Author Archives: James Pyles

Film Review of “Eternals”(2021)

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It was six minutes into watching Eternals (2021) when I first realized I was bored and at 47 minutes I did what I didn’t expect myself to do. I turned the movie off and returned the disc to its case.

I checked the movie out from my local public library, so it didn’t cost me a dime, but at a run time of two hours and thirty-six minutes, it would drain away that much of my life to watch. It didn’t “do it” for me.

Unlike the other Marvel movies I’ve watched, I had no connection to the original comic books. I’ve never read any of them. So there was no nostalgia to drive me forward. The movie lived or died on its own for me. Well, it died.

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My Novelette “The Haunting of the Ginger’s Regret” is Available Now!

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My novelette The Haunting of the Ginger’s Regret, A 224-Verse Story, is now available from Amazon for download to your Kindle device. It’s published by Starry Eyed Press which also published my other (so far) 224-Verse novella The Fallen Shall Rise.

While both “Haunting” and “Fallen” exist in the same universe, the Andromeda galaxy is vast, plus the events they chronicle are likely hundreds or thousands of years apart, so the tales are unrelated.

Here’s the Amazon blurb for “The Haunting of the Ginger’s Regret:”

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Film Review of “No Time to Die” (2021)

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Just finished watching (as I write this) the most recent James Bond/007 film No Time to Die. It pulled quite a bit of time, 2 hours and 45 minutes, out of my life, but in this case it was well worth it.

Just to get this out of the way, during the theatrical release, I recall Lashana Lynch who played Nomi/007 said some rather unpleasant things. I can’t really remember what they were and it doesn’t make any difference at this point. Just for future note, it’s generally important when you’re promoting a film as did Brie Larson and Captain Marvel (2019) as well as Simu Liu and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, to put on your best attitude in front of the public and press.

The film begins with a young Madeleine Swann (Coline Defaud) and her (drunken) mother Mathilde Bourbin in a lone cabin in a snow covered countryside. They are suddenly beset upon by a masked assassin Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek) who is intent on killing Madeleine’s Father. Apparently the Dad was an assassin for Spectre and on their leader Blofeld’s (Christoph Waltz) orders, murdered Safin’s entire family. Finding the Dad not home, he kills the mother but saves Madeleine from dying.

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Film Review of “The Matrix Resurrections” (2021)

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I just finished watching The Matrix Resurrections (2021). I found it in the “new movies” DVD section at my local public library, so renting it costs me nothing. Watching it cost me time (2 hours and 28 minutes) which I’ll never get back.

First of all, I went in with not great expectations. Actually, I didn’t know what to expect.

What I found was that for the first half to two-thirds of the film, I toggled back and forth between interest and boredom.

I probably missed a lot of references to the previous trilogy. While I’ve watched the original The Matrix (1999) dozens of times, I’ve only watched the two sequels one time each. I wasn’t particularly impressed and didn’t see the need to re-watch them, let alone buy the movies.

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“The Haunting of the Ginger’s Regret” Accepted by Starry Eyed Press

planet

Image: hongkiat.com

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My novella “The Haunting of the Ginger’s Regret” has been accepted by Starry Eyed Press for their 224-Verse. This will be the second story published in their Andromeda galaxy collection, the first being The Fallen Shall Rise.

“Haunting” is set in a different part of the galaxy and in a different era, so the two storylines are completely dissimilar. Those of you who are long-time readers of my blog know that the “Regret” and her pilot have had many adventures here. For publication, I changed quite a few things, so those older stories aren’t the same as what will soon appear in the 224-Verse.

I don’t have any cover or other graphics yet, but here’s a brief sample of the story:

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Review of “Rogue Protocol,” Part 3 in “The Murderbot Diaries”

rogue

Cover art for the novella Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

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I’m continuing to thoroughly enjoy Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries series having just finished Rogue Protocol, the third novella in the collection (and still incredibly overpriced, even for such quality). I’ve already reviewed All Systems Red and Artificial Condition.

Side Note: I’ve mentioned this before in one of the previous reviews, but even though the security unit/murderbot has no gender, even though partially organic, I can’t help but hear her voice as a “her.” Maybe it’s because I’m aware that the author is a woman, or maybe it’s because Wells projected a “female” personality into her voice during the writing, but that’s how I think of “her.” I know some people are going to object to this (for gender identity reasons), but for this and other reviews, the SecUnit is a “she” to me. That’s what I’m going to call her.

In this “episode,” our SecUnit who sometimes goes by the name of “Consultant Rin” when posing as an augmented human security consultant, continues to pursue clues as to her past and the lost portions of her memories. To that end, she stows away on another robotic spacecraft, convincing its AI that she belongs there, and travels to a station orbiting the planet Milu. There, she plans to travel to an abandoned orbiting terraforming station that is not what it appears to be.

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Book Review of “Jack of Shadows”

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After my last two books and especially Nnedi Okorafor’s missive and it’s aftermath, I decided to “play it safe” and revisit some old ground.

I remember reading Roger Zelazny’s Jack of Shadows soon after it was originally published in the early 1970s and recalled enjoying it.

After so many years, that’s all I recalled, but apparently this Hugo and Locus Award nominee had gone out of print for some years. Nor could I find a copy in my local library system. Finally, it was republished as part of the “Recovered Classics Book Series number 23”. I downloaded it from Amazon to my Kindle Fire and there it waited for me.

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To Say Gay or Not to Say Gay

don't say gay

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at last week’s bill signing
Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times via AP

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No matter what I write on this topic, I know I’m going to get roasted by someone over it.

Yes, I know. I should never author something political on this blog, but sometimes, I really feel social media misses the point. Everyone has an opinion, and sometimes those opinions don’t seem to take reality into consideration.

Take for instance, the Florida HB 1557: Parental Rights in Education bill which was recently signed into law. That link leads to literally what the bill states and it doesn’t actually say “don’t say gay”

Well, not exactly, but I’ll get to that.

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“Spring Info SciFi 2022 Edition” is Here!

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My personal copy of Spring Into SciFi, 2022 Edition arrived in the mail today. It features my science fiction short story “Tiamat Descending.”

The “blurb” for my story says:

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