Cuppacafe

Batman Rules

Personally, I think that this is very cool, as it will ensure that more funnybook films will be made, and that the producers of the film will (hopefully) be faithful to the mood and design of the comics themselves (no more “Pow!” “Bam!” “Zap!” of the Batman TV show. No more bat suits with nipples and codpieces, and no more stunt casting of comedians because these are “funny” books.

In spite of my Spider-Man leanings, I am a fan of The Batman (especially when he is done right), and this time he is is done very right. For my take on the film, check out Suspension of Belief, my film column.

The Perfessor

Should the President be prosecuted for murder?

Well, former LA prosecutor and prolific author Vincent Bugliosi seems to think so, and has written a very compelling case for this bold action in his book “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, which lays out a legal case for holding President Bush criminally responsible for the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq.

Bugliosi as a prosecutor in Los Angeles won 21 convictions in 21 trials, including that of Charles Manson. His recent book was recently discussed in the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog. In a video on his site, Bugliosi explains why he thinks that the President is criminally negligent and should be prosecuted for these crimes. USA Today, also wrote about Bugliosi’s book.

While I haven’t read the book, I’m seriously thinking that I’m going to have to pick up a copy and check it out; especially after yesterday and I had the chance to visit the Bush Legacy tour bus that stopped by my home town the other day. After seeing what the still President Bush is leaving to us after his eight years in the White House, I have to say that we are surely in sad shape as a country.

According to info on the site:

Today, George W. Bush has the approval of only roughly one in three Americans according to most polls with two out of three disapproving of his performance as President. Across the board, Americans reject everything from Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq and fighting terrorism to his handling of the economy, education, the environment and health care.

I gotta say, I don’t feel safer, I don’t feel better off, and I’m not at all happy with my government these days. Say what you will about President Clinton, I was working all through his administration, gas was cheaper, and the economy was much better off then it is now.

The Perfessor

A Quickie Contest

I’m taking over Walt’s place on the blog and doing a two-day giveaway of two copies of AT RISK.

Just comment on this post that you’d like a copy, and I’ll draw two names to win on Tuesday night, June 24, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.ish CDT.

(Employees or participants in this blog and their family members and pets are not eligible to win, heh.)

You can find out details of the book at this link.

The past isn’t as good as I remember it.

They say you can’t go home. Perhaps that is true, as I recently had that experience from a reading level. Back when I was in High School I discovered a series of books by John Norman, entitled “Gor.” (No, they were neither biographies of the future-and-once VP, nor were they slash and hack novels, but a sci-fi epic fantasy loosely done in the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ sci-fi series about Barsoom or his John Carter of Mars books.) The Gor series of books revolved around a Earth gent named Tarl Cabot, a teacher in a small New England university.

In the first book Tarl goes camping, is “kidnapped,” and brought to Gor, a planet in a geosynchronous orbit with Earth, only on the far side of the sun. Gor is not only slightly smaller than Earth (resulting in Tarl now being capable of greater feats of strength), but it is also permanently stuck in a “Middle Ages” Meilu. That is to say, the inhabitants of Gor live in a world of warring City-States, where the most advanced weapon is a crossbow. Further, the beasts that cohabitate the world with the men that live there tend to be large lizards, enormous birds that have been tamed to carry men, as would horses on Earth.

Oh yeah, one more thing. There is slavery on this world, however (and this was a big draw for me when I was 15), much of the slavery issues revolve around gender politics. That is to say that — on Gor — men were men and women were, well, pleasure slaves. Yep, you read that right. The Earth, 1950s male opinion that women should be “Barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.” Is the rule of law here on Gor — except for the pregnant part, you see, the men give their female pleasure slaves a drink called “slave wine” that prevents them from getting knocked up. Read the rest of this entry »

What I won’t write

Every so often I get one of those panic moments that is kind of hard to describe, mainly because the fear is completely groundless. But I get that flash of panic even so, and I got it the other day. But let me put this opening thought aside and talk about what occasionally transpires in my mind, and you’ll think I’m positively insane — – okay, a few of you already suspect that, so this won’t be much of a surprise.

Much like some people get an “ear worm” - a song with a melody they can’t seem to shake out of their mind for a time - I have a few “story worms” that I occasionally will contemplate. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a writer. I’ve tried writing, and I hate what I write. Why? It’s like listening to your own voice on a tape recorder and flinching. I’m just not patient enough to write enough to start getting good at it, and I haven’t tried for over a dozen years now. I suppose if I explained this all to a psychiatrist, she’d find it interesting that I ended up happily married to an author.

One of my “story worms” is a story that has rattled around in my brain for much longer than a dozen years, and even if I started writing, I know I’d never take a whack at writing this tale. I’ll occasionally contemplate it when I’m alone driving or some other solitary activity. I realized some time back that this “story” I think about actually doesn’t have that much real story in it. It’s just a story setting, a scenario. I’ve known from the very first time I starting setting this scenario, building this fictional world, that it’s derivative. I have no idea exactly which Sci-Fi novel I read that triggered me to start thinking it up.

And every so often, I’ll see a book premise that contains some elements in common with my fictional world, and I’ll get that flash of panic that someone is going to make a fortune from MY IDEA!! :) Yeah, like they read my mind when I took off my tinfoil hat. Yeah. Silly, I know. I hang my head in shame. But that flash of panic happens every time I read about a story with a similar theme.

And it happened just the other day. Let me tell you about it.

Alison and I had stopped to get some groceries from our local Kroger. We’re both in the store and as I pass by a spinner rack for hard cover bestseller ranked novels, I notice a face with a unique looking eye staring at me. Okay, interesting cover. I pick it up. Big thick book. Alison notices which book it is, and tells me that it’s #6 on the bestseller list, and I’ll be seeing more of that book real soon. As a matter of fact, the line for grocery checkout is long, and if she waited alone in the checkout line, would I go to the post office box to check the mailbox, that we were expecting a package, and I could be back before she finished checking out. Okay, so away I dashed. Sure enough, a eight pound box was indeed waiting for pickup, I grab it, and come back and wait in front of the Kroger in the car. I open the box. There, in the box, staring at me, were three eyes. Well, two eyes, and one underneath that. Three copies of that book with the eye staring out from the cover. Aha! The book that I’d be seeing more of, was seeing more of me! Cute, yes, but like I said, I was intrigued, so I turn to the book flap and start reading the book summary.

And there that panic flash was. Body possession. That’s the core part of this story I’ll never write! The idea that I could never make work someone else is making work for a gajillion dollars!

And Romancing The Blog is giving it away this week. I was holding the copies that RTB is giving away.

Our world has been invaded by an unseen enemy. Humans become hosts for these invaders, their minds taken over while their bodies remain intact and continue their lives apparently unchanged. Most of humanity has succumbed.

When Melanie, one of the few remaining “wild” humans, is THE HOST by Stephenie Meyercaptured, she is certain it is her end. Wanderer, the invading “soul” who has been given Melanie’s body, was warned about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the glut of senses, the too-vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn’t expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.

Link to the RTB giveaway of THE HOST
Link to the website for the book

Okay, so the story that makes up THE HOST isn’t my story. It’s not even close. Neither were any of the last panic flashes I had about body possession by foreign entities with evil intent. That story theme does seem to pop up now and again.

I did spend the next five minutes flipping through the book reading a few pages, and I did like what I read. I can understand the buying interest. It’s a romance first. That’s why it works as a book. Most of the time, body possession stories end up with entities that are fairly dispassionate “pod people” types (”force of nature” conflict) that is completely uninteresting in every story since the movie THE BIRDS came out and nailed the concept. With body possession AND a romance, it’s much more like an updated version of that episode of STAR TREK where we finally figure out the alien gas monster is in love with the human stuck on the planet, and takes possession of the hot chick who’s dying, and by possessing the dying hot chick, the alien in love saves the life of the hot girl AND gets her man. It’s corny, but as I always say, “Corny Works”.

Okay, so now you know general theme of the story I won’t write. What about the story that I will eventually write? Do I have one? Oh, you bet. And if you think I danced around the story details of my story I won’t write, you’re absolutely correct that I’ll not be divulging any scoop on the one I will write.

I just call it my “Galveston” book. I’ll write it one day. It’s actually got a story attached to it. Now I’m stuck on building out the characters. If only I knew someone that wrote books for a living, I could ask for help…

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with a scene from Galveston that didn’t make it into my book, but makes for a cool get away image. What happens at the base of the Galveston seawall when nobody’s looking:

Flickr.com

Free book offer, with a catch

The first two people to reply to this message will get a free book

And here’s the two catches:

You have to be able to read Slovakian.
You have to live inside the United States or Canada.

Yeah, that first catch is a doozy.

I don’t expect any replies to this.

Winners

The winners of Alison’s copies of TEX APPEAL are: Patrick M, Betty, ArkansasCyndi, Mickey, Tren, Claudia, Robin Renee Ray, Kim, Angela, and Ember. I’ll be emailing you all unless you email Alison first with your mailing address.