JamesSavik

The Unblinking Eye Once upon a time, the news of the world came to us at the sedate speed of the newspaper man's Linotype. The news of the world would arrive at your door every morning along with sports, comics, book reviews and obituaries. On its way, editors might decide that the typhoon in China or the earthquake in Persia wouldn’t be of interest to local subscribers. Sometimes the images of distant disasters and war took weeks or months to end up before the public. Given the advances in telecommunications like microwave relays and satellites, the news cycle, and vast amounts of information can reach us as it happens. Now we can see the great events in real time. Our generation has seen more, known more, been more connected than ever before. We have had a high definition box seat to every earthquake, every volcano, every hurricane, every typhoon, every forest fire, every terrorist bomb, every war, every plague, and every human misery across the globe. It’s only human for people to say- I just don’t remember this much chaos in the old days. That chaos has always been there. We just weren’t as connected. Now we have to consider exactly what we are shown and what gets left on the cutting room floor. In the eighties, we wouldn’t have seen that typhoon roll over Taiwan. In the nineties we wouldn’t have seen the glaciers calving in the Antarctic. There’s a reason why we are seeing this and not something else. There’s a reason why we see human interest stories and silly cat pictures instead of something else. I won’t suggest whose agenda is being served. I won’t suggest that it is all a huge political cat fight. No one is stupid. We know this. It’s just important as you sit in front of your digitally multiplexed information pipeline to your brain that the people turning the spigots have a purpose and an agenda. It’s up to you to think for yourself and decide whether that purpose and agenda is in your best interests, your country’s best interests or the world's best interests. These images are not flat. They are three-dimensional and interactive. We are not simply observers. We are also players in this huge game and must take responsibility for our tiny part of it. How that works is a personal choice, but the great game is in progress and will continue with or without your input.

I tend to write people I've known or composites of people I've known. If you're familiar with The Company or The Summer Job, I've known most of those characters and their backstory. I didn't do that to be creepy. A lot of those guys didn't survive the eighties/nineties. Much of The Company is the author's wish fulfillment, and in the story, they survive and thrive. In The Summer Job, the characters illustrated why they acted as they did, and how sometimes people can be perceived as villainous, but are redeemed when you get to know them better.

viva la guillotiné

I wait a year or so before I upgrade. Innovators can have the bleeding edge. I'm done with doing free beta testing for MicroShaft.

I bought a few copies to give to the nieces and nephews for Christmas. After they saw the movie, they were motivated to see what happens next. Use every bit of literary jujitsu to GET THEM READING and KEEP THEM READING.

Their Last Battlefield Uncharted space, Scutum-Centaurus Arm The bridge of the fleet carrier Intrepid was quiet. Captain Carter only had a minimal bridge watch on hand. The carrier and accompanying escort group were on station at the rendezvous point waiting for her brood of scout ships to return. She had been on deployment for six months while her attached scouts had scanned thousands of previously uncharted star systems. When the Rim War ended, the Alliance fou

Explorers surveying the galaxy find something humbling and frightening.

The little girl with the blond pigtails is carrying the whole piece!

I try to be kind evaluating writers- especially rookies. No matter how bad their stuff is, I can look back at some of my earlier work and find worse. 😦 Writing is like everything else. You only get better by working at it. Oh, sure. There are the rare prodigies and their every line is brilliant, but most of us have to work at it. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you hit the ball over the fence. Sometimes you run into the fence. This is an art, not a science.

Drama occurs at the sharp edges of life where there is conflict and struggle. Drama occurs in war, disaster, crime, bad relationships, middle school and all sorts of uncomfortable places. Authors take you there, but it's the reader's choice whether they go. When there is a mature content or abuse warning, and I'm pretty good about placing them, you proceed at your own psychic risk. Authors are offering you a magic carpet ride. To make it interesting, sometimes we take you through some bad neighborhoods. Some people will love that ride. Others will barf. Revel in the freedom of making that choice for yourself and not letting the bastards below decide what you can and cannot read. . You might think no, that could never happen. Think again. Before 2021, did you ever in your wildest dreams imagine you might lose your job over a vaccination for a bad cold? There are those people who have a compulsion is to control others that's like a sickness with them. Many people call them Karen's. 👺 There are those people (like me) who live to give Karen the finger. 🖕 Who do you suppose has more fun? 😎

Mud is an attractive nuisance to redneck kids. We'll play football in it and get so muddy, our Mom's have to hose us down in the yard before they let us in the house.

I saw Dune today, and it is a remarkable movie. I can't imagine a better treatment of the source material. It was obviously part 1 of a series- I can see two, or maybe even a third part. Recently saw that part two is in production. This has the earmarks of a passion project for the director- much like the Lord of the Rings series. I've become very, very cynical regarding Hollywood's work recently. It has been uniformly so bad, I don't want to waste my consciousness on it. Villanueva's Dune is what movies should be. On a scale of one to five stars, it's a whole cluster.

Thanks for your efforts. Our anthologies are always something special.

If you consider the media-heads to be clowns, and their words attempted comedy, the duplicity doesn't sting quite as much.

Remember the cool part of the 90s? No, not when the good hash from Lebanon was going around. When the Bloodhound Gang was doing wut they did...

In most households, it is the Mom who is the preeminent personage because if she's not happy, nobody else will be.

Thinking of aliens, it occurred to me most of them are probably extinct. Given that the universe as it is currently configured is around 16 billion years old, the oldest stars in our galaxy are 8 billion years old, there’s been time enough for races to evolve and die out. Considering that most species that have ever lived on earth are extinct, that may be the answer to the Fermi paradox. Our galaxy may well be inhabited mostly by.tomb worlds and ghosts.

I don't think so. It should evolve naturally I think.

One of the things that is consistent in my writing is that many (probably most) of my characters are military BRATs (Born, Raised and Transferred). We're a little different in the way we think, act and are very often that new guy. Someone asked me why that is, and I guess it's because it is the people I know. I look for stories about us but rarely see them. I'm NOT surprised to see that military tag trending so high. You really might be surprised how many of us are BRATs or even vets despite generations of... odd ideas about gay people not being fierce enough to be soldiers, sailors and airmen. When I was younger, I met many WW2 era gay vets that had been to such charming places like Anzio, Guadalcanal and Saipan. Most of them are gone now but never let it be said that we are any less Americans or haven't done our part.

And punch you in the throat.

Inspired or long-winded. 😁

That's what happens to my short stories.