Secret Level Part 1 Review

I was intrigued by the premise of Secret Level from the very first trailer they ran. Telling stories where they use the video games as inspiration feels like a great concept overall. While I certainly have played my fair share of video games over the years, I was also hoping this would give me some insight into games that others loved but had slipped by me. Each episode runs between 8 and 20 minutes and runs the gambit of games that have been around forever to ones that are only a couple of years old.

***

Episode 1 – Dungeons and Dragons: The Queen’s Cradle

An attack against the Cult of the Dragon ends up becoming a rescue mission instead. The lead character, Solon, was scheduled to be sacrificed by the cult, but even after he’s been freed there are still voices in his head which torment him. It’s up to our adventuring group to get him somewhere safe and to someone who might be able to help him end his curse. While seemingly a somewhat straightforward adventure at the start, things grow more and more complex for our adventurers as the truth about Solon’s curse becomes apparent in the climax.

As an avid D&D player for over 35 years at this point, this was a perfect game to start the season. I dug how we could tell exactly what everyone’s class was (even if I’m not always a fan of being so overt about things). I wasn’t sure where the story was going, but I was pleasantly surprised by the ending.

Episode 2 – Sifu: It Take’s a Life

Being completely unfamilar with this game (a common theme with these episodes), it immediately grabbed me when the main character died, resurrected, and continued the fight. It reminded me of Edge of Tomorrow (which is a Groundhog Day style movie using video games as inspiration) with a unique take on things. Every time the protagonist dies they are resurrected but are older. From a video game point of view, it sounds like it creates a nice push/pull where you get more abilities with each death, but you also get less health.

(I could actually see a story about “gaming” the system as best you can. Some kind of pact where two characters keep killing each other to ensure they are complete badasses without taking the lesser health aspect into true consideration).

The actual story is fairly thin, with most of it following a video game logic of beating up on the mooks, running against larger gangs, before finally encountering the level-ending (game-ending?) boss. Still, I enjoyed the concept overall (I’m definitely a sucker for these types of stories).

Episode 3 – New World: The Once and Future King

Another game I didn’t know. After a conquering King crashes on the island of Aeternum, he finds that everyone there is immortal. This does very little to curb his conquering sensibilities such that the majority of the episode is mostly played as comedy with his constant deaths never seem to dissuade him from his true path.

While I figured out where we were going fairly quickly, the story was well done and the ending felt earned.

Episode 4 – Unreal Tournament: Xan

While I’ve never played Unreal, I am certainly familiar enough with the idea of death match first person shooters. What worked well about this episode was we got a lot of information, both directly and indirectly, about the overall story and world. Which is a great idea since, at their core, most first person shooters feel very similar, just with the setting being changed. Focusing on a mining robot who manages to gain sentience also manages to give effectively “faceless” cannon fodder a transformation into someone/something we can root for. This is reflected within the story itself where the crowd echoes the viewer at home.

A successful story that showed there was more to the story.

Episode Five – Warhammer 40,000: And They Shall Know Fear

Of the first batch of episodes, Warhammer 40,000 has the worst story. It literally is little more than a group of Space Marines fighting and killing everything in their path until the reach the big bad and fight it too. However, it is also the one I would say to never skip, because it features some of the best animation of any of the episodes. There is a sequence where the Marines are in the dark and are fighting against creatures whose very blood is bioluminescent which creates some amazing visuals for the animators to play with.

100% check this one out.

***

I’ll end it there. They released the last 7 episodes yesterday, so I need to block out some more time to watch them (and I still have 3 from the first batch to talk about as well).

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

The Unread Pile – Fantastic Four

Technically, Fantastic Four was the second comic book I ever bought. At one of those Book Fairs Elementary Schools put on every year, I found a random issue and without knowing anything about comics or the characters or literally anything at all… I bought it.

Still not sure how that particular cover made it into the south Georgia schools.

But it would be a couple of years before I started collecting. At which point Fantastic Four became a mainstay in the monthly trips to the comic book store. Of the various Marvel series, I have the third most of Fantastic Four (Spidey and the Avengers being the Top 2). I’ve stuck with them through thick and thin. But eventually I did stop. And then Marvel stopped putting out the comic for far too long. And while I liked Dan Slott’s run, it wasn’t until Ryan North took over the reigns a couple of years ago that the book felt like the book it was always supposed to be.

***

Fantastic Four (2022 Series) – Issues 1-26

Writer – Ryan North

Pencillers – Iban Coello/Ivan Fiorelli/Leandro Fernandez/Francesco Mortarino/Carlos Gomez

***

This run of the Fantastic Four does something that many of the previous runs almost never seem to do: it allows the characters room to breathe. What I mean by that is North immediately breaks up our little group as in a battle which had happened only weeks before forces Reed to shunt the Baxter Building and everyone near it (including their kids) one year into the future. So in the aftermath of this, Ben and Alicia are off on their own trip, Reed and Sue on another, and finally Johnny is doing… well, he’s bumbling and stumbling in ways only he can (and has grown a mustache!).

There is a bit of genius in this move as it sets the reader up to ease into who the characters currently are. Instead of needing to worry about 4 or 5 or a dozen characters, North spends his time with one or two at a time. Weirdly, it feels more like a move in the middle of a run, but works as a perfect jumping on point.

Which brings us to the second big change for this series: most of the comics are either done in one or two issues.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love a 12 issues storyline with maximum stakes and world bending moments, but doing these smaller stories makes the comic feel like a weekly tv show (it has a very heavy X-Files feel without the heavy horror side). Each of our heroes have to lean less on their superheroing and more on their ability to figure out the current mystery. Plus he has really pushed some of their powers in ways I’m not sure anyone has done before. And Reed’s body manipulation has been, at times, a little creepy. It truly makes it something that you could pretty much hop on with any random issue and get a great idea of what’s going on without any trouble.

Throughout the 26 issues so far, they’ve:

Gone to a Dinosaur world and fought Dinosaur Doom

Dealt with a newborn AI

Fought a town where everyone there were Doombots in disguise

Helped a town stuck in a time loop

Released a bunch of trapped ghosts and then dealt with it using a cursed skull

***

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the art every issue. While Coello and Fiorelli have done the bulk, every artist draws some of the best versions of the characters I’ve ever seen. FF is supposed to be clean line and fun crazy science monsters, and they deliver each and every month.

Not to mention Alex Ross’s covers are… well, it’s Alex Ross. Not sure what I could possibly say that hasn’t already been said.

***

If I had one complaint, and it is a fairly small one, is that I miss the lack of a big plotline running in the background. Yes, the kids being gone was sorta that, but since they were off screen for that whole time, it just felt like something we’d eventually get to (though the Doom spotlight issue was a direct result of this problem – and was excellent). I figure with this Emperor Doom storyline this will no longer be a complaint. I’m certainly looking forward to where Ryan North takes the Fantastic Four next.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Movie Review – Bones and All

The best horror movies tend to focus on teenage protagonists. The very age when we all didn’t have a clue what we didn’t know (we thought we knew everything). We spend so much time with these young people, actively rooting for some of them to survive (and maybe actively rooting for others to not be as lucky). The stories act as coming of age stories. A warning that you might be transitioning from your childhood into adulthood.

The world is a scary place already, so to have a slasher/ghost/demon/etc. trying to kill you…

Bones and All takes this conceit and asks the question from a completely different angle. It is from the Monster’s point of view. Whether it is our lead, Maren, who is trying to figure out who or what she actually is. Or whether it is Lee, who knows who he is, but throuh Maren’s eyes he now sees himself in a different light. Or whether it is some of the other Eaters they encounter. Those who might embrace their darker natures. Is being true to yourself mean that you are evil?

Probably when we’re talking about eating people.

But really, we all have some form of darkness within us. Obviously, for most it isn’t horror movie level. I think of it as that Devil on our shoulder who tries to influence our basest natures. You know where you should cuss someone out, but end up listening to the Angel instead. Still, that darkness is there. For some it may be a constant struggle against some form of addiction in all of its various forms.

The disease is there. The question is what are we. Who are we?

It feels like Bones and All is trying to present and answer these questions as best it can. The journey Maren goes on to figure out where she comes from, shows her a world she never even thought existed. And where many horror movies would jump to the evil immediately, this movie takes its time. A very slow burn as she goes through the full spectrum of emotions. It never rushes her (or the audience for that matter). It doesn’t shy away from the horrific actions she is forced to take, but for many of the other characters – this is simply their lives. They have some control, but in the end, they can’t fight their nature.

But she says something within the movie that sums up her world view – “I would have done the same… in my own way.”

She believes that she doesn’t always have to be the monster. That much like the vampire movies where they drink rats or whatever, she can maybe find a way to live a “normal” life. The good side of her could possibly win.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Movie Review – The Mandela Effect

The Mandela Effect feels like a movie where we are on a journey with the writer of the film as he works his way through the very idea of the “Mandela Effect”. And I think that is a very good thing.

For those who may not know, The Mandela Effect is a term coined for people who have memories of something happening that is counter to reality. The most popular (and where the name comes from) is the idea that many people thought Nelson Mandela had died in the 1980s. Had you put them to a lie detector test, they would have passed it because they remembered it. The only problem is that Mandela didn’t pass away until 2013.

False memories? Parallel universes bleeding into each other? The simulation which we all currently live in (and is possibly the darkest timeline) glitching?

Whatever your flavor of rabbit hole you wish to take, this movie is more than willing to spiral down with you.

The core plot is a simple enough one: A husband and wife have a daughter who passes away. While trying to make some kind of sense of the world he now lives in, Brendan notices that some small things are different than what he remembers. Book titles, the Looney Toons name, the look of the Monopoly guy… all of this pointing him, in his grief, into trying to find an explanation for it all. And he then begins to take a personal journey to figure out whether his reality is true or not.

***

Definitely less Horror and more Science Fiction (obviously), I thought that some of the questions being raised by Brendan were ones we all have asked. He is simply trying to find Order in a world full of Chaos. The same thing we all would like in our lives. It is somehow more comforting to think that our lives are perhaps not our own, but a simulation being run around us. Order is comforting. Chaos is terrifying. If there is no specific reason for an event in our lives (especially a tragic one), that is so much worse than anything else might be.

Brendan wallows in these theories, emotionally seperating from his wife who is also trying to work her way through the grief process. And through all of that it introduces a couple of interesting thoughts about the lengths someone might go to “get their life back”. Would they abandon the ones who survived in order to cling to a life which doesn’t exist anymore?

***

How much does a person’s memories affect the world around them? If you remember an event one way and everyone else remembers it differently… how do you rectify those differences? How much do other people’s stories shape our memories as well? I know there have been many times where I remembered a portion of an event, but then a family member mentioned something which I’d completely forgotten (or buried too deep to even conjure back up). But is that memory mine or simply a construct of someone else?

***

A couple of years ago, I hit upon a similar thought process. I’d come home and my toiletries were on a different side of the bathroom. I’d been going to the right sink for years and suddenly I’m using the left sink. It’s a very minor change, but one which got my mind turning over and over again. If I knew about the Mandela Effect, it wasn’t at the forethought of my brain. And I started crafting a story about a man who was starting to see some inconsistencies with his memory and everyone else’s memory.

Many, many words later, and I had writen The Echo Effect.

While my trip down the rabbit hole was far different than this particular movie, I enjoyed viewing another (a parallel) version of these ideas could be presented… and what their ultimate outcomes might be.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Movie Review – It’s What’s Inside

It’s What’s Inside feels like it could be a Black Mirror episode with a couple of additional tweaks here or there (which is fairly high praise coming from me).

The basic set up is a group of college friends getting together for a prewedding night to celebrate the impending nuptuals. In the process of reconnecting, the audience is shown how some of them have lived in the meantime. A couple of them are in a relationship (that appears to be struggling), you have the social media influencer, the rich kid, a couple of new age women, and the nerdy guy who none of them have kept up with since college. However, since they made the pact (about getting together before the wedding), he still shows up and has the MacGuffin which the whole movie is based on. See, Forbes (the nerd) has a device which will allow a person to switch bodies with another person.

What the movie does really well is explore the age old idea of what it would be like to walk in someone else’s shoes. What sort of freedom might you have if no one knew who was driving the body you were in? Would you lose some of the inhibitions? Would you lose a part of yourself?

While I would agree that who we are is based on our memories, our thoughts, our history, whatever you want to call it… I don’t believe that it exists outside of the idea that our bodies directly affect who we are as well. I’d argue that these meat shells we all wear reflect our thoughts and vice versa. If you have a more attractive body/face/etc, then you may have a bit more confidence when going through your life. And less if you are less attractive (or perhaps preceive yourself as less attractive).

Image by Kohji Asakawa from Pixabay

But being able to wear a second skin, even for a short time… we see the characters (or some of them) really get into their roles.

I didn’t mention it, but they are playing a game where you aren’t supposed to tell anyone and whoever is the last one to get found out “wins”.

This mostly means there is no reason to not do some level of roleplaying. And I think the actors all do a pretty good job of “playing” their new roles, but the movie does a clever bit of storytelling where they will show the scene in reds/blues/& greens to show us who is inside the person. So even if you got a little confused about who is who, this snaps things right into place.

I don’t want to go into spoilers, but you can likely guess that things don’t go smoothly as the night progresses, and it is those moments there are some interesting choices and some things that didn’t allways make a ton of sense. It’s not bad decisions, but sometimes it had me wondering if a person would really react to the situation in that way or not.

***

Regardless, it has enough twists and turns that make it worth giving it a watch this Halloween season.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Movie Review – The Platform 2

It’s October, so it’s time for my annual attempt to watch a bunch of horror movies. Of course, this quickly turns to lamenting the fact that somehow even though the month has 31 days in it… the calendar moves far too quickly for me to watch as many as I would like (and yes, I realize I can watch horror movies during other parts of the year – but this is the horror month!).

A few years back I sat down and watched a very strange movie called The Platform. The concept is a vertical prison where food is lowered to the inmates down into the bowels of the earth. You only get to eat what you have requested and nothing more. However, humans being humans, most of the time the higher levels gorge themselves on whatever they like, leaving those below to starve.

It was this weird movie that really sits with you over the days after a viewing. Less jump scare horror and more “wow, this is fucked up” horror. I would have never guessed it would have garnered a sequel.

With The Platform 2, it is still the same situation as the last movie, save there appear to be a set of rules which allows the food to reach many of the lower levels (I believe they mention food making it all the way down to the 170s at one point). The big sticking point is that there is a not so secret police who ensure the rules are followed. And if you do anything against their edicts, they will come to ensure you do not make that mistake again.

With both movies, there is a social contract which is supposed to be followed. And if it is, then everyone can potentially get what they deserve. But in both movies we see that those in charge… whether they are the upper levels of society or the “police” enforcers abuse their powers almost immediately. The other side, whether it is those who are just doing what they can to survive or the true “barbarians” who believe that their own self freedom is the most important thing.

It is never really about the best thing for society. It is only what is best for them. Might makes right without any concern that they may be on a lower level during the next month(s) struggling to survive with limited or no food at all.

Instant gratification is all that matters.

What we truly end up taking away from this social experiment is that the only lesson which can be learned is that you cannot become indebted to either side. Neither have the answers to your questions and doubts. Both will take you down a path where you are no longer your true self or anything close to it.

Instead, you must find a way to work through your own traumas for only you can determine your freedom. Only you can determine when you’ve served your time.

***

Again, these two movies are more about making you think than they are about giving you some simple scares. Their attempt to be a funhouse mirror version of our world makes it where you can see the parallels, even in the horrific mess the main characters find themselves.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Still The Best Show You Are Not Watching – The Lazarus Project

 

Almost 1 year ago, I wrote a post about this show I’d stumbled upon: The Lazarus Project. It was this weird Groundhog Day meets time travel meets What If about a secret group of people who have the ability to reset the world back 1 year. Which is right in line with my own science fiction novel, The Echo Effect (available on Amazon here). These characters were dealing with Apocolyptic Events for the Earth, using their Reset as a last resort. But when they pulled the trigger you might have to relive the last 12 months of your life with full knowledge of what occurred in the last timeline. Which can be somewhat maddening (for some characters).

After the ups and downs for George in the first season, I wondered how they’d top it. And given some of the terrible things which he had to do in the first season… well, how do you deal with someone who is going to come back to life with the rest of you everytime you reset?

Due to the event of Season One, the world finds itself caught in a true time loop of only 3 weeks. An endless void of time where no matter what you think of your friends and enemies, no one wants to be trapped forever.

But if that would have been all we did through 8 episodes, it wouldn’t have been quite enough. And since it turns out the development of Time Travel (HG Wells style) is what caused this tear in space/time… Time Travel is the only way to solve it.

This change opens up so much more things within the show. Characters who we only got to meet for a very short stint in Season One are suddenly alive again. What happens when you meet your doppleganger? Would you trust the “future” you to have your best interests in mind? Are you willing to go to that dark place again, George, in order to do what must be done?

I don’t want to give any too much more than that but for another 8 episodes I was captivated week in and week out wondering exactly where they were going to go. Surprised at some of the outcomes and nailing the predictions on a couple of others.

***

Now, as I was looking up something on the show, I just saw it was not renewed for a Season Three, which is a bummer. But don’t let that dissuade you from checking the show out. Yes, overally we do end on a cliffhanger, and I will forever want to know what happens next, the Season Two arc was solved by the end. So it is a bit of you get a partial resolution, just not a complete one.

I still think it is a show well worth the watch.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Dragon Con Suggestions

 

One of the things we discussed throughout the Dragon Con weekend this year was how it feels (fair or unfair) that Dragon Con makes very small, incremental changes so that you don’t always notice them in the moment. Looking back, though, you can see how certain things have improved or changed. This section is less an airing of grievances and more a hope for a quicker change.

Attendance

Capping the attendance. I actually think having maybe 65,000 people might be a number closer to what would work best, but overall I think where we are is alright enough (75,000). I’m hopeful they will keep it around/near this value for the near future. And unless some other hotels are added in the area, I’m not sure they can support much more.

Loading the Panels

Load the rooms earlier. Please. There were multiple times this year and in previous years where they didn’t start loading the rooms for the next panel until there was 10 minutes left. It didn’t take 20 minutes for the previous panel to clear out. The biggest problem is that you make it so that people miss the beginning of the panel they just stood in line for an hour (or more), which honestly shouldn’t happen.

Badges

Mail us our badges. While the badge pick up process is much smoother these days than it was 10 years ago, I think we’re well past the point of having to fight those lines. When we were driving around looking for a parking spot, I saw the line for Saturday badge pick up was outside of the Sheridan and down the block. I know people have this fear some kind of mass fake badge market will crop up, but I’m not sold on that being the reason to not do it.

College Football

College Football Kickoff Game (or whatever it is called these days) – Since Dragon Con is on Labor Day weekend it is always going to share the weekend with something in downtown Atlanta. I’m not sure anything can be done about that. However, over the last 15+ years the Kickoff Game has also been on Labor Day. That made a ton of sense as you want to highlight the beginning of your season and Atlanta is a mecca for college football.

Now things have changed. We have this weird Week Zero thing where we get a handful of games but for some reason it doesn’t count as opening weekend. So here’s the solution:

Have the Kickoff Game on Weekend Zero!

It would not only help Dragon Con and downtown Atlanta by not having multiple BIG events on top of each other, it would allow the hotels in the area to have back to back BIG weekends… which feels like a win-win to me. Who wouldn’t want to be booked solid for 10+ days. The networks can still build this up as the BIG thing and with the sheer number of teams, Labor Day weekend will still have plenty of potentially good games.

And let’s face it, those fans who are coming to see their team play would come regardless of if it is a 3 day weekend or a regular one.

Note, if this did happen, I would be slightly disappointed to never have the experience of visiting fans from Missouri or Mississippi looking around with the odd look of “what in the world is going on around here” from all the cosplayers.

Also, this is something completely out of Dragon Con’s control. It is more about me putting it out into the universe and hoping!

***

If you haven’t already, you can check out my two previous blogs about my experience at this year’s Dragon Con:

Part 1

Part 2

***

I’m thankful we have Dragon Con in our backyard. And there isn’t a year that goes by I don’t wish I would have found a couple of hundred dollars in order to get an Eternal Pass all those years ago! Looking forward to next year.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Dragon Con 2024 Recap Part 2

Check out Part 1 here.

Saturday Cont.

Traveller

The only thing I knew about Traveller was that it is a scifi game, and it is old. I remember seeing ads for it in old Dragon Magazines. According to our GM (a wonderful fellow from Melbourne, Australia), it has been around since the mid-70s. This was extremely interesting to think about as the game unfolded. Technologies we take for granted in our daily lives were not considered when they developed the game. So you end up with some weird things like “Pony Express” information exchange. There is no send an email or whatever. Information is hand delivered.

Just an interesting look back at how those developers looked to what the future might look like. And makes me want to go down the rabbit hole to see what other things might have been developed (or not developed).

The game itself was one of the very few I’ve ever played in at a convention where there was nearly no combat (technically we fired on a ship near the end and destroyed it, but that it was it for the entire 4 hours). The GM stressed early on the system was brutal. In addition, we only had 2 fighters with us. Given that I was playing the Scientist role, I knew I wanted to avoid combat at all costs anyway.

Funny enough, in most of these gaming sessions, when you play a scientist type you do so knowing you are going to be rubbish at anything combat related. Your hope is that you get a couple of moments to shine in between fights, but mostly know it’s going to go a certain way. But because we didn’t have those fights and because we needed to have the Scientist investigate a bunch of things – I was the rock star of the group, and probably rolled the dice more times than just about anything else (which I wasn’t expecting – it was a nice change of pace).

Overall it was a cool session and while I’m not sure I’ll likely be able to play it again outside of a convention (since none of my playgroup has any experience with it), I’m glad to have had a little trip into history via the future.

Afterward we grabbed a bite (way too late) and then got home some time after 12:30.

Sunday

Seth Green and Nathan Fillion Panel

It said something about Robot Chicken in the panel title, but there might have been one Robot Chicken question 45 minutes into the panel. Of course, it had to do with a Firefly style episode in the same vein as Star Wars or the Walking Dead. You can imagine this idea went over really well with the crowd.

This was Seth Green’s first Dragon Con, and he seemed to be having a lot of fun. Randomly (though appreciated) someone asked him about his role on Can’t Buy Me Love, which is one of those things I always forget until I’m rewatching the movie. He also told someone on the phone (who was named Meg Griffen apparently) a “heartfelt message” in Chris’s voice. And even had a story about when he was on Buffy making the director uncomfortable because he was only had a sock covering his privates (for those who may not know, he played the werewolf Oz on the show, so when he woke from transforming he was often… without clothing).

The two of them apparently vacation together and were a great pair to have on a panel together.

Resident Alien

Maybe this is the bit which causes Courtney to actually watch the show (to be fair, I think she’s probably watched 10 or so episodes over my shoulder, but is only half paying attention)? I always love when the actors are asked what their “nerd” thing is. Many times you get answers which are ok. Maybe they say Star Wars or Star Trek, and you know they like them, but probably not in the same way many of the people in the crowd do. But then there are those moments when their posture changes and their voice gets a little faster/higher, and you just know “oh, this is their THING”.

Alan Tudyk apparently is really into yard sticks (yes the measuring kind) (no it wasn’t a joke). Alice Wetterlund loves Star Trek. Sara Tomko talked about meeting her first fan who cosplayed as her. And Meredith Garretson mentioned a book series (which I sadly didn’t catch the author), but she came back to it a couple of times.

See they are just like us! 🙂

Agents of Shield

Probably the cutest moment from the convention was when Brett Dalton’s daughter (maybe 10ish) asked him a question after standing in line. He made sure we all gave her applause enough to “embarrass her”, which we did. Having him and Cobie Smulders on the panel created an interesting balance as he was on the show for however many seasons while she was on there a handful of times but has all the MCU movies under her belt. Which meant their experiences were wildly different and created some interesting conversations.

You could tell that both of them really enjoyed working on the show/movies, and are always down for even more if the time allowed.

 

LitRPG Writers Panel

Weirdly, the only panel I almost didn’t make it in was this one. There was one seat left (which left Courtney outside the room, but this wasn’t really her thing anyway). I’m interested in LitRPG, this whole genre which is probably only a decade or so old. I have a short story which is morphing into something more that I feel like fits right into that heading. So I figured I’d sit in and see what some of today’s writers had to say.

Overall, I learned a few things. It definitely feels like they all (though to differing degrees) put a fair amount of thought into the game system the characters are playing. It also seems like the indy publishing plan of writing in series, releasing a lot of books overall (though many tried to stick to trilogies), and maybe even the use of spreadsheets to keep track of everything. Dakota Krout also reinforced that idea what we see in the finished product started years before. And the core of the game may have started even before that.

I need to check out a few of the novels to get a better feel (I’ve only read two, maybe three LitRPG books at this point). but it feels like a very interesting path to have available.

***

Once that was done, we grabbed food, and then did the slow drive home with a little of the post-con blues to keep us company. Overall, another great time, and I’m kind of thinking we may try to dip our toes into the hotel craziness if our luck can hold. The 40 minute drive downtown and back home wasn’t bad, but there were a couple of things we likely would have done if we were staying downtown.

Hope everyone else had a great time. See you next year!

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Dragon Con 2024 Recap Part 1

One of the biggest questions I had this year, and honestly every year, was how would Dragon Con 2024 actually feel? Would it be overly crowded? Would we end up waiting in long lines for panels and miss out?

The only way to find out is to go, right?

Friday

In the week leading up to Dragon Con we go through the App and I star literally anything and everything I might have some interest in. Which means 4 or 5 panels might show up in my schedule for a time slot. I do this for a number of reasons.

To coordinate my panel interests with any that Courtney might have earmarked.

To not forget about anything that might get lost in the amazing number of panels Dragon Con puts on.

To have back-up panels available when you realize the line for the one you want is wrapped around the hotel.

To have a back-up panel when you are in the Hilton and the next one you scheduled is in the Westin and it is Sunday and your feet hurt.

Nathan Fillion Panel

This was the one Courtney and I both had marked as the number one panel to see. Aside from how good he is on panels, I don’t think we’d ever seen him solo one. We also knew the line was going to be long. As soon as we reached the backside of the Hyatt, we found the end of the line and crossed our fingers. About 10 minutes before the panel began, the line started moving. By the time we got into the room (about 3 rows from the back), Nathan had already begun talking (annoying).

Once we were seated, he treated us to stories about his career. How he got the speaking roll as Headpool in Deadpool/Wolverine (apparently the key is Ryan Reynolds helping you out and then thinking you did him a favor). How he has a trick knee, so any running you see in the Rookie is not always him. How he would do a Firefly: Captain Malcom show in the Picard style now 20 years later.

The hour went by far too quickly. I could listen to him talk for days.

Smallville Panel

Given the quick turn around (30 minutes after our first panel in the same room), we took a bathroom break and grabbed a snack. Luckily the line wasn’t very long, so we were able to load in and were fairly close to the front. Kristen Kreuk and Eric Johnson were on hand to talk about Smallville among other things. Starting a trend which would be a common occurrance through many of the weekend’s panels, I believe this was each of their first Dragon Cons. They talked about how cool it was to see the cosplay and seemed to be having a good time. We determined Kristen must be a vampire of some sort since she looks exactly the same as she did 20 years ago. Eric told a great story about his time on Vikings when he kept blowing a scene because his sword kept getting stuck in his scabbard.

 

Saturday

Before I get into Saturday proper, we had a bit of an adventure getting there. Egg again came over to the house to carpool, and we left around 10 AM. My thinking was that since our games don’t start until 1, that will give us time to grab lunch beforehand. While I knew the Parade was going on, I hoped we’d pick a route not to get caught in it.

What I didn’t consider was that the College Football Kickoff game between Clemson and Georgia was at noon (WHY?). This meant the interstate snarled. Once we got off on our exit, it was no better. Then to top it off, the parking deck I chose first didn’t have any empty spaces. Of course, they were letting us in, but after going through 7 or 8 levels we didn’t find anything. We finally had to park much further away than I would have liked. All in all it took us over an hour once we got off the exit before we had parked and exited the vehicle.

 

Gaming

This was our second year of doing our best to avoid the crazy Saturday crowds and instead just hang out in the Gaming building (Mart 3). There is food to be had there (Chick fil a and Jersey Mikes) and the area where we game has plenty of space so for the most part you are not ontop of each other which is sometimes a problem at Gen Con.

Deadlands (Savage Worlds)

After many, many, many attempts to play the current Deadlands system including that one time at Gen Con when we thought we’d gotten it right and instead it was for the 1st edition version of the game (which felt very complex). I’m a big fan of westerns and weird westerns, and this came at a time when I am knee deep in playing through Red Dead Redemption 2… so I was ready to be a cowboy of some type. With the five players at our table, I felt like we had some good interaction with one another, and the premade characters (from the Kickstarter box set) had some interesting flaws on them that helped inform some interesting roleplaying directions for players.

I chose the Witch to see how the magic system worked. And it didn’t disappoint. While I had some “charm” style spells, I didn’t have a ton of opportunity to use those. The Blaze ability (think Fireball) helped turn the tide (or made it so we didn’t get our asses kicked) when dealing with some Federal officers chasing after the same item we were hired to go collect.

With Savage Worlds I learned I have a red six side (likely stolen from a Risk game many years ago) who loves to “explode” on me (in Savage Worlds when you roll the maximum on a die, you get to reroll it and add the new roll to the previous one). This allow my character to do a ton of damage in one of the shots. And since in Savage Worlds you are supposed to be Big Damn Heroes, it goes a long way to helping you get that feeling.

We ended up destroying the abomination keeping the item in question, and then Lee managed (with his dying breath) to outduel the enemy Gunslinger by drawing the Joker card (which basically let him go first). It was a really cool moment we had joked about earlier in the session (as in – it’s likely not going to happen), and then to have it show up in the biggest moment was awesome.

A great game and one I’d love to play a campaign in.

***

Tune in next week for Part 2 where we see Nathan Fillion again, play cowboys, and nearly miss a panel.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

The Unread Pile – Moon Knight

I first encountered Moon Knight during the very earliest days of my comic collecting. At the time one of my favorite comics was West Coast Avengers, and while I read both the regular Avengers title, something about the West Coast lineup spoke to me. About 3 or 4 issues into my collecting, Moon Knight made an appearance in the comic and shortly thereafter joined the team.

Weirdly, I didn’t immediately think of him as a Batman rip-off, even if in some instances that’s what writers lean into. Instead I saw someone who wasn’t entirely in control of his own senses. Someone who spoke directly to his patron god: Khonshu. And someone who didn’t shy away from the difficult choices.

Ever since, I’ve collected pretty much any Moon Knight series and they run the gambit of good, bad, and everything between. At least that was the case before I reached the latest run.

***

Moon Knight (Volume 9 – 2021)

Writer – Jed Mackay

Penciller – Alessandro Cappuccio

***

This run of Moon Knight feels like it was written by someone who has read every issue of comics which Moon Knight appeared. It feels like the creators even read those same West Coast Avengers issues which left such a strong mark on my own interests and comic collection. It honors those things which have come before, but then moves things forward in a very organic way.

Moon Knight is a Priest of Khonshu, which means the night is his to patrol. Those who move about at night are under his protection. So what happens when the things which go bump in the night (Vampires) begin to make a move on New York City? What happens to those people who are merely innocents, that now have found themselves transformed?

Marc Spector is not the first man to take them mantle of Moon Knight. When one has died their last death, another one is chosen by the Moon God. And yet, while Marc is the Fist of Khonshu, a god may have two Fists. If this run only introduced Hunter’s Moon into the lore, that would have made this run worth it. Someone who understands the connection with the gods, who doesn’t understand all of Marc’s tactics, but calls him brother all the same.

He has multiple personalities… and the comic embraces this idea. For much of the 90s comic Marc Spector: Moon Knight, the idea that there were other voices in his head was downplayed. Not here… and it is an asset for the character and his story.

Tigra shows up. And is given a large role in the overall storyline. It always bothered me that after they went their seperate ways in West Coast Avengers, I don’t know that they really crossed paths again (at least in any substantial way). And I have to think it is that whole – he’s supposed to be grim and gritty and Tigra is a Superhero. Here, in this run, those things can coexist.

He fights a haunted house… and then uses it as his base of operations. I’ve read somewhere that when a new writer comes onto a title, they should always leave the toy chest fuller than when they arrived. This is it in spades.

Zodiac – Moon Knight has had plenty of villains over the years. The Midnight Man. Black Specter. Randall Spector. Werewolf by Night. Bushman. And aside from the Bushman, I don’t think he’s really had that archnemesis until now. Zodiac is everything Moon Knight needs when it comes to a villain. Someone who can challenge him to become even more brutal. Someone who is thinking steps ahead of him. I never read the miniseries which first introduced Zodiac, but this comic feels like a perfect fit.

8 Ball – Nothing like taking a Z-List character and turning him into a sympathetic character. Who would have ever thought?

The echoes of the past… older villains, characters who might not have been used in decades pop up throughout the run. It never feels forced. More than anything, it makes this little corner of the Marvel Universe feel that much more alive. The connections between everything only help this process.

From the very first issue until the last in this run, it hit every beat, hit every high mark, and immediately took its place at the top of my Moon Knight reads.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Movie Review – The Honeymoon Phase

My wife makes fun of me, but one of my favorite things is to scroll through VUDU (now Fandango At Home) looking through the weekly deals. I’m not trying to spend tons of money and most of the time I don’t bother with much of anything. However, sometimes they’ll do a Horror movie spotlight and suddenly there are a bunch of new to me movies to investigate. So one night after finding a couple of interesting trailers, I went on the deeper dive on the computer and realized that a few of them were made by the same company (Dark Sky Films). Hmm… well maybe I should give one of them a shot.

***

What makes married couples fall out of the so-called Honeymoon Phase? That’s the set-up for the experiment are going in for. They do it for one month and are paid $50,000. So even though there is a little trepidation, they agree, and wake up together in a house in the middle of nowhere. There anything they want appears to be provided (food, alcohol, etc.). And things proceed fairly normal for the first week or so.

***

What makes us trust someone? What makes us know that the person we love has only our best interests at heart? What would it take for that trust to become broken?

The movie is at its best when those are the questions we are asking as we watch the film. We follow Eve as she begins to have doubts about her husband. One of those things where things are just a little off through how he acts. It’s nothing big enough to be more than a nagging feeling, but… he doesn’t kiss her the way he normally does.

The movie really leans into this idea of whether or not Eve is having some kind of mental break (brought on due to taking LSD brownies 10 days into the experiment) or if she’s right and something is really wrong.

***

Here’s the thing, that works really well when the movie focuses on that. And there are a bunch of things where as the viewer you kind of wonder which way they are eventually going to lean into, because either option (she’s crazy or he’s wrong) can work within the story… until (and spoilers to follow)…

She gets pregnant and suddenly is like 6 months pregnant. And only 20 days have passed.

She freaks out (understandibily so) and yet, her husband (Tom) embraces this all as a good thing.

I’m sorry, what? Something super strange is going on and Tom wants to treat this like it is just a normal thing (and the observers of the experiment don’t make any mention of it).

It’s a strange choice, because at that point you know Tom is wrong 100%. She knows it 100%. And I think the movie suffers for this. And the sad thing is they didn’t need to do the weird pregancy angle the way they did. It could have been a “normal” pregnancy where suddenly she’s wondering if this baby inside her is Wrong Tom or her husband’s from before the experiment. Suddenly she has even more doubts about her own sanity. What if the baby is Her Tom’s kid? What if she really is going crazy?

***

As the movie moves to its conclusion, we get some answers as to why this experiment exists, who Wrong Tom actually is, and Eve gets to do a decent Final Girl impression.

Overall, I liked the performances. I liked the premise, and I dug the questioning of Eve throughout the early portions of the experiment, but some of the stranger decisions are a little confusing (as to why that choice was made) which made it feel more like a “let’s do this weird thing” as opposed to maybe telling a slightly smaller story about two people in love.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Movie Review – Furiosa

A lot of time when a sequel or prequel comes out, I try to go back and watch the previous movies. Sometimes I don’t get that opportunity. However, with Furiosa I wanted my wife to go see it as well (she’s a fan of girls kicking ass), which meant she needed to watch Mad Max Fury Road first. So we both went into the movie this evening with Fury Road only a couple of days old.

First… I really dug the movie (Courtney liked it a lot as well).

Chris Hemsworth is a worthy addition to the villains of this world. You could tell that he was having a ton of fun just playing nearly every moment as big as possible. Anya Taylor-Joy has very large shoes to fill in the titular character’s role, and she does a great job in making the character hers.

As to the story… while it is one overarching story of Furiosa’s life, Miller does an interesting thing where he breaks up these tales into segments, with each having their own title. I thought that was a cool way to tell these little tales that still allow for the time jumps we need for Furiosa to grow up, but I also realized that these Mad Max stories could happen in almost any order (prior to this movie), and as such they are little stories you might tell about the heroes and villains in mythology. Each of the chapters in this movie are exactly that, chapters of a larger tapestry within this world.

With the box office results so far, it would be fair to say that it hasn’t performed as the studios would have liked it to perform. And while I don’t have the answers to all the questions pertaining to why people aren’t going to the movies like they used to (although I do have plenty of theories that range from the cost of movies to make down to the cost of seeing a movie and a bunch of other things in between), I do have a couple of thoughts about why this particular movie might have stumbled out of the gate.

Both Fury Road and Furiosa ask something of its audience that I’m unsure how it works across the broader spectrum. They ask you to buy into a post apocolyptic world that is gonzo. The characters are over the top, larger than life, in a world where the lives of the extra characters are beyond meaningless. And by that, I mean those people are sacrificial lambs in the entire sense of the word. I’ve heard that the best science fiction asks you to believe one thing, but then grounds the rest within the rules you would expect. Mad Max says this is a dead world run by insane men… and oh, yeah, there’s going to be over the top, in your face action to the point you are going to question how anyone would live for an hour in this world.

But that’s the charm of these movies as well. I think it is why Fury Road did as well as it did. It got the good word of mouth to help slowly build to a success. Whether Furiosa does the same, it’s hard to say, but given Hollywood’s penchant for taking these “duds” and immediately trying to go to streaming, we may never know the real answer.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Kickstart the Comic – I Took A Hammer to Hell #3

 

Just a friendly reminder that I have a Kickstarter going right now for In Our Dreams Awake #2. Back it now!

***

Sometimes there is a plotline/story idea that catches me just right. I’ll be minding my own business (definitely not planning on buying more comic books), and then they jump me out of nowhere. I And then I’m left only trying to figure out how quickly I can get the issue in my hands (or virtual hands as the case may be).

You had me at Deal with the Devil story.

***

Cover by Mulele Jarvis

I TOOK A HAMMER TO HELL #3 (#1 & #2 Available too)

Writer – Matt Garvey

Artist – Mulele Jarvis

Colorist – Fabi Marques

Alternate Cover – J Francis Totti

The Kickstarter campaign ends on Friday, May 3, 2024

 

***

The Pitch:

With nothing more than a MASSIVE hammer duck taped to his hand, Jake is going to kill the devil! 

 

The Story:

Jake made deal with the devil for his eternal soul (original I know, but wait till you read it, this is VERY different) but instead of waiting till his time is up or trying to wiggle out of the agreement, he goes to Hell WILLINGLY! 

Why on Earth would someone do this?!… Well,  he has only one goal in mind. 

With nothing more than a MASSIVE hammer duck taped to his hand, Jake is going to kill the devil! 

This comic has action, it has gore…but it also has a story that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

So, F#@K REDEMPTION…EMBRACE VENGENCE!

You won’t be disappointed!

 

John’s Thoughts:

So many Deal with the Devil stories are about the person trying to find a loophole to the predicament they have put themselves in. You see, it is very simple: you do the crime and then your soul does the time. And don’t get me wrong, I love those types of stories. Heck, I have a book sitting on my shelf that pretty much focuses on just that.

I Took A Hammer To Hell makes an immediate detour, though. It takes that core premise and says “what if the guy made his choice and was willing to go to Hell when the time came”. And then tried to go kill the Devil.

At it’s core, that is an interesting idea. If you had 40 years to plan your assault on Hell, what would you do? Would you train like Neo in the Matrix? Downloading every bit of fighting skills you could. Would you study with all the religious figures you could find, hoping to find some weakness for the Devil?

Or maybe you’d just strap a hammer to your hand and say f$%# it.

A sampling of the Ultimate Digital Collection

The Rewards:

Matt Garvey does his best to keep his Reward costs low, so you can pick up the lastest digital issue for £2 ($3) or even a signed copy of issue 3 for £2 ($6). If you are just hearing about the comic and want to play catch up the digital will run £5 ($7) and phyrical versions of 1-3 are £12 ($16).

The best bang for your buck though is his Ultimate Digital Package (25 comics) which will get you caught up on I Took A Hammer To Hell and then continue to feed comics directly in your brain from many of Matt Garvey’s history for only £10 ($13).

(I actually did that level on his last Kickstarter: Gangsters Versus Nazis and am working my way through all the comic goodness.)

The Verdict:

I’ve already supported the two previous Kickstarters for Issue 1 and Issue 2, so I was ready to go when Issue 3’s campaign went live. If you can handle a story about Vengeance against the Devil (and who wouldn’t want to see that), you should back this comic so that they make 50 more issues!

Make sure you check out I Took A Hammer To Hell #3!

Covers by Mulele Jarvis

 

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

 

 

Repost: Behind the Comic: – Anatomy of a Panel – In Our Dreams Awake #1

 

Reminder that the Sign up page for In Our Dreams Awake Issue #2 Kickstarter is still available. Be sure to sign up so you get notified when the project goes live!

I thought it might be a nice look back at the Anatomy of a Panel that I did for issue #1 (which will also be available during the upcoming Kickstarter).

***

Taken as a whole, a comic book represents the input of multiple people, multiple perspectives, and multiple skill sets before the final product is created. I’ve said many times in the past that one of the reasons I love the format is exactly for that reason. You get to feed off of the creatives who you work with. And what begins as one thing can become something completely different in execution (and making the overall comic that much better).

 

In Our Dreams Awake #1 – Page 7, Panels 7 & 8

The Team

Pencils – Edgar Salazar

Inks – Genaro Olavarrieta

Letters – Egg Embry

Writer – John McGuire

 

Concept

This pair of panels represent the end of a larger conversation within the issue. So much of this world that Jason Byron lives (dreams?) in is dictated by the mages who control everything. They ensure the chaos technology threatens to bring to the people can never exist again. They are Order.

And to go against that would mean going against everything they stand for… and that way lies madness.

So what do we see? We see that Edgar made a choice to not allow for any other colors within these two panels, but instead presented them as a pair of black and white moments. Two men, representing opposite beliefs about their world, are separated by the small table.

 

The Script

Page 7 Panel 7

Annoyed by Peter’s accusation, Jason pushes himself away from the table as if to get up.

Jason – I know all of this, Peter.

Peter – So ask me your question again.

 

Page 7 Panel 8

Same shot as Panel 7 (Jason is still sitting). Jason pauses. No words are needed.

 

Breakdown

As you can see from the script, I actually made a slight mistake between the two panels. In Panel 7, Jason is frustrated/annoyed and pushes himself away from the table. Edgar followed that showing him standing up. His body language is very tense. However, when we come to Panel 8, I note that “Jason is still sitting”…

No, John, he is not.

But Edgar went with it, and I think it actually works in this visual context because of the artist’s choice to make these mirror images of each other (in regards to the black and white). Where Jason was angry in the previous moment, he has sat back down. But instead of either of them furthering the conversation, the darkness envelops them instead pointing two the very ideas that they stand for can not exist alongside one another.

It even mocks the prompt from Peter in Panel 7: “So ask me your question again.” Panel 8 answers that prompt with silence. There is no need to push the issue any longer.

There are no shades of gray here in this place.

***

But perhaps there is another world for Jason to find peace? One he can visit while he dreams?

***

We are less than a week out from the launch of In Our Dreams Awake #2 on Kickstarter. Make sure to sign up to the Prelaunch Page here:

 

 

 

***

Behind the Comic: – Anatomy of a Panel – In Our Dreams Awake #2

 

We are less than a month out from the launch of In Our Dreams Awake #2 on Kickstarter. Make sure to sign up to the Prelaunch Page here:

 

 

 

***

As a comic book writer, we are doing the best we can to take the thoughts and images in our head and describe it in a way where the artist can have some idea of what we originally meant to show up on the page. The amazing thing about artists, though, is they take that mess of words and somehow (through magic is the only way I can figure) create an image (or series of images) which end up being a way better version of whatever I had in my head to start. Those are some of the best days, when you open up your email to get a new page and it leaves you speachless. Where you want to go back to your script to see how in the world they made it so much better.

 

Page 16 Panel 1 Pencils – Edgar Salazar Inks – Genaro Olavarrieta Colors – Javi Laparra

 

The Team

Pencils – Edgar Salazar

Inks – Genaro Olavarrieta

Colors – Javi Laparra

Letters – Alexander Lugo

Writer – John McGuire

 

Concept

This panel represents a bit of the calm before the storm. At the end of last issue, Fantasy Jason spotted this very same spacecraft in his (illegal) telescope. Now he finds himself commissioned to draw it. In so many ways, this is exactly what his curious mind truly wants to do. Somewhere inside him is a person who wants to see the strangeness in the world. The very truth of things which cannot be obscurred by those in charge.

Here we are with our artist sitting on top of a hill, trying to draw this literal alien craft as the workers go about disassembling it. He’s not sure whether this thing will be studied or destroyed, so it may be his pictures will be all there is left for anyone to know this machine existed.

 

The Script

Page 16 Panel 1

Jason has paint on his clothes, face, and has various sketches, scroll casings, and papers lying all around him. He has a sense of wonder and awe at what he is witness to. Magus move past him with pieces of the ship.

For this panel, the time is 13:00.

Caption – Early Afternoon.

Peter (caption) – It will eventually be dismantled, so we need accurate records.

 

Breakdown

Edgar and Genaro did a great job here really nailing this moment. The butterfly fluttering just above Jason provides a very relaxing moment in the midst of the overall craziness which is not only occurring in that moment, but really has been occurring since the day before (Issue 1) and is a bridge to what awaits our hero throughout the remainder of Issue 2. He placed the papers on the ground beside him, so the reader can see that he has been hard at work for a little while already. And he has an in progress piece on the easel to his left.

On top of that, Javi’s colors are perfect here. The greens, browns, and blues put the characters and the reader at a sort of ease (hopefully).

And while I haven’t shown your the entire page here, the overall feel is much the same as Jason pours himself into this project. Maybe even forgetting for a moment that this craft from his dreams is actually real and true.

Lost in the moment. Lost in the painting.

 

***

Be sure to sign up for the upcoming Kickstarter by clicking the image below!

 

 

 

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

 

 

 

Movie Review – The Marvels

There is a ton of talk about this movie online. Honestly, it is to the point that I’m wondering about that old saying “whether it is bad or good… as long as they are talking about you” still applies. After one weekend, this has underperformed at the box office, and while many people have listed their own theories about why this has occurred (smarter and dumber people alike), it seems to me we’ve gotten away from the key part of watching a movie.

Did you like it?

Yes.

***

Thanks for coming to the blog!

***

OK. The first Captain Marvel really occupies an odd place in the MCU as it came out after Infinity War but before End Game but took place in the 90s, which put in a position where it didn’t really fit into the current storyline and acts as a prequel to much of the MCU (other than say the first Captain America movie). It introduces more of the Kree (since Ronan in Guardians was really the only Kree we’d met otherwise) and sets up something that within the comics is a HUGE deal: the Kree/Skrull conflicts.

I enjoyed the first one, but I must admit, I haven’t gone back to do a rewatch so it might have been seen through rose-colored glasses as we all waited for End Game.

***

With Marvels, my concern was how well would people who haven’t watched the tv shows understand who these characters are. We’d watched WandaVision, so Monica’s story was familiar to us, but we haven’t had a chance to watch Ms. Marvel. And while I am familiar with the comic version, I haven’t really read much with her in it. Luckily, I think they did a pretty good job of introducing both, even if Monica has a leg up due to Captain Marvel being Aunt Carol.

The sequence which gets the movie started is them switching places whenever one of them uses their powers at the same time as another of the trio. Which creates a breakneck series of fights which does a nice job of illustrating each of their power sets. When the three are finally all together, the embarassingly cute interaction Ms. Marvel has with the other two women is infectious. It also does a nice bit of contrast to one of the things people complained about with the first one – that Captain Marvel was too stoic. In fact, that is kind of her character arc here. Someone who has seperated herself from the rest of the universe, someone doing a job only they can do, and just being utterly alone. Faced with a “team”, she balks at it because it is so against her nature. Yet as things continue, she has no choice but to literally and figuratively embrace these two souls. It was this underlying thread that still made it HER movie in so many ways.

Dar-Benn

On top of everything else, though, this movie feels like something where everyone is having fun. The actors look like they are into it. The writer clearly understood this was supposed to be more about the three heroes and their developing relationships between one another rather than the larger plot. Which may be the one bit of “bad” about the movie for me.

I don’t know if they completely knew what kind of villain they were portraying here? Is Dar-Benn your classic cosmic world destroyer in the vein of Ronan? Is she someone who is only trying to do her best to restore her homeworld back to from the brink of annihilation? Or is she someone who is bent of revenge against a sworn enemy?

Now, that sounds like the beginning of real depth for Dar-Benn, but it is here that things seem to get confused. She is all these things, but we only find out about the revenge against Captain Marvel near the end of the movie which makes it seems like it was her ultimate motivation. However, this came across as more of a “oh, ok” moment rather than a “WOW” moment. I wish they would have put something more into that, even an exchange between her first officer saying something about getting revenge is how she’s picking her targets.

***

The cosmic side of Marvel has so much to explore and these characters could allow them to do just that. And could even seed some additional ideas for a Fantastic Four movie (Annihilus is out there).

The comic book nerd would hate for the lower box office to hurt these explorations in the future. There is a ton to enjoy about this movie, and if the first one didn’t quite hit right, this one has a feel very different to that one – it may be more in your wheelhouse.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Dragon Con 2023 Recap – Part 2

You can find Part 1 here.

Saturday

We’d left off half-way through our gaming day…

 

Mothership

This is the 3rd time I’ve played Mothership (I’ve run it once, we played it at Gen Con this year, and now Dragon Con). Each time has leaned into a different style. One was more suspense/horror, one was a scalvaging mission dealing with pirates, and this one was a race against time as the colony we were on slowly disentigrated. As we all noted, the actual adventure ended a little early (maybe 45 minutes early), but due to the way things were run with us bouncing from various points on the map, trying to get to the Space Port, it felt like a full session.

I also appreciated the Warden (GM) letting us know not to bother picking the Scientist character class as we built our characters since this adventure was more focused on combat/speed. Too many games don’t let you know something like that, and then you have to just make your way through the adventure without the skills truly needed to succeed.

The Warden also simplified the initiative system, just going in clockwise order. You had 2 actions – you could move and shoot, you could shoot twice, or you could move twice. All of that did a great job of keeping the game moving with a heightened level of tension throughout.

Mothership really can be whatever you need it to be, and since character creation is so strightforward, it might be a perfect convention game.

After that we ended up going out to eat, finding out that some places shut their kitchen down 2 hours earlier than you would think. And here I thought that was only a Indianapolis policy.

Sunday

We woke up bright and early because Chad Shonk had a Star Wars panel at 10 AM. Let me say that by day 3 of any convention, 10 AM might as well be 6 AM for how excited I am to wake up that early… but I braved the morning and we made it down there about 10:10. The panel was on the High Republic books/comics/etc, which I have close to zero knowledge on. I’m good with the various live-action shows Disney Plus puts out, and back in the day I collected most of the old Dark Horse comics, but once the rebooted those stories, I used that as a perfect time to jump off the bandwagon.

However, this time frame interests me in not only how they’ve rolled it out, but also because it truly is a time period that hadn’t been explored. So even if I wasn’t sure about all the details and characters the panel talked about… it did get me back in the mode to start reading those novels and see if they can grab me like the old ones once did.

After that was a quick stop at the Art Show and a visit with Amanda Makepeace. I’ve known her since high school, but over this last decade her talents have reached truly awesome levels.I was so happy to hear she had won the Hank Reinhardt Award, which is a lifetime achievement award that honors someone that has made significant contributions to fandom culture in Georgia. So amazing.

Lastly, we made our way to the Firefly panel where they avoided talking explicitly about the show, but didn’t shy away from saying the names of certain shows they’d been on. We actually got a handful of great stories about Ron Glass which were both sad and funny and really the perfect type of story to tell at the panel. The other thing I always take away from the cast is how much they appear to truly like/love each other. From the physical touching here and there, to the inside jokes, to the shared text chain… I always like to think that the people on my shows are friends (even if I know that isn’t the case), but here, I think it is very true.

There was another panel I’d hoped to jump to, but it was about 3 hours later, and I hit the wall. I hated cutting things short, but between all the walking, waking up “early”, and knowing that if I didn’t listen to my body I’d end up with Con Crud (or worse), we called it. All told, I think the Saturday gaming is likely to become a annual thing, helping to break up the weekend very nicely, and really letting me experience even more the con has to offer.

***

One last thing before I go.

Image by Albrecht Fietz from Pixabay

Escalators

I was reminded of the scene from Mallrats where Brodie ends up ranting:

“Listen, not a year goes by, not a year, that I don’t hear about some escalator accident involving some bastard kid which could have easily been avoided had some parent – I don’t care which one – but some parent conditioned him to fear and respect that escalator.”

Apparently, in 2023, people no longer understand fundamentals of using the escalator.

First, you have to clear the area in front of where the escalator ends. You see, unlike regular stairs where you can potentially hang out, these “moving stairs” are going to dump more and more people ontop of you. So when you don’t move quick enough, I end up bumping into you… that doesn’t give you liscense to give me a dirty look. YOU need to move it!

Second, when you are getting on the escalator, you normally allow the person at least one step of distance. If you don’t know the person, you do NOT get on the same step as me. I’m not sure why you would think that was a thing we were suddenly doing. But maybe I missed the memo.

Third, reread the quote above. Almost had a little girl (say 4-5 years old) in her pretty princess costume get run over because she didn’t step off at the end, instead tried to slide off for some reason. Luckily, she didn’t fall, and I had given an extra step to seperate us… thus avoiding disaster.

Look, I just want to have a fun convention, but apparently all of you need to go back to class and figure this mechanism out again.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Dragon Con 2023 Recap – Part 1

After my early August trip up to Gen Con and the record setting attendance that convention set, I was very curious as to how Dragon Con would end up feeling. After only going for one day last year, Courtney and I had our 4 day passes with a sure-fire plan in place on how to attack the convention.

Friday

Step 1 – Arrive around 11 AM on Friday and get our badges, praying that the lines were mercifully short.

Step 2 – Go see the Lucifer Panel, praying the lines were mercifully short.

Step 3 – Head over to the America’s Mart and venture into the Vendor’s Hall, praying the lines were mercifully short.

Step 4 – Make our way through the 4 floors while not going into too much debt… and praying any lines were mercifully short.

The first part went off without a hitch. I’ve mentioned it before that back in the day the badge pick-up line was insanely long. It didn’t matter when you showed up, you were going to be there for a solid 2 hours no matter what. However, at 11 on Friday morning we spent a total of maybe 5 minutes in total. Note, I still question why they can’t just send us our badges in the mail and cut out this step entirely (and before someone says “counterfeiting”, I’d argue that Gen Con has nearly as many people and still manages to do it).

The Lucifer Panel had a small line… so no real issues there. The panel itself was good, if a bit strange. With the Writers/Actors strike, the panelists can’t really talk about any shows they were on. Which makes it a bit of a word play dance when answering any questions about their lives. In a truly funny moment near the end of the panel, DB Woodside said the name “Lucifer” in a clear reference to the show. The entire room did an audible gasp. But Lauren German was quick on her feet “He meant from the Bible” which received a nice laugh.

The third part was our first experience with a line. It was wrapped around the building, in and out of the loading/unloading area… and while it was constantly moving, it was still 50 minutes of our lives we won’t get back. Luckily Atlanta’s weather was cooler than many other Labor Day weekends (I don’t think it got above the mid-80s on any day). Even so, that line kind of sapped us a bit immediately.

The Vendor Hall itself was full of the normal wares. Anything from Cosplay to comic books to loot boxes to artists wowing with their works. The majority of my purchases centered around half-off or $5 trades, and a number of reader copy comics from the late 70s (The Champions and What If) that I really had no choice on whether to purchase or not.

There were a handful of panels we had tagged to go and see, but we didn’t leave the Vendor’s Hall until around 6:30 and by that point Courtney’s back had enough (and my calves were barking as well).

Saturday

This was the first year of a brand new plan. One I’d actually wanted to try last year and couldn’t execute because I only ended up going for one day. Egg, Lee, and myself (the Gen Con crew) would see how Dragon Con did their gaming. The thought was that this would keep us in one location, limiting not only our walking, but fighting any lines. Saturday normally has the most people anyway, so trying to deal with the extra people over the years has become less and less fun. Plus any opportunity to game is a good one.

Shadowrun 6E

I’ve never played Shadowrun in any edition, but it’s been one of those that I’ve been interested in. The Cyberpunk world with bits of magic thrown in for good measure is always intriguing. Egg summed it up – the more dice you roll, the more fun you are having. Shadowrun using d6 to resolve in game issues where you end up rolling as many dice as you can based on your various stats (a 5 or 6 are successes). I think I was rolling 8 dice at one point in assisting another character, whereby every success I had added a dice to his roll. Lee ended up with around 14 d6. However, in his typical “con game” mode, he would only have maybe 3 successes. Probability was not on his side.

The adventure was an extraction of a prisoner just outside of Savannah, Georgia. We then spent about 1/3 of the time meeting NPCs and leveraging those contacts to try and make things go as smoothly as we could during the mission itself. Of course, there was bound to be issues along the way, but overall our planning paid off and our target was delivered to a safe house for our client. It was a fun time.

I did have one critique of the pre-generated character sheet though. And this isn’t limited to Shadowrun, I’ve seen it in plenty of games. There were entirely too much going on. I was a Rigger, which means I dealt with Drones. But I probably had a dozen different ones listed on the page. Considering this is a one-shot adventure, I’m not sure I need all that extra stuff. I didn’t end up using most of it… and some of the time it felt like something I couldn’t be sure if it was more of a reconasance drone or a battle one.

In general, I think that character sheets should be fairly bare bones. The more “stuff” listed, the more potential for confusion.

***

That’s it for this week. Next week will be part 2 with Mothership and Firefly and… Escalator Safety.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Black Mirror: Season 6 Review

My previous reviews can be found here: Seasons 1&2 and 3, 4, and 5.

As I wrote last time, “For those not in the know, Black Mirror is an anthology show. Each episode stands alone to tell a story about how our technology or something perhaps not too far from our grasp affects people.”

After a long wait, we managed to get a 5 episode season this year. And while it has its ups and downs in terms of the actual episode stories, what was more surprising was that these mostly looked backwards as opposed to where technology might lead us, this instead tried to show us where older technology might fit into our lives (and potentially make it a better or worse experience).

***

Ep 1 – Joan is Awful

This episode is probably my second favorite of the season if only for how unique the initial premise is. A woman named Joan suddenly finds her life broadcast on the Streamberry App. It is cleverly done by cutting back and forth between our Joan and the TV version of Joan (played by Salma Hayek).

Initially Joan tries to find a way out of it, but that goes nowhere since apparently those “Check the box to say you’ve read the Terms and Conditions” are really well written to the point that they can just use your likeness for anything. She then decides to try and be as over the top as possible to maybe get the show off the air (it is disgusting what Joan does). But at every turn she finds more and more obstacles.

Seeing as how AI artwork and imagery is currently a big deal in Hollywood as well as for any artist trying to ensure their works isn’t stolen… this episode feels exceptionally timely. The best Black Mirror episodes are the ones where the leap in how technology is being used/portrayed doesn’t feel all that strange. This one has that in spades.

Ep 2 – Loch Henry

Sadly, this is my least favorite of the season, and not because it does anything particularly wrong. The basic set-up is that Davis and Pia are a pair of film students who come back to Davis’s home town and decide to investigate a serial killer who not only did his crimes there, but was indirectly/directly responsible for Davis’s father’s death. During the investigation which follows, they begin to learn more and more about what really happened all those years earlier.

It is very straightforward to the point that the reveal near the end didn’t feel like a reveal at all. Instead, it was more of a thing that really was the only way the story could have gone (considering the various hints the episode drops throughout). And maybe that’s why it’s my least favorite. It weirdly didn’t feel like it was taking any chances with the plot.

 

Ep 3 – Beyond the Sea

1969. A pair of astronauts, David (Josh Hartnett) and Cliff (Aaron Paul) are in Deep Space on a mission for six years. Luckily, they have technology which allows them to still be in robotic replicas back on Earth. However, when David’s replica is destroyed and his family is killed, he begins to spiral into a severe depression. So Cliff offers him the ability to use his replicant. What follows is some of the best acting you’ll see as Aaron Paul is effectively playing 2 different characters. And considering that there is only 4 main characters in the episode (with Kate Mara playing Cliff’s wife and their son being the last), this one feels like it belongs on a stage more than it does on the screen.

While I’m not sure I like the overall ending, it was definitely one which forced me to really think and feel what each of the characters were thinking and doing in each moment.

 

Ep 4 – Mazey Day

Set in 2006, this follows a paparazzi named Bo who is on the hunt for a picture of one of the larger acting stars who during the filming of her lastest movie did too many drugs, got behind the wheel of a car, and killed someone. And ever since, her life has spiraled completely out of control.

I appreciated the idea of the camera being the real focus point for the technology. With the mobile phones we carry around in our pockets, you can forget that it wasn’t all that long ago you had to carry an entirely seperate device to take pictures of any real use.

This episode is fine. I don’t mean to damn it with faint praise, but had it not been for the final act twist, I’m not sure what I would have thought about it (or would I have really given it any further thought). Instead the twist puts evertything into a different light and changes the story being told from one genre to another (and yes, I’m trying to be as vague as possible here).

EP 5 – Demon 79

The last entry this season was Demon 79 and I have to say this was my favorite episode of the year. Though, I’m not entirely sure how or why the technology aspect really plays during this episode, I didn’t care.

Set in 1979, the story focuses on Nida, who deals with some manner of both racism and sexism in her day to day life. We see flashes of moments where she shows us what she’d like to do to her coworkers (driving their head through the glass display), we understand this is the fantasy she allows herself. But when she stumbles upon a relic which summons a demon to her side, her world twists into something completely foreign.

You see, the demon informs her that she must kill one person a night for the next 3 nights or the world will end.

It was in this moment, I suddenly had 3 versions of what might play out:

1 – Everything with the Demon is simply another hallucination from her fantasy mind. Something she’s built in order to regain some level of control. There is no Demon and now she is truly wrestling with her own concious.

2 – Everything is real except for the Demon’s story about needing to kill people. Instead, he is trying to prey upon Nida in order to corrupt her and gain his (bat?) wings.

3 – Everything is real, including the End of the World clause, and that means Nida is going to have to kill.

The episode does a great job of straddling those three ideas for a lot longer than you might think before finally revealing the true nature of everything. I was extremely engaged while watching this one, and it may be in my top 5 episodes of the show

***

The only bummer now is that it might be 3 years or so before we get more episodes.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

 

Book Report – Demon Copperhead

During this last year of reading the same books as my mom, I have gone into them knowing very little about what they may or may not be about. I don’t know what genre they are or even how long the books are going to be (reading on a Kindle I figure out as I go by the percentage). This is the opposite of books I have picked out for myself, since I’m normally looking for some tag-line or plot synopsis which may catch my eye.

All this means is that I am sometimes in for a bit of a ride as I wrap my brain around the book she’s picked.

Which brings us to Demon Copperhead (by Barbara Kingsolver).

***

Demon Copperhead is the nickname of our title character. As we read along, we follow his life from very early on (while the story itself doesn’t really start until he’s elementary school age – we do get some stories about his birth as well). Demon lives in the middle of nowhere Lee County, Virginia. It is one of those places we all can likely imagine in our mind. A small town where the people who live there have been there for a long while. Their grandparents lived (and died) there, and so have their parents, and eventually so will they. They love their local football team. They grwo up, make friends, fall in love, and sometimes… they become addicted to drugs.

Demon’s mother is an addict. As time goes on and Demon grows up, he finds that the call of getting high becomes the thing to do. Whether it is something simple like weed to the big heavies.

And this is the key here. This is not what I would call a Beach Book. There is a reason summer is the time to release the blockbusters where the pagentry is what you atre interested as much or more than the actual plotlines. Books are much the same. You want a beach book to be something you can just enjoy. You don’t want to have to ponder the fundamental questions of the cosmos and you don’t want to try and figure out if your main character is going to survive the next couple of pages.

Image by John Hain from Pixabay

Demon Copperhead is instead a book that forces the reader to sink into the muck with Demon as he loses his family, gains a new one, and then throws all that away as well. It is not a book where you are grinning while you are reading it. Instead, I had many times where I mentioned ot my wife “I’m beginning to wonder if anything good is going to happen to this kid.” And while a regualr novel might have allowed a happier point sooner than this one did (I swear we were over 100 pages in before anything “good” occurred).

That can make the read take a little longer. Because while the writting is stellar, it also asks a ton from the reader. And since it wants you to live all that bad, when the good does finally occur, there is cause for celebration… but like everything in this kind of life, the moments of glory and happiness are far apart. You have to cherish them when you can before they turn to ash in your mouth.

***

I would close by saying this book represents a slice of America you may only have seen glimpses of in your life. Maybe only through tv or books, but it exists. So to have this novel exist gives a voice to many who may have been forgotten over time.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

The Best Show You’re Not Watching – The Lazarus Project

A few years ago I came up with an idea for a book. I’d always been a fan of time travel… of What If stories… of Groundhog Day shenanigans… and this idea combined them all in a way that just made sense to me. I sat down to write this story about a man who lives his life only to die and have everything restart sometime in his adulthood. The world would be different, an alternate timeline would have been created somewhere along the way, but most of the fundamentals would still hold the same. So while the Allies might have still won World War II, you might be married to someone else in this new world.

How unnerving would that be? How would you go about trying to find a way to center yourself within this new life? What about your friends? Your family? The woman you were once married to… do you have to leave all of that behind this time?

And what about next time things reset? Or the next life?

And then what if you found out you weren’t the only one experiencing this?

All of those thoughts and feelings about our actions in the world and how each of us are sometimes tied together in ways we would scarcly believe… all of that went into my novel: The Echo Effect (available here for purchase). I’d not see a version of all of this in anything I’d consumed until I started watching The Lazarus Project.

What I discovered was a show that I might have written in another lifetime. The basic plot is that George is a regular guy – he develops apps for a living (or he hopes for a living). He has a girlfriend who he is massively in love with. And in the background of this nice, pleasant story, the news is beginning to talk about a virus spreading. A few months pass and some very familiar images begin to show up in his life: masks, excess deaths, fear, paranoia… until the day that his now pregnant girlfriend gets sick and dies.

And then the world resets about 9 months.

Only George doesn’t forget what happened before. Yet he’s the only one. So he starts preparing for the worst, scaring his lady and friends, and basically acting like a crazy person. It isn’t until a woman shows up (Archie) who informs him he’s not the only one who can remember the previous timelines. That she works for a Lazarus Project who has been tasked with ensuring the big, world ending threats, don’t end up destroying the world. She tells them that the catch is they can only go back to July 1 of the current year, and if the clock strikes midnight on June 30, then that new July 1 becomes a new Save Point.

And she offers him a seat at the table to help them avert the civilization endings.

The thing I love about this show is that within the first episode I was all in on George and his plight. Maybe it was due to writing a book that felt somewhat like a twin to this story, but I could really sympathize with his struggle to try and retain his sanity at the beginning. And then later when he is forced to do some really, really, terrible things… I still found myself rooting for him to find a way out of the mess he’d made. Even if that meant falling short of his true goal.

Each episode trys to focus on various other characters who are apart of the Project. In this I’m reminded of the flashback sequences from Lost. Here, they look at some of the aborted timelines, where we see the issues each of them have stuggled with in the past while also doing a nice job of still connecting to George’s journey throughout. These are flawed humans dealing with some level of shit which can only wear and tear on your pysche.

These shows do a masterful job of making small connections mean nothing when they are introduced, but soon enough you begin to see how every little thing connects. Sometims you expect it and other times you will be completely caught off-guard by how a reveal in act 1 of an episode suddenly changes everything about something you previously thought you knew and understood.

The only bad thing I have to say about the show is that it is only 8 episodes so far, and the cliffhanger they left us on after season 1 had me completely in shock wishing my DVR had one more episode. However, from what I’ve read, they are in the process of filming right now, so the wait may not be quite as long.

If you like any of the shows or movies I referenced above… if you like really good science fiction with solid character work… if you like paying attention and having it pay off later – then this is the show for you.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Book Report – The Plot

As a writer you are constantly searching for the next plot, the next story, the next character… the next work you are going to be pouring your soul into. I have a bunch of old and in-progress files on the computer with short story ideas. Sometimes there is a little meat on those bones… stories I come back to from time to time and work on. In some cases they are still in that folder because I haven’t quite figured it out. Maybe I have the beats but not the ending. Maybe I have the ending but no idea of how to get there. Maybe it is little more than a concept or tagline. Something just waiting for inspiration to strike so that it can become a real story.

Whether you are able to write a book in a few months (weeks?) or it takes decades (still waiting on a couple of series…), you feel like there has to be something out there which has never been seen. Something which will put you on the map and finally get you to the best seller list (or maybe just your local library… whatever your goals might be). It’s the Great White Whale. And that singular idea is enough to keep many constantly rattling away on their keyboards into the deepest parts of the night.

Which brings us to The Plot (by Jean Hanff Korelitz).

***

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

Jacob Bonner is a writer who has lost his way. He’s someone who had their first novel come out to a little bit of fanfare. Nothing huge, but enough that he thought he was someone. Then his second book doesn’t do anything. And now, only a handful of years later he has fallen into a measure of obscurity. He now teaches other writers at colleges, doing the bare minimum to help them pursue the dream that he is sure he deserves.

Until one of his students comes in with an idea for a book that he hasn’t heard before. This is the ONE. Something that will make his student famous. Something that will ensure everyone will be talking about it.

For Jacob, it helps sink him into further depression.

Time continues on and he looks up that writer… only to discover he died without ever actually publishing a novel. So Jacob takes the PLOT and writes the book. And it is everything he wanted. The fame, the money, the book tours… and so much more. Things are going great until he gets an email which says “You are a thief.”

***

What’s interesting about the novel is the author employs a technique I haven’t actually see in a novel since I read Misery by Stephen King: we get to read excerpts from the stolen book throughout our journey with Jacob. It’s a bit jarring at first, I must admit that I wasn’t sure why we were getting to see what the book was going to be about because in my mind whatever THE PLOT actually was would either end up in a couple of directions:

We never actually get to see what it really was because nothing Korelitz presents as the actual Plot wouldn’t live up to the ethereal idea in the readers head.

Or we get to see what it is and are disappointed by whatever it is because we’ve built it up as something which doesn’t exist.

So to include the pages from the novel within the novel felt a little like filler at first. A distraction from the overall plotline we are following: who sent the email? That’s what I wanted to know and every chapter that we spent on the other novel broke up our journey.

Being a writer, I should have had more faith in the web Korelitz was creating throughout the narrative. Slowly, we begin to see how what Jacob has written helps inform us reading The Plot of what might be going on between the lines of both pieces. It ends up working out pretty well, though there is a part of me that wonders if a couple of the sections could have been trimmed and then spread out a little bit more.

***

The funny thing is that Jacob is searching throughout for something that will propel him into the life he always wanted, but I could see his story as being told on the big screen. Movie life imitating printed life?

Is that even a thing?

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Movie Review – Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

After spending the last two blog posts talking about Marvel’s Phase 4 movies, I finally managed to get out and see the first movie to kick off Phase 5: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. While the Phase 4 movies and shows gave us glimpses of where (when?) we might be heading… it is here that the big storyline for the MCU really kicks into gear.

It’s an interesting choice to use an Ant-Man movie for this purpose as the first and second movies were really elaborate “caper” movies. They played things more for the laughs. And yes, while Marvel movies love their comedy bits, I feel like the Ant-Man movies lean into the full comedy with a touch of science fiction. So if you were to tell me which Marvel character would be best suited to provide us with Kang the Conqueror, I would have probably leaned more toward a Thor movie or Guardians of the Galaxy or even The Eternals (if you had to). In the comics, Kang is traditionally a full Avengers team opponent, so no matter who had first contact with him, it should potentially leave us with the idea of “We’re going to need the whole Avengers team to deal with this.”

Ant-Man 3 then has to really pivot from those first two movies. The sidekick friends are missing from the film to instead focus on the surrogate Pym/Lang family which has developed in the time since End Game. Really, there is no opportunity to spend much time with anyone else, as we quickly find our heroes all trapped in the Quantum Realm doing their best to navigate this alien world and find their way back to each other.

All the while, the threat of Kang the Conqueror hangs over them (and the world).

This is very much a superhero movie with BIG STAKES.

Michelle Pfiefer’s Janet Pym is effectively a co-lead within the movie. She is the only one of the five who has any real idea of what might be in store within this world, and therefore literally takes the lead trying to reunite the family and find a way home. Which works well for the most part… however, her character does the trope of not telling her family about Kang and the danger he represents for nearly half the movie. This isn’t a case of a story where maybe the character with “knowledge” doesn’t know whether she can trust the people she is with… no, she’s with her husband and daughter. But instead of taking ten minutes to let them in on the big problem they have, she instead dodges the question.

Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man also gets to play the big hero in this movie. It’s another place where you can really see where this character has started back in Ant-Man 1, and where he’s ended up. He’s someone who is content to not play hero. He’s someone who lost 5 years with his daughter. Someone who also was directly responsible for saving everyone who were Blipped. He’s an Avenger. And while they play that bit for laughs, with that designation, he’s someone who has to help others (or, at least he should).

I really liked the various alien creatures ont he world. Many of them had very cool and unique looks to them that I almost wondered what a Quantum Realm tv show should look like. There was an oddity to some (much) of it and while many of those characters offered some humor, for the most part I thought it worked.

However, what didn’t work for me was MODOK. Without getting to in the weeds (and spoilery), MODOK is a character that comes off as a complete joke. Everything is played for laughs, which makes little to no sense considering he is a Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing. Leading up to his appearance he is called the Hunter. Someone who is not only dangerous, but is basically death for those who encounter him.

Yet, that is never shown. Instead it is one character making fun of him after the next. There is a never a moment I really feel like he should be taken seriously. And while I’m not a big fan of the character in the comics, there might have been a way to do him justice… this wasn’t it.

***

So does this work as the launch of Phase 5? Does this movie start the ball rolling for the Kang saga?

Yes. I think that Kang is shown as a very credible threat. Someone who is not only powerful, but he’s powerful on a scale completely different from Thanos. Where Thanos sought to change the fundamental nature of the universe, Kang is someone who snuffs out timelines. He arrives and he conquers. Because that is who he is. It isn’t for some misguided attempt at a noble reason. It is because he can.

And that is someone who the Avengers (and Fantastic Four and maybe the X-Men) will need to be brought back together to stop.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Book Report – The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

I’m a sucker for a few types of stories. Time travel, parallel worlds, time loops… and Deal with the Devil stories. I’m fascinated by the portrayal of the Devil in these tales. Sometimes he comes across as a sheer power of evil that only hopes to catch the deal-maker in a Monkey’s Paw-style wish fulfillment. The type that is going to rules lawyer you into the worst version of the deal you could have made because words have power… and specific terms can allow for precise parameters. Other times we see a version that is less adversarial. A version that is merely a being doing a job, trading a wish for a soul, the basic bartering system. A being who is both above it all, and also very much a mirror to reflect our own wants and desires.

Other times you get the best of both worlds, and it is left up to the seller to figure out exactly what kind of deal they’ve made and exactly what kind of being they have made it with.

That’s where we find ourselves with Addie LaRue. She’s a person who made a deal that is twisted into saving her from an impending marriage (that she does not want) to becoming an immortal who can do pretty much whatever she wants… with one caveat:

No one will remember her.

She can interact with people. She can carry on conversations with people for hours upon hours, but once she leaves their sight… they forget her.

Image by Edar from Pixabay

Throughout the book, we alternate chapters set in the present (2014) and in the past, beginning in the 1700s and slowly working their way to catch up with the present time. We’re told her story in these little bits and pieces, filling in some of the gaps in her present-day existence. V.E. Schwab does a deft job in not lingering too long in any one time period, though, it might have taken a little too long to get to the deal (not sure of the page count before the moment, but as a reader you know it is coming and yet it felt like it took a couple of chapters too long to get there). That being said, once the Deal happens, the book begins building steam as we rocket to the next big moment:

Addie meets someone who doesn’t forget her.

Throughout the novel, we get to see exactly how the life of someone who is forgettable actually might work. Schwab doesn’t shy away from the more unsavory portions of her life when she pretty much has to do whatever she can to get through a day. And this is the part of the novel that really contrasts with every other story about immortal beings. Most of the time they are able to enjoy their existence, day in and day out, even if the days pass into months and then into years and decades. Here we get someone who really has to experience her life one day at a time. She has no home, no clothes save for the ones on her back, no friends, no family, and potentially nothing holding her back.

All along the way, she gets to deal with somewhat yearly visits from the Devil (Luc). A bit of a contest between the two of them, for it is his job to collect her soul, but how do you convince someone who is immortal to give up on that? The confrontations range from verbal sparring to more of a carefully constructed dance between two beings who are playing a game on a level the rest of us will never know or see.

Luc is dealt with as a “someone” while also reminding Addie (and the reader) that he is more of a “something”. And like the titular character, I found myself wondering about his interactions with her, trying to determine how genuine he was or wasn’t. Even though the book isn’t about him, he is both this seen and unseen force always lurking in the background (or directly in the foreground). You can’t defeat him in a traditional sense, so you have to hope that Addie is able to outsmart him.

It is nice to see a version of the Devil shown in a complex way. He should be a being that is above the everyday things of the world, but also one who seemingly preys on the unsuspecting. However, they are the ones who make the deals. He never forces anyone to do anything they didn’t want… even if they don’t always understand the true meaning behind the contract they “signed”.

***

As we approached the end of the book, I had determined a possible ending for the novel, and it turned out I was both right and wrong… which I think is probably the best way for it to have ended. It’s nice to have a little bit of a surprise.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Tales of the Walking Dead – Season 1 Review

I’ve been thinking about anthologies a fair amount recently. From short story collections to old-school television shows, these shorter narratives can help to illuminate a story idea that can’t or shouldn’t be told in a longer format. In addition, when you are dealing with a shared universe like The Walking Dead, something like Tales of the Walking Dead should not only allow you to tell stories that wouldn’t fit within the regular series but also allow you to expand the world along the edges. These should be stories that could only exist within this universe. They should not be horror stories for the sake of horror stories.

I should come away with the idea that these are Walking Dead Horror stories.

 

EP 1 – “Evie / Joe”

I would consider this the quintessential Walking Dead story: The Travel Story. Much of the main show is about our characters going from Point A to Point B. Sometimes they are looking for supplies or a new home, and other times they are looking for a singular person. “Evie/Joe” is exactly that. Our two main characters meet once Joe is on the road. Like many other times, we can see the initial distrust bloom into an odd couple friendship. They are both looking for meaning in the dead world: Evie through trying to find her boyfriend and Joe through trying to find someone who he communicated with prior to the end of the world.

Overall this episode is less “scary” and more of a fun story. It’s the perfect lead-in for the series.

 

EP 2 – “Blair / Gina”

The spoiler for this episode – it is a Groundhog Day situation. The episode takes place at the very beginning of the outbreak where no one knows the world is about to end but viewers get to see all the tell-tale signs of impending doom. At the center of it is a story of two women who work together… who hate each other… and who find themselves reliving the same day over and over. Try as they might, they can’t seem to break the cycle, nor can they stay away from each other.

As a character study on two very different people (one beat down by the life she’s created for herself and the other beat down by her boss), this works really well. It plays both for horror and laughs, but really the horror is that it will take the apocalypse for either of them to start trying. However, while I’m a sucker for Groundhog Day-style storytelling, this one is a bit jarring within the bigger universe. At no point in the series are we led to believe some form of weird physics or magic is alive and well. And going back to my original idea, this could have taken place in any horror anthology as nothing makes it strictly Walking Dead.

 

EP 3 – “Dee”

I must admit it was strange to find a very familiar character as the centerpiece of this episode: Alpha of the Whisperers. Where in the show we saw her origin story, this episode deals with the time between her “beginning” and joining the Whisperers.

Given what we know about Alpha (or “Dee”), her obsession with keeping her daughter, Lydia, safe is on full display here. What’s interesting is that we know her only as a villain, so I admit it colored my perception of her throughout this story. It seemed as if the writers understood that idea as well as they presented the viewer with numerous opportunities for not only the other characters on the show to not believe her but us as well. It also gave a little more insight into how she might be OK with allowing her daughter to stay with the Alexandrians later on (the loving Mother).

While this was a story that could have been told within the main show, I can understand not wanting to stop that narrative for an episode like this. In light of this, I have to wonder if future seasons might use this format to shine a light on some of the lesser-known characters we’ve met on the way.

 

EP 4 – “Amy / Dr. Everett”

My favorite episode of the season, and the one which fulfilled the promise of what this show might or might not be. Dr. Everett is a biologist who has decided to study the Walkers. He’s marking their migration patterns, the idea they might display different traits/functions among the overall group/herd. Set in this odd area of America where a portion of the land has been cut off. This allows him to see how the land has begun to come back. The animals are thriving.

All without human interference.

This was an episode that leaned into the world’s overall lore, but also managed to expand some of the concepts in ways I hadn’t considered. Is it better if humans weren’t around? For the Earth, it appears the answer is yes.

 

EP 5 – “Davon”

An episode that swung for the fences, but I fear didn’t quite connect for me. Told in a series of flashbacks, the story focuses on Davon, a man who wakes up with gaps in his memory and is handcuffed to a dead person. Who then starts calling him a murderer. Throughout we get to see glimpses of what happened, slowly seeing how Davon ended up in a very isolated village, and how he found himself hunted by those same people who brought him in.

I’m not sure why this one didn’t click for me, but I think part of it was it felt more like a story that could have been told about any isolated community. The only Walkers we really saw were at the end, and while they did get a bit of mileage out of the “is the dead woman in his head or is it a zombie or…”, ultimately it could have been told in any horror anthology.

Image by Sandy Flowers from Pixabay

EP 6 – “La Dona”

What happens when you mix zombies and a haunted house story? You get something that is a bit different than anything we’ve seen in this series. Many times in a normal haunted house story, you have to suspend disbelief on why the characters would stay in a place that might be driving them insane. However, in this, we have a situation where going back out into the Zombie infested world is also insanity. Might you do your damnest to try and find a way to make it work? Might it be worth it to ignore all the odd and horrific dreams?

That’s a story that really looks at the world and says “how can we push things”.

***

While not every story in anthology has to work, I think it is important to figure out why or why not they might have worked within the framework we’ve been given. It’s something that I’m thinking about for my own work.

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

 

Book Report – The Lincoln Highway

The Lincoln Highway is a book where the destination (the end of the titular Lincoln Highway) isn’t the important part of the journey. It gives the characters a goal, to be sure, but this is a novel about the obstacles and potential growth of the main players of the story.

Let me start by saying that I enjoyed the book overall. It definitely falls into that “Great American Novel” category which is one I don’t read very much (or at least not since college). However, there were some choices the author made that made me think about how novels and movies are structured and had me pondering whether or not they were techniques that added to the story or not.

So in that sense, this will be less of a book report and more of me pondering if something worked for me or not.

I definitely like to read for “enjoyment” purposes, but I’m also always looking for things that other authors do that I can learn from. One of those things that Amor Towles did in this book was he had two main POV characters: Emmett and Dutchess, but he wasn’t afraid to occasionally give one of the other characters the POV for a chapter or two in order to illuminate the story from a different perspective. Now, this ends up doing a couple of things, he’s able to show us exactly how others see our main characters and allows us to see a larger part of the world he’s trying to build.

The only problem with this is that in doing this, by spending that time on these other characters, do you gain more than you potentially lose? For example, in the book, one of the characters we meet is the author of a book on mythological and real (legendary) characters in which Emmett’s 8-year-old brother is obsessed. At one point, Billy ends up meeting this author, and it is a very cute scene. However, it ends up leading to a short chapter where this author is the POV character (showing where he ends up after his meeting with Billy). Again, it is a nice scene, but had it been a movie, I would likely expect such a chapter to end up on the cutting room floor.

Of course, books are able to dwell into such things, they have the space to “breathe”, but I’m always wondering (when I’m writing) whether the chapter is advancing something? Is it advancing the overall plotline? Is it advancing a character arc? Or is there another purpose altogether? When I’m making edits, are these beats something important to the story or is it leading us down a tangent?

The Lincoln Highway had me asking those questions (among others) a couple of times. These side characters, while important to meet and understand, may not always need to have their own chapters. Especially when you consider there were 4 leads. Could some of that information have been shown through one of them? And if not, is the moment worth having?

The other thing Towles did was not use quotation marks when separating dialogue from the rest of the narrative.

Normally you might get something like this:

“He shot him.” Terry wrapped his arms tightly around Jimmy.

However, in The Lincoln Highway, we get this:

-He shot him. Terry wrapped his arms tightly around Jimmy.

Now, when 99% of the things you read do things one way (use quotations) and suddenly you come across a work that does something completely different, it can be very jarring. And while I was able to effectively ignore it as I read along, I couldn’t help but wonder why change something if it isn’t broken. Because not having the quotation marks there sometimes made it awkward when you have a sentence like:

-What do you think you’re doing? Jimmy asked me. I wish I knew what was going on.

In the above sentence, the portion after the period… is that continuing Jimmy speaking? Is that inner narration from Terry?

Who knows? Because it effectively could be read either way.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Jimmy asked me. “I wish I knew what was going on.”

Or

“What do you think you’re doing?” Jimmy asked me. I wish I knew what was going on.

So, I’m not sold on using new notation to do something worse than what we currently have.

Finally, and this is a spoiler, so…

***

***

The book is set up as a journey to the end of the Lincoln Highway and a potential reunion with Emmett and Billy’s mother. And we never get there. In fact, we travel the other direction for the entirety of the book, and only effectively start at the New York City end of the Highway. Throughout, Emmett has a lot of inner turmoil involved with how he views his mother (who abandoned them before the book begins). And yes, had we gone to the end we might not have had a satisfactory meeting with her either. But it is another odd choice to build something up and then not deliver on the implied promise. It makes me wonder if there was a point in one of the drafts where the boys did reach the coast, and they did get their reunion. Maybe he just could never make it work?

Something else to keep in mind.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

 

 

 

Book Report – Cloud Cuckoo Land

Normally, when I choose to read a book I have a bit of an idea of what I’m getting myself into. If I pick up a Stephen King novel, I have a vague idea of where he might lead me (likely some form of horror or in the case of The Dark Tower, a twisting weird fantasy/western that seeks to answer all the questions of the universe). George R. R. Martin and the A Song of Fire and Ice novels (fantasy worlds where the world-building involved will make you wonder if the author has the time to write a book in between writing histories for his world).

But the thing with a book club is that you aren’t always picking the book, so when my mother picked Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr, I decided to go in completely cold. I didn’t look up reviews, I didn’t look at a general synopsis for the novel… heck, I don’t even think I looked at the dust jacket.

Completely blind.

I’ve read hundreds of books over the years. I like to consider myself a writer. So, I generally can get a good idea of where a story might be going. Not that I “figured out” all the twists or the big ending of a story, but more like “I bet that this character is going to do X thing and that will spur Y.” Nothing complicated, but you notice the familiar themes in stories.

I was about 50 pages into this book and didn’t know where we were going.

You see, the story takes place in 3 different time periods (during the Byzantine Empire, present-day, and then in the future on a spaceship). What in the world was going on? How in the world are these things going to connect?

I was about 150 pages into this book and still didn’t have a good feel for where we were going to end up.

Same at page 300.

Now the saving grace to all of this is that Anthony Doerr can write his ass off. There is a lyrical quality to his writing that both amazed me and made me realize I could never write like that.  He draws you in with his 5 main characters where you are living their lives alongside them. It isn’t so much a reading but more observing the stories first-hand. Even if I didn’t know what the BIG IDEA of the novel was going to end up being, I still found the characters engaging. I cried alongside them. I rejoiced when they succeeded. And I puzzled at the mysteries they attempted to discern for themselves.

Near page 400, I began to see the threads connect in very real ways. That larger story began filling in along the edges. And while I wouldn’t want to spoil anything for anyone thinking about reading the book, some of the connections between the characters came as a nice surprise in both the ways they were connected and the ways they really weren’t. With something like this, with the multiple points of view, Doerr could have almost made them 5 different novellas and that would have worked as well (again, due to the writing skill alone). But by threading them together, I think he ends up with something that is so much more than the individual pieces could have ever achieved on their own.

***

With Cloud Cuckoo Land, I learned that you don’t have to beat your reader over the head with the Big Ideas. You are allowed to let them breathe and maybe let the reader fill in some of the gaps on their own.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Book Report – The Girl With All The Gifts

My mom and I have decided to do the book club thing; however, she is hustling through the novels so far, and I’m taking my dear sweet time. She got to choose the first book we did, so for my choice, I picked a nice, lovely book about the end of the world (timely, no?).

The thing about the horror genre is that I believe the point of every story is to show the audience what the creator is afraid of and ask whether that might also scare the reader/viewer. And while there are zombies (“Hungries”) aplenty in the novel, the novel is about the changing of society. What happens after everything has long since fallen and the handful of survivors are forced to do things that may go past the line in the world before (or even this world).

Zombie stories have a lot of baggage to carry with them at this point. The Walking Dead has been on the air for more than a decade at this point. I’m sure that everyone has their own zombie story (heck I do… I just haven’t written it yet). With all of that comes the need to look at the genre from a slightly different angle.

So what if there was a little girl who was really smart. A little girl who was fascinated by the Greek myths. A little girl who adores her teacher Miss Justineau.

Image by Simon Wijers from Pixabay

Oh, and by the way, a little girl who is basically a zombie (“Hungry”) who just happens to be able to think and speak and do pretty much anything else a little girl might normally do, except lose her mind when she smells human flesh.

You know, just a little thing.

What M.R. Carey does a great job of is really showing us this world through Melanie’s eyes for the first handful of chapters. As the reader, we know that things are normal (even if we may not completely know what he is at this point), but because we live for so long through only her, we not only get a really good look at why she thinks what she thinks, but also how she’s been institutionalized by this strange life she’s living. She knows nothing different, and can’t yearn for much more than what she has.

And that’s the real question at the heart of the book: Is Melanie a monster or a little girl or something else entirely?

It can be a bit heartbreaking to have her work through these revelations herself. When she’s considering the same questions the readers are considering, it makes determining the answer that much more difficult than if we couldn’t see into her thought process. To read how she can feel the hunger within her take over completely and have that moment always in the back of her thoughts when she is dealing with the others of her little world. How can you protect those you love when you can’t trust yourself.

And trust is at a premium throughout the novel. Melanie can’t trust the Doctor. The Doctor can’t trust the Sergeant. The Sergeant isn’t sure about Melanie.

The other twist of the novel is how much science enters into the story.  The author takes us through the reasons why all of this is happening and how. Where so many zombie stories handwave the WHY, it was a nice addition to the story and played a very important part in the development of the world.

***

One of the best compliments I can say about The Girl With All The Gifts is that I was reminded of I Am Legend a few times. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I won’t say any more.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Behind the Comic: – Anatomy of a Panel – In Our Dreams Awake #1

 

We have about a week left to go on the In Our Dreams Awake #1 Kickstarter, so be sure to check it out!

***

Taken as a whole, a comic book represents the input of multiple people, multiple perspectives, and multiple skill sets before the final product is created. I’ve said many times in the past that one of the reasons I love the format is exactly for that reason. You get to feed off of the creatives who you work with. And what begins as one thing can become something completely different in execution (and making the overall comic that much better).

 

In Our Dreams Awake #1 – Page 7, Panels 7 & 8

The Team

Pencils – Edgar Salazar

Inks – Genaro Olavarrieta

Letters – Egg Embry

Writer – John McGuire

 

Concept

This pair of panels represent the end of a larger conversation within the issue. So much of this world that Jason Byron lives (dreams?) in is dictated by the mages who control everything. They ensure the chaos technology threatens to bring to the people can never exist again. They are Order.

And to go against that would mean going against everything they stand for… and that way lies madness.

So what do we see? We see that Edgar made a choice to not allow for any other colors within these two panels, but instead presented them as a pair of black and white moments. Two men, representing opposite beliefs about their world, are separated by the small table.

 

The Script

Page 7 Panel 7

Annoyed by Peter’s accusation, Jason pushes himself away from the table as if to get up.

Jason – I know all of this, Peter.

Peter – So ask me your question again.

 

Page 7 Panel 8

Same shot as Panel 7 (Jason is still sitting). Jason pauses. No words are needed.

 

Breakdown

As you can see from the script, I actually made a slight mistake between the two panels. In Panel 7, Jason is frustrated/annoyed and pushes himself away from the table. Edgar followed that showing him standing up. His body language is very tense. However, when we come to Panel 8, I note that “Jason is still sitting”…

No, John, he is not.

But Edgar went with it, and I think it actually works in this visual context because of the artist’s choice to make these mirror images of each other (in regards to the black and white). Where Jason was angry in the previous moment, he has sat back down. But instead of either of them furthering the conversation, the darkness envelops them instead pointing two the very ideas that they stand for can not exist alongside one another.

It even mocks the prompt from Peter in Panel 7: “So ask me your question again.” Panel 8 answers that prompt with silence. There is no need to push the issue any longer.

There are no shades of gray here in this place.

***

But perhaps there is another world for Jason to find peace? One he can visit while he dreams?

***

Please check out the current Kickstarter for In Our Dreams Awake!

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com