Orphan Black Season 3 – Reflections on Violence

by | Jul 23, 2015 | About Writing

For those of you who may not have seen season three of this show be warned; there may be SPOILERS! Let me say right up front that I think this show is terrific and that Maslany simply brilliant.  Kudos to the Emmys’  for finally figuring out how to get her a well deserved nomination.  But….. I think this season was weaker then seasons 1 or 2 and I think that was due to a couple of things.  One was the focusing more on Allison then the other clones.  While Maslany’s...

Orphan Black

by | Jul 10, 2015 | TV & Movies

Yeah, I’m late to the party.  What can I say?  I’ve become spoiled with streaming and none of the streaming services — Hulu Plus/Netflix —  I had downloaded to my XBox were showing Orphan Black when ever I went to look for it.  I don’t want to wait for physical discs to arrive at the house so I kept putting off watching the show.  Then XBox Live offered a free month of Amazon Prime.  I knew Amazon had the series because I watched the pilot over at my friend, Mike...

Mass Effect Fantasy

by | Jul 4, 2015 | Game/Writing

Major game neepery is about to ensue so if you’re not into Mass Effect this may seem like I’ve begun speaking in tongues. So I had this fantasy about the DLC I’d loved to have played.  I had fun with the Citadel DLC, but thought there were a number of missed opportunities.  And I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the Shepard clone.  (Mostly while I’m stuck on an elliptical machine for 40 minutes.  It’s good to let your mind wander.) Anyway, my Shepard...

I Guess They’re Scared

by | Jul 3, 2015 | General

I’ve been pondering and honestly trying to understand the rightwing freak out over the marriage equality ruling.  What is it that is so alarming, unnatural, perverse about two people who love each other being married?  They’re always talking about god’s law as revealed in nature — well there are gay animals too so obviously if their god is omniscient then gay critters and people are all in the plan, right? Then I remembered a conversation I had a few years back with my...

Bravo Mercedes And Thank You

by | Jul 2, 2015 | General

One month ago my workhorse of a vehicle, my Mercedes diesel GL SUV up and died in the middle of Yale Blvd. down in Albuquerque.  I had just dropped off friends at the airport (thank heaven it didn’t happen on I25 or during my drive back from L.A. with my cats on board.)  I called Triple A and got towed to the Mercedes dealership.  The provided me with a loaner and I headed home thinking this would be simple. It was anything but.  For three weeks the techs were baffled.  They kept hooking...

Inside Out

by | Jun 24, 2015 | TV & Movies

There will be some spoilers (not huge and probably obvious) but you have been warned. I went to see INSIDE OUT last night.  I liked it a lot, but I didn’t love it as much as I’d expected to.  Like FROZEN I think it suffered from the hype.  It’s still a very fun and charming movie, but on balance I liked Tomorrowland better. The reason was a basic writing 101 problem — they didn’t ground me in the theme early enough in the film.  I thought the idea that we need...

Have They No Shame?

by | Jun 19, 2015 | General

Forgive me. I try to keep things fun and talk mostly about writing or horses or games or cool science stuff, but what happened at the Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina has left me shaken. The killings themselves are a sadly familiar story.  Black churches have been targeted before.  In 1963 four little girls were killed when a black church was bombed. As Larry Wilmore pointed out Larry Wilmore The Nightly Show nobody back then tried to claim this was about religious liberty, or that the...

And The Mad Bullet Beat Goes On

by | Jun 18, 2015 | General

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the horrific shooting in South Carolina. As most of you know I’m not religious, but there is something particularly repugnant about a killer entering a church or a mosque or a temple to kill peaceful worshipers. And suggestions on Fox news that pastors/priests/ imams ought to be armed just shows how mad this entire discussion of guns and their place in our society has become. Here is a portion of the President’s remarks. “At some...

The Rabbit Problem

by | Jun 17, 2015 | About Writing

Today as I was working on the second space opera novel, EVIL TIMES, I was faced with the perennial science fiction problem.  What do you do about animals on alien worlds?  Or in a fantasy novel?  In my universe Old Earth is a climate change decimated hell hole.  The capital of the Solar League is on a planet called Ouranos, capital city Hisselek.  Naturally Earth animals have been brought with the settlers, but there are local fauna as well. The problem isn’t that there are going to be...

Pavlov Meet App

by | Jun 11, 2015 | General

My technology is training me into a conditioned response.  I downloaded this pedometer app for my IPhone, and now that I’m home in NM where it is beautiful and I’m not breathing exhaust when I go outside I have been taking a lot of long, brisk walks.  Since I don’t have a gym here I’m using free weights at home and these walks as a way to stay in shape.  I generally average around 8500 steps each day or about four miles. But yesterday I hit 10,000 steps in one day and...

Razor Shortage?

by | Jun 7, 2015 | General

Okay, the stubble thing is starting to bug me.  Oliver Queen in Arrow, Mr. Reese in Person of Interest, Grant Ward and all the other pretty boys in Agents of SHIELD. I also notice that elegant villains get to shave — Loki, Harrison Wells in The Flash,  Hannibal in Hannibal.  Most of the leaders of Hydra.  Scruffy seems to indicate you’re a low rent villain, a drug dealer or a terrorist. Then there’s a class of good guys who get to shave.  Mr Finch in Person of Interest, Phil...

Where Did It Come From?

by | Jun 5, 2015 | The Craft of Writing

One of the questions over on Facebook was what was the origin of the IMPERIALS series.  It was actually a reaction to the Return of the Jedi.  Certainly an inferior film compared to the first two Star Wars (though it looks like Shakespeare compared to what followed).  But I digress. So here we are, Victor Milan and I watching Return of the Nehi… Jedi when suddenly there’s another damn Death Star, and it’s not really only half-built, it’s a trap.  I leaned over to Vic...

My Process

by | Jun 5, 2015 | The Craft of Writing

We’ve been discussing my writing process over on Facebook, but I thought I’d move the discussion over here to the website. These space opera books are going together differently then my other novels.  I plot very carefully, I know all the big “tent pole” scenes that need to be in a novel.  I know the little fiddly bit will occur to me as a write, but on these books I finish a chapter and have often moved several chapters beyond it when a scene will occur to me that...

Inquisition Second Play Through

by | Jun 3, 2015 | Game/Writing

I’ve been moving very slowly on my second play through of Inquisition.  Part of that is life intruding — a script to be written, a return to N.M., back to L.A., a move, and back home to New Mexico.  I also hit a bug that irritated me and since I’m a completest I had to go back to a save prior to the bug and get it fixed.  I couldn’t get the damn dragonologist to realize I had taken care of the White Claws and move his ass off to Skyhold. As I mentioned earlier I did...