Author Archives: James Pyles

Review of “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” (2025)

ff movie

© James Pyles

When I saw the DVD of The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) at the library this morning, I was really excited and grabbed it immediately. That’s not because I thought it was going to be a great film and I was looking forward to seeing it. Actually, from everything I’d heard, it was a terrible film and I wanted to watch it so I could pan it.

I know. That’s a horrible attitude to have if you’re going to review a film, but that’s what popped into my head.

Actually, the film did have little moments that I liked. Little ones.

Spoiler Alert! This review is full of them. You have been warned.

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The Anthology “Haunted Waters” Is Now For Sale!

haunted waters

Cover art for the anthology “Haunted Waters.”

Almost sixty years ago, the American nuclear submarine USS Hollander sank in the Sargasso Sea to a depth of 3,000 meters under mysterious circumstances. Today, pirates operating the deep-sea submersible Thetis led by notorious weapons merchant Simon Harris are attempting to recover her nuclear arsenal. However when they find the Hollander, someone or something is still on board.

That’s just a taste of my short story “The Wreck of the USS Hollander” featured in the brand new ghost story anthology Haunted Waters edited by Jamie Ferguson.

My story  was inspired by a couple of television shows I saw as a kid that I don’t remember much about now. I do remember something about a submarine that had sunk years before, where there was no possibility of life, still sending out an S.O.S.

I also remember that it totally creeped me out.

Here’s some more:

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Terry’s Day At The Amusement Park

amused

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

Doctors would have called him neurodivergent if they had been able to submit him to various standardized tests. In truth, Terry (he liked the name for some reason so gave it to himself) was far more alien than that.

He thought he may have started out life as a normal boy, but as he grew older, his parents became afraid, especially after the neighborhood pets started messily dying.

The amusement park amused him, but the sign “Maximum 50” was being flaunted. There were a lot more than fifty people in that park. Terry decided to do something about the excess.

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Has Social Media Made “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” Seem Worse Than It Is?

sfa banner

Promotional art for the Paramount Plus show “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.”

I’ve read that episodes 1 and 2 of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy were available to watch for free on YouTube, but I could only find episode 1, Kids These Days. So be it. I watched the thing.

But why?

I mean, everything I’ve heard, well almost everything, about the show says it stinks. It’s awful. It’s horrible. It makes no sense.

I’d watched at least some of the Starfleet Academy Red Carpet video hosted by Celia Rose Gooding who played Uhura in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Between her and the junior (by age) cast members of SFA, it was like watching a bunch of undisciplined, uneducated, and spoiled teenagers with rich Mommies and Daddies prance around being impressed with themselves in their designer clothes that they didn’t have to pay for.

It was terrible. I could hardly stand it. I wonder how Robert Picardo, who is at least an adult, could stand it?

That doesn’t tell you why I forced myself to watch SFA.

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Looking Up

archways

PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast

This was supposed to be a movie set but in spite of the traditional harsh and hot lighting, the details were too exact.

“Hello?” Where had the crew gone? Was it lunch yet?

He tried to look back at the doors. He swore he left them open but he couldn’t hear the noises from outside the studio and it was getting warmer.

Then his neck started hurting, but he couldn’t stop looking up. Oddly, it wasn’t the colorful stained-glass windows that attracted him but the stone faces instead.

They became animated and sang as one, “Welcome to the afterlife, Scott.”

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The Backyard Pond at Dad’s House

ice pond

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

“Oh, crap.”

Jeremy had been surprised when he was given Dad’s house in his will. They hadn’t even talked in ten years. Then he visited the property and found out why.

“You died on Christmas and are making me deal with your junky place for New Years,” he said.

The backyard pond was not only filled with trash and frozen over, but something was strange.

“What is that, plastic mesh?”

He kicked at it with his shoe and it grabbed back.

“No! What?” Jeremy was pulled off his feet as something cold and hungry sucked him into the small abyss.

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Book Review of “Ghost Dog: Military Science Fiction Across A Holographic Multiverse” (2018)

ghost dog

Cover art for the 2018 novel “Ghost Dog.”

And so ends the “Dog” trilogy by Ashley R. Pollard.

I just finished reading the third installment in the “Gate Walkers” trilogy, Ghost Dog: Military Science Fiction Across A Holographic Multiverse. I should say I bought all three novels for my Kindle just over two years ago so this is the completion of my reading and reviewing saga.

Just as I said in my reviews of Bad Dog and Strike Dog before it, “Ghost Dog” is faithful to military procedure and culture and at least what we imagine might be the inevitable conflicts between the military and civilian scientists on a joint mission to another planet.

In this book, the protagonist Lara Tachikoma has been promoted to Captain and is charged with leading yet another team of mixed military personnel and various scientific experts through the “pillars,” this time to a moon in orbit around a gas giant whose sun in a red giant. The site is an advanced alien civilization that seems to now be extinct. The mission is to locate and retrieve as much of their advanced technology as possible.

There are two hiccups.

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The Phantom of Dark Lake

dark lake

PHOTO PROMPT © Lisa Fox

The kiosk to the park was long deserted when Charlotte pulled up alongside it. She was surprised that it was so easy to get here despite its reputation.

“Thanks for getting me hear across that crappy backroad.” She slammed shut the door of her ancient four-by-four.

It was still cold an hour later when her booted feet hit the sandy beach. Dark Lake was filled only by underground springs from deep caves. She watched her white breath swirl.

“I know you’re still down there, Mark,” she said. “I’m coming to take you back from that bitch mermaid.” Charlotte stepped forward.

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2025: A Year in Review

2025

© James Pyles

Looking back on 2025 and my publication history, here’s what has presented itself. Frankly, I expected two more anthologies featuring my short stories to have come out this year, but both have been delayed.

To start off with, I had four drabbles published in the Starry Eyed Press anthology Drabbles: First Contact, tales of exactly 100 words long, describing humanity’s first contact with aliens (the images above aren’t presented in publication order).

Then there is my first actual (short) novel Our Legacy, The Stars: A Tom Corbett Adventure. This was previously published in installments on the now defunct Amazon Vella but it was always intended to become its own novel. Old school space opera based on a 1950s TV show. A lot of fun. You should read it.

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Movie Review: “Thunderbolts” (2025)

thunderbolts

© James Pyles

I didn’t anticipate watching Thunderbolts* (2025), yes the asterisk is supposed to be there, but it was at the public library in the new films section, so I figured “why not?”

It was actually better than I thought, but you have to accept it for what it is. I’ll get to that.

Spoiler Alert: This review is loaded with them, so if you haven’t seen the movie and want to be surprised, stop reading now.

Pet Peeve Alert: The characters of Yelena and Alexei were once part of a spy cell pretending to be a typical American family and as such they spoke perfect English. Why, oh why are they now speaking in heavily accented English just to prove they are Russian? It’s stupid.

Now let’s continue…

Basically this is Marvel’s…I was going to say “B-Team” but they aren’t even that high on the list, well most of them anyway…trying to carve their way into being heroes when most of them at least have histories as villains if not actually still being on that list.

We start out with Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Natasha Romanoff’s (Scarlett Johansson) secret agent sister (see the 2021 film Black Widow) still living the life of an assassin for the CIA killing people and stealing stuff. She’s totally empty and alone and has no purpose in her life, still grieving over Natasha’s death as seen in Avengers: Endgame (2019).

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