Author Archives: joecrowe

Great Moms of Classic Sci-Fi : Godzilla (1998)

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Godzilla (1998)

Mothers appear in every shape and every size.

They even appear in shapes none of us expected or wanted, when we were totally used to and big fans of the shape this person had been in for decades.

But sometimes moms have to be willing to change.

Even if that change means into a creature that lays eggs and looks like a pet iguana, but bigger.

The eggs had tinier lizards in them, all of whom also looked like irritating, oddly shaped lizards.

Moms think all their children are beautiful. Even if their children are lizards that also don’t look anything like what we usually think the mom looked like.

We have to give credit to this 1998 mama Godzilla. She was just trying to protect her babies from Ferris Bueller.

If only poor Cameron’s parents could have done that.

Danke schoen, 1998 Godzilla. Danke schoen.

Book Probe: Swords, Sorcery, and Self-Rescuing Damsels

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Read this book. Come on. Do it. Get it at the link in the title. Are you doing it yet? 

Swords, Sorcery, and Self-Rescuing Damsels

 

In short, this is good stuff.

This is an epic gathering of authors for a collection of sword & sorcery short stories about women, and it is an absolute thrill.

Editor Lee French’s editor’s note says everything, noting that the term “damsels in distress” reduces women to poorly-dimensioned plot points “useful as nothing more than a prize for defeating the enemy.”

“This depiction sucks,” Lee adds.

The authors here include some of my personal favorites such as Jody Lynn Nye and Dawn Vogel. Like a properly good anthology, the book will introduce you to a plethora of writers that you can consume later. In my case, Elmdea Adams, who contributed “Yendy Loves Rattlescale,” my favorite story in the collection as of this writing.

It stars a dragon. Case closed. Buy the book. There are almost two dozen other stories, but this one stars a dragon.

The only drawback: Not enough room for maps of the fantasy realms at the beginning of each story. I’ll let this one slide because the book would be about a zillion pages longer. You have to make sacrifices sometimes.

All the stories are old-fashioned fantasy tales, and I mean that as a compliment. They’re cathartic, empowering, and frequently just plain hilarious.

Movie Probe: Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons and Dragons

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Movie Probe is your friend. Watch this and enjoy. 

Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons and Dragons

When this movie is released on May 14, you’re going to need to see it. I wanted to put that out front.

Eye of the Beholder is a lovingly crafted documentary about the artwork of Dungeons and Dragons, and it’s a neat look into the artists who created those cool things, including interviews with dozens of D&D creators, including Larry Elmore, Clyde Caldwell, Brom, Tony DiTerlizzi, Margaret Weiss, and bunches more.

The movie is a major nostalgia trip for me, as it appeared to be for some of the interviewees. My first thought was how I could crack open some of the books, and the dragons and paladins and chain mail would inspire game and story ideas.

I have to offer up major points for including the infamous Beholder in the title of the movie. Everybody who’s opened a D&D book or rolled weirdly-shaped dice knows the super-weird creature that never existed in mythology until it appeared in a D&D module.

If you’ve ever had your favorite barbarian character killed by one, raise your hand. Just me?

The movie also digs into the genre of fantasy artwork, and the influences that D&D artists have on everything since then.

Eye of the Beholder a tribute to incredible talents and at the same time, a syrupy love story about role-playing games.

Follow the movie on the socials at https://www.facebook.com/eyeofthebeholdermovie/ and http://www.twitter.com/eye_movie.

Check out the trailer right here:

 

Bonus Movie Probe! Useless Humans



This movie is a silly comedy about a dude who turns 30, his idiot friends, and an alien invasion. The idea is funny and the trailer has some laugh-worthy lines, which is all you want from a trailer.

This movie is still in the funding and kickstarting and indie-gogoing phase, so check out the trailer and send them a few million of your spare bucks.

 

David Letterman and the Helpful Power of Goofiness

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Them bats is smart. They use radar.

That’s one of the many, many goofy things that David Letterman lodged in my brain. He inspired me at a young, goofy age to try to be funny.

I do not want to get super-sentimental about it. He’s not being fired. (That already happened to him, and he came out of that OK.) I don’t know him personally. He’s not dying. He’s just not doing a show anymore. But his show started me on a path to being a creative person.

When I was 12, 13, 14, I didn’t talk a lot to people and thus, didn’t get noticed by people. Not a bad thing, really, but for some reason, it stressed the heck out of me as I was going through the social stuff that one goes through at school.

Letterman was a huge influence on my sense of humor. He helped me step outside my worries and just try to do stuff. He approached everything as a smarty-pants. He did the silliest things and grinned while he did them. He’s incredibly smart and incredibly sarcastic. He made me love the silliness that’s a basic part of all popular culture. He made me think “I can do that.”

So I told a funny speech and won a spot on my oh-so serious high school student government. I told jokes and won a talent show while wearing nothing but a raincoat. I rode inside a giant toilet on a homecoming float.

Doing all that just to gain confidence is like using a bazooka to kill fire ants.

In college, I volunteered to write a column for the campus newspaper. I made up my own college-TV channel show and had my Mass Comm buddies on as guests. We turned on the cameras and just winged it. Letterman gave the impression that’s how he did it.

We didn’t have social media back then, so I don’t know if anyone read or saw what I did. But I’ll be honest. I thought I was terrific.

Letterman and Saturday Night Live were languages spoken by lots of people my age. When Letterman published a book of his show’s top ten lists, I thought that was the Holy Grail. I took to reading Letterman’s Top Ten List books as if they were instructions on how for me, personally, to accomplish things. The lesson I learned from them was that eight or nine out of ten things were of no value at all, but the complete package, together with that tenth thing, wow, my goodness.

Letterman isn’t my only inspiration, he was just my first pop-cultural one. My grandma and my dad taught me to remember funny stuff even when things are terrible. My wife and my daughter are the funniest people I know.

Letterman taught me to find humor in everything. Every single thing. Of course I love the stuff he famously did. I also love a short Letterman skit about Mark Hamill teaching parallel parking.

Because I decided to try being goofy, now I sometimes get to be goofy in public. I did stand-up comedy, and made three or four other comedians laugh. I host game shows at sci-fi conventions, I write about TV and movies. I get to write at my job. I make my family laugh (and don’t let them tell you any different.)

Letterman inspired me to find ways to be creative and share my creativity, and that improved my whole deal.

I feel like being funny helps everybody, including me. People laughing at stuff I have said or written is just the best.

Some people go through their days making everyone else feel like crap. Letterman ended many of my days on an up-note after I dealt with people like that (or did that to myself.) I hope, like Letterman, that I don’t let anyone stay stuck in the mud with those people.

Of course, being funny and helping people aren’t the only things you need to live your life. But they’re on the top ten list.

RevSF Podcast Probe: Claytemple Media’s Elder Sign

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Podcast Probe finds geek-centric podcasts worth putting in your brain via your ears.

Elder Sign 

 

Around these parts, weird fiction of the H.P. Lovecraft variety is one of our favorite things. It’s so much our favorite that RevSF co-founder Shane Ivey and a horde of awesome folks at Arc Dream Games make eldritch horror role-playing games such as Delta Green, Wild Talents, and lots of other cool things. You’ll need to go ahead and check them out right now.

I’ll wait.

That’s an ancient website joke, but I stand by it.

While I’m waiting, I’ve been listening to Claytemple Media’s Elder Sign podcast. It’s a book club in convenient podcast form, looking at works from Robert Bloch, Clark Ashton Smith,  and Robert E. Howard (whether Crom likes it or not).

The hosts are authors Glenn McDorman and Brandon Budda, and the first episode is up now, focusing on “Lucy Comes to Stay” by Robert Bloch.

I hadn’t read this story before, so I’m all in for the hosts digging into the story, discussing Bloch’s approach to horror writing, Cold War America at the time of the story’s release,  and addressing mental illness via horror . The authors point out that Bloch wrote it before he wrote “Psycho.”

I can’t wait for the next episode. Luckily, they have conveniently revealed upcoming topics. The March 11 episode will be “The Insanity of Jones” by Algernon Blackwood. Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Planet of the Dead” is next. In April, Robert R. Chambers’ “The Repairer of Reputations” is the focus.

I feel like my readings of Robert Bloch were lacking, but now I need to dig back into his stuff. I feel smarter now. Terrified, but smarter.

Follow Claytemple Media on the Twitters. Once you’ve had your soul totally wrecked by Elder Sign, Claytemple Media produces other things for you to listen to while you stare into the yawing abyss: The Gene Wolfe Literary Podcast and Lower Decks: A Star Trek Podcast. 

 

Book Probe: Dead Moon, Phoenix Falling, Stray Moon

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Book Probe knows you need new books. Here is a helpful list of such things, eliminating all that troublesome freedom of choice. Book Probe is your friend.

Dead Moon by Peter Clines

 

Audiobooks are the best. They eliminate the troublesome flipping of pages and thus, keep you safe from paper cuts.

I’m a big fan of Peter Clines’ Ex-Heroes books, about superheroes after a zombie outbreak. This one is about bad things who show up on the moon after we’ve been using it as a garbage dump. Naturally, hijinks ensue.

While listening to Ray Porter read the book, it appears that he’s having a difficult time containing his joy at performing the reading. is infectious.

The story is a combo package of a Western and Blade Runner, with a bleak hero and a gritty world and attempts to survive therein. Listen now. Your ears (and papercut-free fingers) will thank you.

 

Winds of Marque by Bennett R. Coles

This book is good for what ails you: pirates in space!

You can tell how much fun author Bennett R. Coles was having as he created the story. The book is just plain fun, worth plopping on the couch and enjoying.

It’s funny, thrilling, and worth rereading. I need more of this, as soon as possible.

 

Phoenix Falling by Laura Bickle

Wildlands has an incredible female hero who has a coyote for a sidekick.

I guess I need to write more about the book, but that would have sold me on it right there. COYOTE FOR A SIDEKICK.

If you have not yet read this series, you’ll need to read the rest before you read this one, but hey, new series. That’s always a good thing.

If you’re already a Wildlands fan, this story sticks the landing in a lot of ways. This one has sweet romantic stuff, supernatural evil stuff, and awesome world-building. Pick it up now, but since it’s the last in the series, you may want to savor it. Or just read it more than once, or seek out more from author Laura Bickle. All of these choices are good ones.

Stray Moon by Kelly Meding

This series (it’s book 2, so as of now it counts as a series) is plenty of fun, a cop drama wrapped up in supernatural shenanigans.

It’s technically an “urban fantasy,” I reckon, but at its heart, it’s a police adventure that happens to have werewolves in it (the first book had vampires.)

The story treats the supernatural as just another day at the office, which has been a plot point in some of my favorite things, such as Marvel’s “Damage Control” comic and Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden stories.

My favorite quote: “Magic is a funny bitch.”

Stray Moon is a fun time. I can’t wait to read more from Kelly Meding.

Mythicals by Dennis Meredith

Fun. That’s what this is.

Fairy-tale creatures are real, but they’re aliens bent on wiping out puny humans. Except for some good fairy-tale creatures. Hijinks ensue.

This one goes all-in with a combo package of sci-fi and fantasy, and a surprising amount of emotional eloquence, as author Dennis Meredith goes right for our feelings.

Meredith has created a neat world here that he could probably write 20 more books about. He should get started doing that, right now.

It’s good stuff, as Meredith delivers action and drama with an equally expert touch. Give this one a shot.

The Shattered Sun by Rachel Dunne

This is book 3 in a series that reminds me a lot of playing Dungeons & Dragons. It’s a swords-and-sorcery action story with evil magic users, an intrepid party, and lots of bad die rolls.

You’ll need to read the first two books in this series, but that’s a feature, not a bug. It’s one big story, missing only a fantasy-world map at the beginning of the book. When there’s a map it’s an easy signal, in a good way, that authors think way too much about their stories. In this case, the rest of the book shows the author spent way too much time digging into the world she created.

In short, this is good stuff, and it’ll get you amped up to play more games or read more sword-and-sorcery. At the same time, if possible. I can’t wait to see the next thing that author Robin Dunne does.

Elk Riders by Ted Neill

Reading is fine, but maybe your ears get jealous.  Listening. That’s where it’s at.

That’s the same review I could start any audiobook with, and I just might. Ted Neill’s Elk Riders was a surprise treat — it’s an epic fantasy in an audiobook.

I haven’t yet completed the whole Elk Riders series at the time of this review,  but so far, this whole production is just fun. Listening to this improves drive time by a factor of a zillion.

Family and faith are interwoven in the book’s themes. The stories are cathartic, fun, and thrilling.

My favorite so far is book 3, where the hero is an epileptic. The story doesn’t make him a token or shy away from his challenges. This is not the struggle of a fantasy-adventure character; people I know face that challenge. This is great stuff.

Above and beyond all that, the stories feature magic elk. I should have led with that.

The Lost Puzzler by Eyal Kless

Author Eyal Kless is a classical violinist, but he can whomp up a sci-fi adventure novel, too.

It’s about a ragtag crowd of people in a dystopian society after everything got blowed up real good.

The press release says the book is a combo of “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “The Canterbury Tales,” and now I can’t un-compare the book to those two things. The author captures the energy and the craziness of “Fury Road” in the world he creates, while the depth of the characters shows that he has thought way too much about the world he has created (I mean that as a compliment.)

This one is the first book in a series, and you will need need the next part, right now. Or sooner.

Political Comedy Bonus: Donald and the Golden Crayon

I’m all in for figuratively flipping the bird at authority figures, and this one takes aim at one Donald Trump himself.

It’s a parody of “Harold and the Purple Crayon,” the classic book for kiddos. As such, it nails the tone and the style of the source material.

As political funniness, the book is pretty good. It pokes PG-13 fun at the prez, going all-in on references to a few dozen of the zillions of Trump-centric things that have happened during the Trump presidency.

A concern of mine is how well this book will age. That’s not a big concern for its makers, probably — it makes fun of a moment in time, like a “Saturday Night Live” sketch.

The book takes good shots at the prez, but not in a mean-spirited way — the book is more Jimmy Fallon instead of John Oliver.

The book ends in a rush, trying to cram in a bunch of Trump references that the book had not yet hit on. However, the final page is a deep pop culture reference that I really liked.

There will be enough material to make a sequel, maybe by the time I’m finished writing this review.

It’s difficult to laugh at some of this stuff, but we have to give it a shot.

Book Probe: The Future is Female! 25 Classic Sci-Fi Stories By Women

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Book Probe presents things you need to buy, recommended by people who know what you need to buy. Book Probe is Your Friend. 

The Future is Female! edited by Lisa Yaszek

You need this book. Right now. I don’t say that about everything I like, but I’m saying it now about this.

This book contains 25 stories from Hall of Fame-level female SF authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin, James Tiptree Jr., and Marion Zimmer Bradley to people whose names you might be unfamiliar with.

Editor Lisa Yaszek includes a terrific foreword that talks about the history of women in science fiction. The TL;DR of it is that women were foundational to the beginning of the genre and to its rise.

Editor Lisa Yaszek was not messing around when she put together this collection. Although many of the stories are decades old, I discovered at least seven authors that I have never encountered before. You will, too.

More Stuff

Here’s an interview with Ms. Yaszek about the book.

Sci-Fi Book Probe: Drizzt, Pathogen Protocol, Secret Scouts

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RevolutionSF’s Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Probe provides you with new books, eliminating all that troublesome freedom of choice. Book Probe’s choices are best. Book Probe is your friend. 

Timeless: A Drizzt Novel by R.A. Salvatore

RA Salvatore has done more for Dungeons & Dragons than the 20-sided dice industry, and now he’s doing more with his most famous character, the dark elf Drizzt.

These stories are epic fantasies, with all that the genre requires: magic, monsters, fighting. All good things. The immense world of D&D’s Forgotten Realms is put to excellent use, again, and I found myself flipping through player’s handbooks, DM’s guides, and Monster Manuals as I read.

These books will make you want to start up a D&D campaign. If you already are playing or running one, they will make you want to stop what you’re doing and get back to it.

For veterans of the Drizzt stories, this one is a welcome return. All the parts still work great.

For folks reading the Drizzt character for the first time, the book works great, too, which is nice. Also nice: Those folks will now have a few dozen other Drizzt appearances to catch up on, once they get pulled in.

 

 

A Deep Horror That Was Very Nearly Awe by JR Hamantaschen

You need more weird fiction, and this book has it. This one is a collection of 11 short stories, all of them crammed with horror, suspense, humor, and an underlying sense of disquietude. I mean that as a compliment.

Hamantaschen also has a particular skill with story titles that I wish others would emulate. Far from using one word (“Dark,” or “The Tunnel” are two books I just made up but probably exist) or from clearly describing what is going to happen in the book, Hamantaschen gets goofy. And by that I mean, excellent.

For example, “No One Cares But I Tried.” “I’ve Read With Some Interest About…” Here is my personal favorite: “Story Title Revealed About Halfway Through.”

My favorite story is “I Will Soon Be Home and Never Need Anyone Ever Again.” I hope it’s embarrassing for Hamantaschen to hear this: but this story is sweet. Its characters are outright charming. So, unlike many stories that call themselves “weird fiction,” not every story here ends with staring into the gibbous moon while the abyss consumes your mortal soul.

Just give it a read. You’ll dig it.

Secret Scouts and the Lost Leonardo by Mr. and Mrs. Kind

This book both made me feel smarter and reminded me of 1980s movies, so that’s a double-thumbs up from me.

It’s about a gaggle of kids, who, as kids in 80s movies were prone to do, stumbled onto a mystery. In this case, it’s a mystery about Leonardo Da Vinci, and the book proceeded to school me on Da Vinci stuff that I did not know about.

Sure, Dan Brown named a whole code after Da Vinci, but there’s more. Da Vinci kept busy.

The story’s setup is very much in the style of Explorers, or even E.T., and I mean that as a compliment. It’s also crammed full of factual stuff, which is a good way to cram education into a book about kids and historical mysteries.

This book, the first in a series, is fun for the young ones and the old ones and any variety of age, really. It’s just fun.

For more about the series, check out Secret Scouts. 

Pathogen Protocol by Darren Beyer

This one is a hard-science space adventure story, crammed with true-to-life space science details by someone who would know: Author Darren Beyer, has been a Space Shuttle experiment engineer, who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope launch and was part of Shuttle recovery crews.

Beyer knows his stuff, but also can tell a terrific story. That’s a drawback that faces some folks with real science experience: how do you translate the one thing into the other? Beyer does it by having the real science parts as the launch pad for the sci-fi adventure parts.

It’s part 2 of a series, so you’ll need to pick up part 1. But that’s a good thing in this case. It’s just more neat stuff for you to read. I’m anxious to see what’s next.

Barren by Peter V. Brett

 

This one is a novella set in the author’s “Demon Cycle” storyline. You need to check those out for the covers alone, but inside the covers are cool stories about good guys fighting demons. “Barren” is also that, with an excellent female hero and a story that could be a TV series. By that, I mean, I wish it was a TV series, right now.

If you’re just discovering Brett with this book, you’ve got lots more to read ahead of you. Get on that. If you’re a “Demon Cycle” fan already, well, I don’t need to tell you to pick this up.

Book Probe: The Wild Dead, Nuomenon Infinity, Metal Chest

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You need new geek-centric books. These are the books you need. Get them at the linkage. No thanks necessary.

The Wild Dead by Carrie Vaughn


The Wild Dead is another book set in the post-apocalyptic world of Carrie Vaughn’s “Bannerless,” which I described as a “Reese’s Cup style combination of two great tastes… murder mystery and post-apocalypse.”

This one is a crime drama that happens to be set after the apocalypse. Amid the post-apocalypse, when do people find a space in their schedules for murder? That’s just not good time management.

In spite of all the murder and the post-apocalypse, this story is surprisingly optimistic and sweet. Author Carrie Vaughn digs into her heroes and finds goodness and persistence, not fatalism and pathos.

I admit, I was a little bummed out that my advance review copy promises “map TK.” I love maps of fantasy & sci-fi worlds. So this one will be even better when it goes on sale for normal humans, because of the maps, I’m sure of it.

Metal Chest by Chris Yee

Metal Chest is a story about a robot and a guy roaming an apocalyptic wasteland (that’s the best kind of wasteland.)

But it feels like a Western, and the characters behave like they’re in a Western. By that, I mean the characters and the setting are clearly established through dialogue, which is such a refreshing change from paragraphs and paragraphs of descriptions.

Here’s an example: “Clunkers like you won’t get very far if you stick to being friendly all the time. You got to look after yourself. Put everybody else second. They’ll all leave you dead in the dirt.”

That tells you everything you need to know about the speaker and the one he’s talking to. And it’s just one line. The book contains lots more than one line.

The whole thing is a terrific exercise in subverting tropes. More than that, it celebrates Westerns while also being a fine example of one.

I’m going to need to see more from author Chris Yee. But in the meantime, Metal Chest is worth a reread, preferably with your boots kicked off by a campfire.

Nuomenon Infinity by Marina Lostetter 

Nuomenon Infinity is a second book in a series of mosaic novels, containing shorter stories that all take place in the same world.

In this case, it’s about two space convoys, one launched by a space consortium and another a ragtag fleet thought lost, both of which address the story from different directions.

And now that 70s song “Convoy” is stuck in my head.

Both stories are thrilling and crammed with action, with echoes of “Firefly” and “Battlestar Galactica.” Like those shows, these books are surprisingly, effectively human. The story really sticks it to your emotions. I cried a time or two. Then I read in the author’s afterword that she named one character after the Orlando nightclub shooting victims, and cried again.

That’s good stuff, right there.

Book Probe: Robots of Gotham, Spaceship Next Door, The Poppy War

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Book Probe is where new books come to get found. Your next enjoyable book is right here, without the hassle of having to pick one yourself. Trust Book Probe. Book Probe is your friend. 

Robots of Gotham

This is good stuff, exploring society in a very “Terminator” future after the puny humans make peace with the machines.

As you can imagine, it doesn’t go well.

The whole story is a thrilling action flick in book form, with cool robots and conspiracies and things blowing up. Read it while walking in slow-motion away from an explosion.

I’m also very pleased with the extensive backstory, with the 2083 Sovereignty Matrix explaining what countries are ruled by which robots (my home state of Alabama is still ruled by a human! That’s a refreshing change (sick burn directed at my own home state.)

One quibble: The title “Robots of Gotham” sounds like it would be an awesome Batman story. The word “Gotham,” perhaps, should be off limits. People may expect certain things from such a story. Well, one certain thing.

Granted, if the title gets one person to pick it up thinking “Batman,” but delivers robots and conspiracies instead, that’s not a bad tradeoff.

The Spaceship Next Door

This one could have been a movie in the 80s; it has the same tone as “Goonies” and the same sense of amazement as “Flight of the Navigator.”

It stars a fearless teenager in a town where a spaceship landed, and then didn’t do anything for years.

It’s the “for years” part where everything gets good. Of course, the spaceship finally does stuff.

This story is thrilling, funny, and heartwarming.

 

Uncorking a Murder by Michael Carlon

This is a murder mystery that is in tune with current culture, the idea of which blows my mind.

Most standard-issue murder mysteries exist outside of a time period, but this one is so of the moment, and also so good.

It’s about a murder investigating podcast, like Serial and others of its ilk. For story purposes, naturally, hijinks ensue and the host gets involved with a real life case.

The story goes down a dark corner after that, into intensely thrilling action, drama, and conspiracy stuff. It’s a quick, fun read.

And conveniently, unlike podcasts, you don’t have to use your ears for anything.

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

Author R.F. Kuang has introduced a fantasy world bursting at the seams with imagination.

As I read, I could see the wheels turning in Kuang’s head, as if the author could not wait to tell the reader about the next thing.

The story is inspired by Chinese history, and presents an epic fantasy world of war, gods, and a female hero’s journey from poverty.

The Poppy War is a delight. I’ve already recommended it to a dozen people. I can’t wait for more from this world and this author.