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September 19, 2018

An Author’s Review of: Freelance Heroics

As promised, here’s my author’s review of my second book, Freelance Heroics. Without unnecessary delay, let’s get to it! As I mentioned in my previous post, Freelance Heroics is the better written of my two books from a technical perspective. It would be worrying if this were not the case! An author ought to get notably better at the nuts and bolts of writing between his first and second books. This is especially noticeable in Adv5, where the combat writing is a lot stronger than in...

September 11, 2018

An Author’s Review of: Wage Slave Rebellion

Recently I embarked upon a novel project. Not a strenuous one, but certainly novel, and of concern to my novels. You see, once my disastrous two-year return to the world of full-time sales came to an end, and I began working on Book 3 again in earnest, I had an uncomfortable realization: it had been so long since I’d spent real time working on my books that I’d forgotten some of what happened. Embarrassing, to say the least. Not big things! Just...

December 16, 2017

The Last Jedi SUPER SPOILERY Review

Here follows a review of Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, written several hours after I saw it with reckless disregard for spoilers, because I don’t get paid to review movies and so I just can’t be arsed. You’ve been warned! My top line review is that The Last Jedi is a good movie, both on its own and in the greater Star Wars mythos. It’s not without its flaws, though many of them are imposed on it by having to clean up The Force Awakens’ messes, whereas...

March 27, 2016

Batman does not kill. Superman does not kill.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a joyless, grimdark spectacle in the worst sense. There’s the nugget of a good idea (the god/mortal/devil theme, as embodied by Superman, Batman, and Doomsday) being suffocated by CGI explosions, overdone fight scenes, and rubble piled on blood smothered in gray. It tries to combine the creation of the Justice League with the Death of Superman and Dark Knight Returns, all without earning the team-up since there has only been one movie in this thematic universe, and Man of Steel...

March 13, 2016

Inside Out: What Emotion Drives You?

Continuing my tradition of being way behind on popular culture, I only recently saw Inside Out. I finally watched it because one of my friends, who has good taste, kept berating me until I did. I should probably listen to his advice more often, ’cause this movie was amazing. I can hear him clambering with more suggestions. Down boy, down! Stephen has to write sometime. I want to talk about two of the way emotions were treated in Inside Out changed my perception...

March 1, 2016

Deadpool: Tonal Balance Through Non-Linear Storytelling

After referring to the Deadpool movie in two of my last three posts, and after a request from a reader at RandomC, I thought I’d rattle off a few thoughts on it. But instead of doing a full-blown review, I’m going to focus on the one element that I found most interesting. Actually, I’ll do the whole review thing real quick: It’s a funny movie, y’all. I was worried the Deadpool character would wear thin, and fast, but I had forgotten just how good of a comedic actor Ryan...

January 17, 2016

Star Wars: The Force Awakens – The Conclusion

(Previous posts: Star Wars: The Force Awakens – The Introduction, What Star Wars: The Force Awakens did right, What Star Wars: The Force Awakens did wrong.) The more that time has passed since I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the less kindly I look upon it. Not because it’s bad, or because it wasn’t enjoyable, because it was. It’s its lack of ambition that bothers me, which is far in excess of what I would expect from a Disney movie that’s trying to generate more money than god....

January 17, 2016

What Star Wars: The Force Awakens did wrong

(Previous post: What Star Wars: The Force Awakens did right) Hoo-kay. This is the post that’s most likely to get me in trouble. Star Wars: The Force Awakens currently has an improbably high 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is only 1% less than A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, and too thin of a margin for my taste. Which is the kind of statement that has gotten other people lambasted, when they’ve dared to speak anything but glowing praise about this new thing people love. Let me...

January 17, 2016

What Star Wars: The Force Awakens did right

(Previous post: Star Wars: The Force Awakens – The Introduction) In my spoiler-free one sentence review of The Force Awakens, I said: Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a good Star Wars movie, but it’s not as good as most people are saying. (I feel this should be obvious, but spoilers ahead.) Let’s concern ourselves with the first part for now. Notice my phrasing. I didn’t say that The Force Awakens was a good movie (though it is). I said it was a good Star Wars movie. That phrasing...

January 17, 2016

Star Wars: The Force Awakens – The Introduction

This post is a long time coming. Longer than you might think, because I probably saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens before you did. I saw it on Thursday, Dec 17th at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History Omni Imax theater. Which, for those keeping track at home, means I saw it before the official release date of Dec 18th—I’m not sure how they pulled that off, but I’m not complaining. My best friend since kindergarten (yes, I have a childhood friend) and his...