Green lantern by geoff johns book one5/21/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Johns gets the very core of most of his characters – whether it’s a clever moment in Flash: Rebirth where Barry Allen explains the only reason Superman ever won a race against him was because the event was for charity, or even that fantastic confrontation at the end of Sinestro Corps War where Hal explains to Sinestro that he doesn’t win because he was born without fear, but because he can overcome it. I think Johns’ great strength has always been the way that he can boil down the decades of continuity that many heroes find themselves bogged down by, and deliver a simplified and concise little story building upon that. Certainly, he’s one of the stronger and higher-quality monthly writers at the moment, and I think that the vocal criticism he has earned derives mostly from his relative sales success. I can recognise the writer’s flaws – some of which we’ll discuss in a moment, which include a heavy reliance on childhood trauma and perhaps an over-simplification of core concepts in order to springboard his story – but I don’t think that they are significant enough to justify the attacks that he has received. The writer tends to attract a fairly strong pool of criticism on-line, with all manner of commentators crawling out of the woodwork to pour scathing criticism and hatred on the writer’s work, which seems a bit unfair. For my money, he’s easily the most accessible mainstream superhero writer working today at either of the two major companies (at least on a consistent basis). ![]()
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Save the cat snyder5/21/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() They help create suspense by giving audiences information while withholding other information so that they want to know more about what’s going on with the protagonist of the film or show (although this isn’t always true). Story beats are important for telling a compelling plot. This blog post will explore what they are and how to use them. It can be an action, dialogue, or event that drives the story forward. What Is A Story Beat?Ī story beat is something that happens in a movie or TV show. This will help keep your writing fresh by giving yourself a new task each time instead of repeating the same sentences over and over again for every single scene (or even worse: skipping straight to the end). The purpose is to give your audience an idea of what should happen next in a scene’s plotline.Īfter you write out the story beat, you’ll go back and fill it in with dialogue from your characters’ perspectives. Story beats can be as short as one sentence or paragraph. They’re like scenes, but they’re more specific – and often shorter- than scenes. ![]() At night all blood is black analysis5/21/2023 ![]() ![]() It has tons of blood, gore, and strong language, but it's also irreverent and engaging. Parents need to know that Violent Night is an over-the-top Christmas-themed action comedy about Santa Claus ( David Harbour) trying to help a family being held hostage. There are no consequences for drinking.ĭid you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide. A woman pours half a bottle of alcohol into a glass in one scene. Wealthy characters at Christmas party drink martinis and wine. Other characters drink pints of beer in a bar. Santa drinks and appears extremely drunk in a bar. Violent dialogue.ĭid you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide. Character's finger snapped in nutcracker figurine. Characters thrown around, slammed against walls, other hard objects. Character stabbed in eye with Christmas decoration, then electrocuted skull on fire. A body is demolished, turned into a headless, bloody mess. Fighting with a sledgehammer and other hand-held weapons and blunt objects. Over-the-top violence, with guns and shooting, fighting, punching, kicking, stabbing, slicing, and knife-throwing. ![]() Running on Empty by L.B. Simmons5/21/2023 ![]() ![]() To dull the suffering the only way you know how. ![]() And eventually, when no one comes, you find ways to cope. Sealed inside the darkened, soundproof room of your conscience, deafening cries echo as you plead for someone to unlock the door and release you from your nightmares. You smile on the outside and drift through life as though your mind is at peace, but all the while, you remain your own tortured prisoner. They tear through your soul, clawing and lashing until the pain becomes so unbearable, you're left no choice but to silently scream your agony. "Shhhh, Cassandra, it's our little secret." Secrets are stubborn things when they refuse to remain hidden. ![]() ![]() ![]() His style is at all times enjoyable, and his arguments well presented. ![]() Miles begins with the Phoenicians, the people who founded Carthage, and goes on from there. It's far from that: this is a better written, easier to follow, more rounded book than Lancel's. One might think that part of the reason for this is that Carthage Must Be Destroyed did not need to be translated (inevitably, there were some places where Lancel's text became unwieldy). ![]() This, an outstanding contribution to the patchy knowledge we have of Carthage, has just been eclipsed. Until the publication of this excellent book, the preeminent text about Carthage was the 1995 volume Carthage: A History by the French historian Serge Lancel. ![]() 2016 novel curtis sittenfeld5/21/2023 ![]() ![]() Their practical assistance and support are needed because their younger sisters while living at home, are little help to their parents. Jane and Liz have carved out careers in Manhattan: the eldest Miss Bennet teaches yoga while her sister writes features for a magazine. Bennet’s life revolves around country club gossip and planning luncheons for the Women’s League. Bennet spends as much time as possible alone at his computer, while Mrs. ![]() Brief, episodic chapters mirror the short attention span of a digital era audience. ![]() In Eligible, the tension between the original story and Sittenfeld’s inventions kept me turning pages. Many of the issues that Austen’s characters grappled with are barely recognizable if they exist at all in modern daily life. While P&P-inspired books and films such as Bridget Jones’ Diary and Bride and Prejudice demonstrate that the story and its themes have broad appeal, I wondered how Sittenfeld’s Eligible would handle the main plot points in a modern setting. Curtis Sittenfeld, the author of four novels including Prep and American Wife, was chosen to take on Austen’s best-known work, Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen is a tough act to follow and that is exactly what the Austen Project asks contemporary authors to do: reimagine one of Austen’s novels in the here and now. ![]() Stolen songbird book5/21/2023 ![]() She becomes a princess, the hope of a people, and a witch with magic powerful enough to change Trollus forever. ![]() And her prince, Tristan, the future king, is its secret leader.Īs Cécile becomes involved in the intricate political games of Trollus, she becomes more than a farmer’s daughter. Stolen Songbird is the first novel in a complete YA fantasy romance series that is perfect for readers looking to be lost in a magical world full of. And she begins to see that she may be the only hope for the half-bloods – part troll, part human creatures who are slaves to the full-blooded trolls. In this world, trolls are ruled by a tyrant king who keeps them locked away from the human world. She will have to bide her time, wait for the perfect opportunity.īut something unexpected happens while she’s waiting – she begins to fall for the enigmatic troll prince to whom she has been bonded and married. Jensen is a captivating young adult fantasy novel that follows the story of Ccile, a young woman who is kidnapped and brought to the kingdom of Trollus. ![]() Only the trolls are clever, fast, and inhumanly strong. But a prophesy has been spoken of a union with the power to set the trolls free, and when Cécile de Troyes is kidnapped and taken beneath the mountain, she learns there is far more to the myth of the trolls than she could have imagined.Ĭécile has only one thing on her mind after she is brought to Trollus: escape. Time enough for their dark and nefarious magic to fade from human memory and into myth. For five centuries, a witch’s curse has bound the trolls to their city beneath the ruins of Forsaken Mountain. ![]() Song of the willa cather5/21/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Since she was a small child, she's been mentored by the town doctor and everyone has recognized her musical talent. Thea is one of about seven children, the daughter of the local minister. The Song of the Lark was published in 1915 and is the story of Thea Kronberg, a girl growing up in a very small town in Colorado. This one is The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather, one of five Cathers on my Classics Club list, and my fifth book by Cather overall. But I did manage to finish another of the books from my TBR Challenge list, which pleases me greatly. I've been reading a lot but not terribly inspired to blog much lately. And hopefully I'll never have to think about it again.Īnyhow. I've been in a bit of a blogging slump lately - all has been resolved with Blogger and the hijacker, and many thanks to everyone for the encouraging words - and to the good folks at Blogger for taking care of it so promptly. ![]() Black indian by shonda buchanan5/21/2023 ![]() ![]() Ultimately, Buchanan's nomadic people endured a collective identity crisis after years of constantly straddling two, then three, races. Tracing the arduous migration of Mixed Bloods, or Free People of Color, from the Southeast to the Midwest, Buchanan tells the story of her Michigan tribe-a comedic yet manically depressed family of fierce women, who were everything from caretakers and cornbread makers to poets and witches, and men who were either ignored, protected, imprisoned, or maimed-and how their lives collided over love, failure, fights, and prayer despite a stacked deck of challenges, including addiction and abuse. ![]() Buchanan was raised as a Black woman, who grew up hearing cherished stories of her multi-racial heritage, while simultaneously suffering from everything she (and the rest of her family) didn't know. ![]() Something Better by Joanna Monahan5/20/2023 ![]() Mrs Monahan was thrown over the handlebars of her bike after a small piece of metal was flicked up from the road and into her bike’s forks during an early morning, group training ride at Bellbrae on December 19. We’ve just got to get her body right now.” “Three days ago she still couldn’t speak at all and now she’s got a massive amount of her memory back and she’s speaking well. ![]() “At this stage we don’t know how much longer she’s going to be here but everything is going in the right direction very fast. ![]() She’s even walking short distances and shuffling around with a bit of help. “This has only happened over the last few days, she’s coming along 100 miles an hour at the moment. The highly respected lawyer has regained as much as 75 percent of her memory and is walking with assistance, according to husband Greg, who has maintained an almost constant bedside vigil. Queenscliff’s Joanna Monahan is showing incredible signs of progress, some six weeks after a freak cycling accident almost claimed her life. ![]() |