Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 48

The books they ignore…

…I often don’t. Of course, because the NY Times is part of the NYC publishing elites, dominated by the Big Five publishing conglomerates, the newspaper coddles and caters to those publishers and ignores most everything and everyone else. I sometimes peruse the NY Times Book Review to see which books to ignore (because they generally don’t entertain or enlighten me—that’s what you get from companies who are arrogant and too big); I rarely read it, though (if we still had birds as pets, a better u...

“Rage, rage…”

No, this isn’t about the idiots with automatic weapons in Michigan’s capitol rotunda. Nor about the Turtle (McConnell) not wanting to bailout blue states, even though they put more into the Fed than they take out (CA and NY had economies bigger than most nations’), while his state (Kentucky) always takes out more than it puts in (and horse racing and liquor aren’t exactly essential industries!). While those and many other knucklehead antics associated with COVID-19 enrage me, this post is about ...

Football in the days of pandemic…

I’ll admit it—I’ll miss pro football. Yes, I know, football widows have already realized that greedy NFL owners, to salvage something, are willing to risk players, sportscasters, and support staff’s health to create an anemic season, even if it means playing to empty stands. What’s Bob Kraft going to do? (I won’t mention what first comes to mind—this is a PG-13 rated blog.) If players refuse to play, will he fire them? Will he fire Tom Brady, that chap who put the I back in TEAM? (In spite of th...

Out of character…

All elements of storytelling are important, but (to echo Orwell), some are more important than others: plot, themes, characterization, settings, dialogue, narrative, and so forth all need careful attention, but plot is the most important, then characterization. Many authors put characterization on an equal pedestal with plot, though. It takes two to tango, of course, and the marriage of plot with characterization is also important.

Many writers, fiction writers and screenwriters, make...

Review of the Jenny Starling series…

The Jenny Starling Series. Faith Martin, author (Joffe Books). I dont usually review an entire series, but Ive been binge-reading during the pandemic, so its more efficient to review all the books. Because these novels are all republications (pen name to real name?), theyre definitely evergreenno ground-shaking themes here, and pre-Brexit and pre-pandemic, but still as fresh and entertaining as the day they were written.

This seven-book series is all British-mystery storytelling. It takes...

Op-ed pages #1: Lessons learned from a nasty virus…

[Note from Steve: As some faithful readers of this blog already know, it originally contained op-ed articles about current issues and events as well as book and movie reviews, author interviews, and articles about reading, writing, and the publishing business (all written in op-ed style). I stopped posting the first type because they often represented too long an investment in time to find the relevant background material and fact-check as much as possible. That said, I believe its now time...

Write for your audience?

Writing gurus often say this. While they state many things that are complete garbage, like write what you know (Im not an ET, for example, nor know anything about real onesthats also a great rebuttal to all the anti-cultural-appropriation idiots out there), let me give all those so-called gurus the benefit of the doubt here and try to make sense of this advice.

I believe my first published novel Full Medical (2006) is as current and entertaining as my last, Son of Thunder (2019). (Therell be...

Mini-Reviews of Books #47…

Stray Cat Blues. Robert Bucchianeri, author. I often read evergreen books because theyre just wonderful, old-fashioned good vs. evil stories, even when theyre without major universal themes. The latter makes them more evergreen, of course. (An evergreen book is one that seems as current and relevant as the day it was written.) This novel is in the first category. No reader should find its themes politically or culturally controversial because its basically just about good vs. evil.

Frankie is...

“I told you so…”

From Crichtons The Andromeda Strain to Atwoods Oryx and Crake, and in many other examples, sci-fi authors have written apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic tales about pandemics. Most can be considered warnings, and I doubt few are popular now. Were fighting a real pandemic, after all.

Some of these tales are about the outbreak itself, like the first example; others about the aftermath; and still others consider both. The main villain is usually the contagion, although it might only lurk in the...

Playing vs. watching…

I dont like to watch baseball gamestheyre just too slowbut I liked to play baseball. As a big, clumsy, six-foot-three kid, I didnt qualify for JV basketball and didnt even try out for varsity later on, but I still played a lot of basketball half-court games in our high school noon league. I didnt go out for track, but I could beat my older brother in shotput, who did.

Reading and writing are like that in the sense that writing is more active than reading. In playing a sport, you have to be...