Far Cry: New Dawn — a video game review

Do you like video games? I do. I am a middle-aged man according to the kindest charts I’ve seen, but, physically, I’m beginning to feel pretty old. Mentally, I never progressed much past twelve-years-old, which is around the time I first began playing video games seriously. I made my gamer bones in the video arcades […]

The First Draft of Anything is . . . (another questionable writing quote from Hemingway)

This post is about first drafts, certainly. It’s also about the reliability of long-accepted quotes from dead people. A while back, I wrote a post titled Write Drunk, Edit Sober (good bad advice on how to tap your creativity like a keg). The “write drunk, edit sober” quote has been attributed to Ernest Hemingway for […]

What Stan Lee Said (Or: Not a Review of Comic Book Confidential [1988])

Comic Book Confidential is a cool documentary from 1988 about the history of comic books. I recommend it just to see a young Frank Miller with hair. Otherwise, you already know the stuff in this documentary. Superman, EC Comics, Dr. Frederick Wertham, underground comics—nothing really new. But, there are a lot of filmed interviews with […]

Wolf in Shadow (Jon Shannow #1), by David Gemmell — a book review

In the late 1990s, I was a member of the Science Fiction Book Club. You’ve heard of the SFBC, right? It is one of those mail-order places, like the Columbia House Record Club, where you get to select several items (books in this case) for a negligible price, but are contractually obligated to purchase a […]

The Stand: Limited Series (2020) — a review

Is there a better time than during a global pandemic to release a limited-run television series about . . . a global pandemic? Probably not. I’ve been a fan of the novel The Stand, by Stephen King, since the late 1970s, when it was published. In his dedication of the book to his wife, Tabitha, […]

Writer’s Block Party: writing your way through the Wall

I know, I’ve bragged about publishing 800 posts and over a million words on WordPress, mostly reviews and undisciplined rants about nerd-centric topics. Lots of Star Trek and Star Wars, as well as vanity projects that appeal mainly to an audience of one—the author himself. During that same time—since December 2015—I’ve written a lot of […]

The Expendables (2010) — a movie review

Sure, this movie is eleven years old at this point and has had two sequels. Plus, it’s a shameless action movie with a lot of gunfire and explosions, with a plot driven entirely by violence with very little in the way of character development. The body count in this one is off the charts. The […]

Sex Education: Series 1 (Netflix) — a review

People I love have told me that I’m terrible at keeping secrets. This isn’t true. In fact, I’m excellent at keeping secrets. I have a couple that I’ll take to the grave with me, in fact. Your hair would instantly turn white if I told you my secrets. No, that’s a lie. At this point, […]

10-List: More First Seasons (April 2021)

On January 29, I published 10-List: First Seasons (Started Since October 2020), listing ten first seasons I began watching after the October “Looking Forward” update. Since then, I finished all of those first seasons. This list is a little different. Six of the ten are series first seasons that I’ve already started watching. The final […]

The Expanse: Season 5 — a review

I’ve read the first four novels in James S. A. Corey’s The Expanse series. Nemesis Games, the fifth novel in the series, is sitting proudly on a shelf, at eye level, in my library closet, waiting for me to start reading it. I’m delaying gratification for the moment, making this science-fantasy space opera series last […]

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Author: firewater65