Geek Gab New Year’s Spectacular

Join Daddy Warpig, Dorrinal, and myself for Geek Gab's New Year's Eve Spectacular! On this special extended episode, we discuss Netflix original series The OA, British dark SF TV anthology Black Mirror, and hard SF film Passengers. Give it a listen! And for all you SF fans out there, what better way to…
January 2, 20173 Comments
Esquire: Star Wars Should Be Fun. Rogue One Isn’t.

Esquire: Star Wars Should Be Fun. Rogue One Isn’t.

Scathing criticism of Disney's $150 million disappointment comes from an unlikely source: Esquire magazine. Let's start by stating plain facts: Rogue One is not good. It may even be bad, though it's hard to argue a film with a final 40 minutes that entertaining could be outright bad. It's the first…
December 22, 20168 Comments
#DumpStarWars Makes a Dent: Razörfist’s Twitter Autopsy of Rogue One

#DumpStarWars Makes a Dent: Razörfist’s Twitter Autopsy of Rogue One

The novel concept that not paying people to insult you might disincentivize them from slinging insults may finally have penetrated conservatives' and libertarians' thick skulls. As evidence, I present choice excerpts from the autopsy of Rogue One's opening weekend performed before a live Twitter audience by the ever-perspicacious Razörfist.  If…
December 21, 20169 Comments
Escape from New York: Back to the Well

Escape from New York: Back to the Well

Tell me if this sounds familiar: a long-delayed new installment in a beloved groundbreaking franchise emerges from development limbo as a soft reboot of the original intended to launch a new franchise. And if that weren't crass and cynical enough, the whole project has been warped into a vehicle for…
December 5, 201614 Comments

Gavin McInnes: “Rogue One is going to flop.”

Gavin McInnes of Rebel Media shares my foreboding of Star Wars: Rogue One. Dear Hollywood: Please stop shoving social justice "homework" into movies and TV.  The forced diversity in every new show and film is just fake. Women don't fantasize about being "badass," and casting token black guys is just…
December 3, 201616 Comments
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Soul Cycle Casting Call Part 2: Souldancer

Considering how well my first exercise in fantasy casting went over, I thought I'd have another go at choosing a cast for a hypothetical film version of my second novel Souldancer. To make things more interesting, I'm raising the challenge level by dispensing with the wayback machine. Only contemporary actors…
November 16, 20162 Comments
Star Wars: Rogue One – The Facade Cracks

Star Wars: Rogue One – The Facade Cracks

Image courtesy of Douglas Cootey [Insert standard disclaimer about it being poor form to say "I told you so", but...] Regular readers may remember how I warned Hollywood that moviegoers can only stomach so much cynical propaganda disguised as entertainment before a backlash sets in. The main impetus for that…
November 15, 2016
Series Ruined by Breakout Characters

Series Ruined by Breakout Characters

Even a writer's strongest, purest vision can be undone if his own characters have other ideas. Sometimes a secondary character can emerge from the background and steal the spotlight from the rest of the cast. These breakout characters are often benign, but greedy network and studio involvement can create a…
November 8, 20169 Comments
Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange, the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, came out Friday. To be honest, I didn't originally intend to see it. I never followed the character's own comic book series. In fact, my only exposure to Stephen Strange has been in Marvel crossovers where he always shows up…
November 7, 20162 Comments
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Soul Cycle Casting Call Part 1: Nethereal

Readers frequently tell me that they'd love to see movies based on my books. While I find these comments highly flattering, before any film adaptations of the Soul Cycle could happen, I would need: A) the six million reader fan base that's required to financially justify turning SFF books into…
November 2, 20163 Comments