DVD Review - Once Upon a Time: The Complete First Season

Once Upon a Time
The Complete First Season
Actors: Jennifer Morrison, Ginnifer Goodwin, Lana Parrilla, Josh Dallas, Jared Gilmore
Studio: ABC
ASIN: B0058YPL66
Release Date: August 28th, 2012
Running Time: 946 minutes
Rated: PG


I was pestered to death by my parents to watch Once Upon a Time. Sure, I've seen the advertisements for it, but I never attempted to watch it because I never cared much for Jennifer Morrison when she was on House, M.D.

I saw the complete first season at my local Walmart yesterday and I thought I would give it a try. If I don't like it, I can always give it to my parents.

Inside the set was a $10 coupon off of any current and upcoming ABC series DVD/Blu-Ray Set, including Castle: The Complete Fourth Season!

I intended to only watch the pilot last night, but I ended up watching the entire first disc as I became addicted to the mysterious town of Storybrooke.

The Friday 56 - Unending Devotion

Rules:

Grab a book, any book. 

Turn to page 56. 

Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. 

Post it. 

Add your (url) post below in the Linky at http://fredasvoice.blogspot.com/.

Review - A Plain Scandal by Amanda Flower

A Plain Scandal
An Appleseed Creek Mystery
Written By: Amanda Flower
Publisher: B&H Books
ISBN: 9781433676987
Pub. Date: February 15, 2013
Pages: 336
Pre-Order: Amazon.com

Chloe Humphrey is enjoying her life working at a college in Appleseed Creek, Ohio, but her life is turned upside down when she is informed that house that she rents with her roommate Becky has a new owner who plans on remodeling and selling the house.

Someone is going around the community grabbing Amish girls and cutting their hair. Chloe finds a body of an Amish man. He had been murdered and his beard has been shaved off. An elderly Amish man is pushed up against his own horse & buggy and someone cuts his beard off!

Review - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Written by: Denise Mina
Illustrated by: Andrea Muttti
Publisher: Vertigo/DC Comics
ISBN: 9781401235574
Pub Date: November 13, 2012
Pages: 152
Pre-order on Amazon.com

Based upon the best-selling trilogy by the late author Stieg Larsson is the new graphic novel adaptation from DC Comics/Vertigo. Thanks to edelweiss I got a chance to see a sneak peak at issue one. The complete book will be on sale on November 13th!

The graphic novel follows the same plot from the original books and both the US and Swedish movie versions. Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist who is having major legal trouble, is asked to investigate a forty-something-year-old missing case by Mr. Vanger.

Behind The Story by Kimberly Lewis

This story did not start off as a western romance. The original idea I had was about a woman who was under the care of a psychiatrist because she murdered her husband.  What they didn’t know was her reason for the murder, which was self-defense. She had been in this abusive relationship for years and finally hit her breaking point, thus protecting herself and fatally injuring her husband.

I had plans to make this doctor-patient relationship, but I just couldn’t get into the story enough to make it work. For one, I know nothing of psychiatry and it would have been ridiculous for me to even try to write a character that specialized in that. They always tell you to write what you know and what I know is country living. So, I reverted back to my comfort zone and pulled ideas from the original story into “Zane: The McKades of Texas”.

The heroine of the novel, Kellan Anderson—later known as Andi Ford, is on the run from her abusive ex-boyfriend.  She keeps a journal (just like I had planned for the original story) that recounts the abusive attacks. That’s pretty much all I used from my original plot as the rest of the story involves ranch living and cowboys. The journal entries were what really started the whole story line. I just put myself in this character’s position and imagined how depressed and frightened she felt during these accounts.

Review - KA-BOOM!

Ka-Boom
By: Alyce Joy Ringiger
Illustrator: Diane Lucus
Publisher: Halo Publishing International
ISBN: 978-1612440699
Pub Date: July 31, 2012
Pages:46

Blurb:

KA-BOOM! is about a little fairy named Sprout that runs into trouble quite often. She has a shoe fetish, but is one of the queen’s favorites because in the end she gets the job done. Sprout meets a little girl named Taylor after blowing up Taylor’s dollhouse. Sprout doesn’t give up trying to get Taylor to trust her. She and Taylor finally become friends after Sprout shrinks Taylor and together they have a fantastic adventure. Taylor never thought she would be talking to Sir Leapsalot, let alone ride on his back and hopping lily pads. The message? Never give up.

Review:

Seven-year old Taylor is shocked when her dollhouse suddenly falls to the floor. What or whom could have caused this? As she investigates, she finds out who is responsible - a red hair fairy named Sprunetta Brunetta, but everyone calls her Sprout!

Review - Extreme Halloween T-Shirts

As a kid I never really liked dressing up to go trick-or-treating because the heavy costume and mask would get hot. By the time I walked up to the fifth house, I would already be sweaty. Now that I'm an adult, I enjoy carving the jack-o-lantern, decorating my front yard, and giving candy away.

Many parents taking their kids trick-or-treating are dressed up in a costume too, in which I think they are a little too old to be playing dress up. I do own a few holiday t-shirts that I wear around Christmas and I wouldn't mind wearing one on Halloween, but the only ones I ever see in the stores have a kiddies’ logo or saying on it and of course they never have an adult size.

Giveaway - The Malice of Fortune

 Amazon.com Description:

Against a teeming canvas of Borgia politics, Niccolò Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci come together to unmask an enigmatic serial killer, as we learn the secret history behind one of the most controversial works in the western canon, The Prince...

Review: The Lost Prince by Julie Kagawa

Ethan Chase lives a life full of fear. His sister, Meghan Chase, is now the Iron Queen, and he is about to start classes at a new school, in which he dreads. You see, just like his sister, he can see Faeries and if these creatures find out that he can see him, then his life would be over.

He keeps to himself as he doesn't want to attract attention, but a teenage girl, Kenzie St. James, takes an interest in him, despite his resistance. Then he meets another schoolmate, Todd Wyndham, who he recognizes is a half-faerie. Todd thinks someone or something is after him.

Mysterious ghost like faeries appear and soon Todd disappears without a trace. Todd's parents and the police have no clue where the boy could have gone, but Ethan knows what happened to him. Those ghostly faeries took him and the faeries now have eyes on Ethan.

With no other choice, Ethan uses the magical token that his sister left behind and he, along with Kenzie - who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, are transported to Nevernever, the land of the of the Feys.

Final Thoughts

Review - Star Trek: The Next Generation / Doctor Who: Assimilation 2

Star Trek: The Next Generation / Doctor Who: Assimilation 2 
Contributors: J. K. Woodward
Publisher: IDW Publishing
ISBN: 9781613774038
Pub Date:  October 02, 2012 
Pages: 104 

The Federation Planet Delta IV is attacked by the Borg and a new race called the Cybermen.

In the past, The Doctor, Amy and her husband Rory are in Egypt to catch an alien criminal. Then, they hop back into the TARDIS where they encounter a weird disturbance that sends them to San Francisco in the 1940s. Or are they somewhere else, like a holoprogram on the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Commander William Riker, Data, and Doctor Beverly Crusher are surprised by the Doctor and his companions’ sudden arrival, and they are even more surprised when they learn the visitors are not holograms. Commander Riker orders Worf and a security team to take them to Captain Picard.

DVD Review - 100 Greatest Family Classics

100 Greatest Family Classics
Directors: Various
Starring: Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Gary Cooper, James Cagney, Nat “King” Cole, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Durante, Laurel & Hardy, Cyd Charisse, The Andrews Sisters & Many More!
Studio: Mill Creek Entertainment
ASIN: B0088JG98M
Pub Date: July 10, 2012
Running Time: 129 Hours
Rating: Unrated

A good family-friendly movie is a rare thing now of days. Mill Creek Entertainment has complied together two of their previous releases, Timeless Family Classics and Classic Musicals, into one unique bundle titled 100 Greatest Family Classics.

I’ve only seen a few musicals, so I was a little skeptical about reviewing Classic Musicals, but the majority of the films have other things going on for them with an occasional song and dance routine thrown into the mix. The fifty movies (on twelve double-sided discs) are from the years 1920s through to 1962; some of the films have aged a lot over the years, while others still look and sound great.

Review - How to Write and Publish a Successful Children’s Book

How to Write and Publish a Successful Children’s Book:
Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply
By: Cynthia Resser
Publisher: Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.
ISBN: 9781601384072
Pub Date: 2010
Pages: 288

    Have you ever wanted to write your own children’s book? Or do you already have a children’s book written, but you don’t know how to get your book published? Cynthia Reeser is the editor-in-chief and the founder of a quarterly literary journal titled Prick of the Spindle and she has written the book How to Write and Publish a Successful Children’s Book to help aspiring writers get their stories and books published. Several of my short stories have been published in various magazines and e-zines, so I was interested in reviewing this book that the Atlantic Publishing Group sent to me free of charge.

    The first few pages asks you to ask yourself, Why Write for Children?” and then takes you into a brief history of children books, in which the first children’s books were written in back in the 1400s. Before you start writing your novel, you should look into the current market place and see what the popular trend is.

Review - Doctor Who Dave Gibbons Collection

Doctor Who Dave Gibbons Collection 
Artist: Dave Gibbons
Publisher: IDW Publishing
ISBN: 9781613773475 
Ediction: Trade Paperback
Pub Date: September 18, 2012
Pages: 372
List Price: $29.99 USD

NetGalley and IDW Publishing were nice enough to let me view the upcoming paperback release of the Doctor Who Dave Gibbons Collection.

The graphic novels in this collection are:

The Iron Legion; City of the Damned; The Star Beast; The Dogs of Doom; The Time Witch; Dragon's Claw; The Collector; Dreamers of Earth; The Life Bringer; Way of the World; Spider-God; The Deal; The Free Fall Warriors; The Neutron Knights; The Tides of Time; and Stars Fell on Stockbridge.

The Friday 56 - Submerged

Rules:

Grab a book, any book. 

Turn to page 56. 

Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. 

Post it. 

Add your (url) post below in the Linky at http://fredasvoice.blogspot.com/.

Review - Understanding Other People: The Five Secrets to Human Behavior

Understanding Other People: The Five Secrets to Human Behavior
Written by: Beverly D. Flaxington
Publisher: ATA Press
ISBN: 9780615272290
Pub Date: Second Edition, Feb. 2010
Pages: 100

We have put men on the moon, we’ve created tiny microchips, and we’ve created the world wide net, but the one thing we can’t figure out is how to understand other people. No one human being is the same, we’re all ordinary with are own personal thoughts and desires. This can make it difficult for us to understand other people, let alone us.

Author Beth D. Flaxington is a corporate consultant, hypnotherapist, a certified behavioral analyst, a college professor and a professional coach. And now she was written Understanding Other People: The Five Secrets to Human Behavior to help us understand what people are saying when they are speaking to us. Understanding human behavior can improve your everyday life, such as getting along with a co-worker or your boss, or understanding your partner or spouse’s needs.

Review - Lose Weight Get Healthy & Be Happy

Lose Weight Get Healthy & Be Happy
The Rice Diet is the Right Diet, for you!
By: Douglas Jay Sprung, MD, FACG, FACP, and Denise Sprung, MSW
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780578090078
Pub Date: 2011
Pages: 226

The Rice Diet is not a new trend as it was first originated in 1940 by Dr. Walter Kempner. Many people have had life changing transformation by losing weight on this diet. Douglas Jay Spring, MD, FACG, FACP and Denise Spring,, MSW have written a colorful and simply written book for you to use as a guide while you are on your journey to a better and healthier you.

The Rice Diet consists of rice being a staple in your diet, along with fruits and vegetables. When you first start out you’ll spend a short period eating rice and fruit so your body can adjust to the diet. Slowly you’ll add more food to the diet such as vegetables, fish/lean meats, pasta, breads (low-sodium), crackers, and much more.

Guest Post with author Darcy Burke

What’s in a title?

Thinking of titles of romance novels can be so fun! The most fun? Hearing my 11 or 7 year old children ask me, “Mommy, is that Her Wicked Ways?” in reference to my first novel. I admit the first time I muttered, “Uh, yeah,” while suppressing a cringe at having my kids say that out loud. I’ve since learned to embrace them saying it. (But no, they don’t read them!)

 So if a romance title isn’t okay for a kid to say, why are they titled that way? Um, because they’re not for kids? In all seriousness, I love romance titles. I think they’re sexy and provocative, just like the novels they represent. A title with wicked, seduce, passion, or rogue is already halfway in my shopping cart. So how’d I come up with mine?

Believe it or not, Her Wicked Ways titled itself in about five seconds. As soon as I knew who the heroine was and how she was a self-indulgent Society girl banished to the country for misbehaving, Her Wicked Ways just popped straight into my head. I panicked at first because I thought for sure there had to be another romance novel with this title. Why else would it come so quickly to my brain? A quick Internet search told me the title was all mine. There were similar titles out there, but not precisely that one. Easy peasy! (I should note that titles are duplicated all the time—go search Fifty Shades of Grey/Gray and see what I mean! I try not to duplicate, however, especially if a book was released within the last three or so years.)

Then I had to title the next book, which wasn’t terribly difficult, but it didn’t stick. (At least at first. You’ll see how I came full circle.) See, Her Wicked Ways was originally the first in a three book series about siblings Miranda, Gideon, and Jasper. The books were Her Wicked Ways, Their Wicked Bargain, and His Wicked Heart. I ended up shelving Her Wicked Ways and focusing on His Wicked Heart as a stand-alone novel. Since it was no longer going to be part of a series following Her Wicked Ways (or so I thought), I retitled it The Earl’s Obsession. I didn’t love that so I went back to the drawing board. In the meantime I was plotting the book that came after Jasper and Olivia’s story and like Her Wicked Ways, the title came to me like a bolt of lightning. To Seduce a Scoundrel was perfect because the story was about a celibate scoundrel who was going to require seduction. Using that as inspiration, I eventually settled on Surrender of a Scoundrel for book two.

Guest Post with author AnnaBelle Blume

Meet Cressenda and Beckett, the heroine and hero from Frozen Heart. Truthfully, when I wrote these characters, I didn’t have any actual real people in mind, so it was difficult to find pictures of what I saw in my head as I was writing. But I think Minka and Jesse are pretty close to perfect. What do you think?

Review - The Carnival of Death

The Carnival of Death
By L. Ron Hubbard
Publisher: Galaxy Press
ASIN: 978-1592122684
Pub Date: February 11, 2011
Running Time: 2 Hours 
Directors: Jim Meskimen and Tait Ruppert
Voice Cast: Jim Meskimen, R.F. Daley, Jason Faunt, Christina Huntington, Lori Jablons and Tait Ruppert.
Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Carnival-Death-Stories-Golden-Age/dp/159212268X/

Galaxy Press was nice enough to send me another package of audiobooks from their Stories From The Golden Age series, which are all written by legendary author L. Ron Hubbard (1911-1986) and were published in Pulp Magazines during the 1930s and 1940s (aka The Golden Age). This time around I was sent six two discs audiobooks (in which a few have two or more stories), which all them are in the mystery/suspense genre.

I picked out The Carnival of Death to review first because I was intrigued by the creepy cover of death strangling a woman. The story originally appeared in the November 1934 issue of Popular Detective, and tells the tale of a US narcotics agent Bob Clark going undercover as a security guard at Shreve's Mammoth Carnival as there was rumors of drugs being sold by someone there. Just when he thought he had a lead, several gruesome murders occur. All of the victims were decapitated!

Review - Tea Party Culture War

Tea Party Culture War
By: Stephen Johnston, B.S., J.D.
Publisher:WinePress Publishing
ISBN: 978-1414121239
Pub Date: November 3, 2011
Pages: 232
Buy Link: http://ow.ly/cwJ1f
Blog Tour Link: http://litfusegroup.com/blogtours/13522880

With one of the most important Presidential Elections less than sixty days away, there is probably going to be dozens of political books coming out onto the market in the fall about Republicans and Democrats. Late last year author Stephen Johnston, B.S., J.D. brought out the Tea Party Culture War: A Clash of Worldviews.

The author goes in detail about how the Tea Party started, thanks to United States citizens who wants their voices heard on how this country should be run. He touches on the subjects of Liberalism and Postmodernism in America, the poorly constructed education system, our economic downfall, the loss of morality in our country, the attacks against our families, our declining oil reserves, and the war against Christianity.

Character Interview with Lilian Gale

We had the incredible honor to sit down with Lillian Gale, the colorful and strange frontwoman of cult hit band Juicy Bed. On her mind was magic, oddities and the art world’s boy prince (her former lover!), Leonidas Bondi. Listen in as we talk with her… 

How did you first meet Leonidas Bondi? 
A: Oh, it’s all hazy sometimes. I think it was at a show or something. I remember he was wearing a ring with a black stone on it and his fingers looked so white and beautiful in contrast. And his eye makeup was awful then. The boy hadn’t learned how to apply it properly yet. It was all smudged under one eye and all winged out on the other side. *laughs* Such a mess, that boy. Still a mess, always a mess.

What are your thoughts on muses? 
 A: Muses! I’ve had loads of them. People, places, animals. They’re great. I like the really magical ones, though, like this bloke I met who calls himself the Golden Man. He’s always leading people in odd directions. I've followed him a few times.

Review - The Haven

The Haven
By: Suzanne Woods FisherAmish, Christian, romance,
Publisher: Revell
ISBN: 978-0800719883
Pub Date: August 1, 2012
Pages: 314
Blog Tours: http://litfusegroup.com/blogtours/13530005/thehaven
Buy Link: http://ow.ly/cRvlK


Sadie Lapp had spent the winter in Ohio helping her sister and brother-in-law get settled into their new home. While she was there she spent time with an elderly Old Older Amish woman, Deborah Yoder, who is known as a great healer. For some odd reason, Sadie had a feeling that she should return home to Stoney Ridge. On the way home, she found an abandoned baby at a bus station, not knowing exactly what to do, she takes the baby home with her.

When she arrives at her home, there is a swarm of cars and a media circus as s rare pair of American peregrine falcons have made a nest on the family farm. A young college student, Will Stoltz, had been kicked out his school for the semester, plus his family is having legal problems. He is now staying on the Lapp farm to protect the falcons.

Gideon Smucker, the local schoolteacher, has patiently been waiting for Sadie's return and hopes to make her his bride.

The Autobiography of Tally Francis

Hi, I’m Tally Francis, the main female lead in No Remorse. I’d like to tell you a little about myself.

I’m probably more comfortable with computers than people, and in some areas I’m a little obsessive compulsive. My friends are mostly work buddies, because I’m employed in a secret organization known as ASTA––the Agency for Seizure of Terrorist Assets––which is part of the CIA but operates out of Montreal to reduce US Government oversight.

I’ve got an eidetic memory. I found when I was eight I could remember just about anything I read or was told. My dad gave me a book by Isaac Asimov, The Realm of Numbers. I used to read it every day. I realized one day I could recite it, word for word. I could visualize every number, equation, problem solution and pattern. Rubik’s Cube takes me less than a minute. It’s strange, ‘cause I don’t really understand why other people aren’t the same as me. When I was eleven, my high school math teacher, Mr. Eddie, got me into programming. By the time I was fifteen, I was maintaining the school’s website and doing jobs for local businesses—databases, online stores, websites, security... that sort of stuff.

Review - Over the Edge

Over the Edge
The Kincaid Brides Book 3
By: Marry Connealy
Publisher: Bethany House
ISBN: 978-0764209130
Pub Date: August 1, 2012
Pages: 336
Blog Tour Links: http://litfusegroup.com/blogtours/13525530/overtheedge
Buy Link: http://ow.ly/cPxuv




The third book in The Kincaid Brides series focuses on the mysterious Seth Kincaid. He had survived the Civil War and also survived a fire in a cave, which had put him on an edge so to speak. He witnessed many terrible things during the years he spent away from Rawhide and some of those things he has blocked out of his mind, including marring Callie.

After not hearing from her husband, Callie traveled by stagecoach to Rawhide in search of what happened to him. Seth is surprised to learn that he has a wife and he is even more surprised to learn that he has an eight-month-old son. Seth wants to live up to his vow (even though he doesn't remember taking a vow) to provide for his new wife and child. To make their marriage work, they must deal with their differences and Seth must finally deal with his past.

Guest Post with author Don McNair

I’m sitting here in my home office fifty years after my first published work, after a lifetime of writing for others and having ten books published, wondering just what was that spark? The answer’s lurking in the cobwebs of my mind, hard to focus on.

I think, though, the first glimmer came when I was in grade school, and the teacher asked us to write a story about Mother’s day. She liked my story so much she read it aloud to the class the next day, and a pretty little girl approached me afterwards and said “I loved your story, Donnie.” That launched both my writing career and my fear of pretty little girls.

In high school I was determined to be the world’s greatest cartoonist. I took a practical general business class in college, but continued my interest in creative things, becoming the school paper’s cartoonist. After college I joined a trade magazine’s editorial staff, started my forty-year career of writing for others: eleven years at the magazines, six as a public relations professional, and twenty-one as head of my own commercial editing and writing business, McNair Marketing Communications. Along the way I wrote three published “how-to” books on my own.

Review - The Brain That Changes Everything

The Brain That Changes Everything
By: Shaahin Cheyene
Publisher: Accelerated Intelligence Inc.
ASIN: B007HRABY4
Pub Date: March 5, 2012
Pages: 75

The author, Shaahin Cheyene, is an herbalist and the creator of Excelerol, has written the short non-fiction book titled The Brain That Changes Everything, in which he explains the benefits of using natural herbals to increase your memory, concentration and Alertness. Of course taking a supplement alone can't help you as you must have an excellent diet and frequent exercise routine to give that extra boost that your brain desires.

You'll learn about how important nutrition is in your diet and how it will reduce your cortisol release and maintain your blood sugar. What is a cortisol? Well, it is a stress hormone and it can negatively impact your overall brain and body function.

Review - Bicoastal Babe

Bicoastal Babe
By: Cynthia Langston
Edition Pub Date: March 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-0615608099
Pages: 324
Buy Link: Amazon.com
Author Website: http://www.cynthialangston.net

Twenty-eight-year-old Lindsey Miller has had a streak of bad luck, from losing her job, catching the flu that later turned into pneumonia, received two bruised ribs from coughing, and she pulled a muscle in her back. She also embarrassed herself in front of her ex-boyfriend when she backed into a parked car while somewhat stalking him. She has officially hit rock bottom.

Thanks to her friend Danielle, she now has a job interview at the largest advertising company in Chicago - Gordon-Taylor. She ends up getting a job predicting trends for the company's newsletter, The Pulse, which is sent out to all their clients. There are a few catches to the job. It requires her to fly back and forth between New York and L.A. She also has to work with Jen Savage on the project. While Lindsey is in New York, Jen is in L.A. and vice versa.

Lindsey soon finds out that New York is a whole different place than Chicago. Asking random people to do a questionnaire is not as easy as it looks on television as some people are really rude. Even getting into a new shopping store is a challenge for her. Everything seems to be a complete disaster until she meets a Wall Street Broker, Victor Ragsdale.

When Characters Collide By Gretchen Johnson

            I am a MinnTexan, a woman who spent her first twenty-three years living in Minnesota and the last nine in Texas. Being a MinnTexan means I have lived on the edges of both extremes – from snow to sweat, from liberal to conservative, from mild to spicy, from alternative rock to country western, from Pepsi to Coke, and from environmentalism to pollution. These extremes have taught me countless lessons about the complex connections (and often disconnections) between people, and it is this duality of experiencing life in two very different regions that has served as an inspiration for much of my writing.

           My book, The Joy of Deception and Other Stories, uses these extremes often. I enjoy crafting stories in which characters who are opposites come together. Some of the most authentic and interesting moments of my life have occurred when I struggled against someone who was fundamentally different from me, and some of the most challenging phases of my life happened when I was forced to decide which of my own desires to satisfy. My book’s title story deals with this kind of internal struggle. It features a young woman trying to decide if she wants to stay with a dependable but somewhat predictable fiancé or leave him for an exciting but emotionally dangerous man. Just like most of us, she struggles with her own dual desires, the desire to settle down and have security versus the desire to embrace the temporariness of life and live for the now.

Review - G.I. Joe Vs. The Transformers

G.I. Joe Vs. The Transformers
Publisher: IDW Publishing
ISBN: 9781613773529 
Pub Date: September 11, 2012
Written by: Michael Higgins
Artist: Chris Batista, Herb Trimpe, Jesse d'Orozco, Larry Hama, Steve Lieber, William Rosado

IDW Publishing is about to release the classic issues that combined G.I. Joe and The Transformers containing nine issues. I was able to read a free review copy from NetGalley this month. As a kid, I never got into comics, but I do remember watching both cartoon series and I think I had a few of the toys too. 

The original four crossover issues were released back in 1986 when I was a five-year-old. The issues are Blood on Tracks, Power Struggle, Ashes, Ashes..., and ...All Fall Down! The plot surrounds the government launching the Power Station Alpha, which is a nuclear power plant that can shoot a beam across the entire world, and of course both Decepticons and Cobra want it. They briefly make an alliance, but then Cobra learn that the Decepticons plan on destroying the planet. Spoilers: Bumblebee, Optimus Prime and Megatron are destroyed.

Guest Post with author Nickie Fleming

What inspired me to write? 

Looking back all these year (I’m 56 years young) I can easily tell you what inspired me to become an author.

I was born in the 1950’s and because my parents were both working at that time, I spent most of my time with my grandparents. Especially my granddad took care of me, because grandma had to do the cooking, cleaning, washing etc. He was a pensioner, who retired at the early age of 46 after having fought two world wars. He was well-educated and loved to read. I remember sitting on his lap while he was reading to me from Alexandre Dumas (in French, because he was raised in the French speaking part of Belgium). So not only was I drenched in literature, also in a foreign language!

Once I could walk and was some two years old, my grandmother began to take me along on her trips to the city library. It was a long way to go on short legs, but I did not complain. First of all, because I loved that stuffed old place with bookcases up to the ceiling, secondly because I was promised a big sack of Belgian frites when I went along. Oh yes, I was subject to bribes and for a bar of chocolate or some frites I’d do a lot!

On Location with the Gallagher Family By MK McClintock

In the second book of the Gallagher series, Gallagher's Hope, we’re back in Montana! Having spent many wonderful years in Montana, it seemed only natural to set my first series here. Montana is still considered by many who have never stepped foot on her soil, to be a wild land of cowboys and Indians. It is this 'ideal' that is the setting for the majority of each story.

Primarily set on the Hawk's Peak ranch, this story unfolds as the reader gets a glimpse of what I believe that area of Montana would have been like in the late 19th century. The train system had begun to make its way into Montana, though that had been Butte whereas the fictional town of Briarwood is set north of Bozeman, an area I preferred and therefore I took certain liberties in transportation, though I'm certain, or at least hopeful, readers won't object too harshly.

Montana is a land of rugged beauty and glorious landscapes. When I walk through the woods or hike up the mountains, I often imagine what life would have been like two hundred years ago (of course without the aid of sturdy hiking boots). I see those images in my mind and can easily transport my imagination back to that time. Readers will also notice an absence of native peoples in my stories. The omission was intentional as I preferred to focus solely on the family and their purposes, struggles and relationships.

DVD Review - 100 Greatest Sci-Fi Classics

100 Greatest Sci-Fi Classics
Directors: Various
Starring: Vincent Price, Jesse Ventura, Bill Paxton, James Earl Jones, Ben Kingsley, Dorothy Stratten, Mark Hamill, and Many More!
Studio: Mill Creek Entertainment
ASIN: B0088JH7C4
Release Date: July 10, 2012
Approx. Runtime 132 Hours 34 Minutes
Rating: NR, G, PG, PG-13, R

Mill Creek Entertainment has recently released the 100 Greatest Sci-Fi Classics to DVD which consists of two previously released sets, Sci-Fi Classics Anniversary Edition and Sci-Fi Invasion at the retail price of $44.98. 

Even though I grew up watching Sci-Fi movies, I have never of heard of most of the titles on either sets. 

The Movies on Sci-Fi Invasion are the following:

Disc 1 -Brain Twisters, The Head, The Day Time Ended, Eyes Beyond the Stars

Disc 2 - Hands of Steel, War of the Robots, 984: Prisoner of the Future, Top Line

Review - Geekomancy

Geekomancy
By Michael R. Underwood
Publisher: Pocket Star
ASIN: B007SNRRP8
Pub Date: July 10, 2012
Pages: 284

Rhiannon Anna Marta Reyes (or as everyone calls her - Ree), works at the Cafe Xombi (a cross between a coffee shop and a comic store) during the day and at night she is working on her unproduced screenplays. She is not your typical girl-next-door as she fits in as one of the geeks. She likes Firefly, Star Wars, Sherlock Holmes and all the Geeky trends out there.

Her life is average until a tall stranger enters her life. He calls himself Eastwood and she witnesses him killing a troll in the alley. Yep, a real live troll. Eastwood informs her of several teenagers that have been murdered and asks for her help in finding the supernatural killer/killers.

Does she agree to help him? Of course she does! Every geek dreams of being a superhero or a demon hunter, and now Rees gets to become one.

The Friday 56 - Geeekomancy

Rules:

Grab a book, any book. 

Turn to page 56. 

Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. 

Post it. 

Add your (url) post below in the Linky at http://fredasvoice.blogspot.com/.

Guest Post with author Justin Ordonez

Yo!

My name’s Sykosa and I’ve only been alive, like, sixteen years, so I haven’t saved the rain forest or anything like that. (Though, I’d like to! SAVE THE RAINFOREST!!)

Anyhow, my father is a union leader for the ILWU. That’s the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. He used to have to lift a lot of stuff and work really hard, but now his job is mostly going to meetings and being stressed out about stuff. My mother is a homemaker, and we probably spent too much time together when I was a child, so now we fight sometimes. I’ve lived in the same house my entire life. It’s a modest property in Lake Forest Park, which is in the Seattle metropolitan area. As can be deciphered from the “lake,” “forest,” and, “park,” there’re a lot of lakes, forests, and parks in Lake Forest Park. People here are very boring and insufferable like that.

Review - Mindful of Him

Mindful of Him
By: Hollis Hughes
Publisher: WinePress Publishing
ISBN: 978-1414120713
Pub Date: November 9, 2011
Pages: 276

Set during the 1950's, Rob McLain has had to deal with much heartache. His father succumbed to cancer followed by his mother's sudden death. Years later, he marries the perfect woman and life seems to be great, but after the death of their first born child they separate.

Feeling that his life is spiritually empty, Rob drops out of school, quits his job, and leaves the life that he has known. He decides to go on a six-month canoe trip on the Canoba River. There are many challenges down the river for Rob that will question his faith in God. He meets several unique characters, such as Ed McNeal and Ted Moore, which will set him on a course of self-discovery as he bonds with these new friends.

DVD Review - North By Northwest

North by Northwest was originally released to theaters in the summer of 1959 by MGM and was directed by mastermind Alfred Hitchcock, one year before Psycho was released.

Roger O. Thornhill, an advertising executive, is mistaken for George Kaplan and is kidnapped by two men who take him to a house in Long Island to be interrogated by a man claiming to be Lester Townsend, when he is actually a foreign spy Phillip Vandamm. Roger keeps telling him that he has the wrong person, but Vandamm doesn't believe him and order his men to get rid of Roger. They force him to drink bourbon and put him behind the wheel of a car. Then the men chase after him, hoping that Roger will crash the car, but to their surprise, he gets away.