Michael G. Munz

Movie Review: Edge of Tomorrow

June 8, 2014 By Michael G. Munz 1 Comment

Starcraft meets Groundhog Day
(Or maybe that should be Mass Effect meets Groundhog Day. Or possibly both. Just so long as Groundhog Day is in there somewhere.)

“We’re Commander Shepard, and this is our favorite movie on the Citadel!”

Edge of Tomorrow is, hands down, THE best video game movie ever. And just to be clear that I don’t mean to damn it with faint praise, it’s also one of the best movies I’ve seen all year. Possibly even this decade. It’s excellent science fiction.

No, it’s not actually an adaptation of any video game franchise, but Tom Cruise’s William Cage is, in at least the metaphorical sense (and maybe more), living a video game, save-scumming his way to victory: Try something, get killed, play again and learn from your mistakes to get a little further. Make no mistake, this isn’t some simple, novice-level, 2-hour single-player campaign from next fall. Cage has found himself locked into a “Nintendo-hard” level repeated ass-kicking with only a single save point: The very beginning.

Except now that I think about it, this is actually from the pre-Savegame Era. Cage is working through the original Super Mario Brothers here. Except with high-powered explosive weaponry. And aliens. [Read more…]

Top 5 List: Villains

April 26, 2014 By Michael G. Munz 5 Comments

And we’re back with another geek-related Top 5 list! (Who is this “we”? I’ve no idea! I suspect I’ve somehow split into two or three people in order to deal with all the things I have to do lately. On the other hand, maybe I’ve just turned pompous and I’m using the royal “we”? Or I’ve been assimilated by the Borg.) This time I’m going with the top five villains in fiction, as judged by me. In totally subjective fashion. In relation to my mood at tastes right at this moment on April 26th, 2014, because I am flighty and I apparently lack conviction. Oh! I nearly forgot to toss up the title in fancy title-fashion. So here it is:

Top Five Fictional Villains

Good. Got that out of the way. As always, this list is in no particular order due to my usual inability to rank favorites. (Well, okay, so the first one in the list is likely the one that occurred to me first, but…) [Read more…]

Farscape Movie???

April 21, 2014 By Michael G. Munz Leave a Comment

Big news for my fellow Farscape fans out there (and no, it’s not that I’m resuming my Farscape rewatch blogging–though I do plan to do that soon, and thank you for considering that “big news,” oh hypothetical reader…)! Farscape creator Rockne O’Bannon let it slip at Wondercon that Justin Monjo, writer of 14 episodes of the series, is currently penning the script for a Farscape movie.

It was only a brief mention at the end of an interview, and who knows if it’s going to be a Serenity-style theatrical movie or another mini-series like The Peacekeeper Wars, but here’s hoping it makes it through pre-production and gets onto a screen of some size!

Word is already spreading, though I myself heard it via a tweet by Gigi Edgley (Chiana):

FARSCAPE THE MOVIE!!! http://t.co/KSLQjPmHtD @CreatureShopTV #JimHensonSyfy @SyfyTV

— Gigi Edgley (@GigiEdgley) April 21, 2014

Click the link in the tweet for more info. The mention of @SyFyTV would imply that it’s not headed to the big screen, but either way, I’ll take it.

Here’s the video linked in the article. Fast forward to 2:20…

Who’s excited???

Star Wars TIE Fighter Animation

April 20, 2014 By Michael G. Munz Leave a Comment

And now for some just plain cool Star Wars-related animation. I ran across this online in a link on Imgur after someone had made an animated GIF from a couple of seconds of it. Lucasarts’ X-Wing/TIE Fighter PC game series from the mid-90s is one of my favorites. I included TIE Fighter in my Top 5 List of PC Games a short while back. Watching this, complete with cockpit details based on those games, really made me want to play again.

Disney is keeping Lucasarts alive now for licensing purposes. I wonder if they have any idea how much money they could make simply by releasing X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and XvT with zero changes beyond updated graphics?

[via JPL4185, animation by OtaKing77077]

Blog and Website Update!

April 15, 2014 By Michael G. Munz Leave a Comment

Hey everyone! If you’re extra on the ball today, you may have noticed that things look just a tiny bit different around here. For a couple of years my blog (Geek Notes) has been pulling double duty as my website. Well, no more! Geek Notes is now an integrated part of my larger site. (See those menus over there? Good!) Now you can find a lot more at your fingertips. Or mouse pointer. Or however you’re browsing this sucker.

Looking for more detailed info on my novels? Click the “Novels” link! Want to contact me without giving your email address? Click “Connect!” Want more info on a particular novel? It’s all in the menu.

Better still, you can sign up for the website mailing list in order to stay informed about my writing and other cool geek stuff! (I’ll never send your email address to anyone else, of course.) In the coming months, as we get close to the release of Zeus is Dead, special Zeus is Dead extras will be sent exclusively to mailing list subscribers. Don’t miss anything!

And now, here’s what I understand is a picture of last night’s “blood moon.”

(Go ahead. Say the line. You know you want to.)

Top 5 List: Sci-fi/Fantasy Books

March 25, 2014 By Michael G. Munz 5 Comments

Well, an unspecified amount of time has passed, and you know what that means! (Okay, so actually you probably don’t, but just pretend like you do. Then again, you probably did see that whole “Top 5 List” thing up above there, so as you’re likely a reasonably observant person, you probably do have at least some inkling.) That’s right, it’s time for another geek-related Top 5 List, as always, chosen and voted on by an exclusive panel of me! This random period of time’s list is…

Top Five Sci-Fi/Fantasy Books

Once again, the list is in no particular order, because I have enough trouble narrowing the list down this far already, to say nothing of actually ranking favorites. [Read more…]

“The Spaceship”

March 1, 2014 By Michael G. Munz 3 Comments

So I’m in the process of moving to a new home (nowhere far, just from one Seattle neighborhood to another), which means I’m going through my stuff and culling the herd a bit to make moving easier. I’ve been here for a while, so there’s quite a bit of stuff to go through, and in a box in the back of my closet I found something amusing: The very first book I ever wrote.

Note that I did this in elementary school in 1985. I’d like to think my writing has improved at least a little bit since then. It was a class project, if I remember right. Every student wrote one, as well as doing the actual binding and illustrations. (I’d like to think my drawing has improved at least a little bit since then, too. I’d like to. But it hasn’t.) So now, without further ado, I present to you my first ever novel, the sci-fi tour de force known as…

THE SPACESHIP
(Is that an awesome title or what?)

It was the 1980s. Cover art wasn’t as important back then. Apparently.

Look at that quality binding! Yessir, slathered rubber cement!

See, there it is. Proof I wrote it, right there in…pencil! I know, the title page gives away a major plot twist. I was young and naive.

“Once there was a boy named Fred. One day Fred got in a fight and got two black eyes.”
(Isn’t that a wonderful beginning? I can actually remember wanting to establish how good Fred was at kicking people here.)

“He was walking on the field (after the fight) and he saw a silver disk coming down. Then a read beam came down and zapped him up!”
(The exclamation point tells you it’s exciting!)

“When he awoke he found he was in a cage. But the bars were wide apart and he easily got through. After that he ran down the hall and came to a corner.”
(Cages. Aliens are terrible at ’em. This is exactly how Captain Kirk escaped from the Klingons on three separate occasions. Why is “was” written in cursive? Because! I guess.)

“He peeked around the corner and saw two guards! Then Fred turned the corner and kicked over a guard who landed on the other guard!”
(More exclamation points! The non-illustrated fight scene is exciting!! I actually rather like the look of the aliens. Especially their merit badges. I guess they got their abduction badges that day.)

“Then he pushed a button and the door flew open. He went inside and got in the spaceship inside.”
(It’s important to demonstrate how doors get opened. Buttons!)

“Then he shot out of the bigger spaceship and blew it up with the small ship’s super-power lasers!”
(Regular lasers wouldn’t have made a dent, you see. I liked drawing fireballs. I can remember being particularly pleased with this one.)

“After that he of toward Earth. When he got to the school he circled the field once and then went home early.”
(Geez. That should be “…he flew off toward…” This is why you should always have someone else proofread your work before publication!)

“The next day he told his friends about his adventure but no one believed him. ‘Oh well,’ he thought. ‘I’ll just drop it.’ And he did.”
(I guess this is the part with all the angst that makes it art. Or something.)