Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 170
April 30, 2014
What Happened to Those Characters? Starry Night (Alan Takahashi)…
[This is the second installment in a series of short stories titled “What Happened to Those Characters?”. Each one revisits a character or characters from one of my novels and takes a peek at what happened later. This one is about Alan Takahashi, a character in Sing a Samba Galactica, the second book in my “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy.” Enjoy.]
Starry Night
Steven M. Moore
Copyright 2014
Some starry nights, Takahashi would stare at the sky and miss the ET trio. When the Singer had removed Badja, Odr...
April 29, 2014
A country not worth saving?
[Note to readers: If you notice problems with fonts, spacings, etc, in the next few posts, be assured that it's neither your eyes nor your computer. WordPress geeks in their infinite wisdom eliminated the W-button I used to employ to insert post rough drafts from MS Word. I've found a temporary fix, but I'm still exploring work-arounds. Apparently, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" isn't a workplace motto at WordPress where they've adopted a policy that users are beta-testers, just like Micr...
April 28, 2014
WP has screwed me!
Dear Readers,
All my posts are temporarily postponed until further notice! I used to use a W-icon to ctrl-V MS Word post drafts into WordPress. The brilliant minds at WordPress suddenly decided they’d remove that when it always worked fine for me–I don’t use graphics, HTML, video, or anything else that’s complicated, so people can load this website as fast as possible.
I wish the geeks would leave well enough alone! Haven’t they ever heard of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Maybe I should se...
April 24, 2014
Signpost up ahead: you are entering the land of irkdom…
Every once and a while I make a mental list of what has recently irked me. Today I thought I’d share the most recent list with you. Who knows? Maybe these things irk you too. And maybe I’ll make this a regular feature.
Item 1: Gum-smacking waitress in a restaurant. I suppose I should be PC and say waitperson? Somehow this smacks me as unhygienic. What’s the problem? Does she need to keep the saliva going so she can spit in my food? I hadn’t even tipped her yet!
Item 2: Young gen-Xer passing me...
April 23, 2014
What happened to those characters? Spring Cleaning (Zeb and Maria Elena)…
[I don’t know how diligent I’ll be, but today I’m beginning a series of short stories titled “What Happened to Those Characters?”. Each one revisits a character or characters from one of my novels and takes a peek at what happened later. This one is about Zebediah Lane and Maria Elena Hakim, characters in the first part of Survivors of the Chaos. Is this sci-fi or speculative fiction? You decide.]
Spring Cleaning
Steven M. Moore
Copyright 2014, Steven M. Moore
Zebediah Lane stood tall in the sad...
April 22, 2014
Is magical realism dead?
Probably not. Its champion is. Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1982 Nobel Prize winner, died at 87 in Mexico City. His word mastery and acerbic humor will be missed.
Magical realism is seeing a fantasy-world amidst stark reality, a technique that intertwines the mystical and sensual with the everyday trials and tribulations of ordinary people, making their lives extraordinary. It has influenced many authors since Garcia Marquez, and not just Hispanic authors. He wasn’t the first either. Kafk...
April 17, 2014
Irish Stew #29…
Item: English under attack. While I’m the first one to find attempts to control the evolution of modern languages futile (the French Academy is a waste of time, for example), I decry Hollywood’s and Madison Avenue’s redefinition of perfectly good words. Language evolves and the evolution is often Darwinian: “Awesome” is now accepted as a slang term; “cool” is reverting to its normal form, except for baby boomers’ vernacular. But the title of a recent movie about orcas called Black Fish is jus...
April 16, 2014
Review of Harry James Krebs’ Vengeance Is Mine…
(Harry James Krebs, Vengeance Is Mine, Peak City Publishing, 2014, ASIN B00IH8H0KA)
Not really a who-did-it but who-IS-it, this exciting mystery is suspenseful and entertaining fun, its protagonist a bit of Spenser, Lincoln Rhyme, and Alex Cross all rolled into one. You shouldn’t miss reading this one, although it’s not for the squeamish.
I suppose that more than who-IS-it, the ubiquitous why is also part of the discovery in this mystery. The author spins both of these questions out in classic...
April 15, 2014
Neocolonialism in the 21st century…
You’d think the world is beyond colonialism. The break-up of the British, German, and Japanese empires after WW II, and the break-up of the Soviet Union in the 90s, were all historically significant and geographically painful in the sense that these break-ups left bitter memories among the populations affected. Fighting in Northern Island, Yugoslavia, and lingering skirmishes in the Middle East and Africa can all be traced back to serious mistakes made in creating or carving up old colonies....
April 11, 2014
News and Notices from the Writing Trenches…
#360: Poisoned Ground. I just reviewed Sandra Parshall’s new Rachel Goddard mystery for Book Pleasures. If you missed it, you can also look in the section “Book Reviews” of this blog. It’s an entertaining read for all mystery fans. Ms. Parshall is a cut above Mary Higgins Clark and Carla Neggers, those Big Five superstars; she doesn’t receive enough recognition. But there are many authors like that who have written very good books but are unsung. I try to do my part by pointing them out to re...
