Monday, August 20, 2012

Book Review: Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan

I've posted a Review of Robert Jordan's Crossroads of Twilight on Goodreads if you feel the great urge to read it.

I love this series of books, but I absolutely hate this book in it.  It's basically the embodiment of every single criticism that anyone has ever had about the series.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Starfire Chapter 13

I've finished up chapter 13 of the first draft of Starfire and it can be found at the bottom of this page.

This chapter is basically exposition and set up for the next stage of the story.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Book Review: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

I've posted a review of The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss if you feel the great urge to read it.

I posted a review on the second book to this one long, long ago, which led to me having some rather nasty dealings with Rothfuss, which lowered my opinion of him as a human being substantially.  Part of the reason I hated that second book so much was because this book was so good.  The comparison between the two only makes the second one stand out even more as one of the worst, most insulting, demeaning, and disappointing books I've ever read.  Check this one out for an example of truly exemplary writing, and fantasy worldbuilding, but skip the second one.  It was utterly pointless and did not advance the plot or characters a single bit.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Romney. Ryan. *Facepalm* FAIL!!!

What is it with the Republican Party lately?  Honestly?  What is it that drives them to choose Vice Presidential candidates that will ultimately, single-handedly hand the election to Obama?  It just doesn't make any logical sense.  It's like they're TRYING to fail.  They're trying so hard, in fact, that Obama doesn't even really have to do anything just to win.

What's that?  You want me to elaborate?  Oho~!  Will I ever.

All right, first of all, Mitt Romney.  I have never liked the guy.  As a person, he is a complete douchebag.  He doesn't seem to realize that people that don't have money are still, in fact, PEOPLE!  I voiced this last election four years ago to many a dirty look and angry glare from my fellow Utahns.  It was as if by stating that I thought the man was an gigantic, all-encompassing douchwaffle, I was actually admitting that I'm a big fan of Hitler, and can't wait to put my plan for annexing Poland into motion this next weekend.  I'm not, by the way, a fan of Hitler that is.  Really people?  REALLY?  Am I REALLY the only one that remembers what a--for lack of a word that holds the same impact--asshole this man was during the Salt Lake Olympics?  Am I honestly the only person in Utah that remembers all of the whining and bitching he did at our expense?  Am I really the only person that remembers him being caught on camera screaming obscenities at people walking across a crosswalk simply because they were slowing him down by thirty seconds, and many, MANY more instances of such behavior?

Romney doesn't seem to understand the fact that not everyone on Earth had rich parents that handed them all the wealth and privilige in the world as he was growing up.  He, in fact, seems to see anyone who didn't grow up under the same conditions as subhuman.  And this is the man you people want to champion the poor and the unemployed?  ARE YOU PEOPLE COMPLETELY STUPID!?!?!?

No, seriously, let that one sink in.

ARE YOU PEOPLE COMPLETELY STUPID!?!?!?

"Corporations are people, my friend!"

That line says it all.  Those five little words are all anyone needs coming from this man to know how much of a damn he gives about anyone less fortunate than he is.  Do you want to know who he said that to?  He said that to an unemployed school teacher who had been laid off eighteen months earlier because of federal budget cuts due to legislation that Romney himself endorsed during his time as Governor of Massachusetts.  A man who had been trying desperately to find work and wondering why all the big companies get tax breaks while he is living in a trailer unable to find a job better than slapping burgers together at the local McDonalds.

Let me tell you.  Corporations are NOT people.  They are businesses.  Businesses that need strict regulation and oversight.  It was the removal of this regulation and oversight by congress in the late 90's early 2000's that caused the financial meltdown of 2008. Something that Mitt Romney championed, by the way.  When you treat businesses like people instead of businesses, YOU GET THE END OF THE FREAKING WORLD AS WE KNOW IT JUST LIKE WE DID IN 2008!!!

And this is just a small part of why I do not like Mitt Romney.

But I digress.  This time around, it wasn't a matter of choosing a candidate that was best for me on the Republican roster.  Oh no, it was about choosing the one that was the least horrible, and unfortunately that turned out to be Romney.  I started to think, hey, sure, he doesn't really get poor people, but the dude is an economist, and that's something this country REALLY needs right now, because Obama doesn't seem capable of balancing his own checkbook, much less sorting out the recent financial mega-disaster.

And then came Paul Ryan.

Do you guys know who Paul Ryan is?

Do you REALLY know who Paul Ryan is?

Because if you did, you'd be as angry as I am that he was chosen as Romney's running mate.

All right, once upon a time women existed, and Paul Ryan doesn't seem to realize that they have different medical needs than men.  You might remember a little thing about the government refusing to allow government health insurance to cover birth control for women?  Yeah, remember who happened to be right at the head of the opposition to that?  Why, none other than Paul Ryan, of course.  This man is utter slime.  He seems to think that allowing health insurance to cover the full cost of birth control will make every woman in the country suddenly go out and start sleeping around as much as possible.  And even if they did, WHAT BUSINESS IS IT OF HIS!!!  Doesn't this guy have a freaking wife that can explain to him that of the two genders, women are the ones that, usually of biological necessity, are sexually restrained?  Women are not men.  This guy sees no problem with the government paying for guys to get their boner pills, but refuses to cover birth control?  Does he realize that some women have real, physical problems where pregnancy can be very harmful and even fatal to them?  Does he realize how many women out there can't afford to have another child, or can't afford the time it will take them away from work?  Boner pills are for pure sexual gratification for men.  This is something that the government ALREADY PAYS FOR RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE for men.  Women have real medical and social/familial/professional needs for birth control.  Even removing the fact that some women have real medical conditions that could be very detrimental to their health or continued life if they were to get pregnant, and the women who just can't afford another child, and focusing on women who, like Ryan believes, just want to get it on without fear of pregnancy. SO FREAKING WHAT!?!?  You already pay for the EXACT SAME THING in male equivalent!

On top of that, just being careful doesn't usually work out all that well.  A lot of the people I know, myself included, resulted from an "accident".  It's not a matter of being careful.  You can be as careful as possible and still end up with a kid nine months later.  People are going to have sex.  It's a fact of life.  You actually pay for impotent men to be able to do it.  Why, in the name of God, would you stand between women and the assurance that they're not going to get pregnant when it's either physically dangerous for them to, not financially viable for them to, or hell, if they simply just don't want to?   And I love how the congressional committee on the subject was made up of all men.  Seriously, not a single woman made it onto that?  The people that it actually impacts had no say in it?  The entire matter left me even more disgusted with congress than I was before, and let me tell you, that was no easy feat.  Seriously, men already receive full coverage on their boner pills.  That is not a life necessity.  For many women, not getting pregnant IS A LIFE NECESSITY that the government denies them the right to have their insurance pay for.

Paul Ryan is basically the champion of telling women that they are inferior to men.  Their real issues mean nothing in the face of male sexual gratification.  They don't matter because they're supposed to stay at home and pop out children by the dozens.

There's a word for that.  It starts with an H and ends with a ypocrisy. Can you guess what it is?

On top of that, his views on abortion really bug me.  He is so incredibly devout in his Christianity that he would force women to DIE along with their unborn children rather than giving them a life saving abortion.  And now, I know that is a word that brings up a lot of argument and harsh feelings.  I am strongly Christian, and I do happen to see abortions as very wrong.  HOWEVER, I also see two situations where it is the lesser of two evils.  Those would be when the mother's life is in danger, and when the pregnancy is the result of rape.  On top of that, it is the belief of my faith that if a child dies before the age of eight, that child is automatically heaven-bound.  This, I believe, includes the victims of abortion.  But my views on the matter aren't the problem here.  This is a man that has OPENLY said that he would rather watch a woman die than see someone kill her unborn child.  Yeah, guess what dude.  When you tell a woman that she has to die because you find the simple medical procedure that could save her life to be offensive to your personal beliefs, you are murdering that woman.  That logic doesn't make sense to me at all.  When both are going to die anyway, why would you not save the one that you can?  Why would you, instead, watch her die horribly and painfully like that? 

As for the other, I happen to think that rape is the absolute most horrible thing anyone could ever do to another human being.  To force a woman who has already been through it, who is already suffering from deep emotional as well as likely physical trauma, to carry the child of the man who assaulted her so grievously for the better part of a year and then raise that child for the rest of her life is extraordinarily cruel.  Even if she were to give the child up for adoption, her body is never going to be the same again.  She is always going to have physical reminders that some evil dirtbag violated and humiliated her in the most extreme and offensive way imaginable.  Now, being a guy, this is not a thing that I will ever have to face in my life, and as such I can never fully understand the sheer emotional impact of something like this.  I can only imagine, but what I imagine is not pretty.  And this guy doesn't seem to understand that, because, obviously, to him, women aren't people.  If there was anyone on Earth that deserved to be raped, it's him, so he can understand just what, exactly, it does to a person to have to live through it.

Look, I don't know if you realize, but women usually know a lot more about their own bodies and needs than extreme religious fanatics in congress who apparently have never even MET a woman before.  Women can be trusted to make their own decisions, and live their own lives.  They are not fantastical, mythical creatures of beauty and mystery that must be kept in silver cages for their own protection.  In this day and age, I haven't met many women in my extensive search for the future Mrs. Allen that WANT to be taken care of.  It's the new way of things.  Women are far more independent these days and more power to them if they're able to succeed in a world that still seems to think they need to be oppressed because they always have been.

And you know, these are just two examples of Paul Ryan's douchebaggery.  Look the dude up. Seriously.  See what this jackass stands for.  I'm certain you will be as abhorred by it as I am.  I'm not even a woman and I am incredibly offended by this man's views on women.  Where I come from we're taught to respect women, and I find it quite offensive when someone doesn't. At the moment I'm actually writing a book called Starfire where women dealing with wrongful notions of inequality, and being treated as subhuman, is a major theme of the story.  That sort of thing really does anger me to the point that I actually created two entire characters, one of them the main protagonist, almost completely based around how they are forced to deal with it.

For Mitt Romney to choose this loathsome crapstain on the sweatty jocky shorts of congress as his running mate suggests that he shares the same views.  Are these the men you want in the White House running this country? Honestly, I'm actually starting to think 4 more with Obama won't be so bad.

Corporations are NOT people, my friends.  But you wanna know who ARE people?  WOMEN!!!  WOMEN ARE PEOPLE!!! And they deserve to be treated as such by their government officials.  If these guys can't understand the fact, then they don't deserve the job.  This should not be a question.  Honestly.  I should not have to point out that at the moment, Corporations currently receive more basic human rights in this country than women do.  I shouldn't have to point this out.  And these guys seem to want to make it worse.  When you give corporations human rights that 52% of the population are denied, what are you saying?  You're saying that someone's business is more a person than women are.  Romney.  Ryan.  You people make me sick.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Book Review: Black Sun Rising

I've posted a review of Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman on goodreads if you feel the great urge to read it.

This book came out twenty years ago, or so, and I'd never heard of it until it was recommended to me by a friend recently.  It's a really good combination of sci-fi and fantasy, with an amazingly detailed and well thought out world/magic system/history/etc.  If you enjoy fantasy books, check this one out.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Starfire Chapter 12

I've finished up Chapter 12 of the first draft of Starfire and you can find it at the bottom of this page.

More of the investigation to find who fired the nuke, with a bit of character development for Karen tossed in.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Starfire Chapter 11

I've posted chapter 11 of the first draft of Starfire and you can find it at the bottom of this page.

This chapter is basically the aftermath of the battle and the setup for the next stage of the story, as well as building up the rivalry between Yamato and Karen, which will come into play big time later on in the story.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Starfire Chapter 10

I've posted Chapter 10 of the first draft of Starfire and you can find it at the bottom of this page.

The end of the beginning battle, and, this is the last chapter I wrote while on vacation as well.  Sure did take me quite a while to find the time to type it up =(

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Starfire Chapter 9

I've posted chapter 9 of the first draft of Starfire and you can find it at the bottom of this page.

The opening battle continues some more.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Starfire Chapter 8

I've finished up Chapter 8 of the first draft of Starfire and it can be found at the bottom of this page.

The beginning action setpiece continues.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Book Review: Redshirts

I've posted a review for Redshirts by John Scalzi on Goodreads.

Pointless, stupid fun.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Book reviews

I've posted a couple book reviews on Goodreads if you feel the great urge to read them.  The first is Earth Unaware: The First Formic War by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston and the second is The Hollow City by Dan Wells.

Both were very good, and come highly recommended by me =)