Great News!

The new book Artemis Rising will be published in early September and next week I get to interview the author, Cheri Lasota. I've been friends with Cheri for a few years, she's extremely passionate about what she does and I'm very excited that she's taking time out of her busy publishing schedule to have a chat. The entire thing will be posted on my blog, of course! But until then, check out her website and the trailer for Artemis Rising.

http://www.cherilasota.com/

Still Reading

It's been a busy week reading "soon-to-be-published" books. I've been trying to keep up with reading Time Riders, but I've also been reading some really good stuff from friends of mine. My pal Amber has written a book called Night of the Victorian Dead and my Australian friend Rowena has written a detective novel called From the Shadows. Both are well written with great stories and I'm sure you'll all be hearing about them soon!

To See, or Not To See?

Okay, the recent remake of Conan has got me curious. I really didn't expect much (being a dedicated fan of the original movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger), but the reviews don't seem to be good. I guess I'm looking for an excuse to see it. Can anyone say anything good about it? Give me a reason, please!

Conan the Barbarian on IMDB

P.S. Do we really need the Barbarian in the title? With the poster featuring Conan's bulging muscles, are we really wondering if he's a talk show host?

Time Riders

I'm currently on Chapter 8 of Time Riders. It's showing a lot of promise.

Anyone else read it?

http://www.time-riders.co.uk/

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

If you've ever seen the original five Planet of the Apes movies, you know that the production quality goes down with each movie. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes was, I believe, the third movie in the original series and really wasn't bad, although some of the background ape makeup was not so well done. The new movie, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, roughly follows the Conquest story line and no expense was spared when creating the main character, Caesar, the leader of the ape rebellion.

The movie was pretty good. Caesar is a chimpanzee who is given a drug that makes him very smart and we follow his growth from precocious baby chimp to the leader of the ape rebellion, and each step along the way we are made to understand and sympathize with every decision Caesar makes, including killing a few humans. The only thing that doesn't make it for me is that Caesar is almost all CGI. There's still something about computer animation that doesn't capture reality. Caesar is incredibly well done, but I still look at CGI characters and think there's something just not right here. But, it doesn't distract from the story very much because the movie is well done. See it if you can!

Your thoughts?


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1318514/

Finished My Blood Approves

It was a really long way to travel for that ending. Yes, it is written for female teens and I'm not a female teen, but I've read plenty of books that I loved that have a young, female protagonist. My own book is about a 13-year-old girl! But this one, it just wasn't there.

So, why did this sell so many copies? Was it that e-readers were fairly new and people were just searching for content, or is there really something I'm missing in these stories? Should I read a different Amanda Hocking book, or is My Blood Approves a good example of the type of writing she does?

Halfway Through My Blood Aproves

I have to say, it's not grabbing me. I get why some may like it, but it's not the most original story or the best told. It's moving really slowly. What do you like or not like about it?

My Blood Approves

I was wondering what the hubbub around Amanda Hocking was--you know, sold millions of dollars worth of self-published e-books. So, even though she's like on her tenth or twelfth self-published novel, I decided to start with her first title, My Blood Approves.

The rumors were correct: she desperately needs an editor, it's really, really dumb, and for some very odd reason, I can't put it down. I'm on page 59 and I'm forcing myself to stop so I can do some of my own writing. It's a pretty quick read, thank goodness because it's five-hundred and sixty-seven pages long! Geez!

So, I'm enjoying it up to this point. Anybody read it? Comments?

Captain America

I'll admit, I wasn't expecting much from Captain America. In my opinion, with the exception of Harry Potter, it's been a pretty disappointing summer for movies. Mostly because no one seems to put characters on the screen that we care about. But we definitely care about Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) as a 90 pound weakling that wants nothing more than to help others. He's honest, hardworking, and courageous without the muscles of a superhero. He's really easy to root for and I can't wait 'till the movie comes out on DVD so I can check out the special features and see how they made him a weakling--the special effects were awesome!

But what do you think? Were there any other movies this summer that really made you feel something?