Book 3 Update

While I am still waiting on my editor, I did receive the first concept sketch from my artist for Book 3, Rising Warrior/Rising Threat, and I am blown away.

I added the standard text and logo just because I couldn't resist, but it looks great even as it is.  I almost want to release the book with this as a variant cover.  The artist has also insisted on doing the full cover instead of just the character art.  Given that he is asking the same price as my last two artists who am I to argue, but I will pay him more.  I can't wait to see the final product.

Fitness Log

And now for something completely different.

On a blog mostly about writing, indie publishing and tech it might be odd to see a title like Fitness Log, but let's get something out there.  I'm overweight.  My weight has always fluctuated, when I was younger I would pack on weight during the winter only to shed it in the summer.  After the diagnosis of my son Owen's illness I began to add on the pounds slowly and never lost them again.  Stress, illness, stress, not eating right, stress, work issues, stress, willpower loss, stress, etc... led to be reaching 250lbs.

Inspired by friends who have lost weight, my wife who lost the stress weight over the last year, and the fact that I don't like being this heavy I am now taking the weight loss seriously.  Combine this with the fact that I will start making appearances for my books and I don't want to roll up looking like GRRM and I have a definite goal.

To that end I have purchased several pieces of gym equipment, am fixing up my bike and am taking on a revised diet and exercise plan.  I'll also be posting my progress on here as a means of motivation and encouragement for myself and others.

To start let's list the exercise plan:

Office Days:
Wake Up:  A40 workout 3-5 sets.
A40 workout:  10 Flutter Kicks, 10 Toe Reaches, 10 Pull Ins, 10 Reverse Crunches with leg Extensions
At Office, A40 Ab workout every hour, walk around building every 1-2 hours.
Return home and commence resistance training.
Ride Bike around neighborhood.
3x20 Bench Press
3x20 Seated Rows
3x20 Lat Pulls (alternating front and reverse)
3x20 Tricep Pushes
3x20 Bicep Curls
3x15-20 Kettle-bell Squats
3-5 A40 Ab Workouts
After dinner, cool down walk with the boys.  (Pokemon Go Walk)

Telework Days/Weekends
After getting everyone else out the door complete resistance training workout.
A40 Ab Workout every hour
Longer hike/bike ride as time allows.
After dinner, cool down walk with the boys (Pokemon Go Walk)

Diet Plan:
Breakfast:  No Earlier than 8-9AM depending in wakeup time.  Low/No Carb, High Protein  (Bacon and Eggs)
Lunch:  12 Noon timeframe, Low/No Carb, High Protein  (Varies depending on availability)
Dinner:  Post evening Workout, Low/No Carb, High Protein.  (Chicken, Steak, Salad)

Assuming that I can stay with this I hope to lose a significant amount of weight by my first official book appearance at the Olympic Collectibles Show on 1 October.  That is also when my new gym will open and I will start using their equipment and varying my workout more.

And since I am engineer, as well as a writer, let's go over my current numbers, which I will update weekly:

Height: 6'
Weight: 247lbs
Waist Size: 44"
Neck Size: 18" 
Bicep Size: 15"
Thigh Size: 25" 
Calf Size: 17" 
Chest Size: 46"

Ultimate Goal, assuming no major muscle weight additions, 200lbs, and  36" waist.

Space Opera: Writers, Summer 2016 Flash Fiction Contest WINNER!

The Space Opera: Writers Facebook Group began a flash fiction contest last winter to be run quarterly.  I skipped the first one for personal reasons and have submitted in the last two.  I placed second in the Spring Contest as judged Author David Farland.  This, of course, made me ecstatic.  So I competed again in the summer contest as judged by Peter F Hamilton.  And this time. I won.  I was blown away to see that this morning.  The entries will be compiled by the group's leader, Scott McGlasson, into an ebook for free distribution, but this is a huge add to my writing resume.  I will post the link to the ebook once it is completed for sure.

For those that don't know, flash fiction is a short story, in this case 1000 words or less, based on a starter phrase or image.  In the case of this contest, six images were presented.  Authors picked an image, wrote their story and submitted it for judging by the moderators (in the blind, no names attached).  The top three were then submitted to the final arbiter, Peter F. Hamilton.

The images for the Sunmmer 2016 Flash Fiction Contest

There were a total of 35 entries this time, and most were quite good.  I based mine on image number 6.  I have read through the entries and liked a great many of them.  Some were just not my taste, and others were great romps.  I am always impressed by what these talented undiscovered authors can come up with in just 1000 words or less.

A big shout out to the other two finalist, Chad Dickhaut and Josh Hayes.  Their stories were excellent and I'm still surprised that I won in the end.  I also love what PFH wrote about the three finalists, see below.

Peter F Hamilton has spoken! The celebrity judge of the Space Opera: Writers summer flash fiction contest has handed down his first, second, and third place rankings.

Says Peter:
"Okay, here we go.
For the record, this was a lot tougher than I was expecting! They’re all of publishable quality. So the ranking is all down to personal preference, which means very little in the real world.
First: Hermetic History
Second: The Day We Tore The Sky
Third: Salvation
Hermetic History. 1000 word stories are always difficult, you have to include plot characters and hopefully a punchline or twist at the end -that’s what I always look out for. This story has all of these, in addition to some very professional prose. It conjured up a decent worldview in a few paragraphs, then made me wonder exactly how it was going to end. Given the length, not a page turner, but I wanted to know what was coming next. The goal of any story. Also, using Elon made me chuckle.
The Day We Tore The Sky. The ‘voice’ of the story was really well established in the first few lines. An essential quality in a piece this short. Personal preference again, I liked the tough-guy character with a pretty bleak sense of humour. There was a lot in here helping to place the reader in the world, with all its excess government security and missions that never go to plan adding to the believability. As always, I was wondering how it would end, and yes it ended well.
Salvation. (For transparency I should declare Salvation is also the name of the book I’m currently writing, but I’m fairly sure I managed to put that to one side) The only reason I placed this third was because although it was well written, and covered all the bases of making me want to read on, it felt like it was a section of a much larger work. This is a credit to the worldbuilding, which set up an intriguing civilisation and a conflict within it. I simply wanted more out of it than a story this length could realistically provide. If Josh has the detailed structure of this universe mapped out, along with the character arcs, maybe he should consider a longer piece set here.
best"

This win is still blowing me away and now I just have to decide how I will proceed.  I think that I may compile this story with my second place finisher from last contest along with some other shorts I have been tossing around into a collection of short stories.  I might also submit them to some anthologies.  I will keep you apprised as I make my decision.

Five Page Fixes #1 Star Trek (2009)

Welcome to the first installment of Five Scene Fixes.  Unlike YouTube series like Cinema Sins, that only point the problems, in these posts I will look at popular media (movies mostly) that while good (or sometimes bad) could have been made great with just minor adjustments.  I will try and limit these "fixes" to only what was seen in the original releases, keeping track of subsequent director's cuts and extended editions will only complicate matters.  Some of these fixes will be minor, others may call for the complete rewriting of the scene, but sometimes even a throw away line can be enough to make a giant plot hole disappear.

Before we get started on the minor fixes that would have made this movie better, let me put this forward.  I like Star Trek, I am not a huge Trek fan, growing up on Star Wars myself, but I always enjoyed Star Trek for what it was, a great platform for writers to tell allegorical sci-fi stories.  It could almost be treated as an anthology series similar to the Twilight Zone, if it did not have a recurring cast of characters.  Those characters and stories became iconic in sci-fi and helped to establish many of the sci-fi tropes we know and love today.  When I first heard about the reboot I had no issue with it, assuming it was done with respect to the original vision of the creator, Gene Roddenberry.

Don't get me wrong, Star Trek 2009 is not a bad movie.  It just left some large plotholes in there and could have been made that much better with just a little work, or by adding just a few lines.  One of the biggest complaints that I know many people had with the movie was Kirk's precipitous rise to captaincy from being, basically a delinquent with zero space time under his belt prior to entering starfleet.  So let's get to the fixes:

#1:  The Bar Scene;  Add in a line from Pike about how Kirk served on a civilian or Star Trek Merchant Marine type ship, maybe even made Executive Officer and was recommended to Starfleet by the captain.  This would also be a nice place to drop a nod to the original series, by naming another civilian ship captain.

#2:   The shipyard:  There was no reason to show the almost completed Enterprise on the ground.  It would have been just as effective to show the major hull pieces of the Enterprise on the ground, for later assembly in orbit.  This is more a design level discussion, and the design of the NuTrek Enterprise has never sat well with me.

#3:  The Transwarp Transporter:  Sorry but just inputting an algorithm would not make the transport due what they needed, actual code would be required, and probably some physical alteration.  Adding just a shot of the transporter exploding after use might actually suffice to ram this home, and a line from Scotty about how he's been souping up the transporter as well.

#4:  The Core Ejection.  Simple Fix, don't eject the core, but the Antimatter Reserves.  (I said some of these were simple fixes).

#5:  This one is not a scene fix so much as a design issue.  I have always despised the design of the ships in this film.  The exterior of the Enterprise, while similar to the original, was just too flowing, and it had numerous size discrepancy issues.  The biggest failure however was to the interior designs.  Modern ships are designed around compartmentalization, keeping spaces only as large as necessary in case of hull breaches.  A ship like the Enterprise would be similarly designed.  Filming in a brewery might have been necessary for budgetary reasons, but adding in some digital walls would have helped to a great degree.  The vast open chambers of the engineer deck just hurt any suspension of disbelief.  Nero's ship was even worse with the whole interior not appearing to have any interior walls.

Like I said, some films don't need much in terms of fixes, the next NuTrek film however, that one was a mess.  That being said, I loved Star Trek Beyond.

We're Back...

Sorry for the last of updates for the last 9 months.  Life has been busy, and has kept me from working on this.  But, we are back now.  Here are some updates:

Spiral War, Book 3, Rising Warriors, Rising Threat, is with the editor and should be back in my hands NLT my birthday in late August.  After that I will send it off to the Beta Readers, including the cover artist before finalization and hopeful release in Fall 2016.  I will be posting this novel to Kindle Scout, see if I can't get Amazon to help foot the bill for advertising and promotions.

Spiral War, Book 4, The Gorvian Campaign (Working Title), is finished and now fermenting before I jump in to the self edit.  I have submitted the first three chapters to the OWW however for comment as I proceed through my self edit.

I am also stepping up my own self-promotion game.  I will be attending several conventions in the coming months, some I missed out on the deadline to appear, but the first will be a tiny art and hobby show at work.  I won't be able to sell there, but it will get me some exposure, and I will hand out the new book cards with links to here, the amazon purchase site, and the ISBN for physical book purchase.  Speaking of which, I have two boxes full of Books 0, 1, and 2, awaiting my convention appearances.

My special Owen showing off the hardcopies.

Convention appearance one will be at the Olympic Collectible Expo's fall show on October 1, 2016 at the Silverdale Beach Hotel.  I missed the last show, but am glad to appear at this one.

I am on the wait list for Jet City Comic Show  on November 5-6, 2016.  Crossing my fingers to get into this one.  I will update on this and other upcoming appearances as they arise.

Onto the writing front, some errors were pointed out in the current edition of Spiral War: On Dagger's Wings.  As a result, I am preparing a version 1.2.  I found most the errors pretty quickly, which was upsetting, but then I have gotten better on the editing front, so that is not surprising.  Version 1.2, which will update to all kindle addresses for free, will include a new Forward section to address the issues and hopefully appease some fans.

Final note for this update.  I love doing reviews and am getting back into it.  As part of that, I will bring out an old game I used to play with my father and other writers, 5 Scene Fixes.  In that we take a movie or show that could have been great, but was hampered, and maybe ruined by 5 scenes, in some cases more.  My first victim, the Star Trek reboots.  That being said, I saw Star Trek Beyond over the weekend and absolutely loved it, so a longer review will be forthcoming.

Review Roundup October 2015

I have not posted any book or movie reviews of late, but that is because I have been doing them for my old friends over at Slice of Sci-Fi and their sister sites.  Rather than post each one as it went up I decided to wait and post the lost of them at once.

Listening 

Review Summary:

Listening is a movie that I would rate as average. There is little about it that makes it stand out amongst other movies, within and without its genre. This does not mean that Listening is a bad movie, it simply doesn’t bring much new to the table.

Containment

Review Summary:

I have never lived in a tower block/apartment building; part of the reasoning behind this is because I always saw them as perfect havens for disease vectors. This movie plays with that concept to a great degree, along with themes about not knowing your neighbors, fear of authority, isolation, and paranoia.

Nightmare Code

Review Summary:

The way these characters interact and the lack of flashy hollywood computer usage was a welcome change for me. I did my share of code writing and debugging in college and could feel their frustration. Forget the flashy screens and multiple person at a keyboard typing away like mad monkeys, this is what debugging code looks like. Mostly bored folks looking for stimulus as they scroll through line after line of text. Overall this is a great movie, and I recommend it for anyone who is interested in coding, computers and who wants to see a good A.I. movie.

June

Review Summary:

This is an interesting film, but doesn’t bring anything new to the genre, and most genre fans will spot inspiration from various other films. What I have found most interesting is the nebulous time frame the movie takes place in. The three adult leads will be recognizable to folks from my generation, appearing in numerous genre films since the mid-nineties. It was almost a 90s reunion, which kind of works as the movie appears to be set in the early to mid 90s.

Star Wars: A New Hope: The Princess, The Scoundrel, and The Farm Boy

Review Summary:

Do not consider this book a replacement for the movie, or the original novelization ghost written by Alan Dean Foster. Instead, look at it as a supplement. This book does an excellent job of getting into Leia’s head and really lets the reader/listener (since I am reviewing the audiobook version) know what she felt through this adventure. I almost would have liked the book to tell the whole story through her viewpoint, and those of the others as well.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back: So You Want to be a Jedi?

Review Summary:

When most people think about Empire, they consider it one of the best of the Original Trilogy Star Wars movies. It develops greatly on A New Hope and expands on the nature of The Force and the Jedi, and the universe at large. This book tosses out most of that for fairy tale stylings, and adds a trite fairy tale about Yoda right in the middle of the book.

Star Wars Beware The Power of the Dark Side

Review Summary:

Overall the book doesn’t add much to the story, and is an almost straight retelling of the movie but does add new links to the prequel trilogy and also describes a far more desperate rebel fleet then other media has portrayed. The audiobook is quite good and the choice of music good as well, though I would have preferred if they didn’t use the Ewok theme as much. Given that this book tried to portray them as warriors so much more, hearing the jaunty theme from the movie here actually did them a disservice.

Do the Young Adult Retellings of the Original “Star Wars” Trilogy Work?

This was a follow up to my earlier review of these three books where I outlined what they did right, and also their significant failings.

Deadlands: Ghostwalkers

Review Summary:

Throw every trope and genre you can into the mix, it’s here in some form or another. It can be a bit overwhelming at times, but made for a fun pre-Halloween read. My oldest wants to read it after he finishes my old HP Lovecraft books. The book also features more than it’s share of violence, and might not be for the squeamish. If a movie is ever made of this, Rob Zombie will probably be involved, let’s put that out there.

The Martian Movie Review

Go see this movie.  No, seriously, grab a friend, or two, or more, and go see this movie.  5 Stars.  Then come back here and read the review.

Did you go see the movie?

What do you mean no?

Need more of  a reason, here's the trailer:

Grab your keys and your wallet, or someone with keys and wallet and go see this movie, now.

Did you see the movie yet?

Well whether you have or not, spoilers ahead.  Quite simply put, this is the best movie I've seen this year.  Anyone who knows me knows that I hate it when movies deviate too far from the source materials, especially when it's a book.  I hated movies like I-Robot, Starship Troopers, I Am Legend, etc... for doing just that.  On the flip side I have praise the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies.

This movie, while taking certain liberties from the book, stuck to it fairly well.  I understand why it it deviated too, most of the time it was to move the story along at a faster pace.  While there were some scenes I would have liked to have seen, losing them didn't upset me.  Even the additions didn't get my blood boiling.  Yes, there were a couple that were there for the ego of the stars, but they were ok and I could pass them off.  Even the extended ending, compared to the book, worked well in my opinion, it offered more closure.

I could sit down here for hours and dissect every scene of the film, but I won't.  It it simply a great film.  It is smart, it is funny, it is well paced, and it is believable.  They didn't turn any of the characters into mustache twirling villains, and on some level you could relate to almost everyone in it.  

This was a story about people coming together to save a single brave hero.  And, it worked.  It worked so well.  I hope that Andy Weir gets a dump truck full of royalties for this movie.

And for those of you haven't read the book.

BUY THIS BOOK!!!

Like I said, there are some changes, but they are minimal and fit the new medium.

5 Stars, well earned by all involved.  Now go see the movie if you haven' yet.