Monday Movie Mania - Avengers: Infinity War

If you go into the theater, realizing this is The Empire Strikes Back of the MCU, you'll come out, if not satisfied, at least with a calm understanding that the story is not done yet.

Also, if you haven't been watching the other MCU movies, a good chunk of the story might be a bit confusing. If you don't plan to see them before a loved one drags you to the theater, here's a primer.


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SPOILERS


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The Run-Down
There's this asshole, Thanos, who thinks the universe is overpopulated, and to save the universe from total consumption of resources, he wants to kill half the sentient beings before they do the same to their worlds as his people did to his. But to keep anyone from stopping his mass genocide, he needs the six Infinity Stones, the ultimate power in the MCU universe. The stones were introduced in the following movies:

The space stone - Captain America: The First Avenger
The mind stone - The Avengers
The reality stone - Thor: The Dark World
The power stone - Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 1
The time stone - Doctor Strange
The soul stone - Avengers: Infinity War


PROS
1) There's a certain satisfaction in seeing everything come together. Once upon a time, cross-overs in the comics were truly a special event, and the movie captures that feeling.

2) The MCU reinstated the Scarlet Witch-Vision love affair, one of my favorite story lines of the '80's.

3) The payoff in that both Tony and Thor's nightmares from Avengers: Age of Ultron are coming true and how each person deals with it.

4) Out of the handful left standing after the battle with Thanos, it will be interesting how the core Avengers deal with their first real loss in the next movie.

5) I got a chill down my back when I saw who Nick Fury contacted before Thanos took him out. I was the only one in the theater who cheered.


CONS
1) In the movies, Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye has become my favorite Avenger, and I was disappointed not to see him in this one.

2) What the hell were they thinking by putting that cheesy porn 'stache on Starlord? Seriously, dudes?!


Overall, Avengers: Infinity War earned 8.5 stars out of 10.

Music I've Been Listening to Lately

Then there's the classic orchestral scores that is so awesome and brand-new...

Happy Star Wars Day!

Murphy Is the One True God

Dear Readers,

I'm so very disappointed to say that any new releases scheduled for 2018 will be delayed indefinitely. My body has run into a brand-new issue that necessitates a bunch of diagnostic clinic and assorted doctor visits.

What does this mean for the current books-in-progress exactly? I will continue to write in between various scans, the taking of bits of flesh and blood for assorted tests, and talking to medical personnel. However, my mind is not in a place to concentrate on the finer details of publishing, such as editing and marketing.

Once we know the extent of the issue and we have a treatment plan in place, I'll let you all know the revised release schedule.

In the meantime, blogging may also become sporadic for the reasons above. Thankfully, I'm a few blogs ahead. LOL

Thank you for your patience.

Love,
Suzan

Monday Movie Mania - The Secret Lives of Pets

Sixteen-year-olds aren't into animated movies in a public theater, but they'll curl up on the couch with their moms and watch them on Netflix. LOL

No SPOILERS warning since this movie came out nearly two years ago.

Unfortunately, both of us hated The Secret Lives of Pets. Genius Kid called it a rip-off of Bolt. I thought it ripped off Toy Story. And the bunny Snowball looked exactly like Hoodwinked's Boingo. Needless to say, neither of us were impressed.

Illumination Entertainment did such a wonderful job with the Despicable Me series. However, this was an incredible disappointment. Derivative. No surprises. No heart. Nothing original about this story whatsoever. Seriously, when Kevin Hart can't save your movie, it's bad.

So very, VERY bad.

Not even bad in a good way. Neither GK or I can figure out how this movie was one of the highest-grossing films of 2016.

The sequel has been announced, and Harrison Ford has been cast as Max, replacing Louis CK who lost the job after a rash of sexual misconduct allegations. As much as I love Harrison, I don't think I can force myself to watch The Secret Lives of Pets 2.

Overall, I have to give this film 0 stars out of 10.

Music I've Been Listening to Lately

And the best ones evoke the hero's true journey...

Big Publishers Now Looking to Indies for Marketing Ideas (And I'm Highly Amused)

On a Monday two years ago, a tip popped up on Alter Ego's Facebook feed. A handful of her friends were telling their friends that the first seven books of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series were bundled on Amazon for $1.99.

Yep, Randy Penguin had had a bundle sale.

When indies started doing stuff like low priced e-books and even lower priced bundles, the pundits were screaming from the rooftops that indies were destroying culture. Yet, here we are, ten years down the road since the Kindle was introduced, and the big publishers are doing the exact same thing.

Sadly, things can be traced back to L.K. Rigel's cover for her novel, Spiderwork. Harper Collins liked the original artwork so much that they ripped off cover artist Nathalia Suellen. The matter was eventually settled, but not before L.K. and Nathalia had to get their attorneys involved and the art director at Harper Collins lost her job. And poor author Alix Flinn was blamed for a lot of the mess though it was her publisher who started the kerfluffle, not her.

Obtaining one of the coveted promotional slots on BookBub has been difficult for the last few years. It's even more so now that trad publishers are using it to promote their backlists. I signed up for the SFF list years ago. I've been seeing a lot of old favorites that came out when I was in grade school or even before I was born. Authors like Katherine Kurtz, Andre Norton, and Anne McCaffrey.

The swing side of trad publishing BookBub slots are setting the first book in a series (or even all the volumes released so far) at a sale price to goose sales of the latest release of the series.

The odd part is the pricing for these sale books. The trad publishers are pricing books at $1.99, the price that most indies consider the dead zone. It does make the book stand out from the indie crowd. Part of me would love to know what their actual units are for one of these twenty-four-hour sales.

Finally, the trad publishers are contracting with indie writers again. After unit sales didn't meet the marketing department's expectations between 2012 and 2016, the trad publishers backed away from pursuing indie writers, and more than a few indie writers they did pursue refused to sign. Now, trad publishers are looking at high-selling indies again, but they are being more selective on who they are handing out contracts to. For example, J.A. "Joe" Konrath signed with Kensington Publishing. It'll be interesting to see how things work out with Joe.

As I said in the title of this post, I find these changes funny more than anything. A lot of the things authors have been asking for over the decades are now being delivered--now that those same writers proved they were financially feasible.

We must not be so crappy after all since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?

Pacing, and Not Back and Forth Across a Room

Something I've noticed in books I haven't finished reading over the last couple of years is a problem with pacing. This includes both indie and trad. I don't know if it's my collection of experience over the last fifteen years, my jaded view of entertainment, or if it's really getting worse as the years roll on.

What is story pacing? It's the rhythm of a story. The lulls and peaks in action. I've seen it described as the manipulation of time, an EKG graph with increases intensity, or  the stages of sexual response.

A story should lead to a satisfying conclusion for the genre in which it is written. That doesn't necessarily mean a "happily ever after" (HEA) or a "happy for now" (HFN) ending.

In Gone with the Wind, Scarlett's machinations result in Rhett leaving her at the end. Most of the story is Scarlett fighting her own stubbornness, vanity and impulses. She can't see the damage she's doing until it's too late. While her husband has left her, the story does not end on a sad note. Scarlett swears to win Rhett back.

Scarlett's story is marked by a series of high and low points. While it seems like the escape from Atlanta should be the high point of the entire story, it's not. This false win is followed by an even worse crash--starvation and danger in the aftermath of the Civil War.

As Scarlett rebuilds her post-war life, there is a series of peaks and valleys once again. This stage shows our heroine gaining more independence with each step. The penultimate tragedy is the accidental death of her youngest daughter Bonnie Blue. Rhett leaving Scarlett was foreshadowed by Ashley's statement to the effect of a couple needing the same temperament.

These rhythms don't necessarily have to match exactly for both the main plot and any subplots. In fact, opposing rhythms are a hallmark of romantic suspense. It's difficult to have any sexy time when trying to solve a murder or when someone's trying to kill you. A lull in the action gives the protagonists' budding romance to build. If it's done right, solving the crime/catching the killer comes about the same time as the couples' declaration of togetherness.

Those books I mention that I did not finish? There's a discordant rhythm. The stakes for the protagonist(s) did not rise. Sometimes, they even went down.

In an sf romance I actually managed to finish, two people are trying to stop an assassination. Except they weren't personally involved other than their learned knowledge of the crime which was supposed to take place on a planet in an entirely different solar system. Some place they weren't even going to. In other words, there was plenty of time to build their romance.

In fact, there was too much time. The writer had to invent contrived reasons to keep the couple apart because they never left the space station. Oh, and how did they prevent the assassination? They called the police on the planet where it was supposed to happen.

By the way, this was a trad published book.

*eyeroll*

Pacing is something you learn through practice. Yeah, I know, "practice" is a dirty word among some writing circles. But seriously, if you're a plotter, draw a graph of the high/low points in your story. If you're a pantser, draw your graph after the first draft. It'll give you a starting point of what needs to be fixed.

Remember! Craft is king, and no one's going to recommend your book to their friends if they are mumbling "WTF" while they are reading it.

Monday Movie Mania - Pacific Rim Uprising

I'll be honest. I wasn't expecting much from Pacific Rim: Uprising other than some loud, fun robot-monster, oops!, make that Jaeger-Kaiju action. I was pleasantly surprised they had a decent story with a logical twist that harkened back to the original.

I give John Boyega a lot of credit for not resting on only his acting chops. His company, Upperroom Entertainment Limited, co-produced this film, giving John a producing credit as well as top billing.


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SPOILERS


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PROS
1) Boyega's Jake is the black sheep of the Pentecost clan. Ten years after the Battle of the Breach, Jake is living large as a black marketer. Boyega effortlessly shows Jake's switch from punk to the military leader that his father thought he could be.

2) Cailee Spaeny was adorable as Amara, a Jaegar fan and mechanic.

3) Rinko Kikuchi is back as Jaeger pilot, now PPDC secretary-general, Mako Mori. *fangirl squee*

4) Another *fangirl squee* for the incredible Jing Tian (The Great Wall) as industrialist Liwen Shao. Again, she did an incredible, seamless switch between greedy corporatist to much-needed ally of the PPDC.

5) The sad betrayal involves a member of the previous cast, and if you've seen the original Pacific Rim, it's totally believable.

6) The post credits scene implies plans are in place for a franchise continuation. *crosses fingers*


CONS
1) A certain female character was fridged. Yeah, I'm pissed and disappointed.

2)  I only wish the story had done more to explore Mako and Jake's relationship, especially since Mako became the Jaeger pilot Stryker expected Jake to became.

3) Poor Scott Eastwood was mere eye candy despite second billing in this film. The poor guy could do a decent job if someone could give him a role with some meat.


Overall, I give Pacific Rim: Uprising 8 stars out of 10 for good, old-fashioned monster fun.

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Some of these superhero ditties even survive fifty years later...