MINE! wins Ringo Award for Best Anthology!

IT’S A MAJOR AWARD!

On Saturday the 29th of September, the Ringo Awards were presented at Baltimore Comic-Con, and I’m thrilled to announce that MINE!: A Celebration of Liberty and Freedom for All Benefiting Planned Parenthood won for Best Anthology!

I am honored to have contributed to this anthology — the story “In Defense of Self,” with art and lettering by the superlative Tom Daly — and thrilled that, for the second time this year, I get to share in an award.

Congrats to editors Joe Corallo & Molly Jackson, publisher Glenn Hauman of ComicMix, and all eighty bajillion other contributors to this magnificent anthology, one that supports a most important cause. It’s especially heartening to see it win this week of all weeks……………………

4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, and William Hurt replace Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, and Sam Elliott, Louis Leterrier replaces Ang Lee, nobody replaces Nick Nolte (thank goodness), and yet the basic plot remains depressingly the same. The great superhero movie rewatch is deeply disappointed by 2008’s The Incredible Hulk.

An excerpt:

This may be the only MCU movie in which the villains are significantly more interesting than the heroes. William Hurt—for all that he’s nowhere near as perfect for the role as Sam Elliott was—does an excellent job showing Ross’s obsession and single-mindedness. Tim Roth shows Blonsky’s eagerness to be the powerful soldier he was in his youth, though he stops being interesting the moment he turns into the Abomination. And Tim Blake Nelson’s goofball mien beautifully obscures Sterns’s sociopathy, and my one regret in our never getting a sequel is I would love to see Nelson do the Leader.

WE’RE FUNDED!

I am pleased to say that “The Fall of Iaron” has made its funding goal! Woo! Also: Hoo!

Having said that, don’t let that stop you from pledging. You’re now guaranteed to get a short story out of this, and it’s only two bucks to just get the story! How can you pass that up?

Best of all, for a pledge of $65, you can still have a character in the story named after you! There are eleven named characters in “The Fall of Iaron,” and only one of them — Medinn the Bard, last seen in “Gan Brightblade vs. Mitos the Mighty” — has been seen before. The others are flexible in terms of nomenclature, and only four of the ten Tuckerization slots have been taken. So now’s your chance to be a character in the story!

on the radio, whoa whoa whoa whoa, on the radio

I’m gonna be on Hour of the Wolf with Jim Freund tonight at midnight (Eastern time) to discuss a whole lotta things, but mostly Doctor Who on the eve of its new season’s premiere. There’s a casting choice that was made that apparently has some people in a tizzy. That may come up in the conversation…..

There’ll also be a movie review from Dan Persons, and I will read one of my Who short stories, “Raymond’s Room” from the 2001 charity anthology Missing Pieces.

If you’re in NYC, tune your radio to 99.5 FM, WBAI. If you’re not in NYC or don’t have access to a radio (don’t laugh, we don’t actually have a radio in the house), you can listen online at WBAI.org, or watch it on Facebook Live.

 

talkin’ martial arts in Marvel’s Iron Fist

My final piece on Marvel’s Iron Fist season two looks at the Netflix show’s sophomore season from a martial arts, and fight choreography, perspective. On the one hand, it’s better than season one. On the other, it’s still wanting in many respects.

An excerpt:

Danny Rand is supposed to be the finest fighter in all K’un-Lun. He is supposed to have absorbed the lessons of kung fu, of martial arts, of being the Living Weapon better than anyone. He is supposed to be able to defeat any opponent, which is why he was given the honor of fighting Shao Lao the Undying to become the Immortal Iron Fist.

The one thing he should never, ever, ever be portrayed as is a whiny entitled twerp. And it’s not like this is arcane knowledge that only a martial artist would understand, because all Buck and his team of writers had to do to see what a good portrayal of someone from such a city trying to survive in modern New York would be is to read the comic books their TV show is based on.

talkin’ Articles of the Federation on Women at Warp

Episode 95 of the fantastic Women at Warp podcast has a conversation about my Star Trek novel Articles of the Federation, as well as excerpts from an interview with me about the book. (The entire interview can be found at the podcast’s Patreon page.)

Check it out!

4-Color to 35-Millimeter: Iron Man

We finally reach the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe! Robert Downey Jr. snarks his way through Tony Stark, Jeff Bridges is all avuncular as Obadiah Stane, Gwyneth Paltrow is radiant as Pepper Potts, and Terence Howard does nothing to make his being replaced with Don Cheadle any kind of problem as James Rhodes. The great superhero movie rewatch does Iron Man.

An excerpt:

Luckily, Iron Man is a very good movie, which is one of the main reasons why the MCU has been a success for a decade now. It starts off brilliantly, establishing Stark’s character quickly and efficiently as he sits in a Humvee holding his drink steady as it bounces through the desert and chatting with his escorts. It’s to the credit of Favreau and the screenwriters that this scene is so brilliantly effective, as we only have a few minutes to get to know these characters before they’re shot at. They don’t just redshirt the three airmen, they’re three people you actually care about, so it matters (to us and to Stark) when we see them die.

talkin’ Diplomatic Implausibility on Literary Treks

Episode #242 of the Literary Treks podcast has hosts Dan Gunther and Bruce Gibson discussing my first-ever full-length Star Trek novel, 2001’s Diplomatic Implausibility. It was the first novel to focus on Worf as a Federation ambassador following the end of Deep Space Nine, and also was the first appearance of the I.K.S. Gorkon, a crew I would continue to chronicle through a half-dozen novels. Dan and Bruce have a rather nifty in-depth discussion of the book and it’s a fun listen. Check it out!

which superhero movie gets the most comments?

I was talking in the comments thread for the rewatch of Kick-Ass 2 in the great superhero movie rewatch on Tor.com about how few comments that movie was getting — and that most of them were about the following week’s rewatch, which will be Iron Man this Friday.

So I decided to see which movies got the most comments, and which got the least. Here’s how it breaks down, as of 18 September 2018:

151 comments:
The Dark Knight Rises

118:
X-Men

106:
Watchmen

99:
The Dark Knight

98:
Superman, Superman II, Superman III, and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

91:
X-Men: The Last Stand

82:
Superman Returns 
Spider-Man (2002)

75:
Spider-Man 2

71:
Batman Forever and Batman & Robin
Spider-Man 3

70:
Mystery Men and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

69:
Daredevil

68:
Batman Begins

65:
X2: X-Men United

59:
Batman (1989) and Batman Returns

56:
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

54:
V for Vendetta
X-Men Origins: Wolverine

52:
Judge Dredd and Dredd

51:
The Rocketeer and The Phantom

50:
The Incredible Hulk (1977) and The Return of the Incredible Hulk
Blade, Blade II, and Blade Trinity

48:
Intro post
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

44:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
Fantastic Four (2005)

41:
Captain America (1990) and Fantastic Four (1994)

40:
The Punisher (1989), The Punisher (2004), and Punisher: War Zone
The Spirit (1987) and The Spirit (2008)

39:
The Wolverine
Logan

37:
Spider-Man (1977) and Dr. Strange (1978)

36:
The Incredible Hulk Returns, The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, and The Death of the Incredible Hulk

35:
Swamp Thing and The Return of Swamp Thing
Generation X and Justice League of America
Catwoman
Ghost Rider

34:
Howard the Duck and Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Hulk

33:
Captain America (1979) and Captain America II: Death Too Soon
Steel and Spawn

31:
The Crow, The Crow: City of Angels, The Crow: Salvation, and The Crow: Wicked Prayer
Constantine

30:
Barb Wire and Tank Girl

29:
Hellboy II: The Golden Army

28:
Superman and the Mole Men and Batman (1966)

24:
Wonder Woman (1974), The New Original Wonder Woman, and Supergirl

20:
Witchblade
Man-Thing

19:
Elektra
Hellboy

14:
The Mask and Son of the Mask

12:
Kick-Ass
Kick-Ass 2

my newest Kickstarter project: “The Fall of Iaron”–a tale of the Dragon Precinct universe

“The Fall of Iaron” is a story I’ve already written, which takes place in the Dragon Precinct universe, but doesn’t involve the Cliff’s End Castle Guard. Instead, it’s about the wider tapestry of life in Flingaria. It’s a story about history being written by the winners, it’s about storytelling, it’s about what makes a villain, what makes a hero, what makes a tyrant.

And it’s my latest Kickstarter project! The response to my last story in the universe that didn’t involve the detectives of the Castle Guard — “Gan Brightblade vs. Mitos the Mighty” — was really good, and people have asked for more stories beyond the scope of Torin and Danthres and the rest of the cops. So here we are.

For two bucks, the story can be yours. (For one buck, you get your name in the acknowledgments.) And for more, there are other nifty rewards, including being a character in the story, some “Precinct” swag, an audio of me reading the story, other books of mine, and best of all, my editorial services!

So please do consider pledging! You’ll be glad you did……

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/902770045/the-fall-of-iaron-a-tale-of-the-dragon-precinct-un/widget/card.html?v=2