Respawning here since it’s going on the Deathstroke discussion and doesn’t really follow that topic.
Among the “thank you” credits in Captain America: Civil War was a nod to Priest and Tex for general work on Panther and specifically the character of Everett K. Ross. (Eventually someone will come up with a picture of the credits screen.)
Today DC announced all the Rebirth creative teams, and the biggest splash in social media (well, it was the only one consistently trending on twitter, at least) was Deathstroke, written by Priest and with art by Carlo Pagualayan.
I’m sure Priest will have his own post to make about the matter soon enough, but since people are coming here looking for discussion on the book, here’s a place to do it!
Among the more unfair things a publisher can do is publish part one of something when they have no idea when parts 2 and so forth will become available. That’s more or less what I’ve selfishly done, post Book One of the 1999 sequel, “1999: Red And Black,” without knowing when I’ll be able to get back to finish the novel. I’d planned this 4-book series for a Spring release, but I’ve become swamped with other things that will likely push Red and Black into the fall. I just wanted to get Book One posted before the March 25th release date of Batman vs. Superman, for reasons which will become obvious if you actually read the book. I’ve not seen any more of the film than most of you have—trailers and clips—and I doubt the film or anything DC may be doing will have much in common with the Red And Black storyline, but I thought I’d do the premature posting just for the record. I’ll keep you posted as to when I’ll be able to finish the novel but, for now, here’s a preview of the 1999 sequel.
As for the original 1999:
I’d assumed Amazon would send out alerts as the remaining installments were published (roughly one per month after Book One). Apparently, they did not, as I am only now learning a lot of people who read and enjoyed Book One had no idea the remainder of the series had been published. Amazon has also taken down the series page because I un-published the sampler (“1999 Limited Edition”). I suppose that’s how their automation works, but it’s unfortunate (and a real pain) that I have to go back and forth with customer service to try and get them to stop doing dumb stuff.
1999 has been posted in its entirety and all four installments have been available for months now. I have no immediate plans to consolidate them into a single volume, as I am pursuing avenues to release this book in print, ideally with illustrations (the project was conceived as an illustrated novel). I’ll know more towards the summer, and will post here as things develop. Thank you, everyone who has supported this work.
And, so, Roku it is. Fifty bucks for the Roku 1 (I needed analog sound out as I am using a retired PC monitor and not a TV), a few trips up and down the stairs to input things on my PC, and I’m watching much better-than-expected video (with the puzzling exception of HBO Now, which has an alarming lack of black level and, surprisingly, the worst interface of them all considering it is also the most expensive of the streaming channels) and hearing terrific audio in my family room, making me wonder what on earth I’d been thinking all these years. I’m now binge-watching Larry David’s hysterical Curb Your Enthusiasm while sipping True Detective Season One like fine tea.
The New Republic’s David Thomson wrote, “True Detective has the aggressive casualness and dense texture of a novel by a writer who doesn’t care if he’s only ever going to be mid-list,” which also aptly sums up my own prose writing. The difference between commercial writing and writing for yourself is exactly that. I suspect the key to becoming a good novelist is to differentiate between being good and being successful; stop worrying so much about whether or not you are or will become successful, and concentrate on being good (or, failing that, at least enjoying yourself). Read the rest of this entry »
Okay, Windows 10 is in. I now realize, I really didn’t want Windows 10. I wanted the Windows 10 UI, which you can get from Stardock’s WindowBlinds and spoof Windows 10 or Mac GUIs. Windows 10 itself likely has lots of positive and good things about it, but, had I realize the major downside of W10, I’d have stuck with W7.
The major problem is that Windows 10 virtually destroys any shred of privacy the end user had left. We didn’t have much, but we had at least a little control at the end-user side of things. W10 does away with all of that. For instance, I no longer have a local login but must use my Microsoft Store login on my machine. I’m not at all sure why MS thinks this makes my PC more secure: it does not. In fact, it severely weakens my security because now all anyone needs is to hack one login instead of four. Every machine I link to my MS acct will now use the same login and have access to all of my info. I understand why they’re doing this, chasing after the Google Chrome –ne-Apple models, but I find it really annoying that I can’t use “Pookey” or some other silly vanity name for each of my PCs; they now are named whatever my MS acct is named.
Beyond that, the W10 EULA tells us MS will now be reading our email. I’m not making this up. MS will now scan all of your email the way Google and Yahoo do, but are now doing it at the local level which means, even if you’re not using a MS (or Outlook) account, your PC will now read your email and report back to Microsoft. This is done presumably for advertising purposes, to create an advertising “key” to provide to advertisers so they know which ads to show you. But I also assume if you keep typing things like “jihad” or “Allah Akbar,” they’re report that to somebody, too. Got pics of your kids in the bathtub on your PC? Expect a possible visit from the cops. MS’s cloud drive wants to, essentially, clone your file structure on “The Cloud” for easier access. But, note, they scan every byte of data sent there. Read the rest of this entry »