Declan Finn's Blog, page 133

Pacing, thrillers, and setting things on fire

[If you've seen this before, well, don't be surprised. I have jury duty today, so my time's a little backed up. Sorry for the rerun, folks.]



The Mad Genius Club is going to force
me to actually work. I don't mean they're holding a gun to my head,
but they are making me up my game with their most recent posting of their year's topics .




If they're going to up their game,
let's see who can out-blog who. Ha!




… Which, sadly, makes me think “Who
ha's? Didn't Sarah Hoyt talk about this once?”




If you'd been to Cedar's blog last week, you've already read this one. If you haven't ... why haven't you?



Anyway...





If you're interested in pacing an
entire series,
you could do much worse than look at the fantasy novels of Terry
Goodkind. In his case, the solution to one,
world-ending doom leads to the next world
ending doom. I did that in one series, the Pius trilogy,
where book one ends
nice and happy and yay the bad guys are gone … then that lead into
book two ,
where the bad guys had a backup plan, which led into causing problems
in what would be book three .



But for pacing an individual novel, the short version is, I like
putting pressure on my characters. I have to, otherwise I don't get
the best out of them. After all, these are thrillers. Even
when I'm going through character moments, the moments have
to keep the tension on – on
the protagonist or on the reader. It is perfectly and completely
fair to have a long conversation about love and emotions, and
politics and economics. It can go on for as long as you like …
though the reader might find it more interesting if there's a bomb in
the room. (For those of you who don't know who I mean, watch the
Tommy Lee Jones film Blown Away,
and pay particular attention to the kitchen scene. What scene is
that? You'll know it when you see it.)







With my  Pius trilogy , I take the “machinegun through the
door” a little too literal at times. The first chapter opens with a
gunman picking up tech expert at Rome's airport, and leads into a
body being blown out of a window and landing on their car. Then
I reveal that it's the head of
Papal Security picking up a Secret Service agent. When I'm not
dropping bodies out of windows, everyone has just barely enough time
to analyze what's going on before they're attacked again. Or they
have a nice quiet conversation about their past, their feelings,
their character exposition … did I write that out loud? Oh well …
and then somebody is mugging them, or shooting at them, or performing
strange gymnastic attacks with a halberd. 



 Yes, that last part is a
long story. Read  A Pius Man
for that one.




With my other project, Codename: Winterborn
(yes, after the Cruxshadows song), my protagonist, Lt. Kevin R.
Anderson has more internal pressures driving him. At the opening of
Codename: Winterborn ,
send Kevin and his team of spies into the Islamic Republic of France
(the IRF … or the Irritating, Revolting Frogs).



Then I kill off
almost everyone Kevin likes, because some politicians thought that
blowing the cover on his SpecOps team would be just a great
idea for political points, and
their bank accounts.




Except, before he was a spy, Kevin was a Navy SEAL.








So, I get to send Kevin on a fun-filled ride of assassinating
fourteen politicians. Yay!





Is that enough for even internal pressure on your protagonist? No.
Sorry. If he takes his time, Kevin could spent the next year killing
all of them. Revenge-fueled rage only carries someone for so long
before he stops, slows down, thinks, and takes his time. Hmm...





Oh, wait. Duh! The IRF mission was
to take out a nuclear arsenal. With one team gone, another will have
to be sent. So, Kevin has to kill all of
these little bastards (the politicians) before even more Americans
are murdered. That'll throw him into a pressure cooker. Muahahahaha.





Hmm. Yes, that's nice and all, but
after a while, someone's going to catch on and try shooting back at
Kevin. In my world of 2093, it's three years after a small nuclear
war (only 2.2 billion dead). There aren't quite as
many senators as their used to be, mostly because there are a few
states that are radioactive wasteland. When wiping out 20% of the
senate, SOMEBODY'S bound to notice.





 Thankfully, there's a whole Guild of Mercenaries ready to step up –
imagine an umbrella organization for every Private Military
Contractor out there. Some are good folks just earning a paycheck,
some are folks thrown out of other countries because they were too
freaking scary to live there.








Enter Mandy.






I love Mandy. She's based very
slightly off of the Mandy of 24 Seasons
1, 2, and 4 … though mine has a personality. She also has a price
on Kevin's head … and there's an internal power struggle going on
within the mercenaries, so other mercs have a good reason to have her
head at the same time as she's
hunting Kevin.





Oh yes. This is gonna be goooodddd.




Now ,
we've got Kevin Anderson racing the clock, outrunning Mandy, needing
to outwit and outfight truck loads of private contractors standing
between Kevin and his target. And did I mention that he's going
through full-on PTSD?





Like Jim Butcher's Dresden
Files, I have no problem beating
up on my protagonist. Because I've found that Kevin Anderson
doesn't burn out as much as he sets more things on fire.**  But it
keeps the pressure on, and keeps the story moving. His internal
pressures serve the character and the
story, and his external pressures …



Okay, they just serve to show
that I grew up watching too many action films. At one point, two of Kevin's allies
sit down for a conversation about how to best pull his backside out
of the fire … but they're complete strangers, so the scene could
break out into a shooting match at any given moment. At another point, I
go into a deep, intimate scene going through Kevin's psyche through
his dreams … but back in the real world, a gunman is pointing a gun
at the back of his head.






At one point, I go into a deep, intimate scene going through
Kevin's psyche through his dreams … but back in the real world, a
gunman is pointing a gun at the back of his head.





You know, stuff like that.





The short version is that the tension needs to stay on for a
thriller. The world doesn't need to be in danger all the time. You
could make it something as simple as the protagonist's sanity.




Then again, with my characters, sanity is optional to start with.



**[The "setting more things on fire" line stolen from Linkara.]

Journey to Publication: A Pius Legacy by Declan Finn

I HAVE A NEW REVIEW!!!!!!!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA





Journey to Publication: A Pius Legacy by Declan Finn: A couple of years ago I wrote a review on A Pius Man, I loved the book and now the author asked me to read the second book. I was thrilled. ...

Mass Effect 2 Music: The Long Walk

Guest blog: Cedar Sanderson's "I Got Politics in my Fiction"

What's this, Declan? Exploiting the image of a hot redhead to garner hits? Not today.



This blog post is brought to you by the awesome Cedar Sanderson, author of nineteen novels in science fiction / fantasy.



Yes. I feel I now need to step up my game. The best I can do is a guest blog over on her site.



Like me, Cedar is also not someone who likes .... gah ...politics. But, again, like I did, she tried to get away, but they reel her back in. Even when she's designing kittens with butterfly wings from scratch. 



No, I'm not kidding.  Though I may be getting ahead of myself. She's obviously a metric ton smarter than I am, as she is currently going after a dual degree in forensic science and microbiology.


I better let her explain.






I Got Politics in my Fiction



I didn't mean to. I’d happily spend the rest of my life ignoring the stinky mess in the corner we call politics. I’m much happier contemplating the consequences of science extrapolated into the future, and not the very far future, either. Did you know that an organism can already be built from codons up? That’s like making an apple pie from scratch, only you wind up with a yeast baking your Mycoplasma genitalium. How much longer until you can get a build-you-own Kiddie Kitten Kit: with bonus butterfly wings? Unfortunately, the life in a lab is a lot smaller and duller than most fiction readers are willing to put up with for very long.



That, and I have this tendency (again, I never meant to do this!) to write fantasy, which involves creating whole new worlds. In order to explain how they work, and the civilization hangs together, I must dabble in politics. It drives me crazy, and every time I have to get into it, I wind up blocked and behind schedule.



It’s taken me a while to figure out what it is that gets me, and why I wind up unable to write politics. I am, on a personal level, determinedly apolitical. I vote, and I won’t vote unless I have some idea who I’m voting for/against (and I won’t get into the voting for lesser weevils most Presidential elections leave me doing). But I’m not at all interested in it other than that. This is why I have trouble with writing it. Politics makes me feel like B’rer Rabbit fighting the Tar Baby. No matter how much you struggle, you just get stucker.



Which leaves me feeling all sticky when I write about politics. In the current series, I’m writing a fantasy world which touches on ours, and which is run by a non-heritable monarchy backed by an aristocratic council. In some ways – they have a Charter – it’s a bit like the American system. I didn't write it intending to be that, I was spinning off threads in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, with the king and queen of Faerie. It’s a very old, stagnant society, but it works, and as one character points out, why mess with that?






The only book I have out where I did touch on sort-of-current politics I have been blasted for in reviews as having written it as a commentary on our current leadership. Which makes me chuckle, because I wrote that novel – it is my first – long before this guy was even a blip on the national radar screen. That book has other faults (it is my first, after all) but the depiction of a President happily inviting aliens into the White House is not based on any one person, simply my perception of politics being the art of deception and power.


I think that is the core of it. I see politicking as lying, and I can’t abide deceit and manipulation. Any political-types in my books are likely to be portrayed as shady at best. The Queen of High Court in the current book was given an offer she couldn’t refuse – not and keep her life and freedom. I think I’m looking forward to the next book, set in our mundane world, with a little plot and… darnit. Small town politics.



‘Scuse me. I have a muse to go hunt down and have a conversation with.






Cedar Sanderson was born an Air Force brat in Nebraska and spent her childhood en route to new duty stations. Her formative years after her father left the Air Force were spent being home-schooled on the Alaskan frontier. She removed to the "more urban" climes of New Hampshire at the beginning of high school. She has had the usual eclectic range of jobs for Fantasy/ SF authors, ranging from Comedy Magician to Apprentice Shepherdess. She counts the latter as more useful in controlling her four children and First Reader. Her fascination with science dates to her early childhood spent with her grandmother on the Oregon coast studying the flora and fauna and learning to prepare a meal from what she could glean from a tidal pool. This lead to a lifelong interest in science, cooking, and herbalism.




At present she is attending college in Ohio pursuing a dual STEM major in forensic science and microbiology this. Her first two times in college were for theology and liberal arts. She is maintaining an average of nearly 20 credit hours while running a household, an entertainment business, and writing multiple novels on the side. This has the result of leaving those watching her indefatigable efforts panting in exhaustion.

The Order: 1886

Why?



Because it looks badass, that's why.

Midseason review, 2015

This has been one hell of a season thus far, and it's barely begun. There's been a lot of great TV, and some disappointing WTF moments.





WARNING: SPOILERS: Walk with me through my television viewing.

Arrow :





 Every time I think I can sum up the awesomeness of this show, it keeps getting better.  The writing is still great on the character level, the episode level, the season level and the series level (we're in season 3, and every time they have a new season, you can see the seeds laid down in the previous season.).  The superhero show based around a comic book character who was the uber-Leftist Batman who was bitten by a radioactive Robin Hood, and has turned into a collection of awesome geek love.



Brandon Roush has been a fantastic addition as Ray Palmer, the Atom, and it makes me wonder why he wasn't allowed do to this good a job as Superman.   They continue to give supporting characters and guest star some great character moments all over the damn place. They even gave Captain Boomerang character, and interesting motivation.  Captain Boomerang.  How do you make a villain with a name like that cool?







Then there was that moment where they shanked Oliver Queen with a sword and tossed him off of a cliff, leaving him to die.






Oh, yeah, and did I mention that we're not even up to episode 10 yet?






Did I mention I HATE cliffhangers?



And then there's....





Agents of SHIELD :




It has finally STOPPED being Agents of Boredom. In fact, if you've read my gripes about this show, most of them no longer apply.  They've figured out that, if you're using a Marvel comic book universe as a base,  USE THE DAMN UNIVERSE. Also, if there's a spy show .... DO SPY STUFF, DAMN YOU.  If only took an entire season for it to get anywhere, but then, there's no Marvel film that was going to big foot them into next Tuesday.



Though my biggest problem is that they're still trying to make the character of Skye interesting, which will never happen.



Anyway, they have at least remembered that they're a comic book spy show ... by bringing in comics and spies. Shocking.









The BlackList :  James Spader makes for an interesting protagonist, though the overall plot is just strange.  But damn, it's kinda awesome.



We have finally rid ourselves of the overarching badguy from the last year and a half, realizing that he is merely a pawn of some greater unknown evil out there.



And the mid-season finale ended by blowing up Alan Alda's character, a politician. How can we not like that?





Blue Bloods .  This one strikes my fancy because it's a very New York show.  Centered around three generations of a cop family, you have a good strong New York vibe here.  Granted, some of the issues addressed are ripped from the headlines, and they're addressed in some interesting and inventive ways. It's a police procedural, but it's centered around family.  And, strangely, this has gotten to be a better show as the series stops using season-long story arcs, which I find surprising. It's usually the other way around, in my experience.







Castle : A New York cop show with witty banter, smart writing and even a romance subplot that continues even into the engagement stage?  Oh, hell yes. I can't remember the last time I saw a tv show even try to follow a relationship this deeply. The main characters have even gotten married, and the show is still on. When was the last time you saw something like that? There is character development, relationship development ... though I'm still wondering why the writers have bothered with a new character-based mystery for Nathan Fillion's character, Richard Castle.  Though they have, for the most part, forgotten it (or at least left it alone), content to add a new dimension to the relationship by getting Castle a PI license ... while that has led to some requisite silliness born of reading too many Phillip Marlowe novels, it continues to be solid fun.



  Constantine





Why does DC comics manage to do on television what Marvel can't? Really? Constantine is a fun, cynical little show that uses religion in a way that has yet to offend me ... but give it time, it'll get there, I'm sure.  But right now, I'm just going to enjoy the ride.



And, frankly, they've already had one gun-wielding nun. This could get better, and I'm cautiously optimistic about its future.



Though in this case, I'm more wondering if it has  a future.  Not only is it an NBC show, I hear the ratings aren't that good. I'd rather it die a natural death, mostly by sucking ... but I'm used to shows I like being cancelled out from under me.



 The Flash. 



I really do enjoy this show.  Even the crossovers between it and Arrow have been awesome. The storytelling is at both predictable to comic fans, while also leaving enough room for those "predictable" segments to be red herrings. They've even managed to make some comic book villains nowhere near as ridiculous as could have been otherwise.



At this point, I'm just waiting for DC Comics to take over all of The CW.  Also, I find it interesting that the Flash appears on Tuesday nights, and Agents of SHIELD moved to the next time slot over.  Does anyone else think that AoS ran away like a little girl?



Forever .



If Castle's Kate Beckett were teams up with a well-adjusted Sherlock Holmes (who couldn't die), it would pretty much be Forever.  It's smart, and it works, despite the odd concept. Then again, they also had a fun little Highlander joke slipped in.  I dunno, I like these people.  The character quirks are enjoyable, and we have a character who's a drunk without being a full-blown raging alcoholic.



There is the obligatory romantic chemistry here, but it's not problematic. It's nice and easy and obvious. It doesn't fall into the usual formula of "deny chemistry ... deny chemistry... deny chemistry... THE SERIES IS CANCELLED, THEY LEADS MUST GET TOGETHER."  It feels very much like Castle in that regard, too.



Yes, I do think that Castle is influential, but then, it does have a heavy nerd-following, and the two shows are on ABC.



Grimm . There is just so much strange you can pack into a show before it becomes overloaded and deranged.  Grimm has yet to hit that particular level of deranged.  Again, if you don't know the show, this premise is a police-procedural version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The universe design is still top-notch, the characters become more interesting as time goes on, less from character development, and more from "these person started as a cipher" and we discover "Wow, there's depth here."  And the romance is adorable without being vomit-inducing. I'll take it.



NCIS / NCIS: LA / NCIS New Orleans: In the case of both shows, while their police procedural aspect has remained strong, I actually think I like what they've been doing with their characters.  NCIS as a new element that's fun to watch, complete with a villain you love to hate, and want to see decapitated with a stake driven through his heart. NCIS: LA has decided that their "stars" (Chris O'Donnell?  LL Cool J?) are not the primary focus, and has made it much more of an ensemble cast, introducing two series-long romantic subplots and character arcs.  They've got some interesting tricks up their sleeves, and they're having fun playing with the formulas they've used since day one.  As for the new show set in New Orleans, it's okay, with it's own distinct flavor to it, though it needs a lot more cajun sauce to make it really different from its originator, NCIS -- maybe if they stopped with all of the guest stars.



The Mentalist





I will miss this series when it leaves.  The last season for this show seems geared towards giving our leads a happily ever after, and considering the crap they've gone through, they deserve it.



Also, it's nice to have another tv show that doesn't have the FBI as incompetent psychotics. They can't ALL be under the direct control and command of Eric Holder and Barack Obama. In this case, there's a lot of murder mysteries to be solved, and they carry it off with style and grace, and a whole lot of charm...



With a few cons along the way.







Person of Interest :  This one has gone a little ... odd.  Well, more odd than usual.  If you recall last year's review, this show in an interesting show, not just for the premise, but for the people involved. The idea is simple: every bit of intelligence gathered by the US government is filtered through an artificial intelligence that can predict acts of terror, murder, any major crime planned in advance. However, in order to protect the privacy of the population, all domestic crimes are ignored. If you ain't a terrorist, the computer isn't supposed to care. Our heroes have a back door, and they only have one clue: a social security number of either the victim or the perpetrator.  Take one computer nerd, and a SpecOps shooter who should be playing Batman, and you have one fun show. In its third season, much of the character arcs thus far have been shown in flashbacks, to show you how these people used to be.



Now, an evil AI has taken over, it has unlimited funds and operatives, and even the government is being manipulated.  Paranoia is thick in the air around this one.



But the creators and writers are still having fun with this show.  They even had one episode where they made fun of their own writing formula. And you have to at least admire a show that can do that.



  Scorpion



While this show is slightly formulaic, it works.  There was a slight element of cut and paste character elements to start with, but they've mostly shaken that off over time with additional backstory. So far, the "normals" of this show continue to steal it, particularly Agent Cabe Gallo, played by Terminator 2 alumnus Robert Patrick.



Like Forever, the "romance" on this show goes past the usual formula of "we're going to deny there's any chemistry here until the last season." Maybe Castle is rubbing off on these writers.



And, still, I prefer smart people being written like smart people... who usually operate on a whole different level from your average person.







Sleepy Hollow Sleepy Hollow. 



Last year, this show was insane. This year, it's just stupid.  Let me count the ways.  Hell, every other conversation is exposition. Character development? We have that? An episodic format gave way to a serial that is just tedious, and soap-opera based.  Heck, the "mid-season finale" (which was when it was more than three-quarters finished) ended the primary threat of the entire series.  The series is done. There is no more need for it to be there. Have a happily-ever-after, and let the rest of us get on with our lives, okay, Sleepy Hollow?



You know it's bad when the cast has a hot redhead who I dislike.







Stalker .



This is a surprising little show that I never really expected to be this good. It also has a sly, devious wit, every episode ending with music that, in the context of the show, is as creepy as hell. Basically, it's a show of jump-scares that I actually like.

MLK Day: Music Blog

Youtube showed me Within Temptation because I looked at Nightwish.



Pay close attention.  The opening visual may turn you off, but there's a punchline. Honest.

Recommended Reading; Larry Correia

Up until I embraced my inner politicians (which I gotta tell, you, is draining as all heck), I had never heard of Larry Correia.  He's published through Baen books, and I read their top authors already -- David Weber, John Ringo and Timothy Zahn -- and yet I had only been vaguely aware of him from my visits to Barnes and Noble.



After hearing his name bandied about on a political fiction group on Facebook, I shrugged and said "Oh, what the hell? Why not?"



And, being a bit of a cheap bugger, I figured "Screw it, I'll get the 3-in-1 of his biggest series, Monster Hunter International."



My reaction?













Yes, I have, at long last, resorted to gifs.



I promptly went out and bought ... well ... everything else Correia has written, including the rest of MHI, his three Grimnoir and his Dead Six novels.



Seriously, these books are kinda awesome.  I finished all of them in a matter of days.



One thing at a time, though



The really, really, really short version about Larry Correia is that he is an unstoppable writing machine who pumps out books the size of Tom Clancy doorstoppers at least once a year, in addition to maintaining an almost daily blog, is almost omnipresent online, and has a BS tolerance threshold lower than mine.  Which tells you something, if you've been here a while.



Correia is, personally ... Libertarian? I think? His politics show up very little in his books.  Any anti-government feeling here could be summed up by the same feeling in 24, or Harry Potter (see: the Cassandra Effect. Honest). He prefers his heroes to be smaller, private groups, rather than sprawling government bureaucracies, though even the bureaucracies get a fair shake in his books (one of them at the very least).  He also owns a gun range, so he likes his weaponry. Big deal.



I'd say he has an ongoing grudge match against John Scalzi and the SFWA, especially over the Hugo awards, but it seems more like Scalzi and SFWA has an ongoing war against everybody I find remotely interesting. There's a lot of ranting against Correia because he's "a straight white man," even though his background is Portuguese -- don't even ask me how that works.



If you care about personal politics and online grudges, I'm sure you can find a few links.  From what I read on his blog, a lot of Correia is just plain common sense. But me and common sense have very little to do with each other.



But, on to the important part: BOOKS.  And I highlight books because I haven't gotten to any of his short stories. If I've missed a few, don't shoot. I've had a lot of books to dig through lately, but I'll add them as I find them.


Monster Hunter (International)




Before I begin, MHI has nothing, repeat, nothing, to do with the Monster Hunter video game series. Thank you.



There are five books in the MHI series THUS FAR (it's ongoing), and you'd think there'd be an odd one out, if only for the regression to the mean (heck, there's one John Ringo novel I don't recommend, and at least two David Webers).  But, no, even though there's one novel in the series that you swear is going to be boring, it rallies at the midpoint, and ends with a demonic werewolf hellspawn and his legion of unkillable feral weres.



Imagine a fully-developed world for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where the government has been aware of monsters for decades, and those civilians who have been dragged into the nightmare little world in the shadows have become Bounty hunters in their own right.  Of five books, I saw only two punchlines coming ... only one of them was more like a feinted jab so we could be decked with an uppercut. That's not bad.




1. Monster Hunter International.

Five days after Owen Zastava Pitt pushed his insufferable boss out of a fourteenth story window, he woke up in the hospital with a scarred face, an unbelievable memory, and a job offer.

How can you argue with a description like that?



Yes, chapter one involves a brawl between the above mentioned Owen Pitt, and his boss, who has become a monster of a completely different stripe than he had been.  Let's just say that I would have considered throwing him out a window before he became a large furry sociopath.



Yup. Pitt has to go toe-to-toe with a freaking werewolf.  And he has no silver.



After Pitt hands in his resignation the hard way, he has officially fallen down the rabbit hole. Monsters are real -- all of them. Pick a B-Movie horror film or a Lovecraftian monster. There are only two forces that deal with the legion of nightmares (that we see in this book).  One is the Monster Control Bureau (MCB), a government bureaucracy that looks like it's run by either the Keystone cops, or whatever random thugs can be brought in off the street (though it'll turn out that they aren't random). The other group is Monster Hunter, a private organization dedicated to collecting bounties as they exterminate the world's nastier pests -- including vampires, giant spiders, and a few creatures from the black lagoon.



And MHI offers Owen Pitt a job. The perks are good -- play with weapons, hang out with the stunning woman who recruited him, and the paychecks are insane -- and, well, why not?



Unfortunately for Pitt, his first day on the job is going to get messy.  He soon finds himself being haunted by an old Jewish ghost, is getting visions of an ancient entity called "the Cursed One"who just arrived on US soil, is hip deep in ghouls, vampires, flying killer gargoyles that bleed magma, and did we mention that the Cursed One might be about to end the world?





MHI has a wonderfully colorful cast of characters. From a former Vegas stripper who is more vicious and bloodthirsty than the lot of them, to Julie, a member of MHI's founding family, who is also a sniper... and her physical description in the book reminds me a lot of Bayonetta, but we won't go there.



There is a wonderfully broad collection of folks here, from the high school chemistry teacher who had to blow up his school filled with spiders, to the poor guy who had to kill his zombiefied students, to the explosive-happy Q-variant, to Earl Harbinger -- an old member of MHI's founding family with an interesting history.  The characters are likable, the dialogue engaging, and I don't think I came across a single flaw in the execution.



And yes, this book was awesome from start to finish.  It didn't really slow down.  Despite the constant description of these books as "gun porn," I have yet to be bogged down by a single page on guns.  Most of the time, the weapon details are critical to the plot, considering what fresh new horrors they run into all the time. The chapters that amount to a large training montage are detailed and interesting, and establish the characters better than heading straight into the action.



Then the shooting started, and didn't really stop for another three hundred pages or so.



And just remember: vampires only sparkle when they're on fire.




2. Monster Hunter Vendetta






By the end of MHI #1, all is right with the world. The Cursed One is finished, Pitt got the girl, and while there were a few residual hiccups along the way involving some of the crew becoming vampires, everything is perfect ....


Except at one point, the government accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb through an interdimensional portal, getting the attention of a Cthulian elder god, who decides that only one human creature is to blame...Owen Pitt.  Yup. He has Murphy's own luck.  Pitt is being hunted by a death cult known as the Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition, led by necromancer known as the Shadow Man, who all want to feed him to their monstrous, world-devouring deity.



The (n)ever-helpful government wants the Shadow Man, and gives Pitt his own troop of bodyguards, including one MCB man known only as Agent Franks. It's the MHI versus the army of darkness, only they're better armed than Bruce Campbell ever was.



Interestingly, despite Correia's attitude on government in general, while he could have left the MCB crew as a bunch of mindless government automatons, even they get character development in this book.



MH: Vendetta might arguably be better than MHI. We need little to no setup for the action, the plot jumps out at you and never really leaves you alone, and we can't even have a nice, simply plot-starting exposition without it being menacing (when the two people telling Pitt that he has to save the world ... again ... are vampires, it's hard to have a relaxed conversation).



Vendetta really proves that Correia has assembled a strong cast, and a great sprawling universe out there.  There are no cardboard cutouts as characters, even the ones that you're not supposed to like.




3. Monster Hunter Alpha







Earl Harbinger has been around MHI for a long time. Longer than anyone suspects.  When an old Cold War enemy comes out of the shadows to threaten his position, Earl goes hunting.  Unfortunately for him and his enemy, a third player is in play, manipulating both of them.


This one starts off ... slower.  I really didn't feel much of anything towards Earl over the course of the previous two novels, and I found myself missing the rest of the MHI ensemble.  We have a group of MHI wannabes, a corrupt and cowardly MCB agent, a local sheriff who is a redhead (bitten by the wolves) as well as Earl and his personal nemesis. They're all sort of blundering around a bit for the first third or so.



But as I said, Alpha rallies at the midpoint, and ends with a demonic werewolf hellspawn and his legion of unkillable feral weres.  This is when the tree hits the submarine (Sum of All Fears reference), making four plot threads come together like your classic Tom Clancy novel, and we're off to the races.



While not as good, I'd still recommend reading it.  The first half is a three-star novel, the second half is a five-star novel, so average it out and call it a four out of five-star book.  And every element in this book becomes pivotal to...




4. Monster Hunter Legion





We're back with the old team again, and this time, we're going to Vegas.  MHI is going to join with other monster hunter groups from around the world at the first ever monster hunter convention. Yaaayyy.... Unfortunately, my first thought was "We've just made for a great big target."  You know this has to go wrong, otherwise there's no story.


When the handler for all of Strike Task Force Unicorn (STFU) challenges the various hunters to hunt down and kill an unleashed beastie, no one has any idea of the sort of Hell that is to be unleashed. Soon, all of their worst nightmares are literally about to haunt them, and just consider that nightmares the men and women of MHI will have, and you just know we're about to have a party.



For Legion , Correia is in full form, and I mean full.  The various and sundry side characters? All of them are colorful, well-designed and developed. The MCB? They're getting more interesting. The government bureaucracy? More and more insidious as time goes on.



As for this book ... well, the opening gif kinda summed it up.



And did I mention there's a dragon?  Yes. Smaug can eat his heart out.




5. Monster Hunter Nemesis







A few days after the events of Legion, Agent Franks of the U.S. Monster Control Bureau has to clean up a different mess -- one created by the people he works for.  Franks is a bit more than human, and he's been around for a long, long time, stopping America's enemies, and, for the most part, being the thing that stands between America and bigger monsters. He's even under contract ... With Ben Franklin (long, long story). As long as the US holds up its end of the bargain, so will Franks.  If the US violates the agreement, Franks is well within his rights to kill anyone involved.


And then there's Project Nemesis, a factory for building to-it-yourself monsters. And they can't be bothered creating one.  Oh no. They have to make a baker's dozen, lucky 13. It's in violation of Franks' agreement.  And then we're off to the races.



Don't ask me why, but this one worked so much better thank Alpha did.  Franks is ... interesting, and engaging in a way Earl and his story wasn't. It could be that there was more to Franks' story. No matter what, it still worked. Also, Franks has his own ensemble, with recurring appearances from the MHI team we've come to know and love.



And Nemesis may very well be the best of the bunch. It's hard to compare, next to Legion .  Either way, it proves that the series is only getting better.



Also, there was an sequence of Frankstein versus the Wolfman. It was brilliant.




Grimnoir







If you can't tell by the lack of numbering and the slight larger font, Grimnoir is a different series than MHI. This is a trilogy centering around an alternate universe where magic is real, and human history has changed. The Grimnoir are a secret society of magic users dedicated to stopping the threat of the Japanese Empire, which has already taken over China by 1933.  Book one deals with the Japanese leader Tokugawa, otherwise known only as the Chairman, who kills with a touch, and has his own armor of magic-wielding operatives and teleporting ninjas.


And that's only book one.  Book two has to deal with a demon straight from Hell, and the third features universe-destroying monster from beyond the cosmos.  And the only two people who can stop this threat are Jake Sullivan, a veteran of the Great War, and Faye Vierra, a teenage girl, and vicious killing machine.



This is a great little world, and I enjoyed every minute of it, from first to last. There are Iron Man suits of powered armor, a version of Marvel's Silver Samurai, great, epic battles on dirigibles, at least one army of darkness, depending on how you'd count them. There are "cogs" -- Correia's version of the Sparks of Girl Genius -- and teleporters and gravity manipulators and ... Imagine if the X-Men weren't whiny emo douchebags who complained about being picked on all the time, and make them really awesome.  That about sums it up.



Oh, who are we kidding? Imagine the best Marvel film you've seen, and Grimnoir at least matches it pound for pound.  This is the series that got Correia nominated for a Hugo ... and made everyone go batguano insane over it.




Dead Six / Swords of Exodus






No, I'm not 100% clear on the name of the series.  But let's just go for Dead Six thus far, shall we?


In a world that's only slightly altered from our own, this series is about two men: Michael Valentine, and "Lorenzo".  Valentine is a vet and former member of a elite private military contractor.  In the first books, he's been recruited to hunt down and eradicate terrorists.  Lorenzo is a thief who doesn't mind killing people from time to time, he's a master of disguise and of the heist.



Co-written with Mike Kupari, this one is actually darker than the others, and slightly stranger.  There are elements of paranoid thriller -- just plain don't trust anyone in these books -- and hints of dark, supernatural forces around the corner.  The series hasn't totally fallen off the map into fantasy, and is content to just hint at the deeper darkness. For now.



Thus far, the primary thread between these two books have been the Swords of Exodus , a religious group dedicated to wiping out evil on Earth, no matter where it might be.  They're terrorists, or extremists, and a few other labels slapped on them.



I enjoy this series just as much as any of the others, but I'll be damned if i could figure out where it's all going.



Thus far, my only complaint with the series is that they've both ended on cliffhangers. Kupari and Correia seem to think it's funny to play tag team with who they can threaten at the end of each novel.




In Conclusion


Read some Larry Correia, already, damnit.  Is he Ann Lewis writing Sherlock Holmes level of perfectly awesome?  No. But few are. He'll have to settle for five stars out of five stars, instead of six out of five.

NEW Age of Ultron Trailer

There’s a new trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron.



“Everyone creates the thing they dread,” says robotic villian Ultron in one of the opening shots of the trailer.



“I’m going to tear you apart…from the inside,” he growls amid scenes of destruction and havoc as the heroes of the Avengers turn against each other.



Creepiest rendition of "I have no strings" ever.



I have a few thoughts on the future of the Marvel series, and an analysis of what we've seen already.



But crap that's creepy.

Plot or Character? Chicken or Egg?

So, here's a question I came across in one of my writing groups: Where do you start? With a plot or with a character?



Chicken or egg?



Heh.  The answer to this depends on if I already have a series. But that's cheating for the purposes of this particular question.



However, if you have a brand spanking new idea?



Step 1: "What's my story?"  EG I have a functional dystopia where people inconvenient people are dumped from the real world into this makeshift hell on Earth.



Step 2: "What do I need?" EG: I need a cross between MacGyver and Chuck Norris.



Step 3: Make character. EG: Kevin Anderson.



For me, story has always come first, especially if you're making a new story.



Heck, for The Pius Trilogy, Sean AP Ryan intruded. Literally. The little bugger wasn't even supposed to be in THAT novel, and decided to just show up.



Step 1: "What's my story?"  EG I'm doing an anti-Da Vinci Code in Rome.



Step 2: "What do I need?" EG: I need the head of Vatican security involved



Step 3: Make character. EG: Giovanni Figlia.



And then Sean steps in out of It was Only On Stun! and takes over.



For me, story has always come first, especially if you're making a new story.




For my short Fear No Evil , I wanted someone who could handle herself. She developed as we went along.



Sometimes, I just take the voices in my head and run with them.



Sometimes, they run with me.