Bernini bust to enjoy cheese, crackers, and a glass of shiraz.]
Steve: I’m so pleased you let me visit with you here at your flat in London. It has a simple elegance that m...
May 30, 2017
Trump isn’t the problem; it’s the GOP…
I should qualify the premise in the title: I know many GOP members, and they view conservatism like I do—a check on exuberant progressives who are too emotional and don’t think about the consequences of their actions and how solutions to problems might cause other, even more serious, problems. I’m a progressive, but anytime emotions take precedence over logic and reason, trouble is likely.
That said, it’s the GOP leaders who aren’t true conservatives and are: (1) out of touch with popular opi...
May 29, 2017
Monday words of wisdom…
If I were to run, I’d run as Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They love anything on Fox News.—Donald Trump
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The Collector. In #5 of the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” the detectives set out to solve the murder of a Manhattan art dealer. After twists and turns, they discover that the crime leads to something perverse financed by stolen artworks from the Gardner Museum in Boston as collateral. This intriguing and profoundly disturbing mystery/thrill...
May 25, 2017
Book stats…
Book stats are hard to come by, harder to organize in a meaningful way so we don’t compare apples and oranges, and even harder to use to predict where the industry is going. Online retailers like Amazon and the Big Five publishers covet their data. Professionals in the industry pretend to know what they’re talking about, but making sense out of the current status of the publishing industry is a nearly impossible task, especially for a single writer trying to understand it and what goes on wit...
May 24, 2017
News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #143…
An example of “political correctness” run amok? The most recent victim of the anti-cultural-appropriation lunatic fringe is an editor of the Canadian magazine Write. He was forced to resign for stating that there should be a reward for an author who does it well. While I’m no fan of literary contests and awards that often go to so-called “literary fiction” books (the genre that’s no genre), how absurd is this action!
Fictional characters play out on the world’s stage. If an author’s writing i...
May 23, 2017
Thank you, Mr. President!
Thanks to Donald Trump, AKA Narcissus le Grand AKA Il Duce, the clown currently residing (sometimes) in the White House, we have a plethora of scandals. In this era where SNL has become the Nuedexta for all sane observers of national politics, there’s such a wealth of scandals that I don’t know what to write about. Firing the one person investigating him and his cronies for collusion with Russia to affect the U.S. elections sounds an awful like Nixon v. Cox—another Watergate could be coming....
May 22, 2017
Monday words of wisdom…
Late for a date with fate? Leave people alive. Don’t text and drive!
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Aristocrats and Assassins. In #4 of the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” Castilblanco and his wife are on vacation in Europe when a terrorist starts kidnapping members of European royal families. Castilblanco and eventually Chen work with authorities to discover the terrorist’s agenda. This fast-moving mystery/thriller/suspense novel is on sale now at Smashwords in all ebook formats; use coupon code VN74R.
Lo...
May 18, 2017
Characters, actors, and minimalist writing…
By the first, I mean literary characters: Hercule Poirot, James Bond, or Jack Reacher, for example. By the second, I mean actors who portray them: David Suchet, Sean Connery, and Tom Cruise, for example. Same goes for female characters: Eliza Doolittle and Queen Elizabeth, for example, and the actors Julie Andrews and Hellen Mirren. Note that I am listing those actors I identify with the characters, the ones that stick in my mind.
Having read both Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming before seeing...
May 16, 2017
Free speech…
…doesn’t mean that Ann Coulter or anyone else has a right to speak at UC Berkeley. For the conservative commentator and writer, she’s had ample opportunity to spew her venom publicly around the country. Those who support her (or the Berkeley group who invited her to speak) don’t understand what “free speech” means, constitutionally or in practice.
Free speech always has to be measured against the safety of the general public. Sure, that’s a balancing act, but you can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowd...
