Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 206

Review of William Brown's Amongst My Enemies

(William Brown, Amongst My Enemies, eBook, ASIN B006LAOIWY)

This story might be categorized as "historical fiction," but the second word almost seems incorrect—the historical details are so well interwoven and authentic that the reader will swear Mr. Brown lived through them.  It might also be categorized as "a thriller"—there are thrills and suspenseful twists at every turn of the page.  It might even be categorized as "a romance"—the two protagonists are as right for each other as Romeo and ...

News and notices from the writing trenches #14…

#88:  The January issue of eFiction is now available for download from Amazon…or you can read the individual stories throughout the month on their website.  An up and coming eZine for short story writers and readers!  Congrats to Doug and his editorial staff for selecting another set of good short stories….

#89:  A new issue of Mini-Reviews will follow this one of News and Notices:  Baldacci, Land, Eisler, and Castle—all thriller or mystery writers, but….

#90:  Look for my review tomorrow of...

Mini-reviews #2…

#9:  David Baldacci, One Summer, 2.5 stars—If you're looking for a Baldacci thriller, this is not your book.  David is better known as a thriller and suspense writer (I've read so many of his books that I feel I'm on a first-name basis), but he can write literary fiction with the best of them (it probably doesn't pay as much, however).  (How "literary fiction" became part of the legacy publishing lexicon is beyond me—isn't all fiction literary?)

One Summer is a case in point.  Like his Wish...

Who do you want to win in New Hampshire?

Now that Mr. Romney is the not-so big winner and Mr. Perry and Ms. Bachmann are the big losers in Iowa, the question nagging all the pundits is:  who do you want to win in New Hampshire?  Given that all the candidates except Ms. Bachmann have stated they are still in the race (although Mr. Perry is going home to "reassess his campaign"—read: lick his wounds), the question should be whether Mr. Romney can build on his victory and whether Mr. Perry will fade into the electoral sunset.

I'm...

The friends of my enemies are my enemies…

It's Saturday, December 31, 2011, and Mr. Obama has just given a New Year's gift to terrorists.  Barack, the Avenger, just became Barack, the Santa Claus, with respect to Mr. Karzai and his entire corrupt government.  And Mrs. Clinton, his head elf, just goes along with it.  The Afghan leader, who knows he sits on a powder keg, is trying to make peace with the Taliban—our foreign policy gurus just helped him along the way.

Come on, Barack!  The friends of my enemies are my enemies—the Taliban ...

News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #13…

#82:  On Wednesday, I tried to comment on one of Joe's posts at Joe Konrath's website.  Previously, I was allowed to list the URL for my own website or use my Facebook fan page.  Now you have to sign on to Google+ (I don't use Google+ or much of anything of theirs anymore beyond their search engine and Chrome—they're becoming a monopoly).  Conclusion: either Google is being undemocratic and tyrannical, or Joe Konrath has succumbed to the pressures of rampant capitalism.  My first suspect is G...

Conservatives against progressives – an ancient battle…

The GOP is doing everything it can to keep Democratic American voters away from the ballot box.  The trick that will have the most legal success is requiring a state-government-issued ID from the state in which a person wants to vote (e.g. a driver's license).  Sounds reasonable?  7 states already have passed such voting laws and 27 more are considering them.  This infringement on universal suffrage will hinder blacks, Hispanics, the poor, the young (in particular, students, many of whom are ...

Respect for dictators?

North Korea has gone on record asking South Korea to show some respect for the deceased tyrant Kim Jong-il.  How South Korea reacts to this veiled threat is up to them, but it's time the world asks, "Why should we respect any dictator?"  A dictator might believe that he is the benevolent philosopher king that Plato envisioned, but anyone who usurps the power of the people to squash dissent and make sure a country is run as he sees fit, does not merit our respect.  On the contrary, such...

News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #12…

#74:  If you're a patient consumer, you've probably read reviews of products when visiting your favorite online retailer.  If you're a smart consumer, you'll ignore those one-liners which state "this product is (no) good" and give the product five stars (respectively one star).  Book reviews on Amazon are no different.  A well-written review goes beyond the one line and explains what the reviewer found good and what she found bad about the product (book).

A similar criticism can be applied to ...

The Eightfold Way

The media has become fixated on spontaneous symmetry breaking and the Higgs boson (the so-called "God particle," a name that would surely make Mr. Higgs cringe).  The Higgs mechanism (i.e. the spontaneous symmetry breaking) is necessary to give mass to some of the vector bosons in the electroweak or weak and electromagnetic interaction theory.  Forgotten in all this media hoopla is the theory that led to the idea of quarks and gluons, the Eightfold Way of symmetries popularized by Mr...