Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 162

Larger-than-life personalities…

Do you turn news programs off when they start up with “pop news”? Do you look at the magazines at the supermarket checkout with disgust? Are you tired of paparazzi pursuing cult figures, and cult figures smacking around the paparazzi? Are you fed up with the media turning killers into cult figures? My answer to these questions is yes. Maybe ordinary people’s lives are just so damn boring and dull that they become fascinated with personalities. As a result, some become so larger-than-life from...

Movie Reviews #7

[The first three movies below share a common feature—an aging protagonist who can really kick some butt! They’re also representative of what I most like to watch, read, and write. Sure, I read and write sci-fi too, but I split the time with the mystery/suspense/thriller genre. The last movie is a comedy…of horrors!]

Hostage. Robert Crais’ books, Hostage (2001) and Taken (2012), are definitely material for movie screenplays. Hostage is a stand-alone; the movie stars Bruce Willis in a role that’...

Climate control?

I’m amused by the euphemistic phrase “climate control.” Have we become so politically correct that we can’t say “don’t poison the environment” or “don’t kill Gaia”? Even the latter phrases don’t put the blame where it belongs. The very liberal NYC mayor Bill De Blasio is calling to reduce the Big Apple’s greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050. That’s laughable not only for the date but because NYC’s contribution represents one little drop in a huge ocean of pollution in the Northeastern U.S. Every w...

News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #71…

Item: Hachette-bias at the Times. It continues. David Streitfeld, a Times reporter, brought out the barbs again in his article, “A Writerly Chill at Bezos’ Fire” (Sunday, Sept. 21). Let’s ignore the fact that “writerly” isn’t even a word (being able to write isn’t a skill most Times reporters have, so I won’t embarrass Mr. Streitfeld by harping on this). To summarize: every fall, Mr. Bezos invites well-known novelists to his Campfire, a literary weekend in Santa Fe, NM.

To quote Mr. Streitfeld...

The new space program…

I was recently encouraged by NASA’s decision to use Space-X and Boeing to send astronauts to the International Space Station. You might say, “Well, you’re a sci-fi writer, so I’m not surprised!” Yes indeed, I have written a few sci-fi stories. I also write suspenseful thrillers and mysteries. Only one of my stories takes place on ISS (The Secret Lab), so I don’t have any particular agenda. In fact, I’ve conjectured that the Chinese will make it to Mars first (see Survivors of the Chaos). Canc...

Joe in the mornings…

I’m not just talking about my two mugs of rich, Colombian coffee, but those are certainly necessary for my writing. I’m also talking about Joe Konrath’s blog. Long the top link in my useful links for writers and readers (see my “Join the Conversation” webpage)—it’s called “A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing”—it features old Joe and frequent contributor Barry Eisler, often knocking the Big Five for hanging around in their traditional paradigm and attacking those Big Five authors like Patterson who...

Petty excesses of authority…

There are egregious excesses and petty excesses. Most citizens suffer the latter, and they basically reduce to an implicit tax on our patiences and pocket books. The petty excesses come from the minds of petty bureaucrats with inflated salaries as they try to figure out how to balance inflated bureaucratic budgets. A recent confrontation with Montclair’s parking Nazix motivates this post, but I will generalize this. Cities, counties, and probably states are increasing their efforts to enforce...

Apple toys…

Continuing our discussion from Tuesday about rampant commercialism, I find Apple annoying. Contrary to many people’s opinions, they’ve become like a Wall Street bank—too big to fail! It would have been enough that they tried to control the ebook business to turn me against them, but I’ve disliked them for years. Starting with the old toaster MACs, they’ve never made a computer that I like. Of course, in my old day job, powerful UNIX workstations were required, but I still had to make presenta...

Series bound…

If you’re a Yankees fan, probably not; if you’re a Red Sox fan, most certainly not. If you’re thinking that the new college playoff plan is better than the BCS, you’re right—almost anything would be—but it’s really nothing like the NCAA tournament (you’d have to start the football version back in late August or early September when college teams begin their seasons!). In the sports world, no matter the playoff that takes place, being number one after a lengthy season is largely irrelevant—it’...

A toxic sea of annoyance…

I suppose this could be interpreted as a follow-up on last Tuesday’s post. People minimize the onslaught of commercials by using DVRs and streaming video now, but commercial interests still bombard everyone with commercials. Pop-up ads on websites, especially those with video and sound, are only a small part of the problem. Theaters, struggling to compete in this internet age, bombard us with commercials too—many of them are the same ones you see on TV. It’s not enough that you have to mortga...