A Far Out Fantastic Site

Credit: Pixabay.com During all of June, I’ve seemed to have been possessed by the Spirit of ’76. I had been staying up nights hunting on internet for and collecting US 250th anniversary  commemorative coins and even some American Bicentennial artifacts from a year that celebrated a revolution while social and cultural revolutions were currently going. This Fourth of July here in the US we’ll be celebrating 250 years of our nation’s freedom, or at least some level of freedom. And, like what the many of the computer hobbyists believed in the 1970s, and to quote a 1984 phrase by Stewart Brand , “information wants to be free.” And it’s because of them that information became free, at least to some extent. It’s way more easily accessible than it used to be. We can fit personal computers in our pockets now (smartphones) and, with them, can channel more information than computers could in the 1970s.  Yet, like with any technological innovation, personal computer technology can go too...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. One challenge I had occurred last week.  My Writing Challenge for the Month The challenge was a bit of writer's imposter syndrome. I felt like I was playing writer rather than being writer because it seemed like the one-hour time slot that my day job as library technician allows for me each weekday evening hasn't been enough to write and come out with a new book frequently enough. I was even more limited on time to writing fiction because I was working on my monthly Book-To-Movie review . Because of that, I had to take the week off from working on my concept sketch for the illustration to the cover for "Bad Apps", my soon-to-release book of short fiction. I was finally able to return to working on the concept sketc...

To close this month of May, I have another Book-To-Movie review for you and the latest on my upcoming book of sci-fi horror short stories, “Bad Apps”! In case, you’re new to A Far Out Fantastic Site, well, first of all welcome! Second, you should know that a Book-To-Movie is where we review a work of prose fiction and its movie adaptation, usually in the science fiction, horror, or fantasy genres. Book-To-Movie Review: 'Trucks' / 'Maximum Overdrive' Credit: Wikipedia Warning: There are spoilers throughout this review. Our first Book-To-Movie (BTM) of the year reviewed a bad Stephen King short story and its almost equally bad movie adaptation. (In fact, the movie was worse, even if just by a bit.) Today’s BTM is reviewing another bad film but one based on a way better short story by King. The movie is “Maximum Overdrive”; the story it’s based on is “Trucks”.  King’s “Trucks” is concisely written with a prophetic warning against the overuse of technology. However, the ...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I apologise for missing last month. That month kind of got off to a bad start. That week after Easter Sunday I had allergy attacks and a bad cough, the latter which I'm still trying to recover from even though I've been doing way better. I talk more about this in my post from last week , which is also the Book-To-Movie review post for April. So, check that out if you haven't already.  I'm going to skip the optional IWSG question of the month which is What was the most inspiring feedback you received from readers, including agents, editors, and beta readers?  I've gotten a lot of helpful and inspiring feedback from people who've read my work that I just can't remember a specific instance at this time.  Boo...

I want to first apologize for missing last month's Book-To-Movie review and the Insecure Writer's Support Group post earlier this month. I had family over from out of town, and then the week after Easter Sunday I had a bad allergy attack. I was so worn that I only had enough energy to write a little at a time. I’m just now getting back on track. So, I have the BTM for you below—a review of an H.G. Wells short story and its movie adaptation--but first I have the latest progress on my soon-to-release book of short stories, "Bad Apps".  ‘Bad Apps’ Progress Unfortunately, my allergy attack also put me behind on my work on “Bad Apps”, but now I’m at the easiest part of preparing my book for the formatting. I’ve been going through the manuscript to make sure I didn’t overlook any of the words and phrases underlined by the word processor’s editing feature. Many of these are words that either the programme mistakens the context they’re being used in or that I intentionally sp...

Credit: Pixabay The last four or so weeks have been a time of making revisions suggested by beta readers to my upcoming short story collection, "Bad Apps". Those revisions are almost complete. This past week, specifically, has been a time of revising the book’s blurb. The most important change I made to the blurb has to do with genre classification. But first let me mention some of the notable changes to the book itself. Latest Revisions to 'Bad Apps' The most notable of the latest revisions I made to "Bad Apps" is actually a small one, yet a very important one. One of the beta readers had suggested that I mention AI in one of the stories. I had already referred to artificial intelligence in the book’s introduction and in a few of the other stories. In fact, in one it’s the deadly antagonist. However, I needed to reflect AI in another story because that one involves a search engine—one that can read the user's mind.  When I had first wrote this story a f...