StanleyWheeler

  I was all primed to do a review of Top Gun: Maverick with an additional paragraph or two concluding with how I. Am. Maverick.  Fortunately, I decided against that. You're welcome. Yesterday the Corsican brothers were here and set up round two of a miniatures game. I neglected to get pictures. In this case they had to slay a dinosaur (a real challenge) from which they would take a key that would unlock a tumbling tower. At the tower they had to remove a block and make it fall down (no challenge at all), and find the block with the code that they would use to get into a secret room on the other side of the board. The rules they have made with only slight guidance from me allow them to move and also to move the creatures, which they have also created. The creatures, in addition to the two dinosaurs (actual plastic dinosaurs), included a plethora of black leeches (the ends cut from the legs of several giant, black plastic spiders), two giant spiders, a transparent (represented ...

  Interview with J. E. Taylor Author of The Season of The Dragon Series, A Fractured Fairy Tale Series, and more Please tell me a little about your current work in progress. My current WIP is a fun foray into vampire hunting that goes wrong. It’s an Urban Fantasy and the first book in my Shades of Night series. My main character works for an agency that hunts monsters and she ends up being on their most hunted list. Whatever could go wrong, does. I’m also working on my 9 th Fractured Fairy Tale, a beauty and the beast retelling where Belle is the beast and has to over come a vanity curse. Where did you get the idea for this book or series? For Wicked Heart, the idea came when I saw the premade set and has percolated for a bit while I wrote my Season of the Dragon trilogy. I am an extremely visual person and covers do generate ideas for me. Sometimes the ideas grow fast and furious the way Silent Night did for me when I saw that cover last year. That one was immediate, an...

 Minas Tirith and The Shire: Parallel Problems on a Different Scale In reviewing my highlights from my reading of The Lord of the Rings , a couple years ago I struck by some parallels between Minas Tirith and the Shire. This isn't a full treatment of the matter, but some simple observations based on fuzzy memory and haphazard highlights. The reader gets an impression of Gondor's great city of Minas Tirith as a mighty fortress which has long held against the dark lord and his minions. It sounds both beautiful and invincible. When Frodo sees the fortress from afar, atop Amon Hen, hope leaps in his heart. It is "white-walled, many towered, proud and fair in its mountain-seat," with battlements glittering with steel. He also sees another fortress, "greater and more strong," the Tower of Barad-dur, and all hope leaves him. (Tolkien,  The Lord of the Rings , p. 401). Tolkien continues to dribble details and descriptive elements which reveal that Minas Tirith is ev...

  Author Interview with JA Duxbury Author of Heart of Deception  and Dark Dimensions Please tell me a little about your current work in progress. I am currently working on a partial rewrite of a sequel and a paranormal story. Where did you get the idea for this book or series? I got the idea of the first book from a dream I had. Do you write in more than one genre? I do. My chosen genre is sci fi but I write from my dreams so it depends on what genre they're in. Tell me about something that you believe makes your writing unique or worthy of attention. I believe that I can take people on a journey away from the daily grind and monotony to places where they can get involved with the characters and events. Is there anything about your personal history or personality that manifests strongly in your writing? I really don't know. I have thought about that question but I can't pinpoint anything but our experiences do dictate what we know to be possible and impossible so...

  Here's an essay or at least some ramble about the Declaration of Independence.