Monthly Archives: December 2015

2015: A Look Back

This is not review of the major newsworthy events, but a personal retrospective about the year now ending and the changes it wrought upon my life.

I have to say that 2015 has been a damn good year for me. Just about every aspect of my life is improved over this same point a year previous.

I have settled into my new jab nicely. The work is interesting enough to not quite get dull and helping people with their healthcare is not without emotional rewards. It helps that this job represents the highest level of base pay I have earned and promises to continue to grow.

Thanks to streaming services I have been introduced to new musical artists and my appreciation for Jazz, particularly Brazilian influenced Jazz, continues to grow. It should also be noted that the artists I fell in love with this year, Diana Krall and Caro Emerald I have purchased multiple albums because I am all about supporting the artists.

2015 proved to be a fun, engaging, and intelligent year at the movies. The Marvel Cinematic Universe provided new entries into the franchise that entertained and were worthy of cinemas viewing. The Martian proved that SF film don’t have to be dumb to be good and to be massive hits. Discovering Cinefix and MovieBob on youtube has expanded my horizons and deepened my understanding of film and story structure.

Two new short stories sales cheered my artistic side but of course the massive blow-out good news of the year was signing with Will Reeve at the Virginia Kidd Literary agency.

VKA has been a major agency in SF/Fantasy publishing for 50 years and gaining their trust, support, and representation has made a tremendous impact on me. Already we have one novel out of submission, Chris, my short story agent, has been fantastically helpful in getting my short form fiction into the hands of top editors and has been great partner in improving my short form work. Will is great to work with and I look forward to his reaction to my newest novel length effort.

I also finished a new novel this year, proving to myself that I can write to a deadline. (It was a self imposed deadline, more of a drill to practice for when publishers place that expectation upon me. Plotting to finished draft was about 5 months. Not too shabby.)

I remain very happily married to my sweetie-wife whose love and support made everything else in the year possible.

Here’s hoping the for 2016 the trajectory continues.

Share

Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Sorry for my prolonged absence this part of the year is the very busy time at my day job, six days a week, ten hour day are quite common. (I don’t even work retail, it boggles the mind.)
star-wars-7-trailerFor my first post in weeks here is my no spoilers review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
First off let me say that Star Wars is back. This film vindicate my theory that J.J. is a far better fit for the Star Wars universe than he ever could hope to be for the Star Trek setting. The Force Awakens is fun, fast, and takes placed in the familiar lived-in look that permeated the frame in the original trilogy.
TFA takes place many years after the end of the original trilogy and starts off with new characters and new situations. In the years since the Rebellion’s victory over the Empire the victors have reestablished the Republic, but a number of system defied the Republic and have formed the New Order, a government that seems to follow the precepts of the Empire but does not claim a direct lineage. The Two government appear to be co-existing in a cold war sort of peace that is disturbed by a Resistance force with the New Order.
Non of that is spoiler and should have been clear in the film’s opening crawl, sadly it is not.
As I stated earlier the movie quickly reclaims the sense of fun, grandeur, and adventure that the original trilogy mined so well and that the prequel trilogy simply forget existed. The new characters are fun, interesting, and have more fascinating backstories that the original characters. The film has many callbacks to the original films, performing superior fan service.
The weaknesses of the movie really come down to two major points.
1) It is very much a retelling of A New Hope, much as Terminator 2 retold the story, and less well, of . Here is may be that Disney and the film makers are taking time to assure us that they know what Star Wars is supposed to be. If the next movie charts fresh territory then this film will be tonally perfect, if the next film is a remix of The Empire Strike Back, then the new series will be damaged goods. (Much as J.J. damaged Star Trek by remixing The Wrath of Kahn.)
2) There is an extended sequence involving bounty hunters and underworld criminals that is utterly unneeded. You cot has action and laughs and gag but it is waste of valuable screen time that could have been used exploring the characters and their situations.
Aside from those two points I think the film works and was a lot of fun to watch. Do see it and see it in a theater.

Share