Gareth S. Young - - 1000 Trillion Suns

It's a banner day on my blog as I host a stop on R.S.Emeline's BLOG TOUR. And I didn't even have to bribe her with cake! :0) With a new novelette out for you to read: which can be purchased easily from AMAZON here - - >  Purrfect Storm (eBook)  < - -   now is a purrfect time...(see what I did there?) to get to know this wonderful author. Over beer and pretzels Tavin Chauncy, the Hero of my novelette, Purrfect Storm, opened up about life, the Marine Corps, and living in the present. --R.S. RS: What led to your decision to join the Marines? TC: I had something to prove to myself and my parents. The Corps seemed like the way to go. It got me away from my past. *laughs* At least, I thought it had. RS: Do you plan on getting out of the Marine Corps? TC: Only if they force me out. RS: So what is next for your career? TC: My command deploys to Afghanistan soon. RS: Oh wow. Thank you. TC: It’s what we do, but you’re welcome....

The summer quickly approaches, and with it a glut of expensive blockbuster movies. One of those movies is called Wrath of the Titans and if you click on the movie title you can have a look at the amazing effects. Wrath is a sequel to a movie called Clash of the Titans which itself is a remake of a movie from the 80's. That movie, the 1981 Clash of the Titans was, at the time, the best fans of fantasy movies could hope for. The movie marked the final time Ray Harryhausen created the stop motion effects for a movie. Harryhausen was a pioneer and undoubted master of stop motion special effects. During the late 50's and early 60's his effects allowed Hollywood to bring fantastical creatures into movies without relying on a guy in a rubber suit. For fans of fantasy movies this was a amazing time: Sinbad fighting a 35 foot Cyclops, Jason and the Argonauts battling Hydra and an army of skeletons, Bronze statues coming to life and cowboys capturing dinosaurs. Harryhausen broug...

I got floored by the flu or poleaxed by the plague. Either way, I'm back breathing on all cylinders and just to welcome in the unseasonal weather, here's a very cool piece of music I've been listening to lately: Ludovico Einaudi - Primavera Enjoy! GSY

Each generation probably thinks their television, music and movies were the best but they would all be wrong. Clearly my generation had the best of everything. However, it doesn't surprise me that fairytales and children's stories seem to cross generations. Parents read their kids stories that had a powerful inpact on them and then they discover new stories together which will then be shared with the next generation. Not only are these stories multi-generational but they're multi-cultural, tweaked to better fit within the framework of a particular group of people but the morality or the lack thereof remains unaltered. Walt Disney is the most famous exponent of packaging fairytales for the masses and to this day, kids drag their parents around the World and Land created by the famous animator. Dozens of animated movies have been made featuring characters like Snow White, Cinderella, the Frog Prince, The Little Mermaid, Pinocchio and Rapu...

So, I've watched a pile of movies lately, mostly while I've been avoiding my current writing project. I've not been overly enthused by any of the newer movies and so far, this year, the best movies I've seen are all older movies. Here are another 3 reviews for the pile... My Cousin Vinny (1992) Goofy comedy that won Marisa Tomei a Best Supporting Actress Oscar that about knocked the critics off their high chairs. This is one of those movies I always find while browsing through the channels and always end up watching. It's very silly but Joe Pesci is likable as Vinny, the loud-mouth New York lawyer out of his depth in the South.(As usual Pesci's wig seems to have a mind of its own!)  Tomei also shines as his patient  yet hot-blooded girlfriend. And for those with long memories, check out Herman Munster (Fred Gwynne) as the judge! 3 bad wigs out of 5 Attack the Block (2011) British sci-fi, horror, comedy which got a lot of rave reviews. I wanted to...

After I finished writing "Monsters" the thing I most wanted to do was make it into an actual physical book. I'd never finished a novel-length story before and this would be the icing on that particular cake. My friend Andrew already had some experience working through the Createspace site (owned by Amazon) and suggested I go that route. Createspace will print your book on demand and sell it through their own website and then it will be picked up by Amazon. Paying a few more dollars will give you access to the "advanced distrubution network" which promises you the biggest possible audience. I wanted a couple of copies of my book and I knew friends and family wanted copies but would anyone else? I didn't know, but I figured it would do no harm to pay for the full distrubution and whatever happened would just be a bonus. My book went "live" and over the next few months I sold 14 copies. I could tell you the name of every one of the 14 buyers too. ...

Here we go with the second installment and this time a writer I'm pretty sure you've heard of: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury My parents had a piece of furniture in the house that worked as a display case, had drawers for music tapes, a drinks cabinet and a cupboard for storing bits and pieces. Most importantly though, there was a horizontal section along the middle which could be used as a small library shelf. This shelf was filled with paperbacks that my parents had picked up over the years and it included a large amount of science fiction stories and short story collections. My eye was drawn to them because of the vivid covers: colorful and psychedelic images of spacemen and aliens; of alluring alien females and deadly spaceships, the covers were always rich and interesting and made you want to find out what was inside. I learned the names of a few of the giants: Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein. Clarke was most well known to me at the time. Arthur C. Clarke's...