Michael Formichelli's Blog: Nero's Niche, page 3

NaNoWriMo Fail

So I did mean to have Deep Hydra finished by November. Oh what a noble goal that was.

It's not. For some reason ending this story is taking me forever. I'm working on some rewrites now and overhauling a few sections. Still at it though! I'm about half-way through this round of edits.

Perhaps I'll be finished with this by the end of the month? Getting closer to publication at least.

Hang in there everyone. It is coming.

Valerian: A Movie of a Thousand Unfair Reviews (Spoiler-Free)

Luc Besson is one of my favorite directors. Ever since seeing "Leon" (The Professional) in college I've been a big fan. I ate up La Femme Nikita (the French movie, not the American remake or the series- though they both had their merits), The Big Blue (though I didn't realize it was his), and the Fifth Element. I was so-so on The Messenger (I love the end, though), and I really was not a fan of Lucy (have never gotten through it)—but I guess my point is that I've been watching his movies for a long time.
Mr. Besson was a fan of Valerian since he was 8 years old (according to the Holywood Reporter), and I'm sure that for him this movie was a labor of love. I can almost imagine him giddy with excitement as he made it (though I wasn't there so who knows?) The film got derided in the US and made a mere $41 million on a budget of $184.6 million—a flop, though it did more than make its money back abroad. I remember it getting panned in the media here, but after seeing it I can honestly say that at least some of the criticism was unwarranted. It did suffer a bit from having a "too full" feeling, and the romance plot wound up being a distraction rather than an addition to the story (which I think was Mr. Besson's trying to do justice to the romantic tension the characters in the comics have. He would have done better to make it more of a work-place relationship that developed tension more naturally), but aside from that it's a pretty solid sci-fi movie.
The characters are a bit cartoonish, though maybe that's not a surprise considering the source material, but the themes and concepts in the movie are pretty good. It's gorgeous, too. With the visual effects being quite spectacular. Valerian really shines, however, in its weirdness. Much like the 5th Element, the universe of Valerian is filled with bizarre sights and aliens that feel, well, alien and not just human-but-different. The tech is pretty wild as well, including machines that combine inter-dimensional physics with technology in ways I don't think would be seen or even written about in your average sci-fi.
This could be where Mr. Besson went wrong, at least for the American audience. Without a strong interpersonal story to latch onto, what's left is a weird world that feels like it's all spectacle and strangeness to someone not steeped in the Spice. However, if you do appreciate strange new worlds, and can tolerate some admittedly bad romance-story choices, then you might find Valerian is an enjoyable watch.

Book 4 Is Coming, Time to Update

With Book 4 on the way I've decided to go back and do some touch-ups to the earlier books in the series. Those of you who have been following along may remember that I cancelled my website earlier this year, leaving me with Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook—my, what an age we live in—and this blog. That's all well and good but then I remembered that I have a big-old "come see me at my website!" in my books which won't work anymore.

So, it's time to do some fixing and uploading in the earlier books. It also strikes me that this is something of an opportunity for some minor edits, too... unless I can resist the urge.

So, what's the catch?
Well, Amazon and Createspace have merged together (I know Amazon already owned Createspace, but now publishing and epublishing are done through KDP.) What this means for me is that I've got to figure out the new system now before I can do updates. Hopefully I'll do it right on the first try, and come to think of it, this is good practice for when I publish Deep Hydra. So it'll all work out in the end, right?

A Great Surprise Today

Today I got an email in my inbox detailing how Google found one of my ads "misleading" and that it would be down until the problem was corrected. Somewhat puzzled I called in and got a very pleasant Google rep to explain the issue to me (I put the wrong thing in the wrong box, basically). While the conversation was going on, and I was starting to feel more and more like an old man, the rep suddenly commented on how she loves books and asked me what my series was about.

I was a bit taken aback by the unexpected nature of the question but happily explained, "The Blood Siren Series is about the attempted overthrow of a government 400 years in the future, and how the hero and his allies attempt to foil the plot." I thought this would tune out my helpful Google rep and that would be that... but it didn't. She asked if I sold my books outside the US (I do), and then stated that she was already following my author profile on Amazon (which the ad links to).

With my issue resolved (and hopefully the soon to be restoration of my ads) we were at the conclusion of our conversation. I said (and meant) that I would love to hear her opinion of my books if and once she reads them, and she assured me she would write a review when she did.

After hanging up the phone (and giving her a great review on the exit poll- one which she earned in her patience and helpfulness) I found myself feeling nervous.

Nervous?

It seemed a curious emotion to feel after someone expressed such interest in my writing. This is what authors want, after all. I should be ecstatic that someone showed interest, but I was quite nervous—butterflies in the stomach and everything. Don't get me wrong, I was and am happy with her interest, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that I was nervous because someone, a total stranger in a culture other than mine, genuinely seemed excited to read something I wrote and I really don't want to let them down.

I might, to be honest. I don't know this person's particular taste in books. Will she be offended by the harsh language that sometimes spills from Nero's lips? What about the action scenes? Will it bore her? I wrote the first book about 7 years ago as of the time of this blog post and I wasn't as good a writer then (not saying I'm particularly good now, just that I know I've improved). Should I have told her to start with book 3 just because it's more recent? Silly of me to think it, but I have to wonder if this goes through every author's mind when someone asks about their writing. For some I'm sure it does. I once heard that Ozzy Ozborne worries that no one will come to his concerts to this day (Joe Rogan Podcast #1155 with Henry Rollins). If Ozzy gets nervous, I'm sure everyone does at one point or another.

Still, here it is. I know it'll be weeks from now until I get a review from the rep—and that is if she remembers and doesn't hate the book (or maybe even if she does). By then I'll have forgotten how nervous I was getting off the phone, but won't it be a pleasant surprise to see that review pop up?

Fingers crossed.

Project Discovery: Using MMO's for Real Life Science

I recently read an article in PC Gamer's Issue 307 by Philippa Warr about Eve Online's Project Discovery (tutorial video below, which explains how the science is being incorporated into the game). Project Discovery's goal (this time--last time it was to aid in subcellular structure research) is to have the players of Eve Online help with discovering Exoplanets in real life. They do this by feeding real-life data into the game and asking players to identify planet transits across stars (again, the video explains how).

According to Ms. Warr's article, the project has "...garnered over 80 million submissions from 149,000 players..." That's a fantastic amount of data. The makers of Project Discovery incorporated mechanisms to make sure that the players are both providing accurate data and are not bots by essentially booting them from the project if their accuracy falls below a certain point (as measured by group consensus).

I'm absolutely blown away by how MMO's (Massively Multiplayer Online games) are being utilized this way, but when I stop to think about it, it makes sense. Eve Online players are already individuals interested in space and space exploration otherwise they probably wouldn't be playing the game at all. The number of people who play the game represents a huge resource for data-crunching as Project Discovery shows, and why not take advantage to do what could take years in a fraction of the time?

As mentioned above, this is not Project Discovery's first foray into using players for real science, and Eve Online isn't the only MMO to do so. Though a bit after the fact, World of Warcraft's "Corrupted Blood Incident" —which was a blood plague unleashed on the players (I remember it, nearly the whole city of Stormwind died) is used by real scientists to study epidemiology as it was, in effect, a simulation of how a real pandemic could operate.

Ms. Philippa's article ends with a mention of how scientists and game designers are planning on incorporating real life science and games in the future. It is something I think is not only cool, but will be quite beneficial to future science—and it's also quite neat to think that the next time I log into my favorite MMO I might be helping research while unwinding.

Writing Update 8-26-18

Eye of Daedalus by Michael LamWriting completed on the latest draft of Deep Hydra.I’m looking forward to getting this one out. I actually finished the first draft in 2017 but then decided to rewrite the ending, which required some revision of the beginning, after some helpful comments from my wife.I’m glad I did. I’m much happier now with how the work ends. I’m hoping you will feel the same when I finally get this into your hands.
I’ll keep posting as I get more info on when that will be.
I'm in the "let it rise" phase of baking a novel. I'm pretty sure this is going to be the last iteration but I am going to re-read it one more time (hopefully with comments from beta readers) before releasing it.In the meanwhile, I'm currently reading Andy Weir's Artemis. So far I like it a spot less than the Martian, but I'm hoping I'll find my groove with it soon.

Writing Update 8-20-18

As I close in on finishing the edits for book 4, I've decided to get this blog up and running again. I'm going to try and post more often, aiming for the lofty goal of once a week but we'll see.

Anyways...

I'm closing in on finishing the edits for book 4! I originally intended this release for 2016, so I'm a bit chagrined by my own timeline, but I'm also excited to be where I am with it. I think the replacement chapters and the revised story are a lot better than what I originally had planned (which didn't have a good reaction from the one person who got to read it). It's always a good sign when you get excited by your own writing—which brings me to an interesting thought.

I often listen to music while writing, and I try to pick tracks that fit the scenes. Book 4 has had more fast-paced songs playing while I wrote it, and I think it does show up in the pacing of the book.

Here's a sample, by no means complete, of what I've been listening to during the creation and edits:

Song                            Album                                                             Artist

Remember the Cant      The Expanse (Original Soundtrack)             Clinton Shorter

Metal and Steel             X-Com 2: War of the Chosen                       Tim Wynn

117                                Halo 4 (Original Soundtrack)                       Kazuma Jinnouchi

To Galaxy                     Halo 4 (Original Soundtrack)                       Neil Davidge

Find Me When             Edge of Tomorrow (Soundtrack)                  Christophe Beck
You Wake Up

Recognizer                   Tron: Legacy (Original Soundtrack)             Daft Punk

The Attack                    Mass Effect 2 Soundtrack                             Jack Wall (EA Games Soundtrack)

Mombasa                      Inception Soundtrack                                    Hans Zimmer

The Imperial March     Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back             John Williams

Rescue from                 Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back             John Williams
Cloud City

The Frail                      The Fragile (Left)                                          Nine Inch Nails

The Wretched              The Fragile (Left)                                          Nine Inch Nails

The Hand that Feeds    With Teeth                                                     Nine Inch Nails

Orion                            Master of Puppets                                         Metallica

The last two go with very specific scenes in book 4. Once I get it into your hands I'm wondering if you can pick them out.

That's all for now. Back to editing!

SciFi Movies of 2018 Part 2

I have been really bad about keeping up with this blog, let's face it.
On the plus side, very close to getting Book 4 finished... On the minus side, I mean to do this post before July and half of August passed by... Can you believe we're 1/2-way through August?

So, let's recap:

July:

Antman and the Wasp:
I loved it. Nuff said. Find a theater still playing it. It's worth it.




August:

Kin

This might be really good, or it might not. It comes out at the end of the month so we'll see. I'm kind of interested in this one. Dennis Quaid could be cool, and James Franco does make a great sleazeball...



The Meg

It's Megalodon... No, really, it is.
Just gonna leave this here...


Replicas

I'm a big Keanu Reeves fan. The fact that he's heading this up makes me interested. The line at the end of the trailer is a bit of a turn off, though. Defying natural laws... blah, blah, yeah, heard that one before. To misquote Scotty, "You canna break the laws of physics," and I'm sort of tired of movies treating scientific laws like they are legal laws and not fundamental properties of nature... Also, cloning is not breaking any natural laws, it happens naturally (identical twins, etc.), but hey, this movie has Keanu, trans-humanism, robotics, VR, and an obsessed morally questionable scientist... Are you as lukewarm on this one as I am?

Did I mention it has Keanu?



September:

Predator

I usually get wary about reboots, but this one has Keegan-Michael Key and Edward James Olmos... It had me at Keegan. Looking forward to this with baited breath!



October:

Venom

Well, I'm not sure how to feel about this one either. The Amazing Spider Man #300 was one of my favorites (and like a moron I'm not sure what box it's in, or if I sold it or not...) I know Tom Hardy promised a good movie, and I love Tom Hardy, but ah.. the trailer has me a bit worried. I guess we'll see of subsequent trailers assuage my concern. Also, not sure this is going to work without Spider-Man, but hey...


November:

Ralph Breaks the Internet

I'm seeing this and you can't stop me.



December:

Alita:Battle Angel

Not sure how I feel about them reversing the name of this manga & anime, weird choice, but I am looking forward to it. Christoph Waltz as Dr. Ido has me quite excited. I think they went the right way with making this CGI instead of shoehorning in an actress that has no business in the role ::COUGH:: Ghost in the Shell ::COUGH::

The style really fits the mood of the world. Can't wait!

From YouTube

Aquaman

It's a DC movie!

Bumblebee

The toys I always wanted... The movies I never did. I miss The Transformers: The Movie movie... I'm an old man, aren't I?



Mortal Engines

I know absolutely nothing about this one save what the internet tells me. It's based on a book, the first in a quadrology (It's the new hip thing!). It's steampunk... That's about all I know about it. Check it out for yourself:

Writing Update for 6-1-18

Good day to all.

Still plugging away at Book 4. I think I'm about 5 chapters out from being finished, which puts me about a week away from finishing the next draft. So, what does that mean for when you can read it?
Well, the draft has to do what I call the "sit and rise" phase which is when I don't look at it for a week or two. After that I'll reread it and get input from my beta readers. Next, there's another editing phase and a reread, and then if all is well, it'll go to press (so to speak) and I can announce a release date.

So it's gonna be a little bit yet, but the good news is it's rolling right along. I'm hoping that maybe by Fall or Winter I can get this baby out to you.

Thank you for your patience.

The Eye of Daedalus, by Michael Lam
Copyright 2015

Update: Cygnusorion.com Shutdown

I shut cygnusorion.com down recently. I had a few reasons but basically I couldn't justify the cost given the long stretch between books (which is my own fault). For now the blog here is the only website I'll have.

I'm still working on book 4. Major rewrites have been taking much longer than expected. I'm also still working on the audiobook of book 1. Will post news on that when things move forward.

Sorry for the quick post here. Gonna get back to it.

More later.