Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 94
October 25, 2017
Steve’s shorts: Special Cargo…
[While tongue-in-cheek, there’s a serious side to this story. See if you can discover my homage to Greeks. Geez, I love that baklava!]
Special Cargo
Copyright 2017, Steven M. Moore
Cal’Len, my XO, bent over and shouted in my ear. The din in the Zanthian bar required this so I could understand him. The crazy band’s music was mostly loud burps and wheezes with lots of percussion and contributions from many types of the Zanthian’s traditional instruments.
I put my Zanthian Bomb down and raised m...
October 24, 2017
Mr. Trump’s feud with NFL players…
The president has managed to spin this in a way that implies that the players’ practicing their First Amendment rights are seen as unpatriotic. It was never about disrespect for the flag or national anthem, Mr. President! Another of your lies (has it been counted in that list of 1000+ lies—talk about “fake news”!). The players’ protests, initiated by Mr. Colin Kaepernick, were about racism and inequality in America, and they started as a protest against police brutality that’s a consequence o...
October 23, 2017
Monday words of wisdom…
Our nation cannot survive morally or economically when so few have so much while so many have so little.—Bernie Sanders
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Sci-fi book sale: More than Human: The Mensa Contagion and Rogue Planet are now on sale at Smashwords from October 1 through October 31. Their prices are reduced to $1.99—that’s one-third off. In the first novel, an ET virus changes the world, but in a good way, and leads to the colonization of Mars. In the second, there’s a wee bit of “Game of Thrones” fantasy mixed int...
October 20, 2017
Review of Edita A. Petrick’s Ribbons of Death…
(Edita A. Petrick, Ribbons of Death (2nd ed.), Peacetaker series #1, 2017)
I suspect this started with a play on words. We all know what peacemaker means, but what is a peacetaker? You can find out in detail by reading this sci-fi/fantasy/mystery/thriller. I’ll start by explaining the genre overlap. The sciences are archaeology and linguistics. The fantasy is a curse that has affected several ancient civilizations. The mystery is in how it is now affecting our modern world…and why. The thrill...
October 19, 2017
Amazon: one size fits all…
This giant retailer has expanded so far beyond books that now books are only a small part of Bezo’s business. The company can no longer be considered a friend of readers and writers as a consequence.
Let’s start by listing some recent sins: they offer only one format for ebooks—theirs, of course. While they compensate for that by offering the Kindle app, available for most devices, readers with older ereaders can’t be too happy with the situation because the app isn’t universal.
In fact, Amaz...
October 18, 2017
News and Notices from the Writing Trenches # 151…
Indie Author Day, October 14. If you attended one of these events near you, or any other local book fair, for that matter (‘tis the season), thank you. Whether reader or writer, these events carry on an important tradition—books are part of being human.
At the event in Montclair, I enjoyed chatting with readers, many of them Montclair Public Library supporters, who wandered through talking to the participating authors. I enjoyed chatting with other authors too. Such experiences file off some...
October 17, 2017
Reasonable gun control…
Too many of us interpret the Second Amendment incorrectly. It states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms should not be infringed.” Let’s ignore the incorrect English—the Constitution is full of illiteracy, at least in modern terms, which often gives rise to misinterpretation. But please note the emphasis on militias—the word is even capitalized. Gun fanatics focus on the last clause and take it out of cont...
October 16, 2017
Monday words of wisdom…
To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them; this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.—Ursula Le Guin
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Sci-fi book sale: More than Human: The Mensa Contagion and Rogue Planet are now on sale at Smashwords from October 1 through October 31. Their prices are reduced to $1.99—that’s one-third off. In the first novel, an ET virus changes the world, but in a good way, and leads to the colonization of Mars. In the second, there’s a wee bit of “Game of Thro...
October 13, 2017
Movie Reviews # 54…
Blade Runner 2049. Denis Villenueve, dir. There’s a new and improved Blade Runner, and unlike Deckard, Joe K. is most assuredly a replicant, but just as lethal. This sequel isn’t as groundbreaking as the original, arguably the best sci-fi movie ever made, but it’s a great story. Ryan Gosling does a fantastic job as K, AKA Joe K., one of the many 2.0 version replicants whose programming is supposed to guarantee subservience to their human masters. There are a lot of old ones around still, whic...
October 12, 2017
Mixing facts and fiction…
No, I’m not talking about Trump’s moaning about “fake news,” much of which he or his Russian friends create (Trump’s lies total 1145 at last count). My title relates to the idea that good fiction mixes in facts with the fiction in such a way that the reader either thinks the fiction is real or at least seems to be real.
One thing that impressed me about Forsyth’s novel The Day of the Jackal was that events surrounding the Algerian War (the facts) smoothly became an assassination plot against...
