A Far Out Fantastic Site

Credit: Pixabay This is the weekend that we usually have our Book-To-Movie review, but I'm postponing it until next weekend. I was spending all day yesterday racking by brain dead while doing my state sales and use tax return, which in California is due at the beginning of each fiscal year. So, I was worn out totally by the evening. I couldn't keep focused or even awake to work on the current story in progress for my upcoming short fiction collection, "Bad Apps". So, I've been working on it this evening to make up for the lost time. However, I didn't want to leave you without a blog post this weekend since last weekend’s already got delayed to the middle of the week (too long of a delay for a weekly blog). So, I wanted to do at least a short post for this week, one that will tell you how you can get a free, pre-release edition of "Bad Apps"! And you can do that by being a volunteer beta reader! How You Can Volunteer as a Beta Reader for ‘Bad Apps’ ...

Credit: Pixabay I apologise for posting so late and not on the weekend as usual. I’ve been overdue for a new prescription of lenses and so have been working slower due to eye strain. That should all change after I go to my optometrist appointment and purchase my new glasses in August.  Last week I was at Big Brother Comics in Sacramento looking for a current issue of "The Rocketeer", a comic series that debuted in the 1980s and paid homage to super hero comics of the 1930s. I would soon find out from the employees that they sold out of the most recent series back in the spring and there would be no plans to print anymore. Which is damned sad because you get very few super hero comics like that anymore. However, I was looking through several other comics hoping to find something likened to "The Rocketeer" and when I say “likened”, I'm talking about any comic book that takes after any time period between the late 1930s and early '80s. After those years, comics...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! 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’ll admit, I just started writing this post today even though I knew that IWSG Day was coming. I meant to get started on it yesterday but I had stayed up late the night before for my family’s Fourth of July celebration (for those who don’t live in the US, that’s our national Independence Day). So, I didn’t get the sleep I should have and so was tired when I got home from my day job the next day. I sacked out for at least two hours on the couch! But besides the holiday, I’ve been really busy with my writing projects, including my current book of short fiction I’m working on, my newsletter and preparing my books for Smashwords’ big book sale .  Question for July: Living in a Book World Before I go on with these other things, let’s fi...

Be a rebel, support indie authors!   Credit: Wikimedia Commons This is going to be a short post because it's Fourth of July weekend here in the US. So, for those of you who celebrate, I don't want to keep you from family outings and celebrations, including your communities' firework shows. Also, yesterday was a long one and I need a little bit of a break myself. But I wanted to make sure that you have another outlet to celebrate freedom and independence. That is, the freedom to read the works of independent authors, also known as self-published authors. So, be a revolutionary and shop for books by indie authors at Smashwords' July Summer/Winter Sale ! The sale includes both seasons because at this time of the year it's winter in the southern hemisphere and, being an online distribution centre for books, Smashwords caters to customers from all over the world.  Books from from 75% to 100% Off the Original Price Credit: Pixabay.com That said, I’ve discounted my books  ...

Credit: Pixabay As I said last week , there won't be a Book-To-Movie this month. Again, I apologise. I should have something read by next month and its movie adaptation viewed. But I also said that I would have a movie review this week and so kept my word on that. The movie isn’t an adaptation of a book, but it is a movie about books. In fact, it’s about horror books and itself is a horror film. It's one of many movies inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. It's 1994's "In the Mouth of Madness", directed by John Carpenter ("Halloween", "The Thing").  This film isn't based on a Lovecraft story but it's clearly Lovecraftian horror.  Movie’s Synopsis, Original Theatrical Release and Reception "In the Mouth of Madness" uses many ideas from H.P. Lovecraft’s works while telling its own story. The story is an insurance investigator, John Trent (played by Sam Neill) looks into the disappearance of a bestselling horror author, Sutter Cane, w...

Credit: Pixabay.com I apologise for missing last week. I was really behind on things due to some insomnia I was having and so didn't get to post anything until now. Tuesday will be the Summer Solstice and so the first official day of summer! So, in case you’re up in the air on what to read during those upcoming scorching days when you don’t want to go out, I have my summer sci fi and fantasy reading list for you. I also have a movie mini review of “Jurassic World: Dominion” which I saw last weekend! (Fortunately, with that insomnia from that previous night, I didn’t fall asleep on it.) So, read on!  Summer Sci Fi and Fantasy Reading List The Club Dumas , by Arturo Perez-Reverte: An international bestseller from Spain, this novel is about book collector Lucas Corso who examines a fragment of the original manuscript of Alexandre Dumas's "The Three Musketeers". This leads him to a scheme involving devil worship, the occult, several people who suspiciously resemble chara...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! 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.  We’re getting into summer and that means hot weather for many of us but it also means hot books to read and hot movies to watch in a nice AC’d movie theatre. So, I’m planning to come up with my own reading list for the summer here at the Fantastic Site soon, but I already have a summer movie list up. So feel free to take a look at it. But let me forewarn you, since my blog emphasises science fiction and fantasy reading, writing and viewing, this list mostly covers movies in those genres. But even if you’re not a speculative fiction fan, you might find on the list that rare film that works for all audiences regardless of a person’s genre preference. Now let’s move on to the IWSG question of the month! IWSG Question of the Month The...