Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 67
April 23, 2019
Climate control and all that…
I think climate control should be a bipartisan concern: we’re now ruining the planet for future generations, so it should be the number one concern that goes beyond election cycles and partisan politics. What we’re doing now is an evil worldwide attack on Gaia, but certain countries are guiltier than others, especially industrialized nations who are dependent and continue their dependence on fossil fuels without remorse. The melting glacier on the bio page of this website symbolizes all that....
April 19, 2019
Steve’s shorts: Fascist Tango, Part Four…
Fascist Tango
Copyright 2019, Steven M. Moore
Chapter Ten
Rodrigo’s Club
I sat with them, smiling first at the manager and then at Rodrigo. The gnomish owner’s intentions weren’t clear. After some pleasantries and questions about why I’d emigrated from Colombia, the conversation took another tack.
“I must congratulate you. You fit right in to our dance group.” The beaming Rodrigo flashed his perfect teeth. Implants?
“I’m happy you think so. I needed a job. I think the customers’ a...
April 18, 2019
Name recognition…
In the book business, some marketing gurus think this is more important than any particular book in an author’s oeuvre. Some people call it an “author’s brand,” as if the author were a CEO of a corporation looking out for the brand name of their products. When authors advertise, I call it PR and marketing. The marketing is for the individual products, and the PR to increase name recognition of the brand and defend it, although advertising gurus will probably take exception to those distinctio...
April 17, 2019
Review of Jill Paterson’s Rose Scented Murder…
(Jill Paterson, Rose Scented Murder, J. Henderson, 2019)
I read novels from all over the world, and almost any book involving a DCI or DS attracts my attention. And Ms. Paterson, an Australian author, has a whole series of them!
In this novel, DCI Alistair Fitzjohn and DS Martin Betts set out to solve another crime, this time the murder of a famous Australian actor. The crime occurs just after the last play in a famous old theater that will be torn down. The memoir of the victim plays a big r...
April 16, 2019
“Because some stories just have to be told”…
I liked this slogan from small-press publisher Black Opal Books the moment I saw it. The Barbara Tuchman quote on small-press publisher Penmore Press’s website also inspires me: “Books are the carriers of civilization….” Yes, I’ve published with both Black Opal and Penmore, but I’m just leading into the theme of this post. They represent different ways to express that theme, something that motivated me to begin writing my stories and putting them “out there” about fifteen years ago.
Maybe tha...
April 12, 2019
Steve’s shorts: Fascist Tango, Part Three…
Fascist Tango
Copyright 2019, Steven M. Moore
Chapter Seven
Buenos Aires Safe House
I wanted to learn more about Rodrigo Jimenez. The safe house had a state-of-art connection to the net, complete with interactive helmet to speed up searches through massive databases with an AI’s help. I took out my personalized dongle and plugged it into the side of my head and then connected its leads to the helmet’s input/output jacks. While the dongle could use an RF link, the bandwidth was lar...
April 11, 2019
Interviewing author Nancy Hughes…
Steve: It is my great pleasure today to interview mystery writer Nancy A. Hughes. Her debut novel was The Dying Hour. Her other novels are found in her “Trust Trilogy” that includes A Matter of Trust, Redeeming Trust, and Vanished . Without further ado, Nancy, why don’t you tell us a bit more about yourself.
Nancy: After graduating from Penn State in journalism and advertising, I was a business writer for small to mid-sized companies and nonprofits. Then I turned to writing mysteries and crim...
April 10, 2019
Book review of M. J. Markovki’s Whatever It Takes…
(M. J. Markovski, Whatever It Takes, White Bird Publications, 2019, ISBN 978-1633633773)
Hunter Grainger acts strangely when he returns to Parker, Texas. So does Regan Argent. The two almost committed in high school; the attraction still remains. And they don’t realize how their pasts during the years away from Parker are connected.
How should I classify this novel? Much of it is steamy romance as Regan and Hunter draw closer. But all the romantic heat gives way slowly to a tidy mystery, susp...
April 9, 2019
Why ex-military?
Many of my characters are strong, smart women modeled loosely after those I’ve had the privilege of meeting during my lifetime. The same is true about my ex-military characters. I’ve known quite a few real one too. (Sometimes they’re the same). There’s something about people in the military that appeals to me. I’m neither violent nor aggressive as a person, so the je-ne-sais-quoi I like about their personalities is hard to pin down. The order they embrace in their lives both in and out of the...
April 5, 2019
Movie Reviews #74…
Dumbo. Tim Burton, dir. Not Burton’s strangest by any means, and a mixed bag. Unlike the original cartoon feature, the animals no longer talk, and the humans, with the exception of Danny DeVito as the circus owner Medici, don’t emote as actors. The plot is more twisted too and doesn’t work well in this context.
Young kids probably won’t care. Most of them haven’t seen the original either. “Look, Mommy, the elephant can fly!” If that’s not enough suspension of belief in this fantasy world (sho...
