Alan Baxter's Blog, page 120

I'm starting a movement

And no, before anyone gets smart in the comments, not a bowel movement. More a movement in response to the season (which is a kind of bowel movement in itself). Christians are always bleating on about "Put the Christ back into Christmas!" I'm sick and tired of that.

I'm starting a new movement:

Get your Christmas out of Sol Invictus!

Who's with me? It makes just as much sense as the Christians harping on.

Anyway, here's hoping that this season of manufactured madness doesn't drive you all...

Avatar 3D – review

I'll discuss the general plot in this review but I'll give you a warning before there are any real spoilers.

I was very dubious about this film. I really wanted it to be a great movie, but it could so easily have just been a tacky display of special effects without any substance. I try to keep faith in James Cameron, the writer/director. After all, he's given us Terminator and Terminator 2, Aliens, True Lies and Strange Days. He's also given us Titanic. It's not a spotless track record.

In...

The contradictions of belief in Australia

An interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald caught my attention today. One thousand Australians were polled by Nielsen on the subject of faith. You can read the whole article from the link above, but a few things made me shake my head.

Firstly, it's worth remembering that 85% of statistics are made up on the spot. Including that one right there. You can pretty much bend any figures to suit your point of view. Another key point is that 1,000 people is a very tiny fraction of...

Pretentious spam arsehole of the week

I got this spam comment today:

Well, the article is actually the best on this precious topic. I fit in with your conclusions and will thirstily look forward to your future updates. Saying thanks will not just be enough, for the great lucidity in your writing. I will at once grab your rss feed to stay privy of any updates. Genuine work and much success in your business endeavors!

Can you guess what post it was on? It was this one, where I reposted the list of Aurealis Award finalists.

Seriously,...

Why The Phantom Menace was awful

I picked this up from S F Signal and enjoyed every minute of it. Essentially it's a review of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. We all know that the prequel movies took the original Star Wars trilogy, one of the best things ever committed to film, and shat repeatedly all over them, forever tarnishing something wonderful. But why exactly were those prequels so bad? Well, Lucas pissed all over his legacy by relying on CGI and completely nonsensical plots as a vehicle for selling merchandise and...

The masters of double standards strike again

Those faithful believers in the best selling epic fantasy of all time, the Bible, are at it again. At what, you ask? Promoting amazing levels of hypocrisy and double standards, that's what. According to today's Sydney Morning Herald, the Catholic Church has been accused of derailing the second and third movie of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.

The novels are fundamentally about the struggles of young Lyra against an institution called The Magisterium. The Magisterium is clearly...

Not all rejections are all bad

More often than not when submitting stories for publication a rejection comes in the form of a standard line. It's usually something along the line of "thanks but no thanks" and that's it. It's fair enough too – having been on the other side of the fence I can sympathise with the editors. As a writer, however, it's always good to get a bit more feedback from an editor. A rejection is one thing, a rejection with a reason is better.

Today I got a rejection that makes me feel like I'm on the...

No Clean Feed – stop the ISP filter in Australia

I normally try to avoid political issues on my blog here. Obviously, I'll rip into politicians, religious leaders and so on as the mood takes me, but they bring that on themselves. But I usually try to avoid getting involved in campaigns or anything like that. This blog is all about words and stories, after all.

However, this is something that I think is really important and it does carry the possibility of affecting the words and stories available to us.

Basically, the Australian government...

Friday Flash – Trapped

For Friday Flash this week I thought I'd draw your attention to a piece I've just had published in the House Of Horror ezine in the UK. Each issue there is divided up into different rooms, with different things available in each part of the house – you can find my piece in The Basement, where it belongs.

It's called "Trapped" and it's a little yarn about the way a couple cares for each other. I hope you like it.

Click here to go directly to the story.

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Goodies in my post box

I love to receive interesting things in the mail. I love to get new books. I love to be in books. So imagine my joy today when I received four books in the mail – three contributor copies of Seizure Issue 4, featuring my story Deep Sea Fishing and my copy of Horn by Peter M Ball from Twelfth Planet Press.

I'm loving the stuff coming out of Twelfth Planet Press at the moment. And so are other people – in the recent Aurealis Award finalists announcement books, anthologies and stories from...