There are two reactions I get from pretty nearly all my beta readers and critique partners, regardless of the story:
“I don’t know exactly what your characters look like; don’t you ever describe them?”
and,
“Holy smokes, your action scenes are really detailed.”
These may be phrased in various ways, but the general gist is almost always there. And it’s a problem for me.
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Imagine my delight when I stumbled upon the Peter Cushing Centennial Blogathon and realized it tied directly to Asian folklore and therefore I could totally justify a blog post.
Cushing had a long and varied career, playing everyone from Sherlock Holmes to the Sheriff of Nottingham, but even those who aren’t film buffs will remember him as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars (as pictured here), one of the few who could successfully tell Darth Vader when to step off.
But Cushing had a particular niche in horror films, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today — specifically, his role as Van Helsing in a kung fu zombie vampire movie.
You read that right.
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Today’s #TeaserTuesday comes from “Torrent,” a science fiction short story.
Merced… Mercen… What had been the word Captain Trafalgar used?
Do you mean to search for Mercedarians?
She answered in the affirmative.
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This post will have to go live a few days later, since I ordered some gifts I don’t want to telegraph, but here’s the deal: I ordered from Endangered Species Chocolate and found my order at my driveway about 24 hours later.
Let us count the ways this went right:
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It’s no secret that I’m a nerd and a geek, but I’m pretty new to the gamer scene. In fact, my first Dungeons & Dragons experience was at Gen Con a few years ago. And it was a lousy experience, to tell the truth. The scenario was written so badly that even the GM (assigned to run it, not his choice) realized that it wasn’t possible to save it.
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Bert knows this is wrong.
You know when you hit upon something that’s just so jaw-droppingly, amazingly awful that you just have to inflict it on someone else?
(That was your only warning.) Continue reading
