Author Archives: Bob Evans

The Importance Of Names

I’m not going to discuss using names a symbolic clue as to the nature of a character or  story, though that is an important and very difficult aspect to naming things for an author. Instead I’m going to rant a bit about something that irritates me endlessly.

I hate it when a writer, or writers, skip out on naming something that really should have a name. This happens most often in film and television, but the unforced error can occur in any kind of writing, regardless of medium or genre. Continue reading →

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Adventures with Scriveners

For this week I have been working with a new piece of software as I work on my new novel, Command and Control. This software package, Scriveners has been developed as a tool for writers, particularly of novels. It is much more than just a word processing program, but it is a tool for collating and organizing the data that you can generate when writing your tome. Continue reading →

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An Interesting Question

We are rapidly approaching an interesting time in human history, the moment when our phonotypical nature becomes utterly under our control. Right now we have limited ability to alter our appearance. We can dye our hair, insert inert implants to alter our shape, to an extent, suction away fat cells, and it a limited degree we can even dye our skin, altering the appearance of our pigmentation. This is as crude as the amputations and drugs used by the ship board doctors of the 18th century compared to what I think is coming in our near future. A future so near that I expect to survive to see it. The moment when we have enough genetic knowledge and control that switching on and off with ease and control will become available to the local physician and practiced upon the general population. Continue reading →

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My Big Fat Geek Weekend.

This weekend I will not be watching a Sunday Night Movie feature. (which is apparently the number driver of traffic to this blog.) Instead I will be hosting a Harry Potter weekend. All eight Harry Potter films, screened over two days. I picked up the blu-ray of all the film in November and now I going to watch the series over the weekend. I have friends coming over and my dear sweetie wife is talking about making us chili. (Because I have no tolerance for spicy food this has become known as Bob’s False Alarm Chili.) Continue reading →

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Does The Bloodbath End Tonight?

Today is the 4th Republican Primary as they attempt to select a Presidential Nominee to contest Obama for the White House this fall. After a seeming endless series of debates, the rise and fall of countless not-Romney stretching from the credible to the incredible, the field has been narrowed to four candidates left standing; Romney — leading in the polls and very likely the nominee, Gingrich  — the current not-Romney, a man with a volatile personality and checkered political past, the current vessel for the hopes of dreams of the hard core base (though how a man who lobbied for Medicare Part D, the individual mandate, and action on Global Warming, wins the support of that base is a manifestation just how unloved Romney truly is by the base.) Santorum – social conservative, his says all the right things about abortion and gays, but he can’t seem to fire up the base and lastly Paul – the ‘libertarian’ though he strike me as less libertarian and more like someone who felt that the Articles of Confederation were the right path.

The aggregate polling indicates that Romney is the likely winner tonight. I think the essential question is not if Romney wins but by how much and does that stop the fighting? Continue reading →

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Sunday Night Movie: Total Recall

Phillip K. Dick came to the silvered screen in 1982 with Ridley Scott’s powerfully influential, but box-office miss,  science-fiction film, Blade Runner, but it wasn’t until 1990’s Total Recall that Dick found commercial success at the theaters.Hollywoodhas ever since sought to find the right action/adventure movie that can be mined from a Phillip K. Dick story.  Frankly, Dick is the wrong author to mine for action adventure, but they keep trying to force that very round peg in our Village’s square holes. Continue reading →

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The Dream

I dreamt I was back in the Navy. At the start of the dream I was aboard a Submarine with my friend Brad. There was a particular scene where we watched as a sailor went up a ladder and as the ship rolled the sailor smoothly went from one face of the ladder to the other face traversing a complete 180 degrees.  It would literally be like if the ship rolled upside down and you had to use the reverse side of the ladder. My dreams can often seem very real at the time but have the most unreal events in them. I showed Brad around the ship a bit, explaining how the layout worked; we even passed a rather large open elevated compartment with a placard indicating it was the “Imperious Flying Bridge.”

Soon it was morning and by this time the ship was no longer a submarine but a surface ship, a very large one like a battleship.  I started to be very concerned because I had no idea where to find my division, and I had to find them and stand with them at muster. At this point I awoke.

For those not in the know I was in the U.S. Navy from 1979 to 1982. I did not make a very good sailor; the military life was not for me, though I have a deep and sincere respect for those who do serve. It is part of why I write military SF.

It seems every four or five years I have a dream where I am back in military service, rarely does the discomfort in these dreams rise to a nightmare, but usually there is the element that I don’t belong. Like last night’s dream when I was lost at muster. There can be no doubt that the service left an enduring mark upon me.

I think this is the first time a friend of mine who had never served was somehow in the Navy with me.  I guess that’s an example of a phantom pressganging. Hmm is there a fantasy. horror, or an RPG adventure in that concept? I’ll have to think about it.

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