Netflix's Stranger Things Season 2

If you haven't watched the fan letter to 80s movies that is Stranger Things, I don't know where you've been, but you've been missing out. 

Stranger Things is a sci-fi horror movie stitched together from various 80s influences. It's John Hughes meets Steven Spielberg wrapped in Stephen King. The thing that makes it stand out is the love its creators obviously have for the time period, the horror genre, and the medium of film.

The plot follows a group of nerdy middle school friends, their families, and the town sheriff as they discover, investigate, and combat otherworldly forces unleashed by a secret CIA experiment.

Season 2 deals directly with the fallout of Season 1, picking up just short of one year after the events of the first season.

Here are some thoughts on Season 2. Spoilers ahead.

Paragons

I'm very excited to announce that my short story, The Weight of One Girl, was accepted for publication in Silver Empire's latest anthology!

Also excited to read stories by well respected names in indie fictions, such as Jon Del Arroz, Declan Finn, Kai Wai Cheah, Jon Mollison, and Morgon Newquist.

The anthology is set for release on November 1st. Visit Silver Empire's website for more information.

Pushing Daisies

Murder. Resurrection. Mystery. Eternal life. Accidental death. True love. Palindromes. And Pie.

(Mild Spoilers)

Music to Write By: TRON: Legacy by Daft Punk

It's hard for me to think of cyberpunk without the visuals from TRON. I was born the year the original TRON released and wore out the video from my local Movie Gallery as a child. That movie is really all about the look rather than the plot, but as a kid I was transported. And who doesn't want a light-cycle of their very own?

Then in 2010, TRON: Legacy released in theaters. The visuals were again impressive, taking what was unique in 1982 and translating it to today's aesthetic and CGI prowess. But the most striking thing about the film was the music.

Here's just one of the tracks:

Go grab the whole thing and give it a listen.

Firefly: the "Lost Episodes"

Finishing someone else's work is hard, especially in any artistic medium. When it's done well, you get something like Brandon Sanderson's work finishing up The Wheel of Time series.

In that case, characters have the same names and voices, but the world is subtly different. I always describe it to prospective readers as the same picture painted by two different artists in the same school. The landscape, figures, and perspective are all the same, but Sanderson's color palette is brighter than Robert Jordan's. If you placed them side by side, you can tell the difference immediately, but you can see the same spirit in both.

Blogger Nate Winchester has introduced me to something similar with Firefly: the Lost Episodes.

Let me stop right here and deflate the hope balloon. These are not planned production episodes for a revival of the much mourned Joss Whedon series. These are fan creations, and unauthorized at that.

But they're very good. Go read the first script (episode 116- "The Big Stick") and tell me you can't visualize EXACTLY how that would look and sound.

I'm not a huge proponent of fan-fiction in general (I think you should make your own characters and worlds), but this will undoubtedly be the closest I get to hours of television viewing I wouldn't have otherwise had.

Definitely recommended.

Music to Write By: Cowboy Bebop OST by Yoko Kanno

Cowboy Bepop may be the best Japanese anime television show ever made. While this claim could be debated, there is no argument short of a message from God complete with stone tablets that can convince me it doesn't have the best music.

Written and arranged by Yoko Kanno and performed in large part by The Seatbelts, this soundtrack provides the widest, most eclectic collection of music I ever seen attached to a single project. And it fits the show perfectly.

Here's the opening theme to get your day started right.

You can find the various soundtracks on iTunes and Amazon. The first OST and Blue contain most of my favorites, but really you just can't go wrong anywhere with this one.

Reading List: David Gemmell

I was talking geekery with my D&D group this week and it came up that one of them did not know who David Gemmell is. As the self-appointed Geek Geezer in our group, I took it upon myself to rectify this travesty with all speed.

David Gemmell was a British author of heroic fantasy. His breakout novel was Legend, a story of honor, redemption, and the power of hope and legacy. He went on to write over thirty novels between 1984 and his death in 2006. His final work was finished by his wife, Stella, and published in 2008.

He's also the namesake of the David Gemmell Awards for Fantasy.

That's right, it's a frickin' battle axe.

 I first read Quest for Lost Heroes in middle school and went on to devour every Gemmell book I could get my hands on. Gemmell's writing is fast paced, action packed, and full of flawed heroes. His strength is in those character archetypes. He somehow reaches into the Akashic Records and pulls up the essence of a particular archetype, then shades it onto the pages with a deft hand.

My challenge to unfamiliar readers is to pick up a copy of Legend and read it. If you can stop yourself from picking up more books by this master of fiction, well, I worry for the state of your soul.

For those inclined, here's a list of his works in chronological order.