Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 180

Excerpt from Steve’s new novel No Amber Waves of Grain…

[Note from Steve: This novel will complete the “Clones and Mutants Series,” making it into a trilogy. Although it’s the sequel to Full Medical and Evil Agenda, it’s a stand-alone, just like all my novels. For those who read the first two books, though, you will also find here Kalidas Metropolis and friends, the genetically enhanced super-soldier Sirena, and others, as well as your favorite evildoer, Vladimir Kalinin aka Rupert Snyder aka Sergio Battaglia. But the latter also battles wits with...

Editing myths…

Last week I considered some of the incorrect advice often given to writers. Now I’d like to consider some editing myths. Some of these have been created by people with an agenda (for example, a copy editor wants to make money, after all); some have been created by traditional publishers who are threatened by the indie writing movement; and some are just old warhorses that should be eradicated once and for all.

Self-published books and indie writers often fight negative stereotypes. Every stere...

Review of John Betcher’s The Critical Element…

(John Betcher, The Critical Element, Amazon Digital Services, ASIN B00EARNQ2I)

This author continues to release entertaining and interesting thrillers in his James Becker series. For those readers not familiar with previous books, the protagonist Beck, now a lawyer, was a special ops type. He’s aging now but still managing to get into trouble.

This time Beck is dueling with North Korean agents in home state Minnesota. They are intent on carrying out their revered leader’s plan for mass murder o...

The two faces of security…

In last Thursday’s op-ed page, the NY Times laments the length of the sentence handed out to Pfc. Bradley Manning. Perhaps this was in defense of their own release of some of the many thousands of classified documents this confused person handed over to Julian Assange. In any case, their argument was spurious because they based it simply on the observation that the U.S. government over-classifies. They share the myopic view of many people who hold up Manning as a hero for being a whistle-blow...

Your writing voice, platform, and public persona…

Confused by all the blogs, magazines, and books claiming to tell you what you need to do to be a successful writer? I used to be, because often advice from different sources is contradictory. I’ve said it before in this blog: there are no sufficient conditions for writing success! To use a cliché, there are no silver bullets. There are some necessary conditions. You have to be able to write, for example. I’ll limit this discussion to writing fiction because that’s what I do. I’m guessing what...

Modern gladiators…

Ex-MVP Tejada is baseball’s latest player to receive a multi-game and possibly career-ending ban. A-Rod is probably the most famous. It’s inevitable that much finger-pointing and controversy surrounds this current doping scandal in what might become America’s least favorite sport. Tejada’s case is different because he wasn’t taking a performance-enhancing drug but a drug that MLB gave him permission to take. So, if baseball is a sport, why are the players doing drugs?

The problem is obvious. M...

News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #55…

#307: Curious phenomenon. About the same time that Amazon bought the Washington Post, the New York Times had an editorial toning down its support for Apple’s position in the ebook price-fixing scandal. A bit before that, the Boston Globe was sold to the owner of the Boston Red Sox. Perhaps the Times, which I commend for having a digital edition for a while, is quivering a little. They might prefer to work with Bezos than the New York Yankees’ organization? The amount left on A-Rod’s salary wo...

What’s a basic education?

In the U.S., one of the myths we have lived with is that everyone has access to a basic education, grades 1 through 12. Another myth is that if you want to go to college, there’s a way for you to do it. Social engineers, often in service of elites, love to parade these myths, but they are myths. Like religion, they promise a better tomorrow. The problem with the first myth is in the definition of “basic education.” The problem with the second is that it’s just not true. And the problem with b...

Review of R. Ira Harris’ Island of the White Rose…

(R. Ira Harris, Island of the White Rose, Bridge Works Publishing, 2013, ISBN 978-0-9816175-5-8)

“We’ve been duped—we’ve all been duped, I tell you!” says Harris’ character, Maria Guerra, summarizing her frustration with Castro’s revolution to her friend and lover Father Pedro Villanueva. These protagonists sink deep into intrigue as they plan to aid the guerrilla and topple Batista. They soon learn that revolutions often only exchange one set of despots for another, especially in Latin Americ...

Understanding democracy…

While I have criticized the ACLU and various other groups who support Snowden, Manning, and that new savior of all humanity, Assange, I recognize that there should be a national and international debate about how much of our privacy we should give up in a democracy to fight terrorism, be it international or home-grown. Nonetheless, contrary to what some believe, the Constitution doesn’t guarantee privacy—it protects us against illegal search and seizure.

It seems that when our internet activit...