X is for Xploration With AleX AtoZChallenge

The theme of my 2014 A-to-Z Blog Challenge is BLUES, PUPUS, and REVIEWS.

Monday & Wednesday - REVIEWS: mini-style book reviews 

Alex J. Cavanaugh’s novel CassaFire, the second in his Sci-Fi Cassa series, is a story about exploration. His protagonist flies a shuttle for remote, deep space exploration. 

 

 

After reading CassaFire, I felt that Alex had shown exceptional insight into the exploration of the universe and into the development of relationships among co-explorers, and between romantic interests. 

My favorite genre is Mystery, and what could be more mysterious than outer space, the infinite galaxies; twinkling stars that have already expired; and exhaustive black holes. Excavating secrets presents an exciting plot line. In CassaFire, unlocking a secret could mean discovering a lost civilization, or a powerful weapon. 

CassaStar, the first in the series, and CassaStorm are both now on my TBR list. (My reading group book pick for May is The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov, so I'm really going Sci-Fi these days.)

 

You can visit Alex J. Cavanaugh’s Amazon Author page here:

http://www.amazon.com/Alex-J.-Cavanaugh/e/B0061DX89K/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1398648774&sr=1-1

or

Hop over to his blog site for the 2014 XYZ portion of Arlee Bird’s excellent (AtoZ Challenge) adventure:

http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/

 

T is for Thriller GOOD AS GONE by Douglas Corleone

The theme of my 2014 A-to-Z Blog Challenge is BLUES, PUPUS, and REVIEWS.

Monday & Wednesday - REVIEWS: mini-style book reviews 

GOOD AS GONE, an international thriller, takes you at breakneck speed on a search through some of Europe’s ritziest and seediest locations. Author Douglas Corleone has upped the ante, from his Kevin Corvelli mysteries set in Hawaii to Simon Fisk ocean-hopping thrillers that move faster than the motorcycle on the book’s cover.

 

This novel features a former U.S. Marshal searching for abducted children. If you like fast-paced action, you can start packing your bags for the Cayman Islands because the sequel, PAYOFF, is due out August 19, 2014. No time to even catch your breath! 

Although I purchase my copies directly from the author, one of the benefits of living in Hawaii, Douglas Corleone’s books are also available in print and electronic format on the Internet:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Douglas-Corleone/e/B0038P4WUS/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

 

 

 

 

R is for RAISING ROCS by REICH, author Cherie Reich

The theme of my 2014 A-to-Z Blog Challenge is BLUES, PUPUS, and REVIEWS.

Monday & Wednesday - REVIEWS: mini-style book reviews 

While preparing for the 2014 A to Z Challenge, I happened upon Cherie Reich’s A to Z Flashes of Foxwick (The Foxwick Chronicles). My first reaction, which I noted in my kindle copy, was: Writing flash fiction is a terrific way to get a handle on a WIP novel. Vignettes of scenes will help to put ideas in perspective, keep order, and develop a rhythm so there is even and escalating tension and advancement of plot and logical denouement with all relevant loose ends tied up. 

My second reaction was to choose Cherie’s Foxwick Flash ‘Raising Rocs’ as the “R” in my 2014 AtoZ Challenge blog post. I think it was the mention of worms in the opening line that hooked me. 

Later, I discovered Cherie’s horror novelette, Once Upon a December Nightmare, sort of a mini Road Trip that also worked for the letter “R”. She followed the novelette with a horror novella, Nightmare Ever After. Both stories along with the trilogy’s opening short story, Nightmare at the Freak Show, are available in The Nightmare Collection. 

Thank you, Cherie, for your gift of ideas. I look forward to reading The Nightmare Collection, right after I recuperate from the April AtoZChallenge. 

Cherie Reich on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Cherie-Reich/e/B00797C668/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

Link to Cherie Reich at Untethered Realms’s blog site for the 2014 A to Z Challenge:

http://untetheredrealms.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-to-z-blogging-challenge-m-is-for.html

 

 

P is for POLICE: Walking the BLUE Line

The theme of my 2014 A-to-Z Blog Challenge is BLUES, PUPUS, and REVIEWS.

Tuesday & Friday - BLUES: Art, Movies, Music, & Police 

1920, Shots Fired, Officer Down is the title of a book. It is also a radio transmission made in 1994 by that book’s author. At the time, he was a motorcycle police officer with the Honolulu Police Department. The officer had made a stop for a possible expired license plate. The driver was cooperative but admitted he didn’t have his driver’s license with him. 

One thing led to another. 

 

 

I’ve worked on the police end and the dispatch side of a traffic stop. No stop is handled as routine any more than a domestic call is ever classified as routine. Sometimes people contest a stop and take the case to court. That’s how the court system works. 

In the case of the traffic stop in 1994, as revealed by the author in the first line of the book synopsis, the driver started firing his AK-47 semi-automatic rifle. That led to the officer’s “Shots Fired” transmission to Dispatch. The entire story of events leading up to the traffic stop, the drama that played out, and the aftermath are spellbinding reading.

But what ultimately captured my attention and brought home the reality of the situation was one particular fact. The police officer did nothing other than what he was trained to do in the line of duty. Because he followed procedure, the stop should have ended with a traffic ticket,  proof that any time an officer walks the blue line, it can lead to a radio transmission of “Shots Fired.” 

You can read more about the book and its author at Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/1920-Shots-Fired-Officer-Down-ebook/dp/B00B2FA6DS/ref=sr_1_10?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1397776107&sr=1-10&keywords=Shots+Fired

 

 

J is for JAWS: The Deep BLUE Sea

 The theme of my 2014 A-to-Z Blog Challenge is BLUES, PUPUS, and REVIEWS.

Tuesday & Friday - BLUES: Art, Movies, Music, & Police 

JAWS is a 1994 novel by Peter Benchley about a great white shark that preys upon a small resort town. Mr. Benchley’s motto was, “Save the sharks and we can save the ocean.” Unfortunately, I’m not sure who was listening.

 

The eponymous movie, starring Roy Schieder, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw, had a thread running through the story about facing your fears. Everyone has a healthy fear of sharks. But the sheriff had a fear of water, one he expressed as a ‘fear of drowning.’ When someone asked why a person who is afraid of water would live on an island, his less than logical answer added levity to the scene. “It’s only an island if you look at it from the water.” 

In 1976, the dead body of a 14 1/2 foot shark whose species had never before been detected was discovered in the Hawaiian Islands by an oceanographic research vessel and was dubbed a megamouth shark. 

We know so little about the vastness of oceans that I am pleased to have also learned

these 6 things about Sharks and People from JAWS on DVD: 

            1. A shark can swallow a metal license plate whole.

            2. A shark will chomp down on a scuba tank until it explodes.

            3. A reader/movie-goer is willing to ‘swallow’ anything

                        (suspension of disbelief) if the story holds water.

            4. Irrationality comes in all shapes and sizes.

            5. Fear isn’t a bad thing if it’s based on logic.

            6. Sometimes you’re gonna need a bigger boat.

 

Do you watch the Special Features on DVDs?

H is for HONOLULU SHORT STORIES

To all the co-hosts of 2014 AtoZ CHALLENGE: Mahalo Nui Loa for all your hard work

and endless hours spent on making this another successful year.

For anyone not following, here is the link: A to Z Challenge Blog

and the hosts:
Arlee Bird @ Tossing it Out
Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh
Author Stephen Tremp
Tina @ Life is Good
Damyanti @ Amlokiblogs
Jeremy @ Being Retro
Nicole Ayers - The Madlab Post
M. J. Joachim's Writing Tips
Heather M. Gardner
AJ @ Naturally Sweet
Pam @ An Unconventional Librarian

 

The theme of my 2014 A-to-Z Blog Challenge is BLUES, PUPUS, and REVIEWS.

Monday & Wednesday - REVIEWS: mini-style book reviews

 

MYSTERY IN PARADISE 13 Tales of Suspense is a collection of twisted, heart-pumping tales of suspense in all its guises. This anthology features 13 utterly unforgettable short stories by 13 of the hottest authors to appear on Hawai’i’s literary scene. 

The mysterious glint in the eye of the mynah bird posing on the cover offers a promise of intrigue within. Honolulu’s Chinatown is the scene of several diverse mysteries that include a New Year’s Eve traditional cozy; a bloodless corpse; an off-duty HPD detective; and P.I. Jimmie Chan who takes on a seemingly simple infidelity case that soon turns deadly.

 

 

From Cozy Mystery, Urban Noir, and Gumshoe, to Classic Crime, you can’t go wrong. Why not let MYSTERY IN PARADISE 13 Tales of Suspense take you on a colorful trip around the islands and show you a bit about Hawaiian culture, its people, and life in paradise? 

Being involved in compiling, formatting, and publishing this anthology in 2013 was a unique and gratifying experience for me. Would I do it again? I’m still thinking. 

What is your experience with publishing?

Gyrating Hips & BLUE Suede Shoes AtoZ Challenge

The gyrating hips of Elvis Presley weren’t the first to accompany the words to the Rockabilly tune, BLUE SUEDE SHOES. The song was written and recorded by Carl Perkins in 1955 and he released it on the Sun label New Years Day, 1956. Later that year, the song was released on the RCA Victor label by Elvis Presley.

Blue Suede Shoes

258 x 376 pixels
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The image is at:
https://asd-hs.wikispaces.com/Blue+Suede+Shoes

BLUE SUEDE SHOES was considered one of the first Rock and Roll songs and was recorded by several other singers in 1956. On the band wagon were Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, “Thumper” Jones (better known as George Jones), Jerry Mercer, and even Lawrence Welk. 

Regardless who sang the words over the years, Elvis Presley made the song his own when he sang it on national television for the first time, not on the Ed Sullivan Show, but the Milton Berle Show. It is difficult for me to imagine anyone else strumming a guitar and gyrating to the words “Go, Cat, Go, but don’t you . . .” with the authority of the King of Rock and Roll. Not even the Beatles or Michael Jackson. 

Elvis Presley recorded several songs with the word BLUE in the title, including Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain, Blue Moon of Kentucky, Blue Christmas, and Blue Hawaii.

 

FIRE UP YOUR STYLE of WRITING Week 2 AtoZ

If you were confronted with The Kingston Trio’s age-old dilemma of being stranded on a subway beneath the streets of Boston - never to return, and with your fate still unknown - which three books on the craft of writing would you want in your knapsack?

My three choices are:

1. ON WRITING by Stephen King;

2. THE FIRE IN FICTION by Donald Maass; and

3. THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE by Strunk and White.

 

Stephen King (and Meryl Streep) can make a grocery list sound suspenseful so I would be assured of entertainment. Reading his advice, or advice he received and implemented, makes me want to immediately click open a blank document and start writing. Of course, in this surreal scenario on the subway, the netbook would have lifetime batteries.  

My reason for wanting Donald Maass’s book is simple. I’ve read THE FIRE IN FICTION through several times, marked passages and highlighted important points. But he also offers practical exercises for improving an early draft that focus on character, turning points of a scene, and my favorite: sustaining tension. A person could spend a lifetime on those exercises.  

If you ever experience brain freeze, or have a mental block in one particular area where the word choice always eludes you, then THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE is worth owning. Do you know the proper use of an ellipsis? Are you familiar with the “serial” comma? How confident are you in your word usage/spelling:

 its, it’s;

their, there, they’re;

that, which;

however, nevertheless;

farther, further;

effect, affect;

then, than;

past, passed (my Achilles heel!!!) 

Wasn’t it Sonny Bono who (that) said, “And the list goes on . . .”?

 

 

EDAMAME & BEER for first Saturday of AtoZChallenge

Edamame is the fancy name for boiled or steamed soy beans. The word ‘edamame’ is Japanese. Eda means ‘twig’, and mame is ‘bean’. It makes a great snack food, especially in a bar with a cold beer chaser because of the sea salt added for flavor. 

It isn’t unusual for Edamame to pop up at picnics and other outings, so easy to strip the beans from the pod with your teeth, toss the shell and grab another. The hard part is stopping so there is room for all the other delicious pupus on the table. And the ones on the way, there are always more on the way! 

If you don’t live in China, Japan, Indonesia, or Hawaii, you can probably find those tasty soy beans in the frozen foods section of your supermarket.  

Another favorite Hawaiian pupu is boiled peanuts. If soy beans aren’t to your taste, you might like snacking on boiled peanuts. To make your own, use semi-mature peanuts that aren’t dry yet, boil them in salt water, cool, and eat. But beware, they’re like potato chips, you can’t eat just one. 

 

All pupus go good with beer!

 

Devil in a BLUE Dress AtoZChallenge D-Day

My take on DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS is that it is a terrific model for writers. It has a likeable, believably flawed protagonist, a unique setting within a clichéd city, and a plot with a few good twists. 

Walter Mosley’s novel, Devil in a Blue Dress, with protagonist Easy Rawlins was published in June 1990. It was the basis for the 1995 movie starting Denzel Washington.

 

 I liked the book enough to watch the movie, and promptly liked the movie even better. Movies have a tendency to simplify the plot, or else the visual effects clarify the story line for me. Either way, the hard-boiled action of Mosley’s murder mystery entertained me. 

Los Angeles, 1948, before the Civil Rights Movement, is the setting. It is speakeasies and Blatz beer. Protagonist Easy (Ezekiel) Rawlins is down on his luck after getting fired from his job and he is willing to do most anything to come up with the monthly mortgage payment on his house, the only thing he is proud of owning. 

Easy’s not a boozing, lost soul or a super hero. When the novel came out in 1990, he represented a new type of noir genre main character. Readers may not relate to him directly, but we can understand his motivation to hold onto his property, and his pride. For anyone who has ever been in need of a fast buck, agreeing to find a white woman who has a "predilection for pigs' feet and dark meat" is understandable, knowing that the quick job and fast $100.00 payoff will keep a dream as a home owner alive. 

In this murder mystery, even when Easy calls on his lifelong buddy, Mouse, to help him when things start to slip sideways seems like a reasonable decision. After all, what could go wrong?

 

It isn't "Friday the 13th", but is it possible that 4/4/14 is a good sign?