- - Reheated Tweets for 01-13-2012 thru 01-19-2012 – http://t.co/xoZDEz1d 2012-01-20
- listening to 'They Oughta Write a Song' by Halie Loren http://t.co/8ksDxrdT 2012-01-20
- 40,000 words on "Black Tears." Milestone! #amwriting 2012-01-20
- Progress has slowed down because of a lot of how-do-I-get-from-here-to-there musing. And boiler research. 2012-01-20
- I just got for free: 'Cyberdrome (a science fiction thriller)' by Joseph Rhea via @amazonkindle http://t.co/rJSBWRvF 2012-01-20
- I just got for free: 'Dream War' by Stephen Prosapio via @amazonkindle http://t.co/GchtWfXL 2012-01-20
- Photo: Flickrous: Lake http://t.co/FKImTT52 2012-01-20
- I forgot what I was going to tweet. Never mind. 2012-01-20
|
|
||
 
I mention this because, as far as I recall, this is the first time Aura has done so. Dale does it once an hour on the hour, but Aura? Not so much. But it’s a pretty respectable scream as such things go, and it just demonstrates that Aura is equal to or better than Dale in just about every department. Aura is proactive, gutsy, clever, can scream well (on those rare occasions when she is called upon to do so), and has a bigger bust. About the only thing that Dale has going for her is that she’s a better blonde. And she’s damned cute. And less evil. So if those things matter to you, I guess… Anyway. Flash’s friends all catch up (not hard to do, when all of the bearers have gone scampering, and there’s a Fire Dragon blocking the path anyway), and the ever-resourceful Dr. Zarkov… pulls a grenade from his belt and throws it. The hell? Does Zarkov walk around packing all the time? Did he somehow suspect trouble today, the kind that would be best solved with explosives? I dunno. All I know is one good throw, and there are suddenly bits of Fire Dragon raining everywhere. So Aura’s escape through the Tunnel of Terror with her boytoy fails, but next thing we know, it’s time for Flash and Barin to receive their rewards and choose their brides, and as Aura gleefully tells Ming, Flash’s memory is completely gone.
 I’ve read two of my friend Dave Butler’s unpublished/on the market novels, which are terrific alternate-history epics (one is a “black powder fantasy” in a magical America, the other is steampunk Mormons). Hellhound on My Trail is different in these ways:
 Written, I believe, by Mike Kupari (co-author of Dead Six with Larry Corriea) and passed along by Brad Torgersen, Writers of the Future winner. (Salty language, for which I do not apologize. I didn’t write it, but I agree with it.)
 Me: That external drive doesn’t sound good. Computer: Which one? Me: The F: drive. It’s clicking. Computer: It’s fine. Me: It sounds ominous. Computer: It’s always been kind of noisy, though. Anyway, I’m running Windows 7, so I’m always right. It’s fine. Me: Could you check, though? Computer: Okay, I’ll check. … It’s fine. Me: I’d hate to lose it. All my image files are on there, and a bunch of other stuff. And I don’t have space on one of my other drives for a full backup. Computer: Quit worrying, will you? [originally published 05/27/06 at Saturday Action Matinee]
Up until now, Flash Gordon has managed to avoid this cheap little contrivance, but it’s such a tempting little ploy… So in this week’s recap, while Flash tussles with the orangopoid, Princess Aura leans in close to the High Priest of Tao and asks him about the secret weakness of the orangopoid. He replies that its single vulnerable spot is ever-so-conveniently located under the white spot of fur at the ape’s throat. With that, Aura grabs a spear from a guard, marches down onto the arena floor (Wait! And this doesn’t run afoul of, like, some rule or something?) and hands the spear to Flash with instructions. One stab later, and it’s all over but the mopping up.
 And for no good reason, either, except that I’ve had nothing to say. And even that’s not true; I’ve been quite active on Twitter, thank you very much. In fact, I’ve found that some of the events and thoughts which would have made a blog post only after waffling endlessly to make it long enough to be “worth it” fit well into 140 characters. (I had a plan to change the look of this blog for the new year, but when January 10th rolled around and I still hadn’t gotten to it, I decided that maybe I ought to look into some content instead.)
|
 Hans Christian Andersen  Navy Seals:Original Motion Picture Score. |
     
|
|
Copyright © 2012 NATHAN SHUMATE - All Rights Reserved |
||
In describing last week’s cliffhanger, I failed to mention one interesting fact: When the sound of the gong awakens the Fire Dragon and Aura’s men drop Flash’s stretcher and run away, Princess Aura screams.
One of the most notorious failings of serial features is the “recap cheat.” Each new chapter begins with the last few seconds of footage from the last one, to refresh the audience’s memory of what was going on when we got cliffhung. The cheat occurs when the recap includes information which wasn’t there when we first saw the scene last week, usually related to how the hero escapes the seemingly deadly circumstances with which we ended. (
I can’t tell you if The Muppets is the best Muppet movie since The Muppet Movie in 1979 (though it’s very clearly the best Muppet movie since Jim Henson died). I can tell you that it’s the truest Muppet movie since The Muppet Movie. It may be that the only people who will deeply enjoy The Muppets are those who know the old show and movies like childhood friends; there are certainly enough call-outs to the old fans (like Sweetums chasing the car, or Wayne and Wanda smooching when the lights go out) to show that that’s the audience they’re aiming for.
Recent Comments