Michael Offutt's Blog, page 164

Please welcome Alex J. Cavanaugh and CassaFire

"This sequel to Cavanaugh's first novel, CassaStar, delivers on the promise of its predecessor, combining military action sequences and political intrigue with strong, memorable characters. Reminiscent of the action-driven stories of Robert A. Heinlein's early fiction…" - Library Journal


Alex J. Cavanaugh is the most famous person I know. And today, he's consented to an interview.
Q: Where did you get the inspiration for Byron and why did you decide to use telepathy?

Byron came from my obsession with science fiction movies and TV, most notably the original Battlestar Galactica. He has a bit of Apollo in him with a dash of Starbuck for the attitude.

I always thought telepathy was cool - the ability to talk to another in total privacy or when that person isn't even present. Think of the minutes you'd save on your cell phone!

Q: In what ways can we expect Byron to grow in CassaFire?

A: It begins twenty years later, so age has already brought some wisdom and maturity. (Funny how that works.) He's kept others at a distance since the loss of his friend and brother, but as the story progresses, he realizes he can't continue on that path anymore. Not when he meets an awkward young man in desperate need of a friend. Certainly not when he meets a talented and attractive female pilot named Athee. Besides, she won't let him remain aloof and private!

Q: What do you think was the most difficult part of the book to write?

A: The entire first draft? Seriously, I'd never even planned to write another book.

But the most difficult part was satisfying the fans who all clamored "We want a female character!" Athee was challenging, especially writing all of the aspects involving a man-woman relationship. I have a good handle on the guy's side but I didn't want to mess up the woman's point of view.

Q: How do you feel a writer should approach a sequel?

A: With caution! I know we should write what we want, but we have to keep the fans of the first book in mind. They are the ones we need to please.

BONUS QUESTION:

Q: What advice do you have for anyone that wants to write a space opera?

A: Know the genre. Read authors like Timothy Zhan, Alan Dean Foster, and Orson Scott Card. Watch those types of movies and TV shows as well. The genres of space opera and adventure are lighter. They aren't heavy on tech stuff and often spill into other genres such as westerns. (Firefly, anyone?) Mostly, space opera is all about the fun. And if you can't have fun with your science fiction, why bother?

From Alex==>Thanks again, Michael. Anyone else struggle with the first draft? Think a sequel is scary? Still wondering about the 'Ninja Captain' part? That explanation would require a whole new blog post…

Cool prizes up for grabs!Please visit the author's site and leave a comment during his book tour for a chance to win CassaFire, CassaStar, and a CassaFire tote bag and mug!

CassaFire
by Alex J. Cavanaugh

CassaStar was just the beginning…

The Vindicarn War is a distant memory and Byron's days of piloting Cosbolt fighters are over. He has kept the promise he made to his fallen mentor and friend - to probe space on an exploration vessel. Shuttle work is dull, but it's a free and solitary existence. The senior officer is content with his life aboard the Rennather.

The detection of alien ruins sends the exploration ship to the distant planet of Tgren. If their scientists can decipher the language, they can unlock the secrets of this device. Is it a key to the Tgren's civilization or a weapon of unimaginable power? Tensions mount as their new allies are suspicious of the Cassan's technology and strange mental abilities.

To complicate matters, the Tgrens are showing signs of mental powers themselves; the strongest of which belongs to a pilot named Athee, a woman whose skills rival Byron's unique abilities. Forced to train her mind and further develop her flying aptitude, he finds his patience strained. Add a reluctant friendship with a young scientist, and he feels invaded on every level. All Byron wanted was his privacy…

Available now!
Science fiction - space opera/adventure
Print ISBN 978-0-9827139-4-5, $15.95, 6x9 Trade paperback, 240 pages
EBook ISBN 978-0-9827139-6-9, $4.99, available in all formats

CassaFire is the sequel to Cavanaugh's first book, CassaStar, an Amazon Top Ten Best Seller:

Praise for CassaFire:
"…calls to mind the youthful focus of Robert Heinlein's early military sf, as well as the excitement of space opera epitomized by the manyStar Wars novels. Fast-paced military action and a youthful protagonist make this a good choice for both young adult and adult fans of space wars." - Library Journal

Please visit Alex at his blog HERE. 
Purchase from Barnes and Noble HERE
Purchase from Amazon HERE
Purchase for Amazon Kindle HERE

Viral marketing by Ridley Scott for Prometheus

I just came across this Prometheus short film by Ridley Scott. It's about three minutes long, and has Guy Pearce acting as the head of Weyland Corporation giving a TED talk (the evil corporation in charge of the mission in the sci-fi movie and also behind everything else in the ALIEN franchise).

Oh I can't wait for June.

My other Prometheus posts:

Fan Art
Plot Synopsis
My November post that the movie is coming soon
My post where I discuss an actress who is in the Walking Dead who is also going to be in Prometheus

Dr. Jenner's whisper to Rick on The Walking Dead

This week's Walking Dead had me thinking.

If you recall from season one, the group led by Rick went to the CDC in Atlanta for help. When they got there, they found Dr. Jenner. He was the only one left. And prior to committing suicide and blowing up the whole building, he whispered something into Rick's ear.

Dr. Jenner whispered something to Rick in last year's
season finale and I think they are going to finally reveal
it very soon.Well I have an idea on just what that whisper might have been.

After a discussion with my friend James, I think that Dr. Jenner might have told Rick that everyone is infected with the zombie disease. That everyone that dies, becomes one, whether or not they are bit. Somehow...the world has changed.

The implications for Rick are profound. If something happens to his unborn baby in the womb and it dies, it will become a zombie and attack the mother from the inside.

That would be horrific. And this series does not pull any punches.

Additionally, it looks like Michonne will be showing up in the season finale in just three more episodes. If you don't know who Michonne is, you can look at my post that I did on her HERE.
Rutina Wesley as Michonne? We find out in 3 episodesThe woman who has been cast with no name attached because AMC is keeping it secret as to who she will play is Rutina Wesley. You may recognize her from playing Tara in the HBO series "True Blood." She's also going to be in Ridley Scott's Prometheus (I can see Grumpy rolling his eyes). Rutina Wesley IS confirmed as a permanent cast member and not a guest star appearance.

She has to be playing Michonne.

What do you think?

The CassaFire Blog Tour

Alex J. Cavanaugh blog tour runs through March 9th. #CatchFire
http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com

Today is the Catch Fire Blog Party, celebrating the release of CassaFire by Alex J. Cavanaugh! The goal is to help CassaFire "catch fire" on the best seller charts and achieve the success of the first book, CassaStar. There's also a special package of prizes being given away at the author's blog (copies of CassaFire, CassaStar, tote bag, mug, and bookmarks) as well as book giveaways during his two-week blog tour. See Alex's site for details: http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/

CassaFire

by Alex J. Cavanaugh

CassaStar was just the beginning…

The Vindicarn War is a distant memory and Byron's days of piloting Cosbolt fighters are over. He has kept the promise he made to his fallen mentor and friend - to probe space on an exploration vessel. Shuttle work is dull, but it's a free and solitary existence. The senior officer is content with his life aboard the Rennather.

The detection of alien ruins sends the exploration ship to the distant planet of Tgren. If their scientists can decipher the language, they can unlock the secrets of this device. Is it a key to the Tgren's civilization or a weapon of unimaginable power? Tensions mount as their new allies are suspicious of the Cassan's technology and strange mental abilities.

To complicate matters, the Tgrens are showing signs of mental powers themselves; the strongest of which belongs to a pilot named Athee, a woman whose skills rival Byron's unique abilities. Forced to train her mind and further develop her flying aptitude, he finds his patience strained. Add a reluctant friendship with a young scientist, and he feels invaded on every level. All Byron wanted was his privacy…

Available today!

Science fiction - space opera/adventure

Print ISBN 978-0-9827139-4-5, $15.95, 6x9 Trade paperback, 240 pages

EBook ISBN 978-0-9827139-6-9, $4.99, available in all formats

CassaFire is the sequel to Cavanaugh's first book, CassaStar, an Amazon Top Ten Best Seller:

"…calls to mind the youthful focus of Robert Heinlein's early military sf, as well as the excitement of space opera epitomized by the many Star Wars novels. Fast-paced military action and a youthful protagonist make this a good choice for both young adult and adult fans of space wars." - Library Journal

You can visit the author's site at http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/

Please click on one of the links below to be taken to the appropriate spot to support Alex and buy his book.

Barnes and Noble Amazon Amazon Kindle 
Please be sure to check back on Friday, March 2nd as I will be hosting the Brilliant Mr. Cavanaugh for an interview.

Conor Maynard owns Rihanna in this jaw-dropping cover of her song

So I found a video on YouTube put out by three people that covers "I love the way you lie, part 2" as featured on Rihanna's most recent album. In order of appearance, they are Nike Jemiyo, Conor Maynard, and Anth (rapping for Eminem's part and not as good as Eminem). I love Rihanna, and I think that the woman has an incredible voice. Yes, I own a bunch of her music.

Conor is the white guy that sings the second verse of this ballad starting at 1:22 if you just want to slide over and take a listen. I love all the faces he makes, sticking his tongue out and stuff...it caught my attention.

Conor's vocals gave me CHILLS. This 19-year-old has one hell of a gift, and from the research I did on him, I guess he's becoming a star and his first actual single is out (he was discovered by Ne-yo). I actually enjoy Conor singing Rihanna's second verse MORE than Rihanna. I hardly ever say that. There's so many covers of Beyonce's "Single Ladies" including the one done on Glee, and I have never thought anyone did that song better than Beyonce. Ever.

I'm pretty much blown away. Listen for yourself.

When writing goes too far

There is graffiti where I live, but none as daring as what I've seen in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Here, we have had these people scale over the interstate at night to paint the green signs that provide directions to commuters.or color the underside of bridges with markings that I don't understand. But for the most part, Salt Lake City doesn't suffer from it like Sao Paulo.
Sao Paulo by night. It's beautiful, isn't it? Click to make bigger.A city of 20 million people, Sao Paulo is a reflection of Brazil. It's going through class warfare much more severe than what we are seeing in the United States, and the angry, disenfranchised, and decidedly athletic are taking out their anger by using graffiti. I say "decidedly athletic" because there's no way an out-of-shape guy like me would ever attempt to do this kind of work. It blows my mind that they do it at night. And for the record, I don't admire it. I think graffiti is ugly.
A building completely defaced by graffiti
In Sao Paulo they are defacing things with more than just spray cans. We're talking buckets of black paint, rollers, and the daring to scale skyscrapers all the way to the top to vandalize enormous buildings. It makes my eyes swim because I would find that to be just terrifying.

The most daring climbers of "Pixação" will stop at nothing to get to the top of the tallest structures and some of them fall to their deaths. They don't use safety lines at all, and the higher the mark is on a building, I guess the more prestige that they earn among their peers.

When I look at something like "Pixação", I have to ask, why does it seem that only men engage in this kind of activity? Is it testosterone? Or are men just stupider than women?

Be sure to check out at least a minute of the video below. It shows some of the people who engage in this activity climbing up the sides of these huge buildings in night vision. It's pretty incredible.  According to the New York Times, Pixação translates into "cover with tar" and is supposed to reflect the urban decay and deep class divisions that now define Brazil.
In my opinion, the people doing this are criminals.  Any who say differently...that say they are doing this for a cause are just liars. I don't understand how any sane person would think that defacing public landmarks with graffiti could in any way be a positive statement. It's more like poetic terrorism. In other words..."I will destroy the value of something you own by putting my 'poetry' on it UNLESS you cave-in to my demand." Income inequality sucks. But destroying things because you are angry is no way to solve anything. It just makes things worse, and I hope that this kind of graffiti doesn't become popular in the United States.

What about you? Do you like graffiti?

The Majesty of the Human Condition in The Artist

The Artist is about George Valentin. A silent film star who is at the top of his career. The side effect of this is that he is vain. Vain of how handsome he is, vain of how successful he is, and vain of his position as a superstar. Then comes the invention of sound, and just like yesterday's garbage, he is out with the trash.

The studio replaces him with a young woman who the world wants to hear speak. And her career starts to take off even as George blows most of his money on one last silent film that tanks at the box office. Why does he do this? Vanity/pride. He thinks that all that he has accomplished is because he has something that others don't have. I draw this conclusion from one specific line in the film that George says as he anoints Peppy Miller (the young starlet) with a single beauty mark that seems to make all the difference.

But maybe that's just it. Maybe that's all the difference there is between a nobody and someone that is a star. A single beauty mark drawn in with a makeup pencil to distinguish her from other girls. Would Suzanne Collins be the star that she is if Scholastic hadn't made her one? I sometimes wonder.
George ends up going broke and drinks himself almost to death. The film ends when he almost commits suicide and Peppy saves him.  "Why won't you let me help you, George?" she asks him. And then it just clicks. She understands that she needs to work around his pride, his vanity, which is suffocating him. So they invent a dancing vaudeville act and become a smashing success together. "Out with the old in with the new" becomes "the new reinvents and gives purpose to the old", which is probably a much better saying, and one that we can take to heart.

I left the theater after having seen this movie and thought to myself how closely this movie is a reflection of our society. I know that in the gay community in particular, many older gay men become invisible to younger men simply because they are the old black and white silent pictures, and now everyone wants "sound". The same can be said for the straight community.

I also see this in ebooks. Printed books are under siege from the onslaught of e-readers, iPads, Nooks, Kindles, and tablets galore (the new). But just like in The Artist, there is still value in the old. You just need to know how to find it with an appreciative eye.

The Artist is an expose of the overall human condition that I see everywhere in America right now. The old get put into nursing homes seemingly at younger and younger ages because families don't want to care for them. I've seen many parents reach an age where there children dismiss them as a bother and probably secretly wish that they'd just die off because they've gotten so busy with their lives that they just can't spare the time. Fade to black. Invisible. When at one time you ruled the world or at least your family. Now...no one cares.
What a remarkable film. To capture all of that about our society in a short silent black and white movie.

The Artist is you. The Artist is me. The Artist is a film that is for anyone that is an artist or who fancies themselves to be creative. As writers, we DO fit into this category. How many of you out there are so proud that you will only accept being traditionally published by the Big Six? How many of you desire the fame and adulation of Stephanie Meyer and keep it hidden just under the surface so that no one can tell how much you feel you deserve to be a star? How many of you are vain? That secretly think that your writing is so much better than another authors when you haven't even read what they've written? You just visit their website, look at their book, and think, "Someday I'll be famous and there's no way this person would have ever gotten signed to an agent anyway...it's good they self-published." How many of you feel contempt for another person as you walk or drive by them on the street just because they are fat, a different race, or smelly?
The Artist is a film that warns against vanity. At the end of the film, George finally loses his vanity and is saved. He achieves happiness and love. I think that's the key. If you depend on the adulation of others to give your life meaning, then you are going to crash and burn.

I haven't seen all the best picture nominees. But The Artist blows Hugo away. Martin Scorsese, in my opinion, doesn't stand a chance.

Blizzard is anti-marketing Diablo 3. Why?

Is there a reason not to like hype? In what may arguably be the most anticipated game of the year, Blizzard Entertainment's community manager who goes by the name Bashiok on the Diablo 3 forums said, "I too worry that we won't be able to meet the expectations people have built up for themselves. Part of my job is managing people's expectations, so... eh... stop it.  Stop thinking about how awesome this game could be. Just imagine it's a new M. Night Shyamalan movie. Sure Sixth Sense was amazing and Unbreakable had its moments, but this right here is the sequel to The Village ... or The Happening ... or Signs ... or any of the movies besides the two I first mentioned. So just like, lower those expectations, but still definitely buy the game please, and everything will be just fine. K?"

Do you think this is weird? Whacko? That the guy has gone insane?

Why would anyone tell their audience to lower expectations?

All I can say is that I have always loved games by Blizzard and the thing that appeals to me so much about the Diablo world is that it is so incredibly dark. Cindy Borgne probably said it best when she reviewed my upcoming book and said that it was a "dark urban fantasy."  It was like she had this x-ray vision into the kind of things I like to read and pulled it out in one sentence.

The Diablo world is a no holds barred dark fantasy almost (but not quite) without hope. It's a sword and sorcery but with an epic storyline. Demons are everywhere doing terrible things. It has great blood and destruction animations. The kind that make the hairs on your arms stand on end. And when certain sounds play over your speakers, you actually feel scared. And no matter who you play, your character always looks incredibly hot.

I remember playing the first one and kicking down the door to a room filled with corpses of townsfolk that had been flayed by a demon called the Butcher. He uttered "FRESH MEAT!" and chased after me with a cleaver. I was totally not expecting it and he was really hard to defeat.

Diablo 3 comes out sometime between April thru June depending on the rumors. For me, it can't be soon enough.

My question to you is, are you going to play? And do you think that there is ever a time that hype is bad? Please watch the trailer below. It's pretty amazing for a video game and is the opening cinematic sequence.

I'm being interviewed by the amazing Donna Hole

Hello and good Tuesday morning to all of you. Today I've got a guest post and a review of my book up at Donna Hole's blog<<<CLICK. Please go and visit if you don't already follow Donna. She's amazing. I also talk about my writing.

Today, I'm going to share one of my deepest fears:
What do you fear?

Have a great Tuesday.

Moral ambiguity in the zombie apocalypse

I'm really loving the second half of the second season of the Walking Dead and last night's show was no exception. One of the things that I like about the show was brought up in the talk show that airs late in the evening. One of the guests pointed out that the awful moral choices that characters are making in the name of love is fascinating. I agree with that and it's the hook that brings me back.

Okay...so here's the real reason for my post. Last night's "question" was about whether or not you would save someone from zombies if they had previously been trying to kill you.
Here's the situation. Guy was on a roof shooting at you with his rifle, he fell off the roof and got his leg impaled. Zombies are coming out of the woods everywhere, and you are low on ammunition. The guy that fell off the roof though is just a teenager. He could have been just doing what someone told him to do and his buddies left him to die. Do you shoot him to spare him the agony of being eaten alive? Do you try and save him by unimpaling his leg off of the fence that he fell on? Or do you not even shoot him but leave him to be eaten?
Myself...I would have tried to save him despite the fact that zombies are coming at me, and I have only like 30 seconds before they start munching on me. I just don't think I could leave a teenage boy to die to zombies...not when I could do something. In a zombie apocalypse, humans are almost extinct, and I would hold onto the hope that people could survive if they just chose to help one another. This attitude probably means I would not live very long in a zombie apocalypse. However, what is being human if we lose hold of our humanity?

What would your choice be?