Harry

Young Men in Groups

I noticed this a couple of weeks ago and I tried to put off a response until my interest in it fell away. It hasn’t. Therefore: 

It started with this tweet from Chuck Wendig: 

If you click on that and read the whole thread, skip the rest of this paragraph. But basically, there are a bunch of right wing Star Wars fans who have decided the movie series has to be one of the many fr...

Verfremdungseffekt and the Modern Theseus: A Short(ish) Review of DAVE MADE A MAZE

I came across this movie in an odd way. It was literally lying on the floor in the library; someone meant to check it out, but dropped it while browsing through graphic novels. I looked at the cover, read the back, then opened wikipedia to make sure the Rotten Tomatoes score was not below 40%. Then… sure. Why not? 

Especially since my wife has a soft spot for artsy, oddball movies with interesting production design. 

The premise is simple: Annie returns from a business trip t...

Yeah. Right: On the artificiality of narrative and the suspension of disbelief

If you hate spoilers for movies, especially the new Avengers picture, don't read farther. 

My kid doesn't like action movies. 

He won't overlook the artificial aspects of them to lose himself in the moment. In Mad Max: Fury Road, for example, when Tom Hardy jumped from a flaming truck just as it exploded and caught hold of another vehicle, my son blurted out "He's dead." 

Now, did I need a teenager to point out that the death-defying stunts of an act...

"I Don't Want To Be What They Made Me." A Review of JESSICA JONES S2

When I finished watching the second season of Jessica Jones (the first time through) I tweeted this: 

Now that I’ve seen it all the way through three times does my opinion still hold up? 

Yep!

Spoilers!

The standard “First Story” in any MCU property is that the hero faces off against a bigger, stronger version of themselves. Iron Man vs Iron Monger. H...

Randomness for 3/23

1) What happens when bookstore employees get bored. This is delightful.

2) The literal translation of every country name in the world. 

3) Book Towns: small towns filled with bookstores...

RANDOMNESS FOR 2/21

1) Longest-standing video game record declared ‘impossible,’ thrown out after 35 years (update)

2) “She wrote it but…” Revisiting Joanna Russ 35 Years Later. 

3) 2018-02-21 19:49:37 +0000 UTC View Post

Villains out of ordinary folk

Over on Marie Brennan's blog, I wrote about how I created one of the villains in The Twisted Path from an actual guy I met while touring Lisbon. Check it out. And if you find it interesting, please share. 

PODCAST REVIEW OF THE WAY INTO CHAOS, AND AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR

… Who happens to be me. 

The podcast is right here. Podbean. iTunes.

I listened to part of it last night. At one point, I brought my son into the room, played about fifteen seconds’ worth, and said: “Is this how I sound in real life?”

Him: “Yeah, Dad. That�...

“WE’RE NOT IN A PROPHECY.” “LET THE PAST DIE.” “I’M SCARED.” THREE SHORT REVIEWS

I think that, if I group my reviews together, I can keep them short. So I’m going to try that. 

Bright

Everyone who creates a fantasy with a contemporary setting has two major issues they need to address. Okay, it’s more than two, but as far as I’m concerned, these are the biggest. 

First, the stakes are bullshit. 

Second, monsters are not effective stand-ins for victims of injustice. 

The first is pretty straight forward, I th...

SPFBO, THE SELF-PUBLISHED FANTASY BLOG OFF

Have you guys heard of this? 

Author Mark Lawrence, in an attempt to help self-publishing authors publicize their work, created a Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off. The system is simple: He recruited ten reviewers with blogs, solicited 300 fantasy novels from self-published authors, and distributed them. Each reviewer picks one out of their 30 to move to the finals. Then the reviewers choose a winner. 

2017-12-20 19:59:51 +0000 UTC View Post

WHERE THINGS STAND WITH THE TWISTED PATH AFTER ONE WHOLE DAY

[It seemed redundant to post a download link to the new 20P novella on Patreon and also the permanent post for it. Instead, I'm going to put up this followup post, which links back to the main post.]

Let’s see: 

The Twisted Path has its permanent reference post up on my blog. I also added the cover art to the front page in the Twenty Palaces section. (That felt good.)

I po...

New Twenty Palaces Novella Available Now

Hey, want that new Twenty Palaces Novella? 

Go ahead and click that Dropbox link above. When it prompts you to sign in, just click Cancel. Then you get the zip file that will open into a .mobi and a .epub, depending on your ebook reading pleasure. 

And if you like it, please post a review on Amazon, Goodreads, the corner booth of your local cafe while you're hanging out with your friends, in your social media, anywhere. 

Thank you very much. 

Re that new Twenty Palaces I've been promising.

I’ve been talking about this here and there, so let’s hit the topic one more time, but with art.

The new Twenty Palaces novella, The Twisted Path, will be released soon. I just got the copyedit back, so sometime in the next few days, I guess? Being a novella, it’ll be ebook only, and I hope you’ll buy yourself a copy for Christmas.

Here’s the photo the cover was created from and the original.

2017-12-16 16:06:57 +0000 UTC View Post

Changing Patreon fees and The Twisted Path

On December 6th, I got an email from Patreon telling me they were going to increase the charges that you, the patrons, were going to pay. They pitched it to me as though it was a way to make their payments more predictable. I was supposed to be 95% of the pledges rather than the fluctuating amount it has been. 

Of course, that was crap. The payment will be 95% of the pledge, but only because they're hanging the credit card processing fees on you guys as an extra. In the past, that came fr...

SEEING THE FOREST FOR THE ALGORITHM: A REVIEW OF PAST EDIT NOTES AND A HARD TRUTH

In which the author makes an embarrassing confession

One of my little secrets is that, in between projects, I’ll sometimes read a book about writing. It’s always useful to reinforce the basics, and seeing how other writers approach the blank page gives me insights into my own work.

Sometimes I get the impression that I’m supposed to be past all that, but I’m not. I’ve never really felt that I’ve mastered this craft. Some aspects of it, maybe, but I still struggle. 2017-11-22 23:54:16 +0000 UTC View Post

JUSTICE LEAGUE (NO SPOILERS)

Okay. I wasn’t going to see it until next week, but reviews said it was sorta good, so I caught a 7pm sneak tonight. 

The theater was mostly empty, a very bad sign. 

The movie itself was “pretty good for superhero movies” if that’s any kind of rating that matters. They finally got the heroes right. The villains were still cgi ciphers for a supers plot, with three macguffins that have to be gathered and joined to end the world, etc etc. The parademons were effectively an...

Mohawks, Barrel Fires, and a Few Nice Shots: a highly qualified defense of episode 7 of STRANGER THINGS 2

This post contains spoilers for the second season of STRANGER THINGS 2. You should only read it if:

a) You have already seen the show

b) You actively like spoilers

c) You enjoy discussions of storytelling but have no interest in this particular show. 

Moving on: episode seven, is widely regarded as the weakest episode of the entire show, for good reason. It steps away from the setting we, the audience, are invested in, and it drops all of the regula...

BLADE RUNNER 2049: BEAUTIFUL AND SAD AND WTF? COME ON, GUYS

In my attempt to return my online activity to spaces I control, I’m going to be dropping reviews here, too. To start, Blade Runner 2049.

First of all, it’s a beautiful movie. And it’s a sad one, too. That’s not a spoiler; it’s obvious from the first few minutes that this shit will turn tragic. 

Also, it’s part of the Staring School of filmmaking. Nowadays, when filmmakers want to signal that their movie is Capital A Art, they show lingering shots of the actors staring at...

“YOU HAVE NOTHING BUT A WAR INSIDE YOU.” FINAL PUNISHER TRAILER AND PREMIERE DATE

The show airs on Nov 17, which is less than a month after it was announced. I wonder if Netflix is hoping to build anticipation by delaying the release day announcement as long as possible. 

Not that it matters, since I’ll be binge-watching it on the first day, and I won’t be watching previous Punisher movies to get myself in the mood. 

Here it is: 

https://youtu.be/OMW_dPtm7Bo

One thing I...

“YOU HAVE NOTHING BUT A WAR INSIDE YOU.” FINAL PUNISHER TRAILER AND PREMIERE DATE

The show airs on Nov 17, which is less than a month after it was announced. I wonder if Netflix is hoping to build anticipation by delaying the release day announcement as long as possible. 

Not that it matters, since I’ll be binge-watching it on the first day, and I won’t be watching previous Punisher movies to get myself in the mood. 

Here it is: 

<iframe height="315" https:="" src="&lt;a href=" width="560">https://www.youtube.com/embed/OMW_dPtm7Bo?re...

BRINGING IT HOME: A FOLLOWUP TO LAST POST

For the last few years, I’ve been putting more and more of my thoughts into Twitter threads, and it’s time to pull back from that. The people on Twitter are great, except for the ones who aren’t, but the company is a parade of fail. What’s more, it’s all so ephemeral. If I write about a Star Wars reboot on my blog, it’s always available to me when the subject comes up. If I put it Twitter, it falls into the memory hole before the day is out. 

So, more posts in spaces I own.&nb...