Reflections on the Ring: One ring to rule them all.

Let's look a little at Existentialism 101. Don't worry, I won't bore you with a lot of details. One thought in Existentialism states that, since we are so radically changing, the concept of binding yourself to someone forever merely limits you, and binds your potential and chains your freedom for enslavement.  Welcome to Jean Paul Sartre, 101.



At the other end of the Existentialism spectrum, you have the Catholic philosopher Gabriel Marcel, who concluded that marriage is the ultimate act of freedom.  In marriage, we freely choose to commit to someone for the rest of our lives. Two people have decided to give their entire lives to one another.



End of lesson.



Now, as most of you may have noticed, I don't generally, as a rule, read chick-lit. Sherrilyn Kenyon? Sure. She's got an interesting fantasy universe, and I'm a bit of a romantic sap at times.



Then there was (deep breath) Reflections on the Ring: An Ordinary Woman’s Extraordinary Tale of How She Saved Her Marriage and Family.... yes, it's a bit of a title. And if you think the title is a little much, the back of the book is as follows.

Most women harbor dreams of a fairytale wedding and marriage. And while some do achieve it all, they are in the minority. For most of us the reality of living out our daily lives with another person demands compromise and commitment. Yes, it takes two to make a marriage, but someone has to take the lead. Why not let that person be you?



That’s the timeless life lesson author Lori Colombo Dunham learned when an unplanned pregnancy rocked her entire world back in 2001. Having only known her baby’s father for a short time, she agonized as to what God’s plan would be for her marriage and family once she and her partner decided that embarking upon an unanticipated marital union was the right thing to do under the circumstances.



So she bid her girlhood dreams of an elegant church wedding goodbye to exchange vows in a sterile county courthouse, mourning for what could have been. Little did she know that inauspicious beginning would lead to a magnificent marital and family life beyond her wildest dreams

Anyway, Daria Anne asked me to take a look at it, and she's hosted me enough times so that I could give her the benefit of the doubt. She coauthored it, so how bad could it be?

In fact, when I got it, I noticed it was less of a book and more of a pamphlet. 

So, was it good? Sure.  I'd give it about three to four stars, definitely leaning on A for effort, A for narrative style, and a B for execution.

Why wouldn't I give it five star?  Well, I had to slog through a few pages here and there. Have you ever had the prose of a book turn you off? Five pages in, I was going to just stop reading, lie to Daria and say that something had come up and I wouldn't finish this in time. There were at least two pages of mea culpa that just rubbed me the wrong way.

 Thankfully, the cringe-worthy setup rhetoric was wonderfully deflated by more sarcastic, wry commentary.  For example, describing "Tom... the male character in an ill-fated courtship that led to my starring role in a summer romance novel." Or, perhaps,

"Samantha, one of the most glamorous girls in the group... never misses a Pilates class or dares to leave her house without flawless hair and makeup, even if she’s only headed to Publix..She fixed her big blue eyes upon me with the same intensity a prosecutor might employ while interrogating a witness."

While not my usual thing, I liked it. There were moments at the beginning that I was tempted to shut things down, but thankfully, the narrative saved it. It keeps the rest of the book from becoming a collection of misery or a collection of sap. The narrative flow worked here.



Now, sure, there are a few problems here and there than just the opening. For example? Chapter 3 ends with Christmas, 2004.  Chapter 4 opens with October 2006 ... so, where did 2005 go?  There was at least one incident (a nice looking neighborhood populated by unpleasant people) that I wanted a chapter out of, if only to explain how she just knew some of what she described. And the plot twists at the end .... one plot twist undercut the impact of the other, which made me a little annoyed.

The book focuses heavily on faith and politics.  If you ever wanted to by a Dr. Laura book, don't bother, just pick this one up instead.  Aside from a lot of Catholic mea culpa in the opening, and
Italian cultural tropes, it was heavy on the personal spirituality, and light on
the religion... She obviously prays, reads her bible, etc, and "would rather go to
my church than take from the government," but aside from "not dragging her
husband to church," her faith seems to exist in a complete vacuum. So, if that's a problem for you, you know it's here. (For those of you wondering what the difference is, spirituality is your personal relationship with life, the universe, and everything, usually God; religion is where you go out and worship with other people in a community.)



At the end of the day, it was an interesting little book, and readable enough even for a hardened cynic like me.

Review: Marvel's Agents of SHIELD

UPDATE: Apparently, I was right. Who knew? The second episode was supposed to be .... that way.  Why?  Because while we all remember that this is a Joss Whedon show, some of us (me included) have quite deliberately forgotten that Jeph Loeb is involved. Who's Loeb?  Does anyone remember Heroes? That was him. We're lucky AoS hasn't turned into a complete train wreck by now.

Loeb in an interview with TV Line states that "Certainly the second episode was intended to be very much like ‘The Pilot, Part 2,’ because it was really the first time [the characters] could all work together and see who they are. Very much in the same kind of way that the audience is getting to know these characters, these characters are getting to know each other as well. That is the mission. “I think the show is absolutely getting better as we go — and we hope the audience feels that way as well,” he continues. “We’ve absolutely found the show; the idea is to keep watching. It’s very much like a roller coaster. You’ve got to go up the hill before you start coming down the hill at 100 miles-per-hour.”

As I said below  .... tell it to Arrow.

So, where does one begin with Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.? Should one say “Coulson lives!” and move on? Does one give it a strange look, cross some fingers and toes, and hope it all comes together? Perhaps one just believes in Joss Whedon as nerd deity and move on.



First: do I really have to say *spoiler alert*?

Then, how about we really start with the difference between criticism, and being a trolling / hipster douchebag? For criticisms of MAOS, start with my colleague Matt Bowman, over at Novel Ninja, as he looks at the first and second episodes. Then, you can look at my favorite punching bag, Tor, whine over every little line (actually, the article had been far worse; the original title mentioned "nerd shaming" and implied that it was insulting their target audience... nerds). Or, one better, we can look at "screen rants" talk about already killing off characters -- and that was written around the second episode!



Me? Well, to start with, I follow the three-episode rule followed by TV guide reviewers. Never judge a show by one episode, wait until the show hits its stride. Obviously, we can't all follow the rule, no matter how hard we try. The new Ironside show, for example, took the original tv show with Raymond Burr (known to my generation as an aging Perry Mason) as a cop confined to a wheelchair, and updated it with Blair Underwood, making Ironside a nickname, and turning him into House with a badge … as I didn't like House in the first place, I was turned off in short order.



So, SHIELD … to start with, I like some of the dynamics they've got going. They've got Ming-Na Wen playing Agent Melinda May – former field operative, and now “just the pilot.” There is “Fitz-Simmons,” two scientists who are obligatorily young, perky, adorably socially inept, and accents so thick you can cut them with a machete. There is the obligatory Agent Ward – loner field agent, good-looking, stoic, and doesn't play well with others. And since we have Ward, we must have – Skye! Hackerchist (hacker anarchist) who has no problems blowing classified operations in progress because The People Must Know (no matter who gets killed).



And then, there's Phil Coulson, badass. He is the little man who wasn't there, you never saw him, never noticed him, until he cracks you over the head and whips out his boogeyman gun. He loves his classic cards, his classic car, and indulges in a lot of lateral thinking. How can you hate Coulson? I can't.



Of the first three episodes, we had a solid pilot, an episode that felt like it was cut off from the first draft of the pilot, and episode three, The Asset, which felt like someone said "enough setup, let's get us a plot." It's got a nice, stable foundation for an ensemble cast.



Is it perfect? No, I've got some problems...

Yes, problems.

[More below the break]

Problem #1: Where's the Marvel Universe?

Before I start, let's look at another comic book tv show that's doing surprisingly well: Arrow, centered around DC comics' Green Arrow. The first SCENE in Arrow has an image of Deathstroke's mask with an arrow through it, and that episode has a sister nicknamed “Speedy” with a drug problem, and Dinah Laurel Lance as a girlfriend, and a Merlyn as a character; the second episode has one of DC’s B-team heroes (Lao Fei), as a major player. For anyone who has ever looked at the comic books for an hour (I may have spent four minutes), it's clear that someone has paid attention. No, it's not fan service, fan service, fan service faithfulness to the comics – Green Arrow has no sister, Speedy was his addict sidekick Roy Harper, and Deathstroke and Green Arrow had a different first encounter, but there was enough to show that, yes, the writers are respecting the original material without being chained to it. With Laurel Lance, while she has not become the superhero Black Canary, there are enough in-jokes to support any fan who might kvetch.



And then there's Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, whose first two episodes had referenced the rest of the Marvel universe by citing Hulk's gamma radiation, the Extremis virus of Iron Man 3, a certain hammer, and Hydra... Mariah Hill and Nick Fury showed up for two minutes...and that's about it. Which is sort of strange, don't you think? Marvel has seemingly endless B- and C-list characters to draw on, and they used … no one.



But, but, it's the first episode! And Whedon! And Avengers!



Oh, please, if the nobodies at the CW can whip up a fun souffle like Arrow, with a half-dozen nods to the comics in the first episode, you can not make any such excuses for Joss Whedon. (And yes, I said nobodies – if they were somebodies, wouldn't they be writing for any other network?). If we're going to cross our fingers and In Joss We Trust, shouldn't we hold him to at least the same standard as CW writers? There's an entire universe to play with, and Joss did so very little with it.

Counterpoint: HOWEVER, after their pilot episodes (yes, plural. You can't convince me that ep 1 and 2 weren't originally a single two-hour pilot), ep 3 had The Asset, which created a supervillain, even though no one knows it just yet. I think it was their best episode thus far.  Why? Not only did it have character, it had the weird that is the MCU, and an origin story to boot. Not to mention that it had the premise that was founded in the first episode-- dealing with problems that the rest of the world can't handle. The Pilot had a version of that, so did the third, while the second had it as strictly a human, non-weird evil.  It was ... off.

Problem #2: The Primary Cast

If you look at the Screen Rant link above, you'll note that it's whining about the main cast because it's not DIVERSE! Because DIVERSITY.



While I don't really need ethnic diversity, at least differences in body types would be nice. On Buffy, we had a redhead, a tall brunette with a microwave tan, a short blonde, a tall older gentleman, and short pale and psychotic (Faith).  Right now, I'd settle for making one of them a blonde or a redhead.  Hell, I'll even settle for brighter clothing that doesn't come from Hot Topic... But would it kill them to have someone who isn't either American or from the UK?  I'm a New Yorker, a monochromatic room makes me edgy.



At least give Coulson a tan he might have picked up in "Tahiti."



But as for the rest of the cast, its problem links back with problem #1. Let's think about this for a minute. I’m surprised Joss had to make his own original characters. Marvel has a pilot named Wyatt Wingfoot... we needed Melinda May? Is the Punisher not available to Marvel Studios at the moment? (I could just see a Joss-modified Frank Castle as being a slightly older field agent who “had a little breakdown a while back, he's better now.”) Instead of creating Melinda May, he couldn't have used, oh Spider-Woman? Silver Sable? Jessica Jones? All of whom were deep, complex, yet badass females who do not have powers, (Spider-Woman has been de-powered so often, no one would blink if she didn't have them on the show).



Is there one reason that Skye couldn't have asked for her lawyer, Jennifer Walters (She-Hulk)? They can barely air a Hulk film, so I doubt there’d be conflict (then again, they’re filming an Ant-Man movie right now, so I have no idea what might be next). I know Marvel has Daredevil back (okay, he might be too street-level for MAOS, but still– lawyer).



Marvel even has their own reporter for superheroes … so why didn't we just have her be the Skye character, only with social media instead of dead-tree media?



I can go on for awhile, but you get the idea. I’d love to know where the bleep Whedon thinks he’s going, but he should be a little bit less focused on the cameos, and more focused on melding the *general* world of weird that is the MCU in with his show. But the second episode boiled down to … Nazis in Latin America? Please, Joss, I know you were warped by The Boys from Brazil when you were growing up, but don’t do that again. Pretty please?



Episode 3 was a great touch, and please do more of that ... but why couldn't Joss do that with the main characters? Did he want people from the Marvel universe, and Marvel Studios told him "no"? That would be stupid, considering he's now in charge of "phase 2" of the movies.

Conclusion (what they've done right)

Now, does that mean I hate the show? No. There's a difference between trolling the show and being critical of it.  As it is, it's an OK show. But I want some of the Whedon wit and vibrant characters.  Even Xander of Buffy the Vampire Slayer had more character in the pilot than most of these folks do right now.  They're sort of white bread ... and by that, I mean bland and generic, not Caucasian (which there are, sans May).

Skye and Ward already seem to have some character development under way, and they better, because they had the most screentime over episodes 2 and 3.  But it seems that tonight's episode 4 promises to be a May-centric episode. I can't complain about that, because that's what ensemble casts are about -- rotating the focus.  I can't wait for the focus to be on Coulson the whole episode.



The Fitz-Simmons mad scientist duo will, hopefully, develop some quirks aside from the usual ones.  Real geniuses have real problems interacting with people -- not "I'm so in love with la grange points," but "I'm sorry, did you ask me something five minutes ago? I was busy in my head." Einstein had problems grasping the concept of body soap and then shampoo, instead of just one soap.  Mark Twain couldn't figure out his home alarm system. The WW2 codebreaker Alan Turing was all but caged in a backroom during the war so he wouldn't wander off. Fitz-Simmons don't come off as geniuses, they come off like awkward high school kids.



Right now, the saving grace of the series is Agent Coulson, and he's what has me coming back week after week. The other interesting character? Ming-Na's Melinda "The Cavalry" May. Like all good shows, it seems that the one we know the least about is the most interesting. This means either they should get more screen time, or everyone else should get more interesting, fast.



My verdict: optimistic. It is not yet the stand-out show I expected, but it may be building to it.  I'm just looking for the booby traps.

THIS! IS! 400!

This is the 400th post for this blog.  Can you believe I've been doing this for six years?  It's only felt like sixty on this end.  Along the way, I've shared with you how I invest myself in my work, dissected my life to show you how it enters my writing, given you the story of everything that has been important in my life. You folks know when I'm single, when I'm hurting, and when I'm going to lose myself in video games.  I've shared my wonder at emerging technology, my irritation at politics and the comic book industry, my love of reading and even the music du jour.



I'd like to thank you all for putting up with me that long. I never thought I was that interesting.  Believe it or not, this blog has lasted longer than some relationships I've had.



And now, I have an almost constant readership of some 2000 people, give or take a few hundred.  Wow. If it were in my power, I'd start posting gift voucher codes to thank you all for the time and energy you've spent visiting my blog and reading everything.  Now if only you would all buy A Pius Man and Codename Winterborn....



Yes, I'm joking.  But you can't blame a guy for trying, can you? :)



So, since I can't hand out gift voucher codes on this blog (and I'm not sure where I'd get them, to be honest), what do I have for you today?  Well, for one thing, I have a brand new review of my novel Codename: Winterborn, written with my co-author Allan Yoskowitz, so that'd be fun.  Also, I have a new video from Lindsey Stirling.



Enjoy all, and thank you again.

DC comics death from Above: writing for management

Starfire, bad ass.

In the not too distant past, I did an article about how DC comics seems to have a pathological problem with sex.



This month, the problems have really started to hit me.



Keep in mind, the last DC comic story I read was "Final Crisis," and that one didn't even make sense.  Once they went to the New 52, "One More Day"ed every relationship, and started warping the very nature of their characters, I have only glanced at the comics from time to time, usually to my horror.

Starfire, fashion victim

It was bad enough when DC comics took Starfire -- an alien who was fairly open about her sex life, and was completely monogamous -- and turned her into a .... I'm not entirely certain that the word "slut" is a strong enough word. Not only did they have to go out of their way to make the character amoral when it came to sex, but also gave her a costume redesign to match.

I mean, really? Who comes up with this stuff?



Then Catwoman's character redesign was .... also horrible.



I figured, okay, not a problem, that's two comics out of 52, and one of those writers is Judd Winick, who is a crappy writer to start with (Really? Let's bring back Jason Todd? That's a good idea by you?).



And then some of the most recent stupidity hit the fan.





Take, for example, Batwoman, a "Lesbian hero in the DC universe."  That, in and of itself, doesn't effect me. After all, I figured out a while ago that the DC policy on women created since the late 80s is simple: if you're not a woman dating a Superhero, or if you don't have superpowers in the DC universe, you're a Lesbian (Footnote: see Maggie Sawyer, Metropolis cop; Renee Montoya, Gotham Cop, Batwoman... you get the idea).



Here's the problem.  After building up for months the concept that "Oh, Batwoman's going to get married to her girlfriend," DC pulls the plug on the whole concept.



Now, I don't know if you're aware of this, but comic books are usually planned out at least one year in advance. This allows for planning, crossovers, editing, illustrating, etc. You can't start a 6-12 month story arc without approval.  You can't start something and blink at the last minute.



And yet, this is what DC comics has done.



If you told me that, at the last minute, someone had old religious feeling kick in and they felt they had to swerve away from a lesbian marriage .... I wouldn't believe you.



Why?  Well, aside from the fact that a lot of people don't give a crap about gay marriage (my opinion on it is here), you have.....



1) As I said above, the "new 52" imposed a "One More Day"- like idiocy on the DCU.  No one in the entire DC universe is married anymore.  Barry Allen, married forever? Not anymore. Superman and Lois married for all of the 90s? He's now dating Wonder Woman.  Marriage is, after all, for old people. Who cares if your loyal readership of decades have grown up with these characters in solid, committed relationships? Teenagers are where [DC thinks] the money is.  (Personally, I'd wager my money on the middle aged professionals doing a 9-5 and have a few bucks to catch up to Superman this week)



2) I can't see religion being a factor, given what was done to Catwoman and Starfire.  And, after cancelling any wedding for Batwoman, DC decided that they wanted artwork of a naked Harley Quinn committing suicide. Which leads me to...



3) Is it just me, or is every active writing decision that DC Makes centered around pandering?

• "Hey, we'll have some gay superheroes!" And make it a green lantern from an alternate universe who gets almost zero screen time, as well as one of a hundred interchangeable green lanterns.


• "We'll make a title heroine who's a Lesbian, yay!" as long as she doesn't get locked into a stable relationship, but we can see her make out with her girlfriend.


• "Let's have two of our strongest female leads turn into sex crazed women!"


• "Naked Harley Quinn!"

Seriously? Who's in charge of DC comic nowadays? The same five year olds who swear on MMORPGs because they just discovered these great new words?



My point? I'm not sure if I have one, short of "top-down control is bad."  I used to think it was deranged when there was an infinite amount of crises at DC.  "Oh, hey, we're going to continually shake up the DC universe every month."  But those at least created some interesting stories and some good writing along the way, such as the three year War of the Rings in Green Lantern, or the series 52.



This .... all this has just resulted in bad writing. Does anyone know what's going on anymore?  Once it was editorial lockdown from above, where everyone was in lockstep with the crisis du jour. Now, it looks like no one is in charge except for refugees from my old high school.

9-11, and Nightwish meets Lord of the Rings

Today is September 11th.



Twelve years later....



Lucky for you folks, I haven't really anything new to add to the post from the tenth Anniversary.



However, I do have a new review for A Pius Man.



If you got the expanded edition of Lord of the Rings, you will have noted that it comes out somewhere around fifteen hours.



Here it is in ten minutes.

PRICE DROPS... and interviews.

So much to discuss, and so little time.



Okay, last week, I went to the Catholic Writer's Guild Conference Live!  Live because 1) Karina Fabian isn't President at the moment, that would make it CWGC Undead, and 2) they have an online conference.  I'll be blogging about that in due course.

 However, something I should note.  Remember, once upon a time, when I talked with Daria Anne DiGiovanni about A Pius Man? You might have remembered my blog interview with her?



If you don't remember the interview, just click here, and follow the instructions, and with luck, everything will work out just fine.



Well, this Tuesday, August 12, at 1PM EST, I will be talking with Madam DiGiovanni about my novel Codename: Winterborn. If you don't remember Winterborn, tune in and we'll see just how much we can bring you up to speed on the whole thing.



Oh, and while I remember, A Pius Man and Codename: Winterborn are both now cheaper on Kindle. Someone pointed out to me that $9.99 is not something that any normal person would pay for a Kindle book.  News to me, I never knew how much a Kindle book cost.



Yes, I'm a Luddite. No, I don't own a Kindle.

Lindsey Stirling Does Star Wars for Geek Week.

When YouTube announced "GeekWeek," my first thought was "Isn't every week on YouTube GeekWeek?"



Then Lindsey Stirling did this.



I'll forgive them for the "off" name.