Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 23

Questions I’d like interviewers to ask…

In these days of pandemic (yes, it’s still going on, with 1000+ Americans still dying every day and another surge in Europe occurring, an omen for one here), I’m not doing any book events. So I was thinking about questions interviews or readers have never asked me. Just for fun, here’s a list along with my answers:

Is Moore your real surname? I understand the question. Many authors use pseudonyms. But Steven M. Moore is on my birth certificate (the middle initial is written out there, but I keep...

Fast and furious vs. increasing tension…

While my novels have plenty of action scenes, I’ve never tried to compete with Hollywood’s. Forget the soundtracks, special effects, and other audiovisual aspects of Hollywood movies. I’m analyzing something both books and movies can offer—many do in fact—fast and furious action over action, over and over again. As a writer, I prefer to build tension leading to those action scenes being the climax of that tension, not the be-all and end-all of the story.

This is evident even in my sci-fi novels ...

Animals…

Have you ever read a Dean Koontz novel? He generally writes better horror stories than Stephen King, his main competitor, although he slipped a bit with his Frankenstein series. He’s like me, though, in the sense that he’s written enough books that he feels he can experiment a bit, so I’ll give hm a pass. Like King, Koontz thinks his stories are sci-fi. Who gave those guys that idea? Like King’s, Koontz’s stories are firmly entrenched in the horror/fantasy category. Even so, I’ve read more Koont...

Today is the day to wear green…

…because it’s the day that everyone becomes Irish! Whether Erin is in your blood or not, that island with a history that includes Viking invasions, monks who saved classic literature, and more recent oppression from the English (not just from the Crown but from the likes of megalomaniac Cromwell), shares its celebration of their patron saint around the world, although that old boy might have frowned on the excesses many indulge in during their celebrations.

Not to detract from St. Paddy’s accomp...

Putin can’t sue me!

While there’s a litigation trial in my upcoming novel The Klimt Connection, Vladimir Putin can’t sue me in any court of the free world. First, he’s a monster who’s been ostracized by more than 140 nations—only a handful of Russian puppet countries voted against the resolution in  the UN’s General Assembly. Second, no country would let the man headed to the Hague for war crimes besmirch their courtrooms. And third, I write nothing about the megalomaniac that’s false and not readily available to t...

Fiction battling autocracy…

There’s a long tradition of fiction writers battling autocracy. From the seminal (and alarmingly prescient!) 1984 and Animal Farm of George Orwell (still obviously current, considering the despotic Pig Putin’s invasion of Ukraine!) and Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon to C. M. Kornbluth’s Not This August (his famous novella “The Marching Morons” does a good job of describing Trump’s followers or anti-vaxxers—those two groups overlap, of course), authors have been outspoken about the dangers of...

“Covid novels”?

I reacted badly to an article in the February 21st NY Times, “Writers Wonder Whether People Want to Curl Up with a Covid Novel.” The reason? The Times wants to label any novel dealing with a pandemic in this manner, which is completely moronic, of course.

Is Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain a Covid novel? What about my own More than Human: The Mensa Contagion and “The Last Humans” series? We can’t ask Michael his opinion, but I can tell you mine: I’ll verbally blast anyone who says my books are C...

Movie Reviews #85…

Around the World in 80 Days. (PBS Masterpiece Theater) Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve posted a movie review. I haven’t been to a movie theater for two years. Covid put a hiatus in this traditionalist’s view of date-night being a good movie and dinner out. I’m still cautious and wear a mask (too many idiots out and about!). And most fare on TV and from Hollywood is drivel, so PBS comes to the rescue at times, as in this case.

The movie came in several weekly chapters like a good book, not near...

Book review of Garry Trudeau’s Yuge!

Yuge! 30 Years of Doonesbury on Trump. G. B. Trudeau, author (Universal Uclick). Relatives and friends know that I’m an avid reader and that my reading tastes range far and wide. This little gem was a recent gift. Like Adam Schiff’s Midnight in Washington, my review of this book is appropriate for both my writer’s blog and my political blog. So here goes!

Mr. Schiff’s book probed more serious matters (emphasis on Trump’s first impeachment) associated with the psychotic sociopath’ (a spot-on diag...

Let’s wait and see…

While the Biden administration is worried about the traditional publishing behemoth Penguin Random House swallowing up Simon and Schuster in yet another monopolistic merger, questions about mergers might be occurring to self-published aka indie authors regarding the merger of Draft2Digital (D2D) and Smashwords (SW) ebook publishers. The first has a lot of hidden, sneakiness about it; the second is more open and is a non-cash merger, a joining of forces to promote self- and small press published ...