Annihilation From Above Book Trailer

 

Here is the book trailer for Annihilation from Above:

You can preorder the book on Kindle here. On Tuesday the book comes out. Enjoy this tense, exciting space adventure.

Annihilation from Above Releases Tuesday!

My fifteenth novel, Annihilation from Above, comes out next Tuesday, May 30th. 

It's an exciting science fiction adventure:

"Mining asteroids with robots is common and sometimes the orbit of the rock is changed to facilitate extracting the valuable metals. 

"One Monday morning, a car bomb detonates in Manhattan. As law enforcement officials scramble to find who's responsible, it becomes clear that it was a distraction. Terrorists have hijacked an asteroid and put in an orbit to hit the Earth. Suddenly the race is on to stop it. 

"While FBI agent Juanita Flores pursues the bombers, astronauts Howard Drayden and Johnny Park put their lives on the line to save millions. Can Flores find who is responsible while Drayden and Park endeavor to avert the disaster in time?"

Enjoy this fast-paced thriller, available on Amazon on Tuesday. You can pre-order it on Kindle or get the paperback or hardback now. 

All the links you could ever need are on my website.

The British are Lazy

A "lift"

When it comes to language, I think the British are lazy. Mostly. I base this on the words they use and the number of syllables they are.

Think about it. US: apartment (3 syllables). British: flat (1 syllable)

US: flashlight (2 syllables). British: torch (1 syllable)

US: elevator (4 syllables). British: lift (1 syllable). 

US: french fry (2 syllables. British: chip (1 syllable).

But there are some other examples that go the other way such as "speed bump" (2 syllables) and "sleeping policeman" (5 syllables).

When is comes to cars, the British have a mixed bag. US: sedan (2 syllables). British: saloon (2 syllables).

US: coupe (1 syllable). British (coupé (2 syllables). US: hood (1 syllable). British: bonnet (2 syllables).

What do you think? Are the British lazy, or just smart? Let me know in the comments below.

Censorship of "Bad" Words

Graphic by Lynn D. Townsend

No, I'm not going to dig into the "banned books" quandary. I don't believe in banning books but, yes, there are books you shouldn't allow a young child to read or have read to them. Let them be children. Some things they are not ready to hear about.

But I'm thinking more about the censorship of bad word in television and print. The traditional networks still probably don't allow "swear words" on the air. But cable networks do. I've heard "shit" more times on Better Call Saul than I can remember. Also streaming services don't seem to care. There was a streamed episode of Evil where "fuck" was said numerous times. Even I got tired of it. Rabbit/Hole had numerous "fuck" exclamations, too.

There is a Martin Scorsese film called The Departed. One of the characters, played by Jack Nicholson, used the c-word constantly. "He's a c-word, they are c-words, do they think we're c-words?" I saw that it was going to be on television and I wondered how they edited that. I wasn't interested enough to watch it. (Don't get me wrong, The Departed is an excellent film.)

Some networks bleep out "bad" words and blur the mouths of the speaker in shows and live broadcasts (and some not-so-live). Live broadcasts are usually on a 10-second delay so bad words can be bleeped or just silenced (such as at the Oscars last year). (Less than 30 minutes later I found online an un-edit version of what happened with Will Smith and Chris Rock.)

In books and movies, it's anything goes. Same with magazines it seems, based on the policies of the publisher. One magazine I read edits out swear words with asterisks. Such as "sh*t" and "f**k." I think this is kind of ridiculous since everyone knows what word they are censoring. But there's a level of decorum with not putting in the actual word. And those words are only used when quoting someone.

In a recent edition of Car and Driver, (June 2022) they jokingly called luxury SUVs "NFTs" and said that stood for "Nice F----ing Trucks." (NFTs are, of course, Non-Fungible Tokens.)

Now, when I do freelance writing, I never use swear words, even if the person I'm interviewing does. The magazines I write for don't allow them. And I'm okay with that. They pay the bills, they can have whatever policy they want.

Another thing that cracks me up is people saying "lmbo" instead of "lmao" because "ass" is a bad word. 

When I'm writing fiction, I don't care. I'll use any word I think is appropriate. I don't use swear words gratuitously, but I'll throw out an f-bomb if it fits. 

What do you think of bad language in media such as broadcast and print? Do you like to see it censored out, or do you prefer it left as is? Let me know in the comments below.

 

Pre-Order Annihilation from Above on Kindle

 

You can now pre-order Annihilation from Above on Kindle.

Mining asteroids with robots is common and sometimes the orbit of the rock is changed to facilitate extracting the valuable metals. 

One Monday morning, a car bomb detonates in Manhattan. As law enforcement officials scramble to find who's responsible, it becomes clear that it was a distraction. Terrorists have hijacked an asteroid and put in an orbit to hit the Earth. Suddenly the race is on to stop it. 

While FBI agent Juanita Flores pursues the bombers, astronauts Howard Drayden and Johnny Park put their lives on the line to save millions. Can Flores find who is responsible while Drayden and Park endeavor to avert the disaster in time?

Get ready for your space adventure here.

Amazing Gasoline Vehicles

Corvette Z06

It's been a while since I posted about cars. And while electric cars seemed poised to take over the world, there are still some amazing gasoline-powered vehicles.

First is the Corvette Stingray and the Corvette Z06. The latter has 670 horsepower and a track-tuned suspension. It goes from zero to 60 mph in 2.6 seconds. And there will likely be a ZR1 variant with more than 670 horsepower, as in over 800. Then there's the Corvette Zora (named after Corvette engineer Arkus-Duntov). It could have both 1,000 hp and an extra luxurious interior to maybe compete with cars such as the Ferrari 812 Superfast luxury cruiser.

And the Corvette E-ray is a hybrid that uses electric motors and a small battery to enhance performance. There is nothing green about this car. Well, except maybe one of the available colors.

Other amazing vehicles include the Ford Raptor R pickup with a Mustang Shelby engine making just over 700 horsepower. It was built to compete with the Ram 1500 TRX which has a 703 horsepower engine. Both are off-road capable if that's your thing (I'm more of a pavement guy).

I'm going to ignore in this post Ferraris and Lamborghinis and other hypercars. Keep this somewhat affordable.

The BMW M5 and the Audi RS7 are both high-horsepower sedans with the last of the V8s. Unfortunately, Audi is going all electric soon as penance for VW's diesel emissions scandal (Audi is owned by VW). 

I would love to own a Corvette Z06 again. But I can't justify it. Plus, I'd need a bigger garage.

If you want to spend a lot of money, there's the 986 horsepower Ferrari SF90. Also a hybrid like the Corvette E-ray, it actually gets decent mileage for a supercar. But it costs over half a million dollars!

How do you feel about high-horsepower/fast cars? A relic of the past or a great send off for the internal combustion engine? Let me know in the comments below.

DVD.com is Going Away

I got an email on April 18th saying that Netflix will be discontinuing its DVD service and only have streaming as of the end of September. This after 25 years. I've been on Netflix/DVD.com since February of 2002 or 21 of those 25 years. It's how I watch new release movies and older movies I might have missed.

I don't know what I'm going to do now after the service ends in late September. I might have to figure out how RedBox works. Or something. It seems to get all the new released movies on streaming you have to subscribe to about four services (Disney+, Paramount+, Hulu, and HBOMax). Plus maybe Netflix. I already subscribe to Disney+ (for Star Wars, Pixar, and Marvel) and Paramount+ (for Star Trek). 

I'm really not happy about this at all. But I understand that it's probably not making as much money as Netflix's streaming service is. It's a decision that is best for the company, but not for its customers.

I've been a very loyal customer for 21 years. I put up with them delaying new DVD releases for four weeks. I put up with them throttling me (not sending me new releases) because I sent back movies too fast and too often. I put up with the time it took to get a disc mailed to me going from one day to five days.

And "mailing the movie" is sort of a ritual event in my household. We drive through the Post Office parking lot to the mailbox and put it in. Then, if the weather is good, I drive down the interstate practicing on-ramp and off-ramp road racing. Going to have to figure out a way/reason to do that.

Do you use DVD.com for movies? If so, how do you feel about this move. Let me know in the comments below.