Author: John Brown

  • The Avengers & The Paris Grill

    ByJohn Brown

    Edit: I wrote this like a month ago and thought I posted it. But there is was in my drafts. Somebody give me some Ginko extract.

    The Avengers

    The Avengers is Marvel’s latest installment of the films in the Avenger world—Iron Man (2008), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor (2011), and Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). 

    Iron Man is, by far, the BEST of all of them.  I thought Captain America might be just as good, but the movie lost its way about half way through.  The others are okay, not anything to jump up and down on the couch about. So while I was looking forward to seeing The Avengers, I wasn’t expecting anything special. I’m happy to tell you that The Avengers is good. Not as good as Iron Man, but much better than all the others.  And certainly well-worth the price of admission.

    The earth is in possession of an artifact of immense power called the Tesseract, which isn’t a made-up name. In geometry a tesseract is a cubic prism—some four-dimensional thing which boggles the mind. But in this movie and Captain America, the tesseract is a blue cube that can open portals to different parts of the universe or run Nazi war machines.  The problem is that there are other beings in the universe.  Some of these would like to be able to run their own Nazi machines and subjugate all species on every planet.  So they get Loki, Thor’s adopted brother, to lead an army to raze the earth and retrieve the artifact.   

    Of course, earth’s forces aren’t strong enough to repel this alien force. That is, unless you call upon the Avengers—Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Captain America. As well as Avengers who haven’t had their own movies yet like Black Widow, Hawk, and Nick Fury.

    It all sounds a bit much, and in the hands of a lesser writer it might have been. But Joss Whedon (Serenity, Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) wrote the script and directed the movie. And he did a fantastic job. Instead of thinking we came for a barrage of special effects, he takes time to build the characters and relationships so we care about the action when it arrives. He does use the idiot chaos cinema technique for some of the action, but not nearly as much as was in Hunger Games. More importantly, he makes up for the error of his ways with a number of laugh-out-loud moments. Hilarious moments.  In fact, the humor is one of the main reasons why this movie was so good.

    If you like super hero movies, you’ll love The Avengers. Maybe not as much as you like Iron Man or Spider Man 2 or the Nolan Batman series. But close enough to have a great night out.

    The Paris Grill

    The Paris (Idaho) Grill has opened another restaurant in what used to be the Bear Lake Motor Lodge Cafe.  The cafe was okay. Nothing to write home about.  So I didn’t know what to expect with the new grill.  However, I took two of my daughters out last night for dinner.

    The Paris Grill has four menus. I don’t know why they keep them separate, but they do. One for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and another for their pizzas.  We opted for the “Burgers n Pastas n Salads” menu which I guess is the lunch menu, but was what we ordered our dinner off of.

    Confused yet?

    Luckily, the food’s good enough that the menu business doesn’t matter. The lunch menu features a number of regular sandwiches—BLT, chicken cordon bleu, French dip.  But it also offers some signature sandwiches like a kielbasa and pepper sandwich, something called the Hobo Deli (which is tasty sounding combo of sour dough bread with pepper cheese, roasted turkey, bacon, grilled tomatoes, and cilantro dressing), as well as the Monster Grill—roast beef topped with caramelized onions and peppers, mushrooms, and provolone cheese.  I opted for the Monster Grill. My girls skipped the salads and ordered a hamburger and the chicken cordon bleu with mashed potatoes.

    The first words out of my daughters’ mouth when eating the mashed potatoes were “ooh” and “yum.”  That was followed by another “ooh” and “yum.”  The potatoes were good.  And they were made from scratch.  The sandwiches were tasty as well.  Good enough that I’m going to go back to the grill to try their dinner menu with my wife.  

    We topped the dinner off by splitting one of the grill’s big, hot cinnamon rolls.  The prices for the lunch items were reasonable—around seven or eight bucks—and they were big enough that the girls took half their meal home.  

    If you’re in Garden City, Utah and looking for something besides burgers and shakes, try the grill.  I think you’ll be quite satisfied when you walk out the door.

  • |

    Ender’s World: Fresh Perspectives on the SF Classic Ender’s Game

    ByJohn Brown

    Smart Pop publishes smart, fresh, and engaging articles on the best of pop culture TV, books, and film, with a particular focus on science fiction and fantasy television and literature.

    You want to hear what Scott Westerfield (Uglies, Pretties, etc.) has to say about Buffy?  Go to Smart Pop.

    What about Orson Card’s thoughts on Joss Whedon’s Firefly universe? Smart Pop.

    What about the venerable Lawrence Block on Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series? Um, Smart Pop.

    Strange.  Do you see a pattern emerging? 

    Whether it’s Mad Men, House, Hunger Games, George Martin’s epic fantasies, Halo, True Blood, or Alias, Smart Pop gathers together New York Times bestselling authors, television writers, psychologists, philosophers, and others–folks who love of pop culture and have something worth sharing about it–and asks them to share their insights.   

    Recently, they’ve been putting together just such a collection on Ender’s Game.  It’s called Ender’s World: Fresh Perspectives on the SF Classic Ender’s Game. It’s coming out February 2013.  You can read more about it here.

    I’m announcing this now because The Man was fortunate enough to be invited to contribute.  I love Ender’s Game.  LOVE IT.  How cool is it that I get to write about it in an anthology edited by the folks at Smart Pop and Card himself? And then get to read what everyone else has to say, including military strategists Colonel Tom Ruby and Captain John Schmitt.  As well as the little bits they’ll include on things like why the battle room is the shape it is and why they were recruiting kids.

    But I’m also announcing this because in addition to the essays all we Ender-lovers get to write, Smart Pop is also going to include a series of Q&As with Scott Card, and they are currently soliciting the question from readers. FROM YOU. Right now.

    You ever wonder about a character or part of the setting or event in Ender’s Game?  Ever wanted to know what inspired Card? Ever wanted to ask any question at all about Ender’s Game?  Now’s your chance. Just submit you question here: http://www.smartpopbooks.com/ask-orson-scott-card-a-question-about-enders-game/

    You can see questions already submitted at Smart Pop’s Tumblr.

    From a writer’s pov, I have to tell you that the folks at Smart Pop have been nothing but enjoyable and insightful to work with. I’m looking forward to this book!

  • Servant of a Dark God in Italian!

    ByJohn Brown

    For all you Italian speakers, SERVANT OF A DARK GOD was published in Italy by Gruppo Editoriale Armenia for the 2011 holiday season. Here’s the cover.

     

    Don’t mess with the man in black!

    If you speak Italian, here’s the publisher’s page for it: http://www.armenia.it/libri/984/Fantasy/I-classici-del-fantasy/Servo-di-un-Dio-oscuro.html

    Do you know how cool it is to think somebody in Italy is reading about Hunger and Sugar and the gang?

    Viva Italia!

  • Generating Story 12: Creative Q&A with Author Melissa Mead

    ByJohn Brown

    Melissa Mead lives in Upstate NY with her husband and cat. Her stories have recently appeared in IGMS and Daily Science Fiction. She’s a member of SFWA, Codex, and the Carpe Libris Writers Group: http://carpelibris.wordpress.com/.  She too had a story to tell about using questions to help her develop her published stories.  I think it’s worth sharing.

    Melissa

    My Double Dragon novel Between Worlds (Double Dragon Publishing) came about because of a reading mistake.

    You see, I’d come across the word “cantrip.” Not being a D&D player, I’d never heard it before, so I went to the OED and looked it up. The first definition said “A minor spell or incantation.” The second said “A mischievous trick,” but somehow I misread it as “A mischievous sprite.”

    Oh wow- a mythological being I’d never heard of! I ransacked the library looking for any reference to those mischievous sprites. Didn’t find any, of course. Finally I decided that if I couldn’t find them, I’d make them up. So I started asking myself “What are Cantrips?” From the definition, I figured they must have some minor magical powers, and were most likely small.

     So why hadn’t we heard of them before? Perhaps they were hiding.

    Why were they hiding? Perhaps something awful had happened between humans and Cantrips long ago, driving the Cantrips underground. Literally.

    Then why we were hearing about them now? Something must have happened that made staying hidden more risky than coming above ground. Starvation? Underground isn’t the best place to maintain a steady population. But that’s not very dramatic or personal, for story purposes. Maybe, in addition, there’s an outside threat.

    Ok, so someone needs to confront this threat. One person, so we have someone to focus on. Someone more adventurous than your typical Cantrip.

    And so Miska, and all the Cantrips, brought a new form of mischievous sprites to the world.

    All because of the question “What the heck is a Cantrip?”

    John Sez

    First of all, notice she followed her zing.  She stumbled upon this new creature and started to research.  Her research didn’t provide much, of course. But following that impulse is key.  

    Next, did you notice she kept asking why?  Why don’t we know about Cantrips?  Why did they go underground?  Why are they returning?  That’s a motive or cause question. 

    There’s no way you’d use those exact questions in your story.  But you WILL want to know WHY things are they way they are.  You will want to know motives and causes, internal and external.  You’ll want to know WHY your hero is facing this problem, WHY the antagonist is working against her, WHY the hero decides to tackle the problem instead of ignore it or run away.  When the hero reacts and makes a decision to do X, you will want to know WHY (as well as WHAT’S THE RESULT).  Same with the antagonist.  When building setting, you might find it useful to ask things like WHY did they build a village here or WHY is my character a tailor?  Do you see?

    In addition, I’ve found that replacing “why” with “what” seems to be more productive to me.  So “what led or caused my character to be a tailor” helps me more than “why.”  “What’s motivating the antagonist” helps me personally more than “why is he doing this?”  That might be my own weirdness, but I think “what” subtly leads me straight into nouns and situations and values and beliefs.  Try it on and see if it doesn’t help you.

    Finally, did you notice her use of objective. The story about overpopulation in the underground didn’t interest her much.  She wanted something with an active antagonist.  Something that could focus on a character.  Knowing that objective, she started generating options that might fit the bill.  Which lead to the cool idea of a new type of mischevious sprite.

    Follow zing. Use the “what” (why) to identify cause and motive.  If you can, state your objective; the clarity will give your wonderful mind a focus for its generating powers.

     

    For more in this series, see How to Get and Develop Story Ideas

  • A Wowser Mouse & Financial Peace

    ByJohn Brown

    Dis Eez A Mouse

    I’m a Luddite, which means that even though I work in the software industry, I do not rush out to purchase the latest and greatest gadget.  Our family computer, for example, is running Windows 98, primarily because we purchased the computer itself in 1999.  In human years that computer is like 432 years old.  Maybe we’ll retire the old boy this year.  The point is that I don’t like to churn through tons of gadgets.  I want something to work.  I want it to work well.  And then I want to use it for a long time. 

    Recently, my mouse started acting up.  So I went out and found a new one.  I settled on a Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000.  It comes with three parts: the mouse, an AA battery, which is supposed to last for up to ten months, and a tiny transceiver you insert into one of your computer’s USB ports.  The mouse has a great hand-feel.  The clicks are smooth.  If you want to take your mouse with you somewhere, there’s an easy storage slot inside the mouse for the transceiver.

    But the best thing of all is its BlueTrack technology.  This is not an ancient mouse with a track ball that you have to clean every so often.  It’s an optical mouse.  But unlike earlier versions of optical mice (why do I have a terrible urge to use “mouses” or “meece”?) that didn’t work very well on a number of surfaces, this BlueTrack technology works like a charm on everything I’ve tried it on, including glass. 

    You need a new mouse?  This is a good one.

    Dave Ramsey’s Complete Guide to Money

    If you’re like 70% of America, you are living paycheck to paycheck, which means that if you or your spouse (assuming you have one) were laid off, you would probably have difficulties meeting your mortgage the next month.  If you didn’t go into default on the house, you certainly would on other payments and bills. 

    You also have very little retirement. 

    You probably have around $7,000 in credit card debt.  Maybe a lot more.

    You also have a car payment or two.  Or, heaven forbid, a lease. 

    You might be house poor—the house payment is so large you can’t seem to do anything else. 

    You might have creditors hounding you. 

    You might be one of those folks throwing their money away on the lotto instead of investing it. 

    Did you know that if you invested $50 a month, an average of what many lotto players spend, in the stock market for 40 years, you’d very likely end up with $316,000 in the bank  (over the last 40 years of ups and downs, the annualized return of the market was almost 10%). You would have put in only $24,000 over that time period, which means you would have made $292,203!  But instead, if you’re a lotto player, you just throw all that out the window.  (No, you’re not going to win; not even maybe in your dreams.)

    You probably think your kids will have to take out loans to go to college. And you think that’s a good idea.  In fact, you probably think it’s a good idea to have a credit card just in case there’s an emergency because you don’t have any savings to cover any emergencies.

    The list goes on.  The sad part of this is that our finances cause us average Americans a lot of stress in our lives and marriages and families (even if we’re in denial) and very often heartbreak. 

    I know that a lot of us look at our financial chains and throw our hands up in despair—what can I do?  The mountain of debt and bills are just too high.  Besides, this is how everybody lives.

    But it’s not.

    There is a way out.  And it doesn’t matter how old you are, it’s not too late.

    Dave Ramsey has written his hands-down best book ever, which will take you step-by-step through the process of turning a financial mess into financial peace.  He’ll do it in a down-to-earth easy-to-read style. No confusing ten dollar words that make your head spin.

    Ramsey himself went through financial hell.  He was the guy that made all the mistakes with his money.  Lost everything.  Had collection agencies coming after him.  Didn’t know how he was going to feed the family.  He turned that all around.  Yes, he’s a millionaire, but more importantly, he has been working for the last twenty years to teach regular people with regular jobs the simple principles that lead to financial peace.  They’re becoming debt free and working their way towards huge net-worth.  

    You want a step-by-step plan?  You want to educate yourself about money and family finances from one of the nation’s leading experts?  Then go and purchase Dave Ramsey’s Complete Guide to Money today and start reading it.  You will not regret it.  If you already have his Total Money Makeover and don’t think this will be worth it, think again.  This goes into all sorts of things the Total Money Makeover doesn’t.

    Be free, people.  Be free.

     

    Related Stuff

    Look at the links and the video.