The Real Galactic Superweapon: The Skywalker Bloodline

So I was thinking about Star Wars the other day, as you do, and I had an entirely non-canon but interesting idea:

I Answer Questions From My Fans #1

At last count, Hometown was up to 57 reviews, and most of them were very positive (52% 5 star and 25% 4 star bay-beee!). Unfortunately, I haven’t received the boost in readership that I expected when I hit fifty reviews. Apparently, while something does in fact happen at twenty reviews, the additional boost at fifty is a hopeful indie writers’ urban legend.

As I read through these reviews, though, I’ve seen a number with questions or issues that I’d like to address. And no, that’s not my way of saying I’m going to go through and curse out my 1- and 2-star reviewers. That’s just self-destructive and pointless. There’s some genuinely interesting stuff here.

Hometown Got A Wonderful Review!

Erik Henry Vick, another author at Bookbub, has given me a five-star review! Head on over and check it out!

Here’s a sample:

Where do I start?

Oh, how about this: You went to high school with these characters. Oh, sure, their names were different, and maybe even they were two or three people, but still… Every single one of them.

This book is set in small-town America (specifically in Upstate NY) in the ’90s. It’s your typical high school–drama club, psychos, chorus, child prodigies, football, monsters, field hockey (??), more monsters, preppies, murderers, homecoming, insatiable evil, racist assholes, prom, parties, ghosts, friends-turning-into-lovers, strict parents, bad parents, the hip hangout joint run by a hippie, lynchings, grandparents, a horrible, horrible past, and completely inedible school lunches. See? Just like your high school.

Check out the rest of the review! And when you’re done with it, check out Hometown!

Lenni Reviews: “Dreams of the Boardwalk” by Matthew Keville

Dreams of the Boardwalk got a review! Head on over to Haunting Hypatia and check it out!

Haunting Hypatia

(Image Source)

*This book was sent to me in exchange for an honest review and is rated 18+

Life hasn’t exactly gone as planned for Sarah Brannigan. Divorce, loss of home, loss of her good job… Now in a cramped apartment with roommates working two crappy jobs to barely make her bills, Sarah has only one respite; her dreams. At night she escapes to Coney Island in its heyday with her dream man. But too much time in her dreams has them leaking out into the real world.

This is an interesting story about living too much in your “what if’s” can take away from your “now.” Sarah is a great character, a smart woman just in a rough patch but not willing to give up. And the ending is not what you would expect.

There are some pretty dark and sexy scenes and the connection to Coney…

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In The Make-Out Room (review)

In the Make-Out Room got a review! Head on over to All About Books and check it out!

And remember, In The Make-Out Room is still available for free download on Amazon through Tuesday 10/23!

Quick Thoughts on It: Chapter One

Red Molly and I finally got around to seeing It last night, and I have some thoughts.  Beware, unmarked spoilers and unexplained references to both the 1990 miniseries and the original book to follow: 

My Trending Stories

Hey, all!

I’ve resolved some technical and other issues I was having with My Trending Stories, so I’ve created my profile, and even posted my first article!  Head on over and take a look!

More good stuff coming very soon.  Just give me a weekend to put it together…

 

 

Preaching the Anti-Gospel

So I’ve been reading book 2 of The Anti-Christ Handbook, Fred Clark’s collection of the blog posts that he wrote, starting in 2003, criticizing the Left Behind books by Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins.

I’ve reached the posts, titled Boutros Boutros Carpathia (a reference to Boutrous Boutros-Ghali, Secretary-General of the United Nations at the time the Left Behind books were written) where Nicolae Carpathia, the Antichrist, makes his debut before the United Nations.

In the world of Left Behind, the United Nations is not a collection of powerless diplomats, dependent on its member nations for every dime and employee, permanently half-paralyzed by competing interests among its most powerful members. In Left Behind, the United Nations is the de facto government of the world, with a relationship to member nations similar to the U.S. federal government’s relationship to the individual states.

(Mind you, this isn’t a deliberate alternate reality; Lahaye and Jenkins believe that this is, or will be, how the United Nations works in our world.)

This, of course, means that to conquer the world, Carpathia must conquer the UN. This results in the infamous scene where he wows the crowd at the UN by reciting the member nations’ names in order, saying each name in the language spoken by the people of that nation. We later find out that Carpathia has supernatural mind control powers, but he’s apparently not supposed to be using them in this scene; L&J genuinely believe that reciting a list would bring the UN General Assembly to their feet in a standing ovation and start whoever could perform such a feat on the path of world domination.

It’s a shame, really. That would be a demonstration of supernatural power indeed, to have a character almost literally reading from the phone book, and have the crowds go wild while the unaffected few are left looking around themselves and wondering what the hell is going on.

But Fred points out that there is an even larger missed opportunity here: Nicolae is the Antichrist. This is a perfect opportunity to draw a contrast between him and the Christ, thus demonstrating the character of both. Now, while a gathering of “all nations under Heaven” hearing Carpathia speak in their native tongue is a passable anti-Pentecost, Pentecost wasn’t one of Jesus’s miracles. That one goes to Peter, the Apostles, and the Holy Spirit well after Jesus had returned to Heaven. Instead, there should be some sort of anti-Baptism performed by an anti-John (the character Jonathan Stonagal was almost certainly supposed to be this – why couldn’t they wrangle some way to have him make Carpathia’s introductions at the UN? They have Rayford Steele, a civilian, get hired to pilot Air Force One.). And rather than reciting a list of member nations, this would be a good opportunity for Carpathia to preach his anti-Gospel, complete with anti-Beatitudes.

That got me thinking. What would anti-Beatitudes look like?

The Risks of Writing What You Know

“Write what you know” is, on the whole, very good advice. You pick up innumerable details by sheer osmosis from lived experience, and those details get into your writing without you even knowing it. Your readers will be able to sense the authenticity when you write what you know. And as Get Jiro illustrates, “write what you know” doesn’t have to limit you to writing semi-autobiographical literary novels.

Horizon Review: Streets of Fire

It’s pretty warm down here in The City, enough to let us know that summer is on its way. And for me, there are certain movies I need to see to start the season off right. Streets of Fire is one of them. It gets me in that proper dreaming frame of mind.

Streets of Fire is the very first movie I reviewed on this site, chosen as such because it’s the movie I love the most and that has inspired me every time I’ve seen it.

And it’s not even really that good as a movie.

Take a look at this bit of old time Horizon to see how that works.

Dreams of the Shining Horizon

On my About page, and again in my first post, I mention that one of the things I intend to write about on this site is movies.  It would be strange if I didn’t: I’ve been a movie buff ever since I was a little kid hanging out in the local video store, wishing I could take the entire stock home.  And while there are certainly movies I’m going to pick apart or hold up as examples of what not to do, most of them are going to be movies I love, or that inspire me in some way.

That’s why the very first movie review on Dreams of the Shining Horizon is going to be about Streets of Fire.  It fits into both categories, and I wanted to get the whole endeavor off to a positive start.

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