Monday, September 18, 2023

Elisa DeCarlo - The Devil You Say (1993)

Review.

A somewhat humoristic horror (?) read. The main characters are 'british at all costs', featuring a paranormal gifted young snobbish (and poor) gentleman, and his traditional butler. The story itself didn't do much for me, but the dialogues were nice and sharp and funny.

Sunday, September 17, 2023

It's all for naught... Fake or not? The quest for Lawrence Nault, self-proclaimed hermit

On https://myindiebookshelf.com/ I ran into Lawrence Nault. Who is... real? Or not? When I see an AI generated or otherwise modified face, I start to doubt. So, just for fun, I looked a little deeper.

Sleuthing on the 'net is also a great indicator to figure out how to present yourself as an author.

Monday, September 11, 2023

Limitless (2015)

Review.

Limitless (the series) is more enjoyable than I expected (probably appeals to me because of the main character and his voice overs). I'm not convinced it is going to last for more than a season though... Still, it's fun so far, let's see if even the fun lasts for 22 episodes...

Monday, September 4, 2023

Faith Hunter - Jane Yellowrock - Skinwalker / Blood Crossed / Mercy Blade / Raven Cursed

Review.

Trying to learn more about romance novels, I dipped my toes into the ‘Jane Yellowrock’ series. I think this is the second or third novel from the series. I’m still not sure what the target audience is for these: starving housewives, or males looking for a vampire killing, werewolf kicking biker chick?

Friday, September 1, 2023

Wallpaper - Blue Eyes

So... I have a thing for eyes. Sue me.

(Click on image to enlarge / More Wallpapers)

This wallpaper works great on multi-monitor setups with two identical monitors.


 

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Ann Gimpel - Earth Reclaimed - Earth's Requiem / Earth's Blood / Earth's Hope

Review.

Sometimes I sample ultra cheap offers on Amazon / Audible. Here's one of those... It's another typical fantasy / romance with some 'porny' chapters inserted ('She took his cock in her mouth' etc.)...

Unfortunately, though the premise is promising (post apocalypse, Celtic gods, latent magic etc.) the books as a series fail to hold my attention, and I don't need the porn scenes to spice it up. (It isn't romance, it's porn. Duh.)

Monday, August 28, 2023

Disney+ - Free Guy

Review.

Ryan Reynolds is a busy bee. Here’s a high-octane, big FX take on The Truman Show (which is better) with a bit of The Matrix thrown in (which is better).

‘Guy’ lives inside a video game, and helps the programmer to recover code and discover love.

The verdict? It’s okay if you said goodbye to your brain cells two or three years ago.

Friday, August 25, 2023

Little Lil Versus Verbanet (Fiction)

Fiction.

A little piece of Flash Fiction, triggered by user posts on Discord / Writers+

Lil, Matt, I hope you won't mind :-)

(Written and posted with Lil and Matt's permission. Most of the blue messages are Lil's originals, the black and red my somewhat embellished replies.)

Have Fun!

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Netflix - Akira

Review.

I think my first encounter with anime was back in '95. Yeah, I'm getting old 😔

(I know some people will hate me for my take on this classic, but it's like Jack Burton always says: "Give me your best shot, pal: I can take it.")

Monday, August 21, 2023

Netflix - Shadow and Bone

Review.

Shadow and Bone... Bone and Shadow... Oh, what does it matter. It's just another Netflix fantasy series, decent first season, bad second season, then rapidly killed off.

Sigh.

Typical Netflix.

Monday, August 14, 2023

Disney+ - Miss Marvel / Moon Knight / She Hulk

Review.

Things are never ever good enough. My god, can people complain!

Yeah, I know. I do as well. It’s only human. But the amount of negativity thrown at the Marvel shows for ‘not being true to the comics’, ‘poor CGI’, ‘discriminating’ and what not… my god! Is there even a way to do things right?!? We’re talking about television series, at smaller budgets, based on fantasy comics… and not everything has to be politically correct!

Wednesday, August 9, 2023

Netflix - The Irregulars

Review.

Street gang assists Watson and Holmes, fighting supernatural stuff. The single episode arcs are all tied together in the end. Not that bad, and it might have deserved another season, but it’s fine as is.

(I hate series that are discontinued without a proper wrap-up. Are you listening, Netflix?)

Monday, August 7, 2023

Netflix - The Peripheral

Review.

I am a sucker for weird stuff with a bit of action, decent story line, interesting characters, and good production values. The Peripheral thus far ticks all the boxes. I've never read the book it's based upon (by William Gibson) but I guess I will give it a go after this series has been completed.

Friday, August 4, 2023

Send Documents to your Kindle e-reader and Windows Kindle App

You can browse your library and retrieve all your purchased documents from your e-readers, but did you know you can send other, non-Amazon documents to your Kindle e-reader? Or send them to a friend, assuming they have an Amazon / Kindle account?

Wattpad 'Vertical Framework' - Pitfalls

Even if you're not interested in Wattpad, then the following links still provide some interesting reading, especially because it addresses  a specific subject: Pitfalls.

Writing
Paid Stories Verticals
Vertical Framework
Trends, Tropes & Tips

Thursday, August 3, 2023

Martha Wells - The Murderbot Diaries - Network Effect

Review.

I guess we’ve all read how our autistic killerbot handles the world, and in this book he finds a friend whilst rescuing his clients.

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Wallpaper - Avatar / Angel

The wallpaper this month is a dual monitor wallpaper combining Avatar and Battle Angel Alita images. It works best on a pair of identical monitors. I've seen a nearly identical wallpapper, but this one is my own creation.

(Click image to enlarge / More wallpapers)


Monday, July 31, 2023

Self-Publishing Checklist by Jane Friedman

Writing.

Source: https://janefriedman.com/

Direct link: https://janefriedman.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Self-Publishing-Checklist.pdf

She seems to be looking at things mostly from the viewpoint of a more experienced (self published) author, but otherwise this should offer some help to all aspiring writers. One suggestion: get your editing and your covers arranged a bit earlier...

Netflix - Warrior Nun - Season 2

Review.

Oh dear. Season 1 was promising, and had some interesting plotlines. An interesting ending. Lots of possibilities for a great season 2.

And then season 2 actually happened.

Monday, July 24, 2023

Netflix - The Imperfects

Review.

Just a single season, YA, and a bit tight on budget, yet quite promising.

Unfortunately, there won't be a second season. I personally think it deserved one, but I can live with it the way it is.

Sunday, July 23, 2023

Improving the Blog / Verbeter dit Blog

English: Blogger is free, but a bit inflexible, so I added some information to the 'about' pages.

Dutch: Blogger is gratis maar soms wat onhandig, daarom heb ik de 'about' pagina aangevuld met wat extra informatie.

 

Friday, July 21, 2023

Closed versus spaced Ellipses, and spaces around Em-dashes

Writing.

If your work uses any em-dashes (—) or ellipses (...) you may have considered the following conundrum: should you enclose them with spaces, or not? And should you space out the ellipse . . . or not?

Well... it depends.

Monday, July 17, 2023

Netflix - Wednesday

Review.

Are you old enough to remember the old Addams' Family? You might have seen one of the replays, or read any of the cartoons. Skip the nineties-something movie, and forget about the animated series. What you need is the original, weird stuff. So, where does the Netflix series sit?

Sunday, July 16, 2023

Free Online Cover Creator

Writing.

I create and edit my covers in good ol' Photo Impact, with a dash of Krita on the side.

I've shared this link in the past (3D book mockup covers) but did you know there's a full fledged online cover editor as well?

Saturday, July 15, 2023

ImmPrep v1.01x / Pandoc / UTF8 & PureBasic

I've updated immprep.exe, fixing two small bugs, and adding Word (.docx) support. Note that the command line parameters have changed, to allow for more flexibility, and support for other TTS applications (not yet implemented, but it's easier to do now). When working on Word support I ran into a few issues (for the full story and latest version of ImmPrep read on).

Monday, July 10, 2023

The wordcount of (bestselling) novels is decreasing every year

Writing.

This is a follow-up to Book & Chapter Sizes.

I found some information on the size of best selling books, and it seems they're getting shorter and shorter. Is that Twitter, or do readers simply have less time these days?

Netflix - Locke & Key

Review.

Netflix has a habit of killing off promising fantasy series. Some barely make it past the first season, some get a few episodes more, but to be honest, Netflix (just like all the other streaming services) rarely give a series the chance to grow on people.

And so they killed this one as well. Fortunately, the core plot was done before the series was canceled.

Saturday, July 8, 2023

Twitter reading limits... are a good thing!

Column.

Elon Musk is still messing around with Twitter (aka the sewer of the Internet) and this time he has irked the user base by imposing limits.

I applaud his actions.

Land en taal wijzigen op Amazon in 2023 - voor ebooks en audiobooks! (Dutch)

Dutch.

Amazon is de grootste (online) boekhandel ter wereld, maar als Nederlandse gebruiker is niet altijd alles even duidelijk.

Een paar tips voor het veranderen van land, webwinkel en taal.

Dit is een update op de oude post.

Lees meer...

Monday, July 3, 2023

F1 Track Limits festival at the Red Bull ring in Austria

Formula 1.

A few hours after the closure of the race in Austria (at the Red Bull ring) a number of drivers got additional time penalties, leading to a shuffling of the race results.

I said, just in geste, that it would be quite the joke if it was actually Hamilton who would get an extra penalty... and he did 🤔😒😂🤣

Anyway. It's tough. But let's be a bit pragmatic... maybe it doesn't matter as much as some claim.