Proof Of Principle Has been re-submitted.

The revision edits on my horror short story Proof Of Principle have been completed and the story has been re-submitted to a pro-market. I got a very encouraging rejection from this market suggesting that that the prose could be tightened and it would take 500-1000 words out of the story.

I spent two weeks reading it aloud and editing based on that and in the end removed 750 words. My sweetie-wife today did a proofreading pass, caught a couple of errors which I corrected before submission.

Now the waiting. This could be my first nation pro-market sale….

Share

Sunday Night Movie:FutureWorld

Two years after reporting about the massacre at he Delos owned amusement park Westworld, reporter Chuck Browning smells another story brewing. Delos has opened a new amusement park, insistent that this time the robot are fail-safe. When a man is murdered trying to get information to him, Chuck realized that not everything is as it seems at Delos.

Forced to work with a professional and personal rival, television reporter/personality Tracy Ballard, Chuck infiltrates the high-tech park Futureworld. Despite their bickering the television report and newspaper man discover this time  that more is at stake than homicidal robots. Uncovering a vast conspiracy that threatens the world, Chuck and Tracy risk more than their lives.

I’ve decided that I would start off my Sunday Night Movie posts with a pitch for the films I watched. The principle reason for this is so that I would get more practice at pitch writing. It is an important aspect of novel selling and an aspect I particularly suck at.

So the Futureworld is the squeal to the 1973 hit, Westworld starring Yul Brynner and Richard Benjamin. In Westerworld at film directed by Michael Crichton from his novel of the same name. The Delos corporation has created an adult theme-park populated with lifelike robots. People can play in artificial environments, engaging in sword fights, sex, gun fights, sex, and debauchery. (Drinking in other words.) The robots malfunction and instead of losing the fights, begin killing the guests. Technology gone awry, as you can see it was never a new theme for Mr. Crichton. Westworld was a hit and made oodles of money, that commanded a sequel.

MGM released Futureworld on 1976, Michael Crichton was not involved in this production so the technology did not go awry. Instead we have a very seventies plot of conspiracies and cynicism. Political and economic leaders from around the world are coming as guests of Delos and of course some nefarious is happening to them. This film was not as well received by either the critics or the public and is generally a forgotten SF film of the seventies. I ended up watching it last night because I was in the mood for something that would not task my brain beyond the most rudimentary concepts.

That said this film in many ways worked better for me than Westworld did. Westworld suffered from severe plot-holes that were required to create the situation that Crichton demanded of his story. For example, when the technology fails in Westworld, the powered doors all locked. Sealing the technicians, who might have resolved the plot before the main characters were in too much danger, in their underground control chambers. There are apparently no overrides, manual or otherwise on these doors. Without power it is simply impossible to open them. Furthermore, the air stops and all the tech die of suffocation. Even as far back as the seventies this is not OSHA compliant. Westworld required this so that Richard Benjamin would have to face the gunslinger alone. Truthfully, this is not very good writing.

Futureworld, by not having the plot revolve around a breakdown of technology escapes this trap. It also got one thing right about the future, the death of Newspapers. Everything else about the future is strangle contemporary to the seventies. Blythe Danner is wasted as the airhead television personality.

In the end this made a perfectly acceptable SF film for a late-night  just kick back and enjoy it viewing, but not one I’d want to own

Share

I love modern technology

So All the reservations have been made for my Vegas Trip! I have my room, my tickets, my car, and even a dinner reservation for friday night at a Brazilian Steakhouse in the Mirage Hotel and Casino.

While working with my rental reservation I explored the option available to me with the Hertz Never Lost navigation system. I expect just your basic GPS unit, but it’s really much cooler than that. I had planned out my trip on-line, all the key destination I want to hit, and saved all the data to my geek-stick. Now when I pick up my car, I’ll plug the stick into the GPS system and it will be pre-loaded for my trip.

I love to plan in advance and this just make me smile.

Share

Partial book review: Orcs

So a few weeks ago I was at Mysterious Galaxy (yeah, I’m there a lot) and I came across this books, Orcs by Stan Nichols. I picked up the omnibus book of a three novel trilogy with the viewpoint entirely from a band of Orcs. The concept intrigued me and after reading the first page I decided to take a risk on an author I had never read and bought the collection.

Sadly, this book has not lived up to it’s promise. First off the Orcs aren’t very Orcish. The Orcs come across as tough fighter with a martial culture, but nothing that is outside of human norms, so there isn’t really an alien viewpoint.

Worse yet the events of the book have a very scripted feel to them. It is far from character driven. Rather an event will happen and that drive our protagonists into their new direction. They are reactionary character rather than character that take and initiate action.

The principle villain of the piece is so cardboard that she would be more properly described as recycled cardboard. She has no better characteristics and runs here military is such a piss-poor fashion that in reality she;d have mass desertions and few victories.

I may finished this book but then again I may not. I have a couple of other books in the wings and frankly, this one is just not holding my attention. Too much like an RPG game, this book needed more cooking before being published.

Share

color me skeptical.

I’m seriously concerned about the long term financial health of our country. Still, I suspect that the movie this trailer is advertising is a bit one sided. (For one thing it looks like there hasn’t been a  Republican president since Reagan. I seem to remember two with three terms between them.)

Share

Short Story editing

So I got a fairly decent rejection slip a couple of weeks ago on a ghost story I had written, (Proof of Principle.) The editor suggested that I had some clumsy structure in my sentences and that by removing words here and there, and an occasional sentence entirely, I would improve the piece.

Getting this sort of feedback is really mind–blowing. It means I am getting fairly close to writing something good enough to sell to a pro-level market. The editor also suggest I try reading the work aloud to guide my edits.

Luckily for me I have just purchased a digital voice recorder. (A Sanyo Fp-600) I plan to use it to record the feedback dinner discussion for Cawdor and convention panels. (I can be a horrid note taker.) So in an attempt to edit this story I am reading it into the digital voice recorder. Any time I stumble over a phrase, I stop and go back to record that section. If I stumble twice, that gets rewritten. Also I am finding things that simply slipped past my eye, but not my ear. I am very excited about the prospects for my editing.

Share

Mid-term predictions

So it’s about three weeks until the elections and it’s time to put my rep on the line. Here’s my rum down — barring any major events that upset the applecart (peachcarts are always ignored, le sigh.)

The Democrats have about 46 solid seats that can be considered safe or not up for re-election, the Republicans have 35, that leaves about 19 seats up for grabs of which the Republicans need 16 to gain a majority. 16 out of 19 that’s a mighty steep hill. But of that 16 they only need 11 pick-ups to gain control.

Continue reading →

Share

Sunday Night Movie:Rustlers’ Rhapsody

Many people know that I am not a big fan of the Western. If you look through my 240 plus DVD and Blu-ray collection the list of Westerns is as Elrond might put it, ‘thin.’ I have just a few in my library. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (subject of a previous Sunday Night Movie), High Noon, and Unforgiven. Given such a limited interest in Westerns it would be surprising to most to find Rustlers’ Rhapsody in my collection.

This film from 1985 is a wonderful send-up of the Western genre. While I am not a big fan of the genre I am enough of a movie buff to know it’s conventions, tropes, and cliches. Rustlers’ Rhapsody plays on these perfectly.

The film starts Tom Berenger as Rex O’Herlihan, The Singing Cowboy. Rex rides from town to town, fighting to bad guys, saving the good guys, and always, always winning. He’s an upright, straight-shooting, hand-shooting no killing kind of hero. Befriended by Peter, the town drunk of Oakridge, Rex sets about his karma of saving the poor — and foul-smelling — sheep herders from the evil cattle baron, played with more than just a swish by Andy Griffith. Rex proves more than a match for the villains as he knows all their tricks. You see, it’s the same cliched attack that happened in every western town to every hero that stands up for the good guys. This time is different though. The Bad guys have found an evilly ingenious way to foil the good guy, one that Rex  — or any western good guy — has faced before.

This film did not find an audience in 1985 and was released just this one time on DVD, but if you are a fan of the silly zany comedies that came out of the 80s and love a good poke at cliches and overused tropes, give this a Netflix spin.

Share