• Quick hits at the movies …

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    So Wheezley and I have actually been to the movies a couple of times already this summer. Here’s what we’ve seen so far:

    X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Just average. The story was okay, but I don’t know, it just didn’t have the spark that some of the other X-Men movies have had. That being said, there was a lot of man candy to look at (I had no idea Ryan Reynolds was so buff!), and I did like the fight scene with Wolverine and Gambit (Taylor Kitsch from Friday Night Lights).

    But I didn’t really care about the love interest or the whole Sabretooth-brother plot. And, as Wheezley pointed out, there were a few too many scenes of Hugh Jackman screaming at the heavens. And the CGI at the end wasn’t that great. (Was that really Patrick Stewart?) Overall, just meh.

    Star Trek: It totally rocked. I’ve never seen a single episode of the TV series or any of the movies, so I’m not really a Trekkie at all. But I thought the movie was excellent. It was a really well-done origin story that had a lot of things in there for the fans and non-fans alike (I loved Bones chasing Kirk around the ship and giving him shot after shot).

    The time-travel storyline made my head hurt a little, but then again, it always does. It was nice seeing Zachary Quinto in a non-Sylar role, and Chris Pine did an excellent job as Kirk. Overall, it was everything a summer movie should be — smart and fun with some cool effects.

    Terminator Salvation: It sucked. I didn’t have high hopes for it, but it was just not good. I think one of the main problems was just the lack of any kind of humor or lightness whatsoever. That’s what made T2 and T3 so entertaining. Yeah, the world was ending, but Arnold still had some funny lines along the way. T4 was just … depressing. And again, the time travel stuff made my head hurt.

    And how many people have to die before folks realize that maybe getting into a car/plane/helicopter/whatever with Christian Bale will lead to their untimely demise? Just a thought. Everybody who got in any kind of moving vehicle with him ended up getting shot down or eaten by killer water robots.

    So there you have it. My take of the summer movies so far. What about you guys? What movies have you enjoyed this summer? Share in the comments.

  • ·

    Elemental Assassin updates …

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    Well, the good news about the blog being down so long is that quite a bit of stuff has been happening with the Elemental Assassin series, which means I have some news to share.

    The biggest is this — the books are now going to be published in mass market format. Huzzah! 😎

    I cannot tell you how excited I am about this move to mass market. Given the craptastic economy, the cheaper format will mean that the books are much more affordable for folks — $6.99 or $7.99 versus $14 or $15 for a trade paperback.

    The release schedule is still the same — Assassin 1 in February, Assassin 2 in June, and Assassin 3 in October. Since the books are going to be released in the mass market format, they will actually hit shelves a week early, which means that Spider’s Bite, the first book in the Elemental Assassin series, will now be out on Jan. 26, 2010. Not that I’m counting down the days or anything … 😉

    Also, in the last month, I’ve done copy edits for Spider’s Bite, revisions on Assassin 2 (title still to be determined), and I’m getting revisions on Assassin 3 from my editor this week. So stuff is finally starting to happen on the production end of things.

    Oh yeah, and I’ve started writing Assassin 4 too, just in case my publisher wants more books in the series (which I hope they do).

    Anyway, that’s what’s been going on with me and my books. What have you guys been up to while we’ve been on forced hiatus? Share in the comments.

  • I’m baaaack …

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    I’m back! 😎

    For those of you wondering were I’ve been, well, back around the first of May, my Web site got hacked. I did manage to do a blog post about that before the hack completely took the site down.

    Anyway, my Web site guy put the site back up about two weeks later. I did some work on it — and then it got hacked again.

    I kid you not. The very next freaking day.

    Evidently, somebody out there either doesn’t like me or just enjoys trashing people’s sites. Because it was a pretty bad hack with lots of nasty, corrupt files everywhere. Anyway, it took my Web site guy a while to go back through and weed out all the bad files. (Thank you, Justin!)

    The result of which is that now all the information on the site is about two years old. Sigh. I have a backup copy of the info from the last time I updated the site, but it’s going to take me a while to go back through and physically change and reformat all the pages again.

    Anyway, thanks for your understanding and patience. Hopefully, the site will not get hacked again as I (slowly) restore all the old information. But if it does go down again, then that is why. And know that I am working to get it back up as quickly as possible.

    In the meantime, we will return to our regularly scheduled blog posts. I’ve got a ton of books to review, and I’ve managed to see some of the summer blockbuster movies.

    Oh yeah, and I’ve got some news on the Elemental Assassin books to share too. 🙂

    I’m glad to be back!

  • Legendary Ts…

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    I have a lot of love for the TV show How I Met Your Mother. So you can imagine my delight when I saw a link for T-shirts with sayings from the show.

    I might have to get one of these to go with my A-Team T-shirt. 😉