Michael G. Munz

The official website of Seattle sci-fi/fantasy author and geek Michael G. Munz

Writing Update: A Dragon at the Gate & Zeus Is Dead 2

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Writing a story never quite goes the way you think it will.

Something always changes along the way, even if you plan ahead of time. Things occur to you while writing, characters take control in your head, and sometimes just the act of getting an idea on paper brings out its negative points that didn’t seem nearly so problematic beforehand. And that’s not a bad thing; often this leads to something better in the end.

A Dragon at the Gate

Coming in 2015?

Yet that voyage of discovery takes time, especially when you–and here when I say “you” I mean “me”–are not the fastest writer in the world. How I long for the prolific rate of Stephen King, but that’s just not how my mind works. (Also, Stephen King doesn’t have a non-writing day job taking up his time.) And all that is my lead-in to saying that A Dragon at the Gate is not progressing as quickly as I’d like. [Read more…]

Book Review: The Primary Protocol

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The Primary Protocol - JM Guillen

My rating: ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5)

J.M. Guillen’s The Primary Protocol wastes no time in plunging us back into his eldrich world of technologically augmented agents waging a secret battle with Lovecraftian forces that threaten to overrun our rational realm. The cosmic horror of the Vyriim, introduced in Rationality Zero (the spawn point of this series), have threaded their nightmarish tentacles further into our world, seeking a beachhead, and as The Primary Protocol begins, we—and protagonist Michael Bishop—are already right in the thick of it. [Read more…]

Guest Geeks: Massimo Marino on Wormholes

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Guest GeeksHello, geek-folk! It’s about time for another Guest Geeks post, and this time I’ve got someone here who’s going to give you a bit more science in your science fiction. His name is Massimo Marino, a fellow sci-fi author who’s got at least one up on me in that this guy has actually worked at CERN. You’ve probably heard of CERN: it’s where they’ve got the Large Hadron Collider, and aside from it being used to help create gods in Zeus Is Dead, they also use it in the real world to do actual science that’s even more interesting!

But Massimo’s here today to talk more about the science of a slightly different topic. I’ll let him take it from here… [Read more…]

Audio-Play: “Finding Victor”

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Many years ago I entered one of the quarterly “24 Hour Short Story” contests at Writers-Weekly.com. Essentially, the idea was to write a story based off of a single first line, no longer than the given word limit (1,000 words in the case of that particular contest), within 24 hours. Now I am by no means a fast writer. It may or may not have taken me forty-five minutes just to write the last three sentences. But it sounded like fun, and 1,000 words was surely doable.

1000 Words

For example, as the saying goes, this picture alone is worth 1,000 words.
Not sure to whom, but an aphorism is an aphorism.

[Read more…]

Movie Review: Terminator: Genisys

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Terminator: Genisys

Warning: Movie may contain Time Lords.

Come with me if you want to see a better movie than Terminators 3 and 4!

Before I tell you exactly what I think of Terminator: Genisys, here’s my nutshell review of each movie in the series so far, so you know where I’m coming from:

Terminator
An excellent sci-fi action movie teasing just on the edge of horror, and a true sci-fi classic. My favorite of the series.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day
An even wilder action ride, with a little more emotional depth, and ground-breaking F/X, though as time passes, I find I prefer the artistry of the first movie just a little bit more. (It’s a shame the trailer spoiled the biggest twist for most people.) Also the first R-rated movie I saw without permission. Sorry, Mom & Dad.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Not without its charm, and I did like the twist at the end, but ultimately forgettable.

Terminator Salvation
A disappointing, pandering waste of a film that I saw once and can no longer even really remember beyond the fact that, no sir, I did not like it. [Read more…]

Farscape Rewatch: “Losing Time”

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Farscape

“This plan is so bad, it HAS to be ours.”

Season 3, Episode 9:
“Losing Time”
***1/2 out of *****

 “I am bleeding and I have no wounds, so I’m either St. John of the Uncharted Territories, or there’s something very, very wrong with me!”

Having spent an entire episode with black-T-shirt Crichton aboard Talyn in the last episode, it’s time to swing back to Moya to spend entire ep with green-T-shirt Crichton! (Well, almost an entire episode, but we’ll get to that later.) I’d say this is a weird one, but this is Farscape, and they’re ALL weird ones, right? That’s why we love it! [Read more…]

Farscape Rewatch: Green Eyed Monster

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Farscape

In which the primary conflict of this episode is resolved through vomit.

Season 3, Episode 8:
“Green Eyed Monster”
****1/2 out of *****

“That’s no moon. That’s a budong!”

Take a love triangle that’s not really a love triangle, add in some neural transponder linkages, wrap it up in a setting that’s a fourth character in itself, and chuck it all down the gullet of a budong! What you’ve got is Farscape‘s answer to the psychological thriller Crichton, Aeryn, Crais, and Talyn all have to duel with each other’s emotions amid the pressure-cooker of a cyclopean alien stomach. [Read more…]