Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 179
September 20, 2013
News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #57…
#317: Wish Donna well! On Sept. 19, mystery writer Donna Carrick, co-founder of Carrick Publishing with hubby Alex, had surgery. Donna’s book, The First Excellence, is a great mystery story set in China. She also has other works to quench your thirst for a good mystery. For those in the know, she’s also my trusty ebook formatter. Wish her a speedy recovery.
#318: Full Medical might not be sci-fi. My sci-fi thriller Full Medical (now available as a second edition ebook) was written before Obama...
September 19, 2013
Ennui versus democracy–Part I: Office holders…
[Note from Steve: after Tuesday’s post, you’re probably looking for something shorter, so I broke this into two parts….]
I don’t live in NYC, but one thing bothered me about the recent mayoral primaries there—the low numbers of people voting. The same thing happened where I live in NJ for the senate primaries a few weeks ago—not many in the town voted. While primaries don’t have large voter turnouts traditionally, these elections are indicative of a general and understandable trend. Voters in...
September 17, 2013
Irish Stew #22…
[Note from Steve: It’s been awhile, but here’s another potpourri of comments on current news—in other words, I’ll forsake my usual verbosity in order to cover more items that have caught my attention. A lot of newsy comments for very little money? Consider it a selection of tapas and pick and choose what you like….]
Item: Has our country gone mad? Last week (Tuesday) we all received the news that the recall elections in Colorado were successful. Dems Angela Giron from Colorado and John Morse f...
September 12, 2013
Christie’s Waterloo?
Chris Christie has won recognition for being the last “moderate Republican.” I put that in quotes, because—let’s face it—our NJ governor receives this recognition due to the small crack of daylight between him and the rest of his party. Among voters, there are many moderate Republicans—people who would like to return to the days of Eisenhower and Rockefeller when the GOP sat just to the right of the middle of the political spectrum to balance the Dems who sat just to the left of that middle....
September 11, 2013
Interview with sci-fi writer Sabrina Chase…
[Note from Steve: Sabrina Chase is a prolific and successful writer in a genre that is difficult to break into—I know that from personal experience. I discovered her in my role as a lurker reading Joe Konrath’s blog—you never know when or where you can find another interesting author! She has written mostly novels: Firehearted, The Last Mage Guardian, The Long Way Home, Raven’s Children, Queen of Chaos, The Scent of Metal, and The Bureau of Substandards Annual Report. Like yours truly, her sc...
September 10, 2013
The Syrian mess – Obama’s foreign policy folly…
If you haven’t already realized it, President Obama is a lot better at winning elections than he is at foreign policy. There’s a huge cow-pie out there called Syria and he’s about to put both feet into it—possibly even trying to take a swim. Maybe he already has by the time I make this post. If so, take this as a plea to get the hell out of Syria. If not, let’s make sure he doesn’t jump into the fray. Syria is different. I hope to show you why, but frankly the issues are about as clear as tha...
September 6, 2013
News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #56…
#314: New books, old books…. This week you were able to read a pre-release excerpt from my new sci-fi thriller No Amber Waves of Grain, closing the “Clones and Mutants Series.” My other new book out this fall is the speculative fiction anthology Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape—no excerpts here because you’ll find some of the stories in the “Steve’s Shorts” category of this blog (they’re re-edited and reformatted for you in the new ebook). All my other books are still available as ebooks e...
September 5, 2013
The sins of Big Tobacco…
Everyone now believes that smoking is addictive. I used to smoke. I still have the desire to light up a cigar or pipe after a good meal or shooting the bull with friends. I went cold turkey before nicotine gum and the patch existed. When the bigwigs of Big Tobacco testified in Congress that smoking is non-addictive, I laughed. That’s like Putin telling you Russian roulette is good for your health!
I guess this week it’s my TF week—I’m only missing the A from ATF, because on Tuesday I went afte...
September 4, 2013
Review of Roderick Craig Low’s England 2026…
(Roderick Craig Low, England 2026, Amazon UK Authors, 2.0 edition, 2013, ASIN B00BU80YBQ)
England 2026 is what I call neo-dystopian. It portrays England “after the Discord,” a bleak police state in economic collapse. It’s a collection of diverse city-states glued together by a brutal and scheming Gestapo-like force, the CLIP, aided by a network of citizen spies, the Harkers. The “neo” means that there are glimmers of hope for a better future. I recommend the book for all lovers of this genre.
T...
September 3, 2013
Guns in America…
“Want cream or a gun with that latte?” Starbucks allows you to have a gun with your bad coffee when the gun isn’t expressly prohibited by state law. While I don’t expect anyone to shoot the barista because the company’s coffee is so bad, allowing guns seems a bad policy. Of course, it’s bad policy to allow people to carry guns in the first place, no matter where you live (OK, maybe on the edge of Damascus, but they won’t help you against sarin gas). Only people in special occupations should c...
