Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 116
November 21, 2016
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for so...
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.—Winston Churchill
***
Trouble on the border? It’s not Mr. Trump’s construction trucks rolling in but Detectives Chen and Castilblanco trying to stop a few bad guys. Assigned to a national task force, they stand in the way of a diabolical plan that involves a drug cartel, al Qaeda, and a right-wing militia. Angels Need Not Apply is a thriller you don’t want to miss! Available on Amazon and Smashwords and i...
November 18, 2016
Movie Reviews # 39…
Arrival. Denis Villeneuve, dir. The ETs are called Heptapods, but they look like elongated octopi standing on their tippytoes. I’ve always been fascinated by the challenge of ET/human communication (see Sing a Samba Galactica—also available in other ebook formats—or the PDF free for the asking, “Portal in the Pines”), so you’d think this movie would be like a full glass of Jameson for me. 90% of it was. I’ll have to go read Ted Chiang’s novella “Story of Your Life” now to answer some question...
November 17, 2016
News and Notices from the Writing Trenches # 134…
[Aren’t you lucky! Double feature today…]
Holly Berry Arts and Crafts Show success. I want to thank everyone who stopped by my booth. If you also purchased a book or books, all the more thanks—I hope you enjoy the stories and come back for more. That show was a great success for the Upper Montclair Woman’s Club in general—all for a very the good cause of supporting their community actions—and for me in particular. It was a very different experience compared to a book fair. You can see a pic o...
Crime, mystery, and thriller stories…
Some people consider these three words to be genres, but now they’re just keywords that help readers figure out what the plot is about or what is emphasized, and, in many cases, a short story, novella, or novel can be described by all three. Crime stories (often called police procedurals when involving cops) focus on the crime solvers and their techniques. Mysteries are often more cerebral and focus on who committed the crime and why, and the mystery solvers are more likely to be ordinary peo...
November 16, 2016
Steve’s Shorts: The Apprentice…
[This one is just for fun: this bawdy of evidence suggests that time-travel is impossible. But who knows what happens in a parallel universe?]
The Apprentice
Copyright 2016, Steven M. Moore
“You’re late. I’ll buzz you in.”
Late? I know that!
Jeff Langley’s car had broken down…again! He’d had to call a cab, a trip that had cost him nearly all his cash. He also expected the cops to tow the car—that charge would bankrupt him. He wasn’t happy with the prospect of asking dear old Dad for money. T...
November 15, 2016
The election’s positives and negatives…
We can debate the “intelligence” of the voting public seen in this recent election as we did with the election of George Bush, who also didn’t win the popular vote, but there were glimmers of hope. In several House and Senate races, common sense prevailed—Ayotte is out in New Hampshire, for example (Trump still might keep her in DC, though). On the other hand, Zephyr Teachout lost (Bernie Sanders campaigned for her).
Perhaps more importantly, considering that the GOP still controls the U.S. H...
November 14, 2016
Monday words of wisdom…
What made Mexico so evil back in the 1840s, well before our Civil War, is that slavery is illegal there. Remember the Alamo? With that war we were making California our own, and a lot of other people and properties, and doing it as though butchering Mexican soldiers who were only defending their homeland against invaders wasn’t murder.—Kurt Vonnegut
***
Action on the southern border! No, it’s not Trump beginning the construction of The Wall. It’s Chen and Castilblanco fighting terrorists, a c...
November 11, 2016
An important day…
If you are not prepared to take care of the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend this country—who come back wounded in body and spirit—if you’re not prepared to help those people, then don’t send them to war in the first place.—Bernie Sanders
Celebrate and support our veterans and their families and remember the fallen today.
In libris libertas!
November 10, 2016
NaNoWriMo and writing distractions…
November is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) time, so I was interested to see a wannabe author write to the “Personal Tech” column of the NY Times: “…what free or cheap software would work to temporarily lock me out of Facebook and other time-sapping sites?” The Times’ columnist surrounded the correct answer with a lot of blather (that’s called padding, folks), but that correct answer was spot on: “One free approach is to just unplug your home network router….” Well, yeah! Beyond the...
November 9, 2016
Steve’s Shorts: Broken Lives…
[Fate sometimes brings people together in strange ways…]
Broken Lives
Copyright 2016, Steven M. Moore
Max Phillips put his cellphone back in his pocket. Judy can be really annoying!
He knew his younger sister meant well, but the invitation to join him for a sail was for her and her husband, Mark. Now she was playing matchmaker and bringing along a female friend of hers!
He glanced around the sailboat. He’d have to clean up Wave Rider now. It was good enough for Judy and Mark, but he didn’t k...
