by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 13, 2011 | Blog
I just finished reading Michael Cassutt and David Goyer’s novel HEAVEN’S SHADOW, and just love it. It’s one of the five minutes into the future books written by one of the foremost authorities on the American and Soviet space programs, and the authenticity just drips off the page. You want to know what goes on behind the doors of the Johnson Space Center? This is the book for you. There is a flight to a NEO (near-Earth Object), and then things get very...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 12, 2011 | Blog
Now I understand that I belong to no organized party — I’m a Democrat, in the immortal words of Will Rogers, but unless we want to a Republican in the White House in 2013, and not win back the House and lose the Senate we better strive for a bit of Republican discipline and support of our party leaders. It’s was the blind fury and ignorance of the Republicans, actually flirting with default, and some of their representatives and candidates for the presidency actually saying...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 8, 2011 | Blog
Connie Willis sent me this wonderful link of Kurt Vonnegut lecturing on the shape of stories. It’s short, amusing and brilliant, and well worth a watch. Let me start by saying that I fear the short story. I find them very hard, much harder to write than a novel. I’m getting better at them, but I approach each one with the air of a person facing the gallows. I have certain rules of thumb for getting through one. Generally five scenes. Only...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 4, 2011 | Blog
I’m almost done with a second play through of Mass Effect 2 when I decided I needed a fantasy break. Also, I was missing Ferelden. So I loaded up Dragon Age 2 and started to play. I’ve spent three nights playing, and this is a really feeble game. Looks great, the combat has been streamlined though I liked combat in the first one just fine, but there’s no there there. Who ever wrote this game seemed to have forgotten that the foundation is always...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 1, 2011 | Blog
Went and saw the last of the big summer blockbusters yesterday, and overall (since I avoided Transformers 3) this was a pretty darn good Big Dumb Fun summer. The weakest of the crop was Green Lantern with Tor next to the bottom, but overall there have been some enjoyable and fairly thoughtful movies for summer fare. I’m trying to get out to Deathly Hallows which I hear is great. Maybe tomorrow night. I had heard some young D.J.’s bitching about Cowboys and Aliens...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 31, 2011 | Blog
Okay, I think Captain Jack is the sexiest man on television even if he’s not likely to go for me because I have the wrong equipment. I was excited to hear that Torchwood was coming to Starz, and overall I’m pleased though the series got off to a really slow start. If you are going to wait and watch the season on Netflix please stop reading now because there may be some spoilers. ***********************************SPOILER ALERT********************************* ...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 26, 2011 | Blog
Okay, I totally loved this movie. The Cap and X-Men: First Class are my two favorite superhero movies of the summer. What do they have in common? They both took their time in the beginning. They really let me get to know Steve, and Charles and Eric. The action built slowly and even the action sequences were explicable and easy to follow instead of just hectic action for the sake of action. Both the films celebrated humanity and compassion, and the tragedy is that Eric...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 18, 2011 | Blog
I’ve been following my friend George’s incredible and well deserved success with much joy and a general feeling of Squeeee! So I’ve been wandering around the Internet reading reactions to the Emmy nominations, and the reviews of Dance, and reports about the signings, and in my wanderings I stumbled into a fetid swamp. Otherwise known as a website devoted to attacking George and his work. I won’t name them because I don’t want to drive anymore traffic...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 12, 2011 | Blog
Since the second half of DEATHLY HALLOWS comes out this week, and since it gives Snape his big scenes I want to see this film. So, I figured I better catch up and watch the first half. I picked up the disc at Hastings rather than wait on Netflix, and settled down after I got home last night. I had been over at Ian’s watching the TORCHWOOD pilot on Starz. More on that in a different post. Anyway, I was home by 9:30, not really tired and wanted to watch the Harry...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 7, 2011 | Blog
I paid fleeting attention to the Casey Anthony trial. The young mother accused of killing her two year old daughter. My guess is that she was guilty, but it was a “dry bones” case which had the prosecution working with purely circumstantial evidence and those can be hard. But when the not guilty verdict came down it got me to thinking — was the death penalty the real issue here? Would that jury have been more willing to find her guilty if they weren’t...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 6, 2011 | Blog
We finished watching the British Life On Mars over the holiday weekend, and while I over all loved the show I found the ending to be singularly unsatisfying. I know most people who had watched the British version first hated the American version. I didn’t watch the American show, but I knew about the controversy over the ending, and from reading a friend’s blog post I had a good idea about the American conclusion. Since I didn’t watch the American version I...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 2, 2011 | Blog
Here’s a little quote from an attendee, Maggie Benedict, on Huckabee’s “Freedom Cruise”. “It’s the first time I’ve felt the president wasn’t a true American,” Maggie says. “And that he wants to become a dictator. We didn’t like seeing him get elected because of his race.” You can find the full article here. The fact that someone could say this openly in 2011 to a journalist tells me the atmosphere, and the resentment has...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jun 29, 2011 | Blog
Went and saw Green Lantern Sunday night, and I quite enjoyed it. I went in with very low expectations which probably helped, and it’s certainly not a masterpiece, but it was a satisfying summer movie. Of the three superhero flicks I rank them as follows — X-Men: First Class as the best, then Green Lantern, and I have to put Thor at the bottom of the list. Thor looked great, and the two eye candy boys were great, but the story was a muddled mess. Green Lantern on...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jun 28, 2011 | Blog
My state is burning. Yesterday it went from voluntary evacuations from Los Alamos to mandatory evacuations. Las Alamos National Lab is closed. We have evacuated horses at our barn. This is an area that ten years ago was devastated by fire, and the Las Conchas fire is much worse. There was some rain up north, but nothing around Santa Fe were we have two giant fires burning. Nothing near my house, but unless the summer rains come soon that could change in a...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jun 26, 2011 | Blog
Yesterday we did a 90 minute Wild Card panel at the first Albuquerque Comic Expo. Since a lot of the folks didn’t know from Wild Cards, and it’s dull to just have people talk about the characters they had created and the stories we had written I tried to make it more about how you adapt an essentially visual media (the comic) into prose. Since it takes a good action writer to make an battle interesting, and since you can’t do that over and over in a book we rely...
