Gareth S. Young - - 1000 Trillion Suns

The ever elusive, but always awesome, A.J. Aalto has returned to my blog to answer #SevenQuestions. (She really can't say no to a snickers bar.) Check out her original interview here:  AJ Aalto Since her last visit, A.J. has written several more "Marnie Baranuik Files" stories. The psychic detective remains in great demand, with her most recent adventure, "Wrath & Bones" getting stellar reviews over on Amazon. Please check out A.J.'s links below. And now, without further ado, here are the answers the world wants to know to the questions no one really cares about. lol. A.J. Aalto 1 - Which character from another book/series would you like to bring into your own series? I don't know how it would work, but I'd bring Silk from David Eddings's Belgariad into my series. I think he and Marnie would get along famously. 2 - Which actor/actress would you love to see play your characters in a movie adaptation?  I'd love to see Zoe De...

Inigo Montoya (The Princess Bride) Inigo Montoya is not wrong. As a writer, I think it's important to stretch my use of language as much as possible. Embrace new words, but keep the prose readable and clear. Except, the speed at which language is changing makes this a far more difficult proposition. We're all aware of words like IRREGARDLESS , a weird mutation because it's actually a longer word than the one it's been battling against: REGARDLESS . Nothing wrong with regardless. It's a perfectly good word. Irregardless just appeared and now it can be found in dictionaries. We also have LITERALLY which now literally means exactly what it means AND exactly the opposite of what it means. Which makes it literally, but not figuratively, pointless. Then there's NONPLUSSED which means the opposite of how it's often used...and like literally is now pretty much interchangeable for both meanings. I'm nonplussed by this whole situation...

The scintillating S.J Cairns stopped by to shoot the shi...breeze. So, I asked her seven questions on subjects stretching from her international best-seller, SOUL DISCOVERY (check out the book links and my review below!), to stuff that's just silly. Enjoy! S.J. Cairns 1 - Which actress would you love to see play your main character Sophie in a movie adaptation of your book Soul Discovery? In the beginning I never put a celebrity's face on Sophie. I thought of a young Katie Holmes, though if an on screen adaptation occurred, I'd want an unknown with bitching acting skills. 2 - Leather or lace? Do I HAVE to choose?? I'm a leather AND lace kind of girl. Especially of the black lace variety. But I love my leather shit-kickers and jacket. Couldn't give either of them up. 3 - What is your biggest phobia? My biggest phobia is open water. Drowning isn't fun. A cruise is nowhere close to my bucket list. 4 - On the days you're not feeling moti...

I was tagged on twitter by the awesome Mollie Wallace  @readheadreader  to share 20 Facts with you all. No idea why...but I have learned not to question such things. If you want to check out Mollie's answers go  HERE . And then come back to check out mine. 1. I have 6175 comic books in my collection. I counted them...and bagged them...and filed them. Yes, it took forever. 2. I can't stand the texture of sandpaper or the sound it makes rubbing against wood. It gives me goosebumps...and not in a good way. And yes, I was terrible at woodwork at school. 3. My middle name is Shannon. It's a family surname (great grandmother on my dad's side of the family), as opposed to a girl's first name. My dad also has Shannon for a middle name. 4. Despite being born and raised living no further than about a mile from the sea, I'm not the biggest seafood person. And don't even get me started about sushi...blerg! And, although my dad used to fish, I never really got in...

...Kirby! Jack "King" Kirby is one of the single most important people in comic book history. Unfortunately, many people still haven't heard of him. I hope to rectify that here. Marvel Masterminds What do The Fantastic Four, Uncanny X-Men, Hulk, Thor and Iron Man have in common? You are correct if you said they are all Marvel comics. If you said they were all created by Stan Lee, you're only half right. The legend goes... Stan Lee would come up with ideas, basic outlines and tell them to Jack Kirby. Kirby would then go away and draw a comic book based on that idea. Once he was finished, he'd give the comic back to Lee who'd fill in the dialogue and speech as he saw fit. Often Lee would have no idea what he'd get back from Kirby and has been quoted as saying it was like doing a crossword puzzle, trying to figure out what story the pictures were telling him. Later, the idea of credit became the subject of bad blood between Kirby and Marvel...

...James Jean! James Jean is a fine artist who is known in the comic book world for his cover art on the DC series Fables. Fables Shere Khan and Rose Red Fables is a series about characters from fairytales and folk lore who are chased from their homeland and settle in a secret community in New York. The "Fables" who can't blend in with humans live in upstate New York at "The Farm." TV Trivia: The Fables concept might sound familiar to fans of Grimm and Once Upon a Time, two television shows currently showing on NBC and ABC respectively. Both networks had Fables in development at one stage or another in the mid to late 2000s, and both chose to go a different way. Fables was launched in 2002, under the Vertigo imprint, with James Jean doing cover art. Jean did every cover, except issue #11, until 2009 (issue #81) when he retired from illustration to concentrate on painting. Fairytales and folklore was a perfect match for ...

...Iceman! The Fab Five Robert "Bobby" Drake was created in 1963 and is one of the founding five members of the X-Men. He has appeared regularly over the last fifty years in multiple incarnations of the X-Men comic books and in other teams like X-Factor, The Defenders, and The Champions. The character has also made appearances in cartoons and movie adaptations. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby initially created Iceman using the Human Torch as the template, except giving him the "opposite" power. In the early books, Iceman had the appearance of a snowman in boots, and only later changed into the more crystal clear version more commonly known today. He also underwent a "secondary mutation" that for a time had him stuck in his ice form. Cold hearted? Bobby is an honest, forthright and sometimes cocky character, his status as the youngest of the original X-Men giving him certain allowances for his brash behavior, although he remained that way as he got ...