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I mentioned the Eragon books a few weeks ago. They did make a movie out of the book. I liked the movie enough, but it has some weaknesses. The director's leather fetish for the young male actors was not one of them. This is worth seeing if you enjoy fantasy, dragons etc. The effects were done well and Jeremy Irons always adds some gravitas to what he shows up in. And the bad guy is played by John Malcovitch. Check it out.

Tolkien strikes me as too much of a world builder. The stories drove me nuts because he'd spend far too much time on songs and languages and not do anything to move the story forward. A Milieu story from Orson Scott Card's MICE quotient: http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2012/10/orson-scott-card-mice-quotient-how-to.html Milieu stories typically drive modern folks crazy. Example: The excessively long starship opening sequences in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Alien, etc. Parodied in Spaceballs. Drawing it out to show scale and induce wonder. Modern audiences don't have the attention span for that anymore. lol. Doesn't matter if it is a book or a movie.

There is quite a history in the 30's of two friendly writing rivals... Mr. C.S. Lewis and Mr. J.R.R. Tolkien. They inspired and challenged each other. Both of them had a desire to write the moral tenants of Christianity without propagandizing it. The Chronicles of Narnia roughly parallel the Bible, actually. The Magician's Nephew is the story of creation. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is the story of the resurrection. The Horse and His Boy is a parable of sorts. Prince Caspian is about the perseverance of faith. Voyage of the Dawn Treader has a number of parables as well as the perseverance of faith (Reepicheep) and redemption (Eustance). The Silver Chair is a parable. And The Last Battle is the end and what comes next. All that is if you want some deeper meaning from the stories. If you're just looking for something good to read, then this is worth the time.

@Timothy M. this is a personal favorite coaster of mine : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYNvlfAvlvs Heck, my life is so much like a roller coaster I even hear the screaming. lol. Another great article @Comicality

That is the hardest of the bunch to read, yes. This was my favorite of the books when I was in 6th grade.

This is a 7 book series. It is also a complete classic, though most people are only familiar with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. (Book 1 in published order) There has been a long debate amongst fans of what order you are supposed to read the books. This single volume version puts the story in chronological order, instead of published order. It makes a lot more sense this way. The books Chronologically: The Magician's Nephew The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe The Horse and His Boy Prince Caspian Voyage of the Dawn Treader The Silver Chair The Last Battle They are a pretty quick read and if you've never taken the time, they are well worth it.

Welcome back to the weekly Anthology Flashback. We'll start up again with cool thoughts from Winter 2011 as summer starts to heat up everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere.

I thought I would swing around to Clubs again for this Tech Tuesday. Clubs are semi-private groups here on Gay Authors. We have a few different clubs available currently, and you can find them under the Club Link on the main red menu. I strongly encourage our authors to join the Writer's Circle. There are a lot of ongoing discussions in there, and our friend @BHopper2 has been nice enough to start his own ongoing topic discussions each Tuesday which have brought forth some great discussions on writing and interacting in the community. The Pit, of course, is where you can talk about politics. For the Fantasy Writers out there, there is a fantasy writing group. Same for Sci-Fi and Poetry. If you are just a general tech and science geek, there is a club of that. There is also a health group where folks are discussing health and fitness stuff. Getting into a club is easy. Just hit the Join Club button and someone will approve you within a day, typically. When you've joined a club, and you go to the Club page, you can see which clubs you are a member of and the latest updated topics. When you're in a club, theres a button on the home page of the club that allows you to follow the entire club and see the latest activity with notifications. If you are on the Main Forums page and you scroll to the bottom, you can see all of your Club Forums in one place. If you haven't jumped into a club yet, now is a great time!

So I mentioned I am Number Four series of books by Pittacus Lore last Friday in my book blog. They did manage to make one movie of the series. It was a decent adventure with some nice eyecandy. Special effects were good and the movie was decent.

I'm going to have to say PlayStation 4 does... Xbox makes up for it a bit with backwards compatibility and X-enhanced games and giving away 4 free games a month... but... since Xbox is 3rd party games + Halo + Sea of Thieves + Gears of War... it just can't touch the variety you get on PS4... since you get all the 3rd party games Xbox has plus a slew of exclusives. Switch is not even in the ballgame since they don't have much of 3rd party games or first party. Though they do have some outstanding ones.

Now that I've got platform agnostic this generation buy getting every system, I thought I'd weigh in on things. First up, I've been an Xbox guy since early 2006. Before that, I was a PC guy pretty much exclusively. I always enjoyed Super Mario Brothers, Castlevania, and Zelda games on Nintendo though. Current Hardware setup: I have a 7.2.2 (2 Dolby Atmos speakers. 7 standard speakers and 2 sub-woofers). have a late model Samsung 4k tv with HDR. I have an Xbox One X, a PlayStation 4 Pro and a Nintendo Switch. Xbox One X Pros Best Hardware as far as power goes. Every game that is on all systems, looks best here. Friendliest User Interface of the bunch Best controller for people with larger hands With the new group feature, hands down best way to organize digital content on any of the consoles. Backwards compatible games Xbox One X enhanced 4k games... even of multiple 360 titles. Negatives Single player games are a bit weak on this system. There are basically no Exclusive games. Especially good story based ones Store is well organized but can be dog slow far too often. PlayStation 4 Pros Best looking console. The flashy lights on both the console and controller appeal to my inner self yelling "Squirrel!" Best Singleplayer exclusive games (Though Nintendo does well here) Games play great on the Pro console Digital Store has a cart. That's great! Negatives The most god-awful user interface I've ever had to deal with. I can see this being an utter nightmare if you get more than 10 or digital games installed. The digital store's search function is obnoxiously bad. Digital stores doesn't even work. Sony is incapable of processing digital purchases. I had to contact support (I never contact support) and they told me to buy a Sony Gift card on Amazon and load money that way to buy digital games. WTF? I want to spend money and they can't even take it. And It was ANY form of payment. I tried credit cards, debit cards and PayPal and it just choked. Did I mention their store sucks? If you have big hands, their controller is a bit dainty. Did I mention their store sucks? Nintendo Switch Pros Portable Zelda: Breath of the Wild Mario Odyssey Negatives Underpowered hardware, though Nintendo does their thing well with it. Motion controller is gimicky Switch controller joypad thingy is goofy Pro controller is expensive as hell

I got this last night and after a long battle with the most obnoxious digital store I've ever found, I've gotten the game loaded and playing. It looks great.

Thanks, @Comicality for more writing insights!

Agreed... except I'd also add Harry Potter and the Order the Phoenix. I HATED that book. I threw it across the room twice when I read it and I haven't read it since.

I Am Number Four is an interesting book. Human looking aliens are amongst us and they are being hunted by some really bad aliens. It's quite the romp and an enjoyable book. It's the first in a whole series that has a follow up in the pipeline as well. I enjoyed it and I really need to spend some time to finish reading the whole series. Check it out!

I got mine too

It's the way the software is implemented. They aren't always consistent on features and Stories is usually lagging when a feature of the base software changes.

I've got an Xbox 360, Xbox One X, a Nintendo Switch and a PC for gaming. There is a big sale next week where I will get a Playstation 4 Pro to round out my game machine collection and finally solve that stupid "exclusive game" issue.

What's your major gaming system of choice?

I'm definitely a fan of sticking snark into stuff. It just naturally appears for me though the vast majority of the time.

You know he's had a few new ones since then? I think number 10 was a couple months ago.

Whoops! Yeah, I've got anthologies burned into my brain. lol

So, there are times where I want to read a little lighter fare that is still good. Alex Rider series definitely fits this niche for me. His adventures are all over the top. He's pretty much a teenage James Bond. The author is good across multiple genres as well. I've read a few different things. He's also written a well-received James Bond novel and two Sherlock Holmes novels. Anyway, if action-adventure is your thing, the Alex Rider series of books (11 and counting) is worth a read.

That's only part of it. The full answer is here:

Sorry this is late. It's been a heck of week trying to catch up from that annoying downtime with the internet. Anyway, I picked up a Nintendo Switch on a whim. This is probably my midlife crisis. I'll be picking up a Playstation 4 Pro in a few weeks. lol. Anyway, for my 41st birthday, I picked up a Nintendo Switch so I can relive my youth playing Mario and Zelda. And Donkey Kong. And probably Kirby too. It's definitely a cute little toy and I seriously doubt I'll ever mess with it much undocked. Do you guys have one? What games do you like?