Alan Baxter's Blog, page 138

X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Review

I got around to going to the movies yesterday and saw the new Wolverine flick. I have to say, I’m getting more and more disappointed with Hollywood. There seems to be a real tendency for spectacle over substance in recent releases, and Wolverine is good example.

Hugh Jackman does a stand up job playing the lead again. He’s certainly made that role his own. The trouble with the movie for me was that they just crammed it full of so much action and special effects that they forgot to work on the sto

Books You’d Like To Read Again, For The First Time

This is another little gem that I picked up from S F Signal. I thought it was a really interesting idea.

What if you could read a book again for the first time?

Some books are just outstanding achievements and they can be the sort of thing that you can read again and again. But no subsequent reading is ever going to be as good as that first time around, when the book truly surprised you and dragged you along, desperate to know what was going to happen next. Rereading a book is often a very rewardi

Guess what? It’s another book meme

I picked this up from Scribe, who picked it up from Benjamin Solah, who grabbed it from Bites… You can follow it back further yourself if you’re really interested.

I thought it was worth a look as it’s a bit different from the others I’ve put on here up till now. Consider yourself tagged if you want to have a go. Drop a comment here if you do reproduce it yourself, with a link so I can come and have a look at your answers.

Hardback, trade paperback or mass market paperback?

I’m not especially fusse

Bloggers Unite For Hunger And Hope

Today is Unite For Hunger And Hope day. It’s a simple concept that bloggers everywhere post about global hunger to raise awareness of the situation. From the Unite website, here are a few facts and figures:

• Right now, more than 500 million people are living in “absolute poverty” and more than 15 million children die of hunger every year.

• World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the population is underfed and another third is starving.

• Even in the United States, 46 percent of Afri

The power of words and perception

I’m a big fan of using words in powerful ways. I suppose that’s a given, seeing that I’m a writer. But regardless, when people are clever with words and language and create something more than it first appears to be I always applaud the effort. This is a great example, originally created for the AARP U@50 video contest. It won placed second place.

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Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics

I picked this little gem up from S F Signal, one of my all time favourite blogs. If you’re a sci-fi fan you should definitely add them to your RSS feed. This particular piece is something that has always fascinated me, for its brevity and completeness. Very few things are truly brief and complete, but Asimov nailed robot laws with this one. Here’s a young Asimov explaining his laws:

Edit: If you can’t see the vid below, you can see it here on S F Signal or here at YouTube.

The Three Laws of Roboti

Friday Guest Blog - Five Months Hard Writing by Avery K Tingle

Today we have a gust blog from my friend Avery K Tingle. I met Avery through the ever expanding virtual world of writer related social networks and was impressed by the broad scope of his work. He’s also a top bloke. Here he talks about what it is to be a freelance writer, especially in this current unstable climate.

Last fall was a high point for me. I had successfully ‘competed’ in my first NaNoWriMo, and parlayed the success into my first two freelancing gigs. I wasn’t taking it very seriously

fReado - another book marketing portal

There are so many online places for book marketing and book networking these days. Places like Goodreads and LibraryThing have been around a while now, Amazon tries to be way more than just a book shop and so on. I’ve recently stumbled across another one called fReado.

Rather than trying to be a place that is first and foremost about readers and their favourite books, fReado is set up as an unashamedly targeted marketing site. Authors put their books up there along with a small profile page and t

Rejection, the burden of all writers

Rejection is an inevitable part of the writing life. If you’re not good with rejection, you should never even entertain the idea of being a writer. It never ceases to amaze me just how belligerent some people get about rejections. And often, the most vocal are usually the worst writers, refusing to learn from critiques and improve their craft.

No matter how good you think you might be as a writer, you can always improve. My many years learning and teaching martial arts has taught me that there’s

Back in the saddle

G’day everyone. I know that things have been a bit quiet around here lately, and for that I apologise. I recently celebrated ten years of marriage with my wife and we had a huge party, a big Renewal of Vows ceremony and associated revelry. I had visitors from interstate and, at one point, ten friends and family members visiting from the UK. It’s been a bit hectic. It’s also been absolutely brilliant and now that everyone has gone back things seem a bit empty. Everything’s a bit too quiet, like t