Zombie Apocalypse

The Zombie Apocalypse has become a vey popular backdrop for video games and other media lately, and as a writer I think I know why. Let me say that from the standpoint of the author, the zombie apocalypse is the last safe conflict that doesn't offend anyone. You can't have humans versus humans without it being about irrational prejudice and xeophobia, fighting animals tends toward animal cruelty and even other monsters have a grey area with people getting soft spots for dragons, vampires, werewolves, even demons have gotten sympathetic stories. This leaves robots and zombies, but many people are on the fence about robots (Are they human on the inside? Is it destruction of propery and vandalism?) so that is often not an option either. Zombies are a safe bet, they are mindless flesh eating creatures and you can't feel guilty about killing them because they are already dead, or, depending on the setting they are so close they would prefer you put them out of their misery.

For video games this has been an issue especially considering how some people claim video games are too violent. The fact is, vidoe games are fun because of the fact that you get to kill the bad guy. It was one thing when we werre just jumping on turtles and mushrooms and shooting lasers at spiders, but as graphics got better and more realistic, we have become more attached to our characters. Playstation sarted making them more photorealistic and by PS2 voice overs became a standard. RPGs have been getting us in depth with dialogue and morality as far back as Ultima Quest of the Avatar, the first game where the object actually wasn't to fight a villain. The best example of how far we've come is the companion cube sceario in Portal. While I haven't played the game, it has become a big enough deal that I am still aware of the phenomena of players becoming emotionally attached to the only thing they have to protect in the game. It is simply a cube with no purpose except to test players to get through the level without letting it be destroyed, a task that is difficult enough that when you are ultimately asked to "euthanize" it you feel guilt. But you shouldn't it's just a cube. Then you reflect and realize how you felt when Aerith died in FF7 or one of many other heart wrenching moments in other video games, and then it hits you, none of them were any more real than the companion cube. Ultimately video games have proven that we become atttached emotionally to anything we invest time into, whether that is actual people, a career, a hobby, a craft, or even just these imaginary characters in a video game. The flip side is, if we can care that much about something that isn't real, what does that say when we let ourselves kill several enemies in a First Person Shooter? There was a game called Postal in which the player character is a man who "goes postal" and shoots up everyone and the goal is to kill as many people as possible. What possessed anyone to think that was a good idea? Possibly the same person who decided to build the Mortal Kombat franchise around bloody, gory death scenes. And let's not even get started on Grand Theft Auto.

But zombies are safe. In a zombie apocalypse, you are fighting for survival, everyone you kill is already dead. There is no moral confusion, in fact you're making the world a better place by removing the worst part of it. It's pretty much the last safe refuge to make a video game as horrifyingly action packed as possible without actually sending the message that mass murder is a good idea.

Or maybe we just messed up in the head.

Writing and release schedule

Some of you may remember that I am an author and I write and self publish books, orat least I used to until...ooh shiny! Where was I? Oh yes, writing books. So yeah, I've been a little behind because of distractions, but I took a moment and planned out what is goign on with my books for the next year or so.

Waking Dream is in the editing stages, I am almost done, and it should be out by Valentine's Day. Actually, it may be sooner, but that's my goal, let my paranormal romance hit the romantic crowd. Actually it's out now on Amazon!

Superfrenemies, I am on the second to last chapter of the short novellette or whatever you want to categorize it as, I want it ready for Tora Con in late April.

Steel Golem is a special project that I don't want to go into why, but it is sort of time sensitive and should be complete in March.

Dragon Hand, some of you may not remember me saying I was working on this, it has been on hiatus for research and then, life happened, but I should be able to squeez it in between Tora Con and NaNoWriMo, maybe I'll even pull off getting it done in time for Roc Con.

Riding the Dragon, the conclusion to the Magic of Rochester Trilogy will be my NaNoWriMo project, hopefully that will be ready by next Valentine's Day.

7th Moon Mecha, yeah I actually do intend to get back to this one, I just want to clear my list, and despite thinking of about two or three more stories, I will restrain myself and focus only on 7th Moon Mecha once the others are done. With any luck, I will be on a rol bythen and crank out this bad boy before next year's NaNoWriMo and work on 7th Moon Kaiju! If not, worry not, I do have other ideas, for NaNoWriMo 2017, including Reign of the Nephilim, Red Heaven of Alzoidea, Guardians of Paradise, or my newest and least promising, Even a Hero's Gotta Eat!

Okay I think Imentioned all of these titles in the past, so there's some information out there somewhere, but Even a Hero's Gotta Eat is a new one. This idea is about a farmer in a fantasy world where RPGs and other epic adventures happen, but this time it's not about the hero, it's just a farmer who grows the food that feeds the heroes as they pass through town. But then his farm gets attacked and it escalates until he does become the hero himself. It's actually an idea for a video game, but I thought there might be a story there. Okay, that one comes last.

If you haven't read my books yet, get them at Amazon or follow the links on the side of this blog, and enjoy what is coming soon!

RIP David Bowie and Alan Rickman

This past week the nerd community lost two greats, Daid Bowie and Alan Rickman, both 69, both taken by cancer too soon.

David Bowie was primarily a musician and would not seem to be nerd material but "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" went a long way to show how wierd he could be and an artist for the geek squad. But he really sealed the deal with his role as Jareth the Goblin King in Jim Henson's Labyrinth. Labyrinth was an '80s classic about a girl who was obssessed with a story about a girl wh falls in love with the Goblin King and gives him her brother, then mistakenly plays it out in her own life when she wishes the goblins would take her baby brother. Jareth, the Goblin King whisks them away to a Labyrinth which she must navigate within thirteen hours if she wants to take back her brother and her wish. Along the way she meets a colorful cast of characters all portrayed by puppets, yet all of the audiovisual special effects paled compared to Bowie himself who offered up the best soundtrack of at least any Jim Henson movie, possibly any movie. The puppets and puppeteers may go no after Jim Henson, but there will neve be another Labyrinth because there will neve be anothe rJareth because there will never be another David Bowie.

But it wasn't enough for just one legend to leave us, we also lost Alan Rickman. Alan Rickman got his big break, arguably, playing Hans Gruber, the villain in Die Hard opposite Bruce Willis. He then wnet on to play a variety of characters from dark and evil(Severus Snape in Harry Potter), to colorful and heroic (Galaxy Quest) and everything in between (Dogma, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Mostly the characters came off very similar, but very powerful and none of the movies would have been the same without Rickman adding his signature touch. Just ask any Potterhead if they could imagine anyone else capturing the sinister persona of Severus Snape, or any Hitchiker's fan imagining anyone else giving that robot it's signature depressed voice(really, nobody else could have done it like Rickman).

Truly we have lost two great artists, some afterlife has just gotten a lot more entertaining. I have no affiliation with any cancer charities, but I do endorse giving to your favorite cancer charity so that the experts can fight cancer and prevent tragedies like this from happening again.

Shannara Chronicles

This week The Shannara Chronicles premiered on MTV, and my first question was, when di the nerds take over MTV? For those who don't know what Shannara is, I took the time to research it on Wikipedia and I will explain all you need to know to enjoy the show.

For starters, this is a post-apocalyptic fantasy but it's very different from any other post-apocalyptic story you may know. This story has gone so far beyond the apocalypse it's a footnote at this point. Apparently there was a nuclear war (which is actually supposed to be well underway already since the books were originally written in the '70s and author Terry Brooks apparently didn't think very far ahead when he decided that the Great War happened in the 21st Century) and as a result the world we know no longer exists. However there were surviviors, including mutants who became identified by their resemblance to races of myth, specifically trolls, gnomes and dwarves. Some humans are unchanged, and then there are the elves, who are often beleived to be another race of mutants, but the elves are, in fact, the real deal, a race of faeries that have been around since before human civilization and have recently emerged from hiding to rejoin society. The show briefly touches on all of this at the very beginning with a shot of a wild landscape featuring the Space Needle fallen over revealing this to be the ruins of Seattle, not that anyone actually remembers it as such, and then the credits show the blood of man forking into dwarves, gnomes and trolls.

Of course this begs the question what is "Shannara" and what does it have to do with any of this? Jerle Shannara was an elf king who was entrusted with a magical sword of truth that can only be wielded by one of his bloodline. One thousand years after he used the Sword of Shannara to defeat the Warlock King, the Warlock King came back and the only way to stop him was for a descendant of Jerle Shannara to wield the sword again. Allanon, a Druid of a Paranor who had been wwaiting in suspended animation for this day to come returned to look for such an individual and by the time he found what he was looking for, the only one left was Shea Ohmsford.

The Shannara Chronicles begins thirty years after Shea Ohmsford and picks up with his son Wil, who is a young man living a humble life in the quiet region of Shady Vale. Then his mother dies and her last words are to offer up the elf stones that belonged to Shea and were presumably inherited from the Shannara line. Sadly, Wil doesn't believe in magic, because even though he is half-elf, the world has grown so mundane, even elves don't believe in magic anymore. This is a much bigger problem for Amberle Elessedil, princess of Arborlon, where she is one of seven Chosen to protect the Ellcrys, a magic tree that protects this world from demons, which the elves regard as a fairy tale, and yet still hold the sacred duty in high regard. Then all hell breaks loose, literally, when the Ellcrys dies and the demns break free one by one. Within the first episode we see Dagda Mor, the master of demons, his right hand man the Changeling, and some random demon that shows up at the end that we don't know the name of, my guess is a dragon or an imp. Anyway, the demons come subtly and the elves are in doubt until Allanon shows up, wakign up from his druid sleep to answer the call of the Ellcrys, he alone seems to comprehend what's to come and he knows he needs the magic of the Shannara and since Shea has passed away, that means it's down to Wil. Unfortunately, he doesn't manage to get to him before his elf stones are stolen by a thieving rover named Eretria. Eretria has her own troubles, her freedom is dependent on delivering the elf stones and their owner to her current master, who knows their value better than she does. Amberle, meanwhile, has a vision from the Ellcrys, gets scared, and runs away, just avoiding the murder of the other Chosen, leaving her the only one left. Now Allanon has to bring together these three youths who never dreamed the fate of the world would be in their hands, let alone are they at all prepared for it.

I found the idea of this world interesting and feel inspired to write a similar story I will title Steel Golem, stay tuned for more details, and tune in on Tuesdays at 10PM on MTV for the next episode of The Shannara Chronicles.

Star Wars Episode 7 The Force Awakens

SPOILERS!

Yeah I'm gonna try to keep this short and minimize spoilers, but if you've read my blog, you know I will give away some stuff.

Okay, first of all, I couldn't help but notice that the opening scene is pretty much the same way I opened 7th Moon. It was all I could think of, soldiers from outer space attack a village and one soldier realizes he doesn't want to be a killer, so he turn traitor and escapes on a shuttle. Finn is Hidariude. I suspect Finn may also become a jedi. I mean he hasn't shown the use of the force, but he's the only character besides general grievous who's actually used a light saber who wasn't a Jedi or Sith, so I'm guessing he'll be brought into the fold as this part of the series unfolds.

Kylo Ren, dude needs some anger management, that's all I'm saying. Even the Sith should think twice before letting him hold a light saber.

Now a lot of the movie is very much following tradition, it starts on a desert planet, because apparently, the heroes of Star Wars must always grow up on a desert planet. Then we've got the droid who brings the heroes together, BB-8, the new R2-D2. I mean R2-D2 is back, but BB-8 is the new id and he steals the spotlight in every scene he's in,but he does play an important role, so hey he's the coolest droid since R2-D2 and deserves to take the lead. And then there's Death Star 3...I mean the Starkiller. Even one character in the movie says it's just like the Death Star, and then they are like, well no, because it's way bigger. It even ends up the same way, the planet detroyer needs to be taken down by hitting it's vent with a missile,but first we have to lower the shields which involves a fight with a warrior from the Dark Side who kills the old guy. It'seven kind of the same set with the bridge and everything. It's like, hey old dudes, stay away from bridges and light sabers.

Okay, I don't think I really get away with saying anythign else without ruining the movie for whoever sees it, so I'll stop, but I do recommend it. It was good. One thing I have to say is it was funnier than most Star Wars movies, which is fine by me, but I'm not sure how other fans might feel. If yo can just embrace it, it's every bit as fun as it should be.